LaRouche

[Leftsolidarity]

What are folks feelings and experience with this group? I've done only minimal research on them and my few interactions have been unpleasant to say the least. I'd like to know more about them from not Wikipedia.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

You mean Lyndon LaRouche? Yeah, that guy is honest-to-god, bat shit loony.

There's really not a whole lot to tell, really. He started out as a hardcore Trotskyist and over the years shifted farther and farther to the right. Simultaneously, he had a falling out with his girlfriend/wife when it was discovered that she was apparently having an affair with another of LaRouche's inner circle. That was apparently the psychological breaking point, because after that is where he started developing all of his bizarre conspiracy theories about the British royal family and government mind control.

Ideologically, people often call him a fascist...but that doesnt' really fit all that well. His politics are so schizophrenic that it's virtually impossible to really pigeonhole him. He's just his own brand of crazy.

[Leftsolidarity]

You mean Lyndon LaRouche? Yeah, that guy is honest-to-god, bat shit loony.

There's really not a whole lot to tell, really. He started out as a hardcore Trotskyist and over the years shifted farther and farther to the right. Simultaneously, he had a falling out with his girlfriend/wife when it was discovered that she was apparently having an affair with another of LaRouche's inner circle. That was apparently the psychological breaking point, because after that is where he started developing all of his bizarre conspiracy theories about the British royal family and government mind control.

Ideologically, people often call him a fascist...but that doesnt' really fit all that well. His politics are so schizophrenic that it's virtually impossible to really pigeonhole him. He's just his own brand of crazy.

I'm not exactly concerned with LaRouche himself but the organization/"movement" in his name.

[Sabot Cat]

I'm not exactly concerned with LaRouche himself but the organization/"movement" in his name.

Unfortunately, it's molded by his idiosyncratic belief system and cult of personality, so it's nearly impossible to separate the two.

[Creative Destruction]

it's a political cult. probably best described as a smaller, even more ineffectual variation on Alex Jones and his legion of crazies. like BIR said, there isn't much to say about them.

[Leftsolidarity]

Has anyone had any on-the-ground interactions with them?

[Brotto Rühle]

My brother had a run in with one in Toronto... the coversation started and quickly turned into the LaRouchite saying "You know what population is on the rise?! blacks!"

To which my brother turned around and walked away.

[sixdollarchampagne]

Thanks to Brandon's etc. for his post. I think describing LaRouche as "just his own brand of crazy" pretty well says it all. I am aware of the decline of some left organizations in the US, but I cannot remember one going all the way over to fascism before (though I think there are examples of opportunist leftists, individuals, becoming extreme right-wingers under the Vichy regime in France, during World War 2). In my experience, leftists in decline generally just come out of the closet as Democrats. The other thing is that prior to the LaRoucheites' turn to the extreme right, their organization actually had some impressive, literate leftists, a couple of whom I met when I lived in Detroit in the early seventies. Unfortunately, the last time I checked, that couple had stayed on board for LaRouche's turn to the far right.

[Broviet Union]

They tend to be hardcore global warming denialists.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Some of the odd bits from LaRouche's ideas:

-Believes that the British royal family secretly controls the world, and traces this back to a supposed conspiracy by Sir Isaac Newton and the Royal Society to undermine Gottfried Leibinz's work in calculus (no, I'm NOT making this up).

-wants to build nuclear powered desalinization plants off the coast of California.

-Wants to solve the world's water shortage by using tactical nukes to build a canal across the African continent.

-Thinks we need to build a high speed maglev railway between Alaska and Siberia (or else we're all doomed).

-Believes the only way to solve the AIDS crisis is with quarantine (his group actually managed to get this on the ballot in California back in '86).

-Believes that the Beatles were a creation of British Intelligent as a form of mind control.

-Has an obsession with nuclear power, bordering on the pathological.

-Remember the Strategy Defense Initiative, aka the 'Star Wars' program? LaRouche claims he's the guy who came up with the idea and suggested it to Reagan personaly.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

Some of the odd bits from LaRouche's ideas:

-Believes that the British royal family secretly controls the world, and traces this back to a supposed conspiracy by Sir Isaac Newton and the Royal Society to undermine Gottfried Leibinz's work in calculus (no, I'm NOT making this up).

-wants to build nuclear powered desalinization plants off the coast of California.

-Wants to solve the world's water shortage by using tactical nukes to build a canal across the African continent.

-Thinks we need to build a high speed maglev railway between Alaska and Siberia (or else we're all doomed).

