Dialogue with LaRouche
Freeman: Thank you, Lyn. Well, we will now proceed to our question and answer period....
LaRouche's address, which preceeded this discussion, is available here. A PDF version of LaRouche's address, plus the discussion printed here, including graphics, can be found here.
LaRouche: Well, first of all, you have to realize we're in a war situation. The war is against the British Empire, and the British Empire's war against us. What is being done now, and it has been done recently with these bailouts: If you look at what happened recently, with this thing, the most angering part of the bailout among the American people, was when they found out that the money that the Federal government had given for bailout in the U.S. system, as in AIG, was being used for massive benefits for foreigners. So, what has been happening is, the United States is being subjected a pressure to destroy the United States, as a nation, through hyperinflation, and through bailouts of this type.
The Priority in Afghanistan
The first question is on Afghanistan, and it comes from Washington, D.C., from an individual who is one of several who is tasked with putting together policy for Afghanistan. He says, "Mr. LaRouche, as I'm sure you know, on Friday, a number of people joined Ambassador Holbrooke in a trip to Afghanistan, where we are beginning to flesh out the details of what the Obama Administration's policy will be. It is certainly a policy which is much different than the policy of the previous Administration, and also different perhaps than what we first conceptualized, immediately after the election. There is talk, ultimately, of moving literally hundreds of diplomats and other professionals into the region to help expedite this policy overall. In the meantime, the situation in Pakistan grows more grave and more unstable. You have addressed this on many previous occasions, but we were wondering if you would be willing to give us an overview, in terms of direction, of what you think are the priorities to be addressed."
LaRouche: Well, first of all, you have to realize we're in a war situation. The war is against the British Empire, and the British Empire's war against us. What is being done now, and it has been done recently with these bailouts: If you look at what happened recently, with this thing, the most angering part of the bailout among the American people, was when they found out that the money that the Federal government had given for bailout in the U.S. system, as in AIG, was being used for massive benefits for foreigners. So, what has been happening is, the United States is being subjected a pressure to destroy the United States, as a nation, through hyperinflation, and through bailouts of this type.
We're engaged in a war against the British Empire! Now, I think that probably President Obama would be sympathetic to my saying that, emotionally at least, but the point is, this policy of ignoring that issue. We're under attack, by a force which is determined to destroy our nation, a force which is called the British Empire. What they're doing is, they're sowing the seeds of a hyperinflation like that which Germany went through in the 1920s, inside the United States, by these bailout operations. And the British think it's very clever, and they're bringing people in Europe on line to join in raping the United States. Now, every policy we deal with, has got to deal with the premise that we're under attack, like warfare, by the British Empire.
Case in point: Afghanistan. Drugs! Drugs grown by a farmer in Afghanistan, opium, may be a $500 or $600 crop per year. What's that crop worth on the European market? How many millions of dollars is that crop worth on the European market? The idea that we have a problem in Afghanistan in which U.S. military and other forces ought to be engaged, is insane! We are not in there to shoot farmers, even opium-growing farmers. That is a stupid idea. The idea that we have to have a military force in there to "manage" that thing sociologically, is insane! We can't even manage an American city, let alone a nation like Afghanistan. So, don't put in advisors to manage that nonsense.
What you have to do is, you have to talk to Russia, to China, to India, and other concerned countries, and use our concerted force to get rid of every dope peddler moving drugs across borders. We have to toughen up all the drug laws. Any substances which are in this category, have to be banned, absolutely! If we have to jam the prison camps for the time being until we get that thing cleaned up, we should do it. Because if we don't do that, we're not going to have a civilization; that's your choice. Forget the ideology.
Now, who is running the drug war? Who is conducting the warfare against the United States on drugs, and other countries? George Soros! Who, among other things, controls Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives? You're serious about the drug problem; you're serious about the Afghanistan problem? Get Nancy Pelosi out of the chair! Push her off the table!
So therefore, I am against the idea that we have to have a virtual occupation policy in Afghanistan. I don't want Americans wasting their lives in Afghanistan. The idea that you're going to manage the thing, make things better—. What you have to do is one thing—just the same thing that our Attorney General is doing in respect to Mexico, in cooperation with President Calderón in Mexico. We have to shut that border down! Not against the Mexican people, not against commerce. But we have to get rid of that weapons and drug traffic, two ways, across the border. We can do it—do it! And do it by getting nations to cooperate with each other for common benefit, and do it by punishing the British every time they turn around.
George Soros has committed what we consider crimes. Why is he still running loose? What about Lord Malloch-Brown? He's no good either. What about Gordon Brown, the present Prime Minister? He's no good either. The former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was more evil, and even worse. He was the liar who got us into the war in Iraq. Get rid of these guys! Get them out! Don't cater to them; don't treat them as respectable—they're not respectable.
And create a condition under which countries by themselves—for example, the farmer who gets into the drug circuit, becomes a part of a drug empire, and he's not going to get more money than he would by growing a crop. He's going to be absorbed in the drug process; he's going to be oppressed and looted. He's going to go into virtual slavery, slavery to the drug lords, who are developing armies with which to deal with taking over the control of governments, and entire government areas, nation-states.
We have to have a policy which is progressive, and we have to have a policy of recognizing that the British Empire in its present form, under the Fabian Society of government, is the enemy of the United States. And we have to break that. That must be our policy.
The other side of our policy, which is what I'm promoting, is that we have to have an agreement with Russia, first of all—and discussion with Russia on this is crucial—because Russia is the most likely nation to move with us, under the right conditions, to bring China, and India, and some other countries together, in a Eurasian bloc in alliance with the United States, to deal with various problems, including the nations' financial reform and recovery.
So, in other words, you have to go back to the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. And instead of limiting the Peace of Westphalia concept to giving some benefits to our neighbors, and not killing our neighbors, we have to go beyond that. We have to take the idea of affirmative changes in policy as being a Westphalian principle. We have to be working to do something good for the development of other nations, and induce nations to cooperate in doing good for each other. This is not a diminution of sovereignty; it is an affirmation of sovereignty: that a nation has a right to be free, to do good for itself and others. And that should be the policy of the United States. We are best suited, among all nations, to do that, by virtue of our history.
You see, you have to remind people, especially as these questions come in, of one principle here. The people who colonized what became the United States, as in the course of the 17th Century, as in the case of Massachusetts, for example. (I have some ancestors who were involved in that, with their arrival in Massachusetts, so I've got a vested interest in this matter.) That we came here, in these colonizations, not as refugees from Europe; we came under the inspiration of a policy which was spread within Europe under the influence radiated from Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa in the middle of the 15th Century.
Now Cusa, during the wars which developed during and following the fall of Constantinople, realized that a reaction had occurred in Europe, a trend for the worse. And on this basis, he proposed a policy—which was one of the last policies he proposed before he died—that the people of Europe who were dedicated, should go across the oceans, to engage Europeans who were concerned with places across the oceans, and thus to build up a foil there, to act on Europe to stop the kind of destruction typified later on, by the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, that sort of thing.
