LAROUCHE AND THE CANDIDATES SLATE:
Constitutional Principles for an Economic Recovery
Lyndon LaRouche and the national slate of six LaRouche Democratic candidates for Congress gave this webcast on Jan. 8. Matthew Ogden was the moderator.
Matthew Ogden: Hello, and welcome to a special broadcast from LaRouchePAC TV. My name is Matthew Ogden and I'm joined today by Lyndon LaRouche and all six members of the Federal Candidates Slate, two here in the studio, Diane Sare [N.J.] and Bill Roberts [Mich.]; and four hooked up over live video feed: Rachel Brown [Mass.], Kesha Rogers [Tex.], Dave Christie [Wash.], and Summer Shields [Calif.].
The discussion that you're about to hear today may be one of the most important of your lifetime, because it just may determine whether you, whether all of us, and whether our nation lives or dies; because we're at the verge of the end of the trans-Atlantic system and we have Hitler in the White House, which is a fact that many people have begun to recognize. There is a growing resistance to him, and this resistance is good, but this resistance is not good enough. We do not intend to merely wage a resistance. We intend to take power, and we're going to take power through the assertion and affirmation of the fundamental principles of our Constitution. So, what you're about to hear is a Presidential pronouncement of policy, or, as Lyndon LaRouche called it, a "Constitutional Convention for Our Cause."
So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce to you, Mr. LaRouche.
Lyndon LaRouche: The mistakes that are going to be made in the election campaign this year, are going to be numerous and not very funny, for the greater part. We have no Republican candidate worth voting for, that's clear. We don't have a candidate now running for President on the Democratic ticket, who's fit to vote for, and we have no sign that we're going to get one, as of now. I hope we can change that, and one of the purposes of this discussion today, is to change it. That what looks like the roster of candidates on both the Democratic and Republican sides are not fit to run, and we're going to have to change that, by bringing on different kinds of issues than they want to discuss, and different kinds of questions, we hope, from people who are going to discuss with us, today.
Now, the difference about what I'm going to do, with what these jokers who are running presently are going to do: I'm going to stick to the U.S. Constitution. I shall make some comments on other matters, which are not those of the Constitution as it stands right now, but what I'm presenting is only related to the U.S. Constitution.
First of all, the first thing we have to do, is we're going to save this nation: Remember, this nation, like Europe, is now going into bankruptcy, total bankruptcy. It may be disintegration. Every nation in the world could disintegrate in this period, particularly those in the Western Hemisphere, and that's where we stand. None of these candidates are fit to become President, on either side, as of now. I would hope, as I said, we will smoke something better out of the collection.
There are two issues which are primary: As of now, the trans-Atlantic economy is disintegrating; it is already hopelessly bankrupt, and it's currently disintegrating. So the very idea, at this stage, of imagining an election coming in November of this year, is some kind of a very bad joke, unless something fundamental is changed right now. None of these guys are fit to be President! That doesn't mean they're not fit to be in your neighborhood or something like that; there may be a few cases that really are not, but most of these people would be fit to be in your neighborhood, except for the President. But they're not qualified to deal with this problem. They don't have the temperament, they don't have the knowledge to deal with the problem we face now.
First of all, the entire trans-Atlantic system of nation-states, is now hopelessly bankrupt—hopelessly bankrupt. If you're counting upon any of these candidates between now and November, you're not going to have a President: This system is hopelessly bankrupt.
FDR's Glass-Steagall
So, the first thing we're going to have to do—we're going to have to get it through, and it doesn't depend upon an election process, as such; it depends upon some votes in the Congress, and similar kinds of things. First thing: Glass-Steagall. Now, I mean the original Glass-Steagall law, drafted by President Franklin Roosevelt, in his terms, without a change in a punctuation mark in the whole thing! His exact proposal. His Glass-Steagall. Without this Glass-Steagall, the United States is going to die!
But that's not all that has to be done. It'll die this year: Your United States will die! And the November elections will be a bad, very bad joke—even if they occur, and as it stands now, they won't occur.
But Glass-Steagall will help. Without Glass-Steagall we can not save this nation. It will be, as I said before, it'll be Franklin Roosevelt's Glass-Steagall, without a single change. Just that: Vote it up! That's it.
Now, that won't be enough, because what will happen with the Glass-Steagall is the following: First of all, it will mean that most of the major banks in the United States will go belly up. They're going to go belly up anyway. They're worthless: They will never be able to bail out of anything. They're hopelessly bankrupt. Their debts are far beyond anything, and they're also in a hyperinflationary mode, which means they're in a situation like Germany in 1923. A hopelessly bankrupt system.
What we're going to do with Glass-Steagall, is throw out the speculative part of the banking system, and we'll just put it off by itself and say, "You guys are no longer part of our system. The Federal government has no responsibility for anything about you, except trying to control your behavior. You're not going to get a nickel from the United States, under Glass-Steagall."
All the banks, or the sections of banks which are salvageable, because they are, according to valid banking rules, those banks we will save; even if we have to put them through bankruptcy reorganization and other adjustments, we're going to save them. And the Federal government will guarantee them. The Federal government, however, will not guarantee any of these other banks, any of these speculative banks: They are finished as of now. Nobody could save them, because they're hopelessly bankrupt! There's nothing that could be done by the U.S. government to save these other banks. They claim that they need help, they're in danger, that their depositors are in danger. Well, if they don't qualify as Glass-Steagall banks, they don't get a bailout. They've already lost everything, and they will never have enough to pay anybody. They're finished! They're gone. Except what we salvage out of those banks, which conforms to Glass-Steagall standards.
National Banking
Now, that's not enough. With the Glass-Steagall legislation, we will save all the banks that are viable banks, that are commercial banks, not these other kinds of banks. But that's not going to be enough to save the nation. So therefore, we're going to have to make another step, which goes back to the 1840s, back to reestablish the original banking system of the United States, which was the banking system of Alexander Hamilton: the National Banking system.
