This article appears in the August 7, 2009 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Dialogue with LaRouche

This is the transcript of the question-and-answer session following Lyndon LaRouche's opening remarks at his Aug. 1, 2009 webcast. Subheadings and footnote have been added.

[PDF version of the entire webcast]

An Irreplaceable Loss

Freeman: Before we go on to the questions and answers, I wanted to say a couple of things. Certainly, since our last webcast, we have won many victories. I think that in the minds of certainly everyone in Washington, and in the minds of most people across the United States, there would have been no opposition to this Nazi health-care policy, were it not for what Lyn initiated back in the early part of this year. And there are other victories that I can point to.

But at the same tune, certainly in the month of July, we suffered an irreplaceable loss. And I want to recognize that, here, before an international audience. I think probably most people are aware of the fact that we lost a key leader of our international movement just a few weeks ago, when Susan Schlanger passed away.

It was a very difficult and devastating loss, for those who knew her. And it is a devastating loss for the movement. Susan is irreplaceable. And it was one of those moments, where I think for many of us, especially for people who know Susan, and know her husband Harley, who is my counterpart, as Lyn's spokesman on the West Coast, we found ourselves in a situation where you wanted to say something, but you just couldn't think what to say. I mean, I gave up being a poet a long time ago. There was nothing that I could say that seemed adequate to the loss that had occurred.

And then, last week, at an event in Houston, to celebrate Susan's life, Lyn solved the problem for all of us, when, in his remarks, Lyn said that somewhere, 60 light-years from now, Susan Schlanger is being born. And I think that, rather than approaching this question in any other way, it was both scientifically, philosophically, and emotionally the best possible way to approach this, and it certainly provides a point of optimism. And something to look forward to.

And so, with that said, I do also want to acknowledge some of the audiences that are gathered around the world, participating in this event.

To our south, in Mexico, the LaRouche Youth Movement is hosting showings of the webcast in three cities in Sonora: in the State's capital, Hermosillo; in Ciudad Obregon, where the Pro-PLHINO Committee is at work; and also in the port city of Guaymos; as well as in Mexico City.

In Argentina, the LYM [LaRouche Youth Movement] is holding a cadre school this weekend in Buenos Aires, and they are watching the webcast. There is also an extensive network of LaRouche supporters throughout the South of the country, who have been mobilizing all week to watch this.

In Bolivia, students at various universities have been organized to watch the webcast at the German-Bolivian Higher Technological Institute, in Cochabamba.

In Ecuador, students of the Technical University of Cotopaxi are watching. And for the first time, certainly that I know of, we have an organized showing of this webcast in Haiti.

There are many other audiences that are gathered around the world, and I know that they'll forgive me for not going through all of them.

Which Side of the Barricades is the U.S. On?

Now, I am going to start with a couple of international questions, before I move on to the questions from American institutions. I have one question from Russia, and one question from a Russian diplomat in the United States.

In prefacing this Russian question, it comes as a result of blog discussions that went on in Russia this week, based LaRouche's warning of a New Dark Age, and the need to put the entire system through bankruptcy organization. That online debate was identified as one of the top ten Russian blog discussions on July 30. It absolutely dominated the Internet.

The question that was generated by those who participated in that, is as follows:

"Dear Mr. LaRouche: In your speeches, you accuse British imperialism, and justly so, as the main opponent of the implementation of your plan for introducing a new monetary system, by, for one thing, fixing the exchange rates of national currencies. We think that's a wonderful idea. But the question that has to arise is this: 'Which side of the barricade is official Washington on, in this matter? Don't you think it might be a mistake to consider the U.S.A. as an ally in this difficult solution? How can the potential of a U.S. veto be overcome in solving this problem? Especially, since you hold that the problem can not be solved without the participation of the U.S., don't we face a vicious circle?' "

LaRouche: Well, the answer comes in real history, that if the United States does not change its policy from that of the present President, there's not going to be a civilization, nor a United States, either. You have to realize the depth of the problem; that first of all, most of the world economy, even though the United States has declined in its productive power since the middle of the 1960s, but especially since the closing period of the 1970s—despite this decline, which has accelerated greatly since 1989, the United States is still, has been the greatest source of credit, directly and indirectly, for the world economy.

You see this if you imagine the effect of taking the U.S. dollar and throwing it into the garbage can. And take the effect on China and other countries, of a collapse of the dollar. Because most of these countries have claims against the U.S. dollar. If the dollar becomes worthless, what are those claims worth? The credit of most countries depends upon those margins of credit, which depend upon stability of the U.S. dollar. The system has been built up that way.

Recently you've had some nations who've tried to get away from that, and say, "Well, we don't need the dollar anymore." They're crazy. Take the case of China. If the value of the dollar collapses, what happens to the economy of China? If the economy of China collapses, what happens around the world? How many countries depend upon China? How many countries in Europe depend upon the Chinese market?

So, the problem here is, we don't have a choice.

Now, my view is, the United States—the present U.S. government—is not going to survive. Not under Obama, not under the present Obama policy. We are talking about a general chain-reaction collapse of the entire world monetary-financial system by about October—a collapse which can result, in two ways, in disintegration by the end of August or the beginning of September. You see, everybody knows, of course, now, that the system is going to collapse in October. Anyone who is in an official position and says they don't know that, is lying to you, or they're clinically insane. In the one case you've got to ban them from public commerce, and in the other case, you've got to put them in an institution where they can be taken care of.

So, we're not talking about the future. We're saying, the Obama Administration, which is now collapsing, in its authority, and the rate of collapse is going to accelerate rapidly! When those folks out there in the various towns, and communities, and states, receive their Washington representative "back home," they're going to lynch him, or threaten to! At that point, you're going to find that Obama, who has been going into net negative curves at an accelerating rate, precisely because of this!

You can get some jerk, who is a member of Congress, to go along with genocide! They've got hammered in Washington, and they will actually vote, and put their thumbprint on a bill which authorizes genocide against American people! They're doing it! In these committees, they're doing it! These members of Congress are voting for genocide. And trying to pretend they are not. But they are.

When they get back home, wow! They're going to hide from their constituencies. They're going to retire to a different state, where they are not known, and can not be singled out. "What are you?" "Well, I'm a ... I'm a retired plumber." These guys are not going to be happy campers, when they go back for camping season.

So the point is, we're dealing with a very short-term thing.

The problem is, people think academically. We're living in a climate of liberalism. That's known as a disease, in case you didn't know that. They don't believe in truth. They say, "Yes, but. Yes, but." Like two goats, saying, "Yes, but." They're foolish people. But politicians are all tied into this gossip, this "We know." "We agree." "We are respectable people." "We know how to get along with each other." It's disgusting. It's company manners, in the worst kinds of conditions. It's like a Jewish guy trying to have company manners with Adolf Hitler. It's just not very appetizing.

This is the situation.

A Principle of Culture

Let me take one other thing, let's take it more fundamentally. Most people have no understanding of real politics, or real history. And the two lacks of understanding are closely interrelated. That history, as Shelley defines it, for culture generally, and as Gottfried Leibniz defined it in the 1690s, for physical science, is based upon a principle which he called dynamis. It's a principle of culture.

Now, if you look at yourselves carefully, if each of you, from different nations, for example, out there, look at yourselves in terms of your national context; you will recognize that your opinions are not based on your independent opinion. Very rarely. Very rarely, in the course of history of any nation, does the typical individual act on the basis of individual true judgment. They act on the basis of trying to fit into a standard of culture, a dynamic standard of culture, in which they fit in.

"Yes, I'm one." "I'm this." "I'm this." "I believe this." "Yes, of course I agree!" "Yes, this, of course, yes."

In other words, most people do not think honestly. They think of going along to get along—which is the official motto of the U.S. Congress. "Go along to get along." That's morality. We have to go along with our colleagues, and the way they're behaving in Washington, which enrages their constituents. And if they have any brains, and some do, nobody's going to enrage their constituency back home. Intelligent politicians know, that what they believe in Washington, will get them killed back in the hometown.

What people operate on is public opinion (or pubic opinion, in some cases). They operate on that basis; they are not independent thinkers. They call themselves independent thinkers, because they are independent of thinking. But the basic thing, people think of "our culture." "We think..." "We think..." When you hear somebody say "We think," you know they're not thinking. They're going along with whatever they are trying to express as identifying them. "I'm a member of this club." I'm in good standing in this club." "I go to this church."