Cusa died in that century, but his friends didn't. And Christopher Columbus, who was a seaman of Genoese progeny, operating in the Portuguese service, united service, met in Lisbon with a friend of Cusa's, a clergyman, and had contact with writings by Cusa pertaining to this project. So, in approximately 1480, Christopher Columbus, who was in extensive contact, literary exchange, with Cusa's friends in Italy, was able in 1492 to finally get the funding to conduct this voyage across the Atlantic, an ocean he knew, in order to start this kind of process of developing relations with the people on the other side of the ocean, to balance off the degeneration which was occurring in Europe.
That was his intention, and over the course of the following century, going into the beginning of the 17th Century, there are whole legions of people, or shiploads of people, as with the Mayflower, and as from Spain and other cases, who travelled across the Atlantic to create settlements in North America and in Central America, whose intention was, whose purpose was, to build up new cultures, new civilizations, at a safe distance from the corruption which had taken over Europe, and thus, to take the best of European culture across the ocean, to build up the allies for the liberation of Europe from the evils of oligarchy, the feudal and similar kinds of oligarchy.
That is our intention; it was our intention then. That is our character. Most Americans came from European origins, until recently. Most came here originally, to found colonies, which would then take the best of European culture, cleansed of its oligarchical associations, to build up in the Americas a force which could then act on Europe to liberate Europe from itself; to liberate it from the idea of aristocracies, and oligarchies, and titles, and to reduce all citizens to the rank of citizen. That was the intention. Our intention was to take the best of European culture, freed of the dirty stuff, and to bring the best of European culture into other parts of the world. That was Roosevelt's policy.
That policy goes to the soul of the United States. We, because of our history, are the best example, the best natural example, of that policy. That's the policy of Franklin Roosevelt—not Truman. And the policy is, we must seize what we are; we are Americans in that sense, not in a chauvinist sense, but in that sense. Our purpose is to present the world with the idea of a sovereign nation-state, which is without oligarchy, and which is committed to the greatest principles of civilization of mankind in general, and to promote them. And to promote the freedom of nations to exercise that kind of privilege.
In dealing with this Afghanistan question, and other questions, we have to take an affirmative moral position, that we are not in these areas to manage these areas, to condition them, to treat them like children. Our job is to inspire people and to give them the freedom to be able to be inspired.
And the first thing we have to be able to do, is to get rid of the British Empire and George Soros. Get them out of our politics, and shut down everything they represent! The British Empire is our enemy! And anybody who is competent to be President or an official of the United States, ought to recognize that. We're not out to make war on them; we're out to liberate them, by getting rid of people like Tony Blair, and similar Fabian types, who are about the most evil thing that slimes around the Earth today.
And therefore, our job is not to go in and conquer areas one at a time; our job is to organize nations together, for collaborative efforts which deal with these evils that oppress us. And this drug traffic is an evil we should shut down. And if the British Empire doesn't like it, we'll shut them down, too. We have to start from that. Don't start from this thing—"we're going to negotiate, we going do this," or whatever. It's namby-pamby stuff; cut it out! Get tough; but be righteous. Don't oppress; but destroy what needs to be destroyed for the sake of humanity.
And I don't like this idea of going into Afghanistan. It's a wrong policy. It's a compromise with something else, and I don't think we have to make those kinds of compromises. I don't think we need to. I think we ought to destroy the British Empire, and then the people will listen to us, and we can get everything done.
A Special Celebration
Freeman: Before I go to the next question.... This weekend, a long-time leader of the LaRouche movement in the United States, Susan Schlanger, who is also the wife of Mr. LaRouche's West Coast spokesman Harley, is celebrating her birthday, and she is doing so under very difficult conditions. She has been ill, she's been gravely ill, and she has been not only involved in a courageous fight against that illness, but she has not stopped organizing for a single day in the midst of it. And I wanted to take the opportunity to extend birthday greetings to her. And to tell her that I insist, as do many others, that she stick around, because we need her. So, I ask you to join me in wishing Susan a Happy Birthday [applause].
How To Help Sudan
The next question is on the current situation with Sudan, and this comes from inside the Obama Administration: "Mr. LaRouche, as I think you know, we've been under enormous pressure to take a public position on the recent ICC indictment of President Bashir. And that pressure doesn't come from just outside the United States. While so far, the President has not felt the need to respond to the warrant itself, he does feel the need to respond the indisputable suffering in the area. The issuance of the warrant provoked a response by the Sudanese that included the expulsion of a number of organizations that were providing humanitarian relief, in an area that desperately needs it. While the Sudanese government has denied that the policy towards Darfur is one of genocide, and has repeatedly insisted that it is working to resolve this internal problem, the fact is that the expulsions have done little to help their credibility in this area. As I think you know, the Secretary of State has urged President Bashir to allow these organizations back in, but so far has received no response. You seem to enjoy very good relations with Sudan, and with other nations in Africa. Could you please comment on why it is you believe that the Sudanese government has been so resistant to allowing and accepting this humanitarian relief?"
LaRouche: Well, that's a tricky question, you know, because it's not really true. See, the problem is, the case of Susan Rice. Susan Rice has blocked any attempt to secure competent information at the State Department or anybody else. Now, there are people in the State Department area, or former members and so forth, who could handle this problem, who know the truth about Darfur. But what Mrs. [Clinton] and so forth have been given in general, is not the truth. And the issue of the so-called humanitarian organizations has a twist on it which is absolutely opposite to what she thinks it is.
Go back to 1898. I think it's important I say this, since, because of Susan Rice, no one, I think, in the Obama government knows anything competent about Sudan, including the Secretary of State—does not know the truth. And the fact that a lie is believed, is the problem. And there are people who are senior specialists, in State Department and related affairs, who are intimately acquainted with the truth of the matter, but Susan Rice has prevented that information from getting into the proper channels in the State Department and elsewhere. So, the problem we're dealing with here is, the Secretary of State has been subjected to a lie, and therefore, tends to believe that there's a problem with the humanitarian organizations.
Okay, let's go through what she should have known, if she'd been able to have access to competent, trustworthy resources.
The history of Darfur goes back to the period in which Kitchener had subjugated Sudan. In that period, you had a conflict between the British and French colonial programs. Chad was on the French side; Sudan was on the English side. When Kitchener conquered Sudan, France gave up some of its claims. Now, in a border area which is called Darfur today, there were two principal tribes. One largely on the Chadian side of the fence, the other, the largely Fur, or Darfur side of the fence. Under an agreement with the French, the British had the area, which was disputed territory between these two tribes, cut, so that the larger area was located in Sudan.
Since that time, under continued British occupation, since 1898, the entire area has been controlled by British intelligence operations, and occasionally French contrary operations. The tribes are ragged tribes; it's an area in which the population is poor, and also the water levels have been dropping. Therefore, the starvation, the conditions of life, have been deteriorating. There have also been various interventions by foreign agencies into Sudan, to prevent the Sudan government from dealing with this problem, from exerting its authority in the territory.
The humanitarian groups, so-called, are typical of this. Many of the humanitarian groups are actually intelligence operations, operating to stir things up there. Now, some of them may be doing some good—some, but many are not. And the only way to deal with the problem is to have the Sudan government, with support, straighten the mess out. Those which are legitimate, which are not foreign intelligence operations, fine; let the Sudan government decide what it wants to do with that. I'm sure it'll enjoy their cooperation. But what about the organizations which pretend to be humanitarian, but which are in there stirring up the typical kind of mess, and causing the bloodshed, inciting it, or otherwise?
