Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 10:01, 13 June 2004

Yes, I think that if someone is openly espousing some of these extremist positions, it's fair to say he's been called a fascist by many. Don't water it down. JG

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I'm not sure this is really relevant to the article but I had the surprise this evening of seeing billboards promoting Larouche's campaign for presidency in my very own street! _R_ 02:47, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Erm... maybe you won't find this so surprising unless I tell you that I live in Paris (yes, the original one, in France) !

I have been removing a lot of the stuff about fascism, because I think the point of this article should be to describe the man, his life, and his ideals, not to classify them. To that end, citations and 'further readings' would be much appreciated. DanKeshet 23:08, Jan 30, 2004 (UTC)

I don't understand a lot of what LaRouche says; he emailed me once, after I asked him to simply and concisely outline his political agenda; but he didn't do that. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Discussion of fascism are actually quite helpful in understanding LaRouche Andylehrer 01:38, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

--- 172.197.219.19 I think the fact that Larouche's organization is cult-like is the most important fact that anyone should know. Larouche's philosophies are interesting, and should be dealt with, but the only reason they are important is because of his impact on people's lives, both in the present and the past. This is an organization that convinces people to drop out of college and pretty much not visit their friends any more because they believe that disaster is imminent (and they must work every day to change the course of history). Put aside whatever ideals the group espouses; the way it uses people and attempts to completely change their world views is what makes this group evil. Members are of course convinced that they truly believe in these ideals, that Larouche is a genius, that his prophecies are always accurate, etc.; regardless of whether many of Larouche's ideas are accurate or not, the group is a threat to free thought because of the implicit control it has over its members. I speak from some experience

Moved from the "Accusations of fascism" section of the article:

• "When people judge political movements, some look at proclamations and theory, not at actions, while others pay close attention to actions and not to theory or statements. Many do not take the necessary step of comparing words to actions. The LaRouche organization is primarily recruited out of the personality types associated with political cults; leaders (intellectuals, talkers) and followers (believers, listeners). LaRouche's approach to the intellectuals has been to invent a theory and method which would captivate their minds and set them upon a course of thinking and viewing the world which can only confirm the statements and ideas of LaRouche."

This seems to be irrelevant and pov speculation about people's motives and the personality types of LaRouche's followers.

• "However, after the rise of Hitler and the alliance with Nazi Germany, the Fascists and Mussolini were compelled to adopt Germany's racial hygiene laws and help with the Holocaust."

I don't think this is relevant.

• "LaRouche separates himself from classical fascism and totalitarianism on the one hand, but to also create a theory which is consistent with the premise of fascism since function dictates form; LaRouche requires the same function from his theory as classical fascism has, and so this dictates the form."

What does this mean? I don't think this adds anything to the arguments that LaRouche is a fascist. Wmahan 17:38, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Lar's theories are absurdly complicated, but he says over and over again that he's opposed to fascism, so if he's accused of fascism then we have to show how his overall philosophy contradicts his statements. Anything we can put down in this article to make sense of Lar's philosophies is a good thing, in my book, because it's really easy to get lost in them. I don't understand your confusion. This is basically responding to a possible argument that Lar's philosophies aren't based on traditional fascist philosophers and therefore can't be fascist. There was a whole other section below this...IMO this article has too many opinions, too many maybes, too many people editing it in contradictory ways. it's a morass. wiki is a failed concept. Vaketer

Thanks for the clarification. I have no problem with moving the part about fascism back into the article. Perhaps it could be reworded to include the context that you describe above, namely how LaRouche's beliefs allegedly bely his public claims. I prefer to think of this page not as a demonstration of wiki's failures, but that a good article takes time, because it is still be in flux. By editing the page you've helped improve it, so thanks. :-) Wmahan. 18:52, 2004 Apr 9 (UTC)

Jesus christ. some fool with too much time on their hands got rid of the useful link, to the Age article about the CEC trying to psychologically break down its members, and added useless links. Freaking fools. Edit, edit, edit, it doesn't matter if it makes sense. Or if you know what you're doing. Deleting the link is royally stupid. (vak)

I moved the section below out of "cult accusations", because it has no relevance to "cult accusations", and seems to me to be another case of pov speculation. The LaRouche youth on campus also denounce the colleges for wretched academic standards. It is important to keep in mind the distinction between Misplaced Pages and USENET. --Herschelkrustofsky 19:43, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

• "Members of the Larouche student movement can sometimes be seen on college campuses, where they badger students to drop out of school and join the movement. Their logic is as follows: the US is about to go through a second Great Depression; if this is true, then you will not have a job when you graduate; if this is true, then there is no point in graduating; therefore, drop out of school and become one of us."

cult, fascist allegations

I am a college student in Seattle, and I have been approached on numerous occasions by campaigners for the LaRouche Movement. I found (and still find) their ideas very intriguing, such as developing a global peace and economic recovery based on building up infrastructure in third-world countries. But whenever I discussed LaRouche with friends or acquaintences, those who had heard of him all told a similar story that he's a fascist demagogue, and his followers are some kind of cult. When I searched the internet I found several references to this in pages such as www.publiceye.org, but the allegations in this website were so starkly contrary to Larouche's own recorded statements and the impressions that I picked up in my own experience with the organization, that I remained skeptical of both sides.

I have attended several meetings with the LaRouche Youth Movement, and have found the description given here to be failry accurate. Most of the meetings (that I attended) were spent discussing classical art and philosophy, as well as pre-Euclidian Geometry and the complex domain. I found that most of the members spent the majority of their time on the campaign, and many did indeed live together, and held meetings in their homes. However, I found very little indication of cult-like behavior, and didn't feel at all as though I was being brainwashed. I did encounter numerous conspiracy theories that our current regime is based on British oligarchical banking institutions that had ties with Nazi Germany, but many of their accusations don't seem that farfetched to me. (see The Carlyle Group )

The thing that concerned me was the lack of solid, third-party analysis of Larouche and his organization. There is extensive literature available in Larouche's 2004 campaign webite , as well as that of the Youth Movement , the Executive Intelligence Eeview (LaRouche's own newsletter), and the Schiller Institue (founded by Larouche's wife, Helga Zepp LaRouhe). But I wanted to find information from other sources that either confirme, or cridible contradicted what he said in his own publications. I found that many of the allegations featured in www.publiceye.org reference his conviction of loan fraud, but as is demonstrated in his own literature as well as here, this was pretty much unfounded. I greatly appreciate the article here, because it gives an accurate and even-handed assessment of the accusations against the organization, as well as their rebuttals.

I still have not dismissed entirely the accusations of "cult-like" behavior in the organization just becaue I don't feel confident that I could identify it myself. But the accusations of being a "fascist demagague" and an anti-semite and homophobe I believe are unfounded. I'm not convinced that he is the sole savior of the United States and the world economy (as he does seem to egotistically claim), but I would support him as a candidate for presidency a lot more than John Kerry... and he may be able to help us recover from Georde W. Bush.

--Phlict 10:01, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)