The LaRouche Movement

[Revy]

Link (http://www.larouchepac.com/)

They've got a new surge of publicity with their opposition to Obamacare.

Do they pose any long-term threat? Are they a crypto-fascist movement?

(http://www.larouchepac.com/lpactv?nid=11339)

[Kassad]

In all honesty, I hadn't heard about this guy and his "movement" in my life until about a couple weeks ago. I'm honestly clueless as to what they're trying to achieve and how they plan on getting there, since their ideology is so skewed and obsessed with conspiracies that I can't even tell if these people are serious or if they're just some extention of the Manson Family.

[Revy]

In all honesty, I hadn't heard about this guy and his "movement" in my life until about a couple weeks ago. I'm honestly clueless as to what they're trying to achieve and how they plan on getting there, since their ideology is so skewed and obsessed with conspiracies that I can't even tell if these people are serious or if they're just some extention of the Manson Family.

I had heard of them, but the site really just blew my mind. I'm not sure how big they are, but they are definitely vocal. It puts the left to shame when cultists like this outflank us in the media.

[Bankotsu]

More like a bunch of loons in the same genre as Alex Jones.

Sample of their insanity:


The British Monarchy, Still the Enemy Today

http://www.larouchepac.com/node/10918

THE WEATHERMAN CASE TODAY

http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7042

[BIG BROTHER]

I know a guy who went to a meeting with them once. They told him, he was going to need to go to a trip to be re-educated, and apparently their organization is not that big, I forgot what number they told him, but for sure they aren't more than 300 people.

And yea they are some looneys who use the word british as a code word for jews who aparently control the world.

[chegitz guevara]

Politically they are fascist, and they are most definitely a cult. They seem themselves, however, as part of the left.

In the 1984 Presidential campaign, LaRouche paid for a 30 minute campaign ad and rambled on and on. My mother called me in from whatever I was doing and told me to watch the most dangerous man in America. He called for nuclear war against the Soviets, believe we should imprison everyone with AIDS, etc. In one of the gubernatorial campaigns in Illinois, to LaRouchies won the Democratic primaries (LT. Gov and something else), leading Adlai Stevenson to refuse the nomination of the Democratic Party and run on the Independent Democrat ticket.

Our local antiwar group had a woman show up who said that she liked some of what LaRouche had to say. YIKES!

[Revy]

Politically they are fascist, and they are most definitely a cult. They seem themselves, however, as part of the left.

In the 1984 Presidential campaign, LaRouche paid for a 30 minute campaign ad and rambled on and on. My mother called me in from whatever I was doing and told me to watch the most dangerous man in America. He called for nuclear war against the Soviets, believe we should imprison everyone with AIDS, etc. In one of the gubernatorial campaigns in Illinois, to LaRouchies won the Democratic primaries (LT. Gov and something else), leading Adlai Stevenson to refuse the nomination of the Democratic Party and run on the Independent Democrat ticket.

Our local antiwar group had a woman show up who said that she liked some of what LaRouche had to say. YIKES!

Yeah, but they're not the same as they were in the '80s. For example, LaRouche said some really racist and homophobic things then. But I did some digging and he seems to oppose racism and homophobia now, at least that's how he presents himself. also, they don't seem like a far-right group anymore, they make me think of the National Bolsheviks in that they are put themselves in the center and incorporates some "left " ideas. That may very well be part of some fascist strategy, though I'm not sure. LaRouche could just be crazy, which seems like a thorough enough analysis for me, lol.

A lot of what they do now is propose technological (technocratic?) solutions to world problems (although they have a hatred for any kind of environmentalist solutions) and of course call people fascists, which is pretty much everyone who isn't them.

[Communist]

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Larouche is no "socialist" (http://www.workers.org/2009/us/larouche_0903/)

by Caleb T. Maupin

The corporate media is doing another disservice to real socialists and communists by mislabeling Lyndon Larouche as a "communist" or "socialist", as his followers attack and disrupt health care reform meetings. These activities add a new chapter to this group's reactionary history, abetted by misrepresentation in the corporate media.

