This transcript appears in the August 3, 2001 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Questions and Discussion with
Lyndon LaRouche

[PDF version of this transcript (at end)]

Transcript of the questions and discussion following Lyndon LaRouche's opening remarks at his July 24, 2001 webcast appearance.

From Dominican Republic UN Mission: The collapse of the world financial system, according to your point of view, is inevitable. How will this collapse affect world leaders' commitments for poverty eradication and sustainable development in the least-developed countries, over the course of the next 15 years?

LaRouche: There is no commitment to do anything to help the development of the poorer countries or their populations right now. It doesn't exist. There may be some people who are well-meaning on this, but there is no program.

Under the conditions imposed on nations by the IMF and World Bank, as long as nations accept the current directives and influence of the World Bank and IMF, either directly, or upon financial agencies—that is, there are some agencies that would be willing to help countries through programs—but then they find that they are not allowed to do that, unless the program that they are willing to support meets the approval of the standards of the IMF and World Bank.

So, as long as these policies remain—the present IMF/World Bank policies remain—there is no chance of any significant public programs involving the present leading countries of Western Europe, the United States, and so forth, to help any of these countries. There's no hope.

Let's be realistic. Remember that the policy changes which were introduced 35 years ago, were motivated largely by people who said, "the population of the world is too large, it's growing too rapidly. We have to stop economic programs which foster new births, which foster population growth. We have to stop programs which keep old people living longer. We want them to go, when their useful years are used up. Cut those programs out."

Look what happened, for example, in 1973. That great Democrat, [Daniel Patrick] Moynihan, who was then working as a member of the Nixon crew, the Nixon government, who was paid and pushing through the cancellation and repeal of the Hill-Burton Act by the HMO bill. Now, anyone who sits down with a pencil and paper and knows anything about demographics, can tell you that that change in policy—people are now screaming about HMOs, but that policy was put into effect back in the early 1970s under the Nixon Administration, and with a large role by Pat Moynihan, a so-called great Democrat. He called it "benign neglect." We called it racism then, and now he's a "great Democrat." Maybe the party changed.

This kind of policy, like many other policies, was aimed to keep down the population by economic means. You want to kill people? Don't shoot them, that costs bullets! Do it with a sharpened pencil. Do it with budget cuts. Do it with austerity programs. Do it with cutbacks. Do it with policies like the current HMO policies. Do what they're doing in Washington, D.C. They're trying to reap a multibillion-dollar bonanza in Washington, D.C. by moving out—"Negro removal," with the aid of shutting down D.C. General Hospital, and investing in a high-rise glory, with all the bankers and the law firms in there, coming down and making riches on the speculation on real estate, with the help of the Federal Reserve System, and Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mae, and so forth, and all these other bums who do that kind of thing.

There is no intention in the present system to keep people alive. There's an intention, as in Africa, to reduce the population of Africa, massively. That's why it's happening. There's an intention to reduce the population of Central and South America. That's why it's happening. So, we should have no illusions, that, until we change the system, we're not going to get any improvements.

"Yeah, but can't you work through the system?" That's like saying, "How do you work for good inside the Nazi SS?" Work within the system. We have to have the will, we have to have the alliances, we have to have the forces, we have to have the power, to say "This stops now!"

Roosevelt did that, in 1933. He did it. It wasn't perfect, but he did something. He changed things for the better. Our job now is to assemble ourselves, both in countries and among countries, to change things for the better. That's the only chance. Inside the system, there's not a chance.

State Representative from a Southern state: Mr. LaRouche, a U.S. State Department official came to Jackson, Mississippi last month, to discuss events in Russia. I asked him a question about the Eurasian Land-Bridge and its progress. He stated that the Land-Bridge is not making any progress, and it was still only in the discussion stage. He cited two reasons why there was no progress: 1) that Russia's economy could not support the development of such a project; and 2) that Russia's relationship with Japan would have to increase, especially over the issue of the islands that they control and Japan wants. Would you please respond to that assessment given by the U.S. State Department?

LaRouche: Let's take the Japan side first. I think we have some people from Japan who are in the audience, who have some knowledge of these matters. Actually, things have gone fairly well in the negotiations between Japan and Russia, and on this particular business; and particularly in the idea of building a bridge from the mainland of Russia to Sakhalin and south down into Japan. Now, Japan needs that policy. Why?

As anyone who lived during the period of World War II as an adult remembers, the problem that Japan faces is that it's an island country, with very little of the land-area usable for its people, that is, for normal habitation. Therefore, modern Japan depends upon being able to earn, the raw materials imports and related imports it requires for the needs of its people. To do that, Japan has to be a high-technology country, primarily, and to export the technology products to other countries, especially in Asia—which these countries need—in order to secure the secure supplies and the raw materials, food, and so forth, that it requires.

Now, for Japan, you have two areas to go to. One is south, which is to Southeast Asia, and that also to some degree includes China. China is a very important customer for Japan. That also means Russia. Now, Japan is sitting there looking across Siberia, which is a land which is full of raw-materials potential. These resources require development.

Now, Russia, because of the beneficence of George Bush, the old one, when he was President, the Russian economy was ruined by George Bush, and I don't think the young one is capable of repairing the damage. But in any case, as a result of this, people who could go from, for example, from Moscow, as Russians, to Irkutsk can't do that by train any more, because the whole system was wrecked, by the U.S. and British advisers who came in with their little IMF and similar kinds of controls.

Russia, therefore, needs assistance, and it needs to expand its production, in order to restore and integrate Russia itself. In order to do so, it has resources in these areas which Japan requires. To tap these resources for Japan's needs and Russia's needs, requires cooperation between Japan and Russia, such as developing transportation links.

Hence, Putin, who is not exactly as stupid as some other politicians these days, made a deal with Japan, as with Shanghai and the other countries, and you're seeing coming together, contrary to what a State Department official—State Department officials these days come cheap, I think, not well informed—there's a going operation.

What we really have to be afraid of: There are threats to assassinate Putin, from people who are more sympathetic to the Bush-Thatcher line of policy. They don't like what Putin's doing. Berezovsky, for example, has threatened to have Putin out of the way, come soon. So there are assassination threats against President Putin, to try to stop him. The State Department has expressed not unsympathetic attitudes towards such a change of policy.

Brzezinski is much more vehement on this. The idea that there should be any cooperation, among Japan, China, India, Southeast Asia—the State Department is against it. And the more successful it is, the more the State Department will try to discourage it.

So, what can I say about the State Department official? Well, he either didn't know what he was talking about, which wouldn't surprise me, or he was lying, which also would not surprise me.

Islamic organization in U.S.: Honor to talk to you, Mr. LaRouche. The concern is the Islamic populations in Central Asia, and the neglect that they are suffering and the economic problems that they are going through, as a consequence of the collapse of the Soviet Union. How can we address those, and how will that go with the Eurasian Land-Bridge concept?

LaRouche: I think the latest leg in that, is the agreement reached in Shanghai, with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which was a new institution, established with the chief sponsorship by Russia's President Putin and China's President Jiang Zemin. This is, on the first level, a security agreement, and as you know, Uzbekistan was brought into this partnership during this period. It has now been expanded in Shanghai from five to a larger number of nations.

Essentially, this is cross-referencing agreements between Russia and India, and concerns Russia and India. It also cross-references China's relationship to Iran, and Russia's relationship to Iran, and India's relationship to Iran. It cross-references the eager efforts between the President of Pakistan and the Prime Minister of India, to have an ongoing negotiation, which will bring peace between these two countries, both of which are concerned, deeply concerned, about the security of Central Asia. And both are concerned about relations with Iran, and the security of Iran. If these nations are able to combine their concerns, as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the other partners of these same partners, then you will have a very solid—a problem-ridden, yes—but solid effort to bring stability.

Now, in this area of Central Asia, as you know, if we include projects such as large-scale water projects—for example, take the Aral Sea, which is a perfect example of this. If we rebuild the Aral Sea, if we better manage the water of Central Asia, these areas which are now traditionally poverty-stricken areas, can become significant areas of growth, and generally, there's nothing better for peace and stability and security than some prospect of happiness and growth in the area. So these things are in reach.

But, more significantly, remember that in 1998, after Gore failed with the collapse of the hedge fund, the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund, you had someone whom Gore didn't like [who] became the Prime Minister, Primakov. And Primakov did organize among China, India, and Russia in this direction, and also the Central Asian states, in the same direction. Putin has revived this, in a very effective way.

