This article will appear in the July 16, 2010 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Dialogue with LaRouche

This is a transcript of the question-and-answer period which followed Lyndon LaRouche's main address at his June 26, 2010 webcast.

Freeman: I do have a huge pile of questions....

This is one instance where many of the questions that have come in for Lyn, from institutions, really, all over the world, are very similar. So I am going to take the liberty of merging questions. The questions come in several different areas. There are obviously a huge number of questions related to this financial reform bill, but really, to larger questions that are related to that, in terms of the global economy. That constitutes one segment of the questions.

There are also a very significant number of questions regarding the ongoing disaster that is rapidly becoming a global crisis, with the BP incident the Gulf, that is now spilling out not only into the Caribbean Sea, but has the potential to spill into both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

And then, there are also a great number of questions on this phenomenon of the mass strike in the United States, which I will entertain.

So, Lyn, the first question comes from Moscow:

"Mr. LaRouche, some people say that you are not in the right century, when you talk about the British. But recently, Prof. Igor Panarin of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry, gave some interviews about the British Empire, that were quite interesting. In the professor's words, 'The leaders of the British Empire should confess to organizing both World War I and World War II. And there should be a public tribunal, to find out who organized the First and Second World Wars, and why they did it.'

"Also, Professor Panarin said that the British were, and have been, the historic enemies of Russia, since Ivan the Terrible, which of course was in the 1500s, and that that has continued up to today. And we would very much like you to comment on this."

The British Empire's Perpetual War Policy

LaRouche: Well, of course, in broad terms, that's absolutely true. But one has to understand the British Empire. The only person who, really, in the last century, understood the British Empire properly, was Rosa Luxemburg. And I understand there are some questions about her work, which comes up in a different context.

But Rosa Luxemburg was the only competent economist of the last century. She had a peculiar history, in that she was the daughter of a gentleman in Poland, who was the head of an organization, known popularly as the Bund, which was known in the United States as the Workmen's Circle, which was an extension of the Bund, of refugees who fled from Europe into the United States; it was largely a Jewish organization, but not really—it was Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, and so forth. But these were organized in Europe, around something like a trade union organization, but with a political character, as well as being a trade union, and also a very important cultural characteristic.

And she came out of that. She was educated largely in Europe, from a French standpoint. She was very much an admirer of certain things in France, and was then absorbed into the Socialist movement in the other parts of Europe, especially, Germany and France.

But you have to understand her, from another standpoint: Apart from all the attributes of the pedigree, she was a genius. It's that simple. And therefore, like a genius often does, they find a habitat from which to function at being a genius. And then they find themselves in that habitat—they're not a product of the habitat they produce, but they're a product of what they produce within the habitat they enjoy. Hers was the crisis of Europe.

Now, the crisis of Europe, since 1890, had been the intention of the British monarchy, to launch a war in Europe, for the purpose of defeating what the United States represented. And the two aspects of what the United States' influence had been, in Europe, which they were fighting, was Germany, which had followed the American System, under Bismarck. Bismarck, from 1877 on, led a transformation of Germany which became the Bismarck German system. This was the establishment of the transcontinental railway system as a Eurasian system; it came from Bismarck, as part of the general reform, which made Germany an industrial-technological power.

A similar process occurred with another person who visited the 1876 celebration in Philadelphia: Mendeleyev, a leading scientist of Russia. And Mendeleyev affected the Russian government on this issue, and built the Trans-Siberian Railroad. But also, along the routes of the railroad, led to the discovery of mineral resources and the development of mineral resources and industries to match, in various parts of Eurasia.

So this development represented a great threat to the British Empire. And therefore, getting Bismarck out, who understood this, and letting the Kaiser, the dumb nephew of Britain's Prince Albert Edward, take over, resulted in exactly the kind of folly that destroyed Europe in two World Wars, and more.

Because what the British had done—they had used the way in which the British Empire had been created in 1763: It was created on the basis of the organization of a series of wars, which Anglo-Dutch interests centered in Venice, had orchestrated among the nations of Europe. So, for seven years, the leading nations of Continental Europe were engaged in a war with one another!

And so, in 1763, at that point, the British had a peace conference in Paris, in February, at which the British Empire was established, as an empire of the British East India Company!

The British Empire is not a secretion of the British people. It's an imposition on the British people, by an organization, which took over the husk form of the British East India Company. And the British Empire today is an outgrowth of the British East India Company, which was an international maritime company, just like the ancient pirates of the Mediterranean, which ruled the systems of the world, including Rome, for example, from this standpoint.

So, the way the British Empire functions, and has functioned ever since that time, the Seven Years War, has been to get other nations to kill one another! And the British are involved only in getting them to do that!

Let's take some modern cases. Let's take the perpetual Arab-Israeli warfare, a British operation, entirely British controlled. Let's take the Afghanistan War, which is the longest-running war, currently running war, in Eurasia. It was started by Brzezinski, who was a British agent. Started by him, and continued to the present day!

And the President of the United States, who is an idiot—or worse, actually—is continuing that war. A piece of idiocy! What's he doing? Look at the war in Afghanistan. What's there? Drugs! What drugs? They're British drugs! The British Empire has been running drug operations throughout the world since the 1790s—the British East India Company. The China Opium Wars—drugs! What's in Afghanistan? Drugs! Since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, which was orchestrated by Brzezinski, but orchestrated by the British, who turned it into a drug haven. What's Afghanistan's significance today? The British regime, the British government, is running a drug operation in Afghanistan.

It is extending that drug operation for poppy growing into Kyrgyzstan, which is now in the headlines these days. There's a drug operation in Kyrgyzstan. The entire major drug problem in Europe, comes out of the drugs out of Afghanistan. And the drug-growing in Afghanistan is run by the British government, and is protected by the British military. And now it's protected also by Obama. You want to stop that war in Afghanistan? Get Obama out of the United States, and just give the British a kick in the head.

Because if the United States and Russia agreed upon shutting down that drug operation, I know personally how to set up an operation, as a military operation, to do an overnight job of killing off that drug operation. I could plan such an operation; just give me the technicians, and I could do it. The Russians know how to do it. We in the United States know how to do it. Go in there and shut that thing down!

You don't need to have a war there! Why do you want to go up and bother those people and get them into shooting at you? Why bother? What for? They've been shooting at people and each other for a long time! What are you worried about? You're going to go in there and stop that? The best way to do it, is let them get successful growth of their economy, and grow some serious crops, and get some serious development, and that will pacify the area quite nicely. It won't eliminate the heritage of this thing, but there's no reason for us to be there.

But this is what our problem is. The problem is that this operation, we are the victims of this. We're victims of being sucked into perpetual warfare. That's what MacArthur was emphasizing in support of President Kennedy. "No long land war in Asia!" No more wars in which the United States, in particular, is sucked into a war among other people, a war should not be supported, and should not have occurred in the first place. When we jump into such things, or play them, that's a great mistake.

And what we have to do is, you have to get rid of this President. I mean, I could go through a whole list of things on this President, the things that he is committed to. And I understand his mind, as very few people do understand his mind. I understand his mind perfectly. He is an Emperor Nero. He's a carbon copy of the Emperor Nero. He's a psychotic like the Emperor Nero, a psycho-type. You cannot have him in the Presidency. You've got to get him out! You will not save the United States if he remains in the Presidency; you will not! You can't! You can see it.

So, therefore, that's the issue. The issue is, we are being sucked into playing games, with ourselves and with others, under the influence of the British Empire—the damned Queen, right now. She is about as evil as you get on this planet. But we can't throw her out of office—she's British property, technically. We can throw Obama out of office, and that's what we should do right now.

Lord Rothschild's Evil Creation

Freeman: The next question is from Brazil. It is from a Brazilian NGO, which is called the Brazilian Anti-Fraud Institute. And the questioner, who is the president of the Institute, says:

"Mr. LaRouche, the Brazilian Anti-Fraud Institute is a non-profit NGO, represented by the public ministry. We'd like to congratulate you on your presentation, and this is what we ask:

"Brazil, when it's not living on samba, lives on the World Cup. The American's dream is his house; the Brazilian's dream is his car, and in a carnival atmosphere, Santander is one of the biggest advertisers in the Brazilian media. This bank has been issuing releases that reinforce the idea that the Lula government is great, and that Brazil is a paradise. For example, a supposed study by the Bank of Santander states that 8 million people in Brazil got access to cars, which are financed here in Brazil for 80 months. And they report that it is quite healthy to dedicate 30% of your salary earned to buy these vehicles. Santander President Emilio Botín, in a communiqué that he issued in 2008, promised to open 600 new branches of Banco Santander in Brazil. He later promised another 400 branches. These are promises that were not fulfilled. And recently, of course, Santander was forced to raise capital by selling shares. But the most curious fact is that the president of Santander in Brazil is also a member of the board of directors of Petrobras, along with Dilma Rouseff, who is Lula's candidate to succeed him as President. So, we have the government, Santander, and Petrobras co-habitating.

"Do you think that Banco Santander might be manipulating its own possible takeover by the state, via a multi-billion-dollar sale to Banco do Brasil, under a possible future government under Dilma, making Brazilians, therefore, pay, for the otherwise deceased and unlamented Santander that would then be handed over to the Brazilian government? Do you think that Brazil is, therefore, following the U.S. example of credit that is being issued which could victimize the elderly, public employees, laborers, and others, and have them watch, while their precious cars are seized?

"And finally, with a Spanish banking crisis, what type of precautions should Santander's clients in Brazil take? Is there any way for Brazilians to protect themselves?"

LaRouche: I think you have hit upon much more than you realize you have hit upon. I explain: The long-term operation, from the time of the end of World War II, by the British, was to destroy the United States, and to re-establish firm control by the British Empire.

In 1971, after a catastrophe caused by, already into '68—what happened in the United States, in the war in Vietnam, the Indo-China War: that the situation had been created by the ruining of the U.S. economy with the post-Kennedy policies, including the war itself, which transformed the population of young people from what it had been while Kennedy was alive, to what it became in 1968, in the leading universities, where you had human beings who had been transformed into animals. I was there, I saw it. They were animals; I saw the fur.