So therefore, the policy of the United States is a weak-kneed one. Susan Rice ought to be told to stick to her business, and not interfere with the functions of the Secretary of State in making a judgment in these areas.
I think that the idea of Susan Rice having an independent voice in this thing is an abomination! She should stick to her job of representation to the United Nations Organization, and not try to make policy, which is a State Department area. And the Secretary of State should have access to people who know the area, who are expert, who will tell her the truth, and gladly. Or would assist her to find out out for herself.
We have no problem with Bashir, as the United States—no problem there. We have a problem of Africa, as I mentioned. I have seen a recent and large specialized report on Africa, on helicopter studies of every part of Africa. I will tell you, from the results of that, that the British operations in Africa are genocidal.
Now, what's the ICC? The ICC is the creation of the largest drug-pusher in the world, the most extensive: George Soros. He created it. He created it with the British parliamentary office of Lord Malloch Brown, who's his crony. George Soros created the drug operation in Mexico, and so forth and so on.
So, the problem here is, let's wake up to reality. First of all, we should shut down the warrant. We should close down the ICC—it is not a legitimate function, it is a British intelligence operation. And if you try to do anything repressive against Sudan, you'll cause a chain-reaction throughout the region, and the United States government will not survive that chain-reaction.
There's tremendous pressure and bullying on this issue, and it comes from sources like the British government and George Soros. I think, again, if we recognize that the present British government is the enemy of the United States, and without making war on it—actually physical shooting war on it—let's hope that we get rid of the Fabians, and [the Sudanese] will settle themselves on some decent arrangement. And there are people in the United Kingdom who do want a decent arrangement. They don't want any more of this Blair kind of Fabianism. And that's the problem.
So, one should not take these things and try to negotiate with them on the basis of misinformation, like this information about the problem of the so-called humanitarian organizations, many of which are actually fomenting the problem. If the United States government instead, went to Bashir and said, "Okay, what do you want? We're a new Administration, we're not the Bush Administration, that racist bunch of swine. Talk to us; what can we do to solve the problem?"
You don't need these kinds of resolutions from the outside, you don't need to throw stink bombs in other people's backyards. We're there, we're friendly. And I can tell you that I know Bashir, and this case against him is fraudulent. I know what's happened; I've been into this area since 1994. I know the history of the area. I know many of the personalities of the area. I've been in in-depth operations and investigations in that area. At one point, I was actually dealing with the so-called tribes in the South, at the designation of Bashir. And they asked me, as a friendly agency, to deal with these people and try to find out what they want, and try to assist in bringing about peaceful negotiation between them. I know the area very well, as the Secretary of State does not. And everyone who does know it, inside the U.S. diplomatic community, really knows it, knows what I know. And the Obama government was lied to, largely with the complicity of Susan Rice.
Basic Flaws in the Financial System
Freeman: The next group of questions comes from a multi-disciplinary group which you are familiar with, that operates out of principally Stanford and Princeton, and also Berkeley, who are working in an advisory capacity with the current Administration, in shaping economic and financial policy. They say: "Mr. LaRouche, we have several questions for you today that have arisen from our ongoing deliberations. As you know, we've broken down into different task forces, and some of the questions that we present to you today may reflect that.
"We'd also like it to be noted that we agree that it would be far more productive, and undoubtedly far more efficient, to conduct this discussion with all of us seated around a common table. It's our current understanding that there are certain political obstacles to that happening, but that steps are being taken to resolve them. So, we are hopeful that they will soon be resolved; but in the interim, we do have questions that we'd like you to address."
The first question says: "As public dissatisfaction with the bailout grows, it's also increasingly clear that there is no amount of money that will satisfy this monster. So, bankruptcy reorganization is increasingly seen as the only workable alternative. It would seem to many of us to be a no-brainer, but there is still a problem involved, and that is, it would seem that bankruptcy reorganization, while it will alleviate a certain immediate problem, will not solve the problem of the views and agreements that underlie the current structure of the banking system...."
LaRouche: Well, as I think some of you know, on the 25th of July of 2007, I not only reported the imminence of a general breakdown crisis internationally, of the present system, but indicated a number of measures to be taken, during that period, and then I followed it up with supplementary statements on the same subject in the following weeks.
Now, the first thing I proposed, was the enactment of a piece of legislation called the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act of 2007. I also indicated a few weeks later, the 4% interest rate for regular banking loans, and a lower rate on government projects—1.5% to 2%. And also, to ensure that banks which were in trouble, but which were chartered banks—not the speculative banks like the Wall Street banks, but the chartered banks, the ones that had deposits in them, and do all this local thing on the Federal level, and state level—that these banks be protected. That these banks be put under bankruptcy protection, in order to continue their essential function in the community. And we would work with them to try to work their way out of the bankrupt condition. The same thing for the homeowner. So the idea was, we're going to keep people in their homes, we're not going to let them be thrown out. We're going to find arrangements to keep them in their homes until we can resolve this bankruptcy problem. And secondly, we're going to protect the chartered banks of the state and Federal banks of the United States. And then, we have to go from a Federal level, to a much more general operation, in terms of reorganizing the United States and the world financial situation, because of the crisis.
If those policies, which I enunciated then, through then and through the beginning of September, had been adopted, the United States would be out of the woods today. We would still have a problem, but the problem would be manageable, and it would be under control. The failure to take those actions is the problem.
What we do is, go back to the fact that we made some mistakes with Bush running loose. And simply say, "Okay, do it now." The Obama Administration should do it. They should say, they tried other things, they weren't working, and they're not going to work; therefore, the following has to be done.
Now, on the question of this vast bailout operation—it should be cancelled. It's a terrible mistake; it was induced, by undue pressure. A lot of people made mistakes—they supported it. They supported this; we opposed it. And you should make a list of people who voted for it, under great pressure. They should never have supported that bill—the bailout—it should have gone through bankruptcy.
Now, the only thing you can do today is put this thing through bankruptcy, because bankruptcy means bankruptcy protection. The Federal government takes the relevant institutions into bankruptcy protection, which means nothing bad happens to these institutions. They're not shut down; they're not looted; they're not touched.
What we have to do is, we take all this crap inside, by this merger of the banking system, we take all this crap and we put it in a room, and we shut the door and keep it shut. We take the things in this bank or banking system which are equivalent to what we had under normal protection beforehand: Glass-Steagall. We use the Glass-Steagall standard, and we reorganize the banks which qualify as chartered banks.
That way, we do two things. First of all, we take the crap that was put in there, among what had been chartered banks, and we freeze it. We take the part of the bank which corresponds to the operations of chartered bank operations, and we process them as Roosevelt did, with a bank holiday, and we process them to function, get back on the road right away. Instead of a bailout, we provide Federal credit to these banks, as chartered banks, or banks of a chartered form, which conform to a Glass-Steagall standard, and are able to continue to resume functioning, under Federal protection. Thus we try to take the viable part of the U.S. economy, get it functioning again. Just a normal way. You've got a structure; you've got communities; you've got banks in the community.
