Questions and Answers at
January 3, 2001 Webcast with Lyndon LaRouche

This is a transcript of the dialogue that followed Lyndon LaRouche's main remarks at his Jan. 3, 2001 webcast.

Debra Freeman: Lyn, the first question comes from the Vietnam news agency to the United Nations. The question is: According to a recent Washington Post and ABC News poll, six of ten Americans prefer to abandon the Electoral College, and switch to a direct popular vote. Do you think the Electoral College should be eliminated? Will it be eliminated, and when? Salon said that both major parties, the Democratic and Republican parties, don't want to abandon the Electoral College system. Is this correct, and what is your personal view?

Lyndon LaRouche: As I said before, the Electoral College is one of the best-conceived institutions of our Constitution. It's an understanding of the principle of representative government. For example, what happened with the Supreme Court, with Scalia and the Scalia majority in the Supreme Court--fairly described as the Scalia majority--which I've written a denunciation of Scalia, which, I think, is fairly clear; I don't think anybody doubts where I stand on the Scalia question.

That, what should have happened--Now, first of all, go back, let's take a step. The reason this came up--abandon the Electoral College--is because somebody ran a campaign, and orchestrated a campaign, to say: "Let's get rid of the Electoral College; let's have the popular vote decide everything; it's more democratic."

Well, that's nonsense. Admittedly, a lot of people were sucked into believing that, because they didn't think, and because they didn't know what the history of our Constitution was, and why the Electoral College was created in the first place. It was not to deprive, to disenfranchise people. What disenfranchised people in Florida and elsewhere, was not the Electoral College! It was a lot of other things going on!

But let's take one step back. What was the condition that led to this campaign to eliminate the Electoral College? It was a sucker campaign. That, if anybody but Al Gore, on the Democratic side, who was a prospective candidate--including me--had been given a shot at the nomination, from the beginning--say, Bill Bradley, for example--the Democratic Party would have won the Presidential election by 55% to 60% of the total vote cast. Right? So, it's fair to say, that, if the Democrats didn't carry the vote by 55% to 60%, there's something wrong with it.

Now, why wasn't Al Gore totally whomped? You know why he wasn't totally whomped: because Bill Clinton has been one of the best campaigners for the Presidency with the voters, we've had! People scream at him, they call him this, and they call him that; but he's been one of the most successful campaigners, and a vote-getter, and fund-raiser, for the Democratic Party we've had in a long time.

So, Bill Clinton was backing Gore. And if Gore hadn't been an idiot, and had let Bill Clinton campaign in Arkansas--and hadn't played around with me in Arkansas--Gore would have carried Arkansas! And if he'd carried Arkansas, he'd be President-elect of the United States today!

So, Gore blew the election.

Now, some people said, "But we've got to get--our votes were stolen." Well, you don't know how many votes were stolen. How many on both sides? How many ways? The whole election was rigged, it was a thug-run election. None of the candidates presented honest issues on any subject, or honest answers on any issue--none of them. People didn't vote for Gore, they voted against Bush. They wouldn't have voted for Gore, on a bet! They voted against Bush, and they thought that--they were told not to vote for Gore to vote for Gore; they were told: "You have to vote against Bush! You've got to vote for Gore, if you don't like Bush!" And some people did that.

Who voted for Gore? I don't know if you could find 10-15% of the population that voted, voted for Gore! A lot of votes were cast on the Gore line, but they probably were cast against Bush, and not for Gore!

Also, if you consider the number of citizens, eligible voters, who didn't vote, or didn't vote for either of those jamokes, you would say, neither one of them expresses the popular will! Who was the candidate who represents the majority of the American people? Neither one of them!

So, when you're talking about disbanding the Electoral College--what was done with the Electoral College was wrong--is, the Electoral College, according to the intent of the Founders of the nation, was a situation like that which happened with the Florida election: That decision should be left up to the conscience of the members of the Electoral College. It should have been left to them, to decide if they thought there was a swindle in the Florida election; whatever they thought about it, they had the right and the obligation to express their view, as representatives, elected representatives of the people! Because, when you vote in a state, for a candidate, you're not voting for the candidate; you're voting for the Elector. Once the Elector is voted in, under our Constitution, the Elector is just like a member of Congress being voted in: They can now act on their conscience. That's representative government, as opposed to a mob rule. They vote their conscience. They're supposed to be instructed to vote their conscience. Their qualification for Electors, it's their ability--it's like the qualification for a juror: Can they honestly, without prejudice, vote their conscience, as opposed to voting some partisan or other consideration, once they stand as Electors?

Now, if we had used the Electoral College, instead of letting the Supreme Court intervene in the situation, you wouldn't have a virtual fascist majority of the Supreme Court, deciding who was going to be President-elect of the United States.

That's what the problem is. But the problem does not lie simply with these institutions. You see, people like to blame "them," they like to blame the "big people" all the time. Well, I can tell you about a lot of fools I know, who are friends of mine, who voted for Gore because they had to stop Bush. And did they stop Bush? No, they got Bush!

We did a cartoon which showed Bush riding Gore--a donkey called Gore being ridden by a Bush, like a Sancho Panza and Don Quijote kind of thing. (It was taken from, actually, a cartoon of that type.) And as a matter of fact, Gore carried Bush into the Presidency! And those fed Gore, were supporting Bush.

So, the problem lay not with the system as such; the problem lay with the people! I said it before, in the first session: The problem with our people--and I'm talking about most of the lower 80% of family-income brackets in the United States--the problem with them, is they too much think of themselves as human cattle. They think as, like slaves, who go out begging at the back door of the slavemaster's house for hand-outs.

There are some people who object to slavery in the United States, but they won't fight against slavery, as long as they get some reparations. "You can give us all the slavery you want, but just keep on giving us some money." They can be bought and sold. And people were bought and sold, not necessarily by personal financial corruption; they were bought and sold by the sense, "You are nothing. You have to vote for one these jamokes," instead of the people standing up like good jurors are supposed to do--and good members of the Electoral College, and good Congressmen are supposed to do--to stand up, as a person, and vote their conscience--not just vote their conscience, express it!

The Democratic Party doesn't have the right to tell you, you can only vote for Gore! The Republican Party doesn't have the right to say that you have to vote for Bush! The people have the right to say who should represent them! And the people have a right to hear those for whom they wish to select their candidates. That's the way representative government is supposed to work.

So, the Electoral College is a fine institution--if we followed it. And I wish we had followed it in this matter.

So, keep it. The idea of replacing it is pure panic, is pure opportunism. And some of the people who are screaming for it, are people who were screaming for Gore beforehand. But their screaming for Gore gave us Bush; because Bush was intrinsically unelectable as a candidate. The only way he was able to get anything near a majority of the vote, relative to the two candidacies, was because a lot of people feared and hated Bush. They didn't vote for Gore, they voted against Bush. And by voting for Gore, they got Bush.

So, that's--I understand what the question is, and I understand where it comes from. But it's a big mistake. Keep our Constitutional system. It was wisely construed. We cleaned up some problems in it, with Lincoln. We've cleaned up a few other problems over the years. But keep the system! It's the best system of self-government in the world. And don't tamper with it, until something better comes along. Don't try to play games with it; don't try to fix it up to make it work the way you want to, just to fix the ways of that particular time.

Debra Freeman: Lyn, this is a question that has been phoned in by His Excellency Mark Ntataruye, who is the ambassador to the United Nations from Burundi. The ambassador asks: Mr. LaRouche, do you think that the George W. Bush Administration will have a different attitude toward the situation in Africa's Great Lakes Region--specifically, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda? How should the United States contribute better to stabilizing that region?

Lyndon LaRouche: Well, first of all, the problem in Africa--We have a fellow sitting in a French prison, the son of François Mitterrand, who was very much involved on the French side in the butchery that's been going on in Africa over recent years. But, essentially, from what I know of Africa on the ground, the French, British, and American special-warfare types, military types, and related types--including the Bush interests, George Bush himself, the former President--were deeply involved in operations which are responsible for the genocide in Africa--and it is genocide; it is not warfare, it is genocide; it is orchestrated genocide, and I know it in detail.

So, that a transfer from a Democratic administration, of a President who could not take on the combination of the Gore and Bush forces on Africa policy: A change to a Bush Administration is not going to do anything good for Africa; it's going to make it worse. Because, under Clinton, at least we had a fight over the issue, even though Clinton made a lot of mistakes. Under Bush, the issue of Africa is dead. Bush will never do anything for Africa.

Remember: The gut of the Republican Party today, the gut of the Bush Administration will be: racism. This is a legacy of the Confederacy; this is the Southern Strategy: Go into the states which were the so-called former Confederate states, talk to the African-Americans in those states, and let them tell you, what this Republican Party is! Let them tell you what these Dixiecrats are, who joined the Republican Party! Let them tell you what that fascist--and I'm not using an exaggerated term at all--Gingrich--Gingrich was a fascist. He gave a speech, in February, in Washington, D.C., to the Republican National Committee, in which he described himself in detail as a fascist. You have a whole pack of these guys, who left the Dixiecrat Party, a part of the Democratic Party, went over to the Republican Party. They're all fascists.

Trent Lott: Trent Lott was one of the people who was involved in the discussions in Meredith, Mississippi and elsewhere, which set the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, in the form of the Republican Party base, into motion!

What do you expect from these guys? What do you think their attitude is, toward people of a so-called African race?

Never kid yourself on this thing.

And you've got people in the Democratic Party on the Carter side, who are just as bad. Remember, there was a certain guy with axe-handles, in Georgia--Lester Maddox--who was a key part of the way that Carter got to be Governor, and went on to become President?

