Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:05, 20 August 2004

This list is presented as a guide to honest editors. Many of these issues have been discussed at some length but attempts to address them have been met with edit wars. The article as it presently stands is based almost entirely on the output of the John Trail Salon, a grouping of operatives funded in particular by Richard Mellon Scaife, otherwise known for his sponsorship of the slander factory against U.S. President Bill Clinton. The two individuals who made a career of sorts out of attacking LaRouche are Dennis King and Chip Berlet.

I am working to update this, and make it reflect the fact that the LaRouche article has been split.

I have moved the closed issues to archive1.--Herschelkrustofsky 13:20, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Here is the unreworked edition of this page. Martin 20:21, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Content relating to Jews, Judaism, Zionism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Semitism, has been moved to Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/Jewish issues

The following issues remain unresolved.

Support for R&D

• "By the 1980s, LaRouche had became a strong advocate of nuclear power and the Strategic Defense Initiative. The LaRouche organization raised funds for the NCLC from supporters of these projects." Andy is re-writing history, in an attempt to support the shopworn "swing from left to right" theory. The LaRouche organization supported nuclear energy, especial fusion, throughout the 1970s. There was an issue of the Campaigner around 1973, I believe, with the cover story on "Nuclear Fusion." In 1977, the U.S. Labor Party put out a mass circulation pamphlet entitled Sputnik of the 70s: the Science Behind the Soviets' Beam Weapon. The Strategic Defense Initiative, which was indeed modeled on LaRouche's proposals, was announced in March of 1983.

Club of Life

• "The group also adopted a position against abortion and ran a front group named "Club of Life" on the issue." The Club of Life was formed in response to attacks on LaRouche by the anti-abortion movement (which is inconvenient for Andy, who is attempting to lump LaRouche in with various "right-wing" causes). LaRouche has consistently refused to take a stand one way or the other on abortion (Andy, your memory must be failing, because you yourself put a link on one of the archived talk pages to a video clip from the Democratic Convention, where an enraged Baby Boomer was demanding that a member of the LaRouche Youth Movement take a position pro or con on abortion, which the youngster was refusing to do.) LaRouche has, however, attacked the philosophy of Malthusianism, and has attacked the right-to-lifers for their hypocritical refusal to fight euthanasia and the genocide being carried out against the Third World. The fact is, Andy, LaRouche has never sucked up to anyone in an attempt to gain support; he has never modified his own views in an attempt to gain support; he didn't modify his views to stay out of jail, although he was given that opportunity; your POV is all wet.

LaRouche vs. Cheney

• "He also claims to be leading a campaign, begun in October 2002 (http://www.larouchepub.com/pr_lar/2002/020922_cheney_must_resign.html), to have Dick Cheney dumped from the Republican ticket. Like most LaRouche campaigns, this has received little if any notice in the media or among the general public." In fact, there were major attacks on this campaign by the Wall Street Journal and the National Review, which Andy well knows because he attempted to downplay their significance over at Talk:Leo Strauss. As far as the general public is concerned, did Andy travel down to the U.S. and take a poll? Over 4 million pamplets, and a larger number of leaflets, on the question of Cheney and the Straussian Chickenhawks were distributed on the streets of the U.S. And there was nothing the media cartels could do to stop it. (While we are on the subject of the National Review, I note that Andy has taken to quoting Gregory Rose. Rose may not be the most reliable source -- following his period of cohabiting with William F. Buckley, Rose reported, in a private conversation and in all seriousness, that Buckley had sexual relations with his pet spaniel.)

Base of support

• "LaRouche and his movement continued their journey to the right, abandoning any orientation towards labor in the late 1970s and soliciting funds instead from the wealthy." This is a fantasy, concocted to support bogus POV.

Oh? So you're saying LaRouche gets his support from factory workers then? The fact is that it was in the mid-1970s that the LaRouche movement stopped actively trying to recruit "the working class" and moved their fundraising efforts to airports and the like to target more affluent people. When did you start hanging out in airports instead of by factory gates, Herschel? If this is a "fantasy" then does that mean the LaRouchians one encounters at LAX and JFK are a mere mirage?AndyL 21:27, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I am saying that LaRouche gets his support from factory workers, as well as a broad cross-section of the American population. During each of his campaigns during the 80s, LaRouche published lists of endorsements from Union officials. The fact is, Andy, you are engaging in pure POV speculation, and your snotty tone is poor Wikiquette. --Herschelkrustofsky 22:07, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

FBI informer?