Now, they're worse off than they were before. With all the measures they've taken, they've made the thing a mess. Everything that was done by the Federal government, instead of doing what I indicated, has been a terrible mistake. Admit it! "We made a terrible mistake." Fine. Okay, we're now going to do the right thing.
Go back and do it: Enact the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act, in this form.
Now, the portions of the banks which are viable, by chartered bank standards, Glass-Steagall standards—we protect them. The other part? Ha, ha, ha!
You have to. You have to get rough. Do you realize how much was stolen from the American people by this swindle? How much is being stolen still every day, from the American people? Foreigners are coming in and looting our institutions, on this specious case, and someone is saying, this is an agreement. What about agreements? Didn't we agree to things that have been cancelled? No, we'll go back to moral standards. If something was wrong, it was wrong. And you say so. You say, this was a mistake! We're now going to reverse it. This was wrong! We're going to reverse it. That's the power of government, that's what governments are supposed to do.
Because I know that, as of the end of July of 2007, what I had immediately as a policy, would have prevented any of this from happening. And it was only corruption in the government, merely typified by Senator Dodd, or Barney Frankenstein—what these guys did, and what others did, what Goldman Sachs did ... Goldman Sucks! These firms, what these fascist organizations are doing to the United States, admittedly fascist organizations.
No, we use the power of government, the sovereignty of government.
Now, this is a tricky area, because, remember, from 1936 to 1938, Franklin Roosevelt was under real pressure, to shut down the revival of the U.S. economy. And there were two rough years during that period, in which Roosevelt kept the program going, but the expansion wasn't going. And it was the fascist organizations, the predecessors of Amity Shlaes, who did the job. When Roosevelt had the chance, he resumed the reconstruction program.
We're going to have a problem. It's going to take courage to fight that problem, because the whole horde of all these monsters, who have looted our banks, who have looted our citizens, looted our country, and are betraying our country, who are actually conducting a form of warfare against the United States, especially with the British Empire: That's the enemy.
But if—as Roosevelt demonstrated, at the time of Pearl Harbor—we have a very angry U.S. population; below the level of the U.S. Congress, the anger is enormous. It's building. It's assuming lynch mob characteristics in some cases, because of what's been done to the American people. If you mobilize the American people, under a condition like warfare, as for war, to defend the United States against this rapacity, the American people will respond.
But you must respect another principle of warfare: When you're in command, you've got to stay in command. Don't flinch! Don't say, "Oh, we did that for you, but we have to take it back because some people didn't like it." No! If you're right, you don't change. And you know the American people have an intention as to what they want, and they've expressed it, very strongly recently. You have to respond to that, and say, "We're going to do that." And sit back and trust the American people. If you're President, that's all you've got. If they can't trust you, then you can't trust them.
Don't betray them.
Now, Obama has not made a mistake of actually betraying the American people. He's made mistakes, but he's not made that moral mistake, yet. But he can't afford too many more of these mistakes. He's got to act soon. And he's got to use—as Franklin Roosevelt did, when he has the thing in his hand, as when Pearl Harbor happened, Roosevelt let loose, and did everything he had to do. And we won! We won—we got the fascists on the run, the U.S. fascists on the run. And we did so because the President acted promptly, and with firmness, in doing what had to be done. And the American people supported it. And the fascists went and hid for a while, in secret chambers, and then emerged later with Truman.
So, the point is, that's what has to be done. There are measures which can be taken. Take them! And make them a fighting issue. The defense of the nation against an enemy: The American people will be able to understand that. And after the treatment they got from the Bush Administration, and from the enemies of Obama now, they've got every right, and they've got every power to do this.
It takes the guts to do it, and also intelligence, of course.
Basis for a Four-Power Alliance
Freeman: ...The next question: "Mr. LaRouche, one of the issues that we are looking at, is that no matter how you do your calculations, the problem is that the total amount of current outstanding debt, is greater than any real existing economic value. And this is the case both for banks, but also, in some cases, for nations. There is not any obvious way to resolve this, unless we step outside of the current framework. In your view, is there a way that this can be addressed, at least initially, by treaty agreements between individual nations, on the road toward a much larger restructuring of the global system?"
LaRouche: You know, treaties come after the war has been won, not before. And that's the way you have to look at this.
Now, see, we in the United States are not really alone. We have some very important potential allies, who are not consolidated now, because we had an administration that did not lend itself to collecting allies, before.
For example, Russia. Russia, China—China in particular—are nations which are large nations, in different respects. China—1.4 billion people. Russia has not that large a population, although it's significant; but the territory, and the characteristics of the territory, in terms of mineral resources, are really, truly important. India will join in an effort which is shared by Russia and China. Such an agreement among those nations, with the United States, would mean the automatic joining of Japan, of Malaysia, of Korea, and so forth.
So, we have in our hands, a potential alliance with a very large part of the states by population, and the growing sympathy for such an enterprise among the people of Europe, among the nations of Africa, and among the forces in South and Central America.
We potentially have an alliance for peace, which is comparable to the U.S. alliance for war during World War II.
We don't need to go further than that. We simply have to decide how we're going to proceed in our discussions with Russia, and Russia channels, and China channels, India channels—which I'm involved in, for example. And certain forces in Europe, which flip-flop, but nonetheless are accessible. And as you see the rally for the defense of Sudan, among African and Arab nations, that's not an isolated situation. That can be our ally, among others.
So, what we have to do is, we have to decide on what a U.S. policy is, knowing in advance that it's the only policy that any decent person would want to support, and knowing that we can win that support. It means you have to talk to Russia, in terms that actually convince relevant people in Russia to understand that we're dead serious about this.
And the first thing that you have to understand, in this kind of thing: Don't propose to somebody that they join you in a war, when you're not sure whether you want to fight that war or not! Therefore, you have to determine what is the vital interest of the United States, and you have to proceed, as I do, to go back to the origins of the United States, in those elements of the European colonization, such as the Mayflower Compact, and the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, prior to 1688, 1689. You have to do exactly that, and say: "This is us! What are we? We're not people who ran away from Europe. We're people who came here, in order to save Europe from itself! To create a force in the United States, or in America, which would take the best of European civilization, save it, nurture it, but get rid of the other stuff, which the Europeans by themselves could not do."
We have to know that that's who we are. That's the meaning of our existence as a nation on this planet. Otherwise, why should we exist? What's our purpose in existing? Our purpose in existing, is to take the best of European civilization, nurture it here, and do the same thing with respect to other countries, and their cultures, and be the nation, the only true republic, really, on this planet, by our Constitution, and use that authority, and act with firmness and resolution. Because if you're not willing to actually fight the war yourself, and take the responsibility for the war, nobody's going to come to the party.
So, don't hesitate and say, "What's going to work? What's going to work?" Say what should work, and what is necessary to accomplish. And stick to that.
I can tell you, if I were President of the United States, I could win this war. My job is to convince President Obama to do as I would do. I would win this war.