"What do you believe?"

"Well, I go to this church."

"Where's your church?"

"I forgot."

It's a big fakery. Only a rare minority of independent thinkers actually exist in any society to date. They're extremely rare.

People are in a dynamic system, where the relations determine the part, not the part the relations. It is not the individual who shapes public opinion. It is public opinion—or pubic opinion—which shapes the individual's opinion. Like tastes in sex, for example: pubic opinion. Exactly. Precisely.

This is what Shelley points out in the remarkable concluding section, and especially, the concluding paragraph, of his "Defence of Poetry." There, he puts it in a favorable light, saying that many people of his time, who agree with this great cultural upsurge (of which the United States' development was specific), were good. Not because they themselves were good; they themselves were not good. But because the culture, or the cultural influence which influenced their environment caused them to respond positively to good things, to good values.

But, on the other hand, when the tide turned, as under the impact of the Napoleonic wars, and so forth, then, the great period of culture in Europe, which coincided with the American Revolution, suddenly was reversed.

Suddenly, all these nations which had admired the American Revolution, and supported it, and made its success possible, had shifted into the other direction, through the impact of the French Revolution, and its horrors, and things that followed.

So, you'll find that there are tides in the course of history. The secret of all great Classical drama, is: Don't place too much attention on independent opinion. People who talk about independent opinion usually disgust me, because they're not honest. They don't have any independent opinion. They are appendages of somebody else's opinion.

We're in that kind of period. We're now in a period where the members of Congress behave like idiots, in the main. Except for Republicans who find it opportune not to be Democrats. A Republican is a person who doesn't want to be lynched as a Democrat. It's what's happening these days.

So you have these moods that swing. And people say they are thinking independently: "We think." "We think." "We think." "We think," is often group-think, or grope-think. It's not real.

So we're now in a time, where the population out there, to which these traitors to humanity are attached—the Representatives—are enraged, at what they see happening in Washington. In Washington, the Representatives are controlled by the social environment of Washington. They're controlled by group-think, or grope-think. When they get back home, suddenly they're in a different environment. Their constituency wants to lynch them.

So, this is the reality; it's a reality of revolutions, it's a reality of war, it's a reality of politics on a grand scale. Individual opinion is much overrated, as a force of history, and its durability is also highly overrated. People change, like Peter, thrice. And that's the way it happens.

So, now we're in a period where the existing system of the world, what was deemed inevitable yesterday—and people are still thinking of it as "inevitable." "How do we deal with this inevitable trend?" It's not inevitable, buddy. When you see that over one-third of the U.S. households in this country are threatened with death, as a result of the policies, the economic policies, let alone the health-care policies, of this President, how much longer do you think he's going to stay in office? You're headed for this moment, this coming Autumn, this late Summer, for the greatest upheaval in known history, in one form or the other.

Either we change the policies and get out of this mess, or you're going to see the darkest of dark ages ever recorded. Under these circumstances, you can expect that some people may arise to the occasion. And among people in leading positions in Russia, in China, and India, and some other smaller countries, I suspect that very soon, the common contempt for the current President of the United States is going to cause a lot of people to do very serious re-thinking. I'm playing, in devoting everything in my commitment to what is needed, now. I'm acting on what is needed now, because if what I'm going to do, and doing, doesn't work, don't ask me about the result.

Russia Sees 'Mixed Signals' from U.S. Administration

Freeman: The next question is from a ranking Russian diplomat who's posted here in the United States, and he says, "Dr. LaRouche, I gave considerable thought as to whether this should be asked publicly or privately; and after some discussion with my colleagues, I decided to ask it publicly. Certainly the inauguration of this new Administration, of you Americans, brought a certain sense of optimism. But, since your President's very first trip to Europe, specifically to London, we've experienced a series of mixed signals that we'd like your thoughts on.

On the one hand, our government's work with your Secretary of State, whom we like very much, holds the promise of being very productive, not only for our two nations, but for the rest of the world, particularly, as our two great nations work together to foster development in areas of the world where it is greatly needed.

But other high officials of your government express a very different, and often an arrogant, if not explicitly hostile and provocative, point of view. We are not new at this game, and we understand what you Americans call the "carrot and stick" approach. But this appears to us to be something more than that.

So, the question is, how do we respond?

Yes, we have received assurances of an intended partnership from Mrs. Clinton, and we trust that this is honestly her approach. But our question is: Is it also the view of the Oval Office? If it is not, then the question is, how much leeway does Mrs. Clinton actually have? Can she continue her work and also remain in her post?

LaRouche: Well, you have two aspects to this government in Washington.

First of all, our system of government—because we are a Presidential system—is not based entirely on the personality of the President or his ideas. Especially in our better times, we are very much a system, a Presidential system. Something you don't have in Europe. You may have some semblance of it in Russia now, but you don't have it in Europe, generally. In Europe, you have parliamentary systems, and parliamentary systems are not very good systems. They are relics of feudalism. It's a compromise with feudalism.

For example, take the German constitution, the Grundgesetz [Basic Law]. There are aspects of the Grundgesetz which are highly commendable in terms of the principle expressed in that particular article of the constitution, but you don't have the kind of coherence of a national principle that you have in the case of the U.S. Federal Constitution. You look at the similar thing in Europe generally. You don't have the idea of a constitution, as we have it in the United States.

Our Constitution was built from the ground up. It was built up by a new nation, yes, of Europeans largely; it was based on European culture, it was not based on the European oligarchical tradition. The problem in Europe is that the constitutions are based on the European oligarchical tradition, a tradition which is very close to monetarism. In our case, we, instead of adopting certain precepts, formulations, like contracts—our Constitution is not contract law. European constitutions tend to be contract law, not natural law. Our conception of law, of constitutional law, is natural law. What is the natural requirement of human beings, and what is the distinction among the requirements because of national cultures. The nation-state is necessary, because only a people that is sharing the same culture in depth, down to the child and to the poorest, as well as the richest and best informed. Only that can be the basis for a national development.

Therefore, we require sovereign nation-states in order to bring forth the best result from a national culture, from the participants in a national culture. But otherwise, the idea of a constitution should be common to all people, should be a common principle, such as the Westphalian principle[1]—which has been rejected by Europe now, as a result of the Tony Blair obscenity. Tony Blair decreed from Chicago that that principle is dead, and they're acting like that. We're now back to heathen nonsense.

But at the same time, we of different nations and different constitutions, or so-called constitutions, have an underlying common interest and common principle, which is that of mankind: the distinction of mankind from the beast. We have a sense of community, we have a sense of national culture, and we protect national culture, because it's that which binds us more immediately together. But we also seek a commonality of a higher constitution, which we hope is reflected in our respective constitutions: our commitment to the nature of humanity, the destiny of humanity, and the participation of each nation in contributing to that common destiny of humanity.

So, now, we are in a period where we're under the control of a certain dynamic which is largely London. The government of the United States is run from London right now. The President of the United States is a puppet of British interests.

Do Americans Wish To Survive?

For example, let's take the Nazi health-care law, which Obama's been desperately trying to put through. It's exactly the same law that we hung people for in Nuremberg, for their health-care policy. And retroactively, President Obama should be hung, at a Nuremberg trial, for what he has advocated now, since he's advocated the same crime for which we killed people, in judgment, at Nuremberg! Shouldn't he be hung today? I mean, that's the morality of this thing. This guy has no right to this policy! His policy is evil, and insofar as he adheres to that policy, he is being evil. It's like the guy who's a nice guy who commits a mass murder. He may be a nice guy, but he committed a mass murder. A little bit of a contradiction there.

So the case here is, the future lies not with a tendency expressed by an individual. As I said yesterday when I was a guest at a meeting of the Chinese Embassy, on this occasion, the essential relationship between China and the United States, or Russia and the United States, or, in turn, China and Russia, which do not otherwise always agree, but the essential agreement has to be an intention among the nation-states to live together, and to cooperate together.

Now, the question here is: Are the people of the United States, despite this wretch we have as a President—despite that crowd of criminals, of Nazi-like criminals which he has as his health-care advisors—can the United States adhere, still, to its honor in relationship to other nations? Do the people of the United States wish to survive? Will they rise up now, in the month of August, and threaten to lynch those members of Congress who have shown undue sympathy for the proposed legislation and rules of President Obama?