Don't kid yourself. These Southern Strategy types are all of one deal. And when it comes to Africa, Africa is written off. They want one thing from Africa: natural resources, gold, minerals. Look at what George Bush was personally involved in, in Zaire-Congo, in that area, in the Great Lakes area: gold, minerals; areas taken over by gangs, armed gangs of mercenaries, killing people en masse, organizing the killing of people en masse, as a part of that operation.

No, don't expect any improvement in the situation in Africa, because of a Bush Administration. If you want to get a better situation in Africa from the United States, the people of the United States are going to have to bring it.

Debra Freeman: Thank you. We'll now take a question from our audience here. I'd like to invite Prof. Dr. Ernst Winter, from the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, Austria, to come to the microphone.

Dr. Ernst Winter: Greetings, Lyndon. I appreciate very much you mentioning the situation in Europe, however in passing. I would like to ask you to comment on two aspects of our situation in Europe. One, of course, is the European Union. In the European Union, the majority of our people are now a bit skeptical, whether it's able to perform, for the simple reason that it is--saying it very briefly--imitating the United States. But one of the solutions to make the European Union work, would be to have the European Union open its eyes to its east. And therefore, I'd like to ask you if you would explain a bit more about the Eurasian Land-Bridge, if that's possible. Thank you, Lyndon.

Lyndon LaRouche: All right. What is happening, you see, Germany has been in the forefront of this turn to the east by continental Europe. For example, you have a technology in Germany, the Magnetschwebebahn, the magnetic-levitation train, which can go up to 300 miles an hour, which is being installed from Germany, as a German technology, which is being installed in Shanghai, to Shanghai Airport, from which it's to be extended to a regional capital of China. And there's a plan to do that similar thing in China with Beijing to Beijing Airport, and an intent, or at least an exploratory intent, to link up Shanghai to Beijing, and these airports, with one common Magnetschwebebahn system.

This is typical. The technologies which are not being used in Germany, are being in part developed and used in China.

You have cooperation among Russia, Korea, Japan, nations of Southeast Asia, now, on the development of--mutual development, mutual assistance, cooperation with Russia. You have the visits of President Putin to Japan and elsewhere, negotiating agreements.

You have agreements being reached between Germany and Russia. For example, in Germany there was a 20-year agreement on technology for petroleum--that is, Russians supplying petroleum to western Europe, in exchange for technology from Germany, on a 20-year basis. This activity by Germany, actually represents continental Europe. [German Chancellor Gerhard] Schröder is going to spend a weekend in Russia, meeting with Putin; it will be an off-the-record meeting, but the essential thing is, this is going to involve trade deals--even though the Schröder government is often on a different line, in terms of its domestic policy.

Industrial Germany--former industrial Germany--is concerned with survival, and it knows that survival depends upon trade to the east, participation in the development of Central Asia, cooperation with Japan, and with Korea, and in the development of China; large-scale cooperation with India, at the same time; cooperation in Southeast Asia. This is what intelligent, self-interested German interest recognizes.

In Italy, the same view is expressed, in a somewhat different way, but very useful way.

In central Europe, the countries of Europe want the same thing. I was in Hungary recently. They want the same kind of thing. Slovakia, Czechia, Romania, Bulgaria. The Balkans mess, they want out of the mess; they want development. There's anxiety in Poland, anxiety throughout Europe on these kinds of questions. They want an out, they want survival. They don't trust the United States under the Gore candidacy, or under George Bush. They see it as a disaster. They're moving away from the United States.

For example, you have the former Chancellor of Germany, Helmut Schmidt, who's now a little bit over 80 years of age, but quite vocal and quite influential, who represents a whole group of people around him, who represents the conception that France and Germany must restore the kind of cooperation which existed between Adenauer and de Gaulle--which is what Schmidt said recently, openly--it's unusual for him to put it in those terms--as well as with his old crony, Valéry Giscard-d'Estaing, the former President of France.

But this is the mood in Europe: cooperation, or on long-term agreements--that's 20- to 25-year agreements--on trade relationship and long-term investment for the export of technology produced by Europe into those sections of Asia, in particular, which need that technology to survive.

And you have, we'll have a similar attitude on Africa. You have a concern for Africa, for example, in Germany, among a very significant part of the political people in Germany. It's just the point is that Africa has been treated as an Anglo-American-French domain, and other Europeans and so forth are hesitant to buck the the United States in Africa; Otherwise the tendency would be to buck in Africa. Perhaps with the imprisonment of the son of [former French President François] Mitterrand, now--that's going on as a corruption scandal in France; he's sitting in prison right now, at least the last I heard early this morning--this may open up the doors, so that the French role in Africa may have to step back, as the Mitterrand corruption in this whole business comes to the fore.

That the Anglo-American problems as such, the British--You know, the British are funny. The British believe in Hell, and they purely believe in it. But when it comes to the choice between Hell surviving, and giving up territory, they'll give up territory. The problem with our maniacs here in the United States, who think they're more British than the British--like Sir George Bush and Sir Colin Powell, and so forth--these fellows, they think that control of territory is all-important. And therefore, they would sacrifice Hell itself, for the sake of command of some territory in Hell. Where the British are smarter: They'll take a step back, and plan to come back and get even later on.

So, the United States is a real fool when it comes to these parts of the world--Asia [unclear]--it acts like a fool. And the rest of the world knows that.

The contempt for the United States' political system right now is beyond belief--particularly in Europe, as I think Professor Winter knows quite well--and there is a very strong movement. My intention, as I said earlier--my intention is that the United States, if it comes to its senses--that is, if you, typical of the people, can bring together the kind of constituencies that George Bush will say "Yessir" to--simply because they are his opportunity to survive politically--that, under those circumstances, then the United States must think in terms of long-term partnership, with Europe, in cooperation across the Atlantic, as well as across the Pacific, to Asia.

We must revive, at the same time--and those in Europe who are willing to do this, as I think there are in Germany, for example, and other places, the commitment--we must, the United States must revive the policy toward Africa, which Roosevelt expressed at Casablanca, in denouncing Churchill and that character, Louis Mountbatten, that Churchill dragged along with him to that meeting.

Remember that Roosevelt laid out in detail, a map-plan of development of basic economic infrastructure for whole sections of Africa, which are still desperately needed today. Those things have to be given to Africa, at present, largely as grants in aid--the railway systems, water-management systems, power systems, things like that--to help Africa get on its own feet. And the United States and Europe can cooperate--and China will cooperate in this, too: other countries, developing countries will cooperate--that we can make a large donation to Africa to rebuild it, and thus do something to improve our own consciences in the process.

And this is the kind of thing that the United States should be cooperating with Europe in--not only the Eurasian development approach, but also in cooperating with friends in Europe and Eurasia generally, in these things, these long-standing obligations: to finally give justice to Africa, in the way that Roosevelt proposed in his meeting with and against Winston Churchill, at Casablanca.

Debra Freeman: The next question comes from the Congressional Black Caucus. The question is: "Mr. LaRouche, during your last seminar, you talked to us about the Southern Strategy of Richard Nixon. Now, since that seminar occurred, we have a nominee for Attorney General of the United States, who's an inveterate Confederate, and a professed supporter of Jefferson Davis. We do not see how he can possibly uphold the Constitution, that he clearly rejects. However, we are not represented on the Senate Judiciary Committee. How do you think we should proceed?"

Lyndon LaRouche: Two things. First of all, when Bush put Ashcroft in, as a nomination for the Justice Department, he made it clear, the Ku Klux Klan was riding again. That's clear.

Now, Bush, maybe Bush didn't know what he was doing. But somebody in the Bush team. And a lot of them had the voice to say something about it.

Ashcroft was an insult to the Congress. If the Democrats in the Congress, capitulate to the Ashcroft nomination, the Congress is finished.

This is pretty much like the same thing that Germany did, in February 28, 1933, when the famous Notverordnung (emergency decree) was established. Just remember after the Reichstag burning, the Reichstag fire, that Goering, who commanded, at that time, Prussia--he was the Minister-President of Prussia at the time--set into motion an operation. As part of this, operating under rules of Carl Schmitt, a famous pro-Nazi jurist of Germany, they passed this act called the Notverordnung, the Emergency Act, which gave the state the power, according to Schmitt's doctrine, to designate which part of his own population were enemies, and to imprison them, freely, and to eliminate them. This was the dictatorship.

Now, remember, that Hitler had come into power on January 30 of that same year--less than two months earlier. He'd come in as a minority party, which had been discredited in the previous election. He was put in by bankers, including the father of President George Bush, the former President, Prescott Bush. Prescott Bush, as agent for Harriman of New York, worked with the British banks, to put Adolf Hitler into power in January of 1933. At that time, Hitler was discredited and about to be bombed out. He was stuck into power because that was the last chance to get him in power.

Everyone said, "No, Hitler's not going to make it, because the majority of the population is against him." Then, on February 28, 1933, the Notverordnung act was passed, on the pretext of the Reichstag's fire. And this established a dictatorship, which Germany did not get rid of until 1945.

Now, I'm not suggesting that the case of Ashcroft is comparable to the Reichstag's fire. But it's a provocation, a deliberate provocation. And if the Democratic Party and decent Republicans do not combine to throw that nomination back in the face of the nominator, this Congress isn't worth anything. That is, because it will have surrendered its dignity.

If you give those kinds of powers, of a Justice Department, to that Ashcroft, and what he represents, under that flag, you don't have any justice left in the United States. And any Republican [Democratic] Senator, who disagrees with me, shouldn't be a Senator. He doesn't represent the Democratic Party. So, it's going to be up to the people to make sure.

Now, what I would say is this: Members of the House of Representatives, do have some powers. They may not be the formal powers of the Judiciary Committee, but they have some powers. And if the Congress makes it clear, and gets some of the Senators, the Democratic Senators, also to make it clear, that we're not going to put up with this Ashcroft provocation, we can stop it.