Now, how did we lose the National Banking system? Well, it's kind of a dirty story. It involves various kinds of criminal types as well, but it involves chiefly a President of the United States, Andrew Jackson, who was a bum! He was actually instrumental, with the New York banking system, in shutting down our original banking system, and that is how we got into trouble. In other words, from the point of his election as President, when he put through the cancellation of the National Banking system, we have actually been operating under a British-style banking system, of that type.
Now, as long as we're operating under that rule, now, we don't have a chance of keeping the United States alive, even with Glass-Steagall. We can not save the United States without Glass-Steagall, but Glass-Steagall is not sufficient to save it. We have to reestablish a National Banking system, a Constitutional system which was associated with Alexander Hamilton, which was shut down by this crowd, at that time. So, we go back to that. Under that condition, the Federal government will then be able to provide sufficient credit to launch a genuine recovery of the U.S. economy. Without that measure, it can not be done.
Now, what's the difference? What's called a banking system today, even a commercial banking system, in terms of national rules, is actually a British-style banking system, a European-style banking system. Under a European-style banking system, which is actually a part of the imperial kind of system, we could not bail out the United States; we could not save the United States. We could save part of it, but we couldn't provide for the needs of our citizens and many other things. If we have a Hamiltonian type of banking system, we can provide sufficient credit to restore the growth of the United States, and immediate relief for most of our citizens. Without that change, it can't be done.
Now, there are other kinds of reforms which we must make. Those we can discuss here, but it must be understood that the only way we can save the United States is with Glass-Steagall first, which is not adequate; and then, we have to go with a National Banking system, of a type that was cancelled, but which was put into place as a Constitutional provision, under the influence of Alexander Hamilton. Those two steps will be sufficient, if carried forward, to save the United States, now.
Constitutional Issues
Now, what we're going to do, is, during the remainder of this year, we're going to continue to emphasize this, and essentially, when it comes to Constitutional questions, nothing but this. Because we're going to hammer it away, again, and again, and again! In the meantime, all these other candidates are going to be saying foolish things that won't do any damned good for the people of the United States, or the United States itself.
So we're going to be hammering away, and we're not going to mix it up with other issues. There are other issues for the campaign, but these other issues have to come after the restoration of our Constitution. Because, without this specific definition, without a U.S. Constitutional system, which is a credit system, not a banking system—without that, you can not save the United States. With that, we can do it. We can do it right now. And it's the only solution in sight. Because it has to be our Constitution.
For example, most of these guys who are running for office, of this type, like the Republican crowd and so forth—Obama's hopeless; you'll never get anything good out of Obama—but that crowd, they're all hopeless. They have no idea in the world of what to do to actually save this economy, to save this nation under these conditions. And they're not likely to discover that, either. So we're going to have to have different candidates than any of those in sight right now. But that's not really a problem, is it? There are various ways we in the United States can run candidacies for President, and they can be elected.
But what we have to do, is we have to have, constantly, like a hammer—bang, bang, bang, bang—coming down, every week, all the time: National Banking, Glass-Steagall, National Banking! Those two issues are the issues which have to define the future of the United States, right now. Under these issues, we can save the United States, and help to save much of the rest of the world. Without that, the situation is hopeless.
With a switch to National Banking, after installing Glass-Steagall again, we could save the United States; without those two changes, which are Constitutional changes, the United States has not got a prayer of surviving! So, if you're going to vote for some other kind of candidate who doesn't do that, you're committing suicide, essentially. So you might as well forget those candidates! They're worthless.
And we're going to hammer at it this way, again, and again, and again, and again, and again. We'll be relentless! And we have to be relentless, because we're in a war to save the United States, from stupidity and worse. And if we don't do it, and other people don't join us and do it, the United States is not going to live out this year. So, we're not fooling around.
Now, there are many other things we have to do. And I think some of those many other things will come to the fore in the course of the discussion among us here. But that's what I want to emphasize clearly: You can not keep the United States alive, throughout this year, without candidacies which are based on what I've just indicated here. Absolute demand! Unconditional demand! We must have Glass-Steagall, now! Immediately! That will stop the blood flow for the moment, but that will not save the United States, by itself. We must switch from the kind of banking systems we've had since Andrew Jackson, since this little treasonous stunt he pulled in favor of the British interests; with that, we can not save the United States. With these measures, we can save the United States.
There are many other things that go with this, but they're not Constitutional issues. And what I've said so far, these two issues, are Constitutional issues. They're Constitutional issues, which are proposed to eliminate what is un-Constitutional in the practice and belief of practically every candidate I've seen on the roster so far for President, Democratic or Republican. So that's where we stand.
No More Politics as Usual
Diane Sare: One thing I would really like to emphasize is that not one single one of these so-called Republicans, who are nominally running because they're running against Obama, has even said that Obama should be removed from office! So, right away, they're demonstrating their complete lack of understanding of what's required to save the nation.
And then, as part of that, the American people have this silly attitude that somehow—. You have a whole bunch of candidates who all, I guess nominally on one level or another, agree with Obama, since they're not calling for his removal. And then people act as if they would expect that something would change as a result of an election which is between a bunch of people who have, in one degree or another, the same policy.
So I think this whole question of tradition, of "go along to get along," of accepting at face value what's presented to you in the news media—people really have to break out of that thinking. And I'm really glad we have this opportunity, because hopefully, when we're through, people will have an idea of what the United States actually should be doing, and could be doing, and why it's so insane to go along with this.
A Campaign for Principle
LaRouche: But the problem is, the American people, generally, have not accepted the idea of principle. The idea of a principle—people think that almost anything they swear to is a principle. And some things you swear at, should be called principles, better!
