What's the deal with LaRouche?

[Paladud]

“Oh my God, Lyndon LaRouche was right!”
-Homer Simpson, upon seeing Clinton and Dole naked in tubes inside a flying saucer, '96 Treehouse of Horror

I’ve encountered people handing out his pamphlets at my college and occasionally in other places. Out of sheer curiosity, I read through several of them. I didn’t entirely understand what exactly he wanted to accomplish (other than centralizing a lot of power.)

I decided to look up some of his essays on his website to clear things up. Big mistake. I read through several pages. Other than some unflattering remarks about some MIT professors, the stuff made no sense.

What’s the deal with him? What does he want to achieve?

[Bricker]

@Paladud

What’s the deal with him? What does he want to achieve?

Nomination by the Democratic Party as their Presidential candidate.

[madmonk28]

In the 80s he wanted to put people with AIDS in camps. Once, I was walking into a DMV in Virginia wearing a Billie Idol concert shirt (it was the 80s, what can I say) and this Larouche supporter was trying to get me to sign a petition. I remember he was telling me that mosquitos can carry HIV and I said that that wasn’t true to which he responded: “Billie Idol isn’t going to cure AIDS, sir!”

If only we knew that then.

[Lambo]

Madmonk, There’s still hope. Why do you think you haven’t seen much of Billy in a while?

Seriously, though. You don’t even have to get to the actual content of LaRouche’s beliefs to be turned off, just meeting the average LaRouche booster will do it. I swear, the man could have an actual, workable plan to teach the poor to shit gold in three easy steps, and I still wouldn’t be paying attention. Instead, I would be (silently) asking, ‘Now, did you forget to brush your teeth before or after you forgot to zip your pants?’

Or is that just the South Dakota LaRoucians?

[BrainGlutton]

@Lambo

Or is that just the South Dakota LaRoucians?

No, it’s pretty much all of them . . . remember those guys who used to hang out in airports handing out leaflets promoting nuclear power? They seem to have a totally religious faith in the power of technology to solve all our problems.

I first became aware of the LaRouchies in the early '80s when I was an undergrad at Georgetown University and found some of their pamphlets lying around. They were calling for a space-based missile-defense system (a couple of years before Reagan announced his SDI plan). But what struck me was the rhetoric about the abominable evil of Aristotle, Khomeini and Kissinger as against the goodness and wisdom of Plato, Beethoven and LaRouche.

LL started as a leftist radical in the '60s (he published at least one book under the pen-name “Lyn Marcus,” from Lenin and Marx). In the early '70s he founded something called the U.S. Labor Party (now defunct). But somehow, his world-view suffered a sea-change into something rich and strange. He developed a Manichean, good-vs.-evil theory of history.

On the good side: Plato, Hamilton, urbanism, industrialism, technology, “humanists,” “golden souls,” Schiller, Beethoven.

On the evil side: Aristotle, Jefferson, aristocracy, agrarianism, Bertrand Russell and other “British philosophers,” the British royal family (which runs the drug trade), that “British-backed Austrian hippie” Adolf Hitler, that “pot-puffing fop” William Buckley, Henry Kissinger, Israel.

Some critics assert that when LaRouche says “British” he really means “Jewish”. See Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism by Dennis King (Bantam Dell, 1989).

But what has always perplexed me about the LaRouche movement is that it is a movement – not just one crank turning out incomprehensible books, but a dedicated cult of followers, with what appear to be some very well-financed publications. I’ve always wondered where they get their money.

You might want to check out some of LL’s websites:

The Executive Intelligence Review: http://www.larouchepub.com/

His think-tank, the Schiller Institute: http://www.schillerinstitute.com/

And his LaRouche in 2004 campaign website: http://larouchein2004.net/

From his April 2004 speech, “The LaRouche Doctrine” (http://larouchein2004.net/pages/speeches/2004/040430webcasttr.htm):

The problem today is, at this moment–as you probably notice some of the data coming out of Europe–the financial crisis has reached a point of maturity which I’m not surprised by, but it’s happening: The system is breaking down. It is crumbling. We do not have, yet, a collapse in the full sense of the term, but we have a process of crumbling around the world, today, and yesterday, and so forth, which is extremely ominous.

