LaRouche Will Lead Dems
To November Landslide Win
by Jeffrey Steinberg and Michele SteinbergYou'd never know what happened at the Democratic Party National Convention held in Boston, July 26-July 30, from the national media, the Internet, or even by being there as a delegate. Despite every effort of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and its chairman, Terry McAuliffe, to ban any attacks on the fascist policies of the Dick Cheney-George W. Bush Administration, the distribution of more than 50,000 copies of Lyndon LaRouche's "Real Democratic Platform for November, 2004," by a unique political force, the LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM), catalyzed a dramatic change in Boston.
Party delegates, Young Democrat leaders, Democratic elected officials, and activists who attended three public events addressed by 2004 Presidential primary candidate LaRouche during the week, began to work with the LYM to plan the strategy for an immediate August organizing offensive to drive the Cheney-Bush dictatorship out of the White House.
LaRouche concluded his weeklong personal intervention into the Boston convention with a July 30 press conference, launching a new political action committee, LaRouche PAC, which will, he promised, lead the Democratic Party to a landslide victory in the November elections, around the policies in the tradition of the great Democratic President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. LaRouche reported that hundreds of LaRouche Youth Movement activists would fan out to some of the most hotly contested states, to lead the mobilization of the "Forgotten Men and Women" of America.
This broad mobilization of the "lower 80%" of the population is the vital margin for victory, and the LYM forces were in the field of political battle by Aug. 6, in the hotly contested states of Michigan, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania—and had also returned to Boston, to consolidate the LYM organizing after the convention. The LYM forces are already circulating the LaRouche PAC edition of the Platform. Millions of copies of that document, as well as a book containing all three of the Children of Satan reports previously issued by LaRouche's Presidential primary campaign, exposing the true fascist nature of the Dick Cheney/neo-conservative apparatus, will be circulated between now and the November elections.
The DNC's attempt to keep politics and LaRouche out of the convention was an utter failure. The DNC had "banned" mention of the crimes of Bush and Cheney in the Iraq War at the convention itself, but throughout the week, Democratic leaders who have opposed and exposed the neo-conservatives' policies, attended many of the hundreds of events at hotels, universities, and public institutions—and the LaRouche forces were everywhere, distributing the LaRouche Platform, and copies of the ground-breaking pamphlet exposé, Children of Satan III. The "Children of Satan" series, which exposed Cheney's perpetual war doctrine, laid out the grounds for his impeachment, beginning in April 2003, just one month after the Iraq War began. These pamphlets, which launched the exposés of the neo-conservative cabal inside the Bush Administration, and the determination to rid the United States of that Cheney blight, were in reality what dominated the convention.
Throughout the week, military, Congressional, and Senate leaders in the fight against the Iraq War addressed capacity crowds in Boston, continuing the fight against the Cheney dictatorship. The most notable speakers included Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), and former Senators Gary Hart (Colo.), Max Cleland (Ga.), and former Democratic Presidential candidate and Senator from South Dakota, George McGovern. Former Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, who was a member of the Commission to Investigate 9/11, attended many events and receptions, where he was sought out by convention participants for intense discussions about the administration's war on terrorism. Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Africa, Joseph Wilson, delivered a powerful indictment of the Bush Administration, in discussing how he investigated, and found false, the charges that Iraq had purchased uranium from the African country of Niger. Wilson also described how the Bush Administration sought revenge against him for countering its Iraq "intelligence," and exposed the name and job of his wife, a CIA covert agent, through leaks to reporters.
Breaking Through
But, of all the interventions against the DNC dictatorship, the most beautiful, and effective was the LaRouche Youth Movement, which used the "magic" of Classical music. More than 100 LaRouche youth activists, trained in the classical bel canto method of singing, brought the musical offerings of J.S. Bach, Beethoven, and the great Negro spirituals to the convention-goers—on the trolleys and buses, in the public squares, and at the front door of the Fleet Center, where the formal convention proceedings took place every night.
By the time that Sen. John Kerry delivered his speech, accepting the Party's Presidential nomination on the evening of July 29, a shift had taken place. Party sources confirmed that the acceptance speeches of both Kerry and Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards were substantially rewritten—as the convention was taking place.
Instead of the "me too" posture that had become all too familiar to close observers of Senator Kerry, in the weeks leading up to Boston, Kerry sharply distinguished himself from President George Bush, vowing never to bring American young men and women to war without a strategy of "how to win the peace."
