Lyndon LaRouche
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Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche Jr. (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2019) was an American political activist and founder of the LaRouche movement, whose main organization was the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). He wrote on economic, scientific, and political topics, as well as on history, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. LaRouche was a presidential candidate in each election from 1976 to 2004, running once for his own U.S. Labor Party and seven times for the Democratic Party nomination.
LaRouche's critics have said that he had "fascistic tendencies", took positions on the far right, and created disinformation.
LaRouche movement
The LaRouche movement is an international political and cultural movement that promotes Lyndon LaRouche and his ideas. The movement includes the following:
- political parties and candidates in the United States and around the world;
- an extensive network of publications that promote LaRouche's ideas and philosophies;
- interlocking think tanks that formulate varied economic, cultural, and scientific initiatives;
- a youth cadre, the Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement; and
- a diverse group of public figures who support LaRouche and his ideas.
According to a biography produced by the LaRouche-affiliated Schiller Institute, the movement is based on a commitment to "a just new world economic order," specifically "the urgency of affording what have been sometimes termed 'Third World nations,' their full rights to perfect national sovereignty, and to access to the improvement of their educational systems and economies through employment of the most advanced science and technology."
The LaRouche movement has attracted devoted followers and developed some specific and elaborate policy initiatives, but has also been referred to variously as Marxist, fascist, anti-Semitic, a political cult, a personality cult, and a criminal enterprise. In 1984, LaRouche's research staff was described by Norman Bailey, a former senior staffer of the National Security Council, as "one of the best private intelligence services in the world". The Heritage Foundation calls it "one of the strangest political groups in American history", and The Washington Monthly calls it a "vast and bizarre vanity press".
