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Lyndon LaRouche carried on a very important discussion with listeners and supporters on why he is the only viable leader in American politics today, now that the Congress and Senate have capitulated to the Bush Administration's demand for dictatorial control over whether this nation goes to war. Visit the EIR website and listen to an archive of this important interview. Go to the October 12th archived show on this page: https://www.larouchepub.com/radio. This is a rough transcript of the interview. INTERVIEW So, today, we could say this. This week, some might say, the lunatics took over the asylum, when the United States Congress, and the United States Senate, voted to give unfettered imperial power to President George W. Bush, for his war against Iraq. Is it his war, or is this a war that's been planned by a bunch of lunatics, Armageddon millenialists, and a nest of Israeli agents, who have been working on this agenda, for more than 20 years? We learned late this week, that one of the people involved in linking the state of mind of the President, with the Christian Zionist lunatics, is the key speechwriter, Michael Gerson. He's a former chief to the ambassador to Germany, who has been on a rampage there, after the German Chancellor Schroeder, and leading members of the German Establishment -- and of course, the LaRouche movement, led by Helga Zepp-LaRouche in the election there -- had opposed the imperial war with Iraq. What's the connection of the Christian Zionists, the Israeli rightwing fanatics around General Ariel Sharon, the German and European opposition, and the folly of the U.S. Congress? That's our topic today -- what Lyndon LaRouche called earlier today, “The Separation Of Church And Mental State,” which we'll discuss with the candidate whose leadership stands out around the world, for the United States, and for the betterment of the world situation. That's our guest, Democratic Party presidential candidate in 2004, Lyndon LaRouche, who's on the line with us from Germany. Welcome, Lyn. LaRouche: Good, good to be with you. Steinberg: Great to have you. Let me say, 14 years ago, on Columbus Day, October 12, 1988, you were in Berlin, in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, a divided Berlin, and you forecast that the time had come for that Berlin Wall to come down, and that Berlin should be restored as the capital of a unified Germany. You said these things at the apparent height of the Soviet Union, and you were right. Germany was unified, the Soviet Union fell, you were exerting real leadership. Now, ironically, the United States today is trying to be an empire. And the American people, unlike the American press, and the members of Congress, who may privately be dismayed, but publicly goose-stepped their way into giving Bush his power, but the American people are frightened, dismayed, horrified, that the President, well, he might be mad. You led the opposition to the imperial Iraq war, and I'd like you to tell us, those of us who don't want war and destruction, what to do. LaRouche: Well, it's interesting, because my speech in Berlin, on Columbus Day of 1988, was actually an outgrowth of a policy I'd been working on for some time, since about 1977, when I had begun to realize we hadn't stopped, that the direction things were being moved in, by people like Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was just becoming the national security adviser for President Carter. But, as a result of that, I got into a brief discussion, very brief, with Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, in New Hampshire, at a gunshow appearance of several thousand people. And as a result of that, and some other things, in the immediate transition period, I met a number of people who were coming into the new administration, with whom we had certain points of agreement, as well as disagreement. And I laid on the table, a number of projects I was working on, which I thought the new presidency should pick up on. Now, many of them were not accepted, but some were. One which was accepted, a little bit after the inauguration, was a proposal I made, which later became known as the Strategic Defense Initiative. Now the Strategic Defense Initiative became quite a football, after the President announced it officially, as such, on March 23 of 1983. And what was being pushed by the Heritage Foundation, then and now, is a bunch of junk, which wouldn't work then, and wouldn't work now. But what the President and I proposed, as taking it out of the mouth of the President, from what he said publicly, and that 5 minute segment televised on March 23, 1983, it was my policy then -- and is my policy now. Now, the problem is this, which brings the whole business right up to date, to where we are right now. My policy was, then, that of what is called strategic defense. Strategic defense, as a concept, was elaborated in Europe , in the experience following the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. It first came to the surface in France, in practice, by a great military leader of France, during the 18th century, a fellow called Vauban. A great commander, who built fortifications at places like Belfor, and Balzac, Neuf-Balzac, as it's called, which were undefeatable, up to the point of the Franco-Prussian war, in 1870-71. That is the Belfor. That is the one place in France that withstood the Prussian forces during that period. Lazare Carnot, during the time of Louis XVI's reign, wrote a paper in defense of Vauban, in praise of Vauban, which outlined a policy of strategic defense, based on engineering and logistics: that, instead of going out to fight wars against nations, one must develop a capability of strategic defense, which would defeat an assault, and would thus allow the nation to press for peace, over any adversary attacking them. This same policy was adopted by Germany, by Gerhard Scharnhorst, the founder of the modern German military system, prior to the HItler time. This also became the policy of the United States, especially after 1814, 1815, when West Point was retooled under Presidents Monroe and John Quincy Adams, retooled around this idea of strategic defense. So, the traditional policy of the United States, as we saw with MacArthur's conduct in the Pacific during World War II, or the U.S. policy in World War II, generally in Europe, was one of strategic defense. We did not have the best fighting force in the world, in World War II, but we had the best logistics, logistics developed under Roosevelt, intentionally, for the contingency of war, and we won the war with logistics, even though the German military was, man for man, much capable than any other military force on the planet, at that time. So, that's been our policy. Now we come to a period, in the postwar period, in which people called utopians -- and whole crowd was built around two guys, Herbert George Wells, best known as a novelist, but actually a leading member of British Intelligence, and Bertrand Russell. They developed a policy of utopianism. Their policy was, that the development of nuclear weapons, which Wells had proposed as far back as 1913, in a preface to one of his books-- Steinberg: 1913, that is decades before such a