But the point is, none of these candidates has a single idea in his funny head, of what is required to lead the United States under these circumstances. And anybody who votes for these guys is as big a fool as they are, because nothing they're proposing, nothing they're saying, and nothing they have advocated generally, is not contradictory to the very interests of the survival of the United States. So they're voting against the United States, for their own candidacies.
And we haven't seen any sign of anything better from the Democrats, so far. There's no one to step forward, to say, "I'm a Presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket." And no one to step forward to make a statement on policy which is relevant to saving the United States from extinction! So, what kind of candidacies do we have?
We're seeing a change in Germany, which is for the better, among the people there. They've gone through a terrible situation, and we find there is an improvement in the opinion formation of citizens in Germany, in discussions in the street and so forth, that I don't see inside the United States.
What we're doing, is, we're getting support from people in the United States who do care about these issues, and do think about them. But there's no clarity about what the difference is. And no clarity about what a Democratic or Republican election would mean. There's no conception of a Constitutional nature—they don't know what a Constitution is! They think it's something you just vote for, because you like it. You include your nephews or nieces, brother-in-law, or something in there, and that's called an "issue of the election."
But the idea of what the Constitutional character of the United States is, these candidates, not one of them, has a single sense of what the Constitution of the United States is. They may know some words, but they don't know what the words mean: And that's where our problem lies. And that's what we have to answer: Stick to this thing, don't cloud it up with other issues. Sticking to the questions of what are the Constitutional issues, of our Constitutional system, which must be adopted. There are other issues that must be adopted, but they must depend upon putting the Constitutional issues foremost, and first. I'm not going to name some of the candidates, the terrible errors they make, those that are running now—but, that's the case! They don't know what a Constitutional issue is. They don't know what the United States Constitution is.
Can you imagine, people running for President on the Republican ticket, and none of them knows what a Constitutional issue is? They all have a sense of the Constitution: It's my brother-in-law's favorite dog, or something like that.
Anyway, so that's the issue, only a Constitutional issue; and there are only two leading issues right now, on which the saving of the United States depends: One, without Glass-Steagall, this nation will not survive. Two, without an amplification beyond Glass-Steagall, which means going back to a credit system, going back to before Andrew Jackson, to National Banking, we're sunk.
What Is a Credit System?
I should probably explain this: Under National Banking, the United States government will create credit, for any worthy cause consistent with the national government's intention. For example, under Glass-Steagall alone, you would not be able to generate sufficient income to save most of the people of the United States. You would save the United States in part, but a very impoverished United States, without the resources to meet the needs of most of the people. That's because, under this kind of banking, commercial banking, we are limited in the amount of credit we can utter.
Now, you go back to the case of Franklin Roosevelt in 1933: Roosevelt understood this problem and was able, with the aid of what became Glass-Steagall, then, to actually create sufficient credit for the United States to launch a recovery, so that by the time World War II came around for us, in 1941, we were the most powerful nation on the planet. And we had been a junk heap at the beginning of that period. That's what Glass-Steagall did.
Now, today, we are so bankrupt, we don't have even the production capability we had back in the depths of the Depression. We have students out there, young people, who really can't think! The generation between 14 and 25 years of age is impoverished: They don't have the ability to think. They don't know what work means! It's not, they don't have jobs; they don't have the intellectual development to do work! They don't even know they should be doing work. And therefore, we have a hopeless situation, and we need a greater impetus from the Federal government, than we could ever get from a commercial banking system, under these conditions.
Therefore, what we need is a National Banking system of our own, a credit system. And under a credit system, we can utter as much credit as is needed to provide jobs, real jobs, and real work. Once we cover those needs, we can also continue to sustain people who don't have an income otherwise.
So therefore, we can have a full-scale recovery of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt-style, with large projects, which I'm not mentioning here, but which are there, ready to be used, and under these programs, with these projects, and that financing, the Federal government can build back the United States rapidly. Just the same way Franklin Roosevelt's Administration proceeded under the same principle. And that's where we stand.
So under this kind of reform, just by going back to our banking system, its original intention, under our Constitution, sticking to just that Constitutional issue, we then have a policy-guidance for a reform, which will save the United States totally, and bring it back to a leading position in the world. And we'll find ourselves with allies in many parts of the world, on this project.
So we can save the United States! But we will not save the United States without these two Constitutional measures, which are required: Glass-Steagall must be put through immediately, and we must go back to the kind of banking system we had at the beginning, to National Banking under a credit system. Under those two conditions, and no other conditions, I can guarantee you, we're capable of saving the United States.
Development Projects
Dave Christie: Lyn, what you're laying out has a very narrow track of a way to get out of this mess. What comes up often in the population, and in politics in general, is that "these are just one of many things that could work," and the idea of politics is that you just check a box for the things you want, or put it on the plate from the smorgasbord, as if it were all just a conglomerate of your own interests, or your own desires or something. Whereas, looking at it as a principled issue in this way, there is no other way to do this.
And this comes up around the issue of NAWAPA [the proposed North American Water and Power Alliance]. Sky [Shields] mentioned this in the paper he did on Arctic development, actually going back to your Sept. 30 broadcast, where you made the point on a credit system, that it's not simply a process of continuation, but that it's a process of development. And the unit of development as you laid out, was credit.
So, the difference is, we can't just continue what we used to do. And Sky made the point in his paper, that the general idea of economics is that you sort of slide up and down a hill. And we happen to have slid back down a hill by the collapse of our manufacturing base, by the destruction of our machine-tool capability, and what you have to do is simply slide it back up the hill.
Well, that's not the case; in the sense of a process of development, what we are going to need to do is rapidly increase and push the envelope forward, which is what you get with something like NAWAPA.
