LaRouche in 2004
For immediate release
LAROUCHE WARNS PRESIDENT BUSH ON SPANISH BOMBINGS: 'DON'T MAKE A CRAZY FUROR, GET THE INTELLIGENCE'
March 11Democratic Party Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche issued the following statement today, after being briefed on the series of bombings in Madrid this morning, which, so far, have claimed 186 lives.
"The recent atrocities in Spain remind me of the Bologna train station bombing of 1980 [see InDepth Investigation, this issue]. I am not surprised at this act of brutal terrorism. As a leading U.S.A. public figure, I present the following precise assessment to the government and to the Democratic Party.
"I warned of precisely this kind of development in August of last year, following statements issued by Vice President Dick Cheney, in which he referenced new terrorist threats to the United States. I stated at the time, that it was crucial to look at the Spanish-speaking side of the international Synarchist apparatus. I pointed to Italian, French, Spanish, and South and Central American networks, targetting the United States. These networks were activated along the lines of Samuel Huntington's new Clash of Civilizations efforts, aimed at provoking confrontation between the U.S.A. and the Hispanic population of the Americas and the Iberian peninsula.
"In this context, I appeal to President Bush: Do not, I repeat, do not trigger some crazy furor over the events in Madrid. Instead, get on to the intelligence. We know where these terrorist attacks are coming from. Start with the international Synarchists, the international friends of the granddaughter of Mussolini, in Italy, France, Spain, and the Americas. Don't let it happen again."
For more information, contact LaRouche in 2004 at 1-800-929-7566.
LAROUCHE INTERVIEWED ON WRPI RADIO, TROY, NEW YORK
Lyndon LaRouche was interviewed on WRPI radio, in Troy, New York, March 10. He was interviewed on the program "Piecing the Puzzle." WRPI is located on the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, one of the top engineering schools in the country.
HOST: We have a special interview today, with Mr. Lyndon LaRouche, Presidential candidateactually a perennial Presidential candidate. Are you there, Mr. LaRouche?
LAROUCHE: I'm here, fine.
HOST: How're you doing today?
LAROUCHE: Well, not bad.
HOST: Well great. Welcome to the show, you're on WRPI, Troy. How are you doing on the campaign trail?
LAROUCHE: We're doing fine, as far as the campaign trail is concerned. We're meeting a lot of people. Of course, there's still this blacklisting by the Democratic National Committeewhich is no good for me, as a candidate; it's worse than that for the Democratic Party, which has a leading candidate, who is in danger of losing, precisely because of the Democratic Party National Committee's exclusion of me. This Nader thing just typifies that: The margin of vote is going to get tight, because of the computerized voting, which leaves room for up to 20% vote fraud in the national Presidential elections, unless we change it; and there are efforts to change it. But, it's a very tight race, from any standpoint. And the Democratic Party will lose, if it tries to alienate leading candidates. I have a very large base, relative to other candidates, or former candidateseven larger than Kerry's does, in terms of a contributor base.
So, therefore, excluding me is a piece of idiocy on the part of the National Committee. But there are reasons for it. It's not simply pique. There are substantive reasons, for the issue between me and the DNC.
HOST: Well, what reasons do they have?
LAROUCHE: Well, the basic reason goes back a long time. It goes back to 1971, after what Nixon did, in 1971, letting the dollar float essentiallythat, I attacked the economists of that time, saying they'd all been "quackademics." I'd been warning that this would happen, or something like this would happen. And they had all said, it couldn't happen under the protection of these wonderful "built-in stabilizers." So, I attacked them as "quackademics," and they, in turn, picked a champion among their ranks, a fellow who was the so-called "leading Keynesian" in the United States at the time: Abba Lerner, a professor at Queens College.
HOST: And then you debated him?
LAROUCHE: I debated him, and he admitted that his policies were Schachtian, that is, the policies of the Hitler economic policies.
HOST: Can youbefore you go on, would you mind just giving a brief overview of what "Schachtian economic policies" consists of?