Larouche's gang has stood outside "town hall" meetings holding pictures of Obama with a Hitler-style mustache and the words "I've changed". The media have attempted to use Larouche's behavior to attack the left. When covering the rightist attacks on health care proposals, several newspapers and television programs have identified Larouche's followers and their despicable sign as "communist", "socialist" and "leftist". Such claims are a great falsehood and distortion of reality.

Larouche has a long record of serving the capitalist ruling class by attacking progressive movements. Anyone who knows the real history of the left can identify his political philosophy and teaching as dripping with racism, sexism, anti-Semitism and bigotry against lesbian, gay, bi and trans people.

It is true that back in the late 1960's Larouche was identified with a tendency that was briefly a part of the left, but it soon switched to the opposite side of the class struggle. By the mid-1970's it was obvious to anyone in the left in the U.S. that he was no socialist or communist.

This became apparent in the early 1970's when his group launched "Operation Mop-Up", in which his followers violently attacked meetings of leftist and Marxist groups, especially the Communist Party USA, with lead pipes, chains and other makeshift weapons.

In 1973 Larouche mobilized a campaign against revolutionary poet Amiri Baraka, using not political arguments but slandering the African-American political/cultural leader and, in a viciously racist act, put a caricature of Baraka's face on the body of a hyena on the front page of a pamphlet published by his newspaper, the misnamed New Solidarity. The Ku Klux Klan and other fascist organizations joined his group's demonstrations against Baraka.

Most people on the left consider him a neo-fascist, although he never had the kind of mass following that groups like the openly racist Ku Klux Klan or the White Citizens Council could claim at some points in their history.

In 1986 Larouche's publishing house openly published and distributed the writings of a Nazi general named Frederich August Freiherr von der Heyd. This book, the first English translation of his work, had an introduction by Larouche himself.

During the AIDS crisis, Larouche said he supported the "accelerated death" of people with AIDS in order to "cleanse" the country of the disease. He also praised European skinhead gangs that randomly murdered LGBT people. (New Solidarity, Feb. 9, 1987)

Larouche put himself on the same side as the nuclear energy industry by organizing the Fusion Energy Foundation, a group that attacked those who opposed nuclear power and that was used by the power corporations to promote their products around the world. Larouche also publicized and championed Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Iniative, popularly known as "Star Wars".

Larouche and his tactics of bigoted fear-mongering and senseless violence are the opposite of what communists, socialists and leftists stand for.

Don't be fooled by the capitalist media, which are only too ready to try to discredit real communists and socialists.

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Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

[Revy]

Yikes.

thanks to Workers World for the analysis.

[hugsandmarxism]

I ran into a LaRoucheite on campus once. Some gal standing with some other guy in the rain handed me some literature and tried to tell me about how the British Empire runs the world and how people need to stop being like animals and blah blah blah.... I don't know what to think about those silly cultists, but I hardly sense a threat.

[Communist]

In the 1996 election, Clinton was opposed for the Democratic nomination only by Larouche. And Larouche managed to pull in 5% of the primary vote. At the time, the media and Democrats rarely said two words about it, and when they did, it was construed as a "protest vote" against incumbent Clinton. Nothing more sinister, of course.
The following is from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1996#Democrat ic_Party_nomination).

========================================


With the advantage of incumbency, Bill Clinton's path to renomination by the Democratic Party was uneventful. At the 1996 Democratic National Convention, Clinton and incumbent Vice President Al Gore were renominated with token opposition. Incarcerated fringe candidate Lyndon LaRouche (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_LaRouche) won a few Arkansas delegates that were barred from the convention.
Clinton easily won primaries nationwide, with margins consistently higher than 80%.


Bill Clinton (inc.) - 9,706,802 (88.98%)
Lyndon LaRouche (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_LaRouche) - 596,422 (5.47%)
Unpledged - 411,270 (3.77%)

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[FreeFocus]

These fools think the British Empire is manipulating the American Empire into dedicating itself to occupying Afghanistan?

