The Unique Role of Today's Generation
Lyndon LaRouche's opening remarks to the West Coast cadre school of the LaRouche Youth Movement, Nov. 16, 2002. LaRouche's opening statement is followed by a dialogue with members of the youth movement. LaRouche began the presentation, warning that he would be talking about "a touchy subject." The following is a transcription.
It's touchy for the population in general. But I think that you have now matured sufficiently, to be able to digest, and accept, what I have to say; at least respond to it, in a constructive, rather than, shall we say, "freaked-out" manner.
The question is, the subject of history, and looking at the present moment, inside the U.S. and the world at large, as really history, not current events. By history, we mean that certain principles of behavior, which are embedded as fixed or changeable values, like axioms of a geometry, embedded in the institutions of the people, their government, and so forth, and among governments, around the world, determine a long wave of history, which runs from one, two, or more generations. As opposed to current events, which is sort of "connect the dots" of who hit whom recently, or is about to hit someone tomorrow.
So, as opposed to that connect-the-dots current events view of historywhich is not history at allwe have to look at history as the unfolding effects of certain axiomatic features of existing institutions and culture. For example, take the case of your situation: You are now the victim of three successive generations of people who are more or less alive. People of my generation, who are, shall we say, the "grandfatherly generation"; we're a little bit nicer than your parentsthe so-called "Baby Boomer" generation. And, you are the victims of rearing in a society, which is dominated currently, in most positions of government, and similar institutionsuniversitiesby the Baby Boomer generation. And therefore, those changes which have occurred in U.S. and world culture over this period, which have molded the circumstances in which you live, and have molded, also, the set of rules, either stated or implicit, which control the circumstances to which people respond today.
So, that is really historya process of unfolding Determination, of human voluntary changes, in the axiomatic assumptions and conditions under which they live. And these changes are looked at, not in terms of the short term, not immediate reactions, not as current events, but changes in the course of the unfolding of the development of society: where society goes, toward Hell, or upward. Those are the kinds of things, which are most important. So, when we study history, we should be looking at that.
Sense-Perception, Popular Opinion, and Tragedy
Now, my particular "shtick," as some people would say, is the way this works, from the standpoint of my function as the world's, now currently, most successful (that is, on performance) physical economist; the most successful forecaster known on this planet, today, over the past 35 years or so, that I've been on record as making written forecasts of the way things are going, and I've never been wrong. The reason I've never been wrong, is because I understand this principle of history: How events unfold; how, over successive generations, societies change.
Now, what I concentrate on, which is my forte, is not only that it is the so-called "Platonic principle" of discovery of universal physical principles, which enables us to cut through the veil, to cut through the curtain: the curtain of sense-perception, into the world of physical reality beyond what we sense. That is, what we sense is experience, but that is not the reality, which causes that experience. We have to look for the principles: The principle of universal gravitation, for example; or the principle of least action; or the principle of quickest action, which determine the way the universe actually works. Principles which can not be seen, can not be touched, can not be smelled, can not be felt. But we know them, and we are able to use these principles to change the way we behave, so that we gain increasing control of the human species, over the world around us, and the universe around us.
So, that's what we're concerned with. So, the question is, whether the principles, which people are using, enable them to control history, and to the benefit of mankind? Or whether people, on the contrary, are influenced, in some significant degree, by false assumptions, which they treat as principles, which lead societies, repeatedly, to doom?
In European history, the most common cause of the great catastrophes of civilization, has been popular opinion. That is, the embedding of certain beliefs, in popular opinion, like the vox populi of the ancient Romans. Rome was not destroyed by its Emperors. It was destroyed by its popular opinion. And the Emperors were a reflection of the sickness embedded in that popular opinion. In the case of Hamlet, Shakespeare's Hamlet, contrary to what is taught in incompetent courses in schools, Hamlet is not a tragic failure because he misled his population, because he caused the catastrophe. He was a tragic figure because he failed to resist and counter popular opinion, the popular culture of his time, in Denmark. It was Denmark, that was the tragedy. The people of Denmark were the tragedy, and Hamlet typifies the leading figure in Denmark, who went along with the people. And thus, contributed to the tragedy, by bending to popular opinion.
This is the case of tragedy, in all cases, that you have two situations: You have either a people dooms itself, by the evolution of its popular opinion. And it comes into a time, where popular opinion has created a threat of doom for that society, either total doom, or a considerable amount of doom: If the people do not change their ways of thinking, they will, like the mythical lemmings, will go over the cliff, into the tragedy.
The question is, will a leader appear, who induces the people to give up bad popular opinion, and to choose a different course? In Classical tragedy, the epitome of that, is the case of Jeanne d'Arc. France was doomed, by a continuation of the Plantagenet/Anjou/Norman tradition. It was not a nation. It was subjected to feudal wars, internal feudal wars, pure fratricide among themselves. Jeanne d'Arc went to the King, and said, "Stupid King, God tells me, he wants you to become a real King, and to unite France." Well, this is actual history. This is not just a play, this is the actual history. As a result of her courage, and unflinching adherence to that, despite her betrayal by her own Kingbetrayal to this crazy Inquisition, this Gnostic Inquisitionthat her courage resulted in the creation of the first modern nation-state: the France of Louis XI. And played a key part in inspiring the Catholic Church to make the great reform, which is known as the 15th-Century Golden Renaissance, the reform centered on the great Council of Florence, in the middle of that century.
So, she, by changing, going "against the pricks," going against the culture, with a very straightforward, elementary ideaan axiomatic principle: France must be a nation; it must be made for the general welfare; God wants you to serve the general welfare by being an actual King, and creating an actual national monarchy to do this. Sticking to that very simple message, which she may have also developed, because of her religious education, from where she live, in the area she lived in: That saved Europe.
The Sublime in the Proof of Principle
This is true in all the great heroism of history. An example of a great scientific discovery, like that work of Pasteur. Pasteur did not actually claim to have proven the principle of life, but he demonstrated it, and showed the direction in which his successors, such as Curie and Vernadsky, could prove, that life is a principle, intrinsically anti-entropic, which is not produced by the so-called "abiotic universe." So, his contribution, was this contribution of an idea, which he did not perfect, as Jeanne d'Arc did not perfect the conception of modern nation-state. But Pasteur's work made possible, this conception.
The same thing is true of Kepler. Kepler made possible a transformation of humanity. Kepler was the founder of a coherent, comprehensive form of mathematical physics, which did not exist prior to him. And everything from Europe that was good in science, followed from that work of his, therefore made successes.
The same thing is true in art. Bach was the great discoverer. He had precedents, precedents such as Orlando Lasso, and Orlando Lasso's interchange from the Flemish school, with the bel canto repertoire of mid-15th-Century Florence. Leonardo da Vinci wrote a book, De Musica, most of which was subsequently lost, but some fragments still exist. His concept of music, which harks back to the Pythagorean-Plato conception of music, became the basis, expressed by Bach, in the discovery of the well-tempered system. Which is not an equal-tempered system. The well-tempered system is based on the vocal polyphonybel canto voice-training, vocal polyphony. Not on instruments. Even Pythagoras compared a monochord, by tuning the monochord with the human singing voice, and noted on the monochord, the difference between the human singing voicesinging through ostensibly the same notes, up and down, and in different modalities. And this demonstrated the existence of a phenomenon, determined by the bel canto human singing voice, actually, which was called "the comma." This is not a mathematical concept: It is a physical concept, which has some mathematical expression. But it is not a mathematical number. It is a physical concept, on the physical difference, between the human singing voice, and a monochord, which gives various tones by touching. So, the source of the comma is not a mathematical theory. The source of the comma, is the difference between a human singing voice, and an inanimate object: a monochord.
So, this is the nature of discovery. This is the nature of what we call "the Sublime," which Schiller calls Erhabenethe principle of the Sublime: That those who make discoveries, discoveries of principle, which lead mankind to overturn faulty systems, and to venture into new areas of mastering the universethese are the Sublime.
Our Present Crisis: A Credit-Card Society
When you come to a crisis, such as the present crisis of the world, and the United States in particular, it's obvious that a fundamental, sweeping change, must be made in the ruling assumptions, under which the United States and other nations have been governed over the past 35 years, in particular. The change is specifically from a producer society, which the United States was, in its tradition and practice, up until 1964, and what it became since 1964, with the launching of the Indochina War: It became transformed into a parasitical, consumer society, or a credit-card-debt society, where you don't have any income, you just have a credit-card debt, and a carrying capacity to carry that debt, on a monthly basis (or not carry it, as the case may be).
So, this society is doomed. It's doomed by certain assumptions, which have been adopted, which are characteristic of the so-called "post-industrial" or "consumer" society, or "New Economy" society, over the past 35 years, approximately. We've come to the point, that this world system is finished. The financial system is finished. The present economic system, as defined by current habits, is finished. Much of the law, which has been enacted by the Congress, over the past period, the past 35 years, has to be scrapped. On that basis, we can survive, because the ability of humanity to survive is there. The mind of man is capable of solving all problemsthat is, all problems within man's reach. If we know the answer, if we know the changes of principle to be made, the solution lies at hand. That solution is the Sublime.
Tragedy is in the people. It's not in the people, as such: It's in their popular opinion. The habituation to those assumptions, which have led the society, step by step, over nearly two generations, into the present doom.
So, you have a generation, the Baby Boomer generation, entered adolescence in a period of transformation, such that they never, as adults, experienced a producer society, as a generation. They never were producers. Because, when they came to adulthood, they were parasites. They had joined a post-industrial, rock-drug-sex-counterculture, consumer society, whose dream was, that computers, or robots made like computers, would do all the work. Where we would have a New Economy, in which nobody had to work. Everybody could be a white-collar slob; or a "dingy jeans" slob, as you might choose. We didn't have to work, we didn't have to produce.
That society has now come to its end. It's over. Therefore, the question is: leadership. Leadership, as the leadership in science: The discovery and implementation of a fundamental physical principle. Or a political principle, which has the characteristics of a fundamental physical principle.
So, my particular role, has been to stick to my guns, over these decades: That this system is an inherently doomed system, which will go through a series of crises, which I have describedeach major change in the system, I've forecast, over this past 35 years, and the forecasts were published. So, I've never been wrong, because I understood this process: a lawful unfolding of a system that was doomed from the beginning. And therefore, to understand the system, you had to simply follow the evolution or devolution of the system, in a lawful way, consistent with the discrepancy between reality, and these assumptions which were governing us.
