Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement
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The Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement (WLYM) is a political body linked to controversial American political figure Lyndon LaRouche.
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[edit] History
It has been developed since 1999, and is perhaps the most significant change in the LaRouche movement since his 1994 release from prison. The recruitment of young people in the 18–25 year old age bracket has reportedly brought more members into the LaRouche organization than at any time in the past, and as a result of the Internet, there are active chapters in nations like Japan where LaRouche has no official organization.
Lyndon LaRouche has explicitly created his youth movement to address what he calls the "baby-boomer problem" among his membership and more generally among the US population. LaRouche writes of "a new quality of youth movement in the U.S.A., a new youth ferment whose existence reflected a certain special quality of opposition to the cultural legacy and life-style of their "Baby Boomer" parents' generation." [1]
In an article in the University of California, Berkeley independent student newspaper, The Daily Californian on February 11, 2004, reporter David Cohn described the local chapter of the LYM as "30 college-aged youths" who spent several hours each day undergoing instruction provided by the LaRouche organization. One member, 23-year-old Jason Ross, told Cohn that he had dropped out of Stanford University in his junior year to join the movement. "We are in a complete breakdown of the financial system and we know that. We can use our time in a more appropriate manner than going to school,” he said. Cohn also talked to three other members who had all quit school to join the movement. The Daily Californian reported the movement's numbers as "about 100 young people from Los Angeles to Oakland" who "travel to dozens of college campuses aggressively recruiting members and not hesitating to ask newcomers to quit school."
The LaRouche youth claim that they are fighting for an "intellectual Renaissance," and in addition to conventional political activity such as distributing literature in the streets, they spend time in what are called "Monge brigades," described as leaderless discussion groups where the members work to master important discoveries in classical science and art. Among the topics frequently pursued are the ideas of Plato, Friedrich Schiller, and Carl Friedrich Gauss. There are also performance workshops on the dramas of William Shakespeare and choral compositions of J.S. Bach and other classical composers, as well as African-American Spirituals. Regular "cadre schools" are held in the United States and Europe, where Lyndon LaRouche and other senior members of LaRouche organizations give lectures and take questions from LYM youth.
[edit] Conflicts with other campus-based organizations
During the electon campaign of 2006, the LaRouche Youth Movement came into conflict with organizations including the Ayn Rand Institute, which the LYM accused of promoting genocide in speeches by its representatives at various campuses. LYM members confronted Institute Leader Yaron Brook at various universities across the US, after Brook called for the killing of "hundreds of thousands" of citizens of predominantly Muslim states. The LaRouche activists frequently employed Guerilla theater tactics. In one case, at the University of California, Irvine, 15 LYM members were arrested.[2]
The LYM has also criticized Campus Watch and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, claiming that they act as "thought police" to stifle opposition to the Iraq war and the Bush administration. [3]
[edit] Criticism and Accusations
An ex-member of the LaRouche youth movement has made claims that the Youth Movement is a cult and its members are often the subject of brainwashing techniques. Ex-member Michael Scott Winstead claims that although they are convinced that they are involved in important political work, the job of most members is only to collect money and recruit more members. According to Winstead, members that become critical or disillusioned by the movement often become the focus of brutal psychological attacks by the other members, including accusations of homosexuality, sexual deviance, and allegiance to anti-LaRouche conspiracies. They are often encouraged and even lead by the group's managers. Winstead recounts:
I'm caught off-guard, like, what the hell just happened?...The yelling goes on for maybe five or 10 minutes while I'm furiously backpedaling...They call it making somebody a self-conscious organizer...It is about getting somebody to break down and cry, just to have an emotional collapse. Once you do that, then people are malleable.[1]
The LYM has responded by portraying Michael Winstead as an agent of the Washington Post who has admitted to plotting slander against LaRouche and his organizations. Claims on both sides of the debate are unsubstantiated.
After spending six days at a Schiller Institute conference and LYM cadre school in Germany, 22-year-old Jeremiah Duggan, a Jewish student from London who was studying in Paris, ran onto a busy road in what the British coroner called a "state of terror," and was killed. A LaRouche spokesman has said the young man killed himself because he was disturbed. In October 2004, a British inquest into Duggan's death heard allegations from his mother that LYM and the Schiller Institute may have used mind control techniques on her son to persuade him to join the movement [4].
[edit] Notes
- 1 Washington Post, October 24, 2004; Page W12
[edit] External links
- Official website
- LaRouche Youth Movement Begins Exorcism in DC: Time To Kick The Children Of Satan Out
- Letter on LaRouche Youth Movement at UCSD
- Washington Post: "No Joke" (a long article on LaRouche and the YLM)
- Article about LYM in campus newspaper, The Daily Californian
- "LaRouchiacs" an Ever-Present Element On Howard's Campus
- Video: LaRouche Youth at Texas Democratic Convention
- Videos: LaRouche Youth interrupt Joe Lieberman at Connecticut debate
- Article on Dealing with a LaRouche recruiter
