This transcript appears in the April 6, 2001 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
A National Mission
To Rebuild the World
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
Lyndon LaRouche delivered the following opening remarks to a seminar in Washington, D.C. on March 21, 2001. See also the transcript of the question-and-answer period, and RealAudio archive in English or in Spanish.
We've now experienced the first, disastrous 60 days of a new administration, an administration, whose combined actions and inactions have pushed the world over the brink of the worst financial and economic crisis in modern history, as we shall soon see in the weeks ahead. This is far more dangerous, than the financial and economic crisis that Franklin Roosevelt faced, at his first inauguration 68 years ago this month.
However, the situation is not ended. The final word has not been said.
I know many Americans, better than they themselves do--at least in some important ways, relative to the questions at hand. There are relatively two qualities of Americans as a people, which are specifically relevant to the present situation: First, the United States is one of the three nations, or national cultures in the world, which is capable of taking or assuming responsibility for the condition of the world as a whole. Those three cultures are, of course, the British Empire--which is really an empire, headed by the British monarchy. They are, pretty much, intervening and controlling most of the affairs of this planet, including about 90-odd percent of the financial transactions occurring daily throughout the world. Even though the United States is probably the most powerful, single economy, as an economy, the British Empire is much more powerful as an economic and financial force, than the United States.
Russia, despite its coming upon bad times, has a national culture, which we are seeing with the development of the Presidency of Vladimir Putin, a culture which impels it to step onto the world stage, as a world leader and initiator.
No other nations, or national culture in the world, at the present time, is capable, emotionally and intellectually, of assuming that kind of role of leadership. Asia has its own peculiarities. Europe, continental Europe, once had a more important role in world history; but, after two world wars and the so-called Cold War, continental Europe is in very reduced circumstances, politically. It still has much influence and interests, but it depends upon its partnership with leading powers of the world to make its policy; it will not initiate a global policy, by itself.
The other characteristic of the American situation, is that we are a nation, characterized by an internal conflict, which is rather unique to our history. The conflict is typified by that between the American intellectual tradition, as typified by John Quincy Adams or Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt--and to some degree, Clinton. If JFK had lived, we'd have seen more of that.
And, on the other side, you have this tradition of the Confederacy. In the recent 35 years, since Nixon began his Southern Strategy campaign for the Presidency, an alliance of Wall Street finance, and British finance, together with the legacy of the old Confederacy, has taken over the economic and social policies of the United States, more and more. It is that change in our policy, from about 1966 to the present--through Carter, through the other changes that have occurred--have led us down the road, over about 35 years, to the present global financial and economic disaster.
Now, the question, therefore, since this legacy--the legacy of the Southern Strategy, the legacy of Nixon, the legacy of Carter, the legacy of Bush as Vice President, the legacy of Bush, the former Bush, as President, to a large degree, the legacy of Gore and that faction inside the Democratic Party--that has led us down the road to a disaster. We've come to the point that we have a President, who's not exactly known for his intellectual qualities. It's a complicated administration, which is based on some religious fanatics and similar types, who are not quite in the real world. These are American Protestants, for example, who are very close to the thinking of Ariel Sharon in Israel. These are people who tend to be pro-Armageddon, pro-The Rapture: They don't think in real-world terms; they think primarily in other-world terms, and it's not necessarily another world we want to think about.
We have a layer in there, like [Richard] Armitage, being nominated, and others, who are killers, who are associated with the former President George Bush in the Iran-Contra operations. They like to kill. They come up with programs that kill. And, they're in there, the wild men, who think pretty much in the same direction as Ariel Sharon. And, they're likely to get us into a Middle East war, at this time, if their influence prevails.
We have another layer in the administration, typified, to some degree by Colin Powell, but more so by Donald Rumsfeld, and O'Neill, and Cheney, who are "old boys," who come from the Republican circuits of the past. But, when they came up in their position, they represented what today is called the "Rust Belt." Today, they don't work for the Rust Belt; they work for a Southern-based financial machine--typified by James Baker III, for example--which is the boss, and which has taken over most of the nation, and has played a key role in turning the Northern states of the United States into the Rust Belt--into the ruin we've become. But, some of these people are intelligent.
But, the situation is not entirely hopeless. Because, as you see in the recent developments, the fall of Alan Greenspan, which was inevitable: He's an impossible man in an impossible situation. And, sooner or later, that had to come to a conclusion. And, it will, sooner or later. I don't known exactly how, but the man is fated--he's got the mark of political doom, written all over his career.