Let me just add one thing to it, which is significant also, a factor. China had been trying to deal with the United States under Clinton, and with Gore, especially from, I would say 1996-97 on, within the WTO agreement. Because there were people in China who believed, till then, no more, that the short-term or medium-term interest of China was to export China products, even cheap-labor products or other things like that, into the United States market.

Well, as you may have observed, the U.S. market, as an importer of last resort, has been collapsing of late. As a matter of fact, that latest collapse is accelerating right now. So, as a result of that, China has realized, that it cannot rely upon the external market for cheaply produced goods into the United States and Western Europe. That market is collapsing. It will collapse to maybe 50% of what it had been formerly. Therefore, how is China going to keep its economy safe? China will now have to rely upon more emphasis on internal improvements, especially in basic economic infrastructure.

Therefore, when Jiang Zemin went to Moscow, there was a renewal of the emphasis upon cooperation among these countries for internal improvements. There was some uncertainty about the improvement in the relations between India and China, for a period recently. But most recently, as the Chinese government has expressed in a statement publicized in the Times of India . . . there's now much closer cooperation, or perspectives for cooperation between China and India. And this also coincides with the meeting between the President of Pakistan and the Prime Minister of India.

So, all these things are tending to come together. If this cooperation occurs, then you have another factor. Europe is starving, Western Europe. It's not starving yet, but it's in the process of starving. All of Europe depends chiefly upon the economy of Germany. The economy of Germany carries most of the rest of Europe on its back, at least by and large. Over the past ten years, the economy of Germany, which was largely a high-technology, export-based economy, has been collapsing, under the influence of Mitterrand and Thatcher and Bush and the policies they left behind.

So now, Germany and the rest of Western Europe are in deep trouble; all of Western Europe is in deep trouble. All of the economies are collapsing. You can read the daily reports about the tax increases, the cuts and so forth. These economies are collapsing. The value of the euro is collapsing. The question whether the euro will be converted on January 1, as proposed, is in doubt now. It is a very unstable situation.

Europe desperately needs major markets for its European type of exports, exports principally to places like Japan, from Germany, Italy, France, and so forth. If Europe is committed to cooperation with this Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the other Eurasian blocs, that will mean there will be a significant amount of long-term investments in the development of Central Asia. Under those circumstances, then, the aborted development of the former parts of the Soviet Union in Central Asia, will be improved. Particularly if the agreements with Tajikistan, which are very important in this pattern, if those agreements come off successfully.

Leader of the Coalition To Save D.C. General Hospital: Let me please extend my greetings to you, Mr. LaRouche. Actually, I'm not going to ask a question about D.C. General Hospital. What I was wondering was, what is your take on the recent conference convened in Lusaka, Zambia? I think there were 41 or 43 heads of state of African government, who essentially have agreed that there should be an African union, for economic and political reasons. What is your take on it? What do you think the potential for progress is in that kind of an arrangement, and what are the pitfalls that need to be avoided?

Then, additionally, at the conference in Germany in May, there were some representatives from Egypt, and Egypt would be a link in the Eurasian Land-Bridge into Africa. What are the implications of a federated African republic linking with the Eurasian Land-Bridge project?

LaRouche: On the question of the latter part—on Egypt—the leadership in Egypt on the Land-Bridge is well known and well documented. This is established. The major problem at this point, of course, is the threat of a war in the Middle East, coming from an Israeli attack on the Arab neighbors. If that can be avoided, what I see is, everything is go for that. The problem is the Israeli-Palestinian warfare situation. Otherwise, this will be go. It might be modest, it might not be as vigorous as I would like, but they mean business, and there is a mission there, and Egypt is a country which is capable of doing this.

You know, Egypt is a very old country. It's a few thousand years old. Its best years go back 5,000, 6,000 years, long before the rest of us were out of the mud, so to speak. It's a proud country and has a long tradition, and it does have an elite which is capable of doing something. It has problems.

On the question of the other African countries: We always keep coming back to this, trying to get unity among some African states, particularly some Sub-Saharan states. We all sense the terrible pressure they get when they're taken on one at a time. That is, an African nation today, Sub-Saharan Africa, has no chance whatsoever, one-on-one, against the IMF and what that represents. No chance whatsoever.

Therefore, any African leader who has any sense, is going to try to call these kinds of conferences and get something going, where they get a group of nations. For some time, up till recently, Nigeria was a key nation for Africa. South Africa had a special role, but the problem of South Africa is that much of its territory is owned by Anglo-American and other European and American swindlers. There's very little left over for the Africans actually to control. That's the problem.

But Nigeria . . . was inspired to form one nation by the United Arab Republic, by Nasser's proposal for that, that we must unify for strength. And so instead of having three nations, as the British had intended, they formed one, called Nigeria. It's the most populous part and, of course, the Nigerian population cuts into much of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria has been essentially crushed. Nigeria is not in the position that it was a few years ago. Most of the nations we're referring to, that were at that conference, have been crushed. They are fighting for their lives, and it's a losing fight, the way the games are stacked now.

My hope on such things is that the very discussion of sovereignty, tends to keep the idea of a system of cooperation among Sub-Saharan African states on the table. And as long as the fight is continued, you don't give up. Sometimes you fight a long war. Long wars are not good ideas. Short wars are the best wars, especially if you win, but long wars are not good ideas. It wears people down. It takes their resources away from them. It weakens their will. It induces corruption and demoralization.

But it's a long fight and we have to continue it, because there's no hope for Africa until we can establish that whole thing. I don't think that the agreement, the attempts made there, will be successful, in and of themselves. What I think, on the other side, is that the very attempt to maintain the search for such agreements, keeps the spark of life in the effort. And right now, that's essential. Africa is on the edge, we might get lucky, we might be able to win a fight or two here or there.

For example, the issue of the disease fight in Africa. It seems to be where there's the most effective organization presently, is on the pharmaceutical issue, the right of every African nation to have affordable drugs, to meet their needs, their public health needs, such as on the question of AIDS, and so forth. But these issues are valuable to keep the fight alive, but I see no chance of winning, unless we can win the fight for these global areas, I don't think Africans can win the fight locally. But I think the effort to keep the flag flying, like the effort to keep the American flag flying during the darkest part of our Revolutionary War, is a commendable effort.

Democratic Party representative: To accomplish the goal of Democrats regaining control of both the House and the Senate in 2002, and the White House in 2004, if not sooner, as part of the battle of restoring true democracy to the people, away from the GOP; isn't it more important to be united with the Democratic Party, than oppose it? Or to oppose other progressive groups? Especially when fully united, we are more effective and in a better position to do the necessary cleaning-house work, to the benefit of the majority of the people, versus the few?

LaRouche: You have a story from the Old Testament, about Gideon and Gideon's army. And, I don't know how good the story is—it's Old Testament: Some people might want to swear by it, or some swear at it. But, the fact is, that when you allow unity to destroy you—that is, for the sake of unity, you fail to do what you must do—unity isn't worth anything.

Let's take the history of parties in the United States. In the beginning, you had the Federalist Party, which was a fairly good party, when it started under George Washington. Then things turned a little bit sour: The French problem and the British problem came in; about 1797, the Federalist Party began to be corrupted by British and French agents, variously—especially British agents. So, that by the beginning of the century, 1800, you had the guy who was the likely winner of the Presidential nomination in the Electoral College, was a traitor, by the name of Aaron Burr. At that point, Alexander Hamilton used his influence to swing the Electoral College vote to Jefferson. Now, Hamilton was not too complimentary to Jefferson: He said he wasn't worth much any more, but at least he wouldn't sell the country down the drain, the way Burr would. The Jefferson government, the two administrations, was pretty much a disaster in policy. Madison, who had been a significant leader, earlier, was also a disaster. Both were controlled by people who were just, plain British agents.

In the process, you had a revolt, called the Warhawks. Out of the Warhawks came a new political formation, led by people like Mathew Carey, who was the political heir of Benjamin Franklin, a publisher in Philadelphia. And, they formed what became known as the American Whig Party. The American Whig Party took power with President Monroe and John Quincy Adams.

Then, you had a treasonous party, organized by Martin van Buren, who was the putative bastard son of Aaron Burr, a banker. Andrew Jackson was the President. The United States was, again, betrayed and destroyed. The cause of slavery was revived, by the Democratic Party, which was the party of treason and racism, until Roosevelt came along, in his election.