• "He now maintains that he was soon disillusioned with Marxism and stayed in the SWP only as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
• "Once again, LaRouche now maintains that he was an FBI agent during all this activism."

Neither Adam nor Dennis King provides a source for this quote, because there is none. This is a particularly wild and egregious invention.

This should be sourced, I agree. john k 03:35, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This is certainly not "undocumentable." Since this is describing LaRouche's own claims, it should be able to be documented fairly easily. john k 17:50, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

They're someone else's claims. --Herschelkrustofsky 21:00, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've read this elsewhere. Hershell ,what do you say LaRouche says to excuse his long sojurn in the SWP?

He has said many things, but not that one. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:01, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You haven't answered my question. How does LaRouche explain his long sojurn in the SWP and then continuing to call himself a Marxist until the mid-1970s?AndyL 16:38, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm not disputing the fact that he was a Marxist. I'm disputing the allegation that he was an FBI informant. --Herschelkrustofsky 21:00, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No one is saying he was an FBI informant. They are saying that LaRouche claimed to be an FBI informant. I seem to recall he explained away his long sojurn with the SWP etc by making that claim in his book "The Power of Reason". Does anyone have access to a copy? I'm amazed there has been no "Collected Works of Lyndon LaRouche" published ;) AndyL 19:43, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

From The Power of Reason: 1988 an autobiography by Lyndon H LaRouche pg 108:

Amidst these developments, I was induced to reencounter the SWP.

I had turned from making my routine purchases at the lobby newsstand in New York City's Chanin Building when I was accosted by an amiable gentleman who identified himself in a hushed voice as Special Agent Coffey of the FBI. He must speak with me about the SWP, which had become the major national security concern of his bureau. Could we step to one side to speak? Being an amiable fellow myself, I gestured to the opposite side of the lobby, where the windows of Longchamps' restaurant overlooked the morning bustle towards the elevator banks

Would I work for the FBI inside the SWP? Against old friends and acquainances, who were essentially as patriotic, in their own way, as the FBI itself? By no means; leave them in peace to find their own way. Yet, although I would not volunteer that fact in an off-chance encounter with the FBI, there were a few aournd the SWP leadership who I thought quite capbable of doing things behind the backs of the SWP membership in general. I offered Coffey a compromise; I would not be an FBI spy, but I would not condone acts against national security. He could assume that I would act accordingly.

AndyL 20:47, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Say what? Try typing that one again. I assume that the typos are what make it impossible to understand. --Herschelkrustofsky 20:59, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've fixed the passage. AndyL 21:06, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Herschel, do you stand by your statement that the claim that LaRouche said he remained in the SWP because of the FBI is "is a particularly wild and egregious invention"? It seems that, as with your other objections (eg the Holocust), this claim of yours is built on sand. Do any of your objections stand up to scrutiny? Are you deliberately lying or do you simply not know what LaRouche has actually said?AndyL 21:54, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Why, yes, I do stand by it. LaRouche isn't saying he would spy for the FBI. He says (allow me to remind you from your own citation): "I would not be an FBI spy, but I would not condone acts against national security." What is unclear about that? LaRouche makes quite clear, in the book you cite, what his reasons were for remaining in the SWP. You have a bad habit of trying to twist all research to suit your own cherished theories, which is particularly inappropriate behavior for a person who aspires to be a Misplaced Pages editor. --Herschelkrustofsky 22:42, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The point is that LaRouche is fibbing about his Marxist past. If you read his autobiographies he denies he was a Marxist but claims he was a "Hamiltonian" all along. He makes the bizarre claim that he joined the SWP in 1948 because Eisenhower decided not to seek the Democratic nomination for the presidency (!) and goes to great lengths to explain that he wasn't a Marxist but gives no clear explanation of why he joined the SWP. He then claims he reactivated his SWP membership in the late 50s/early 60s not because he was a Marxist but because of concerns about "national security" prompted by his encounter with an FBI agent. He also denies having been a Marxist in the late 1960s implying that he only taught a course on Marxist dialectics as a way of infiltrating the new left.