thing existed. LaRouche: Yeah, he was working on the work of a fellow called Frederich Sodi, a chemist who worked with Rutherford, and they had worked through the idea of radium as a weapon. So, it was the idea of Sodi, on radium as a weapon, which was Wells' first proposal to use nuclear action, nuclear weapons, as a weapon of terror, to force nations to submit to world government. By that he meant really, Anglo-American world government. Then Russell, pushed through the development of nuclear weapons, going into World War II, with the idea that in the postwar period, he would use nuclear weapons, for pre-emptive warfare, the same pre-emptive warfare that is coming out of the President right now. Pre-emptive warfare. Not against an attacking adversary, or even a capable adversary, but someone you wanted to eliminate just in case they might lead something in the future. It's contrary to all our policy, as Senator Byrd emphasized correctly, and emphatically, in the proceedings which have just concluded in the Senate. Well, anyway, that was our policy. But Russell came along with this idea. He got the Rand Corporation, through his network of friends -- people like Szilard, Wigner, and so forth, the whole bunch of cronies -- and they got through the Rand Corporation, around the idea of creating the Air Force as an independent army, they set forth in the United States, from the end of the war, both the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, for which there was no military purpose at that time. Japan was already a defeated nation. We never had to invade. So no million lives were saved by that bombing. But the bombing was set forth in order to introduce a policy, that through a triad, of nuclear weapons deployed by land, by sea, and by air, that we'd be able to intimidate the world, into submitting to world government. In 1946, and beyond, Russell continued to propose a pre-emptive war, nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. And that was his policy -- which was defeated. This was defeated essentially by the election of President Eisenhower. And Eisenhower kept these nuts under control, and Eisenhower kept these nuts under control, at least to some degree, as long as he was President. However, as soon as he got out of the presidency, in 1961, it wasn't that Kennedy was not capable, but Kennedy did not understand the military problem, the way Eisenhower did, and Kennedy did not have the influence with the U.S. military, to check the military forces the way that Eisenhower had done. So, with that point, the world began to go into this period, which included the 1962 Missile Crisis, and so forth, which led into a policy of nuclear standoff, and a permanent nuclear terror, as a way of bringing about world government, to end sovereign government, including that of the United States. Now, in the 1970s, that's what I was up against. It was getting ripe, under Kissinger. Brzezinski was a more active nut, than Kissinger, and pushed much harder. And he had a crowd about him which were pushing for pre-emptive nuclear war. That was the policy of the Brzezinski group, 1975 to 77, coming into power. They ran into frustrations, but it was there. So I attacked this problem. I said, how do we deal with this system? We're prisoners of nuclear terror, mutually assured destruction. So, I went to work and said, look, nuclear weapons are not undefeatable. We cannot defeat them right now, but they're not undefeatable. There are new physical principles, which, if applied, would develop weapons systems which could take out a full-scale ballistic attack. Not all of it, but most of it. Now, the point is not to develop a super-weapons as defense. That was not my purpose. The point was, as Reagan expressed this in March of 1983, and again at Reykjavik on October 6 and 7, 1986. Reagan's policy, as opposed to the nuts at the Heritage Foundation, the Danny Grahams, and the other nuts, his policy was to get the Soviet Union to come to an agreement, on the coordinated development of these kinds of weapons, to free the world -- that is, the two leading superpowers would agree to free the world from the terror of nuclear attack. Not by mutually assured destruction, but by developing superior system. And to use the cooperation, in advanced technology, to benefit the civilian economy of the world, including both powers. Now, that was the policy I pushed through. I worked on the technicalities of that, with the German military, people like the late General Karst, and many others in the German military. With the leaders of the French military. With the leaders of the Italian military, and so forth and so on, around the world. We had, in 1982-83, and beyond, we had an international agreement among top specialists in science and military leaders, some serving, some out of service, but an agreement on this policy. It was my policy. Now, what I had done, because the Reagan Administration put me into a back-channel discussion with the Soviet Union -- this was 1982 to 83 -- and during that period, we had these discussions. In February of 1983, the spokesman of the Soviet government, meeting with me, reported back from Moscow, that the Andropov government would reject my proposal, if the President were to offer. Remember, the President had never offered it at that point. I warned him; I said, look, if we agree, and this proposal is agreed to, this policy will save the economy of the Soviet Union, which is in the process now of disintegrating. I said, that if Andropov were to reject the proposal, after the President made it, I can guarantee you, that the Soviet government, Soviet system, would disintegrate, in about 5 years. So, now five years later, less than five years later, 1988, as a Presidential candidate, I presented a policy in Berlin, and said, “We are on the verge of the collapse of the Warsaw Pact system, and what the next government of the United States must face, its fundamental question, is, how is it going to deal with the collapse of the Soviet, Warsaw Pact system?” I proposed that we do the same thing that I had proposed with the SDI; I proposed cooperation with them, to bring about a positive peace, rather than a negative one. And so, they got me out of the way, right away. But my proposal was based on my understanding of what the economic process was, both in the Soviet system, and in our own system. That the United States I knew, had been on the road of self-destruction. Now, we've reached the time. The Soviet system died in 1989-1991, about six years after I had warned it would under those conditions. Today, we're now at the point, we're in the world depression, in the experience of any living person on this planet, right now. This system is coming down, coming down hard, like you've never seen before. The only thing that will save us, now, is a return to policies like those, that is, the attitude of a Franklin Delano Roosevelt Administration. Not exactly the same policies, but changes in policy which take into account the benefits of that experience. We can save the U.S. economy. It will take a generation, of work, to put us now, back to where we were as a powerful economy, back in the mid-60s. We can save the world system. We're also on verge, if we don't do that, we're on