But, there are people who are concerned. And, they're expressing this now. This system is not working. The Bush administration does not function. It is leading us into a disaster. It is irrational. The California energy crisis keeps coming on. Other crises, energy crises, come on. We have the breakdown of the health-care system. We have the crisis in Washington, D.C., of a virtual "Negro Removal" program in Washington,D.C., to remove the D.C. General Hospital, which is the only full-service hospital in the area, which will deal with the population's needs in general. And, they're shutting down that hospital, or attempting to do so, at a time when the world is faced with the spread of new epidemics, new outbreaks of epidemic and pandemic diseases of animal life, as well as human life.
We are destroying the capability we used to have, in public health, of dealing with that kind of threat. We are also killing people by economic policies, which are destroying the health-care sytem, on which we used to rely.
People are not happy with this.
In Europe, especially in continental Europe, they're very unhappy with us in the United States, and for good reason. Some people in Britain are disgusted with what they see in the United States--I'm talking about influential Britons, not obscure people. They don't always have the best policies themselves, but they realize that what we have going in the United States, is a horrible mess, which is a danger to them, as well as to the rest of the planet.
On the continent of Europe: Continental Europe survived largely because of the key role of Germany, as an economy. Its exports were the margin by which all of continental Europe, or western continental Europe, managed to keep going. Then came 1989-90, and you had three people with bad ideas. One was called Margaret Thatcher, the meanest nanny that the British ever invented. You had the President of France, Mitterrand, who was a German-hater; and George Bush. Now, George Bush didn't do as badly as he could have, because he had a Vernon Walters as ambassador over there, at the time, in Bonn, who advised the President not to be stupid about this German reunification question. And, the President, at least on that question, took his advice.
What they did, was, Thatcher demanded and Mitterrand demanded, that the reunification of Germany shall not lead to a powerful German economy emerging in Europe. Now, by shutting down the German economy's potential for growth--which they did, pretty much, by their agreements, in 1989-1990--they created a situation, in which Europe today--continental Europe--is in a ruinous condition. Germany can no longer carry itself, its economy, let alone the rest of Europe, on its back, under the present circumstances.
Now, there's one hope for Germany and for Europe: That hope is, that Putin works--that is, the new Russian President. That new agreements with Russia from western Europe, will lead to a partnership, which will extend itself to East and South Asia, and Central Asia. And, thus, by building up the technology-export capabilities of western Europe, with Germany as the pivot, and with Russia as a partner in that pivot, it would be possible to enhance the long-term--say 25-year-term agreements--between western Europe, China, Japan (which is really, essentially, a full-set economy, too), Korea, and Southeast Asia. Under those circumstances, there's a 25-year, long-term prospect for genuine economic growth, in a post-financial crisis world.
So, the Germans know that. Other Europeans know that. They look forward to the possibility. But no German is going to make a policy, today, which bucks the United States. The German answer would be, "We fought the Anglo-Americans in two world wars, and we lost, and we're not going to fight them again."
So, therefore, Germany has a very strong feeling about its vital national interests. It has a very strong feeling, as other continental Europeans do, about their vital national and continental interests. But, they're not going to take an independent, global initiative, which directly challenges the power of the IMF, and the United States, and Great Britain.
Therefore, the issue is: Can the United States come to its senses, abandon the present policy, which the incumbent President has adopted so far, and get into partnership with western Europe, together with Russia, together with Asia, to build a Eurasian economic mobilization of about a 25-year immediate perspective, long-term technology export; and build the world as a whole--including Africa, which is hopeless unless we do this; Central and South America; Australia and New Zealand. And build the rest of the world around a partnership between the United States, western Europe, in cooperation with continental Eurasia.
That's our opportunity. That's what many people in Europe, today, would agree to, at least as a general direction of thinking. That's what people, I think, in South and Central America would be very happy, if the doors were open to that kind of alternative, as opposed what they're getting from the United States and London today.
So, can we do that? Well, my view is, that, with this system coming down, the whole financial and economic system, in its present form, is doomed. There is no way this can be fixed in its present form. We're going to have to write off trillions of dollars of worthless paper; it's already being written off by the market. What was the latest one? That American households and so forth, lost a trillion dollars recently, on the financial bubble on Wall Street. There's not much money from there to go back into Wall Street.
This system's finished.
The collapse of the energy system--this deregulation crisis, is not simply a policy issue. The United States can not live, with Enron. It can not live with that kind of deregulation of energy. We can not live with the destruction of our health-care system. We can not live with the destruction of our infrastructure. We must put it back into order. And, the present administration must simply give up the lunatic ideas, and say, "Okay. You were elected on a lunatic idea. So what? But, now you're President. Don't be a lunatic any more."