The trend is now, that Obama's becoming more and more hated. There are still some people foolishly devoted to him, but the number of people who downright hate him, and want him out of there, is greatly increasing by the day. This guy is not popular, and his policies are not going to work. The disaster is going to increase, the rate of hatred of this President is going to accelerate during the coming weeks. What he's done is threaten a crime against—how many people has he threatened to hurt, even to kill, with his proposed policies, which he's fanatically dedicated to? This guy's not going to be around for long.

So, the question is, what do we do? What we do—don't worry about just the policy; it's important, but don't worry about it. What we do is we adhere to a commitment, as I suggested to my Chinese interlocutors yesterday: a commitment to a relationship among nation-states, as a people. We recognize that we have interests in a good relationship with the people of another nation, and several other nations, and therefore, we base ourselves on that commitment to good relations.

Take, for example, Obamanation now. We call it "Obamanation." Take the case of the war in Afghanistan. This President is criminally insane about this situation in Afghanistan. There is no good reason for engaging U.S. troops in a war in Afghanistan. That is criminal! It's a repetition of every kind of crime that's been committed in the name of war in recent times by the United States. The general in charge is competently incompetent. That is, he's competent in doing what he does, but what he does shouldn't be done. Get him out of there, and get the troops out of there! There is no reason why the United States should be engaged in warfare in Afghanistan! None! And any competent military officer of the United States knows that. Any competent diplomat of the United States knows that.

But this crazy fanatic, this idiot, this President, wants to have this war that somebody talked him into, because the British want him to do it. He's a British puppet. He put his arms around this little, silly Queen. His wife pinched the butt, I guess, of this silly little Queen. And he had the greatest genocidalist of the planet, Prince Philip, out there gawking around, and he's in the same atmosphere. You want to talk about a guy who's comparable to Adolf Hitler-plus—here's this guy: World Wildlife Fund. He's an example of what wildlife can really become.

And the President is cohabiting with this bunch of filth. Not a very good President. A big mistake. But after all, the British own him. They paid for him. They paid for his Presidency. They organized his Presidency. They funded it! They own him! We don't own him. We should give him back to them. Tell him to get out of here. Exactly where were you born, Mr. President? Are you Mr. President? I mean, considering where you might have been born, are you Mr. President? Some people are asking that question in some institutions.

So, the point is, we have to understand that our commitment lies not in relations between individuals. Our relationship is our human commitment to organizing this planet in a reasonable way. The question of the survival of civilization depends upon the relationship among four states, who do not always agree with each other on many questions. These are the United States, Russia, China, and India. This is not to exclude other nations, but we need a powerful bloc of four nations, powerful enough to force the changes which must occur on this planet right now, and anybody who's intelligent, in the United States or Russia or China or India, is going to recognize that. You might find that the tendency is to recognize that, the instinctive tendency.

You want to talk to other people? Sometimes you talk to them as diplomat to diplomat. That's all right. But more important is to talk to them as people to people, and particularly people in positions of influence. Can you say to them and look them in the eye, "We have a common interest, which we have to protect. An interest in common, which we must protect." Can you say that? Can you recognize that we depend, for our future, on that interest in common? Can we get nose to nose, and negotiate, not in terms of technicalities, but are we committed, nose to nose, to the common benefit of our nations, for the sake of all humanity? If we can say that, we can correct our mistakes and adjust our policy.

The question is often, in diplomacy, as you know—the questioner—you have to get behind the diplomats, and get beyond the diplomats, or the diplomatic level. You have to sometimes get off in a room someplace, and just discuss quietly, "What do we think is the real interest of humanity? And how does that interest of humanity affect the way we should talk to each other, and our people should think about each other?" And then, take that discussion back to the place of diplomacy, and shape diplomacy by that understanding, not by technicalities.

Are we committed to live with one another? Are we committed to promote a better planet? Can we respect one another in this kind of relationship? Nose to nose, person to person, someone devoted to their own country, talking to a person in another country devoted to their own country. Can we, somehow, by getting together, being knowledgeable people from our respective countries, can we say, "What does our nation require of each other?" And start from there.

Then, get back to the diplomacy. Don't start from the technicalities of diplomacy, in this detail and that detail. Go right to the core of the matter. What is the future of humanity? What is our relationship to the future of humanity? What must it be? And start from there. And I'm confident that that's the only way to go.

Whether it works or not is not within our power to predetermine, but that's the way we have to seek to go, and there's no other way we should seek to go, than that.

Real Culture: The Four Powers

Freeman: This question comes from an American. She's a former Cabinet member of a previous Administration, and she is currently an outside advisor, although her days may be numbered, with this Administration.

She says, "Lyn, earlier this week, as you know, extensive talks took place in Washington between the United States and China, and I had the opportunity to participate in those. Understandably, as America's largest creditor, the Chinese asked us some very direct questions. Now, I should mention that those questions were posed in what was probably a less than ideal climate for the Chinese. President Obama had opened the talks with an unnecessary, and, I thought, arrogant slap, at China's human rights record. Also, there was widespread criticism in the American and British press, and elsewhere, complaining that the Chinese were spending far too much money on infrastructure, and not nearly enough money on building consumer markets in their own country. But even with that backdrop, I was surprised and frankly disturbed, by the extent of what seemed to be China's acceptance of assurances delivered by Tim Geithner and Mr. Orszag on the 'recovery' that is currently going on in the United States."

She asks, "What is your assessment of this? Do the Chinese understand the unsustainability of this policy, or is it possible that they have bought into an ideology that worships this mountain of worthless paper?"

LaRouche: Well, you know, there's a trend in Chinese culture which some of us are more or less acquainted with—I would say perfectly acquainted with—as in other cultures. We, in the United States, under liberal influences, don't know how to think anymore. And in China, the great philosophical currents that we know of in China, think in the opposite way to what typical Americans think today. The typical American today thinks from today on, and says, "Tomorrow is tomorrow." Or if they're really far-sighted, they think two days ahead, or next week's paycheck, or whatever. Something like that. They think by increments, because they are, the Americans are conditioned to be behaviorists, and behaviorists are degenerates, as you see in the case of our President, who's a behaviorist. He's a degenerate because he's a behaviorist.

And if you read Adam Smith, particularly the relevant section of the third chapter of his book, relevant book—not the Wealth of Nations—the 1759 book, Theory of Moral Sentiments, then you recognize exactly what the problem is, and you recognize the degeneracy, the personal moral degeneracy of his key advisors, that is, Orszag, Summers, the whole behaviorist crowd, is exactly that. They are essentially fascists in intent. They think like Hitler's people do. They have a different flavor, they speak it in a different language. It's essentially British fascism, that of Adam Smith.

And therefore, since you don't believe—as he emphasizes, Adam Smith does—they don't believe that there's a knowledgeable accountability for the future in human behavior, but you're only supposed to react in the short term. The Americans, to the extent that they're brainwashed in universities and other places, with this behaviorist outlook, this radically reductionist outlook takes over, that they're not capable of competent thinking, or they can only think competently by scaring the pants off them. Take away all their toys, and tell them, "I've taken away all your toys, now what are you going to play with?" Unfortunately, they'll tell you what they're going to do, but—.

But, in the case of a real culture, like the culture of China, among serious thinkers in Chinese culture—and I think the Chinese government tries to adopt, as much as possible, the serious thinkers of its history in its own cultural outlook—you think about the future. The Chinese keep talking about centuries to come, at least the great thinkers do, the important ones with whom I'm impressed, and therefore, they will tend to think: Well, here's the United States. We've got this lump up there—it's called the President. We're trying to get along with him, we're trying to get something workable here, because we realize there's something that has to be, a relationship between the two states.

Now, the immediate question here is, the money that the United States owes to China, and that China's concern is, is that money that's owed to China by the United States going to be paid? Now, since China has just gone through a collapse of its international market, export market; this is extremely important. So, China does not want to get into a fight over this issue, and I wouldn't encourage China to get into a fight over this issue.

I would encourage China, "Look, you want to talk to me as American? Count on me. Because I know my Americans. I know them better than they know themselves. And under certain conditions they're going to revolt and they're going to agree with you." That is, the Americans are going to agree with the Chinese, and the Chinese are going to agree with the Americans, because they're going to agree on the importance of a people-to-people cooperation.