But little protest movements are not going to do it. You're going to have to jam the works up on this one. You're going to have to make it impossible for Bush to get his nominations through, as long as that Ashcroft nomination is not eliminated.

He'll pull him back. You get the determination to make him pull it back, he'll pull it back. You've got the strength--unless the Democrats want to sell out totally. So I think we need a resolution of the Congress, the House of Representatives.

And, the Congress has some powers in this matter. Remember, the Congress has not yet certified the President-Elect! I think the question of certifying the President-Elect is also a question, this Ashcroft question, to be thrown on the table, on that question of certifying President-Elect Bush, so-called, as President-Elect. It's an act that has to be done by the Congress.

I would pull every string in the book that's serious, as a legislative string, to make sure that Ashcroft is not made the Attorney General. And I think that members of the Congress, members of the Democratic Party, should act on that point, as if their life might depend upon it. Because the lives of many of them might just depend upon that.

You don't know--We're going into a period in which either we do the kinds of things I indicated in summary to you today, or else, what you're going to have, is not a government. You're going to have something like a Nazi regime. Maybe not initially at the surface. What you're going to have is a government which cannot pass legislation, meaningful legislation. How does a government which cannot pass meaningful legislation, under conditions of crisis, govern? They govern, in every case in known history, by what's known as crisis management.

In other words, just like the Reichstags fire in Germany, How did that happen?

Well, a Dutchman, who was a known lunatic, was used to set fires, as a provocateur. And he went around Germany setting fires. And one night, with no security available for the Reichstag, he went into the Reichstag building, and set the joint on fire. And Hitler came out and said, "Well, let's hope the Communists did it." And Goering moved, and the Schmitt apparatus, that is, of Carl Schmitt, the jurist. And they passed the Notverordnung. And on the basis of a provocation--that is, crisis management--they rammed through the Notverordnung, which established Hitler as dictator of Germany.

What you're going to get with a frustrated Bush Administration, if it's determined to prevent itself from being opposed--its will--you're going to get crisis management. Where members of the Special Warfare types, of the Secret Government, the secret police teams, and so forth, will set off provocations, which will be used to bring about dictatorial powers and emotion, in the name of crisis management.

You will have small wars set off in various parts of the world, which the Bush Administration will respond to, with crisis-management methods of provocation. That's what you'll get. And that's what the problem is, and you have to face that. You've got to control this process now, while you still have the power to do so. Don't be like the dumb Germans, who, after Hitler was appointed to the Chancellorship, in January 1933, sat back and said, "No, we're going to defeat him at the next election." There was never a next election--there was just this "Jawohl," for Hitler as dictator. Because the Notverordnung of February 1933, eliminated the political factor.

And that's the danger you'll get here. If the Bush Administration is determined to hammer its way through on this thing, it's not resisted, and you allow it to do so, you will find it strongly tempted. And you look at, remember what George Bush's specialty was, as I remember very well. Remember Iran-Contra, one of the biggest mass-murder swindles in the modern history, run by Vice-President Bush, under special powers, given to him under special orders, with the Executive Branch. He ran Iran-Contra, the biggest drug-running game in the world. And behind Bush--and I know these guys very well, because I've been up against them; most of my problems came from these characters--these guys, pushed to the wall, will come out with knives in the dark. They will not fight you politically; they will get you in the back. They will use their thugs to get you. That's their method--know it.

So, don't sit back and be nice guys. When Bush makes some proposal, which is sensible, it should be treated as a sensible proposal. But when he tries to shove a provocation down your throat, like Ashcroft, no. No way, buddy, No way. This thing stops right now.

Debra Freeman: Lyn, since we have about six people who have submitted this question, we can kill many birds with one stone. Alan Greenspan just announced that the Fed has lowered the discount rate by a half of a percent, and the markets have responded with great happiness. Would you like to comment?

Lyndon LaRouche: This is going to last as an enthusiastic thing, for I don't know how many days.

What he's done--Look, Greenspan, this is Greenspan's act of suicide. This is like, again, the typical case of this kind of thing. He was going to do this, because he was a fool. That's why he did it. He's a frightened fool; his game doesn't work. The financial system is disintegrating. People are screaming, "Greenspan, make a miracle for us! Do something! Flood the thing with money!" Do you know what that's going to do? It's going to create a terrible crisis beyond anything that presently exists. And how many days, or how many weeks, is it going to take before people turn around, and say, "This was the worst thing that could ever be done."

This is crisis management for you, already. Greenspan is responding with crisis management. Lowering the interest rates will do no good under these circumstances. It will only make things worse. It's like setting fire to a burning building: It doesn't help. This is the biggest folly. And this will probably be counted in future history, as one of the actions by which Greenspan finally destroyed himself. He's the biggest fool on Wall Street and Washington, for doing that.

What are you going to do, in the situation like this?

There's only one thing you can do. The system is going to blow. What do you do? You don't use monetarist methods. Monetarist methods caused the problem. Yes, you may use credit. You did what Roosevelt did with Jesse Jones and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation; that's what you do. You take and earmark--don't lower the interest rates. Create a special vehicle. Go to the Congress. Get a special fund authorized by the Presidential powers under the Constitution. Get some money allocated, real fast, an emergency fund, to get going, as seed money, to get some major employment projects in construction.

For example, let's take the case of California. We've got, right now, one of the major crises of the nation is the situation with the Edison of Southern California, and the PGE. Now, there's a shortage of energy. Well, why not, immediately, through the Federal Government, create, first of all, two steps: Establish re-regulation, emergency re-regulation. Do it under Clinton. Don't wait for Bush. Do it now! I'd have Clinton do it right now, while he's still President. Re-regulate! On an emergency basis, under emergency powers of the President. You've got an emergency, California! A hell of an emergency. Re-regulate--it's a national emergency. And then get some money in there, we're going to fix this problem. We're going to get some power generation going in that area. We're going to ensure a safe and adequate supply of energy, to industry and to populations throughout the area. That's our mission.

Do what Jesse Jones did with the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Put some money into an operation, with government backing, to get that going. Then let that fund rotate, the way we did with Reconstruction Finance Corporation, under Roosevelt. The same method was used in Germany, through the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, for recirculating small amounts of credit, to build a big growth.

So, what we need is not money flowing into the banking system. You put money in the banking system, let it flow through in this system, you're going to get hyperinflation, you're going to get more blowout. What you need to do, is have a controilled, regulated flow of funds, to create employment, productive use of productive facilities, for good purposes, now. You need the methods of a Roosevelt. This is the time to do it.

We've got a lot of unemployed. We've got businesses shutting down, which could contribute to this process. Let's get those businesses not to shut down, that we need. Let's do the things we need, to put some structure back into this economy, and start the process of regrowth.

And that's what Greenspan will not do. He's playing the same old game. It's the game that ruined us all along. It's the game that doesn't work anymore. And it's going to be obvious to people very soon, that what he pulled is just another swindle. And this is the last time, probably, before Rumpelstiltskin stamps his foot in the ground, and disappears.

Debra Freeman: Lyn, this is a question that has been submitted by some friends in the Dominican Republic, and I'm going to ask the questions as a group. They are listening to the webcast as we proceed. The journalists involved are: Aristofanes Urbaez from the daily El Siglo; he writes the column called "El Roedor." The second journalist is Rafael Reyes Jerez, who is the executive producer and co-host of the TV program "Cara a Cara" ("Face to Face"). And finally, Generoso Ledesma, who hosts the nightly TV program "No te acuestes sin saberlo" ("Don't go to bed without knowing this").

Mr. Urbaez asks if you believe that the structure of the Democratic Party is sufficiently mature to accept a canadicacy as innovative as yours without completely collapsing.

Mr. Reyes says that, judging by what was reported by the Italian press--particularly by Il Messagero and Il Resto del Carlino--during your recent visit to Italy last year, we clearly are in the collapse phase of a gigantic crisis. What do you think would be the fundamental consequences of such a crisis, and what, in your opinion, are the correctives that should be adopted to avoid humanity from suffering such a total hecatomb?

And finally, Mr. Ledesma asks: What can small nations, with backward and dependent economies, do to overcome the difficulties of the world economy, and to survive this collapse, given that they can hardly muster the strength to confront the masters of globalization and the New World Order with their frustration and impotence?

Lyndon LaRouche: Well, on the first question, I think that, generally, the Democratic Party is more than ready for me, at this point. We had a relationship with labor, African-Americans, and others, in the Party, going into the Fall of 1999. It was a good relationship. They came under tremendous pressure, not because they liked Gore, but because they were muscled to do so. And we saw what happened in the West Coast, with the AFL-CIO convention, and what followed from that--of the muscle that was brought in to bear on the AFL-CIO leadership. Also from the Justice Department, it was very obvious. The threat was: "Either you go with Gore, or else some of your people go to jail." That was how clear-cut that was.

So, there are a lot of people in labor, would say that I'm "singing their song"--not because I'm singing their song, because it's my song; it just happens to be the same one that they like to sing sometime.

African-Americans, well, we're a close family, in a sense, when it comes to these struggles. It's our game.

Then you have all these other constituencies, like the senior citizens, with the whole HMO issue, the breakdown of health-care generally, when if you're over 50 years of age, this government is a disaster, and these insurance companies are a disaster.

So that we have the constituencies, in the Democratic Party. We also have a fair--Most of the leading circles of the Democratic Party of this type, know me, or know me indirectly, and know where I stand, because I'm not very bashful about saying what I believe. They know what I stand for, and they know who my enemies are. And probably that's my best recommendation, is the enemies I've acquired over the years!