So, then we had the formation of the Republican Party. And the Republican Party was to save the nation. The Republican Party saved the nation, but the problem with the Republican Party was, you had New York Republicans! And, New York Republicans, generally, weren't human! So, they were also treasonous. You couldn't tell the difference between a treasonous Democrat and a treasonous New York Republican—they're pretty much the same thing: Teddy Roosevelt was typical of that kind of thing. Wilson was an actual racist. He was the guy who reorganized the Ku Klux Klan in the United States—from the White House! He's called a great Democrat! Coolidge was a racist from the North—a terrible fellow.

And, Roosevelt changed the Democratic Party, despite the Democratic Party, and made it the party of the people. So, Roosevelt's party was good. Now, we struggled along, and Kennedy, in a sense, by his election, revived the Democratic Party. And Johnson, who had his shortcomings, nonetheless, did a lot of good things, including the Civil Rights bill, which Al Gore tore up! That Civil Rights bill—that tearing up the Civil Rights bill, was a racist action, supported by Gore! You want me to support a racist policy? I won't do it: It's wrong.

So, now we have two Democratic parties. We have the Gore party and we have the Roosevelt party. And, some people in the Roosevelt party, say you have to have people who agree with Franklin Roosevelt, with his tradition, and with John Kennedy's tradition—they say, "No! Isn't it better to have a party that wins, for the good, than to have a party that is united for the no-good?"

You know, they have the saying of this Socialist, Eugene Debs, that: "It's better to vote for what you want, and lose; than to vote for what you don't want, and win." And, that's what people got in the last election: They voted for what they didn't want, and they got it.

So, the issue now, is the people; the issue is not the party, the issue is the people. To which part of the U.S. population, to what parts should the Democratic Party be committed? Should it be committed to the lower 80% of the family-income brackets, who have been looted all these years? Should it be committed to the cause of restoring industry? Should it be committed to restoring regulation, that Carter tore up? Should we have a guaranteed fair price on energy supplies for people? Should we have a health-care system for people—not for profit, but for people?

So the problem here, is the Democratic Party has turned away from the people. My view is that the Democratic Party must restore itself, to the Franklin Roosevelt legacy of the general welfare, and must do as Franklin Roosevelt did, and search out and reach out to the people, and mobilize the people to defend themselves.

As I've said before, the problem with the American voter, generally, is the voter no longer votes for what he wants. He votes for a handout, from the guy who he thinks will deliver it. He goes to the back door of the slave-owner's house, and says, "I'll vote for you, if you give me a favor." He goes to the back door, and says, "Don't give me my freedom!" (says the slave) "Just give me some reparations. You can keep me in slavery, as long as you keep feeding me with reparations."

That's the way the American voter behaves. Because they have lost their sense that they control this nation: They don't see themselves as citizens, any more. They see themselves as human cattle, who have to beg like serfs for handouts from their master.

And, the Democratic Party says it represents—what? What does Al From say he represents? What does Al Gore say he represents? Does he say he represents the American people? He does not! He says he represents the middle. What's the middle? It's the less than upper 20% of the family-income brackets. It's the suburbanite vote. The ones who have no principles; the ones who are for free trade; the ones who are for cutting health care; the ones who are supporting some of these energy policies, that are killing us.

Don't try to unite around a clubhouse. Unite around the people. This country needs a party that will need the people—a party that represents the people, and the interests of the people. A party that will tell the people what the situation is, what needs to be done about it. Who'll debate the issue—will not go along to get along—but will tell the truth instead. The American people out there, I'm convinced, if they think that there's somebody they can support, who might get a little tough, who will actually represent them—they're waiting for that leadership. They're not waiting for Senator Lieberman to lead them down the road to culture, together with the Moral Majority, when the issue is a crushing economic crisis in the United States.

And Lieberman says, "economics is not the issue." Economics is the issue. It's also a moral issue. Health care is an economic issue; it's a moral issue. The energy crisis is a moral issue. Economic jobs are a moral issue.

And, that's where the problem lies. Unity of the party, for the sake of unity—that's what they did in the Roman mob, trapped in the Colosseum. And to keep unity among the mob, they would put thumbs down when the lions were eating the Christians. That's not morality.

Leader of Coalition To Save D.C. General Hospital: Good afternoon, and hello, how are you Mr. LaRouche? . . . I will continue to fight and be at war with those, who have killed our children here. My anguish is, that, as you say, Congress—Democrats or Republicans—they know this is wrong, and they still sit back, waiting for that Prince of Princes to step forward to open the issue of D.C. General: and what is to be done? I have met Senators, Representatives, my cousins, and everybody else around here; and they still all know this is wrong! But they still sit back.

[W]e still have this fight ahead of us! We are slowly doing something, but the inability to tell the truth via the media and the riches of TV or radio, is very disabling to our cause. My people, who all are poor, remain in a coma in this area, about their future lives! Even our ministers, in their churches, are in a coma about their people's lives. How do we change this? What do we do, that we have not already done? This is no win. This no win, is hard on the morale for the people who want D.C. General back. We have faction groups here, who refuse to join with us, to fight for the hospital, as a unit. How do we get them in this fight for the common good of man? What do we do to wake up my people, my poor people!?

We have to start somewhere, then go on to the global issue of saving human lives. If we lose this, we're telling the masses, they can't win against tyranny, and oligarchy, who supposedly controls this. What do we do, to save this? How do we wake these people up? Do you know?

LaRouche: Fine. There's a very simple problem here, and you face the problem; we face the problem; I face the problem, constantly, with our organizers, all the time. I'll be very frank. You see, one of the greatest evils in the United States, is typified by the case of Dale Carnegie, who some of you have heard about: How To Win Friends, and Influence People.

Now, some people think the way to be effective—it's like the question about the Democratic Party. Can't we have party unity? They say, "Well, we have to party unity, first of all." "Well, that's a killer. That means you don't do, what you should do. That means you betray the cause."

Now, what people say, is things like, "go along to get along," "how to win friends and influence people"—you've got to learn to get along! Now, that means that if somebody next to you, believes something which is absolutely insane, or is supporting something, which they ought to know is insane, you don't say, "Well, maybe you have a point there. But I have a slightly different point"; or, "Maybe we should talk about it."

That's not morality. That's not honest politics. That's corruption. Because, when you have a system that is killing people, the system functions because people support the system. They say, "Well, I think it's the thing we should support."

"But it's killing people," you say.

"But, I think we should support it. I think it will work out."

"It will never work out," you say. "The facts are clear: It's killing people. And you don't want to name it, by name? It's wrong!"

You don't tell the truth. You compromise. And people say, "Well, if you don't make friends, how are you going to get any support for what you want? So, the first thing you have to do is, join the party, stick with the party, and make friends." But, if you join the party on those conditions, and make friends on those conditions, you will never do what's right. And, you'll go to your grave, buried by your refusal to do what's right.

That's what's wrong.

What you need is leadership. See, people think leaders are those who reflect the prejudices of the people. Well, people who reflect the prejudices of the people, are not leaders. What the people need is leaders who correct the errors of the people! Who tell them when they're wrong! But make it stick, by proving that it's wrong! By sitting down with them, thrashing it out, arguing it, saying, "What're the facts. What're the facts, here? Look at the facts. I say, you're wrong."

And, the weakness I have in organizing with people is, I find a lot of people say they're organizing with me, but they won't tell people the truth! When telling people the truth, means telling them that what they're saying is wrong. When you want to talk to a Congressman, don't say, "Please Mr. Congressman, like me. Maybe do some little thing for me, Mr. Congressman?" You say, "Congressman: You're wrong! You're wrong." You tell Tom Daschle: "Daschle, you're wrong. You've got to change. You're wrong." You tell other Congressmen: "You're wrong. Why didn't you do something about D.C. General? You're wrong. Don't tell me you had a reason for it. You didn't have a reason for it; it was wrong. Let's argue it." Don't tell me, "You've got to go along, to get along." Don't tell me about party unity. Don't talk to me about leadership. Let's talk about right and wrong.

You need citizens, led by people, who will go to a Congressman and go to others, and say, "Let's not talk about this `go along to get along' nonsense. Let's talk about what's right and what's wrong. We'll put the facts on the table and decide who is right. Answer this question, please: How do we save these lives? Because, if you don't do it, you're going to kill 'em. You want to kill people, Mr. Congressman? Because if you don't do something about it, you're killing people!"

