41 CHRONICLESnLyndon LaRouche has been back innthe news. Not only is the leader himselfnon trial for the political equivalentnof credit card fraud, but in Illinois thentwo LaRouchie candidates who managednto torpedo Adlai Stevenson’s gubernatorialncampaign are both runningnagain.nLaRouche is, so far as we can tell,nan unlikable crank without principlesnor policies. Still, we wish the pressnwould quit referring to him as “politicalnextremist Lyndon LaRouche.” In ancountry that has learned to acceptnpoliticians at their own valuation, whynisn’t LaRouche simply an idealist or anvisionary? After all, Harold Washingtonnis now widely described as a politicalnreformer, Mario Cuomo is thentough and principled hope of thenDemocratic Party, Lowell Weickernand John Warner both claim to benRepublicans in good standing. JacknKemp says he is a conservative, PaulnSimon claims to be a Missouri SynodnLutheran while voting consistently fornabortion rights, and Jim Wright talks tonDaniel Ortega on behalf of the peoplenof the United States. Does LaRouchenhave that much less integrity than, say,nthe Rev. Jesse Jackson? Are his ideasnthat much more absurd than either thenDemocrats’ or the Republicans’ proposalsnfor welfare reform or federallynsubsidized day care? Is the averagenmember of Congress more principlednin his financial affairs? After all,nLaRouche just scams his followers’ncredit cards: he doesn’t take “donations”nand “speaker’s fees” from companiesnhoping to influence legislation.nIf we wonder why a crackpot likenLaRouche can attract enough followersnto annoy people in airports, it isnbecause there is hardly a politician innthe country who is willing even to talknabout the concerns that most decentncitizens have on their minds. (TF)nCULTURAL REVOLUTIONSnA Noah’s Ark or a nation state?nseems to be the question posed by thenU.S. immigration policy. “Eviction[s]nbecause of building charcoal fires indoorsnor slaughtering animals in thenbathtub” are only some of the problemsnfacing immigrant Hmong andnMein tribesmen in California. Othersnare “their medicinal use of opium,ntheir’capturing’of young brides . . .nand other practices . . . resulting innlegal problems that bring them confusionnand shame.”nAt the Oakland mail inspection station,n249 pounds of opium sent fromnLaos and Thailand were discoverednlast year. In one case. Lieu Sinh Saechao,n35, is charged “with receiving anpackage containing over 10 pounds ofnopium from a relative.” Some U.S.nofficials, however, are not overly sympatheticnto such folkways. “This is andrug just like any other drug,” contendsnNancy L. Simpson, AssistantnUnited States Attorney prosecuting thenSaechao case.nBut other officials, in other casesnand departments, are more understanding.nIn New York City, Mr. NeftalinValencia, a Colombian who camento the U.S. after a sham marriage to annAmerican in 1980, has been given anwork permit. Though Valencia had nonrecord of arrests, unpaid taxes, andnparking tickets (as many of his illegalnfriends do), he had perjured himselfnand broken the law. “I didn’t believe itnuntil I saw that card,” remarked anMario Seville Sanchez, also an illegalnimmigrant, of Valencia’s good fortune.nClose to a million illegals have takennadvantage of the new immigration law.nOthers, like the Salvadorans (500,000nin the last several years), Nicaraguansn(200,000), and other Hispanics, arenstill welcomed by a civil disobediencenmovement in the Southwest. ThenAmerican Embassy in El Salvador pre­nnndicts an “astronomical increase” innapplications for visas in the 1990’s asnSalvadorans seek to join their amnestiednrelatives in the United States.nThat, however, is of no concern tonanyone but a growing number ofnAmericans, increasingly uncomfortablenin their own changing, multilingual,nand multicultural country.nBillie Boggs used to be a bag lady—althoughnshe preferred the term “professional”nstreet person. She sleptnin front of a vent outside a NewnYork restaurant, ran out into traffic,nscreamed obscenities at passersby, andndefecated in her clothes or on thensidewalk outside the Chemical Bank.nShe begged for money, then burned itnor threw it away; she frequently assaultednher benefactors, especially old peoplenand black men (she herself isnblack), chasing them with her umbrellanand shouting racial epithets. Then,none day late last year, her career wasninterrupted by city workers (as part ofnMayor Koch’s program to get thenhomeless off the streets) who tried tonhave her committed and treated fornmental illness. Therapy is the liberalnsolution to everything.nIt was not long before the New YorknCivil Liberties Union was in courtndemanding that Billie (AKA JoycenBrown — she took her present namenfrom TV talk show host Bill Boggs,nwhom she idolized) be left free tonpursue her “alternative life-style.”nJudge Robert Lippman was mightilynimpressed with her, finding her possessednof “a sense of humor, pride, anfierce independence of spirit, [and]nquick mental reflexes.” Indeed, hensuggested, we all would do well to takena page from her book; burning money,nfor instance, “may not satisfy a societynincreasingly oriented to profit makingn