-Believes the only way to solve the AIDS crisis is with quarantine (his group actually managed to get this on the ballot in California back in '86).

-Believes that the Beatles were a creation of British Intelligent as a form of mind control.

-Has an obsession with nuclear power, bordering on the pathological.

-Remember the Strategy Defense Initiative, aka the 'Star Wars' program? LaRouche claims he's the guy who came up with the idea and suggested it to Reagan personaly.

So let's see.

A mix between David Icke, Charles Manson, and right wing survivalist nuts.

[LiaSofia]

Some of the odd bits from LaRouche's ideas:

-Believes that the British royal family secretly controls the world, and traces this back to a supposed conspiracy by Sir Isaac Newton and the Royal Society to undermine Gottfried Leibinz's work in calculus (no, I'm NOT making this up).

-wants to build nuclear powered desalinization plants off the coast of California.

-Wants to solve the world's water shortage by using tactical nukes to build a canal across the African continent.

-Thinks we need to build a high speed maglev railway between Alaska and Siberia (or else we're all doomed).

-Believes the only way to solve the AIDS crisis is with quarantine (his group actually managed to get this on the ballot in California back in '86).

-Believes that the Beatles were a creation of British Intelligent as a form of mind control.

-Has an obsession with nuclear power, bordering on the pathological.

-Remember the Strategy Defense Initiative, aka the 'Star Wars' program? LaRouche claims he's the guy who came up with the idea and suggested it to Reagan personaly.

:laugh:

So where does he get his supporters from? Are they just people who've always been with the group or do they actively recruit members?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think they would become the fascist wing of the Democratic Party if they had the opportunity.



:laugh:

So where does he get his supporters from? Are they just people who've always been with the group or do they actively recruit members?they aggressively recruit and from what I've read online they basically moralize and disorient their own membership in order to keep them there... Yeah, like a cult. It's easy enough to believe from looking at them, but it's online stuff, so grain of salt.

I can only speak to what I've observed which is bad middle class politics oriented around reigning in the ruling class and socially disciplining the masses. They have racist and homophobic views and support u.s. Imperialism except when it's not popular to do so openly. They recruit from liberals at anti-war events and equally try and recruit at tea party rallies. They think any non-European popular music is "too sensual" and in the 2000s would sing shanties in favor of john Kerry.

They are very fascist-y. The post-war era Keynesianism is their u.s. Golden age when bosses were generous and people "knew their place".

[sixdollarchampagne]

Some of the odd bits from LaRouche's ideas:
.... -Believes that the British royal family secretly controls the world, and traces this back to a supposed conspiracy by Sir Isaac Newton and the Royal Society to undermine Gottfried Leibinz's work in calculus (no, I'm NOT making this up).....

Just two thoughts: In my humble opinion, Brandon, he of the impotent rage, has spent way too much time following the LaRouche press – I bet that stuff will get to you, through prolonged exposure. :)

Regarding the British Royal Family, I remember a SNL skit, years ago, where an actor mouthed LaRouche's notions about the evil doings of the Royal Family; the skit was hilarious (I don't mean to say that the Royal Family is benign, however; obviously, they should be overthrown like the Czar was).

EDIT: Speaking of the Royal Family, earlier this evening, Reuters reported that "[Reuters 7:11 p.m. EDT, July 22, 2014]

LONDON -- Queen Elizabeth's racehorse Estimate, the 2013 Ascot Gold Cup winner, has tested positive for the banned substance morphine, Buckingham Palace said on Tuesday…."

I bet LaRouche's minions will have a field day with that news.

[The Idler]

It's a cult. Stay away.

[motion denied]

-Believes that the Beatles were a creation of British Intelligent as a form of mind control.

Given that the Beatles are utter shit and most of the world seem to like them, I could believe this.

Wake up, sheeple!

[Red Commissar]

I've only met supporters of LaRouche on one occasion, and I wasn't even looking for them in the first place ie I wasn't participating in a political event.

Texas like the rest of the US is set to have a bunch of state and federal-level elections this coming November. One of these is for the Senate seat currently held by John Cornyn- its a forgone conclusion that he'll win re-election, as Republicans here only have to worry about primary challenges and he didn't have to even bother with that.

Regardless, the Democratic Party still fields candidates and had a primary, though its worth mentioning that the state party is pretty crap. It was a four-way race there for the candidates. One was coming of a failed run for the House in 2012 and was seen as more or less a conservative with a ton of money, another a former Republican, a progressive activist, and finally the LaRouchite.

