You Have Nothing to Fear
So Much As Denial Itself
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
The following is the keynote speech to the annual Labor Day conference of the Schiller Institute and International Caucus of Labor Committees on Sept. 1, in Reston, Virginia. It is also available as an audio-video archive.
On Jan. 3, of this year, I conducted an international webcast, at which I said the following—the following two paragraphs. I'm quoting my own words, from that period. I said then:
"The problem today is that, from everything you can see, about this team—not only Mr. Bush, but the entire team—what he said about policy, that the incoming President promises to be the greatest catastrophe in American Presidential history, not some years down the line, but in the next weeks and months, immediately ahead.
"The problem which I shall outline today," as I said, then, "and also indicate what my role in this business is, is that we are not only in the worst financial crisis in modern history, the biggest one; we're also in, globally, a potential global economic breakdown crisis—that is something qualitatively worse than a depression. If the Bush team occupies the Presidency," I said, on Jan. 3, "and sticks to its policies which it has stated it is firmly committed to, the United States will very soon be destroyed as a nation, not years down the line, but perhaps in a very short period of time to come."
Now, therefore, let's have some fun.
What I promised you, in effect, on Jan. 3, of this year, is now happening. No one can stop it, as long as this present system exists: It's doomed. No one can fix it. There is no recovery from it. The system is finished. The question is: Can we kill the system, in time, to save the nations and the economy. No other question. Let's have some fun.
Now, I often say, "let's have some fun," largely because of reaction to the fact that, in my life's experience (which is not inconsiderable; it could be bigger, but it's not inconsiderable), I've met a great number of people, who've come out of universities, for example, who had learned very much, but know virtually nothing. Because they never really had any fun. They learned. They were too busy learning, to have fun. Now, what's fun? Fun, as described by Friedrich Schiller, and others, is what a happy puppy does; what a happy young horse does. They have fun! They play! If you have a pet, the pet wishes to play! If you don't play with the pet, the pet is unhappy. How do you train a horse: You play with it! The horse likes to play! And, you play a game with the horse, that the horse likes. The horse accepts your leadership, as a human being, in playing. That's how you deal with animals. It's how you raise cattle; it's how you raise sheep: You play with them. Because playing is the highest quality of character of an animal. And domesticated animals, are those which have become accustomed, not merely to being handled by people, but playing with people.
Now, human beings are somewhat different than animals—don't let the case of George Bush fool you. Human beings have a higher form of play, which we call "cognition." Cognition is elementary: It means that, we're faced with problems, which contradict what we had believed. We face a problem, when the evidence is, that what we believed, is not true. Or, it was sometimes true, but then again, sometimes it was not. These are called paradoxes, contradictions, in life. In science, what you do is, you face these contradictions, and you have fun with them. You play with them! You develop an insight into a possible solution of principle, for this contradiction, this paradox: that everything you believed, is now called into question, and you have to find the solution; you have to find the key that opens the door to the solution. And, you think you have a solution, and you conduct tests, experiments, to discover if your discovery is true. This is called science.
Discovery of Scientific Principles
Now, when you study the work of great minds of the past—discoveries of principle—and I've often used the example of Archimedes, as an example of this: that a child in a secondary school, should be able to reproduce the act of the discovery of scientific principles—maybe several of them—by Archimedes. So, the child, therefore, is not merely experiencing learning; the child is replicating what happened inside the mind of Archimedes. Therefore, the child has a memory—not of what Archimedes said—but a memory of the act of thinking, by Archimedes. And those of us who know anything, know it only because we have come to know it in that way. We have played. We have faced contradictions. We have distrusted pat formulas. We don't believe in textbooks. We don't believe what the press says. We don't believe what everybody says is true: We know it's wrong. If everybody says it's true, it has to be wrong! If the neighbors say it, and agree—it's wrong!
Now, that's scientific thinking. And, it's also play. It's responsible, human play, unlike the play of the animal, but related to that. And you come out of a university, laughing happily, because you have made discoveries, which you enjoy; you now know something about the inside of the mind of Archimedes; you now know something about the inside of the mind of great artists, great poets, great scientists.
Therefore, memory of what they thought, not the words they said, but the actual act of thinking, by a living human being, 2,000 years or more ago, lives in your mind, as if that person were a living person inside your mind, in that degree.
So that, whenever we face a great crisis, we say: "Thank God. At last! We needed this." Because we had to be confronted with a paradox, where everything that most people believed is wrong! And, the evidence is presented. That means we are being challenged to discover the truth. And, only the truth will save us. And, we have to think, be happy; we have to play; we have to have fun; we have to know; we have to create. And, such is the situation now.
People say, "But, what about my money!?" Your money's gone, buddy! Look at it. Kiss it goodbye, if you like it that much! It's gone! And, I'll get into that.
But, the point is, approaching the subject, which I'm presenting today: Have fun. Don't be depressed.
Now, Franklin Roosevelt, as he was coming into the Presidency, in the middle of the Depression, he said something to the American people, something which was very useful, very proper: "We have nothing as much to fear, as fear itself!" Fear of this horrible thing, which is descending upon us, is the thing we have to fear the most. We have to laugh at this depression, and say, we're going to lick it! We have to laugh at this crisis, and say, we're going to overcome it. And, if we will take the attitude of having fun, in confronting this devil now before us, we will enjoy the process, and we'll win! If we don't have fun; if we go to the schoolbooks; if we go to the press, and say, "Well, I've got to learn what this is all about. I've got to go to school, and study the textbooks. I've got to see the professors." Well, I say, "Don't bother going to these economics professors: They're the ones that created this mess! What do you want to go to them for?" I mean, you don't get rid of syphilis, by going to back to the prostitute that gave it to you!