There are some people who have been talking about postponing the crisis until after the November elections: That will not happen. Of that, we can be sure. The crisis is here. It can not be postponed. This is May. You’re not going to postpone this crisis, until November. It’s coming on. It probably is coming on, before the summer arrives. And no one in the United States, in a position of leadership–there are some people in the woodwork; there are some people who are staff people; some people in government, who would be prepared to act appropriately–but we don’t have a President, or a leading candidate for President in the form of Kerry, who is qualified emotionally or intellectually to do the things that are absolutely indispensable, without compromise, to deal with, first of all the monetary-financial crisis, the economic crisis, or to deal with the situation in Iraq. . . .

I’ve made a proposal on this question of Southwest Asia, which will work. A number of people from various countries around the world, leading people, have proposed that I take certain things into account. Some of them will probably, in the question and answer [session], today, will pose those questions to me; and I shall respond to them. But, I can assure you, that there can be no compromises, with what I have proposed. I have not proposed too much. I’ve proposed a minimal approach to getting this situation in Iraq and adjoining countries under control. People think that this is a matter of negotiating a contract. People are trying to put their two cents in, in the sense, as we say here: their condition, their condition, their condition. Forget it! Forget contracts! What we need for the area, there, is, we need a form of agreement which follows precisely the guidelines of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which brought a long period of religious warfare to an end. We’re now dealing with an area which has been reduced to religious warfare and to related conflicts in the Middle East, as it’s called. You are not going to deal with that kind of situation, by making a contract agreement, like a bunch of dumb lawyers, Washington lawyers, coming in and trying to bargain points.

Don’t try to do this the way that President Clinton goofed the negotiations at Camp David, on Israeli-Palestinian peace. Get that out of your mind! It is not going to work. As a matter of fact, there is going to be no solution for the crisis in Southwest Asia, unless we can adopt it as my doctrine, by name. Because nobody else has the credibility to do what has to be done–that is, no candidate, no other spokesman for the United States–has the credibility to make that proffer, and no one can be trusted to carry it through.

The same thing is true on the question of the economic crisis. No one, in the United States, in a leading position, apart from my leading position, is prepared to even consider doing the absolute minimal things, that have to be done, to prevent this nation, and many of the nations of the world, from collapsing, into a deeper depression–far deeper, far worse–than 1929-33. It’s coming on now.

Now, the problem is that I am blocked out from official discussion, with whole channels of people, who should be talking to me, about precisely these questions. I have the expertise, I have the qualifications; they don’t. If they’re serious about saving the country and dealing with the problem, they would talk with me. Why don’t they talk? Well, some of them do, in indirect ways. But they don’t talk directly. We don’t get into a dialogue. What does that mean?

There are people, in the system, certain financier interests in particular–people typified by Lazard Frères, typified by Felix Rohatyn, and similar types–whose approach to the world financial crisis today, is to follow the guidelines that were carried out by the man who put Hitler into power in Germany: Hjalmar Schacht. What is being proposed, as you see in the imposition of conditionalities toward Argentina–the new ones, the so-called “vulture funds”–are exactly a forecast of what these people intend to do to the people of the United States, as well as other countries, as this crisis becomes worse. Everything will be cut, except the interest payments to the bankers, as was done by Schacht and company, over the period 1929-33, in response to the onrush of what had been known to be, at that time, as an onrushing, general world depression.

People will die, if these bankers have their way. These bankers, and the interests they are associated with, control the Republican and Democratic Party election machines. They are presently controlling Senator Kerry. They control the people on whose lap President Bush sits, to take orders.

To some of us, this stuff is like porn! Can’t get enough! Hoo-boy fun!

[FriarTed]

What Brain Glutton said.

