Open Discussion

The following is a rough transcript of the Feb. 16 Open Discussion panel of the Presidents' Day 2003 Conference of the International Caucus of Labor Committees and the Schiller Institute. The panel was chaired by EIR Counterintelligence Editor Jeffrey Steinberg.

Hal Cooper: Jeff, Thank you very much. It's an honor for me to be here. And, Mr. LaRouche, I wanted to present this painting to you.

Lyndon LaRouche: Thank you.

Hal Cooper: It was commissioned by me from a commercial artist by the name of Craig Thorpe, and it would be an idealization of your concept for a high-speed ground transportation corridor, incorporating Mag-Lev and railroad on the West Coast by Mt. Shasta.

Lyndon LaRouche: We have to get that, don't we? [applause]

Hal Cooper: Yes, we do.

LaRouche: We have to get that installed [as heard] We get that installed, [inaud so that?] more people can see it during the remainder of events. We'll find a stand for it.

Jeffrey Steinberg: I'm going to continue with the list of people who have signed up to ask questions here in the audience, and those of you who want to add your names to the list, you can find Charles Notley taking down names in the middle of the room. First question from Ed Hamler from Philadelphia. Is he here in the auditorium?

Ed Hamler: Hi Lyn, I'm Ed Hamler from Philly. I had a quick question about music for you. I'm a product of the counterculture, and it's funny because I can't really let go yet, but I'm trying to move forward to this Classical realm that we always surround ourselves with, and I'm really struggling with the Classical music concept. I'm not really getting what it means. Like, I understand where it comes from, but I don't really understand the relationships between the notes and what they're supposed to mean, and these kinds of things.

And, question number two is, where will we move on, after we've mastered Classical music? Like, what's the potential for new kinds of music, using these same kinds of principles?

Lyndon LaRouche: Well, we have a number of implicit questions there, which are a cascade of questions. First of all, to answer this, let me pick up with what Helga was referring to, toward the close of her presentation earlier today, on the concept of the sublime and how it's effected, and what is the meaning of "Classical," because "Classical" is not an appellation of music, it's an appellation of a way of thinking. The way of thinking is known to us in European civilization from about the time of Thales and Pythagoras in extended Greek civilization. It was a form of European civilization, which from about the Seventh Century B.C., in particular, it was based on Egypt, just as the earlier Greek cultures were based largely on Egypt, from the previous millenium.

This is referred to, of course, in the Timaeus and the Critias of Plato, these antecedents. But, "Classical" means a method.

Now, let's start with the question in mathematics, because, to understand this Classical in art, you have to start with a point of reference. Classical means physical science, first of all. Now, the first meaning is the meaning expressed in terms of man's individual relationship to the universe. Man as an individual in relationship to the universe, especially in respect to the world around us.

The other relationship, which is Classical art, refers to man's relationship to man as a social relationship in terms of a Classical relationship of the individual to the universe.

Now, you start from the concept of knowledge. You start from Plato's, for example, illustration of the parable of the cave. As I said yesterday, we don't know anything from our senses directly. That is, sense knowledge is irrelevent as such, because the senses are merely organs of our physiological apparatus, and what we think we know from our senses is a reaction of our sense organs to stimulation by the universe around us, such as pain. And, therefore, we interpret these.

But this does not represent the real universe, as Plato describes it in the Republic, that what the senses show us are merely the shadows of reality. The shadows of reality are essentially the result of the impact of the world around us on our sense organs, as our mind interprets those sense organs. That is not reality; those are the shadows of reality.

Reality consists of what we call universal physical principles, which are discovered, as Plato describes it, as hypotheses. The experimental validation of these hypotheses, showing that we can use these principles to cause the world of sense perception to change, for us, in ways which is not otherwise possible, proves that these hypotheses are principles. They are efficient principles. Now, an efficient principle can never be seen directly in terms of the senses. The senses show us only the shadows of reality; the principles show us reality. That is Classical.

Now, for example, you have several cases in mathematical physics, in the ancient Greek mathematical physics. That is, prior to about 300 B.C., before Euclid, pre-Aristotelian, pre-Euclid sense of mathematics. The pre-Euclid, the pre-Aristotle sense of mathematics. And, Aristotle has no relationship to Plato except that of an enemy. Once you understand that Aristotle is the enemy of everything that Plato represents, and everything that the Classical represents, then you're on the first step towards knowledge.

Now, the ancient Greek Classical method in mathematics was based on construction. And the idea of construction was the idea of the physical universe. In other words, by attempted constructions in a geometric form, for example, you were attempting to discover what principles would enable you to do certain tricks with sense perception, to master sense perception. So, all of the ancient mathematics, the ancient science, prior to Aristotle and Euclid, of European civilization, was based on the method of hypothesis derived from the concept of construction, not from the idea of the so-called "definitions, axioms, and postulates" of Euclidean geometry or an Aristotelian method.

If it involves definitions, axioms, and postulates, it is not Classical. It is what, in terms of modern European civilization, is Romantic. And, it does not represent knowledge; it represents learning. And learning is bad; knowledge is good. [laughter]

Now, in about 200 B.C., the Aristotelian, Euclidean method began to take over, under the influence of the rising power of Rome, of imperial Rome. This is expressed by the death of Erastothenes of Egypt, who was the leading scientific thinker of the world in that particular time, and with Erastothenes' correspondent and friend in Syracuse, Archimedes, who was murdered by the Romans about that time, about the time following the Second Punic War, where Rome began to rise in power.

Now, from that period, with some intervening exceptions, essentially from the Arab Renaissance and from the efforts of the Augustinians within Christianity, there was an attempt to return to the Classical concept of science and, as I shall indicate, art. But, from that period generally, from about 200 B.C. until the Fifteenth Century Renaissance, European civilization was dominated by a degenerate form of culture called "Romanticism." Romanticism was based on the culture of ancient Rome, especially the Roman Empire, which was a decadent culture. Eh? Which is the origin of fascism in modern society.

The first modern fascist was, of course, Napoleon Bonaparte. His immediate theoretical follower was Hegel and Hegel's theory of the state, which is the model of the fascist state. The follower of Napoleon was his nephew, Napoleon the Third, and then that led on to people like Mussolini and Hitler, and to people like the key people behind the war on Iraq today, who, around Dick Cheney and Cheney's circles, and Ariel Sharon, an avowed fascist, are the modern successors to Adolph Hitler in the world today.

This is called, generally, Romanticism, as, for example, the France under Napoleon Bonaparte was based on the Roman model, the Caesar model, that Napoleon as emperor had himself crowned as Caesar, and as a Roman imperial Pontifex Maximus who is the arbiter of religion. In other words, his conception of society was a pantheon of different religions, and he, as the emperor or Pontifex Maximus, would tell these various religions what they were allowed to believe. Just like the Roman Empire, which controlled all the religions that were legalized, were legalized under the Emperor, just as in Byzantium, Constantine was never a Christian, he was the Pontifex Maximus, who, as we know in the famous case, would dictate what was allowed Christian doctrine. And those who didn't agree with the Emperor, who was not a Christian, would then have to be banned, or crucified, perhaps, which still continued in those times. So, this was the fascist model.

European feudalism was predominantly this Romantic form. Most of European civilization, except for certain influences from the Augustinians, who were generally frowned upon by the official church in that period, and by certain Jewish influences in the tradition of Philo of Alexandria, expressed by Moses Maimonides, and so forth, and by the Arab Renaissance, in particular, including the Abassid Dynasty, and including also the influence of Ibn Sina, who was one of the leading successors in Islam to the Abassid Dynasty.

So, suddenly there was a revolution, in the beginning of the Fifteenth Century, centered in Italy, which gave us the first modern nation state, that which Jeanne D'Arc made possible in France, that of Louis XI of France, the first state which was a modern state. From the period of the Roman Empire until the Renaissance, European law and most world law was imperial law. That is, only a person with the authority of a Pontifex Maximus or Emperor was allowed to make law. Kings could exist, but kings could not make law; they could only administer. The law under which the empire functioned was determined by the authority of the Emperor, imperial law. Imperial law ruled Europe from the rise of Rome until the Fifteenth Century Renaissance. Imperial law was restored by Venetians as a form of religious warfare between 1511 and 1648, in the great period of religious wars organized against the Renaissance and against modern civilization, by especially the Hapsburgs, but under Venetian direction.

So, when we use the term "Classical," we are referring essentially to the revival of the Classical Greek method in science, first of all, and then in art, taken from the Platonic tradition of ancient Greece. The central feature of this is essentially the notion of hypothesis, the paradox of the so-called Plato's cave. That what the senses represent to us, which can be learned by the senses, and by the senses alone, is what a monkey can learn. That is, a Romanticist is a monkey. It's a human being who has turned himself into a synthetic monkey or gorilla. He can learn tricks; he can giggle like mad; he can be titulated and amused, and angered; but he can't really think. That's called "Romanticism" in European civilization. That's belief in sense certainty. This is known as "Aristotelianism." It's also known as "empiricism." It's known as "existentialism."

What is generally taught in schools today—to get to this art business, lay the basis for it. What is taught in school as mathematics and physics today, generally, in terms of principle, is a form of Romanticism, a form of empiricism, neo-Aristotelian at most empiricism. Kant was an empiricist by training, and he found there were certain problems with empiricism as taught by the British, by Hume who had been his master, and he changed and he brought in Aristotle's categories to reorganize empiricism from within, and existentialism is a product of this process. So, what is generally accepted as modern European philosophy taught in universities and practiced and accepted by the mass media, is a form of Romanticism as a decadent form.