So, therefore, let's have some fun.
Addressing the Citizenry
Now, what I'm going to do, is to address three essential audiences, as I did at an earlier event, in a trans-Atlantic satellite conference, with the public accountants of Mexico; and as I did, recently, at Oberwesel, in Germany, on the same theme. We have three groups of people, to address:
One: We have people who are professional experts, and so forth, who may not always have the right opinion, but they have an understanding of some of the essential facts of the matter, and can conduct an intelligent, rational discussion, on some of these problems.
Now, I have some very definite solutions for this crisis: They're complete in principle, but they're not complete in detail. So, it would be the most obvious thing in the world, for me to meet with people who have these qualifications, and for us to discuss these matters, and to thrash out some of the details which must be discussed.
Then, we go to a second audience—together. The audience of the politicians—who really don't know anything, but they are in government, and they're going to have to make decisions. We must educate them. Therefore, we must recruit a kind of Gideon's army, of the experts, to go in and educate the idiots—the Congressmen. And the President—I don't know if he's educable, or not, but, anyway.
Then, we have a third level of population: the citizens in general, especially the younger people, who are the sparkplug of any recovery. They're the ones who will kick their parents, and others, into moving. People, you know, when they get to the age—unlike me—when they get to the age of 40, they decide to become old. That's crazy! Why should you become old? You say, "I'm slowing down a bit. I can do less physical activity, so, I'll do some more mental activity, instead!" But, young people tend to spark old people, who've become a little bit stodgy, into getting some courage, to go ahead and do something good.
So, we have to address the general citizens—these three layers. We must, very quickly, bring about a change in the way the population and institutions think about the world, and the way they make policy in the world, and the way they act right now. It's the only thing that's going to save this human race. And, those of us who understand this, have to take the lead in doing it.
Now, let's take, first, the history of the United States economy, and the world economy, since about the time of the death of Roosevelt.
Before Roosevelt died, during the years 1942-1945, as President, he repeatedly told people, including one famous confrontation with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He said: "Win-ston!!" And Winston was nervous. He knew something was coming! "We are not going to put up, when this war is ended, with your British Eighteenth-Century methods! We are not going to put up with your colonial system, any more. When this war is ended, we're going to end colonialization; we're going build these former colonies, into genuine countries, standing on their own feet, and we're going to help them develop. And we are going to eliminate, from this planet, the rule of the economic affairs among nations by your British Eighteenth-Century methods; that is, the methods of Adam Smith or free trade."
Now, Roosevelt did a number of other things, besides resolve on that intention: He also designed—not Keynes, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his collaborators—designed what became known as the Bretton Woods system, at Bretton Woods, in New Hampshire (a state which I come from, right under Mount Washington, the highest peak in New Hampshire, and the coldest place in North America, come the depths of any Winter! It's only about 6,000 feet high, a little over that, but it's the coldest place in North America: From the Arctic, the winds come sweeping down, with nothing in their way, and they hit this obstacle: And it is c-o-o-o-l-l-d! So, that's where I come from).
But, Roosevelt, underneath the eaves of Mount Washington, in a place called Bretton Woods—famous for the Bretton Woods Hotel, of that period—convened an international conference, to set into motion a postwar system. That is, a financial and monetary system, with economic intentions, intended to rebuild a shattered, war-torn world. Shattered by a depression and war.
But, then, he died. And, before his dead body had cooled off, Truman had sold him out! Truman and company had immediately authorized, and they collaborated with the British, in sending in British, Dutch, French, Japanese, and other troops, to restore colonial power to areas which had been in the process of freeing themselves during the period of the war.
So, what came out was not good. Truman was not a good man. He was President, but he was not a good man. We've had a lot of bum Presidents, you know, in the United States. It's a good country, but bum Presidents. And, some dumb voters, too, to match them.
So, what happened is, we got, from 1945 on, we entered into collaboration with the nations of Western Europe, and with Japan, in short order, under MacArthur's occupation, and, to some degree, with the countries of Central and South America, in a system which became known as the Bretton Woods system; the old IMF system. This was the system, which was based on fixed exchange rates, on a gold-reserve-denominated system, of the kind of thing that the Russian government is talking about launching, now. So, don't say, a gold-reserve system is dead: If you know anything about gold systems, gold-reserve systems are on the make, right now! Look in your pocket for gold.
That continued, that progress continued, through collaboration, especially with Europe and Japan, past the death—the assassination—of John F. Kennedy, with ups and downs, and faults, all in between; and evils and abuses, and whatnot. But, nonetheless, under the Bretton Woods system, the condition of life of the average person of these countries, improved. The productive powers of labor increased. The standard of living, on the average, improved. Things were moving up, with all the shortcomings, shortfalls, and errors involved.
`The Southern Strategy': A Turning Point
Then, came the middle of the 1960s, 1966: Fascism came back to America, in the form of the Richard Nixon campaign, which is the 1966-1968 Southern Strategy: Love your fellow Klansman. That's what it was. So, you had a group of New York bankers, Southern Confederate types, like the teacher, the professor of Henry Kissinger, William Yandell Elliott, one of the Nashville Agrarians. These are racists, pure racists. The pure Confederates. Pure traitors at heart! And, also, some of these Southern religious types, who don't believe in Christ, or in God: They believe in money, and they believe in magic: That if the Battle of Armageddon would come tomorrow, they'd get raptured, and wouldn't have to pay next month's rent! That's their religion!