A Mountain of Speculative Paper
Freeman: Next question: "Mr. LaRouche, the sums of money currently involve in the bailout policy, not only are obviously not helping, but seem to be feeding what we think is the most critical problem that we face, and that has to be resolved. An overall survey of the state of the U.S. economy, and most specifically, of U.S. infrastructure, indicates that at least over the last 25 years, which is the period that we were investigating, the United States has suffered a net loss of both basic economic infrastructure, and also of productive capacity. Any measurable growth that we could find, has been largely in what would, at best, be considered soft infrastructure, but, to be honest, is largely located in the sheer growth of speculative values.
"Under these conditions, to get to the point, it would seem that one of the things that has to be addressed, is not simply that the bailout cannot work, but that, in fact, the bailout serves, at least in technical terms, and especially from the standpoint of your Triple Curve function, serves to drive the nation deeper into bankruptcy, and is making the task of building our way out of it, all the more difficult.
"Do you agree with this? And do you have anything more you'd like to say about it?"
LaRouche: Well, first of all, we have to understand that British interests are conducting a war against the United States. And you look at what's happening: The British are determining our policy, through this Wall Street crowd. You see it again.
What they're doing, is they're causing us to engage in hyperinflation. We have reached the point now, that we're all ready to go into a hyperinflationary explosion, of the type experienced by Germany in the Summer of 1923. And the British are doing it directly to us, as an act of warfare against us!
We have to crush them! And the way to crush them is to take the obvious steps: Sink their boat. And you sink their boat by using the weapon of bankruptcy, under U.S. law, and the U.S. Constitution, and use the principle of the general welfare, the Preamble of the Constitution, which is the fundamental law of the Constitution. It's not a Preamble, it's not something of that sort. It is a statement of the purpose of the existence of the United States. And the other aspects of the Constitution pertain to the implementation of that. But that's the fundamental principle. And therefore you use that principle, and you enforce it.
The world really is looking for leadership. The Chinese are looking for leadership now. The Indians less so, but they also would like a little bit. Russia is looking for a leadership role, by the United States. Africa is looking for a leadership role from the United States—they want to get rid of the British.
The drug problem frightens people. You have whole governments that are terrified of George Soros's drug armies.
We have the weapons, and we have the cause, and we have the Constitution. We can win this! We have to have a government that has the guts to win. But you have politicians that want a no-risk war!
Consumer Credit
Freeman: ... One of the task forces asks: "Mr. LaRouche, one of the points that Professor Galbraith has made, is that, when considering what did and did not work during FDR's Presidency, there has to be a differentiation between the question of state credit, and consumer credit. In the area of state credit, we assume that what we're discussing is state credit properly directed toward projects that are vital to the nation's economy, like infrastructure-rebuilding, but really anything that is involved in fostering real economic growth. The fact is that work is done, people are re-employed, things are built, people are paid, people will spend money, and the economy grows.
"But this, at least from the standpoint of what we're discussing, is not the same as consumer credit. Professor Galbraith's point is that it is true that consumer credit was not restored until well after the war. But what he argues is that this fact, while true, is irrelevant, because long before consumer credit was restored, the economy itself was on the road to recovery. People may not have had credit, but they had money.
"Today, there seems to be little differentiation between the two. Even worse, the prevailing view seems to be that the only way to foster economic growth, is to rapidly restore the availability of consumer credit, rather than the other way around.
"It seems to us that the failure to make this differentiation, represents a fatal disorientation, in the way that policy is judged. Are we looking at this the right way?"
LaRouche: First of all, I think Galbraith is accurate, but I think you have to put something else on this, because you have to think about the objections you run into, if you adopt a policy consistent with that. The policy is correct, but the objections you'll get by announcing the policy, require you to say a little bit more. You have to get rough. You say the right thing, but you have to enforce it.
Now, the intent of our nation is not a matter of distributing will power to a lot of individual people. The intent of the nation is something where we harbor our resources, in such a way that we don't dissipate them chaotically. That's the basic thing of a recovery. And the idea of consumer credit—let the individual decide where to invest—that's wrong! That's stupid!
The way it has worked in recovery, in every recovery, is the government recognized that certain undertakings were available, and necessary. The government therefore said, "The government is providing credit and funds for these purposes. Now, whoever is going to serve that, and apply to be one of the persons who does that job, show up!" So, now you have credit given, but not to somebody who comes in—"Can I have some of this? Can I have some of this candy? That candy, this kind of candy?" No, that's not the way you do it.
What you do is you determine, on the level of the Federal government, what is the national purpose. To that end, you consult with the state political organizations, and you have plenty of people who are willing to tell you what you should do, as government. So you have on your table, all these options. You have to decide what the national interest is. What is the interest of the Federal government, as the representative of the people, the nation as a whole? Of the future of the nation?
You vote on your policy. You select your policymakers. You make a decision, as to what the policy will be. You say, "Well, if you want credit, come in on one of these things and qualify for it." And that's the way it's done. Don't sit out there and say, "Well, we got some money we can lend. You know we want to help private industry." Bunk! Forget it! Get away from that!
Money has no intrinsic value. The idea that money has intrinsic value is as old as the cult of Delphi, which used to engage in this kind of swindle. It's the way Europe was run by Venetian swindlers, by the Roman Empire, by the Byzantine Empire, and similar kinds of people. By the British Empire. Organize around chaos.
You see, the secret of empire is to play one person against the other, especially religion or culture. What is the order, in the suggestion to Lord Shelburne, in organizing the British Empire? You use the precedent of Julian the Apostate: Take and divide every religion against every religion. Divide every culture against every culture. Create a pantheon of religions and cultures, and orchestrate their conflicts with each other, the way they run the Israeli-Arab conflict in the Middle East, under Sykes-Picot.
The Israelis don't start the wars; the Arabs don't start the wars. The British organize the wars, like a boxing event, or a football match. They organize it!
So, the point is, you operate on the basis of a national interest and a national selection of the policies of the nation, or the group of nations, which agree on a common policy. You then mobilize the credit you have, which is always scarce—you don't exclude things, you just don't fund them. And you put out bids, and you say, "Who among us, or who, if we have to go to foreign sources, is willing to contribute, and dedicate themselves competently to implementation of this goal?" And that's the way you do it. That's the way Roosevelt did it.
We used the war case for mobilizing industry, and we had intended in the postwar period, not to shelve it and downsize the U.S. economy. Our intention was to go overseas, provide more credit to the benefit of countries which were colonized, to free themselves. To assist Europe in recovery, and that sort of thing. That was our national mission. That's what we intended to do.
Truman cut it back. Truman recolonized the world, for the sake of the British and the Dutch. He had the wrong policy—he was a stinker. And he was a pro-fascist, in a certain sense, like a lot of other people.
So, no, you take a national mission, which gets a national result, and you have to take responsibility as government for getting that result. And you will do adjustments all the way through to make sure it works. And you call people in, and say, "This is your opportunity." We gave contracts to people, war contracts, for military goods and other goods, to firms. And they had to perform on the contract. And we gave them credit to do the job. Through the banking system, or directly loans by government. And that's the way you have to do it now.
We have a shortage of resources. You have to go to the operations which will give you the greatest benefit, with the least effort. You set up a table of decisions to go with this thing. And you go with it, and you fund it. And you create the credit, by government, by state credit—not by money, by state credit—to make these projects work. And you look for the results. You mobilize, you educate, you have propaganda machines, you have teams going out to make sure these projects are going to work. You fix up projects that aren't working that should work. The way we did in World War II, and other conditions—that's the way to do it. Go back to the history of how the United States organized, before World War II, and before that. Look at the history of the United States under Lincoln, and what followed after Lincoln. You get the idea how it works.
