LaRouche meeting in my city.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Well I just found out that today there was a LaRouche meeting in my cities public library at 2-5 :blink:

So I totally just wanted to go to the meeting and troll it, plan on doing that next time I find out they're meeting if I do before the meeting takes place.

[eyeheartlenin]

I don't actually think anyone could successfully argue fascists into taking a non-fascist position. As is well known I guess, Trotsky's approach, which I think is still correct, was that the working class movement should mobilize workers' mass organizations in superior numbers to disperse the fascists and deny them the freedom of the streets, and that has worked on a number of occasions in the US, since the 1940's. I don't know whether LaRouche's group is violent or not, but I would be very concerned for a single leftist/revolutionary, outnumbered and trapped in one of their meetings. I think trying to reason with them is not a good approach.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't actually think anyone could successfully argue fascists into taking a non-fascist position. As is well known I guess, Trotsky's approach, which I think is still correct, was that the working class movement should mobilize workers' mass organizations in superior numbers to disperse the fascists and deny them the freedom of the streets, and that has worked on a number of occasions in the US, since the late 1940's. I don't know whether LaRouche's group is violent or not, but I would be very concerned for a single leftist/revolutionary, outnumbered and trapped in one of their meetings. I think trying to reason with them is not a good approach.

Ha, I have often called them the"fascist wing of the Democratic Party", and LaRouche has used violence in the past. That being said, a much more likely scenario for a single revolutionary at their events is that they'll just annoy, rather than beat, you to death.

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

That cult is weird.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I was thinking more along the lines of going there, pretending like I agree with them/just want to learn what they promote, then just taking a shit on everything they say while acting like I'm just trying to understand their position. Wasn't planning on saying I was a communist although now that I think about it that could lead to some hilarity. Yeah they have assaulted communists before but I'm not really scared, I can fight and always call backup. Anyways I can just walk into the library, scope out who the group is and then go from there.

[kahimikarie]

It might be fun, but idk previous experiences I've heard about wrt socialists talking to larouche people is that it's hard to even have a real argument with them. They spout off nonsense you can't even follow like the banks in London funding terrorism and whatever.

[Susurrus]

Why not just stay undercover and relay what you learn? Hopefully they will have suckish security culture.

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

Why not just stay undercover and relay what you learn? Hopefully they will have suckish security culture.

^This or you could dress head-to-toe in union jack threads and then relay what happens.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Why not just stay undercover and relay what you learn? Hopefully they will have suckish security culture.

That's a damn good idea thanks very much.

[RHIZOMES]

Careful you don't turn into the next Jeremiah Duggan if you try going "undercover".

[Rusty Shackleford]

Jeremiah Duggan?

[Johnny Kerosene]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jeremiah_Duggan
Probably this guy. I just googled him.

[Ismail]

LaRouchites are known to harass people who they regard as especially "dangerous" to the life of LaRouche.

They're a political cult that makes the RCPUSA look mild. LaRouchites regard LaRouche as a "world-historical" genius, a heir to the traditions of Plato, Nicholas of Cusa, Riemann, Benjamin Franklin, Lincoln, Rosa Luxemburg, FDR, MLK Jr., and a bunch of other figures who LaRouche has nothing in common with. They're essentially right-wingers despite their rather social-democratic economics. They believe that the British monarchy constitutes a separate "species" at war with mankind, that Maoism was created by the British Empire to destroy progress, that Karl Marx was a puppet of the British agent Engels, etc. They believe that anyone who argues with them is basically a babbling idiot not worthy of debate. Every single thing they believe is horribly warped; they regard Euclidean geometry as a damned oligarchical lie and regard the Second Law of Thermodynamics as mysticism.

Here's a good example of how they distort historical figures (this is on Rosa Luxemburg): http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2009/2009_30-39/2009_30-39/2009-32/pdf/26-33_3632.pdf

The best resource on LaRouche's views: http://lyndonlarouchewatch.org/newamericanfascism.htm

[A Revolutionary Tool]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jeremiah_Duggan
Probably this guy. I just googled him.