This is true in mathematics. The issue is typified by the case we used with the youth movement educational program. The case of the 1799 paper of Karl Gauss exposing the fraud of Leonhard Euler and Joseph Lagrange on the question of mathematics and physics.

Now, what happens? Let's take two cases in science alone, just to illustrate the point, and proceed from that to show what we mean by Classical art, and what Classical music means in terms of Classical art generically.

Let's take first the case we've referred to of Kepler's discovery of the hypothesis which he proved, that the universe is organized not by simply regular, circular, Aristotelian motion, by an Aristotelian interpretation of sense perception of normalized observations of planets and stars, but that there are principles, which operate behind the mere shadows of normalized astronomical observation.

The first of these principles is called the principle of gravitation, whose discovery is described in great detail, in the 1609 The New Astronomy, by Kepler, who was the original discoverer of astronomy, as a science, and the original discoverer of the principle of universal gravitation.

Our second case—remember this went, first of all, to the hypothesis—the Keplerian hypothesis that the anomalies, i.e., the elliptical, non-uniform motion, non-uniform elliptical motion of the Mars orbit, in particular, demonstrated that Aristotle was bunk. And, much you'll find, if you're reading The New Astronomy, that Kepler devotes himself to explaining why Aristotle is bunk, is fraud, and other things of that type.

That's the Keplerian hypothesis, that there is an intention in the universe, invisible to the senses, but efficient, which organizes the behavior of the planets, of the solar system. This intention, this hypothesis, is universal gravitation, as I have described it. Now, therefore, you have a typical case of a classical method, a classical experience, in discovery.

Now, let me go to the second one, then come back to what the two examples mean. In the second case, let's take the case of Fermat's demonstration of what became known, with Leibniz's later work, as the principle of universal physical least action. Now, the first experimental demonstration of this, and the production of the first hypothesis, was by Fermat. Fermat observed that, on the one hand, as long as we were operating in the air medium, that the reflection of a beam of light was such that the angle of incidence, and the angle of reflection of the beam, were equal. However, when we came to refraction, when you take a beam of light and its incident is upon a surface of liquid, and the liquid is not air, but water or some fluid, then the angle of refraction is not necessarily equal to the angle of incidence. And, this varies, with the material.

Now this was generalized by several people, but especially Fermat, by showing that there is a principle underlying this action of refraction. That incident became that the pathway, which light takes in going from the angle of attack on the surface, to the angle of refraction within the material, is always the shortest or quickest time, not the shortest distance. If you account for the special case that when the reflection is occurring in the air, that the angles are equal, this is a special case, which conforms to the same principle—that whatever the medium is, the angle of reflection or refraction always follows this, what was called "the law of sines" by some people—that the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction always correspond to a total distance displacement along a pathway of the quickest time, not the shortest distance.

So, once we introduce a physical concept into astronomy, as Kepler did, in the observation of the planets; once we introduce a physical consideration into the question of refraction and reflection, we immediately run up against the fact there is no such thing as geometry. Euclidean geometry, Aristotelian geometry does not exist, except in the fantasies of a fool. [laughter] Because there is nothing in the universe which is not the result of a physical geometry, in which the principle of construction, as used by the followers of Pythagoras and Plato, determines what the lawful characteristic of the principles of physical geometry are.

This is the argument, which was made implicitly, always by Leibniz. This is the argument, which was made by Gauss against Euler and Lagrange, the two fakers, the two empiricist fakers. This is the basis for the notion of geometry developed by Gauss, which is the so-called principles of curvature, and the derivative of that, which is Riemann's conception of a purely physical geometry with no definitions, axioms or postulates. That you only know what you are able to prove as experimentally proven hypotheses. And what you are able to prove as experimentally proven hypotheses are called universal principles, and they operate universally. They define the universe.

So, it's that universe living outside the shadows of the cave, which is reality. In each of these cases, what is happening? You're confronted with an ambiguity, a metaphor, that something does not work. Now, what's the effect? When you recognize, you believe, you start out believing, that your senses are reliable, that your senses show you the real world, and all you have to do is generalize your experience in the real world and learn what others have learned before you in this way, and you are a person of 'knowledge.' Not at all! You're a fool. [laughter]

What happens then, when the fool walks in, and the fool discovers that there is an anomaly in the shadows, and the fool has a sense of exquisite pain. Exquisite intellectual pain, genuine suffering, rage. Probably takes up a joint and lights it. And says, "I didn't like this class anyway." [laughter] So, that's pain, the pain of recognizing that what you assume to be of 'my own personal experience,' is false.

Now, the second phase is to accept that. "OK, so I was wrong. My senses are merely a result of the reactions of the sense organs of my body to the world. They do not represent the world outside my body, they represent my reaction inside my body to what is happening on the outside. It does not tell me what's going on outside. How can we know what's going on outside?"

So, the person says, "OK, I'll take the pain. Let me know what's going on outside my poor body. I don't want to be a monkey all my life." [laughter] Eh?

Then you get into the second phase, when you discover a provable universal principle. As a result of facing your pain, you discover this principle, and you discover you now have some control over that universe outside your body, and you have a certain physical proof that you know what you're talking about. That is joy! So this relationship of pain and joy is what is called "the Classical method."

"I have to take away your foolishness...." [raises pitch and issues a little shriek] "in order to free you for joy." [raises pitch and issues sigh of relief.] [laughter]

Now, this occurs, first of all: "Eureka!" Eh? Archimedes. It occurs secondly in a second situation. As I said, in the first situation, people, as if individually, discovering the universe which exists outside the bounds of their sense certainties. That is what we call "physical science," what we normally call "physical science," especially the science of the abiotic domain. And, to some degree, the science which has enabled us to understand some things about the living domain.

But, it is another area; it is the area of humanity. Now, true, we may have individual geniuses who, on their own, discover the universe, which exists outside the shadows, the cause of the shadows. But, how does society progress? How does society go from a species of George Bush-like monkeys with about three million potential on this planet—I mean that wouldn't even get him elected, would it? [laughter]—to a level of over six billion today? That means that what has happened is man's mastery over the universe has been increased, by at least that degree, through the process of discovery.

Now how did this occur? It occurred through the replication of the act of discovery, transmitted through successive generations; that's what we call culture, including educational processes that are relevant to this. Therefore, the question of mankind, and of human nature, is not merely the individual's ability to discover the individual relationship to the universe around us, but the ability of the human being to transform the behavior of the human species through the accumulative transmission and mastery of these discoveries of principles going back many millions of years that the human species has existed on this planet.

Now how does that transmission occur? It occurs in a way which is related to the original simple kind of discovery that we call "physical science." It is going to another person, or another group of persons, and sharing the experience of a discovery and, further, studying the peculiarities of the social processes by which we are able to transmit the experience of pain and joy in discovery to other people.

In other words, two things have to be done, socially. First, you must transmit the discovery by one person to other persons. That is the experience of going through the act of pain and joy, which leads to a valid knowledge of principle. That's Number 1. Number 2: that there is a lawfulness to the way in which this process of transmission works. This, too, involves principles—principles of the way in which the human mind works, emotionally and otherwise.

So, therefore, in this area of experiment, that is social experiment, the transmission of valid ideas, the same question of principle comes up. Now, it comes up with what? It comes up again as a form of joy and pain, in the same way that thinking about the relationship of man to the universe comes up, but this time the subject is not just man to the universe, the subject is man to man in the universe—human mind to human mind in the universe.

So how do we, as we say, communicate discoveries of principle in such a way that the human race progresses in its power over the species, despite the death of the original discoverers? This is called Classical art. Any other kind of art, is not art. It is manure daubings on the walls of history.

What's the difference between non-Classical art—let's take the case of Beethoven. Let's take the case of the performance of Beethoven, or Mozart, in particular. What is competent, and what is romantic? What is the difference between Franz Liszt and Beethoven? Take the case of what Beethoven said about Franz Liszt.

Franz Liszt, as a young teenager, was brought by his teacher, Karl Czerny, to Beethoven for Beethoven to audit the talent of this young teen-aged keyboard artist, Franz Liszt. The people asked Beethoven, what do you think of this young talent? He said he is a very talented young man, said Beethoven, but, unfortunately, he is being trained by that criminal Czerny.

The result was that you have a Liszt, who is not able to compose Classical compositions. He is able to compose fakes of Classical compositions, like fake Rembrandts. There is something missing. He is able to caricature, to imitate the Classical method of Bach through Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms, but he cannot compose a work of Brahms, a work of Schumann, a work of Felix Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert—can't do it.

He is against it on principle because he is against the submission to a principle of Classical composition. He says, "I like it. The suckers like it. When I play that way, they like it."

Now, you also get another category. You get the category of the romantic performer, who will take an actual Classical composition, and perform it as if it had been composed by Franz Liszt, and butcher it, and people say, "I like the effects. I like the passage work."

The only trouble is that no Classical composer ever resorted to passage work.

What's the difference; what's the issue here? The issue in classical art is not of style, it's not of form. Classical composition in any form of art is never a form. It is not a school. It is a principle. What's the [] principle? The principle of ambiguity. The same principle we encounter in physical science in the case of the discovery of Kepler, or the discovery of Fermat and his followers on the question of universal least action.

It starts with pain. You create a paradox in composition. Now the paradox is there before you actually start to compose, because all music comes from the act of speaking, human speaking. Human speaking is based on certain principles, of the physiological characteristics of the human voice speaking, singing apparatus. These principles, as we know by inference, were the principles of Pythagoras in defining the comma. These principles are inherent in what is called the Florentine bel canto method of voice training, and the result of this is that when people speak in a literate form of language, including ancient Classical poetry, they don't speak like television reporters today. They don't go rat-a-tat-tat. They don't read text. They communicate ideas. They don't play notes.