How To Employ the Middle Class
Freeman: ... Continuing along this line, the task force asks: "In order to foster state credit, our system requires congressional approval. And in that sense, it had created a situation right now, in which the President is a virtual hostage to the Congress, for this reason: Both the Congress, but also the American people, demand a quick fix. And long-term infrastructural development will not necessarily provide that.
"FDR did not have the problem of a massive middle class, whose standard of living was created and maintained, almost entirely by consumer credit. We, however, do have that problem, and frankly, that segment of the population is not inclined to go to work building bridges. So, in order to be able to persuade the Congress and the American people to support policies of long-term growth, we're told that we must also figure out how to maintain the living standard of this very large segment of the population. And the fact is, that we're not unconcerned about it, but we're also dealing with totally uncharted territory. Would you please comment?"
LaRouche: Of course, you know that all progress, and all non-losses in warfare, mean going into uncharted territory! This is the point that Galbraith made, that the tendency is, of weaklings and incompetents, that they are afraid to go outside the system that exists, to find solutions. They're stubborn. They'll stay at the railroad station, after the system has closed down. They'll stubbornly hold out to get the train back again. And they'll starve to death with cobwebs hanging on their corpses, as they dry out, waiting for that train to come.
This is not really the way we ought to look at things.
No, I think the fear of this thing is wrong. You have out there, first of all: The majority of the U.S. population, the absolute majority, is suffering. And I think that the percent of the population that is not suffering, is rapidly shrinking. I think that you're paying too much attention to the experts, so-called.
Because, you look—the Congress is an institution assembled for the purpose of cowardice. But if you look at the temperament of the people, as you saw in Connecticut, recently: The people are ready to lynch! And as this hyperinflation begins now, and it's already coming, like the train delivering from UPS, that train is coming. The American people are going to become increasingly angry, and are going to demand action. It is the failure to do exactly this—I think that a lot of advisors and lobbyists are busy running around and saying, "Oh, oh, oh, oh, you can't do that! People will, the middle class will be angry."
Well, the middle class is not a middle class any more. It is now sliding into the ranks of the downtrodden. And it's reacting like that.
Who do you think was doing that rioting, that pitch-fork rioting, up there in Connecticut, over this issue? They were ready to kill. This was the middle class! This is not industrial workers, this is the middle class. Industrial workers are demoralized, they've lost almost everything, those guys. The middle class is now in revolt, because they are not so dumb that they don't know they're being screwed. And therefore, they don't want the status quo. They want a new status. And they will accept one.
If they think, "But we don't want to give up this, we like this kind of job, we like to live here."
"But, you can't do that anymore, it's gone."
"Okay, what do we do?"
What's Wrong with 'Alternative Energy'?
Freeman: Now we're going to move on to a couple of questions on energy policy. Here we're going to have some controversy. This question says: "Mr. LaRouche, you have taken a very strong position against the development of alternate energy sources, and you've argued instead that nuclear power is our only alternative. There are many varying views among us on this. But for the sake of this discussion, it may be the case that wind or solar power is not capable of providing sufficient energy to power industry, or even to power a major metropolitan area. But in the interest of achieving energy independence in the short term, why are you so opposed to encouraging, through tax credits and other things, the use of alternate sources of energy generation for households and communities?
LaRouche: I oppose it because it's utterly incompetent.
There's no possible justification for it. The so-called science involved is complete lies. And I have people telling me things that, except on the grounds of being exonerated on grounds of stupidity, we'd have to call them liars.
There is no such thing as an "energy policy." An energy policy is a form of masturbation, not a policy. The driving power of an economy is energy flux-density. The power to do work is not measured in quantities of calories. The same amount of heat, at low energy flux-density, is not equivalent to a higher order of energy flux-density.
This is a matter of physics. Now, you have people who don't understand physics. You have people running around with degrees in physics, but they're degrees in physics policy, "physics social policy," how atoms should kiss each other, or whatever.
So, this thing is utterly incompetent. There is no such thing as an alternate energy policy. What this is, is a genocide policy!
Where does it come from? It comes from the head of the World Wildlife Fund. And it's a policy that was created by Prince Philip, and his Nazi friend, Prince Bernhard, who's died subsequently, which is the World Wildlife Fund. The purpose is to reduce the world's population to less than 2 billion, as fast as possible. And that's exactly what this policy will do.
We can develop, now, a larger, much larger number, and rate, of production of nuclear power plants than have been envisaged before. We have certain obstacles. But if we change our policy on plutonium, as a means of charging up reactors, of two types: both the uranium and the thorium—if we do that, especially in areas where thorium is abundantly present, as in Australia, or India, or so forth, you can very rapidly develop an increased amount of high-density power. And relatively lower-density organization of small thorium reactors, as on the southern coast of India, is essential.
Because the major problem we have on this planet today, of a relevant type, is lack of water. We are drawing down fossil water resources. This is becoming a threat to life, in many parts of the planet. We can no longer do that. We have to engage in large-order distillation, desalination, by power. This requires an intensity of power to be efficient, on the nuclear reaction level.
See, what you're talking about here, is a problem in physical chemistry. You're not counting marbles! This is physical chemistry, and what you can accomplish, the actual nature of what you can accomplish, depends upon the energy flux-density level. This is nuclear physics, but it's nuclear physics based on power of this type, density of power.
So, before talking about energy policy, get at least a decent course in nuclear physics, or physical chemistry. Understand the physical chemistry involved. Understand at what levels of energy flux-density you can do certain kinds of operations, and how you get there. Why is it better to illuminate a flower, or any kind of green plant, with sunlight, than to waste the sunlight on the useless thing of using it for heating power?
The cost of the method of using solar power, uses more power in the end, than you get out of it! Isn't that stupid? You want to lose? But people who are pushing this are the World Wildlife Fund—of that fascist bastard Prince Philip. Who was a friend of Bernhard, who died, who was actually an official member of the Waffen SS. He signed his letter of resignation, "Heil Hitler."
It was the "Heil Hitler" movement that started this movement. The fascists, the Nazis of the 1920s, were a green organization, a pro-environmentalist organization. The biggest fascists in the world were behind this. It was a nativity issue: Eliminate people. This is a fascist program! So, tell your friend, don't be a fascist—go for nuclear power!
What FDR Really Did
Freeman: This next question addresses pretty much the same issue, but it raises some other points as well: "Mr. LaRouche, you repeatedly talk about a science-driven, high-tech approach to economic recovery and economic reconstruction. Now, we looked very closely at the FDR model, and it appears that the first phase of FDR's recovery program was not necessarily science-driven. However, it did take people who had suffered long-term unemployment, and it put them to work at what were admittedly labor-intensive, but nevertheless productive jobs, and the result of that was a significant increase in the nation's infrastructure, and in both the economic and cultural standard of living of the general population.
