It Could Happen Here - Political Cults, Part 2 Ft. Andrew: Spooky Week #5

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Andrew tells Garrison about the far-right Trotsky inspired cult leader Lyndon Larouche.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or whenever you get your podcasts. while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Calls on media. everything. Welcome to Could It Happen Here? I'm Andrew with YouTube channel Anturism. And last time I was on here discussing political cults generally. Today, I'm here once again with...

Oh, Garrison, yes. Hello. I am also here to talk about cults, because Andrew told me to. Yes, yes. And I'm the leader in this dynamic. In many ways, this Zoom call is kind of a mini cult where you are the leader. Indeed, indeed. There is nothing except this call. There is no outside world. There is no cat on your desk. It is just this. The cat is a revisionist.

So last episode, we discussed how cults operate, essentially. The rollercoaster emotional ride that individuals experience during cult recruitment where their feelings and ideas are manipulated and they're drawn into an exclusive and isolating group. We explored the rigid belief system that's created the immunity to falsification, the authoritarianism, arbitrary leadership,

deification of leaders, intense activism, and the use of loaded language. We spoke about the contradictions within political cults uh and the conditions of ideological totalism and today as promised we're going to look at one political cult leader in particular whose influence spanned left to right oh A self-described Platonist, a presidential candidate, a conspiracy theorist,

the alleged target of an assassination from Queen Elizabeth, a once Trotskyist, the one and only, the infamous, the loathsome, Lyndon LaRouche. As soon as you said Platonist, I knew we were in for just a horrible time.

Just the worst. The only people who self-describe as Platonists are the worst. Actually, the last person I knew who self-described as a Platonist was the target of an assassination. Because it was the daughter of Alexander Dlexander dugan was a was a was a uh anyway what an interesting cast of characters indeed indeed and speaking of cast of characters by the way i should note that tim wolforth one of the co-authors of the book that this research was based on the book being on the edge particular cults left and right uh tim warforth the other author's tenant is dennis turish was a trotskyist cult

leader at one point or like cult underling okay or whatever um but he was kicked out and then he needs a co-author this book to call out some of their cultish tendencies. If you need that sort of backstory to take some of this with a grain of salt, so be it. Because as far as I can tell, Tim Wofforth and Lennon LaRouche actually crossed paths at one point. Interesting. local Quaker community for his alleged misuse of funds. He then briefly attended Northeastern University in Boston and left in 1942, at least partly because he believed his teachers, quote, lacked the competence to teach him on conditions he was willing to tolerate. Sure, sure. I'll take him for his word on that one. Yeah, yeah.

At first, he was a conscientious objector to enlistment in world war ii because you know quicker uh and instead he joined a civilian public service camp in what is what you know which is what conscientious objectors did at the time but eventually he would enlist with the u.s army and served with the medical corps in india and b, which is now Myanmar. In 1946, aboard the SS General Bradley, Don Morrill met the young soldier Lenin LaRouche and got into it with him about politics, and particularly the political optimism of the post-World War II era. What a time. The revolutionary spirit of the Indian subcontinent, and socialist ideas more broadly. Now, LaRouche was already sympathetic towards Marx and Trotsky at this point. In fact, even in his preteens, he was a voracious reader

of philosophy, particularly of the German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnizbutt, but ultimately, by the time they returned to America LaRouche was a Trotskyist. In brief for those unaware a Trotskyist is someone who adheres to the principles and politics of Leon Trotsky who was a prominent figure in the early Soviet Union and a key figure in the what I would call co-optation of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Trotskyism is distinct from mainstream Leninist and particularly Stalinist thought, most famously for their rejection of socialism in one country and their advocacy of permanent revolution. By the time LaRouche had returned home in 1947, he joined his hometown, Lynn, Massachusetts, chapter of the Socialist Workers

Party, SWP, which was the main American Trotskyist group. Interestingly, he took on a party name, which really reminds me of how religious missionaries would give those they converted quote-unquote Christian names upon baptism. Yeah, so his party name was Lynn Marcus. names upon baptism yeah so his his party name was lynn marcus you could just see it as a pseudonym for political work of course i mean the cia and the fbi were very active in infiltrating these sorts of groups so i understand having like a pseudonym but i mean considering we're talking about cult tendencies and political movements i couldn't pass up on that observation you know don morrell who was also from the Massachusetts, was also part of the SWP and very active in their union organizing activities.

