supporting his group is a good thing. They are about much more than a few political soundbites and a bit of political analysis.
To prove my point, here's a few bits from LaRouche's interview with the BBC, April 2003 - he makes some good points about the Iraq war:
[...]
The point is, this is a war which has no exit strategy, and from a military standpoint very little competence. The generals are competent, but I think the Defense Secretary is not competent--at least, from what we've seen. And I know a good deal about how this war was engineered. It's unnecessary, the matter should have remained in the United Nations. We, as a group of nations, have the ability to control any actual problem which existed there. It was not necessary to go to war, and this war can not stop with Iraq, because it's a war that has no satisfactory exit, as we say in the United States, no satisfactory exit strategy.
[...]
[About WMD and UN inspections]
The facts of the matter are also in question. There was a group which fabricated some of the stuff which was laundered through the Prime Minister's office, which was then regurgitated by Secretary Powell in the United Nations proceeding. So far, the United States official position has been to adopt that fraudulent information as the basis for alleged violations by Iraq. I don't know whether they are alleged violations or not. It doesn't make any difference. We could have handled them the other way. You have the Chief Inspector Blix, who has rather discouraged this nonsense, and we shouldn't have gotten ourselves in this mess.
( from:
http://larouchein2004.net/pages/interviews/2003/030403bbc.htm )
That, to my mind, was a reasonable and insightful comment on the war, right at the time it was starting. He also makes some interesting comments about the Nazi affiliation of neo-con guru Strauss, I don't know how true, which portray Wolfowitz and Perle in an agreeably bad light.
So LaRouche
sometimes gets it right.
However, there's a darker side to the LaRouche organisation, as described, for example, in Chip Berlet's (1986!) article from Public Eye Magazine, at:
http://www.skepticfiles.org/rumor/lr-hist.htmA few quotes from a long article:
[in 1973] LaRouche followers wielding chains and bats physically attacked and injured political rivals in street battles and classroom brawls. LaRouche ordered his troops into the streets saying "I am going to make you organizers --by taking your bedrooms away from you....To the extent that my physical powers do not prevent me, I am now confident and capable of ending your political --and sexual --impotence; the two are interconnected aspects of the same problem." In early 1974 LaRouche announced to the press that he had uncovered a CIA plot to brainwash his followers into assassinating him. LaRouche alone had the skill to develop the "deprogramming" sessions each member was expected to undergo.
[...]
Richard Lobenthal, Midwest Regional Director for the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith observes that one indicted LaRouche security advisor, Roy Frankhouser "has been identified as present with other white supremecists at meetings held at the farm of Pastor Bob Miles in Michigan." Leaders of the notoriously racist Aryan Nations have attended the same meetings. "Frankhouser's background and connections are myriad, he is obviously a LaRouchite, he is a professed racist and anti-Semite and was a close associate of neo-Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell," says Lobenthal. Another ADL spokesperson, Irwin Suall, was once sued by LaRouche for calling him a "small time Hitler." The jury ruled against LaRouche.
[...]
Prexy Nesbitt, a consultant to the American Committee on Africa who has lead campaigns calling for Divestment in South Africa, agrees the LaRouche organization should be taken more seriously. "His people have deliberately made themselves an obstacle to our organizing and disrupted our activities," says Nesbitt. "The LaRouche people spied on anti-apartheid activists and South African exiles in Europe and then provided information to South African government," charges Nesbitt. "This is a very dangerous and potentially deadly game," he says. "Critics of the South African Government have disappeared or been killed, their offices have been blown up," reports Nesbitt.
In 1981 the respected British magazine New Scientist ran an article titled "American fanatics put scientists' lives at risk." According to the article, LaRouche's Executive Intelligence Review had circulated a report naming a number of scientist working in the Middle East as being involved in an insurgent conspiracy against established governments. "In certain Middle East countries with hypersensitive governments," warned the magazine, "these allegations, however indirect, can easily lead to arrests, prison sentences and even executions."
Also from the eighties, 1981 in fact, there's a list of LaRouchie malfeasance at
http://www.publiceye.org/larouche/Bellant_Berlet_King.html from Berlet, Russ Bellant and Dennis King, focussing on then LaRouche org the National Caucus of Labour Committees (NCLC). LaRouche is fingered for ties to dodgy intelligence agencies and organised crime:
1) The NCLC intelligence staff, which does freelance research for hire, has prepared reports for foreign intelligence agencies such as the Bureau of State Security (BOSS) of South Africa, and SAVAK under the late Shah of Iran. A former NCLC Counterintelligence specialist recounted in the March 30, 1979 issue of National Review how NCLC had prepared a report for the Iraqi government. Other former NCLC security staffers have been quoted in print as saying the organization has prepared reports for many other governments including Libya, Taiwan, South Korea, India and French Intelligence under Giscard. To our knowledge, the NCLC has never registered as agents for any of these foreign governments.
[...]
3) LaRouche and the NCLC ties to organized crime figures and Teamster Union officials alleged to have organized crime ties have been reported in an exhaustive article by Dennis King appearing in the December 1981 issue of High Times magazine. Another article appearing in the January 1982 issue of Mother Jones, makes similar charges: LaRouche was endorsed for President of the U.S. by Rolland McMaster, who has repeatedly been identified as a Detroit racketeer. LaRouche's New Hampshire primary campaign was coordinated by Jack Ferris, a close associate and reputed business frontman for McMaster. Ferris was paid over $96,000 by the LaRouche campaign committee, much of it while LaRouche was receiving federal matching funds. The LaRouche campaign included threats to make it "very painful" for his critics according to the 10/12/79 issue of the Manchester Union Leader.
It's a classic tactic of those wishing to recruit young idealists into cultic movements to piggy-back their doctrine on top of valid or plausible critiques of the politics of the day. The quotes above indicate the sort of roots his organisation has - a comparison to scientology or the Moonies seems completely valid to me - and there's plenty of evidence that LaRouche continues to exploit members of his own organisation today, for example the "anti-cult" site
http://www.justiceforjeremiah.com/index.html has a telling series of letters from a LaRouche insider, and other links worth reading...
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