And, that's what leadership is. Leadership is not this kissy-kissy stuff. Leadership is telling the people when they're wrong. And you should never vote for a leader, who doesn't tell you when he thinks you're wrong. Don't trust him. That . . . is the answer.

Question from Japan: Mr. LaRouche, as you know, Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi has announced plans for a kind of shock therapy program to deal with the huge amount of non-performing loans in Japanese banks. As a result, anywhere from 500,000 to 5 million people could be thrown out of work in Japan's so-called "lifetime employment system," and the yen be collapsed terribly.

This might be helpful for the U.S. dollar. The IMF, Mr. Greenspan, and the Bush Administration are repeatedly demanding such a thing; but, also, many Japanese citizens think serious actions like this are needed.

What is your view of the shock therapy for the Japanese banks? And what is your proposal for getting rid of those non-performing loans, without a yen crash? We don't want to end up like some Asian countries in 1997, but something must be done to address the problem of Japanese banks.

LaRouche: Okay. The problem with Japan is this: Japan is under tremendous pressure from the United States, as we all know. It's under pressure to capitulate and destroy itself, for the greater glory and comfort of George Bush. Japan doesn't like that. Patriots in Japan, generally, are very resentful of that—as they should be! But, they say, "Ah! We have to be careful. We're dealing with the United States—we have to be careful. Terrible things can happen to us." Well, I think you'll find that in Japan, there's a current, which says, "This is wrong. We can not put up with this forever. It's going to change."

Now, I think we're talking about a time-frame, now, in practice, of three to four weeks. There're are going to be some big changes, one way or the other, in the world at large during the coming three to four weeks—shocking big changes—not little ones.

What has to come together, or what is weighing in this—you have two things: First of all, the world knows the United States is going to collapse; they know the United States is collapsing. Now, if you are fighting a dangerous foe, who is out to crush you, and you know he's about to collapse, you flank him, don't you? You don't take him head-on; you flank him. The world is waiting to flank the Anglo-American powers. They're waiting for the crisis to hit a new level. The situation in the United States and Britain is terribly weak, in which a lot of politicians who are with these policies—that is, the U.S./IMF policies—are going to be weakened; and then, they're going to try to have something pulled together, in a timely fashion, as an alternative. It's called flanking the situation.

I think that this moment may not be ripe for that kind of action; but, I think, in the long run, Japan has to take that action. Now, in the short run, what the Prime Minister appears to be talking about, is obviously an apparent concession to the United States at the expense of great suffering on the part of Japanese. But, as in war, perhaps there are patriots behind the scenes in Japan, who are not thinking about the suffering of the next few weeks, because they've already seen a lot of it—and a lot of it's coming anyway. They may be thinking about positioning themselves, to be able to strike at a more opportune moment, which may be a few weeks down the line.

There are problems in that part of the world, in pulling things together. It's difficult to bring together Japan, Korea, China, Russia, so forth, all at once. It's difficult to bring the nations of Southeast Asia together, all at once. It's difficult. There're longstanding conflicts of one kind or another, that one-on-one, these nations have difficulties in cooperating, at least on a very intimate basis. And, now they're faced with a situation, where they must form a new monetary system and a new economic system, for the region, which includes Russia, China, and these other nations; nations which are not used to cooperating. You see recently, for example, in the case of a textbook published in Japan: There's an effort to create new friction, between forces in Japan—including the present Prime Minister—and Korea, on the question of a certain textbook published in Japan, which is a rather suspicious textbook.

So, there are difficulties. North Korea: There are certain difficulties there, in bringing this about. China and Japan—things are not easy, to have cooperation between China and Japan, for known reasons. Korea and China have certain conflicts, certain sensitivities—not easy to deal with.

So, what we're trying to do, in effect, is, we're trying to bring together—as in the case of Pakistan and India, and so forth—we're trying to bring together nations for cooperation, who have many reasons for friction with one another, on a one-to-one basis. And thus, the difficulty here is, bringing these nations to the point of ripeness for agreement, in which they are prepared to act together in a resolute fashion, and are able to trust one another, in the sense that, one is not going to back out, and leave the rest hanging in the lurch. So, I think that's the situation.

So, therefore, I would not—apart from what I said—I would not try to call the shot on this proposed action on behalf PM Koizumi. I would rather say, I would wait about three or four weeks. And, I would be looking at what I'm looking at: Looking at the point that Japan is building relations with partners, at the same time, it's buying time for building those relations.

And, I think that Washington is headed—George Bush's Washington—is headed for a shocking surprise in the Far East and elsewhere, sometime in the near future.

Russian UN Mission: Mr. LaRouche, in accordance with UN experts' forecasts in the Economic and Social Survey 2001, an improvement of the world economy is anticipated for 2002, with an expected growth of GWP at about 3%, and of world trade at some 6.5%. Could you comment on these forecasts, in the context of the need for further reform of the present world financial system, and of your ideas on how to do it?

LaRouche: [laughing] Maybe somebody's counting on hyperinflation to produce growth figures of that type—because that's the only way they'll get them, under the present system!

I think that any major growth is going to come from—. Helga, my wife, in her testimony to the Duma Commission on Economics, referred to the plan which was adopted by the Friedrich List Society in Germany in 1931; a plan submitted by Dr. Wilhelm Lautenbach, a leading economist and official of Germany of that time. He pointed out that it is insane to presume that, because of depression conditions, or collapse conditions, that one should use austerity as a method of economic management of national economies. That one must do exactly the opposite. One must find a mechanism of public credit, such as national banking credit, and use that credit to fund large-scale infrastructure and other employment projects to expand the economy, to expand the base of production, and the base of economic activities within the population. And, use that factor of generated growth, to build your way out of an economic crisis.

Today, the world's policies are in the opposite direction. Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut! The answer is, in the case of Russia, in particular: With the vast amount of idle resources, and idle manpower included, the obvious thing is to increase employment, to increase public investment, in infrastructure and things of that sort. To try to engage foreign partners in joint agreements, partnership arrangements—with Russia's creditors, for example. To expand industries, to increase production.

We must do the same thing in the United States. We have to get more production. We have to get more investment inside the United States, in the public works area. We should have a major, 25-year program of public-works building, modelled upon the kind of thing that Roosevelt did back in the 1930s and during the war. We should be increasing employment, backing up educational programs and so forth, to train the labor force, to expand our base; not to cut, cut, cut, cut, cut!

Now, . . . in Russia, as I read it, under President Putin, and some other leaders (I'm acquainted best with the Russia Academy of Sciences people); their inclination seems to be—and, it certainly is mine—the kind of thing I discussed with Russians and discussed in Moscow recently, in my presence there. What we have to do, is, have international agreements, which create large masses of public credit—that's not necessarily printing money—credit; store credit: you can buy it at the store, on credit, at very low interest rates; it's not inflationary; in order to increase productive employment, to increase the economic basis of employment, and output. That's the way to get out.

Unless we go that way, the world is now operating below physical economic break-even. Any attempt to maintain present policies, ensures there will be no net economic growth in the world economy, there'll be rather collapse, in the coming period.

So, the UNO estimates are, obviously, politically motivated. People say, you've got to give a positive note; you've got to say pretty words; make people happy, and everything will go right. Make wishes; make wishes; make pretty wishes. And, you know, George Bush: He's great at pretty wishes—and, also some bad ones, too.

But, it is not going to happen that way. But we can make it happen, if we establish a new monetary order, new economic cooperation, and establish international credit among nations, to begin expanding production, expanding employment, expanding output—real output—not this paper fictitious output, of the type that a Chase Manhattan and J.P. Morgan, and so forth, like.

So, I think that's the answer. We've got the chance. It's in our hands. I say, if the United States would come to its senses, if people in the United States would support me on this issue. And force the present government—Republicans, as well as Democrats, in the Congress—to back the people on this issue. We could, at this time, enter into agreements with nations in Eurasia, and other nations, we could have a global expansion program, beginning immediately. It might be slow, at the start, at the beginning, as it was with Roosevelt, back in the 1930s. But, it will work. And, we could reach figures like GDP of 3% and so forth—we can reach it! Very quickly!

