Lyndon LaRouche was a prolific writer who developed a cult-like following and eight times, between 1976 and 2004, sought the presidency, seven times for the Democratic ticket. He wrote and spoke often about the economy and spun wild conspiracy theories. For example, he said Queen Elizabeth was a drug dealer. The Nation’s Bob Dreyfuss, a LaRouche acolyte who dedicated his first book to his former boss and had it published by LaRouche’s publisher, argued in it that Bernard Lewis, perhaps the most influential living historian of the Middle East, was a nefarious force behind Ayatollah Khomeini and Iran’s Islamic Revolution.
LaRouche achieved a particularly loyal following among college students. He anchored enough of his writing in fact that the 30 percent or so that was pure bunk became, for the gullible or willingly blind, believable. His writings adhered to the idea that falsehoods spoken with conviction and precision became credible. Like Ron Paul, he certainly was consistent in his willingness to believe the worst motivations of government officials or his opponents. While LaRouche reached the pinnacle of his influence in the pre-internet age, he managed to spread his conspiracies not only through teaching classes, but also through myriad pamphlets, leaflets, and newspapers. LaRouche is still around, of course, but a conviction for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and tax code violations has undercut his credibility among the young and disaffected enough so that he has returned to purely marginal status.
Into the vacuum left by LaRouche came Ron Paul. Without doubt, some of what Paul says makes sense. Americans are concerned with tremendous government waste and the intrusion of nanny-state governance into our daily lives. But, on foreign policy and defense, Paul supplements his isolationism with the same mold of conspiracy as LaRouche. Many of “the Bush lied, Americans died, Cheney led a secret cabal” conspiracies which Paul’s followers—if not Dr. Paul himself—seize upon have their origins with LaRouche acolytes like Dreyfuss or former Pentagon official and congressional candidate Karen Kwiatkowski, who seemingly hopped from the LaRouche bandwagon to Paul’s. Paul may not publish so many newsletters any more—with good reason—but his followers have certainly taken full advantage of cyberspace to connect imaginary dots and weave creative conspiracies that put the old LaRouchites and even Maxine Waters to shame.
The Iowa Caucus results suggest Paul has peaked. Good conspiracies never die, however. Paul has become the Lyndon LaRouche of the 21st century, an increasingly marginal figure with a disproportionately poisonous and vocal following, one which will never win elections, but will satisfy itself by spinning wild conspiracy theories and trolling comments pages on internet news sites for decades to come.
The neoconnery is deathly afraid to confront Dr. Paul's ideas, especially on foreign policy, on their merits. They prefer to deal in dredged up nonsense from the likes of Jamie Kirchick, and finger-pointing. Kind of like reflexively calling substantive criticism of Israel "anti-Semitism." n n"Conspiracy theories" are often wrong, but conspiracies do exist.
Ron Paul like LaRouche, despite hanging out with JINO associates trashes Judaism and its history and Israel while introducing the psychotic anti-Jewish fantasies of nutjobs like Bobby Fischer into general circulation. He and his comprares know zilch about Israel apart from factoid neologisms they trade back and forth obsessively. And yeah, a cracked cuckoo clock manages to tell the time twice a day. Calling Gaza a "concentration camp" doesn't begin to explain the reality that, as Hamas is telling it's people, Gaza is not even occupied. But this all a piece of justifying bin Laden's massive violation of the rules of war by virtue of his being "annoyed" by American and Zionist depradations against "his Holy Land in Saudi Arabia". This doesn't even begin to get into the absolute ignorance of American history and perverse refusal to condemn Confederate secession. This is aguy, who in his words, doesn't know he wrote what he wrote until he does. Yeah yeah yeah, his brilliant truths.
Here is a taste of the "substantive criticism of Israel" by the chess world's answer to Syd Barrett that Ron Paul enthusiastically recommended to the readers of the newsletters he didn't write until he did but only the bits about chemical-trace money or whatever: n n"This is the Jewish mentality. These are a criminal people. They torture their prisoners in the worst way. Jews were always were always bastards throughout history. They are liars, they are the worst pieces of shit in the world. They mutilate their own children…You know the Jews control the courts…The United States is a farce controlled by dirty, hook-nosed circumcised Jew bastards." n nThere you go, substantive criticism hawked by the very very substantive Doctor Paul..
Where is this from?
How dare you compare Paul to Lyndon LaRoucheu200b. not even close ideologically.
