LaRouche Youth Kick Off
National Congressional Campaign
by Nancy Spannaus
Jan. 16—A press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 12, will have national repercussions for the coming months in U.S. politics. The event, sponsored by the LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC), introduced a national slate of Congressional candidates who are mounting challenges to leading Democratic traitors Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), and raising the banner for the LaRouche Plan for economic reconstruction, and the United States joining a Four-Power Alliance for a world credit system and global development policies.
Harley Schlanger, Western States spokesman for Lyndon LaRouche, introduced the three candidates, and the idea behind their nationally coordinated campaign. The candidates each presented aspects of the campaign platform, and then joined other members of the LaRouche Youth Movement at a Metro stop outside, where they introduced themselves to potential voters, while a chorus of ten youth beautifully serenaded passersby with patriotic songs.
Experienced political observers noted that the announcement had already created a stir in the capital, evident in various ways, including the comments of those walking in the halls of the National Press Club ("LaRouche is running candidates again?"), and the announcements that appeared in the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal's Wirewatch ("Remember him?: The LaRouche Political Action Committee holds a news conference today...."). Such ripples will undoubtedly become waves, as the campaigns intersect, and provide leadership for, the growing mass strike ferment in the American population.
As Schlanger referenced in his introduction, these three candidacies represent the model of leadership required to turn what is currently an enraged, and increasingly discouraged, American population, into a patriotic movement around the actual solutions for the existential crisis which the United States and the rest of the world, face. As such, EIR plans to provide regular and extensive coverage of their Congressional races, over the coming months.
A National Campaign
Schlanger set the stage for the candidates' statements as follows:
It's becoming increasing clear, in the year since President Barack Obama was sworn in, that he's unwilling, and incapable, of faithfully executing his Constitutional duties as President of the United States. In particular, his continuation of the bailout of Wall Street crooks and speculators, and his efforts to impose a Nazi, so-called 'health-care reform plan' which will benefit the insurance companies, the HMOs, and Big Pharma, and will kill off the elderly, the poor, and the sick—that in doing this, he's shown contempt for his responsibility to defend the General Welfare of the American people. So, for that reason, LaRouchePAC has drawn up a bill of impeachment of President Obama.
Now, we've also decided, that, given the depth of the economic and political crises, and the anger and frustration of the growing majority of the American people, which exploded against the bailout in September 2008, and again, exploded with the town meetings, particularly in August 2009 against the health-care bill, and is expressing itself in unprecedented levels of collapse for incumbents of both parties, that it's essential that a qualified leadership emerge, that will direct this anger, taking on the real problems facing the country, and to implement positive solutions, beginning with the LaRouche Plan and his Four Power agreement, immediately.
For this reason, today, we are announcing a slate of three candidates for the U.S. Congress. As you can see, these are young people. They're members and leaders of the LaRouche Youth Movement. They represent a new generation of leadership, a leadership which can inspire young people, but also take some of the tired, angry, and frustrated Americans, and give them a spark and vigor, to get out and not just vote, but to create a political change—a real change—in this country.
Now, our candidates are Democrats, but this is not a matter of party. The anger in the country goes across party lines: It includes Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and whatever other variety that's out there. But it's a question of patriots who are going to defend the principles of this nation, against those who are lining up with President Obama, with Pelosi and Reid, to dismantle this country and rip up the Constitution.
So, we will be running a campaign that will spearhead and direct this opposition. And I'll introduce the candidates in the order in which they'll be speaking. First, we're going to hear from Summer Shields, who is running in San Francisco, California, against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who's playing a particularly dirty role, and has been doing so, since she was elevated to Speaker of the House. Secondly, we'll hear from Rachel Brown, who is taking on "Bailout Barney" Frank, someone who has voted and facilitated every piece of bad legislation on financial and economic matters, since he became chairman of the Financial Services Committee of the House. And finally, we'll hear from Kesha Rogers, who's going to be running for the Democratic nomination for Congress from the 22nd District of Texas, which is a district which includes the NASA Space Center.