So, this crowd took over. Different assumptions were made: Nineteen seventy-one, a new monetary system was put in, under Nixon; took down the gold-reserve system; set up a floating exchange rate; and, the world has been going systematically to hell, ever since!
So, we have two systems, over the period 1945 to the present: One system, which, with all its faults, worked. And, another system, which has been a disaster from the onset—from the get-go, as they say—which is the present system. So, the problem we have, is not a depression; it's not a recession; it's not a system in which there are collapses and recoveries. It's a system from which you do not recover. The only way you recover, is to get rid of the system. Think of it like cancer: The way you survive cancer, is to get rid of it, not to learn to live with it.
You see the problems today, the changes, in the following way: In 1966-1968, we had the Southern Strategy, which won the '68 election, and brought Nixon into the White House. Racism triumphed! I could tell you a lot about how racism triumphed: Black nationalism was used to destroy the Civil Rights Movement. It happened in Selma, also, where some boys were bought out! And they went to work to split the Civil Rights Movement, and it was never able to get the momentum it had earlier, after that period. Because people, New York bankers and others, moved in and said, "We're going to have to split this country. We're going to have to restore racism in this country. Because this thing that's been done with the Kennedys and with Martin Luther King, is something we've got to stop." And, that was part of the impetus. Remember George Wallace? How George Wallace helped to elect Richard Nixon? Because what George Wallace did, was to lead the parade of Southern Democrats—pro-racist Southern Democrats—out of the Democratic Party, in the direction of the Republican Party. And, what you have today, is a Republican Party, which is composed of New York bankers—market bankers, not real bankers; they're thieves. You have people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who are not really sane. And, you have, then, these guys, who are these traditional Southern racists, who are all over government—judges, and so forth, today. That was the first change.
The next change came, after '71, with the Carter Administration: which was the Southern Strategy, Democratic Party version. In other words, the Republican Party became dominated under the Nixon Administration, by racists. The Carter election, was a takeover of the Democratic Party, to where the racists had a dominant position. What the Democratic Party did, in effect, was to say, "We're going to defend the Democratic Party, by keeping those who are pro-racists, in the party, to vote; and to vote for our candidates." And, therefore, we picked a dummy, Jimmy Carter, who didn't know what he was doing—a mental case, had a mental breakdown; that's what qualified him to become governor in Georgia. He was the kind of man they could trust. And, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who is also crazy—and dangerously so—and David Rockefeller, took this dummy, Gov. Jimmy Carter, paid him a lot of money, and made him President! And, the way it worked, is, the Democrats argued, "We have to keep the racists in the Democratic Party, to keep them from running over to the Republican Party, and then the Republican Party would run the nation."
So, you had a program that was developed by the New York bankers, called the Project 1980s; and this program, which was headed up by Brzezinski, actually ran the Carter Administration, and Paul Volcker came in, to put the knife in the back of the U.S. economy, in 1979.
That was one phase. We went downhill, right after that. Carter did more damage, as President, to the U.S. economy, than any President in the Twentieth Century—any other President. He was the worst President we ever had, for the economy. And that's how Ronald Reagan got elected, because Carter was the worst President that the typical, sensible American citizen had ever seen. And they said, "Anything But Carter"—it was called "ABC"—Anything But Carter. Nineteen eight-four, Mondale—"He's a Carter man! Anything But Carter!" "Reelect Reagan: Anything But Carter." "Vote for Reagan: Keep us out of the Bushes!"
That was another phase.
Globalized Looting
Then came 1989-1991: The Soviet system disintegrated, politically and economically. And, what happened was, people took the opportunity of the collapse of the Soviet system—no big rival, no challenge. The British monarchy, which is also the head of state of not only the United Kingdom, but Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and some other countries of less significance, and the United States together, set up what was, in intent, to create an Anglo-American world empire—which later became known as globalization. The whole thing started, with a program in 1989; they said: "We're not going to let Germany reunify." But, as Vernon Walters, who was then the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, advised the Carter—the Bush people (pardon me: it's hard to tell the difference, sometimes)—that this would be stupid. So, they made a slightly different deal. And, the policy came down to: Keep the Germans down, and keep the Russians out.
The result of this process was, Germany was reunified, but the East German section of the economy has been ruined. Yes, there is some investment in infrastructure—the kind of thing that you get around here [Northern Virginia], that's going to collapse very soon, all these townhouses, and McMansions, and so forth. These things are about to go! They're about to be finished. Once this real-estate bubble collapses, they're gone! Where the people are going to go, I don't know. But, this real estate, this New Economy, so-called consumer-spending bubble is about finished; along with the real-estate bubble. Mass bankruptcies, not mass homeownership, is the word of the day.
So, they did it there, too.
In the case of Russia, as in Africa, they said, "Loot the joint! Don't let them get up off the ground! Loot them into complete poverty; they'll never get off the ground." And, so far, they have not gotten off the ground. Steal their raw materials at bottom prices. Steal their scientists at bottom prices. Loot the joint.
We went on to do other things: The Anglo-American empire looted Africa. Look at George Bush's daddy: Barrick Gold! With private armies committing genocide in Congo, to get ahold of that gold and other things, that they're stealing out of there through Barrick Gold. It's a Canadian-U.S. operation; the former Prime Minister of Canada [Brian Mulroney] is involved in it.