Also, in Russia—because you have so much that's idle there! And you can put some of it back to work! You going to have growth. You know, Russia is still a military-nuclear superpower—maybe under reduced circumstances—but it's still a superpower. And, any nation that's a military superpower, has got to have something going for it, inside it, in the way of productive potential.

So, I think that there are possibilities for figures like that, but not under the present system.

Economics

Macedonian leader in North America: I had the pleasure of participating at last year's Schiller Institute conference in Frankfurt, and I talked about Macedonia at the time.

I find your ideas on the New Bretton Woods quite pragmatic, very plausible. I also have the same opinion on the ideas of the Eurasian Bridge. These are ideas and concepts that can really be realized. The only problem is, how to build the context of the audience internationally, and how to build the content, also, of that audience internationally. Because I really am concerned and convinced, now, that, unless we all do something, in this country, the United States of America, and in the world, we'll be allowing the oligarchical system to carry us all to the abyss, to which they seem to be bound. And, I find that these are the ideas that, of course, enriched into the future, can be providing the world with a vision, in which we can all live, as citizens of the world, that—by the way—was conceived in the mind of Alexander of Macedonia, if you remember, in some ancient times.

I have something, which is very personal to me. I am an ethnic Macedonian, I come from the city of Tetovo in Macedonia, in which, as I speak to you now, there rages savage fighting between the Macedonia government forces against the terrorists of ethnic Albanian minorities that have been introduced, as we all know, from Kosovo, under the guise of the KLA mafia organization; and sponsored, which is obvious to me today, and to all of us—logistically, militarily, and now politically—by the NATO organization which is there.

President Bush was in Kosovo today. And, other than being a public relations stunt, all he had to offer to the suffering Macedonian population, was the statement which said that the two parties should stop fighting and respect the cease-fire.

I spoke with my sister last night in Tetovo, and I could hear on the telephone, the rat-tat-tat, the big thud, of artillery, and mortar fire, and machineguns, as she was crying on the phone to me. And I felt rather helpless, as if I was taken out of some surreal world. . . . Tetovo is my town. . . . Now it is under siege, under the very noses of NATO.

I read in a recent issue of the New Federalist, in the context of your explanation of the ideas of the New Bretton Woods and the Eurasian Land-Bridge, your statement on NATO. I can paraphrase you: You said that NATO was a joke; you said that NATO was something like an anachronistic oddity—I agree with you: It is a joke, but it is a dangerous joke. As to whether it is an anachronistic oddity, I think it is, and it should not exist, at least not in the form in which it is, and not in the form in which it functions as an instrument of the neo-colonialism, that comes to the Balkan states—ruins the states, among them, my beautiful, proud Macedonian country—the nation-state; ruins its economy; ruins its infrastructure; ruins its everything! And leaves us alone, to be killing each other. What is your take on that? Mr. LaRouche. And, what can we do, to prevent the Brzezinskis of the world, the Kissingers of the world, the Lord Owens of the world, to play their favorite games of "divide and rule"? Thank you.

LaRouche: Well, first of all, there's a very simple problem here. It's a very complicated one, but it's a simple one, elementary. An effort was made, in 1989, to exploit the collapse of the Comecon system and the Warsaw Pact, in order to establish an Anglo-American world empire, controlled largely from the oligarchies of the United States (that is, the Wall Street, the Southern Strategy crowd, the racist crowd, in this country), and also, in Canada, in Australia, in New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

Now, these people behind this, had the conception of setting up a new kind of Roman Empire, based on the Venetian model of the imperial maritime power. To run the world in the interests of the financier oligarchy. To eliminate the sovereignty of nation-states; to reduce the population of the world. They celebrated this immediately, by the treaty among Thatcher, Mitterrand, and Bush, which was to keep the Germans down, and to keep the Russians out. And, the first thing they did, was to destroy Iraq, which had been faithfully following orders from Bush, and Bush turned on them, on the orders of Margaret Thatcher, and attacked Iraq! And Saddam Hussein was much-astonished, that his good buddy, George Bush, should turn on him in that fashion.

And, once they'd gotten through with butchering Iraq for a while, then they turned on the Balkans—immediately. And, started wars in the Balkans.

Now, Balkan wars are a known story: They usually precede world wars. We had Balkan wars before World War I; Balkan wars afterward. It's a celebration of the old fight with the Ottoman Empire—Balkan wars! Balkan wars!—which had been used to destroy Europe from within for a long time.

In this case of the Kosovars, I know a good deal about the history of Albania, because I'm an older man, and I come from those generations, and I know a few things about these things. I also know about drug-running. I also know about organized crime. I also know who Madeleine Albright is, and was. I know who her father is; I know who Condoleezza Rice's teacher, [Albright's] father, was—Josef Korbel. They're both close to Brzezinski. They worked with the British crowd, to create a mess.

Now, Clinton, in the course of the war against Yugoslavia, had said, in a speech in San Francisco, or thereafter, that he was against carving up the Balkans into micro-states. For preserving states, bringing about peace, and once peace was established, to contribute evenhandedly, without fear or favor, to the common interest of all the states, in rebuilding the Balkans. And, then he was hauled down to Albania, and given a good working-over, by various people, and he changed his mind. And the United States then submitted to this idea of developing this Albanian entity, as a new, destabilization factor for the Balkans.

So, yes, there is an attack on Macedonia. There's an attempt to destroy it; no question. But, we have to see it, for what it is. We have to see this as part of the same pattern: Remember, Europe was destroyed, also—continental Europe—by the Gulf War. It drained the resources of Europe at a critical point. The Balkan Wars have drained the resources of continental Europe, throughout the entire period, since the close of the Desert Storm war! The continuation of the Balkan wars, is sucking the blood out of Europe, from the underbelly of Europe. What should happen there, as opposed to what happened?

The Middle East war, is part of the same thing. All of this, is one, gigantic geopolitical strategy: Balkans and Middle East; Balkans and Middle East. It's the old game of the French, and the British, and the Ottoman Empire! Playing the same game, all over again: Control the world, by controlling the Ottoman Empire factor. Middle East and Balkans; Middle East and Balkans. It's an old story in Europe—those of us, who know anything, know that.

(I'm afraid that George W. Bush doesn't know anything about that sort of thing. I don't think he got through the first grade. And then he was kicked out of Yale, instead, in any case. So, don't blame him, too much: He doesn't know what he's talking about.)

But, the point is, is that those behind the Anglo-American force, which actually is NATO; NATO is not an alliance among European nations. That ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. NATO became a tool of an Anglo-American imperium, a bunch of bankers, in New York, and London, and elsewhere, who are trying to run the world, through globalization, looting and destroying; managing by great power politics, the same way the Balkan wars were managed in the past. And that's what the whole game is.

And, what we realized is, that that is the game, and that what we have to do is eliminate an IMF/World Bank consortium, which is nothing more than a mechanism for establishing a world empire, and restore what John Quincy Adams called a "community of sovereign nation-states." We can solve this problem immediately. Just get the nations involved, and say, "No cutting up of borders; no division of territory; no micro-states. Existing borders are sacrosanct. Now, let us meet as sovereign nation-states, and work out a policy which is based on the common interest in economic development, and security for the entire region."

If the United States and some other countries would do that for the Balkans, it would work. There would be problems; there would be hatreds. But, we should do what Henry Kissinger says, don't do: Henry Kissinger says the Treaty of Westphalia was bad. Well, Henry Kissinger has probably never read the Treaty of Westphalia. The Treaty of Westphalia is a model for ending religious war and similar kinds of ethnic conflicts in Europe. It's a strength of European civilization. The nations of this part of the world, who've had many ethnic conflicts in the past, religious conflicts, we must apply the principle of the Treaty of Westphalia, to bring together groups of nation-states, who will henceforth respect each other's sovereignty, and realize it is wiser to cooperate in the common interest, than to fight over special interests.

Question from Jordan: Mr. LaRouche, what do you think of the fact that Ariel Sharon has announced an assassination policy toward leading Palestinians. He's spoken publicly of a list of 46 names, and they're already being killed, day by day. How is it possible that a democratic government can adopt a policy of executions, beyond any judicial system, and the whole world sits and watches?