Summer Shields
Summer Shields announced his campaign against 12-term Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi in early January, around the idea "Give Congress a New Face." The 26-year old LaRouche Youth Movement organizer hails from California, and has been active politically since 2003, when he ran for a position on the Democratic Central Committee of Alameda County. Over the last several years, he has shown a particular interest in questions of the economic development of Africa, and has travelled to both Nigeria (2006) and Sudan (2009). With the knowledge he gained about those countries, and the monetarist policies that are threatening their very existence, Shields has produced a 45-minute video entitled "Africa: Man's Moral Test."
Shields told the National Press Club audience:
I'm running, with my two colleagues here, Rachel Brown and Kesha Rogers, to push a very simple policy, which can be stated in very simple terms: It's the LaRouche Plan. In very simple terms, what we're talking about is, first and foremost, take back the bailouts. Take back your money, because that's what it was, your money. And then begin a very clear process of reconstructing a broken nation inside the United States. We don't have half the industry that we had 30 years ago, or so; we don't have half the minds necessary to build the infrastructure, and engage in the kind of scientific investigations that we once had 30 or so years ago.
And, take note of this: that the bailout itself was a hyperinflationary policy. That, committing trillions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money to this process, is hyperinflationary in its nature, and it's deadly for the nation, and it's deadly for the world. And as we've emphasized, as you'll find on my website, it's a hyperinflationary policy, a global hyperinflationary policy. So it's not something just confined to the United States.
Secondly, which is very simple, we want to ban the HMOs. Because if there's any discussion about cutting costs or something like that, in health-care expenditures, and you don't talk about the fact that the HMOs, the health maintenance organizations, are the number-one siphons of money, when it comes to dealing with whether the money's going to get to the people or not, then you're not talking about any sort of real health-care shift inside the United States. And, in this case, having the HMOs enforce health-care policy, and then having private accountants enforce the health-care policy in the form of an Independent Medicare Advisory Board, which was put in place in the latest health bill pushed through the Senate by Harry Reid, then you're not talking about any sort of real health-care reform; you're talking about a policy, again, that's going to decide who lives and who dies.
So, if you decide to get rid of the HMOs, then it's very simple what you've got to do: You just have to provide for the infrastructure that people require, to live. And you want to spend the money on those types of things. You want everyone to have the highest level of health care, across the board, and you don't want any sort of rationing policy. The only reason you would end up having something like that, is because you were trying to save the banks. This is what's becoming clearer and clearer to a lot of people, in the black population and in labor, now: a recognition that the Obama Administration is against them.
Now, thirdly: Putting our nation back to work is key. And so, what I think all three of our campaigns will be pushing on, as part of this LaRouche Plan, is, we need to go back to a Franklin Roosevelt-style Civilian Conservation Corps approach. You've got a lot of young people out there, you've got a lot of young people in those poor neighborhoods who have no future to speak of. They have no skills; they've got nothing that is worth calling skill-training for a real job. And so, getting these young people, and pulling these young people into a real infrastructure-building training program, which means putting these people through three, four years of training in building infrastructure which we need desperately. You could have some people who today have nothing to speak of, in terms of skill, who are going to be able to build the vital infrastructure we require inside the United States.
So that's got to be done immediately. And I don't think getting an internship to Washington, D.C., to kiss the butt of Nancy Pelosi is a skill worth talking about. So, Nancy Pelosi is going to have to find some new aides. Actually, we'll probably have to put Nancy Pelosi through the Civilian Conservation Corps and give her some skills.
Finally, we've got to look across the Pacific to our friends, because Europe's got its own problems right now, and they were complicit in this process of trying to save a lot of this fake money through the bailout. But globalization has destroyed nations across the planet, so we've got to turn our attention to Russia, China, and India, and engage them in some comprehensive, globalization-ending treaty agreements.