LaRouche, though, not so much. He was very intellectually oriented. He wasn't very into the union scene. And he eventually left Massachusetts in 1952 and settled down in New York City. He got married, he had a son, and he was focused on his career. As an economic consultant in the shoe industry, with a nice, nice apartment in Central Park West, he didn't really have any ties to the working class efforts of the SWP. So, what now? Well, eventually, he and his wife separated, and he moved in with a fellow swp member known sometimes as carol white sometimes as carol schnitzer and sometimes as carol larrabee and then he decided that the swp leadership had the wrong idea why are they so obsessed with union

organizing perhaps he should be the one calling the shots. You have to understand something about LaRouche. You see, with little involvement or connection to actual working class struggle and disconnection, you see, with little involvement or connection to actual working class struggle and disconnection from the party's activity, he had already begun making a rightward shift, even while still bearing the banner of leftism. As an intellectual, he loved his books, including Marx's Capital, Rosa Luxemburg's The Accumulation of Capital, and Hegel's Logic, and his intellectualism naturally fed into his elitism.

Drawing from Lenin's What Is To Be Done, LaRouche believes that a select intellectual group, which he was clearly a part of, these professional revolutionaries, held a pivotal role in transforming society, with their task being to gain dominance over the less intellectually developed masses. He also borrowed from Gramsci's idea of hegemony. He saw himself in competition with other intellectuals on the left for leadership over the hearts and minds of the dummy masses to undermine the capitalists' hold on the working class. But unlike Gramsci, he didn't believe the working class was capable of developing its own leaders. He was that leader. And he also borrowed from George Lucas' concept of class consciousness and the importance of thinkers.

LaRouche wasn't just a thinker. He saw himself as the thinker. The one who would take power and lead the masses to freedom. The one who would take power and lead the masses to freedom. So he was fed up with the SWP limiting his clearly elite intellect and ability. And so in 1965, he left and joined a small Trotskyist group called the American Committee for the Fourth International. Yes. Associated with George Healy, who was another left-wing cult leader. A lot of left-wing cults came out of the Fourth International,

some of which are very cool, some of which are not very cool. Indeed, indeed. But guess what? He didn't like the Fourth International. He only stayed there for six months, and apparently, Healy did not even like him i mean i wonder why right no i mean he seems he seems like a very agreeable fellow and not only that i mean when have you ever heard of cult leaders getting along you know cult leaders sent a view other cult leaders as threats to their total control you

know it would be funny if there was just like a conference for cult leaders to like to like share like tactics and they all have like dinner together yeah so larouche bustled to that party and he joined the spartacist league which was another trot party and again he didn't stay for too long he decided he was going to put all those factions and leaders behind him and declared himself the pioneer of the fifth international so for those unaware the first workers international from 1864 to 1876 was a coalition of labor and socialist groups seeking to promote workers rights and international solidarity it split because of the irreconcilable differences and divisions between the statists and the anarchists. Then in 1889, and from then until 1916,

the Second International was born. That was an organization of socialist and labor parties. This time, no anarchists allowed, and it was aimed at fostering cooperation among socialists globally until it dissolved due to the divisions related to World War I. And then, in 1919, the Soviet Union founded the Third International, or the Comintern, to promote worldwide communist revolution and aid communist parties. But then it dissolved during World War II due to the Soviet-German tensions among other things and then in 1938 Trotsky who was marginalized and persecuted by Stalin founded the Fourth International as an oppositional alternative to the Stalin-dominated Comintern. Technically the Fourth International is still active today but it's always been fairly irrelevant beyond small bickering sects and ever splintering splinter groups and more than one political cult so for a trotskyist like larouche

to declare a fifth international is like you know here we go again how is he gonna manage to do this 1968 picture this a room with about 30 students sitting on the floor, all eyes fixed on Lyndon LaRouche. After playing a major role in the student strike at Columbia University, these students were totally invested in this man's every word. They were part of the National Caucus of Labor Committees, NCLC, which was affiliated with the students for democratic society sds larouche held this meeting for a whole seven hours that's longer than a church service and he blended discussions of tactics with educational presentations the sds had a lot of spirit and action but larouche believed that they were a bit short on theory, so he was there to fill that void, and a bit more.

