From: cberlet@igc.apc.org (NLG Civil Liberties Committee)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: The Newmanites, NAP and Fulani
Date: 12 Dec 92 02:31:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1299600143:cdp:1299600145:000:12559
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!cberlet    Dec 11 18:31:00 1992


/* Written  9:15 pm  Dec  8, 1992 by cberlet in igc:publiceye */
/* Written  7:45 pm  Dec  8, 1992 by cberlet in igc:p.news */
/* Written  2:13 pm  Feb 14, 1992 by cberlet in igc:publiceye */

PART 2

Clouds Blur the Rainbow:
   The Other Side of the
   New Alliance Party 

Copyright 1987 PRA


The International Workers Party 

After leaving the NCLC, Newman formed the 
International Workers Party (IWP). The Newmanite 
document issued upon their leaving NCLC and 
establishing the International Workers Party 
re-affirms a commitment to carry out current and 
future joint work with the LaRouche organization. 
The charge of a direct and ongoing LaRouche 
connection to the Newmanites, however, 
appears to be speculation--no credible reports of 
a direct connection between Newman and LaRouche 
since the mid-1970's have been documented, and it 
is unlikely that any such relationship exists 
today. 


Manipulative and Confrontational Style 

In many ways the theory, ideology, strategy, 
tactics, and internal organizing practices of the 

LaRouchites and the Newmanites are very similar: 

*** A methodological link between the 
psychological and the political which forms both 
a theoretical world-view and a justification for 
indoctrinating members through so-called 
"therapy". 

*** Psychologically coercive techniques to 
manipulate members' views and actions. 

*** Organizing strategies that target according 
to stratas or sectors rather than social class. 

*** Attempts to establish hegemonic relationships 
with other similar political groups, and, failing 
that, attempts to undermine the group and 
establish parallel organizations. 

*** Virulent and unprincipled attacks on critics, 
including insults, agent-baiting, threats by 
attorneys and defamation lawsuits. 

*** A shared political strategy (vanguardism with 
roots in Trotskyist political theory). 

*** Re-writing of the group's political and 
organizational history to meet current needs. 

*** A closed and covert hierarchical internal 
structure that is not necessarily congruent with 
the public organizational structure. 

*** Differentiation between internal in-group and 
external out-group reality, use of propoganda, 
and implementation of a "secret-society" 
style--all markedly similar to that of a 
totalitarian movement. 

These similarities do not change the fact that 
LaRouchite philosophy is apparently neo-fascist 
while Newmanite philosophy is apparently 
left-progressive, but it does mean that 
internally both groups have an authoritarian 
hierarchy whose existence is denied, and both 
groups rely on psychologically-manipulative 
theories to control core members. Both groups 
match a cult paradigm and are far from 
democratic, despite outward claims and 
appearances. 

It is crucial to note the relationship of 
LaRouche, Parente, and Newman during the early 
1970's in light of their subsequent activities. 
All three white male political leaders saw 

Marxist revolution through the prism of 
ego-mania, and used psychologically manipulative 
techniques to enforce obedience in the 
institutions they have built--institutions which 
sought political hegemony over other groups. 

All three groups share many elements of a 
totalitarian movement as outlined by Hanna Arendt 
in <The Origins of Totalitarianism>. In recent 
years there has been a revisionist interpretation 
of Arendt's work, linking nazism and communism as 
two sides of the same ideological coin, or 
claiming that all communist or Marxist movements 
are totalitarian, or that only nazi and communist 
ideologies can become totalitarian. Arendt 
specifically repudiates this simplistic 
interpretation of her work when she writes 
"...ideologies of the nineteenth century are not 
in themselves totalitarian," and that although 
fascism and communism became "the decisive 
ideologies of the twentieth century they were 
not, in principle, any `more totalitarian' than 
others." According to Arendt, the ideological 
victory of fascism and communism over other 
twentieth century belief structures was "decided 
before the totalitarian movements took hold of 
precisely these ideologies" as a vehicle for 
seizing and holding state power. 

A totalitarian movement is correctly defined by 
its style, structure and methods not by its 
stated or apparent ideology. 


The Intellectual Vanguard 

The early theoretical writings of LaRouche and 
the early and current theoretical writings of 
Newman reflect a derivative (and heretical) form 
of Trotskyist Marxism that is both unusual and 
virtually unique on the American Left. This 
shared theory is best described as an aberrant 
"Messianic" form of Trotskyism with an 
ego-centric view of the importance of the 
individual leader in shaping history, coupled 
with a patronizing "noblesse oblige" approach to 
organizing the working class and people of color 
that reflects a political colonialist mentality. 

Journalist Dennis King has studied numerous 
internal documents from the Newmanites and 
concluded that in terms of their political theory 
of organizing, they make a crucial distinction 
between the core cadre (primarily white 
intellectuals) and the "organic" members 

(primarily people of color). According to King, 
the primarily-white intellectual vanguard trained 
by Newman through "therapy" is in the process of 
using "therapy" to raise the consciousness of the 
primarily Black and Latino recruits so that some 
day in the future they will have the wherewithal 
to actually lead the organization...but not yet. 
King has described this as "paternalistic 
racism." 


Institutes for Social Therapy 

Dr. Fred Newman's doctorate is not in a 
health-related field, but in the philosophy of 
science and foundations of mathematics. For 
several years psychologists and groups concerned 
about cults have questioned the ethics of the 
process used by the Institutes for Social 
Therapy. These criticisms are crystallized in the 
following statement by an East Coast Latina 
activist working in the area of support for 
Central Americans: 

"I first came into contact with the Social 
Therapy Institutes through a friend who...said 
there was a group that offered therapy for people 
with progressive views, so I went to see what 
they offered."

