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Here is the discussion which followed Lyndon LaRouche's Keynote address to an international webcast on Jan. 5. The discussion was moderated by LaRouche's national spokesperson Debra Freeman. (See InDepth, Jan. 11, for a transcript of the keynote.)

Q: Lyn, we have a couple of questions that have been submitted via email from a variety of institutions. I would like to start with those.

We can start first with a question on the events of tomorrow, because we do have a number of questions that have been submitted in this regard. One very specifically comes from the House side of the U.S. Congress where, once again, the challenge to the certification of the Electoral College vote is being mounted.

The question is, Mr. LaRouche, at this point while we are still involved in intense negotiations, it is the case that there is still no member of the Senate who is firmly committed to sign the resolution that is necessary to actually initiate a full debate on the question of whether or not this vote should be certified. The question that I wish to pose to you today is one which has come up in the course of these negotiations, and that is, when does tenacity become fixation?

The events in Washington State proved that the enormity of the illegitimacy and the suppression of the vote actually was beyond what anyone had previously thought. And, when the Washington State Democratic Party maintained a tenacious fight, it did, in fact, change the outcome of the election. There are some members of the Senate who, while they are sympathetic to the question of voter suppression, still maintain that it was not sufficient to change the outcome of the election. We contend that nobody knows that at this point, and no one will know that unless there is a full inquiry conducted.

Either way, the fact that there was any suppression at all, whether or not it was sufficient to change the outcome of the election, still represented a breach of law, both in terms of the letter of the law and the intent of the law. It is our view that it is still important to make the challenge, but the question has been raised, when does tenacity become fixation? What would you recommend in terms of how we conduct ourselves during the certification debate tomorrow?

LaRouche: First of all, you can not accept what happened in the election, in the election process. For example, let's take the case of voter suppression. The estimate based on counting of votes, that people chose to count, is not a determination of the election. That is, simply recounting the vote is not going to determine what will make right, what was done wrong. People, who were deprived of the opportunity to vote, who wished to vote, who were eligible to vote, who leave no record of having voted, but had an intention and were denied the right to vote—particularly when they were in areas where the Republican Party was acting on the assumption that this was an area of likely Democratic voters—. Now, how can you take the procedure that we've had so far and say, the question of voter suppression was adequately addressed in this process. It was not.

We're now back in the same trap, in a different form, that we were in, back in 2000. Probably Al Gore honestly lost the election. But, there were a lot of irregularities. Now, at that time, James Baker III, who may have reasons to regret it now, stepped in on behalf of the Bush candidacy and pled for finality. And they rushed up to the Supreme Court. They got a corrupt Justice, Scalia, — and when I say corrupt, I say it advisedly — and he intervened to cause the certification, or the process of selection of the President, to go by a way which violated the Constitution, on the basis of pretext of finality, or I think it was more likely shareholder value.

So, in this case, are you going to let the pressure to don't dig your heels in — are you going to allow that to intimidate you into giving up the key issue? The question here is not just this election! It's the next one. If we don't crush what we know was done to create a fraudulent election — in other words, this election was fraudulent by virtue of the mass of voter suppression alone, and we know of that — it was a fraudulent election in character. Are we going to make no remedies, make no assurances, set no precedent to ensure that no S.O.B. dares to do that to a U.S. election ever again? Are we gutless wonders, that we find some reason to squeak out like frightened little mice to back off from a fight, in order to look good with people who might criticize us? Or are we going to defend this Constitution? We don't have a constitutional government the way it is functioning now. The people of the United States, especially in a time of crisis, need constitutional government. You need, above all, the protection of the general welfare, the protection of the rights of every citizen, including, especially the right to vote. If you lose the right to vote, we don't have a republic any more.

And somebody took a lot of people's right to vote away from them, illicitly. And, it was mostly the Republicans, who were engaged in this voter suppression campaign, which was massive. Somebody has to come up and say, what is the figure for the amount of voter suppression that occurred in this campaign, and, who's going to go to jail for doing it? That's vote fraud. And, if we don't get that, we haven't got anything. If we walk away from this now, we end up with no republic. I believe in tenacity in defending the Constitution. We need tenacity to defend the Constitution.

Q: The next question is from a scientist, actually a biochemist, who's affiliated, previously with the World Health Organization, and who now works in Florida as part of the tropical disease section of the Centers for Disease Control. He says, Mr. LaRouche, I'd like to go back, for a moment, to a thesis that you uniquely developed in the 1980s, when I first met your organization. At that time, you outlined that the policies of the advanced sector had essentially created a giant petri dish or breeding ground for exotic diseases in the developing sector. While I don't wish to address the origin of the HIV virus right now, whatever its origins were, the result, once that virus began to reproduce, clearly knew no borders. For anyone who thought that it would be contained in the developing sector, well, what actually happened is now history.