So therefore, now, the survival of society, the survival of the United States, especially, because we are still a key power, with all our tattered weaknesses, in the world at large: If we don't behave, the world's chances of survival are poorer. We have to, ourselves, make the change in ourselves, which enables the rest of the world, in cooperation with us, to solve our common problem.
That solution exists. Objectively, it exists. I know all of the essential ingredientsnot the detailsbut the essential agreements that have to be reached among nations, to get this planet safely through the next quarter- and half-century. That's clear, right now.
Will we make the change? My function, is to provide that solution. That has been my function, all along. I was the only person ever qualified to become President of the United States, among all Presidential candidates presented, from 1976 to the present. No other person, who ran for President, was qualified for that position. Because no other candidate, was either capable, or willing, to adopt those changes in policy, which would have led the United States to avoid the catastrophe which is now descending upon us.
Therefore my role, is the role of the Sublime. To be the person, who introduces into the situation, a concept, a personalized concept, which is capable of leading this nation, and the world, out of the present mess. Failures will all try to go to popular opinion: "But, can't you be more reasonable?" "You know, you want your ideas all time. Why can't you learn to compromise with other people?"
I say, "Well, you're already too compromised. That's your problem! You've got to stop being compromised! More compromises will kill you! You've got to un-compromise yourself.
"You've got to, at this point, be willing to change what you believe. And to get others to change what they believe. Because, if you don't, youand theyare doomed."
And that's the proposition that faces us.
Your Generation in History Today
Now, for you, who are younger, this choice is somewhat easier. You come from an age group, which, as I've said in other locations, you've come past the point of lawful insanity, which is called "adolescence." People who are adolescent are lawfully insane, by any adult standard. An insane person is anyone, who reaches the age of 25 to 30, and acts like an adolescent; that's a lunatic. But, a person who is under 18 or under 17, who acts like a lunatic, may be just an adolescent. And, you go along with that; you deal with that; you try to keep them from hurting themselves, or committing suicide, or somethingbecause they are very prone to suicide. This existential crisis of passage from childhood to puberty, and so forth, does produce great emotional stresses, identity stresses; and it does lead to all kinds of disturbances, such as suicide, or propensity to suicide.
So, you're past thatI should hope. And, you entered a period, which we think of, or associate today with a modern university, taking the range of the so-called undergraduate through graduate program, through the doctoral program. You're on a track, which normally, if you've been around a university, or were led into it, you would normally follow the track of a healthy society, up through the level of becoming a professional, of some kind, on the level of what we would call a "doctoral" level. You would go into society as a professional; you would help to change the society; you would be one of the leaders of society, in economy and other respects. And you would be the leading edge of progress for the society as a whole. And our goal would be to have the entire adolescent population, continue into that same kind of program, to the same level of development over the coming period; to establish a kind of true parity within the society, a truly healthy society, which can think together.
We're not there yet. But that's the direction we have to move in.
So therefore, you are capable, of more readily assimilating ideas, such as what I've indicated to be the significance of Gauss's 1799 attack on d'Alembert, Euler, and Lagrange, on the issue of the fundamental theorem of algebra. This I've explained in other writings; I won't go through that here. That doesn't mean that all of you will instantly grab the solution. It means that some among you, as in any good university, will struggle through the process, and will actually begin to see the solution, to the paradoxes which I posed, and others posed. Then, you, in your discussions with others, say, "Now look, I don't understand it. Explain it." So therefore, you have a collegial process, among people in the movement, where some people grasp the idea more quickly than others, and by this kind of social process, the conception, the world outlook, is developed among you all. You share a common world outlook. You're able to work together.
You are, therefore, able to turn around, even as younger adults, to turn around to the previous generation, and to begin to educate them. And, that's how we're going to save society. It won't be done in any other waybut, it has to be done fast. And, we're doing it.
Now, you also have, as I've indicated in another location, where we're discussing this: You've got to realize, in the great sweep of history, what the great historical opportunity is before your generation: a greater opportunity than before any generation before you. You may feel like you're the "lost generation"; the "hopeless generation"; thrown in the mud, especially when you find yourself in a university classroomyou say, "This is really a mud-hole, isn't it?," an intellectual mud-hole.
But, you are actually in a unique position, as a generation: Because we have, presently, with our knowledgein parts of Europe, the United States, and so forth, especiallywe have the ability, to produce from your generation, the beginnings of a new kind of mankind: A mankind, which really understands the implications of what is typified, by the issues posed by Gauss in that 1799 paper, which is why I emphasized it. Once you understand what an idea is, which very few university graduates in science, or professors in physical science, understand to the present dayall of you are potentially capable of understanding that, and similar ideas. That change, from ideologywhich is what present science; today, what is taught as science is largely ideology. There are some truthful elements and very useful elements, in it. But it's all corrupted by this thick layer of ideology, coming directly out of things, of such as the influence of Lagrange and his successors. It's corrupted. You are capable of approaching this question, of how mankind thinks, how mankind is capable of organizing, in a way, which no generation before you has ever succeeded in doing. Yes, exceptional individuals, in previous generations, have done that. But, no leading layer of an entire generation, has ever succeeded in understanding this principle, upon which all true science is based: A principle on which an understanding, of the dynamic of history in general, is premised.
So, you have an unique opportunity.
My objective, as an old geezer, is to lead this nation safely out of the mess it has made for itself, and, to, in the process, mobilize people like you, to prepare to take over the society, to prepare to qualify yourself to play that unique rolein this case, as Americansthat unique role, which will lead man out of the dustbin of the past, into what is truly a true republic, or a republican form of government. And, a certain kind of humanity, among the sovereign nations of the world in general. You are capable of playing that role. My job, is to spark a process, which gets us out of this mess, and inspire you, or people like you, to undertake that great opportunity, that life-challenge, which lies before you.
Okay, that's what I have to say, so far.
DIALOGUE WITH LAROUCHE
Question: Hi, Mr. LaRouche. My name is Ed Clark, and I was curious about the history of the migration of people into North America, where the first humansthat sort of thing? Could you shed any light on that subject?
Lyndon LaRouche: Well, this is an area of a lot of terra incognita, in terms of subject-area. We really don't know. For example, you know how I define the difference between a man and an ape, which is kind ofshall we saythat's rather crucial for following me in anything. And, you probably have some comprehensive, if not a full comprehension, at least, of what I mean by my view of Vernadsky's definition of the Nöosphere; and the distinction among the abiotic phase-space; living, anti-entropic phase-space; and the cognitive, or specifically human Nöospheric phase-space.
But, taking that into account, we can not assume, that mankind as a species did not live on this planet for about the past 2 million years [?]. Now, this is 2 million years, which are defined, approximately, by the way in which the planetary shift of the plates, created the conditions under which we would have this glaciation of Antarctica and glaciation periodically, across much of the Northern Hemisphere.
Under these periods of glaciations, the seas would fall to levels about 400 feet below the present. And then, when the glaciers melted, the seas would come back to approximately their present world levels.
I also know, from studies I've done on this, that the development of civilization did not occur on land, in the sense of, interior of land-areas. Anyone who studied the nature of these things, would appreciate that: That, actually, civilization was developed around maritime cultures. Because the place you could get the greatest amount of food, to feed any concentration of population, was in the mouths of great rivers, near oceans, and so forth. That's where you get the fish. And this supply of fish from the sea, has been very crucial for mankind to get through some rather difficult periods.
Now, also, we know that, looking at the studies of vegetables, as I've looked at some of the work done in India, where they've collected wild seeds from all parts of the world, with the idea of being able to go back to the original, wild seed, because most of the seeds we use for plants are cultivated seeds, and these tend to have problems, after a period of time. So, the tendency is obviously to go back, and let's look at the primary source seed-form, and try to re-trace, re-enact the development of derivatives of that in the form of usable forms of plant life.
So, the way this occurred, is that the seeds came from all parts of the world, into various parts of the world. For example, you havemuch of the edible plant life of the Mediterranean region, came from an area at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea, in an area which is now northern Morocco, the so-called Atlas region. So, it was the Atlas culture, which provided, over the past 12,000 years or so, most of the food culture of the Mediterranean/European region and Egypt.
On this basis, and on the basis of certain digging deeper and deeper into the past, we don't know how long man has been on this planet. But we do know, the idea of talking about the American Indian as aboriginal, is nonsense. There have been populations moving around in the Americas, over long periods of time. There have been colonizations, like that of Central America, which came from China. There were large-scale maritime cultures, which trans-navigated the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, over thousands of years.
If you look at some of the calendars that survive from ancient times, you find remarkable evidence of the existence of maritime cultures. For example: Why would you find, in some ancient Central Asian calendars, evidence of the magnetic pole shift, which occurs as a long-cycle shift, in the Earth, where the magnetic pole migrates? Now, how would a land-based people ever get the idea of checking the magnetic pole shift? They didwell, obviously. So, the cultures are very ancient, and therefore, we can assume that humanity, as humanitythey may have looked somewhat different; they may have had larger jaws, or different shaped heads, or so forthbut, they're human beings, essentially, with all the capacities of any human being today. Different shapes and sizes, and skin colors, and whatnot. But, they're wandering all over the planet, back and forth, with these migrations. So, that, what we should do, is rejoice to find, that in North America and elsewhere, we can find traces of all kinds of cultural histories of mankind.
For example, take about 1000 A.D., you have a place in part of Newfoundland, which was a village, settled by the Norman-Irish, that is, by the Scandinavian-Irish. You know, the Scandinavians moved into the Ireland, and had a dominant influence in Ireland for a while. And from there, they moved into places like Iceland. In a warmer part of the world's climate, they settled in Greenland; they moved to Labrador; and they had permanent settlements on Newfoundland, among other places.
Many of the Indian tribes, so-called, were actually descended from the Irish, down along the Mississippi Valley. They were wiped out by disease later on, but they were obviously descended from the Irish.
So, the cultures are all over the world. And, for us, it is a fascinating subject, and it is a beautiful subject, to look at the prehistory of mankind, and to see it, and to trace and study and try to understand what some of this pre-history represents, in terms of the relics available to us today. I think it's a fascinating subject; it enriches the mind. And, even if doesn't have much use otherwise, it enriches the mind, and that is very useful.
