Everything Is F*cked(24)
That’s right. They were an ideological religion: an antigovernment, anticapitalist, anti–old people, antiestablishment religion. They argued that the international world order, from top to bottom, was corrupt. They argued that the Iraq War had been instigated for no other reason than that Bush’s friends wanted more money. They argued that terrorism and mass shootings didn’t exist, that such events were simply highly coordinated governmental efforts to control the population. Don’t worry right-wing friends, years later, they would draw the same Hitler mustaches and make the same claims about Obama—if that makes you feel any better. (It shouldn’t.)
What the LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) does is pure genius. It finds disaffected and agitated college students (usually young men), kids who are both scared and angry (scared at the sudden responsibility they’ve been forced to take on and angry at how uncompromising and disappointing it is to be an adult) and then preach one simple message to them: “It’s not your fault.”
Yes, young one, you thought it was Mom and Dad’s fault, but it’s not their fault. Nope. And I know you thought it was your shitty professors and overpriced college’s fault. Nope. Not theirs, either. You probably even thought it was the government’s fault. Close, but still no.
See, it’s the system’s fault, that grand, vague entity you’ve always heard about.
This was the faith the LYM was selling: if we could just overthrow “the system,” then everything would be okay. No more war. No more suffering. No more injustice.
Remember that in order to feel hope, we need to feel there’s a better future out there (values); we need to feel as though we are capable of getting to that better future (self-control); and we need to find other people who share our values and support our efforts (community).
Young adulthood is a period when many people struggle with values, control, and community. For the first time in their lives, kids are allowed to decide who they want to be. Do they want to become a doctor? Study business? Take a psychology course? The options can be crippling.4 And the inevitable frustration causes a lot of young people to question their values and lose hope.
In addition, young adults struggle with self-control.5 For the first time in their lives, they don’t have some authority figure watching over them 24/7. On the one hand, this can be liberating, exciting. On the other, they are now responsible for their own decisions. And if they kind of suck at getting themselves out of bed on time, going to their classes or a job, and studying enough, it’s tough to admit that there’s no one to blame but themselves.
And finally, young people are particularly preoccupied with finding and fitting into a community.6 Not only is this important for their emotional development, but it also helps them find and solidify an identity for themselves.7
People like Lyndon LaRouche capitalize on lost and aimless young people. LaRouche gave them a convoluted political explanation to justify how disaffected they felt. He gave them a sense of control and empowerment by outlining a way (supposedly) to change the world. And finally, he gave them a community where they “fit in” and know who they are.
Therefore, he gave them hope.8
“Don’t you think this is taking it a little too far?” I asked the LYM students that day, pointing to the pictures of the World Trade Center towers featured on their pamphlets.9
“No way, man. I say we’re not taking it far enough!” one of the kids replied.
“Look, I didn’t vote for Bush, and I don’t agree with the Iraq War, either, but—”
“It doesn’t matter who you vote for! A vote for anyone is a vote for the corrupt and oppressive system! You have blood on your hands!”
“Excuse me?”
I didn’t even know how to punch someone, yet I found myself balling my hands into fists. Who the fuck did this guy think he was?
“By participating in the system, you are perpetuating it,” the kid continued, “and therefore are complicit in the murder of millions of innocent civilians around the world. Here, read this.” He shoved a pamphlet at me. I glanced at it, turned it over.
“That’s fucking stupid,” I said.
Our “discussion” went on like this for another few minutes. Back then, I didn’t know any better. I still thought stuff like this was about reason and evidence, not feelings and values. And values cannot be changed through reason, only through experience.
Eventually, after I had gotten good and pissed off, I decided to leave. As I started walking off, the kid tried to get me to sign up for a free seminar. “You need to have an open mind, man,” he said. “The truth is scary.”
I looked back and replied with a Carl Sagan quote I had once read on an internet forum: “I think your mind is so open your brain fell out!”10
I felt smart and smug. He, presumably, felt smart and smug. No minds were changed that day.
We are the most impressionable when things are at their worst.11 When our life is falling apart, it signifies that our values have failed us, and we’re grasping in the dark for new values to replace them. One religion falls and opens up space for the next. People who lose faith in their spiritual God will look for a worldly God. People who lose their family will give themselves away to their race, creed, or nation. People who lose faith in their government or country will look to extremist ideologies to give them hope.12
There’s a reason that all the major religions in the world have a history of sending missionaries to the poorest and most destitute corners of the globe: starving people will believe anything if it will keep them fed. For your new religion, it’s best to start preaching your message to people whose lives suck the most: the poor, the outcasts, the abused and forgotten. You know, people who sit on Facebook all day.13