A TALE OF TWO CITIES
Washington and Sacramento:
What the Dickens Is Going On?
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
Here is Mr. LaRouche's keynote speech on Aug. 30 to the Labor Day weekend conference of the International Caucus of Labor Committees and Schiller Institute.
About seven years ago, there was an epidemic, of deregulation, which began to run like a rampage throughout the United States. The policy was to break up the energy system, the power organization of production and distribution, of electrical power, other power, which had been built up, in response to the collapse of the U.S. economy under Coolidge and Hoover. Franklin Roosevelt led, as President, in restoring a system of regulation, which was an integral part of the economic recovery of the United States, from a Depression, where incomes had collapsed to about half of what they were in the 1920s. And, we went on to become the greatest productive power on this planet, as a result of those and similar measures.
Then, about four years later, the impact of this deregulation—the separation of production of power from distribution, the lack of regulation of prices—led to the first panic in California, as the result of an energy crisis that Summer. The following year, we had an artificial Presidency of sorts. You didn't quite know who was President. And looking back, you might say, that the Vice President was President, and the only thing that George Bush could manage was vice.
So, at that point, the severity of the effect of deregulation began to take hold. It's now reached the point that the state of California, has been looted of tens of billions of dollars, by the people behind deregulation. This looting occurred, in part, because the Vice President of the United States, who lived up to his reputation for vice, lied, and suppressed the reports which were available at that time, on the Williams case, the Williams Power case. And therefore, the feeding went on.
It's now reached the point, that the same people who were behind the policy, the same international financial forces behind the policy, are now running a freak show, called Arnie Schwarzenegger, as the governor of California—and, he is a freak show. I compared him to a case of a film that was done, called "Nightmare Alley," which featured Tyrone Power—the younger Tyrone Power—as an actor; in which this poor fellow degenerated, in the play, and went down to become what is called a "geek." From which the word "geek act" comes: Eating a live chicken, before an adoring crowd, for pay—the only thing he could still do. Now, we have a geek act who, I suggest, should make a re-make of "Nightmare Alley," in which he struggles, in the final scene, to eat a live turkey vulture, that's going for him. He's a big man: Give him a large bird!
But, this man's a freak. He acts, in films, each film: a freak. He did a film, called "Junior," in which he tried to portray the role of Ariel Sharon! If you don't believe it, look at the two! Compare the two! Compare the cuts, of Schwarzenegger, as Junior, and Ariel Sharon. You see who he's trying to live up to.
But, he's only a freak show. If he were elected, he would become dangerous, in the same way that Adolf Hitler became dangerous. He will not be dangerous, if you put him out of politics now, as we should have put Adolf Hitler out of politics, earlier. But, he is not the problem.
Now, I'm going to lay out a number of things to you, now, which are all relevant; which have to be put together, to understand what the problem is we face. It is obvious, that what's happening in California, is a fraud—the recall action is a fraud. Let's see the Three Stooges [see photo]. All right, these are the re-make of the Three Stooges. And the quality is not improved, in the process: Warren Buffett, the so-called second richest man in the world; Arnie Schwarzenegger, the biggest sex freak in the world; and then, Jacob Rothschild. This is taken at his estate, Rothschild's estate in London, where a large meeting was occurring to decide on the fate of the world, among powerful financial forces. This is where the Schwarzenegger campaign came from.
Now, go back—forget them for a moment. They are the Three Stooges. You've seen them before. You can see them on old TV, any time.