Now, the next step of this was the bringing in of the Nixon Administration, and the 68ers were what brought Nixon into the Presidency, and what went with it. So, in 1971, two actions occurred simultaneously. One was the collapsing of the Bretton Woods system, the last remnant of the Bretton Woods system. That was the cracking of the United States. The second thing of significance, was that Lord Jacob Rothschild, who was the Queen's own banker, had created a group called the Inter-Alpha Group, of which the Banco Santander, a Spanish bank of no usefulness, was blighted on Brazil.

So, you're not dealing with a couple of banks conspiring, you're dealing with the British Empire. And the British Empire is represented by Lord Jacob Rothschild's creation, simultaneously with the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, of what became known as the Inter-Alpha Group. And you will find a whole mass of banks, including the Royal Bank of Scotland and so forth, a whole mass of these banks internationally, which are either directly, main parts of the Inter-Alpha Group, or are subsidiaries of those parts, or offshoots and corollaries of those parts.

So, you have a group of banks, which are so-called private banks, which are actually the British Empire banks. And they run most of Europe and most of the world, and they run most of the policy of the United States, because the banks of the United States are really an adjunct of this operation, which is the Rothschild Inter-Alpha Group.

So, what is happening to Brazil, is not what is happening to Brazil. It's happening to Brazil, but it's like an epidemic. Epidemics don't know border lines. It's an epidemic against the world. What is its purpose? The purpose is, as the British monarchy says, and as, not only Prince Philip, but Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands said, the purpose here, is to reduce the world's population from the present population, approaching 7-odd billion people, to less than 2 billion. And that's exactly what the purpose is.

Look at the policies of President Obama! Do they not, in every detail, correspond to the orders of the British monarchy? Do they not correspond in fine detail to exactly the policies of the World Wildlife Fund? Is not the World Wildlife Fund one of the chief operations in Brazil, working to destroy Brazil from the inside? The threat to Brazil and to other nations, but notably Brazil in particular, comes from what? The Inter-Alpha Group, number one. Number two, politically, the World Wildlife Fund, cap-and-trade. Because if you reduce the world's population, the world's economy in a suitable way, prevent development of technology, what happens to the population? You can easily, within a generation, pull the population of this planet down to less than 2 billion people. That's the purpose!

The British monarchy today is worse than Adolf Hitler. And when people wake up and recognize that, we'll solve the problem.

It's Time To Stop Playing British Games

Freeman: The last of the international questions comes from Argentina. And also, by the way, this question comes from Argentina, but it echoes several other questions that we've gotten in from developing-sector countries, that are actually far less developed than Argentina.

The questioner says:

"Mr. LaRouche, the history of my country has shown, that it has often been necessary to fight with other nations, so as not to sacrifice our national sovereignty. One example of this was the confrontation between [Amb. Spruille] Braden and Col. Juan Perón in 1945. It was only at great cost that the United States finally understood, not only Argentina's sovereignty and national pride, but that of other countries as well. At that time, through Braden, the U.S. expressed a mentality of "It's either us, or Nazi fascism," and this was a terrible mistake. It is difficult to maintain a community of principles, when there is such international and intranational disparity. It is also unlikely that a powerful nation would cede to the just position of a weaker nation. It seems to me that ... when weak and strong nations sign agreements, it is the more powerful nation that must display unimpeachable behavior, and be held more accountable, rather than the weaker one, otherwise suspicions arise.

"Mr. LaRouche, taking into account the enormous disparity of power among nations today, how can agreements be reached that reflect a congruence between the internal general welfare goals of sovereign nation-states, and international objectives? How does a country regain its sovereignty? Through international agreements, or as a result of each country's internal dynamic, which confers on the state its sovereign character, or is it through both things? Is a degree of local sovereignty possible without international agreements?"

LaRouche: I would say it is impossible to have local sovereignty without international agreements which destroy the Empire. One has to understand, that there is only one empire on this planet: It's the British Empire. The British Empire is not a secretion of the British people. And people who don't know history, but rely on what they consider facts, as current facts, don't understand this. Because people don't know Classical history. Generally, in universities—people come out of these universities with no understanding whatsoever, of Classical history. You have to go back to ancient Egypt, these kinds of things, this period. You have to go back to the so-called history of Greece, in which this is made clear. You have to look at the evolution from the self-destruction of Greece in the Peloponnesian War, for the advantage of the Cult of Apollo! The enemy that Plato wanted to destroy, was the Cult of Apollo, because that was the problem.

Now, because this was the beginning of the imperial maritime culture and its offshoots, which have ruled the world, or dominated the world ever since, especially on the Atlantic and Mediterranean side. And the problem has been, essentially, that what became, through the process of the triadic relationship among the Middle East, Egypt, and Italy, were united finally as an empire through a certain process, which became the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire was destroyed by itself, in a catastrophe. It became then the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire was destroyed in less than 1,000 years, of self-destruction. But it managed to crush France, Charlemagne's France, in the meantime. The Venetians, from 1000 A.D. approximately, maintained control. All empires, European empires, are centered on the Venetian system.

For example, let's take the case of Henry VIII. Henry VIII was an idiot with real problems. I think you would say "serious problems"; you would say that in the schools, if you were talking about a certain pupil, or a teacher in the school. "He's got a serious problem." He had a serious problem.

But the problem was, before the general period of warfare from 1492 to 1648 was unleashed in Europe, you had a system, despite the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, which was the first act of criminality, of international criminality which was expressed in Europe at that time. But that led to a conflict.

Now, in this period, despite the fact that the Habsburgs had taken over the Kingdom of Spain and Portugal, and despite the fact that the Habsburgs had taken over much of Italy, you had France, and you had England, so these four powers were in a kind of balance, affecting part of Germany as well; they were in a balance.

Now, what happened? Henry VIII, but it wasn't Henry VIII: It was a Venetian operation which set this thing into motion, and they took Henry VIII—a fool—and they played him on the question of the marriage of Henry VIII to a Spanish Habsburg princess [Catherine of Aragon]. The divorce of Henry VIII from this princess, was used to divide the religion, the Catholic religion of Western Europe, into a warring quarrel, which has continued, in one form or the other, to the present day. The creation of Henry VIII as a degenerate, is the antecedent for what became the British Empire.

Now, in this process, you have a period from 1492, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, to 1648, the Peace of Westphalia. During this period, there was a transition, philosophically, from Aristotelean doctrine, which is also rotten—Plato was opposed to this nonsense—to the doctrine of Paolo Sarpi. And Paolo Sarpi's doctrine is that he has a principle, but there is no principle allowed for the people.

So, what became European culture, so-called European liberalism, after Sarpi, is that. The British Empire is nothing but an extension of the transnational grouping of people and forces which are the forces organized around the central figure of the British monarchy, what became the British monarchy, by the theories of Paolo Sarpi. This was consolidated—Leibniz tried to stop this process, but didn't succeed. So therefore, with 1763, you had the establishment of the British Empire. But the British Empire is actually primus inter pares.

Take for example, the Napoleonic Wars. What was Napoleon? Well, he was something you wouldn't—excretion from the back of a cow, or something. But, he was used, for what? He was used for: Look at 1782. The United States has established its independence by victory against Cornwallis. What was behind that? The French; the Spanish monarchy, the French monarchy, and the Russians, Catherine the Great, leading the coalition of the League of Armed Neutrality. And these forces in Europe were the key strategic forces which enabled the United States to win its freedom in 1782 against the British.

What happened? The British East India office, which was established in 1782, on behalf of the British East India Company of that time, ran intelligence operations in Europe, including the operation known as the Queen's Necklace scandal in France. This was used to topple France; and wars launched by Napoleon destroyed Russia to a large degree; every part of Continental Europe was essentially destroyed by Napoleon. And what happened when Napoleon quit, or was quitted? What happened is, the British Empire stepped in, and established itself as the British Empire over Europe. And despite the revolts which have occurred in Continental Europe against the British Empire, the British Empire is Europe, is Western Europe, and runs Europe today.

Why does it run Europe? Because the dumb Europeans are foolish to play the game! The game became serious, when the United States won against the British in our Civil War. Our Civil War was a war against the British, nothing else. By 1876, we had reached the pinnacle of our power, as a growing power. We also continued to reach power, because Bismarck adopted the American System, as I've said before, and Russia adopted the American System in part, not as a system, but as a strategic outlook. Europe accepted the American System's influence. What did the British do? They used various wars to undermine this process, and then, in 1890, by firing Bismarck, the Chancellor of Germany, they were able to orchestrate, through the idiot of Austria, the Habsburg idiot, to orchestrate a Balkan War, which was then used to get Germany opposed to Russia.

Now the Emperor of Russia, they called him, and the Kaiser of Germany were both idiots, and they were both nephews of the Crown Prince of Britain. He organizes two nephews to make a war against each other! In 1905, they had a meeting on a yacht in the Baltic, and they were all there. And the Kaiser and the Tsar looked at each other. "Our uncle is trying to kill us." Yes, but despite the fact they knew this, recognized this, they went ahead and played the game.

It's just like the war in Iraq, the Iraq War. Two Iraq wars: totally unnecessary. We played the game. What's happening now with the Afghanistan war? We played the game. Who runs the Afghanistan war, the trap that the United States' troops are in? The British Empire! The British Empire, which runs the drug operation which the Obama Administration is protecting! Treasonously! We're sending troops in to be killed because we are protecting a British drug operation in direct cooperation with the British monarchy! And that's the way you have to look at these kinds of things. That's what our problem is.

Imperialism: Luxemburg Was Right

Freeman: The next question is on Rosa Luxemburg, and it comes from some of the people who are working as part of the Stanford Group. They say:

"Lyn, we have been lately reading Rosa Luxemburg, for both a better understanding of imperialism, and also, of the mass-strike phenomenon that you have been talking about. And this has raised two issues that we wanted to consult with you on. First, on the question of imperialism, this is a big argument among us, but we think she's wrong on imperialism, and specifically because it seems that her definition of imperialism is too narrow. And we may be misreading what she's saying, but she doesn't seem to cross national borders, when she's talking about imperial power.