The stage had been set for Kerry's speech by several retired military flag officers, including former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. John Shalikashvili, who addressed the convention, and Vietnam War hero Max Cleland, the former U.S. Senator from Georgia, who introduced Senator Kerry. Both General Shalikashvili and Senator Cleland typified the World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War veterans, who are mobilized to defeat Bush-Cheney, because they see, in the lies and butchery in Iraq, a replay of the horrors of Indochina, which they collectively vowed would never again bring the nation to shame and international condemnation.
Presidential candidate Kerry, as LaRouche told his press conference audience on July 30, "did a fairly excellent job" in the first part of his acceptance speech, conveying the idea that he would not betray those war veterans, as the Bush-Cheney Administration has so recklessly done over the past three years. LaRouche declared that the commitment that Kerry made to the American people was "something you can work with."
LaRouche's Unique Role
But LaRouche also warned that Kerry and his team are not yet prepared to deal with the gravest problems facing America and the world, particularly the onrushing global financial collapse. In a correspondence with a campaign supporter during the convention, LaRouche wrote,
"I am the only person with first-hand competence in the crucial subject of economic policy, as the presently onrushing crisis defines the significant concepts of economic policy.
"I must educate Kerry et al.," LaRouche continued, "not negotiate with them, directly or indirectly. They urgently need concepts they do not presently possess. This aspect of the matter is crucial for the making of competent campaign and national policy during the presently ongoing 90-day interval."
LaRouche further elaborated on his campaign strategy for November, in his July 30 webcast.
"What we're going to do also, is we are going to build an impetus among the people we're organizing, to turn out the vote, some of whom are already committed to vote, especially among leaders of existing Democratic Party constituencies, who are still viable; to give them a picture of what the reality is that we have to deal with; and to build a programmatic base within the combination bringing Kerry to victory in the election. A base which then becomes the basis for a new orientation of the United States, adequate to the crisis we're going to get into."
The Skunk at the Picnic
Bush-Cheney dirty tricks were already in abundance during the convention, including slanders against Senator Kerry's war record. But the nastiest of the operations is the all-out drive by the Republican Party to split "the left" away from the Democratic Party, by putting Ralph Nader on the ballot in as many states as possible to bleed votes away from the Democratic ticket of Kerry-Edwards. One outrageous case study is Michigan, where the Federal Election Commission is now investigating a complaint that Michigan Republicans violated election laws when they gathered and filed 43,000 petition signatures to put Nader on the November Presidential ballot as an "Independent" candidate. Michigan Republican Party employees collected about 20,000 of those Nader signatures, and thus, the Republicans must have spent much more than the $5,000 the Party would legally be allowed to donate to Nader's candidacy. Nader's own organization filed only about 5,000 signatures on his behalf.
This ballot effort was also backed by Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), the right-wing Republican group run by former U.S. House Republican Leader Dick Armey (Tex.). This CSE operation is being challenged with the Federal Election Commission by Democrats, but the CSE plans to also get Nader on the ballot in key battleground states, such as Wisconsin, Florida, and Pennsylvania, among others. CSE's Oregon phone script recruiting Republicans for Nader's ballot effort said, we need to "pull some very crucial votes from John Kerry."
Ironically, the other force behind Nader is billionaire George Soros, albeit indirectly, through his longtime drug legalization wonder boy, Kevin Zeese, who directs the Nader Presidential campaign nationwide. Soros is also funding anti-Bush efforts.
Although Nader was not in evidence during the convention, a strange appearance by the Rev. Jesse Jackson at a get-out-the-vote strategy meeting called by the Progressive Majority group on July 29, brought out the specter of Nader, and had some in the audience wondering where Jesse was headed.
Like LaRouche, Jackson rightfully demanded an end to the war in Iraq, but he departed from what promises to be an intense fight for the soul of the Democratic Party by announcing that that he has "one foot in the party" and "one foot on the third rail." Jackson said that those who have "two feet in" the Democratic Party, risk getting sucked into a compromise. He described his own speech on the floor of the convention two days earlier, as one which had to follow the big league football rules of not going "out of bounds." Less than a week earlier, Jackson had been pictured with George W. Bush at the annual Urban League meeting, where Jesse met Bush to extract a "promise" to ensure the "integrity" of the vote in 2004.
As the LaRouche mobilization is making clear, there is only one thing that can ensure the integrity of the vote: the FDR tradition, where "the forgotten man" is represented, where his vote is registered, mobilized, and his general welfare, and that of his children and grandchildren, are protected with an economic policy that works—LaRouche's economic agenda.