So, the point remains, he's not upfront about his past, rather than admit that his ideas have changed, he denies ever having been a Marxist and claims that his later involvement with the SWP was at the behest of the FBIAndyL 23:05, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Nazi studies

• "Some ex-NCLC members who left the group at this time say that LaRouche was studying the career of Adolf Hitler and consciously adopting the tactics of the early Nazi Party." An accusation as serious as this cannot responsibly be attributed to dubious, unnamed sources.

So nothing that any ex-NCLC member who wanted to remain anonymous said can be used for the article? john k 17:50, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Under these circumstances, I would say no. It represents a convenient way out, for persons with a desperate need to discredit LaRouche, and no concrete evidence -- although NBC got away with precisely that in the libel suit. Bear in mind, you could probably find an anonymous source to accuse just about any public figure of being Hitlerian, and if you can't find one, you can always say that you did.--Herschelkrustofsky 20:15, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If you can't quote Ramsey Clark without a big disclaimer, then anonymous sources should be out. I removed that line, and the one below. Weed Harper 06:22, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

User:Adam_Carr reinserted them without comment. --Herschelkrustofsky 14:34, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• "In the 1970s LaRouche developed an intense interest in fascism, and began to adopt some of its slogans and practices, while maintaining (as he still does) an outward stance of anti-fascism."

LaRouche developed an intense interest in preventing fascism. What "slogans and practices" does Adam allege that he adopted? -- Herschel

Steered to the right

6. "During the 1970s LaRouche steered the NCLC away from the left and towards the extreme right, while retaining some of the slogans and attitudes of the left (as did the founder of fascism, the ex-Socialist Benito Mussolini, and many others since)."

The business about steering toward the extreme right is a myth, and even if it were not, trying to make a comparison to Mussolini would be propagandistic innuendo. -- Herschel

This does seem to be POV, especially the part about Mussolini, which seems to be in there to "prove" that LaRouche is a right winger, rather than to provide information. Certainly connections between NCLC and various far right groups (and also with the Reagan administration) can be discussed, since that is pretty well documented. john k 17:50, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think this is a fair observation. LaRouche did swing from the extreme left to the right.

How so? What policies did he change? --Herschelkrustofsky 15:01, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, he abandoned Marxism for one and moved towards some sort of amalgam of 19th century philosophers. AndyL 16:38, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Since when is philosophy considered "extreme right"? And LaRouche had the "amalgam of philosphers" thing working as a teenager, back in the 30s, although the philosophers were never predominantly 19th century -- his favorite was Gottfried Leibniz. Also, some may consider Marx a 19th century philosopher. -- Herschel

I attributed the "shift to right" theory to Chip Berlet, and removed the POV about Mussolini. Weed Harper 05:47, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The attribution has been removed. --Herschelkrustofsky 13:20, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Democratic infiltration

• "Since 1979 LaRouche has concentrated on infiltrating his followers into the Democratic Party."

Innuendo. I myself registered as a Democrat in 1972. Did I "infiltrate" the party? Wesley Clark registered as a Democrat just in time to declare his candidacy for the 2004 election. Did he "infiltrate"? -- Herschel

I agree. This could be phrased differently. john k 17:50, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The Democrats consider the LaRouche movement to be infiltrators and have taken action against them.

"The Democrats" you refer to are a number of Dixiecrats such as Don Fowler, not the party as a whole. I cited examples such as Sen. Eugene McCarthy who have publicly welcomed LaRouche. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:01, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't recall the Democrats being particularly welcoming in the 1980s when LaRouche candidates won a few nominations in Illinois. AndyL 16:38, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Democratic primaries

• "The use of the NDPC name has, however, allowed LaRouche followers to compete seriously in Democratic primaries for lesser offices, and even occasionally to win them."

Innuendo. What allows LaRouche followers to compete seriously is the fulfillment of petitioning and othe legal requirements. The NDPC was a Political Action Committee like any other.

