The ads in the back of the 1980s “EIR”s have an ad for some other LaRouche publication — “20th” or “21st” Century, I don’t recall just now, “Science and Technology”. “A Species of Need of Extinction”, it says, with a picture of a “Chicken Little” (all very ironic, because LaRouche has to be called the ultimate “Chicken Little” — particularly if this appeared in the AIDs issue) crying out “The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!” One of the articles touted: The Benefits of Carbon Dioxide” — a strange little canard that the Competitive Enterprise Institute has been touting in a recent ad campaign poo-pooing global warming, which — incidentally, I believe there’s another article promoted about the Myths of Global Warming.

You have noticed what many would deny, that LaRouche’s positions retain coherence despite shifts of his position on the “political spectrum” (itself somewhat of a mythical construct). But the heart of LaRouche’s philosophy is not found in mere positions.

Ergo, politically he is a parasite. What I notice is that I can take large chunks out of one era’s tracts and place them in a different era’s tracts and it will — with very little changing– fit right in, generally after the tract basicallyapes whatever point in the spectrum he’s at at the time (as in the education special of 1986 being in line with the Heritage Foundation). The contradictions remain and LaRouche continually revises history, visa vie, for example, his stand on the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The positions don’t matter. Just a means of sucking whichever part of the political spectrum in.

I basically regard “Doubling the Square” as a LaRouchian Sacramental Rite.

(I have a videotape of a presentation in which LaRouche advocates doing voice exercises in the morning when you get up - before you talk to anybody. I think that’s profound.)

I still think what I implied earlier. You are never going to get an accurate picture of LaRouche’s philosophy if you depend soely or primarily on critical sources. You have noticed what many would deny, that LaRouche’s positions retain coherence despite shifts of his position on the “political spectrum” (itself somewhat of a mythical construct). But the heart of LaRouche’s philosophy is not found in mere positions. These are merely the shadows on Plato’s cave. Yes, he’s against sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. But why? Puritanism? Perhaps there is an echo there of the original Puritans, but I think it is not “puritanism” as that term is usually used today. (Upset that other people are having fun). Maybe the most important philosophical question LaRouche addresses is “What is the difference between the human and the animal”. Do you know how he answers that? If you do, then a lot of the other stuff will become more clear.

Have fun,
-Steve

P.S. I originaly wasn’t going to go there about Denis King, but I have to. When King’s book first came out, not wanting to buy it, I read large portions of it sitting in the bookstore. I finally quit in disgust when I got to his claim that LaRouche considers “Bronze, Silver and Golden souls” as biologically determined. Anybody that has even minimal competence in the study of LaRouche’s views would know that he has consistently been implacably hostile to any notion of the biological determination of the human personality. So by characterizing LaRouche’s notion of golden souls as representing a biological type, King shows himself to be either dishonest, or at the very least incompetent in understanding his subject.

P.P.S. I continue to find more to respond to. LaRouche’s pro-technology views. He does not advocate technological without regard to environmental consequences. What he is against is the “environmental movement” which has been dominated by the idea that industry is somehow intrinsically bad for the environment and should be shut down or at least severly restricted. He sees this viewpoint as being promoted by those who oppose industry on other grounds - for example the question of industrializing the third world which would totally shift the financial balance of power worldwide.

I think perhaps you are somewhat mislead by LaRouche’s use of a deliberately polemical style in most of his work. The fact that he may have raised the pro-nuclear slogan “feed Jane Fonda to the Whales” (and I’m not sure if that was his, but he says things like that) certainly doesn’t mean he thinks nuclear meltdowns are good things, or even that they can’t happen. But the danger involved is simply not a reason for abandoning this important and necessary technology. There are dangers, okay address them - sensibly. That goes without saying. But Fonda and the rest of the anti-nuclear movement were not about that. Hence, the polemical approach.

Oh, and have you figured out yet why the LYM places the emphasis they do on doubling the square?