LaRouche: Well, on the question of Israel on this thing: I have the advantage of many years' experience with people in this area, in negotiating, dealing with the issues in this area of the world. Now, to say that Israel is a democratic country, is nonsense; it's not a democratic country. The people of Israel, they are an abused state. These people of Israel today, are not the people who left Europe with Ben-Gurion, to join Ben-Gurion, in the immediate postwar period. These are not the representatives of the Reform Jew, from Germany. These are not the legacy of the Yiddish Renaissance, of Poland, of Galicia, of Ukraine, of Russia, and so forth. They're not! These are very poor people; very ignorant people; with no education, no education worth mentioning.

When I grew up in the United States, Jews, to me, meant my friends from Polish-Russian bankground, mostly Yiddish Renaissance, because that's the type with whom we sort of agree. Or German Jews, who were the Reform Jews. We got along fine. We understood one another. The Jew from Germany, and also in Eastern Europe, represented, after the reforms of Moses Mendelssohn, represented the highest level of culture in the countries in which they lived. The contribution of German Jews to German culture, from the time of Joseph II of Austria's giving of political rights to the Jew, was tremendous! Physicians, scientists, artists, so forth! Beyond belief! A similar thing was done in Eastern Europe, by the Yiddish Renaissance, which was a copy of this. These were the victims of Hitler: These are the ones, whom we have forgotten. We call them numbers; we don't call them people, any more. We don't remember their faces; we don't remember what they did; we don't remember what they were, what their contributions were.

We now have a faceless mob, of poor people; poor, ignorant, hysterical people, with no education. They are a mob—a maddened, frightened mob! Who had this terrible legacy of what the Israelis call the Shoah, this terrible thing haunting them, sitting on top of them, destroying them. And they have terrible leaders. The majority of Israeli leaders are nothing but gangsters. Oh, there are a few exceptions, here and there; but essentially, they think like gangsters. Sharon is essentially a gangster. He was a creature, who was practically owned by the late Katharine Graham, of the Washington Post, whose daughter managed him. He's not religious at all: He's just a gangster. His religion is gangsterism. And, you have others, who have similar characteristics; they may talk one way, at other times, but they're terrible.

Yes, we have to think about the future. We have worked, and others have worked, to try to bring peace in the Middle East, on the basis of an Israeli-Arab peace. We've tried, and we shall still try. We shall always try. As those, who understand the lesson of the Treaty of Westphalia, shall do: We must bring peace. We can not have ethnic and religious warfare. It always leads to Dark Ages. There must be no religious warfare. We must end it, any way possible. We must keep trying.

But, in the meantime, we don't have to sit back and put up with everything. The United States has the power and influence, to influence the situation in the Middle East, to stop this. I don't think the Israelis can stop themselves, by themselves. I don't think anybody in Western Europe, in the governments, has the guts to try, by themselves. I think that only from the United States, a resolute leadership from the United States, which could secure European and other backing, could intervene effectively, to persuade the government of Israel: We're not going to go with this.

Now, remember, that the issue is this. The danger is this. And, we have to look as statesmen—I mean, I know the passions of people involved in both sides of the shooting side of this event. People keep trying to think in terms of Israeli versus Arab, or Israeli versus Palestinian. It's not so simple: This problem is a problem of manipulation, geopolitical manipulation, by people who think like the RAND Corp. crowd. The RAND Corp. crowd that's running the United States government, right now, and not well, at all. The systems analysis people. Their view has been, ever since that crazy geography teacher Halford Mackinder, back at the end of the last century, is that you have to use geography, in a way to put people at each other's throats, so nobody in continental Europe, or continental Eurasia, can get together to create an order of peace, which could challenge the hegemony of the so-called "maritime powers," which, now, includes, nominally, the United States, as well as the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth.

That's the game. The game is not run from inside the Arab world; it's not run from inside Israel. The Israelis involved are nothing but puppets, who are manipulated by psychological warfare specialists, who know how to manipulate such merchandise. Their object in this, is not to do something for Israel. They know (as I know), that if Israel takes the course it's now taking under Sharon, and what might follow Sharon, Israel will cease to exist. It will be obliterated in the ashes of the conditions it creates. So, those who are pushing Israel into this war, are not pushing it for love or sympathy for Israel. They're using Israel as a puppet, as a golem, to destroy itself for the greater good of the people behind people like Brzezinski.

That's what they're doing.

What we have to do is, put the pressure on. We have to put the pressure on this. Remember the operations are of the following nature. RAND Corp., back in the 1960s and 1970s, was running around with what they called a "chicken game" scenario, a nuclear chicken game scenario. The idea is, that if you can get Israelis with nuclear weapons, and some Arabs with some nuclear weapons, or similar weapons, if they hated each other badly enough, you could get a war started that couldn't be stopped. And people are trying to say, "How do you get this kind of war started, that can't be stopped?" You have to use fanatics. In past history, we've seen this is in religious warfare: When Venice's power was threatened, by the emergence of the nation-state, Venice's response was to divide all Christianity into several parts, various kinds of Protestant, Catholic, and so forth. And, to set them into warring against each other. This became a period of religious warfare in Europe from 1511 until 1648—the Treaty of Westphalia. This is the way the game is being played; this kind of game.

We in the United States, we know who these guys are! The gameplayers. It's not the Arabs. It's not the Israelis. It's the gameplayers, who are playing one against the other. And we have the ability to stop them. And we should do it. And I want your support for this.

South American UN Representative: Mr. LaRouche, do you think that Ecuador's adoption of the dollar as its currency, is a new form of colonialism? Why did the IMF recommend that this be done?

LaRouche: Well, first of all, this was done as a part of a policy, which was launched in the United States—as implemented policy—by Al Gore's initiative, under Clinton: It's called NAFTA. And, NAFTA, remember, was invented by Canada, as part of the British Commonwealth. The intention was, to have all of the Americas, together with Britain—especially the United Kingdom and Canada—all the Americas, come under a single, globalized, trade organization. The policy, now, of the Bush Administration, is to complete that policy, continue Al Gore's policy for NAFTA, by bringing the British United Kingdom into full partnership and control of the Americas.

[S]ome of you remember the savage attack [Al Gore] made on Ross Perot, on the question of NAFTA and globalization of the Americas. Under this process, you see the sovereignty of every nation—go back to 1989, before the Wall began to crumble in Germany. Go back before then: Count the number of nations which were sovereign nations, or respected as sovereign nations in South and Central America; now, count them today. What happened to them? They were all NAFTA-ized. Ecuador was NAFTA-ized. It's no longer colonialism: It's actual destruction. What are they doing? Look at the map: Colombia. Look at parts of Brazil, where the British monarchy is operating, under the so-called NGO organizations in the upper Amazon, and so forth. Look at Ecuador. Look at Peru: Why did they overthrow the government of Peru? Why did they coup Fujimori? Because he did something wrong? No! It was a George Soros coup: They wanted to spread what is going on in Colombia, into a big super-drug area—Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and those areas of Brazil; and also into Venezuela. A big drug area.

So, what is being done to Colombia, was intended for Ecuador; it's intended for Peru; it's intended for Bolivia; it's intended for much of Brazil. That's the policy. So, it is not colonialism: It is something much worse. It's also genocide.

And, considering what the United States' policy was supposed to be on the question of drugs—what do you think of this policy?

Philadelphia student: Hello, Mr. LaRouche. We've been lobbying in D.C. and in Harrisburg, for re-regulation of energy and to save D.C. General. And, I was just wondering about the effect of, maybe, getting the mass media to focus more on these problems. . . . how can we influence them, perhaps?

LaRouche: Well, the mass media is essentially the modern equivalent of the Emperor Nero, or perhaps, Caligula. If you look at the ownership of what we call the mass media, what do you mean? You mean, the Washington Post; do you know who owns that? The New York Times; do you know who owns that? The Boston Globe; that's a joint enterprise of the New York Times and the Washington Post. Look at the name Bradley, for example. Then, you look at the television media. The major television network media. Who controls these? Who owns them?

You have to go with one thing: the people. Now, the people are a problem. But, as every Christian saint and others have said, the people are a lot of trouble, but that's what you've got. So, you've got to work with the people: They're stubborn, they have terrible opinions—like those Christians, who are sitting in the stands, watching the other Christians being eaten by lions. You know, they will tend to "go along to get along," you know what I mean? And, they're down in the pit the next time.

So, you really have to work. Now, one of the advantages of being young, is that, your brain hasn't gone dead, which is something that often happens between the ages of 25 and 30, these days, in universities. Once a fellow gets his degree, he shuts his brain down; or, if he's about to get his degree, when he goes through the finals, his qualifying examinations, for his doctorate, or something. His brain shuts down: "Ah! Now I have got it. Now I've got a doctorate! Now that I'm a professional, my brain can now go to sleep, forever!" And, he keeps babbling whatever he learned up to that point, forever on.

