Talk:Lyndon LaRouche/criticismdraft

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Proposed re-write of criticism section by Niels:


Criticism[edit]

The most common criticism of LaRouche in the mainstream press is that he is a conspiracy theorist. Also, due in large part to LaRouche's campaigns against Zionism in the 1970s and Neoconservatism beginning in the 1990s, LaRouche has been accused of Anti-Semitism.

Since the 1970s, LaRouche and his organization have been criticised from across the political spectrum, including by the Washington Post, the New Republic, the Heritage Foundation, the Anti-Defamation League, and the League for Industrial Democracy. In 1979, a two-part article appeared in the New York Times that was strongly critical of LaRouche.[1] Also in 1979, a former member of LaRouche's U.S. Labor Party, Gregory Rose, published an article in National Review alleging that LaRouche had established contacts with Palestinian political organizations such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and also with the Iraqi mission to the United Nations in New York. Rose also alleged that LaRouche at this time was in contact with Soviet diplomats, while also linking up with ultrarightists such as Willis Carto of the Liberty Lobby and Pennsylvania Ku Klux Klan grand dragon Roy Frankhouser.[2] The Heritage Foundation released a report, which stated that despite what they describe as LaRouche's appearance as a right-wing anticommunist, he takes political stands, "which in the end advance Soviet foreign policy goals." Longtime LaRouche critic Daniel O. Graham, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has stated that he believes LaRouche is an "unrepentant Marxist-Leninist" who pretended to be right-wing in order "to suck conservatives into giving him money." [3]

LaRouche associate Jeffrey Steinberg has claimed that criticism of LaRouche coming from the ADL and related organizations was an extension of the FBI COINTELPRO program.[4] LaRouche claimed all of this negative publicity was part of a "defamatory campaign [which] laid the political groundwork for a later, new wave of corrupt Justice Department operations launched at, once again, the instigation of Henry Kissinger."[5] For more information, see Political views of Lyndon LaRouche.

A number of organizations, publications, and individuals have alleged that LaRouche is guilty of both overt and "coded" anti-Semitism, including the Encyclopedia Judaica, the Anti-Defamation League, Senator Daniel Moynihan, Democratic National Committee Chair Terry McAuliffe, and writers Mike Royko, Dennis King, Chip Berlet, and Robert L. Bartley. However, LaRouche condemns anti-Semitism in his published writings. He writes, "Religious and racial hatred, such as anti-Semitism, or hatred against Islam, or, hatred of Christians, is, on record of known history, the most evil expression of criminality to be seen on the planet today."[6]

Allegations of covert fascistic tendencies[edit]

In addition to condemning anti-Semitism, LaRouche publications strongly denounce fascism and warn that it is an ever-present danger. However, there is a grouping of critics that allege that LaRouche covertly supports fascistic policies. This grouping includes Dennis King, who wrote a book devoted to this theory (Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism,) Chip Berlet, Russ Bellant, and Tim Wohlforth. Acording to Wohlforth and Dennis Tourish:

The parallel between LaRouche's thinking and that of the classical fascist model is striking. LaRouche, like Mussolini and Hitler before him, borrowed from Marx yet changed his theories fundamentally. Most important, Marx's internationalist outlook was abandoned in favor of a narrow nation-state perspective. Marx's goal of abolishing capitalism was replaced by the model of a totalitarian state that directs an economy where ownership of the means of production is still largely in public hands. The corporations and their owners remain in place but have to take their orders from LaRouche. Hitler called the schema "national socialism". LaRouche hopes the term "the American System" will be more acceptable.[7]

In 1979, Chip Berlet wrote his first of several articles about LaRouche for the Chicago Sun Times, while King wrote a 12-part series for the Manhattan weekly Our Town. LaRouche has advanced, according to Dennis King and others, ideas which appear to be modelled on fascist and even Nazi racialist concepts.[8][9] 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.[10] LaRouche, however, says that the model he advocates is that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In 1981, Berlet, King and a Detroit journalist, Russ Bellant, released a set of documents that they claimed revealed a pattern of potentially illegal activity by LaRouche and his followers, and called for the government to investigate.[11]

Dennis King asserts that in order to hide anti-Semitism, LaRouche redefined the meaning of "Jew." According to King, LaRouche thinks that to be a real Jew, "one must repudiate the State of Israel, Zionism, and the mainstream leadership of the Jewish community."[12] Linda Hunt [13] and Dennis King [14] have described LaRouche's dealings with German scientists and engineers who worked under the Nazi government of Germany during the Second World War, some of whom came to the United States after the war under Operation Paperclip and ended up with NASA. Among these scientists were Arthur Rudolph (a former Nazi party member, who had been the rocket production manager at the Mittelwerk slave-labor factory), and several other Peenemunde rocket experts, including Krafft Arnold Ehricke, Adolf Busemann, Konrad Dannenberg, and Hermann Oberth. LaRouche also had a relationship with Karl-Adolf Zenker and Paul-Albert Scherer, West German Admiral and former head of West German Military Intelligence, respectively, who both served in the German military in World War II. King suggests that these relationships may indicate some form of pro-Nazi sympathies on the part of LaRouche.