Roosevelt Against the Synarchists
Where's this start? Well, let's take a step back. Let's go back to June of 1940. In June of 1940, Winston Churchill, who was then the Minister of Defense of the United Kingdom, expressed to Franklin Roosevelt, the President of the United States, a need for immediate assistance. Here you had the British troops at Dunkirk; the fear was, that they'd be overrun at Dunkirk; there'd be no British Army left to defend the United Kingdom. That Hitler would move in, in the United Kingdom, and the following scenario would occur—and, this was according to the discussions between Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt at that time:
At that moment, an organization, which is known to us as the Synarchist International—a terrorist organization, run by private merchant bankers, a syndicate, had put Hitler into power; had put Mussolini into power; had put Franco into power; had put Degrelle and so forth into power; had put the Iron Guard into place in Romania; and so forth and so on. And, they were now moving, by the occupation of France, to take over the French Navy, hopefully the British Navy; they already had an agreement with the Japan Navy. Their plan was, to take England, to take the United Kingdom, into this fascist alliance—with the aid of the Laval and Vichy governments in France, which were already in the works, they were part of the Synarchist operation. And, to immediately eliminate the Soviet Union. And then, having this combination of navies, of the French, the German, the British, the Italian, and the Japanese Navy, they planned for an attack on the United States, which the Japanese carried out, in fact, on Dec. 7, 1941.
But, Roosevelt and Churchill, who did not like each other, who had opposite policies, but were both guided by certain motivations—on the side of Churchill, the motivation was, not to make the British Empire an appendange of a Nazi Europe. There were some very nasty people: like Lord Beaverbrook, who is, in a sense the den mother of the Murdoch press, the den mother of Conrad Black's press (or the de-press, if you prefer to call them that); Lord Halifax, who was involved in the pro-Hitler plot. So, by a kind of coup inside the United Kingdom, these fellows—Lord Halifax was the ambassador to Washington; Beaverbrook became a part of the Churchill war machine, even though he had been a Nazi-lover, a Hitler-lover before then. And, because of national pride, or national impulses, the British pulled themselves together, with the cooperation of the United States.
And, the United States and Britain entered into an alliance among two people, who despised each other: Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. And that alliance went on to win World War II.
At the end of the war, or before the end of the war, once the Normandy invasion had succeeded, and the defeat of Hitler was in hand—not right to be taken at the moment, but in hand— the German military, in July [1944] planned a revolt against Hitler, in order to get peace. That is, the war was hopeless. But, some people, in Britain and elsewhere, betrayed the plotters in Germany, who were then wiped out by Hitler, with the aid of a law, of the guy who gave us Prof. Leo Strauss at the University of Chicago: Carl Schmitt. And therefore, the war took a little longer to get over.
But, in the process, those in the United States, and in the United Kingdom, who hated Roosevelt, but had worked with him, because he was considered necessary until the war were won; now, knowing that the war were won, moved to eliminate him. They knew that he was ill. He was suffering from the effects of poliomyelitis, was worn down, and was about to die, of complications which could hit him at any time. They put in Truman, who was sympathetic, shall we say, to the scoundrels that put him in.
Truman's Evil Legacy
Truman dropped the unnecessary bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, against the explicit advice of Eisenhower, and the implicit advice of MacArthur: There was never a legitimate military reason for dropping those bombs. Or, for that matter of fact, the firebombing of Tokyo; or for that matter, the terror-bombing of Germany, civilian centers.
The object of war, is to win the peace. Win the war, as expediently as possible, with as little damage to both sides as possible; and use what survives as the premise for peace—exactly what people didn't think about, when they were going into Iraq.
So, at the end of the war, with the dropping of those bombs, we had a tendency in the United States, and in Britain, called the "utopian" tendency. People say: "The world of history has come to an end. With nuclear weapons, and with the ability to deliver them by air, by aircraft, the world has changed. We don't need armies and navies, in the old sense, any more."
We can now terrify the world, exactly as Bertrand Russell said, publicly, in 1946. But that was his policy earlier. Bertrand Russell was the author of this policy, of nuclear terror. We create weapons so horrible, such monstrous weapons, that nations will give up their sovereignty to world government, in order to avoid war involving such weapons.
This became known as the "utopian faction" in U.S. military policy: The "revolution in military affairs" was started around the building up of the Air Force, and Truman supported it.
We avoided the worst consequences of that downturn, in our policy, because we were so disgusted with Truman, we couldn't elect a Democrat at that time. So, we elected Eisenhower, who represented the traditional military policy of the United States, and we had a sweet relief, for two terms, when we paid a price for it. But, we were so sick of Truman—as I was sick of Truman, then, as returning veteran: the right wing, the terror, what we call "McCarthyism"; all the evil, that hit the United States and terrified the population, came under Truman.