"Without that increase, we may not have been capable of the subsequent buildup that allowed us to win the Second World War. Now, that buildup was science-driven, and it was FDR's clear intention to take that great war-machine, and to use it in the postwar period, not only to rebuild war-torn nations, but also to address the enforced backwardness of nations that had been victimized by colonial policy.
"Now, for current purposes, take a look, for instance, at the continent of Africa. Africa is a total catastrophe in terms of all the most basic infrastructure, but also in terms of the immediate capability of the population. Electrifying an entire continent will take a great deal of time. In the interim period, especially since, with really very few exceptions, which we're willing to note, we're dealing with largely agricultural economies, it would seem that the utilization of alternate sources of energy production, especially in the sub-Saharan region, would provide a viable interim alternative, to, for instance, the construction of nuclear plants, in the middle of the wilderness.
"Can you help us to understand, why you see a problem here? It seems to be something that FDR, admittedly in a different way, was also forced to address."
LaRouche: Well, actually there's some misstatement here of what FDR did, because you have to look at things in a longer term.
You have two tendencies in the United States, from the assassination of McKinley. McKinley was a patriot; Theodore Roosevelt was a traitor, and things like that. And Coolidge was no damned good, and Hoover was no damned good. So, you have to look at things a little bit differently, than just trying to pick at something, and interpreting it in isolation.
Because an economy is—well, the term is dynamics. And the way you're phrasing the argument, as some of the other arguments here, you're talking in Cartesian terms, Cartesian-reductionist terms. And no process operates, actually, in Cartesian terms. Any representation using Cartesian models—in other words, assuming little things floating around in empty space, that sort of thing—is nonsense.
Processes in history are not simple mechanical interactions. They're long-term processes, like universal physical principles, which shape the course of events; and the product is not determined by the local interaction, it's determined by the process which shapes the process of events. It's called dynamics.
Dynamics was known in civilization in the ancient pre-Aristotle period. It was the basis of what was called Sphaerics, which was the science of the Egyptians. It became the science of the Pythagoreans and Plato, and so forth. These are dynamics.
In other words, there is a universal principle, which you appeal to, and you act in detail according to the governance of that principle. It's the Einstein conception of the universe, of a universe which is finite, but has no external bounds, because it's self-bounded. Therefore, the principle of action and development, controls the behavior of the part. And you're acting on the part, to ensure that the action corresponds to that intention.
So, you have to look at a longer-term process.
Now, in this case. The United States has been contested territory since its inception—before its inception. In 1763, there was a fundamental division, within the political processes of what became the United States. Between on the one hand, the pigs of the East India Company, like Judge Lowell, up in Massachusetts, and also, earlier, Aaron Burr, in the same period. Aaron Burr was a traitor: Aaron Burr, the Vice President of the United States at one point, was an agent of the British East India Company! He was a traitor to the United States. Andrew Jackson was a traitor to the United States, who worked for Burr. And so forth and so on.
So, in this process, you had a patriotic tendency, which had a certain principle of action, and you had a contrary interest of another type—the pro-British side. Andy Jackson was a traitor. He worked to destroy the United States, under Burr. Ask about what happened to some of the Indians because of Andy Jackson, down in Georgia and so forth, the Cherokee. What happened to the nation? It was broken up. How? And for what purpose?
So, in this case, we knew, despite the fact that Wilson had been President, who was a traitor and a fascist; despite the fact that Theodore Roosevelt was a traitor, was a President, and became President by virtue of a killing by a foreign agent of President McKinley—despite these things, through the military and other institutions in the United States, we maintained a capability, an intellectual capability, and skills, which correspond to the true interests of the United States.
For example: There was a negotiation in the early 1920s, a naval power negotiation, which involved the British, the Japanese, the United States, and others. And the purpose of the British in that case, and of the Japanese, was to reduce the naval power of the United States, to a dimension where it would be weaker than the British Navy.
Now, you had the case of Billy Mitchell in the 1920s. Billy Mitchell developed the idea of using floating bases—which we later called aircraft carriers—made out of all kinds of ships, floating bases to carry airplanes, as an aircraft carrier, for the specific purpose of defending the United States against a Japan attack on Pearl Harbor, which is the assigned mission which the British had given to the Japanese in the war plan of the British and the Japanese against the United States.
Now, out of this same kind of operation, which Billy Mitchell represented, the United States, in the early 1920s (when I just got myself born), that in this period, you had patriots in the United States, in the tradition of the older MacArthur, and others, back to, much earlier, the tradition of the Society of the Cincinnati. And this group worked on war plans, including War Plan Red, for defending the United States against Britain and Japan—1920s. Billy Mitchell went to prison; he was actually convicted, court-martialled for what he did.
So, when Roosevelt became President, the person who had been associated with this operation to defend the United States against the British Empire and its accomplices, Harry Hopkins—the recovery program, launched by Roosevelt, was modelled and built around the core of the Hopkins operation. The agricultural thing was the Wallace family. So, what Roosevelt did, in improvising a recovery, was not to take a little bit of this, a little bit of that. It was an integrated policy. We had lost skills, we had lost everything. We had mass unemployment. We had certain objectives. The objectives were to get the population back to work, to get an income, and it was largely the government, in order to build them up for the real job, which was the industrial program, and the agricultural program.
And it worked.
But this was a military operation against the British Empire—including Japan. War plans, of the United States, were the basis for Roosevelt's program, from the day he entered office.
And Roosevelt represented a family tradition, which is the way the United States really functioned.
We had networks of families, from the founding of this country, even before it was a nation, who have a family tradition which they stuck to, a patriotic family tradition, who were often associated directly or indirectly with the functions of the Federal government. And this is a family tradition. This is a dynamic aspect of the American character. Different than anything that exists in Europe. So you can't make these abstractions.
And it's out of this, that the program was done. It was not done because of this measure or that measure. You're a commander in warfare—or, take the case of Lazare Carnot, in France. Lazare Carnot was a trained military engineer, and at the point that various armies from other parts of Europe were occupying France, and had superior force, Lazare Carnot, who was a genius, organized the defense of France, and defeated, under his leadership, with an improvised army, defeated the combined forces of the occupying forces of Europe, in France.
This is the tradition. The tradition of nation building, of nation defending. And this comes from networks of people who are devoted to defending their country, and defending their purpose. And they work from generation to generation, with a tradition of service, to save this nation.
And that's what Roosevelt represented. Roosevelt went back to Isaac Roosevelt, the founder of the Bank of New York, who was an associate of the team of Alexander Hamilton. And when Franklin Roosevelt was graduating from Harvard, he wrote a paper on the subject of his ancestor Isaac Roosevelt, and the Hamiltonian methods. Franklin Roosevelt did not improvise a policy, out of nothing. He operated on the basis of a family tradition, of families who are patriotic, and with a patriotic commitment to service of the nation. And that's the way he operated on this, by these kinds of traditions. And that's what he did.
We have the same thing today. Don't talk about details. Don't talk about this kind of project or that kind of project. You have to have a mission, a mission of national development. Our nation has been destroyed. The world has been destroyed by the British Empire! Our job is to destroy the British Empire! That's our mission. Destroy the British Empire, not by warfare—unless they attack us—but destroy the British Empire by creating and fostering a system by which the British will dissolve the British Empire itself.