No musician, worthy of the name, plays notes. There is nothing in a note. What there are, there are ironies, paradoxes in notes, like the elliptical, non-uniform motion of Mars. These arise the minute you introduce notions of counterpoint or try to convey ideas. Any idea you try to convey involves the conveying of a paradox. You give pain! Why? Why should you talk? You have to tell somebody that something is not true that they believe. You have to convince them that something is true, which they believe. Therefore, you have to inflict pain upon them. The pain is, you use the language, which is common to you and to him or her, and use the language in such a way that you introduce an irony, an ambiguity, an element of surprise.

I've often referred to Furtwängler's method of conducting, in which the element to understand how Furtwängler's genius in conducting is, is the element of surprise, which starts from before the first note is heard from the orchestra. Furtwängler, who has rehearsed the orchestra repeatedly in this thing before hand, stands up before them, and they are waiting for the sign to begin. He catches them by surprise! So the element of surprise goes all the way through. The use of counterpoint, as such, when you invert something—a statement—invert it, and then counterpose the inversion to the original statement. You have created paradoxes, which arise from the very nature of the human singing voice, understood in a Florentine bel canto way.

The result is what is called Bach's method of well-tempered composition. The well-tempered system is a result of just exactly that. So the Classical system of musical composition is not a style in composing, it is an eternal form of composition, which will never change, but will always change. It will never change in the sense that the principles involved will never change—they are universal!

Anything, which violates Bach's method is wrong, but there is also progress and development, as we see in the great work of Haydn and Mozart and Beethoven, especially the late quartets of Beethoven, which are a revelation, a breakthrough in the conception of what Bach had accomplished way beyond Bach, but based on it, and so forth and so on. Or the Brahms' 4th Symphony, which has implications relevant to the Beethoven 7th Symphony and so forth—implications of great importance. Discovery of the new implications or the broader implications of modal composition, which Beethoven worked on, and others worked on, but the foundation never changed!

The development continued. The law of gravity was never repealed! The principles of Bach will never be repealed, but development will occur within the framework of that process of development.

I reference the case of the cupola, the importance of the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiori in Florence, where the principle of construction is the principle of least action—the catenary principle, is the principle involved in the process of construction. It is not a form superimposed upon the cathedral. It is a form generated by the catenary principle. This principle, the catenary principle, as expressed in that form, is the same thing as Leibniz's principle of universal least action. It is also the principle of composition, which distinguishes the art of the dead—tombstone art—of Archaic Greek from the Classical Greek art, which captures a figure in permanent mid-motion, in frozen motion.

So, Classical is a way of thinking. It is a way, which involves the pain of discovery that you were wrong, and the rewards, the joy, of discovering the truth that you are able to uncover by facing the fact that you were wrong. It is the relationship of the tragic, that is, the habits we have acquired, which will lead to our destruction, if we follow them; to the sublime, the discovery of the principle, which frees us from that tragic force.

So, there is no escape from Classical musical composition. It is the only right way to go. However, like all things that are right, like the universe itself, the smarter we get, the more we improve.

Jeffrey Steinberg: For those of you who are listening to this event on the worldwide web, this is the Sunday afternoon session of the Schiller Institute annual Presidents' Day weekend. Now before calling up the next questioner, I want to make a brief announcement.

I want to call your attention to the literature table out in the hallway, where there are some extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime bargains presently available. All of the EIR Special Reports that remain in our inventory are on sale through the remainder of the conference for 80% off, and I can tell you that includes the probably last four available copies of the 1988 Kalmanawitch report, which is very relevant to everything that Lyn has been discussing about Marc Rich and Steinhardt and this whole dirty mafia apparatus. There is also a series of video tapes that, collectively, have been labeled, "Learn how to think like LaRouche," involving a 1984 historic campaign event, called Henry Kissinger, Soviet Agent of Influence, Lyn's extensive 1999 strategic assessment, Storm Over Asia, a series of special editions of the LaRouche show from the year 2000 and 2001 on the Bush family, a 2001 interview with Lyn, called "Conversations with LaRouche in a time of crisis," and a report that was prepared last year on "The Pollard Affair, Take 2," and the Iraqi war threat, so this is an issue we have been fighting for some time—reduced rates on all of those items out there at the literature table through the remainder of the conference.

Also, for those of you listening on the worldwide web, as well as people here in the audience, we are very happy to announce that as of yesterday, the Ben Franklin Booksellers, have gone on-line, and, therefore, all of these great friends from the last 2,400-2,500 years, their writings and other materials can be purchased at www.benfranklinbooksellers.com. [Editor's note: Ben Franklin Booksellers went out of business in September 2006.]

The next question is from Maria Channon from Baltimore.

Maria Channon: Helga, I think that you have, you are restoring the soul of the United States in the same way that Schiller, actually, restored the soul of France by bringing back Jeanne d'Arc, by writing that play after Voltaire had, I guess, seemingly destroyed the soul of France by attacking Joan of Arc and by attacking Leibniz.

If Voltaire had not written those two things, Candide and La Poucelle d'Orleans, would the French Revolution have been another American Revolution? Who was he working for, and who was Schiller fighting against?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think that Voltaire, unfortunately, was not the only one expressing the specific form of French Enlightenment. This goes back all the way to the Venetian influence of such people as Conti and a whole network of agentry, but I think that the key problem with the French Revolution beyond that, is that it was—I mean France has contributed incredibly important things. One was the idea of the sovereign nation state, which Jeanne d'Arc contributed to greatly. Another one was clearly the whole idea of sovereignty.

But there was a problem with French culture beyond that, and I think our French members, after some initial kvetching, would agree that the cultural question in France was really, except with people like Rabelais and so forth, a real problem because, for example, under Napoleon, the notion of classics did not refer to the Greek Classics, but it explicitly went back to the Roman writers of comedies and so forth, and all the French so-called big playwrights are, actually, in this tradition, everybody from Moliere to others in this line, which is a real problem because there was no genuine Greek orientation. There was no Renaissance, like in Italy. There was no Classical period referring to either the Italian Renaissance or the Greek Renaissance, and, therefore, in a certain sense, what Schiller attacked especially was this so-called esprit, which he said has nothing to do with a genuine humor. It's not the kind of beautiful humor, like Rabelais, which I recommend to people to read because it's very liberating. I mean it's a very liberating kind of polemic and humor, but the French esprit, the wittiness, the throwing fun ideas—it's actually—

Schiller not only wrote Jeanne d'Arc against La Poucelle, La Poucelle was a play by Voltaire, where he took Jeanne d'Arc, and he made it totally disgusting. He portrayed Jeanne d'Arc as a stupid little peasant girl, who was permanently seduced and mutilated by disgusting priests and noblemen, and it was all completely—I mean totally disgusting. Everything is reduced below the level of soap opera, more on the level of pornography almost, and the problem was that this particular play, La Poucelle, was known in all courts. Every nobleman could recite it by heart, and it was, you know—"Oh, how funny, ha, ha!"

And Schiller was so upset because he said that he had to save the dignity of Jeanne d'Arc, so he wrote his Jeanne d'Arc, and this was such an incredible polemic that, in the beginning, the Count of Weimar, who otherwise was relatively friendly to Schiller, did not allow the original performance of the works in Weimar, because he thought that all the nobility, who knew by heart the La Poucelle, would laugh their behind off, so it had to be performed, I think, in either Dresden or Berlin, or somewhere else, and only later came back to Weimar.

So, basically, what Schiller then also did, he wrote a beautiful poem, called the Maiden of Orleans, which we also have in the published Schiller works, in which he says, "Der Witz ist der feind" [Wit is forever the enemy of beauty.]

You have seen this in social situations, when somebody absolutely passionately establishes a notion of beauty, or truth, or sacred principles, and then some one comes along and cracks a joke, and makes a stupid remark, and all the tension is taken away.

This kind of destruction of the idea of beauty, which Schiller really re-established, and was an incredible work. He re-gave Jeanne d'Arc to the French culture. So I think what Schiller was fighting against, was actually this British and French Materialist Enlightenment, in which the word "Enlightenment" is already misleading because it was not enlightening. The Enlightenment was, basically, an early form of de-constructionism—that you take apart—if you take it back to Plato, to Augustinus, to Nicolaus of Kues, or Leibniz, you know, you had this incredible cohesion of the physical universe with the creative mentation of man. You had this idea that the laws of the universe and the laws of thinking have to be the same ones, because it is only because the ability of man to produce an immaterial idea, which then has an effect in the physical universe by improving the conditions of life of man through science and technological progress—that already is the proof that there is a correspondence and an identity between the laws of the mind, and the laws of the physical universe, because, otherwise, no idea could have that effect.

An idea is something you produce in your mind, and it has no volume. It has no weight. It doesn't smell. It's not sensuous. It is a very fluffy little thing, an idea, but this fluffy little thing has, you know, an incredible effect. It can change the population potential of the earth. It can send aircraft into space. It can do all wonderful things. All immaterial. The strict power of the idea.

Now, this was basically the case until Leibniz, and Leibniz's very powerful [work] re-established that principle, but then there was an absolute campaign coming from Newton, from England on the one side, but then mediated also through the followers of Euler and LaGrange in the Berlin Academy, and they basically tried to totally destroy the influence of Leibniz, and Voltaire was probably an agent, very consciously working with the King of Prussia, who had some good sides as a military person, but, on the human side, was basically a very weak fellow, probably he liked men more than women—there are some references to this, and French at that point was the diplomatic language, for every official; what English is today, French was then.