"Number two, on the question of the mass strike itself, when you first raised this question, we thought it was more or less an American phenomenon, or rather an American response that emerges as a result of America's unique history, and unique institutions. But apparently that's not the case. Because obviously, Luxemburg was not American.

"Now you have Luxemburg, on the one hand, and of course, you've also repeatedly referred to Percy Shelley's A Defence of Poetry.

"So, we'd like you to comment first on this question of imperialism, and specifically, on whether Luxemburg's view was flawed. Two, on the question of the mass strike, we'd be interested in knowing how your view of the mass strike evolved, because, while there are certainly echoes of Rosa Luxemburg in what you've outlined, your view seems to be a result of a unique melding of her ideas, Shelley's ideas—and, what else?"

LaRouche: Well, actually, the one person to look at on Rosa Luxemburg on imperialism, is the later writings of the State Department's Herbert Feis, and Feis's treatment of this—and particularly, he refers directly to Luxemburg. She was right. Lenin and all the other people on imperialism were wrong.

Imperialism is not an expression of a nation-state; it's an expression of an empire. And empires and nation-states are not the same thing. An empire is a system that is controlled by managing wars among the nation-states which are part of the empire! World War I, World War II are examples.

The other side of the thing is deeper, but this has to be put out of the way. Look at the history of World War I. And look at similar kinds of histories. How was this organized?

Well, first of all, the first thing to organize World War I, was the assassination of the French President [Sadi Carnot]. That was the first thing. The next crucial thing was the assassination of the U.S. President [William McKinley]. There are other things in the meantime, which happened to the same effect.

In 1894 and '95, the British organized the Japanese Mikado to join a war against China, Korea, and Russia, which continued until 1945; August 1945 was the end of that war, which started in 1895, approximately, 1894-95. For example, in the beginning of the 1920s, the British organized a conference on naval power adjustments, for the post-World War I period. And in this, they ganged up with Japan, and Italy, against the U.S. The commitment was to reduce the U.S. naval fleet.

At this time, the Mikado agreed to build up Japan's naval power, under British advice, for the purpose not only of attacking and continuing warfare against China, Korea, and Russia—but also the United States. Japan's specific mission, which was established in the 1920s, by the British, Italians, and Japanese, and others, was to launch an attack to take out the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. And also, the other side of the thing, was to reduce the U.S. naval power in the Pacific. Because the Pacific base at Pearl Harbor was the base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Japan was also, over this period, leading into 1941, most of this period, an ally of the British Empire. The complication was that when the British found themselves with their rear-ends hanging out, with the Wehrmacht overrunning France—which was something that was arranged because the French fascists and the Nazis got an agreement. And the British had been the allies of the Mikado for the Pearl Harbor attack at that time. They changed their mind, only when they lost Europe, and therefore, Churchill went screaming to the United States, for U.S. assistance under the assistance treaty, to save Britain from being gobbled up by the Nazis. Under those conditions, the British adjusted their policy.

Now, Nazi Germany, which they had created, became a great, immediate threat to them. So, therefore, Churchill, who was a pig, allied himself with a man he hated, Franklin Roosevelt, for the sake of saving the British Empire. And Roosevelt intended to destroy it, of course, at the end of the war.

So, at that point, Japan is stuck with this thing, has got a complete commitment, has built up, since 1894, a naval buildup of very significant proportions—not only for conducting the continuing wars against China, Korea, and Russia—the 1905 war with Russia, for example—but also the attack on Pearl Harbor, which was decided on in the early 1920s. And this was all done at that time, as a direct alliance with the British monarchy.

And then we had Operations Red and Orange by the United States, as a response to this threat. The Billy Mitchell case—that was the issue in the Billy Mitchell case. Mitchell was right. And what he cited was the British-Japan agreement, on the attack on Pearl Harbor, as being the threat. That was what Mitchell was court-martialled for! As MacArthur said later, it was big mistake to support the court-martial of Mitchell.

So, this is the way this thing developed. And that's the whole issue of this British Empire, is that.

But it was the Empire, as such, is what Rosa Luxemburg understood. The Empire. And all you have to do is look at Herbert Feis, his review. He was the State Department historian who wrote a number of books on the subject, which confirmed that she was entirely correct, in her economic theory, and that nobody else at the time who wrote on imperialism, had any competence whatsoever. She was correct.

The Classical Imagination

Now, on the mass strike thing.

Her perception is not as well documented on the mass strike, except that she thought that the Social Democrats' talk about a mass strike was a piece of idiocy, the German Social Democrats. And it was a piece of idiocy. What she was referring to is the same thing that Shelley refers to, exactly the same thing. But the concept of this, in terms of modern Europe, comes with the work of Leibniz in the 1690s, when Leibniz introduced the concept of dynamics, which he identified as a restoration of the concept of dynamis associated with Plato, and Plato's immediate predecessors, in earlier times.

Now, this goes into something which I think is going to be difficult to handle here, in the time available. It's something which I have written about, extensively, in this thing which has just gone to print. But, to summarize the point:

The point is this. Our conception of mankind is rather foolish, the popular conception of what mankind is. We think of ourselves in terms of sense certainty. We imagine that what we sense, is reality. That is, reality per se. It's reality in some sense. It is a sensing of something. But it's not reality, ontologically. And this is the great issue which comes up—it is expressed usually by poets, and musicians—especially poets, like Shelley—because our education in science is incompetent—this question of creativity, of human creativity. As long as you believe in a reductionist, mathematical system, you don't understand creativity. Because what we call creativity, real creativity, is located in places like poetry, Classical music, the paintings of Rembrandt, things of that sort. It's the human imagination—we call it the imagination. We call it the Classical imagination.

The case of Einstein is an example of that. Einstein is explicit on this. Music, for him, is the location, identity, of creativity. He's right.

So, the point is, we are trained to believe in sense certainty. We believe that what we see and touch, and so forth, is a direct representation of reality, although all modern science tells us that that is not true. And therefore, we don't realize that we, within, is the inhabitant of a carcass we call our body. And our body comes equipped with certain things we call sense instruments, or senses. And we are conditioned to believe that we are directly reflected as the "we," as "us," as "I," identity, by sense perception. We think of ourselves as an object of sense perception, and that's our weakness.

In fact, as I've written about this matter in this paper—I've dealt with it before, last year, and so forth, but here, more clearly, I think—that the human individual's identity is not located in the identity that is narrowly associated with sense certainty, but rather, we have an identity which recognizes that this is not true. The case I cite in point of this, is the discovery of universal gravitation by Johannes Kepler.

Now Kepler is the only person who ever discovered a principle of universal gravitation, that is, an original discovery. It was done in the course of his Harmony of the Worlds, in which he contrasted two different sense perceptions, quasi-sense perceptions: that of sight, that is, the view of the planetary system from a telescope, or the interpretation of a telescope; and on the other hand, on the question of harmonics, in other words, hearing; hearing, as in the musical sense of hearing.

And the way he discovered the universal principle of gravitation for the Solar System, was on the basis of the juxtaposition, the ironical juxtaposition, between the idea of sight, and of hearing. That is, hearing as in musical harmonies. That without the two, there could have been no discovery of gravitation.

The case of Laplace is an example. Laplace tried to create a fake discovery of gravitation, and failed, because he refused to consider this conception. He just wouldn't consider it. So therefore, he came up with a completely failed conception of gravitation, as a result of this mistake, when the evidence was already clear there in Kepler's own harmonics, as to how this thing was done.

So, what Kepler's case shows to us, is that there is a reality of mind, which is distinct from simple sense perception. We find this all over the place, when we start looking in domains beyond simple sense perception, when we look at the universe as Riemann defined it, in the very large, or the very small. When you get into the very large, which is beyond sense perception's capability, or the very small, which is also beyond sense perception's capability, you find yourself in a universe which does not conform to your everyday practical, self-evident kind of thing.

Now, the way the human mind actually functions, and even people who don't know how their mind functions are affected by this principle, which is dynamics; that human beings are fully aware of this kind of thing. They're not conscious of what the nature of the thing is, but they know there's something inside them, to which they react, which is not sense-perception.

So, therefore, if you look at August of last year, where all these meetings are occurring, of politicians going out to meet their constituents, and they're expecting 20 or 30 in each party. Instead, they get hundreds. And the hundreds are saying to the politician: "You shut up! We don't like what you're saying. You shut up, and listen to us. We're giving you orders." And that was the mass strike.

This is the same kind of thing that Shelley refers to, in "On Poetry," and on general social behavior, in the conclusion of his A Defense of Poetry, same thing. You find this in Rembrandt. You look at Rembrandt and look at his famous painting, and you see his Homer, the bust of Homer, looking, contemplating this silly fop, Aristotle. Then you look closely. You say, where are the eyes in Homer's bust? There are no eyes—they're dark shadows. That's the power of that painting. The power of that painting is that it grips people who understand it. They don't know why. But they know the power is there. It is the most powerful painting, probably the most powerful, of all of Rembrandt's work. And the clue to it is that.

Here you have Aristotle, the so-called sacred figure, Aristotle, the great, grand, glorious, orator, Aristotle, a silly fop, all decorated, looking all self-inflated. An ass! And here you have poor, dead Homer, a bust, who, although a piece of stone, knows that this is an ass that he's looking at. And you know that!

This power of perception, which Shelley refers to, Schiller refers to it in terms of the stage. An example, the case of the Romantics. Romantics on drama. Romantics will tell you that in every drama, there's a hero, or something like that. No. In all Classical drama, there are very seldom heroes. There is no hero in Macbeth. There's no hero in Lear. There's no hero in Hamlet, and so forth. And Schiller makes this clear. No hero.

What is there? Well, all these dramas show you a completely idiot society, completely foolish, corrupt, rotten, everything, wrong! Now, why do you put this onstage, a bunch of players who are acting out, not themselves, but a character, who doesn't even exist? Why are they acting out a drama, which demonstrates that they're all a bunch of corrupt, dirty idiots? Because, as Schiller says, the citizen who comes into the theater to watch this drama, which has verisimilitude in respect to cases in history, looks at this drama, as Schiller emphasizes, and recognizes that it is he, in the audience, who is being addressed, who is the hero. That he, in the audience, by seeing what fools are running his governments, his society, is inspired to recognize he should stop being a silly citizen, who simply accepts things, and should, instead, concentrate on becoming the hero that is missing from such dramas as these.

The function is great Classical drama, in Shakespeare, the ancient Greek—Aeschylus, for example, is a perfect example of the same thing. How do you get a fellow standing out there, behind two masks, and playing parts, as in, say, acting out of the Iliad, for instance, behind the mask, and playing these parts behind the mask—how does the audience conceive of something important in this thing? Because the mind is capable of recognizing reality, which is not encompassed by simple sense perception.

And in all the great movements in history, that's the characteristic. Sense perception-based notions of interrelationships among persons, is significant, many times. But in great matters, as in great Classical art, great Classical musical composition, for example, adequately performed, of course, does the same thing. Poetry does the same thing. Great architecture is great precisely because it inspires the viewer. And it inspires the viewer to recognize a faculty within himself or herself, which he would not recognize from ordinary sense perception.

This is the function of Classical art, what makes it Classical art.

And therefore, when you want to deal with a people, in struggle, in crisis, under great stress, what do you do? You try to reach into them, to a potency within them, which they ordinarily do not express, or are not aware of. And you bring the sense of that quality in them. They see it as powerful and beautiful. It inspires men and women to do what they are otherwise incapable of doing.

And this is the most precious thing. That's why aesthetics is so essential. You will not find from kinematics, in reductionist kinematics, you will not find the answer to these questions. And what I forecast is based on this.

The Example of Forecasting

Let's take the example of the forecasting now, which I do now.

There is no possibility that I am mistaken. But why is it that I am the only one who has been successful in forecasting, in the recent period, since my first forecast in 1956, when I did a limited forecast, which has worked out fine? But then, I realized that what I had done, after I saw the result, was based on another principle. And so I said, okay, so this is the case; now I understand how this society works. I was working as an executive for a consulting firm. I did this forecast, and I realized what I had done. Because I did it on the basis of field work, and other things like that. I knew exactly what I had done.

And I recognized that there is a fraud in what people think about people. Society is not rational. People who think they're rational in society, are not really rational. Because they believe in sense perception, and try to interpret things in terms of the language of sense perception. They don't realize that the human mind is capable of recognizing something else.

Now, once you understand that, then you begin to see clearly what this is. How does this happen?

Take my current forecast. How do I know this? Well, because I look at the world that way. More particularly, how do I know this? Because I understand the limitations of public opinion, and the opinion of these asses who are running the world today. I see what they don't see. I see how they are controlled by it. What they are doing is absolutely stupid. But you look at the passion with which they—look at all these politicians in the Congress, who vote for this stuff. They're all idiots! They're not capable of understanding anything! And they prove that when they vote. They get battered a bit, they're impressed, they capitulate. They kiss the butt of their enemy, of their flatulent enemy. And they don't see the reality.

Reality is: I could, right now, solve, practically, this problem, immediately, in terms I described to you earlier. Very simply: a Glass-Steagall application, establishing that as part of a system, an international system, based on a fixed exchange rate, and that kind of international cooperation. I could solve the problem. Right now, today. Why can't I solve the problem right now, today? Because I've got these damned fools in my way. Because they don't recognize what their folly is. They don't recognize why they're stupid. They believe that they are going to try to save this system, because they say, "It's the system we know. It's what we're taught to believe." What's killing us is not the economy. What is killing us is the stupidity of our politicians.

The difference is, the politician has a different morality than the citizen. The citizen has a mass strike sense, because he senses, or she senses, the problems that he or she faces, in reality: no food, no job, cities collapsing, everything breaking down. And these fools are saying, "Well, we have to come to an agreement with the Great Obama." And therefore, as long as they accept that assumption—that they have to respect this President—What do you mean respect him? For what?! For destroying us?

There's no chance that this nation will continue to exist if Obama remains as President. That I can guarantee you. That's a forecast I can make, and guarantee it to you! If you don't get this guy out of office, you're not going to save the nation.

So, forecasting is based on an understanding, of these kinds of issues of processes, of what Leibniz defines as dynamics, in his 1690 writings on dynamics. That the reality of the mind, and the reality of human behavior, human behavior as an interaction with the material reality of society, is located in these conceptions which are called dynamics. This is the way the human mind actually functions.

The problem is, we have failed to educate our young people to understand dynamics. What have we done, in recent periods? We've introduced rock music. We've introduced cheap entertainment. And we made a farce out of the presentation of great Classical art.

Look at our art. It stinks! It's unfit for human consumption, unfit for animals. Our Classical art. What is popular art? Popular entertainment? While passions are associated with popular entertainment, that is what destroys us. Because this kind of entertainment deprives us of access to those powers of insight which are natural to us. And it is only through great Classical art—which is what the meaning of Classical art is—that you cultivate the mind to recognize these powers which lie beyond simple sense certainty. Which lie in what is called the domain of the imagination.

But, it's in the domain of the imagination, that the human being is capable of recognizing that his society is about to go down, and do something about it. It is sometimes called prescience. But it is not something mysterious. It's something made mysterious by people in a society which is depraved. And our culture is that of a society which is depraved.

We do not understand human values. We do not really understand the value of a human being. People will say, "well, that's a human being, therefore the human being has certain rights." To be free of pain, or to be free of this, or to be free of that. But that is not what the human being is. Because the human being, under certain conditions, will give up their life, and suffer pain—for the sake of what? For the sake of something that is more important to them, than issues of pain, or satisfaction.

And it is only in those arts, which we associate with Classical artistic composition, that true morality comes forth, instead of the practical sense of morality, of a so-called social contract or something like that. It is when we are willing—as in warfare, you are willing to give up your life, and suffer great pain, for the sake of your people, and future generations. Do you have the awareness to be able to respond on that basis, as a commander in warfare must, if he is to be competent?

What we have done since the death of Roosevelt, especially in popular culture, so-called, is, we have destroyed the ability of even the so-called educated members of our population, professionally educated, to maintain that quality of insight which is actually a quality of intelligence; whose specific habitat is Classical cultural art and education. That's where the problem lies. That's where the moral problem lies.

Now for me, these ideas have been precious to me for a long time, and therefore, in answer to the question: Because they are precious to me for a long time, have been for a long time, I know them well. And I respond to them much more quickly. And my concern is, that others understand. And therefore, I'm dealing with this specific subject within repeated locations, in what I have written, and what I'm about to write.

China, and the Four-Power Agreement

Freeman: Those people who are listening to this webcast, and those who are gathered here, are aware of the fact that on April 29, there was a dialogue that Mr. LaRouche participated in, with various economists from leading institutions in the United States, as well as with representatives of the nations that would be involved in the Four-Power Agreement that Mr. LaRouche has put forward.

And this question is one that has been generated out of that discussion, from one of the participants there. And the question is this:

"Lyn, in our continuing work on the Four-Power Agreement, we've done a great deal of work on China, and looking at China's economy. And there's something that's come up that we would like you to address. Because, on the one hand, China clearly has dedicated itself to building up its internal infrastructure. They are constructing nuclear power plants. They are obviously engaged in various agreements for mass transit systems, based on high-speed rails, and various other forms of infrastructure, that obviously all of us agree with.

"But, at the same time, you are dealing with a country that has a massive population, the very vast majority of which are extremely poor and unskilled. And therefore, as admirable as these efforts are, it seems that what China is currently doing is not nearly enough. In fact, what has come up, and we don't quite know how to address this, and we don't mean to say that China is wrong or right, but we want you to put forward a solution to this, because, in fact, it seems that China is running what I could only refer to as a hybrid economy, and one that is very dangerous. Because they have all this infrastructure going on, on the one hand, but then, on the other hand, there is no way around the fact that the mass, or the majority of their population is largely engaged in producing cheap goods for export to external markets. And the fact is, that those markets are shrinking, and are shrinking rapidly. This seems to be a huge vulnerability for the Chinese economy.

"Now obviously, a Four-Power Agreement would present a solution to that, but our question is really from the standpoint of overall economic planning: Is the government of China right in the way that they are pursuing this? Or, should they concentrate far more on even greater projects for their own internal benefit?"

LaRouche: China is doing in general, exactly the right thing. The problem is, the United States and Western Europe are doing the wrong thing. Now China—what's the story here? There are several things to be considered. First of all, China's development was initially crippled by British influence, Bertrand Russell's, in particular. And China's development was also crippled by what happened with the British East India Company earlier, which laid the basis for this problem. This is a major problem.

Now, what did China do? China responded, adapted, under instructions from the world, to follow a certain policy. And China was also told it would not have access to certain technologies. Also, fact.

Now, what's the problem? Well, there is no solution for the problem the way the question is posed, because if you accept the world market which China lives in, as it is, you're saying we've got to kill off about 2 billion Chinese, because they cannot live, they cannot have technological progress without employing their poor people, who are poorly educated. They have to develop their poor people! Why do they have to develop poor people? Because that is what the British gave them, with British policy.

We should look at our own mess, and get a clearer and more honest view of the matter. What's happening in the United States? We're all Chinese! Except the Chinese are producing, and we're not.

Now, we have two areas of the world, strategically. One is the trans-Atlantic world, and we divide the trans-Atlantic world into two parts—North Atlantic and South Atlantic. We also have the Pacific part of the world. The Pacific part of the world is doing the right thing: vast investment in nuclear power, mass transportation, and promotion of technology. Europe is an absolute stinking mess. The British influence is stronger there. They had to crush us, to get it out of us. Europe was an easier target.

So now, though, what's the point? What is the market? What is the world market for Chinese production? Who is destroying that? Is it China? No, the fault lies in our own government! I could fix this problem! Get rid of this President! And I think we are about to have a very big improvement in the composition, I believe, especially in the House of Representatives. I understand about 100% of them are up for re-election! Boy! What a fine opportunity for a House-cleaning!

