'New Politics' Brought To State Legislators
by Ivan Corpus, LaRouche Youth Movement
On July 31, the eve of what will be remembered as the "Runs of August" and the unraveling (beginning with the hedge funds) of the Alan Greenspan-generated largest speculative bubble in human history, Lyndon LaRouche reminded the world, "The system has already collapsed."
The next day, Americans were faced with the reality of the physical collapse of the United States as the I-35W bridge to Minneapolis collapsed into the Mississippi River, killing 11 innocent victims, with 2 still missing.
Sadly, this is what happens when members of the Federal Congress fail to adopt emergency legislation such as LaRouche's widely circulated 2006 Economic Recovery Act, which outlines a vast program to rebuild bridges, locks and dams, rail transportation, and other crucial infrastructure, while protecting the vital machine-tool technology of the languishing U.S. auto industry. When the national leadership acts irresponsibly against the vital interests of basic economic infrastructure, lives are lost.
Thus, when the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) had their annual meeting in Boston (Aug. 5-9), the need to rebuild the nation was already in full view. The Boston LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) met this gathering of several thousand state legislators, emphasizing a national mobilization to create sweeping changes in the United States, beginning with the necessary impeachment of the President of Vice, Dick Cheney. Overwhelmingly, these legislators were captivated by LaRouche's solution, but lacked the conceptual tools to immediately act on behalf of the survival of the Republic. However, the LYM has begun the process of integrating these legislators into the ongoing cultural and political paradigm-shift catalyzed in the November 2006 elections, known as the "New Politics."
There was nearly unanimous recognition of the work of LaRouche's political movement over the decades by the state legislators, and now, their impression of the LYM will have been forged by Florentine bel canto polyphony. As the legislators and their families arrived at Fenway Park for a social gala on the first night of the conference, they were greeted by LaRouche choristers wearing "LaRouche Was Right" signs, featuring home foreclosures, collapsing bridges, hedge fund logos, and Cheney's snarl, which provoked perplexity and delight. As the intricate classical music of Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart electrified the evening air, the staffer of one Southern state representative stood mesmerized musing, "What this country needs is leadership.... Is LaRouche running for President again?"
What Future if Cheney Is Not Impeached
Later in the week, a Tennessee state Senator who plans to run for Congress in '08 asked us, "How does LaRouche get through to the youth?" Once at a gathering of state legislators, he contrasted the political activism of today to the Civil Rights movement of yesteryear, but was disappointed by the cynical response from his fellow legislators. He has firm convictions about impeachment, saying, "If we don't impeach, the future will be left to make the same mistakes that are being made today. They'll ask, 'Why didn't they [we] do anything?' " This potential member of the 111th Congress does seem willing to take up the mantle of personal immortality to ensure the survival of the republic. He has read some of LaRouche's writings, but said he found them too intellectually challenging. He is looking forward to collaborating with the LYM.
Ironically, some state legislators responded to the demand for Cheney's impeachment, by saying, "I'm not going to be preoccupied with that because we're voting on a state budget next month." While all of the states' budgets are tightening, the states simply can't cut expenditures any more without leading to catastrophe, as demonstrated by the Minneapolis bridge collapse, these legislators lack the needed conception of LaRouche's Federal capital budget. White House advisors said at the beginning of August that the President intends to veto the Water Resources Development Act of 2007, which is the first time in seven years that such a measure has passed the House of Representatives; it commits funds for urgently needed repair, replacement, and new construction of water projects, including levees, dams and locks, now in very deteriorated condition. The Senate is expected to pass the bill in September. Bush's justification for vetoing it, when it passes, is that it costs too much. Meanwhile, as the administration idly sits by, most of New Orleans remains destroyed, and the state legislators do not know how to coordinate their efforts to restore the conscience of the Federal government to rescue the country from Cheney-induced Hell.
The problem is that the national leadership is ignoring reality. For instance, Rohatyn Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who, as Speaker of the House, has stifled the impeachment drive in the Democratic Party, typified the embarrassing, unprincipled approach of Washington's career politicians when she addressed the NCSL convention without providing a legitimate national policy orientation.
So, among the legislators we spoke to, few were shocked that the same Rohatyn faction that has been hoodwinking the cash-strapped states with public-private-partnerships (PPPs) is subverting the lawful process leading to the impeachment of Cheney. In fact, here, we intersected a lively debate amongst Indiana state representatives over the proposed lease of Interstate-84 to privateers. We spoke to a Connecticut representative who considers herself an economist. She follows the LYM closely, can't wait to impeach Cheney, and says that PPPs are dangerous because they lack oversight. When some of our closer contacts asked us what Felix Rohatyn represents on a deeper level, we disclosed the nature of the Anglo-Dutch Liberal oligarchy which has perpetrated the economic and cultural ruin of the United States.
