Barney Frank Slams LaRouchite Fascism at Healthcare Meeting

Right-wing demagogues have gotten a lot of mileage comparing universal health care to government “national socialism,” but when a woman castigating Congressman Barney Frank held up a sign comparing President Obama to Hitler, Frank did the right thing.

The woman holding the LaRouchite manufactured sign -- depicting Obama with a cowlick and Hitler mustache -- confronted Frank by saying of Obama’s healthcare reform, “This policy is actually already on its way out. It already has been defeated by LaRouche. My question to you is, why do you continue to support a Nazi policy... as Obama has?"

But Barney Frank recognized the tiresome neofascist LaRouchite protestors for what they were. He glared at the LaRouchite and asked "On what planet do you spend most of your time?"  He then turned serious. "You stand there with a picture of the President defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis," said Frank. "It is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated." Then, with his classic biting wit, Frank said: "Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table, I have no interest in doing it." See video here.

Right Wing hacks and demagogues immediately filled the Internet with denunciations of Frank for abusing a constituent. Congratulations. We await their apologies. Inadvertently, these pro-Republican stooges were siding with a racist, sexist, homophobic, antisemitic, neofascist cult. It is reminiscent of the Nazi rag Der Stürmer. See some images from Der Stürmer: here.

Are the LaRouchites really fascists? You bet.

Jewish organizations across the political spectrum have called LaRouche not only an anti-semite but also a “small-time Hitler.” The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) warned against ignoring the "infiltration by the neo-Nazi elements of Lyndon H. LaRouche," and worried that too often, especially in the media, "the LaRouchites" are "dismissed as kooks….In an age of ideology, in an age of totalitarianism, it will not suffice for a political party to be indifferent to and ignorant about such a movement," said Moynihan. Ironically, when the New York Times covered Moynihan's speech, they showed cowardice by repeatedly substituting the softer term "fascist" wherever Moynihan had said "nazi."

Dennis King’s book on the cult was titled Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism. Read it online here.

I have written popular and scholarly studies identifying the LaRouchites as neofascists. You can find the details here.

So the Republican spinmeisters, right-wing radio and TV demagogues, and insurance company hacks have a tough decision. They can denounce the odious LaRouchite neofascists who have allied themselves with the right-wing populist protests against health care reform; or they can continue to lie in bed with these strange bedfellows who are heirs to Nazi propaganda techniques complete with the big lies, antisemitism, racism, and “vile, contemptible” claims.

Thanks Barney, for setting the record straight, as only a proud gay Jewish Democrat with an urban accent could. That's why he gets getting elected by a diverse constituency... he stands up, talks plain, and does the right thing. We could learn a lesson here.

 

Follow Chip Berlet on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cberlet

Comments

[Macwhirr]

LaRouche may be eccentric, but his politics are straight-up FDR Democrat. He supports the John Conyers Single Payer bill.

Chip Berlet has been nuzzling the ample udder of the Ford Foundation all his adult life. If the word came down that Mahatma Gandhi was bothering Wall Street, Chip would be furiously writing "scholarly and popular articles" denouncing him as a fascist.

[EmmaJ76]

Fantastic blog and so so true.

The worst thing about the LaRouchite 'cult' is that all they scream about, all they 'protest' about - is exactly what they are, and they can not see the irony when their accusations and words only fulfill their own prophecies - not about those they are protesting against but those they stare at in the mirror everyday.

The hypocrisy in their actions and the many that without realizing it have taken on this demented cause, will in the long run only do more damage to the America they so claim to love, and the constitution they seem to uphold.

And of course with each day, the truth of their agenda is being seen to the point where the fight back against these people has truly begun.

Thanks again for a fantastic piece.

[iblogleft]

I find it odd, these talking point that people use to describe their opposition so often resembles the people they represent, not the people they are describing, yet they are oblivious to the fact.

[sjkwitk]

Thank you Chip! Your work on Right-Wing Populism and Neo-fascism is so poignant now (as if it wasn't before). I agree that hardline GOPers have not lost their minds. They are charged and calculative in what they are doing. We just need to be more vigilant so that we can challenge those who hold such ideological positions. We do need to remember to highlight that Right-Wing Populism is nothing more than neo-fascism couched in a pseudo-liberal, populist, "of the people," language. Thanks again. Great piece! I highly recommend Berlet's work, especially Right-Wing Populism in America. It was fantastic (and scary). Also, a big thank you to the Southern Poverty Law Center, as well.