The Gathering marked the early stages of what would later become a political cult centered around LaRouche, where he served as an intellectual and political guru, training his followers as devoted disciples. He had a particular knack for making his disciples feel like they were part of an elite club. They believed they were the only ones who truly understood the era they were in and had all the answers to fix society's problems. In 1970, LaRouche wrote that you should start with recruiting and educating a revolutionary intelligentsia, mainly young intellectuals like these student radicals,

rather than the working class, because, again, LaRouche thought the working class was stupid. He wanted these elite recruits to commit to intensive study and activism, particularly of his interpretation of ideas, so they'd lead the charge. And remember, at this point, LaRouche was pushing a right-wing form of Trotskyism. Like Marx, he believed that capitalism had to keep growing to stay alive. Once it hit its limits, it would grow into crisis mode and eventually collapse. He also shared Marx's ideal that human activity should be all about progress, particularly the growth of the world's productive forces. Do you know who's organizing the next international, actually? Right now, right now.

It is, in fact, the products and services that sponsor this podcast. So they're making the great shift. The same way anarchism was expunged from the second international, now communism is going to be expunged from this next upcoming international, and it's just going to be capitalists. So here are the sponsors organizing the next international. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me as the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonorum,

an anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts.

Or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente. It's Honey German. And I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again. The podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture. Música, películas, and entertainment. With some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists,

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Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose.

This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things

that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts.

Check out betteroffline.com. Marx thought capitalism was just a phase in human society, and its crises would pave the way for a working-class revolution which would lead to socialism. Under socialism, the productive forces would flourish without those pesky capitalist constraints. LaRouche came up with something he called the theory of re-industrialization. He claimed that capitalism, in its third stage of imperialism, needed fresh opportunities for capital investment. He even predicted that if world leaders did not follow his advice, the system was on the brink of collapse.

Only he and his trained followers under his lead could prevent this catastrophe. By the late 60s and early 70s, members were giving up their jobs and devoting themselves wholly to the cause and leadership of LaRouche. They were convinced that the world had all the resources needed for an incredible economic transformation, but they saw a big problem. They thought the

nation's leaders were clueless. And of course, they didn't think too highly of the masses. So their solution was getting Lyndon LaRouche Jr. into power. Oh, by the way, he's a junior. was getting Lyndon LaRouche Jr. into power as soon as possible. And then he would lead the trade unions that take over America. He expected their support, and if they were slacking in their activism, he would call them out. Borrowing from the confrontational therapy of the New Age psychology cults larouche began holding ego stripping sessions anyone who failed in a task was subjected to pure psychological terror as everyone attacked them and tore apart their past and personal life in front of the whole group and because cults uh and because cults and sex are an inevitable combination like madness

and badness larouche also launched a campaign against the sexual impotence of his membership apparently carol left him for a disciple of the movement interesting his name was christopher white and they went to england to set up a chapter of the NCLC. So that's probably why he got a little bit unhinged. But that's not the worst of it. I can't not mention Operation Mop-Up. In 1973, LaRouche fully shifted the group's political stance from being far left to far right. LaRouche fully shifted the group's political stance from being far left to far right.

Armed with bats, chains, and martial arts gear, his supporters physically attacked members of the Socialist Workers' Party and the Communist Party, for he declared that he intended to wipe these rival parties off the map, going as far as to threaten their families as well. But it didn't stop there. He extended his attacks to groups like the Revolutionary Communist Party, the October League, and the Progressive Labour Party. Essentially, LaRouche wanted to establish dominance through these physical confrontations. There were at least 60 reported assaults during this time, and the whole operation only ended

when the police stepped in and arrested some of LaRouche's followers. Interestingly though, there weren't any convictions and LaRouche insisted that his people were only acting in self-defense. But here's where it gets a little bit murkier. Journalist and LaRouche biographer Dennis King suggested that the FBI may have played a role in stirring up trouble among these groups. They may have used tactics like sending anonymous mail-ins to keep these groups at each other's throats. So, you know,

plot thickens. That was very typical kind of COINTELPRO stuff that was happening around this time period. That would not surprise me. Yeah. It's safe to say though, in this period of LaRouche's life, all the

folks on the left were wondering if he was really still one of their own. Back to 1973. Carol and Christopher like I said, they were going to the UK to set up their own version of the NCLC.

But then LaRouche called them back to the US for a national conference. And during the flight, Christopher lost it. He started yelling that the CIA had plans to off Larrabee and LaRouche. Carol, Larrabee, and LaRouche. The plane was in utter chaos.