But, in any case, so, that's not the problem. The problem is, we have to take--You know, it's like warfare, where you have to take a flanking operation, which means you have to take what seems to some a bold initiative on an open flank, where the opposition doesn't quite realize that that flank exists, or doesn't know how do it, and you hit that flank, you hit it hard and fast. I think that--why I announced this candidacy now, at this time, is in order to mobilize people in the Democratic Party and around it, to hit this flank hard and fast, where you have an open field! You have Gore has gone down in the mud as the most discredited person that people would like not to remember--especially Democrats. And this is the time to hit the thing, and get this thing reorganized.

I think that under that condition, the Democratic Party can be pulled back together. I think that some of the best people, the older people and others, will pull together, will take a responsible view, will create a kind of coalition which is able to march into headquarters and say, "Look, we're back. Come on! Move over! This is FDR-time, this is Kennedy-time all over again. We're taking the Party back. You guys made a mess of it, and the base agrees with us." Eh? So, we do that.

In general, on the world situation: What we have to do--and this applies also to the question of small nations--what we have to do, is we have to build up a global coalition, which has to be based on a clear basis.

Let me give an example of this, which is quite relevant. We're now sitting on the edge of a general religious war, of the type specified by Brzezinski's cronies, under the title "Clash of Civilization." One of the major strategic operations coming out of Brzezinski's next, is this idea of an "Islamic threat," a so-called "Clash of Civilizations" threat: to use this as a geopolitical weapon for producing the kind of global instability worldwide, in the form of virtual religious warfare, and unleash religious warfare more or less worldwide, through this "Clash of Civilization" project, in order to destroy civilization, essentially--which is what Brzezinski wants to--

He's a world government man. Brzezinski is very close to the legacy of Bertrand Russell and H.G. Wells. Madeleine Albright, for example: Madeleine Albright is the daughter of Josef Korbel, a close friend of Brzezinski's. Korbel and Brzezinski come from the same background. Brzezinski married the daughter of Eduard Benes, who was the boss of Josef Korbel back in Czechoslovakia, for example. Condoleeza Rice had a career as a convert, practically the step-sister or foster sister of Madeleine Albright, the daugher of Josef Korbel.

This crowd--Korbel, Brzezinski, Madeleine Albright, all these types--these are followers of this utopian scheme of H.G. Wells, in H.G. Wells' famous 1928 book, The Open Conspiracy. These guys are out to destroy civilization. They're kooks. They're dangerous kooks; they're as dangerous as Hitler--different type, but the same general idea.

So, we have, in the Middle East, we have the cockpit for igniting the "Clash of Civilization": is an Israeli-Palestinian, and an Israeli-Arab war. This is being provoked, now, how? It's being provoked, because there's only one solution for peace in the Middle East. I've been working at it since 1975, in a very active way. I've been dealing with both Israelis and Palestinians, and others, in this area, since--especially heavily, since April of 1975.

The one thing you never get agreement on--you get some Israelis who agree, some Arabs who agree, but you never get general agreement, because the Middle East is an area where there's not enough water to drink for everybody who lives there. There's no way you can supply water from the existing aquifers, by water-sharing among the existing population. You have a formula for death.

There's only one way you can have peace in the Middle East, and it has to be done now, or you're going to have war. You're going to have a new Middle East Arab-Israeli war, which will probably spread into Iran, and spread to other countries of Asia. We're on the verge of it right at this moment. That's why Clinton's effort is so important; and there's also a reason why he's failed so far: because the only way you're going to get peace in the Middle East, is on the basis of a large-scale salt-water desalination project, which raises the level of water supplies throughout the Middle East, to more than meet the demands of the existing population, and allow for improvement of agriculture and industry.

If you have a peace based on a commitment--based on the same principle as the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended nearly a century and a half of religious war in Europe, from about 1511 to 1648: Europe was dominated and destroyed by religious war--permanent, religious war. And in 1648, in the Treaty of Westphalia, that was brought to an end.

You need a Treaty-of-Westphalia, ecumenical agreement in the Middle East. It has to be based on a solid foundation of justice for the people of the region--for everyone. Past crimes forgotten! Past issues forgotten! Respect for religious rites. Past crimes forgotten. You must have peace, and the peace must be based on water, must be based on economic development. It must be based on equity and justice for the children of those who are living today. There must be hope for the children! There must be a future for the children! How can you have peace, without a future for the children?

The United States has not had the guts to do it. The policy of the United States must be: The United States does not want to become involved in a Middle East war. Yes, we want peace, but we don't believe in this honest-broker kind of nonsense. What we need--and everybody who's intelligent in Israel will agree--the only way we're going to avoid a war from breaking out very soon in the Middle East, spreading throughout much of the rest of the world, is to push through now--right now, while Clinton is still President--to push through a U.S. position, saying there is no peace in the Middle East, unless there's a massive program of desalination, to ensure at least that there's the water and the energy needed, so that the children of the present inhabitants of the region have a peaceful future for their grandchildren. That should be the policy of the United States.

Now, this is the same thing that applies to the question from the Dominican Republic. What we need on this planet: We need to realize that those who say, "We have to fight this war, fight that war; we have to find out who the enemy is, who to kill"--this has got to come to an end! Yes, there are enemies of humanity, but you don't need to find them--they'll come to you. You don't have to go out looking for them. You don't have to plan and start wars.

What we need is cooperation. We need cooperation among nation-states, around economic objectives, of guaranteeing the general welfare of humanity as the policy within nations and among nations. What we need is a program of economic development--not for economic purposes alone, but economics for peace, economics for a future for children, economics for security, economics for an end of some of this crazy strife that comes from poverty and abuse and shortages.

And in this prospect, a nation such as the Dominican Republic, which is admittedly a small nation, does have have influence among co-thinkers throughout the Hemisphere. It does have friends who think the same way, in leading circles in the Church and elsewhere in Italy.

For example, on the question of the abrogation of the debt obligations of the most impoverished countries: That piece of legislation was passed unanimously by the Parliament of Italy--unanimously! Justice for the most oppressed developing countries: These kinds of ideas work in Italy. Italy may not have much power, but these kinds of ideas are being expressed.

We need more of that. What we need is more unity among groups in sovereign nation-states, to work together to take, and join together--not be fragmented--but join together in common-cause issues of this type. And by working around those things which are clearly common-cause issues, we find strength in our cooperation, in our unity.

And in that respect, I know personally, in the case of the Dominican Republic, it's a very important state, because it is a place of influence. I mean, that's were Columbus first put his foot, wasn't it, right? That's where the whole Western Hemisphere began, in its modern form! So, it's not an unimportant place, and it has influence, we know, in Mexico, with the Caribbean generally, and so forth: People from the Dominican Republic have moral influence throughout the region, and they're recognized, as you say, in Italy.

So, that is a distinct possibility. So, I think that the possibility for peace, and the possibility for building unity around selected issues of the struggle for a basis for peace, are solutions. I think the Democratic Party leadership--we in the Democratic Party--must make that a plank of the Party-building organization. We must have, as a Party, a foreign-policy perspective. This kind of issue must be a central question of our foreign policy.

Why isn't the Democratic Party going to say, "We want a water-based peace for the Middle East"? Why shouldn't the Democratic Party say that? Why shouldn't the Democratic Party instruct its President, the President of the United States, to that effect? Why shouldn't it instruct the Congress that that's our sentiment? Why shouldn't we make that a plank of U.S. foreign policy?

These are the kinds of things that can be done. And the moral influence of people in a small country can be extremely important in this case.

Remember, one principle about humanity: The human race is unlike any beast. All the progress of the human race, comes from ideas, discoveries of principle, made by individual human minds. All the greatest discoveries that the human race has benefitted from, have come through the development of these ideas, by people in a nation. So, when it comes to humanity, the important thing is not what your numbers are; the question is: What ideas do you have to contribute--both as discovery of ideas, and promotion of ideas--which are of benefit to all of humanity?

That's the difference between the human race and the animal: The individual in the human race is important, and the animal, not--even though they may be your pets, but they're not that important. They don't change, they don't benefit humanity as a whole. Whereas one discovery, by one mind, can benefit all of humanity, present and future. One nation which promotes an idea of value to humanity, makes a contribution which makes that nation important to all humanity, and influential in all of humanity.

We must not get this idea of "big powers" and "small powers." The question is: What do you, as a human being, or as a nation of human beings, have to contribute, in terms of ideas which enable the human race to move forward?

Debra Freeman: Actually, we do have a couple of questions waiting on the phone, but before we do that--since we were discussing the Electoral College before--I'd like to take the opportunity now to take a question from the audience, from, actually, one person who was sent to the Electoral College, who actually did vote her conscience. Barbara Lett Simmons, who is a member of the Democratic National Committee, and who was an Elector from the District of Columbia, would like to come to the microphone.

Barbara Lett Simmons: Good afternoon, Americans who believe in Democracy. It is comforting to be here, because there are folks who believe in democracy only for certain people--not for people who look like me. And the tragedy is, that we are now the only industrial nation that has disenfranchised the residents of our capital. It used to be the two--South Africa and America; now, America, by herself, who has the biggest message, and pretends to have the greatest democracy on the face of the Earth, delimits it, when it comes to residents of the District of Columbia.

And so, I'm asking you, Mr. LaRouche, with your abundant leadership and following, to help us in the teaching of this lesson. Because Americans around this country--I've heard from both the entire, all of contiguous America, I've heard from six foreign nations, who've all said, "You mean you people pay taxes, and you don't have any representation?" And I assure them that that's precisely the case.

So, there's lots of learning that needs to go on. And I did indeed seize what I considered a teachable moment, by casting a blank ballot for the Electoral College, because I knew that there would be people that would listen there, who we could never have gotten their attention. And the Democratic Party was one of those units. But particularly, when nations--Do you know, Jerusalem called me? They said, "You know, we're preparing a government, and I want to know: just how bad is it if you don't have the franchise?" I said, "I'd be glad to tell you. Have you got two weeks?"