Around 1985. I was making a road trip with a couple of college buddies & for entertainment, we were reading a LaRouche book out loud. The driver was a serious music student & I was reading a passage on LaRouche’s theory of music & harmony & its application to rational/irrational thought & political order/disorder. Within one sentence, LaRouche who has been making a sensible A->B->C argument suddenly leaps with no coprehensible reason to Q. We dissected that
sentence for about 15 minutes until we decided that no sense could be made of it.

[C3]

I’ve been in Australia for about two months now and I’ve seen several ads for the Citizens Electoral Council - apparently some sort of LaRouche-inspired (backed?) organization. I’m dozing in front of the television and my little ears perked right up when I heard “LaRouche”. I’ve always heard what a lunatic he was and couldn’t believe he’d spread all the way over here.
This organization has someone running in a local election - she actually sounds pretty normal in the ad.
Here’s their website:
Citizens Electoral Council

Click on “Children of Satan III” and read about “Beast-Man Cheney”! Loads of fun!

[Paul_in_Qatar]

LLaR has been politically active for a very long time, he started as a Communist (I think) and moved to the Center and now (arguably) quite to the Right. He has tried to control political groups, breaking off from mainstream groups and establishing his own.

He is now denounce as a ‘Bonapartist’ which is a most amusing word. All in all it means he does not have any political doctrine save his own political leadership. That is to say it is a Cult of Personality.

In any case, he keeps going like the Energizer Bunny. He is not harmless, having been convicted of credit card fraud. (I saw his speech where he said he suspected he was going to be killed ‘in The Joint.’)

For more on this guy, check out the Wikipedia at: Here

[Dr.Rieux]

He’s basically L. Ron Hubbard, but without the writing ability or business savvy.

[GLWasteful]

Always treated him as something that I had stepped in. However, when I was acting as caretaker for a couple of aged relatives, I noticed that in their retirement community he had propaganda everywhere. Lying on coffee tables in common areas, tucked into the volumes in the bookshelves and once as a presentation in the men’s room.

So, does he have some sort of inside track to retirement homes? Or is it more likely that there was a nutbag resident? I don’t think that the facility itself was owned by LaRoucheites, but I suppose it’s possible.

[cuauhtemoc]

@Dr. Rieux

He’s basically L. Ron Hubbard, but without the writing ability or business savvy.

I think of him as a grammatically correct and incredibly long winded version of Timecube Guy.

It’s so funny to see this thread, because I was about to start a similar one earlier this week. There were a couple of LaRouche supporters with a table set up in the train station during my afternoon commute. A guy tried to hand me Children of Satan III while mumbling something about “our stupid government”. At first I walked right by him, but then I thought back to my first encounter with a LaRouche Supporter about 12 years ago…

They had a table set up outside the Student Center. The name “LaRouche” was a punchline to me, having only heard of him as “The guy who thinks the Queen of England is a dope dealer”. I asked the one of the folks what their candidate was all about.

“We want to create a Renaissance in Human Learning,” he replied.

“Okay,” I said. “What does that mean?”

“It means exactly what it says. We want to create a Renaissance in Human Learning.”

“But, in practical terms, what does it mean? What are your goals? What is your candidate’s platform?”

“We want to create a Renaissance in Human Learning!” he replied again, punctuating every word, as if he was talking to a stubborn child. “For example, did you know that there are words to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy? You pay a lot of money to go to school here, expecting them to give you an education, and they don’t even teach you the words to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy! Just like the only economic theory they teach here is Adam Smith! Most college students have never even heard of…” and he spouted off the names of two or three people I’d never heard of.

I turned to the other tabler and said “What about you? Do you want to create a Renaissance in Human Learning too?” He started to mumble something, as Tabler #1 started singing, in German, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, his wide open arms gesturing for me to join him in song, when we had already established that I don’t know the words.

I eventually gave up, but he did send me away with a copy of their paper The New Federalist, from which I later read an article entitled “Why are the British Killing American Presidents?” which attempted to implicate the British Crown in the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy. “Boy,” I thought, “This guy really hates the British!”