We're going into NAWAPA, because the duration of the project, all of the different capabilities of what it does to improve the situation, that's going to restore value and employment and so on. And you made the point that it's not simply that there's a bunch of different options that we could do at this point. It's principled, and there's a very narrow track that we can be on, to get out of this mess.
An International Perspective
LaRouche: To make it concrete: We have other nations in the world which are operating on their own conception of a credit system. Two of the most notable are China and Russia.
Now, Russia, under its present leadership, the Prime Minister and the President, does have a policy program which would, in a sense, do a job for Russia. The problem is, that Russia does not have a credit system, in the American sense, the American Constitutional sense, that we have under our Constitution. And I would encourage Russia to make that change of going to a credit system, under which Russia, which is now going through a new election process, and therefore they will be doing a lot of things after the election process is over; but what they're trying to do will not be sufficient for their intentions, and their intentions are excellent in terms of economic measures; under the present system, they will not do it.
That will mean, they will have to go, as the United States must go, to a credit system. Under Russia's adoption of a credit system, it will be able to play the kind of role it's intended and indicated that it will do in cooperation with the United States. And their role, with the United States, is important.
I'll just mention one issue here, as an example of this: We're now having a fundamental change in the weather of this planet. What's happening is, there was a change, where the melting of the ice area—which is not the result of some catastrophe—the ice accumulation was the result of a mistake that was done by nature, in the Arctic area. And now that mistake is being corrected.
So now, instead of looking at the middle of the Earth and looking at the bottom of the Earth, from the South Pole, we're now looking at the North Pole area, where the ice is melting, and the greatest opportunity for the development of economy of the world is now centered. China is integral to that—China is not up north, but China has built one of these big icebreaker boats, which it's going to use for its participation in the Arctic region. And if you look at the Earth from the standpoint of the north, from the Arctic region, and realize this whole area of the Arctic region is now open for development, it indicates where the great potential for growth on this planet is. And the United States, of course, is part of it: We, with Alaska, with our relationship with our neighbor Canada, with the mainstream of the United States territory, these are areas of great potential development.
And all we need is the credit system to launch some of the projects which are needed, and which will work, which will provide the employment. So, it's not just that our role in the United States, as the one nation which has a legacy, the legacy of our American Revolution—under our legacy, tied to collaboration with other nations, and that includes most of the population of the planet, we can, in our part, participate to our own benefit, in cooperation with these other nations, to solve the problems of this planet. It's there before us.
But we have to get agreement, which means Constitutional agreements; it means, we would like to have Russia adopt a credit system, as opposed to what they're using now. We would like to see China doing the same thing. We would like to see India making the same kind of reform.
Because one of the things we've got to do: Africa, all of Africa, is nothing but a victim of the British system. Every part of Africa is owned, totally, by the British Empire! And the conditions of death, slavery, that exist in Africa, the whole continent is suffering from that disease, because of the British Empire and the U.S. complicity with the British in this operation. So we want Africa to come back as a growing area of the world.
But the main drivers right now are the United States, Canada—in fact its northern region, which is an area of riches, for potential growth in the future; Russia, tremendous territory with tremendous mineral resources. Good for the world! China is already in the process of joining; Japan is ready to join; Korea is ready to join, now that the North Korea and South Korea situation is becoming better coordinated; India, of course, will be very interested in this.
So, these are the opportunities that exist. And what we do in the United States will affect—if we do what I've indicated on this reform, in terms of going back to a Constitutional reform, we will have created the opportunity in the United States, which brings in a revival of Europe; brings in the role of what Russia's potential is now; the role of China, 1.4 billion people, the largest population concentration on this planet of any nation. And then you have India, 1.1 to 1.2 billion people. And Africa, which is a starving, poor region, an abused region. We can, together in cooperation, based on our making this Constitutional reform, create the opening for the cooperation which can save the whole planet.
The Post-Kennedy Collapse
Bill Roberts: One of the ironies, I think, of this whole period we've been in—because it's been 50 years since we had a President that even had any conception like this: John F. Kennedy, of course. And when he was killed, one of the big lies that was pushed was that, well, we can't have big science-driver programs, or, we shouldn't put—you hear this all the time—we really shouldn't be putting all this money into the space program, because we have all these poor people here. But of course, these people are doomed, right now, unless we actually get the high-tech developments going, and that—in other words, these people are doomed, and a lot of other people are doomed, unless we actually initiate a credit system, and see to it that the margin of output in the long term is going to be much greater than what goes into it; and then also, what's needed to cover and compensate for people in old age, and people that have to be taken care of. Otherwise, for anyone to be talking about trying to do anything for anyone within this present system, is just absolute insanity, and we just don't have time for it.
LaRouche: We have to bring up something—you mentioned the Kennedy Administration—that, actually, since John Kennedy was killed, assassinated, the United States has been going down economically. There were some leftovers, which were largely space program leftovers, into the early 1970s; but already, by the time we made the first Moon landing, the U.S. economy was on the way down.
Now, after Kennedy's assassination, and also his brother's assassination—remember, he [Robert] was about to be nominated for the candidacy for the Presidency, just days after he was assassinated, before some of the radicals at Columbia University and elsewhere, were planning to rejoice over his assassination. And it's that crowd that was prepared to rejoice over Bobby Kennedy's assassination, who did much of the dirty work since that time, in taking over leading positions of influence inside the U.S. political system!
But the case of John Kennedy: Why was Kennedy killed? It's a very simple reason, one primary reason: His economic policy was a growth policy. And with his assassination, the growth policy died; except for the increase in population, the per-capita growth died. Why was he killed? Because he opposed going into a long war in Indo-China, which was ten years of long war, from which the United States has never really returned, in terms of its economic policy and many other policies. And therefore, Kennedy was killed, because some people didn't like what he was doing, and what he was doing was good!