So, the environment, culturally, for Schiller was incredible, and it took an unbelievable nerve for him to intervene into all of this and re-establish the Jeanne d'Arc, as she really was. I think that is really an incredible proof of courage. It takes courage to be wise. That is exactly what Schiller said in the Aesthetical Letters. So, maybe, if Lyn has to add something—no?

Jeffrey Steinberg: The next question is from Darrel Dalton from Detroit.

Darrel Dalton: How'ya doin? I'm nervous. What I really want to get across is the true meaning of dignity and humanity, which leads to my question.

Is it a fallacy to justify myself as being human, black or man? Why should any one destroy any element that defines their God-like qualities in order to build on equality? My race doesn't bring indifference, and erasing that aspect of being human won't justify the notion of being human. One should be content with whatever makes you.

Equality is only justified when we realize that all men are God-like under God, and separation is not by race. It is by life forms, who are not God-like. Aren't these the equalities that bring out the integrity and dignity of humans in their existence?

Lyndon LaRouche: I think that we don't have such a problem, really. We have a fantasy that such problems exist, and sometimes society acts out fantasies instead of reality, and what we are experiencing is not reality in the sense of something lawful in the universe. We are experiencing a perversion, and these problems that you referred to, are largely simply perversions of society.

As I've tried to make clear, and I'll have to continue to make clear probably for some time to come, as long as I am around, and long after I'm gone by writing, and so forth:

Human nature is defined by the difference between man and an ape, and not only human nature is defined, but all purpose in life is defined that way, a proper purpose. That's why I raise the question of leadership. People stumble through life, and where most of the guilt problems arise, or the self-defeating problems arise, you say, "Well, I have to get what I'm gonna get within the framework of the conditions imposed upon me in society with the prevalent views it has, and the opportunities for experience I have within the framework of my life in this society," and that is poison. That acceptance is poison, but that acceptance is typical of our society.

Who would put up with the election of George Bush? I'm not knocking him. To knock George Bush is, so to speak, to gild the lily. He's done such a good job himself, I could not possibly wish to improve on any knocking of George Bush. (laughter) But the fact is, would people have put up with the fact that we had, not just George Bush, but in the year 2000 election, we had the two worst idiots of choice in the country, running as the only available presidential candidates?

Now, that obviously is not a problem of George Bush; it's not a problem of Al Gore, who probably would have been a much worse President than Bush has been. He would have gotten to war quicker, and I know him.

The issue is: What's wrong with the American people? (applause) Who reduced the selection of the President of the United States to principally two idiots, both unimproved by their Vice Presidential candidates? If there was anything that could make George Bush less qualified for President, it was the choice of Dick Cheney as Vice President.

If there was anything that would make Al Gore more of an abominable snowman than he is, it is the selection of Joe Lieberman, of organized crime, and a better Marc Rich representative than Gore himself, as Vice President.

Their only contribution to the position of Vice President is vice.

Now, the American people saw this. They went through primary elections and other election campaigns. They saw this. They had their influence in the respective parties. They saw this, and what did they do about it?

The behavior of the American people was disgusting, either because they voted for one of these clowns, or because they refused to vote at all, which is an act of criminal negligence. So the problem lies with the people. Why do people do such things?

I referred to it earlier. The lower 80% of the population, in particular, believes that they no longer have any real power over society, that they have to operate within the bounds of what is called "popular opinion," as largely dictated by the news media, or by whatever police force is handy around there, and, therefore, they try to make selections of choices. They go into life as a dumb student goes into a typical school classroom today: Asking to be rehearsed in advance in multiple-choice questions, which are going to come up on a computer-scored examination, and their fate is going to depend upon the computer-scored election results of that kind of stupid, animal-like procedure, and people will accept that!

Therefore, they ask themselves the question, "What can I do about life, given these circumstances. What do I have to bring myself to accept as choices, and I say, you don't have to accept those choices. Now, you say, well, I can die if I go your route. They may kill me. That's true, but would you rather be killed as a man, or kept as a pet in captivity? And the question you asked, implicitly poses that question.

You have a right to be all that you can be. You are a human being. Your potentialties are implicitly boundless, but if you care about what comes out of your life, what your life amounts to in terms of your contribution to humanity and future generations of society, you have great opportunities.

If you confine yourself to trying to pick an answer to one of the questions proposed on a multiple-choice examination, given by the present school system, the present system in general, your choices stink. My concern with you, and everyone else in a similar condition, and all of the youth are in this conditio:. All the people in your generation are in this condition. Everyone! I don't care what their background is. They all have the same problem, and you see in the experience of the youth movement, the discussions in the youth movement shows that.

There is no difference. I don't care what the backgrounds are. Everybody has the same general problem, the same general experience. They may have it in different varieties. They may have it with different parents, or quasi-parents, or suspected parents, or whatever, but they all have the same problem.

They are in a "no future" society, and they want to have a future! They would perhaps like to have a generation to follow them, like children or something, that would somehow survive. This is the great leveler. There are no racial differences or quasi-racial differences that amount to a hill of beans. There are antecedents in experience, antecedents in cultural background, antecedents of all kinds, but all of these differences dissolve into almost as if nothing, when compared with the problem of the "no-future" society, and I see in the youth movement, I see all kinds of people from all kinds of so-called backgrounds, making an active contribution to the process, which the youth movement is dedicated to bringing about, and I don't see any difference. I don't see any racial or other differences. They don't exist.

We have the most important difference is the large Hispanic-American youth population, which doesn't speak English so well, and, therefore, they have more difficulty in having effective communication in a deeper way inside the U.S. society, in particular. That's an example of it.

But, otherwise, there's no difference. You're all the same. To me, you are all the same, and I wish you would look at yourself that way.

Jeff Steinberg: The next question is from Amanda Lightner from Boston. (Not here.) Okay, then, Charles Spies from San Leandro.

Charles Spies: How are you doing, Lyn?

Lyndon LaRouche: Pretty good for an old geazer.

Charles Spies: You have been speaking for quite some time on the question of immortality, and this was recurring throughout your remarks yesterday and the questions and answers, and it took place in a lot of discussions after all the events, and, I wanted to have a clarification on this phenomenon that you get in organizing, primarily, elected officials.

I see it that you have to actually give these elected officials a sense of their immortality in order to get them to change, but this is fundamental. But they are so frightened of this idea, and they will respond in numerous different ways. They'll either turn themselves into a robot, you know, and go through motions, or they'll get rageful, and they'll yell and scream at you, as if you were a monkey.

My question is, I can get a sense of immortality, but the question I have is how to you accurately convey it in better and better ways?

Lyndon LaRouche: Again, it's a question of Classical art again, right? One, the so-called "physical science"—the relationship of the individual to the physical universe and the principle concept. The other is the relationship, the social relationship in society by means of which necessary ideas are imparted to others through a process of pain and joy.

Now apparently you have had some experience in delivering the pain? The question is how do we get to the joy part?

Now, this is a question of art. This is one of the reasons I am so happy about the work that is being done in California on trying to attack some of the elemental features of Classical performance because, as was said—Helga emphasized this today in her presentation, toward the end of her presentation.

In art, what we do, especially with the drama, and you know I have emphasized this repeatedly, the importance of Shakespeare, Schiller, and compare this with Plato's dialogues, which are actually a form of Classical drama, and to compare that with the pre-Platonic Classical tragedies.

This is the way to think, particularly, in European civilization, and I am sure we will find intimations of that in other parts of culture, such as ancient Indian culture, Chinese culture, and so forth, that there are relics of this kind of thing out there.

The drama, the function of the drama, was to, in a safe way, to present ideas, which people would otherwise hesitate to deal with at a certain kind of distance as spectators, but as involved spectators—that is, spectators who became psychologically involved in the drama, and to restrict these dramas to accounts, dramas, and so forth, which pose the Classical problems.

The problems of policies in society, a specific historic situation from the past or from a recent time, to present that on stage, so the audience going in like the poor little snooks, as they say, sitting there in the seats to be entertained, become, if the actors and the script-writers and so forth are adequate, then the audience, from the first instant, in the same way in the first instant of the orchestra, which is present at a Furtwängler conducting a great symphony.

From the first instant, their attention is captured! And from that moment, they are moved from a person sitting in a seat, not looking at the actor on stage as a person, but they are moved to a self that lives only in the imagination, and the actor on stage is not the actor you see, but is what is represented in the imagination, is the actor on the stage of the imagination.

Now this transformation in art is the secret of great artistic composition and performance. It is to get the audience out of their chairs, while sitting there, to look to be an audience in the imagination—in the theater of the imagination, looking at a performance, not on the stage, but on the stage of their imagination, and responding to what is going on the stage in terms of the imagination, so that when the theater has closed the performance, the curtain has run down, and the actors parade before the curtain to the audience, the audience is astonished to find that these are actually people standing there before them because they thought they were imagining the real actors, the real parts that these actors were playing, so the audience was so drawn into these dramas will abstract from these a sense of pain, anxiety, and joy, which is the Classical experience.

When you are dealing politically with an audience in a Congressional office or someplace else, you actually have to think in the same terms. What do you want to do? The first thing you want to do is—they say: "What are you hear to see me about? What are you hear to see me about? You have something you want to discuss?"

Now, at that point, that is not the situation as you wish it to remain. The same thing is true on the street. You have to change the situation. You have to change the relationship. You have to get the person to transport themselves from the anxiety of the nitty gritty in which they are standing, in the imagination.

What would you want the next President of the United States to do with this crisis, if you were President? What would you do, if you had the choice of choosing a President right now? Who would you choose and why? What would be your reasons and why? What would be your reasons? How would you defend your choice?