The same things is done in Central and South America. In 1988, look at the number of countries which were free-standing, semi-independent republics—at least, who thought they were independent—who had some power, in 1988: How many of these countries of South and Central America have any independence today? Any sovereignty? Mexico is looted, by the United States, for cheap labor; it depends upon its exports to the United States, to survive. It was not allowed to develop internal resources, to build up. That's been the trend in the United States' attitude toward Mexico, since 1982. Ecuador has been extinct, as a nation-state, since dollarization. Peru has been taken over in a coup—a pro-drug-runners' coup, backed by the State Department of the U.S. government. Argentina is being destroyed! Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia: all being destroyed. So, where we had states, nation-states, with governments, which you could argue with, deal with in 1988, virtually, Brazil is the only one really left standing today. And Mexico has a political character, which keeps it alive as a state, but its economic situation is desperate.
Africa: Hopeless.
So, that's the kind of world we created.
Now, the result of the thing, is this: We've had empires in the past, which were rotting out at home, that continued to revel in imperial glories, because they were able to loot their subjects. Like the ancient empires of Mesopotamia, or the ancient Roman Empire, or, after the fall of Byzantium, Venice became the imperial maritime power, ruling the Mediterranean, and dominating all Europe and adjoining regions. And Venice continued to be that kind of power, into modern times. Then, the British and the Dutch were modelled, by the Venetians, on the Venetian model, during the course of the Sixteenth Century, and the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. And, they became maritime powers, based on rentier-financier interest; monarchies which, essentially, were bourgeois monarchies—that is, they were based on a rentier-financier interest, not a productive interest—which engaged in maritime trade, world maritime trade, such as the slave trade, for example; and used naval power, to attempt to conquer and subjugate other nations, and keep the system going. Just the way Venice had done, in its time.
The United States and the British monarchy attempted to play that game, from 1989 on. They looted the world! Now, the problem of that, as all empires of the past should have taught them that lesson: When you depend upon on what you are extracting from your victims, your prey, as a predator; when you exhaust your prey, on which you depend, you bring yourself down.
Shareholder Interest
Now, that's the system we have. The system is controlled by what is called, among the racists, the fascists, the other degenerates of the Supreme Court, "stockholder interest," or "shareholder interest." The United States is not run by the interest of the General Welfare. That's our Constitutional principle: the General Welfare. No government has the moral legitimacy to rule, except as it is efficiently committed to promote the General Welfare of not only all the living, but their posterity. That's the moral authority of a government, nothing else. Now, these guys say, "No. That is not allowed." That's what Antonin Scalia says, and his sons (whatever they are sons of, I don't know; but his sons). He says that, repeatedly. The law of the United States, of the majority of the Supreme Court, is called "shareholder interest." It's based on John Locke, whose theories developed the Confederate Constitution, and the Confederacy, itself.
That is what has taken over the United States. That's what the Congress stands for. That's what the present administration stands for, with its looting policies in health care; its looting policies in energy. Shareholder interest, instead of the principle on which the United States was founded, which was the General Welfare: the improvement of the condition and productivity of labor of all of our people, and their posterity. This was the thing we fought for in European civilization, and finally got, in approximation, in the Fifteenth Century. And then established as a force on this planet, through the American Revolution, which was the first modern nation-state republic.
If you look at Europe, you'll find no true nation-state republics: The governments of Europe, to the extent they are not fascist regimes, or something—these governments were simply parliamentary reforms, in which the state was controlled by a state interest, and the parliament was a device to keep the people quiet and happy. And to make a few minor reforms. But no government of Europe, parliamentary government of Europe, has the authority, through a parliament, to make any of the kinds of changes which are needed now, to get the world out of this mess. Because, the minute the parliament would try to do it, the parliament would be overthrown under general election, by a parliamentary system. Parliamentary system is the worst form of government you can imagine, because it pretends to be something good—and it ain't. Though you may have some well-intentioned people in it, they are incapable of carrying out their intentions.
So, we are now ruled by laws, such as the HMO law, passed by the impetus of Pat Moynihan—a "great Democrat"—back in 1973, which overturned Hill-Burton; which is killing people, all over the United States today. He's a great humanist, you know: He believes the Earth is overcrowded, so let's make everything nice for other people, by killing as many as possible.
So, that was a great change. We have two aspects: We have a world system, which has broken with what used to make us powerful, what used to improve our conditions of life, in many countries, to a system which is purely parasitical. How did we used (I'll get to this more later) to survive? From the founding of this country, we fought, against the British, at various points, especially from 1763 on; we fought to maintain the right of the Americans to have their own farming system, their own agricultural system, which was progressive, and their own industries. Not to become dependents, under a globalized system, specified by the British monarchy at that time.
That's been taken away: We no longer have our own industries. We have a few left. They say, "Made in U.S.A.," but they're made in cheap labor in some other part of the world. These markets are now collapsing. We've lost that. We used to be a society dependent upon scientific and technological progress, and cultural progress. And, we were pretty good at it, as nations go. We used to educate our young people, for that kind of society: that is, not a society where you do the same thing from generation to generation, but where today's generation will produce children who are better educated, who will go into schools, who will have better opportunities for work, and create a better condition of life, in the society.
That was our way. That's what we believed in, up until the middle of the 1960s, up until the Southern Strategy. That's what we believed in. That's what the Southerners hated—the Confederates. They hated it. It's what Kissinger hates. It's what his teacher, William Yandell Elliott, hates. What the Nashville Agrarians hate.
So, we changed, in several respects: We changed, in terms of the economy, from a productive economy to a predatory one. To an economy, which was the keystone nation, of a general economic recovery from depression and war, into a piece of wreckage. A predator, which is dying of the hunger created by its exhausting its prey. We destroyed our system of government: We destroyed the mission, and the conditions of life, especially the intellectual conditions of life, of our own people.
