From: aq817@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steve Crocker)
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Subject: Re: Lyndon LaRouche & the Liberty L
Date: 8 Sep 1992 06:15:13 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc5.ins.cwru.edu


In a message here
NLG Civil Liberties Committee <cberlet@igc.apc.org>
(Chip Berlet) writes:

>The Rev. James Bevel was brought up as proof that LaRouche could not be a 
>fascist. Bevel was indeed an early civil rights leader, but in recent years 
>he >has become very opportunistic. I interviewed him in Chicago when he was 
>being paraded arounded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon people for his support of 
>CAUSA, their anti-communist group active in South and Central America. The 
>noted African-American columnist and academic, Manning Marable, denounced 
>Bevel for his alliance with fascists. Bevel began working with LaRouche 
>several years ago.  

Well, I am disturbed to find that the Reverend Bevel was working with CAUSA.
They are not my favorite people. I have to wonder whether there is more here 
than meets the eye, though. In particular I wonder what Rev, Bevel said in 
that interview as to his motives and rationale for working with that group.
I also wonder how he would evaluate that association today, looking back 
from his present perspective as a LaRouche supporter.
 
I question your calling Rev. Bevel "opportunistic" simply because he has
chosen to work with people with whom you disagree politically. People
DO sometimes change their views, even to those that you may disaprove of
rather intensely, for principled reasons based on what they actually
believe. Unless you have more to go on than you have presented, I think
that characterization is unfair and should be withdrawn. (Although I 
must admit that the likelyhood of actually being elected to the Vice
Presidency on LaRouche's ticket would be ample incentive to make an
otherwise conscientous invividual abandon his principles. Yeah, that
must be it. The opportunist Bevel has the gleam of the Vice Presidency
in his eye. Perhaps he even hopes to try for the big one in 2000. :)

The bald fact that a "noted African-American columnist and academic" has
denounced Rev. Bevel's associations fails to be impressive.

>To argue that a group cannot be racist because it has Black supporters, or
>cannot be anti-Jewish because it has Jewish members, is to mistake heredity 
>for politics. Blood line does not determine politics, that's the argument of
>eugenicists and Nazis. Biological determinism is the term. Kahane was a 
>fascist even though he was Jewish. What made that true was his politics of 
>scapegoating.

I think you mistake the structure of the arguement on this point. I cannot 
speak for the poster you are responding to, but I would say that the point
is NOT that a black cannot be anti-black or a Jew cannot be anti-Jewish.
Self-hatred is a common human emotion, and may in exceptional cases 
manifest itself as hatred of one's own root culture. The more important 
dynamic to look at is the cognitive dissonance set up in the majority 
members of the presumed fascist group as they are asked to work alongside 
and view with respect a member of the minority group which is supposedly 
being made a scapegoat. The Nation of Islam and the Ku Klux Klan did 
indeed enter negotiations aimed at tactical co-operation in areas of 
mutual interest. That is a LONG way from having members of the despised 
race as active members and leaders of the organization. To take a couple 
of prominent examples from the Chicago area, Sheila Jones is black and 
Janice Hart is Jewish (in fact I believe one of her parents was a Holocaust 
survivor). Now somebody who knew nothing of these individuals could imagine 
that they might be possessed of the kind of self-hatred that would lead to 
their active support of a fascist organization. But what of their fellow 
organizers? You ask us to imagine that these people could work with on a 
daily basis, and accept policy leadership from, (over a period of YEARS) 
individuals who they would be secretly characterizing with the N word or 
the K word. Chip, if you sincerely buy this, I think there will be a lot 
of people who want to interest you in investment opportunities. 

Additionally, what of the appeal to the masses? David Duke never had any 
black faces in his campaign (at least not in high visibility positions).
There is a simple and practical reason for this. The kind of people Duke
needed to mobilize would not have accepted it. If you are organizing a
racist group, you have to mobilize a racist constituency. That constituency
will be so turned off at seeing a black woman running for a highly visible
public office that they would laugh your group right out of the bar.

Now oddly enough, I'm NOT saying that LaRouche doesn't want to appeal to
racists. (This is not a point he has ever spoken about, I'm extrapolating
from what I know of how he thinks). There are a LOT of racists out there
and SOMEBODY is going to have their allegiance. What LaRouche DOES NOT
and WILL NOT do is to appeal to them ON THE BASIS OF THEIR RACISM. Lyn
believes that the fundamental quality that makes us human is our ability
to change and grow, as invividuals and as cultures, by reflecting on what 
we have been and identifying with the creative intelligence that brought
us where we are, and can carry us to places we have never been. The racist
has this potential, just as do all the various despised and scapegoated 
minorities. What Lyn does is to appeal to this universal quality of mind,
which is the same in a black, a Jew, a Klansman, a leftist, or whoever. 