The LaRouchite in this case, Kesha Rogers, was not a newcomer. She had caused a stir in Democratic circles in the last election cycles, or at least judging from some of my liberal contacts, because she managed to win the Democratic primary for the 22nd Congressional district, which more or less covers the conservative-dominated suburbs south of Houston for the 2010 and 2012 elections against the sitting incumbent. Again, like the Senate race it was a forgone conclusion who'd win but the fact she managed to be the Democratic candidate on the ballot in that district embarrassed the state party since, being a LaRouchite, she called for among other things an impeachment of President Obama (including up to a straight-up execution) and a repeal of the healthcare act/Obamacare.

It was on early voting week (back in early March) when I went to the library, which was also a voting station. It is not uncommon to see election staff, volunteers, and party activists nearby in a voting location here, though they take care to position themselves just far enough from the library not to be considered illegal. Anyways, this area had a number of Democrats or at least a source of votes, so there were some Democratic folk in addition to the substantially larger Republican crowd.

I had no intention of voting- I was going in to check out a fiction book that was recommended to me. Still, I took note of the ads, and it was on my way out of the library I noticed the LaRouchites. Frankly, were it not for this site I'd've not noticed them- with the Obama poster they had at first glance it just seemed like another one of the long-line of tea-party hopefuls. But I saw the mention of LaRouche on one of the Rogers' posters and stared at it longer than I should have, and this unfortunately meant that I got the attention of the two volunteers there. They first tried to size me up- knowing I was roughly in the same age as them so they thought I was a disillusioned Obama supporter and tried to sell me on the vague populist platform she was running on. They highlighted her support for single-payer medicine, increased funding for NASA and sciences, and a return to the FDR era Glass-Steagal Act, as well as pointing out Obama is only a tool for Wall Street. They tried to avoid the more tea-party sounding stuff and made it seem Rogers was running to the left of Obama, again probably for the benefit of the disillusioned youth who had voted for him 2008. Interestingly, they only mentioned LaRouche only when I pressed to ask who exactly Rogers was inspired by. I did not get them unfortunately to go into the weird territory involving the British royal family or trains. They topped this off by noting that Rogers was not a "politician" and that she came from a humble background (in my case, they used working class and blue collar, but in other cases they said lower-middle class).

I guess it may've been the strategy of these particular crew to be deliberately misleading about her and LaRouche to get votes in the primary, since I've heard from others they tend to be a lot more upfront about their positions to people. To certain individuals (as they did with me), they try to act as if they are to the left of Obama with populist positions. To those who are on right they get attention for a completely different reason- her call for Obama's impeachment and a repeal to Obamacare, the former of which even set her apart from some Republicans (despite often referring to it, many of them did not make it a feature of their campaigns that they'd impeach him). She also laid out her "skepticism" of climate change, which is odd considering her support for increased NASA funding seeing as NASA as an institution acknowledges climate change as real and caused by human activity. The NASA bit comes from two positions- LaRouchite's fetish for space colonization (Send Kesha to Congress, your grandchildren to Mars! was a dumb slogan they had), as well as hope for getting some attention as NASA employs people in the Houston area and its funding woes has led to employment being affected in that crowd. Still, it definitely made them stick out in the crowd by being a "left-sounding" as Republican-types would see it, all the while parroting much of the same rhetoric of tea baggers in the state, and thus the largely pro-Republican media in the state paid the most attention to her of the four primary candidates.

What disturbed me about this was that they were in the same general age I am, and they seemed to be genuinely taken by the platform she was running on; They probably got recruited from disillusioned young democrats who were probably leaning towards social democracy before or at least a scatterbrained populism. I already seen this unfortunately with the similarly aged clowns that follow Alex Jones around (I saw an entourage of them with him when he crashed the JFK memorial last November), and it is rather disheartening to see them commit to such broken and nutty ideologies. It's not much different from how libertarians have been misleading people though (or really many political ideologues) with surveillance politics, focusing on a hot button issue as a foot in the door to hopefully get a new convert to their cause. Thankfully, primaries are low turnouts so this doesn't reflect much in terms of how much clout the LaRouchites have, but they're definitely media trolls.

Rogers ended up coming second in the primary behind the rich guy with 110,146 votes, and she got enough to force a run-off, which she ended up losing. It goes without saying that the LaRouche crowd trumpeted this result, much the same as they did with the congressional run in 2012 and 2010. Obviously a lot of those who voted for Rogers were not LaRouchites, so it likely was a combination of voters who cast a vote for someone who appeared to be a liberal, right wingers wanting to muck things up (Texas has open primaries), and people who looked at the list of candidates last and picked the one who seemed the most 'real'.