So, our problem is, you've got to look at these things globally. What is the issue? Don't think of nations as entities in competition, in conflict with each other. They are not inherently in conflict with each other. They represent language cultures, and it is not just language as a definition, it is language cultures. And it is not just the same language necessarily, it is the culture as such. So, what do you form a nation on the basis of? Some kind of contract, where you go out and set up a bunch of people, slaves; build a stockade, put them in the stockade, and call it a government, call it an economy? Or, do you realize that they have a culture.

Again, it's the same thing that just came up in the previous question. It's the question of culture. The question of culture is not one which you can define in terms of simple mechanical views of sense perception. Culture is the ancestors inside you! It's the ancestors in your language, and its evolution. It's the creative powers of reason in your population, which are expressed with the art, the artistic culture, especially, and the form of language of the population. This enables a population to work together on the basis of the creative powers of the individual, as opposed to the so-called taught, mechanically taught, principles.

You have to get to the soul of the population! And you have to bring that soul up to a better degree of self-education. Now, you have a population, a nation! Ah, that's something real, something precious. Now, you engage that nation with other nations in a common purpose. It's like different people, being brought together for a common end. And you have to think, now: But what determines the success of this proposition? The cooperation, the relationship among these people.

What's the relationship of China to the rest of the world? Well, China went ahead on the basis of saying, "Well, the United States is there. We have a relationship to Europe, if they don't collapse. We've got the right program." What went wrong? Europe went wrong, and the United States went wrong. That's what went wrong. So, you've got to change the United States, not China!

Or, China will change itself. But give it what it can adapt to, for change. You will see we have a system out there. I look at it from a standpoint of being an old man, and looking ahead for about 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years: being an old man, expecting to be stubborn and hold on, and do all these things that I have to do. My view is, "Okay, what do we do?"

We have got two parts of the world. One part of the world is Trans-Atlantic—and that's where the disease is. So, don't change the subject. That's the disease. "Doctor, that's the one that needs the surgery immediately!" And we have got the other side. Well, they have lots of problems, but they're not dying. They are only dying as a result of the effects of our disease, which lies in the Trans-Atlantic area! The danger to the world is the collapse of the Trans-Atlantic economy and culture! We no longer perform! And our partners are suffering as a result of that.

We don't allow China to have access to certain technologies. Don't complain about Chinese technology! Stop depriving them of access to things they have a perfect right to. You have to have cooperation among China, Japan, Korea, and Russia, and other countries in that region. That is the immediate area of cooperation. You have to think about the Pacific cooperation with a cross-Pacific area. You have to think about India, and you have to think about a certain part of Africa, which is in the same area. You've got to think about the mineral resources in Australia, especially nuclear and related resources. For thorium, for thorium reaction, for uranium for power.

So, if we were mobilizing as a bunch of partners, nations, regions of the world as partners, and we wanted to get the job done, we'd get the job done. The danger to China today, is the collapse of the United States. And the danger to China is the influence of Britain and a sick Europe on the United States, which causes the United States to behave stupidly. And we have an ass-licker of the Queen, as President of the United States, and that is not doing us any good.

So, we should not blame China for the fact that it is taking a policy which is based on the assumption that the Trans-Atlantic region was going to function. The Trans-Atlantic region is no longer functioning. The implicit contract of China with the Trans-Atlantic region has been betrayed. China is suffering a problem as a result of that. Fix the problem; change the policy: Change the President. "C'mon, hey, that diaper stinks": Change the President!

How To Develop a Nation

Freeman: Well, since Lyn brought up the question of the problems here, and the fact that we're dying, I think this next question is rather appropriate. And it comes from one of the working groups inside the Stanford Group. And they say:

"Lyn, we have been grappling with a problem that initially startled us, and again, we are not sure how to address it. We have been tasked with defining various necessary infrastructure projects that we would pursue to restore the nation's economy, and we have run into a very specific problem, or set of problems. And this comes up whether we are talking about immediate projects, like the construction of high-speed rails in specific corridors, water projects, etc., or whether we are discussing far more far-reaching projects with an even greater and more intense science-driver. But either way, we keep running up against two problems.

"One is that any assessment of the U.S. economy puts us at a point where we are forced to admit that we have fallen significantly below what we would refer to as a physical breakeven point, in terms of the operational capability of our physical economy—i.e., our ability to produce what is necessary for these infrastructure projects. The second problem is the skill level of the population. We have lost skills; we have a largely unskilled, uneducated population, which in many cases is not all that enthusiastic about work, largely because of depressed cultural levels. And although we have not done the same kind of in-depth study of Europe, frankly, Europe doesn't seem to be in much better shape.

"So, while we have no problem defining these projects, and regions of the United States, and how to proceed in each geographic region, we are somewhat at an impasse in figuring out how to address how to bring the nation up to physical breakeven on the one hand, and then also how to deal with this largely unskilled U.S. population, and how to also bring them up to the level necessary."

LaRouche: Well, the answer is elementary.

Now, in 2005, when I had more influence on the administration of government at that time than now, at least in terms of the Congress, I had two proposals. One of which was adopted, which I presented in November of 2004, which was to save Social Security. And the second one, which I presented in January to February of 2005, was the reorganization of the automobile industry, and related industries, which proceeded quite nicely as a project of discussion, during the remainder of 2005. But in February of 2006, it had been killed.

Now, my argument was elementary, and it applies to the thing today. I said, "Yes, we have been a bunch of stupid bums in our auto industry. We have been producing junk in the auto industry, which we don't need. And therefore, we have also, at the same time, been shipping our automobile production overseas to other countries. We ship the production over there, and they ship the goods to us. Nonsense."

Now, the automobile industry as it existed up until 2004, 2005 in the United States, was the product of a process, which really took root in the Lincoln Administration, and was a process which has been going on, and was renewed by Roosevelt in a very significant way. The basis for industry is infrastructure, and the basis for production is science-driven machine-tool design.

I said, let's save the crucial component of this process, which is the machine-tool specialists, design specialists, who are proximate to the role of science for production in general. Look back to World War II, and a period preceding, especially from 1938 on, when Roosevelt prepared for the U.S. involvement in the war, in some form or other. We knew a war was coming, and the United States was going to be involved.

So, we built up, around the machine-tool conception, and the development of multiplying machine-tool capability—we take the machine-tool capability, and we build around that, an employment pattern.

See, the question is, how do you transmit scientific progress through the process of production? First of all, you have science, which has an interrelationship with advanced machine-tool work. Now you take that capability, a reciprocal relationship between science and machine-tool work. Now you go down to the machine-tool lines. Now, you get a bunch of people who are poor slobs from the South—that's the way we created Detroit: poor, uneducated slobs from Southern states—and a Southern state is not just a state, it's a mental state.

So, how do you get production? We got production. Look what Ford, General Motors, and others produced, and other firms, during the period of the war mobilization. The problem, in principle, that we face today, is no different than that.

So therefore, you need projects which have a high degree of machine-tool design characteristics. And you build a pyramid, and you develop the employment from the top down, not from the bottom up. In other words, you organize an industrial revolution, a new industrial revolution. Your top level is science.

We have now, as we're doing in the Basement work, we're tapping into a new domain of fundamental physical science, and it is much more than that. And you find this also in the space program. The U.S. space program was a science-driver program. Forget the fact that it was for space, but the very fact of the characteristic of the challenge of space work, requires you to go up to a higher level of challenge. Now, you use that higher level of challenge as your driver. Now you take all the poor slobs from the street who need jobs, and you bring them in, and you do with them what we did. Maybe they today are not as qualified as they were then, but bring them in anyway. And the on-the-job work, under this kind of science-driver guidance, will give you a rapid rate of increase of technological progress. That's how you develop a nation.

So therefore, your major projects have to be based on this consideration. We have got a stupid population, from a standpoint of production. They have virtually no skill at real production. They're cheap labor, they're not skilled people. They're overworked; they work crazy hours in crazy ways. They're worked to death, in order to maximize the profit of a slob who doesn't know how to invent something.

What we have to do is take mass transportation; stop these damned cars, forget it! We would have to take the territory of the United States: We need a system, which involves the inter-relationship, with highways least, rails or better, magnetic levitation, aircraft transport, and water transport. And highway transport minimized; highway transport should be essentially short distance, short-term. We don't need the big highways, we don't need all this clutter on the highways. We don't need people, driving, commuting, one to two hours each way, each day, among two or three jobs to make a living. We do not need that. We need to shorten the hours.

We do need to have a family household, which you cannot have, with this commuting pattern we have now. What do you think? You've got two, three, four hours a day commuting? Five, six days a week? And you expect a family life? You think you're going to raise a child, or is it going to be a monster? You're getting the monster. Then you shut down the schools, and so forth, all this stuff, what are you doing? What are you doing to the population? You're destroying the nation! Cut out this highway orientation!

We want a transportation system, where to go a thousand miles in the United States, you should not have airplane travel; you should have high-speed rail, or the equivalent. Coast-to-coast air, all right. But if it's less than a thousand miles, no. No air travel. Air travel at less than a thousand miles is very inefficient as a relative method of transportation; except when it's for an emergency purpose to a special location.

So, we need high-speed equivalent rail. We need to get rid of what we did before. We need to have local high-speed transport of people, as by subway systems, things like that. We need much freight moved that way, the same way. We need also a sense of organization of industry so that we have compatibility within a region. You want the components of the thing to come in such a way that they fit the end-product.

And therefore, if we take that approach, and take a top-down approach and take a science-driver approach, we don't need some of the discussion that goes on in government today. What we need is a science-driver approach, structured that way. You want a national economic research driver program. That's the brains of the operation. We are going to specify what we need, and you are going to design a system, we are going to organize a system. We are going to revive Detroit, as I intended to do in 2005 and 2006. My intention was to take the excess territory, the excess area, production floor space of the automobile and aerospace industry, and keep what we need, but take the excess which we are throwing away, and organize it, as we did in World War II, for other things.

