Tell me about Lyndon LaRouche!
If this thread gets good enough, it may even go to Great Debates!
What, is he still around?? I haven’t heard of him for decades, but I guess that could be because I’ve been over here for a while. Has he popped back into the news?
LaDouche? Yeah he’s still alive. His followers still try to bug people on campus.
I’ve made no effort to commit to memory his convoluted politics, but on surface some of his ideas look great. When you get down to the nitty-gritty, it’s all insane conspiracy theories. I’m surprised my MiL hasn’t latched onto his nutty politics yet.
Ummm… he’s effin’ nuts?
Here’s a clip from his Wiki:
“”“LaRouche youth movement
A significant change in the LaRouche organization since LaRouche was released from prison has been the development of the LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) beginning in 1999. Often described as a cult, which employs brainwashing techniques,[citation needed] the LYM’s recruitment of young people in the 18-25 year-old age bracket has reportedly brought more members into the LaRouche organization than at any time in the past. On September 9, 2003, members of the LYM interrupted a debate of the Democratic candidates for president at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland and disrupted Democratic Party candidates’ events during the 2004 campaign, occasionally leading to arrests.[citation needed]”"""
If you are in downtown Boston during election time, they WILL harass you, with a vengeance.
They’re even more aggressive than Mary Kay sellers, and that’s not an easy task.
Wiki will tell you all you need to know. He’s a nut whose time is (fortunately) passed, maybe best known for his fervent belief that Queen Elizabeth II is a drug dealer. The LaRoucheites’ high-water mark was probably in Illinois state elections in the mid-1980s, when several won Democratic nominations in a low-turnout primary. As soon as the electorate as a whole caught on, they all went down to defeat, IIRC.
:mad: I was going to come in this thread and mention how much I enjoy his Orson Welles impressions. Turns out I was thinking about this guy. D’oh!
In 1986 two followers of LaRouche, Mark Fairchild and Janice Hart, defeated establishment candidates Aurelia Pucinski and George Sangmeister to win the Democratic nominations for Illinois Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State.
To this day, no one has figured out exactly how or why this happened. Low turnout certainly contributed, as the Democratic “machine” at the time was Balkanized by racial feuding during the Harold Washington mayoralty. Many people felt that the “smooth sounding”, non-ethnic names of the LaRouchies helped them win. (This was long before Rod Blagojevich or Barack Obama!) In any case, they received only single digit support in the general election, and I haven’t heard much of them since at least in Illinois.
Fill a bowl with almonds, cashews, and pecans.
This bowl does a good job of demonstrating LaRouche’s political view points: Nutty. 
His existence gave us a great Simpsons line, which I actually use from time to time.
“Oh, no! Aliens, bio-duplication, nude conspiracies… Oh my God! Lyndon LaRouche was right!”
LaRouche’s politics are hard to describe, as he jumps about the spectrum a great deal with a weird mix of New Dealism, outright socialism, and massive conspiracy theories.
The best way to explain it is this: LaRouche does not believe the Information Economy exists. The only thing - in LaRouche’s opinion - that determines the size and scope of a country’s economy is its manufacturing base. America’s manufacturing and mining output has been steadily declining for the last thirty years as a result of changing to a Information economy where technological innovation and information processing is our main creation and export, but LaRouche interprets this decline to indicate that the American economy has been shrinking since 1976 or so. As a result, in LaRouche’s mind, more than a third of Americans are actually currently unemployed, and the rest have seen a massive wage deflation.
The only reason, LaRouche states, that most Americans are unaware of this is a massive goverment and media cover-up. All government economic statistics (save those showing manufacturing decreased) are lies, and the media reports them because if they don’t, they get killed or thrown in jail on trumped-up charges (like LaRouche was in the mid-80’s for failing to report campaign income and pay taxes on it).
As a result, LaRouche campaigns on two major issues: first, restoring the American economy to strength by a massive government spending project to re-invigorate our manufacturing base in a way that FDR would consider “out-there”. If I remember from the flyer I was handed once, LaRouche envisions creating a gigantic Light and Heavy Rail Network that would put the Interstate Highway System to shame, and a gigantic series of Nuclear Reactors to keep the country powered for eternity.
Second, LaRouche campaigns against the evil Masonic-Illuminati-Bohemian Grove conspiracy that has kept the government lying to people about the true state of the economy. LaRouche believes that England - and specifically the Royal Family - is behind this conspiracy to keep America subservient to them, and that every president since Carter has been a part of this.
There are accusations that his organization is actually a cult, and on the surface, there’s a lot to support that - most of his “supporters” are young people who only socialize with other supporters and take LaRouche’s word as complete and utter gospel. They tend to hang around either the Department of Motor Vehicles or public transportation to pass out flyers, shout slogans, and carry bizzarre signs (such as the ones popular in the early 1990’s accusing President Bush and Queen Elizabeth of running the world’s largest cocaine cartel).
Heh–I used to work for the Mass. Secretary of State, and they’d set up their tables and come on in with their signatures like any other political party, with their own photographers and everything (most legit candidates will come in themselves to be photographed genially shaking hands with the workers at Elections as they hand in their formal papers at the window, but LaRouche himself never came up and the workers who did weren’t exactly social). They are all over Boston and New England and initially disguise themselves as another respectable third party, of which there are many there–Libertarians and Socialists are quite common on the ballot.
They often change their name to confuse people; I remember one year they called themselves the New Democratic Party. :rolleyes:
See the following threads:
LaRouche Youth Movement, You are some G-damned SOBs!
Lyndon Larouche-Who and what is he?
What’s the connection between Lyndon LaRouche and the Pythagorean Theorem?
What’s the deal with LaRouche?
See also this Wikipedia article.
All I know about him is that my dad supported him decades ago when he ran for president. (LaRouche ran, that is, not my dad). Apparently he wanted to come stay at our house while in the city campaigning :eek: My mom said no, they didn’t need a nutcase visiting, thanks.