the verge of chaos. So, the significance of what's going on now: you have a President, who needs to know the difference, as we take with this Gerson, he has to discover the difference between church and mental state. Because, what we have on our hand, and the Gerson illustrates it: you have a certifiable dangerous lunatic who's using the language of Armageddon freaks, and inserting that language into the speech of President! Like the recent speech. And this, they are disorienting this President, to the point of insanity, by giving him no alternatives for dealing with economic crisis, and pushing him into a war, he doesn't understand, and that will destroy his Presidency, and probably our nation too. And that's the problem we face. We can get out of this. The other problem is, that I face. What happened in the Senate, despite the efforts of Senator Byrd, and Senator Kennedy, and a few others, is that insanity and cowardice took over the Senate, by voting for this unconstitutional, lunatic resolution. What it now happens that I, as a Democrat, am the only leading Democrat in the United States, at this moment, on the issues of war, and economy. That is, no other leading Democrat, as a national leader, or perspective Presidential candidate, has the slightest bit of credibility or competence, at this moment, on questions of how to deal with the war, or, above all, the economy. So, that's the similarity. We've lost a lot of time. We suffered a great deal of destruction, because I was out of the way, and because George Bush's father, together with Margaret Thatcher, and Mitterrand, and a few others, went the wrong way in 1989-1990, on dealing with the breakup of the Soviet Union. They destroyed the world economy, rather than using the opportunity to build it up. Now, later, a dozen years later, we're now at a new breaking point, where we can either go to war, or we can come to our senses. Put the lunatics back into the churches, and let them have their churches, but don't put them in the White House. And in this frame, go ahead, and work on rebuilding the economy. That's where she stands right now. That's my experience, and that's where I stand, still. Steinberg: Thank you, Lyn. Let me tell everyone, you are listening to the LaRouche show, on October 12, 2023. Our guest is Lyndon LaRouche, candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2004, and I say, candidate for the leadership of the Democratic Party, right now. He's spoken about the insanity and cowardice that's alive and well in Washington, but there is another side to that. And that is a pwoerful resistance inside the population, and inside the Democratic party, around Lyndon LaRouche's leadership. Lyn, I understand your campaign is going to be putting out another mass leaflet, follow-on to the series of leaflets that we had over the summer, around the theme of the Electable LaRouche, and themes like “the Pollard affair never ended.” This one is called, “The Ever-More Electable LaRouche tells you, What you must do about the economy now.” So, there's a solution on the table, and the first question I want to take up, is from another LaRouche candidate, this one from Connecticut, Laurie Dobson, Democratic state representative candidate in Connecticut, in Lieberman area, who asks if you would elaborate on the economic plan for reconstructive economic recovery. Before you answer, let's just mention that there was very big news from Brazil, from another candidate who took up your economic policy, Dr. Eneas Carneiro. Who received an historically unprecedented, earthquake-making, 1.5 million votes, for the federal Congress from Sao Paulo, where you were made an honorary citizen. So, we've got two candidates, one who won, one who's facing election in a few weeks, running on the LaRouche policy. Can you comment on Laurie Dobson's question? LaRouche: Well, first of all, the first thing we have to do, and we have to force the President to do it, -- not force in the sense of holding a gun to his head the way some of these crazy loonies are, but rather very simply -- we have to make clear to the President, maybe through his father, maybe through circles, whatever it takes, that he, as President, with the support of the Congress, must put through the appropriate emergency legislation, to do immediately, right now, before the election, two things. One, emergency legislation -- call an emergency session of the Congress. Look, the Congress isn't doing much useful anyway, up there campaigning anyway. Get them back in, on the question of the economy. Two things. One, the national railway system. We have to stop the bleeding of the national railway system. That is, stop the disruption right now, and start to reverse, to rebuild. Number two, we must intervene, with the imminent collapse of United Airlines, into bankruptcy, and many other airlines will go with it, if we don't stop it, we must have emergency legislation, which takes the situation over, and stops the breakup of our national air travel system. Those are the two first, test cases, of the will and temper of the American people, the congress, and the Presidency. If they don't do those two, they're not in the real world. Right? And Laurie will understand exactly what that means in terms of the Boston to New Haven to New York route, of travel, and computer travel, in the Greater New York area, and in the Connecticut area. It's obvious. We need that now. We need that for two reasons. First of all, we must save these two institutions of infrastructure, whether privately owned, or public. We must save them, for the American people, otherwise we are not going to be able to rebuild this economy. Now, those are test cases, of the will and intelligence and competence of government, and of the Congress. We don't care what Phil Gramm says; he's going out anyway. We do it. This is also to set into motion, the will and commitment for expansion of employment, in the U.S. economy, not junk employment, but basically economic infrastructure employment, and also to reactivate some of those essential industries, which are in the point of plunging into bankruptcy now. Look, the entire automobile industry is on the verge of collapse. Do you know what that means for employment in the United States, when you take what parts of the United States depend for their employment, upon the automobile and related production. Now, we can't have a collapse in that sector. So we have to use infrastructure development, as a thrust, where the government gets the credit mobilized, for low-cost, long-term -- we're talking about 25 year -- long-term program of rebuilding, and maintaining, essential infrastructure. Not only in transportation -- we have a power crisis. That must be addressed. We have a water management crisis, including fresh water crisis, and sewage handling, in many parts of the country. We have problem of distribution of electricity, not only production. We've got to get back, to an integrated, regulated, state-regulated, federally assisted program, of combined, integrated production-distribution of electrical power, and other power. We must have a water management program. We must rebuild, essentially, our urban centers. We are insane, in what's happening with our urban development. We must fix