It was funny really seeing the Democrats try to denounce Rogers even though they couldn't do anything about her appearing as a Democrat on the ballot, as well as how Republicans responded to the issue by claiming that Rogers was proof that Obama had dissension among his own ranks against his vile Obamacare and policies. I guess it's another case of no such thing as bad publicity for them though, since she arguably got more attention than the Democratic frontrunner, and by extension her lord and savior, Lyndon LaRouche. I suppose it was also an embarrassment for the 'progressive' candidate despite her many endorsements and help from various pro-Dem sites, she couldn't overcome the LaRouchite troll as well as her own poor media campaign.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I am feeling extremely lazy so I'll just quote myself:

'True Spartacist tales time!

LaDouche used to be a member of the Revolutionary Tendency in the SWP, back when he was still called Lynn Marcus. He was even a member of the Spartacist League for a few months, before he left for greener pastures of Wohlforth's Workers' League. Eventually he founded his own organisation, and the rest, as they say, is history, or at least history as it is written by drug-smuggling British royal interdimensional lizards.

Supposedly the inability to position himself as a leader played a major role in his departure from both the SL and the WL. Robertson and White were also uneasy about his more crackpot ideas. I don't know how Wohlforth responded to them - obviously their ideas about women, gay people and so on were in perfect accord. I always thought that if Wohlforth had cracked under pressure, he would have ended up likeLaRouche.

If Marcus ever had any grasp of Marxism - I think there was one article in the Spartacist penned by him, but it was slightly weird and had to be signed - LaRouche is hiding it extremely well. His ideas are, to put it charitably, crazy. Not crazy in the sense in which people call Sparts crazy - I mean crazy in the sense that he considers the construction of a particular rail network one of the major tasks of the modern civilisation, and has carried out a political struggle against a particular tuning. I almost feel bad making fun of what might be a seriously disturbed person (but is more likely a cynical cult leader), but then I remember what a racist, homophobic, transphobic and misogynist piece of work we're dealing with.

LaRouche is about as "left of centre" as his former buddy Wohlforth who now spends his days ranting about how the US government needs to bomb this or that country on the Internet.'

Actually, Marcus did write some "Marxist" analyses when he was in the ACFI; the SL characterised them as "right-wing and objectivist" at the time, and I think they were perfectly right. Also, I can't believe I didn't mention LaRouche's crusade to quarantine people with AIDS. That's the sort of level his "organisation" is on.

[rylasasin]

He's basically a breton pirate that resides in The Fo'c's'le boarding house and sleeps in the southernmost room from 2am to 8am, then either goes into the dining area, wanders the dock, or goes to The Flowing Bowl. If its not raining, he goes into Anvil and wanders around.
Other than the usual shtick about talking about mudcrabs and being an able seamen, there isn't much of note about-

... wait, we're not talking about the Oblivion NPC (Oblivion:Timothee_LaRouche)? My bad.

Yeah he's a world class nutter that makes time cube look sane. ... well maybe not.

Thankfully you don't run into his followers very often, not even on youtube. Most lolbertarians prefer the other nuts that at least carry the illusion of sanity, like rand or stefan.

[RedAnarchist]

It's a dangerous cult that may have murdered at least one person, I read about a Jewish student from this country who went to Germany to meet with some LaRouchites, and the events surrounding his death are both mysterious and disturbing.

[The Idler]

It's a dangerous cult that may have murdered at least one person, I read about a Jewish student from this country who went to Germany to meet with some LaRouchites, and the events surrounding his death are both mysterious and disturbing.
I saw a tv documentary on that.

[sixdollarchampagne]

I am feeling extremely lazy so I'll just quote myself:

'True Spartacist tales time! ...

Actually, Marcus did write some "Marxist" analyses when he was in the ACFI; the SL characterised them as "right-wing and objectivist" at the time, and I think they were perfectly right. Also, I can't believe I didn't mention LaRouche's crusade to quarantine people with AIDS. That's the sort of level his "organisation" is on.

The one article that I found on line by "Lynn Marcus" is on the International Socialist Review website – and I forget who was publishing the ISR back in 1961. Anyway, the article is "Depression Ahead," at http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isr/vol22/no01/marcus.html

I haven't read it, since I don't give a tinker's dam about LaRouche, but I wanted to share the info for anyone (probably a masochist) who wanted to read the article.