A Self-Doomed System
That's what I mean by a system. To define what we mean by a system, and how to understand it, going back to this question of play: The term "system," in modern European usage, comes out of classroom discussion, of what we know as "classroom Euclidean geometry." Now, classroom Euclidean geometry is not good, but it has a useful function, in challenging the mind, to discover: What is wrong with Euclidean geometry? In other words, you don't become a scientist, by becoming an exponent of Euclidean geometry. You become a scientist by discovering what is wrong, fatally wrong—and morally wrong—with Euclidean geometry. Because, what is Euclidean geometry? It's based on two things. First of all, it's based on certain assumptions, which are called, definitions, axioms, and postulates. It says, that nothing is true, except as you can derive that conclusion, as theorems, from a deductive method, applied to a system of definitions, axioms, and postulates. That's what you mean by a system. You mean some body of thought, and practice, which is organized the way Euclidean geometry prescribes it.
We use the term system, to mean other kinds of systems, beside the Euclidean system, including what might be called the best anti-Euclidean systems. I am, for example, an exponent, of an anti-Euclidean system, in terms of my work on economics; in which my work coincides with the work of the famous Nineteenth-Century scientist, Bernhard Riemann, which is an anti-Euclidean geometry.
So, what you're dealing with here, is a system, which, as a system, dooms us, to go deeper and deeper into a pit, with no solution. The way you get out of a mess with a bad system, is, you go into the definitions, the axioms, and the postulates of the system, and you rip out the ones that are false! And, instead, you put in place, assumptions, which are appropriate ones. Thus, you create a new system. In other words, the system is not the point of production; the system is not individual transactions; the system is not economy. The system lies in the superimposition on the activities of economy, the activities of life, of certain assumptions: such as, "shareholder value"; such as, "free trade"; such as, "globalization"; and so forth. Such as racism, in all its disguises. These assumptions act like axioms, and as long as you either believe in these things, or believe that you have to put up with them in your neighbor's democratic belief in this nonsense, then you are doomed, to go down with the system, because the system is self-doomed. We are in a self-doomed system.
Now, why are we in a self-doomed system? Why are we so stupid, we American people, that we put up with this nonsense? Well, there's a principle that comes from Rome: It's called vox populi, or popular opinion. Some people call it democracy. The worst form of corruption in the United States, today, is not fascism; it's democracy. Because democracy, in most people's mind, means, popular opinion! You vote for popular opinion. Popular opinion must control the legislature. Popular opinion must determine our laws. Popular opinion must determine how you behave. That's how we kill. How do we kill by that, popular opinion? What did the Romans do? Who were the Romans? Why'd they invent this thing?
Well, Romans were not really a race or nation; not originally. The Romans were simply a group of Pat Robertson-type followers, through a cult called the Cult of Delphi, the Cult of Pythean Apollo, recruited among groups of Latin-speaking people, in the middle of Italy. These guys, who were recruited to this cult, and were backed by this cult—sort of a Jim Jones operation—formed the city of Rome. The city of Rome was based on a military system, under which people from neighboring areas were slaughtered by military methods. And then, the women were taken, for breeding purposes with the Romans, who had conquered them; and the children were made into that, too—kept as breeding stock. So, the population of Rome increased by this method, of rape, murder, and breeding—rape, essentially.
They developed a system, under which they distinguished between the two layers—the ruling layer, which they called the Senators, and the others, who they called i populari. Now, i populari, from the Latin, signifies, in general, "predator." In other words, it's just as if, instead of a city, in Washington, for example, you set up a city government, in which a bunch of guys, calling themselves Senators, took a bunch of people from the street, as trained gangs, armed gangs, and turned them loose on the streets—the way some people are planning to do, at the end of this month, in Washington, in the name of anti-globalization. A fourth generation of international terrorism, will be turned loose on the streets of Washington, D.C. That is what is called i populari—the predators. So, all the honest people are terrified by these killers, these gang killers, and they now submit. And, therefore, the question of the rulers, is: How do they control i populari, that they use for the killing? It was called "popular opinion": vox populi. For predators. The "voice of the predator"! The howl of the hyena! Vox populi.
So, as was stated earlier, by Walter Lippmann, in the doctrine of 1922 on public opinion: The trick is, to use various devices, to, in effect, brainwash the American people, into becoming backers, or recruiting them to, a force of populari—predators—who will prey on their fellow-man; and work for the nation's preying on other nations, in order to maintain the rule of the few at top. It's the oligarchical system.
The Cult of Popular Opinion
How is it done to us? Well, the result is this: You get people, who call themselves, "Well, I have my own opinion. I'm an American, I follow the news. I read the newspapers. I know what's going on. I talk to people. I know what people are thinking. I know important people. I got secrets, you know, you would never guess! I got secrets!" And, this guy is running around, saying, I know everything. He will read the Washington Post, which is like turning your mind into a sewer; and other things, you know—the New York Times. It's different: The New York Times is a sewer with spangles. The Boston Globe, which is a co-project of the Washington Post and the New York Times. And so forth, and so on. The mass media, in general. The entertainment media are worst of all. Hollywood. TV. This is the worst. Mass media; mass events. Just as in ancient Rome. Mass bodily contact sports, with people going into stadiums, in tens and hundreds of thousands, obsessed with the events there, while a bunch of dummies beat the hell out of each other in the stadium. And, you cheer like mad, and come out of there: "That's my hero!" "That's my role-model!" A prostitute appears on a film: "She's our leading star!" "That's my role-model! I want to look just like her! I want to be just like her!"
This is an American popular opinion.