So Carol reached out to LaRouche, and they decided to work together to deprogram Christopher. What do you mean, deprogram Christopher? I'm glad you asked i i think we have mentioned cult deprogramming before kind of in passing but never never too much on it i think yes what i mean in this instance though is not that they were trying to inculcate him into the cult or deprogram him from mainstream ideology. You see, in his rantings and ravings on the plane, Christopher claimed he was a Manchurian candidate who had been tortured by the CIA and British intelligence in a London basement. He then said he was programmed to do some stuff like offing his wife

and setting up LaRouche for a watery demise by Cuban exile frogmen. So that's the kind of deprogramming they intended to carry out. Hmm. I have some notes but I suppose I'll just let them do their thing.

Yeah, yeah. So Christopher was saying that he was a Manchurian candidate. And so then the whole group was in a frenzy. LaRouche and his disciples were releasing statements left and right, training their members on how to spot other Manchurian candidates and how to handle CIA torture. And here's where it gets really crazy. One of the members, Alice Weitzman,

she made a critical mistake in a political cult. She doubted. She didn't believe the whole CIA story that Christopher was pushing. And LaRouche didn't like that she didn't believe. And so LaRouche was like, oh, you don't believe that the CIA is infiltrating us right now? Then you must be a CIA agent. So he sends a squad of six members of his cult to Weitzman's apartment and they held her hostage and cranked up Beethoven music to deafening levels.

Why? Because LaRouche believed that Beethoven's tunes could somehow deprogram Manchurian candidates. Weitzman managed to toss out a note through the window and a passerby picked it up and alerted the police, so she was rescued. But then she chose not to press charges against her captors. LaRouche had turned this party, at this point with 1,000 members in 37 offices in North America and 26 in Europe and Latin America into an extreme right anti-Semitic organization despite the presence of Jewish members. In fact,

Carol herself was Jewish and she stuck around. Dennis King, the biographer I spoke about earlier, Dennis King, the biographer I spoke about earlier, found a deep connection between LaRouche and fascist and neo-Nazi groups. In the early 80s, LaRouche used the Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars, to bring together far-right forces from Europe and America. He was even promoting revanchism and defending nazi war criminals and he was known for blending his usual conspiracy theories with anti-semitism particularly towards the british he blamed the rothschilds for running great britain and he was a typical holocaust denier yeah i really i generally wonder why carol left him but i also wonder why she stuck around in the group anyway. The Anti-Defamation League labeled the Roosh's NCLC as the closest thing to an American fascist party.

And well, that begs the question, what was life like in that party? Yeah. I mean, I remember you, Garrison, describing a good party as a cult that ends. See, I think part of the problem is when, you know, a house party turns into a political party

and then, you know. That turns into a fascist party. Yeah. That never ends. Yeah. So LaRouche was using these really sneaky tactics to drive a wedge between LaRouche members

and their families, partners, and spouses. There were members of LaRouche's elite who convinced one person that their own dad was laundering money secretly for the drug trade. This organization was telling their members where they could live, what car to buy, when to quit their jobs, what they should read, what they should watch, how to scam their parents out of money, how and when to break up with their partners. Yeah, that's a close one.

And then while all this is going on, the LaRouche movement is also swapping out the red flags of Trotskyism for good old red, white, and blue. Members were soon educated with the ideas of Alexander Hamilton, right? Oh, God. Hamilton's economic policies were basically the American version of what Marx represented in Europe, according to LaRouche. And forget about Marx. They're not reading Marx anymore. Now they're reading Plato and Dante. In 1980,

they even told the members to vote for Reagan. Yeah. Cool stuff. Cool stuff. Cool stuff. They dropped their left... Noted Platonist philosopher

Ronald Reagan. Yeah. They basically dropped any veneer of left-leaning in their recruitment tactics. And then they started doing things like soliciting people at airports and bus terminals and these members they were caught in this whirlwind they didn't have time to read to think to get a decent night's sleep they were working 12-hour shifts and getting paid peanuts like a hundred dollars 125 a week and sometimes they didn't even get paid at all. They were in a

constant state of mobilization, living in adrenaline, ready for anything. And finally, in 1981, around 300 to 600 people decided they had had enough and left the organization. Some of them were former leftists, but not all. And those who stuck around were the die-hard cult members, completely under LaRouche's control. Welcome, I'm Danny Threl. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturno, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonoro.

An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love

technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game.

