lkk@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU (Larry Kolodney) (03/25/86)
---------------------
Date: 23 May 83 14:31:06 PDT (Monday)
From: Newman.ES
Subject: Re: Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr.
In-reply-to: jackson.pa's message of 23 May 83 13:50:09 PDT (Monday)
To: jackson.pa
cc: AntiWar^.pa
Oh boy, I could almost write a book about Lyndon LaRouche, his numerous
front groups and publications, and his long history of harrassing Left
and Progressive organizations and individuals in the United States.
LaRouche started out as a member of the Socialist Workers' Party
(SWP)--a Trotskyist organization that publishes "The Militant" and was
fairly prominent in the 1960's antiwar movement. He left the SWP to
join the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and soon found himself
leading a caucus called the "Labor Committee". They supported the New
York City teachers' strike of 1969, in which the teachers opposed
community control of schools (i.e., letting Black neighbors run schools
in Black neighborhoods.) SDS supported community control and opposed
the strike, so LaRouche's group left SDS.
For a few years, LaRouche's National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC)
was just another harmless, ineffectual leftist group, hawking its
newspapers and turning up at demonstrations. Then in 1972-73, they
launched a program called "Operation MOP UP", which consisted of violent
physical attacks on members of the Communist and Socialist Workers'
parties.
In the following years, NCLC (aka The U.S. Labor Party) turned radically
rightward, aligning itself with extreme rightist groups like the
American Independent Party. They began promoting a wild conspiracy
theory linking all liberal, left, and progressive organizations, plus
many mainstream people, into a terrorist plot to destroy the American
economy. Some favorite targets that I remember included the
Rockefellers, Ralph Nader, the Institute for Policy Studies, the
Stanford Research Institute (SRI), the Teamsters for a Democratic Union,
Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda, and the Campaign for Economic Democracy.
In 1977, members of the NCLC warned ultra-rightist New Hampshire
Governor Meldrim Thompson that the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance,
which was about to occupy the Seabrook Nuclear power plant site, was a
terrorist organization. Actually, the Clamshell was simply a
non-violent protest group just like its California counterparts, the
Abalone Alliance and the Alliance for Survival.
LaRouche is virulently anti-Semitic, and at one point launched a
campaign to "clean up" Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.
LaRouche has a lot of money, from unknown sources. They put out a huge
amount of slickly produced literature and have a nationwide teletype
network. Many people think that the CIA funds them to disrupt the Left
inside the U.S.
LaRouche ran for President on the U.S. Labor Party ticket in 1976, and
ran in Democratic primaries in 1980. His people frequently run for
local and state offices, never getting many votes but always attracting
a lot of publicity. In Santa Monica, they circulated the baseless
accusation that Tom Hayden's Campaigne for Economic Democracy is a front
for the West German Green party.
LaRouche has used a myriad of front groups and publications over the
years, including:
U.S. Labor Party
National Caucus of Labor Committees
New Solidarity newspaper
The Campaigner press and magazine
National Anti-Drug Coalition (publishers of War on Drugs magazine--an
attempt to co-opt middle-class anti-drug sentiment)
Fusion Energy Foundation (publishers of Fusion magazine. A front
group to entice scientists and engineers)
The Young Scientists' club and magazine (an attempt to brainwash
elementary-school kids into LaRouchism under the guise of science
education)
National Democratic Policy Committee (the Democratic Party has sued to
try to stop the use of this name)
American Labor Beacon magazine (an attempt to reach out to the most
corrupt parts of the labor movement, such as the Teamster leadership)
I regard the LaRouche people as a neo-fascist brainwashed cult similar
to the Moonies and the Scientologists--but far more dangerous.
I can provide numerous magazine and newspaper citations on these people,
on request, given a little time.
/Ron
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25-Jan-84 02:58:56-EST,8017;000000000001
Received: from MIT-CIPG by MIT-OZ via Chaosnet; 25 Jan 84 02:54-EST
Date: 24 Jan 1984 20:40:35-EST
From: wdh at mit-cipg
To: Andy.Hisgen@cmu-cs-a
Subject: history of Lyndon LaRouche & the US Labor party?
Cc: prog-d@mit-oz
Well, I don't know about LaRouche in 68. However, under the
nom-de-whatever of Lynn Marcus (Lenin Marx, get it), he founded the
National Conference of Labor Caucuses. Its major contribution to the
movement in the early seventies was beating up other left groups. On
several occasions, members of LaRouche's National Conference of Labor
Caucuses (same thing as USLP, NDPC, etc.) burst into meetings and
attacked people with lead pipes.
As for Irving Howe, like many social democrats, he was very slow to
criticise the US invasion of South Vietnam, and eventually joined with
the "it's too costly, bring our boys home so those gooks can fight it
out among themselves" school, basically the mainstream intellectual
opposition to the war. When the smoke cleared, he (and the rest of
the intellectual community) were faced with the task of rewriting
history to fit official ideology. So naturally any honest, early
opposition is either to be ignored or painted as irresponsible.
Note that one way of doing this is labeling them as anti-Semites,
haters of Israel, supporters of PLO "terror," as Howe and others have
done. Chomsky points out (in Peace in the Middle East and in Fateful
Triangle) that this was essentially false. So Lupo's presentation of
Cockburn's position on Israel is hardly without precedent, and hardly
independent of his politics [just thought I'd slip that in...]
There was a very good history of the USLP in Inquiry magazine in the
fall of '81 (I think November, but don't hold me to it).