that, for future benefit, and for present employment. We must rebuild our healthcare system. We must return to a Hill-Burton policy in health care, under which the Federal government, in cooperation with private interests, in cooperation with states and counties, and municipalities, will go back to a Hill-Burton objective of providing adequate medical care, in terms of beds, as a measurement of medical care -- beds by type -- in hospital facilities in every county in the United States. We must go back to that system, as opposed to the system which broke down after 1973, under the HMO system. We must also recognize, that we've gone into a post-industrial society, as reflected in an educational system which is no longer producing people for survival, in an agro-industrial climate. We are no longer educating people, for competence, in an effective economy. They don't have the skills. The education, the knowledge, needed to function in a healthy economy. They are being educated for a broken-down, dying economy. So these are the areas. We're going to have to have a high-technology orientation, for international trade. There are tremendous potential markets, for long-term investment, in Eurasia, in rebuilding Africa, and in rebuilding Central and South America. We must build up those industries in the United States, which are export-industries, export-type industries, which produced products of the type needed, on the basis of long-term credit, for developing the infrastructure, industry, and agriculture, of Central and South America, Africa, and Asia. The biggest market in the world is Asia. China, Southeast Asia, the subcontinent of Asia. Also, there is the central and north Asia, which are presently undeveloped areas, with tremendous natural resources. We can access to that, as a part of the process, if we assist in the kind of infrastructure development, which will make those areas of raw materials, accessible to the world market. So, we have alternatives, but we have to start moving down that road. We have to give the world the confidence that we are once again sane, that we as the United States, are going to respond to our tradition, and provide the focal point of leadership, not domination, not imperialism, but leadership -- bringing nations together around a common purpose, with our weight put in the scale, of this progress, to rebuild the world economy, and get out of this destitution, get out of this decadence which has seized us for the past 35 years, especially the past 20 years. Get out of that, and go back to being sane Americans once again, with a future for our children. The thing you see that I see, that many of you may not see, I see out there, in 18 and 25 year age groups, young people of college age, university age, with no future. The baby boomers of this country have to wake up to the fact, that they have given their children, no future. And the way to define our morality, is to think of those young people, aged 18 to 25, university age, who have no future, right now, the way things are going. And think ahead to their children, coming a generation later. Are we providing for ourselves today, for those young people today, and for their children to come... are we providing a future for them? That's the test of our morality, and that should be the primary focus of our idea of national security. Can we have secure relations among nations. I believe we can. Steinberg: I have to take a break right, station and show identification. You're listening to Lyndon LaRouche, candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2004, leader of the Democratic Party, and author of the proposal for a New Bretton Woods monetary system. This is the LaRouche Show, a weekly audio talk show, broadcast live on the internet every Saturday, featuring interviews with Lyndon LaRouche, his associates, and special guests. I'm your host, Michele Steinberg, counterintelligence co-director of Executive Intelligence Review, and you can reach us, when we're not on the air, through our toll-free number, 1-888-347-3258. Please check out our website, at www.larouchepub.com. Going back to the show, Lyn has just outlined a challenge to the American people, to embrace the American Intellectual Tradition, and his leadership, which is being taken up around the world, in places like Brazil, where his collaborators have gotten unprecedented votes. Among a youth movement, which says, we do have a future. Now, Lyn, you're bringing hope, and there's a lot of fear about personal safety, jobs, etc. You called for the President of the United States, to take some emergency action, forget waiting until after the election, a job program, infrastructure program. There's another dynamic going on, and a number of people have asked me to ask you this. A supporter in Northern Virginia said, “I wonder if you'd like to comment on a rash of sniper killings in the Washington, D.C. area. There are many aspects to this. They point to different things--professional military intelligence operations; in short, the killings have the entire D.C. area in a state of fear. Can you tell us what you think on this?” LaRouche: Well, I think there are certain things that should be said, and some things that should not be said. There's a tendency of people, out of desperation, to go around shooting their mouths off, with suppositions in a crisis. This is typical of bad police forces, which, when they have a crime they can't solve, they say: Let's assume somebody did it, and let's go out an arrest them and put them in prison, or shoot them or something--without finding out first, who actually perpetrated the crime. Now, what we have on this thing, is, we know that the pattern of escape--that is, the shootings as such don't tell us much, except the obvious: that somebody's doing a sharp-shooting job, probably with a telescopic sight of some sophisticated rifle and a sophisticated type of ammunition. That's all that tells us. However, the fact that, in each of these cases so far, the perpetrator has escaped detection, means that this is unlikely; an unlikely, improbable event, unless somebody is providing an escape mechanism, in advance, to back up the shooter, or shooters, as the case may be. Therefore, we have to assume, that there is an operation involved, not an individual shooter. That the operation has organization; it has sophistication on the level of at least a police force--that is, people come to investigate crimes, learn from that, how to commit them. And it could be military; it could be something like that. We don't know. The important thing, is to emphasize what we don't know, and don't go shooting off in a wild direction out of desperation. We can also know, that since this is obviously an organized effort, by someone unknown, that the effect that it's producing on the population is an intended effect. In other words, the purpose is to do, somewhat the same thing that happened, on Sept. 11, 2023. Now, we know a few things about 2023. We still don't know who did it. And [not] the President nor anybody else, has given any evidence, that they know who did it. The idea that Afghanistan, the Taliban did it, Osama bin Laden: There is no evidence worth anything, to show that. We have some peculiarities of it, which tell us