Looking at the current situation in the Indian Ocean region, I believe that we may be looking at the same danger. The estimates that I've seen are that at least 200,000 people are dead, and if we applied classic public health measures (and I personally believe that these measures are inadequate), we can expect that the immediate deaths as a result of injuries suffered in the tsunami will be at least double the actual deaths that we have already counted. Given the fact that the number of injuries is already estimated to be over 500,000, I think my presumption that this is going to be far worse than the classic sampling would indicate — I do believe that if we do not act quickly, to address the situation in this part of the world, that we may be courting a biological holocaust that will affect that entire region and that will not be limited to the four nations immediately affected by the tsunami itself. I'd appreciate it if you would comment on this in terms of its implications both in the short term and in the long term.

LaRouche: Well, obviously it is a policy which has been in place for some time. The policy is based on the idiocy of assuming that the Universe contains a number of fixed options, including biotypes; which is obviously insane. When we consider the fact that the very existence of the Solar System is a byproduct of evolution of what was initially a solitary, fast-spinning Sun; that all the higher levels of the Periodic Table above things such as helium and above cyanogen, and so forth, didn't exist in the Solar System until the Sun generated them in a very complex process of self-development. The characteristic of everything we know about the Universe, whether in the inorganic (so-called, as defined by the division established by Vernadsky) or in the abiotic area, is development. We are looking at a Universe of galaxies which is obviously a Universe, not only of our Solar System, but of development. Of a Universe, even in the abiotic area, that is generating things that didn't exist in it before.

The same thing is true with the biological sphere. The development of species, the development of varieties, the development of types of diseases. These were created, They did not exist before. They developed from a natural process which is built into the nature of living processes generally.

We then have man, who is a different category. It's the only creative being walking around. Man has undergone great development. The characteristic of the Universe is development. Now, development goes in various directions. It goes in desirable and undesirable directions. So, science must always look beyond what is presently known, to discover what is about to become, or what may have become behind your back.

And, as far as the general thesis you state, it's true. We did this study back in the early 1970s on the effects of the changes in international monetary policy on Northern Africa. We came up with some forecasts for spreads of disease, of epidemic diseases, and so forth; and they were right. They happened that way. The death rate increased.

And, the death rate is increasing in Africa today, because of the same kind of conditions: foreseeable consequences of policy. The question of HIV, foreseeable. All right, we did not have this type of disease in the Human Kingdom, but we had it in the Animal Kingdom. Suddenly, one day we found this kind of infection in the Human Kingdom, where we should have expected it. And carelessness would cause it, would help to cause it. Or favorable conditions would help to cause it. When we got hit with HIV we should have had a program of the type we never developed. But, it cost too much money. So, they said, don't develop it. This was under Reagan. Don't develop it. It came up one day, when the Surgeon General of the United States had to make a decision. He made a decision: don't do it. I was talking about $40 to $60 billion in terms of funding in dealing with HIV and its implications, or the care of patients, for the understanding of this problem.

We did nothing about Africa. With the conditions in Africa, it was determined, as you know from your experience of this tropical disease factor, it is a very important factor. And, you have dirt and filth and tropical disease conditions, you're going to have trouble. You're going to have new diseases, new kinds of diseases. And the kinds of diseases we develop in Africa or develop in Southwest Asia are going to be the diseases that hit us next. And therefore, what we are trying to do with our HMO policy, with our health policy, with cutting down the number of doctors, with cutting out the whole medical practice, with restricting what physicians can do, because we don't authorize them to do the things they should be doing, for just this kind of reason. We're insane.

We have to go back to work. Produce a lot more wealth per capita, with the aid of high technology, and spend a lot more money in supporting research institutions, scientific institutions, and just plain health care. If we don't have that, we are not going to survive, because, by not having that, by those who want to save money, save money for them to waste on their entertainment, instead of putting people to work in high-tech jobs and educating people for high-tech jobs, we are making ourselves vulnerable to the unexpected.

And we see this today. Look at what happened with the tsunami. The tsunami is something that was waiting to happen for a long time. These have happened periodically in the known history of mankind on this planet. It happened. We had a policy. It was the Asia-Pacific policy, which I fought against, back in the 1980s. I said, we have to have development in these areas. What did they say? They said, no. We're going to have a policy of investment in tourism, and hotels. What did that mean? Instead of developing Southeast Asia, instead of developing Indonesia, what we did is we created these places, these hideaways, for sex entertainment. We had these at the beaches where they could go swimming and find sex with the sharks, or whatever they wanted. We had people who were very poor people who worked and came to live there, in order to get jobs working around these hotels and entertainment centers, or providing sex for people who wanted it in various flavors and so forth. So we had cheap living, poor living, slum conditions, on the beaches in these areas where the inland areas where not developed. And people were down there to have sexual or other kinds of entertainment, in resort centers. And this was policy!