And we got relief from this—the drive toward nuclear war was stopped, because some people realized that Truman had gotten us into the Korean War, which was unnecessary, and he had miscalculated. Therefore, they said, "Get rid of that. And get rid of the Democratic Party, for the time being, because it might have the stink of Truman left on it." And the American people breathed in relief, especially when Eisenhower shut down Sen. Joe McCarthy.
It wasn't good. Because the party of Roosevelt, of Franklin Roosevelt, that had saved the nation from the effects of Coolidge and Hoover; which had saved us, and saved the world from a world empire, a Hitler-like dictatorship; that party was now crippled. Crippled from the inside, by what Truman represented. And it never fully recovered.
There was an attempt to do so, under Jack Kennedy. But Jack was not ready for the job, really. Jack did not understand the military problem. He didn't understand what he was getting into. He began to—and then, they killed him.
On Our Way Toward Fascism
And then, we had a change: We had a meeting, between Presidential candidate Richard Nixon and the Ku Klux Klan in Biloxi, Mississippi. This became known as the "Southern Strategy." We were on our way toward fascism.
Then, at the end of the 1970s, the Democratic Party went to the right, with the founding of the Democratic Leadership Council. And the Southern Strategy came over to the Democratic Party: It was called the "Suburban Strategy." Amounts to the same thing.
Since 1977—I think we can show that one, the drop in income, of the lower 80% of family-income brackets of the United States [Figure 1]. We have had a disassociation of the general welfare, from the population as a whole. We have a doctrine, which comes out of the fascist majority of the Supreme Court, typified in the extreme by Antonin Scalia, which is called "shareholder value": In other words, if you bought a health-care plan, which is going to take care of you; and some stockholder had come in and bought a share of a company that had taken over the health-care plan, an HMO-style company, the shareholder of that company (who just bought the stock yesterday) had the right to a given rate of profit, even if it meant taking your life, by denying you the care you needed! That's the kind of change we made.
And, that was what happened in 1977: Infrastructure went down; industries began to collapse; the physical standard of living collapsed. The Federal Reserve System cooked up this so-called "Quality Adjustment Index," under Volcker—1982-83—and the Federal government has been lying about the rate of inflation—and I'm talking about 10% and 20% ratios—ever since. Look at the physical standard of living of somebody in 1975, the middle of the 1970s: Look at what a week's wage would buy, in terms of a standard of living; what kind of improvements in the community; what public library; what hospitals; what kind of health services would be provided to you physically, as a percentile of your wage.
Look at it now.
They took away the factory where you were employed. Now you work cheaply. You commute long distances. You have no family life, because you're on the road, commuting, in traffic jams most of time. You're working odd jobs, to try to make it. And you can't quite make it.
So, there's a transformation in our country, from a society based on the general welfare principle of our Constitution, to a society based on a Lockean conception of "shareholder value"; which was called, in the Confederacy, "slaveholder value."
So, we underwent a change. And therefore, people say to themselves, "Well, you can't do anything about it. The Democratic Party has abandoned us. The Republican Party is out to eat us." "There's nothing you can do about it. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube." And so, these things happened. And so, deregulation came.
But who's behind it?
The Plot To Destroy the American Revolution
Go back to the 1930s, and look at this organization, which had been formed, called the Synarchist International. And take another step back, to the 1780s. What was happening in the 1780s? The American Revolution had happened. The American Revolution was a project conceived in Europe, by the greatest minds in Europe. Mediated, in part, especially since the 1750s and 1760s, through Benjamin Franklin, who is the leader of this nation: the man who actually decided what would be written in the Declaration of Independence. Franklin re-wrote the draft, which his subordinate, Jefferson, had sketched, after the discussion: crossed out this; crossed out that; put this back in; and so forth. Franklin is the father of this country, not George Washington, to whom certain honors belong. But Franklin was the father of this country. And Cotton Mather, before Franklin, in a certain sense.