something. The attack was on the Twin Towers in New York City first, rather than on Washington first: That tells us, that the purpose was, to evoke a reaction from the U.S. population to go after Arabs. So, whoever did that operation--and it was an inside job, inside the United States; not necessarily by the government, as such, but by forces with capabilities of controlling government capabilities, to do that. And, whoever they were, they were pushing for the result, which some of the chicken-hawks, such as Richard Perle and Company, have been pushing for, for over a decade. So, we know that much. We don't know who did it. And I've always insisted, “Don't assume who did it.” What we have to go from, is what we know, both in that case, and in the present case, around Washington, D.C. We know it's an operation. It is targeting the U.S. population psychologically, in the way that the purpose of the operation of Sept. 11, 2023, was targeting the U.S. President and population psychologically. Therefore, we have to know that; we have to be cool-headed about it; and we have to get to work on it. But, don't assuming, that because we haven't got the answers, we should run around, like chicken-hawks with their heads cut off, demanding that we do this, or that, or so forth. The worst thing that could happen to us, is somebody runs ahead with a supposition, that they think they know who did it, without any proof; and start looking for reprisals against a person, who they suspect might do it. That's the worst thing that would happen; and you would be playing into the hands of those who are running this type of operation, if you did. Steinberg: Thank you, Lyn. There really are those, who are trying to build panic about this. So, that's helpful. We have more calls than I have seen, for a single program. We could have an entire international conference today. I'm going to try and manage it in the following way: Out in Detroit, Lyn, we have a campaign meeting going on of listeners. Michigan is the state where, in 2000, Lyndon LaRouche got well over 20% of the vote in the Democratic primary. Al Gore was in a mode of stealing LaRouche's votes, and we ended up with this mess in Washington, because of that. Let's not let it happen again. Detroit is another area, Michigan is another area, where the “electable LaRouche Democrats” have won an election. [One of them,] Kerry Lowry is one of the people at that meeting. I understand, there's three people ready with questions. What I suggest we do--John Ascher is hosting the meeting out there. I suggest we hear all three questions, and then have Lyn answer different aspects. Is that OK with you Lyn? LaRouche: Sure! Steinberg: Okay, let's go to Detroit. John Ascher: Here we are in Detroit, a few minutes from Ford Motor Co. Lyn, I want to read these questions. The first one submitted is the following: “If the current financial oligarchy plan social, political, and economic chaos for the planet, then what is their vision for the aftermath?” The next question--which is a question I myself have received from a number of people, since I've been here--is the following: “The Muslim community in the United States has been terrorized by the current administration policies, especially after Sept. 11, 2023. Muslims and Arabs were also targeted by IRIRA [ph], the immigration reform bill that was signed by President Clinton in 1996. The fear of further government retaliation is significant and justifiable. What can you tell them now, that will assure their commitment and long-term peace to overcome the fear they face and live in, for them to take an active role in your campaign?” And the third question is really more of a comment, which is “How are we going to revive the steel industry?” LaRouche: Okay. First of all, the aftermath of this event in Washington, as I said, just a few minutes earlier, that the Senate, the entire Democratic Party leadership in the Congress as a whole (with a few individual exceptions, here and there) has been totally discredited, on the issues of war and the economy. They're a bunch of weak-kneed cowards, who have capitulated for fear of not getting their campaign contributions from a crowd in New York and Detroit, and so forth. And, they have no view of the aftermath. They have no policy. They are completely--they're like chicken-hawks with their heads cut off. They're running around, wild in the hen-yard; running wildly with no place to go. On the question of the Arab persecution: The only way you can do that, is to get Americans to stand together, against it! Look, this is a McCarthyite-type of witch-hunt, and some people remember what that is. Now, I happen to have, briefly, been involved in fighting against McCarthyism, and then Eisenhower came in, and sort of put his foot on it--and stomped it. Truman had turned it loose. One of the reasons that Truman was defeated for reelection, was that he had started it, and it had run rampant under his administration, despite his complaint about it. So, this kind of thing. If we stand together, behind the leadership that will not capitulate, we're going to deal with it. Secondly, what we need, is more than just standing on the issue. What we need, is unity about a programmatic approach: We have a world, now is in the worst depression--nobody has experienced, in the United States or Europe, in their lifetime, a depression worse than that which is coming on right now. That is going to determine all politics. Therefore, if we take stand, a united stand, against the war--and remember, the majority of Americans, right now, are against the Iraq war, despite all the baloney from Washington. The majority are against it. I've been looking at the figures: They're against it. So therefore, we have to take a firm position of leadership against the war, of the type the Senate did not reflect; and the House, certainly. Gephardt is finished as a leader in this country, for what he did on this issue. We have to also have a positive approach, on providing real security, for real people, including economic security. If we stand together, as people stood together around Roosevelt, then we can bring these problems under control. And I think people know, I don't have a problem on this: If I'm in power, you don't have a problem, with this kind of thing--unlike some others. On the steel industry, as such: Look, we're going to have to rebuild everything. We have processes, improved processes, which we put on the back burner, over the period from the middle of the 1960s on, especially in the 1970s--we tore down most of our steel capacity. But at that time, we had the capacity to develop improved processes for steel, and metals generally, which we just didn't bother to go ahead with. In building an infrastructure program, one of the big challenges we have, is transportation. That means rebuilding a national rail grid, which has three components: It has long-range rail transport; that is, we must be able to transport goods, economically and efficiently and in a timely fashion, from any point of production and large-scale purchase in the United States, to every other point of production or large-scale purchase in the United States. We must have that kind of grid: a national rail grid. We must supplement that, with a high-speed