:blink:

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I have heard that the LaRouchotes are extremely aggressive at trying to recruit someone they think may potentially be interested. A few years ago a non-political friend of mine signed one of their petitions. Over the following week they called her around 20 times, sent a large number of postcards and fliers and apparently tried to visit her several times at her apartment.

They are irrational and crazy. LaRouche's draw is that he supposedly knows the secret of Western creativity, the secret of Beethoven's genius which has somehow been surpressed by" cultural Marxists".

Their literature is a mixture of social democratic left Keynsian stuff and intricate bizarre conspiracy theories mostly along the lines that the house of Windsor and the Bank of England are running a vast satanic conspiracy.This is mixed in with very long run on sentences and is chock full of non-sequitors.

My favorite LaRouche pamphlet was "Beastman Cheney". The title had me in hysterics for a week. Funny thing is that pamphlet, about the influence of the neo-con Chicago School philosopher Leo Strauss on the Bush Administration, had some grains of truth to it.
A few years ago a friend of mine said its only possible to fully understand LaRouche literature when high. He mentioned that to a LaRouchie who surprisingly agreed with him.

Overall, I'd advice against any involvement with them, even in a mocking sense. They are extremely persistant and if their "core beliefs" are threatened, like many cults, can be dangerous.

[S.Artesian]

Why waste your time? They are not so much fascists as they are psychotics-- Jonestowners without a Jonestown.

[Ismail]

Why waste your time? They are not so much fascists as they are psychotics-- Jonestowners without a Jonestown.Jonestown wasn't inhabited by "psychotics." It was led by a manipulative, insecure leftist cult leader with a big paranoia problem, but the people of Jonestown were otherwise normal. The book Raven is the best source on Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown.

The LaRouchites are nothing like Jim Jones and Co. Both were/are political cults (Jones more so after he moved to Jonestown), but that's basically where the similarities end. Jones didn't claim that Isaac Newton was an insane British agent and cultist, or that Hitler was a British agent. He was a "big C" (to use your term) Communist who used religion to get people to follow him.


They are irrational and crazy. LaRouche's draw is that he supposedly knows the secret of Western creativity, the secret of Beethoven's genius which has somehow been surpressed by" cultural Marxists".You should watch this, it shows how he "analyzes" "inferior" humans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXOncp24Ofk

Also once you're done watching that note how the LaRouchites right now are praising Putin to the skies as a great defender of mankind's progress and how cooperation between the USA, Russia and China is vital for the future for all humanity.

[S.Artesian]

Jonestown wasn't inhabited by "psychotics." It was led by a manipulative, insecure leftist cult leader with a big paranoia problem, but the people of Jonestown were otherwise normal. The book Raven is the best source on Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown.


Right, right. The essential point being however that engaging this cult is a waste of time.

How about, Heaven's Gate Hale-Bopp cultists without the comet? Is that better for you?

[Ismail]

How about, Heaven's Gate Hale-Bopp cultists without the comet? Is that better for you?More appropriate, yes. I also concur that "debating" with cult members won't work.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Why waste your time?
Because sometimes I get bored...

[Ismail]

If you have any questions 'bout the LaRouchites, you can ask them here. I have an interest in both Jonestown and the LaRouchites, the latter mainly to relieve boredom.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Public Eye has an interesting analysis of Lyn Marcus/Lyndon LaRouche's political evolution from Trotskyism to Luxembougism to some sort of Hamiltonian mercantilism to paranoid fascism.

http://www.publiceye.org/larouche/nclc2.h

Marcus was in and out of the US SWP. Marcus was a leader of the SWP faction, the Revolutionary Tendency, which later ledt to become the Sparts. Marcus had a falling out with Jim Robertson, the Spart leader and apparently dropped out of politics for a long time.He reemerged during the "Columbia riots" as a sort of mentor to anarchist radicals. He seems to have been some sort of Luxembougist/left com during this stage. Some of his writing from this period is actually interesting, he wrote a good Marxist critique of Erich Fromm. Its hard to believe this was written by the same guy who later became Lyndon LaRouche.