We can build a completely new high-speed rail system or equivalent in this nation. We can build packages of power plants, including nuclear power plants, for this nation. We can build systems of support for agriculture, which would improve our productivity in agriculture in other ways. We can have a combination of a centralized, decentralized development of the territory of the United States. We can orient this in terms of our relationship to nations across the Pacific and across the Atlantic.

What we need, is just a team of people—I think you could pull it together in a matter of a couple of weeks, with what we have. We used to have Congressmen who had some intelligence in this direction. We don't like them any more; we like stupid ones better. Or, if they're not stupid, they should appear to be stupid, otherwise we'll throw them out.

And that's the way you have to approach this. We have to have a national conception, based on international requirements within the territory of the United States. We have to have a top-down approach, where everybody is migrating up in terms of technology and standard of living. And going upward is not just getting more money; it means that you have more skill, you're more productive. Therefore, you get a benefit of that. And we want a lot of research!

We don't want any more of this green technology. I mean, Al Gore may be skilled at attempted rape, or—but we don't need his way of thinking at all, and I think that celebrated case just shows us why we never needed him at all.

'Blatant Lying by the President'

Freeman: This question comes from the office of a U.S. Senator, and she prefaces the question by saying that some of what is contained in her question is going to be presented on the floor of the Senate during the debate this week—to the degree that there is a debate—of the financial regulation [Dodd-Frank] bill. She says:

"Mr. LaRouche, I think you know what our efforts have been from the beginning on this issue, but I think it's also very important that the people who are listening to your webcast, understand exactly what occurred in the Conference Committee that produced this legislation. Because what is right now, in the press, is disinformation. Because despite the overwhelming revulsion of the U.S. population to the bailout of Wall Street and the banks, and despite the fact that our President said repeatedly, that he would veto any measure that did not include reining in derivatives, the fact of the matter is that, exactly the opposite has occurred. And in fact, I do very much regret to report that it seems that the President is a liar.

"First of all, Senator Levin was employed to introduce the so-called 'Volcker Rule,' as a substitute for a different amendment, which was the re-introduction of Glass-Steagall, as you well know. Now, Glass-Steagall was, without question, preferable, and the Volcker Rule was flawed. But, President Obama opposed Glass-Steagall, and claimed to have supported the Volcker Rule. But, even with all of its flaws, the fact is, that the Volcker Rule, originally, as Senator Levin introduced it, banned banks from using their own taxpayer-backed cash to speculate in the financial markets. And as everyone does know, the Federal government stands behind bank deposits, and banks have access to cheap funds from the Federal Reserve. And former Federal Reserve Chairman Volcker argued that the banks should not be allowed to use that subsidy to speculate. And presumably, President Obama supported that.

"However, the fact of the matter is that, on Thursday afternoon, the Senate conferees confirmed that their so-called compromise was that the banks could invest up to 3% of their tangible common equity in hedge funds and private equity firms. Tangible common equity is considered the strongest form of bank capital, and it is basically comprised of shareholder equity.

"That was bad enough, but, a few hours later that proposal was amended further, after lobbying by both the Administration and Wall Street. The adjustment changed the metric from tangible common equity, to what's called Tier I capital. Bankers and banks have a lot more Tier I capital, than they have tangible common equity. So changing the requirement to this weaker form, allowed banks to invest even more of their cash in hedge funds and private equity funds. This was also enthusiastically endorsed on the House side, by Barney Frank.

"Now, this is a complicated issue, obviously, for the average citizen. So just to make it clear, I want to give you a couple of examples, of what this means in practice: Using JPMorgan Chase, which is the nation's largest bank, by virtue of their assets, let's look at this: JPMorgan Chase reports assets of more than $2.1 trillion. The bank would be able to invest an additional 40% of its cash, or an extra $1.1 billion, for a total of $4 billion, in the activities that Volcker supposedly wanted to prohibit banks from engaging in, according to this new legislation. For the Bank of America, which is the nation's largest bank, with more than $2.3 trillion in supposed assets, the change—the so-called tightening under this Volcker Rule—allows that firm to invest more than $4.8 billion in hedge funds and private equity funds, which is an increase of 80% over what they currently have invested. Morgan Stanley can invest $1.4 billion, which represents a 58% increase. Goldman Sachs can invest $1.9 billion—that's an increase of just 10%. But we all know that Goldman Sachs is in trouble.

"This was strongly opposed by various members of the Committee, but they were ignored.

"On the question of derivatives, which is an area that the population is much more familiar with, and which President Obama has talked about repeatedly, Blanche Lincoln had a proposal that would have compelled the nation's big banks to move their swap dealing units, which deal and trade in a type of financial derivative product, into a separately capitalized institution, within the larger bank holding company. The affected firms collectively would have to raise tens of billions of dollars to protect their swap desks, in case their bets went bad. Or—and this would be preferable—they could disband the activity altogether.

"According to Wall Street, such a measure would threaten U.S. banks, and make it difficult for them to compete with foreign banks. This is absolutely not true. The nation's largest domestic banks control the swap markets in the U.S., and they do so by a very large majority. By forcing them to divest their units into separate affiliates...."

I'm not going to go through all of this; she goes through too much here. But, the bottom line, is, she's saying that, if, in fact, Lincoln's proposal had been left in there, it would, at the very least, mean that, if these bets went sour, taxpayers would be saved from having to move in to prop up the banks, just as they did in 2008.

And she adds, that a Glass-Steagall proposal would do what Blanche Lincoln's proposal did not do, which is that, it would deal with the already existing derivatives. But, she says: "Be that as it may, Lincoln's measure was important enough, so that three regional Federal Reserve presidents, in a very unusual move, came out and supported it."

However, she reports, "At midnight on Friday, [Rep.] Collin Peterson [D-Minn.] came out and announced that he believed that a deal had been made on Blanche Lincoln's measures, which he described as a 'divisive' measure. I think it's important to point out to people—because, really, the American people have the right to know this—that, during these extraordinary all-night negotiations, despite the fact that you had three Federal Reserve presidents supporting Blanche Lincoln's bill, the fact is that the Fed's Board of Governors, led by the nation's central banker, Ben Bernanke, along with FDIC chairman Sheila Bair, and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, joined with the nation's largest banks in spending all night with the joint Conference Committee.

"It seemed to be a great contradiction. If the President of the United States said he would veto any legislation that did not rein in derivatives, then why did he send half of the White House to Capitol Hill to make sure that those derivatives were not reined in? And, in fact, although the negotiations were not public, the announcement now is. Rather than banks being forced to spin off their swap desks, they would be allowed, Collin Peterson announced, to keep those units, dealing with the biggest part of all derivatives trading."

And she then goes through, what the biggest sections are. And she goes through all the percentages. But the bottom line is that it is interest rate and foreign exchange hedges that are by far, the greatest part of the amount of business that's involved.

She said,

"Despite the fact that 78% of the population expressed support for Glass-Steagall, and an even greater percentage of the population expressed their tremendous dissatisfaction with the government backing the gambling involved in the derivatives trade, the Conference Committee saw otherwise.

"My question to you is really a very simple one. In the face of this kind of disregard for what the population of the United States has made very clear is their desire; but really, much more significantly, in the face of this kind of blatant lying by the President of the United States, how do you think we should proceed? Because clearly, you can't believe anything that Barack Obama says, number one. And number two, the population, except if they happen to be very intent on finding out what is really going on, has been led to believe, that this measure that is going to be voted on, does, in fact, rein in derivatives, and from ever having to bail out the bad debts of private bankers again."

LaRouche: Mm-hmm. The problem is the following, the practical problem. As long as this man is President, you will never change the direction, from that direction. It's a fact. That's why he's President. That's why he was made President. He's a British patsy, who fits the profile of the Emperor Nero. As I said last April: He is a carbon copy of the mentality of the Emperor Nero. He has always, since I made that declaration, has always behaved in a manner consistent with that—not because I predicted it, but because, that's what it was.

Therefore, you have to get him out. We have various means of getting him out. We have the Chicago scandals, all kinds of scandals. But, and the best chance is right now—the kind of thing you're looking at today—you've got what's happened, as a by-product of this process, you had the unemployed, over the coming weeks, at least now scheduled, 2 million are cut off from their compensation checks.

Now this is deliberate murder. These are the kinds of issues you have to deal with.

See, the problem with the Democrats, and also the Republicans, is that they will try to think of taking a position which will not hurt them in their relationship with the President, or the Presidency, in terms of things they want to deliver to their constituents. I think the shocker is, we're going to have to see what the effect is, of this cut-off, essentially, in the coming period of weeks—2 million people are being thrown out, into destitution, as a by-product of this legislation process. Because it's going to take tough measures, and you're going to have to fry the rear ends of a lot of politicians to get this thing moving.

And any Democrat leader who does not do that, should obviously be targetted, to say: "You are out. We don't want you ever back again." You have to make it very clear.

You see, we're dealing with thing, as in the case in Texas, in the 22nd District, Democratic Party. The leadership of the Democratic Party in Texas is not all bad people. But the orders are coming from Obama by way of Chicago, and similar places, that these things will happen. And Obama is trying to run a reign of terror. And we're short of people, who are willing—in positions of power, to stand up against Obama!

We have to understand, if we want to have a nation—and if we lose this nation, we'll lose civilization too, for a long time to come—Obama has to go! And I've described exactly how he has to go. Get him out of there. If you get him out of there, we have options. Don't talk about the conditions under which you get him out, get him out. Just don't shoot him. We don't want that mess. Just get him out of there! That's the issue. Are you willing to get rid of Obama? Or do you want a mustache on your lip, too?

9/11 and the Catastrophe in the Gulf

Freeman: Lyn, this question comes from a woman by the name of Josie Rizzo, who is apparently very active in the 9/11 survivors group. She says:

"Mr. LaRouche, both my brother and my husband were on site at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, and both suffered serious injuries. But, unlike so many others, by the grace of God, they survived. I'm grateful for that, and I'm not complaining. But I am concerned for the people who are immediately affected now by what is going on in the Gulf, and this is why.