The Principle of the Socratic Dialogue
Q: Hi, Mr. LaRouche. I've been an organizer for about four months now, and the more and more I study, the more I realize how serious this fight is. And, in organizing, I'd like to increase my energy throughput, in getting people a sense of this, that I've already kind of begun. And I think it goes through the simultaneity of eternity, and I'd like you toI don't knowelaborate for the group, and myself, this idea.
LaRouche: First of all, the main thing is the group. The youth organizing, as I've defined it, does not work effectivelyand in very rare individuals it maybut, you won't get a youth movement in a simple individual-by-individual case. You have to look at, and read, and study Plato's Socratic dialoguesnot one at a time, but get the feel of all of them, and the topics they cover. One aspect you must watch closely, in studying these: I've told people, "Don't just read them." I've recommended that people try to play the parts of the participants of the dialogue, as a Classical dramatic actor would; or as a cast of Classical dramatic actors. Try to re-create, in a way which is credible to you, and credible to onlookers watching this performance, that they are seeing a living performance of the type that existed in the mind of Plato, in writing these dialogues.
Because, then you see a principle involved: the principle of the so-called Socratic dialogue, the Socratic principle. It's when you have a social interaction, among a group of people, that you get the highest rate of fertility of development, of two things: first of all, of the knowledge, because you will always learn more, or in healthy situations, more by interchanging with other people. Yes, you have to have long periods of concentration by yourself. But, this has to be accompanied by an enriching exchange of the principled nature of ideas, among others. And so, you have a group of young people committed to this kind of dialogue. That's number one.
This gives you a sense, also, of how to communicate. See, you go out to a guy on the street, and you want to organize him. He's full of all kinds of nonsense. But, how do you get his attention? Sometimes, it takes a whole bunch of youfive or sixstanding on a corner, to get one guy going through the hurdle that you set up there; and finally, they'll get an idea. You challenge them: You challenge their assumptions. You show there's a paradox, in what they think is a simple matter of belief, on their part. And they'll stop. They'll turn. They'll look at youif you succeed. "You got my attention, buddy. What do you mean?"
So therefore, that demonstrates the power of communication. You get the same thing with a great playwright, and the great actors, in a Classical drama. You won't see much of that on a Hollywood screen, or the video screen, these days. But in Classical drama, you'll see it. And you have a sense, that what's being demonstrated to you thereonce you see the idea behind the dramawhat's demonstrated to you, is a method of communication.
Now, this is not simply a way of "getting your point across." This is actually a way of transmitting knowledge to other people. And that is being effective, eh? Instead of yelling at them, or beating them up, or something, and saying, "Do as I tell you," you're trying to get something in them, to understand what you're saying, to accept its veracity, to feed it back to you, and to practice it, and to improve their practice in society, because of that experience.
So, your two things are: Experience this role of cognition, the Socratic dialogue, as a method of digesting ideas, proposing ideas, solving paradoxes. That's number one. And you have to have people who get big into that. Number two: See through the eyes of the great dramatists and the great actors, actor-companies. See how this applies to a method of communication, of actual ideas, of ideas of principle. That's where the power comes from. That's how you accelerate your capability.
Organizing: Solving Paradoxes
Q: And my question goes along with Aaron's. I just, I would like to hear some ideas you might have on how to keep your patience, you know, with people a little longer. I feel like I'm building up a stack of enemies some times.
LaRouche: I look at that exactly.
Well, I think it's the same way. It does go along with that, the same way. If you practice this, by doing the Socratic method in dialogues. I mean, you've got all kinds of things to discuss, and I'm sure that among you, as you discuss, if you do it as I hear it's being done, you're actually getting a feel of that. That you find out that, compared to what you get in a typical university classroom, you find that you can, in a sense, learn faster, this way. Which is what should happen in a university classroom, but it doesn't, unfortunately. You learn faster when you go at it by this Socratic method, because you're actually looking at the thing as solving a paradox; you're looking at everything from a higher standpoint.
If you get at the idea of communicating, of the Socratic method as a method of communication of ideas, then, when you face a frustrating situation, rather than responding with anger, and frustration, you say, "What's the paradox?" "Let me stand back and look at myself talking to this guy. What's wrong here? What's his assumption? And why am I pounding, perhaps, on the wrong door? Maybe I should hit this thing on a flank."
The guy says, "Well, I don't think your man is going to make it. I don't think popular opinion will accept him." Well, you say, "Well, what if popular opinion, unless it's changed, will send us all to Hell? Do you think that people would like to survive? If popular opinion is going to go to Hell, are they willing to give up some part of popular opinion, for the sake of surviving? Do you think that's possible? Or do you think people are hopelessly insane?"
And, that's a paradox for them. It's a real paradox. It could be expressed in various ways. If the guys is thinking, he's got to think. "Well, I believe in this." "Yes, but how did we get to this mess? Look at the rules of accounting. Don't you believe now, that every accountant is crooked? Not because they intend to be, but because the rules by which they play are crooked? Don't you believe that what is accepted in the Congress, and the so-called free-trade system, is inherently crooked? Doesn't Enron teach you something?"
You've got all these examples. "Don't you think the splitting of the generation of power from distribution of power, by lawdon't you think that was kind of nuts? Isn't the function of energy generation and distribution, to provide energy, for the economy and its people, at a fixed price, or a fairly determined price, which makes it usable for the people? Isn't it the function to have enough of that for the entire area, for all the needs of the population? Don't you think perhaps, then, there's something wrong with the opinion that keeps voting for free trade?"
These are just typical of the many kinds of paradoxes which are floating out there, ready to be tapped. And you have to judge, of course, get more and more insight, into the population, and what goes on in people's minds, to know which paradox is most likely, or is at least going to be effective, in getting them to see that what they're saying is paradoxical. That what they're saying they wish to defend, as an opinion, conflicts with what they think their fundamental interest ought to be. And that's the only waythat the only way you can solve this problem.
It's always this method, the Socratic method.
When India Came Close to Revolution
Q: Hi, Mr. LaRouche. You have said that one of the things that shaped your understanding of inside politics, or real politics, was the Calcutta riots. And I was reading your biography, and you said that at that time, an independent government of India could have been established in Calcutta. And that the nationalists had the situation in their hand, and did nothing. I'm looking for an answer, if you have an explanation ... that Stalin and Churchill had agreed on Indian independence in 1947. Could you elaborate on that?
LaRouche: Oh, sure. I became, because of what I am, just naturally, I was in a sense a typical, atypical American. That is, most of the GIs, whom I knew, who passed through the China-Burma-India theater, had a sense, which coincided pretty much with the direction that Roosevelt's actions were leading: the idea of the independence of former colonial nations.
If you saw what I saw then, you'd see the extreme poverty, the deprivation, the cruelty, toward people, shown by the colonial powers, in those parts of the world. And the extreme poverty. You had a sense that this is wrong. And what we had to do, if we were going to have security in the postwar worldbecause by that time, it's pretty obvious the war was overthat we had to make sure that these nations emerged as sovereign republics, which were able to focus on their own fundamental interests, and their interest in good relations with other countries.
So, it was obvious to me that the British raj, had to go, absolutely. This was the most fundamental interest.
Now, I'm an American, I'm not an Indian, and I'm not a British subject. But here I am, under the command of this crazy Lord Louis Mountbattenhe was actually my commander in that area; he was both Governor-General, and the head of the military CBI organization, so I was actually under his command. So, here I am. I go into Calcutta, and in Calcutta, naturally I mingled with the population. I want to know the Indians. I had only seen the Indians, in India as such, in passing, on my way into Burma, and coming back out of Burma, coming down from the upper Ledo area, coming into Calcuttawonderful. And the Bengalis are wonderful people. They're a very excitable people in a sense. They're quick, very quick, very witty, very curious, and very social. They're less withdrawn, and much more raucous, in a way, than Indians from other parts of India.
So, I had a grand time. I made a lot of friends among Indians. I would just meet them on the streets, and meeting one would lead to another, would lead to anotherI met all kinds of people, in a very quick, very rapid succession. So, very quickly, I got a feel of the inside of the society.
Now, it happened that, this one case, in Calcutta there is a cross, in the center of Calcutta City is a park called the Maidan. It's a very large park. And over on the other side of the park, was the Governor-General's palace. Then there's the main street, which runs down there, by the park side, which is Chowringee, sort of a boulevard, the fashionable street. And then a cross street, called Daramtala, which runs on the top side of the park, runs in the direction of the Governor-General's palace, and in other directions. Comes from the direction of the railroads, for example.
So, I met some of my friends there, who were leading a routine procession, a protest, an Indian Independence protest. And they were going with a bunch of people from some trade unions, to make this routine political demonstration at the Governor-General's palace. Now, this happened all the time, and usually without any particular bloodshed. At least since the earlier food riots there. So, this time they went there, and some of my friends were killed, because the guards suddenly made a charge with these lathis which is a brass tip on a bamboo stake. And they killed some of these kids, and others.
So, this set forth an explosion in Calcutta, an overripe explosion. And they had a mass marching down Daramtala, toward the intersection of Daramtala and Chowringee, which is the direction of the Governor-General's palace. At that point, the British police, with heavy machine guns, set themselves in front of the crowd, and machine-gunned the crowd, coming down the streeta closely packed crowd filling the street. This set forth another chain reaction, which eventually resulted in millions of Indians from Bengal, all over Bengal, pouring into the city, and marching, for successive days. And you had a mixture of "Jai Hind!" ("Long live India!") from the Hindus, and Pakistan "Jindabha!" ("Long live Pakistan!"), from the Muslims, and they were both marching together, as one solid group, against the British raj.
If, at that moment, somebody had simply gonebecause they controlled the cityif somebody had gone to the Governor-General's office, and said, "We're now declaring, here, the independence of India," India would have become independent. It's that simple. Because you had a total vacuum. It was a total, classical revolutionary situation. The authorities on the scene had been totally discredited. No government on the scene had any credibility, and you had a mass of the population, which had a very simple objective: now is enough. Now is the time for our independence. They could have had it right then and there.
That was quite a lesson for me.
How Nation-States Were Created
Q: Hello, Lyn, this is Quincy. I'm in the Los Angeles field. You had, in answer to an earlier question, you said that we as a species, had been running around the planet for a long time now. How does the concept of national sovereignty develop? When does a certain group, when is a certain group able to say, "this is our sovereign land?" And then, in that context, because the process of developing colonies, colonization, how was thatI've known it in terms of colonialism, as a negative experience, but how would you fit in the colonization of the Americas, and the development of the United States?