The New York Times review of King's book concluded that "...in trying to see Mr. LaRouche as a would-be Fuhrer, Mr. King may be trying to tie together the whole unruly package with too neat a ribbon. A number of loose ends hang out, not least of which is the fact that many members of Mr. LaRouche's inner circle are Jewish."[3]

Allegations of coded references[edit]

A number of commentators, including Laird Wilcox and Daniel Pipes, have discussed claims by Dennis King that there are coded references in LaRouche's writings. Wilcox writes that "Dennis King goes to considerable lengths to paint LaRouche as a neo-Nazi, even engaging in a little conspiracy-mongering of his own. King maintains, for example, that words like "British" were really code words for 'Jew.'"[15] Daniel Pipes writes that "Dennis King insists that [LaRouche's] references to the British as the ultimate conspirators are really `code language' to refer to Jews. In fact, these are references to the British."[16] Pipes, however, also alleges that "LaRouche places a British-Jewish alliance at the center of his conspiracism."[17]

King also claims that LaRouche's published attacks on Henry Kissinger include a disguised form of anti-Semitism. King makes an argument (which also references certain images used in LaRouche publications) that LaRouche is a neofascist whose world view secretly centers on anti-Semitism and includes a "dream of world conquest." He claims that certain photos of barred spiral galaxies and of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory plasmoid experiments which appeared in LaRouche's New Solidarity newspaper and Fusion magazine, are "reminiscent of the swastika" and of the Nazi "theory of spiraling expansion/conquest."[18] He also points to a 1978 illustration in New Solidarity of Queen Elizabeth at the top of a Star of David -- and certain headlines (in more recent LaRouche publications) such as "How the Venetian Virus Infected and Took Over England" -- to bolster his argument that LaRouche's attacks on a "British" oligarchy are often coded attacks on international Jewry.[19] [20]

Robert L. Bartley, writing in The Wall Street Journal, criticizes the title of a LaRouche-sponsored pamphlet ("Children of Satan") attacking the neoconservatives. He quotes the pamphlet's assertion that a "cabal of [Leo] Strauss disciples, along with an equally small circle of allied neo-conservative and Likudnik fellow-travelers" have plotted a "not-so-silent coup." Noting that "Mr. LaRouche has chosen an Aryan-nation phrase for Jews (descendants of Cain, who was the result of Satan seducing Eve, in this perfervid theology)," Bartley terms the "Children of Satan" title "overt anti-Semitism." He also suggests that the use of the terms "Straussian" and "Neo-conservative" may be coded anti-Semitism when used by LaRouche and other writers.[21]

Chip Berlet suggests that the commentary on Iraq by LaRouche-affiliated publications, which is incorporated into some Arab and Muslim commentaries, represents conspiracism and anti-Semitism, especially through the use of what Berlet describes as "stereotyped descriptions of the neoconservative network and their power."[22] Berlet also contributed to a segment in the Encyclopedia Judaica which states that LaRouche is a "notorious antisemite," and among those who use "conspiracy allegations moved into more mainstream circles through bridging mechanisms" in a way that often masks the "original overtly anti-Jewish claims by using coded rhetoric" and thus is a "major source of such masked antisemitic theories globally."[23]

Former LaRouche follower Linda Ray, writing in In These Times, has also commented on euphemistic LaRouchian methods of communicating. She recalls reading in New Solidarity about a subhuman oligarchical species centered in London: "Although I knew it did not make scientific sense, I presumed that it was a deep intellectual metaphor that was over my head." She says that years later, when she was shown the Star of David picture with Queen Elizabeth at the top, "I quickly replied...'It is just a graphics art symbol'--which I naively thought for years. But as soon as I said it out loud I realized that I sounded ridiculous. It was as if I was waking from a nightmare."[24]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Howard Blum and Paul Montgomery, "U.S. Labor Party: Cult Surrounded by Controversy," New York Times, October 7, 1979, and "One Man Leads U.S. Labor Party on His Erratic Path," New York Times, October 8, 1979
  2. ^ Gregory F. Rose, "The Swarmy Life and Times of the NCLC," National Review, March 30, 1979
  3. ^ Ideological Odyssey: From Old Left to Far Right January 14, 1985
  4. ^ Who Are the American Family Foundation: Mind-Controllers Targetting LaRouche? April 19, 2002
  5. ^ He's a Bad Guy, But We Can't Say Why Schiller Institute Website
  6. ^ "Britain's Bernard Lewis and His Crimes" By Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. September 17, 2006
  7. ^ Dennis Tourish and Tim Wohlforth, On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left, Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2000.
  8. ^ King, see esp. Chapters 7, 10 and 27 through 30
  9. ^ Chip Berlet and Joel Bellman, Lyndon LaRouche: Fascism Wrapped in an American Flag Political Research Associates briefing paper, Part One, March 10, 1989
  10. ^ King "LaRouche: A Dictatorial Mind at Work," New America, April-May 1982
  11. ^ LaRouche Cult Continues to Grow: Researchers Call for Probe of Potentially Illegal Acts December 16, 1981
  12. ^ http://lyndonlarouchewatch.org/fascism6.htm
  13. ^ Linda Hunt, Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990, New York, St. Martin's Press, 1991
  14. ^ King, Chapter 10
  15. ^ George, John and Wilcox, Laird, American Extremists: Militias, Supremacists, Klansmen, Communists & Others, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY. 1996
  16. ^ Pipes, Daniel, Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where it Comes From, Simon & Schuster (Free Press), 1997, p. 142
  17. ^ Pipes, p. 137
  18. ^ See King, chapter 10, p. 76
  19. ^ [1] Dennis King, "Nazis Without Swastikas" (pamphlet), New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1982, citing and reproducing illustration in LaRouche, "Micky Mouse & Pluto Move to Washington, New Solidarity, October 17, 1978 (image linked to here is from the original New Solidarity page)
  20. ^ [2]
  21. ^ Joining LaRouche In the Fever Swamps: The New York Times and The New Yorker go off the deep end Robert L. Bartley, The Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2003
  22. ^ Zog Ate My Brains: Conspiracy theories about Jews abound. Chip Berlet unpacks their appeal October 2004
  23. ^ Hearst, Ernest, Chip Berlet, and Jack Porter. "Neo-Nazism." Encyclopaedia Judaica. Eds. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. Vol. 15. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. 74-82. 22 vols. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Thomson Gale.
  24. ^ Linda Ray, "Breaking the Silence: An Ex-LaRouche Follower Tells Her Story," In These Times, October 29, 1986.