So you want to shift the attention from this little nitty-gritty thing on the street or the office, in to a focus, where suddenly this person is transported to the stage of the imagination, and you are a voice speaking from the stage of the imagination, and as you leave the office, they look at you and say, "Who are you? I was the guy you were just talking to." "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, now I remember."

If you get that sense of what you are doing, then you look at the question of performing an intervention in the same way as performing in the theater, or as an audience in the theater.

You see that in the Congressional office, the legislative office, or on the street, you have a mini-drama is occurring, and to see it as a mini-drama, which is a slice of the reality of the society with which we are dealing.

You want to transport them to what will happen as a consequence if this war on Iraq occurs? What happens if the price of oil goes to $80 or $100 a barrel as a result of the first act of war in the Middle East? What's the effect going to be on the poor of this country? What's going to be the effect on the state budget? What's going to be the effect on the cost of transportation? How are you going to get your house heated at those prices for the remainder of the winter?

And you want to transport the thing to the stage of the higher reality to get the person out of the sense they are sitting or standing in a place—the sense that they are in society and society is a process, and you are part of the process and they are part of the process, and you want to say, in the stage of our imagination, where the hell are we going now? And what shall we do about?

So it's a matter of perfecting—seeing this as the problem. This is the challenge—the same challenge as learning how to perform effectively a simple slice of a classical drama, and how to get the audience to see that drama in the theater, the stage, of the imagination, and then, at the end, to look at you and say, "Who are you? I was the guy who was just doing this. Oh, yes, now I remember."

Then, you have done an effective job. And so, it is not a question of techniques, as such, it's a question of developing the capacity to perfect that approach, which is the same approach, when in the classical Greek tragedy, where two guys wearing masks would appear on the stage of an amphitheater, and the audience would be transported into seeing a host of characters on the stage of the amphitheater, and there were only two actors doing the whole performance.

But as Shakespeare says in the prologue, or chorus, to Henry V, they are transported to the stage of the imagination, where all things are seen clearly and then, at the end, as the actors leave the stage, what they saw lives only in their imaginations, but they have learned something in the process, and to perfect that.

Jeffrey Steinberg: The correct website address for benfranklinbooksellers is www.benfranklinbooks.com

The next question is from Dean Grusky from Staten Island.

Dean Gruske: Hi, how are you doing? I am a mathematics teacher at a community college. I'm probably sort of getting myself in trouble for saying that because of all of the remarks today, but my question has to do with mathematics teaching, actually, You might have answered the question already, but I hope you can put more light on it.

Students learn to focus on using a formula to solve problems, rather than the process of the discovery of mathematics in classrooms. How can the system be changed in order to focus on how to think through the process? Math is taught with no real applications. Equations are treated as though the universe functions in that manner. Most students just want to know the equations and formulas to pass exams, with no focus on the rigor of discovery. The system is sort of a paradox to what there should be—you know there are definitions, postulates and axioms, but how can the schools be changed so that there is a rigor of discovery?

Lyndon LaRouche: First of all, there has to be a change of attitude in the design of the curriculum as a whole and the institution as a whole, but there are approximations, which I think should be obvious to you from just teaching experience. There are certain things you can do, if you have the freedom to do them, which can, shall we say, enhance the quality of the classroom experience by doing a few obvious tricks, which are based on an understanding of the Classical principles of physical science.

One trick, of course, is the old one: give the answer, and ask what is the question? In other words, to give, for example, a mathematical equation and say, what physically does this equation refer to? Because the problem we have with the student today, who just wants to learn how to pass the examination, which is what the problem is that you are up against.

These guys are in there, and they are desperate. They are panic-stricken if they are staying there. They are concerned about getting that "D" job. They are concerned with competing in the job market, or maybe they just want to play with their computer in a more fancy way at once, but whatever it is, the problem is they don't have a real objective. They don't want to know how the universe works, and one of the problems at a community college is—they say, well, this is a community college. It's for practical poor people to try to get ahead, who can't afford to be made dumber, which you made more proficiently dumb at Harvard, or some place like that. You don't know anything, but you feel much better about it, because you got a better job application.

The point is, what we want to do, or should want to do, objectively, what I want to do, and, somehow, can get this through the cracks in the system: I want to motivate people, young people, to actually begin to know. That is the reason I picked this Gauss problem, because the Gauss problem, the 1799 paper, why would the world's greatest mathematician in modern history, Carl Gauss, have written a paper denouncing Leonhard Euler and Joseph LaGrange, and, thus, implicitly denouncing Augustin Cauchy, Clausius, Helmholtz, [Grassman?], etc., etc. Why?

Why would he do a thing like that? And what did he do? And what is the importance of it? That takes you, I think, in all directions, I think, as our people, who have gone through this have begun to understand at least. The minute you go to the question of Archytus' construction, on the construction of the proof for the [Delian] problem, on the construction of the doubling of the cube, and look at that from the standpoint of the question of the doubling of the line, as an axiomatic concept against tacky axiomatics. How can you double a line? How do you determine you have doubled a line? Within the definition of a line? Aha!, you can't do it. It creates a problem.

Therefore, how do you double a square? What's the meaning of this process? That's a simple one. Now, let's go to the question of the double mean question, the doubling of the cube.

Now let's go to the question of the [Theatetus problem] of the Platonic solids, by taking and teaching Euclid backwards; start from Book 13 back to book 10, in a sense.

These kinds of things force people to think in classical terms, and think in terms of physics. Physical reality, not abstract, a priori, reality, and the problem in most schools, as I saw this in my youth, the problem I saw people go through a class, agonizing for an hour in a simple class in calculus, and I just did the thing in 5 minutes, or less than 5 minutes because it was obvious that from the standpoint of the complex domain, the solutions are obvious to all these kinds of problems, and they were struggling with a Cartesian solution to these problems, and they sweated it. And the problem is people are blocked by thinking they have to know something in terms of a quasi-Cartesian way of thinking about mathematics, when if they think about the physical problems, and think about the problems from the Greek standpoint of construction only. Prove it by construction. What physical problem does this refer to?

And, if you can get young people to accept that as a challenge, then they have a grounding, which they will say to many questions, "I don't know the answer. I haven't worked that out yet." Because they will limit the claims to knowledge to what they actually know, in the sense of classical knowledge.

I think that is the only solution, is to have that attitude, and to recognize, as you implicitly ask, is how do you do that in the context of today's classroom? And we used to call that, when education was better, we used to say that we would have some students who just wanted to pass the course; okay, we'll go through the motions. But some people want something more. They want an enriched view of the same subject matter, which the course covers, and my view is that is one of the alternatives, to find some way of giving the student, who wants to respond to that a sense of an enriched view on the same period, which is a dully taught routine for multi-choice examination scrutiny in the course of time.

What I have emphasized because of the problems of the classroom today, probably we will only succeed in doing this by a combination of a university on wheels, a youth movement of the 18-25 year age bracket, which is ... [tape change] ... equivalent of a 15-25-person classroom-type of interchange on these kinds of subjects, in some kind of free-wheeling, but nonetheless, more-or-less conceptually organized format. And you get an interchange of that process with the existing educational systems. Because you have people inside universities, reacting to what we're doing from the outside of universities, on the same kinds of subjects. If they're interested, if they're people with some concern, they're going to react to that. And you're going to find some people of conscience, who are teaching in universities, who will respond to that. And recognize that what we're doing is right, and they wish they were doing the same thing. They're not all stupid. They're just paid to appear stupid [laughter], as you probably know. And I think, in those directions, there are possibilities.

But I am putting my bets basically on the youth movement, which I think will probably expand rapidly under these conditions, internationally. It's an international youth movement. We have people here from Germany, from other parts of the world, from France and so forth. We have an international youth movement based on the idea of the 18-25 age, university classroom on wheels. But dealing with the reality of society today, with a Classical conception of the history of science, and the history of culture. And that's what a university should be. Our present universities are not. By cross-fertilization of the same population. The same generation is found among the professionals in the legislative offices, in the Congressional offices, in general, and found also in the existing unversities. So by the interaction of an international youth movement, occupied with these questions, interacting under the conditions of crisis, with the existing institutions, I think we can make a revolution.

Jeffrey Steinberg: [Reads two e-mail messages.] The first says:

Greetings, Lyn and Helga. I am a Baby Boomer. I am the mother of a son who is in the LaRouche Youth Movement. I'm more grateful to you than I can express. I'm grateful for your years of dedication to elevating humanity. I'm grateful, not just for my son benefitting from your leadership, but for all of the youth, and us old ones too. I've had the great joy in seeing, and being with, many of the youth in Los Angeles. They're an incredible group of revolutionaries. Through you and them, I feel hopeful. They encourage me to become more than I was led to believe that I could be. That it's not too late for us to make a difference in my time here. Thank you for never-ending dedication to all citizens of our world. I look forward to seeing you in the White House in 2004. Tere van Diest, from Los Angeles.

Now, we have a musical inversion. This is:

Greetings from St. Croix, population 50,000, where the island's only newspaper's printed a letter supporting your candidacy and your economic policies. Lyn, there is much exciting talk about the youth movement bringing their Boomer parents into the human race. But how can a Boomer parent do the same for a cynical youth? Signed, Mary Woodward.