The result is, as I've said repeatedly, and some people are shocked by it: The typical American, if all the oligarchs were to die, if all the lackeys of the oligarchs were to die, most American people, would be like the slaves, who put the shackles on their own ankles and hands every morning and every night. Even when the master's no longer there, to tell them to do so. They have become self-imprisoned. They're like a bunch of prisoners.
For example, the concentration camps of the Nazis were like that: The Nazi guards generally did not go inside the camps. They used certain prisoners, often from the criminal class—the actual felon type, the physical felon type—and they would use these guys as hit-squads, and they would send them on assignments, inside the camps, to do the killing. This was the way it was working in the 1930s, and on, places like Buchenwald, Dachau, and so forth. That's what was going on! The Nazi guards did not go down to the camp, unless they were going on a very special operation, very carefully prepared to defend themselves; to handle the situation, with shock methods. And, that's the way, often, politics works in the United States. You think of your neighbor as a rat. You think of members of your own family, as rats. Because, these are the people who are going to gang up on you, like the special squads, among the prisoners, inside the concentration camp, to kill you, or ruin you in some other way, if you get out of line.
So, we've become a self-policed prison-house, in the same way that the Roman rulers used i populari and popular opinion, to turn the Roman population into a self-destructive force, which resulted in one of the greatest dark ages in known civilization. Not as a result of the rulers; not as a result of Nero, or Caligula, or even Diocletian. The destruction occurred, because of the Roman people, themselves.
And, the destruction which occurs in European Civilization since, whether in Europe, or the United States, or Central and South America, is Romanticism. Romanticism means, specifically, this kind opinion: the tradition of culture, the tradition of artistic taste, the tradition of ideas, the tradition of social relations, adapted from the Roman Empire.
For example, the first modern fascist, was Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon Bonaparte was created by a mob, run from London, of the type, that they plan to put on the streets of Washington, D.C., from the environs, at the end of this month. They were called the Jacobins, the Jacobin Terror, which was launched on July 14, 1789, which the French celebrate as a holiday. A fascist coup is celebrated as the official, national holiday of France! They remained in power, until Robespierre was beheaded, five years later. Then, France was so destroyed, morally, from within, by this process, that a fascist came to power: His name was Napoleon Bonaparte. He declared himself Caesar, crowned himself the Emperor Caesar of France; imposed on France, a legal code, called the Code Napoleon, which is derived from the Roman code. And, then, after that, you had the restoration monarchy in France, which was a British-puppet monarchy. Then you had Napoleon III, who was a fascist. Then, you had models like that, such as Hitler and Mussolini, in this century; and Franco, and so forth.
This is the example. Modern fascism is a logical outgrowth of Romanticism, of the type that dominates much of the culture of the United States, today.
So, that's the system. That's what makes us prisoners.
The Solution: Have Fun!
The way to deal with this problem—again, we have to come back and start playing again. Have fun! The remedy for every crisis, every emotional crisis: Have fun! Don't get ugly; have fun! This difference between man and beast; it's the basis of all civilized life. What's the difference between a human being and an animal? Some people think there's no difference. There was even a cartoon I saw in the Washington Post today, of George Bush, President George Bush, saying that he didn't think that the contamination of stem-cells with mouse stem-cells was going to create a problem. And they have him, as President, standing there speaking, as President, with mouse-ears sticking out! I mean, this is typical of the problem!
What's the difference between man and animal? There is a difference. It's a difference we can demonstrate. It's a difference we call cognition. Only a human being can make an original, valid discovery of a universal physical principle. No animal can do it. Only a human being. Only a human being can cause another human being to replicate exactly that experience of discovery. No animal can do it. That's why animals have fixed cultures. Because they're incapable of developing a culture; they can not discover universal physical principles by means of which they increase their species' power to exist in the universe. Only human beings can do that.
Now, if your relationship to other human beings is cognitive—in other words, instead of reading a book, or having your hind-end plugged into electric wires to the Internet, or something like that—if you are educated, by re-experiencing, as much as possible, the great discoveries actually made by the greatest minds before you, for thousands of years past, and if the memory of that act of discovery is living again today in your mind, you are human. You're human in a functional sense, because when you look at the eyes of some other person, what you see is not the physical image of this human body, what you see is the function of that mind, that behind those eyes, on the other side of the room, there is a cognitive being, who is capable of incorporating and generating great fundamental discoveries of universal physical principle. If you say, as Kant did, or as Locke did, or as Adam Smith did, as the empiricists and positivists do, as the stem-cell-embryo freaks do; if you say that man is only another animal, that there is no process of cognition, there's no power of discovery of Classical artistic principles—it's all just a matter of opinion—if you say that, you're nothing but an animal. Not because you were born to be an animal, but because you're thinking like an animal; you're behaving like an animal, not a human being. You're incapable of loving other human beings, as human beings. I think the record of marriage these days attests to the degeneration of morality on that count. People say, "Why'd you get a divorce?" "I got tired. It wasn't exciting any more. I wanted a new experience." "Uh, not fashionable. I changed the type I like. I saw a new movie star." And this is what people do these days! They have become bestialized, who do not see that all beauty, all human beauty, lies in this quality of mind. Isn't it the most wonderful thing in the world, from the standpoint of understanding history, to reexperience, in your own mind, the actual act of discovery, of a great principle made by a great thinker from the past? Suddenly, that person is alive! They never died. Because an actual moment of creative thought, which they had, you have replicated in your own mind. They live inside you. When you act, if you act well, you change the outcome of their lives. When you take a discovery by a great scientist, say a hundred years ago, and that has been neglected, or has not been properly developed, and you, then, understand it, and then you apply it, to improve the condition of life: You have changed previous history, as well as the present, just as you will intend to change the future.