International policy was, we do not allow these areas of the world to undergo development. This has been U.S. policy and other policies since the 1970s, especially since the 1980s. This is why we did not develop a second, sea-level canal in the Panama region, which could have been had. This is why we didn't develop Mexico, when Mexico was ready for large-scale development projects, inside its borders; and it would have worked. So, what we have done, we have gone with the wrong policy. We have created the conditions of poverty, extreme conditions of poverty and lack of sanitation. We've destroyed the medical facilities and biological weapons to defend us against these kinds of things. And, now we have created, by negligence, in this area of the world we are talking about—and you probably would agree, we are talking about millions of people will die as a result of the effects of this, under present conditions, because we do not have, presently in place, the delivery system to get into those areas in the way needed to arrest the implications of this disaster. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

And we have to take this into our conscience. And we have to, as the United States, be proud of ourselves and do something in the direction and get other nations to join us. We've got to change our policies, so we think about the fact that this Universe is a developing Universe. It is developing good things; it's also developing bad things. And we are responsible for making sure the bad things are detected and taken care of.

Q: We have a pile of questions on Social Security. These questions are coming from state legislators, a couple from Capitol Hill. There's a question from the principal lobbyist of the American Association of Retired People. The AARP representative poses it in a very particular way. He says, Mr. LaRouche, my own view of the thing is that ultimately, the issue which is driving the attack on Social Security is not the impending shortage or emergency in the Social Security Fund. In fact there's a much larger shortage looming in medical funds and no one is addressing that.

My question is this: You contended in your remarks that it's the desire of the Administration to steal approximately $2 trillion for short-term use on Wall Street. That may be true, but I have a slightly different view. And, I would argue that what is actually at the heart of this is not simple thievery, but also a desire to dismantle the Social Security system. The fact is that the neo-cons have always hated any and all programs associated with the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt. It's a problem that's not simply limited to the neo-cons. It's a problem in both parties, in fact. We all recall the Democratic Leadership Council insisting that it was time for Democrats to turn away from the policies of FDR and to find a third way. More recently, journalist Alexander Cockburn has made it clear that we can not count on Senator Edward Kennedy to hoist the FDR banner for reasons of his family history, despite his own liberal leanings. I'd be interested in your view on this. Is this simply a question of stealing, or are these people actually trying to dismantle the system as we know it?

LaRouche: There's no contradiction between the two motivations. There's just a different—it's a convergence of two different views or two different tendencies. The first thing is that, what has happened here in terms of the George W. Bush initiative, is comparable, as Bush himself has said, to what Pinochet did in canceling Social Security on a similar program in the 1980s in Chile. And that's where the immediacy comes in. Because, you have to realize, that right now, contrary to what some people think on the other motives, this international monetary financial system is doomed. We're talking about days, or weeks, or months at most. This system is doomed. It is not going to live. The banking system of the United States is bankrupt.

Do you know what that means? Where are your savings? Where are your assets? Your stocks, your bonds, everything? What do you have for assets? How about your mortgage? People of the United States are intensely vulnerable now, and they try to pretend that they're not. They try to pretend that somehow it's going to work out. That somehow the bad things will be limited to this or that. We're talking about a general collapse of the world economic financial system, and a collapse of the economic system unless the government intervenes to deal with that problem the way that Franklin Roosevelt did. What Franklin Roosevelt did was deal with a much less severe problem, but of the same type, not as extreme. The present one is more extreme.

On any given morning this system can go! It can go if the California real estate bubble goes under Schwarzenegger, as it's threatening to go right now. If that goes, the whole Fannie Mae business goes down. The whole real estate bubble comes down. Do you know how much is tied up in the United States and the implications of the real estate bubble? What's going to happen to all those people who thought they had a mortgage or a $600,000 home, and they find that it has a market value of less than $100,000?

This is the kind of thing we face. And, therefore, that's the difference, that in the case of Chile, you had one country which is a country within a system. The system was buffered by the international system. The disease was confined, at that point, to that country. Pinochet had a problem. He was about to go belly-up. And, he had good reason not to go belly-up because he had committed so many crimes that he knew he would be tried and executed, for the crimes he had committed against humanity. And, because he was so deeply in bed with the Nazis who had come into his country to help him. So, what he did is that he stole the Social Security funds to tide him over to get him through his lifespan in Chile. And to hold on to the Presidency as long as he could, because otherwise, he was dead.

Now, you've got a similar situation right now in the United States. George W. Bush, whether he knows it or not, the people around him know it, that this thing is coming down. Don't believe the press. Don't believe the stuff about the prosperity around the corner. Don't believe it. The system is dead, it's coming down, now. And, the problem is, we don't have a Franklin Roosevelt in the White House. And, therefore the solution to this problem is to create a mess in the Congress, so that we create a situation in which we can force, under pressure of the American people, we can force measures to be taken, even by this Presidency, which by its total instinct, it didn't want to do, Roosevelt-style measures.