And, pressures from inside the United States, and from Europe, coming together, can put enough pressure on the institutions of the United States, to bring sense to the United States.
As I said before, the United States is one of the few nations, and three national cultures on this planet, which can take the leadership initiative, to push agreement through--not to dictate U.S. orders to the world--but to push through agreements among a partnership of nations, to get some of the things done, that we have to get done, quickly, right now.
That's our general situation.
The other aspect of this, of course, is that we had a recent election. I wouldn't call it, really, a Presidential election, because there, really, weren't any candidates. Nobody was actually running. They were running from something, or for something, but they weren't running as candidates, to run the United States, to address or solve its problems, and lead people out of the difficulties that were coming up. Gore was mostly running against himself! Bush didn't quite know who he was, except he was Daddy's boy. They said nothing, about the economic crisis! Nothing! They went through more than a year of primaries, and the Presidential election fight. They said nothing about the crisis that's destroying this nation and the world economy today. Nothing!
They made no proposals. They said, "We're doing fine. We have to have more free trade. More deregulation. We have to have more of the same medicine," that was killing the world economy, that's brought this depression-crisis upon us now.
It wasn't really an election. There was no participation by the voters, in any discussion of policy. No leading candidates were discussing policy. I was discussing it, but I wasn't allowed to get into the show. I was discussing policy. They weren't discussing anything. They were flapping their lips! Saying how pretty they were (and they really weren't pretty, either of 'em).
So, it wasn't an election campaign.
The other side of it, was: What's happened to our people. Over the past 35 years, there's been a change in the temper of the American population.
During the 1930s, as we came out of the Depression, during the war, during the 1950s, into the 1960s, Americans, typically, had a lot of rugged individualists among them. People who might have been poor, or not very wealthy. But they believed that their opinion counted. They believed that they had the right to discuss national policy seriously. They had the right to look over the shoulder of national leaders, and criticize the way policies were being made. They had the right to judge whether somebody was fit to run for Congress, or not.
But, they changed: The American people became, more and more, like a pack of human cattle. The lower 80% of the income-brackets in the United States, which used to dominate the national income of the United States, have now fallen to far less than half of the national income. The conditions of life--you know them! You know how many jobs people work. You know the problem of latch-key children. You know what's happening in the schools. You know what's happening to neighborhoods. You know what's happening to community structures. It's distintegrating.
And, where're the American people? They're like slaves. They think of themselves as like slaves. They vote like slaves. "Oh, we can vote." And, they go up, and knock at the back door of the typical boss--the guy who owns the big, white, slave mansion. And they say, "We don't our freedom. Just give us some reparations. Give us a couple of shekels, and we'll go away."
And, so, they go out there, and they vote for candidates, and support candidates, in hopes they'll get a couple of shekels. They don't fight for their life; they don't fight for their children's life, their future; they don't fight for their dignity: They fight for a few pitiful concessions.
Esau was a hero: He sold out for a single mess of pottage. The Americans do it all the time, every time they vote.
So, the Americans didn't really vote. You will find that most citizens really didn't support the candidate they voted for. They were voting against the other guy! Bush had more support than Gore did: Without Clinton, Gore wouldn't have even run! More people were voting for Gore, because they were voting against Bush, than voting for Gore! And, now, that the election was over, and Gore is out, that fact is obvious to many people. Gore can do nothing for them. He's not President; he can't pass shekels out the back door any more. There's no reason to vote for him. He's dead news, he's yesterday's newspaper. He's gone.
So, there was no election.
The problem we have, therefore, is, how do we get the American people to come back into the political proces? Not as slaves, knocking at the back door of the mansion, trying to get a few shekels, trying to get reparations, instead of reason. How do we get the American people, to realize that they, as people, have to act, to save this nation, and to save the world? How do we get them out of the slave-mentality? To think like and to act like citizens again?
Well, first of all, you've got to give them some leadership, which gives them some confidence, which is what I'm trying to do: It's why I campaign. Someone has to stand up, as a leading figure, and say the things to the American people, the American people have to be told. They're not being told that. The press doesn't tell them that. Most of the leading candidates don't tell them that. They all "go along to get along." They don't tell the truth. So, therefore, my job is to present concepts, to organize around concepts, and issues, and say the things that have to be said. To try to convince the American people, that if they can understand what I am saying, and can agree with it--or more or less agree with it, even if it takes a little mental energy on their part, to do so--that they are perfectly capable of taking an initiative, as a citizen, to change the politics of the nation.