LaRouche: First of all, there were no nations, in general. The condition of mankind on this planet, as far as we know, was essentially, some people treating other people as human cattle. Either wild cattle, to be slaughtered, or tamed cattle, to be herded, bred, and culled. The majority of the population lived as human cattle. These were not nations, they had none of the attributes of nations. There were certain cultural currents, but the cultural currents were divided by the fact of a man-eat-man culture. So, a man-eat-man culture is an evil culture, intrinsically.
So, all we know of the cultures, is that most of them were evil, in this respect. They're based, as many parts of the world still are today, on some people eat other people. Some people enslave other people. Either in formal slavery, as chattel slavery, or in informal forms of slavery, such as the condition of many Mexican-Americans, for example, Mexicans working in the United States. They're implicitly slaves. They get paid a little bit, but they do not have rights. The U.S. government does not recognize the rights of these people, even though the Mexican government has given many of them identity cards, which identify them as Mexican citizens.
So, the idea that all these fine people, with these nice cultures, and these terrible fellows came in, and imposed these bad cultures, colonial cultures, on them, is bunk. That is not human history. Everything I know of human history, is mostly ugly, in this respect.
The first time that we had a conception of a nation-state, in a functional sense, was, as an idea, in Greece. The clearest expression of that idea was, first of all, Solon of Athens, whose idea was expressed not only by what he did to overthrow the debt-holders of Athens, but in a poem he wrote, to the Athenians, in his older years, where he scolded them, for the way they had betrayed their revolution, which had given them their freedom.
The second one was, of course, Plato's conception of the republic, which had no real precedent, except this thing from Solon. And it was never realized, except as an idea.
The first time this was realized, was in the 15th Century in Europe, where, as a result of several things, the Europeans created the first two sovereign nation-states: France under Louis XI and England under Henry VII. The distinction of these, is that the idea was, that prior to that, in Europe, especially under the Babylonian Empire, the ideas of Sparta, the ideas of the Roman Empirethe idea was that a ruling group herded the rest as human cattle. There was no notion of a right of a human being. There was the notion of a right of a power, over human beings, who'll be treated as cattle.
This was the condition of mankind, throughout the planet, to the extent we know. There were no good cultures, in that sense. There were no colonial oppressors who came in and crushed good people. It didn't happen that way. All people are born good, but all societies have been, so far, pretty much bad.
So, when you talk about oppression, you have to look at it from the standpoint of the Sublime. What should we be giving people, as justice? What should we be doing? Now that we know we should do it, aren't we obliged to do it? The difference in the 15t-Century Renaissance was, that the king had no authority, except as he efficiently promoted, and served, the general welfare of existing and future generations. That's the difference.
Prior to that time, in Europethat is, from the time that we know in, says, ancient Mesopotamia, through the 15th Century, the idea of law was imperial law. Imperial law meant, what is meant in the mouths of the Romans, when they called it Pontifex Maximus.
The way the thing worked, is you had, as in the case of the Pantheon, the Roman Pantheonand you had various pantheons in history, which you can find. The Mesopotamian pantheons, and so forth. You have different religions and different cultural groups, which were organized as religions, official religions. So the Romans, for example, in the Pantheon, would set up, in these niches, they would set up these images. Each image corresponded to a specific religion.
Now, the religions were all subjects of a Pontifex Maximus, who we call "Emperor" in later usage. This continued. This was the characteristic of European civilization, from the Roman Empirebefore that, actually, but from the Roman Empire, in particularuntil the 15th Century. And this is what we find in every part of the world. India, Africa, and so forth. You find predominantly, to the extent we have any evidence, this is the way it worked. You have an imperator, who made the law, above religions. In other words, the imperator represented a world religion, like the Moonies, or like the Moral Rearmament, which placed itself above all other religions, as Prince Philip demands a "world religion," above all other religions. They attempt to codify every religion, to be supervised by a state, or imperial authority. So, the Catholic religion, the various Protestant sects, Islam, and so forth, would all be subject to directives by the emperor, who would tell them what it was lawful to believe. And if they didn't believe it, you could be hunted down by the Roman legionnaires, or others, to kill them off. Which, as you see, is an idea that's emerging among certain circles, utopian circles, in the United States right now. That's the situation.
What happened in the 16th Century, is, the Venetians, who represented the old systemthey were an imperial maritime power, based on financier oligarchical powerthey dominated the Mediterranean from about 800 A.D. up until the 17th Century. They launched, with their Hapsburg puppets, they launched a religious warfare, beginning in Spain, from 1511 to 1648. It was an attempt to destroy civilization.
Despite the work of Cardinal Mazarin, and of his protege, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, in establishing the first steps of modern civilization, and getting through the Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the religious wars, in 1648despite that, the world was corrupted. By the fact that the Renaissance, which had actually established a precedent for the modern nation-state, had been ruined by this religious warfare, organized by a corrupt Papacy, and with the Hapsburg influence leading, but also many others, on a world scale: It ruined European civilization.
So, it came down to the point, that only in North America, in English-speaking North America, could you establish a republic. We established it, but we couldn't hold it, because we found ourselves isolated in the world, and subject to internal, as well as external, problems, mostly imposed from outside, from Europe. The Spanish monarchy was always the enemy of humanity. There was no case in which it wasn't, from the time of Charles I on. The Spanish culture was corrupted, therefore, you could not get a true republic. The way we got republics in the Americas, was on the basis of the American model, which resulted eventually, in the evolution of the Mexican model, in South America, in Argentina, and so forth. Other countries adopted this model, based on the American model, and largely under the direct influence of the United States. And also, the United States, in itself, was never intrinsically a colonial power. The Confederates were. The American Tories were. But the United States was never a colonial power.
The policy of the United States was, you had to keep European systems out of the Americas. You could not let Europeans establish colonies in North America. Because European systems, of continental Europe, or the British, would destroy us, and destroy the possibility of a republic on this planet. Therefore, we had this doctrine of Manifest Destiny, which took shapewas actually the idea in the mind of people like Franklin, and President George Washington, and othersbut it took shape essentially in our diplomacy, through the functioning of John Quincy Adams as Secretary of State, later, and in the articulation of this idea by James Blaine, another great diplomat of the United States. The idea of Manifest Destiny is: We must unite the nation from coast to coast, to exclude the possibility of any European intervention to colonize North America, and the Americas in general. Our policy was, to defend the independence of emerging republics in South and Central America: that is, to keep all European powers out of the Americas. Because otherwise, we couldn't have republics, and we wanted a community of republics, in the Americas.
Our policy toward China, was similar. This continued to become, as Blaine indicates, our Pacific policy. Our policy was: China must develop as an independent nation. The nations of the Pacific must develop a community of nations, as we desired for the Americas. And we must fight for that. Sun Yat-sen, who was educated by U.S., by the tradition, actually, of John Quincy Adams, through the American Missionary Society, was educated, became the leader of the creation of modern China, is an expression of that.
The British used the Japanese Emperor, from 1894 on towell, actually, Hirohito wasn't to blame, but through 1945, the British used the Japanese emperor, as a way of trying to disrupt a stable China, and to prevent the United States from having a Manifest Destiny relationship to the nations of South and East Asia.
So, that's real history. So the idea of colonialism, case by case, and so forth, makes no sense. All cultures generally stink. All were unjust to their subjects. And that injustice persists today.
The problem is not to remove injustice, because the injustice lies in the systems. It lies in the system of the existing nations and peoples. Our job is to get the people to uplift themselves, to a higher level, so they don't do that to themselves any more. And don't allow others to do it to others anymore.
This is broadly what the policy of Franklin Roosevelt was. The end of the war, he told Churchill plainly, at the end of the war, your British system, your 18th-Century methods in economics. That is, the methods of Adam Smith, and your colonial system, is doomed. We're going to shut you down as soon as the war is over. And we're going to free these nations, and we're going to help them to develop, as independent nations. That's smart policy. The policy is to help the nations of the world develop as independent, sovereign nations, so we can live in a safe world, free of what we fought against, especially in the cases of the degeneration of the cultures and systems of Europe.
Assert Only What You Know
Q: Good day, Mr. LaRouche. My name is Dax from Los Angeles, and my question is: In the process of discovery, how can you distinguish between truth and myth, in reference to religion?
LaRouche: Ah, that's what I do all the time!
I've laid it out in this paper recently, exactly that. You stick to what you know. Don't assert anything you don't know. Don't assert something because you were taught it. Assert only what you know. And if you're asked about something else, say, "Well, I don't know." Or if you do know it's wrong, you say, " Well, in my belief, it's wrong." But generally you emphasize, what I know is the following.
Now you start from very elementary principles, as I do: What is the difference between man and a monkey? I'll bet you a lot of Republicans couldn't tell you. They wouldn't know the difference. And you can tell by their marriage habits, they probably don't know the difference. So, that's the difference between man and a monkey: this cognitive power.
Because this is a power, an efficient physical power, in the universe, unique; not found in any beast, not found in so-called abiotic nature. This power is a universal physical power in the universe: the power of cognition. This tells you that the universe is organized. The fact that we can discover a principle, and control the universe to that degree, like the principle of gravitation, for example. Or the principles of least action, or quickest path. Or the principles of the fundamental theorem of algebra, of Gauss. We control universal processes, as a willful act of mankind, through these discoveries. Thus we know that these discoveries are true, because we discovered them, we are able to validate them experimentally, in a way which shows they have a universal charactertherefore, we know it.
Therefore, we know the universe is organized that way.
Well, what's the organization of the universe? It's God. The will of God. As Kepler says, the intention, God's intention, determines gravitation. That you know.
There are other things you know. You know, for examplethe case of Christ. And it becomes clear when you look at this crazy Mooniethis actually Satanic cultit's an anti-Christ cult, the Moonies. His doctrine is, that sex is God. He is the god of sex, and his job is to breed women, and men, by sex. And to control sexual behavior, and to create a religion of sexand also money. Wealth and sex.