LAROUCHE: Well, it started with World War I, in which you had the system set up, the so-called Versailles monetary systemwhich Keynes, among others, rightly denounced as unworkable. This led to a series of crises throughout the 1920s. And during this period, some of the bankers involved, decided to experiment with fascist projects: They put Mussolini into power in Italy in '22, other things of that sort. In France, attempts were made which were later successful, after the war with Germany. And [Hjalmar] Schacht, in Germany, was particularly an agent of the head of the Bank of England, Montagu Norman. And Montagu Norman, with support of some people in the United States, from the financial circles, supported the idea of putting Hitler into power in Germany. Now, they didn't intend that Hitler would become what he became, but they certainly had a nasty gentleman with a nasty policy they were pushing.
So, this policy became known as Schachtian policy: That is, when the banks are in crisis, people like Hitler were brought in on the assumption they would crush the people in order to product the financier interestsvery much like what you're seeing in Argentina today. Where certain wild-eyed bankers are demanding that Argentina be gobbled up, because of its debts. And that's a whole story in itself.
The problem with the Democratic Party, is, the Abba Lerner of today, in a sense, is Felix Rohatyn, who's famous for his association with "Big MAC"; he's with Lazard Brothers, the old international Lazard Frères firm. They're a very powerful group, and they're typical of a number of groups in the Democratic Party.
So, in the party, we have a split. They're not all idiots there, they know there's a financial crash coming on, fast. And the question is, what's going to be the policy of the next President, under conditions of a financial crash. Some people, like Bob Rubin, the former Treasurer, I think takes a sensible view of this matter. I don't know if he'd agree with me on everything; but, we agree to the fact that this thing is coming down; it's coming down fast, and we've got to respond to it, with Franklin Roosevelt-type measures.
On the other side, those who are controlled by the influence of Felix Rohatyn, and people like him, hate my guts, and they are determined I should get nowhere near the Presidency. Because they intend to bring on the kind of policies, in the United States, and other parts of the world, of the kind that Schacht introduced to Nazi Germany: That is, austerity; loot the people, cut this, cut thatausterity, austerity, austerity; and then, have some kind of a military buildup, as a substitute for a normal kind of economic life.
HOST: So, these Schachtian economic policies, that have these strict programswhere do you see the United States actually manifesting those policies in the present day? Besides Argentina? Do you see that, like in NAFTA?
LAROUCHE: Oh sure! It's all part of the same thing. If, for example, if you do not protectthey have a protectionist system; if you go with a free-trade, international system, you drive the price of commodities on the world market to the lowest level. Then you create a situation, in which people, such as the people in the United States, can not compete with those markets, and also maintain a standard of living for our people. So therefore, our tradition has been protectionist. We say, that you have to levels of prices, which are called "fair prices," those which allow people who invest in production, as entrepreneurs in particular, to be able to save their capitalnot lose their capitalbecause the prices are driven to the lowest possible level. So therefore, our policy has been traditionally that.
Now, with Nixon, we began to move in a different direction. And, after Nixon, we moved increasingly, toward a deregulated, wildly deregulated, free-trade system, in the wildest sense of the term, with NAFTA and globalization. We have destroyed the productive capacity of most of the United States, that we used to have. We were once the world's leading producer society. We're now the world's leading parasite: That is, we squeeze money out of people, we make people work for us at slave-labor wages to produce what we consume.
HOST: Right, and
LAROUCHE: What we get is largely rotten goods, as a result of it!
HOST: Right. And you actually wrote, in a paper, you got Lerner to actually admit something: He mentioned that if they had adhered to those Schachtian policies then they wouldn't have "needed Hitler" in power?
LAROUCHE: Yeah, right. That's exactly it, and that is what Felix Rohatyn represents against me. And those in the Democratic Party, who are allied with Felix and his crowd on economic policyjust want me dead!
And this, unfortunately, includes the Kennedys, who normally would beTed, for example, would normally be friendly to my views on many issues. But, on this issue, there's real pressure from the Democratic Party to go along with the money. And it's vicious, it's savage, right now.
HOST: You mentioned that they want you dead
LAROUCHE: Exactly. They've tried to kill me a couple of times. I don't know if these guys are trying to kill me now, but it's that kind of mood.