Now, we have an operation going in Washington, D.C. This question of D.C. General. D.C. General, the last full-service hospital available to the population of the nation's capital! And, a bunch of people, tied to Katharine Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post, and her crowd, who run Washington, D.C., like a private dictatorship--a private plantation--and the Washington Post is the voice of plantation's slave-master! You want to get along in Washington? You go along with Katie Graham! That's the rules.
Now, Katie Graham's crowd, came up some years ago, with a number of packages to beautify Washington. Which means, essentially, get the African-Americans out! Or, most of them. Keep a few, for show. How will they do that? Well, you take that [Anacostia] riverside, down there, where D.C. General Hospital is located, now, with the jail and RFK Stadium. Now, go down, and look at the maps: Look at the plans that have been made by Katie Graham's friends. Look at the organization that was created around that, and around the idea of the 2012 Summer Olympics, between here, Washington, and Baltimore. Look at that.
Look at the political action committees, which were formed around these operations, to buy up politicians, including Washington, D.C. politicians and notable figures; to put money into their election campaigns; to control the politicians. And, the Washington Post as the press guardian, a sort of Goebbels press of Washington, D.C., to keep the people in line for Hitler! People went along with it.
What does it mean? If this goes through, in Washington, D.C., you're going to have Negro Removal, to that great area of civil rights, called Prince George's County, in neighboring Maryland. Where I understand, a certain amount of killing occurs, occasionally, under rather dubious circumstances.
You're going to have no health care, for the greater part of the population of Washington, D.C.; in a period, in which epidemic disease is becoming a greater danger. But, you're going to have some sightly speculative bubbles, going up as high-rises; casinos; marinas, and so forth, where there used to be a hospital, and some other facilities.
That's the point. Now, you take the people of Washington, D.C. The majority of the people of Washington, D.C., they're supposed to have some power, aren't they? on this thing; they're supposed to control their mayor, control their mayor's office, and a few other things. Well, Katie Graham says they don't: They work for her.
But, if the people of Washington, D.C., will stand up as citizens and exert their druthers, this nonsense would stop. We might put some new architecture up there, in that riverside area, but it might be an improved General Hospital! An improved school, or other facilities, which are needed by the population of the nation's capital. For its people; and for visitors, as well. That's the difference.
The problem is a problem of mentality. If the citizens sit back, and say, "There's nothing we can do about it. We have to go along with the politicians, who are controlled by Katie Graham. Who Katie Graham and her friends have bought. Who Katie Graham and her friends at the Post have brainwashed." They're not citizens! They're human cattle! And, human cattle go where they're herded, don't they?
But, if they act as citizens, they say, "What a minute. This is our territory. You don't do this to us. You don't strip us of our health care."
So, we, who do this kind of fighting, as we're fighting, also, on the national deregulation crisis, and other projects; our job is to get people to do what they must do: To think and act like citizens, who have the right given to them, in main, by the Constitution, to act in their own vital interests for the best interests of the nation. And, to demand leadership, or competition among leadership, which makes these issues clear to them, and presents alternatives. That's our problem today; that's our challenge today.
And, that's what I'm trying to do.
Now, what are our options? We have, as I said, this option, of a partnership between the United States, which we've got to force into reality--Bush or no Bush. Don't think about the Bush administration; this is not a plantation. He's a President (not exactly an elected one, but he's the President), sworn in. And he doesn't own the country. The country owns the country, under our Constitution. This country, this nation of ours, which has mobilized, as it mobilized for World War II; if it's mobilized, can decide that it's going to get into a partnership, with people we know in western Europe, with a project for developing Eurasia; with the idea that, if we can take the areas of Eurasia, such as China and India, which are the largest population centers of the world, which desperately need a more adequate inflow of high technology, in order to meet the challenge of their future.
You've got most of the people of India are desperately poor, in unimproved conditions; the interior of China has not yet been developed; the Chinese population will grow, inevitably. Without infrastructural development, which goes beyond the scope of the existing outpouring of technology, the internal problems of China can not be adequately met over the coming period. Without the same thing for India, India can not deal with the problem of its unresolved mass of poverty among the overwhelming majority of its population.
We have Indonesia--with the blessing of the United States government--is distintegrating. We can't have that! Southeast Asia's threatened: We can't have that!
We have the northern part of Asia, which is in Siberia, including a vast tundra area, and Central Asia, partly a desert area--mostly underdeveloped, thinly populated--it's one of the great growth-area potentials of the world! It needs infrastructure. It needs technology. It has immense resources. But, we don't have the ability to develop those resources, without infrastructure.