Somewhere during this time his then girlfriend left him for a British Trotskyist. The next day the front page of his organisation denounced Trotskyism with their headline being "The Impotence of British Trotskyism"

During his SWP stage he was known to be intellectually brilliant but also something of a megalomaniac. He felt the section in the Manifesto where it says that some of the bourgeois will go over to the working class was referring to him personally.

Ismail could probably tell more but as I remember in the early 70s his organisation predicted that the revolution was imminent and was only prevented by the existence of the CPUSA and the SWP. LaRouche sent out his followers to beat up members of aforementioned organisations.The SWP and CP banded together (in a rare moment of cooperation) to get a court injunction against the LaRouche org.

Years ago my Dad, a mainstream liberal somewhat interested in socialism, would get calls from the LaRouche people. They told him how LaRouche was about to lead a vast crusade to liberate America. when my Dad asked them how he could do this from a federal penitentiary (LaRouche got 5 years for tax evasion) the caller would get very angry and then hang up.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Public Eye has an interesting analysis of Lyn Marcus/Lyndon LaRouche's political evolution from Trotskyism to Luxembougism to some sort of Hamiltonian mercantilism to paranoid fascism.

http://www.publiceye.org/larouche/nclc2.h

Marcus was in and out of the US SWP. Marcus was a leader of the SWP faction, the Revolutionary Tendency, which later ledt to become the Sparts. Marcus had a falling out with Jim Robertson, the Spart leader and apparently dropped out of politics for a long time.He reemerged during the "Columbia riots" as a sort of mentor to anarchist radicals. He seems to have been some sort of Luxembougist/left com during this stage. Some of his writing from this period is actually interesting, he wrote a good Marxist critique of Erich Fromm. Its hard to believe this was written by the same guy who later became Lyndon LaRouche.

Somewhere during this time his then girlfriend left him for a British Trotskyist. The next day the front page of his organisation denounced Trotskyism with their headline being "The Impotence of British Trotskyism"

During his SWP stage he was known to be intellectually brilliant but also something of a megalomaniac. He felt the section in the Manifesto where it says that some of the bourgeois will go over to the working class was referring to him personally.

Ismail could probably tell more but as I remember in the early 70s his organisation predicted that the revolution was imminent and was only prevented by the existence of the CPUSA and the SWP. LaRouche sent out his followers to beat up members of aforementioned organisations.The SWP and CP banded together (in a rare moment of cooperation) to get a court injunction against the LaRouche org.

Years ago my Dad, a mainstream liberal somewhat interested in socialism, would get calls from the LaRouche people. They told him how LaRouche was about to lead a vast crusade to liberate America. when my Dad asked them how he could do this from a federal penitentiary (LaRouche got 5 years for tax evasion) the caller would get very angry and then hang up.

I like how Luxemburgism is an evolution toward fascism from Trotskyism... -.-

[Ismail]

I like how Luxemburgism is an evolution toward fascism from Trotskyism... -.-LaRouchites praise Luxemburg today as a "patriot" against the "British Empire." In 1977 they were the first to translate her book The Industrial Development in Poland into English.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1898/industrial-poland/index.htm
Source: 1977 by Campaigner Publications, of New York

"Campaigner Publications" = LaRouchites.

The translator, who commented on the work, is obviously eager to distance herself from them: "This translation was originally completed in 1976, as part of a political project very distant from the person I am now. Although its inadequacies are all too obvious, I am even less capable of remedying them than I was back then. Given that no better translation is available, my youthful effort will, I hope, be read with forbearance."

Some LaRouche articles (under his pseudonym Lynn Marcus) are on MIA as well:
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isr/vol23/no02/marcus.html
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/fi/vol15/no02/marcus.html
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isr/vol22/no01/marcus.html

Here's a book that's all about the early LaRouche, his interactions with the Healyites, SWP, etc.: http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.UnityNow

[Die Rote Fahne]

Laroucheites are batshit.