So, Mr. LaRouche, I would like to see those people who clearly understand democracy, and have respect for it, to join in the educational process of helping others know and understand. And I know you personally have had a very great stand on statehood for the District of Columbia. And I just want to be sure that everyone has that message, and that every place we go, we give that message to others.

Debra Freeman: I see the President heard you; I saw his car.

Barbard Lett Simmons: Yeah, he changed, he put the license on the car--after that blank ballot. Now, you do know that the license came out more than a month earlier; and, I think, the Delegate and the Mayor sent the license, and asked him to put 'em on. He didn't put 'em on until they got a blank ballot in the Democratic column!

Lyndon LaRouche: Well, I've had a few things to say about Washington, D.C., including the question of Congressional representation, as actual Congressional representation, which is obviously a matter of principle at this point.

And also the other thing is, of course, that Washington supports, D.C. supports the national government, the national seat of government. And when I look at what's happened to the hospital system in D.C., what is happening to it--the educational system, and the other effects--I'm very much concerned that the government has two responsibilities: first of all, to do something about this question of Congressional rights, representation; and also, to take a more responsible attitude, that the Federal government demands support from the D.C. area, and yet it doesn't support the area from which it demands support. It's a--these kinds of things should be dealt with.

I've discussed it. I mean, the point is, I should say, is: In America, if you're coming into Washington, D.C., what's this dump? If you get around a few official buildings, the official center, if you go beyond that, what do you see? You're seeing conditions that are shameful. You look at the hospital system today, you're seeing something that's shameful.

It says something about our conscience. Forget the question about just rights as such. Just think about conscience. What does the condition of the population of D.C. in general--the rate of imprisonment, the educational system, the medical support system--what does this say about the conscience of the nation, about the image of itself in its nation's capital, that it presents to the world at large? This is, apart from all the question of rights, very simply one thing: It's a shame of the nation, that we allow this condition to exist in the nation's capital and its surroundings.

Debra Freeman: Thank you, Lyn. Now, our incredibly skilled and competent technical staff has Mr. [George] Weeks [from Detroit News] on the line--I think.

George Weeks: Yes, yes I am. Mr. LaRouche, I view of the emphasis that you've placed on energy policy, or the lack of it, I would be interested in your reaction to the appointment of Michigan's former Senator, Spencer Abraham, as the new Energy Director.

Lyndon LaRouche: I don't think much of it. I mean, the whole think stinks.

Look, talk about energy policy. Two major things are involved here, first of all. First of all, how many kilowatts are we generating? What does it take to support a community? What does it take to support an industry? What about the energy flux-density of our energy sources? What about reliability, in terms of supply and price? You know, these kinds of questions have to be faced first. And this is exactly the kind of thing you're not likely to get from Bush.

Look, for example, one very--thing that sticks in your craw, when you look at Bush: What about Rainwater? What about the involvement of Enron? What about these things which are tied closely to Bush, which are the cancer destroying the energy system of the United States? I don't think that a Secretary of Energy under George Bush, be he good or bad, has any chance of doing a good job at this time.

My view on the entire Bush Administration, is that members of the Congress--chiefly Democrats, but also honest Republicans--have to get together and put a leash on this Bush Administration, to make sure it knows where to do what on the lawn, and where not to do it. You have to create a condition under which Bush says, "Okay, I'm the President, but I have to heed what this angry bunch of constituents is telling me I better do, or else." Under those conditions, you might be able to find a cabinet appointment in the Bush Administration, which has enough independence of the Rainwater phenomenon and other things in the Bush background, to be able to make an honest decision on things like energy.

But at present, the way the Administration is now constituted, the way it's framed up to be, given the situation in the Congress at this moment--it may improve later, but at this moment--I don't think the United States has a chance under a Bush Administration. I think we're looking at a short road to Hell, under George Bush--unless we can create the condition in the country, where the fact that a weakly-elected, or quasi-elected President has to recognize that he doesn't carry much weight with the country as a whole, and the best thing he can do, is sit back in that office, and pay attention to some orders and pressures from his constituents--and the orders and pressures coming from his best advisers, who tell him, "Mr. President, you better do this." And he says, "Why? I'm the President." "Well, we call you President, but you really aren't. You're just the man that signs the checks, and signs the bills."

George Weeks: Sir, when you say that we're on the short road to Hell under George Bush, are you talking energy, or over-all?

Lyndon LaRouche: Over-all, everything. Energy's just--Look at the California situation: What is the Bush policy on what are you going to do about PGE and Southern Edison? What's he going to do about it? That's a test, that's a test on energy policy--right now. We've got a situation in New England, that's going to be developing on the heating oil question, that's going to rise up again. We've got all over the country an energy crisis.

Well, let's take California. Let's take PGE and Edison. That is the marker which tells you exactly what the entire Bush Administration policy is going to be on energy--right then and there. You don't have to find out in Michigan, you can find out right there.

So, I think it's a disaster on energy, and it's a disaster on everything else--until, unless we can tame this Administration. I mean, if the thing is elected, it's Constitutional, I've got to work with this institution as a Constitutional institution. But: It's not the kind of dog I want to keep, unless it's on a leash! And I want to get the Democratic Party to help build the leash to put on this dog, and then we can live with that President for a while.

Debra Freeman: Thank you, Lyn. I can tell people, he's very good with dogs--he is!

Debra Freeman: We now have St. Peterburg on the line, I believe. Why don't you go ahead?

Konstantin Cheremnykh: Actually, I'm calling not from St. Peterburg; I'm calling from the heartland of Russia, which is going to survive through the global financial crisis anyway, and I'm sure it will.

At the same time, people here don't know very much on the real situation in the world right now, and all the gab they get from the TV channels, which often involve the interpretations from Western mass media. Today, for instance, I heard on the Russian TV an explanation of today's collapse of the stock market indices, of Dow Jones and Nasdaq, and the explanation was that that was a reaction to the destabilization in the Middle East. So, I just want to ask Lyn to say what he thinks of such kinds of interpretations.

Lyndon LaRouche: I think that what you're getting from Russia, is essentially a special kind of disinformation. The official line of Russia, as I read it, is to pretend that they think well of the Bush Administration. And not to try, to avoid confrontation with the Bush Administration at this time.

But what I perceive at the same time, is that informed Russia recognizes that the United States economic system in its present form, is doomed in the short term.

Secondly, that people in Russia who are looking very seriously at some of the threats which are coming, not so veiled, from the Bush Administration quarter, and they're very concerned about it. And therefore, I think, at present, the Russian press, publicly, as well as the government, publicly, are careful to avoid things that would be considered provocative within the United States.

I think that what they think, among senior people behind the scenes, and what the Russian news media is putting forward, are two directly opposite things. I think Russia, inside, is deeply concerned by the threat to the security of the world, which the Bush Administration's coming in, represents. And on that point, I think they're right. This is a very dangerous development.

I don't think it's any more dangerous than a Gore Presidency would be, to make it clear. I don't think there's really any difference in quality, between the two. They're both one as bad as the other. We've got one, and the alternative was the other. Neither is any good. We're in trouble. Russia's in trouble. The world's in trouble. The financial system is coming down, and the only reason it's coming down, is because it is coming down, not because of some reaction to Middle East politics.

Debra Freeman: We have a question from New York, from the Namibian Mission. The question is: "Mr. LaRouche, what is your proposal for the electrification of Africa?"

Lyndon LaRouche: Oh, well, the basic policy, in structure, was already laid down by Roosevelt at Casablanca, to Churchill, in 1942. That what Africa requires, the policy toward Africa, is very simple: You take the North-South connections. For example, I take the case of the road from ... take a rail route, from Dakar on the Atlantic Coast of Africa, to Djibouti and Port Sudan on the East Coast of Africa. Below the Sahel Belt.

Do that also, North-South, with several routes, and build the major spinework of basic economic infrastructure, which Africa needs.

This must be done largely through grants, from countries, the United States, Europe, and so forth. They'll be contributions from places like China as well.

What we must do, is to set up in Africa, a kind of special corporate structure, that is, a special facility, in which foreigners who are contributing to the effort, will engage in a technology transfer-type operation, in which they will come in and provide the lead edge of the technology, and support, for building these systems. But, they will do this by employing and developing Africans to take over the project, so that, by getting the main trunk systems, which foreign powers can contribute, in an intelligent way, in cooperation with the governments, and setting up facilities under which Africans take over the further development of this, in a typical technology-transfer method: where you start out with 10% local labor, then you get up to 90%, take over, the management's finally taken over by the indigenous population. That kind of transfer.

Now, in that process, we obviously require certain things. We require: transportation; water management; power management and development. We also require education. We also have something else that's very necessary. We have now the worst epidemic, and pandemic, disease crisis the world has faced in recent times. The center of that crisis is Africa. If you don't fight the diseases in Africa, and the pandemics and epidemics which are raging in Africa--not diseases one at a time, but the pandemic and epidemic and related conditions; if you don't fight that, the disease of an unknown type that breaks out in Africa, for which there is no known cure, will leave Africa, one morning, and end up as a death in the United States a couple of weeks later.

So, therefore, the front line of defense of the world, against the spread and increase of epidemic and pandemic disease, is the fight in Africa, the model fight. If we don't help Africa, with the infrastructure and related development, which enables Africa to resist this problem, we, and the world as a whole, are going to pay for it. We have to take the view: we don't care what it takes; the job is going to be done. So, therefore, in addition to the obvious things, the basic economic infrastructure, water management, power, transportation, education, medical facilities, we must put in the public health support, and the measures, the regulatory measures, other things, which are needed by Africa to be able to fight this galloping spread of pandemic and epidemic diseases, of both an old and new type.

I think that's the package. And within that framework, if you have that kind of policy toward Africa, I think these other detail questions, on Africa, can be settled within that policy framework.