So, this is an intellectual movement, about the idea of creating a republic, modeled upon the idea, the Classical idea, associated with the memory of Solon of Athens, and the work of Plato: to create a true republic. In which the republic would be sovereign; the people would be sovereign. They would have no external overlord, over the nation, or over themselves. The legitimacy of the government would be based, entirely, on a commitment of the government, efficiently, to promote the general welfare of all of the people. And to promote the general welfare of posterity, as well. The principles of law enshrined in the Preamble of our Constitution, which is the fundamental law of our Constitutional republic.
We created that republic, at least in embryo, as a commitment. At that point, all of Europe was inspired by the American Revolution. The American Revolution was in the process of taking over Europe. France was first on the list. The whole group in France, which had been behind the American Revolution—supported it—wanted to do the same thing in France. Throughout Germany, the leaders of Germany, of the Classical humanist tradition in Germany, were mobilized around the American Revolution, during the 1770s and 1780s.
People aspired to free Europe, from the systems of Europe. And to have a system in the nations of Europe, which corresponded to the intent of the Constitution of the United States.
That did not make everybody happy.
You had the head, the actual political controller of Barings Bank and the British East India Company, Lord Shelburne, who from 1763 on, began to make major moves, in several directions, to try to stop the American Revolution, which was already seen by them, at that time. And once it had happened, when Shelburne was Prime Minister in 1782 and 1783, he set into motion, through his agents in Switzerland and France—especially French-speaking Switzerland, especially around Geneva, Lausanne, and around Lyon in France—set into motion a cult, which became known as the Martinist freemasonic cult: of Cagliostro, of Mesmer, of Joseph de Maistre, and so forth. This cult.
This cult pre-orchestrated the French Revolution, from 1789 through the fall of Napoleon, through all phases. And it was controlled by British intelligence, under the direction of Lord Shelburne, then Jeremy Bentham, his key man, and associates.
For example: the siege of the Bastille, on July 14, 1789, was orchestrated by two British agents: Philippe Egalité and Jacques Necker. Why was it done? Because Bailly and Lafayette had led, in forming a Constitution, presented it to the monarchy. The monarch had rejected it at first, but it was still on the table. The storming of the Bastille was a terrorist incident, run by synarchists, under the direction, and sponsorship, and control, of Lord Shelburne—from England, from London. Danton and Marat were agents of Shelburne's, and were personally trained and directed by Jeremy Bentham. And so forth, and so on.
What the synarchists did, and they outlined this conception in their writings of that, time and later—they're called the "synarchists" now; but, they were called then, the "Martinists"—they laid out, what happened in the French Revolution, from 1789 to the fall of Napoleon. It was a plan! It was a doctrine; it was an ideology. And they ran every step of the way, in concert with certain forces in Britain, around the British East India Company, and Barings Bank.
What was this for? This was to stop the spread of the American Revolution's idea in Europe! The American Republic was the greatest danger, to whose interests? The Martinists? Well, they're fascists—what we call fascist, today. These are your Hitlers; these are your monsters. These are your Nietzscheans.
Bankers' Rule
But, who was behind them? Bankers. What kind of bankers? Venetian-style bankers. Private, family, merchant banks. Like the India Companies; those are the India Companies of Holland and Britain. Private banks, like Schlumberger interests, and similar kinds of interests, which exist to the present day.
These banks were already penetrating the United States, with agents like Gallatin: an enemy agent, inside the government of the United States! Gallatin! A Swiss agent—actually a synarchist agent.
What did they decide? They said: "Never will we allow—we bankers—we will never allow the existence of a government, which places the authority of the state above the interests of the bankers."
What do you have in Europe, today? What kind of a system do you have, as opposed to the Constitutional system, prior to the Federal Reserve Act? What you have in Europe, today, is essentially, the Anglo-Dutch liberal model of parliamentary government.
