North American Labour Party/Party for the Commonwealth of Canada/Parti pour la république du Canada is/was the Canadian Larouchan party. They ran in a bunch of provincial elections.
Several years ago, I saw them at Logan airport. They had a sign that said something like, “Support the Space Program Send Ted Kennedy to the Moon.” I could probably get behind that.
LaRouchism is a gnostic cult that masquerades as a political movement. About 20 years ago they would place a table with weird placards at the entrance to the local DMV. The most memorable was during the AIDS scare: “Mosquitos don’t wear condoms”
Here is an article about the movement by a former member who is now a poltical columnist: http://www.firstthings.com/on_the_square_entry.php?year=2009&month=05&title_link=confessions-of-a-coward
On tax day this year, they had a booth set up in front of my post office in NYC. I tried to engage one of them in conversation, but ran into the same thing flonks did. There were three points they guy kept hitting over and over. 1) Obama has been brainwashed by ‘The Chicago Economists’, 2) Can you make a donation?, and 3) Would you sign up for our newsletter?
Anytime I asked a direct question, he would go back to the newsletter line, so I could never find out what they were actually all about (although on second thought it did give me a pretty good idea).
Am I right in saying LR shared a jail cell with Jim Bakker? (Of did I remember the wrong name?) In his book Bakker (?) said LR was nutty as a fruitcake and had raisins for eyes.
(rejects obvious joke as just too easy)
I picked up a few pamphlets when they were handing them out at my college. The basic gist of their ideas seem to be that trains solve everything
Really Not All That Bright, give what puddleglum says here your full attention. LaRouchism has nothing to do with actual politics. That’s why you can’t figure out what their political values are. All it’s about is spreading the name of their dear leader and boosting his reputation.
A few years ago I was in India and I noticed an article in the local paper about how LaRouche had organized some kind of symposium on a Eurasian land bridge or some such thing. I didn’t understand a word of it, and I don’t think the newspaper did either.
What I remember about those pamphlets is a centuries-spanning Manichean struggle between the philosophic traditions of Plato (good) and Aristotle (evil). Apparently high-tech and industry are on the Platonic side, and landed aristocracy and agrarianism on the Aristotelian side. No, I don’t get it either. But if The Republic is anything to go by, Plato is the better inspiration for totalitarianism.
He’s seen the cave where the Jews hide all the money. It’s somewhere under New York.
As a naive freshman at orientation I had no idea who LaRouche was, but realized something was odd when the girl handing out flyers suddenly started talking about how they had a “camp” to learn about “astronomy”. :dubious: