Who Will Join Clark and LaRouche
To Oust Obama?
Special to EIR
Aug. 23—While the mood of public disgust with British puppet President Barack Obama has become more and more visible over recent weeks, the number of political leaders who have been willing to come forward to demand the ouster of the President—the chief obstacle to a real economic recovery starting with Glass-Steagall—can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The notable exception is the six LaRouche Democratic Congressional candidates, who are calling for Obama's removal from office.
Behind the scenes, of course, the situation is quite different, even within Democratic Party clubs nominally loyal to the President. Take the situation in the San Francisco-Bay Area, for example, where 80% of Democrats voted for Obama (over Hillary Clinton) in the 2008 primary, and have remained adamant Obama supporters, to the point of encouraging physical attacks on LaRouchePAC organizers. Yet, at the recent Democratic State Convention, the Progressive Caucus voted in favor of ensuring a primary challenger to Obama in the upcoming Presidential race—despite the fact that the state leadership declined to recertify the Caucus as a result. And LaRouche Democratic candidate for Congress Summer Shields, speaking at a Peninsula Democratic event Aug. 20, was approached by more than half-a-dozen people to discuss his courageous call for removing Obama, and even encourage him to stand his ground.
The bottom line is that those who know Obama has to go, in order to ram through nation-saving policies, lack guts.
By contrast, Lyndon LaRouche and Democratic Kentucky State Senator Perry Clark (D) have gone on the stump, albeit electronically. LaRouche is appearing on LaRouche PAC-TV several times a week, and LPAC-TV interviewed [[Clark]] on Aug. 19, where he discussed his Aug. 8 call for Obama to resign or be impeached, and issued a sharp appeal to fellow patriots to join him. Clark is also being interviewed on a number of widely circulated radio talkshows to spread the word. The LaRouche PAC-TV interview is excerpted below.
The Messenger Who Started the Tempest
Ed Hamler: I'm here with Perry Clark, on the line. He's a [State] Senator from Kentucky, who's been fighting the fight for a very long time. And he just released a [statement]]calling for the resignation, or impeachment, of Barack Obama. Now, this comes at a time, when the entire financial system is blown out. We see that in the situation in Europe right now, where there's not enough money to bail out the system, while the leaders continue to scramble to try to do that anyway.
You have a similar situation here in the United States, where Obama and others are pushing for bailout; all the states are completely bankrupt: Perry undoubtedly has a sensuous view of this, from being in the state of Kentucky, as a leader there. And the tipping point, was when Obama called for a Super-Congress, as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling. That is when Mr. Clark said, "Obama has to go," because he basically wrote off Article 1 of the Constitution, and destroyed it.
Now, I'll just read a followup statement from Mr. Clark, to give you a sense of what he's saying, and how unrelenting he's been this week:
"My recently released statement asking President Obama to resign was calculated to be incendiary and brash. I am unapologetic for its tone and delivery and believe it in its entirety," Senator Clark writes. "I am using the call for the President to resign to garner attention to an important issue which is getting little consideration in the media and in Washington. As the messenger who started the tempest, I will attempt to clarify my position. Do the research yourself and join me in keeping the heat on the President and Congress because action needs to be taken.
"The disappointment with the Obama Presidency and Congress is waxing great among many constituency groups. The President and Congress are first in line to do the bidding of the Wall Street/International Banksters by embracing austerity measures that threaten to swiftly erode what is left of the economy and ignoring the real issues."
Hamler: How are you doing, Mr. Clark?
Sen. Perry Clark: I'm doing just fine. I'm having a good time with it.
Hamler: Good, good! It's good to look evil directly in the eye and laugh at it.
Clark: Absolutely. My father told me many years ago, "Truth lives a wretched life, but it outlives the lie."
Hamler: Well, I want to ask you a few questions for our audience, so we can instill some courage, some strength in this fight right now.
The first thing I want to talk about is something that goes to a deeper issue of, I think, why you called for the resignation or impeachment of Obama: You happen to be a father, and you're older than my generation; and typically, the moral people in society tend to think about generations down the line, and what their lives mean for the future generations that come after them. It's commonly referred to as immortality—that you're not living for the present; you're living for future generations.