One of the things I think would be useful to have, in respect to Africa, is a revival of the Peace Corps effort. I think it's immensely valuable to have young Americans and others, people of middle age or skills, who will go in and volunteer to go into a situation, in the way that the Peace Corps did. Because by being on the ground, in Africa, you will have Americans who will understand Africa better, and who in a sense of reporting back on their experience in Africa, will be able to communicate to the American people more efficiently, as American citizens, what the realities are of Africa.

Under those conditions, I think that we can build a constitutency inside the United States, as in Europe, for a competent understanding of the realities of Africa, instead of these half-baked ideas that people keep shoving out, who don't understand the realities on the ground in Africa. So, we need more Americans who understand Africa on the ground, who are participating in Africa, who can inform us, as a general, not just as experts, but people who can inform their friends and neighbors, of what the reality of Africa is.

Look, even African-Americans, so-called, people of partial African descent. They talk about Africa all the time, but very few know anything about it. They come around: "I'm African-American." What does that mean? They don't know anything about Africa. How could they ever know anything about Africa? I don't care what their skin color is; if Americans would go and work in Africa, particularly young people in a Peace Corps-type mode, and assist with some of these major projects, infrastructure projects, and the supporting infrastructure, like village help and things like that, they will be the people who will inform the citizenry of the United States in depth, of what it is like to live in Africa. Then we will have, for the first time, a significant constituency for the cause of Africa, inside the U.S. population. Then we'll have an Africa policy.

Debra Freeman: We will take a question now from our audience here. Professor Abegunan, from Howard University's Department of Political Science, are you here, sir?

Professor Abegunan: Good afternoon. Based on what happened in the U.S. Presidential election, this past one, it took America 36 days to sort out the election, or who is going to be the President of this country. From what happened this past election, does America still have credibility to go out, to South Africa, to supervise elections for South Africans? Or to go to Panama, or Nigeria, to supervise elections?

And based on what happened in the past election, again, it seemed that democracy is in trouble. What is the future of democracy in this country?

Lyndon LaRouche: Okay, very simple.

I've said it many times before, but it needs to be said many times more: that, for the first time, in all known history, during the 15th Century, a new conception of society was born, in Europe. It was called the sovereign nation-state. And this development had two features. One, that national governments had a sovereign responsibility, to efficiently serve the general welfare, or what was otherwise called the common good. That the only legitimate authority, that a government can have, comes from its efficient service, as a sovereign agency of a people, devoted to promoting the general welfare of the population and its posterity. Number one.

Number two. That because man is different than any animal, because man has cognitive powers which cause him to be described as made in the image of the Creator, that man has, as an individual mind, powers that no animal has. It is through these powers, that mankind is able to make discoveries of principle, which no animal can make, and to apply these principles successfully, to increase man's power to exist in and over nature. Therefore, the degree to which we develop our people, to be able to make these discoveries, to transmit them, and to apply them, is the source of the improvement of the condition of mankind. The source of the improvement of the conditions of life of the individual. The source of the improvement of the conditions of life for future generations.

Therefore, these two principles.

Now, this is embodied in our Constitution in two places, of special significance. Read the first three paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. Read what the argument is made, by our Founders, in 1776, under the direction of not Thomas Jefferson, but Benjamin Franklin, for whom Thomas Jefferson was working at the time. The first three paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. What is our conception of our independence of a nation, and the basis on which it is constituted?

Number two. Look at the Preamble of the Constitution, which is the fundamental Constitutional law of the United States, contrary to what Scalia thinks, and what Rehnquist thinks. That is the Constitution, not what Rehnquist says, not what Scalia says. The promotion of the general welfare, for ourselves and our posterity, is our responsibility. That is the only basis for legitimate government. It is the only basis for the legitimacy of power of any government. That's the principle. That's the principle we uphold.

The issue is not democracy. Democracy has got a bad reputation in history, as in Greek history. It was the Democrats of Greece who committed, jointly, judicial murder against Socrates; read the case. The Democratic Party, under Jackson, from its formation under Jackson, that is, by Aaron Burr's agent, his putative son, Martin van Buren, was the party of racism and treason! It continued that role under President Cleveland, who reinvented Jim Crow. It continued that role under Woodrow Wilson, who organized the Ku Klux Klan's revival from the White House, in his own name and voice, and gave us the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and 1930s as a result.

The word "democrat" has a bad odor in these quarters, as in the states where the Democratic Party used to dominate, the same way. No, the issue is human rights. The issue is the right to representation, the right to voice, the right to be heard, the right to participate in the general welfare, promoting it, and the right to ensure the promotion of the general welfare to our posterity, our children and grandchildren. And to choose, to participate in choosing, through representative government, the agencies which we entrust to carry out that mission of government.

Now, obviously, when you make the criticism of what happened here, that's exactly what we didn't do. The problem was, where was the general welfare, when Al Gore was running? Ask his gynecologist. Where was the general welfare, when Bush was running? Where was the general welfare, when it was proclaimed by Antonin Scalia, a fascist, from the Supreme Court? Where's the general welfare?

So, you can't say, where's democracy? You have a 90% "ja" vote for Hitler, at a certain point in Germany, in the ratification of the referendum? It's not the vote itself that counts. It's the principle of human rights that counts. It's the right to have what the Declaration of Independence describes, in those first three paragraphs. The right to have a kind of society, which binds itself to make no decision of policy, which is inconsistent with the promotion of the general welfare. If democracy says the general welfare should be destroyed, then democracy is evil.

But the ideal situation is one in which every citizen is independent, conscious, well-educated, understands the general welfare, and has voice, not just vote, but also voice in the processes of self-government. That we didn't have. That we didn't have at all. And that's what the problem is.

We've got to redefine some of these terms that are used so loosely. When we say "democracy," or we want to talk about human rights, we should define what we mean by that? Do we mean, what do we mean? Do we mean man is just another kind of animal? Is that a human right? Do we mean that man is something that can be replaced by some so-called intelligent robot in the future? Is that what we mean by a human right?

Now, the point is, we must define our terms. We must define our terms as the Founders of our republic did, fairly well, as in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

Debra Freeman: One of the nice things about these events in Washington, is that we always get to hear from some of Washington's most distinguished residents. And what I'd like to do now, is to call Dr. Alim Muhammad from the Nation of Islam, to the microphone.

Dr. Abdul Alim Muhammad: Good morning, Mr. LaRouche, and happy New Year. I'd like to get your views on the current crisis in public health, here in the District of Columbia. As you know, D.C. General Hospital, which is almost 200 years old, founded in 1806, with current trends, under the misguidance, I should say, of the Public Benefit Corporation, that was created in 1996, in all likelihood, the hospital will close its doors sometime in March or April of 2001.

One week ago, approximately 250 employees received pink slips. The situation, of course, is, in 1996 the City Council created the Public Benefit Corporation to manage the hospital and the public health clinics. What they managed to do is shut down the clinics and downsize the hospital. It's questionable whether, in its present form, the hospital is doing a competent job, but this past year, the appropriation for the hospital was about $50 million. What the hospital actually needs to function well is about $150 million. So it was clear that the hospital would run out of funds sometime at the end of January.

Obviously, this is the "General Welfare" question. What are your views concerning D.C. General Hospital and the public health crisis here in the District of Columbia?

Lyndon LaRouche: First of all, I think you have to take this as a paradigmatic case, because it's the nation's capital. Therefore, what we do in the nation's capital, tells us what we're doing to the nation as a whole--or more. What I would wish were done, would be to repeal the HMO act and restore the former act, Hill-Burton, which mandated the purpose of medical care--that was for the institutionalized aspects in particular--to provide the added required level of medical care per capita for every county in the United States, as a goal; and that the direction of public funding and private cooperation in this matter would be to reach that.

We used to have the idea that teams of the state, local, Federal and private facilities would cooperate by making an annual budgetary process, in which they would find from public funds or private funds, altogether, funds adequate to meet certain specified objectives for improvements in the general welfare, the health category, for the coming year and beyond.

We have to go back to that kind of Hill-Burton philosophy, as a way to build the institutions, and to repeal the HMO bill, which is inherently against the general welfare.

This comes to another problem, which is not just a health care problem, but it is. Take the case of [Antonin] Scalia, on the Supreme Court. You've got a majority of the Supreme Court in which a minority of minds is the majority of the court! As long as you have the Scalia philosophy, of shareholder values, as a principle of law in place of the general welfare, which is practically a declaration of treason on his part, or insanity, or immoral insanity, or something, obviously you cannot in the normal legislative process get the result you want. Particularly in a time of crisis, where there's very little money around, in terms of private money; and there's going to be a lot less right now, as of now.

So we have another route to go, while we're fighting the Scalia's, and what they represent, while we're fighting to repeal HMO, restore the Hill-Burton philosophy to medical practice, we're going to have to have some emergency action by government. And this has to be by Federal, state and local government together. Emergency action which is consistent with the philosophy of Hill-Burton.

What we should do also, as I said in answer to an earlier question on a webcast [see LaRouche's answer to Dr. Frederick Seymour in the Dec. 12 webcast], what we should do is treat the D.C. area, not just D.C. itself, but the area surrounding it, which is where the U.S. Government is largely located, and treat that as a marker for the medical policy of the nation as a whole.

Whatever it takes. Look, we've got a lot of poor people out there, or misemployed people. You're going to have a lot of people who've been working at Internet operations, they're going to be unemployed. You're probably going to have half of the upper 20% of family-income bracket people are going to be suddenly unemployed in the period immediately ahead. You're going to see all those people living in tarpaper shacks that cost $400,000 to $600,000 or more in mortgages out there in the hills around here, around Washington. You're going to see those things, with the mortgages being foreclosed, on the people who no longer have any income, whose stock options are worthless and whose salaries have just vanished, and whose companies have just gone.