:lol: :lol: :lol: :laugh:

They are insane.

[Demogorgon]

I read their stuff occasionally to amuse me (I quite enjoy reading about fringe groups in general actually) and they never fail to disappoint when it comes to managing something entertaining.

As to the question of whether they are fascist, I reckon they are, but in a fairly atypical manner. As previously mentioned, above all else they are a personality cult to LaRouche himself, essentially dedicated to a madman.

As to whether they are a long term threat, Christ no, nor are they a short term threat for that matter. They are a very small group. In Australia where they are best organised as a political party, they manage at best about 0.2% of the vote (and normally much less than that).

Generally those who are even aware they exist, find them ridiculous (in the old fashioned meaning of the word).

[Ismail]

They have a tendency to be crypto-fascists in economics, yes. LaRouche pretty much calls for the government to control corporations and promotes class-collaboration, etc. against "the oligarchy." Politically they're opportunist, they mix rightist views and semi-leftist views, but are generally American nationalists who idolize people like FDR who "fought the oligarchy." They're a pretty obvious example of populism, which in times of crisis turns into fascism very easily.

They'll die out when LaRouche does, but the general "fight the oligarchy/bankers/Jews" feelings of the petty-bourgeoisie and misled proletarians will stay in another form. Pat Buchanan, Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, and others are examples of rightist populism without being cults.

[Jimmie Higgins]

They are American proto-fascists. LaRouche was involved in leftist politics - but then again so were David Horowitz and Moussolini. In the 70s, LaRouche left the organized left and formed his own group - he also organized beatings of leftists and had people attack socialist meetings.

I spoke with one before I knew who the group was because they had an anti-war sign. Their drone went on to tell me that Iraq is a bad war (something to do with the UK) not like Vietnam which was a patriotic endevor to end communism.:rolleyes:

One of the funniest interactions I ever saw was a LaRouchie trying to explain the economy to someone on the street using the "graphs" in their literature.

The LaRouchie said: "This 'animation' demonstrates how we are going to run out of grain"

Woman: "Ok, but how, there are no variables on this graph"

LaRouchie: "No, it's not a graph, it's an 'animation!'"

Woman: "Whatever, but it doesn't make sense because it's just a line pointing down on a graph, but since there are no variables, it's just a line"

LaRouchie: "But it doesn't need variables, it's an 'animation!'"

Woman: "I don't know what that means, but, look, it doesn't demonstrate anything about grain if it's not based on any data"

LaRouchie: "It's an 'animation!'"

---------------

Also, along with their conspiracies about the UK and USSR, they also believe that all music except for classical and renessance music is harful to induviduals and "western society". They find Jass, Rock, Blues, and Hip-hop to be "degenerate art" and I bet if I cared to did deeper and question one of their drones more I could find out that they want to arrest Charlie Chaplin and kick German Expressionists out of Weimar Germany - they have the will to do so, they just lack the power!

Their members once tried to physically intimidate me at a Nader rally - Nader is like the Queen of England times 10 to them. I guess now they hate Obama which is strange because they supported him as they supported John Kerry in the general elections.

Later that night when I left the event, they were still there and singing what sounded like Christamas Carols which were about how great John Kerry is and how people should support LaRouche. I would love to hear a LaRouche version of "the 12 nights of Christmas"... "7 transglobal high-speed trains, 6 spies from the Queen, fi-ive grain-shortage aaaaaaaaaaanimations!"

[Conquer or Die]

Larouche has no power. Glenn Beck is a more important fascist to keep track of.

[RadioRaheem84]

one word: C-U-L-T

[Jimmie Higgins]

Larouche has no power. Glenn Beck is a more important fascist to keep track of.Glenn Beck doesn't actually have an organized force of loyal thugs (at this point anyway), so as much as his ideas and appeal are fascistic, he really more like Rush Limbaugh at this point than a David Duke - or a LaRouche.



Edit: obviously the LaRouchies are not the threat that the KKK are or Militias or the Minutemen - but if they were as large as these other groups, I would be worried.