HOST: Who do you think is trying to do that?
LAROUCHE: It's actually a group ofit goes back in U.S. history to what was called the Essex Junto, which came out of New England and subsequently in New York. These were the people, who, from 1763 on, opposed the move toward independence of the English colonies in North America. And, because they were based in Essex County (which is an area I lived in for a long time), in Massachusetts, they became known as the Essex Junto. These were the people who went big into the opium trade with England in the 1790s. They were also, earlier, involved in the slave trade. And these were the people who, in the Hartford Convention of 1814, were quite frankly treasonous.
Aaron Burr was part of this same crowd. He was a British agent, appointed by Jeremy Bentham, who got the Bank of Manhattan as a swindle. And so, it was the Hamilton-Burr conflict, which was really over this issue, is typical of the genesis of this kind of problem, today.
So, there are traditional circles in the United States, who maintain this opposition to the tradition of the American Revolution. They're American citizens, or they're tied to American citizens, and they tend to control, to a large degree, to control our financial life. This has been the fight between the financier interests and industrial and agricultural interests.
HOST: Do you believe that these groups are actually dictating policy to the U.S. government?
LAROUCHE: In the large degree. You have the idiot version of it, which is on the George W. Bush side of this thing. And you've got the typical young Republican, who's being recruited, who's an idiot! He's a "wedge issue" idiot. He says, "Roosevelt is no good. We're going to protect 'ours.' We're not going to let the others have anything." This is this kind of piggish attitude, toward their fellow citizens, which characterizes some very narrow-minded college graduates and so forthwho went to college, but they can't think! But, they do pick up these prejudices, and the Republican Party does have the machinery which specializes in these wedge issues. The Democratic Party does that too, to some degree, but the Republicans are really extreme.
The problem here in the Democratic Party, is there are people who say, "We have to adapt to the Republican so-called 'middle.' We have to adapt to it." And so, you have people who are behind it, like financier interests; and you have people who adapt to it, out of opportunism, or because they think that's the way the wind is blowing.
HOST: Well, that brings me to a point that you've brought up in the past, in your writing, which you call the "cult of sense-certainty." You've said that your economic forecasts throughout the latter half of the 20th Century have been right on. And, can you describe the science that you base these forecasts on? And how it connects to the "cult of sense-certainty"? And where do you see us going?
LAROUCHE: Well, we were not so good in the post-war period, and we weren't so good many times in our national history. But, up until '64, up until the time we launched the Indo-China War officially, we were, essentially, a successful producer society, most successful on the planet at that time; especially in the post-war period, after the Roosevelt revival.
We made a turn against that. And that has been our problem.
Now, the way I got into politicsI first got into politics in a certain way, in fighting Trumanand then Joe McCarthy, of courseon his right-wing turn, which occurred in the post-war period. But, then, once Eisenhower was in there, I was more disinterested in politics, because I thought Eisenhower had done the job I wanted donenot perfectly, but I wasn't needed any more. And then, in the early '60s, I saw this turn coming toward a post-industrial drift, and I got, again, into politics, by way of teaching at various university campuses and so forth.
[public service announcement]
HOST: And you are listening to "Piecing the Puzzle." We have a very special guest today, Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, on the line. And I apologize for the interruption, Mr. LaRouche. If you could please continue:
LAROUCHE: Why sure. So that's essentially the problem: That we've changed our way of thinking, from taking pride in technological progress, pride in developing systemslike infrastructural systems, power distribution/production; water management systems; mass transit systems (we don't have railroads any more, and what we do have, is pretty antiquated). It's that sort of thing.
So, we've destroyed the society. We've taken away our big industries. So, for example, Detroit has about half the population it had some decades ago. Whole areas of the country are going to the pits. Look around Massachusetts, for example: Route 128 was the driver for the early phase of the space program, a significant driver. Then, it moved later to 495 circumferential [highway]. Look all over the country: You see areas that were great industrial and great agricultural areasthey're destroyed. And the population becomes more and more concentrated in a few areas, where this new kind, this new wave kind of employment exists. This has resulted in a collapse of our actual, physical income per capita, and our production of physical wealth per capita.