If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs

and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Would it surprise you, Garacin, to learn that LaRouche was a scammer? Oh, you're saying that the person involved in running the cult was also a prolific grifter and someone who tried to scam other people? Really? Really? Yeah, a lot of people don't know this, but cult leaders and scammers actually go hand in hand. Ah. Yeah, yeah. LaRouche was a master of operating through a network of front organizations. He created the Fusion Energy Foundation, getting support from nuclear and aerospace industries. He planned to run a private intelligence service, focusing on terrorists and drug cartels. Get this, he even met with top officials from the National Security Council and the CIA in the 80s, despite his paranoia about the CIA. And he somehow managed to get White House access. What? Yeah. Why? How? Yeah. He eventually infiltrated the

Democratic Party and ran for president several times. Oh God. And he launched the Proposition 64 initiative in California in the 80s, aiming to impose strict public health policies for AIDS, which public health officials rejected. But basically he was instrumental in spreading a lot of unnecessary fear about AIDS. In fact, he was advocating for lynch mobs to deal with the AIDS crisis.

Oh, so he wasn't like spreading good health information when everyone was ignoring the problem he was being like we should we should just kill everybody yeah pretty much okay i got huh but you know every scammer has their day um and one of his scams got him in the pen you see larouche had a knack for recruiting the offspring of the wealthy and separating them from their money to put it euphemistically one of his most famous recruits was lewis dupont smith a dupont heir that dupont who gave a whopping 212 000 to lar to LaRouche. He even moved close to LaRouche. But eventually, the DuPont family intervened, had him declared mentally ill,

and put him on a monthly stipend. Still, LaRouche was making a royal bank. His empire was growing. He had a 172-acre estate in Virginia, serving as his center of operations, which had phone banks, offices a printing plant guarded 24-7 by armed individuals

but the empire of LaRouche eventually went into a decline his lust for publicity caught the attention of the public and federal officials and his phone bank operators started making unauthorized credit card withdrawals.

He was like going to the White House. How did he try to stay under the federal radar? He was literally in the one spot, the one place. Exactly.

Exactly. It's baffling. But Dennis King has a book all about it so you could check it out in 1987 he faced a trial on credit card fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice which ended in a mistrial then a subsequent trial convicted him of various charges and he ended up in a federal penitentiary in 1989. And what do all great cult leaders or what do many great cult leaders do when they're in jail? Some of them write books. Precisely. All right.

All right. I'm back on now. Okay. So LaRouche decides to write a book called In Defense of Common Sense. It's a mix of obscure geometric illustrations, a passionate defense of Platonism, a tribute to the 17th century astronomer Johannes Kepler, and some heavy denunciations of philosophers like Kant and most philosophers post-Plato. In fact, as far as LaRouche was concerned,

every philosopher after Plato sucked. That's so funny. That's really funny. Incredibly. But at its core, his book, In Defense of Common Sense, was LaRouche restating his modernist, somehow Marx-inspired worldview.

He argued that scientific and technological progress set humanity apart from all other creatures and it naturally leads to increased population density in larouche's eyes there's no room for any entropic view that suggests a limit to human technology and population growth even coined the term negantropic to advocate for ongoing industrial and population expansion no matter what all right but then if you didn't okay maybe you listen to this and you're like none of this is all that dramatic and wild or whatever here's where it gets even wilder this is where we get to the intersection of lenin larououche and Elon Musk. LaRouche proposes that we colonize Mars. Well, I mean, honestly, the whole, his other, what was the term you just said?

Like neurotropic? Negantropic. Yeah, that is pretty similar to Musk's ideology as well, though. Pretty much, yeah. And so LaRouche says, let's go, let's colonize Mars. And once that's done in about 40 years, according to his estimation, then his philosophical standpoint will clearly rule all of humanity for all of time. But while LaRouche is deep in thought behind bars,

his followers, they're not twiddling their thumbs they joined forces with other anti-war demonstrators to oppose the gulf war in 1990 1991 um and it was interesting to note that the nclc was not the only voice from the right among those left-wing demonstrators uh pat Buchanan, the Populist Party, the Liberty Lobby, and other ultra-right and neo-isolationist groups formed a sort of united front with elements of the left in terms of that opposition to the Gulf War. And LaRouche was eventually released

on parole in 1994. And by 1998, during the economic crisis, LaRouche was demanding that Bill Clinton appoint him immediately as an economic advisor. Sounds like a good idea. Yeah. No, he seems, he seems well qualified. And I quote, it was now time to abandon crisis management and shilly-shallying, in other words, democracy. LaRouche believed in the inherent tendency of popular opinion toward mediocrity. The very tendency to rely upon collective decisions rather than decisions based upon validation of principle is itself a wellspring of mediocrity. itself a wellspring of mediocrity. He further explained,