So, we're going to have a lot of unemployed people. We have to put some of these unemployed people to work. We're going to have to do what Roosevelt did with the unemployment problem. They may not be fully qualified for the job, but we'll train them on the job.

So, we have to allot some of these resources--companies that otherwise are going to go bankrupt, they could do something useful. People who can be employed, who are useful, who could be trained to do a useful job. We have to start thinking about mobilizing as Roosevelt did, these kinds of resources in the public area, to promote the rebuilding of the total economy.

For example, Richie Freeman, in our discussion with him a couple of days ago, indicated, that under Roosevelt, in the RFC [Reconstruction Finance Corporation] program, for every dollar that went through the public sector in the U.S., you had about a dollar and a half would go into the private sector, as a byproduct of the impact of the public sector's employment.

Now, you take an area like D.C., and those of you who live in the area know what I'm talking about. If we take this area, and we take the level of unemployment, similar kinds of conditions, take the level of people who are living on the streets or living in overcrowded housing, whatnot. If we take some target programs in the Federal area, call it the Federal Renewal Project or something like that, Emergency Renewal Project, and we start to assimilate people who should be employed gainfully, who can be trained, into participating in building some of these public works.

We remember from the PWA and the WPA, and so forth, from the 1930s, this was a mess at the beginning, but it worked. It was a mess, but we made it work, and it worked. We'd have lost World War II if we hadn't done it. It worked. We have to do it again. Obviously, among the primary objectives are what? Energy, adequate energy supplies. The D.C. area has a tremendous shortage of energy generation. It's a critical one. Better do something about it. We have a water management/sanitation problem in whole parts of the sector. Better do something about it. We have an educational crisis, in terms of the physical school system, as well as the educational programs. We need enriched programs to add to the school systems, to find to do something to reverse this downward trend in school systems.

We can get some people who are semi-retired, and so forth, to help in this kind of thing, to get some real teaching going around the edges of this educational process.

We have a major health crisis. We don't have hospitals. What does that mean? Well, Dr. Alim, you know the question on that. The ratio, which was established by military standards, for example, during World War II and afterwards--the ratio of the kinds of personnel you require in a general hospital to meet all the staffing requirements, to get the job done--departmentalization, and so forth.

So you need to say, let's build these things now, based on the needs of the population and based on a performance criterion, which anyone does in an emergency: If something were to happen of the following type in this neighborhood, would we be able to deal with it? A major fire, for example--how are our burn units? How about these other kinds of things for emergencies. Just go start making a list of it, these kinds of traumas and problems. Can we get the patient picked up in time, delivered to the place where the care is to be delivered? Is the care available in a timely fashion, an effective fashion, there?

Why not take that as a mission objective and say the Federal government is going to demonstrate what we can do to set a model for the nation in rebuilding these facilities? And do it because we're ashamed of what we look like in the face of the world under these conditions. We're going to have to do what we did in the 1930s, after all the Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Coolidge nonsense. We're going to have to take Federal government-steered, emergency action, in targetted areas. We don't have infinite resources. We're going to have to mobilize the resources we have, get lines of credit organized, get some government seed money to get these lines of credit moving, to get special banking arrangements to get this stuff funded, and say move ahead on saving institutions which should be saved, because we need them, as we have done back then under Roosevelt, and also rebuilding things we've lost. Sit down and begin to design the system, the way that people used to do in the best parts of the United States under Hill-Burton.

For example, New York City, prior to 1973-75, was a model--despite some of the problems in some of the facilities--was a model of the ability to deliver health care to a large population in an efficient manner. It worked. It wasn't perfect, but it worked. And we've lost what that represented. We have to say, we've got to go back to it. And the point is, the only way we're going to get it done now, is under Federally sponsored initiatives of emergency action, in cooperation among Federal, state and local and private agencies, to get the job done.

We have the resources in terms of manpower--it's coming available. We can mobilize them. We can train. We can rebuilt. The thing that will make it work is the determination to do that. I went through this. I was, for a short period of time, acting as a non-com in the training program for recruits during World War II. You should see the number of times I thought we just lost the war, when I saw the new batch of recruits coming in to be trained. When you look at the problems of our labor force today, I would say look back to my memories of that occasion, and say that, given the need, and given the opportunity, I think that these kinds of programs would work.

I think it's the only thing that's going to work at this time, in a timely fashion. Maybe down the line we can revise legislation, get systems going. But right now, we need emergency action.

Debra Freeman: Lyn, I have a question for you from Senator Joe Neal from Nevada. He is the chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus there. And his question is: "How can you get African-Americans to buy into the 1933-1965 period, when civil rights were at their worst, especially in the South, during that timeframe?"

Lyndon LaRouche: Well, I think the point is, one has to look back actually at the period, look at what the mentality was.

This was a period in which the African-American, so-called, began to move in large numbers out of the Republican Party, into the Democratic Party around Roosevelt. It didn't move into the Democratic Party around Roosevelt--although there were some cases, like our old friend Hulan Jack, the former Borough Chairman of Manhattan, Borough President of Manhattan, who, typical of the so-called African-American role inside the Democratic Party under Roosevelt. In other parts of the country, things were not so good.

Take, for example, remember, Birmingham at the end of the war, after the war had been fought, and the fight among African-Americans in Birmingham, for rights, and other cities of the South. So the conditions, even after Roosevelt's Presidency and death, the conditions of African-Americans in the United States in the Democratic Party, were not that good. But there was something else going on, and one has to look back to Martin Luther King; not because he's the only figure. Frederick Douglass before him was extremely important in this respect, as a pacesetter, for the liberation of former slaves.

But Martin was exceptional, in the sense that he rose above other so-called leaders, and this became more clear to us when we lost him, than when we had him. Because suddenly we looked back a few years after Martin's death, and we could realize more keenly what we had lost in him.

He was a man who had risen to a point of spiritual strength as a leader, where he was not a leader of African-Americans; he was a leader of Americans. He was the type of person, who would have been admirably qualified to become the President of the United States. Because he was, implicitly, a potential President of all the people. He was a leader, really, of all the people.

Who rallied around Martin? From the New York area, and other parts of the country, it was the Jewish, Yiddish Renaissance, the children of the Yiddish Renaissance, who came to the United States as immigrants, who were among the leading people who responded to the question of civil rights, from the standpoint of the experience of the Yiddish Renaissance, in Eastern Europe, in the struggle for civil and political rights there; the struggle for Jewish emancipation by the Renaissance movement. Others were involved. Martin was never specifically a secretion of African-Americans. He was of African-American so-called extraction, but he was not genetically African-American. There is no such thing as a genetic African-American, really. Human beings are human beings. He was a person who, in that situation, showed himself as a leader of the people. A person who could unify people, around higher goals, which addressed, at the same time, these specific problems of any section of the population.

We lost him. That's our problem now.

People are looking for an interest group kind of composition of politics; I don't believe in it. I believe in responding to the fact that somebody's abused, or suffering, or aspiring to get some freedom and so on, that's fine. But that's not the way real politics works. Real politics works, when you stop thinking about categories, and think only about human beings. When you say there is no race but the human race. There are idiosyncracies, differences--they're not important. Because when you know people from around the world, you know what's important about a person is their mind, and the moral development of that mind. The creative power of that mind. The development of those qualities of that mind. To be a leader, is a person to see these minds.

It may sound theological, but, look, it's important. Ask yourself, what's your sense of identity? Who do you think you are? What do you think you are? What do you think is your significance once you're dead? Are you a dead dog, to be buried and forgotten? Or does your life mean something while you're living it? And will it mean something after you're dead? What is that quality that makes your life meaningful, even after you're dead? What do you do with your life, while you're alive, that makes it important even after you're dead, for future generations? What do you do to honor the past, to give new meaning to the past? To give possibility to the future? Do you think of yourself of being of a certain skin color, or some other foolish thing?

You think of yourself as a human being, with human qualities, as every other human being has human qualities. And you think about what's important to people, their real interests. The real interest of every person is, what does my life mean when I'm dead? What will it have meant, and what does it continue to mean, when I'm dead? Who is going to ensure that that life of mine will continue to mean something after I'm dead? I raised good children; who's going to protect those children, after I'm dead? Who's going to protect those grandchildren, after I'm dead? Who's going to see to it that they're guaranteed the right to an education, after I'm dead?

That's what it is to be a President. It's to be a person who cares for all of the people, not because of what they think they want, for gratifications, in this moment or that moment of life. But what they care about. Particularly as they get older, they think about their children and grandchildren. They think about their life and what does their life mean. The inbetween being born and dying. What does that life mean in eternity? As expressed typically, by the way you think about your children and grandchildren, and so forth, and those who come after, and other nations.

Martin was the kind of person who expressed that point of view. Others around him did not express that, with the same effectiveness. They did not express what Paul in First Corinthians XIII, refers to as agape, the Greek term agape, which comes from Plato's dialogues. Which is used by Paul to define that quality. Martin had agape as a quality. That's what his power was. Not the power of a fist. Not the power of a rabble-rousing speech. Not the power of just rabble-agitator. He was a man of agape, who, had he lived, would have made a better President than anyone who came after him.

That's what the point is. Frederick Douglass had some of the same qualities, in his time. Other people, less known, have had the same qualities. And it's because there was an instinct for this, among people who had been oppressed. Sometimes people who have not had the best appreciation of life, because having nothing material, having no security, they have nothing left for them, except that which is in them, is essentially human. And sometimes they respond with greater humanity, just because they have nothing but humanity in them, and no other kind of wealth.

No, the African-American generally, responded in a very intelligent, and sensitive way, as expressed by their movement away from the Republican Party, which had betrayed them, into a Democratic Party, which had been their greatest oppressor, when they recognized in Franklin Roosevelt, something, a spark, with which they could identify. And the African-American, despite the abuse that he suffered at the hands of Dixiecrats, and others, continued to cling to that, up to the present time.