Look, we're all going to die! So, what do you live for? Do you live like an animal, to go out with a whimper? Or, do you live like a human being, knowing that you are doing something, you are developing, in yourself, something which will be transmitted to future generations, to make humanity better in the future? You no longer are a little person, living in a little neighborhood, with a little mind, with little ambitions and little interests; you've suddenly become a very big person, because you have the minds of some of the greatest people in history before you, live in you! And your replication of exactly their act of discovery. You do things with pride! They'll say, "He was right! This was a great discovery. We've to to use it for mankind's benefit." You say, "I've got to do something to make the future better, for those who come after us. Then, I can die with a smile on my face. Because I've lived well. I've lived at peace with the greatest people of the past. Or, at least, some of them. And I can live at peace, with joy, in the people in the future. I will live forever, in this process." That's what it is to be human.
And when you think like that, and look at other people like that, you don't have a problem. You may have problems, but that's fun! Because, if problems force you to attack and solve problems, whether as an individual, or in concert with others, that is fun. It's what the puppy does, when the happy puppy is playing. The worst thing you can do to a puppy is not play with it. It gets angry. It's gets bored. The worst thing you can do to a horse, is not play with it, not work with it. It gets bored; it's unhappy. It may get sick and die on you. It has no purpose in life.
Human beings have a different kind of play. It's that kind of play, called cognition, in respect to past and present, which makes an absolute moral difference, which defines the individual person, as a creature made in the image of the Creator. When you think in those terms, then you think accordingly.
The Road to Recovery
Now, how do we get out of this mess? I've defined implicitly, what the problem is: The problem is, we are gripped by a system, a doomed system, a self-doomed system. This system, this financial-monetary system, with its legal trappings, such as Scalia, with its popular trappings, such as popular opinion, this system, with its lack of sense of what humanity is, a lack of moral principle—there is no moral principle. If you don't have a sense of what humanity is, as I've described it, you have no morality. It's all mechanical—there's no morality in it. Morality involves passion. And moral passion, is love for human beings. It's love for those creative people, who went before you. It's love for those who are coming afterward. To do nothing shameful in the eyes of those who came before you—even if you disagree with them. And, to do nothing, which is not beneficial to the society that comes afterward.
And Plato called this agape. The Apostle Paul referred to this repeatedly, as in I Corinthians 13 as agape! Don't get involved, like crazy Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, with these do's and don'ts single-issues. Forget the single issues! Don't worry about a list of do's and don'ts. Paul says the same thing: This is fraud! Concentrate on agape, which is the essence of all morality. And, when you have agape, you don't need any other code, except good judgment. Agape, essentially, is knowing what a human being is; knowing what humanity is; knowing what cognition is; and loving what you have received, as benefits from the past—cognitively. And loving the future, by giving to the future, that which the future, as human, needs.
And, if you always act according to that, you may fall short in your understanding of what you need to do, but your intentions are always clear and moral. And that's what we lack, essentially.
So, that's the problem I face: I live in a society, in which my generation, was de-generate; became my de-generation. And, my de-generation taught their children to degenerate still further. And, now the thing is collapsing. And people are saying, "You gotta fix the system. You can't change the system. You gotta fix it. Don't talk about changing the system! Why don't you come up with some suggestion, that will make the system work?" Like, you know: Find a way to make strichnine enjoyable. That's the problem.
What it comes down to: We have a shortage of leaders. And, this problem of leadership has two aspects to it. One aspect is, people who are qualified to be leaders: What person is qualified to be a leader? A person who is, essentially, from what I've said here, a person of agape. A person who has passion, who has love for humanity; who wants to do good for future humanity; to honor the noble contributions of people from the past. And to give something better to the future. Those people are leaders. People who will not sell out the principle of agape for the sake of opinion, or personal advantage.
What they have done, in the United States in particular, what has been done to the American people—and I've only indicated the surface of this, the highlights of that, over the recent period. When I came out of service at the end of the war, while Roosevelt's life was still in the living memory of many of us who served abroad, we shared the opinion—most of us, even some boys from the South—we shared the opinion, that (as I would express it more articulately than most of them would at that time, but they shared it), that we had just come through a Second World War, which we were about to win. That was sure, at that point. And, the question was, for those of us who had served in Asia, and saw the conditions of life in Asia, the oppression under colonialism, of people in Asia: You can not expect to go through two world wars, and fight them, with what these have meant, and ignore the great injustice to the great masses of Asia, and not expect to have a Third World War, come haunt you sometime soon, down the pike.
We shared that view. We said: As Americans, it is our job (I didn't know what Roosevelt's policies were at the time; I had a smell of them, but, these were my policies, and the policies, I think, of most of the people, who were in service with me at the time, shared). We have to ensure that this ends! That colonialism, and all its trappings, ends! We have the power. We will come out of this war, as the victors. We will have power in our hands. We can tell the world: This system of colonialism is finished! And these new nations are going to have the right—and with our assistance—to develop in the way we would want to develop. The way they choose, but with the same right.
Within about 18 months of that time, probably 95% of the people I knew in service, who had shared that view with me, were on the other side: a gift of Trumanism. These were the people of my generation, the returning World War II veterans. Most of them sold out, and were totally corrupt. I saw it. It stunk. I hated it. I saw my friends, being self-destroyed. To see one destroyed, is bad: But, to see a person self-destroyed, is the most horrible thing.