"I was told everybody has problems, which is true 
everyone does, but they use that as an excuse to 
recruit people. People with emotional problems 
think they are going to be helped but they don't 
help people. "

"Before or after the therapy session, they would 
say `why not sell the newspaper', or `maybe you 
could do us a favor and hand out these leaflets.' 
The therapy offices are full of their political 
propaganda. In the group therapy sometimes we 
discussed politics and their political party. 
They want people to get involved in their 
political activities, but they don't really give 
any treatment. This was something I didn't like. "

"Some people get involved because they think the 
political work will help them get better 
emotionally. They told us societal problems are 
making people ill and the New Alliance Party is 
going to change things so people will get better. "

"They got angry with me when I asked for 
individual therapy. `You need group therapy not 
individual therapy', I was told, so I left. Then 

they started sending me literature about their 
political organizations. "

"In the literature and in the therapy sessions 
they try to destroy any other left organization 
by saying bad things about it. They also destroy 
a progressive organization by recruiting away its 
members. "

"They call themselves Leftists but they use the 
dialectic method just to recruit people. When you 
get involved there is no dialectic, it is static, 
they don't progress beyond the criticism of the 
other group. They have no real program, they just 
say `if you are not with NAP you are the enemy'. 
They raise a lot of money by saying they are 
doing all these things, but they are a fraud. "

"It is not true that there is no pressure to work 
with the New Alliance Party when you are in the 
therapy. They tell you if you are working with 
them you will feel good. I said `I need help, I 
need individual therapy'. Instead they had me 
assisting them in the group therapy sessions. "

"They don't like it if you pay a low fee and 
don't work for them politically, such as doing 
propaganda work for the New Alliance Party. If 
you pay more, you get a better work position in 
the organization. If you can afford a lot, you 
can get individual therapy. Everything is money 
or power. "

"Some people are fooled, especially the 
uneducated or emotionally ill, they use them. It 
is disgusting. They don't care about people--they 
want numbers: more money, more people, more 
power. The social therapy is just an excuse to 
recruit members. It is just like their many other 
activities, concerts, rallies, they are active in 
many areas, but they accomplish nothing."

Certainly it is legitimate as part of 
psychological counseling to recommend that a 
person become involved directly in the 
community--even to the extent of becoming part of 
a political movement. But for a patient to know 
the therapist is involved in a particular 
political movement is to consciously or 
unconsciously steer the patient, who is in a 
dependent and fragile relationship with the 
therapist, toward that political movement. This 
error is compounded by the fact that, according 
to several Therapy Institute staff members, a 
portion of the fees for the therapy go to support 

the work of the New Alliance Party. 

Therapy centers with ties to the New Alliance 
Party include the following locations listed in 
the November 27, 1987 issue of the <National 
Alliance>: 

New York: Harlem Institute for Social Therapy and 
Research; Bronx Institute for Social Therapy and 
Research; South Bronx Annex; West Side Social 
Therapy Network; East Side Center for Short Term 
Therapy; Brooklyn Institute for Social Therapy 
and Research; Long Island Institute for Social 
Therapy and Research. 

Massachusetts: Boston Institute for Social 
Therapy and Research. 

Illinois: Chicago Center for Crisis 
Normalization. 

California: Los Angeles Center for Crisis 
Normalization. 

Pennsylvania: Social Therapy Associates. 

Washington, D.C.: Washington Center for Crisis 
Normalization. 

Mississippi: Jackson Center for Crisis 
Normalization. 

New Jersey: New Jersey Center for Crisis 
Normalization. 


Cultism 

Chicago-based political consultant Don Rose 
summed up the feelings of some NAP critics when 
he told <Chicago Sun-Times> columnist Basil 
Talbot that NAP "is a left group with the modus 
of a cult." Talbot noted that critics call NAP 
the "LaRouchies of the Left." Several cult 
watchdog groups list the Newmanites as a cult, 
other critics say the core of the cult is the 
Therapy Institute, while a few critics think the 
entire NAP movement displays cult aspects. Those 
that say the Newmanite movement is totalitarian 
in style feel the word cult is superfluous, since 
totalitarian groups by definition enforce a high 
level of blind loyalty and unquestioning 
obedience. 

As early as 1977, journalist Dennis King was 

writing of the cult-like nature of the 
Newmanites, and interviewed Frank Touchet, a New 
York professional psychotherapist who studies 
therapy cults such as the Reichians and the 
Sullivanians. After studying the therapy group 
which forms the core of Newman's followers, 

Touchet concluded:

"What you are dealing with is people who have 
been criminally tampered with in the deepest 
fibers of their being, and who have descended 
into a strange childlike world of dependency, in 
which the rational functions of the ego are 
relinquished completely to Fred Newman--who 
regulates their lives on the most intimate level. "

It is difficult to resolve the issue of 
psychological manipulation because there are 
undoubtedly NAP supporters who are sincere and 
genuine in their beliefs and have no connection 
to the Newmanites, the IWP nor the Social Therapy 
Institutes. Still, most of the functional core 
leadership of NAP has a connection to the Therapy 
Institutes and the Newmanite political 
philosophy. Ultimately the question of 
psychological manipulation, cultism and cult of 
personality can only be resolved by each person 
who comes into contact with NAP on the basis of 
the individual practice and process observed, and 
within the framework of one's own sensitivity to 
and wariness about cultism. 
Xref: sparky alt.conspiracy:13209 talk.politics.misc:64405