Clark: That's a really interesting concept, because that's exactly what we're doing. That's what makes us human, that is what makes us human beings, if we have such considerations. And it really ought to be a common ground among those that call themselves human—is to leave it better than we received it.
And we're not like that. So many in my generation are only concerned about "me, me, me; my, my, my; now, now, now," regardless of what's coming in the future. They don't see that.
You know, I live in the city of Louisville. Our infrastructure—I've been telling them for years, we've got to invest money in infrastructure, but we haven't done so! We've got water mains breaking, we've got electrical grids that won't keep up. And I wish there was a database of what's going on around the United States on our infrastructure that we're leaving our children and our grandchildren!
I expect to be gone in the next 25, 30 years, maybe 40 at the very maximum, you know: To think, that I would live such a little life to only consume my power, my will, my passions, for the moment, for myself? You know, that's not human, and that is not the image of God.
Since Ronald Reagan, it seems like we've become the third [shopping] mall from the Sun. It's only about the consumer; it's only about what I can get for me. And that has brought us down the road to perdition. We have got to re-establish some common ground, where we are in this together.
Afraid To Ask the Big Questions
Hamler: Yes. Now, "in this together": This brings us to the call you made, and it also brings us to concepts like Glass-Steagall, because at this point, and Mr. LaRouche has made this point—
Clark: Let me say this, about the concepts I'm putting out here—let me just say something here, Ed....
It's very frightening for someone like me, to stand up and make these kind of statements, and to stand right behind them and defend them at every level. Anybody that brings it to me, I'm ready to defend it, because I've really thought about it. So many people my age are frightened to stand up to authority! They're frightened to ask the big questions. You know, what is going on, on the big, big picture? And what happens to us, is we embrace some kind of ideologies, or some kind of group, or some kind of whatever, and we hold to all these principles and we disregard the fact—we make ourselves totally irrelevant in what we do....
Hamler: I think you're right. I think this is why it's important, because someone has to step up and look this fear in the eye. Because the fear is, "Well, what will my friends think?" And this is obviously what you're going through: "What will people think of me?" And once you realize, as you were just discussing, that we're on the verge of a dark age, none of those things really matter. And the test of morality at that point, is whether you overcome that fear, look it in the eye, like all the great people of humanity have done before, so that we're living now.
Clark: I've talked to the top state Democratic elected officials in this state; I talked to them directly on the phone about what I'm doing, what I'm up to. They agree, but they're frightened; they won't stand with me yet. Something needs to shake them.
You know, I was surprised, when we found out the Federal Reserve embezzled $16 trillion, that people wouldn't stand up with me and say, "Where are the criminal indictments? Where are the arrests?" You've seen the reports; I've talked about them—the Angelides [Commission report], the Levin-Coburn [report]—people can find these; you can look them up. I was surprised when no one, not one person, mentioned, "But, golly, Perry, that's a real issue! That's going to devalue our money! That's a possibility of causing hyperinflation." Not one person stands with me.
But when I make a statement, a bold statement about how the leadership of this nation needs to change—I don't blame Obama for one thing that's going on with this economy! What I blame him for is a void of leadership. You know, he ran on the fact that he promised to be different, and all we see is the similarities between the previous administration and nothing different. I've got promise after promise from him on the campaign trail, what he said—and it's all opposite to what he's doing. So how're we going to believe him on the campaign trail the next time?
Hamler: Exactly. And I think the other thing he's not doing, is providing real solutions, like Glass-Steagall, for example; he's actually rejected Glass-Steagall in favor of the bailout process right now.
Clark: Absolutely. And the call for Glass-Steagall is going great! You know, it's not just me, I'm just a spaceball messenger. And I like to say, and I'm fond of saying so, it's really funny that they attacked the messenger, instead of the message. You know, the message is, "You've got to put this fence back up that protected the people from these international banksters and fraud people." I don't expect him to do so. I expect another great transfer of the public wealth into private hands, very shortly. When you look at what's going on with the banks and the Fannie Mae and the Freddie Mac, I'm frightened for what that portends for our very near future, if we don't get a grip on this, right now. And that is the failure of our leadership!