Look, imagine China: It's a big nation. It has a relationship to Russia, it has a relationship to India. They don't really agree. I mean, Russia and China can cooperate, but there's not really any stable, natural agreement there. India? India and China are constantly negotiating, trying to minimize any conflict, for mutual interest. Russia and China try to cooperate. India and China try to cooperate. But they're Asian countries, and here they are in proximity to each other, with all these kinds of conflicts, or conflict-related issues among them—as with other nations, relations to smaller nations around them—and then they look across the waters at the United States.

What China needs, as Russia needs, and as India needs: They need the United States! Because the United States, existentially, is not a neighbor, and therefore, if you have all these neighbors are coming together, with the United States, then you have the basis for a global agreement. And you have a basis for defining a common interest, which is higher than any individual conflict relations among the nations considered allies. So, the Chinese who think, will recognize the importance of the United States, as eliminating one of the major problems, one of the major problems of the region, in Asia, is the relations among Russia, China, and India. It's paralyzed. Therefore, if the United States is a factor, at a time that Western and Central Europe are absolutely useless for this purpose, this is the natural interest of China. And the natural interest of the United States.

That debt, of the United States to China, is the pivot of this agreement. Because it depends upon that agreement. And thus, that agreement among Russia, China, and India, and the United States, is crucial. It must occur. If you want a future history of this planet, that must occur. And that's the way you have to look at it. Forget the other kinds of questions.

Looking Ahead to the Future

Now, on the economic side of this thing: What we require—and I think I would, were I President right now, or did I have a President who I thought was sane, I would suggest again, as I said today earlier, the space program.

The first thing we want to put on the agenda, as the spice, the flavoring, on this, is the question of the space program. I want an agreement among Russia, China, India, and the United States, on Mars. Not on territory on Mars! There are some people I would like to send as an advance guard to Mars right now. I think our President ought to take a diplomatic trip to Mars, and see if he could survive it!

But no, you see, because, again, we're talking about the best thinking in China, what we have from China. China's always talking about looking ahead to the future. Policy, Chinese government, always that. I like to look to the future too. We have people in Russia who like to look to the future, particularly in the Academcy of Sciences, and things like that. Some people in India like to look to the future—like Tilak did, for example, Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

So, we want to have an agreement on the future. What's the future? The future is: What are we going to do about Mars? Not, how are we going to carve it up, but how are we going to get human beings there, and back, safely, alive.

Now, that's going to take a science-driver program, which is easy to conceive of, because we already had that kind of thing in the space program earlier. So, revive it. Refine it. Now, let's come to an agreement on what our objectives are. You can't define all the terms, but the objectives. And we're going to have a committee, which will constantly look at the list of the questions. We're going to look at the existing space program. We're going to think about how we have to overhaul it, for this purpose. And we're going to talk to human beings, for at least 50 years—that's two generations today. People who are living today. People who are young adults today, will still be living 50 years from now. We're going to talk about that. What are we going to do, between now and 50 years from now? What direction are we going to take? What's our technology? What do we need to do?

And we're going to base our entire economic development, on looking at everything from that standpoint. We'll say: We are in the generation which is going to go to Mars. We're going to solve the problem of relativistic travel, by human beings, in well-controlled magnetic fields and gravitational fields. We're going to travel that distance, ascent and descent, to Mars.

We're going to develop advanced colonies there. And this is going to be mankind, by going into a 1-gravity relationship, in travel of human beings between two points in the Solar System, we're going to change the definition of the meaning of the term "mankind." We now think of mankind as Earthlings. People stuck on Earth. Can't get out of the place. People can go on a honeymoon, but you can't get to Mars. (I don't know if they have honeymoons any more. I haven't checked recently. I think they have more informal relations these days. )

But, in any case, you're going to define a relationship of yourself to the future, and for your children and the future. So, we have to think—the development that has to occur in China, and in Russia, for example, in Siberia, particularly, we're talking about really a 50-year cycle of primary development, just to get the thing going. China's development in 50 years, minimum.

So, when we're talking about a space program, we're talking about the kind of technological progress, environment of technological progress, which is going to carry us to that destination. We have to change the thinking, get out of this thing about arguing about what's going on next door, who's cooking what meal tomorrow morning, and get into something a little bit more serious.

And when we agree on the long term, we are then talking about, what? We're talking about our grandchildren—our children and our grandchildren. We're talking about our relationship, our future relationship, of our children and our grandchildren, among nations, based on a common mission, with a common destiny.

Then, come back to the negotiating table. Then come back to all your economic agreements. Now, look at them with this inspiration in mind. And that's the way we've got to approach this.

Another thing: We've got all these idiots—I know we're fussing with these idiots in Washington, the idiots in the Obama Administration—we know it's doomed. Look, it's finished. Obama's not going to be around much longer. He's garbage, he's waste material. When a man says, he has the policies of an Adolf Hitler on health care, as Obama has made it absolutely clear, this man is not fit for any public office. And his existence is really a blot on the escutcheon of any nation. He's an embarrassment. And think of him, as Mr. Embarrassment, not Mr. President, and then you've got it about right.

So, in this case, let's not get too upset about Obama. He's already upsetting enough. Let's think about his retirement. And let's concentrate on what we are going to do, very subversively, on behalf of humanity, against his shenanigans.

Build Infrastructure, Not Paper Mountains

Freeman: This is a question from the chairman of one of the subcommittees of the Stanford group, who says: "Mr. LaRouche, using the Triple Curve to analyze the U.S. economy, has made very clear to us, that the current crisis has been at least 40 years in the making. All of our studies indicate that, basically, the U.S. economy has been in a state of uninterrupted decline, since approximately 1966, maybe 1967, at the latest. We base that—and you should correct us if we were wrong—but we base that on the fact that it was at that point, that the rate at which we were losing infrastructure, was greater than the rate at which we were replacing infrastructure.

"This has not only persisted, but has accelerated. It's obviously been masked by the fact that, especially in the aftermath of the events of the 1970-1971, we've seen a breathtaking acceleration of the growth of the mountain of paper. I could go into greater detail about our study, but, I understand we'll have more opportunity to discuss this in the Fall. Suffice it to say that we've concluded—and I admit that it has been with great reluctance, that we've done so—that this current system cannot be fixed.

"As much as we stressed over this, the next part of what we face is a greater challenge. We do recognize that there is no valid mathematical approach to crafting a new architecture. Unfortunately for us, that throws several decades of theoretical work in macroeconomics down the chute, but"—well, at least they've got a sense of humor—"be that as it may, can you speak a little bit about the methodological, or philosophical, issues that govern a monetary versus a credit system? Because my fear is that, unless we're crystal clear on that aspect of the difference, as opposed to simply the technical differences, we're in danger of screwing up any new architecture that we attempt to craft."

LaRouche: We have two very important examples of how to think about this, technologically. Or three, actually. Because you have the case of the Ecole Polytechnique in France, which was a successor to the great revolution which occurred in France under Jean-Baptiste Colbert, and the military revolution which occurred in the beginning of the 18th Century, in building the fortifications such as Belfort and so forth, in France in that period. So, that was a precedent for this.

The major driver was in France, and, actually, from the 16th Century, into the 19th Century, France was the main driver of science in all European civilization. This was a result, actually, of the impact, in particular, of Charlemagne, in the remoter period; in the development of the canal and road system of France, throughout Europe. The navigable water system, which was finally completed, I think it was the year 1992—when the final link between the Danube and the Rhine was made. It was postponed until then. But the entire development of the internal development of that territory of Europe—which was the territory of Charlemagne—was a result of that one development.

This was also, if you go back to Charlemagne, you go back to the census of Charlemagne, which was the beginning of the idea of modern economy. All these kinds of considerations.

But then, you have this development then. What you had, then, the French development was crucial for the United States, despite Louis XIV, and despite similar kinds of problems. Because it was French science, as a most direct connection, largely through the effect of the Treaty of Westphalia, but earlier—going back to Louis XI. The beginning of science, after Charlemagne, was by Louis XI. The first modern nation-state, France, was created under Louis XI's direction.

The second modern nation-state, that of Henry VII, was created under the influence of Louis XI, and so you have the development of modern economy, modern technology, came from these two centers, primarily. Other countries had their technology—the great work of some great scientists as well—but the essential driver was this.

So this is the natural way, in which we have succeeded, as European culture, in developing the economy. It's basic economic infrastructure, which is inseparable from the idea of discovery of scientific principle.