Maybe - some more detail here might be in order. john k 17:50, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

the NDPC has no actual link with the Democratic Party though the name implies that it does.

No Political Action Committee has an "actual link". The NDPC (which hasn't existed since the '80s) was no different than any other PAC. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:01, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• "In 1979 he formed a Political Action Committee called the National Democratic Policy Committee (NDPC), a name designed to convey the impression that it is part of the Democratic Party." POV speculation. Plus, it wasn't formed until the 80s.

Mark Fairchild

• "The best known example was in 1986, when a LaRouche candidate, Mark Fairchild, won the Democratic primary for the post of Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois."

There were two candidates, the other being Janice Hart, about whom there is an article in Misplaced Pages. I attempted to correct this early, and my correction was immediately reverted by Adam. -- Herschel

AIDS

10. "Some of the LaRouche organization's successes have come from exploiting public fears about the AIDS epidemic, which they blame on international conspirators."

If this sort of innuendo is given any credence, any candidate who puts forward a concrete solution to a contemporary problem (as LaRouche did, by arguing that AIDS should be restored to California's list of communicable diseases and made subject to public health law), can be charged with "exploiting public fears" about that problem. Did FDR "exploit public fears" about the Great Depression? And, LaRouche never blamed AIDS on any international conspirators.

It were accurate to say that the LaRouche organization "advocated a policy" or "took a position" with respect to AIDS; to say they "exploited public fears" is innuendo. LaRouche never said that AIDS was caused by a conspiracy; he did say that the relevant international institutions made no serious effort to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa. Say that, if you wish.

I definitely recall reading some of this in one of the issues of New Federalist that I've read. He says the same thing about drugs, as I recall. john k 17:50, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

In the 1980s he blamed AIDS on Moscow.

Bullshit. Produce a quote. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:01, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Here's the full quote:

So far, the world's leading experts see no way in which the Soviet biological-warfare apparatus could have created AIDS in a test- tube. However, it is in the strategic interests of Moscow to see to it that the West does nothing to stop this pandemic; within a few years, at the present rates, the spread of AIDS in Asia, Africa, Western Europe, and the Americas would permit Moscow to take over the world almost without firing a shot."

"The Lesson of the Merchant of Venice", Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., Executive Intelligence Review, November 1, 1985

This quote does not in any way justify the formulation, "he blamed AIDS on international conspirators." --Herschelkrustofsky 20:14, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ku Klux Klan and the Liberty Lobby

12. "In the 1970s also, LaRouche developed connections with the Ku Klux Klan and the Liberty Lobby, a leading extreme right group, both well- known for anti-Semitism."

I dare you to attempt to document this. What are "connections"? This is innuendo. -- Herschel

I agree, this could be made more precise. john k 17:50, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

see

I'm supposed to accept Chip Berlet's opinion as "documentation"? --Herschelkrustofsky 15:07, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

(Herschel quoted from "A Tactical Alliance with the Reactionary Right" from the above linked article and re-asked the same question - removed due to lack of space - follow the link instead. Martin (reworker)

personal corruption

19. "One of the most damning aspects of the trial was the revelation of LaRouche's personal corruption. 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."

Is this false, or do you think it's POV? john k 17:50, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

(time passes)

So what's wrong with this?

Nothing, other than the fact that it ain't so.

Are the court transcripts online?AndyL 16:38, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Is there any source at all for this statement? It looks bogus to me. --Peter_Abelard@ausi.com

Are LaRouche's economic ideas similar to those of Franco and Salazar

• "Despite LaRouche's rhetorical skill in presenting them as revolutionary, LaRouche's economic ideas are hardly original: they are similar to the policies of Germany under Bismarck and the statism of Spain under Franco and Portugal under Salazar."

This is less obviously ridiculous than Adam's original formulation, but no less false. The models for LaRouche are Lincoln and FDR. That's what he says, that's what he means, end of story. -- Herschel

developing in the fifties

• "LaRouche did not develop his current political and economic ideas in the 1950s or '60s: until at least 1969 he was a Trotskyist, although an increasingly unorthodox one."

Adam is a mind-reader? -- Herschel

LaRouche was a Trotskyist until the late-1960s, he then "discovered" Rosa Luxermburg's writings on capitalism and adopted them and started making his own revisions. I suggest you read some of LaRouche's own writings from the period though I doubt the "LaRouche movement" will make them available to you.

