industry. Any liquidation of the present structure of the physical productive capabilities of that industry, especially its vital machine-tool sector, would mean both the end of the U.S.A. as a leading physical economic power, and related kinds of chain-reaction damage to the world economy as a whole. Emergency action to avert that outcome must be taken now.

1.3 The international complex of machine-tool-dependent physical production, as typified by the presently troubled General Motors and associated enterprises, is now at the verge of not only financial bankruptcy, but also, the threatened physical dissolution of the machine-tool and other essential and related physical-economic elements of the related, present productive capacity. This is the case, not only in North America and Europe, but the world at large. The leading implication of the ongoing financial and physical economic condition of that and related industries, is that government must now be mustered to act in accord with the implied, relevant principled, constitutional obligation of our modern nation-state. That imperative is the essential, constitutional obligation of the modern sovereign form of nation-state, to promote the general welfare, both as individual republics, and in concerted action among nations....

...pdf file, complete article

(Provided and Funded by
Lyndon LaRouche's Political Action Committee.)

This Week in History

April 18-24, 1775

The American Revolution Begins

"In the fall of '74 and winter of '75, I was one of upwards of thirty, chiefly mechanics, who formed ourselves into a committee for the purpose of watching the movements of the British soldiers, and gaining every intelligence of the movements of the Tories. We held our meetings at the Green Dragon. We were so careful that our meetings should be kept secret, that every time we met, every person swore upon the Bible that he would not discover any of our transactions but to Messrs. Hancock, Adams, Doctors Warren, Church, and one or two more. In the winter, towards spring, we frequently took turns, two and two, to watch the soldiers, by patrolling the streets all night."

So wrote Paul Revere, describing the activities of the American patriots in British-occupied Boston during the months which led up to the battles of Lexington and Concord.

Ever since George III and the British Parliament had shut up the port of Boston and militarily occupied the city to try to force the payment of the tea tax to the bankrupt East India Company, the Americans had been expecting, and preparing for, a military confrontation. British Gen. Sir Thomas Gage, the military governor of Boston who had served in America during the French and Indian War, did not underestimate the patriots' military abilities and therefore moved carefully. But pressure from London kept building for him to challenge the Americans.

Paul Revere was instrumental in warning the patriots of Portsmouth, N.H., in December of 1774, that Gage would send a detachment to strengthen Fort William and Mary so that the local militia could not seize it. The militia acted quickly to seize the fort and empty it of all gunpowder and small arms. When George III heard of this action, he demanded that Gage punish every man involved, and seize all rebel military supplies.

Another British attempt in February to seize American military supplies in Salem ended in defeat when the patriots refused to let down the drawbridge over the North River, thus stranding the British soldiers. Revere had not been able to ride to warn the inhabitants of Salem, because he had been locked up in Castle William by the British, who rightly suspected he had been responsible for warning the Portsmouth patriots in December.

When King George's order to seize all rebel military supplies reached General Gage in the spring, he could no longer postpone a major confrontation. To prepare, he sent spies westward to Concord and Worcester, to determine how easily those American military armament depots could be taken. Concord also was the meeting site of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, which had defied the military occupation, and continued to plan resistance and communicate with the other colonies. To make Concord even more attractive as a target, Samuel Adams and John Hancock were rumored to be staying in Lexington, on the Concord road, before they journeyed to Philadelphia as Massachusetts delegates to the Continental Congress.

One of Gage's spies, an enlisted man named John Howe who posed as a patriot gunsmith, was able to reach Worcester and report back to Boston. Howe wrote in his memoirs that the British generals asked him how many men would it take to destroy the stores in Worcester and return safely. "I said, if they should march 10,000 regulars and a train of artillery to Worcester, which is 48 miles from this place, the roads very crooked and hilly, the inhabitants generally determined to be free or die, that not one of them would get back alive." But a military expedition to closer Concord would be a very different matter, and Howe knew where the military stores were hidden.

The British government had been egging on General Gage to arrest Adams and Hancock, and could not understand why Gage had delayed so long. He had explained to them, again and again, that if he attempted to arrest two of the rebel leaders, the letter they were holding would be the last they would ever receive from him, for he would be knocked on the head. But when King George dispatched three other British generals to Boston to "help" him, Gage knew he could delay no longer. The Concord expedition was ordered, to arrest Adams and Hancock, on the way to seizing the American military supplies.

The patriot intelligence network discovered Gage's plans, and Paul Revere was dispatched by Dr. Joseph Warren, the head of patriot intelligence activities in Boston, to warn Adams and Hancock of an attempt to arrest them, and to alert Concord that it was most likely a British target. Secretly slipping out of the city on April 16, Revere was able to carry out his mission and return to Boston, unobserved by the British. The citizens of Concord moved as much of their munitions as they could to Worcester. But the patriots still did not know when the British thrust would come.

Meanwhile, Gage and the three "helpful" generals were formulating their own plans. A group of officers were selected, and sent out to create a screen on the roads to Lexington and Concord, so that no rebel express could ride through and warn the towns. The man-of-war "Somerset" was moved to the mouth of the Charles River, to command the water between Boston and Charlestown, so that rebel couriers could not cross it by boat. The patriots were looking for any sign that the British were about to move, and they soon saw many.

...more