And this is, again, the Constitutional issue. When people say "poor people," all this stuff, it's all hypocrisy! They created more poor people with their policies. They destroyed people! They destroyed people in Vietnam! That was destruction. People went out there as human beings, and came back as drug addicts and whatnot; and never quite came back altogether again. The United States became worse and worse.
We had decent Presidents; I mean, some things Reagan did were not bad. Of course, we had Clinton, who did what he could. But in general, our political system has degenerated, our economy has degenerated, our morals have degenerated, in terms of economic and other morals. And what we need is to get back to what was taken away from us, by the death of Roosevelt, and the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, which were the two changes in politics done by forceful means, which sent us on this road down to the Hell we're in today.
And we have to say these things. They're not Constitutional issues as such, but we are reminded of them, when we think about what the Constitutional issues are.
Productive Employment and Science Breakthroughs
Kesha Rogers: It seems, constitutionally, that the principle of a credit system is going to be defined by increasing the living standard of your population. And if you look at this from the standpoint of what we're talking about, the developments where you're discovering new physical principles, universal physical principles, that's what something like what the Arctic development would represent. And that is also what you see from the standpoint of what NAWAPA represents.
And you can look at this along the lines of how the development of the manned space program was exactly that. The manned space program, what we defined as our Mars colonization program, has been exactly along that line: that you're going to improve the living conditions of your population. You're going to actually give your society a mission once again. And that mission is going to be defined by discovery of higher principles of productive employment and productive understanding of science and technologically based development for your society.
And so, like if you look at John F. Kennedy's manned Moon landing, and how the scientific and technological progress that went into this was actually giving—I think it was something like, for every penny put into the space program, we got 14 cents back in economic development. That is how you define a certain direction and mission for your nation around increases in technological and scientific improvements.
LaRouche: One thing to emphasize in this connection, which the space program intersects, as other things intersect also, is what we call energy-flux density: The ability of the human species to sustain its present and growing population, depends upon fundamental scientific progress, which means more capital-intensive forms of production, more capital-intensive forms of employment, capital-intensive improvements in public works which are essential for the nation.
For example, one of the crucial things which is needed, in addition—that we do need the space program badly. We need to get rid of Obama, partly because he's an opponent of that. And if you look at some of the weather patterns which we've been getting in the past year, and you realize there's been a galactic shift in the pattern of weather, determined by forces in our galaxy, over which we can have some influence, that we now need to have some control over the weather.
Now, there are ways we can proceed to act against these weather problems. But look at, for example, food shortages: We're in a situation where, come Spring, as of now, if the Obama Presidency still maintains its policy, we're going to have mass starvation in the United States, by Springtime this year. Because the Obama Administration itself, apart from what it's done to the economy, but its very policies on agriculture, the criminal policy on agriculture, this international swindle done by international agricultural interests, which are creating starvation conditions in various parts of the world, including the United States—by the Spring of this year, we're looking for a potential tragedy in the United States, as a result of a food shortage, where the big moneybags, of the type that support Obama, and are behind him, are responsible. The Obama Administration is killing Americans by its policy on agriculture.
So therefore, these issues, while they're Constitutional on the one side, Constitutional issues are not just ideal; they're practical, as well as being ideal: They are principles on which progress depends. And when we see the lack of the progress, we go to, where is the problem coming from? It's coming from lack of progress in these dimensions, or the cutbacks. And you find the rich, international agro-interests are literally starving people, to drive up prices, killing food supplies, including in the United States, and we're faced with a very dangerous condition come Spring of this year, unless something is done very soon, which would mean, doing something to get Obama out of office!
And I assure you, that once Glass-Steagall were passed, Obama would want to leave office immediately. And I think other people would help him do that.
The Focus Is Mankind
Summer Shields: Lyn, what we're clearly talking about is a fascist policy. We're also clearly talking about a solution, which is a full-employment economic solution. And I think it's hard for many of the American people to fathom a constantly developing economy, into the future, and one where you have candidates that come out and campaign like Franklin Roosevelt did, with his Four Corners project. What he did in fighting for national development; even before the war started, there was a huge amount of development across the nation. And you just see the before and after pictures of what happened to the nation.
And then you see that what we're talking about is something which is on the scale of massive regional development, not just something that's based coast-to-coast, border-to-border, but something that's much more massive, and then this takes us right into space, and the discussion of space.
And I think, one of the more beautiful things to get on the discussion table for the American people, to inspire them and have a cultural shift and as well as the economic shift, is to get the understanding that we have a universe that actually was made for man.
And if you look at the strategic location of the Earth to the Moon, you've got a low-gravity Moon, which makes the Moon great for travel off of the Moon to go to other places in the Solar System. The kind of weather conditions we're going to be facing in the Arctic, are the same kind of temperatures we're going to have to face in these lava tunnels in the Moon. And we're looking at the Van Allen Radiation Belt: We can begin to get into the discussion of matter-antimatter reactions.
But, we know that we have a clearer policy than even Franklin Roosevelt had then, in terms of where mankind has to go. And if you look at a place here, Lawrence Livermore Labs, the other kind of developments that came out of what Franklin Roosevelt did, with the Oak Ridge National Labs and the Tennessee Valley Authority, you have the capability to launch a new wave of prosperity for the human species.
And I think people should get a clear concept of that. Why are we settling for Obama? Why are we settling for these candidates on the Republican side? We have a much grander, more beautiful future awaiting us.
LaRouche: We ought to do something else though. Because when you talk about "practical measures," so-called, you tend to miss something. The issue here, is the issue of mankind. It's not the issue of whether mankind is fed or not, or how well it's fed, or who it's fed to, or whatnot. The question of mankind, is the question of mankind as such. And you look inside the head of a human being, so to speak, and you say, "What kind of a human being is this?"
