DESPITE PRIMARY OUTCOME
Rachel Brown To Escalate Fight
For Glass-Steagall
by Nancy Spannaus
Sept. 16—"Like all statistical measurements, the results of Tuesday's primary election in the Massachusetts 4th Congressional District do not represent the historical process taking place," declared LaRouche Democrat Rachel Brown, in her post-primary election statement Sept. 15. "Barney Frank, though elected, was elected the representative of a dying empire: the Inter-Alpha banking group and related banks. My campaign has made clear the need for the full restoration of Glass-Steagall, as the only way to finish off this bankrupt empire, of which Barney Frank is a used-up representative. Now, the real fight is on!"
Even the statistical results of the primary show that Brown gave Frank, a 30-year veteran of Congress, and chief spokesman for the money-center banks, a run for his (and the banks') money. Brown ended up with an official 21.5% in the two-way Democratic primary race, a bit more than 10,000 votes; in some of the working-class towns, the official total topped 30%. Intelligence sources indicate that panicked backers of Frank had sensed the momentum growing for Brown over the last two weeks, and mobilized employees of Boston banks, among others, to get out the vote for Frank—or else. They feared that the spunky, young Brown's effective exposure of Frank's lying and pro-bank policy, during their Sept. 7 televised debate, might inspire voters to turn out, and throw Barney out of office.
Lyndon LaRouche commented that the Boston Vault—as the Boston banking establishment is known—intervened to suppress Rachel's vote, likely by fraud. "Barney is just a tool of the Vault," he said, and he is not the issue. "This is the fight for Glass-Steagall," and Rachel Brown will continue to lead that fight as a figure of national influence, a figure who politically destroyed Barney Frank once and for all.
Glass-Steagall at the Center
Brown had made the restoration of President Franklin Roosevelt's Glass-Steagall banking reorganization the core of her campaign, exposing Frank's role as the chief saboteur of that firewall between the imperial speculators and sound commercial banking. Frank, who used his role on the House-Senate Conference Committee dealing with the so-called Financial Reform bill to prevent a vote on the McCain-Cantwell amendment to restore Glass-Steagall, was forced to respond at a debate with Rachel in Brookline in June. Per profile, he simply lied that he opposed the repeal, but that he didn't think the bill would "help" prevent the financial collapse.
Brown's campaign, however, uncovered Frank's videotaped interventions in Congress, in which he lavishly praised the measures of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill which would repeal Glass-Steagall in 1999. "Barney Lied" proclaimed the Brown campaign—and they had the goods to prove it.
Frank apparently thought he could simply suppress the truth, by repeating his lies. This he continued, all the way up to the Sept. 7 debate, when Rachel confronted him with one of the more damning quotes from his Congressional appearance: "We gave the financial institutions everything they asked for." When Frank denied ever having said that, Rachel asked him, "Have you seen my website?" (The website had posted the relevant video.)
Visible Momentum
In the several days between the Sept. 7 TV debate between Brown and Frank, and the election, the momentum for Brown grew by leaps and bounds. The campaign circulated the debate video widely, and found a nearly universal positive response. The airing of the debate on LPAC-TV gave it national circulation, making it a hot topic of discussion from Washington, D.C. to California (http://archive.larouchepac.com/node/15728).
Fox-TV coverage then made Brown an immediate national sensation, bringing calls into her office from all around the country, from people expressing their support for a candidate who would taking on the notorious "Bailout" Barney.
Rallies and door-to-door organizing, particularly in the blue-collar towns of the district, brought out increasing numbers of citizens declaring their support for Rachel. Supporters were especially appreciative of the fact that she had set forth a direct positive programmatic alternative to the Washington "bull as usual" which came pouring out of Frank's mouth during the debate.
"She cares about people," was a frequent comment from those who watched the debate. "She's sharp and says more in a few words, than Barney does in dozens."
While major media in the Boston area gave virtually no coverage to the campaign, the word was spreading "on the street." On the day of the election, Brown campaign organizers encountered many voters who volunteered that they had gotten their friends to vote for Rachel. In the days before, door-to-door organizing included numerous examples of people switching from Barney to Rachel. The impact of the organizing was reflected in the report by one supporter that the Frank campaign was going door-to-door itself, following the Brown organizers with attacks on Rachel.
Another major element of the final days of the campaign involved exposure of the lies Frank told in the Sept. 7 debate, in a series of short video features and press releases appearing on Brown's website, and on LPAC-TV.
Among the most striking was the exposé about the Vault's State Street Bank, one of the institutions which Frank bragged during the debate of having worked with and for—as a supposed indication of his helping banks which were not involved in speculation. In fact, State Street Bank was not only a high-roller in speculative finance, but it had been brought up on charges before the SEC, as recently as Februrary 2010, for misleading investors in mortgage deals, and was forced to pay a large fine for its misdeeds.
Where to Now?
Barney Frank goes on to face a Republican opponent, who already has mimicked Rachel Brown in his own primary contest. But, LaRouche said, Barney's November contest is not the issue. Long before that, the U.S. Congress is going to come under excruciating pressure to re-enact Glass-Steagall—for which there are at least three bills before Barney's House Financial Services Committee. The weakened Barney and his backers, have to be forced to capitulate to the needs of the nation, and the people.
As LaRouche has put it: It is either Glass-Steagall, or there is no United States. Those, like Barney Frank, who have aligned themselves with the British Empire and its banking allies, are going to be swept aside in the face of a citizenry acting in its own interest, to restore Glass-Steagall and implement the recovery program LaRouche has put on the table.