This is the kind of thing we do in the Basement, this sort of thing. It's research, and related things. Exactly like that. And you go for the development of the mind, and the idea of how to develop the territory.

For example, now: We have very poor industrial production capabilities left in the United States. The destruction of the remains of the auto industry is a national catastrophe. My approach has been, especially since 2005, when we went with this program, was to convert the auto industry from the automobile industry, to a machine-tool-driven industry, taking the same locations that we produced autos in, and taking areas that—we don't need so many automobiles. We've got too many automobiles. We need more mass transportation, and we need more decentralization of population and production. And fewer automobiles, and less use of them. We need effective mass transportation.

So, let's take mass transportation, water systems. We never developed the Missouri. We never developed the northern Mississippi. The Ohio system is collapsing. We've never developed the water systems in the Western plains. Look at the Ogallala aquifer. The land is sinking, because of the water depletion. So, we need more power. We need nuclear power. Nothing less will do. We can use natural gas—or unnatural gas, synthesized from water—as a local fuel, for vehicles and that sort of thing. We should use that as a fuel for aircraft—it's much better than the other fuels we have nowadays.

We need, again, the river systems. We need mass transit systems, we need new rail systems, for short term. We need magnetic levitation systems, for the long term. Not only for passengers, but for freight. High-value freight must be transported efficiently. You cannot transport it by boat. You've got to get it there on time. Otherwise the expense of keeping it in motion, for production, is too high.

So, there are many things we can do, which would immediately employ the same facilities, the same floor space, the same communities, which are producing automobiles, could be reorganized to produce many other things, which Detroit used to be used to. Airplanes. All kinds of things. River systems. This auto industry was an area of technology in World War II which produced almost everything that could be produced. So, therefore we do need a new mass transit system. We do need these other things.

So, in the meantime, what we're doing is, we're saving the productive potential, and minds, of people, who are otherwise being laid off, and destitute. We're maintaining the communities, as viable communities, which germinate things, including good education for local citizens. Do this. We'll get back to big manufacturing of products later on. We'll get by. But the main thing is to keep our people employed, right now. Keep them productively employed and skilled.

Look, we're shutting down schools! The schools are already bad, they're worse all the time, over the past 40 years. But we're shutting them down now, in chaos.

So, the basic investment will be in building up the infrastructural base for economy and production, which we need for the future of mankind. That will keep us busy. That means that the investment that we're making, in these physical investments, will not be wasted. What we're doing now is make-work. It's waste. Do this. And that should be our orientation. And we have to think in 50-year terms. We have to think in terms of the lifespan, of the life cycle, of infrastructural development, which means we have to have a high-rate driver.

What we need is a 1.5 to 2% long-term Federal government credit system. We can do that the minute we put this system into bankruptcy. The day after we put the present banking system through bankruptcy reorganization, according to a Glass-Steagall standard, and the minute we go to my proposal for a Homeowners and Bank Protection system, and stop this expulsion of people from their homes, we will then go back to a stable situation, from which we can launch, a pad from which we can launch further things, And the pad will be largely infrastructure. We will be using every skill that's relevant for the infrastructure we need. We will be investing over a 50-year span, we'll be extending credit at 1.5 to 2% interest cost, as Federal credit, supplied through banks and through public institutions, to invest in building up this kind of thing.

It's going to take us 50 years, to get to a point where we can say, "Ah, we solved the problem." But, in the meantime, in the process of solving the problem, we will live, and we will progress, and we will maintain our essential optimism. That's the way to look at it. We can do it. We have to regulate money. We have to regulate a lot of things.

You know, one thing we can do: We can shut down all of Wall Street. We don't need it!

Time To Bring Back Lincoln's Greenbacks?

Freeman: The next question is a long one, but that's because I've kind of mushed together four questions, all of which are from various segments of the Stanford group, and all of which address the overall question of the replacing of the Federal Reserve with a National Bank, and how it would function:

"Mr. LaRouche, as you may know, on July 9, with reference to proposals for an audit of the Fed, Prof. James Galbraith gave testimony, in which he went through the history of some of the constitutional questions involved. And he pointed out that the constitutionality of the Fed was actually challenged by the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee in the 1970s, Congressman Henry Reuss [D-Wisc.].

"The issue that Reuss posed back then, was whether the voting status of the Federal Reserve bank presidents on the Federal Open Market Committee, violated the appointment clause of the Constitution. But, unfortunately neither Reuss, nor Sen. [Donald] Riegel, who brought the lawsuit, could establish standing. And, ultimately, several years later, when Senator Baucus did establish standing, in a similar case, the Supreme Court denied cert in the matter. So the issue was never tested in court.

"Nevertheless, it was Professor Galbraith's opinion, that Reuss was right on the merits, that the FOMC is a constitutional anomaly, whose voting members are not duly constituted officers of the U.S., as the Constitution requires.

"Now, during the past year, this same Fed has flooded the streets of America with money, distributing trillions of dollars to banks, financial markets, and commercial interests, all supposedly in an attempt to revive the credit system and get the economy going. As a result, the awesome authority that this strange institution has, has suddenly become visible to many ordinary Americans, for the very first time.

"People, and in some cases even politicians, are shocked, confused, and angered by what they see. And they're starting to ask some questions, for which they're not getting satisfactory answers. Like: Where did the Fed get all the money it's handing out? Answer: Basically, they printed it, out of thin air.

"Question: Who told the Fed governors they could do this? Answer: Nobody. Not Congress or the President. The Fed alone, among government agencies, does not submit its budget to Congress for authorization and appropriation. It raises its own money, and sets its own priorities.

"Going through this, we concluded that this might be a good time to dismantle the Fed.

"You can call it what you want—democratizing the Fed, tearing down the Fed, or simply creating, in its place, a National Bank that actually is accountable to the public, but, more importantly, accountable to the general welfare of the nation. The obstacles to this are obviously formidable. Tampering with the Fed is politically taboo, but the current crisis has demonstrated that the present arrangement no longer works, if, in fact, it ever did, for the public interest.

"From our standpoint, a reconstituted Fed can be called whatever you want to call it, and it could even have presidentially appointed governors, confirmed by Congress. But, we would demand that it submit to the usual standards of transparency, public scrutiny, etc. But, far more importantly, that it would be directed to concentrate on one simple purpose, and that is: making monetary policy and controlling credit expansion to produce economic growth, and stable money.

"According to our deliberations, it would give Congress an opening to reclaim their authority in this important matter. It may sound far-fetched, and there is no question that some will scream that this is a recipe for inflationary disaster. But from our studies, this is what the Constitution prescribes: 'The Congress shall have the power to coin money, and regulate the value thereof.' It does not grant that power to the President, to the Treasury Secretary, and certainly not to a central bank.

"During the course of your last webcast, someone brought up the question of the greenbacks that Abraham Lincoln printed to fight the Civil War. I was appalled to see an article in the Wall Street Journal, the following week, that said that, essentially, what Bernanke was doing, was using the Fed's money-creation power in the same way that Lincoln did.

"Let me just clarify this, and make sure we all agree: Lincoln was faced with rising costs, and shrinking revenues, because of the war. The President, under those conditions, authorized the issuance of a national currency, the greenback, that had no backing in gold reserves, and therefore, outraged orthodox thinking at the time. But the fact is, that the greenbacks worked. They expanded the money supply; the expanded money supply paid for the war mobilization, and it kept the economy going. Lincoln won the war, by relying on 'the full faith and credit of the people.'

"That's not what Bernanke is doing.

"If Congress chooses to take charge of its constitutional duty, it could similarly use greenback currency, created by the Federal Reserve, if you want, as a legitimate channel for financing important public projects, like sorely needed improvements in the nation's infrastructure. This has to be done carefully and responsibly, and presumably these greenbacks, if you will, would be used only for projects that truly benefit the entire nation.

"But here's an example, as we envision it, of how it would work, and we want your opinion on whether this is in line with what you're saying. President Obama has announced his goal of building a high-speed rail system, and of course, the United States is the only advanced-sector country that doesn't have one. The trouble is, that Obama only budgeted $8 billion for the project! Spain, by comparison, has commissioned more than $100 billion to its 15-year railroad-building project. So, given the vast shortcomings in U.S. infrastructure overall, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that we will never catch up with the backlog, through this kind of taxing and borrowing.

