Posted by
Andrews on Thursday, February 07, 2008 9:44:39 AM
Does anyone remember a fixture the late 80's and early 90's? In front of every post office, shopping mall, any public place, mostly in the mid-Atlantic states, but elsewhere too, you would see fairly normal looking men and women standing behind card tables adorned with signs saying "Operation Thyroid Storm" or "Skull and Bones - Bilderberger Connection" or any number of other cryptic, but obviously slightly dotty things?
I am speaking, of course, of the long gone, but not lamented, supporters of Lyndon LaRouche* and his (to be charitable) "unique" perspective on the political events of the day.
Oddly enough, proving the predictions in Ecclesiastes, we can never quite be free of any particular stupidity, and once again, we find ourselves stuck with the latest incarnation of those earnest, if misguided, souls. What is odd this time is that we find these namecalling, conspiracy obsessed zealots not just on the left (the Moveon.org crowd, DailyKos crowd, and many 9/11 "truthers") but also on the right, among many of the partisans of Ron Paul's presidential bid.**
Proving there truly is nothing new under the sun, the Ron Paul supporters have revived almost word for word the favorite boogeymen of the LaRouche set: the Bildebergers, the CFR, the Federal Reserve, Israel, if only they start a personal war with Abe Foxman and the ADL it will be 1991 all over again.
Now before anyone takes me to task for this, I am not saying that Ron Paul himself is anything like Lyndon LaRouche. I have many problems with Ron Paul, and I think he is foolish for not renouncing "supporters" from white power and conspiracy theory camps, but I don't think he is anything like Mr. LaRouche. On the other hand, it is interesting that his followers have often revived the most hoary of the conspiracy theories espoused by LaRouche in order to support his bid. It is simply this peculiar revival that sparked my interest, not any particular aspect of Ron Paul himself.
Of course, just as Ecclesiastes told me to expect these LaRouche stupidities to come back again and again***, it also gives me a bit of hope when it tells me they will also go away again as well. Now, if only I could be sure, in this primary season, that the race would go to the fast and the struggle to the strong, but unfortunately the book offers little solace there.
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* Actually, I did see some aging LaRouchers handing out "Bush is Hitler" stickers near the Farragut Square metro station in 2004, so I suppose they are not entirely gone, but it is clear that the heyday of LaRouche, when he could post a volunteer at every post office in VA and MD are long gone. He may still have a few loonies left, but by and large his followers are no more.
** Another interesting feature of this revival of LaRouche-like conspiracy theories is the return of silly name calling. And not just name calling, but the SAME names. Due to the coincidence of having a Bush in office and war in Iraq, the name calling actually sounds almost identical to the LaRoucher insults of the early 90's.
*** To be fair, Ron Paul's supporters have not entirely reproduced the LaRouche agenda. Not one has proposed revitalizing the national economy with a high-speed mag-lev train connecting Virginia's high tech DC suburbs to the tidewater region, for example. But if they miss some of the details, they definitely have the feel down pat.