It's a proposed assemble of virtual rabble of decision-makers, usually featuring those parties who are still advocates of the policies which have caused and advocated the crisis, is scarcely a noble enterprise, nor a fruitful one. Some relatively few in the position to influence directives must preempt the situation. Just in case there should be any question as to LaRouche's concept of governance, he declared China to be probably one of the best governments in the world today in terms of quality of leadership, the kind of leadership required

to get through crisis. LaRouche, like Mussolini and Hitler before him, borrowed from Marx and then changed his theories completely. Yeah, yeah. Marx's internationalist outlook was abandoned in favor of the nation state. Marx's goal of abolishing capitalism was replaced by a model of a totalitarian state that is still primarily in the hands of private corporations and their owners.

Who, by the way, would have to take orders from LaRouche. and their owners, who, by the way, would have to take orders from LaRouche. Now, Hitler called his schema National Socialism. Uh-huh. Interesting. Curious. LaRouche was a fan, but he was like, you know, let's add a little spice. Let's give it some American branding. So LaRouche called his system and ideology the American system.

It's a little bit less catchy, I gotta say. Yeah. I mean, that's the story of Lyndon LaRouche. He died, obviously. Most people do. There's only a few that have not died. Enoch

and I think one or two others. But most people do in fact die. Yeah, yeah. He was really quite the guy. He died in 2019, by the way. Oh, no! That recent? Yeah, yeah. He lived a really long

time. He only lived for 100 years, for crying out loud. Did not realize he was still kicking around so so recently yeah gone too soon am i right uh yeah yeah absolutely at least at least now he's in heaven with ruth bader ginsburg that's that's yeah yeah that's good why do the good die young you You know? Oh, he was just a kid. So as we conclude our journey into the enigmatic world of Lyndon LaRouche, I think we're left with more questions and answers.

How did a man on the fringe of radical politics end up in the White House? Yeah, that is one question I actually still am thinking about is, what were the conditions to his White House visit? And what led to his transformation from a committed leftist to a fascist? I mean, I think we could see the signs of that, right? Yes, yeah. In the 60s, LaRouche displayed egotism and hints of instability

but he was also an intelligent individual who attracted serious intellectuals his ideas well sometimes peculiar but generally rational but it was the adulation of certain students allowed him to gather a following around his ideas and personality. The collapse of student radicalism in the 70s set the stage for a shift from left to right and the unwavering loyalty of his followers likely reinforced his increasingly psychotic worldview and perception of his role in it. LaRouche was convinced that he deserved worship, that he was an intellect. He was fueled by his ideology of catastrophism, and that he, as the elite, would play a significant role as savior of humanity. The practices of his organization resembled many of the extreme religious thought control groups.

The practice of ideological totalism is very clear. The authoritarian structure is very clear. The paranoia fostered to create a clear boundary between the group and the outside world. Don't be like Lennon and LaRouche. Please, please. And watch out for his wannabes. I feel like Caleb Maupin is the LaRouche of this generation I mean yeah

I don't see Maupin getting invited to the White House anytime soon nor other characters like Chairman Bob yeah I don't know we live in a different time I think because of

how the internet works there's much more cult leaders just dispersed everywhere all the time yes it's almost it's almost the democratization of cult leadership yeah but it's also made them more or less isolated to the internet with occasional flare-ups in the world, which kind of which kind of limits their engagement with, you know, normal people, so to speak. Yeah, it's kind of difficult for cults, right? They're so isolated, they can't even communicate with people outside of them anymore. Yeah. And I think part of part of that is definitely happening here on the Internet, where there's just so many of them that they're all very small, they're all very isolated,

and they don't ever really break out of their bubble, which is common with a lot of cults, right? The ones that we only really know about or hear about are the ones that ended up doing some big horrific thing at some point that generated a lot of eyeballs on them. But for every Heaven's Gate, there's like, you know, a dozen new age cults that just fly right under the radar that are still like horribly abusive. They're still going on to this day. Yeah.

They just might not be tied to like a horrific act of like mass murder or mass suicide. That's a scary thought, you know, how many cults have not yet broken containment as it were. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a fun time to,

to, to be alive. Surely. Indeed. So, yeah, I mean, I've hope,

I hope that the audience has enjoyed this cautionary tale, a reminder of the profound and sometimes dangerous paths that ideology can take individuals and groups down. Once again, I'm Andrew of AndrewSM. This is Garrison of Garrison. Of myself, yes. And this has been In Could Happen Here. Peace. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com,

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