Lyndon LaRouche: [laughing] Well, of course you can do it! What you have to do, is you have to get some allies. If you're a parent of that description, get some allies! Get some allies among youth, of the appropriate generation. And you may try to go directly at the progeny in question. Or, you may be more subtle, and infect the entire environment in which your erring progeny are wandering. And he finds himself surrounded by social pressures of this type. "Okay, Mommy, I give in." [laughter]

Question: Mo Ramphal from Baltimore. Good afternoon, Lyn and Helga. It's my honor to be here. My first question ever, after being involved in the organization for six months. Lately, I've been doing a lot of research in Hinduism, because my family background is of Hindu priests. My father and such—his father, great-grandfather—they were priests of the religion of Hinduism. So I've been looking into the Vedas and trying to understand where these people came from, to get an idea of what the civilization was like. It's been said it could be 40,000 years ago, or whatever is the case. And I was specifically looking at the Somved [ph], which is the second Veda that exists, after the Rig Veda. And it has a lot of interesting things: It looks into the question of the role of the human being in society; it talks about what should make up an economy; what a statesman should be; what's the principle behind military—all these things. And I'm getting a better idea about what this civilization might have been like. Why do they have these verses saying this and that about statemen, and all these things.

So, what I'm trying to understand is the existence of classes, and how that occurred throughout history; do classes, like somebody who was a statesman, or a military person, or a business person—is there really a difference between these people. Or is it just the role they take on is different?

Thanks.

Lyndon LaRouche: Well, my knowledge of this is somewhat limited to a rather intensive study I did of the work of Tilak, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, especially on his "Orion, an Arctic Home," in which he does address the antiquity of the ancient cultures of India, and from some other studies I did, back during the 1950s, on the origins of Sumer, which were largely a product of then a predominantly Dravidian culture, a Dravidian maritime culture, which colonized, according to Herodotus, colonized and formed Sumer, and developed what became Abyssinia, and some other locations around this maritime power. One has to take into account that we're looking back a long period of time: We're looking back now, approximately 21,000 years, or more, at the time of the melting of the glaciers of the Northern Hemisphere, the last big melt. We're headed for a new glaciation, contrary to those who are talking about "global warming." Global freezing is what's on the way. A couple thousand years ahead—this is not today's weather—this is a couple thousand years ahead.

So, you look back at that, and you find a trace in this, of—what I've done, is look at the long history of mankind as having certain cyclical features, which Plato refers to in the opening of the Timaeus dialogue, and refers to Egyptian knowledge on this matter. Obviously, there have been some very crucial points in the history of the planet, recent history of the planet—I mean, within the past 40,000 years, which give us some indications of what was happening beforehand.

For example, you have a melt which begins about 19,000 BC, or the beginning of the retreat of the glacier. At that point, when the world obviously is dominated, for various reasons, by a maritime culture, not a land-based culture, but a maritime culture, the levels of the oceans were generally about 400 feet below those today. Now there's been some subsidence, and up-moving of the planet during that period, but therefore, when you're looking at society, say 10,000 years ago, or 12,000 years ago—the great melt, which is called the Great Flood era, you're looking at coastlines which lie hundreds of feet below the level of today's oceans and seas. So you're not looking on land sites for ancient cultures, as much as you're looking on coastal areas, which have been long submerged—21,000 or 11,000 years. The present level of the oceans was probably reached between 4000 and 2000 BC, approximately. Maybe a little bit later. Some adjustments.

Now, in this process, you have vast changes in the weather, climate. You have much of Eurasia is dominated by a great ice mass, with the oceans about 400 feet below what they are today. You have a great melting, but man has existed, obviously, for a long period of time, during all these experiences of several successive ice ages. And we have indications of ice ages going back about 2 million years on the Northern Hemisphere. So, out of this, you have to have a respect for mankind. Mankind has gone through crises, cultures have been destroyed by catastrophic effects, probably some meteorite penetration, things of that sort. Changes in glaciation, changes in climate, changes in locations of seas, and so forth.

And what Tilak indicates, in India, in trying to give the Indian a sense that they were not inferior to the British. It was the problem that Tilak faced at the end of the 19th Century, and you see this reflected in the autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru. The Indians began to suspect that they were somehow culturally inferior to the British, and therefore, they had to, in a sense, accept the fact that they were, in some respects, culturally inferior to the British. Tilak said that this idea itself was a threat to the struggle for India's independence, and that India, the Subcontinent, had to look to more ancient sources of its culture, and thus, find a cultural history. Which of course, in the 19th Century, was the great studies of the Sanskrit-Vedic history, and inferences of its antecedents. In which the center of this was, as Tilak emphasized, the study of the ancient characteristics of some of these constellations, the calendar constellations, which are reflected in the ancient Vedic, as well as the later Sanskrit writings. That indicated the existence of a pre-land-based, international oceanic maritime culture, which had been transmitted across land areas, and so forth, and therefore, we had a mixed development of the world, with certain language groups evolving, merging, interacting; certain cultures evolving, interacting, coming down into the present time.

Now this history of mankind has not been a very pretty one. It's been a fairly ugly one. And when certain invading groups would come to an area, they would tend to treat the subject populations of the areas they invaded as either wild cattle, to be hunted down and exterminated, or to be herded as tame cattle, which would be bred, utilized, and culled by the conquerers, in the same way in which cattle are herded by mankind. It was only with the emergence of the Renaissance, the European Renaissance, that we have any evidence of the emergence of cultures, in which the idea of a national culture, or the equivalent, was not that of a few treating the many as either wild or herded human cattle. The introduction of the concept of agape, as the notion of the general welfare, or common good, as the basis of statehood, is a revolutionary change in conception of law, religion, and everything else, which is not known to exist as a state form, or a national form, prior to the 15th Century Renaissance, prior to the emergence, out of the Council of Florence, the emergence of such institutions, successively, as Louis XI's France, and Henry VII's England. That is the beginning of modern civilization.

Our general knowledge of mankind was that of some people ruling over a larger number of other people as either hunted cattle, or as herded cattle, used cattle, culled cattle, human cattle. The conception of man as having human nature, distinct from that of the beasts, was not the standard of society. This is the subject of the so-called notion of imperial law.

Wherever you have the traces of imperial law, you have, even in societies which have in part of their culture a fairly high development of culture, you have in the rest of it at the same time the notion of an imperial culture under which most people are subjects of the status of wild or human cattle, which is precisely what the conception of man is by Dick Cheney, the Vice President of the United States, and his war policy against Iraq, which has been going on for over a dozen years right now.

This is the policy of the United States preventive war. It is a reversion to the imperial conception of treating man as human cattle with 1.3 billion, approximately, Muslims on this planet treated as the first order of human cattle. The Chinese and Koreans as human cattle, in which the dominant power of the United States, as long as it is in the hands of these creeps, is to treat the rest of humanity increasingly as human cattle to be bred and culled as human cattle would be. That's what we are up against.

Now, in this process, therefore, you will get this question of status of permanent caste classes emerging repeatedly in many cultures. They are not natural divisions. There's nothing natural about it. There are no natural causes for it. There are no natural causes for it in the condition of mankind. There is no form of society that requires this. This is a condition imposed by defects in the infantilism, or the infantile regression, of human culture.

However, at the same time, you have to see the other side. The other side is that in every culture, which has any viability, its ability to preserve itself, there is a tendency to codify the culture in ways which are functional, and you see this very clearly in the case of Indian culture. You see the problem that India faces today, it is approximately one billion people, somewhat less than China. If you include Bangladesh and Pakistan, which were part of India before, then it is on the order of comparability to China. All of southeast Asia are actually the interplay of cultures, which are of the Chinese, Indian group. This is the largest single group in humanity. This is the group, which is emerging, again, since the terrible things that happened to China in the beginning of the 15th Century, and later, is emerging again as a powerful force on this planet, and the center of the future of the planet—China, Southeast Asia, India, and Russia, with Kazakhstan as a special case within this.

This is the case—Western Europe tied to this—this is the case. But in this process, in looking at the ugliness, which we can see in the residue of so-called Asian culture, we find among that things like the Sanskrit-Vedic tradition, which contains many things, which are of special value. First of all, what are called the Indo-European languages are, of course, degenerated languages. In the 14th Century, the 13th Century, the English languages especially were more suited to grunts than to much of anything else. It had been degenerated under Norman influence.

Remember the English culture, the Anglo-Saxon culture desecrated by the Norman invasion as a reflection of the Irish culture, which had formed the Anglo-Saxon culture, was one of the most advanced cultures in Europe. This culture, this Augustinian culture, because this was the basis of the Augustinian culture, as opposed to the Romantic tradition, which dominated the rest of Europe, was the basis for the revival of France under Charlemagne, and the efforts of the Romantics to destroy Charlemagne's work in the progress of society, led to the Venetian-directed Norman inquisition, the Norman crusade to destroy the Saxons and, therefore, the Anglo-Saxon culture, like the Irish culture, was repeatedly destroyed under this Normal influence. At that time, the English language was garbage, essentially garbage.

You see a beginning of this renaissance again in the 14th Century in things such as Chaucer, reflexions of the Italian influence. Then you have the Renaissance, but the languages were largely chopped-up languages—Latinized, chopped-up, uncultured languages. It was the introduction of Greek culture into Western Europe through the Renaissance—classical Greek culture, which resulted in a change and improvement in languages, which were largely almost argots, and yet these languages were found to have consonance with the Vedic-Sanskrit group, which as languages, as forms of languages were a much higher order of cognitive potential than the languages of Europe, and so Europe was very much excited by this king of thing, and people in India, such as Tilak, some of the most progressive thinkers in India will look at this thing from an ambiguous standpoint. Some of them will say, alright, with all the problems of this culture, something was happening in the process of this Ice Age development, where a relatively great culture, as a culture, was developing in what were the antecedents of the Vedic-Sanskrit group.

