The Friends of Lyndon LaRouche
- 11.03.2007 - 3:03 PMSeveral days ago on contentions, I pointed out that Robert Dreyfuss, Senior Correspondent of The American Prospect, once worked as the “Middle East Intelligence Director” for Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review newspaper. This is not news—nor is it a secret—but, to my knowledge, no one at The American Prospect has publicly addressed concerns that one of their writers has ties to the LaRouche organization. The only reason I brought it up was to point out the irony that a Prospect writer would express so much fascination with and heap ridicule upon the LaRouche movement, not seeming to understand that one of her work colleagues has a long history with the demagogue and cult-leader.
But the radio silence from The Prospect and its writers in response to my post has been rather odd. Here are some very simple questions for the Prospect (and the other publications for which he writes, not limited to The Nation and Rolling Stone), an answer to any of which would be warmly appreciated:
Did you know about Dreyfuss’s ties to the LaRouche movement when you hired him?
Has he in any way refuted his past work for LaRouche?
Why do you endorse and hawk his LaRouche-published book, Hostage to Khomeini, on your website?
To my knowledge, based on thorough internet searches, Dreyfuss has never renounced his past official affiliation with the LaRouche organization. So, for all we know, he still thinks favorably of LaRouche, having moved onto more ostensibly respectable work at The American Prospect. His journalism, however, characterized by unoriginal conspiracies about neo-con domination of American foreign policy, does not appear to have changed much from the tinfoil hat stuff characteristic of LaRouche. Perhaps the leading lights of the liberal blogosphere can explain why they aren’t troubled by The American Prospect’s employing a man with ties to what the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based, liberal watchdog group Political Research Associates refers to as a “fascist movement.”
| »Back to Contentions | »Back to Commentary |
November 3rd, 2007 at 5:41 PM
Surely you have observed by now that the left ignores the irritation of facts that do not comport with its worldview. The good news out of Iraq is only the most recent example.
November 4th, 2007 at 8:35 AM
“Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the communist party ?”, was yelling crazy Mc Carthy. But the main target of those behind Mc Carthy were the Roosevelt democrats. They wanted a Clean Break on the Roosevelt policies. They got it until J.F. Kennedy came into power.
“Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Larouche Organization ?” is the new motto of those who, panicking in front the worldwide financial crisis, would rather have a third world war instead of giving up their power. In the US, any member of the democratic party knows that the moment they use the word Roosevelt in a positive way, they will be attacked by the watchdogs. Hence their apparent cowardice.
But this will change, soon.
November 4th, 2007 at 10:00 AM
If this Dreyfuss is the same character I’ve seen and heard “debate” the often choleric David Horowitz, he acts the part of a sophisticated, unemotional leftist intellectual. My guess is he used to watch a lot of French films. I loathed his politics and suspected he might also be something of a personal control freak, but had no idea he had hobnobbed with genuine loons. I bet his colleagues were too impressed with his demeanor to fuss over his antecedents. But, in fairness, wasn’t (isn’t?) The Washington Times owned by the Moonies?
November 4th, 2007 at 10:57 AM
“But the main target of those behind Mc Carthy were the Roosevelt democrats.”
This is because many of Roosevelt’s people were outright Communist spies. Have we already forgotten Harry Dexter White, Alger Hiss, or Michael Straight? The vice-president of the United States Henry Wallace thought highly of the Soviet Union. Even FDR underestimated the threat of world Communism. He considered Joseph Stalin to be a warm and decent human being. The historical evidence is abundantly clear that the Democratic Party disgraced itself during that era. But what else should one expect? The New Deal was nothing less than radical socialism “with a human face.” One would do well to read Amity Shlaes’ Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression.
November 4th, 2007 at 3:55 PM
The shield against world fascism was USSR, the spear was the USA. We won, for the greater good of mankind. But the greatest fight of Roosevelt was against the “money changers”. And today, the people of USA is facing the same threat as in the thirties : economic collapse, foreclosures, endless wars and tyranny. Rooseveltian principles saved us once, we should use them today, I don’t see other alternative.
As for the crazy accusations from David Thompson, one should read real history, not ideological falsification. “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” is not synonymous to communism, nor is the term “General Welfare”.
November 4th, 2007 at 6:38 PM
LaRoucheism, like neo-conservatism, is in important respects a decay product of Trotskyism. Both advocate a strong state and the world-wide propagation of their social ideals. The LaRouchites tend to venerate technology, and the neocons a rather abstract notion of democracy. Each movement has a few interesting ideas, but a fundamentally erroneous picture of the world. The LaRouche group has a more cult-like organization and less influence.
New Deal circles were infiltrated by communists and many New Dealers were naïve about the dangers posed by communism, a fact that Republican anti-communists exploited. The New Deal and WWII also promoted centralization and paved the way for the national security state. In my view, both are to be deplored.
November 4th, 2007 at 9:28 PM
Jean-Gabriel: Putting aside what I regard as your over-the-top hyperbole, the well-regarded investment manager Bill Gross has in fact argued that the free market and the Federal Reserve may be incapable of dealing on their own with the current credit shortage. He implies a need for massive government bailouts of otherwise morally undeserving delinquent borrowers. That is, in Gross’s view Wall Street has developed such ingenious methods for leveraging cash into loans, and encouraging consumers and businesses to overextend themselves accordingly, that late 20th Century methods for restoring overall investor confidence have become hopelessly outdated. Presumably the recommended pump-priming needn’t be accomplished by confiscatory taxes, let alone accompanied by an elaborate statist ideology. I suppose a huge money-printing operation might suffice. Nevertheless, the insinuation is plain: When even financial gurus disparage the combined resources of rugged individualism and Ben Bernanke, the Era of Big Government is far from over.
November 5th, 2007 at 5:33 AM
Go far enough left and you end up in fascism. Go far enough right and you end up with enforced socialism, aka communism. Fascism is “National(istic) Socialism”. Know-it-all elites micromanaging all human life.
November 5th, 2007 at 12:13 PM
Roosevelt and the Depression era is what our readers wish to discuss, judging by the blogs.
The new book “The Forgotton Man” by Amity Shales is all the rage, now.
In the absence of a mass based social democratic party or movement, the influence of the “little sects” on the so-called “Left” become foddler for the well-organized and funded demogogues of the right leaning media.
As the national elections get closer, the specture of a rabid “radical socialism” increases. The perenial wipping boy of the Republicans and newly converted Republicans. It is amazing just how widespread socialism is in America, judging by the bashing it regularly receives from the Right.
One blogger notes: “The New Deal was nothing less than radical socialism “with a human face.” One would do well to read Amity Shlaes’ Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. ” I’m reading the work and find it, so far, full of commonly known facts and insights and prejudices against New Dealers. Get over it America, the 1930s was a “red era.”
Such sensitivity to “class politics” and Roosevelt’s New Deal! Are you ready?… Roosevelt was the greatest 20th Century US President and much of the free world acknowledges it to be the case. To answer an old charge, “Yes, the New Deal combined a measure of “social democracy” with free enterprise.” So what? Most of the Western World did the same and is better off for it.
The “Left” is not the pesky “little sects.” Bashing the “little sects” is easy and distorts the real debates over health care, income inequality, life chances during childhood, and so forth.
November 5th, 2007 at 12:50 PM
Ditto !