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This article appears in the March 27, 2015 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

LaRouche Defines Standard
for Presidential Candidate

by Bruce Director

[PDF version of this article]

March 24—In assessing the current field of announced and unannounced candidates for President of the United States, Lyndon LaRouche is demanding that only candidates willing to and capable of addressing the danger of war and financial collapse brought about by the policies of the Obama and Bush administrations, be considered as serious Presidential candidates. In that light, LaRouche has pointed to former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s support for a crackdown on Wall Street and the reintroduction of Glass-Steagall as exemplary of meeting “one of the crucial requirements for candidacy.”

By contrast, LaRouche cited Hillary Clinton’s compromise with Obama as, “typical of the folly of candidacies that have been running around for the past two terms of office, especially for the second one, the Obama term.” “Hillary is not a viable candidate. She’s made too many mistakes, she is compromised, people don’t know where she stands, and so forth. So therefore, unfortunately, she’s a talented person, and a qualified person, but when it comes to politics, she’s really a terrible amateur in terms of effect.”

Gov. O’Malley, who is considering a run for the Democratic nomination for President, is establishing a crackdown on Wall Street as central to the Presidential campaign. In several media appearances he forcefully championed the reinstatement of Glass- Steagall as necessary to reversing the continued collapse of the U.S. economy. This was followed up by a March 19, op-ed in the Des Moines Register and several public meetings in Iowa in which O’Malley criticized the Democratic Party for becoming the party of Wall Street.

Earlier this month, LaRouche voiced his support for O’Malley’s statements: “We are not talking about 2016, we need Glass-Steagall now, before the entire trans-Atlantic financial system comes crashing down and we are faced with the immediate threat of global war or a descent into absolute chaos and Hell.”

In March 23 discussions, LaRouche called on more candidates to take up the initiative:

“We would welcome more, and I’m sure O’Malley himself would welcome more of his same breed.”

Dump Obama

LaRouche also said that dumping Obama is the highest priority: “It requires special, international standards, which dump Obama. And the first thing that some people have to do, is get to dumping Obama. And if we don’t dump Obama, we’re not going to have a United States, so therefore he has to be dumped. And each person who’s on the list of would-be Presidential candidates has got to say, ‘Look, we’ve got to dump Obama.’ And if they all say that, we might achieve something really important. Because then they would be honest about themselves, not about their career ambitions.

“What’s going on now is O’Malley has actually taken the bit, on the operation now, and he’s the one who’s doing the job. The others are sitting there saying ‘I’m a Presidential candidate, too!’ but where’s the action? Where’s the function, where’s the performance? That’s where we are now.”

In other discussions, LaRouche cited Hillary Clinton’s unwillingness to oppose Obama as a major disqualification of her candidacy. This goes back to her decision not to press her campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2008 despite the fact that she won most of the primaries, and her decision to join and support Obama as his Secretary of State. He further criticized Clinton for covering up for Obama on Benghazi.

There’s not much to speak of on the Republican side either, according to LaRouche, “I mean the Obama and Bush administrations! It means the [Jeb] Bush candidacy, is part of the same thing! So [Jeb] Bush’s candidacy must be thrown out!” As for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz who announced his candidacy yesterday, LaRouche said, “He doesn’t have a full deck.”

‘Practical’ Means ‘Stupid’

In speaking on the March 23 edition of the weekly discussion of the LaRouche Policy Committee, LaRouche elaborated the type of thinking that must be central in assessing Presidential candidates, “The stupidity of the American people in particular, but the Europeans generally as well, is they believe in what they call the ‘economic system.’ They believe that money, or the money system is a determinant of what productivity will be, and can be, and this is where the problem arises. When in point of fact, the problem is that mankind believes that human economic success is the basis for human success; that’s implicitly what the argument is. Whereas, we know that the progress of mankind, the distinction of mankind from an animal—and that’s what we’re talking about—most human beings that I know of, today, believe in animal behavior, not human behavior. That’s why we like dogs, for example.

“The point is that mankind is the only creature which does create, voluntarily, an influence on the processes of nature, which overwhelm nature, so-called ‘nature,’ itself. That’s the fact. And the people who are practical, so-called practical people, are intrinsically stupid on this question, because they don’t recognize that mankind is not an animal! They all assume that animal behavior, as defined by money or something like that, is the determining factor.

“And the fact is, as Kepler implicitly defines in his writing, that there is a principle of organization in the Solar System, which demands and makes possible, mankind’s advancement to higher levels of existence within the Solar System as such.

“No other living species we know of has that potential.

“And therefore, we need people who can see through to the future, not looking for people who are practical. Practical people are stupid people, because they limit themselves to an assumption about human behavior which is an animal characteristic. And that’s what the problem is. And you have, in the history of mankind, you have long histories where mankind has endeavored to achieve human qualities! And what’s happened is, the human qualities have been suppressed, and that’s what the problem is. And therefore, we have to get the human quality back into function, and then we can solve the problem.”

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