I have LaRouche's writings from that period. Do you? Or do you rely on Chip Berlet's characterizations? --Herschelkrustofsky 15:01, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I did look through a text by Lyn Marcus called "Dialectical Economics" a few years ago. I also have a copy of Rosa Luxemburg's "Accumulation of Capital" published by LaRouche with an introduction by him. I've also read what varioius contemporaries of LaRouche in the SWP say about him. AndyL 16:38, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

See, for example,

• Sex Maniac & Demagogue by Clara Fraser, a former colleague of LaRouche in his Trotskyist days - reproduced in the second part of this email to the Marxmail e-list.
• True History of Lyn Marcus (Lyndon LaRouche) and the Labor Committees1975 article published by the International Workers Party whose members joined LaRouche's NCLC for a period in the early 1970s.

Tim Wohlforth has also written two books which I haven't read but which may be useful The Prophet's Children: Travels on the American Left ISBN: 1573922854 and On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left ISBN: 0765606399 The latter has a section on LaRouche and should be of interest given Wohlforth's association with LaRouche in the 1960s. AndyL 16:51, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Land bridge

• "Although the expression "Eurasian Land-Bridge," for example, has been used to refer to the proposed Asian Highway, there is no evidence that LaRouche has ever had anything to do with this project."

Deception -- the Landbrige and Asian Highway are not the same thing, nor has anyone outside of Adam asserted that they were -- combined with deliberate fallacy of composition. -- Herschel

You have yet to provide any independent evidence that the "Eurasian Land-Bridge" as you describe it exists. As I said earlier (see section on this page titled "the Land Bridge") all the articles you cite either do not mention the land bridge at all or cite LaRouche as their source. Despite the fact that you've failed to respond to my comments about the articles you repeat your dubious assertions.

The assertion that the "Asian Highway" is also called the "Eurasian Land-bridge" is yours, not mine. --Herschelkrustofsky 15:01, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You have yet to reply to the points I maike in the "Land-Bridge" section of this page. I have yet to see any evidence outside of the LaRouche movement that this project exists. However, you and the LaRouchites claim that the "Eurasian Land-Bridge" is nicknamed the "New Silk Road" which happens to be the nickname of the "Asian Highway" as it turns out. AndyL 16:38, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Walther Rathenau

• "There is even a word of praise for Walther Rathenau, an archetypal Jewish business figure of the kind so savagely denounced by LaRouche throughout his career."

Innuendo: provide an example of a "Jewish business figure" who was "savagely denounced by LaRouche." -- Herschel

Denying accusations

• (regarding charges of anti-Semitism): "LaRouche for his part has denied these accusations, asserting that those who accuse him are part of the oligarchic conspiracy to rule the world."

Nonsense; LaRouche simply asserted that those who accuse him are liars. Adam's propaganda would be more effective if he didn't lay it on so thick. -- Herschel

need more info before I can comment

Does LaRouche promote a "Jewish Conspiracy" theory?

• "The Marxist concept of the ruling class was converted by LaRouche into a gigantic conspiracy theory, in which world capitalism was controlled by a secret cabal including the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, Henry Kissinger, the Council on Foreign Relations and other standard villains of the extreme right, many though not all of them Jewish."

Propagandistic crap. Adam is pulling a little sleight of hand here, trying to lump LaRouche in with the right-wing conspirophiles. In addition, it is not the case that "many" of LaRouche's opponents are Jewish. And, Adam wishes to imply that LaRouche is attacking someone because they are Jewish; this sort of thing trivializes anti-Semitism, by implying that anyone who ever criticized someone with a Jewish name is an anti-Semite. -- Herschel

Reagan relations

• "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." -- Herschel

Innuendo; LaRouche publications wrote articles that were both favorable and highly critical of various officials and policies.

Computers are an Enemy of the People?

• "Following his recovery, LaRouche obtained work as a management consultant including, paradoxically for a Marxist, advising companies on how to use computers to maximise efficiency and speed-up production to the detriment of workers." This is ridiculous, sleazy POV.