Now, that takes us into the second area. You have people who were for Hitler as long as he didn't try to eat up the British Empire, including many in the United States. People like Harriman, who funded Hitler. It was the Harriman family, and Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the present President, who wrote the paper to a German bank which refunded the bankrupt Nazi Party to have the Nazi Party in place so that Hitler could be made a dictator. And, this was done by Harriman, with the consent of other big bankers from the New York bank crowd. It was done under the direction of the British.

So, they didn't like Hitler for one reason. When Hitler decided to go westward first, instead of eastward, in his war plans, to go against France and England, rather than the Soviet Union first, then the British got upset. That wasn't their war plan. So, they fired Edward VIII, who was a Nazi lover, because they knew they were going to go to war with Hitler, not because they were opposed to Nazism, but because they were opposed to Nazism going westward rather than eastward.

And, the people of the United States also changed their views. They were still Nazi in their sympathies. They were still part of the cartel that put the Nazis into power, du Pont, Morgan, Harriman, and so forth, they were all part of this cartel which came out of the Nazi system still owning their assets in the Nazi system. Some of the Nazis were killed but the bankers who owned them were still the bankers that had owned them, in the financial cartel tied around the Bank for International Settlements. They are still a powerful force inside the United States. And the one thing they hate more than anything else is the memory of Franklin Roosevelt. And all you have to do is ask, who somebody's grandpappy was and how they stood on these issues, on the issue of Roosevelt vs. the Nazis in the United States in the 1930s. I mean Nazis like Morgan, du Pont, Harriman, and so forth. These people hate Franklin Roosevelt. And hate everything he stands for.

And so, you've asked two questions, you're going to get yes to both. You have people, on the one hand, who are desperate now, to try to buy time to hold on to control of their system until they get their dictatorship in place. Then, you have other people who, in any case, have been working, ever since the day Roosevelt died, like Harriman, who destroyed the life's work of Franklin Roosevelt, which includes Social Security and a lot of other things. Fannie Mae, for example also, which had been destroyed, was a Roosevelt creation.

So, both are going. It's a confluence of these two tendencies which creates the force which is expressed by this rape on Social Security now. Two motives are there, not just one. One motive, is the present Administration is not ready to be a dictatorship yet. Cheney, gum-chewing Hermann Goering, Cheney, is not yet a dictator. Therefore they have to try to control the system. To control the system means try to control it in the short term: Steal a lot of money from Social Security to try to make the system stand up for a little bit longer. The long-term objective is dictatorship.

On the other side, you have those Roosevelt haters, who have been moving in the direction of destroying Roosevelt's life's work, ever since the day that Roosevelt died. When Truman came in — remember, Roosevelt was for decolonization. That was an active program of Roosevelt's, it wasn't just a dream. It wasn't just words, it was an action program. The day that Roosevelt died, Truman went the other way for recolonization of areas that had been liberated during the wartime period. Since the day that Roosevelt died and since some of the people who took over, brought the Nazis under protection, in the U.S. and elsewhere, and used them, these guys have been out to destroy the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt and to destroy the United States. So, you have the two things: the emergency and the long-range. And these two things are converging. That's where the danger is.

The point is that this is like a situation in warfare. You have to fight a certain battle. You have to fight a battle against forces which are allied for different reasons, but they're in alliance. But you must win that battle! If we lose the battle for Social Security, or defense of it against the Bush attack, we are not going to have a nation. We are going to have hell! With no chance of getting out of anything.

People who will not fight to defend Social Security won't fight for anything. They are prepared to give up all the way, all the way to the gas chamber. They may not know it now, but they are.

Q: Lyn, the next question is on the topic of Dick Cheney, and it comes from someone who is a senior Senate staffer on the Democratic side. He says, Mr. LaRouche, you're probably best known over the course of the last few months for the expose you did of the circles around Dick Cheney and Cheney's influence in this Administration. And, people frequently see your organizers with billboards that say things to the effect of, "Fire Dick Cheney," or "Impeach Dick Cheney." As we come into this new session of the Congress, what you call bureaucratic rot and inaction in the face of the tsunami, we have since learned was largely exacerbated by Dick Cheney's repeated hammering of Condoleezza Rice, who, regardless of what my opinion of her politics is, is essentially, an otherwise articulate woman, who has been turned into an incoherent fool, and who failed to brief the President adequately. This has been all documented by Sidney Blumenthal and others in the press.

Also, in today's Washington Post, we learned that it was not Alberto Gonzales who was the intellectual author of the now-infamous torture memos that led to the atrocities at abu Ghraib, but in fact, the author of those memos was none other than Dick Cheney's lawyer, Addington. I don't think that I have to remind you that tomorrow's joint session of the Congress, where the question of voter suppression will be debated, is one which will be chaired and presided over by the same Dick Cheney. So, I guess my question is, are we still talking about getting rid of Dick Cheney? And, do you think we could do it by tomorrow?