[Chip Berlet - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks, it really is a scary moment, and understanding its complexity will help us challenge the antidemocratic forces at work here.

[theubermensch]

Yeah i was at the MVA a couple of months ago and we was a LaRouche guy. Frankly, and I don't say this much, but he scared me. He had no clue what he was talking about. Then, he gave me literature, and it called Obmama things, but not why. Also, LaRouche wanted high speed trains and such, and I was thinking well a lot of these things Obama is doing. These LaRouche people only speak LaRouche. They do not have their own ideas, and talking to them was like talking to dining room table. If you see the drones in front of your MVA or DMV, run.

[Chip Berlet - Huffpost Blogger]

It really is like a totalitarian cult.

[KennyFox]

Barney's my congressmen. Bristol County, MA. he's served us well.

[Bateman]

Fascists? Well, certainly an idiosyncratic political cult that arose out of the marginal Trotskyist sect scene to become a distinct blend of ideological paranoia and a notorious generator of conspiracy theories.

Conservative Republicans are incredibly stupid to take the bait and actually defend the cultist who confronted Frank as if she were just a normal constituent who wanted her voice heard. Frank was 100% correct to dismiss her idiocy. But the hardline wing of the GOP has kind of lost its collective mind since the election.

Of course, histrionic and ludicrous Hitler, Nazi, and Third Reich comparisons didn't trouble many of the left of center when it was directed at Dubya and Reagan.

[Chip Berlet - Huffpost Blogger]

I do not toss around the term "fascist" lightly, and objected when it was used to describe Republican administrations or the Christian Right. The hardline wing of the GOP has not lost its mind, it is adopting a form of militant right-wing populism--a precursor to full-blown fascist and neofascist movements.

[KennyFox]

Chip...lets call a spade a spade. The Christian Right IS fascist. It is pro war (for religious ends) and it is pro corporate and pro gov, so long as the gov does things that make the market stronger and richer. The latest anti-gov bailout we are hearing on Fox is only because thse guys ahve nothing else to bash Obama with. So they are tryign to convine Americans of a certain IQ and edu level that the bailout is all goign to rich bankers (many of which might even be...egads...JEWS!) Of course, bailouts have ALWAYS gone to rich bankers, so what's their point? The right wing in the US is a totalitarian force adn its intellectual leaders, including guys like Michael Ledeen who wrote on the glories of universal fascism, are all very much into gov control, so long as it is done their way: for Jesus (for the poor rabble anyway) and for markets (for the rich and powerful).

[Talossa]

Paxton (Anatomy of Fascism) defines Fascism using these terms:

"Obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood." Liberals are destroying America's defense, Gays are teaching our kids, Hollywood (read: Jews) is perverting our morals, and so forth.

"Compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants..." Witness the parade of "I will never apologize for America" rhetoric coming from folks like McCain and Romney. The theme of flag-waving unity against the easily-scapegoated "other" (immigrants, minorities, "welfare queens", non-straights, non-Christians, the French) combined with the "moral purity" of God-fearing Christians and their saintly leaders like Sanford, Craig, and Ensign.

"Working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites." That just about nails it -- "The Problem with Kansas" in a nutshell. Nationalist rabble-rousers like Rove working closely with big business cabals, mobilizing people without health care to defend the privileges of the insurance industry, all for the sake of protecting the "real America" from that Kenyan-born usurper.

"Abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints". The 2000 and 2004 elections, culture of corruption, Blackwater... the list goes on.

"goals of internal cleansing" -- the Patriot Act.

"And external expansion" -- Wars for oil.

The only thing keeping the Republicans from becoming full-blown fascists is that in fascism there was always a level of idealism among the members that kept the raw cynicism of the leaders in check.

[DBtv]

Comparison of busholini to previous fas cis ts was at least accurate.

[Aron Cohen]

"busholini"!!!!

can I borrow that in the future?

[KennyFox]

The Glenn Beck crowd that makes up the majority of the health care town hall meetings dont even know who Larouche is. Oddly enough, Larouche is in a league all his own.He hates those right wingers (Richard Perle, evangelicals, you know the spore) as much as the majority of HuffPost readers do. Only Larouche is blinded by some grand British scheme to overthrow the US gov and make it fascist. Apparently this health care plan is part of that fascism, according to him.

[Benjamin Woerner]

It's ironic how the fascist 'fears' fascism and is trying to save everyone from fascism by converting them to...fascism.