
Contemplating the death of Lyndon LaRouche and the future of his movement - smacktoward
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2019/02/15/essay-death-lyndon-larouche-and-future-his-movement
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duxup
I grew up in a rural area for a time and there it seemed to me that Lyndon
LaRouche had a surprising number of supporters who I wouldn't have expected to
be interested in conspiracy theories.

I didn't think much of that for many years until the last 10 years or so,
reminded by more recent events.

~~~
smacktoward
I don't know exactly when you were living there, but back in the 2004-2007
time window LaRouche managed to pick up a bunch of new supporters by coming
out strong against the Iraq war, at a time when pretty much every
establishment voice on both sides of the aisle was still shell-shocked by 9/11
and terrified of saying anything that might make them look soft on terrorism.
So when young people who opposed the war went looking for a leader to follow,
LaRouche was one of the few out there who appeared to be talking sense.

He wasn't, of course, Lyndon LaRouche was totally Looney Tunes, but if you
were desperate to find someone willing to be against the war and too young to
be familiar with LaRouche's crackpottery in the '60s and '70s, it's easy to
understand how you could get sucked in.

(One of these unfortunate kids, a young man from Britain named Jeremiah
Duggan, ended up dead under somewhat mysterious circumstances -- see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jeremiah_Duggan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jeremiah_Duggan)
.)

~~~
duxup
The time I was thinking of was more the late 80s.

It was strange as at the time I thought of the local farmers who really
believed in that stuff as mostly conservative and reasonable folks... support
for Lyndon didn't make much sense.

Recent history of course makes the explanations that conspiracies provide at
the very least seem attractive in some ways (even if bonkers)...