We've seen this before. This is the classical gnostic cult form, from the First Century A.D. this kind of stuff. One gnostic would say: Christ did not die, he went off and married Mary Magdalene; they went off to Tibet and made a race of people. That's one gnostic cult. Another gnostic cult says, no, Christ failed. That's Moon. And Moon says, "I'm God." And he publishes statements saying, "I'm quoting God," and God is saying, according to Moon, "Moon is my man." And Jesus is saying, "I failed. Moon is the guy who's going to do what I failed to do." That is religion? Well, it's the anti-Christ doctrine.
And it's pretty filthy stuff on top of it. I mean, the biggest dope peddlers we know of, the biggest single group of dope-peddlers we know of, are the Moonies. They are also a rightwing fascist organization, which were created.
During the Korean war, you had two groups in Korea. One group had fought against the Japanese occupation of Korea. The other group had been agents of the Japanese in Korea. The group in Japan, for whom the latter group had been agents, were revived by the United States and Britain, at the outbreak of the Korean War. And the Koreans, with the backing of these Japanese, who had been part of the former policy, set up an organization with the intent to control Korea. This organization was reflected in what became known as the KCIA, now nominally headed by Bo Hi Pak, Colonel Bo Hi Pak. And they picked up this bum, a brainwashed bum, out of the prisoner, political prisoner camps, of North and South Korea, a bum who had actually been indicted and convicted of child-molesting on a large scale. Sexual child-molesting. And they made him a religious figure. on the model of the Bertrand Russell-H.G. Wells Moral Rearmament movement.
This became the integral part, from Korea, of an international organization, which is international fascism today. It's racist, it's fascist, it's drug-pushers, it's corruption, it's everything of that type. And it's the anti-Christ.
So, therefore, when you're faced with something like that, you say, "Well, I know. This is not a question of a difference of opinion. I know. I know what kind of a beast this is, what it represents." It's a denial of the difference between man and the beast. When you say that the sex act defines man, as opposed to reason, you're degrading man to a beast. If you say God is based on this principle, then you're degrading God to a beast. And that's pretty nasty stuff. It's dangerous stuff. I don't think God would like it very much, actually. I'd do something about it.
But that's the nature of the situation. So, therefore, my point on this: Stick to what you know, in a scientific sense, to be true. And it's also possible to apply that method to know certain religious things.
For example, did Christ die uselessly? Did Christ die for mankind? Of course, he did. Did he die to rescue mankind from evil? Yeah, from the Roman Empire. Did he sacrifice himself for that? Yes. How? He sacrificed himself exactly as described by Socrates.
Socrates had the ability to leave Athens, after this frameup trial, and not die. He said, "I will not abandon Athens. I will accept the death penalty, rather abandoning my country." He died for his people. Witness the Apology and so forth, and the question of the immortality of the soul, as presented by Plato, and also as discussed by Moses Mendelssohn, deal with exactly that. Now, did this happen? Is this the effect? Of course it is.
Did the image of Christ's sacrifice inspire humanity to overcome the degradation, the satanic degradation, which was the Roman Empire? Absolutely. It was under the inspiration of Christianity, and its reverberations on Islam, and its reverberations in Judaism, which enabled European civilization to develop, as a civilized form. Otherwise, it would not have done. So, therefore, we know, as a matter of fact, that what Christ said his mission was, is what he accomplished. To save mankind.
This is what Jeanne d'Arc, in saving the people of France. Again, the sublime act. You know that your talent, your model talent, is finite; that you're going to die sooner or later. Therefore the question is, your interest in life, is how you should spend it. Not when you should spend it, but how you should spend it. As Martin Luther King did. Martin Luther King walked in the footsteps of Christ. And the reason that the civil rights movement failed, all the leaders around him, the top leaders around him, all failedevery one of themafter he died, is that none of them were willing to walk in the footsteps of Christ, as he was.
So, there are some things we know. And many things we don't know. I'm not worried about what I don't know, not in this matter. I take what I do know, and that's enough for me. And if I claimed any more, I'd be a faker. And I don't intend to become a faker.
What Happened to the Civil Rights Movement?
Q: I'm Germain, from the Los Angeles office. In the period between the '40s and the '60s, when FDR catapulted the nation out of depression and war, African-Americans, in particular, that I associate with, give the argument that the revolution in policy-making, and infrastructure-building, that FDR headed, was ineffective and unchanging to our plight.
My question is, what will the renewing of these policies, and others, do to really elevate those who are at the bottom of the barrel, so to speak?
LaRouche: There's a fraud in that argument, by those sources, because they choose to interpret what they choose to interpret, and they ignore the facts.
The characteristic feature of the Roosevelt Administration, is that, except for a few people called Uncle Toms, African-Americans deserted the Republican Party, and joined the Democratic Party. Why did they do that? Because they understood the process in which they were engaged.
The African-Americans, so-called, or Americans of African descent, which is a more accurate termI don't think there are, I don't believe in hyphenated Americans, I believe there are Americans of African descent, and mostly of partial African descent; it's also Cherokee descent, and so forth. This African-American thing is too much of a stereotype. But, persons of African descent, or designated as having African descent, or self-designated as having African descentwhat difference does it make? They're all Americans. They all have rights. And discrimination against any of them, is the issue.
Now, the problem is this: The Democratic Party, with a few exceptions here and there, was the party of slavery and treason, from its inception with President Andrew Jackson, the guy who destroyed the Cherokee nation, until Roosevelt. And that was the basic issue. The party of slavery and treason, with a few exceptions here and there, and some. Roosevelt changed that. It was the American Whigs, typified by Lincoln, who freed the slavesin the only way in which that could be done. It was the assassination of Lincoln, and some other problems, in New York, the New York Republicans, who allowed, in 1877, and so forth, allowed the reversal and, with the aid of Democrats such as the Woodrow Wilson, to bring in the Jim Crow. Grover Cleveland was a key part of Jim Crow, the Democrat from New York.
Teddy Roosevelt was a key part of the same process. Woodrow Wilson was the guy who reorganized, revived the Klan, from the White House. Coolidge was part of the same process. Roosevelt changed it.
Now, what you're dealing with is a process of revolutionary change. Revolutionary change back to the intent of the Constitution.
The development of the nation was the precondition for freeing people from the legacy of Jim Crow and slavery before that. And the problem is, that the people who make these criticisms, are people who will generally condemn Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass typifies the freed slave. The freed slave wanted the best of European culture; he demanded it as a right, and got it as a right. Frederick Douglass and his sons epitomized that, of the freed-slave movement.
The problem was that after Lincoln's assassination, people came in with this idea that: Don't educated freed slaves above their future station in life. Keep them poor and simple, and down on the farm. Don't give them funny ideas about actual equality. So the education of the so-called African-American, after freedom, in the United States, was more and more patronizing degeneracy. We had to change the policy.
The policy is not some reform. The policy is a commitment to the principle of humanity, and the principle of humanity means the development of the human quality of the individual, the mind, above all. The freedom to express that. The ability to live a longer time. And the changes that were made, and the conditions that led to the Civil Rights movement, the Brown v. Board, and similar kinds of things, the basis for this was laid in the Roosevelt Administration, during the 1930s and 1940s.
The impetus for this came out of the war. The returning soldier, of African descent, returned to the United States, after the end of the Second World War, as too significantly after the First World War, where he had a similar phenomenon on a smaller scalethis person of African descent was not going to take the crap that the earlier generation had taken. So, you had this movement, which was betrayed. And the betrayal of Martin Luther King, happened early. It happened in the early '60s, before his assassination. It happened with people like Stokely Carmichael, with a lot of so-called black nationalist movements, which were used to divide the struggle, which was led by Martin Luther King by that time. And to say, "No, we don't want to mix with 'whitey.' We want our own separate nation." And that is what destroyed, or contributed greatly, to destroying all the achievements of civil rights.
You haveeven the leaders of the so-called African-descent movements today, who made no protest against the Democratic Party's overthrow, with the consent of the Supreme Court, overthrow of the Voting Rights Act of 1964.
So, these are the problems, with dealing with these guys. They're faking it. Somebody tells them something. They go out and they say a lie. They probably got it from Moonies. Like this reparations language the Moonies brought. When Satan brings you something, boy, be careful, be careful about accepting it. The Moonie says, "Well, Moon may be Satan, but his money's good." That is when "Old Scratch" comes in and takes over.
So, that's the problem. The point is the people who make the argument themselves, are corrupt. Because they don't tell the truth. They don't even try to find out what the truth is, which is sometimes worse than telling a lie.
The truth is, that the process that began with Roosevelt, is what led to the possibility of what was achieved in the civil rights movement in the postwar period. And that effort was already in progress, during the 1930s, under Roosevelt. And, the public works project was one of the major steps in liberating people of African descent, from the kinds of problems which had existed under Wilson, Coolidge, and so forth.
Jobs! Eating! Agriculture! All these improvements benefitted everybody, and the idea of getting these improvements, and the war experience, gave courage to those who supported the Civil Rights cause in the postwar period.
Setting the Stage in the Audience's Imagination
Q: I was wondering about the principle of infinity, based on the maximum/minimum principle.
LaRouche: Well, I don't like that term, because, the way it's used, it creates more problems than it solves. I think the better way to look at it, is to look at the way in whichuse the example, which Leibniz developed, in discussion with Jean Bernouilli, of the principle of least action. That's a very clear demonstration.
And, then, you go to a next step. You take the principle of least action, which is actually the idea of the generalized catenary function; or the catenoid function, or the hyper-catenoid function. And you take that principle (which is the basis of natural logarithmic functions, actually); and you take that, and you put it inside Gauss's definition of the complex domain.
Now, when you do as I've done, and you say, "Now, what does this lead to?" It leads to Riemann's conception of a manifold (as in his 1854 habilitation dissertation), which is the extension of the idea of the complex domain, as expressed by Gauss, as early as 1799 in that report. But also in Gauss's work on the general principles of curvature, as in his Copenhagen essays of the middle 1820s. This becomes, then, as Riemann states, in the course of his habilitation dissertation, this becomes the basis for the generalized notion of the complex domain.
Now, in the complex domain, the question is, how are these physical principles related. And, Riemann points out, that you don't know how they're related from a mathematical/deductive standpoint. Therefore, to try to find a maximum/minimum principle, in terms of a deductive method, does not existthough many people try to do that; it doesn't function.
You have to realize, it's experiment, as in the third section of the dissertation, as Riemann emphasizes: It's entirely physical-experimental. As he says there: This take us out of the department of mathematics, into the department of physics.