[Ismail]

LaRouchites throughout 2010 also claimed to be leading the "mass strike" (a term coined by Luxemburg) of the American people against the "British puppet" Obama and the "British oligarchical system." LaRouche, naturally, was head of this "mass strike" which was originally typified by the Tea Party until LaRouche decided that Rand Paul was actually a "fascist" little different from Obama. LaRouchites are political opportunists, willing to portray themselves as anything (although core beliefs aren't changed much) to match the occasion.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Bad idea. They have a security apparatus that gathers info on leftists and people who attend their meetings and is known to turn info over to the state. They have a violent past of attacking leftists and even their own members and supporters. Even if you fool them into believing you're interested you will be seriously harassed, pressured hard to purchase all sorts of DVDs and books while at the meeting, possibly followed around and pressured again at your home or if/when they run into you again at a protest or on the street. There's really not much to be gained.

[Ismail]

This is correct. They aren't as creepy as they were in the 80's (when at one point a reporter who criticized LaRouche, and who LaRouche intimidated in retaliation, had 3 of his cats killed (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/cult/larouche/larou4.htm) and placed on his doorstep, and when Kissinger was literally harassed across the world (http://lyndonlarouchewatch.org/fascism17.htm) which among many other actions prompted Kissinger to contact the FBI) but they still have the habit of constantly calling people up and lightly intimidating them at meetings, etc.

Germany, Sweden and Australia have a sizable amount (relative to other countries except the USA itself) of LaRouchites as well, known as BüSo (http://bueso.de/) (headed by LaRouche's wife, an ex-Maoist who abandoned socialism alongside LaRouche himself in 1977), the EAP (http://www.larouche.se/) and the CEC (http://www.cecaust.com.au/) respectively. They're all united under banner of the "International Caucus of Labor Committees," a relic of their Trotskyist/Luxemburgist days.

[Susurrus]

It seems like Scientology with an Illuminati conspiracy theorist attitude.

[Die Rote Fahne]

This is correct. They aren't as creepy as they were in the 80's (when at one point a reporter who criticized LaRouche, and who LaRouche intimidated in retaliation, had 3 of his cats killed (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/cult/larouche/larou4.htm) and placed on his doorstep, and when Kissinger was literally harassed across the world (http://lyndonlarouchewatch.org/fascism17.htm) which among many other actions prompted Kissinger to contact the FBI) but they still have the habit of constantly calling people up and lightly intimidating them at meetings, etc.

Germany, Sweden and Australia have a sizable amount (relative to other countries except the USA itself) of LaRouchites as well, known as BüSo (http://bueso.de/) (headed by LaRouche's wife, an ex-Maoist who abandoned socialism alongside LaRouche himself in 1977), the EAP (http://www.larouche.se/) and the CEC (http://www.cecaust.com.au/) respectively. They're all united under banner of the "International Caucus of Labor Committees," a relic of their Trotskyist/Luxemburgist days.

My brother ran into one recently. The LaRouche guy said "you know what population is on the rise? Coloreds". So my brother walked away.

They are batshit to even think they comprehend Luxemburg.

[Ismail]

My brother ran into one recently. The LaRouche guy said "you know what population is on the rise? Coloreds". So my brother walked away.Ironically many LaRouchites compare LaRouche to MLK Jr. and claim that LaRouche is at the forefront of preventing the "genocide" of blacks in the USA and Africa.

You have to remember that the LaRouchites have passed through various "stages" of recruits. In the 1970's it was all about the strategy for socialism. In the 1980's it was all about how the USSR was the "Third Rome" ruled by the Orthodox Church and how the liberals wanted to destroy Reagan's space beam program because they are all KGB agents. In the 90's it was all about how the neo-conservatives wanted world war and to topple Clinton because the British Empire wants it to happen. In the 2000's it was all about how Bush and Cheney were insane and, well, more about neo-conservatives. Now it's about how Obama is insane and is a British puppet.

In the 70's and 80's they had a "populist" image, particularly among farmers. Then in the 1990's LaRouche became an expert on Christianity and was suddenly going on about how everyone who opposes him is doing the work of Satan. Then after 2001 they morphed into an all-around more "progressive" guise and now attack Rick Perry as a crazy Christian fundamentalist. With so many years of operations and with so many different recruits you're bound to see people with various different views attempt to synthesize them with the official LaRouche line.