Nobody needs conspiracy theories to support Ron Paul. You don't need a leap of faith to believe, or catchy slogans any of that. Don't we all make conspiracy theories? C'mon, don't pretend you never done it. We (most of us) naturally challenge everything that's going on. And why do you do it? Because it helps you understand what's being discussed better. You just need to twist the towel hard enough until all the water comes out, that's when you can see it all and everything remains visible. nAnd if Paul supporters scare you – (disproportionately poisonous and vocal following) well… heh heh.. What can I say?? It sounds like a "you" problem. Best grow some balls. nW/ Love
Mr. Rubin: even though he never actually ran for the GOP nomination, I see Ron Paul as a direct political descendant of pacifist and Federal Reserve opponent, Henry Ford, Senior. nDr. Paul did his medical residency at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. nI wonder if that was when and where he found a 1925 copy of Ford, Senior's "The International Jew" ? n nSo, do you think Ron Paul will choose Cynthia McKinney for his running mate?.
When you can show me Lyndon be elected to Congress 12 times and gain the amount of support of Paul, then we can talk… Until then stop with these ridiculous articles..
Oh support for Lincoln haters and isolationist defenders of Hitler's war in Europe makes it OK does it? n nVox populi! n nSomehow the fact that Ron Paul's sworn foes, I dunno, all those neocon ZOG's occupying Congress or Obama or Lincoln or FDR or Wilson or yadda yadda yadda won loads of elections themselves justifies *them* in the eyes of Paul and his army so it's hard to know where that line of argument ends up. n nBut this does raise the point. LaRouche never got the traction Ron Paul has. n nHe never ever ever was a leading contender the way Paul still could turn out to be in the GOP and the media didn't airbrush him the way the mainstream media airbrushes the "maverick libertarian" Paul.
But we should understand that unlike Ron Paul, Lyndon LaRouche actually ran a classic cult, the real deal: top down thought control, indoctrination, self -promotion of a world-redeeming prophetic charismatic cult of personality, self-criticism of lieutenants, psychological depersonalization and directed de-indiviudualion of disciples. etc. Ron isn't doing any of this.
Neither did LaRouche. That's all Chip Berlet/Wikipedia hogwash.
Glenn Greenwald is the new Lyndon LaRouche. Ron Paul is William Jennings Bryan.
Ron Paul's 'hands off the economy' ideology plays him right into the same interests that are imposing a dictatorship now with Obama's NDAA provision (the provision to arrest US citizens on US soil without due process). These police state measures (and related push for global war, via Iran, Syria, you name it) are completely tied to the economic looting of this country and others the which became glorified and completely bare in the infamous (and still ongoing) "bail out". Ron Paul says he's against the war and against the tearing up of the constitution, but his economic policy would hand over the reigns to the same powers (using the banking instiutions, fed. reserve, etc.) that he seems to oppose! A regulated economic system, via our federal republic, is the only thing between us and a bunch of killing, looting thieves. LaRouche has the whole picture,-glass steagall to reverse the bail out and 30+ years of fake money i.e. hyperinflation, third national bank to issue credit for real productive jobs and a science orientation for progress- and frankly, although he's not running for president, his platform should be adopted by any would-be serious candidate. By the way, why hasn't Paul called for impeachment?? It's time to get serious.
The fundamental difference between Ron Paul and Lyndon LaRouche is fairly obvious. Lyndon LaRouche espoused various conspiracy theories along with random political and historical musings that do not result in any overall cohesive philosophy. The overwhelming majority of Paul's beliefs are typical libertarian beliefs, albeit with more importance placed on the Constitution and federalism. Paul's libertarian fanbase, while loyal to the man, will find new leaders when Paul retires, whether they are his son, one of his protege's like Justin Amash, or people who came to a libertarian philosophy entirely independent of Paul such as Gary Johnson. True, Paul has devoted followers who may not immediately latch onto another libertarian, as they are more conservative or liberal than the average libertarian. These people are attracted specifically to Paul because of what he focuses on, (for the right, the Constitution, for the left, anti-war and corporatism). Your specific objection to his foreign policy as not worthy of debate is fundamentally a reflection of your worldview. This magazine has always advocated a strongly interventionist foreign policy, and you are thus unable to see the opposite as anything but crazy. Finally, the specific devotion to Paul, which I'll admit can appear cultlike, is a result of the lack of other libertarian politicians for so long.