"Although we had very good health insurance, we also had four small children. And we couldn't begin to meet all the medical expenses and the loss of my husband's income. To make a long story short, we settled for what seemed like a very generous sum at the time. To get it, we were required to sign a waiver that exempted the insurance company from having to deal with any future claims. It seemed like a fair deal.

"Today, all these years later, my husband, along with so many of the other survivors of 9/11, is plagued by seemingly exotic health problems, that every physician we have seen, says are a result of what happened on that day. Nothing like 9/11 had ever happened before in our country, and no one could have anticipated what would happen to the survivors all these years later. I am not attaching any malicious intent to what happened then. But the fact is that now, people who are affected by the BP disaster, who are filing claims against this $20 billion fund that has been set up by BP, are being asked to sign the same types of waivers that we signed.

"But the situation in the Gulf is not even close to being under control yet. So how can anyone know what the ultimate long-term effect of this catastrophe will be? Personally, I believe that all those people are going to sign those waivers, just like I did, because they're desperate. What else could they do? But President Obama is acting like he has intervened to save these people from 'big, bad BP.' And while I don't think that there was malicious intent in the aftermath of 9/11, I'm not so sure about the situation now. I don't think he wants to hurt those people. But I do think that he's more concerned with protecting BP's interests and his own image."

Now there is also, coupled with this, you have a number of people, several of whom are people in Washington, two of whom are elected officials from Louisiana, one is an elected official from Mississippi, and one is an elected official from Florida, and they all basically ask the same thing:

"Mr. LaRouche, the LPAC site has talked about the use of PNEs to cap the leak, and maybe that is where the solution lies, but our concern is that, even if we were to cap the leak tomorrow—and there is no indication that there is any possible way that that could occur—the long-term effects of the amount of oil that has currently flowed into the Gulf, and is now in the Gulf Loop Current, is going to have all kinds of long-term environmental effects, that we cannot even begin to estimate.

"On top of that, there does seem to be a certain amount of disinformation, as to whether or not, there are cracks beneath the surface of the seabed, which, looking at the live cam of the leak, certainly does seem to be the case. Because we don't know how else to explain the fact that both oil and gas seem to be bubbling up from the floor, which is in proximity to supposedly where the leak is.

"As of now, no one seems to be studying what this long-term effect is going to be, and what should be done about it, even if we cap the leak. This threatens to become, not only a catastrophe for the entire United States, but we believe, that this could very well escalate into a global crisis, and no one seems to be paying any attention to it.

"Some people have told us that there are studies going on by the military and by national security units to assess this, but certainly, if that's true, we haven't been told about it. We really do feel helpless, and we are becoming more frantic. Would you please address this in the broadest possible terms. Use of PNEs, if it works, fine. But what about all this other stuff?"

LaRouche: Well. You have really two questions here. They intersect from a different aspect, but they are part of the same package. It's true.

First of all, the President must be removed. Carthago delenda est! [Carthage must be destroyed!] It must be removed. This aspect of the question is clear. And that's the primary concern. Because as long as you are trying to address an Administration, and a supine Congress, which goes along with this President, there is no honest solution to any of these things! You've got to get Obama out of there! There is no answer otherwise. There's no future for this nation, unless you get Obama out of there! And what he represents. And you've got the British monarchy as the enemy, because it is the enemy!

British Petroleum is an asset of the British monarchy. It was created by the British monarchy before there was a Kuwait. The Ottoman Empire was in a bad condition. And the British had a plan for organizing what became known as World War I: A British plan for World War I. This was a reaction to the success of the United States in defeating the British puppet called the Confederacy.

The British are the enemy! Not the British people, they're just a bunch of fat fools. They don't know any better. But the British monarchy has got a grip on that population. You have got to break the British monarchy. And Obama is a puppet of the British monarchy. He's not a loyal citizen of the United States.

He also seems to be involved in a lot of things that are questionable. As far as I can determine, he has no morals whatsoever.

So don't try to appeal to this guy. Don't say, somebody has got to appeal to him, and see if, maybe, he might respond. He's not going to respond! He's a poisonous snake. You don't ask him about his motives, as long as you know he is a poisonous snake. You know what that means. Period. Get him out of there. Get a real President in. Even a poor one, who is halfway human. This guy is not human.

No one can honestly deny what I am saying about him—there is no one who is knowledgeable, who can honestly deny: This guy is a hopeless piece of work. There is no way under which he and the United States can survive together. So, that's the first thing.

Now, the problem we have, however, is the effect of this character. And the absolute lack of morality shown by the leadership of the Democratic Party—there are some people in there who would like to be moral, but they all cave in to this stuff. And they are not going to do anything on these questions that are implicitly asked for. He will do nothing! And as long as he's President, he will allow nobody else to anything about it, either.

So you can't complain about these things, unless you are willing to say, "He must go!" Because, if you don't remove him as the obstacle, there are no remedies. And it's not just the problems that these entail. If he is not out, there is not going to be a United States, either. And probably, not a world civilization. Because the United States is not only what it is, it is also a keystone in pulling together an intercontinental system of cooperation that can address these other problems. We need some kind of government among major powers, which can deal with these problems, as a vehicle for cooperation. And he is the obstacle to that.

So the answer is, "Carthago delenda est!" Cato was right. You have to get this out of the way. Otherwise, your situation is hopeless. You cannot try to find another subject. You cannot look for a different flank. It's not going to work. Your flank all lies in the question: What's the flank that is going to induce the right people to get this guy out of there?

The minute you get this guy out of there, you are going to have a fundamental change, because, what have you got? First of all, the Democratic Party is acting like a bunch of whores, from the leadership on down. And they are going to continue to do so, as long as he is the paymaster. As long as he's buying the time for the prostitutes. They are going to go with the money, the money, the money! So this is the crucial question.

But on the question itself: We do need to have a listing of the measures we must take, which would be the measures we would take, once we get this guy out of there. Because, you can put them up now as proposals, as a determination for action, but you know that they are not going to be effective, until he's out! I think now the minute that he's out!, we have a new situation. As long as he is not assassinated, which would be another complication. He has got to be just plain thrown out, Nixon-style. That's the way to do it.

Now, what we have to do, is, we do not have any Federal authority, which we need, to get rid of this oil crisis. And this agreement, this waiver, as the first question pertained to this, is right. Absolutely right. This waiver was a swindle. We should have collected the money, immediately, from Al-Yamamah: That is, from BAE, because we know—some of us know who did 9/11! And that cover-up: Bush, the Bush machine, covered it up.

You had members of the bin Laden family—at the time this happened in New York—were meeting with the Bush family in Texas! And when the smoke had cleared, there were no planes allowed in or out of the United States at that point, except one. The plane that took his family out of there! And carried them safely back to Saudi Arabia.

This operation was run, by a British-Saudi operation! That was the only place that had the capability and the money, to do the job. And that was the purpose: to try to terrify the United States, by an act of terrorism, which would allow the Bush Administration to put through the kind of dictatorial measures, which they did put through. We are now suffering—under the present President!—under dictatorial measures, which were adopted as a so-called "unitary executive policy." And we have to understand that.

And therefore, what we have to do, is, we have to realize that this whole thing is a cock-up, a dirty operation was run against our country, against its people. And we have to have a special party, prepared to be put in place, which will go immediately, as if in war, on the question of this question of the oil spill.

We also have to recognize that the British are accountable for this! And the British monarchy is accountable for this! First of all, what the British allowed to be done, was to put in an operation, which was fundamentally flawed from the beginning. In other words, the whole [BP] operation was incompetent. All the things that didn't work, which could have been foreseen, and actions that were not taken! So, we hold the British accountable, for this cost, and for these damages!

Now, at the same time, we have to put something into commission, with the authority to take whatever action is necessary, to deal with both this thing, and the side-effects of it. We have to mobilize that, as if for war! We can junk the Afghanistan war, and put the same kind of effort behind this kind of problem.

Once we do that, the question is a question of morals. But not just moral policy; it's the morals of our people. Our people are weak morally. They're putting up with things they should not put up with. It's a moral weakness. If we give people back their guts, then they will respond politically, as our people have done before in the past. They will respond politically to what needs to be done. Our people have a sense of justice, intrinsic to our culture, which surpasses anything I know of the culture of any other nation or people.

We are now demoralized; our people are demoralized. And you all know some of the factors of this demoralization. If we choose an act, which is an act of liberation, from the mass of evils which is now incorporated in the body of this President, and his accomplices, you are going to find a fundamental moral change for the better in the American people! Then, present the issue to them! Then, the election coming up in November will mean something.

In the meantime, we've got to prevent the things from getting worse, until that election comes up. We cannot have Obama, waiting until that election, that Congressional election in November. We've got to get him out now! And the evidence exists, enough, to pull him out, if some people have the guts to do the things that have to be done! The scandals against Obama and his team are piling up! This guy is more vulnerable than Nixon was, when he was thrown out. Throw the guy out! Use these scandals, and use all the other things, as a combination of intention and means to throw him out. Want to solve the problem? Throw the SOB out.

A Psychiatric Assessment

Freeman: Lyn, this question also came from a number of different places, but I'll ask it in the form it came from some of our friends out on the West Coast. They say:

"Lyn, your accuracy in terms of your economic forecasts is inarguable, and we've obviously spent the better part of the last year, working on the method by which you've been able to make these forecasts. We're not there yet, but we're satisfied that we will get there.

"However, a year ago, you delivered in a webcast [on April 11; see EIR, April 17, 2009) that everybody reacted to, you delivered a forecast—or maybe it's not right to call it a forecast; maybe we should just call it an assessment—of Obama, as suffering from a terrible Nero complex, that would ultimately lead to his destruction. We have no clue how you figured that one out! And if you can, can you share with us the method by which you made that forecast?"

LaRouche: Well, for a lot of reasons, of experience and special kinds of knowledge, I'm able—shall we say—to do a psychiatric assessment of some kinds of phenomena. I'm not recommending myself that if you've got a problem, I'm going to deal with it, a personal problem. But, again, the answer really lies in what I'm writing in this series of papers, the first of which is going to print now, on what the method is [see this week's Feature].