I related the story of my encounter to my roommate, who happened to be en entirely different kind of political radical, and he told me about something called Operation Mop-Up, wherein some of LaRouche’s supporters were involved in violent activities during the early seventies. Punchline or not, I was starting to get the impression that the guy was not completely harmless.

So, flash forward to the train station the other day. I thought I’d be missing an opportunity to enjoy the rich tapestry of craziness if I didn’t try to talk to this guy. So I went back and took a copy of Children of Satan III, and for probably the last time, asked a LaRouche supporter what their movement was all about.

He said something about how “young men used to work on cars, just for fun!” He showed me a picture of some children who had built steam engine, standing next to the steam engine they had built. I suppose Lyndon LaRouche inspired the children to build a steam engine or something. Then he said a lot of things I don’t remember, because they were too disconnected from my reality to register as anything other than background noise. And then, out of nowhere, he pointed to the donation can and said “Any contribution you could make, it would really help.” I said I had to catch my train, but told him to have a good evening.

Imagine, I had a two-minute conversation with this guy, giving him every opportunity to say something substantive about the goals of his movement, the platform of his candidate… anything that wasn’t complete nonsense. He couldn’t do it, and he still asked for a donation! A donation to what? What kind of a person could this guy inspire a donation out of? "I don’t know what he’s talking about, but it’s so crazy… It just might work!!! <plink>"

And CoS III? It’s cryptic, dense, and, as I said before, incredibly long winded. It’s hard to read and understand something when your brain instinctively recognizes it as a waste of time and filters it out as noise, but I managed to plow through a few pages on the way home on the train. Basically, secret societies who have run the world for hundreds of years are all out to get him for exposing the elaborate web of alliances which allows them to dominate the world. Who would have thought it?

[Steve_MB]

@cuauhtemoc

Basically, secret societies who have run the world for hundreds of years are all out to get him for exposing the elaborate web of alliances which allows them to dominate the world. Who would have thought it?

Fnord.

[BrainGlutton]

@Dr. Rieux

He’s basically L. Ron Hubbard, but without the writing ability or business savvy.

No business savvy? I’ve always wondered about that. The LaRouchies have in the past published a very slick-looking publication, Executive Intelligence Review (don’t know whether it’s still coming out in print format). I’ve always wondered: Where are they getting their money?

[Paladud]

Regarding the Time Cube thing: words fail me; maniacal laughter does not. Only a Vonnegut character could be that deranged.

[Kent_Clark]

@Bricker

Nomination by the Democratic Party as their Presidential candidate.

Does anyone remember back in the 80s when the LaRouchies took advantage of a listless Illinois Democratic primary to actually get a couple of their candidates nominated? (I think they were for Lt. Governor and Sec. of State or something like that.) This forced the “official” Democratic party to campaign on a platform of “For God’s sake, please vote Republican!”

[Redwing]

I remember when I first heard of LaRouche: while I was going to school someone gave me a paper by/about him, telling me I’d be interested because I was so “political”. It said something about Bush and Thatcher being slave traders, and was massively incoherent; but what I remember most was that it gave LaRouche’s residence as “Southeastern Rochester, Minnesota”.

“Whoa,” says I, “why haven’t I heard of this guy, seeing as how I’ve lived most of my life in 'southeastern Rochester, Minnesota?” So I call my mother, who tells me that he’s in the minimum security prison, not loose in the world.

[BrainGlutton]

@Redwing

So I call my mother, who tells me that he’s in the minimum security prison, not loose in the world.

Not any more . . . according to the Wikipedia link above, he was released in 1993.

Guys like this do, at least, provide a public service in making politics a bit more entertaining, which adds a bit to public level of interest in it, which is indispensable for a healthy democracy, don’t you think?

