840 on Flickr.

This one requires an installment of Story Time:

I don’t remember if this was our first our second round in Montreal, but Chris, Falco and I were wandering the streets of Montreal, and we were supposed to meet up with Bee and I think Aaron, maybe Peter as well; I forget exactly.

Anyway, we had noticed these sidewalk kiosks, there were several of them littered around town. I was mildly intrigued. I was not familiar with the Lyndon LaRouche Society or the beliefs of its adherents. I noticed signs calling for the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, which was the law that kept consumer and investment banks separate. I also noticed the pictures of Obama as Hitler.

I was confused: Glass-Steagall is somewhat of a left-leaning policy, or at least such is my understanding. Obama as Hitler is quite clearly the call of the most ludicrous elements of the American right wing.

As we walked past one of the dudes manning the kiosk (not this particular kiosk in the photo but a different kiosk that was also being worked by a young black girl; I make note of her race for reasons you’ll understand after the story) noticed that I had been looking at them and called us over.

I wanted to hear what this guy had to say so I obliged him. His paranoid ranting included topics such as:
“Obama’s policies are all the same as the policies Hitler instated in Germany!”

How “bankers (which I assumed to mean Jews, because that’s how these paranoid weirdos usually roll; on further research I was probably correct in my assumption) control everything.” Which was his lead-in to talking about Glass-Steagall and the economic crisis, about which I had to correct him on both the causes and credible solutions.

The most insane part of an already insane encounter, however, came when he got onto the topic of global warming. According to him, global warming is a hoax being perpetrated on the world by the British Royal Family and the Nazis. I shit you not. The fucking Nazis. (Further research indicates that they often also attribute it to communists. Cool.) I don’t quite remember how he got from global warming and environmental issues to global population (there is a line many people draw between the two, but I forget exactly how our discussion led down this path) but the last exchange we had before I walked away was, “And you know who has the highest population growth right now, right?”

“No, who?”

“The coloureds.”

THE MOTHERFUCKING COLOUREDS. (This is why I noted the race of the girl working the booth with him, out of pure confused irony.)

My jaw dropped and I told him I was done with him and walked away.

Chris seemed confused at first and left a split second after I did. Falco however, for some mind boggling reason, stayed behind for another minute and kept talking to the guy.

It was probably the most absurd experience of the entire tour for me.

To get an idea of what these people are into politically, read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Views_of_Lyndon_LaRouche_and_the_LaRouche_movement