This was not the fact they were rewarded. This is the fact that it was human. And sometimes human beings smell something, that they respond, which other people who are less sensitive, may overlook.

So, I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem is, what we need is leaders of passion. Leaders impassioned by agape, who love people, who love the future, who are going to fight for the future, and when the people know they have those kinds of leaders, the people will smell it, and they will respond accordingly. Our concern should be to be, to become, and to produce and develop such leaders. Eh? That's the answer to the question.

Debra Freeman: Lyn, you've been very gracious to stay with us as long as you have. There are still far more questions than we can ask you. What I want to do now, as we start to bring the event to a close, as you may know, this is the Winter break in the United States, and there are large numbers of college students, from several states, who are here in the audience, who are listening on the Internet, and who have submitted questions. I will forward those questions to you, as we always do, but, since it's become something of a tradition at these webcasts, I'd like to close with a question from one of the students who's here. I don't want to make her nervous, but she's going to have represent everybody else. So, I'd like to take this opportunity to call Maria Shannon to the microphone, from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Maria Shannon: Hi, Mr. LaRouche. My first question is, how do you propose to fix the education system in this country? And my second question is, how do we mobilize people, especially students, who have become demoralized, and who either don't know what's going on the world today, or don't care? I think the biggest question I have, is why don't they care, and how do we mobilize them in the right direction? Thank you.

Lyndon LaRouche: The first thing is, you want to get students to care about themselves, you have to care about them. It's just like this thing we're talking about Martin earlier. If... Great teachers were always able to inspire a certain number of students, because the basic thing that a teacher does, is care, a good teacher. Now, that's not sloppy caring. It's sometimes a rather tough thing.

What does a good teacher do?

A good teacher looks at a student, and says, "This slob, what am I going to do with this slob?" And the good teacher says, "Well, there's a mind in there. How do I get this mind active, turned on? How do I get this mind functioning?"

Now, the way it's done, as is done by great Classical entertainment and so forth, great plays, is, you've got to get the person involved, involved in discovering a principle, in which they realize that they, with some assistance perhaps, but they, in their mind, are actually re-experiencing the discovery of a principle, rather than trying to memorize a word and a formula. And when a person realizes that they have the power in themselves, to discover a principle, they tend to become optimistic, eh? Because they know that they can know.

The student is turned... The student goes into a course, to learn, textbook learning; they're killed. It kills, it squelches the spirit. You learn from a textbook. What's the right answer? Hey teacher, give us the right answer! A good teacher would never give a student the right answer. The teacher will make the student find out the answer. The teacher will guide the student to the point of being able to find the answer. But the teacher will never dictate the answer to the student. Oh, the teacher may have to give an answer to a question at a certain point, but the purpose of teaching, is not to get the students to learn to repeat after me. Not to learn to pass a multiple-choice examination. Would you want to hire a student who passed an examination, designed by Governor George Bush? That's the point.

So, you want the kind of teacher who gets the student to re-experience famous discoveries of principle, not to learn how to repeat them, but to experience them, to go through the experience. For example, we often use this case of Kepler's New Astronomy. Pose a question to a student, and say--the one we've gone through, you probably know these pedagogicals which some friends of mine and I do, now and then. Say, how was it that Kepler said, that he had a method of determining the orbit of a planet, to replace the incompetent method by Claudius Ptolemy, used by Copernicus, and used by Tycho Brahe? Now, this is a normal question on a secondary level, in a good school. You ask the student, "How?"

Then, the second question. What was it that Kepler discovered as a result of addressing that question? What is Kepler's notion of gravitation, as opposed to that stupid one that doesn't work, by Newton?

How did Fermat, some years later, discover that the pathway of light and refraction is not determined by shortest distance, but by shortest time? How was it that the entire development, competent development, of mathematical physics, was based on continued exploration of these two questions: Kepler's discovery of the principle of gravitation, and Fermat's discovery of the principle of least time.

In other words, a good education does that. It poses the questions, and structures the course, so the student is giving the means, including experimental means, to discovery for themselves, the answer to the question. Now, when the student does that, what does the student get? The student comes to know the name of a person, Johannes Kepler. They also get to know the names of persons, whoever the person is: Copernicus, Claudius Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe. They also learn some other names, names of Leonardo da Vinci, who gave some of these ideas to Kepler. Or Luca Pacioli, who was the teacher of Leonard da Vinci. Or Nicolaus of Cusa, who wrote the text and works on which Pacioli, Leonardo, and Kepler based themselves.

So, the student comes up, and says, "Wait a minute! I'm not such a dumb bunny. These are some of the greatest names in all human history in science, and I have just re-experienced what went on in their mind when they made this discovery. I'm not a dumb bunny. I am somebody."

So, the student now says, "Wait a minute! I've got locked up in me, this ability to re-enact these discoveries. And maybe, if I get good at it, I can make some new discoveries too myself, by learning how to do this, by re-experiencing this act."

And that, I think, is the basic thing that has to be done. First of all, in education, stop this crap about textbook learning, and multiple choice examinations. Stop this mass lecture business. Get a direct engagement of a competent teacher, who poses these kinds of questions, in all kinds of subjects, to the student, helps the student get the experimental work and so forth, that's necessary for the student to discover the answer, again. And to go on, and make new discoveries. To get the students fascinated with the idea that they can do things. The great student does not really learn most of what he or she learns in a classroom. The great student is one who is inspired, by the experience of learning some things, to know how to make discoveries, and to go on and discover other things.

A student of that quality, and background, is a very optimistic person. Because they're optimistic about what it means to be a human being. They're also people who tend to have better relations with other human beings. Why? Because they look at the other person. They don't say: "What do you know? what do you don't?" They say, "You too are a person. What have you discovered?" "Hey, I've got this problem. What do you know about it?" "Do you know what I just learned? Are you interested?"

So, the students begin to relate to each other, not as one dog sniffing at the tail of another, which is the usual thing these days, I believe, in school, which is rather pessimistic. It would make me disgusted. But they relate to one another in the fact that they each have a mind, and they are responding to the fact that there's something inside those minds, that's essentially beautiful, the power of creativity, the power to discover valid ideas, and know they're true. That's what's wrong. We don't do that. Our best schools, our best teachers, were always those who did that in their own way, in some way, in whatever subject they were teaching. And that's what's needed.

So, my approach to this, is that we should do in life, not just in school, but in the normal course of life, we should have those recreational and other activities, which enable us to do this, and to enjoy being human beings. To feel good about being human, eh? I think that's the answer to the question.

Debra Freeman: Thank you, Lyn. Do you have anything--I think you've covered most things--do you have anything you want to say, in conclusion, for our poor country?

Lyndon LaRouche: Yes. We have to organize to win, not only in the country, but internationally. We have to make the American people, as a people, respectable again, by assembling around the Democratic Party or the good people in it, assembling a force which commands respect around the world. And using the fact that we are earning that respect, by pulling ourselves together, to deal with other nations. And to select and control the leaders we pick, in our nation, with those purposes in mind.

And the essential thing is not only to exert power, in the sense of political power in the crude sense, but to exert authority, in the intellectual and moral sense. And to be happy with ourselves, and what we're doing with our lives.

When we take into account the perilous state which our nation, and humanity in general, faces today in this present crisis, and the degenerated condition of our nation, its morals and so forth, we should find meaning to our own personal lives, in what we're doing individually and together, to restore what we might call decency and hope to the future of our people, and to be able to look at people in other countries without being ashamed of the country from which we come.

Additional Question

Mr. Hasan Mesut Hazar, a reporter for the Turkish daily, Turkiye, who attended the Jan. 3 seminar, but who had to leave early, e-mailed his question to Mr. LaRouche, which he had wanted to ask at the event:

"Mr. LaRouche, what do you think concerning how the German-Russian-Iran trade agreements (you mentioned) will or can impact resolving the crises in Central Asia, the Balkans, and the Middle East? And also, what do you think should be the U.S. policy (along with its allies, such as Turkey) towards Central Asia and the Balkans?"

Mr. LaRouch's reply, dated Jan. 6, 2001:

I look at this question from the standpoint of the history of modern Turkey, especially those historic speeches of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk from the period 1918-1927, which define the victorous struggle to establish modern Turkey as a sovereign republic. The practical question is, therefore: How can Turkey today find the circumstances for necessary economic and related development of the nation, by aid of cooperation with European states such as Germany and Russia?

If we could assume that the context of such cooperation would be the kinds of twenty-year and longer agreements on trade and related cooperation among a Germany-pivotted western Europe, Russia, and the states of Central, East, and South Asia, Turkey's participation in such cooperation is not only an advantage for Turkey's prospects of development, but for the mutual security of all of those regions of Eurasia involved.

The leading feature of Turkey's participation in such cooperation would be the use of large-scale development of basic economic infrastructure in two categories. The first would be long-term hard-commodity development, featuring transportation corridors, power production and distribution, and large-scale water development and management systems; the second would be education and health-care systems. I believe it safe to estimate, that the goals should be one-and-a-half units of private economic activity promoted for each unit of investment in basic economic infrastructure, or about the same ratio achieved under President Franklin Roosevelt's economic-recovery program of the 1930s and early 1940s.

The pivotal feature of this for Turkey's economy, would be that the transportation and related routes developed across Turkey would be the routes along which the highest relative rate of Turkey's internal economic development would occur. The old Hittite routes up from Mesopotamia, the trans-Caucausus routes, and the routes from Anatolia's western region into the Balkans and across the Black Sea would give a new quality of modern meaning to old traditions.

Such arrangements would be beneficial to all of Turkey's neighbors and partners, a benefit which would do much to improve the long-term strategic security of Turkey for generations yet to come.

Best wishes,
Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.