I mean this is the sort of stuff LaRouchites wrote in the early 70's:

"Palestinian nationalism typifies the discrepancy between the objective content of nationalism and the subjective form it assumes. What does the concept of 'nation' mean to the expropriated refugees who form the base of the guerrilla movement? Not the arbitrary designations of territory marked off by London cartographers after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, nor the boundaries agreed to by private conferences between Palestinian and Zionist leaders in 1948, nor the most recent hoax concocted by Western and Nasserite statesman for a West Bank Palestinian state. Nationalism among the Palestinians merely expresses, in traditional form, basic material demands wholly unattainable under imperialist rule. The role of socialist is emphatically not to tail-end the guerrillas and help perpetuate the Palestinians' current delusions, and thereby play into the hands of the 'moderate' Palestinian leaders who advocate the West Bank sellout, but to discuss in critical and uncompromising terms the requisite means towards socialist reconstruction of the Mideast."
("Lenin Vs. Luxemburg: On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination," article by Peter Brand in The Campaigner, Fall 1971, p. 32.)

Sounds alright, right? Well here's an excerpt from a 1995 Executive Intelligence Review article enticingly entitled "The British role in creating Maoism (http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2246_british_and_maoism.html)":

The British East India Company, which increasingly controlled China over the 19th century following the 1842 Opium War, actually began the process which led to Maoism in 1877, when they sent a young radical Chinese opium addict, Yen Fu, to England for training. Yen Fu's job was to translate the critical works of British empiricism, such as Herbert Spencer and Adam Smith, both to inundate the young intelligentsia of China with hedonistic, irrationalist dogma, while also portraying to the Chinese the false impression that this British, Aristotelian philosophy was one and the same with "western thought," and in particular, that this actually anti-scientific ideology had been the basis of the development of modern science and modern industrial economies.

Although Sun Yat-sen, perhaps more than any other 20th century world leader, understood the evil of the British Empire and of the underlying British empiricist ideology, the majority of the young Chinese intellectuals in the early decades of the 20th century were deeply influenced by British radical liberalism. However, when the Versailles Treaty confirmed Sun Yat-sen's most dire warnings about the British intentions to preserve and extend colonial power in China, the Chinese exploded in rage. A student revolt, similar to the Beijing Spring of 1989 that ended in the June 4 massacre at Tiananmen Square, spread from Beijing University throughout China. This uprising, launched on May 4, 1919, and the political movements of the following few years are known to history as the May 4th Movement. The potential that this movement would lead to a republican nationalist upsurge in support of Dr. Sun and his ideas was considered a serious threat to the British-led colonial powers.

To meet this "threat" required, primarily, cultural warfare. To this end, Britain deployed into China the man known as the most evil figure of the twentieth century, Bertrand Russell. He was joined by the founder of the American school of "Pragmatism," John Dewey, whose life's work was the destruction of classical education. Dewey doubled as a journalist and promoter of the policies of the Anglo-American banking houses running the rape of China—in particular, for his friends at the House of Morgan.

Russell and Dewey, in China during the crucial 1919-21 period, together led the effort to turn the May 4th Movement away from the republican principles of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. The writings of both had already been translated and widely circulated in China during the 1910s. From their classes in Beijing and Shanghai emerged the core leadership of a communist movement.As a note RED DAVE actually met LaRouche in person. This was what he told me in a PM:

I used to run into LaRouche in New York in the late 60s, inplaces like the Pathfinder Bookstore. For some reason, he knew me by name and what tendency I belonged to, and he would strike up conversations with me. I can summarize the content like this: (1) You and I have some kind of connection; (2) we both know what's really going on; (3) we're smarter than most people; (4) he was smarter than I. (None of these were true.)

Politically, the IS sparred with the Labor Committee, but we never took them seriously as they were crazy and had no base in the working class. Their steady drift to the right was also apparent. The last contact I remember with them was a meeting around '71, where one of their people (not LaRouche; he couldn't condescend to be there) debated on of the IS's people (Wayne Price, I think, now a well-known anarchist). This was during the recession of the early 70s, and LaRouche published a amphlet entitled "How to Lick a Recession in a Single Day." It was about as dumb as the title. The program involved organizing bank employees to stop issuing commercial paper or calling all existing commercial paper in. Some stupidity like that. Price wiped their man up.