I'll never forget as long as I live the poster he used when he ran for
President in 1976 as the U.S. Labor Party candidate. His picture over
the slogan "OUT OF WORK ? - THIS MAN CAN GIVE YOU A JOB REBUILDING THE 
WORLD". This is NOT a fascist slogan. This is NOT an appeal to hatred.
This is an appeal to the best within an individual. This is an appeal
to humanity. This is an appeal to the same impulse that caused SDS 
leader Paul Booth to say "We want to build villages - we refuse to burn 
them." And it was not a cheap throwaway line. It is a profound statement
of the LaRouche line on every social crisis from AIDS to Africa, from
South America to South Central L.A. Always and consistently LaRouche calls
for "developement". Always and consistently he says "look to the best and
most creative discoveries in science and technology and organize to USE
these technologies to better the lives of all people". Always and 
consistently LaRouche has said to peoples who have been at war with one 
another over the redistribution of poverty, "join together with your 
former enemies to turn deserts into breadbaskets, third world slums into 
towering cities of proud, educated, productive workers, and a suffering 
world of hunger and disease into an enlightened  humanity which can 
colonize the solar system and reach together for the stars."

Want an example? How about Israel? Does anybody know what the "anti-semite"
LaRouche proposes for Israel? He proposes an alliance for development of the
Mideast region among Israel and its neighbors. This would make joint use of
Israeli high technology, Egyptian skilled manpower, and oil state financing.
WHAT A FASCIST PROGRAM! :) 


>What many people see in LaRouche are the promises he makes for the 
>"average"

Well, I think LaRouche must have gone to school in Lake Wobegone, because he 
seems to think we can all be better than "average". :) LaRouche is in no 
sense a classical populist. He is an unashamed elitist. The catch is that 
he wants everybody to become part of the elite. He would like to see the 
guy on the assembly line move up to skilled trades, while the skilled 
trades worker becomes a technician or engineer, and the engineers become 
scientists. He wants to see ignorant people become educated, and people 
whose greatest concern in life was their soap operas to become active 
citizens.

>person. Keep an eye on which groups are scapegoated by LaRouche, which 
>persons populate his vast conspiracies. Key to his schemes are 
>scapegoating of the British monarchy and Jewish banking families. It 
>should sound familiar to anyone

How is this nonsense, let me count the ways. 

Scapegoating. My understanding of this term is that it refers to finding
a particularly visible individual or group and encouraging people to blame
their problems on the target. In the case of fascist political movements, 
this generally evolves into actual organized violence against the target, 
for the purpose of forging emotional bonds of shared violence among the 
rank and file of the movement, as well as striking terror into the hearts 
of anybody who might otherwise oppose the Leader and his program. The 
scapegoat is generally somebody close enough to be an accessible target, 
but different enough to be "other" in the minds of the mob. 

Scapegoating is very general in its approach. It does not allege
specific criminal acts of identifiable individuals or organizations, but
rather nebulously defined generalities. (This is different from a frame-up.
The blaming of the Reichstag fire on the Communists was a political 
frame-up, but was not scapegoating. The blaming of Germany's economic woes
on the "Jewish Bankers" was scapegoating).

When LaRouche attacks the British Monarchy, the European oligarchy,
gentile and Jewish internatioanl banking families, the International 
Monetary Fund, politicians, etc. he is specific and focussed. He states
who he is accusing and what he is accusing them of (O.K. sometimes he
generalizes in his speeches, but it is generally possible to get the
specific names of his targets by following the newspaper.) Now his 
accusations may be accurate or inaccurate, that is a separate issue. 
However, the fact that they are specific and focussed takes them out of 
the realm of "scapegoating". 

Additionally, scapegoating usually looks to simple answers to complex
problems. LaRouche's analysis of world events is, if anything, noticeably
MORE complex than the world view of Time, Newsweek, et. al.

On the issue of "Jewish Banking Families" READ MY LIPS AND GET IT STRAIGHT.
LaRouche attacks prominent banking families and institutions of Jewish and
gentile origin indiscrimately. He attacks them because of what they have
done or are doing, and the policies they stand for. Not who they are, and
certainly not because of their ethnic origin. Chip, you claim to have been
an extensive reader of LaRouche's material. If you can find anything he
or his associates have written that targets specifically Jewish banking
families, other than over the same issues of policy on which he also 
attacks gentile banking families, please identify the reference and post
some excerpts. Otherwise, out of common decency and respect for the truth,
please withdraw this characterization.

>who has studied the European or American fascist movements. Anglophobia and
>Anti-semitism (anti-Jewish myths) are core beliefs in fascist theory in the
>Eurocentric branch of the ideology, just as anti-Korean and anti-Chinese
>bigotry were central to the Japanese variant.

"Anglophobia" was also a core belief at the time of the American Revolution,
and not without cause. Even as late as the Civil War, the British openly
supported the Confederacy. If you think the British are not guilty of what 
LaRouche accuses them of, then please say so and say why. At present, your
intellectual method appears to be to refute a hypothesis based on its
superfical similarity to a hypothesis previously promoted by a group
universally known for their evil practices. This is guilt by association
on a scale that would have alternately made Joe McCarthy blush and turned
him green with envy.

>-Chip Berlet

-Steve Crocker
Newsgroups: alt.activism