By Richard Halstead

Marin Independent Journal

Posted: 02/05/2012 09:19:26 AM PST
Updated: 02/05/2012 09:19:31 AM PST

Lyndon LaRouche devotees proselytizing in Marin and displaying posters that portray President Barack Obama with a Hitler-style mustache have elicited a rash of complaints to local police and public officials.
LaRouche, 89, ran for president eight times from 1976 to 2004 and has attracted a loyal political following while warning repeatedly over the years of apocalyptic results if his ideas aren t implemented. LaRouche was convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud in 1988 and sentenced to 15 years in jail; he was released in 1994. A LaRouche political action committee is backing a slate of six congressional candidates, including one in California.
"It s disgusting; they ve got the mustache of Hitler on him," said Virginia Thompson of Point Reyes Station, when she saw a LaRouche group canvassing recently outside the U.S. Post Office at 2 Civic Center Drive in San Rafael.
Marin County sheriff s deputies had been dispatched to the scene a few minutes earlier.
"Somebody complained, and they called the sheriff," said one of the canvassers, who identified himself only as Dash. He said police in other areas of Marin County also have been dispatched to check out LaRouche canvassers.
"Usually somebody complains because they don t like the mustache; they usually say it s because we re offensive," Dash said. "Well, we have a political statement we re making. If you don t like it, I m sorry. But maybe you should think about
it." The canvassers were also displaying a large hand-written sign that described the National Defense Authorization Act as "Obama s Hitler act." The act, signed into law by President Obama in January, enhances the federal government s power to fight terrorism and codified into law the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects without trial.
The other canvasser, who was black and gave his name as Fred Douglas, asked, "If this isn t remotely close to fascism then what is?"
Leaflets the LaRouche group were handing out stated: "The British Empire is out to keep its imperial system of government afloat, by reducing the world population by using their insane puppet in the white house Obama to push thermonuclear WW III, and fascism in the United states. That is where we are headed if Obama is not removed now. You can t vote Hitler out! You must throw him out!"
Tiburon police Sgt. Allen Klemme said LaRouche supporters have been sporadically canvassing outside the Tiburon post office.
"A lot of people call and say this mustache is offensive, and they want it taken down," Klemme said. "But we really can t do anything because they have the right to free speech."
Klemme said officers investigated one report of an altercation; however, it turned out it wasn t the canvassers who were misbehaving.
"They were standing there, and another guy was yelling at them," Klemme said.
San Anselmo police Sgt. Grady Joseph said a LaRouche group had been canvassing outside the post office there and recently relocated to the corner of San Anselmo Avenue and Pine Street. Joseph said San Anselmo officers had also responded to reports of heated exchanges between the canvassers and passersby but had never needed to intercede.
"We ve never been out there when someone was in full-blown confrontation with them," Joseph said.
San Anselmo Town Manager Debra Stutsman said she has also fielded several complaints.
"People want to know if they re allowed to be there," Stutsman said. "I explain that our sidewalks are traditional public forums, and it s a free speech right."
Jeff Fitch, a spokesman for the Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement branch of the U.S. Post Office, said post office managers in Marin, Contra Costa and Sonoma counties have all reported having the LaRouche groups canvassing outside their facilities. Fitch said any group can set up shop near a post office as long as it doesn t trespass on government property or block access.
Paul Cohen, chairman of the Marin Democratic Central Committee, said no one has complained to him, and he s not overly concerned about the LaRouche proselytizers.
"The poster is offensive," Cohen said. "The materials they put out are hard to take seriously; it s so far out there."
Dash maintained that the comparison between Obama and Hitler is apt, not only because of Obama s support for the National Defense Authorization Act, but because of the president s willingness to reduce spending on social programs.
"When they talk about cutting education, when they talk about cutting social programs, it s all code for -- we need to let people die," Dash said.
LaRouche is championing the idea of solving the nation s economic and environmental crises with a "new economics of space colonization," which would begin "with the industrialization of the moon as a precursor to accelerated, fusion-powered flight to Mars."
Dash said, "Not everyone is going to be an astronaut but everybody is going to be participating to a certain extent in expanding the boundaries of human potential."
According to one of the LaRouche group s leaflets, "Russia and China are already moving in the direction of space colonization and arctic development."
LaRouche is also calling for the United States to join with Russia in creating a missile defense system to repel asteroids or comets that might imperil the Earth.
Dash said, "We owe it to those generations that are going to come after us to prepare them to deal with these crises."
But space is not the final frontier for LaRouche s thinking; according to another leaflet: "The most important frontier of all is epistemological -- the elimination of the notion of linear time, and with it the subsidiary notions of reductionism, monetarism, and belief in the existence of absolute space and time."
In fact, Dash said Newt Gingrich s recent promise to establish a permanent base on the moon by the end of his second term as president was a brainstorm stolen from LaRouche.
"He got that from us," Dash said.
LaRouche proselytizers rile Marin residents by comparing Obama to Hilter - San Jose Mercury News