Shortly thereafter, the Labor Committee embarked on a crusade to physically liquidate the CP and gaining hegemony on the Left by raiding CP meetings and beating people up. They also raided a few other groups and threatened the IS. After a raid or two, people got hip to them, and they got their noses bloodied. I remember sitting in an IS public forum with a one foot piece of lead telephone cable (courtesy of IS telephone workers) waiting for the LaRoucheans to show up. They never did.Ironically the LaRouchites actually praised that very same pamphlet just recently (http://larouchepac.com/node/19085), only they omitted its leftist content.

[Agnapostate]

I have heard that the LaRouchotes are extremely aggressive at trying to recruit someone they think may potentially be interested. A few years ago a non-political friend of mine signed one of their petitions. Over the following week they called her around 20 times, sent a large number of postcards and fliers and apparently tried to visit her several times at her apartment.

I spoke at length with one of them once when I was younger and didn't understand their political ideology (it's confusing at first). I gave him my number just because he asked for it, and I talked a lot more with the guy when he called (he was from out of state or something). I think I understood less about their politics after talking to him for what probably added up to several hours than I did before. :laugh:

[Ismail]

It's worth noting that the LaRouchites explicitly call on new members to drop out of College so that they can more effectively save mankind and understand TRUE (read: LaRouche's lack of) science. They now mainly rope in young students with little knowledge about politics but with a lot of enthusiasm. They then subject them to the all-encompassing cultness that is the LaRouche Youth Movement. In a political cult you aren't required to understand what you're talking about, only to repeat slogans. Many ex-LaRouchites admit that they never even really read the literature they handed out, simply because they were never given enough time to do so. They were put in a constant state of "mobilizations" to either raise money to save mankind, hold protests to save mankind, or to listen to LaRouche or some higher-up "educate" them so that they can better save mankind.

The LaRouchites are unique as a political cult when it comes to ideology, but their methods are similar to other cults like the Democratic Workers Party, NATLFED, etc.

[Seth]

I heard they are satanists now.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Ismail, how do you know so much haha? You need to write a book.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Three questions. The LaRouche organisation seems big, its worldwide and they churn out a lot of literature. Where do they get they money from?

What is their membership turnover? Normally in religious cults the membership is fairly young. Cults get kids in the late teens/early 20s who are alienated and adrift. Usually the cult group uses them essentially for slave labor for a few years until the member realizes they are being used and eventually he or she splits.I've seen a variety of age groups w/the LaRouchies. Do they hold on to people?

I've read some stuff about LaRouche's "theoretical" evolution (if you could call it that), what's up with his psychological make up? My theory is that he enjoyed being a political mentor or leader when he was a Trot or Luxembourgist so much that he wanted to continue the gig but in a way that wouldn;t be threatening to the state. The LaRouchies seem to do things socialist groups do, sell papers and literature, "intervene" in struggles, etc only they have a bizarre ideology that's ultimately not a threat to anyone, except the members or the left.Basically he likes having kids sell papers for him and telling him how brilliant he is.If he were a socialist his gig wouldn't have gotten nearly as far as it has.

He's in his 80s by now. He's had a good run, I guess.

[Ismail]

Three questions. The LaRouche organisation seems big, its worldwide and they churn out a lot of literature. Where do they get they money from?They solicit donations and they do a lot of things which allow them to not pay for stuff until months or years later. It's not too hard to make a lot of money with a cult when you have hundreds of members working 24/7 for no pay and totally committed to the cause. They have actually run into financial difficulties though, which is why they no longer sell the New Federalist which went bust around 2005, and the Executive Intelligence Review content-wise is a far cry from what it used to be in the 80's (not that it was a better source for information, but it at least tried to look like a serious journalistic work.) Financial difficulties also led to LaRouche encouraging (with success) the suicide of Ken Kronberg, a longtime LaRouchite.