[RadioRaheem84]

Glenn Beck doesn't actually have an organized force of loyal thugs (at this point anyway), so as much as his ideas and appeal are fascistic, he really more like Rush Limbaugh at this point than a David Duke - or a LaRouche.



Edit: obviously the LaRouchies are not the threat that the KKK are or Militias or the Minutemen - but if they were as large as these other groups, I would be worried.


What makes Larouche a fascist? I thought he was always referring major politicians as Nazis.

[Jimmie Higgins]

What makes Larouche a fascist? I thought he was always referring major politicians as Nazis.And so does Glenn Beck, the difference to me is that LaRouche actually has organized forces (very small and marginal) that go out and intimidate other groups and individuals and in the past he used these goons to attack groups on the "New Left".


We must dispose of this stinking corpse [the CP] to ensure that it cannot act as a host for maggots and other parasites preparing future scabby Nixonite attacks on the working class. If we were to vacillate, we would be guilty of betraying the human race. Our job is to pulverize the Communist Party.

As the new left was falling apart, LaRouchie thought that factionalism was the problem and wanted to win "hegemony" over the entire left. LaRouche still considered himself a communist at this point, but it is easy in retrospect to see he was on a different path - this path led him to where he is now, away from anything resembling the left.

If there were a huge crisis in the US and big strikewaves and LaRouche's organization became bigger, I would not be suprised if he tried to win the support of the ruling class by using his organization to disrupt protests or beat up strikers.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Stay clear of them comrades, they have formidable internet security and can seemingly hack any computer they like.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Stay clear of them comrades, they have formidable internet security and can seemingly hack any computer they like.

What - really? What's the story behind that?

[Communist]

...obviously the LaRouchies are not the threat that the KKK are or Militias or the Minutemen - but if they were as large as these other groups, I would be worried.

Is the KK that big anymore? I don't know, but I believe there's several different Klans out there. Probably a few thousand...
As for the Larouchies, I don't know their numbers either, but in the 1990's I remember seeing two actual billboards for some campaign or other, and more than a few bumper stickers. Really.

[absurd_planet]

They are a persuasive force on college campuses. I wish somebody would kick them out or at least form some left-wing organizations that are promoted on campus as much of these cultists. The aggression that this group oozes, simply corrupts young minds that haven't ventured into the world of politics or philosophy in general. Larouche seems to be well aware of this and continues to pump money into campaigns that exist solely on college campuses in order to preach to the un-informed about their neo-fascist ideals.

[Crux]

They tried to infilitrate the swedish military at one point. I do wonder where LaRouche gets his money from.

[Salyut]

Stay clear of them comrades, they have formidable internet security and can seemingly hack any computer they like.

Norton 2004 is no match for LaRouche's l33t computer skills! f33r his use of AOHell!

[L.J.Solidarity]

The LaRouche movement has a German section called Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität (BüSo, Civil Rights Movement Solidarity, it was previously named "Patriots for Germany" and called itself the "European Workers Party" before that) headed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Lyndon's wife. They claim to have 1200 members and run in every state, national or european election as soon as they manage to collect the necessary amount of signatures. They seem to have some money with which they produce a monthly (?) paper, tons of literature and rather funny electoral adverts that basically always say the same: The "global financial order" is soon to collapse (they claim to have predicted the crisis since the early nineties), a monorail bridge should be built across the Bering Strait and "Germany's future lies in Africa", by which they mean that the continent should be covered in nuclear power plants to provide energy for the rest of the world. They also claim to be able to create 5 to 10 million jobs from thin air.
Almost everybody considers them a bunch of loonies and they probably got most attention ever when a rather famous mainstream comedian parodied one of their TV ads years ago. Unfortunately they keep winning more votes than the Socialist Equality Party (who are extremely sectarian but at least socialist) in most elections, usually ending up last or next-to-last depending on wether the Northites are running.
Fortunately they're almost invisible on the streets, I only saw them twice for all my life, once they had a table in the city centre, the other time was a single guy selling their newspaper at a 50,000-strong anti-crisis demonstration at Berlin.