And, this has also affected the world at large. For example, in the recent period, look at the Bank for International Settlements quarterly report, which was just issued, and they indicate, that against what is probably in the order of $41 trillion net product of the world, that in 2003, we had $8.7 quadrillion dollars worth of turnover in financial derivatives. This is hyperinflationary stuff. This spills over into areas like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are now on the edge of a very serious crisisthey've probably lost $25 billion in derivatives accounts in the recent period.
So, we're in that kind of situation, where the whole situation is coming down. We're on the verge of the greatest depression in modern historya financial collapse with depression. And people just aren't quite awake to it yet, because they're in a state of denial. I think the reason they're in a state of denial, is because negatives, by themselves, should not determine politics. The fact that conditions are bad, does not mean that people are going to waken to reality. If people see that conditions are bad, and see that there are alternatives to bad conditions, that will bestir optimism, and you will find the better quality of response from among our people.
The problem is, that our political leaders are ducking the issues, of how bad the things are, because they know the voters are in a state of wishful denial, by and large.
HOST: And they're also using terror, as a distraction.
LAROUCHE: Well, that's on the Bush side, in particular, yes.
So, that's all it is. So, there's a lack of a sense of reality in the population. And it's not entirely their fault. That is, denial is understandable. If a population is made up of individuals who feel relatively powerless, find that the leaders offered to them are not realistic in providing realistic assessment of bad problems, but also providing realistic assessment of alternatives, then the people will become discouraged. And, I think that's really, in part, what's happening. Despite the fact there's more restiveness in the population than there has been in the past decade earlier, on economic issues. And despite the fact, that the youth population, particularly those in the 18-to-25 bracket, the college-eligible bracket, are moving now, as they have not been moving previously.
HOST: The leaders of this country, now, and maybe in the past decadesdo you believe that they are aware of, in communication with, and areI guessin bed, with these financiers, who seem, according to your beliefs, steering this country?
LAROUCHE: I think what the problem is, it's a moral collapse in the quality of our leaders. Now, I know people around the Congress and other positions, whom I have a lot of personal respect for, whom I talk to, and whom we sometimes have the occasion to work with. They're not bad people; they're good people, who've got fine minds. But they find themselves caught up in a generational phenomenon, and the generation is stupid. You see this in our entertainment dimensionsour entertainment is corrupt and stupid. Our education systems are a bad joke, generally. There are very few exceptions. People rehearse answers to multiple-choice questionnaires, which computers score, as a substitute for education. That's typical of what's going on. Or, there's no education, in some cases. We're almost back to "blab schools" in the poor areas.
So, you have a population which has lost its morals, lost its sense of morality, its sense of optimism. You have a generation in their fifties, going into their sixties, who are now seeking a "comfort zone" into which they can flee, to escape from the reality of the monotony and threats of their lives. We have demoralized strong people.
This has happened in civilization before, and the greatest leaders in the past, have always been able to lead people out of that state of that malaisewhich I try to do myself. I don't get much help from the establishment. But, where we're able to function, it does work.
But, the problem is, the lack of leadership: People need leadership. They need confidence in leaders, who will come out and say what the problem is. But, not just talk about the problemwho will then say what the solutions are, what the prospects for a solution are. And that's the way you mobilize people to begin to get up on their hind legs and start fighting. And that's what we need right now, with our people.
HOST: We'd have to have some kind of cooperation with the media, in order to be able to speak to the people, as well.
LAROUCHE: We do it fairly well. We found, with the youth movement, it works. We've got these young guys, who are organized the way we organized themor, they organized themselves, actually. I don't do much of the organizing. They organize themselves. I just protect them, as much as I can, and encourage them.
But, when you have mass organizing, based on youth of that age-interval, when they're working in the proper way and doing mass organizing: For example, we just took a large position in votes for Democratic Committees in Los Angeles County and the Bay Area in California. That was the result of the mass organizing we did against Schwarzenegger. We've had similar effects in Mayor Street's campaign [in Philadelphia]: We jumped in, to help out, and there was a landslide victory for the Mayor's re-election.