"Our proposal, is that Congress should create a stand-alone development fund, for long-term capital investment projects. This would require the long-sought reform of the Federal budget, which makes no distinction between current operating spending, and long-term investment. The Fed would continue to create money, only as needed by the physical economy. What that means, is that, instead of injecting this money into the banking system, it would go directly to the capital investment fund, earmarked by Congress, for special projects of great urgency.

"The idea of direct financing for infrastructure has been proposed before. Ironically, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood co-sponsored legislation along these lines ten years ago, when he was a Republican Congressman from Illinois.

"Therefore, instead of borrowing the money, for instance, to pay for the new rail system, the government financing would draw on the public's money-creation process, just as Lincoln did. The bankers will howl, for good reason. They obviously profit enormously from the present system, and they share in the money-creation process."

And then he goes into this whole big discussion of how that works. He says:

"The direct financing approach that we are proposing, would not halt the banking industry's role in allocating new credit, since the newly created money would still wind up in banks as deposits. But the government would now decide how to allocate new credit to preferred public projects, rather than let private banks make all the decisions for us, which is happening now.

"Congress is a human institution, and it is unquestionably fallible. Yes, mistakes will be made. And we considered that in making this proposal; but also, in making this proposal, we also asked the question: Could they possibly do any worse than these guys have done thus far? ] "Is this thinking in line with what you are proposing, and if it's not, would you please correct us?"

Declare the Fed Bankrupt:
Establish the Third National Bank

LaRouche: First of all, I think we're going to have to recognize that the Federal Reserve System is, by any appropriate approach, bankrupt. It is a private corporation, which was created, unfortunately, by the U.S. government, in a certain manner of speaking, under Woodrow Wilson. It is bankrupt. Who is going to pay those debts? All this money issued, is a debt. All this utterance is a debt. Who is supposed to pay? Who contracted to pay that debt?

I know that the Federal Reserve system is bankrupt. It covers up for its bankruptcy by printing money. This reminds me of Germany in 1923, doesn't it? Therefore, look, the point is, the United States has to have the guts to declare the Federal Reserve System bankrupt. That's the way to get at it. It is bankrupt, and let it prove that it has assets, to cover this utterance. If not, we put it into bankruptcy.

What we do is, we simply get rid of it by bankruptcy. Just take it off the books. It's bankrupt; it took itself off the books, by going bankrupt. Easiest way of skinning that cat.

Now, then what we're going to have to do is, we're going to have to develop the Third National Bank of the United States. And what we will do with that, is essentially assigned to the Treasury, but it's not an extension of the Treasury otherwise. It has a relationship to the Treasury, by being authorized, but a Third National Bank, exactly as Hamilton prescribed for the first National Bank. And we will take a little carefully guarded barbed-wire, etc., thing, down in the basement of the Third National Bank, and inside will be the remains the Federal Reserve System. Held in captivity for purposes of audit only.

And that's the way to get rid of it. Because we have to manage, you see, we have to manage the relationship which the Federal Reserve System has established with the chartered banks of the states, and the national banks. We have to rescue those.

Now, we're going to do that: How? By a Glass-Steagall kind of clean-up act, of all these banks. We're going to have to create credit to keep these banks—many of which are bankrupt, but are essential to communities—functioning. We're going to have to use these banks, saving them, as a way of generating the distribution of credit, to maintain an economic recovery.

Now, we have then this private-public relationship, and how do we deal with that? Also with international accounts? We deal with that through a National Bank. So we use the National Bank as a facility to promote things.

What we also need are projects conceived in the form of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Now, that's an ideal thing, because it had a primary purpose, but it also had a lot of other things that went with it, to fulfill its primary purpose. So, what we need is a national transportation development plan, under some name, which essentially takes care of this railroad-maglev system, and takes care, as the Tennessee Valley Authority did, of all the things that are auxiliary to that system.

For example, I had conceptions back in my old consulting days, back in the 1950s, on the reorganization of the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads—they were going to be merged in a crazy way, and I got all heated up over that thing, and wanted to merge them in a way which would take part of the old B&O system, and the whole area in Jersey, and realize we have a problem of getting transportation from the New York area, to Chicago, overnight. And the problem was, the train could do it much more effectively and cheaply, but you had to sort the thing out. The classification management problem was great.

So, I wanted to pick up the auxiliary services to make sure—because we could organize efficiently, through warehousing and other devices in, say, the northern Jersey area, which was a pivot then.

Remember, New York City's problem was the fact that it was deindustrialized. New York City died because it did not have the revenues to carry itself, in its operation, because it was deindustrialized. So, if we reindustrialize the area—and we don't have to have smoke all over the place, we don't have to have filth all over the place, we can use now new, modern technology, like nuclear technology—and we can take the New York area and keep the people who are industrially skilled in that, industries in that, instead of having just plain poor people, working through garbage barrels; we have something that functions.

Well, we need a transportation system which will assist that. And we have to recognize the reason that you couldn't get to Chicago, from New York, was because of this handling problem. So, if you dealt with that problem, you could then easily get from Chicago to New York, and New York to Chicago, more cheaply by rail, improved rail, than you could by truck. The truck thing was a menace. And a long-haul truck is a waste of time. You drive people more and more cheaply, they die at the wheel, or whatever—it's crazy, the trucking system. It's insane!

We need a national transportation system, which is oriented to an agro-industrial mission. We need to get a situation nationally, so that we don't have super-industries.

Look, in this area, for example, people commute into the Washington area for two hours, two hours and a half, each way, under [impossible] traffic conditions. This is insane! Because we concentrated employment in such a way, as to create this condition. Under normal conditions in the United States, in the 20th Century, your commuting time to and from work was about 15 minutes, at most, half an hour. We now have two hours, two and a half hours, in this area, and similar things in other areas.

The effect of that on family life, is monstrous, particularly when you have two members, adult members of the household, maintaining a family with children—what the hell is the result of having a two and a half hours transport each way, every day? Are you human?

We destroyed the entire development of the western United States. We concentrated everything in a few areas. We congested them with automobile traffic, instead of efficient mass transportation systems. We should have decentralized. We shouldn't have built such big, giant, oversized corporations; we should have built smaller units, distributed in various parts of the country, in the rational way we used to approach this.

So, we need a national development program, which is based on this function of transportation, which means also building the water system, the NAWAPA [North American Water and Power Alliance] water system, and other things, because we have a real problem with water supplies in the western states. We're going to have a food supply problem. We're destroying agriculture. We're destroying the industrial-agricultural relationship, with globalization, and other kinds of insanity.

So, what we need for this period, is national mission orientations, of the type that Roosevelt used, and Henry Wallace used. We know, those kind of approaches, to take the infrastructure development of the nation, thinking of it as a living economy, and thinking about it as a place where people live, and work, and have homes, and have schools, and have medical facilities. And think of that, and say, we need a national transportation reorganization plan, for the United States.

We have a vast territory, relatively speaking, and we should just go back and develop it. And the way to start, is with your transportation grid, knowing where you're going, and the transportation grid is coupled with your water problem, the water-management problem, both for traffic and for water management. And building up the aquifers in areas where they're being destroyed. And taking advantage of that. Forestation, instead of greening. A tree is worth much more than grass! Up to 10% of the solar radiation used by a tree is incorporated in the tree. The grass? One or two percent. So you want to have more trees. You want to have a reforestation program for areas. You want a development territory. All of this comes under the question of transportation. And we need probably a national transportation project, like a national space program, or an international space program. And these kinds of programs will drive us, as long as we have a future orientation, in the direction we want to go in.

We have to think about two generations from now. You young guys: What are your grandchildren going to look like? What kind of life are they going to have? Who's going to get to Mars first? Who's going to be able to get back?

Emergency Legislation To Rescue the States

Freeman: We have a huge number of questions from state legislators, talking about the fiscal crisis, state by state. I will give those questions to Lyn—there's absolutely no way that we're going to be able to entertain those questions here. But, there's a broader question and a proposal, that comes from one of these standing committees advising Obama, that I think is worth asking. And they say:

"Mr. LaRouche, recently in considering the states' fiscal collapse, we got a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and had a lengthy discussion following their report. As you know, the states, unlike the Federal government, are not permitted to run current budget deficits. So, in a deep crisis, as we are in now, when tax receipts collapse, their only choice is to cut program spending and raise taxes. Both are, of course, rather perverse in a crisis like this one, since they only further undercut the standard of living of an already suffering populace.