[jsc1953]

I first encountered Lovable Lyndon in the early 80s (possibly '84? being an election year), when he gathered up all his funds and bought a 30-min infomercial, that I stumbled on by accident. And what an absolutely slack-jawed wondrously loony experience it was…all I recall now were his casual references to the Queen’s involvement in the drug trade, repeated uses of the phrase “agent of influence” (possibly in reference to Henry Kissinger), and something about digging a canal through Africa.

[BrainGlutton]

Regarding the question of where they get their money – here’s what the Wikipedia has to say (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larouche):

The size of the LaRouche empire led to investigations of the source of its apparently extensive financial resources. Like most cults, the LaRouche organisation devotes much of its energy to the sale of literature and the soliciting of small donations at airports and on university campuses. It also operates more sophisticated telemarketing groups, soliciting donations by phone, usually under the guise of various patriotic front organisations to conceal the real source of the phone calls. More seriously, however, LaRouche was accused of fraudently soliciting “loans” from vulnerable elderly people, sometimes giving completely misleading explanations for the loan (“funding the Strategic Defense Initiative” or “finding a cure for AIDS”). The funds thus raised were then directed into a maze of dummy companies so as to avoid both taxation and attempts to recover the “loans.”

In October 1986 the FBI and Virginia state authorities raided the LaRouche headquarters in Leesburg in search of evidence to support the persistent accusations of fraud and extortion made against LaRouche. He and six associates were charged with conspiracy and mail fraud, and LaRouche was also charged with conspiring to hide his personal income since 1979, the last year he had filed a federal tax return. In December 1988 a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia convicted LaRouche and his associates, and LaRouche was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, of which he served five.

The prosecution alleged that LaRouche and his staff solicited loans with false assurances to potential lenders and showed “reckless disregard” of the facts. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kent Robinson presented evidence that LaRouche’s organisation had solicited US$34 million in loans since 1983. The most important evidence was the testimony of lenders, many of them elderly retirees, who had lost thousands of dollars in loans to LaRouche that were never repaid. Several witnesses were LaRouche followers who testified under immunity from prosecution.

In addition to LaRouche, his chief fund-raiser, William Wertz, was convicted on ten mail fraud counts. LaRouche’s legal adviser, Edward Spannaus, and several other fundraising operatives were convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud. LaRouche denied all the charges, calling them “an all-out frame-up by a state and federal task force,” and said that the federal government was trying to kill him. “The purpose of this frame-up is not is not to send me to prison. It’s to kill me,” LaRouche said. “In prison it’s fairly easy to kill me… If this sentence goes through, I’m dead.” This proved to be another false prediction: LaRouche was released unharmed in 1993.

One of the most striking aspects of the trial was the revelation of LaRouche’s personal wealth. While lenders were told that LaRouche had no money to repay their loans, he in fact spent US$4.2 million on real estate in Virginia and on “improvements” to his 200-acre Leesburg estate. These included a swimming pool and horse riding ring.

:eek:

This is also interesting:

It is true, however, that LaRouche had some contacts with low-level officials of the Reagan Administration. Between 1981 and 1985 LaRouche met with Norman Bailey, then a member of the National Security Council (NSC), and with some other NSC and Central Intelligence Agency officials. This followed a concerted campaign by LaRouche to develop close relations with the Reagan Administration, by publishing flattering articles about administration officials in the LaRouche press. Bailey later claimed that LaRouche was able to provide him with useful information, gathered by LaRouche’s network of affiliates in many countries, but other intelligence officials deny the Administration gained any useful intelligence from LaRouche. The contacts between LaRouche and the administration ended after protests from former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and other prominent Republicans.

double- :eek:

[FriarTed]

Paul in Saudi- I don’t know when LaRouche was ever in the Center except for a few seconds in leaping from Extreme Left (he was an avowed Trotskyite) to Extreme Right (tho at early as 1978 the John Birch Society was warning its members not to be taken in by him).

My favorite 30 min infomercial was in the late 80s which focused on how US foreign policy was pursuing a course set by the “racist Satanic degenerate” Klan-founder & Scottish-Rite-Masonic guru Albert Pike. It was glorious!