So, therefore, if you think about the vast continent of Eurasia, the largest part of the human population, the center of the Earth, in terms of human existence; and, if we decide that we're going to enter into long-term cooperation, to develop that, in the same way that we approached the question of rebuilding war-torn western Europe, between 1946 and 1965. What were the lessons we learned from that? Maybe on a larger scale. That is a great mission for the United States, as well as for Eurasia. If we build up, the rate of growth on this planet, with that kind of cooperation, we can meet the needs of Central and South America. And we can finally give justice to an Africa, which--in the so-called "black Africa" region--is subjected to genocide, chiefly run by British figures, such as Lynda Chalker, from London, and her office, which has plans--detailed plans--of genocide! For all of black Africa! Supported in part, by American interests, which are working with London on these Africa projects.
See the genocide in Africa: People talk about Africa, most Americans--including African-Americans--don't know anything about Africa. The more strongly they express their opinions, the less they know about it. I know something about it. I have friends all over Africa, who are dying all the time now. They face a reality, which is not being faced--among African-Americans. When some African-American says, "You've got to be concerned about Africa," I say, "I'm concerned. Why aren't you?" They say, "Well, we're talking about this." I say, "Well, then, you're not talking about reality." You have to talk about British and American genocide, targetting Zambia, Zimbabwe, Burundi; what's happening with Museveni in Uganda; what's happening with all these parts of Africa, with civil war, where it's being carved up into micro-states, run by foreign companies; big companies, like elder George Bush's Barrick Gold--Barrick International. Which are running mercenary armies and killing people en masse, tearing Congo apart: That's genocide.
We can do something about it. If we start to rebuild this world. We can finally bring justice to Africa.
We can solve the problem, similarly--easily--of Australia and New Zealand, in that context, we just have to have the will to do so.
So, our hope is that.
Also, some other things we have to do: The present inventory of technology on the shelves of our manufacturing facilities and laboratories--it's not adequate to meet our needs. People talk about a space-defense system--they don't know what they're talking about! The only kind of real conflict you can have among powers today, would be through the aid of submarines, planting some pods off the shores of the United States and Russia, and threatening to send up some nuclear devices, which will cause electromagnetic pulse effect, which would shut down most of the United States economy--except for the hardened part--for some time to come. And the same thing would happen to Russia.
That's the alternative to thermonuclear war. And the alternative is to go to thermonuclear war. But that's alternative, and that's where we're headed. That's the real issue: All this talk about "rogue states" and so forth is bunk! It's not true. The biggest rogue state I know about, is Sharon's Israel, that's the one you've got to worry about. They're the ones that threaten to set off a whole world war, in the Middle East, right now.
We don't have this fantastic technology, that people talk about. But we have to develop it. Because we do not have the scientific progress we need, presently, to meet the ongoing demands of the world. And, I mentioned this problem with China, this problem with India, the problems with Central Asia. We have ideas of what to do.
There was a great fellow, who died in 1945. He was a great scientist. His name was Vladimir Vernadsky. He's famous internationally as the founder of a branch of physical science called biogeochemistry. And, most of what we think about the world today, in terms of infrastructure, in terms of biosphere, and so forth, are based on ideas which are centered around people, such as Vernadsky and his influence.
We have areas of research, including space research, from which we can generate the new kinds of technologies needed to increase the productive powers of labor, and solve the problems of humanity over the coming period.
So, what I think, in conclusion, is what we have to have, is a sense of national mission. The idea of the United States cooperating with western Europe, with Eurasia as a whole, to restart the world economy; the idea of taking that on, as a 25-year, long-term credit mission; rebuilding a new financial system, like the old Bretton Woods system, to handle the kind of problem we faced in the immediate postwar period--the same, general kind of lessons. And, then getting a science-driver policy, to expand the scientific work in our universities, to build the laboratories; to get the new projects and new productive technologies, the new products in place. And, to think about rebuilding this world, to be able to tell our children, who come 25 years down the line: "What we're going to do for you, is, we're going to give you a better world. And, that's what we're doing now."
If we can get that concept across, among enough Americans and others, I think the citizens of the United States will return to the American intellectual tradition which Franklin Roosevelt invoked, in his election campaign of 1932. And which he utilized, in his struggles against the Southern tradition--the Coolidge tradition--between 1933 and his death in 1945; and use that, revive the American intelllectual tradition, in which our nation was founded, in cooperation with other nations of the world, and let's rebuild this planet. And, let the American citizens stop thinking of themselves as a poor person, here or there; think of themselves as a citizen, of a nation, which is doing that; and let him or her take pride in being a citizen of such a nation with such a commitment. If we can mobilize that, we can save this nation; we can save this world, from one horrible mess. And, that is what I propose we ought to do.
Thank you.
