Challenged by Rachel Brown,
`Bailout Barney' Runs Scared
by Nancy Spannaus
Aug. 31—'Bailout Barney' Frank, 15-term Congressman from Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and general blowhard, is not a happy man. Despite all his protestations about the wonderful job he has done in ramming through financial reform and other Obama-inations, Frank is running scared in the Democratic primary scheduled for Sept. 14.
One of the chief reasons for Barney's fears is the Obama himself, who has, by kowtowing to British policies up and down the line, succeeded in turning the vast majority of the population, Democrats included, against him. The second reason is his Democratic primary opponent, young LaRouche Democrat Rachel Brown. Brown and her campaign team have saturated the Massachussetts 4th Congressional District with the real alternative to Frank's sellout to Wall Street financial interests: dumping Obama, and the LaRouche program for reintroducing Glass-Steagall banking regulations, re-adopting a fixed-exchange-rate system, and launching a grand-scale infrastructure program in the form of the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA).
Will Massachusetts voters vote their self-interest, and elect Brown, the way Texas voters did last March in electing LaRouche Democrat Kesha Rogers? That is impossible to say. But what can be said, is that the Brown campaign has had a lasting impact on the state, and the country, by reviving the real republican roots of Massachusetts, and thus creating the basis for a revolutionary turn back to the American System tradition, which the world so desperately needs.
Debate Set
From the time Frank first met Rachel Brown—during a town hall meeting in August 2009, when she confronted him on his support for Obama's Nazi health policy—he has shown her nothing but disdain. His campaign actually sent the video of the confrontation all around the world, in an attempt to raise funds by showing Frank quip that talking to Rachel was like talking to a dining-room table. But now, 12 months later, in a tacit admission that he has badly miscalculated, and his ploy has backfired, Frank's campaign has actually agreed to a debate.
But not without insane conditions. On Frank's insistence, the event is scheduled one week before the election, on Sept. 7, at 7 p.m., at NewTv Studios in Newton, Frank's hometown. No audience is to be allowed, and the Frank campaign explicitly demanded "no Lincoln-Douglas format." That means a moderator will force the back-and-forth into time slots no more than two and a half minutes apiece.
Could it be that the 70-year-old, self-described master debater is afraid of the 29 year-old LaRouche movement activist?
Frank has already had some experience in one-to-one confrontations with Rachel Brown, mostly at Democratic Party clubs which are historically sympathetic to him. But the most recent joint appearance, at the Oak Point Veteran's Association of Middleboro on Aug. 26, undoubtedly delivered quite a shock to him.
More than 200 veterans and their families were gathered to hear the candidates. Frank led off, and tried to pander to the crowd, stressing that he opposes budget cuts for veterans. Rachel led her remarks by exposing that Frank had lied again—since he had voted for the Obama health-care plan that calls for cutting huge sums out of the nation's health budget. Rachel then outlined the LaRouche program to save the nation, concluding with her call to get Obama out of office, in favor of someone who is "not in his own world." The room erupted in applause.
No wonder that Frank, who had been hanging around to listen, decided to skulk out of the room when she finished.
Rachel Speaks
So far, none of the major media in the Boston area has given Rachel Brown a forum to present her ideas, while Frank receives constant news coverage for his activities as a Congressman. EIR has thus offered Rachel Brown the chance to answer a series of interview questions, which follow:
EIR: Here we are, just about two weeks before the election. How do you assess the status of your campaign, in terms of the goals you set for it—which we know, were not simply to get the vote?
Rachel: The role of my campaign, along with the campaigns of Summer Shields, candidate against [Rep. Nancy] Pelosi, and Kesha Rogers, the Democratic nominee running in the NASA district in Houston, Texas, was to provide a policy direction for the entire country, a unified, comprehensive platform to lead the nation out of this economic collapse, while also serving to take out the enemy—in these cases, namely, the worst lapdogs in Congress, Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi, and also President Obama.
I think we are definitely having more fun than Barney Frank, which probably means we're winning, and we have given people hope in the form of an actual movement to get Obama out, which many people didn't think was possible.
EIR: All indications, even from the main sewer media, are that Barney Frank is worried about the outcome of his campaign, including the primary? Is this the first primary challenge he has faced in a long time? Do you see this as related to the fact that he has, as of this moment, at least, agreed to face you in a debate?
Rachel: This is the first time he has faced a Democratic challenger in quite a long time, and it has been reported that Barney had to open a campaign office in Newton for the first time in 10-15 years. I think he is definitely worried about the fact that he's being attacked, and he's afraid of the population. This is evidenced in the fact that he refused my campaign's request to have the debate at a public forum in a central location of the district, so that constituents of all areas could attend, and would instead only allow it to occur in Newton, in a TV studio, with no audience. Maybe he thinks he can intimidate me; I'm not sure.
The Role of Classical Music
EIR: As your website reflects, the performance of Classical music has played a major role in your campaign. Can you give us an understanding of its role in your campaign?
Rachel: Yes. My campaign staff is actually a chorus, and that has been instrumental, in its ability to demonstrate irony for the population, and also, to uplift them. One thing we did, was to take our music to the subway trains of Brookline and Newton, where we would sing on the trains, then hand out literature and brief people. We also held concerts on street corners on Friday and Saturday evenings.
The population right now is generally in a state of confusion. They can't believe that things could have gotten this bad, many even to a point of despair. So they are in a state of inherent discovery, searching for what it was that went wrong. In this state, the mind responds more clearly to beauty and truth, which is what Classical music is, so people have been responding quite intensely to the choral deployments, stopping for minutes at a time, and reading the literature with great curiosity.
EIR: Another major theme has been the "Two Massachusetts" concept, as reflected in the famous video produced by LaRouchePAC. Can you give us an idea of what impact this historical dimension, defined by Lyndon LaRouche, has had in the campaign?
Rachel: This played a role in helping people recognize the nature of the problem, and identify the enemy as of an anti-American, imperial pedigree. This has been an ongoing fight on the shores of Massachusetts since 1634, when the British King first requested the Massachusetts Bay Colony Charter be revoked. The American patriots fought for a nation dedicated to the general welfare; the Tories sought to protect a system of empire. Once you put Barney Frank and Obama in a British-loyalist historical context, which Massachusetts culture has a distinct sense of, people recognize much more clearly what's going on.
EIR: What response are you getting to the LPAC NAWAPA proposal? How will it impact Massachusetts?
Rachel: At one Meet-and-Greet, in Fall River, everyone came with a campaign NAWAPA statement in their hand, saying, "This is a great idea. What else have you got?" We have had a similar response everywhere, where people are immediately uplifted by the prospect of not just trying to survive for the next year, with highly doubtful prospects of that occurring, but instead, finding someone proposing an idea that would give our generation something to be excited about; not just allow us to get out of this collapse, but do it in a way that makes sense to human reason, with a beautiful goal to achieve.