There obviously had been something also in the Dravidian culture of India, India-based, which was a great maritime power, which also went into troubles, as typified by the collapse of Sumer and the Acadian. So you have these legacies. We have to look at this scientifically, and say that the history of the development of human culture is a complex and uneven process, in which there have been great elements of progress, limited in character, but these were genuine progress, embodiments of knowledge, improvements in language. The idea of classical poetry is typified by the Vedic and Sanskrit. It is a very important way of looking at understanding the development of European poetry in particular.

Look at this. Treat it with respect, but treat it as the outgrowth of the ups and downs and complexities and evils of the history of mankind, and looking at it from that way, we can look with affection at the legacy, which we have from such sources without buying into the evil, which went with the other side of the same history.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I just would like to add one thing, because there is right now a very important debate erupted in India about this, because the proposal by Prime Minister Vajpayee to make India a Hinduftvar, which is a religious state based on Hinduism has sparked a tremendous debate because, as you know there were these riots in Gujarat. This is a province close to Pakistan in which many Hindus and Muslims were killed, and this is actually an effort to bring the clash of civilization into India because India has not only 900 million Hindus, but it has 120 million Muslmis—actually a very large country, I mean, a very large Muslim population. So, obviously, there is an attempt right now to ignite that, and there is a debate in which many Indian scholars are now pointing to the fact of what a ridiculous idea to make India a religious state because Hinduism is the the religion of all, which is the least proselyetizing and the most liberal in that sense, because it is actually regarded as blasphemous in Hinduisn to try to convince somebody of your own religion, even if it is Hinduism because there is the idea that everybody can find his own way to God, and you don't need to push them in this direction.

Now with this goes the debate of the revival that original Hindu writings, the Rig Veda, other Vedas, and the Upanishads that they actually—and I must say that what I have read so far, and I am not claiming that I have read everything because it is a lot of complicated teachings—they have actually the same ideas—and I really want to prove this further because I think this is very, very important—the same ideas like Christianity, like Platonism—that there is only one God, who, however, expresses himself in many different prophets' views. That there is only one truth, but the truth has many different traditions. That there is an obligation to the common good; that there is a devotion to the general welfare.

All of these ideas, however, including the idea of the castes, as you were saying correctly, in the beginning were just statements of different professions, which you had in European history in the form of the guilds and the zumpfte, I don't know these words in English, but you know, the carpenter was one zumpft, a fisherman was another zumpft, and it only meant the specifics of the division of labor in these countries, and it was only the British colonialism, which hardened the differences between the castes in the way it is today, and I think this is very important because, see, I find this completely fascinating because now with modern technology, they have found hundreds and thousands of sites, which are 10,000 years old and longer, and they have found now for the first time not only these cities, which were 40 meters under the ocean, which are 10,000 years old, and huge, gigantic cities, but they have found no evidence that the river described in the Rig Vedas, the Sarasvati holy river, was there! It is just because of architectonical changes and so forth, that it disappeared.

So the implication of all of this is exactly what Lyn was saying, that there was this ancient transoceanic culture, and a lot speaks of it that the Rig Vedas played a very, very important role in that culture, which is why you would find traces of the same ideas in European philosophy. And I find this completely [fascinating] because it opens a whole new book about how old is human civilization, and I think India plays a fantastic role in it, and I think one only has to make sure that one is not—because in Europe a lot of these things are quite esoteric, and the problem is that some of these things are a little bit problematic, but I have found that one has to be very, very clear-minded because a lot of things which are called mysticism in Europe, are actually the most interesting traditions from the standpoint of the creative method. So, I think we have a lot of beautiful work in front of us, but the more I look into Indian philosophy, the more intrigued I become.

Jeffrey Steinberg: We have a question and greetings from our organization in Mexico. This is a message from Marivilia Carrasco.

Hello, Lyn and Helga, we are following the extraordinary internatonal conference from Mexico. Once again, when almost the world thought that war was inevitable, it was Lyn who, with his unique vision of the world and the universe, has made it his view that that it is possible to change history. There is still much to be done, but we are all imbued with renewed optimism.

A supporter of the LaRouche movement asked us to transmit the following question: How can, or should, China act to keep its society or youth from falling into the counterculture, if the source of capital has presented this cultural decay as if it were synonymous with economic progress?

Lyndon LaRouche: I'm not particularly worried about that because the source is about to go under. The well is about to go dry.

China, of course, was adapting—China is a very adaptive culture, and it was adapting to the influence of the United States as a superpower, not always willingly. For example, the WTO adoption by China was shoved down China's throat in a very nasty way by a very dirty operation, when the Prime Minister was on his way to the United States in mid-air, the trap was laid that he would get to the United States, and he would have to sign this blasted thing.

The Chinese are not too happy about that, but the Chinese government is the Chinese government, and they like to spread the reputation, I think, that they are inscrutable; they are just a little bit deceptive at times.

My personal relationship to China on this question, and Helga's also, is of importance and bearing here. As most of you by now know that in 1988, on Columbus Day, I had made this broadcast, forecasting the immediate or imminent demise of the Soviet system, confirming a forecast I had made some years earlier. My orientation was, in that address, which was a presidential address broadcast on the national network here, was not only to warn the world and the next Presidency, that this is the question before the next Presidency as world questions, but to mobilize our association internationally around this issue, and the first thing was a Food for Peace organization because of the difficulties in Eastern Europe at that time: that our major intervention should be to guarantee, through our technological intervention cooperation in maintaining food supply for stability in the countries where this Soviet system was disintegrating, but to go beyond that into modes of cooperation I had laid out in proposing the SDI, is through cooperation with the Soviet Union and other countries in a Eurasian development.

This was first extended by us in the European Productive Triangle. In 1992, Helga and others carried this into the development of a proposal for the Eurasian Landbridge, and since that time, since 1992-93, we have been active with China and others in this area, both from Taiwan and from mainland China.

In 1996, finally, the proposed conference was held in Beijing, which Helga addressed, with others, and China was at that point until 1997-98, rather close to us in terms of discussing these kinds of matters. When I proposed that China not drop the value of its currency in response to the 1997 crisis, China accepted that and acted accordingly, and did not drop the yuan. So that worked, but then immediately, Al Gore and company, that is, Marc Rich and other elements of organized crime, finding out what I was doing, both in Russia and in China, acted to try to sabotage my work in Russia and to sabotage our influence in China, and to a certain degree, in the latter phase of the Clinton Administration, that succeeded, and some people in China said, "No, you are wrong. You were right perhaps, but you were wrong. For the time being, the United States is the great market, which China will depend upon. Our exports to the US will save us. Our coastal industries depend upon that. They are very influential on our next policy," and so forth.

Well, then, recently, 2001-2002, we've seen the collapse of that market. China said, "Uh-oh." They postponed the Chinese conference to select the next President until they thought this over, and they changed their policy. China's policy is now great interior projects, especially infrastructure development projects, merely typified by the Three Gorges. Projects such as the building of the first modern railroad, in China! From Shanghai to Shanghai Airport, and accomplished it in 2 years, so far, with the plan to extend this to other provinces outside of Shanghai, and to build a railroad system in China modeled essentially on the proposal of Sun Yat Sen for the development of the railroads of China earlier, when he was a leading figure in this history.

So, China has changed its direction in our direction. China, Russia, India, the countries of Southeast Asia, South Korea, some forces in Japan, are moving in varying degrees, in fact, not by formal treaty agreement and then carrying them out, but, in fact, they are moving toward a great system of cooperation throughout Eurasia, in which countries such as Germany and France and Italy will play a key role as technology transfer agents into Asia, through Russia. Russia will be a mediation of this in cooperation, primarily with Germany toward Western Europe, and Russia will be also a key agent, as it is, with the so-called Strategic Triangle proposal in respect to Asia.

The result will be, the policy is now, is a great infrastructure development program throughout the continent of Eurasia, along the lines we have proposed, and, therefore, these ideas lingering around in certain circles in the United States and certain reactionary circles in Europe, these are dead. They will not work because we are on the verge of the greatest degree of collapse of the monetary and financial system that has yet been imagined in modern times. This is imminent. It is about to happen unless the changes are made that I have proposed. There is no alternative.

This system is finished! And you cannot adapt to a marriage with a corpse, and expect a fruitful union. That's the situation.

You see, people say, "Well, the media doesn't agree with you." They'll say that in Mexico. They'll say that in the United States. "Well, the media, popular opinion hasn't accepted it."

The devil with popular opinion! What has popular opinion done for us recently? What has it done for you? What has it done to cure your health care? What has it done to provide employment? What has it done to maintain essential functions? What has it done for your freedom under the present Ashcroft? It has done nothing for you! What has it done for the future of your economy? Nothing! What has it done for your savings? All the banks are due to go bankrupt, now! They already are bankrupt; they're just waiting for the push to go into the pit.

So, forget what popular opinion is. Forget what the press says. Forget what the Bush Administration says. Don't ignore it, but forget it. It is not a prophecy of the future. The only prophecy that he can make is the declaration of war, and we are trying to jam that up, but apart from that, it has no control over the future of this planet.

The future of this planet in a positive sense, lies, entirely, lies in a development, which is centered upon the Eurasian continent. The cooperation of Western Europe with Russia, and through mediation of Russia, with Asia. This means centered on China, India, with great projects like the Mekong development project, with China's cooperation with Southeast Asia. With the unification of Korea, the building of that railroad, which will connect Pusan at the tip of Korea with Rotterdam, through both the Siberian route and the Silk Road.

These are the things that are going to determine the future of humanity, in Asia and elsewhere. Otherwise, humanity has not much of a future.

So there is no choice. There is a no choice—choose the acceptable way and die! Or, choose the way of reality, which is the Eurasian development perspective, and that is the way things are going, and China, at the present time, has committed itself to the greatest collection of large-scale infrastructure projects of any part of this planet. The highest railroad in the world. The greatest water projects in the world. The most modern rail system in the world, the magnetic levitation system, and so forth and so on, so China is going that way because it knows now that it has no other way to go.