[Eat the Rich]

Just a funny note to those who know the Spartacists and the LaRouche people.
The funniest thing was when a La Rouche dude was arguing with a Spartacist. Both of them are well known for their hard headedness and persistency. I was watching them in a demo, arguing for 2 hours about the nature of the capitalist state. While I agreed with the Spart, I couldn't help but laugh with the saliva on his lip, red cheecks and angry face and the calm La Rouche dude going over and over the lesson (brainwashing), almost like he couldn't hear the other guy refuting his arguments.

[chegitz guevara]

I do wonder where LaRouche gets his money from.

Cults donate lots of money. In the 1980s, LaRouche was imprisoned for wire fraud. After someone donated to them with a credit card, they would keep charging and charging. They probably have millions stashed away.

[Jethro Tull]

They seem themselves, however, as part of the left.

this isn't that unique or remarkable. it's called the third position, it's a crucial aspect of understanding the fascist phenomenon.


What makes Larouche a fascist? I thought he was always referring major politicians as Nazis.

hitler and mussolini came to antagonisms a couple of times throughout the war. nazism is only one specific type of fascism, you can be fascist and anti-nazi.


The "global financial order" is soon to collapse, a monorail bridge should be built across the Bering Strait and "Germany's future lies in Africa", by which they mean that the continent should be covered in nuclear power plants to provide energy for the rest of the world. They also claim to be able to create 5 to 10 million jobs from thin air.

a stopped watch is right twice a day. the global financial order is already in a state of collapse, the global ruling class is transitioning from automobile-culture to a more efficient mass-transit infastructure, (i don't know if a monorail over the bering straight qualifies, though...) nuclear power is becoming an important part of the new "green" electrical grid, and the neo-colonial bourgeoisie looks to the african continent as the "future" of post-green revolution capitalism.

[leochaos]

Hi,
it is old stuff,but it may help a little.
In the 70ties small groups of followers of Larouche appeared in different cities in Italy and ,I believe. in other parts of Europe.
They tried to infiltrate the left,but it was pretty easy to identify them.For one thing,they were not native of the city.Our guess was that they were moving from place to place.I can't remember the name they used but they even partecipated to some election maybe as Partito Operaio Europeo(something like European Worker Party).On the ballotts they put a logo similar to the one used by the "original" PCI(italian communist party).We came to the conclusion that they wanted to confuse the voters.At that time the PCI was close to beat the dominant Democrazia Cristiana(remember Aldo Moro?).
They have indeed very strange ideas: the basic one is that the Queen of England is the real power which controls the USA.She is also behind the international drug trade(have you ever seen a book "Dope,inc"?It's all in there.) You can easily find informations on the group,just use "notes" from wikipedia.But it is a brainberaking/useless exercise:those guys are indeed masters in producing "conspiracy theories".
I remember that they use the Frederic Schiller institute as some academic cover.
A more sinister aspect of this group is that it produces some Intelligence Bullettin,supposedly distributed to a lot of people.But you have to pay to read it.
The maniacs write about everything and it is indeed almost impossible to know who is behind them or why.
But they do have a lot of money.I have no idea if anybody has ever been able to find the source.
At one point in the capital of an asian country there was a daily newspaper basically written by one person.It went on for some time, losing money.I remember that you could get it for free.The editor/one man guy was an "ex" larouchist.....We tried to find out who was behind it,but they used some chinese businessmen as front...and then banks.
Finally,I think that in the USA they started a violent campaign against a communist party(I can't remember which one),the idea was "to wipe them out".
There have been also accusation of the group being a cult or "cultisch".
La Rouche of course was many time a candidate in the USA presidential election.And he served time in jail for fiscal evasion.
To be honest,I am not sure what they really are.I knew that they are still around,but if somebody notices that they have been reactivated on a "large" scale,then it may make sense to check what they are doing.
But Beware, compare to them Alex Jones and co. are just noisy drunkards.
ciao