"As the new fiscal year begins, every state, save two, is in a position where it is being forced to raise taxes and fees, lay off workers, and reduce programs. A full 48 states face bankruptcy. Some of the state budget crisis is self-inflicted, as in the death dance that we've all been witness to, by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But, unfortunately, California is not alone in this.

"Massachusetts has a liberal governor, but they just hiked the sales tax by 25%. A total of 24 other states have enacted tax increases, and another 12 all have tax hikes on their agenda, and are in special session now. Federal aid, under the stimulus package, covers less than 30% of the projected state shortfall, which currently is $350 billion. Thirty-nine states have cut program outlays to the needy. Several states are cutting out Summer school. We could go on and on.

"It seems to us, that rebuilding a banking system that serves the real economy is challenging, but this part is not. Washington is the one part of our government with the capacity to run deficits. Our solution—and we believe that it must be done immediately—is for Congress to pass an emergency revenue-sharing law, giving the states another $150 billion immediately. They can impose the policy under what they call "maintenance of effort," that's fine. But the fact is, that something has to be done, and it has to be done today.

"The stimulus money is mostly unspent because of various bureaucratic hurdles at all levels of government. It seems to us, that this approach would break through all the red tape, and all of the problems. It certainly would not solve the broader questions that we're trying to address, but it would at least alleviate the immediate suffering of people who have absolutely no idea how they're going to survive.

"Do you think that this is a sound approach?"

LaRouche: We'd say this is absolutely an urgent approach, if we're looking at things in reality. It will solve, temporarily, a major crisis, a major bottleneck. And it has to be done immediately. I think we put this under the category of emergency legislation. Because all it requires is an act of Congress, and demand that it be implemented by the first of September, and put on the agenda. This should be an urgent, high priority.

Because what you have, is you have a regressive increase in local taxation, which will only aggravate the problem, in all of these states, all these states in the target zone. Since the Federal government created the damn mess, the Federal government ought to contribute something to solve it! The states didn't create this situation—the Federal government did.

But again, this means: we have to put the present system into bankruptcy reorganization, and go back to my proposed legislation, back in 2007, the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act. We have to implement that as national law, immediately. In that context, this legislation, just proposed, here, should be on the list of emergency legislation, in order to prevent chaos in the states.

Look, we have a problem. If we do not do the things I've indicated, you are going to have riots, and riotous conditions throughout the United States. The United States will become ungovernable, and somebody will try to set up a dictatorship. We have to act now. Don't worry about Obama. Just call him "O-bumma." He is on the way out. He's either going to be a captive, under adult supervision in the White House, or he's going to be out. And that's going to be demanded—you will find that by early September, the desire to have Obama impeached will be unquenchable.

The Best Solution to the Foreclosure Crisis: HBPA

Freeman: The next question directly addresses the failure to implement the HBPA. It says:

"Mr. LaRouche, when the Obama Administration took office, they basically continued the Bush Administration's program of voluntarily loan modification. They sweetened the deal by paying banks to reduce the principal or interest, spending approximately $75 billion for the banks—which is money, by the way, that in our estimate, should have gone directly to homeowners. But, with the most distressed mortgages having been converted to securities, and the banks that collect the payments not wishing to get sued, the program is, quite frankly, a bust. Even the Treasury says, that only 50,000 mortgages, give or take, have been modified, but that's out of several million, at immediate risk of foreclosure.

"Treasury keeps telling Congress to wait a few months, to let the program kick in. But, according to our study on this, the program is actually going backward. Out of a sample of 3.5 million subprime and Alt-A mortgages..."

Alt-A mortgages are undocumented mortgages that are known as liar-loans—that's what I have; that's what you all have too, I know. What he says, is that if you take the 3.5 million loans that fit into this category—3.5 million is the number that are handled by five of the nation's biggest lenders; there are apparently a lot more than that. But what he is saying, is that:

"Out of the 3.5 million, 23,749 were modified in February, but only 19,041 in May, and then only 18,078 in June.

"Meanwhile, foreclosures, right now, in progress, are over 844,000. The consequence of this failure is a continuing downward spiral of more vacant homes, continuing declines in property values and home equity, depressed home construction, and incredible stresses on homeowners, who spend every penny of disposable income to try to stay in their houses.

"There is nothing other than a Roosevelt-scale mortgage-refinancing program, with one goal, to keep people from losing their homes, that we believe is acceptable. Our proposal is the following: 1) When a bank forecloses, according to their own figures, they lose 63% of the loan value. Therefore, what we are proposing, is to freeze foreclosures, and then reduce the monthly payment of the homeowner by 63%. It establishes a fair value. The bank wouldn't get any more by foreclosing, so they have no right to complain. And it allows people to stay in their homes.

"It's not the HBPA, but it is a direct government intervention to address what is otherwise a full-scale catastrophe. Do you view this as a workable proposal?"

LaRouche: It's one of those situations where you've got legislation which does solve the problem, which is the HBPA. That is, it dovetails into the whole reconstruction program. And I think the HBPA is an easier project; I think it can be revived much more easily than this kind of thing, and this would cover it. And we'd just make it retroactive. Say it should have been done. It was proposed, it should have been done. And you can probably blackmail some people in the Congress to accept that. I think now, because you've got the lynch mobs out looking for these guys, these Congressmen, I think under these conditions, they're going to tend to be more malleable.

Cancel the HMOs! Back to Hill-Burton

Freeman: This question comes from one of the three committees in the House of Representatives that was laboring over the health-care legislation, and the Congressman's representative asks:

"The fact of the matter is that there has been a huge amount of time and energy [spent] debating various aspects of this legislation, all 1,000 pages of it. Undoubtedly, the medical review board aspect is completely unacceptable, and I agree with you, it is a Nazi policy. But beyond that, even the aspects of the bill that we are fighting for—for instance, the public option—is indeed, completely unworkable. And, in the way that this is currently being discussed, the fact is, that the public plan, or the public option, would end up as a dumping ground for the sicker and more expensive citizen. And if that happens, obviously, then what you'll get is a turnaround, in which everyone says, 'Oh, you see, this was a bad idea; you can't have a public option, you can't provide for people, etc.'

"The fact is that we can debate this endlessly, but I think we have to accept the fact that this bill was never intended to provide adequate health care for the vast majority of the U.S. population. The fact is, that the debate itself is becoming increasingly ludicrous. Our proposal—and I cannot promise you that we will raise this in September, especially given all of the time that has been put into this—but our proposal is to step forward, and basically say, in the most diplomatic terms possible, that this bill is a piece of crap. And it doesn't work. And it won't work. That it can't work. That solving the health-care crisis, really, is not that complicated, despite what everyone says. That the only thing that is workable, that is affordable, and that is just, is to adopt a simple program of Medicare for all Americans. I don't see why it wouldn't work. It would cost a lot less than any of the proposals on the table, and it would not require the withholding of care from any American.

"What are your thoughts on this?"

LaRouche: It's fairly simple. We'd simply cancel the HMO legislation, and go back to a complete national policy we had before, Hill-Burton. And provide for funding for implementation of Hill-Burton. If you go to building up the medical institutions of the United States, as we did under Hill-Burton, with those kinds of numbers and objectives, that should be what we do. That's the first thing.

Cancel the HMOs. The HMO was a piece of fascist legislation. It wasn't as violent and as fascist as Obama is—this guy's off the wall—but it was a sneak-in fascist reform, which was to take the insurance companies, and let the insurance companies milk the sick.

So, go back to Hill-Burton. It's cheaper. I know: I had some experience with the general hospital system before it existed. We had general hospitals in the military, and I did some time in serving on a ward and so forth in one of these hospitals. The system is far more efficient, than any of this.

Anytime you put in a turnstile, where you have to put coins in a turnstile to get some place, you have lowered efficiency. What you do, is, you have an institution which has the capacity to deal with the problems, which Hill-Burton allowed for. Hill-Burton is the model. Which is based on the experience of the United States, especially, in the postwar period, on the basis of what we did in the military: We had about 17 million people, in service, in the U.S. military, during World War II—17 million people. We serviced this population, with a system, a health-care system, which essentially was the same thing, in respect to the soldier, as Hill-Burton. Hill-Burton was already in gestation, before it became a national legislation, in that period.

The problem is building back to that, because we don't have the staff any more, we don't have the philosophy. We have some residue of it. Take the whole thing, and shut down HMOs! Take the insurance companies out! Get rid of the insurance companies! We don't need them! They're only looting the sick, that's all.