So when you're young, you have an advantage, because you're not so stupid, that you think you know everything. You think that people should come to understand the truth, by a kind of Socratic process: looking at facts, seeing contradictions, seeing paradoxes, trying to find the answer to the paradoxes. And looking for truth! Maybe you don't know the absolute truth, but at least you can be truthful. You can say, "This is what I know. If I'm wrong, correct me. But, this is what I know and believe." Now, young people tend to react that way, because they still think they're supposed to learn. Those who are serious, who do not swallow the textbook, like these guys on the island of Laputa of Jonathan Swift, who swallowed writings on pieces of paper, on these cookies. And . . . that's the way they would know something. Write it on a cookie, go on a diet for a week, swallow the cookie, and then the knowledge is gone inside you.

But, because you realize that you don't know, that you're still committed to discovery, your attitude toward people generally, at your best, will always be to try to do with them, what you try to do with people that you're working with in school. You crack the books, you try to know, yourself; and you insist that the other guy, at the other end of the conversation—same thing. "Hey, look. I'm 25 years old! You're over 50, buddy! You mean you still can't learn? You mean you believe something, and you can't prove it—just because somebody told you? Just because you read it in a newspaper? Is that your standard of saying you know something?" Because you're young, because you have vitality, because you can probably push 400 watts with your legs, or something like that, in a stress test. You have the vitality, you have energy, you have commitment, therefore, you can get out there, and you can confront people of your age, and older, with the question of, "let's have a dialogue about the truth. What's truth?"

Now, what happens is, that, because you're younger, all these older people, who are 20 years older than you are, look at you as some kind of a freak, a miracle, a freak. "Ah! A young one! Gee, a young one! They're gonna take over from us! A young one!" And, so, their response to you being energetic, is, they become energetic. They crawl out of their coffin, they step out of their coffin, and say, " What! ? You want me to be energetic again? Here I was resting comfortably, with all my prejudices and opinions." And the answer is very simple: It's a lot of hard work. What you should be doing, is what you would wish that somebody teaching a class you're attending, were doing. You actually engage in the process of discovery of knowledge, discovery of truth. So, it's like a teaching operation.

The best model of this, of course, is Plato's dialogues, which are exactly that: A constant process of energetic—not bombastically slamming opinions down people's throats—but getting people excited about the fact that they have a brain up there, that can do something—a human brain—which can actually make a discovery of truth and ideas. Which can be happy to realize that somebody helped find out they were wrong. "Hey! Thank you. I was wrong, and you showed me I was wrong. Thank you."

And, that's the way you do it. There's no other way to do it. It's hard work, it requires patience; it requires great compassion; sometimes you think you're dealing with donkeys, rather than people, but keep on doing it. It's all that stands between us and Hell.

Kenya UN Representative: It's a question in several parts, some of which have been answered, but one that remains, is: Mr. LaRouche, do you believe that it's true that the HIV virus was developed and introduced by the West into Africa to control and reduce fast-growing populations?

LaRouche: I've never been sure on that. It's always been a possibility. I didn't approach it that way. As you may recall, back in 1973-74, I launched a project, which was focussed on the implications of the new economic policies which had come out of the U.S. and parts of the United Nations Organization, in the 1971-1972 period, when the floating-exchange-rate monetary system was put in. And, what I did, was, pick as a target, I said, "Let's look at Africa, because Africa is going to be the part of the world that suffers the most, as a result of these changes in policy, which have pushed through by the initiative of the Nixon Administration." So, what I did, is, I told people: Let's take the studies, which were implicitly initiated by a great Russian scientist, Vladimir Vernadsky, who is the discoverer of the biosphere. Let's look at the impact of the kinds of policies, which this floating-exchange-rate system implies. What the impact will be, given present trends, on Africa.

So, we went through this process from that standpoint, from the biochemistry standpoint, and we determined two things, our 1974 conclusion:

Number one: First of all, that the present policies of the United States and other countries, toward Africa, would result in the explosion of various kinds of pestilences and epidemic diseases, including diseases which are epidemic and pandemic diseases, which had been brought under control.

Secondly, that under these conditions, where the human bodies were being subjected to conditions of hunger and many diseases running back and forth—malnutrition, hunger—that you had the conditions under which, new types of diseases would develop, which had been previously unknown, which would have different dimensionalities than those of the so-called conventional infectious diseases.

Those were the two conclusions. And, we set a schedule, and said that this should be clearly evident in the 1980s; that, by the middle of the 1980s, we should expect massive demonstration of this tendency of these developments in Africa, should these policies be continued. And, we tried to stop it. We tried to stop Carter on that basis, because, as far as we were concerned, the Carter policies were genocidal, in terms of their effect on Africa and other parts of the world.

When HIV was brought to our attention, as a so-called retrovirus, an RNA-type virus, we recognized that a number of things had happened, which had not really surprised me, on the basis of our earlier studies from the 1970s. We also, however, knew, that some of the people who are in this area, include some of the nastiest people you could want in the entire medical research area, biological research area.

Look at the number of people, who are involved as experts in relevant kinds of biological research, who believe that the world is overpopulated. Take the number of people who accept the ideas of H.G. Wells and Bertrand Russell, specifically in the Wells Open Conspiracy document of 1928. This includes Madeleine Albright, who is an advocate of Wells's policies, including these genocidal policies. This includes Madeleine's father, Josef Korbel, the man who educated Condoleezza Rice. This includes the circles of Zbigniew Brzezinski. This includes his wife, the daughter of the former Eduard Benes, the former President of Czechoslovakia. Includes these circles—lots of them.

And, this includes people, who are behind the Club of Rome, biologists in the Club of Rome. This includes people associated with the Laxenberg, Austria, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis—some of these people. It includes people associated with the British royal family, who are engaged in precisely this kind of work; who have the kind of laboratory ability to do this kind of work.

Remember, the program of Russell and Wells, was to try to develop diseases to control the size and types of populations. That is, diseases which would control the total amount of the population, and diseases which would act selectively on the "less desirable" parts of the human population.

So, therefore, since these types of freaks, who do this kind of evil, were running loose, in abundance, in many branches of so-called biological science and research, you say, "Well, the Island of Dr. Moreau is not dead, after all." People are still doing this kind of experimentation. And, therefore, we can not exclude, that somebody had understood how to generate a human-specific retrovirus, and foster its spread. Whether they invented the disease, or not, exactly, or whether they knew what was happening, and didn't act to stop it; or whether it got loose, because of some incompetence and because of negligence.

And, remember, all these resources against disease in Africa were being reduced at that time. Remember, in 1976, according to tissue sample reports, on preserved tissue samples, in San Francisco and in Kinshasa, Congo, we had the same incidence in population of HIV-infection. Well, look what's happened since then: In the U.S. population, where we have some remedies and some controls, the HIV has been somewhat controlled and moderated in the rate of spread, at least, to the best of our information. But, look what's happened in Africa, where insect-born kinds of problems, all the tropical disease co-factors, are loose; and, tropical disease co-factors in that area are deadly.

So, all the controls, all the things that would have been done normally, to try to protect the population against this kind of problem, were removed. This whole pharmaceutical issue, about providing pharmaceuticals needed for Africans, at a price an African can afford to pay, is just part of the issue.

So, my view was, I don't know if somebody created it. I have no evidence that somebody created it, intentionally. But, I know the environment in which these things happened; I had foreseen that this kind of thing would happen, and it did happen! And, I foresaw how these clowns would react to this problem, and they have reacted that way! So, I think there's enough evil going around, just on the basis of what I know. I don't need to search for an additional cause for criticizing these characters.

Washington, D.C. activist: Mr. LaRouche, pursuant to the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination; do you think that it's appropriate that the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, should address the issues involving D.C. General Hospital, and the question of D.C. statehood and representation?

LaRouche: I think that every forum we can get for discussing the implication of this, is valuable. Just in general, any forum. What we need, essentially, is we need to get more and more of the population involved in making their own policy and making their own future. They have not been able to do that. The Democratic Party provides no forum for the citizens of the United States today. I mean, a citizen wants to go to the Democratic Party, and there is no forum. Oh, there are parts of the Democratic Party, where the forum-process occurs. But, the thing is generally tightly regulated from the top. And you really have to break your way in, to get a discussion of a really controversial, important issue.

