Lyndon LaRouche

[Robespierres Neck]

I've been doing some research on this guy and his PAC. It seems like the supporters are very keen (also, ill-informed) to express their political views to spectators and media. Does anyone care to explain exactly what their positions are? What's the history of LaRouche? Are they really a cult? I've read some pretty bizarre things, so I'm curious.

[GoddessCleoLover]

They are a bizarre cult, and are definitely not leftists. La Rouche was marginally involved with the SWP about 50 years ago, then calling himself Lyn Marcus was able to recruit a few followers from SDS in New York city.By the early 1970s he no longer pretended to be a leftist, and used physical violence against the CPUSA, SWP and others in his so-called Operation Mop Up. In a rare instance of non-sectarianism CPers, Trots, and MLMs gave them (NCLC/US Labor Party) a bit of a mopping up. Having failed to intimidate the left, the NCLC drifted into even shadier activities involving credit card scams and efforts to suck up to military and intelligence figures including the godfather of Reagan's star wars program, retired General Daniel Graham. LaRouche and his followers are total enemies, definitely crypto-fascists and IMO to be physically avoided at all costs as their history indicates that they could be gathering intelligence for the State. They are foul creatures capable of any evil deed.

[Ostrinski]

the LaRoucheites are the purest example of what define irl trolls. They arbitrarily idolize Alexander Hamilton and Rosa Luxemburg.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

The LaRoucheites are extremely aggressive in recruiting-if you provide them with any contact info whatsoever, your phone will be ringing off the hook and you'll have people knocking at your door continuously for the next several months. This has happened to friends of mine.

The Public Eye website traces Lyndon LaRouche/Lyn Marcus bizarre political evolution from SWP Trotskyist (with a highly meglomaniac twist-LaRouche literally thought the passage in The Communist Manifesto where Marx says that part of the bourgeois will go over to the working class was addressed specifically to him, 100 something years in the future) to leftcom/Luxembougist/Quaker fundamentalist to conspiracy nutter fascist.

Its hard to say what the LaRoucheites believe. It seems to be basically that somehow LaRouche discovered the unique secret to the creativity of Western Civilization and the genius of Beethoven.

Their literature is basically warmed over left or liberal Keynsianism, Hamilitonian protectionism, all with very long run on sentences and weird non-sequitors. LaRouche has long rants about "cultural Marxists", and long winded Alex Jones style theories about how the British Empire is secretly trying to take over the world and is destroying America.

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

A friend of mine said one can only fully understand LaRouche's stuff if they are high. He said this to a LaRoucheite, who agreed with him.

My favorite is "Beast Man Cheney".

http://larouchepub.com/lar/2004/3125ccf_pamphlet.html

While good for some laughs it is seriously best to stay far away.

[agnixie]

His political actions in the 90s, when he had definitely abandoned most pretences of the left, involved trying to set up a deal between NOI and the Klan, and trying to get emergency powers from Clinton. AFAIR he's also known to have used his Lyn Marcus period to spy on a lot of socialist organizations, most of the Larouche family income still comes from private investigations and intel.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Apparently the LaRouchites believe that Obamacare is a Nazi-esque program. At least that's what I've derived from some of their propaganda.

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/larouche.jpg

haha

[GoddessCleoLover]

Their attack on Obamacare is probably either a tactic to recruit teabaggers or otherwise act as agents of the far right. LaRouche is totally unscrupulous, batshit crazy and overall acts in a way to promote reaction.

[Prometeo liberado]

He had some strange connection back in the day with Lenora Fulani(sp?) and the New Alliance Party. We had a few dust ups with them for sure. I do think that his organizations reputation for intelligence gathering is blown way out of proportion though.

[Ocean Seal]

I've been doing some research on this guy and his PAC. It seems like the supporters are very keen (also, ill-informed) to express their political views to spectators and media. Does anyone care to explain exactly what their positions are? What's the history of LaRouche? Are they really a cult? I've read some pretty bizarre things, so I'm curious.
Second Law of Thermodynamics is false, because it is a law for animals and not for men. They walked into my Chemistry class to tell me this.

[blake 3:17]

He's been around forever and has somehow managed to get even weirder and crazier.

I looked at the PAC site & the biggest issues seem to be opposition to empiricism and the need to travel to Mars.

I guess it's impossible for a Terran relying on perception to understand this mugnificence.

[Jimmie Higgins]

They're a proto-fascist cult in the Democratic Party. They occasionally attempt to use violence against other political groups and are very anti-communist. Luckily they are merely an annoying cult at the moment and will likely remain that way because they are a whole lot of unfun. But if they loosened up on the control of members lives and went form cult to a political movement, then that would be a very bad thing for US politics.

Don't give them email or phone numbers. They will call you and even act abusively if you avoid or decline their next screening of a LaRouche video. There are numerous stories of explicitly cult-like behavior for people who do join: cutting people off from family and friends, encouraging college students to drop out of school and devote more time to their group, emotionally abusing people as a way to convince them, etc.

Like with fascists, their politics are a total grab-bag. They try and recruit among tea-partiers and anti-war activists equally. Although I once saw a black member of their group, some of their ideas seem really racist in a sort of European-supremacy sort of way. For example, they think any music influenced by jazz is degenerate while European music has divine-like qualities of and enlightening properties. When they counter-protest Left-of-the-Dems groups (they protested at events with Green Party or Howard Zinn for example) they will sometimes sing Christmas-carol-like songs about their political positions.