What is their membership turnover? Normally in religious cults the membership is fairly young. Cults get kids in the late teens/early 20s who are alienated and adrift. Usually the cult group uses them essentially for slave labor for a few years until the member realizes they are being used and eventually he or she splits.I've seen a variety of age groups w/the LaRouchies. Do they hold on to people?The old people are almost guaranteed to be old LaRouchites from the 70's and 80's. They have so little outside of the cult that they're both financially and psychologically bound up with it more or less for life. In the 1970's a lot of recruits were College and University-educated individuals with respectable backgrounds. In the 1980's they reached out to middle-aged individuals but the actual "cadre" was still basically youth. In the 90's the LaRouchites entered a period wherein the membership was getting old and not all that able to recruit or fundraise, so in the early 2000's an official "LaRouche Youth Movement" was set up, but as I said they target freshmen who they subsequently urge to drop out of College.


I've read some stuff about LaRouche's "theoretical" evolution (if you could call it that), what's up with his psychological make up?He's considered to be socially awkward. The last time he has been on television in a position where he has to defend himself was the Morton Downey Jr. Show in the late 80's, and he apparently did terrible and just told the host to "shut up" repeatedly after LaRouche's nutty views (Queen does drugs, "Zionists" run drug trade as part of the British Empire, etc.) were pointed out and LaRouche was unable to deny them. He only appears on Russia Today and the Alex Jones Show now, and when on them he doesn't leave a very convincing impression and just seems to go on to get publicity as the hosts only ask what he thinks about present economic issues.

Apparently he likes to demonize people he grew up knowing (his sisters, would-be girlfriends in Highschool, friends he had a falling out with, etc.) Psychologically he's a vain guy who has never really contributed anything of value since the 70's and relies entirely on his cult to sustain him.


My theory is that he enjoyed being a political mentor or leader when he was a Trot or Luxembourgist so much that he wanted to continue the gig but in a way that wouldn;t be threatening to the state.His group, the National Caucus of Labor Committees (which still theoretically exists as the inner circle within the American LaRouchites), wasn't always a cult. Early on people within it openly debated LaRouche on various subjects and it was more or less a normal Luxemburgist-Trotskyist group with some of LaRouche's idiosyncratic views and ideas.

You can see the early views of the NCLC in LaRouche's own words in 1974 (although by this time it was already a cult): http://www.laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.ConceptualHistoryLC

The work "Smiling Man from a Dead Planet (http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Library.UnityNow)" which I mentioned in an earlier post details the political evolution of LaRouche throughout the 70's and his efforts to consolidate power within the NCLC.


Basically he likes having kids sell papers for him and telling him how brilliant he is.If he were a socialist his gig wouldn't have gotten nearly as far as it has.That's what most ex-members say as well. The political cult is centered around the leader. It was the same with Jim Jones, he needed constant attention and adulation. It was also the same with Marlene Dixon of the Democratic Workers Party, and Gino Parente of NATLFED. In a more mild form it's the case with Bob Avakian as well.


He's in his 80s by now. He's had a good run, I guess.He's 89 and in apparently good health. He gives weekly reports and daily briefings to his followers.

[Luís Henrique]

Why not just stay undercover and relay what you learn? Hopefully they will have suckish security culture.

Usually fascism and paranoia do not blend well with suckish security culture.

Luís Henrique

[Ismail]

Not to mention there's nothing to "learn" from them anyway. Their intellectual figures are basically just limited to Plato, Schiller and Riemann, not counting the "intellectual" LaRouche and once in a while they read selected portions of Luxemburg's writings and some 1800's German poets.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Another question for Ismail (or anyone else). Are you familiar with and if so what do you think of Robert Jay Lifton? He's a US drama critic/psychologist who lived in Japan for a long time. His book on the Nazi Doctors, the psychological reasons why people trained as doctors (including a follower of Albert Schweitzer) ended up working at Auschwitz, is interesting. He's written a lot about the psychological and philosophical structure of cults. He did work onthe Aum Shinriko group in the 90s. Not sure if he's written on Heaven's Gate, Jonestown or LaRouche but I could imagine what he'd say.