So, what you're getting, though, in effect, is, the relationship within the manifold, defined by a Riemannian manifold, is one of curvature; it's a geodesic relationship. For example, in the universe, does the universe speed up or slow down, with an increase or decrease of the number of dimensional impulsesprinciples involvedin that phase-space? It does. So, the idea of least action, as defined by Leibniz, in connection with the catenoid function, that principle of least action is the principle which defines the characteristic, as Riemann defines it. The characteristic of action of the manifold.
So, as you change the number of principles, operating in the manifold, you change the manifold; the result is a change in the characteristic of the geodesic characteristic; that is to say, that the universe is speeding up or slowing down, based on the number of physical principles operating.
That's a more challenging approach. But, I think it's a better approach, because you know what you're doing every step of the way. Whereas attempts to try to get a deductive treatment, as if from a deductive model, of a maximum/minimum principle, it leads to confusion. And, people walk away, thinking they've solved the problem and understanding nothing.
The Principle of Irony in Art
Q: Hello, Lyn. This is Montez in Los Angeles. And I've been looking at the Science of Christian Economy for a while, and there was a section, where you were discussing the importance of polyphony and language in the communication of ideas. And I was wondering if you could give me more of a sense of what you were getting at, when you were talking about a "musically spoken construction geometry."
LaRouche: Right. Well, that's a nice idea. I like it. That's why I did it.
First of all, you go back and you say, "Think like a physicist. Don't think like an accountant." When you want to discuss science, you say, "Any accountants in the room?" They raise their hands. "Okay. You guys go in a closet and lock yourselves in, until we get this discussion over with." Because you don't want them around for this kind of discussion.
You start from physical reality, not formal, a priori, ivory tower, reality. Now, what is the speaking voice? It has been demonstrated that the human speaking/singing voice has certain physical characteristics, which are shown most clearly when the voice is trained, according to the Florentine standard of bel canto singing-voice training, and practice, and warm-ups. That is, a competent singer will always go through bel canto, of the Florentine bel canto type, as vocal exercises before singing. They will never go on stage, and just sing. They will always do the warm-ups beforehand, because you have to tune the voice. Just like tuning a musical instrument, right?
Now, this has certain implications. We have six basic types of voices, as singing-voice types, defined by registration. But then, you have among them, certain qualities, difference in qualities of singing-voice within these typeslike the various soprano, mezzo, tenor, baritone, bass. So, you have various singing qualities of the voice.
You also have, historically, you have the way the keys are defined by comma: That is, if you try to put all of these types of singing-voices together, and you engage in any change in modeminor/major are, of course, the archetypical mode in a well-tempered system, but not the only ones; all the other modes exist. But the minor/major near, neighboring-key principle goes in all composition.
Now, once you introduce the idea of counterpointthat is, one voice against the other, coming in against the otherin a fugal form, or something like that, you introduce a factor, of inversion and so forth; you introduce a factor: The comma becomes a very significant part of the behavior of the human voice, going up and down, in various key ranges, and through register shifts. So, this is the natural way, in which all human beings, who are not somehow deformed in their natural capacities, will speak: They will speak most efficiently; they won't strain their voices speaking so much; they will speak with more effectiveness; they will be more clearly understood and heardif they sing this way. And if they speak this way.
So, the normal process of human communication, in all languages, is that. This is expressed most clearly, when you study various languages, from the standpoint of Classical poetry. Now, the best we knowtake the case of what I learned in India, on the history of the Vedic Sanskrit literature, which dates essentially, from at least about 6000 B.C., something in that range. This literature was transmitted, obviously, largely by oral tradition. But, the scholars who investigated this, found that, even in the old tradition, very slight changes which occur from one case to the other, somehow there's a built-in memory-characteristic of this poetry. So that, even a chanter, who does not know what the words mean, will replicate these across quite a span of time!
So, thus, there's embedded a certain code, in the characteristics of the human speaking-singing voice. All of these, are characteristically sung. They have slightly different characteristics, based on the language: That is, if you go from the bel canto singing voice, from modern German, to Classical Italian and French, and so forth, you find there are certain differences; differences in the way the registration works. But, they all follow these laws.
So therefore, in poetry, what you're trying to do, is the followingand this comes back to the position of all Classical composition: If you're acting on stage, in a play, and if you're trying to get the audience to admire you, for your performance, as you, you're a bum actor. The great actor works as if from behind the mask, as in the Classical Greek drama. You're not trying to be seen, by the audience, as a person. You're trying to create on the stage of the audience's imagination, you're trying to create the character, and the situation which you're projecting, as an actor. So that, if the actorat the end of the performance, and you come back on stage, to take the bows, during the final curtain bowsif the audience is not astonished to see it's merely you, as the actor standing on stagenot the person they imagined, from the playthen you have failed as an actor.
Now, this is true in poetry. In poetry, as in all good communication: You are not trying to be admired, for the way you speak. What you're trying to do, is get the idea you're presenting, in a dramatic way, on the stage of the imagination of the hearer. You're trying to enable the hearer to re-create that character, that situation, on the stage of his or her imagination. Thus, this goes into the cognitive powers of the mind of the audience, rather than the sense-perceptual powers of the mind of the audience. And thus, the audience is capable of getting an idea, from a drama.
In all Classical poetry, the same is true: No poem of any worth, is ever recited, as if by a single speaker, in a single mode, from beginning to end. And when you hear most of these fellows reciting poetry: They don't have the slightest idea what poetry is, especially Classical poetry. They think there has to be a "right way of appearing"; a right kind of sing-song, or something. They don't have a sense. In an actual poem, the essence of Classical poetry, as Classical drama, is ironywhat's called Classical irony. These are always forms of paradox, or quasi-paradox. Metaphor is pure paradox.
So, in a poem, you will. What you should do is, listen to a very simple poem, relatively simple poem, by Goethe, as set by Schubert: Erlkoenig. By any great singer. Listen to the different voices, and get a sense of the importance of the difference in the voices, as the parts played by the singer, in the performance. And the essence of the poem, which is a fairly simple poem, like a ballade form; in this poem, the success of the poem, lies in the fact that you don't hear a single singer! You have a speaker, who introduces the character; you have a father; you have the Erlkoenig; you have the child, the son; you have the Erlkoenig's daughter; you have the Erlkoenig mother, brought in by reference. And all of these are actors, within a single poem! A continuing, single poem, a continuing, single song. And, obviously, Schubert has an insight, into what Goethe's intention is, and how the poem should be delivered! And Schubert gives a very good realization of Goethe's intention, in composing the poem.
Now, look at that, and similar types of poetry, and song, and you see the idea. The idea is not to be admired for your recitation. The idea is to make the audience forget about you. And to get something going, on the stage of their imagination. That's where they get the idea. The same thing true in any great Classical drama.
The same thing is true, in any scientific discussion. A scientist, who's trying to present an idea to a class, does not wish to be admired for his moustache, or his hairdo, or the cloak he wears; or his idiosyncracies with the chalk, or whatever. He wants you to ignore him, as a physical personality. He wants to get inside your imagination, to get you to concentrate on a paradox; and to be fascinated with trying to solve that paradox; and grabbing, eagerly, for any hints that might help you to solve the paradox. And, if you think you see something, you may raise your handsay, "Yeah, yeah, yeah!" You're excited. You're happy.
And that's the same thing that goes on in great poetry, and great Classical drama.
So, the function of these specific tonalities, in music, is to take that principle to the highest form; to go to the pure form of communication as such, as how the imagination is capable of developing complex ideas. For example, the case that I cited, of my experience in 1946it was January of '46with first hearing a Tchaikowsky symphony, as conducted by Wilhelm Furtwaengler. This changed my life, because his method of conducting, was precisely what I just described to you. It's called, "playing between the notes"; performing "between the notes," in one of his expressions for this. Which means, that, instead of playing the notes, pret-t-i-ly, for an audience, what you do is, you capture the imagination.
Furtwaengler's conducting, for example, is typical of a problem of a great performing artist: That, many musicians, who are excellent musicians; who know all the possible techniques, that they might desire; all possible knowledge of composition, that they might desirebut, they fail as performers. They fail from the first instant, that they perform. In any great performance, musical or otherwise, the first thing, is what's called "the lunge." What Furtwaengler would do, for example: He's hold back, let the audienceand the orchestra and the choruscompletely in anticipation: "When is he going to give the beat? When is he going to start?" And, he tricks 'em! He catches them off-balance, with a certain suddenness! And, they rehearse at this. And, that suddenness gets the performers to fall into place, in the sense of the way they perform. So, the idea is to capture the imagination of the audience, with the first note, the first tone. And, to keep that imagination going, as the flow of the composition, up to the very final note and its aftermath. So that, the audience, in a great performance, of a great work, experiences the performance as a unity of a single conception, which is going through a development, an unfolding, and conclusion.
And, that's the art. Therefore, the polyphony, the understanding of polyphony; the understanding of how people can speak; how they can sing; how they can convey ideas, rather than merely babble, so to speakwords, recite words. That is extremely importantly. Therefore, the very experience of learning to sing; learning to sing Classical composition; learning the principles of bel canto voice-training: Just learn the principles. Learn how to do it. You can begin to get the hang of it, very quickly; you'll begin to see the difference, very quickly. It may not be perfect, but you'll see what the difference its. Now you understand the difference. Now you can begin to follow it, musical performance, that is. Then, you're in the inside. You're in the inside of Classical culture. And you have a kind of power to understand, that other people may lack, who don't have that benefit.
LaRouche to Excelsior:
The IMF Is Bankrupt
Mexico's prominent national newspaper, Excelsior, published the first half of its lengthy interview with Lyndon LaRouche, beginning on its front page on Nov. 19, under the title "LaRouche Says IMF 'Is Bankrupt.' The World Monetary and Financial System Is in Its Terminal Phase." Journalist Fausto Fernandez Ponte had submitted written questions to LaRouche, answered during the latter's Nov. 4-7 visit to Saltillo, Mexico. After the newspaper's introduction, which has been translated from Spanish, the following text is that submitted by LaRouche in English.
Lyndon H. LaRouche, influential political thinker in the United Stateswho describes himself as the most important economist in the world of the past four decades, and heir to the U.S. classicism of Hamilton, Clay, Carey and others, and at the same time of the legendary Franklin D. Rooseveltstated during a visit to Mexico, that the world monetary and financial system is in the final phase of a general debacle.