And the greatest danger that we face in the United States, is a kind of corruption of the U.S. population, which comes from pessimism. In other words, one says, "Well, what am I living for?"
Take all these poor kids out there, on dope, who don't know what a job is, don't want to know what a job is. They don't want to know what life is. Look at these people in this park around Washington, D.C., and other areas—it's a pitiful sight! The worst thing is not the conditions they suffer, as such, it's what these conditions do to their minds! Do to their outlook and their sense of identity!
And you know, we do good things, not because they produce benefits; yes, we like the benefits, we demand the benefits for people; but what we're looking at, is the person. I mean, when you love somebody, do you love the fact that they've got money? Do you love the fact they've got this benefit, or they produce something? Or, do you love them because you regard them as people? And it's important to you that people be improved, that they rise to higher achievements than generations before have achieved? All these practical measures are very important, but they have to be tied, in our approach, to an insight into what they do to the mind of the person.
What kind of persons are we producing? We should know that! Particularly when you get to my age, and you think back, and to think what was done to this population of the United States, from the time that the Kennedys were assassinated. We have a pattern of moral degeneration and demoralization of our population, the standard of the meaning of life. The goals of life, in the sense of education; look at what passes for entertainment, look at what passes for amusement! Look at what passes for all kinds of things in life. And you say you want to live and die for that kind of a junk life? A junky life? Most Americans today are condemned to a junky life, of one kind or another. A meaningful purpose in life, one they can be proud of, one which would cause them to be proud of this nation, they don't get.
So, the most important thing about mankind is mankind. And mankind's future, as mankind's development. The idea that each generation should be an improvement on the previous one, which is not an insult to the previous generation. It's actually a gratification—you know, grandparents are always glad to have grandchildren who are smarter than they are. That sort of thing. Or they used to be, anyway. I'm not sure, now!
But anyway, the essence we have to get at, in any kind of thing in election work, is we're talking about the mind of our citizens; the mind of those who are about to become our citizens. And what are we producing in them? What are we doing to call that forth in them? Think of all the junky people you see running around the street; they're running around like pieces of junk! Why are they like that? Somebody did it to them. A few Presidents did it to them, among the accomplices.
We have demoralized our own people—from what we used to represent. And all the good things we do, should be seen as integral, the necessary things, as integral to one purpose: to raising the standard of being a human being. That is the fundamental motivation. And you look at the election campaigns and so forth, these clowns out there running for President, and I do say "clowns running for President." Because what they're saying, from my standpoint, they're clowns! I mean, we should have a clown circus, and we can vote them "President This" and "President That," and they can all become Presidents in this clown circus. "Mr. President! Mr. President!" They all can do it. And they might as well, for these guys.
But the point is, what's lost in the process, is the value of mankind. The value of the person, the development of the value of the person, the achievement of mankind in the future.
For example, we're not going to survive, in this galaxy, unless we get a little bit smarter. There are things we can undertake to do, which will enable mankind to survive under the changing conditions in this galaxy, or even the part of the galaxy we live next to, the Crab Nebula vicinity. We're not going to make it, unless we advance to higher levels of science and technology; we're not going to make it.
But above all, what this means is, we're not making it as human beings, because we're not developing our human beings, from a lower level to a higher level of being a human being. That's where the great problem lies. That people have a sense of the value of themselves, and will be ashamed of themselves not to be improved, not to be part of an advancement of the human condition, and human quality of life, and a sense of failure on that account, no matter what they achieve otherwise. It's what we achieve in ourselves, and in our children and grandchildren, in terms of their development, to become a more noble expression of what humanity is: That's the great driver that makes people moral, that makes them think in terms of principles, rather than "what I can get."
Labor Power: Developing the Mind
Rogers: I think this question of the development of the minds of the citizens is the key principle to understanding how you defeat the oligarchy. Because it's been that principle of the development of the creative powers of the mind, which goes back to the fight of our American System, of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, of Lincoln's development of the Transcontinental Railway system. Any great President has actually, in his fight—whether it's Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Kennedy—against this imperial system of monetarism, against this oligarchy, has always understood that the development of the human mind, committed to a ceaseless development of your society, is what is crucially important.
And you can look at this from the standpoint of what Lincoln addressed, that you have two forms of labor: You have labor which is just a workhorse, a blind workhorse, that's working ceaselessly, doesn't know what he's working for, doesn't know what he's doing, just running on the treadmill; or you have development of real labor, productive labor, which is developed by the principles of what the truly creative human mind is. That there's no separation between productive employment and the mind, and what real productivity is. And so, I think any great development of our society is always organized around this standpoint.
America versus the Oligarchical System
LaRouche: The other thing I should bring up: What is the problem here? You're all talking about it, really, in one way or the other. It's a problem we all understand; we all talk about it, to some degree or other among ourselves. Let's look at it: What's the story?
In the history of mankind, as we know mankind as a cultural phenomenon, apart from the dead bones and so forth, from far away in the past: The problem is typified by the Trojan War. You had this great war, which went on for a protracted period of time. It's what was reported by Homer, and the accounts do have a basis. But what the war was about, really was what was called the oligarchical system. You had a city which was built up there, on the straits leading into the Black Sea, Troy. And you had the siege of Troy, presumably over some woman, who got herself captured (willingly, I think, in this case).
And so this war went on to a point of extermination of most of the people, and it became known as the Trojan War. And the fact of the Trojan War, the records, the archeological records and so forth, make the thing pretty clear what it was. But from that point on, looking at Mediterranean-centered civilization in particular, the history of Mediterranean civilization, to the present day!—to the present day, all throughout Europe—it is dominated by what's called the oligarchical system.