LaRouche: The first thing in fighting war is guts. What we have is a shortage of guts in a whole generation, which is the generation which is generally in the Congress today. They were the generation of the 1960s, the 68ers. And younger. And, when it comes to war, or anything resembling it, they can always find a way to avoid it. They suddenly get struck by a conscience, which they never knew what it was before. Suddenly they get a blow of conscience. The basic thing is they don't want to be involved in the war. Or they don't want to work. Or they think that they are likely to get a lot of sex if they go in this area where people are resisting the war. Or they can have sex with trees, or whatever. Whatever they did. So this was a generation which does not have the temperament of a World War II generation. A World War II generation would not, under present conditions, have put up with what this generation has put up with in the Congress and elsewhere. They'd have fought.

But, remember that this is the generation which was victimized, largely, by the Congress for Cultural Freedom. It's actually, I call it, the Sexual Congress for Cultural Fascism, which is a better term. And, the basic characteristic of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which was led by a lot of Marxists, among others, who were doing work for the fascists such as Allen Dulles, was that you can't have authoritarian personalities. And an authoritarian personality is a person who makes up their mind based on ideas of principle, from fact. You've got to have people who don't have that kind of commitment.

And, the basic argument was, after all, there is no such thing as truth. Nobody knows truth. Nobody could have a monopoly on truth. There is no truth. Therefore, how can you defend something, since you can't define anything as truth? Shouldn't you compromise everything, including yourself, especially your own morals? So, you had a generation, and a political system, as a corruption of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, both, in which the composition is, the effect of the Congress for Cultural Freedom on the morals and behavior and intellectual life of people in these positions.

Now, under such conditions in past history, only a great shock will turn a bunch of cowards like this into fighters. They will all find a smart way to deal with the problem and try to keep a show, a face of courage, when they actually are hiding cowardice in the seat of their pants. Now the fact that has come, donated to us, that we now face, is a situation where the people of the United States are about to lose their Social Security, absolutely. Absolutely. There's no return. The private social security program, the private Social Security fund, they don't exist. The pensions don't exist. You're going to find pension systems that you thought were private pension systems are going belly-up, now. You have a threat to the airline system, that the whole private pension system of the airline system may go belly-up. Right now.

Now, when people are faced with a shock, like the dropping of the bomb, suddenly they react, and they break free of conditioning. We now have, with the attack on Social Security, the opportunity to break free of the bondage, of — not Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney's just a thug. He works for these guys. The bondage of the people behind George Shultz. The bondage of the people of the Mont Pelerin Society, who are about as Nazi as Nazis can become, the whole pack of them. The Milton Friedmans, one of the worst of them.

So, therefore, we have to say that we are going to fight. And, by having the courage to fight, we are going to give the guy next to us the courage to fight. And, by both of us having the courage to fight, then that guy next to both of us may get the courage to fight. This is the time and the chance to fight. You are fighting to save everything, including the Constitution, including our nation. This is the time to fight. Pack all your issues in one, and fight. And don't give up. You can break Cheney. Break him! Take this case of Gonzales. Demand Addington. They withheld information. They lied! They held back documentations on Abu Ghraib, they lied. It wasn't Gonzales. It was Cheney. Cheney's a fascist. Get rid of him. Get him out of there! He's impeachable. You can impeach him twice, once for his incumbent term and one for the one he thinks he's getting next. A double dose.

Impeach him as a candidate and impeach him as an incumbent. But, if you fight, you can win.

But I know the American people, especially the lower 80% of family-income brackets. They've lost their courage, over the years, since 1977, when the standard of living of the lower 80% was lower, and lower, and lower, and lower. And today, the lower 80% of the family-income brackets have a lower total income than the upper 20%. They don't fight anymore, in politics, for big issues. They pick a little issue, a single issue, or maybe two single issues. Or, they fight about a neighborhood issue. They fight about little things, and try to nag the politicians to give them something. But, they don't fight anymore on principle. They don't defend principle.

They say, well I need money. People have given up civil rights fights, saying, well I need money. I'll give up the principled fight for civil rights, if I can get some money. This is typical of the lower 80% of our family-income brackets today. They won't fight. They're cowards. The stuffing has been taken out of them.

But, we are now at the point, when the lower 80% is about to lose everything, it all. You fight now, or you ain't human no more. This is the opportunity to fight, the best one you've ever had. Let's fight and take it back. Beat these guys on the question of Social Security. Beat the Boykin initiative on the issue of the Addington role, of Cheney. Go for the gut. Get them out. And show people you have the courage to fight. And then, maybe, they'll have the courage to join you in supporting the fight. That's our only chance.

Q: We have what are virtually identical questions. One was submitted by a member of the LYM in Denmark, and the other is by a fellow at the Economic Policy Institute here in Washington. The question is regarding the nature of the financial collapse. I will take a certain amount of liberty in summarizing the questions, because the two are so similar. The fellow from the Economic Policy Institute says: "Mr. LaRouche, a few years ago, I probably would have argued with you about the question of the overall bankruptcy of the system. However, today, I can't really make that argument, especially as the dollar continues to collapse against virtually every currency in the world. Let's presume that we are facing a collapse of that type. I've done a great deal of study of Alexander Hamilton. And although Alexander Hamilton does make certain reference to the relationship of the nation's currency to gold, what he discusses, most notably in his Report on the National Bank, was the necessity for public confidence in the credit system, in order for the government to be able to increase the amount of credit in circulation.

