Lyndon LaRouche, Holocaust Imagery and the Health Care Debate

Lyndon LaRouche, a conspiracy theorist and leader of a fringe political cult, and his supporters have contributed to the divisiveness surrounding the public debate on health care reform by producing and disseminating materials comparing President Barack Obama and other government officials to Hitler, Nazis and fascists, and by attending Congressional "town hall" meeting and other events around the country.

The Anti-Defamation League reports that since May 2009, LaRouche and his network of supporters, many of which are part of the LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC), have focused on health care reform, producing signs, banners, pamphlets and other items that employ Nazi imagery, including the Hitler comparisons. In a May 4, 2009, LPAC statement, LaRouche described the Obama administration's health care proposals as "Nazi stuff."

In his publication, Executive Intelligence Review, and on his Web site, LaRouche consistently refers to the reform proposals as "Hitlerian" and "genocidal" and almost exclusively refers to the proposal as a "Nazi health plan." In August, LaRouche said Obama is "impeachable" because his health care proposal is based on "cost-effectiveness criteria--exactly the infamous 'T-4' policy imposed by Adolf Hitler in 1939."

LPAC members have promoted these offensive materials at many public forums around the country. For example:

• August 17, 2009 – A woman identified by the LPAC Web site as a member of the LaRouche Youth Movement held up a picture of Obama with a Hitler mustache at a town meeting in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and asked Congressman Barney Frank, "Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy?"

• August 6, 2009 – LaRouche supporters protested a town meeting in Romulus, Michigan, holding up a poster of Obama with a Hitler mustache. The several hundred attendees of the meeting, according to an EIR article, went "wild with approval" at the sight of the sign.

• June 16, 2009 – LaRouche PAC members held up a large banner on the street in Chicago, Illinois, with a picture of Obama wearing a Hitler mustache and the words, "Is this your President? Ask your local health care provider.

• June 12, 2009 – LaRouche PAC members went to a town meeting led by Obama in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and circulated a pamphlet titled "Stop Obama's Nazi Health Plan!"

For examples of the offensive Holocaust imagery that has appeared in LaRouche's publication, Executive Intelligence Review and more on this issue, check out:
Lyndon LaRouche, Holocaust Imagery & the Health Care Debate