That, as I said here, the human mind is not what most people think it is. And once you understand what the problem is, in the way most people think, and then you get used to it, then your mind is open to understanding things in the way the human mind works, which most people just don't get.

As I said, things like Classical culture and so forth—we don't have Classical culture in the population. We don't have these kinds of things that we had—we don't have—for example: Poetry. Classical poetry. Who the hell knows anything about Classical poetry today? We have people doing analysis, they don't even know what it is. It's not a medium of communication to them, it's an object to be described! Very poorly, or incompetently. They don't have that kind of insight! And that kind of insight comes from Classical music, Classical poetry, and scientific creativity—altogether, they give you the ability to understand how the human mind works. Not in terms of sense-perception!

You get it. It's like a different smell, a different sense organ, that you actually are able to pinpoint what is significant. For example, you have people who are in an economy, a mass economy: The whole thing is a mess! It's a mistake. And they're talking about, "How do we fix this economy?" Well, I know how to fix this economy! Because you have to understand the mind, which is the root of the problem of this economy! Not who made the mistake, but the fact that the public mind, the mind of people, does not understand what causes this problem! I do!

And I look at history in these terms. The case of Nero is clear: You take all we know about Roman history and Nero: It is very clear what the case is. And when I look at this guy—I recognize him! Yes, I recognize him! And all the correlatives I need are there, I can recognize what this mind is! And that's what I go by.

You know, I was a management consultant, I used to be a very good one, except I had a problem with the FBI: They wanted me to do something for them, and I refused to do it, and they didn't like it at all—that I refused them. And they did everything they could to try to destroy my life, because I would not cooperate with them; they had somebody stand up, and say, "No." I said, "You've got a real problem, come to me; okay, I will consider it. But I am not going to do this! This is a bunch of nonsense, you're coming up to me with! And I happen to know that you're completely idiotic on this thing—forget it!" They did not like that one bit!

Nonetheless, I remained a very good economist, and a very good forecaster. My forecasting depends upon corroboration of any conclusion, which is suggested by fact, by looking at the kind of mind, which is expressed by the phenomenon I'm looking at. In other words, this is a question of dynamics, what Leibniz calls dynamics. It is not enough to have the facts that tell you that this mind is of this type, or indicate that. That does not prove that that is what that mind is like. You have to have an insight into the mind itself, before you can draw a conclusion from so-called "facts." You have to say, "I see that mind! It makes sense, I see that mind."

But most people just have not developed that capability. Anybody can do it. It may take some time; it took me some time. But I was steeped in Classical art. I never accepted such things as Euclidean geometry. I never accepted geometry class, and it was crap. And I got in trouble in my education, because I never accepted things that I thought I should not accept. Just the fact that some professor says you're right, doesn't mean I'm going to agree with him. If he doesn't convince me, he has not convinced me. And the fact that I didn't make a lot of mistakes by compromising with people who I thought were fools, sort of saved me in my ability to make judgments.

Most people, by trying to make what are called "practical arguments," lose sight of the nature of the human mind and its powers. The study of the human mind, from that standpoint, leads you to realize—and I am writing about this in this paper just gone to publication; I'll be doing more on this—enables you to realize, and realize the truth of the fact, that what you think, is the evidence of sense-impressions, of sense-certainty, is not proof of anything! It's a suggestion, it's a hint, of what might be worth investigating.

You have to look to a completely different department: You have to think in terms of what, in physical science, is called, "proof of principle," of an actual principle. You have to think like Einstein; you have to think like Vernadsky. You have to think like Max Planck. You have to think about people like that, in art, in Classical art, and in physical science. And these people, whom we call "geniuses" of that type, are really not exceptional, except they are exceptions to the rule. That is, they are not exceptional in the sense that what they do and what they know, is some special thing which every human being could not have access to.

The problem in our society, in our culture, in the degeneration of our culture, in the lack of competent education, lack of competent experience, people just never get to know it. It's there: Any child properly raised, in general, will have a fair chance of being able to do this. But what I observe, in my experience, especially in looking at what I do, and at professionals: They just don't have it! It's there for them! They should be able to understand it: They're human, and a human being has powers, which I've detailed in some of these writings now, which I'm doing now, because it's so essential. Anyone can do this, in principle. But you have to develop that aspect of yourself, before you can do it. It's that simple.

What I depend upon, as in the forecast I made in April of last year on the Nero factor in the President: I knew it! What I presented were the facts that corroborated that thing, the so-called facts, the empiric facts. I was completely good on that. But I also had insight that this is the man! I looked at his face, mentally, and I saw, "This is the man: I know him!" Do you ever get that sense of déjà vu? You run into somebody, you say, "My God! Just like...!" You get a sense of an impression of a personality, and you recognize that personality is just like somebody else.

Because, if you have developed your insights enough, you will always run across a case like that from somewhere. And I looked at this guy, with the evidence at hand, and I said, "This pattern, evidence in hand, on this issue—there's only one thing that's characteristic, that's consistent. My image of the Emperor Nero! Exactly the same! This is the reincarnation of the Emperor Nero, perfectly, in effect! And this is how he is going to behave." And he always did, and he is still doing it. This is the Emperor Nero: You got him. Fry him.

J.S. Bach: Insight in Music

Freeman: This last question is:

"Lyn, this may seem like a weird question, but it grew out of a series of discussions we had, following your answer to my question some months ago, regarding physics as opposed to mathematics as a basis for economic science.

"First of all, I agree that without a doubt, mathematics is necessary and it has its place. But what has been clear to me, and certainly your answer back then clarified it even more, the insistence that a principle in economic science be verified and validated mathematically has many flaws built into it. And it has had an unfortunate effect on the thinking of many economic scientists. We have yet to be able to come up with a mathematical system that is capable of expressing dynamics, in the way that you've discussed dynamics.

"But what did come up, in some of our discussions was the question of music: And some of us have argued that a well-composed musical system may be the most efficient, and also, if it is a good one, the most beautiful, expression of dynamics in the way that you've discussed it.

"I'm probably doing a poor job of expressing this. My husband, who is a closet musical theorist, would probably do it better, but I would like to know what you think of this, and what you think about the relationship between economics and music, if there is one. At least, between music and good economic theory.

"P.S., If this is idiotic, go ahead and say so. I'm tough, I can take it."

LaRouche: The perfect expression of this, which is only the introduction to the idea, is the work of Johann Sebastian Bach. All competent insight in music, depends upon Bach, in two ways: First of all, Bach's work was a process of development in the history of music, as such, the history of composition. But what you do, is you take Bach, in his Well-Tempered Clavier which is a key reference point, but not the only one, and then you look at the history of music leading into Bach, Bach's work, and then you take the music leading out of it. What comes out of Bach's work.

Then you also have to have a conception of language. Now, most people in the United States today, do not know how to speak. They know how to utter, but not to speak. They utter words, in an algebraic kind of way, or a non-algebraic kind of way, like "Something happened. Unfortunate."

So that they don't live their lives in terms of understanding what the mind of the Bach tradition in Classical composition represents. They don't know the experience of the mind. See, it doesn't lie in the mechanics, it doesn't lie in the particulars. Bach is not that way. You cannot get a mathematical theory of Bach. People have tried to do that. It's insane, it does not work!

You are looking more at the inner aspect of the mind: Classical artistic composition, corresponds to an inner character of the mind that most people don't touch. What happens is, that among competent musicians, and especially great ones, even if they don't understand what they are doing on the deepest level, they recognize that something is valid, as opposed to invalid. And therefore, they know the subject.

Most people in music—like people who can put up with rock, or the popular music of today—obviously know nothing about music. They know how to make noises; you could probably train chimpanzees to do a better job.

But to understand what underlies music, you are touching on the deeper part of the human mind, not the sense certainty-organized part. That's why it's so difficult to have a formal, algebraic, or mathematical type, or something like that, a formal demonstration—it's the communication of an idea. And, this is an idea that can properly only be recognized, in those characteristics of the human mind, which are not corresponding to sense-certainties. There's no sense-certainty explanation which will give you a real insight into music, Classical music, in the Bach tradition. It's something you acquire by developing your mind, so that in this matter, you have a special kind of sensitivity.

You know, I've seen this in great musicians, who I happen to know, for example, my friend Norbert Brainin, who died some years ago; of my age, he was actually younger than I am. And other great musicians. And I can recognize, in great musicians, and some of the recording work of great musicians, you can recognize—it's like an image in the mind: You can see the way their mind is working. And there is no way to explain it in terms of number theory or any other such thing. You have to recognize it. And other people will recognize it.

You know, it's a thing that Shelley refers to: that the mind is moved, but does not know why. And of course, when the mind is moved, it may be moved in a misleading direction; it may not be true to truth. But when you become familiar with great music, great composition, for example, then, you develop, from knowing the great music from all kinds of experience, you really recognize an old friend. And you're at home with an old friend. It's like knowing a great performer in music, and they have certain ways of performing, and you get to know that, in various characters in music, who have a very special way of acting, and you understand their music from that special way which they do things.

And then they go through changes, and yet, they don't go through changes: Like a work of Bach, or Beethoven in his "middle years" so-called, as opposed to his final composition. There is a change there, but you can still recognize "Beethoven" as a personality in his music. Even though he has made a great change, a leap in insight, as in the Opus 132 [String Quartet No. 15 in A minor], for example: There is a great leap in insight; but you can still recognize him, there; you can go back and recognize the Razumovsky Quartets [Opus 59] of Beethoven, in the same personality, but an older, more mature one, more brilliant, more profound, in the Opus 132.

That's the way it works. We are deprived of, in this culture, access and emphasis on this quality of the mind, which is what I am dealing with in these papers on economics: To understand economy and how it works, you really have to understand this principle of the mind. So I am dealing with it in the thing that went to press now, and I will be dealing with it in a series of, probably, four others, which will complete in this series on economics that I intend to get done, fairly rapidly.