"My question is, how, in fact, do we restore credibility in a credit system in the immediate aftermath of a dollar collapse?

LaRouche: Franklin Roosevelt, in 1933, in March, took a number of measures which asserted the authority of the Constitution—particularly the General Welfare principle. And remember, Roosevelt was not just stumbling around with this and coming up with a quick idea to deal with the Depression. In his Harvard graduation proceedings—or that period of time in his life—he wrote on this subject, at Harvard University, as a student there, in the process of graduating. He also was a descendant of Isaac Roosevelt, a New York banker of the Bank of New York, who was an ally of Alexander Hamilton. So, on his side of the family, the Roosevelt family tradition, Franklin Roosevelt was proceeding from a well-informed knowledge of the history of the American System as a system, not just like the British system but with different gimmicks. Our system is not the British system.

As I've written in this most recent paper, which is just being published now, on these kinds of questions, we've got to get away from the fetishism about money, and money systems, and credit systems. Our system, of Hamilton, was a revolution—a world revolution. At that time—in 1763, when the British had used the Seven Years' War to establish a British empire, through the mutual defeat of the nations of Continental Europe who had been played against each other by the British—since that time, the Anglo-Dutch liberal monetary system, which is really a Venetian model, has dominated the world.

The American System, which had its inception before then, in what happened, in particular, in Massachusetts, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony prior to 1688-89, under the Winthrops and then under the others of that group, had established a credit system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which was internal to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and which resulted in a great expansion of growth of the economy of the Commonwealth. Now, the Commonwealth was then suppressed, to a large degree, and the Perkins Syndicate crowd came in afterward. That is, the British loyalists, who came in, and corrupted New England, pretty much. But this was the precedent which Franklin carried from Mather and Co.; and carried down into his work in Pennsylvania, and in contact with people in Europe, such as the famous mathematician Kaestner; on a principled conception of a new type of republic based on this tradition, which started here in the United States, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, prior to 1688-89. That's the root of the thing.

Now, the point was: We do not accept money as having an independent role or existence in the universe. Our view is, as Americans, that money is something which is created only by the government—by no one else. Anybody else who creates money, in the United States, is guilty of uttering, and could go to jail for fake currency. Which makes one wonder about the Federal Reserve System, sometimes.

But, in any case, therefore the credit of the United States must not be corrupted. The credit of the United States must be defended. The credit is the credit we give to one another. We make contracts. We make agreements. We agree to postpone receipt of payment in return for this and that, and so forth. And it is this, by drawing off a part of the total product of society, and drawing it off in the form of capital—capital to improve a farm; capital to build an industry; capital which is something which lasts in its effect over coming generations—the formation of useful capital. In other words, instead of just producing, and consuming everything we produce, we withhold from our expenditure for consumption, some part which we use as capital. To improve farms, for public works, all these kinds of things.

These things increase the productive powers of labor, and enable us to charge some kind of interest on the creation of capital, as compensation.

That's the kind of system that works.

So, we're now in a situation where the international Venetian-style monetary system, the IMF-World Bank system—is now hopelessly bankrupt. Therefore, we put it into bankruptcy reorganization. We put it under the conditions of the American System of Political Economy, in which the U.S. government, with the consent of Congress—that is, the Federal Executive with the consent of Congress—is sovereign in matters of money and credit.

And therefore, we absorb the bankrupt system into our hands. And we reorganize it on our terms, to the purpose of creating an American-style system of money and credit, of the type that Hamilton is talking about; rather than trying to work within the framework of the present international monetary system.

As I lay this out, in this paper, on this subject, you have to realize that here we are, living, in a sense, physically, in a modern economy; a modern industrial economy, based on—presumably—equal rights for everyone, for opportunity, on the basis of increasing the productive powers of labor, on improving public works, and so forth, for the common benefit. But we are living in a monetary system which belongs to feudalism! It's a relic of feudalism. It's a relic of the Venetian system, where the Venetian financier-oligarchy and the Norman chivalry were dominating Europe in a government-free system.

And that's the point.

So, there is no contradiction in this. What I'm talking about, clearly, is having the guts to establish the American System—again—as what was the intent of the Constitution; and to say to Europeans: "Come in and join us, and do the same, and we'll cooperate with you."

That is the only way out of this crisis. We're going to take most of the monetary aggregate—the monetary claims which exist in the world today—they're going to disappear, one way or the other. Now, either we engage in a mercy killing, or we have a general slaughter. We propose a mercy killing.