How does it work? It works on the basis of: You have a state apparatus, under a monarch, or some nominal President, which just keeps running as a state apparatus. You have a parliament, which can be dumped, any time you decide to orchestrate a crisis. A parliamentary government has no continuity; it has no assured continuity.
Then, you have a third branch of government, called, today, an "independent central banking system." The independent central banking system controls the emission of currency; controls national credit; and, any time the government displeases it, it uses its power to orchestrate the overthrow of the government.
So, the issue, today, is to rid the world of that vestige of the Anglo-Dutch liberal parliamentary model. And, to return to what the American Constitution prescribed and intended, which we were not able to carry out fully, because we were isolated by these developments in Europe of that period, the Napoleonic period and afterward; and because we had internal problems we could not resolve.
It was not until Lincoln brought this nation to victory over slavery, that something resembling the actual intention of the Constitution came into being. And even that was in trouble. In the meantime, within our own country, we had a banking interest, centered in Boston, centered in New York City, which had the same kind of mentality, and often direct connections to what we call the synarchist bankers of Europe. That has been our problem.
Now we come to a point, that the entire system is collapsing; the entire international financial system is collapsing—just as the Versailles system was collapsing, in the 1920s; but this time, it's much more severe, much deeper as far as Europe and the Americas as concerned, at least, and Africa. Therefore, the amount of debt which is outstanding, financial debt in the system, could never be paid by the existing nations. Never!
So, what does that mean? That means, that nations have the choice of either telling the financial interests, to eat their losses: because the care for the people and the nation comes first—. The power of sovereign government, is the care the people and the nation. But, if government runs a bankruptcy receivership operation, which it must do now, with the entire IMF system, with the Federal Reserve System, and so forth, then what happens to these powerful bankers? We pay what has to be paid, first. We meet the standard of the general welfare and posterity. We exert our sovereignty, that no external authority, including bankers, can subvert our sovereignty; can destroy the general welfare of our people from outside; can damage our posterity.
What's the bankers' reaction? Well, some bankers will say, "All right. I'm just a banker. Put me through reorganization. I'll stay in business. I'll work for you. I'll get back in business." But others: "No."
And that's what this is.
You have powerful, private banking interests, of a family, merchant-banking style, who operate as a syndicate, like a Venetian oligarchy, Venetian financier oligarchy: They were behind the synarchist operation, or the Martinist operation, which was the French Revolution. This is the organization—exactly the same organization—in Europe, which put Mussolini into power in 1921; Hitler into power, 1933; Franco into power; and so forth and so on.
This was agency which was determined to destroy the United States in 1940! This is our enemy! That was our enemy, then. That is our enemy, today!
The difference today is, the leadership of the enemy, at that time, came from Europe, which was determined to destroy the United States. The problem today is, the leadership of that operation is in the United States. And, its puppet, is the Bush Administration. Its puppet is those in the Democratic Party National Committee, who are the instruments of this kind of policy.
And, if you go by that standard—you say, "Here we're in a great crisis, great financial crisis. Worse than Versailles; worse than the collapse of the Versailles system. We have one choice: If we make the choice, of defending the sovereignty of nations; of promoting the general welfare of each and all nations; of promoting the interests of posterity of each and all nations; if we come to treaty agreements and cooperation, in taking over the IMF and so forth, under these terms: Then, we shall survive." We can not create instant prosperity out of this great poverty. But, we can take the road up, as Roosevelt led the road up, in 1933, in March of '33 on. We can do that. We can give optimism and a future to our children and grandchildren. And, that's about the best we can do. And survive, in the meantime.
A Community of Sovereign Nation-States
We can also, we hope, by coming to agreement in a great crisis, which is the times, that people make, usually, great decisions: We can say, "An end to this kind of conflict! An end to a Hobbesian world!" The time has come, to create what the United States has always been committed to, by its Founders, from the beginning: the establishment, around the United States, of a community of respectively sovereign nation-states on this planet, sovereign nation-states, which together form a community of principle.