China, India, and Southeast Asia are the great growth markets for the future of humanity. We should cooperate with that as I have said, and we should adopt a similar perspective for U.S. cooperation with the countries of Central and South America. That's the way to go. That's reality!

Jeff Steinberg: If you are listening on the internet, this is the Sunday afternoon session of the Schiller Institute Presidents' Day Conference, an open microphone dialogue with Lyn and Helga LaRouche.

Now among the special reports that are available at 80% discount for the remainder of today only is the Eurasian Landbridge report, and among the videotapes that are available also at the literature table out in the hallway, is the famous "Woman on Mars" 1988 LaRouche Campaign broadcast, in which Lyn laid out in detail the perspective for Mars colonization. [interlude for NBS weather update]

Laurie Dobson: I want to communicate what an incredible privilege is to serve in this particular army. I had no idea when I committed to this last conference that I would get the rewards that I got out of it, personally, as a human being, and I can't think of a thing I would have done differently. I am so grateful for this, and I just thank you so much, Lyn and Helga.

Anyway, I want to encourage anyone that has got any political inclinations, you know, you go through a phase where it freaks you out, and I went through this, it really hits you like a ton of bricks to fight popular opinion, but it's incredibly rewarding afterwards. It is worth going through that wall of fire.

My question is—I don't define myself as a politician so much as a mother, and I have a 21-year-old and an 18-year-old, and an 11-year-old, and every day my challenge is to be the best person I can be for them, and for their future, and it dismays me that I have in some ways that I'm as powerful as I would like to be. I don't really know how to talk to my kids about the fact that their future is, right now it is potentially incredible and miraculous, but it also could be grim, and it is hard to look them in the eyes and think that, when I grew up, the hope, you know, the space program, everything about life was possible, and it hurts that I am part of a generation that has to pass on what we are giving you.

I feel like I would like just to say if there is anybody here, who can help me talk to my kids, have any ideas as a youth about how to be a more effective person in my generation, and what I am trying to give to the future—any ideas that you have, I would like to talk to you. I'd like to be the best mom and the best person, right now, that I can be in my world. I'm asking, especially the youth, to give me their ideas, and I would like to help you, if you need someone like me as a resource, I'm here. I don't know what else to say.

Jeffrey Steinberg: I want to say that there is a very long list of people waiting to ask questions, and we have got 20 minutes left to go, so we are clearly not going to get through the whole list, but I would encourage any of you who don't get called on today or the remaining course of the next few days to write your questions down and submit them and, at some point, hopefully, we'll be able to get answers to all of them.

Next person on the list is Monroe Eskew from Annapolis, Maryland. [not there]

Jeffrey Steinberg: Michelle de la Cruz from Seattle?

Michelle de la Cruz: So I have been struggling with how to articulate this question for a couple of weeks now. I've only been part of the organization intensely for about a month, and when I first came into it, I made some observations about the different ways people organize, and I feel like you, Lyn, touched on this a little when you were talking about getting people, through their imaginations, so that they can get a sense of their immortality.

What I wanted to ask Helga is how emotions come into play with this because I find that when people get caught up in really getting people to see what they are saying right now, and get kind of frustrated, or impatient, the heart of the message kind of gets lost, and it turns more into a battle of opinions, even if you are trying to come from a place of truth, if, in a sense, you haven't matured emotionally, then it can affect how you come off mentally, in sense, I guess?

That's the best I could articulate it, so if you could speak on that?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Well, there is no point in getting into shouting matches with people because then you, indeed, crash opinion into opinion, or the person perceives it this way.

I think the principle of the flank, you know, when you see that a person is stuck, and says, "But I believe nuclear energy is bad," then, in a certain sense, you can then argue all the scientific arguments as to why nuclear energy can be safe, who we should get rid of non-safe nuclear energy, but, I think it's always much better to come from a completely different angle. To say, okay, the implication of what you are saying is that you propagate a population potential of one million people, is that what you suggest?

You have to go at the axioms. Don't argue on the level of the opinionated view, and theses axioms have really changed a lot. The problem is that it would be probably important to go into the history of this paradigm shift, which is interlinked with the history of this organization.

For example, we were just in Delhi, and somebody mentioned in the discussion that there are too many people. Population growth is an economic problem, and there were some people arguing massively against it, so I brought in the reminder that in 1974 at the world population conference in Bucharest, where I intervened against John D. Rockefeller, III, who presented overpopulation as the big problem in the Third World, and I basically pointed out that his policies are genocide, killing eventually billions of people, and at that time, every group, every NGO, every lefty group, the church groups all knew that the very idea of overpopulation was a Rockefeller baby, i.e., a propaganda campaign by the Rockefeller interests, and everybody knew the real issue was the lack of development and poverty, and that if you give enough development, then people arrange their lives and don't have children, just as life insurance.

That's what I mean that, in a certain sense, many of the issues that belong to popular opinion are based on a brainwashing, where people have accepted a paradigm shift, like for example, when you say, but we need to develop the developing countries, and they say, "You want every Chinese to have a Mercedes? Think about the pollution that has."

In a certain sense you have to bring it down to the question of the image of man. What makes you think that you are more of a human being than a Chinese? Maybe you who are superfluous and not the Chinese? Maybe you should take the consequent steps, and go to a different universe.

On the one side, don't believe what people say because it is based on false axioms. Think what is the right axiom, and then approach the person from that level. Say, "Are you actually suggesting that only white Protestant Americans are human beings? Is that what you are saying? Do you actually say that all Africans are animals? Is that what you are saying?"

In other words, you have to create paradoxes, which make it morally unbearable for that person. Never react on the same level because, first of all, remember what Lyn said, that people always lie. They lie to themselves. They have opinions they haven't thought through. Eventually, if the person is not completely hopeless—I also stopped a long time ago to think that I'm convincing everybody in the first moment, because sometimes you say something, and the person freaks out, runs away, but then after 20 years this person comes and says, "You told me in 1974, on Monday morning at 7 o'clock, the following." And we have now, more and more, such experiences because when you really challenge the axioms, then is such a blow to their belief structure that it stays in the head, and, since we are in a revolutionary period, I have seen in the recent months changes I had only hoped in my wildest dreams would happen, in terms of the willingness of people to accept things. For a long time, I thought Germany is probably going to be the very last country where any change will take place because they were so brainwashed by the occupation, by being an occupied country and so forth, but now, thanks to good old secretary of offense, Donald Rumsfeld, he has managed to unify Europe—we actually will propose him to receive the prize of the city of Charlemagne, for having done more for European unity than anybody else. All of a sudden, you have an eruption of liberation, and people actually make jokes.

[Turns away.] So, should I tell them this joke about Bush?

[Turns back to audience.] Everybody knows that Bush wants to be very popular, so he goes to a school and tells the pupils, "You can ask me all the questions you want." One guy says: "My name is Tom, Mr. President, and I have 3 questions. First, why is it that you are President despite the fact that you were not elected? Secondly, why are we making war against Iraq without any reason? Thirdly, is it not the case that America committed the largest biggest terrorist attack ever in history in Hiroshima?"

So, all of a sudden, the bell rings, the students rush out because class is over, then another class comes, and Bush says, "No, no, I want to be popular. I will talk to more students."

He asks if there is another question. A student says, "My name is Tim, and Mr. President, I have five questions. First, why is it that you are President despite the fact that you were not elected? Secondly, is it not the case that we are making war against Iraq without reason? Third, is it not the case that the United States committed the biggest terror attack in Hiroshima ever? Fourth, why did the pause bell ring 20 minutes early in the last lesson? And, fifth, where is Tom?"

Constance Roper: First and foremost, I am delighted to be here. Secondly, I want to congratulate Helga and Lyndon for this wonderful session today. It was very enlightening, of course, as always, but I come today because I have a special and personal reason for being here, and that is to address something that is permeating across the country that has to be addressed, and it has been ignored for so long that it has to stop. And I am here to speak about it because it is happening in my family. It is personally happening to me.

I've been a leader for some time now, for over 35 years in the city of Newark, and this year they saw fit to challenge my leadership with going after my grandchildren. What I mean by going after my grandchildren, is arresting them, putting them in jail, and they are 12 and 13 years old. Not only are my grandchildren incarcerated, but there are many children across this country, who are being scooped up from their parents, their grandparents and their guardians, and put in jail—prison! Some of them are guilty, but do not warrant the type of punishment that they are getting in the penal system.

You have incompetent judges that pay their way to the throne, and what I mean by the throne, I mean pay their way to the bench. There is one judge, in particular, in the court system that I am beginning to fight. I have gathered together enough forces to try and bring down the court system in Newark, but I am going to need help. We have a group of parents, grandparents, mothers, fathers, and friends, who are going to help me investigate the court system in Newark and, hopefully, after we leave Newark, we'll go beyond that, but I am going to need assistance. I'm going to need legal assistance, and I'm going to need bodies.

We have organized so far a group of parents, who are interested in the fight because they, too, are being victimizeed. I sat in the corridor of the courtroom, and was told by the Judge, who was sitting on the bench that I could not go into the courtroom with my grandchild because I was petitioning people who had the same problem that I had, wrongful incarceration.

Now it's not just happening in Newark. It's happening all over this country.

Jeffrey Steinberg: Constance, let me make a suggestion because we have about 3 minutes left before this session ends. I think maybe give either Lyn or Helga a chance to respond to what you have said, and we can get more details from you afterwards, but we are going to have to wrap up the session.