Now, the oligarchical system, of which the British Empire of today is one of the exemplars, this system was based on having a certain population which was the oligarchy—they were called "gods." That was the Greek in the Trojan War; they were referred to as "the gods." Right? And this ruling class, that we recognize in European history as the oligarchy, are the "gods"! And the "gods" depend upon keeping the majority of the population limited in numbers, and stupid in mind. To keep them like cattle, raise them like cattle, and keep them from rising to a position of challenging the authority of the so-called, or self-described, "gods."
Now, the key to the American Revolution is, there's a famous man, Nicholas of Cusa, who, in the 15th Century, was a leader in a cultural revolution, and one of his achievements was to warn people of his time that they must move out of Europe, across the great oceans to take the best culture of Europe, and in another territory, realize what that culture could be, what it could become.
There was an attempt to do so: Christopher Columbus was actually inspired by Cusa. And he followed up on his inspiration, got advice from people who actually were key associates of Cusa, who had then died, and Columbus devoted his life to crossing the oceans as Cusa had prescribed. He first went to what became the Portuguese/Spanish-speaking area, but it was taken over by the Habsburgs, who were one of the worst oligarchical functions that Europe has ever had—they're still a function, today.
So the backwardness of the Habsburgs essentially destroyed the effectiveness of what had been planned by the initial colonization in the Caribbean and South America.
So therefore, what happened was, in 1620, after the failure of the earlier colonizations of North America and South America, that after that, the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, following the Pilgrims' landing, became a form of European culture, at that time, which was free of the oligarchical taint. No gods!
And thus, the United States became a champion—our growth in the 19th Century, our growth during and after the Civil War, for example, was one of the great achievements of humanity.
The British Empire is really, sort of, the fourth Roman Empire. That is, you had the first Roman Empire, that stunk and went down. Then the Roman Empire tradition, or sections from the Roman Empire, became the Byzantine Empire. They clunked, out of a self-inflicted process. Then you had another phase, which is the so-called Crusader system, another bunch of bums who destroyed civilization almost totally, another phase of the Venetian system.
Then we had a period of a Renaissance, but the Renaissance was then attacked by the oligarchy, through a system of a long war, from 1492 up until 1648, whole periods of long wars and the destruction of civilization. Then you got a rebirth of Europe, only again, it's that culture, still with the oligarchical culture inside it. You had success.
Then, you had out of this—the American population from 1620 on, became the driver throughout the planet. It was the challenge which the United States came to represent, which forced Europe into a recovery of economy and culture.
And it's because when we became degenerated in the United States, as by what happened after the assassination of John and Robert Kennedy, since which time, we have been going down, degenerating. There have been exceptions of people who tried to make things better here, but the tendency is, we've gone down again. We're on the verge of losing civilization.
And you realize that by the struggle against the oligarchy, which is what the American achievement was, we created a system which we didn't have. That's how we got our Constitution. Europeans don't have a Constitution of the type we have created, because they made a compromise with the oligarchy. And through compromise with the oligarchy, Europe had some reforms which were fairly important to it at that time; but Europe was never the spark of this. You had great geniuses in Europe who came up, but their geniuses were often found landing, on the influence in the schools and universities and other things in the United States.
On the Verge of Thermonuclear War
So, we, to the degree we're not corrupted, represent something very special; and our Constitution, therefore, represents a heritage with something special in it. But we see, at the same time, when you look at the past two Presidents, you see oligarchism at its worst. There could not be a worse oligarchy than under George W. Bush, Jr. There couldn't be a worse oligarchy, than this British dummy, this British stooge, Obama! We are in danger largely because of that.
For example, we're now on the verge of a thermonuclear war. That's what's going on. Once they killed this poor slob Qaddafi in Libya—murdered him! He was captured, and they murdered him when he was captured, as a captive. They were going immediately into extending the war in Syria and into Iran. That's still going on: Syria is still under attack from oligarchical forces in Europe, with the accomplice being our President Obama.
We are on the verge of thermonuclear war, with Russia and China, and other countries, right now! Now, some people in the United States have helped to block that from happening. The threat still exists. What we're looking at, is again, the oligarchical principle, centered in London and the British Empire. And we have a British clown, who's our President, Obama. He's picked by the British monarchy, paid for by the British monarchy, and run by the British monarchy. And this crowd is running for a war, why? Because Asia is still strong. Europe and Africa are dying. The United States is disintegrating. Most of South America is disintegrating.
But Russia is coming back; China is growing. Korea is improving. Japan is highly resilient, and ready to improve. Do you think that the British, who have organized the United States into this thermonuclear war, intend to conduct a war by themselves with Syria and Iran? While Asia and Russia are surviving, otherwise? Of course, not! Their intention is to launch a thermonuclear attack on Russia, China, and other points.
That attack can not occur with the British alone: Only if the current President of the United States is still President and not yet removed, then the British will be able to use the thermonuclear power of the United States, which is the greatest thermonuclear power for warfare on this planet, and if they get control of that thermonuclear capability, which our forces represent—our naval forces in particular—then there will be an obliteration war, taking out a good part of Asia, and also much of the rest of the world.
All because we're damned fools enough, to continue to allow a President who's clinically insane and immoral, to control, to violate our Constitution, to break our laws, to betray our people, and to commit cruelties of the type we should despise.
What's Important Is the Future
Ogden: The reason why we have a right to assert that we will take power, and we must take power, is because these two principles that you laid out—Glass-Steagall and National Banking—they have the weight of scientific certainty behind them, that this is the only thing that could possibly create a recovery for this nation and for this planet. And I think the pathology of people failing to recognize, or refusing to recognize, the definition of real economic value, as opposed to money, as opposed to monetarism—real economic value, in the terms that we've laid it out here, this is what is the resistance among the members of this so-called opposition. But this is the only thing that allows us to assert that we have the right to take power in the United States, and people who come to think like us.