And that's got to be done immediately. And that's something that could be done—yesterday, if we had had the political will to accomplish that. And so my campaign, from California, what Nancy Pelosi should have done a long time ago, is going to orient towards those three nations, which are, again, Russia, China, and India, to enter into some immediate treaty agreements, and end globalization, and start a process of an international system based on very cheap credit, so that we can get these nations to become self-sufficient—all four of them—and then other nations will join in, and get involved in that, too.
Rachel Brown
Rachel Brown's campaign against Barney Frank is what you might call a "natural." The 28-year-old Brown captured international Internet attention in August 2009, when she challenged Frank, at a Boston town meeting, on his support for the Obama Nazi health-care policy. The confrontation (video at www.rachelforcongress.com) left Frank uncharacteristically speechless on the topic, and claiming that it was not worth debating Brown, any more than you could debate with a "dining room table."
Now, with her Congressional challenge, Brown is reiterating her demand that "Bailout Barney" debate her. She is "putting on the table" the question of whether the petulant Congressman, now in his 15th term, and with a record of aggressively blocking the only solutions to the current economic crisis, is either incompetent, or of a criminal mind.
In her Press Club statement, Brown outlined the desperate crisis which was created by the Wall Street financiers, and the leadership which Lyndon LaRouche had shown, in putting forward the emergency legislation, in July 2007, which could solve it. She then said:
So, [LaRouche] put this out as a bill, called the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act, which was endorsed in over 90 city councils across the country, and in over 10 states, and which said, 'This is what we should do: We should freeze foreclosures, and we should stop the collapse of this financial system, by reorganizing it in bankruptcy.'
So, this was put on the table of Congress, and what was done? Was it accepted? Barney Frank, personally, said, 'No. This is not what we should do. This is unconstitutional. It's not a systemic problem—no, just a little problem with the way we're running things, that's all.'
For one thing, he should have known better. He knew the cause, he knew the practices that were occurring in the hedge funds. He knew—this was testified to in Congress—that this was a systemic crisis; he knew full well. His very office was actually involved, with Crédit Suisse, in producing the bill which he then adopted, which did not freeze foreclosures, but used the Federal Housing Administration as a new bailout mechanism, against its original authority, to insure to $300 billion, the value of mortgages in the system. This didn't stop foreclosures. This was essentially used to save the value of the securities on Wall Street.
So at every point on the road, whether it was this bill, or whether it was the financial bailout by Henry Paulson, which Barney supported, or whether it's the recent actions of Tim Geithner, with the bailout, and with AIG, Barney Frank, every step of the way, has supported these policies, and acted against the interests of the population, and acted instead to defend the interests of London and Wall Street, and the British Empire.
This is tantamount to treason, and if the bailout policy continues, we will no longer have a U.S. dollar, we will no longer have a U.S. economy. So, the bailout policy essentially isn't infinite, because we will drive the United States into the ground. So, I say it's time to stop that policy, if we want to prolong our existence....
It's time now for a credit system, as LaRouche has laid out: It's sane and it's simple. The only approach is to cancel the bailout: Use a Glass-Steagall reorganization to get the money back. We will sort out the worthless assets in the financial system from the productive assets that have a useful purpose, and through this process, we will actually bankrupt these worthless financiers. Then, we'll invest this credit into projects, which Kesha will go through more fully, but into projects of infrastructure development, high-speed rail, nuclear power, and space technology. And we will do this internationally with a Four-Power Alliance, strong enough to overcome the reigning power of the British financial system: and that's Russia, China, and India, which have recently worked together, already, in the Copenhagen Conference, to ensure their future development in this manner.
So now, all that's got to be done, is to clean out the kooks in the Obama Administration, hold him accountable, clean out the kooks in Congress in November. That's sort of the last thing we'll do, but first we've got to implement these policies. But that's how we turn around this process.
Kesha Rogers
Kesha Rogers, a native Texan, enters her campaign for the Democratic Party nomination to run against Republican incumbent Pete Olson, having already made a considerable mark in Texas politics. Rogers, now 33, joined the LaRouche Youth Movement in 2004, and took a high-profile role in the 2006 elections. She ran for chairman of the Texas State Democratic Party on the slogan of "Out of the Bushes, Into the Future!", and worked tirelessly to oust Tom "The Hammer" DeLay (R) from Congress.