In general, state legislators are a different breed than the Federal officials. They understand that politics in the United States belongs to the people, and not to hedge funds. So, with close-to-the-vest sincerity, many openly admitted to knowing nothing about economics or, at best, having no solutions for the collapse of the physical economy in their states. What is required of these state legislators is that they study the literature they have received from the LYM, and begin a multi-pronged offensive in their respective state houses to officially adopt the revised Economic Recovery Act of 2007, exert enormous pressure on their local Congressman to reinstate a Federal capital budget, and rally the population into what must become a deafening, nationally coordinated call for Cheney's resignation.
An anomaly at this conference was the dominance of Republican Party legislators. They seemed to outnumber Democrats by a 3:2 margin, but you couldn't tell a person's party allegiance by their response to the question, "Are you with the impeachment caucus?" An indication of the tectonic political shift that is underway in the country, is that moderate Republicans are distancing themselves not only from the neo-conservatives, but from the Bush Administration itself. The director of governmental affairs of a major oil company told us that he considers himself a reformed Republican. Despising the neo-cons, he remembered LaRouche as a conservative, because it was President Reagan who had adopted LaRouche's SDI plan. Then, the conservative movement was taken over by evangelicals and right-wingers like Newt Gingrich and the just-ousted Karl Rove.
LYM Introduces Optimism
Real patriots of this country, like many of these state legislators, are disgusted by the abusive treatment of the military by the current administration and by its blatant disdain for the General Welfare, as evidenced by the response to Hurricane Katrina. This oil company lobbyist had actually gotten into fistfights with other Republicans over this hot-button issue. He continues to wonder, "It took us 12 hours to get airplanes halfway across the world to the tsunami victims, but we can't get helicopters to the Astrodome in five days?" The breakdown of our national infrastructure is a disgrace, but it is creating a political opening for the unification of Lincoln Republicans and Roosevelt Democrats around the mission of bringing the United States back to a level of scientific and technological expertise at which a nation-state republic can survive.
On the morning after Pelosi and Homeland Security boss Michael Chertoff spoke, the Louisiana delegation hosted a Mardi Gras jazz brunch which wailed and duck-walked through the exhibition hall, creating a scene eerily reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death": a reminder of a national tragedy that our leaders have yet to address, and which will become inestimably more tragic as long as their delusions persist.
A panel discussion on "exotic mortgages" featured a speaker from the Mortgage Bankers Association who simply lied about the depth of the housing crisis, claiming that only 250,000 homes are in danger of foreclosure, when the actual number is 2.1 million, and rising. If emergency measures are not enacted to stop the wasteful bailout of predatory financiers and to protect the millions of Americans whose homes are at risk of foreclosure, then the social crisis in this country will rapidly become too severe to allow for mobilization of a coherent political response.
Nonetheless, wherever the LYM appeared at the conference, an ironical glint of optimism followed. A spokesman for NASA from the state of Mississippi remembered LaRouche's SDI proposal. He also knew of the link featured on NASA's website to the report a LYM educational crew has published on Johannes Kepler's Harmony of the World.
Interestingly, there was a 43-person delegation from South Africa at this conference who had come to learn about the democratic process in America. The LYM had productive meetings with these parliamentarians from the African National Congress, while nobody else on the exhibition floor was interested in talking to them.
Thus, the infusion of the LYM into this year's NCSL event was fortunate indeed. There were several hundred Southern legislators there who were grateful to be reminded of the economic development that Franklin Roosevelt's TVA brought to the Southern states. Many of these legislators remember that LaRouche is the leading advocate for an immediate upshift to a nuclear-powered economy. Across the board, these legislators represent the individuals in our republic who are most fed-up with the shenanigans of the Federal government; they are paralyzed by the government's recalcitrance. The states need $2 trillion for infrastructure repairs and emergency executive action to stop the foreclosure crisis. The Congress is straitjacketed by popular opinion. Right now, it appears that their vanity would allow them to watch idly while the republic plunges to its demise, ignoring LaRouche's capital budget solution modeled on the legislative effort of FDR's New Deal. It is time for a bare-knuckle policy fight in the streets and in the statehouses, in the town halls and in the taverns, to shatter any delusion that might delay the rebirth of our nation.