The essence of this matter is—and, I'll take for a moment, this deeper question: Why a sovereign nation-state? It's very difficult to define a sovereign nation-state to most people in today's culture, because our culture is so decadent. In former times, when we had the semblance of a Classical culture in schools, before we had Hollywood, before you would have a Hollywood screen, which would feature so much of this Schwarzenegger on it: a freak show [see photo]! Not drama: a freak show! Television: not drama: a freak show! You have the fathers of the bride!
Our culture is so degenerate, our popular culture, that our people do not know what it is, that gave us the great culture that we did have; the great political institutions we did have. There is no longer Classical culture. People don't know what irony is. They don't know what poetry is. They don't know what great music is. They think "thump, thump, thump," like a bunch of chimpanzees in heat, is music! They think entertainment is one big rave dance. They think a political convention is a rave dance.
So, they don't understand the difference between man and the beast. Just as a synarchist does not understand that. The idea of man: Prior to Christianity, and prior actually to the Renaissance, the 15th-Century Renaissance, most people were treated as cattle. Either as hunted cattle—you go out and hunt them down, put their horns on your mantelpiece. Or, you herd them, like cattle. If you're nice to them, you put them in the stall, and feed them every night—and you only cull them when they stop giving milk! The way we're doing with our health-care program today: it's called a "culling process." Sometimes it's called "triage." In the animal kingdom, it's called "culling the flock," of people, who are not "useful" to you any more. Because, after all, "shareholder value" must be supreme.
So, in that kind of culture, where we don't accept the value of man, as man, not as a beast. And, the difference is, man's ability, which no beast has, to discover from the anomalies of sensual experience, to discover physical principles of the universe "out there"; to master these principles; to prove them experimentally; and apply them to increasing the power of man to survive, the power of man to improve our conditions on this planet; and to take responsibility, for the management of this planet, for the benefit of all the people who live in it: That's man.
Therefore, the human individual is sacred. This quality, that we have, of being able to discover principles; to transmit them to others; to transmit them from generation to generation: That is humanity. That is culture. Now, this culture is associated, in every case, with what is called a "language-culture." People have a language, in which the legacy of the ironies of the past, their Classical art, and so forth, are transmitted in terms of that culture, their language-culture. Not in the dictionary reading of the language, but, in the usage of the language, with its characteristic, artistic ironies.
Therefore, if we're going to have self-government, it has to be a self-government by the people, not just for the people. It must involve the participation of the people, in understanding and agreeing upon the policy deliberations which are made. That can only be done, in terms of the culture of the people. And changes can occur, only by strengthening, and improving, and developing the culture of the people.
Therefore, to have a community of nations, rather than a collection of cattle, roaming around the planet, without national identity or whatnot; in order to have that, you have to protect the people as being sovereign in their own decisions; their own policy decisions, as a people. Then, you have sovereignty. Otherwise, you have a capricious situation, where the nation does not know what a principle is, and therefore, they're easily moved, in the short term, by sudden impulses, by sudden fads; crazy ideas—like the idea that Arnie Schwarzenegger is human, or something like that. Crazy ideas.
And therefore, you have to have a people that has moral character. And moral character is not a set of do's or don'ts. Moral character is the understanding that we are not beasts, we are not animals: that's number one. That the other fellow next to you is not a beast; he's not a animal, number two. And that the transmission of culture, and the cooperation in terms of the culture, is what makes us human. And therefore, you have a moral sense, which is derived from the root of the conception, of the difference between man and beast.
Therefore, if we try to build any system of government on this planet, which does not recognize that, does not recognize the importance of the sovereignty of the nation, in terms of its choice of culture, and the participation of its people in its culture, we will create a monster which will fail us.
'The Advantage of the Other'
The time has come, because of the great troubles that the world faces—the troubles from the United States, the threats from the United States, from Cheney and so forth—the time has come to change that. The time has come, to recognize, in a time of trouble, we need each other.
The time has come to make real, on an international scale, the agreement which ended the great religious war of 30 years, of 1618 to 1648, the principle of "the advantage of the other," which is the only thing that brought peace under those conditions. We must recognize the importance, of the "advantage of the other nation"! And ask them to do the same for us. The advantage of the other; not competition against the other, but the advantage of the other. We are one human species. Not different species. We must live together on this planet.