Rogers' district includes NASA headquarters, and therefore, she will put a special emphasis on the aspect of the LaRouche Plan that calls for establishing a Moon-Mars mission, as the inspiration for bringing the United States into the new international configuration LaRouche has proposed. Rogers reflected this commitment in her remarks at the National Press Club:
And what all three campaigns must represent and what we are organizing around, is an initiative for a national policy orientation: We have to throw the 'practical' solutions out the window, and we have to bring in a policy to invigorate and orient those American patriots against the imperial policies of free trade and globalization, and the takedown of the productive sector of our economy. And this is why the focus on the LaRouche initiative, and the LaRouche Plan for economic recovery, is so vital and important.
And how we will do that, is through an initiative of, first and foremost, looking at the need for reemphasizing once again, a bankruptcy reorganization: stopping the bailouts, once and for all, getting the money that has been put into the fraudulent and unconstitutional banking activities of Wall Street, back into production again. And that's what my campaign is going to represent, along with the other campaigns here.
And I will emphasize that the need for a Moon-Mars project is very vital. Many people may say, 'Well, we've heard that before, in the past. What makes your campaign so unique in terms of a Moon-Mars project?' Well, what we're looking at, is not a Moon-Mars project in space development as only something that is simply geared toward a policy which maybe something that people just 'like,' or think is a 'nice idea.' We're looking at the Moon-Mars project and the development of aerospace production, as the very crucial key to the development of sovereign nation-states, the development of our economy again. And this will be emphasized in the same way that it was emphasized and understood by President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy understood that the Moon-Mars project was not just for 'sending a man to the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.' He knew that project would be, and the emphasis on the science-driver would be necessary for development of all of your economic production in your society....
So, we'll emphasize once again, that the only way that we will be able to implement the policies which are needed right now, is to tell the truth! To say that, a Bill of Impeachment may be needed for the President of the United States, for Nancy Pelosi, and for others who are pushing a policy right now of treason in the United States, against the Constitution of our nation.
But, we also have to look at what the alternative is: What we represent is an alternative that has a policy that has to be implemented now, not in 2011, or some time next January. We're discussing what has to be put forth as the only solution to getting out of this global, financial collapse. And as Rachel has gone through very extensively here, and also Summer, we are now facing the worst economic breakdown, hyperinflationary collapse in world history, since the 1923 banking collapse and the 1923 Weimar hyperinflationary collapse, which we can go back to as a reference point for what we're seeing today.
But the unique role that we represent, and which my campaign will take on, along with the others here, is that we have to have a focus on ending free trade, ending globalization. We have to have a focus on a mission-orientation for the next 50 years. And this is something that most people in Congress right now, don't think about; they're thinking about the 'now': 'How I can get what I need, now—a quick fix.' And there's no quick fix to this crisis.
And so, this is why we have to put forth a policy solution that is going to say, 'Our focus and our priority is on the future of mankind.' Our priority is on a Moon-Mars mission-orientation, so that we can actually develop the underdeveloped sectors of India and China, in Asia, bringing them into, as I emphasized, a Four-Power solution for economic development. And this Four-Power solution has to be centered around cultural and scientific development for all mankind. And that's what our campaigns are going to represent. That's what my campaign will represent, from the standpoint that we cannot talk about 'local issues' as such: What we have to do is emphasize the importance of a global initiative, of a national policy orientation, to put our country and its constitutional principles back on the table again. And this is why, what we're seeing right now—we're going to harness the rage and activity coming from the population, and put that rage and activity to work in a real productive solution: that we have to take the true American patriots against this British imperial initiative, and have them fight for those constitutional principles of the Preamble, which state, that we have to protect and defend the General Welfare of our nation; we have to promote the General Welfare, and defend our nation's sovereignty.