We take these assets. We take them in. We look at them. We decide which ones are justifiable, which are not. Those that were justifiable, those claims will ultimately be paid. And nobody is going to suffer unjustly because of the collapse of the system.

That's the way we do it. That's the American System. And we just have to have a clear understanding of this, and get out of our heads, the idea that we have to play within a notion of money, which is taught in every university and so forth, generally, in the world today, which is absolutely nonsense. It's feudalism! It's not modern society. It's not capitalism. It's feudalism! We want to get back to the American System.

And if we think in those terms, there really is no serious contradiction. There's a great challenge. And I ran for President because I have the guts to do it, and the knowledge to do it. That's why I ran for President.

So, there are people, such as me, who have the guts and knowledge to do this. And I'm prepared to do it. And I'm prepared to help anyone who is President of the United States to do it, if he doesn't know how to do it already.

Q: The question that I'll end with, is a question that's been submitted by a large number of the young people who are gathered here today, and are also listening from around the country.

But first, I want to pull together a composite question—we're getting questions from all over the world, on a recent paper that Lyn has authored, that has been posted on the website: "For a New Treaty of Westphalia."... We can't possibly take all of them.

Imani Jones, who has had Lyn as a guest on her show a number of times, and who's from Cleveland Talk Radio, says: "Mr. LaRouche, with regard to some of your current writings, I wanted to call to people's attention, an interesting passage in the Scriptures—which I know I take great risk in bringing up, because your people don't like to quote Scriptures. But in James 5—and I would urge people to look at it. She said, there exists there a warning to rich oppressors. And I, actually, will read it because it is a good passage.

"Now, listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded; their corrosion will testify against you, and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. But look, the wages you failed to pay the workman, who mowed your fields, are crying out against you; the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on Earth in luxury, and self-indulgence; you have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you."

My question, Mr. LaRouche, is, how long can this nation's so-called solvency rest upon the backs of the poor, coupled with these outlandish interests rates, and attacks on Social Security? Further, in some of your recent writings, you've talked about a new Treaty of Westphalia, concerning the current situation. How can we succeed in agreements with these countries, when we are in a state of such deep crisis? How can we have a concrete union among nations, which from their past, to the present, have done nothing but seek profit, and power?

LaRouche: That's what I'm working on; exactly what I'm working on, with my discussions internationally with various circles. This involves exactly what I've written about. The solution to the problem is described in a number of things I've written; the problem is, today, we are conditioned to beliefs about human nature, which are not human nature. The ability to deal with this, lies with those of us who are not afraid of the word immortality. The problem is, see, most people are concerned with, say, 'What do I get in my mortal life, that I can experience and enjoy in my mortal life, which, as a bribe, would induce me to accept this deal?' That's the way it goes: 'What's my gratification? What's the payoff? What do I get out of this?'

Now, among normal, healthy, moral people—who did, believe it or not, used to exist—parents would sacrifice for themselves and their grandchildren, taking their satisfaction from the fruit of their labor, as expressed in the accomplishment of their children and grandchildren. They had a sense of immortality, or an intimation of immortality, in this sense: That the purpose in life was what they used their life for; not what they got out of it. It was not a gambling deal; it was not a tradeoff.

The problem we have today, is, most people who are leaders of government, who are in leading positions, most of the time, are of that morally inferior type like Hamlet. Remember the Third Act of Hamlet, the soliloquy, where he can not fight, because he's afraid of immortality—the uncertainties of immortality. And only people who—as I am—who are not afraid of the uncertainties of immortality, are capable of going all the way with a fight. And only people who have that quality in themselves, can inspire other people to confidence to do the kind of thing that must be done today.

We have a world of frightened people, and they're going to become much more frightened fast. Therefore, we need leaders; we need people who will step forward, with a sense of immortality: who devote their life to the outcome of what their life means for the future of humanity; not for what they get out of it. Only people who are of that type, are capable of responding, in this kind of situation. I can do it; I want others to be able to do it. I would hope that the youth movement will produce the kind of people who can do that. That's one of the goals of my work with the education work on the youth movement—to concentrate on that problem.

If we don't do that, then we're looking at a Dark Age.

So, you have two things: you have the fact that there are solutions; there are remedies; they would work. What will it [take] to get people to agree to these remedies? What had made them agree to the Treaty of Westphalia in the first place: they had seen the impossible pit of horror in the Thirty Years War. And, because of their horror of that experience, they're willing to do what Cardinal Mazarin, the chief inspirer of the Treaty of Westphalia, proposed they do. Read the Treaty of Westphalia—the original one. Study the original document; the original resolution. Take into mind the circumstances under which that was done. And remember, that what you heard done by the youth, the chorus, the Jesu, Meine Freude, was an expression of the explosion of joy in the people of Germany, at relief from the Thirty Years War; something which continued into Bach's lifetime, which was, of course, more than 60 years later, when he did his versions. And what you heard, as Jesu, Meine Freude, was an expression of mankind grasping the fact, that it had achieved something: it escaped from a terrible evil, 'the old dragon'—the abyss.