So, your situation where the youth movements, to the extent they're functioning, are capable of turning the population aroundnot easily! Not all that brilliantly and suddenly. But, they are succeeding where everything else was failing.
So, I have great confidence in the ability of a mass movement, energized by youth in the 18-to-25 age-group, to turn this country around, whatever the mass media says.
HOST: Well, it seems to me, that people have been organizing and gaining more solidarity, and some kind of a peace movement, anti-imperialist movement, has been growing in this country since Bush Jr., has gotten into power.
LAROUCHE: Yeah. Well, that's purely negative. It hasn't had enough positives to it, that's the problem. You can just be negative. For example, let's take the case of this war issue. Cheney, of course, has been for preventive nuclear war, openly, since he was Secretary of Defense under Bush I. Since he came in, this administrationand you have to really admit that this President is pretty stupidso you can't blame him for too much, that requires heavy thinking. I think he's down in the weight-lifting room most of the time, more than thinking. But, this crowd around Cheney, and Ashcroft, has controlled this administration. They're an administration which is nasty, they're brutish, they're fascist by disposition, and they're looking for wars. They're looking for the kind of wars we can not get ourselves involved in.
So therefore, there's a natural response of people, after going through the memory of the experience of the Indo-China warfare, and other things, and to see this thing happening, nowtotally unnecessary; they smell the racism in it, all these kinds of things, they react against it. Well, that's good.
But that's not good enough. You have to actually have understanding of what the problem is, and you have to a positive answer, not just a protest movement.
HOST: Well, what sort of what you call "utopian military doctrines" associated with Dick Cheney are out there, or are being used? And is the Project for a New American Century one of these? What's the basis of them?
LAROUCHE: It's in that direction. Remember, this goes back. First of all you have the history of empires from the past. You have the Mesopotamian empires; you had the Roman Empire; you have the medieval system, from about the 9th Century-10th Century A.D. on, until the Renaissance. You have the attempted reaction, to turn the clock back to the past, with an imperial drive from the Hapsburgs and others, during the period 1511-1648.
It was actually the American Revolution, which became the consolidation, together with the Treaty of Westphalia, which became the consolidation of defending modern civilization against this drive to return to some kind of empire. The British East India Company, in 1763 emerged as an imperial power.
The ideas of these right-wingers today, the madmen like Cheney, all come from a tradition of "Let's have a one-world empire." Sometimes it's called "globalization," sometimes it's called "world government." "Imperialism" is not a popular word, so they don't use that word too much.
HOST: They used to use "new world order."
LAROUCHE: Yeah, same thing. They use phrases, but you look at the content of the phrases, what are they talking about? They're talking about the destruction of the sovereign nation-state, and producing a Tower of Babel, essentially. They're just destroying everything.
So, there is that tendency. It is a fascist tendency. It's a very significant tendency in certain circles. Some people are conditioned. They would like to volunteer for the Roman legions, or for Hitler's legionsthey may not know it that way, but that's what they really are; that's they way they're moving. That's the way they're compelled to go.
HOST: Mr. LaRouche, what's your take on the situation in Haiti? The recent coup d'état and President Aristide?
LAROUCHE: Well, this is typical. It goes back all the way. We have a relationthe United States has a relationship between Haiti, going back to our struggle for independence. Then, Haiti has been essentially destroyed many times over. I mean, the country is destroyed, even compared to the adjoining region of the island. We have done with the worst with that area: It's not a problem with Aristide, or this guy, or that guy. The problem is, the United States has never accepted, in recent times, its moral responsibility to help the Haitians put their country back together again. That is our responsibility. We keep blaming them.
The way we treat the Haitians who are fleeing from that territory into Floridait's horrible! It's wrong! We have to take a positive moral attitude on this thing, and we have to work with the nations of the region, to sayand tell the Haitians"We are determined that you should have your independence, and you shall have development, and you shall have medical care, and the ability to live." That's our job.
We do it not only for the Haitians, we do it for ourselves. We do it, because we want to be the kind of country that does that kind of thing: Where a great injustice exists, we are the kind of country that will offer to help.