The IMF "is bankrupt." He says of his own country, that it is moving toward economic disintegration. And about Mexico-U.S. bilateral relations, he describes NAFTA [as] "a terrible error for all involved."
LaRouchewho a few days ago gave the keynote address to a conference at the Autonomous University of Coahuila, in Saltillogave written responses to questions formulated by Excelsior about a wide variety of issues.
The responses reflect LaRouche's theoretical formulations, his general statements on economic and political matters which have generated such controversy in the United States and Europe, and his "bedside" readingclassical drama, poetry, and "classical science in the Platonic tradition."
His book, So You Wish to Learn All About Economics, circulates in several languagesEnglish, French, Spanish, Russian, German, Italianas well as Ukranian, Armenian, and Polish.
He addresses the following issues:
1. Bilateral Mexico-U.S. relations. Since Operation Juárez, formulated by him in 1982, relations "have substantially worsened."
2. Trans-border Mexico-U.S. integration. "I emphasize (a) expansion of the generation and integrated distribution of energy; (b) large-scale water management; (c) development of East-West and North-South railway networks.
3. The problem of water in the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico. "Leaving aside the matter of desalination for the moment, we mainly have two options for resolving the lack of water: one, bringing water to the north from the South of Mexico; the other, the NAWAPA project."
4. Migration of Mexican labor power to the United States. "Continued injustice." There is "malicious intent" on the part of Americans.
5. U.S. dealings with other countries. "The dogma of 'preventive war' is accelerating deteriorating relations with the rest of the world."
6. The international financial and monetary system. "There are no alternatives but to replace it." That system "is an international graveyard." The original principles of the Bretton Woods System must be revived.
7. The U.S. Federal Reserve. "It must be put through bankruptcy reorganization, as must the International Monetary Fund." The United States "is sinking under threat of a crisis of economic disintegration."
8. The victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil. "It will affect inter-American relations."
9. The economic situation of Brazil and Argentina, and the danger of the Argentinization of Mexico. "If we manage to prevent Brazil from sinking into a situation similar to that of Argentina, it is probable that we will also be able to save Argentina, while preventing a similar wave of horror from reaching Mexico."
10. The Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (ALCA). "Those who cherish such illusions should consult a psychiatrist."
QcmFrom your vantage point as a thinker, how do you view Mexico's economic, political and social situation, given the manifestations of crisisseven of every ten Mexicans live in povertywhich are visible wherever you are in the country?
LaRouche
I see today's situation as a vindication of my published views, and proposals of Summer and Autumn 1982, including my book-length, August 2, 1982 report, Operation Juárez. Conditions have greatly worsened since October-November 1982; these changes of the recent twenty years must now be taken into account. That much said, what is essentially new today, relative to twenty years ago, is that the world's monetary-financial system is presently in the terminal phase of a general collapse. Twenty years ago, in "Operation Juárez," I presented a proposed action among the states of the Americas which would have opened up a new wave of prosperity throughout the Americas. Today, my proposals and recommended objectives are the same, but those reforms of 1982 must now be restated as a renewal of the principles of the original post-war Bretton Woods system, all within the context of a replacement of the presently bankrupt (in fact) IMF system.
Q
What is your opinion of the current state of affairs between Mexico and the United States?
LaRouche
At this moment, U.S. official relations with the world at large have been deteriorating. The U.S. government continues to refuse to acknowledge the reality of the general collapse of the world's present monetary-financial system, and the accompanying collapse of the physical economies of all of the Americas, of Europe, Africa, and in much of Asia. This pathological denial of economic realities, and Washington's increasingly hysterical commitment to its "preventive war" dogma, have caused a recently accelerating deterioration of U.S. relations with the world at large. Current U.S. policy-trends are seen by virtually all other nations of the world as intolerable imitations of a Roman-Empire style in international relations.
At this juncture, the current policies of the U.S.A. itself are in a terminal crisis. The United States is plunging into not merely a depression, but the immediate threat of a general economic breakdown crisis. If the United States is to outlive the coming two years successfully, it must begin, more or less immediately, now, to adopt policies of reform and economic reconstruction along the lines I have been demanding.
Many of those of us in the U.S.A. who are able to exert some influence, are not merely opposed to these trends, but are working, hopefully, to bring about a change in policy. I am more conspicuous in this than most U.S. influentials which share such concerns, but I have put myself at personal risk for such causes in the past. I now do so again. Of this risk, I do not complain. We are all mortal; therefore, what else does our mortal life contain, but the wish we might be able to contribute to mankind's better future?
Q
More than a few Mexicans, and Americans, think and demand that NAFTA be revised, and posed in terms that are more equitable to Mexico's interests. What would your position on this matter be, Dr. LaRouche?
LaRouche
NAFTA, like the "new economy" hoax, was a terrible mistake for all involved. The idea of "cheapest price" reflects the 1964-2002 degeneration of the U.S.A. as the world's leading producer nation, into the ruined and decadent economy of a "consumer society."
Agreements like the NAFTA so violently defended by then-Vice-President and "Baby Boomer" Al Gore, would not have been tolerated by representatives of the wiser previous generation; to understand NAFTA we must take into account the cultural shift in the U.S.A. and Europe, from a commitment to a producer economy, to the spiralling decadence of what has been called a "post-industrial" or "consumer" society. This change in thinking was induced in those passing through adolescence during the 1960s, the so-called "Baby Boomer" generation. That generation, which rose toward leading positions in society over the course of the 1980-2000 interval, not only lacks any collective insight into the principles of productive economy, but most of them today have developed an obsessive hatred against the values of a successful economy.
During the course of the recent thirty-seven years, especially since August 15, 1971, the internal basic economic infrastructure of the United States itself has been destroyed. The transport, power, water-management, sanitation, health-care, and education systems we had prior to August 1971, have been largely destroyed by a form of madness called "post-industrial" and "consumerist" ideology. Since those ideologies have become the prevalent impulses of the U.S. generation under fifty-five years of age todaythe generation dominating higher posts in the private sector and government alikeleading circles in the U.S.A. and elsewhere, tend to cling to defending a continuation of "consumerist" and credit-card-debt ideologies, even past the point it should have become obvious that those ideologies had been proven insane in practice.
Therefore, when all those combined considerations are taken into account, we face not only a breakdown in the financial and economic systems, but also [in] the mental stability of the leading circles of influence drawn from the under-fifty-five age-group in the U.S.A. and Europe. Both the economic and mental-health problems must be taken into account in attempting to understand and to deal with the immediate situation in the world at large today.
Q
In terms of the migration of Mexican labor to the United States: What, in your opinion, can actually be done to benefit the immigrants who, in practice, are victims of racism, ethnic and cultural discrimination, of exploitation and even flagrant persecution?
LaRouche
I, like others, in both the U.S.A. and Mexico, have been wrestling with this injustice for more than two decades. The problem existed much earlier than 1982, but, as long as the principles of a producer, rather than consumer society, prevailed in leading circles on both sides of the border, reformers viewed the social and economic aspects of this injustice in terms of politically activated improvements in the social and economic conditions of family life and employment on both sides of the border.
Recently, as in the case of the ancient Rome which rejected the proposed economic reforms of the Gracchi, the under-fifty-five generation in leading positions of private and public authority in the United States today, has tended, increasingly, toward viewing the majority of the populations on both sides of the border as serf-like "human cattle,"rather than as citizens of a republic. This is to be recognized in the collapse of the physical standard of living of the lower eighty percentiles of U.S. family-income brackets since 1977. This moral degeneration in U.S. government policies of practice, is typified by the fact that the current majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a doctrine of "shareholder value" adopted from the Lockean slave-holder traditions of the treasonous, 1861-65 Confederate States of America. The ideological basis for the continued injustice toward Mexican citizens laboring in the U.S.A., comes less from malicious intents such as that erring majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, than the cruel indifference of that large mass of the U.S. population which has been morally corrupted by the rampant influence of the combination of "consumerist" and "credit-card-debt" ideologies.
I think that my own intentions in this matter are implicitly obvious.
Q
Mexico's internal market is dominated by American goods and services, which displace those of national and local manufacture, with the resulting shutdown of companies, unemployment, and social uncertainty. In your opinion, what should be done; and, above all, what can be done to reverse this situation?
LaRouche
The worst of such effects are the natural consequence of NAFTA. However, such results were always the trend of developments built into the "free trade" policies imposed upon every part of the world but its own territories.
There are no existing alternatives to this deterioration except measures which require the replacement of the world's present monetary-financial system (sometimes seen as a "cemetery-financial system") by one resembling the original, post-war Bretton Woods system.
Q
Many Mexicans and Americans think, and are apparently convinced, that the U.S.-Mexico bilateral relationship is in crisis, even though Presidents Fox and Bush deny this. How do you see it?
LaRouche
I suspect that President Fox's views may have been suddenly changed somewhat, as a result of some painfully disappointing behavior by President Bush. The conflict is actually between the current Bush Administration and the rest of the planet, including a growing, head-on collision between that administration's current trends in policy and the majority of the U.S. citizens.
Q
Regardless of whether there is a crisis in the bilateral relationship, one fact is undeniable: It is unequal, asymmetrical, and it favors the United States to the detriment of Mexico's economic, political, and social interests. How, in your opinion, can this bilateral relationship be improved?
LaRouche
At this moment, my emphasis is upon the relations between the states of the southwestern U.S.A. and those of northern Mexico. The presently urgent need for large-scale expansion of development of basic economic infrastructure within that portion of the U.S.A., and complementary needs of the same classes of investment in Mexico, suggest a politically practicable approach to this problem. I emphasize: a.) the expansion of integrated generation and distribution of power; b.) large-scale water management; and, c.) combined east-west and north-south development of modernized rail grids.
Notably, the common characteristic of a section of North America running north toward the Arctic Ocean from the area of Mexico between the two branches of the Sierra Madre is a rich area of potential development with a grievous shortage of water. If we put desalination aside for a moment, we have principally two approaches to overcoming the relevant water deficits. One is coastal canals bringing water from southern Mexico to the north; the other is the so-called NAWAPA project whose design was developed by the United States' Parsons firm and others.
