Today I passed my Post Office and there was this sandwich board sign that said: "Impeach Cheney!" Another sign showed Bush looking like Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Newman. There were 3 or 4 people standing around a table with lots of brochures and information on it. I rode past and looked back. I thought I just had to stop. Would I sign a petition to impeach Cheney? You bet.
So I parked a block down and put a couple of quarters in the meter. I walked back to Post Office and now only two people, the people who were in charge of the signs and table, were there. I was ready to sign a petition but the man showed me a copy of the articles of impeachment filed by Congressman Dennis Kucinich against Vice President Dick Cheney in April. And then I saw the huge sign sitting on the table facing me with its back to the street (why I didn't see it when I drove by). They wanted me to donate money to the PAC that was sending kids to Washington D.C. to demonstrate against Cheney. "Oh No," I said. "I thought there was a petition, I won't give money to Lyndon LaRouche." They asked, "Do you know anything about him? Why don't you take some material that tells you about him." I refused the material. Did I know anything about him? Here's what I know:
Lyndon LaRouche is an American political activist and founder of several political organizations in the United States and elsewhere, jointly referred to as the LaRouche movement. He is known as a perennial candidate for President of the United States.
He advocates a wide variety of conspiracy theories, such as conspiracy theories about the September 11th attacks, allegations that the British royal family are global drug dealers, that the Queen was involved in the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and that MI6 or senior advisers to the Queen have threatened to assassinate him.
He is an anti-Semite and an anti-Zionist. He has questioned the Holocaust and in 1978 insisted only 1.5 million Jews were killed.
LaRouche publications strongly denounce the policies of Mussolini and Hitler. But he has also advanced, according to Dennis King and others, ideas which appear to be modelled on fascist and even Nazi racialist concepts. King described some ex-NCLC members as believing that LaRouche was borrowing ideas from the Nazis. Don and Alice Roth, two members who quit in 1981, reported in their resignation statement that anti-Semitic Holocaust jokes had become rife in the organization.[38] In an examination of LaRouche's writings on political theory, King argues that LaRouche was really advocating a fascist-style state in which all political dissent would be crushed. LaRouche, however, says that the model he advocates is that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
When I refused the material, their faces changed and they looked away from me. I turned from them and walked back up the block to my car.
theteach
7 comments:
I've run into them alot. After actually reading what they publish and talking to them, I think wikipedia misrepresents LaRouche in a big way. Slanders his political enemies put out against him are about the extent of what most people "know". You just copied what wikipedia said... did you know that already? And how do you know, what he stands for. For example, wikipedia says he is anitsemitic, yet most the people I talked to in his movement were jewish and I have read papers where he is praising jewish culture... there are many examples of this.
I knew a lot about them before I ran into his acolytes. Wikipedia just made it easier for me to write the article. I put nothing in the post that I didn't know myself. I've heard LaRouche speak... He's been around a long time. I think he's scary and dangerous.
I have seen Lydon LaRouch's name several times in the past and have heard about his movement. It has never been clear to me what he stands for. I will have to do more research. Thanks for the "heads up"
This is the first time I've ever heard about this LaRouche guy. However, I think you're doing something very similar to the reductio ad hitlerum. Just because this guy supports Cheney's impeachment doesn't mean that it's a bad idea.
I hope, whether we like him or not, that this cause succeeds one day.
jm4847, I'm not against LaRouche because he advocates impeaching Cheney (which is a good idea, BTW).
I said in the post he's a consiracy theeorisst, an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier (sp?)
He's also a racist and a Nazi sympathizer...need I say more?
These people were in my neighborhood as well. I asked them what did LaRouche have to do with impeaching Cheney. They told me many, many of LaRouche's conspiracy theories, one of which is that Cheney was conspiring with the British royal family to subjugate the continent of Africa and drive down the population of the world. Al Gore is somehow connected with this (!) as a "solution" to global warming. Sheesh!
These people just sound crazy as far as I'm concerned. Conspiracy theorists are a little bit crazy by definition.
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