But we must live as human, in terms of human cultures, in terms of cooperation of human cultures, and compassion and love for people of a different culture. And say to them: "What should we do for you? And, we will tell you, what we would like to have you do for us."
We can live on this planet. Yes, we will probably still need strategic defense capabilities, for some time to come. But, the time has come, in this time of crisis, to come to that point—which means we must stop treating ourselves as beasts. As we are treating ourselves as beasts, with deregulation, by this kind of destruction. We're treating ourselves as beasts, by the idea of shareholder value: that somebody owns us! That the Three Stooges own us! And therefore, we have to obey their rules, because they own us! They own our indebtedness, which they created!
And, what you're seeing in California, with deregulation: the rape of the United States, the rape of California, by the Three Stooges, for which this freak show, Arnie Schwarzenegger, is working.
Are we going to continue to submit to that? Think! Think where we are: We are on the edge of nuclear war, of a new kind, throughout this planet. Not this year; perhaps not next year. But already, nations in Asia are thinking in terms of new methods of warfare, by which they could constrain a nuclear threat from the United States! It would be several years, before they are ready to do that. But, probably, in the middle of the next Presidency of the United States (if it should happen), the danger point will come, for war. For nuclear war, of an asymmetric type, of the type that nobody in Washington, right now, is thinking about.
And that, I have confirmed. That is exactly what the situation is, right now. That's what governments, which are capable, are thinking about! Now! And doing something about—now!
If we wish to avoid that, then we'd better make sure that what Cheney represents, inside the United States is out of power. We must understand, that we can not submit to the Synarchist International, any more! We must understand, that we must show at least as much courage as Roosevelt and Churchill did, in stopping what would have otherwise become a world takeover by Adolf Hitler and his type.
The Task of Leadership
Now, my job in this, is rather significant, even though it's sort of a funny situation to be in. I'm on the inside; I can tell you that.
We're in a situation, where we're not only facing a war, but the problem we have, the problem the American people have, is, in a sense, largely of their own making: When the American people voted for deregulation, they were crazy! They were stupid! Just absolutely no reason to do so! But, they were stampeded into it, because, over the period since the assassination of Kennedy and the start of the Indochina War, and the missile crisis before then, they became stampeded into new values: They ran away from productive society, from technology; and ran into the idea of consumer society, of the "now society," the "me society," the "pleasure society," the consumer society—as opposed to productive society.
And therefore, they voted for this stuff. Everybody in California who could vote, at the relevant moment, voted for deregulation. No one is innocent! They're all guilty!
But, should they die, because they're guilty? Are we going to say, "consequences," like George Bush with Death Row in Texas? "Consequences," therefore, you die?
No. They made a mistake. The cultural trend, in the United States, over the past 40 years, has been a mistake. What is treated as generally accepted popular opinion, is wrong! And this is only an example of it.
Therefore, the time has come, where the survival of the people in the United States demands that they change the way they've been behaving, especially their political behavior! They've got to come to their senses, in time to be saved.
Now, it's the characteristic of people, up to this point, that people generally don't come to their senses willingly. They come to their senses, when they're frightened. When the pants are scared off them.
But, that's not enough: There has to be the sublime element, as Schiller points out. Someone, or some people, must stand up as leaders, and confront the people; and say, "You fools! Stop being fools—or you'll die! You can live, but you've got to give up your stupid ways. You've got to give up that in you, which allowed you to tolerate deregulation. You've got to give up that in you, which resists taking immediate, emergency action, to reregulate the entire U.S. economy. Because we won't survive, unless we do that."
So therefore, someone has to be the maverick. Someone has to violate all the rules of good courtesy, in the existing society, because the society's rules stink! Because the society stinks! And, when a society stinks in its behavior, there's something wrong with the basic assumptions which are popularly accepted.