These people became opportunists. They told their children, especially those in surburbia, "Be careful. Be careful! The neighbors are watching." And the children became shallow-minded hypocrites, who would get, on the one hand, from education—those who had better education—would get a sense of, certain values were good, and certain were bad. Certain things were fair; certain things were unfair. These kinds of positive values would occur. But they were very shallow. They didn't have a deep sense of morality. They didn't have a sense of putting your life on the line, if necessary, for a principle. You don't put your life on the line, because you want to die. You put your life on the line, because it's so important to you, to defend and uphold a principle, that you will not hesitate to risk your life, to defend that principle. And, that's what these little kiddos didn't get. And, when they got hit, as others did, with the 1962 Missile Crisis, and then, with the assassination of John Kennedy, most of the generation, of the children of my generation, went crazy. It was called the rock-drug-sex counterculture.
Standing Alone
You know what happened: the '68er phenomenon, as it occurred in the United States, as it occurred in Europe. These things happened. And, I found myself, more and more, as we got into the middle '60s, standing alone. There was nobody there, to lead; not really lead. People called themselves leaders, but they were all fake. And I found myself standing alone. And I just said, "I've got to do something. I must do something." So I did it. And some people in the room know, or have some experience with what I did.
Now, I was right. The first thing—I was a good economist, then, a very good one, probably the best, at least on performance. You look at the past, look at what I forecast, what I taught: I was better than anybody alive I know today—from that period, or even today. I was the best. So, I took my skills and knowledge, and I just intervened on campuses. And began, impromptu, educating young people wherever I could find them. And, out of that came a movement. I did some more forecasting, and I was right. I have never made a forecast, which did not turn out exactly as I specified it. Never! I've been in forecasting, actually, for more than—now more than 40 years. I never made a mistake, in that. Well, I was also careful: I didn't forecast when I wasn't sure. Someone says, "Give me a prediction." I say, "No, no, no. I'll give you the ones I have. I don't make these things up on demand. I'm not like a slot machine: You put a quarter in, you get a forecast out!"
Seventy-one, the collapse. What happened in the late '60s? A series of monetary crises, leading to a breakdown of the Bretton Woods system as it now existed, unless certain changes were made. It happened exactly that way. Nineteen sixty-seven, the British pound-sterling crisis; January-February-March 1968, the dollar crisis; 1970, the Penn Central crisis; 1971, the collapse of the entire monetary system; 1975, a new wave of this. Then came the Carter Administration, which destroyed all regulation, to speak of; destroyed everything in infrastructure, upon which this country was based.
And, we're suffering today, because of a collapse of infrastructure, which has been in progress for 30 years! For 30 years, the United States has had a negative investment in basic economic infrastructure: in transportation, in urban development, in power generation and distribution, in medical care, and so forth. We have been destroying ourselves as a nation, over 30 years—culturally and every other way. And, I found myself standing alone: I warned against Carter, in a campaign I ran in 1976, and I was right. I warned against what Carter represented and what Bush represented, in 1979-1980—that campaign. I was right. I warned what was coming out of the degeneration of the Reagan Administration, in 1984, in the Presidential election campaign, which changed history in this country, and in the world. And I was right. Nineteen eighty-eight, I forecast the immediately following collapse of the Soviet system, and outlined what had to be done about that—and I was right.
But, I found myself, as you know, largely standing alone, surrounded by a few friends and a few friendly souls, who would agree with me. It's a terrible responsibility, to stand as I do, at my age, and to have these responsibilities: Because, if I were to be taken, I don't know what would happen to the rest of you—and I'm not talking just about the United States, I'm talking about the world. Because, in this United States, I know the institutions of the United States, at least well enough to know what the story is: There isn't, in the whole pack of political-party leaderships, there is not the essential ingredient to save this nation! We have to inject it. And I, above all, have to inject it, which is why I'm running again.
I have many people in Western Europe, that I admire. They're not the large percentage of people in Western Europe, but there are a substantial number—in Germany, in Italy, a few in France, in Poland, in Hungary, in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Balkans, so forth. They're good people. But they are not in the situation, with the kind of leadership and knowledge necessary to put this back together again. Many of them are indispensable people, in the sense that they represent an indispensable part of any combination, which would put this thing into shape. But, without my participation, they wouldn't make it.
We have Asia: very good countries; very good people. But the Asian mind is not yet capable of dealing with a worldwide policy question. They deal, rather, with their relationship to the world in which they are embedded. And, they're not stupid on that question. But, they don't think in the right way, to provide leadership for the world, to get out of this worldwide mess.
South and Central America: Well, it's the same process, all over again. The leadership is essentially destroyed. The leadership that existed 20 years ago, is no longer there. It's gone. Just a few aging people, who remember. And, that's the situation. One of the key leaders of Argentina, is a man sitting in military prison [Col. Mohamed Alí Seineldín]. Can't find anybody else to lead.
That's the situation.
And, therefore, it comes to the point, as now, that sometimes upon us, falls a responsibility of leadership. That happens to all of us, in some way or another, or many of us. Every physician will face that, because every sick person is a different person, with a different disease, no matter what their diagnosis is. And, the physician has to face the responsibility of dealing with that problem. A great teacher, teaching a class of students, faces the same thing, about saving these young minds; a responsibility for saving them, under these conditions, today. It's a great, awesome responsibility. For some of us, the responsibility of the same singular variety, comes in a different way—each in a different way. But to all of us, one thing is in common: When destiny has given you a vocation, and you have a mission, especially when you're the only one to play a key part in realizing that mission, you'd better accept it, and do it.
Thank you.
