From: aq817@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steve Crocker)
Subject: Re: Lyndon LaRouche & the Liberty L
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 08:53:13 GMT


In an article here
dated Wed Aug 26 00:12:00 1992
NLG Civil Liberties Committee <cberlet@igc.apc.org>
(Chip Berlet) writes:

>Folks, try some intelligent analysis. Any large academic study of fascism
>will give a far more complex definition than authoritarian repression by
>a government. The major academic work on Liberty Lobby by Mintz, for example,
>discusses at great length the fascist tendencies of the group and the role
>it plays in bridging the neo-Nazi right and the reactionary right. The major
>error you folks are making about fascism, is that it is widely recognized that
>there is a dramatic difference between fascism as a political movement, with itspopulist and pseudo-radical appeals to the middle and working class, and the
>brutul form it takes when it gains state power.

Well, I can't speak about the Liberty Lobby, but there is a problem applying
this principle to LaRouche. To maintain a fascist government, it is necessary
to have available a gang of thugs organized to carry out the fascist 
program. Now Larouche's organizing perspective has always leaned toward 
"cadre building" at the expense of "base building", probably because of his
long standing belief that at the point of the capitalist breakdown crisis,
the base would essentially build itself, while the existence of a trained
cadre of leaders would be essential in directing the development ferment 
AWAY from its potential for fascism. Thus, anybody who is in significant
contact with the organization will be viewed as potential cadre, and will 
be treated to major doses of the underlying philosophy of the organization.
In this environment, it is virtually impossible for an organization to 
pretend to be one thing while in fact being another. You CANNOT train your
cadre to an in-depth understanding of the need for a high standard of 
living for working people, and then expect to use them to administer
fascist austerity when state power is seized. You cannot train them to
love and celebrate the poet Schiller's stirring defense of the 
"inalienable rights of man" and then expect them to follow you in 
tearing up the Constitution. (Contrast this to David Duke, a fascist by
anybody's standards, who has no cadre to speak of, and creates his base 
through manipulation of his media image. Duke has no philosophical depth,
and nobody follows him because they are intellectually convinced of the
rightness of his ideals. That is the kind of stuff fascist movements are
actually made of.) There is a lot of LaRouche's program that progressives
would be expected to criticize and oppose, and I would love to see a debate
on the pros and cons of what LaRouche actually wants to accomplish. But to
imply that he's doing some kind of ideological "bait and switch" simply
doesn't hold water. If you want to know how LaRouche thinks, READ LAROUCHE!

>  Please read Hannah Arendt on "The Origins of Totalitarianism" and her
>careful discusion of Fascism as a political movement: it sounds just like the
>appeals of LaRouche and Liberty Lobby: no surpise, both are fascist movements.
>Please recall that as movements, fascism in Italy and Germnany attacked the
>regimes in power as corrupt, and promised to represent the average person
>against the elites.
 
Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time for serious reading. Perhaps you 
could summarize Arendt's main points for those of us who are in the same
boat. From what you say here, it would appear that this analysis of fascism
focuses on political STYLE rather than CONTENT. I think this is incorrect. 
LaRouche has stated repeatedly that the content of a fascist program
consists of the imposition of austerity, thus slashing the living standards
of the working class, in response to a financial crisis. LaRouche has 
consistently denounced fascist austerity and proposed to resolve the financial
crisis through debt reorganization combined with massive amounts of new credit
to be invested in infrastructure and high technology capital goods. This 
would allow the workers to prosper, not suffer. The content of this program
is not only NOT FASCIST, it is explicitly ANTI-FASCIST. If you wish to 
present a different view as to the content of a fascist program, or to 
argue that in fact fascism is defined by style, not content, I would be
interested to hear it.

> Sorry suckers, you're falling for the con again. I would have thought
>thinking folks would not make the same error twice...at least not in
>the same century.
>  I will post a lengthier discussion I co-wrote on LaRouche in a new
>topic.

It's certainly lengthy. I hope to be able to read it and eventually
respond to at least some of the points raised.

>  And please do some reading in a real library, not just issues of
>LaRouchian and Liberty Lobby screed.

But don't imagine you know what LaRouche's program or philosophy actually
is until you have read it "from the horse's mouth". Media coverage of
LaRouche's program is abysmal.


>George Seldes, author of "Sawdust Caesar," first biography of Il Dulce:
>"This guy LaRouche is pushing the same line as the Italian Fascists, it's
>Italian Fascist Economic theory...anyone can see that."
>   (Interview with Seldes at age 96 at his home in Vermont, 1986)

Did he identify what the content of that line was?

>-Chip Berlet
Steve Crocker

>Sued twice by LaRouche for calling him a fascist...LaRouche lost both cases.
>One was a jury trial...they did their homework...why don't you?

What was their homework assignment - reading Dennis King's book? Or 
perhaps a reprint of "The Want to Take Your Drugs Away?"
<oops>
"They want..."
Xref: sparky alt.activism:15305 soc.culture.latin-america:3201 talk.politics.misc:41452