rail, which will mean also magnetic-levitation rail, especially in transportation in high-density corridors, such as the corridors from Portland, Maine or so forth, down through Boston, through Connecticut, through New York City, to Washington, D.C. and below. And so forth, similar places around the country. So, this in itself, is going to consume a lot of steel and similar kinds of metal product. We also must develop water-management systems. We've destroyed--we tore up a lot of steel, that was being used in agriculture for irrigation: We sold it for scrap, reprocessed for scrap. We're going to have that water-management system, again. We're going to have to build power-generation and distribution systems, to fill the gap, now. That's going to take a lot of steel. And this is going to be the hard core of priority, on rebuilding our basic metals-working and -processing industry. Also, the key for the future, lies in breaking free of scrap, of old technologies, and going into new technologies, which produce a qualitative, better type of goods than we produced earlier. We also will have vast markets, in South and Central America, and in Asia, for participating in programs of development of infrastructure and industries. This will take a lot of metal- working. One of the functions of the Ohio, Detroit, and adjoining states, immediately adjoining area, is to restore an area which had these skills, which remembers these kinds of skills, remembers this kind of production, to make it once again, a machine-tool center of the economy of the United States. And that's what I'm committed to--not because I'm committed to doing something good for Detroit, or something good for Ohio; but because that is what makes sense for the United States. Steinberg: Okay, Lyn. We have a crowded organizers' conference line, and there's about seven people with questions. We're going to ask Bob Baker to get people ready, and let's have three of the questions asked to you. And then, I can tell you, we have two calls from the campus movement: one, the editor of the University of Montreal newspaper there, Sebastien Malo [ph], who sent us an e-mail question; and, an African-American student with questions that they encounter on the black campuses. So, we'll go to the conference line, and then I'll read you the student questions. Okay, conference line, go ahead. Q: I'd like to know, sir, realistically speaking, how much influence--I know you have great influence; how much, because you're not covered in mainstream press, and when I talk to people about you, a lot know your name, but don't know quite where you stand. I guess, I'm trying to gauge just exactly how much influence you really do have, and if that is enough influence to bring this organization to achieve the objectives which we seek to achieve? And I ask this question, in all due respect sir. I'm just trying to get a gauge on this. LaRouche: I get you. Steinberg: Okay. We'll take two more questions from the conference line. Please identify yourself and the state that your from. Q: This is Doris. Mr. LaRouche, it's concerning your comments against, or towards the Christian Right: I would like to suggest that we find a way to reach them, rather than use language like “crazy lunatics,” so we don't alienate them, and get them to understand that, if they think about their Bible, Jesus came to take away hate and war; and He would not send us into war against our brothers. Do you have a comment about that? LaRouche: Yeah, sure. Steinberg: Thank you, Doris. One more questioner from the conference line.... Okay, Christine from Massachusetts, go ahead. Q: [poor connection] My question is: How is it going to help Africa build up its economy [end of sentence lost]. “Nepad,” this is an organization which was set up [inaud], headed by Obasanjo, and [inaud] South Africa. Nepad--how can it be a good or bad catalyst for African unity? And, how can it bring about the needed economic recovery, now, as far as infrastructure, power, health, and the rest? We don't want to leave Africa behind now. We should be able to see how we can tell our [heads of state], so that they don't go into the same problem, they went when they brought Africa economically low. They are now saying, Africa is performing well economically. Can't be, unless--I mean, someone is insane about the economy. Steinberg: Okay Christine, thank you. I'm going to have to repeat that, because you were breaking up a little bit. Lyn, the question from Christine is, to comment on Nepad, the organization that was set up, and we've written about in EIR, that supposedly is solving Africa's problems. What's really going on there? “Let's not leave Africa behind,” says Christine. So, three questions: Go ahead. LaRouche: First of all, on influence: Influence is like a street-walker, who is looking for a customer. And political influence in the United States today, is walking the streets, looking for a customer. It just lost a customer--called “the Congress.” People who want something, who have any sense, know they're not going to the Congress for it, right now. And therefore, I'm filling a vacuum. I have more crucial influence around the world, probably, than any American, outside of the top positions of government, as such. In other words, if you go into Asia; you go into Europe; you go into Africa; you go into South and Central America--let me just give you the case of this “Dr. Eneas,” who was referred to earlier, just as an example of this. Dr. Eneas is a cardiologist, an outstanding cardiologist, and some years ago, a political formation was assembled in Brazil, centered around doctors, who were concerned about what was happening to Brazil, as doctors. And they sought to be a political force, to change some of the policies of the country, from the standpoint of a physician looking at the needs of a nation. He's a brilliant fellow. And, he hosted me, recently, in a visit I made to Brazil in June, where I was made an honorary citizen of Brazil, in a very elaborate and--I must say--ostentatious ceremony, with military bands and full panoply of routine; you'd think I was being inaugurated “President of the Earth” or something. It was very nice. Dr. Eneas--we talked, and we discussed his prospects in the coming election in Brazil. I discussed it with his close associate, Dr. Havanir Nimtz, who was a leader of the City Council of Sao Paulo, which I think is the third largest city in the world, at that time. And, they asked what I thought about his position in running for parliament, because he's run for President before. I said, in this exceptional case, I thought probably that it was a good idea; but I thought he would be very successful, at this time, because of the conditions developing in Brazil, and South America generally. Now, he just came off, with a 1.5-plus million vote election to Congress. This is unprecedented in the history of Brazil: No candidate for Congress has ever gotten as large a vote, as he has. The second largest vote-winner, among both Congressmen and state legislator candidates, was his associate Dr. Havanir Nimtz, who's a dermatologist. He's a leading professor of cardiology, who teaches about 200 doctors a year, in cardiology. So, he came out with out this vote. Now, he is the only leading