Are Lyndon Larouche supporters tea partiers?

[Schrodinger's Cat]

I live in Boston, and I've seen a few tea party demonstrations in the last few months in my area. But recently I have seen several demonstrations by Lyndon Larouche supporters.

I have seen Lyndon Larouche supporters before, typically around political rallies for other politicians, but they were always just sitting at a table with literature and I never was interested enough to check him out.

But now I've seen them several times and now I see them actively protesting as opposed to sitting behind a desk. The signs they hold and the slogans they shout are the same as the kinds of things I saw and heard at the tea party protests in my area before...posters of Obama in a Hitler mustache, accusing anyone who supports health care of being a Nazi, etc. Are Lyndon Larouche supporters also tea party members, or are they considered a separate group that just has some shared ideology, and if so, how much of that ideology is shared? I realize they may actually have nothing in common save for some of the same political criticisms. Just because two groups agree that they have a problem with something doesn't mean they agree on the solutions.

I tried googling Larouche but there is so much conflicting information about him. I've seen him described as a harmless political laughing stock, the greatest political figure who has ever lived, and a dangerous and influential cult leader.

Anyone have any insight as to who this guy is and whether or not his movement is associated with the tea party, and if so, to what extent? This is really just a matter of curiosity on my part because I've run into them several times recently and because I never saw them protesting (just handing out information) until the tea party protests had started up. Any good links posted that explain his following would be appreciated!

 

[headscratcher4]

It would not surprise me if the LaRouch followers are trying to co-opt the Tea Party movement in several regions...remember, LaRouch got his start as a Trotskite and infiltrating and taking over "progressive" organizations was an organizational principal of his Trotskyite days...so it wouldn't suprise me if his groups would focus on the tea party folks using the same organizational tactics. If I'm not mistaken, they're the ones who premired the photo of Obama with a Hitler mustache.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

How do you tell one group of nuts from another?

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

It would not surprise me if the LaRouch followers are trying to co-opt the Tea Party movement in several regions...remember, LaRouch got his start as a Trotskite and infiltrating and taking over "progressive" organizations was an organizational principal of his Trotskyite days...so it wouldn't suprise me if his groups would focus on the tea party folks using the same organizational tactics. If I'm not mistaken, they're the ones who premired the photo of Obama with a Hitler mustache.

Do you know how influential he is politically? Again I have seen detractors who paint him as harmless and inconsequential, and others who say that he is actually very influential. I have seen the word "cult leader" to describe him but I don't know if that's hyperbole or not.

The biggest difference I have seen between his supporters' protests and tea party protests is the age range. Most of the tea party people I've seen are aged 50 and up, whereas overwhlemingly the Larouche supporters I have seen seemed to be in their twenties.

 

[headscratcher4]

Especially since these nuts have crossed the entire political spectrum from the wacko-left to the bonkers right.

 

[BenBurch]

How do you tell one group of nuts from another?

You need a program and scorecard.

 

[headscratcher4]

Do you know how influential he is politically? Again I have seen detractors who paint him as harmless and inconsequential, and others who say that he is actually very influential. Again, I have seen the world "cult leader" to describe him but I don't know if that's hyperbole or not.

The biggest difference I have seen between his supporters' protests and tea party protests is the age range. Most of the tea party people I've seen are aged 50 and up, whereas overwhlemingly the Larouche supporters I have seen seemed to be in their twenties.

He's not politically influential at all. He histroically (in the last twenty years) has tried to run as a "democrat" and every know and than some delegate gets elected, but it is rare. His real follower base is negligible. I think he actually has more "respect" in Europe for his "intelligence" report and because they may not fully understand how fringe and out of the main stream his thinking is. He did a couple of years for tax fraud, if I remember correctly. He also has to be in his mid to late 80s. His wife is some sort of fringe German, quasi-antiSemite loon. Out side of college campuses and subway stops in major cities, they have little influence...IMO.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Do you know how influential he is politically? Again I have seen detractors who paint him as harmless and inconsequential, and others who say that he is actually very influential. I have seen the word "cult leader" to describe him but I don't know if that's hyperbole or not.

The biggest difference I have seen between his supporters' protests and tea party protests is the age range. Most of the tea party people I've seen are aged 50 and up, whereas overwhlemingly the Larouche supporters I have seen seemed to be in their twenties.

You must be very young. LaRouche hasn't been influential for almost.....well, never.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Do you know how influential he is politically? Again I have seen detractors who paint him as harmless and inconsequential, and others who say that he is actually very influential. I have seen the word "cult leader" to describe him but I don't know if that's hyperbole or not.

The biggest difference I have seen between his supporters' protests and tea party protests is the age range. Most of the tea party people I've seen are aged 50 and up, whereas overwhlemingly the Larouche supporters I have seen seemed to be in their twenties.

He's not politically influential, but his organization is dangerous to the people in it. It uses all the standby cult tactics: isolation, sleep control, breaking down self-worth, etc.