Their "golden age" was New Deal America and they glorify FDR and have really odd public works ideas having to do with space or trans-world trains (not that these things are necessarily left-field by themselves, just odd picks for a sort of immediate-program).

They believe in many conspiracies - they think the English monarchy secretly runs things in the world and they denounce UK imperialism against the US. Individual members would crash anti-war meetings during Iraq and ramble about how this war was some sort of British plot and LaRouche had the answer etc.

I feel bad writing this, but if I heard of a contemporary Jonestown situation and someone said it was the LaRouche people, I wouldn't be shocked.

[Jimmie Higgins]

the biggest issues seem to be opposition to empiricism

I once saw a LaRouche member trying to hand out (HAND OUT, and having trouble) their magazines and he approached a woman who was sitting at a bench and eating to tell her about the impending crisis in steel production.

He opened the magazine and pointed to an image that looked like a graph showing "steel production" and "time", a plotted line, and a title at the top saying "projected steel production". He said enthusiastically: "And you see how LaRouche demonstrates through this animation that after this point steel production will go into an intractable crisis and..."

"But there's no data or figures on this graph" interrupted the woman.

"No" he replied and then very seriously, "it's an animation. And it shows through animating the projection of steel output that there will be the steel crisis and only LaRouche's Industrial Mandate Plan would be able to..."

"But what do the points on the graph mean - it's just a plotted line, there's no information of how much time or how much steel this represents"

"Oh," he said as if it was a silly misunderstanding, "You see: it's an animation!"

"But what does that mean?"

"It animates how steel will decline"

"But from what!?"

"This animation demonstrating it."

[GoddessCleoLover]

The moral of the story is that it is useless to attempt a rational conversation with irrational folks like the LaRouchites.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Here's a LaRouchite in action (and Barney Frank making a hilarious response)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYlZiWK2Iy8

It's like a political version of scientology.

[blake 3:17]

I once saw a LaRouche member trying to hand out (HAND OUT, and having trouble) their magazines and he approached a woman who was sitting at a bench and eating to tell her about the impending crisis in steel production.

He opened the magazine and pointed to an image that looked like a graph showing "steel production" and "time", a plotted line, and a title at the top saying "projected steel production". He said enthusiastically: "And you see how LaRouche demonstrates through this animation that after this point steel production will go into an intractable crisis and..."

"But there's no data or figures on this graph" interrupted the woman.

"No" he replied and then very seriously, "it's an animation. And it shows through animating the projection of steel output that there will be the steel crisis and only LaRouche's Industrial Mandate Plan would be able to..."

"But what do the points on the graph mean - it's just a plotted line, there's no information of how much time or how much steel this represents"

"Oh," he said as if it was a silly misunderstanding, "You see: it's an animation!"

"But what does that mean?"

"It animates how steel will decline"

"But from what!?"

"This animation demonstrating it."


Oh Jimmie, you're so stuck in the realm of True Facts. I'm not going to Mars with you!

I do wonder where they'd been getting their money from. I'd guess Libya but who knows.

My only encounter with them was in downtown Montreal where they'd set up a professional looking display with the Obama = Hitler stuff. The people staffing it looked very healthy middle class. There's a good chance that they were simply being paid.

[Prometeo liberado]

I once saw a LaRouche member trying to hand out (HAND OUT, and having trouble) their magazines and he approached a woman who was sitting at a bench and eating to tell her about the impending crisis in steel production.

He opened the magazine and pointed to an image that looked like a graph showing "steel production" and "time", a plotted line, and a title at the top saying "projected steel production". He said enthusiastically: "And you see how LaRouche demonstrates through this animation that after this point steel production will go into an intractable crisis and..."

"But there's no data or figures on this graph" interrupted the woman.

"No" he replied and then very seriously, "it's an animation. And it shows through animating the projection of steel output that there will be the steel crisis and only LaRouche's Industrial Mandate Plan would be able to..."

"But what do the points on the graph mean - it's just a plotted line, there's no information of how much time or how much steel this represents"

"Oh," he said as if it was a silly misunderstanding, "You see: it's an animation!"

"But what does that mean?"

"It animates how steel will decline"

"But from what!?"

"This animation demonstrating it."
It's animation goddamn it! What the hell is wrong with you people?

This is hands down the third funniest thing I have read today. A tight third I'm tellin you.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Back in the 70s I heard someone say that a LaRouchie told him that a nuclear power plant ought to be constructed at the inner harbor right in the middle of downtown Baltimore. A strange and sinister cult.

[Prometeo liberado]

Back in the 70s I heard someone say that a LaRouchie told him that a nuclear power plant ought to be constructed at the inner harbor right in the middle of downtown Baltimore. A strange and sinister cult.

Ever been to Baltimore? He may have been on to something. What did the Smiths sing, "come on nuclear bomb"?

[GoddessCleoLover]

Baltimore is a monument to the dysfunctionality of post-industrial imperialism, but it is my hometown rather than nuke it we could someday improve it. BTW aren't you an Oaklander? Isn't Oakland kinda sorta the Baltimore of the west coast?;) Out football team is better anyway. Seriously, Baltimore could be a pretty nice place if capitalism didn't fuck things up here.

[Prometeo liberado]

Formerly East Coast, then Mid-West. Now back on the West Side. Los Angeles is so fucked up yet so goddamn down. Hard to explain.