candidate, who did not sign onto an IMF agreement, implicitly, for the election. So, he comes out with a vote, which stunned all Brazil, and stunned the IMF, and stunned Washington. They're panic-stricken, about this so-called “unknown” (who is not really unknown), but who came out with a leading vote, who now controls or will control, a fraction in the parliament of Brazil. They're freaked! The two leading candidates among all, were Dr. Eneas Carneiro and Dr. Havanir Nimtz. So, this is an example, of how influence goes today. Stick to the right program, on the right issues, and at the right time, if you're there, and others fail, you'll get all the influence you need. And that's the case with me. I'm well recognized around the world, already. I'm a power-factor in world politics; I'm a power- factor, now, in Washington politics. No one can estimate what my influence is, but they have to say, it is great as anyone else's, in terms of what it would be like, say, a year or two from now. On the second question: On the Christian Right--when I say “crazy,” I mean it. I mean “clinically insane.” Now, you have two kinds of insanity in life. You have individual insanity, which is clinical insanity. You also have forms of mass behavior, or group behavior, in which the individual may not be ordinarily insane, but when they're functioning in a group, the group as a whole behaves insanely. Now, the collective political behavior of the Christian Right, so-called, in the United States today, is not only collectively insane, it's dangerous; its influence is dangerous to the health and welfare of every American citizen! These guys are like lunatics, throwing bombs. They're not throwing their own bombs: They're getting the President of the United States to throw bombs. And the effects of that, will be terrible. Now, yes, you're right in one thing; your criticism of me is wrong, but you're right in the positive side. The positive side, is that Christ did not come to, shall we say, give man a program. Christ came to redeem all human beings. An act of love, of Christ, Jesus Christ--and that is Christianity. So therefore, it is correct to counterpose healthy Christianity--real Christianity--to fake “Christianity.” And what is called the Christian Zionists is fake Christianity: It's a cult of a very dangerous type. And these people are sick; they need help. As individuals, give them help. As a group phenomenon, they're nuts. On the question of Africa: Well, I don't much of a problem on Africa, in dealing with it, as a personality--I mean, I'm a friend of Africa, one of the few real friends that Africa has had, and I've been that for a long time. Africa has no chance, right now. No one in Africa, inside Africa today, is capable of assuring the survival of Sub-Saharan Africa. No one. There are good people in Africa, who, with assistance from the outside, and some protection from things from the outside, could organize, internally, the measures by which, with assistance, they could solve the problems of Africa. But there is no such thing as a purely internal solution for Africa's problems today. There is the prospect of organizing, within Africa, people who are natural leaders of Africa; who, if they have cooperation from outside Africa, can do the job needed. The basic thing that Africa needs, economically: It needs grants of assistance, in developing basic economic infrastructure, which involves several things--transportation, especially rail; water management; power generation and distribution, this main trunk stuff; it involves health care, such as disease problems: diseases of plants, for agriculture; diseases of cattle; diseases of people. That is needed, as infrastructure. Africa needs massive assistance, for this problem. The so- called AIDS problem is exactly one of these problems. It needs to be able to develop, educational systems to meet the needs of development of Africa. I'm committed to these things. I know people, in Africa, who represent commitments of the appropriate type. We must support them. We must support them, by concrete measures--that's the only solution. Steinberg: I'm going to go to the student questions. First, from a black campus in the United States: “A student-run newspaper recently slandered LaRouche, and some of the issues or questions that were raised were: Where does LaRouche stand on funding of historically black universities; on AIDS in Africa; on unemployment in the Black community. Also, if the Founding Fathers came to America to found a republic, why did they have to wipe out the Native Americans? If they were not responsible, who was? And what was the actual reason for the genocide?” Then I'm going to go to Montreal. My message to Sebastian Malloe, who sent in several questions--as I said, he's editor of the newspaper of the University of Montreal, the biggest French-speaking university in Canada--he's got several questions here; I'm going to choose this one, on the UN Security Council, the international situation, and the war on Iraq. He says, “Mr. LaRouche: You are saying that the crave for war represented by President Bush is motivated by a need to hide the market crash. We know that this weekend, the President [Prime Minister] of the UK, Tony Blair, is visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin, in order to convince him that he should favor an intervention in Iraq, as a member of the Security Council. If the UN votes and concludes that the war is necessary; if legitimacy for this war is international and favored by other leaders besides Bush; what would your position on the war against Iraq be?” Before you answer, I will forward these written questions from Sebastian, because he undoubtedly plans to do an article for the newspaper. LaRouche: Okay, fine, good. On the first thing, on this question of African, African-American, and Native American problems. First of all, I share the view of Frederick Douglass on education. That is, that freedom is primarily located in the freedom of mind; and secondly, in the ability to express that freedom as a human being, in practice. Freedom of mind means that one has access to the essential knowledge of humanity, particularly in the culture that one is raised in, at that time. That was Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass and his children were epitomes of Americans whose level of knowledge, whose education, was above that of most college graduates in the United States today--relative to the knowledge of that time. He's a hero; he's a hero for me, and for anybody else--for example, I had a great-great-grandfather who was a leader in the struggle against slavery, as a Quaker minister. The ran a section of the Underground Railway in the United States during the period of slavery. This area in U.S. history is clearly defined. There should be access to a Classical humanist form of education, for every so-called African-American; or should we say, Americans of African descent. There should be that opportunity assured. This means that there should be support for the traditional African-American university programs and universities; to build them up in the capability to have this kind of education. We need people to be educated as leaders, and models of admiration for the rest. On the