LaRouche outlined his therapy in a 1973 memo to members. He wrote that he was "taking your bedrooms away from you until you make the step to being effective organizers . . . . Your pathetic impotence in your sexual life" is a political matter, he wrote. "I will take away from you all hope that you can flee the terrors of politics to the safety of 'personal life.' "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/cult/larouche/main.htm

During this period, LaRouche wrote about psychological techniques for transforming recruits into faithful organizers. In one treatise, "Beyond Psychoanalysis," he wrote that organizers should strip recruits of their egos and reduce them to a state called "little me," in order to rebuild their personalities around a new socialist identity.

...

LaRouche followers were expected to work six days a week, he says, beginning at 8 a.m., when a few dozen activists would gather at the office to sing -- typically old slave spirituals. ... By 5:30 p.m., Winstead and his colleagues returned to the field office for another news briefing before dinner. Then they'd launch a new round of work: telephoning potential recruits. "That generally goes on until 10 at night," he says.

...

He was stunned, at first, to find out what happened when he asked questions or complained. "Maybe you are too [expletive] busy [masturbating] thinking about your mother to go out and organize," he recalls one of the leaders barking at him. "How much money did you raise today?"
"I'm caught off-guard, like, what the hell just happened?" Winstead recalls. "The yelling goes on for maybe five or 10 minutes while I'm furiously backpedaling."


Eventually, he became accustomed to the humiliating insults and tirades. "They call it making somebody a self-conscious organizer," he says. "It is about getting somebody to break down and cry, just to have an emotional collapse. Once you do that, then people are malleable."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46883-2004Oct20_4.html

eta: That second link also talks about Jeremiah Duggan, who died in questionable circumstances while trying to escape the cult.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

You must be very young. LaRouche hasn't been influential for almost.....well, never.

Yes, I'm in my twenties. I'd figured he probably wasn't too influential because I had no idea who he was. If I didn't live in a major city where I have seen his supporters set up over the years during other political rallies, I wouldn't even know he exists. I've never read about him anywhere, ever, until I looked him up. But I also figured that it may be possible that he was influential either before my time, or that maybe he had influence in a behind the scenes way even if he isn't talked about in the MSM.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

He's not politically influential, but his organization is dangerous to the people in it. It uses all the standby cult tactics: isolation, sleep control, breaking down self-worth, etc.



eta: That second link also talks about Jeremiah Duggan, who died in questionable circumstances while trying to escape the cult.

thanks for the links, I will check this out.

 

[Policenaut]

His followers have been on college campuses trying to recruit the dim-witted and politically ignorant for years and years. Anti-abortion groups have better pitches to the public than LaRouche supporters.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

His followers have been on college campuses trying to recruit the dim-witted and politically ignorant for years and years. Anti-abortion groups have better pitches to the public than LaRouche supporters.

I talked to a couple of them for quite some time and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it is they stood for. I couldn't even tell if they were left wing or right wing. They really just talked about things they had a problem with (i.e. Obama is Hitler) rather than what they are all about.

 

[Policenaut]

What was said before is right. They are mostly brainwashed cultists who have no real idea or understanding of what they believe, only that they believe it.

 

[Childlike Empress]

His wife is some sort of fringe German, quasi-antiSemite loon. Out side of college campuses and subway stops in major cities, they have little influence...IMO.

She has her own party called Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidaridät (BüSo), since decades. Yesterday there were elections in the german state of NRW, and BüSo got - as usual - a whopping 0.0x% with 3375 votes of nearly eight million total.

edit: But i don't think it's accurate to call them antisemites. According to the LaRouchies, the conspiracy is led by the Queen and her "synarchist" minions from London. At least if there isn't a crypto-layer i have missed.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I talked to a couple of them for quite some time and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it is they stood for. I couldn't even tell if they were left wing or right wing. They really just talked about things they had a problem with (i.e. Obama is Hitler) rather than what they are all about.

I would suggest that most of them don't know either.

I ran into some of these numb-nuts a long time ago, probably 20 years or more. By the time I was done with them, I had them so twisted around that they were actually arguing against their original position.

 

[Cleon]

I'm curious about one thing...what's going to happen to these idiots when Larouche finally dies? The guy is 87 now, even massive amounts of crazy can only keep a body that old going for so long.

Are they going to embalm him and put him on display somewhere?

 

[dudalb]

To answer the original question:
No, the LaROuchites make the Tea Partiers look relavtively sane.

 

[MattusMaximus]

How do you tell one group of nuts from another?

I usually distinguish by texture and salt content

 

[headscratcher4]

I'm curious about one thing...what's going to happen to these idiots when Larouche finally dies? The guy is 87 now, even massive amounts of crazy can only keep a body that old going for so long.

Are they going to embalm him and put him on display somewhere?

What makes you think he's ever going to die?