Thus, the infrastructural development needs of the states of the southwestern U.S.A. and of northern Mexico, are not only complementary, but are integral features of improved U.S.A.-Mexico cooperation. These also represent relatively large-scale potential for employment to absorb the effects of the collapse of employment in large sectors affecting Mexicans resident in the U.S.A. or employed in Mexico producing products exported to the U.S.A. Any initiatives on such infrastructure programs from within the U.S.A. will foster cross-border cooperation in the same kinds of programs for Mexico.
Q
What is your opinion of the very controversial way in which the current Mexican government conducts relations with other States, particularly with Cuba?
LaRouche
Simply, we must return to the orientation of the Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy administrations.
Q
Does the victory of Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva in Brazil prompt any particular reflections?
LaRouche
If Brazil is forced to submit to currently proposed types of conditions, the resulting collapse of Brazil will set off an immediate chain-reaction, blowing out not only the U.S. banking system, but also the IMF system. If Brazil is permitted conditions under which it could survive, that would also blow out the U.S. banking system and, therefore, the IMF, too. The only solution, therefore, is a general reform in bankruptcy-reorganization of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, and a reorganization-in-bankruptcy of the IMF by concerted emergency action of the most relevant sovereign nation-states whose property the IMF is.
This puts Lula in an interesting situation, whether he wished it, or not.
Q
Do you foresee any changes in Inter-American relations as a result of Lula's victory in Brazil, and a change in the U.S. attitude toward Brazil?
LaRouche
Yes, as I have indicated above.
Q
On the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas): In your opinion, could Lula's victory delay the United States' objective of creating a captive market in the Americas for U.S. goods and services, excluding Europe?
LaRouche
If the U.S.A. currently has such intentions, those in the U.S. entertaining such delusions should consult their psychiatrists.
Q
What is your opinion of the hounding of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela?
LaRouche
I see no leading faction there which offers much hope of benefit for Venezuela or its neighbors. I would hope that Venezuela outlives the folly being created by both leading forces visible there in recent developments so far. I sympathize with Brazilian President-elect Lula's generous and statesmanship-like admonitions to the less experienced President Chávez.
Q
In your view, could Argentina's crisis extend to Mexico?although there are many Mexicans who think that our country has been in a process of Argentinization for many years.
LaRouche
Yes. If we can prevent Brazil from being plunged into similar situation, which is now immediately threatened, we could probably save Argentina, too, and also prevent such a tide of horror from reaching Mexico.
Q
What is your opinion of Vicente Fox as the head of the federal Executive Branch, that is, as Head-of-State? Would you agree with some American and Mexican economists to the effect that Mr. Fox has no ideas, no Congress, and no political aptitude?
LaRouche
As a U.S. patriot, I am committed, despite the shortcomings and follies of President George W. Bush, to defend the U.S. Presidency as an institution, and to do what might be implicitly required to defend his life. I am a long-standing friend of Mexico, and treat its Constitution and institutions with the same quality of respect I extend to my own. My concern is the institution of the Presidency of Mexico, which means that I would wish Mr. Fox's Presidency to prove to be successful a one for Mexico, whatever his personal capabilities. The practical implications of what I have said involves principles of statecraft and other history which, admittedly, relatively few on this planet understand. It is perhaps sufficient, for the moment, that I state that fact, adding one qualifying observation, as follows.
Those of us who are actually qualified to seek election to the office of head of state, as I am, know two things which are indispensable points of guidance for any occupant of that office. First, that every man is mortal, and, therefore, his fundamental interest in life is what his life's work leaves as a benefit to the society which lives after him. Second, that once you swear the oath of office, you are, therefore, accountable to no personal or other special interest but the benefit of that nation, and to its unborn even more than its presently living. The power you have assumed is not yours to buy or sell; it partakes of the nature of a sacred responsibility, by which the future should rightly judge the outcome, the meaning of your having lived.
We have had more fools than geniuses as occupants of the U.S. Presidency. That should warn us, that it is the Presidency which is primary, and, only rarely, was there a truly qualified U.S. President, one of such true greatness as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or Franklin Roosevelt, who were, each in their time, an indispensable choice of occupant of that office.
Q
On APEC: What failed, in your opinion, during last week's APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Council) meeting?
LaRouche
It was necessary, useful, but not yet an adequate response to the emerging situation.
Q
On Iraq: What is your opinion of the so-called "Bush Doctrine" of pre-emptive military attack against Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein?
LaRouche
This is a virtual copy of Adolf Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia; a violation of the U.S. Constitution, an act of military-strategic lunacy which no competent flag-officer of any nation, including the U.S.A., would condone; and a mere pretext for launching a virtually perpetual, Roman-imperial-style, "Clash of Civilizations" war throughout the world at large. It is, in short, an unconscionable abomination.
Q
On Cuba: Would you propose that the United States suspend the economic blockade of Cuba?
LaRouche
Yes. To the extent I have influence on Washington, I would desire the mediating role of Mexican institutions, which understand conduct of relations with Cuba, in reaching the relevant changes in trading relations. I would hope a discussion of practical steps toward that would be on the agenda of early discussions between the Presidencies of the U.S.A. and Mexico.
Q
On OPEC: What negative or positive effect would a war against Iraq have on Mexico's role as a supplier of oil to the United States?
LaRouche
It would precipitate a collapse of the world economy, and of trade, from which every national economy, including Mexico's, would suffer monstrously. Under the conditions of global economic collapse such a war would trigger, supply would exceed demand to such degree that no net advantage to Mexico's position as an petroleum-exporting nation would occur. Quite the contrary.
Q
On China: How would you evaluate China's future in the political chess game among the world's powers?
LaRouche
My Eurasia policy is based on developing a land-based system of Eurasia cooperation centered on such crucial pivots as the following: a) The "Eurasian Land-Bridge" development policy which my wife and our associates have been actively promoting since 1992-1993; b) The use of what I defined in 1998 as the "Strategic Triangle" of cooperation among Russia, China, and India, to bring other nations and regions of Asia, such as the ASEAN group, into a general agreement on security, Asia internal development, and global cooperation with western Europe as a leading long-term trading partner; c) A replacement of the present, hopelessly bankrupt IMF world-system of monetary-financial rule, by a new system modelled upon the pro-development, protectionist principles of the 1945-1958 Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange-rates. d.) Within the setting of those reforms, commitment to promotion of denoted types of mission-oriented physical-economic programs, featuring large-scale infrastructure development and technology development and transfer among nations.
Q
On the European Union: What prospective scenario do you see in international affairs, with the emergence of the European Union as an economic and political power, through the expansion of its membership from 15 to 25 states?
LaRouche
The European Union is, presently, implicitly bankrupt. The rumor that it threatens to become a trade-rival of the United States in economic progress, is a diversionary fairy-tale to be told to credulous children. We are facing an immediate collapse of the present world financial system as a whole. Nothing could save that system; either we replace it, or a general physical-economic collapse all of the Americas and Europe were presently inevitable for the near future.
Q
On the UN: What should the United Nations Organization do in the face of the apparently imminent war of the United States against Iraq?
LaRouche
If that foolish war were ever actually launched, the chain-reaction after-effects of launching that war would probably topple the world as a whole into a prolonged new dark age. That war must be prevented, unconditionally. Were the UNO so foolish as to consent to such a war, there would be no life after death.
Q
As for you personally, what are your plans in the political life of the United States? Will you seek the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States?
LaRouche
Right now, I am the only visible personal actually qualified to become the next President of the U.S.A. Presently, I am functioning as an "FDR Democrat" and also a future such "President in the wings," providing the policy-guidance which a President of the United States should be providing now, trying to make the incumbent President, in effect, a real President, despite the fact he was never, in fact, prequalified to become one.
Q
How do you see yourself, Mr. LaRouche? Or, in other words, who is Lyndon LaRouche according to Lyndon LaRouche?
LaRouche
On performance so far, the world's leading economist of the recent thirty-odd years; a statesman in the image of Plato's prescription for a "philosopher king;" and the U.S. individual who has been shown by 1973-2002 developments, to have been the political intellect most feared by the American Tory faction in the U.S.A. today. Two known, documented attempts at assassination of me through operations directed by a certain, "Wall Street"-controlled section of the U.S. Department of Justice, and the most massive, decades-long libel attack by mass media on any presently living political figure of the world today, have made that fearful hatred of me by the American Tories clear to all who have studied the matter closely.
Q
Where do you situate yourself in the American ideological spectrum: to the right or to the left of center?
LaRouche
I have no kinship with any among those three. I am a representative of the Classical tradition and today's leading intellectual representative of that American System of political-economy so described by Alexander Hamilton, Mathew Carey, Henry Clay, Friedrich List, and Henry C. Carey. Broadly, I represent the President Franklin D. Roosevelt current of the U.S. Democratic Party, and am the opponent of those who have rejected his tradition in the party.
Q
What are the books that you hold in highest regard?
LaRouche
Classical drama, poetry, and Classical science in the Platonic tradition.
Q
Where is the world headed, as you see and feel it?
LaRouche
Toward the greatest change in world affairs, either for the better or worse, since President Lincoln's victory over the treasonous Confederacy.
Q
It is obvious to many Mexican men and women that there is a terrible struggle for power in the world. What outcome do you foresee for that struggle?
LaRouche
I do not deny that we could lose this fight. If we fail, the world is now at the cliff's edge of a plunge into a planet-wide new dark age. If we win, as is possible, we shall establish a new order in the world based on a commitment to become, at last, a community of principled cooperation among perfectly sovereign, globalization-free nation-state republics. The present choice is, almost certainly, nothing other than one of those two choices.
We might be defeated by those bestial creatures seeking to establish a world empire through nuclear-armed tyranny; but they could never actually win. The only danger is, that we might all be destroyed by the failure of some among us to defeat them.
Q
Should we assume that the United States will be consolidated as the only superpower, or will other superpowers, such as China, emerge?
LaRouche
Neither is possible. Peaceful cooperation among most nations, or ruin of the planet as a whole, are the only available options.
Q
Millions of people think that the world today is more unstable and uncertain than a generation ago. If this evaluation is true, what can be done to change it?
LaRouche
We must win; no middle-ground solutions exist.
Q
Were you elected President of the United States, what would your priorities be?
LaRouche
Exactly what they are at this moment, and have been since my Spring 1946 days as a U.S. soldier returned from northern Burma, in Calcutta, India: A just new world economic order among sovereign nation-states, an order consistent with objectives of what Alexander Hamilton named the American System of political-economy.
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