Therefore, in any case, where anybody is willing to hear and discuss, in any forum, the issues involved in D.C. General, I think that—unless there is some very clear reason not to do so—those fora should be encouraged.

Representative of union in AFL-CIO: Mr. LaRouche, what do you think it will take to get labor, which is the heart and soul of this country, to actually organize and fight against the financial elite in the United States?

LaRouche: I think, first of all, that it is being done by the Bush Administration, with what's happened to the 401(k). I think a lot of people in organized labor, became a corrupting influence in organized labor, because they thought, greedily, that 401(k) was going to give them some more money for their pension. Now, those who were suckered into 401(k), have found out, by and large, that they have lost a great deal.

Therefore, the deal they bought—the corrupting deal—has been taken away. On top of that, if you look at the rate of unemployment—increases of unemployment—which are occurring in the United States right now; look at the mass layoffs which are occurring in major industries. Look at the effects—it's the blue-color workers who are being hit hard, not the management yet, as much. Blue-collar workers, the people who actually work on the production line—these are the ones that are being hit. The ranks of organized labor are going to be hit hard by this.

Now, what you have to do with organized labor—it's always been the case; anyone who organized in organized labor knew it—there a lot of mythologies about organizing in organized labor. It was a very hard job to organize; it meant you had to get in there and organize.

What we need is two things. We need organizing, a commitment to organizing; and you need a programmatic approach that makes sense and actually addresses the problem. You need, also, a sense of crisis that you've got to do it. Family people, people who are struggling to get along, are not inclined to put their necks on the line, easily. They want to go along to get along, too. They've got families to worry about, bills to pay, and not enough to do it with. They don't want to risk it. They will only take a risk when they have a very good reason to do so. And to organize, these days, is to take a risk.

So, you've got to have a very good program; you've got to have some solid organizers, and do the work. It's not easy. But I think it can be done, because the crisis is that bad.

Look, this happened—remember, I'm sort of an older fellow; and I recall what people thought like, around me, in the 1920s, late 1920s. I saw what happened to them between 1929 and 1932. I saw how peoples' values changed. I saw the shock effects of the Depression. And I saw how people changed, from being too complacent, into realizing that we had to fight to get the right to live decently. And they did.

And I think the same thing is true now. This generation is going to go through the experience of realizing that we have to fight, for the right to live decently. It's something worth fighting for. And with the right people, and the right program, I think you can get people to go for it.

Former Federal official: Mr. LaRouche, when the official Democratic Party refused to hold platform hearings, people associated with you held ad hoc platform hearings, that addressed many of the questions that were on the minds of people, and which also did shape the debate for the remainder of the Presidential campaign. Given that there do not seem to be any individuals in government in the United States, who are prepared to step forward to convene a New Bretton Woods conference; do you think that it would be useful to convene the equivalent of an ad hoc conference for a New Bretton Woods, that would include former elected and public officials and economists of note, here in the United States.

LaRouche: Absolutely. One of the most useful things that could be done. It should be done. Anyone who wants to do it, we should do it.

Florida political activist: Mr. LaRouche, how is that your efforts have produced, in effect, the cooperation between Russia and China; yet, here in the United States, our leadership is stubbornly clinging to a system that is dying; and just about anyone can see that the corpse is among us, and rotting. Yet, no one in power seems willing to say it—to simply say that the corpse of this system is really stinking up the place. What is it going to take? What must occur to change the thinking of the American people? And, are there others in our own intelligentsia, who are capable of actually joining in this discussion—to join with you, and to lead our nation into a cooperative relationship with Russia, China, and others in the world who wish to avert disaster?

LaRouche: Well, I think that it takes a lot of work. In history—I think that I've done a more careful study of history, in some respects, than most people have—success does not come easily, important successes. Unimportant successes can be achieved cheaply and quickly. Important ones take a lot more work.

Just to go back to the thing I opened with: The crisis we're dealing with today, is not a cyclical crisis; it's a systemic crisis. Now, what do we mean by a systemic crisis? I've said before, you have two kinds of problems "at the blackboard," so to speak, in teaching science. One: the usual deadhead will teach science at the blackboard, on the basis of mathematics; and they generally will have something which is the algebraic or geometric equivalent of Euclidean geometry. That means that every proposition which they attempt to prove to be true, is derived from the system of definitions, axioms, and postulates—assumptions. Now, that defines a system. It defines, for many people, closed minds and a closed system. Now, when a system is wrong, and it's a closed system, and society operates on that closed system, then society is doomed to a crisis, as long as it clings to that system.

That's what we have today. We had a system-change, to so-called "free trade" policies; to abandoning the idea of racial equality; toward reviving the Ku Klux Klan, so to speak, in the form of Nixon's efforts; and similar kinds of changes which occurred over the past 35 years.

So we went from a system that worked, with all its defects in it—all the defective postulates included—but the system worked, in net effect, for us and for Western Europe, and for many of the states of the Americas. We went to a system that did not work.

So, the crises we had in the system that worked, were of a cyclical nature. You could manage the system to minimize the fallacies in the system, and make it work. With a systemic crisis, you can not manage the system out of its problems. You have to change the system. And the problem in serious effort, is that you have to change the system.

For example: If you know, as I do, the number of people who believe that Newton was a great scientist—they believe that nonsense! It's not that difficult to prove that's not true. Anyone who's really competent in science could understand it. Why don't they abandon it, since it's easily proven to be true—that is, the fallacies within Newton? Because they have learned to go along to get along; that if you want to succeed in science, you have to be part of the system. If you want to be part of the system, you have to obey the rules. And some of the rules are, "you believe this, and you believe that; you never deny this, and you never deny that."

Most of our problems in science today—as in systems analysis—come from trying to create a closed system, around a certain set of assumptions, some of which are true, and some of which are not true. Therefore, the system doesn't work.

Now, all important crises, are systematic crises. That is, they involve the threat that a society will collapse because its axiomatic assumptions are false. And therefore, when you go out to change people's axiomatic assumptions, they say, "But don't we all believe that? Doesn't everybody accept. . . ? Aren't we all taught. . . ? Doesn't every textbook teach. . . ? Doesn't every professor tell us. . . ? Doesn't every politician tell us. . . ? Doesn't every judge insist. . . ? And so forth and so on.

So, when you are dealing with a systemic crisis, you are up against the system. Now, the person who is unwilling to go against the system—the fellow says, "Well, I agree that you're right, something's got to be done about this. But you can't go against the system. You've got to find a way to deal with the problem from inside the system." And they lose, every time.

How to change the system? It's like making a scientific revolution. The same kind of effort. So those of us in that business, of changing the system, which is what I'm in, have a harder row to go. Because even the people who wish to be professional, who wish to competent, say "No, no—yes, you've got some good ideas, but they won't work; you've got to work within the system." And they lose, and they lose, and they lose, and they lose. It's like the people who say, "You've got to stick with unity in the Democratic Party, or you'll lose." People who stuck with unity in the Democratic Party the last election—they all lost, didn't they?

It's the system; and that's where the problem lies. And that's the business I'm in. And that's why I got to know some things that other people never got to know; because I challenged the system. And when you challenge the system, you make discoveries. And you end up knowing things that other people may not know. That's the way it goes, and there is no solution, otherwise.

We've now come to the point, ladies and gentlemen, and little girls and boys and old boys—we've come to the point that the system is about to die. And if we don't get off the Titanic, we're going to sink with it. I'm trying to get my fellow Americans to get off the Titanic, before it sinks. Otherwise, there's no chance.

Now, swimming out there, or floating on rafts, is hard. But, we've got to find a way to do it. And that's what so hard about this whole business. It takes the courage to do it; and it helps, if you've practiced fighting systems when you were younger; it's easier. If you were the kind of guy who went along to get the course, and said, "Once I've gotten my degree, and I've gotten my professorship, then I'll make up my own mind—in the meantime I'll do as I'm told"—then by the time you get the professorship, you're no longer capable of doing it. I rebelled. Therefore, it's easier for me. But it's really hard work. And you have to accept the fact that it's hard work.

Sometimes it takes a generation, sometimes two generations, to do something like that. Now we've come to a time that's ripe. The time is ripe. Reach out and grab it.