So, there's no leader for a time of crisis who's one damn bit good, unless he's going to take on the people, and point out their corruption, in themselves, and tell them to change it, whether they like it or not. That's what Franklin Roosevelt did. That's what every capable leader has done. That's what Abraham Lincoln did. That's what Benjamin Franklin did. That's what Cotton Mather tried to do. There is no such thing as "democratic consensus," "the expression of the consensus." When people become stupid, the consensus is their worst enemy.
And, at that time, someone has to step up, and say to them: "You've been wrong! Change it. Change it." Don't worry about hurting their feelings. Better you should hurt their feelings, than let them die. Or let them kill each other.
And, we're at that time. And therefore, my situation, and that of some other people, who more and more are tending to work around me—with some degree of reluctance, because they get upset by what I do: I tell the truth. And they say, "Can't you, sort of, soften it up a bit?" I say, "No. It won't do any good." You've got to confront the people, with the fact that this is the truth. Don't try to influence, through appeals to public opinion. Public opinion is what is wrong! But, you've got a situation, in which the public is capable of recognizing that its opinion is wrong. And the California case, is a case in point.
So, what we have, overall, strategically, is the following: We have a so-called election campaign going on, now, in the United States. And, I can't find a rival anywhere!
People say, "Well, what will you do, if you're elected?" I look at them. I say, "Do you know what world you're living in now? The question is: Are we going to get to the next election?!"
The Stakes in California
For example, you've got a case for disorder: Suppose, by some chance, that they elect a monkey, Arnie Schwarzenegger, the governor of California. What's the effect? You're going to have a fascist movement throughout the United States—run by the Three Stooges, or people like that. You think you'll get the United States back? You know that the way California goes, will determine the way the nation goes, in the 2004 elections? If California is not on the Democratic Party side, or is not in the camp of sanity, who do you think can win an election, in an honest election, inside the United States?
No, every citizen of the United States has to be concerned about what's going on in California in these weeks, between now and Oct. 7. They have to be concerned about it! Otherwise, you may have no United States, implicitly, after Oct. 8. That could happen!
I don't think Arnie Schwarzenegger's going to make it. I think we're going to damage him enough. I can not assure you we're going to win the case in California. But, I can assure you, that the only chance we have, is to stage the kind of fight, which will moralize the nation to fight. You know, I say, "You can often lose a battle, in warfare. But, you don't say, 'Let the battle decide the outcome of the war.' " But, if you have not lost the confidence of the people, or if you've mobilized the confidence of the people, you'll find a new way to fight. You will find new options, as every great commander in warfare does.
The point is, if we sit back, and were to sit back, and let it happen in California, without the kind of challenge which will shake the enemy in his boots, we don't have a chance. Therefore, we must fight. We must fight to turn back this threat. And, what is at stake, is not California. What is at stake is Washington. What is at stake, is the world, because of the danger of nuclear war, if something like Cheney continues to control Washington.
That's the situation we face. We are now in a situation which is comparable to that of the conversation between Churchill and Roosevelt, in June of 1940. It's that serious: The fate of the world depends upon those of us who will take on that fight now, with that understanding, and that determination.
Our job is not to win the next election: Our job is to win the nation, back to safety. And, if we win the nation back to safety, in these months ahead, starting with the three-month period of crisis immediately ahead of us, then we will have the forces mobilized, to carry the next election. To transform this country—and to transform the world, which is waiting for us to do something decent about the world situation today.
So therefore, the next election is not the thing to worry about. The question is, are you going to be in a position, to win the next election? Are you going to be able to carry the nation, and its people, and mobilize them, to make sure that we're going to bring back the Democratic Party—as Mervyn [Dymally] has emphasized? Bring it back! Re-create it! Use the Franklin Roosevelt model. Re-create the Democratic Party, the way he sort of brought it back out of the grave, back then.
And that's what's important.
I'm not running for the next election. I am, but I'm not. The serious running is not done by going into the polls, and organizing for the polls, next November. Running, now, for President, is being like a President, now! And, providing the leadership that this nation needs.
Thank you.