Lifton had a theory of a "totalistic philosophy" that is a cult provides a form of psychological immortality for its followers.What would be a Marxist take on this?

Lifton wrote a short book on the GPCR in China. He saw some of the same dynamics going on with Mao in his later stage.

Also, is there any online, more of less leftist info or critique of Jim Jones?

BTW The links on the LaRouchites are fascinating. I got up early this and spent a few hours reading though them.The Smiling Man From A Dead Planet is intriguing. Its sad, Larouche is highly intelligent, although his megalomania seems to have appeared very early. He could have something to offer a Marxist, however eccentric.He predicted a a collapse of the international economic system a decade before Bretton Woods collapsed and he seems to have seen the current crisis. He wasn't the only one but he in a minority w/in Marxism of the time. Its to bad he wasn't playing with a full deck.

[ZeroNowhere]

Kill them. Kill them all.

[Ismail]

Lifton had a theory of a "totalistic philosophy" that is a cult provides a form of psychological immortality for its followers.What would be a Marxist take on this?I don't know much about Lifton. His work seems to be the basic liberal take on cults though.


Also, is there any online, more of less leftist info or critique of Jim Jones?Not really.

This is Jim Jones' take on how he became a communist at a young age, among other things: http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/PrimarySources/JJAutobio2.html

The book Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People is an essential introduction on Jim Jones' life, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown itself, written by a journalist who explicitly distanced himself from the sensationalism and distortions that erupted after the mass murder-suicide. The author shows the two sides of Jones: one side is genuinely likable, fairly intelligent, and genuinely charismatic, whereas the other is utterly dislikable, egomanical, and self-defeating. Although both Jones and LaRouche were/are cult leaders, they engaged in very different practices. Jones was great at deception. He'd convincingly fake dying (one time a cult member, hiding in the bushes as an "enemy" of Jones, shot at him from afar and Jones acted like he was hit in front of various followers) only to emerge triumphantly soon after to demonstrate his miraculous powers, to give just one example.

Here's a good example of his leftist views (and this was when he was still a Reverend heading the Peoples Temple): http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/Tapes/Tapes/TapeTranscripts/Q929.html


He predicted a a collapse of the international economic system a decade before Bretton Woods collapsed and he seems to have seen the current crisis. He wasn't the only one but he in a minority w/in Marxism of the time.LaRouche has constantly predicted economic collapse. Here's an example of just some of the wrong predictions he's made since 1961: http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Cult.FcrasH

His method has little basis behind it other than to constantly keep his cult followers in a state of mobilization.

[RED DAVE]

Ismail asked me to contribute to this thread, as I'm the only one around here who actually met LaRouche.

I'm working from memory, but I remember something that Tim Wohlforth wrote when, I believe, LaRouche was briefly in the leadership of the Workers League, before going off on his own. Wohlforth noted that LaRouche was very good at providing rationales for his own position, but Wohlforth (who was no piker as a hypocrite himself) couldn't escape the feeling that LaRouche could just as easily and glibly be arguing for the other side of the question.

In terms of personality, and I'm always leery of the relationship between personality and politics, I think it's safe to say that LaRouche was/is some kind of sociopath.

RED DAVE

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Interesting. Thanks Ismail and Red Dave.People like LaRouche are disturbing but also fascinating.

I don't mean to try Ismail or Red Dave's patience but one more question. Is it accurate to say LaRouche is anti-Semitic? His conspiracy theories about "finance capital" run by the "British Empire" seems a thinly veiled stand in for anti-Semitism,

[Ismail]

Red Dave doesn't know that much about the modern LaRouchites, FWIW.

The book Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism (http://lyndonlarouchewatch.org/newamericanfascism.htm) is the best read on the subject of both LaRouche in the 1980's (when he was at the height of his influence and was significant enough to get explicitly parodied on SNL) and his anti-semitic views. He definitely tried courting Neo-Nazis and such in the late 70's and throughout the 80's. Today he's a lot more subtle in his views, although his early 2000's fixation on the "Synarchists" was basically "here be evil neo-con Jews."