HOST: Do you believe that, as President Aristide claims, that the United States, directly or indirectly, assisted in kidnapping him from Haiti?
LAROUCHE: Well, I think that, certainly, the U.S. policy created a situation in which that happened. As to what the actual agencies were involved, I don't know. But, I'm certain, from reading this and following these events, the United States is the principal perpetrator of the most recent mess! And, it came, probably, under the Clinton Administration: the mishandling of this Haitian problem under Clinton. And it's being mishandled in a much more extreme and worse way, under George Bush.
HOST: Right. They don't even pretend to be assisting any other countries. It's justit just seems like a very hidden way of implementing slavery in these Third World countries.
LAROUCHE: Look, it goes back to the end of 15th Century, beginning of the 16th Century, where, with the discovery of the Americas, there were forces in Europe, which concentrated on the monarchies of Spain, especially after 1492, and Portugal; and they organized African slavery in a new degree and quality. And, the basis for this was, since new lands were opening up for producing tobacco, and sugar, and whatnot, in the Americas, that Europeansstarting with the Spanish and Portuguesebegan capturing masses of slaves and began shipping them into the Americas. That continued.
Spain continued to be a slave-capturing nation, into the late 19th Century. The Spanish monarchy was the enemy of the United States, or the enemy of the United States of Lincoln, partly on the issue of slavery. Now, what happened is, they had a rationalization on this; the rationalization had two levels. The first level is, that people from Africa, that is, dark-skinned people from Africa, are not human; they're animals. And therefore, they're qualified to be treated only as propertyto be hunted down, and if captured, treated as property. The number of people who were brought into the Americas as slaves, was a small fraction of the number of Africans who were murdered in the process and system of slave-catching.
Then, they came up with the second reason: They said, "Well what about these large Indian populations"we're not talking about so much the United States, but in Mexico, Peru, and so forth; we had over 2 million people in Mexico with some degree of civilization despite the Aztecsthat is, a certain cultural level. And what the Spanish policy was, "No, we'll treat them asthey are human, but they're not fully human; they're not rational. Therefore we have to treat them like peasants. We have to treat them as cattle."
So, what happens in the Americas? You have a racist policy, which is centered in the United States, on the well-known Southern states area, and it looks at the Caribbean, and it makes that distinction. It says, "Since Haiti is black African-origin, biologically, chiefly, therefore, that's the lowest. Make sure we treat it that way." And they are not too kind with the Dominican Republic, or other neighbors in the Caribbean, also victims of policy. But, they're less cruel and less vicious, and less murderous than they are toward the Haitians. And that's really the root of the policy.
HOST: But aren't Dominicans, from the Dominican Republic, the origins are also black people that were dragged from the Africa and put into slavery over there?
LAROUCHE: Both. Both. You also had Hispanic. Of course, there's a mestizo culture. But, in the case of Haiti: Remember Haiti established itself as a Haitian Republic; and it was a Haitian Republic, which at one point which was modelling itself on the idea of the United States. So, this got special hatred. And Haiti for various reasons, was a subject of special hatred, which is in the air. Of course, the problems that are occurring in other parts of the Caribbean are not much better. But, they're not quite as bad, either. And the Haitian thing, is the thing that really in my craw: This is the worst example of a rotten policy from the United States. There are other policies that are badbut, this is the absolute worst.
In my view, you always go to the worst case, to set a policy. In your own country, you look at the poorest layer of our population, and say, "Will this work for their children and grandchildren?" And if it works for the poorest ones, justly, then it'll probably work for everyoneas Franklin Roosevelt defined that: Always go to the "forgotten man." Take the person who's the greatest victim of injustice, or neglect, and start there; and prove that you are really for the general welfare of people, by showing that you're willing to face that problem. Look it in the eye, and talk about curing it....
HOST: Well I want to thank you, very, very much, Mr. LaRouche, for your time, and I also want to wish you the best of luck in your campaign. And, maybe we'll talk to you again in the future.
LAROUCHE: Why sure. Thank you.
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