And it's part of a genocide program. It's the first stepping-stone, on which the Nazi health-care policy of President Obama is based! The Nazi crime policy, crime against humanity policy, of the Obama Administration. So, ban Obama! Tell him to keep away from hospitals: He might get a disease. Or maybe he has one already.

So that's the way to go at it. You need a national Hill-Burton restoration. The way you get that, is, you go back and you kill the HMO legislation. You kill everything that pertains to that. You put the insurance companies under scrutiny for fraud! Fraudulent practices! And they are fraudulent. Even though they were done under law, because the intent, the purpose served, is, in the judgment of honest people, fraudulent! Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's good. Like some of the Hitler laws—they were legal, but they weren't good. Like Obama law: It's legal, but no damned good!

That's the way I think we have to approach this. And whatever is required, to fund that kind of program, a restoration of Hill-Burton, applying Hill-Burton philosophy of government responsibility, on each county, on each county level. You've got to watch this cutting down of number of hospitals. Each county has to be covered, because people get sick in their county, and they have to travel, if they're sick, sometimes in an emergency. It has to be in the county! Or accessible to the county, as a county operation.

In that case, what we have to do, is rebuild our system, in terms of technology. Again, we have to go to the future. We have a larger world population; we have new diseases; we have all kinds of requirements, which require a future orientation of medicine. And that's what we should put our effort into: the future. The future. We have to keep people alive, who are valuable, who are dying on us.

Obama doesn't understand that. See, Obama has no conception of the value of a human being. He doesn't know that human beings are essential, that they contribute something. They develop—but their health, their minds, are important. Human beings are the most valuable thing on this planet. The more of them, the better, if they're developed. So make sure they're developed. Take care of them.

Every time someone dies, something within them dies. They can't contribute any more. You have sicknesses where people deteriorate; they don't function, mentally and otherwise, because of lack of the proper medical attention, or development of the techniques to deal with that. We lose minds. We lose skills. It's wrong.

So we have to have a future orientation, as I say, in everything: You need to think at least 50 years ahead. And the test of whether you're sane or not, is whether you have thought competently 50 years ahead. And under these conditions, you take something like the health-care problem: We've got to think 50 years ahead.

For example, let's take the question of space problems. We had more technology developed by the space program, about 10 cents for every penny we put into it, in terms of that. We have to think about, starting from 50 years ahead, science, space medicine, and look at what we're doing, putting man in space. If we take the question, of what is required to keep a human being safely in flight, in space, in that kind of environment, under constant gravity, a relativistic condition of life, in terms of magnetic and gravitational conditions; and think about, facing that kind of thing, that will take us to the edge, the frontier edge of where medicine should go today, where medical care should go today, and science should go today.

So we need a future orientation applied to a Hill-Burton philosophy, in terms of county-by-county accountability. And that's what we should pay for, and nothing else.

Freeman: This question comes from someone in Washington, who's associated with one of the think tanks, and is also a writer for one of the major national magazines. And she says:

"Mr. LaRouche, I have to say, that when you first said that Obama's health-care policy was a Nazi policy, I was startled; I couldn't see the wisdom of it; and every time I walked through the streets of D.C. and saw your organizers out there with those signs of Obama with the Hitler moustache, I winced. But, the fact of the matter is, that just last week, in a discussion, I was given a copy of an article written by Zeke Emanuel, that was published in The Lancet.

"I should say, that a week prior to that, when I read Mr. [Peter] Singer's article in the New York Times, I was appalled, and I found the article morally reprehensible; but it was nothing by comparison to this piece by Zeke Emanuel. And the fact is, that there is no possible way, that he could raise the excuse that this was a past policy, since the article appeared in the Jan. 31, 2009 issue of The Lancet. I tried to get my editor to print a hot link to this article. He refused. And I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you, to please make it available on your website. If you can't print the article, then please print a link to it, because I think it is indispensable for people to understand the nature of this administration.

"Around the same time that I took up this issue, I was appalled to find out that John Holdren has taken the position of White House science czar. As a journalist in Washington, I should have known this. The fact is, I didn't; it went right past me. For people who are not familiar with Mr. Holdren, let me just say that in the 1970s, he was not only a protégé of the crazy Professor [Paul] Ehrlich and his wife, but he also coauthored a textbook that discussed coercive population control. At the time, I was not someone who could have been called a feminist. Yet, I was so horrified by what he was proposing, that I became active in the feminist movement, to try to fight these policies of coercive population control. It also came to my attention, later on, that Holdren was a participant, in some way, in the authorship of National Security Study Memorandum 200, which is now rather famous.

"My question for you is this: Fine, this guy got in under the radar. I missed it, and so did a lot of others. But my position is that the fact that he was a proponent of coercive population control, should disqualify him, as a serious voice on science. I work for a liberal magazine. I'm a liberal; I admit it! My friends think that I have lost my mind, but I find this absolutely appalling, and I think that other progressive groups have got to take this up. It is morally reprehensible, and it seems to me, to prove the point that you made several months ago, that this health policy had Nazi elements to it, and that in fact, it was not a mistake."

LaRouche: It's obvious! He was a mistake! Holdren is a mistake. And somehow the birth control thing got whacked up, and he got born.

Find Your Identity in the Future of Humanity

Freeman: This is the last question; this is a question from Argentina:

"Mr. LaRouche, I am a 21-year-old single mother, and also a student at the university, halfway through my program of studies. I've been reading your work for approximately three years, and I see no other ideas or projects that will get us off the inclined plane on which we find ourselves, and which unfortunately appears to be endless.

"My question to you is this: What do we do, to transmit to the majority of the world's youth, who only live in the present—and do so very badly—the idea that they have a concrete, real, and effective future, based only on cultivating the creative abilities of their minds?

"Thank you."

LaRouche: I think, fairly simply, after what I've said, in this direction already today, here, is that—let's take the space program. We need to get at the heart of these matters, in an exemplary way, and an exemplary way should also be a highly practicable way. I think the objective—see, it involves a concept, of a change in the image of what man is. When you go to constant acceleration, as a required modality, in flight of a human being from one planet to another, you're operating in a completely new kind of domain, the domain of the relativistic relations, relativistic transport. And this is a great challenge: Because you have to think about when you're getting out of a 1-gravity situation on Earth, into this kind of artificial gravity, you are in a relativistic environment. Your definition, your terms of thinking about the same old things you knew before, are now presented in a new way.

The human race, eventually, has to live in the universe; we have to live in the Solar System; we have to live in the galaxy, in the longer term. We have to face the challenge that that represents. See, you have think like an immortal person: that is, to think in such terms that you are thinking about mankind in the distant future, and you're thinking about your place in relationship to mankind, in the distant future, and even distant planets. Because you're looking for something in yourself, which has permanent value. We're all mortal. We're born and we die. But we're not animals. We're creatively thinking creatures. And the meaning of our life does not lie in our biological existence as such. It lies in the meaning for humanity, before us and after us, in what our lives have contributed to the existence of humanity as a whole. We have to see ourselves as human, in that way. And therefore, the best way, the practical way, is always to look ahead, to look as far ahead as you can look, into the future, and see what it is you must do for the future, so that your hand is at the tiller, long after you're dead, in that way.

And obviously, if you're going to chart a course, you have to chart a good choice of course. So, pick one! Pick a destiny! Pick a destiny, two generations, three generations, four generations beyond your life today! Try to reach that far. Try to make something, that you do something, that contributes to the future of humanity! Find your identity in the future of humanity, after death; commit the kind of acts and kind of development that mean that. And act accordingly: Because that is the secret of true happiness. That is the "pursuit of happiness," as understood by Leibniz, as recorded in his second reply to Locke, which became the cornerstone of our Constitution, through, first, the Declaration of Independence, where it is the meaning of our existence as a nation, and was reflected again, in the Preamble of the Constitution, in its own way.

We have to be immortal. We have to be immortal, by assuming immortal responsibility. Reach beyond our own life, to what we can do now, which will touch in a beneficial way, generations of people after we're dead. In that way, you know, you're immortal. If you think like that, you know you are immortal. If you can act like that, you do even better.

Freeman: There isn't anything else to say. You've been a great audience. Thank you. And go make history.

LaRouche: Thank you.

[1] The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War, was based on the principle that sovereign nations act "for the benefit of the other."