Latest From The Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement

Rogers Tours Texas To Bring Democrats 'Out of the Bushes, Into the Future'
by Nancy Spannaus

"People are looking for leadership from young people," said Lakesha Rogers, the member of the LaRouche Youth Movement running for Chairman of the Texas State Democratic Party, when reached on the road May 18. "We are getting a very good reception, and people are ready to take action."

Rogers has been on tour for the last two weeks, travelling around eastern and central Texas between Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Tyler, and Austin. She and four of her LYM colleagues are driving a car packed with the literature that reflects the LYM's nature as a "university on wheels": works of Plato, Alexander Hamilton, Gauss, and LaRouche, and stopping at college campuses in town after town. The response has been very positive.

On the weekend of May 19-20, Rogers will participate in candidates' events in Houston and Austin, which will bring together all four candidates for Party Chair, as well as statewide Congressional and other candidates. However, Rogers is not waiting for formal events, but is taking her campaign for the revival of FDR's approach for economic development, to every constituency group she can find.

Labor Is Key

Rogers has sought in particular to activate the labor constituency, and the response has been a lot of excitement. Exemplary was the May 17 meeting of Amalgamated Transit Union Division 1338 in Dallas, where she was a featured speaker. After a warm introduction by the President of the local, Rogers didn't just describe the incompetence of the Bush Administration, but issued a challenge to the unionists to get involved in politics again. "If you aren't part of the decision-making of the Democratic Party, who is going to lead it?" she asked.

During the course of her remarks and the discussion that followed, Rogers reviewed how the Democratic Party has been destroyed by the abandonment of the Roosevelt tradition by the '68ers, who have embraced the post-industrial paradigm shift, and turned their backs on the lower 80% of family income brackets. She urged the union members to support her campaign, and mobilize side-by-side with her to put the country, and the party, on the path toward economic development.

The response, Rogers said, was very strong. One unionist got up and called for a second standing ovation for her, saying that she reminded him of great Texas political leaders who fought for civil rights in politics. He declared that he agreed that the unionists could do a lot more, and volunteered to be her collaborator in Dallas. The positive impact was also reflected in the fact that not only did the 50-60 persons present all take literature, including LaRouche's Prolegomena to a Party Platform, and draft legislation to save the auto industry, but many took bundles of pamphlets to distribute, promising to get them out "everywhere."...

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