Well, it makes sense, assuming that you have no desire to live in the real world.
LaRouche’s basic position is that this country is in a massive economic decline, and has been since the early 1950’s. As proof of this, he points to the stagnation in resource development and extraction. Because the United States mines less copper in 2004 than it did in 1938, we have actually undergone economic decline, is his argument. The development of a service economy, the expansion of white collar jobs, the growth of technical fields and technical production, all based upon blue collar labor and resource extraction being contracted overseas where it can be done cheaper- this is, in his mind, selling off our real economy and will lead to a massive economic depression.
Think about that for a minute or two: your life is inestimably worse than that of your grandparents because you no longer work in a factory or a mine. That’s his essential point.
To stop this coming crisis, LaRouche’s plan is for a new New Deal. This works on two points. First, a massive increase in tariffs to block out cheap foreign goods and to force Americans to rely on American labor and American production again, thus spurring the new creation of industry across the country. Second, a massive investment in infrastructure, specifically: the creation of new dams for every major river in order to provide power for our new factories and mines, as well as jobs for the 25% of Americans he believes to be unemployed; in addition, a huge magnetic train system will be built across the country to support the massive shipment of materials the new mines will produce and our new factories will consume.
So, again- if you’ve every watched a film about the early 20th century and looked at factory workers and massive industry sprawling across the plains and said to yourself, “Geez, I wish we still had that,” LaRouche is your man.
Now, add on top of that his belief that the British Empire, as led by the Queen, is still a global power operating akin to the Illuminati in trying to manipulate world events, the drug market, wars, and poverty (after all, who keeps America down? A bunch of WASPs like the Bushes and the Carters and the Nixons, who obviously serve the British Empire in keeping the American economy in the shitter while shipping off jobs to assist Britain), and add in bald-stated facts that even most leftist here on the board don’t say with a straight face (Bush is a coke-fiend given to fits of psychosis and sadism, who lets Cheney actually run the government and set policy).
What stuns me are the number of college students who buy into this. I’ve heard LaRouche supporters described as a cult, and I can’t disagree too much- how does any modern college student, going to a modern liberal arts school, buy into this reactionary notion that America is deprived because it doesn’t have enough factory workers? I mean, hell, it’s not like these kids are going to college to become factory workers, but that seems to be what LaRouche wants them to do.