LaRouche: Well, if you take a look at my age, we're not talking about taking power. Right? We're not taking power; we're trying to create, leave a legacy to the generations that come after us. And it's the best way. It's the older men of the tribe sometimes, who best serve the young for that reason.
What's concerned here is, we are human beings, and if we are truly human, we are concerned about the things that deal with the future of humanity as much as for the past and present. One of the problems of our politicians generally, is they don't have that any more; they claim to be this—they use words. Words are cheap these days, but they don't have any principle! Look at this bunch of clowns that ran on a slate in Iowa. This is a pathetic mess. How could you even consider any of these guys as fit to be President? They haven't got anything in their heads worth voting for.
What's important is the future. And we're all going to die: At my age, you're very aware of that. But the future—your purpose in life is the future beyond your life! The idea that you can go to your grave, with a sense that your life means something for the future of humanity. And that's the difference between humanity and other creatures. And that's what we have to keep in our minds.
That's why you fight! Why should you fight for something? You're around, you're going to fight for somebody 20 years from now? Me? Fight for somebody 20 years from now? I'm not going to be around! No. It's only when you're dedicated to a principle, a commitment to a legacy for humanity, that you really have the morals and the capability of seeing things clearly, which is what we have to do. And we have to act that way. We have to understand, it's not what we are doing in our flesh, it's what we're doing in our flesh for the future that counts.
That's what we have to do now. It may seem like an impossible task to save this United States from this bunch of clowns who are running for President, right now! But we do it, why? For the future of mankind.
Choosing To Be Creative
Rachel Brown: It's a willful choice. Like you said, the Republican candidates are all clowns. They either want to blow you up, or they're like Ron Paul and they think there's value in gold or something. But what's not recognized, generally, what's attacked, generally, is this principle of creativity in mankind, and in the universe in general: that as long as you believe that there are fixed resources, then your notion of profit is going to be simply stealing from other people.
But if you're looking at the universe as Vernadsky did, with the fact that what we've seen in the biosphere, for example, is a constant tendency to develop and colonize every single possible space—whether it's a very cold area, like the Arctic, or an acidic area, or we've even found evidence of organic compounds in space; we see a tendency of life to colonize. And we see mankind also has a tendency to do that same thing. But we have to willfully choose to make a creative upshift to support that tendency. Maybe you want to bring something up on that.
LaRouche: Well, I think we're sitting around here, having a grand time! Because we're doing what we're supposed to do, what we intend to do. And the reason for which we're in this fight—. I mean, we're not running to grab the Presidency: We're trying to save it from the clowns that are trying to grab it! And I think it can be done. It can be done.
Helga [Zepp-LaRouche] reported a trend in Germany, an improvement in the trends there, because they're dealing with a hopeless political situation—that is, the politicians in Germany generally, are pretty hopeless! Truly, in France. The situation in Continental Europe is hopeless!
Here are these guys sitting down there, they used to have nations; they don't have nations any more! They're living under a "governance," which means they're living as a colony, a collective colony of the British Empire. They don't have sovereignty any more; they're a people without sovereignty. What is it like to be without sovereignty? How can you call yourself human, when your nation is not a sovereign nation? When you don't have the authority of being a member of a sovereign nation?
And this is the real issue: And we have to do what we have to do, because what's going to be important in this process, is ideas. I know that what we can pull together, not just us assembled here, but what's out there—there are people out there, if we can get the spark going among them a little better, who will realize that they have to be sovereign in respect to themselves.
The typical American is no longer sovereign, and that bunch of clowns called "Republican candidates" I've just seen parading by, is a demonstration of a people who aren't sovereign, because they don't have any purpose in living. They have an assortment of things they would like to eat or not eat; gimmicks. All they have is gimmicks! Not one of them says a damned thing about the great problem, the great crisis, that the people of this nation, and the world as a whole, faces: They haven't said a thing about it, and they're running for President of the United States! And you're going to find in the Democratic slot, the same thing.
We have some people in politics who would do better. But as long as they're going along with the crowd, adapting to the crowd, all the good things in them are not going to be coming forth. There's going to be something they talk about in whispers on the side, not what they talk about publicly.
So we're in a situation where we have the opportunity of speaking truth to places that need truth, badly. We don't have a monopoly on anything, except, it seems, truth.
Rogers: And the beauty is that people can participate in this "grand time" with us, and that's why we're having this discussion. If they actually know their rightful birthright as American patriots, as American citizens, and that this is what our republic was defined on, these very principles that we're discussing at this moment.
And the fact that you have people who are sitting back, saying, "Well, why don't we wait for an election? We only have a few more months, we can just get him out in November." They're not actually realizing what that true birthright is, what makes them American citizens, from the standpoint of what our true republic represents. And people just have to understand: We don't have time to wait! And the people who are listening to this broadcast are going to have to make the decision, and realize that you can't "vote" Hitler out of the White House! And everything that was brought up at the beginning of this discussion, that that's what we're dealing with; we're dealing with Hitler in the White House.
And so, this beautiful recovery plan, which we're discussing here, is what people have the unique ability to participate in, if they just choose to do so, and choose to take the actions that are needed.
LaRouche: Right.
Shields: Yes, Kesha, I'd like to tell people, that they should learn the lesson of Rip van Winkle.
Christie: I'd like to make one quick point on this issue of the credit system/Glass-Steagall: It's necessary for us to survive, in terms of the good. But what this does, is it destroys this British imperial system that's been running mankind for so long. And it's just useful to point out that all the major world religions have policies against usury: You know, Jesus Christ didn't throw over the money-changer tables in the Temple because he didn't feel like shopping that day. It's this principle of usury, and this is what we have to crush with Glass-Steagall and the credit policy.
So, in one sense, yes, we need it for the future development of mankind; but we need it to destroy these guys for good.