Native-American. You've got to look at the problem of the sins of the Democratic Party. First of all, the British and the French played games. They used the Indians for warfare for their own purposes. The British used Native Americans against independence. The French and the British used them against one another. Then we had one tribe, for example--the Cherokee--which is exemplary: The Cherokee developed, with the friendship of the United States, the colonists, they developed their own national culture, as a literary culture, and were developing very nicely their own culture, the Cherokees. Then, [President] Andy Jackson, working for a bunch of New York bankers, including people like Martin Van Buren, used military force to break up the Cherokees. Some of them were driven into Florida, into the Everglades, and others elsewhere. They were destroyed. There was a policy of destroying the American Indian, from this faction. And I'm ashamed to say, the Democratic Party was one of the worst offenders, from its formation under Van Buren, and the Andrew Jackson Presidency--the first Democratic Party Presidency, actually, in the United States--up until Franklin Roosevelt. It's a lousy history. What we can do, first of all, is give justice to those people who suffered this, insofar as we can reach them; give honor to the victims whom we can no longer reach; and show some respect for the fact that we made treaties. I'll give you a very concrete example. You have something going on which is run by organized crime, international organized crime, including a strange fellow called Kerzner. This is tied to Joe Lieberman in Connecticut; it's tied to McCain in Arizona, and other things. These guys have come in, and they've taken the Indian reservations of the United States, and have created new ones, from artificial tribes that no longer exist, as in Connecticut. And they've used these to set up organized crime-controlled gambling operations in these territories. And the Native American leaders, in large degree, are protesting against what this represents. Arizona is one of the areas of criminality of this type. You've got two Senators from Arizona--Republican Senators, Kyl and McCain--who ought to be questioned closely on this matter. Things of that sort. So what we can do, is set a standard in these areas; a standard of justice; a standard of the sense of the importance of developing the individual to their fullest potential; of recognizing the injustices which they've had in the past; and taking those measures which will remedy, for the present and future, the injustices of the past. This applies, in one case, to the victims of slavery, which was imported into this country by a combination of British, French, and especially Spanish slave-traders, and their like and allies in the 19th Century. This is something that's on our doorstep. This was the evil which we fought, actually--this evil system; against the Confederacy, which seems to have come back and taken a lot of power in our country; and we have to deal with it today. We have to deal with it by justice now, and then look to the past and give honor to those who suffered unjustly in the past. Now, on the question of the United Nations' role. My best estimate at this time, is that the Europeans will tend to stand firm, despite tremendous pressure from the United States; from a guy called Coates, who I prefer to call, Ambassador Coati [?]. The United Nations will probably now not accept what Bush is demanding as a one-step resolution on Iraq. They will probably say, we're going to make a two-step approach: Insist on the inspection first; and then, if the inspection doesn't work out, we'll look at possible further action later. That is the current trend. Now, if the European continent does not capitulate to the pressures of Washington and Tony Blair, it is likely that Tony Blair will back out of his support for Bush; and the war may be off. The danger is that people in Washington are now desperate. Not the military, who are desperate to avoid the war. But the chicken-hawks in Washington who are for the war. By the way, the Russians are against this. They've firmly rejected Bush's pressure on this thing in the most recent developments. You may know this by now, as news report. But the danger, of course, is that these people may go ahead with the war now, even though it won't work, it will be a disaster. But the people behind this don't care. They don't care if it's a disaster! That's why we talk about the craziness, about these so-called Christian Zionists being crazy. They don't care! They want the war. These are people who would rather die, and have everybody else die, than not have the war they desire to have happen. The danger of going ahead with the war, is that all civilization could go into the bucket if this were to happen. So if Europe holds firm; and if Blair backs down, as he might if Europe refuses to along with him; I think the thing is jammed up; and jammed up at least until after the election, and probably until February. Because it's not possible--look at the reality of this thing. The U.S. military establishment, without a war or war mobilization, costs about $1 billion a day. If you add a war mobilization of the type that we're indicating for Iraq, for the Middle East, you're talking about another $1 billion a day. If you go to a full-scale, protracted war, over a period of two years, with the kind of side-effects this will have, you're talking about $3 billion a day. What does that mean? Take 365 by 2, by 3! And that's your costs of the war. The United States is now in the worst depression in the memory of any living person. We cannot afford to support such a war! We don't have the physical ability to maintain such a war. So we're going into a war of the type, potentially, that we cannot win--in the sense of winning a war; we may destroy everything in sight, but we can't win the war--and a war in which, like Vietnam, we ultimately simply withdraw from our own exhaustion; but which may leave permanent effects on the planet, which we may suffer from. So I don't have much confidence that it is going to succeed. The danger, to me, lies not in the fact that this war might happen; that's a great danger; but I think it's still likely that it will be jammed up. The great danger is the destruction of the ability of the United States to rule itself, as a result of the kind of decision that was made in the Congress, including the Senate, this past week. Steinberg: Lyn, thank you. We have gone longer than our usual 60 minutes. That's fine, technically. People can listen to a repeat of this interview at www.larouchepub.com. Thank you very much. I hope we have you on again very soon. If you would like to make any closing remarks--I think your last comments stand; and we have a political army out here, waiting to distribute your leaflet. So, for the next half-hour, we'll be working on that. Thank you. LaRouche: Okay. Well, I think--watch what happens around Dr. Eneas and Dr. Havanir Nimtz in the coming period in Brazil. That may be a harbinger of which way the world is going to go during the next immediate weeks. Steinberg: I'll talk to you soon, Lyn, thank you. LaRouche: Goodbye. - 30 - |
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