And that's what you need today, and you find that, when people work in the Jesu, Meine Freude, as a motet, and actually get on the inside of it, they find there's something that is very awesomely mysterious about it. There is something in it that can not simply be explained by formalities. It is something that Bach understood, as to how to communicate these higher orders of ideas.

And, that's really the answer. We have to have leaders who understand that we must do it. And we'll do it, because we must do it, the way the Treaty of Westphalia was brought about as an agreement. And, we need enough leaders who will agree to that, to get the others to go along. And they'll go along, not because they really have insight, or they have belief, or competence, [but] because nothing else is going to work. And that's the way you're going to bring about a new Treaty of Westphalia now on this planet. When people realize, in coping with things like we've seen with this incident of the tsunami, that they are faced with forces beyond their ability to control—and that's only one example of it—the forces of the collapse of an international financial-monetary system, beyond their individual control—things that can destroy whole civilizations, beyond their control—and, for that reason, men and women unite to common purpose, to develop the power to deal with these things, which are frightening beyond belief. That's the answer.

Q: The last question, which has come in many different forms from the young people gathered here, is, "Lyn, our task and our mission this week was clearly defined and clearly focussed, around today's activity and around tomorrow's debate. We still have a couple of more days of the Week of Action to get out the remaining allotment of the 50,000 pamphlets we were given, but after this week we will no longer have the forces in D.C. that we have had thus far. What's the next crucial point in our mission? Is it the Inauguration? Is it the ICLC Conference? Please help us to define the mission, and tell us exactly what you want us to accomplish here in Washington."

LaRouche: Washington, D.C. is not just a population center, it's the nation's capital. Therefore, you want to change the policy of the nation, its government? You've got to pay direct attention to the nation's capital. Therefore, the intensity of concentration on the nation's capital must be primary.

Now, we have certain areas I've laid out in the United States, which we now have, are able to concentrate significant forces to do enough. Some with youth movements, and some with other parts of an organization, the adulterated part of the organization, shall we say?

So we have a Boston base, which has to be developed. It must go on. New York City is a major center, and I have a lot of supporters up there, who have to be organized, and they will fight. Remember, New York did not give up. Many other parts of the country were more fearful after 9-11 than the New Yorkers were. The New Yorkers have shown more guts about 9-11 than the people outside New York. And I know why. I understand New Yorkers. They have a terrible situation up there. Terrible economic situation. It's hard to live, but they have a certain manner. So, that's important.

We have to get Jersey out of the mud. You used to have Jersey mud, you took it for intestinal diseases. Now we've got to get the Jerseyans out of the mud, and get them functioning.

Philadelphia is doing what it's doing. Washington, D.C. is crucial. What we have in Texas is crucial. The Midwest is crucial. We've established a position there, we've not going to give it up. The Michigan-Ohio area. We'll organize there.

Texas, we have that, and it's also a border connection, important. California, we have a powerful situation. From Washington State into Oregon, California. It's a very ripe situation. All right, we'll concentrate there.

Now, what have we got? We now have, what we're doing is engaging other organizations, other networks, as you've seen in the fight around Social Security. The way we will spread is not by trying to spread ourselves all over the landscape. We have allies! Allies in a common cause. The common cause typified by Social Security and other things. Therefore, we are going to associate ourselves within the orbit of the Democratic Party, where we're already established as part of the Kerry campaign assembly, but also with Republicans who are sane people. There are many sane Republicans! They don't all think like George W. Bush, or Dick Cheney!

So, we are going to have a kind of networking arrangement, around common cause, around the nation, with groups which are fighting for these causes, and our work will be, marker-buoys in all situations, where we are sitting the pace, and our operation in Washington, D.C. is key for maintaining the pace-setting center, by which we try to tie all these organizations, most of which are oriented to Washington anyway, as lobbyists, or whatnot, or have lobbyists, to try to create a national movement, in which we are a catalytic element, an independent but catalytic element, in bringing together many kinds of forces that are coming together with us now, so we don't have to be every place simultaneously. They're are not enough of us.

But there are people who will work with us, with whom we will discuss, with whom we will come to agreement on policies and tactics. We will spread these networks, overlapping networks, throughout the nation, and that's the way we're going to change the nation, if we're going to change it at all. And that's the way to go.

Take the areas that we have. Understand how each part of the area functions, what function it performs. We're functioning as a keystone of a network of organizations which are coming together around our initiative. The position of initiative we've gained because of the last two months of the recent Presidential campaign, and because at November 9th on, we pulled the Democratic Party off the floor, and got it into some kind of semi-living motion again. And so, that's where we are.

Take the objective situation. We're going to build our networks, and they're going to be national. We're not going to be proprietary, because we're going to work with them, but we're going to build our own organization at the same time. And what we do, in limited areas in the United States, is going to be crucial for what many people do in all areas of the United States.