The Spark To Make Things Better
Hamler: Let me just ask you one thing. Where does the strength actually come from, to stand up to this challenge that we face right now? Where is the moral fabric woven, right now? Where's the cloth that it's cut from at this point? Because there's really a few of us, who have this kind of commitment, and I think it would be important for people to know. What does this strength actually come from?
Clark: That's a really good question, and probably most difficult question. And I, for the longest time, have—you know, when we're created in the image of God, God doesn't look like me. He's not a fat, old, grey-haired guy, a senior with acne scars! That's not it. It's in our creative capacities, it's in our minds. It's in our power to love. It's in our power to create. It's in our power to reach out. It's in our power to make things and change things, not just to accept them the way they are. It's in us; it's designed in us, as divine creatures, as part of the whole universe, this spiritual, live spark in us, to make things better.
I'm just saying, that I think that has been destroyed since we've become such a consumer nation, which is really in my lifetime! In the last generation, it was never a consumer-consumer nation, just continually shopping, continually buying things, continually trying to fill this void, with things, that should be filled with love, and concern, and compassion, for other people!
But you know, even all the technology and stuff that separated us so far from one another, people can't talk to each other; they can't carry on conversations. We've drawn so far apart; 'most everyone I know of, whatever their ideology, only reads the things that support exactly what they already believe! Instead of opening their minds, knocking the paradigms down! Looking broader than yourself.
I suppose they think it's more comfortable. But when we're cold, and we're hungry, and we're desperate, in a Third World America, these things won't even matter! And that's a harsh statement, too.
I mean, look at President Obama's jobs creation plan: The job creation plan is to finalize the negotiation of the Bush treaties, the free-trade agreements with Colombia and Korea, and lose another couple hundred thousand jobs! Are these the last couple hundred thousand manufacturing jobs we have in the nation? Not a good plan; not a good policy. Terrible thinking. Backwards thinking.
Hamler: And the irony of the entire situation, Mr. Clark, is that we have the solutions available to us! We've got Glass-Steagall, we've got the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA). But I think what you're saying, which is the most crucial, is that we don't have a commitment to human creativity.
Clark: You don't have a commitment to humans. Our commitment is to bail out bonds, our commitment is to bail out money, our commitment is to markets, instead of humans. That is our problem.
But we can be creative and do it. And there are things that have been done in the past, that we know absolutely work! Many things that were done in the Franklin Roosevelt Administration are trying to be dismantled right now. You know, there is no reason in the world—and we can't even afford to weaken Social Security or Medicare, you can't do that at this point! You'll impoverish the nation and you will kill our seniors!
We can do these things! These programs—the North America Water and Power Alliance—it's a brilliant idea. If that would have been realized at its inception, as the space program was, that program would still be going on, actually, and you would probably have to be coming up with another massive works project, that benefits all humans, for many generations, for years, for hundreds of years, actually!
We need big, big thinking! And you know, when Franklin Roosevelt did the Four Corners, when he did the Rural Electrification, the Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam—these were incredible, huge projects, that transformed the nation, gave hope to people, gave real jobs, real infrastructure programs. And you know, these are the kind things we need to think about again! Big, big things, that give people hope, sparks interest in them, sparks the creativity, sparks the love of life.
And we've fallen short of all this.
Don't Give Up the Fight!
Hamler: Well, I think this, again ironically, puts us in a really profound period in history, because as much as we are on the brink of a dark age, we also could possibly be on the brink of a new era of mankind as a whole, a new Renaissance potentially. But I think it's going to require what you were discussing about the commitment to mankind, over Wall Street, over anything else, at this point.
So, I think that, just to conclude, I'll just make the call right now, with Mr. Clark: That we need a commitment to mankind as a whole. We need to make sure that things like NAWAPA get built, we need to make sure that Glass-Steagall gets passed; but most importantly, right now, we need to make sure that Barack Obama is removed from office, before the next election, so that this is all possible.
So, Mr. Clark, do you have any final words?
Clark: Just really, for the audience: Don't give up the fight. It's lonely, it's difficult, it's trying, it's hard—it's the only thing that matters. Very few other things in our lives matter, except to make the financial system work for the people, and create a better and bigger future for ourselves. If we don't do so, we're in really deep depths of trouble!