Just as I said with the first question that came up today, on the question of Afghanistan: Don't think you can go in with a U.S. policy and a military policy and accomplish the mission! The mission is what? The mission is to defeat the British Empire! The drug problem, which is characteristic of the region, is a product of the British Empire! Drugs coming across the border from Mexico into the United States, is a British operation. George Soros is a British agent and the enemy of humanity. Our purpose is to destroy the enemy of the United States! Which is the enemy of humanity, which is the British system. Our job is not to fight wars here and here. Our job is to defeat the enemy by whatever means are best used to that end. And war is the last choice on the list.
We don't go to war in Afghanistan—we've had enough wars, in Southwest Asia. Don't get involved! Don't get involved in land wars in Asia! Don't do it! It doesn't work. Destroy them—by intelligence! By using your brain, not your mouth. Destroy them—by what? By organizing an alliance with Russia, China, and India—now, that's going to take some work—and other countries. Organize that alliance, and we've got the capabilities, the intelligence capabilities and the other capabilities to destroy the interstate drug-trafficking. You destroy the interstate drug-trafficking, you destroy the heart of the British Empire! Which lives largely on drug trafficking.
So get smart! Don't get technical: Get smart.
And look deep into our people, and look into what we have inside our population. You find, if you go from person to person, you can find people who have a family tradition, some among those who have been long-term settlers in this country, families. Others are often even more patriotic, who are more recent immigrants, who have become more impassioned citizens because they are recent immigrants. Look for those people! Be together with those people! They're the core of your army, who are functioning in all kinds of ways, not just armed, but in all kinds of ways, to build alliances for good. And do good! That's the secret of the thing. And make allies.
We don't need these kinds of operations, we don't need to concede.
It's easy for me: I'm an older man, I have more generations' experience than most of you do, therefore I'm more confident about what we can do.
Pensions Lost on the Stock Market
Freeman: ... Lyn, this is a question from Capitol Hill: "Mr. LaRouche, you have often dismissed worries about the state of the stock market as totally irrelevant. But, the fact is, that even people who do not have a single dime invested on Wall Street still do look to the market as an indicator of the nation's financial and economic health, and in many ways, with or without personal investment portfolios, it is simply the case that Wall Street does determine a great deal about people's standard of living. So, how can you expect us to dismiss the state of the stock market, when so many jobs, pensions, and other like things are dependent upon it?"
LaRouche: Well, as you've found out, the stock market is a very unreliable place in which to put pensions! That was a mistake. We need a Federal pension system, for the citizens of the United States. We need a mandatory pension system. Most people in the United States, increasingly, have no pension! Especially the younger ones. And those who had a pension have lost most of it. And it's because it was privatized—or castrated, I guess is the other term for that. So therefore, we need a Federal pension system, which was supposed to be the intention of the Social Security System, was to provide a pension system. We need a secure system for our people. Particularly when they get to the age where they become helpless against these kinds of problems, where they can't go out and get a job and solve their problem.
Take the case of health care, which is related to this. Now, a great swindle has gone on in health care, in the United States and other parts of the world: Because the purpose is to reduce the population! And instead of going to a general hospital, or similar kind of facility, where you walk into the front door and you go through that place, and they may keep you overnight a couple of times, and they concentrate on solving your problem—now you go to one specialist, boom! You go to another one, boom! Go to another one, boom! And all of this is done over a period of several weeks, where in a general hospital, you'd be through the operation in a day or two, unless you had something serious, to be kept there.
So, we have destroyed the efficient form of medical health care, which we devised on the basis of the general hospital program, run through the U.S. military. The military general hospital became a model, an experimental model, for the kind of general hospital which we wanted after the war. And they pretty much shut the system down. They shut down the Veterans Hospital system, for example, and this was the best kind of treatment. You'd walk into an office, you get your preliminary examination and tests and so forth; it's all done in "one-stop shopping," shall we say.
And you have a pension system, which provides that if you get to older years, or you get infirm or have some injury and you're incapacitated, you have a system that's there that ensures that your dignity and your life is protected. And that should be the responsibility of the Federal government. And there should be contributions to this process, as the Federal funding of this process, which is what the intention was of the Social Security System, which they've been looting.
So anyway, that's the way I think this has to be done. We don't need Wall Street! Wall Street is a venereal disease in the soul of the nation. And I don't think anybody really needs it. Most people have been screwed by Wall Street, recently. I don't think they want to go there again. It wasn't a pleasant experience.
What Comes Next?
Freeman: And now, the last question: "Lyn, our legislature is among the many legislatures across the nation who have taken up the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act. Although conditions now are worse than they were the last time we took this up, we are far more optimistic this time around, principally, because we believe we have a White House that's actually capable of listening. As we've discussed with you in the past, we state officials are much closer to our constituents than our colleagues are in Washington. And we often are the ones that are the first to sound the call to arms. Look at what Andy Cuomo is doing in New York State. It is what no member of Congress has been prepared to do, even though they were in a position to do it months ago.
"But basically, my question to you is this: What is next? You clearly know what you have to do, and you intend to do it. But what can we do, and what can our constituents do, to help?"
LaRouche: Very simply: This problem goes right to President Barack Obama. What does he need, to do his job? Hmm? Because, it's only from the President of the United States, not because he embodies some magical power, but because of the institution: We, as a people, to act in the national interest, must rally about a complex of institutions, of which the President of the United States is the apex. Every part of our system of government has as its apex, the Presidency of the United States. Now, the Presidency is not necessarily the person who occupies the office (we're still fumigating the offices from Bush). But the point is, if you want to do something, you really have to either have a President, or try to improvise the effect of a President.
But if you want to do something like we have to do now, you need to have the President take the lead. And he has to be supported! You can't say, "Hey, Mr. President, you go out, while we're ducking here in the foxhole, you go out and fight the war." No, that's not his job. His job is to represent the people of the United States, as the Chief Executive Officer. If he says, "We're going to do this," and he mobilizes behind it, and gets the forces behind him, it can work. That's his function. That's what you're supposed to elect him for. And once in a while you actually get a President. (You get something, usually, like somebody's garbage has been dumped in your backyard.) But when you get a real President, or one who's determined to be a real President, that's it. So, it's up to President Obama, to do that. If he does it, if he decides he's going to push it, he's committed to it, and he gets his people into a room and he beats them up—.
See, another problem he has, he still has an unresolved administration. It's obvious to anyone looking at it. This is not yet really a coherent team. There are dissonant noises here and there. Or if they're not dissonant noises, they're simply not quite in step together, yet.
So, we don't have a clear direction into the President, from around him. He's not sure. I'm not sure he's well informed on all occasions, things like that. I'm concerned about that sort of thing.
But, nonetheless: My view is, you want to do this job, you have to get the President of the United States to be the vehicle that makes it work. I don't care about the problem in the Congress. If the President of the United States, minus Mrs. Pelosi, makes a decision to move, he's got enough clout to take the rebels in the Congress and make a mess of anybody in the Congress who tries to suppress what he's talking about. He may get legitimate resistance. But if he calls the clarion call, and says, "This is an enemy of what we're trying to do for this nation! Get this woman outta here! Put her on her broom and tell her to fly away!"