Comments[edit]

First draft[edit]

Note: I have now written a second draft in which I try to incorporate all the suggestions below. --Niels Gade (talk) 17:49, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reproducing Will Beback's comments here from Talk:Lyndon LaRouche. --Marvin Diode (talk) 15:04, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's quite long and should have sub-sections in it for readability and organization. The problems start with the first sentence, which makes an unsourced and hard to verify assertion presented in a odd way:
  • The most common criticism of LaRouche in the mainstream press is that he is a conspiracy theorist, with some authors charging that this veers off into antisemitism.
Does even a single author claim LaRouche "veers off into antisemiticism"? Is the ADL an author or a part of the mainstream press? Further, it ignores the discussion we've had above, including readding the misquotations in this text:
  • King also claims to have found "euphemisms,"[14] "semantic tricks,"[15] and examples of "symbolic scapegoating"[16]
It doesn't properly summarize what Pipes has to say. It doesn't quote the most notable commentators, like Moynihan and Royko, but instead focuses on the comments of lesser, though still significant, individuals. I can't see why Linda Ray deserves a long quotation. It's better to summarize than to quote, and this material is too long already. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 09:02, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Furthermore, if we're goig to have a consolidated "criticism" section it should give the best-possible overview of the criticims of the subject. A number of individuals have complained that LaRouche and his group defrauded them of their savings. Many of them testified in court, and their stories have been reported in the mainstream media. We can't leave them out of a general criticism section, especially since their criticisms led to criminal prosecutions. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 10:49, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The most common criticism of LaRouche in the mainstream press is that he is a conspiracy theorist, with some authors charging that this veers off into antisemitism.
I agree that this is awkward, although Niels is simply reproducing what already exists in the Lyndon LaRouche article.
  • King also claims to have found "euphemisms,"[14] "semantic tricks,"[15] and examples of "symbolic scapegoating"[16]
I see now what the problem with this is -- the quoted words and phrases are not actually quotes from King's book, they are quotes from Dking the editor, which is improper. I think we have consensus that this should go. Will says that Pipes is misquoted or mis-summarized -- in what way? I agree that Linda Ray is not noteworthy enough for a quote, although I'm not so sure about Royko, either. The same goes for Don and Alice Roth.
  • Regarding Will's suggestion that the legal cases be brought into the criticism section, I don't think that they are properly called "criticism," although there are examples where they are raised by critics. The article already has a mention that King and Berlet take credit for initiating them, which is retained in Niels' draft. That could be linked to the article on the court cases.
  • Niels has omitted something that is in the present article, which is that much of the allegations of anti-Semitism stem from comments made by the LaRouche organization in the 1970s (presumably about Zionism.) This should be retained.
  • "To prevent the catastrophe that will result from following neoconservative policies, LaRouche advocates preparation for total war with Great Britain." What is this? It seems irrelevant.
  • I just stumbled across a relatively in-depth criticism of LaRouche from a conservative perspective, which also comments on his relationship to King and Berlet: [4] (you can read this for free with a trial membership. There is also a section reproduced on this blog.) I think it might be useful to include some of this. --Marvin Diode (talk) 15:04, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Second Draft[edit]

One minor suggestion: I would suggest "allegations of covert fascistic tendencies" and "allegations of coded references" as two independent headings. --Marvin Diode (talk) 04:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Another third party comment on Dennis King's methodology: "But in trying to see Mr. LaRouche as a would-be Fuhrer, Mr. King may be trying to tie together the whole unruly package with too neat a ribbon. A number of loose ends hang out, not least of which is the fact that many members of Mr. LaRouche's inner circle are Jewish."[5] --Marvin Diode (talk) 15:37, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I have incorporated these suggestions. --Niels Gade (talk) 07:46, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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