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Invasion of the body snatchers | page 1, 2
At the time, LaRouche's NCLC was notorious for attacking left groups not only with propaganda but physical violence. After a few months, Newman grew tired of taking orders from LaRouche and withdrew to create his own organization again. And ever since, in New York and elsewhere, the Newmanites have clashed with various leftists and liberals, usually over charges that they had attempted to take over some organization or campaign for their own purposes. During the late '70s and early '80s, they pursued a strategy of simultaneously joining and attacking Democratic clubs in New York City. They were subsequently expelled from a short-lived New York leftist effort called the Unity Party. Then for a time they sought a coalition with the Nation of Islam, defending Louis Farrakhan against charges of homophobia and anti-Semitism (with Newman giving one speech in which he denounced Jews as "the storm troopers of decadent capitalism"). After the 1988 presidential campaign, the Newmanites had a tense relationship with Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, which they first infiltrated and then mimicked by setting up a front called the "Rainbow Lobby." The resulting confusion led Jackson to publicly dissociate himself from them on more than one occasion, while they repudiated him as a "sellout." And then in 1992, when they perceived a potential for new mischief in the Reform Party, they disbanded the New Alliance Party altogether and allied themselves with conservative billionaire Ross Perot. Throughout these permutations, Fulani has always articulated a leftish perspective on such topics as gay rights, affirmative action and economic justice. Her high-minded rhetoric, combined with a corps of dedicated activists, lawyers and writers drawn from the "social therapy" clientele, has afforded her group significant leverage within the Reform Party, particularly in New York, where Perot's supporters are known as the Independence Party. In a fledgling party that attracts thousands of inexperienced newcomers, the organizing muscle and political skill of the Newmanites provides them with influence disproportionate to their actual size. Moderate and conservative activists in the Reform Party have, not surprisingly, viewed the rise of this internal faction with undisguised dismay. Buchanan's embrace of Fulani won't endear him to them. And it is probably safe to predict that before the campaign is over, or soon afterward, the Newmanites will be denouncing Buchanan as a fascist, a racist and an enemy of independent politics. Despite the media spin, nobody who has observed the Newmanites during their long and tortured history was shocked when they joined forces with the hero of the ultra-right. Repeatedly rejected by every element of the left, they finally took their tactics and therapy to another venue. Their quest for power has taken them from LaRouche to Farrakhan to Buchanan -- a long, strange trip into the wilderness, with no left turns anywhere along the way.
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