Since the USLP is apparently also virulently anti-Semitic (although
they seem to be more Anglophobe), the ADL has published a few things
about them, as I found when a person writing an article for Commentary
called me.
Below is a copy of an article I wrote about their presence on campus.
They're still around.
-Bill
MIT Joins US Labor Party
[Reprinted from LINK, May 3, 1982.] [RIP]
Well, sort of. Careful observers of the posters on the walls may have
noticed a few interesting recent activities sponsored by the MIT Fusion
Energy Club. During IAP, the editor of the West German edition of {\it
Fusion} magazine spoke in the activity ``Save Science from the Stoic
Cult of Entropy,'' and recently, representatives of the Fusion Energy
Foundation presented a lecture entitled ``The World Needs Ten Billion
People: Population Requirements for a Fusion-Based Economy.'' They have
recently announced a lecture series entitled ``Fusion vs. Limits to
Growth.''
The Fusion Energy Foundation is a front of the US Labor Party, headed by
Lyndon LaRouche. It started as a leftist splinter group in the late
sixties, but drifted to the far right in the past years under the
impetus of its leader, and its opponents (including former members) have
been harassed and attacked. In recent years, it has spawned a multitude
of groups, each designed to reach a different sector. The Fusion Energy
Foundation, publisher of {\it Fusion} magazine, is their opening to the
high-tech and scientific community, as well as a bid for the pro-nuclear
constituency. (In case you haven't heard of the Fusion Energy
Foundation, they're the people in the airports with the signs, ``Nuke
Jane Fonda'' and ``Stop the Trilateralist--Rockefeller Plan for
Socialism.'')
Meanwhile, back at MIT...
The MIT Fusion Energy Club was founded in January by a Venezuelan
graduate student in Materials Science, Mariano Velez Sanchez. He said
that he had been approached by members of the Fusion Energy Foundation,
and said that he agreed to form the club because he ``supported
high-technology and fusion energy.'' When I asked him if he knew of the
connections between the Fusion Energy Foundation and Lyndon LaRouche and
the US Labor Party, he said that he didn't, but also said that he
``really didn't follow US politics.'' His application for recognition of
the Fusion Energy Club as an official undergraduate student activity is
currently proceeding through the ASA recognition process. Association
of Student Activities President Sam Austin said that their application
would be reviewed at the next ASA Executive Board meeting, this month.
When members of the Fusion Energy Foundation (selling magazines and
distributing literature at the second meeting) were asked about
connections with the US Labor Party and why they chose to contact Mr.
Velez, they refused to answer, and instead suggested to this reporter
that if he was truly curious, he would step inside and listen to the
program.
The US Labor Party was the plaintiff in a recent case against Princeton
University for which MIT filed an {\it amicus curia} brief, when a
member of the party was arrested for trespassing while he distributed
literature on the campus. The case, which was litigated to the Supreme
Court, was dismissed there because Princeton had changed its rules about
access to campus by outside groups.
Who *are* these people, anyway?
Like the Scientologists, the USLP is virulently anti-drug (although with
a weird twist). LaRouche founded the National Anti-Drug Coalition,
which publishes ``War On Drugs'' magazine. Perhaps justifying their
label as the US Labor Party (and the name of the original group
LaRouche, then a refugee from several leftist groups, founded, the
National Caucus of Labor Committees), they have provided propaganda
leaflets and muscle to help the entrenched Teamster leadership,
including Rolland McMaster, convicted in 1966 on 32 counts of labor
extortion, fight off challenges by reformers within the union. The
Private Intelligence Service, founded by the USLP, is one of several
private intelligence agencies which specializes in infiltrating and
spying on anti-nuclear groups, publishes dossiers of anti-nuclear
activists and groups in its publication, {\it Executive Intelligence
Review.}
Recently, supporters of LaRouche claim that the US Labor Party has
been disbanded, pointing to LaRouche's participation in the [1980] New
Hampshire Democratic presidential primary. They have formed the
National Democratic Policy Committee, and according to a source in the
Santa Monica area [that's you, Ron], are trying to play on anti-Tom
Hayden and anti-Jerry Brown sentiment in California. Last month, the
USLP candidate for Senate had a publicly advertised meeting at the
Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. A booklet called ``Tom Hayden's CED:
Brownshirts of the 1980's'' was distributed, comparing Hayden's
Campaign for Economic Democracy organization to the Nazi Party.
Characteristic of LaRouche's writings is a blindingly confusing array of
rhetoric. He warns that we must ``act upon the fact that the world is
threatened with a new fascist order even worse than that earlier
represented by the British-sponsored Austrian hippie, Adolf Hitler,''
the conditions for which ``are being created throughout the world
by...the austerity policies identified with the leaders of the British
Fabian Society, Friedrich von Hayek, by the drug-lobbyist professor
Milton Friedman, and by the fascist Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A.
Volker.'' More recently, in an issue of {\it New Solidarity,}
``Nonpartisan National Newspaper of the American System,'' a paper which
made its appearance at MIT last week, there were reports ``Confirming
last week's warning by the National Democratic Policy Committee's Lyndon
LaRouche, European and US intelligence analysts have reported a plot to
foment a separatist revolt in Sicily,...currently being readied under
the auspices of a truly nightmarish alliance including Libyan dictator
Qaddafi, Soviet military intelligence, British Intelligence, and US
networks including Secretary of State Alexander Haig.''
--
larry kolodney (The Devil's Advocate)
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