Donald Parkinson from Cosmonaut Magazine joins Breht to talk about the life, political theory, and legacy of Lyndon LaRouche. In our own time we see LaRouche-type deviations manifesting on the so-called socialist left, and by studying LaRouche and his movement, we can better comprehend - and thus combat - its modern day iterations, while avoiding similar errors.
Check out Donald's article in Cosmonaut on LaRouche here: https://cosmonautmag.com/2019/03/larouche-a-warning-for-us-all/
related "MAGA communist" episode here https://hexbear.net/post/228434
I'm going to listen to this because I'm quite interested in what there is to avoid in the LaRouche movement besides personality cults and going off the deep end
update: LMAO GLOBE-SPANNING LAND BRIDGE
No two countries that are connected by a globe spanning land bridge have ever fought a war against each other.
LaRouche would drop the Luxemburgism (while still using her theories of crisis to the end) and focus on his pro-industrial corporatism, members of his organization becoming “patriots” instead of “comrades.”
Hm I feel like I've seen other "leftist" groups adopting this same label today to push a pro industrial capitalist line of thinking :thinking-about-it:
I'm enjoying it so far, but it's curious to pull the "some people say this guy is a fascist, that he's doing Mussolini-style, Hitler-style fascism." Don't equivocate and do the trump move of "people have said this," be up front! Tell me if this dude's a fascist!
I'm sure he'll be more explicit later in the episode, but this just rubbed me the wrong way
I’m sure he’ll be more explicit later in the episode,
Curious, did he?
Yes actually! There's a deep racist current in the NCLC, larouche's org, they formed gangs of brawlers to disrupt CPUSA meetings, there was ideological talk about unifying industrial and financial capital(that I need to relisten to), they ally with far right currents including the Reagan Administration, there's plenty of evidence for calling them fascist. I guess I was just knee jerk with the turn of phrase
I think they were just implying in the intro that LaRouchites have been a subject of critique for a long time (as in, by others who preceded the pod hosts)
Like I said, kneejerk. Definitely nitpicky, given how great the rest of the show was
Brett is awesome. I'd love to hear him and Christman talk spirituality or maybe do an inebriated past episode.
The only people I see emphasizing calling themselves the Communist Left are :bordiga-despair:
I think the purpose might be to draw a distinction from the right deviation being described in the ep (who claim to be "the true communists") but idk
"the socialist left" is still a handy term in Europe as many neoliberal socdem centre left parties and organisations (due to quirks of history) are called socialists or the left
