The Issue Of Leadership
December 15, 2023

You probably all have been acquainted with what I said in Budapest on Thursday evening, at the Schiller Institute event there. That was published in the briefing on Saturday, so I think you probably are familiar with it. If you are not, you should be, I think.

This is the theme which is going to appear in my Jan. 28th State of the Union Presidential message, which will begin by saying that the President will have spoken--George W. Bush, Jr., has given his report of the state of the Union--and now his successor--me, will present mine! And that is supposed to be a double entendre of certain significance.

But the point is, is that the key issue here, throughout the world, is the issue of leadership. We've come to the end of a long process--especially about the past 37 years or so, since the beginning of the Indo-China War, in which the world has undergone a transformation, especially the Americas and Europe, from what had been a producer-oriented society, to a parasitical, consumer-oriented society. And this has resulted in phenomena such as the maquiladoras in Mexico, and so forth--the destruction of Mexico's potential development as a true republic with advanced industrial and agricultural capabilities.

We've seen the virtual destruction of most of the nations of the Americas. Ecuador no longer has any sovereignty. It's totally dollarized. The Central American countries are virtually destroyed. Venezuela is a bunch of idiots, squabbling among each other over a lunatic, who's the President. A drug epidemic, which is really not being controlled--drug terrorists in Colombia. The threatened destruction of Bolivia, by sending it back to the narcos. The temporary destruction of the true sovereignty of Peru. The horrible things that are being done to Argentina. The threats to Brazil. The situation in Paraguay and Uruguay. And so forth and so on.

Then, of course, Africa--that's another case, where virtually genocide is going on. Anglo-American/Israeli genocide south of the Sahara Desert. And it's deliberate.

And now the whole system, the whole international financial system is collapsing, and carrying the economy down with it. This thing is coming on fast. We're in the last phase before a terminal collapse, a general breakdown crisis of the entire world economy, or at least most of it.

Parliamentary Systems Don't Work

So at this point, you have a situation in which the parliamentary parties of the world, generally do not work. They are in complete break down. For example, the Republican and Democratic Parties, under their present leaderships, is incapable of doing anything. It may do something bad, as a matter of accident. But it is not capable of doing any good. A similar situation exists among the parties in Europe. There are political elements in parliamentary systems, which have a certain capability, certain virtue, but when one tries to get the majority of a major party, or a major combination of government to do something, it breaks down. They all fall short of reality. And of course, that's the situation, pretty much, around the world.

So now we're faced with a problem of leadership, which has two aspects to it, as the problem does. First of all, people have been conditioned over the past 35 odd years, to a new set of values--so-called post-industrial society, environmentalism, and so forth. It is this change, from an emphasis of production, and development of production, to consumer-society, to post-industrial society, an imitation of the decadence of the Roman Empire--a decadence of Rome from about the end of the Second Punic War, that this kind of decadence has gripped the world.

And there have been cultural changes--the destruction of classical culture, the destruction of education, the destruction of all kinds of institutions, destruction of infrastructure, and all of these parties, and these so-called leaders, are conditioned to operate within the assumption that the trends which have been established within the past 35 years are not reversible. That maybe, solutions might exist, but the solutions have to fit within the generally accepted trends up to now, of the past 35 years.

And for precisely that reason, none of the governments, and none of the political parties, in most of the world are capable of doing anything. Certainly not the present leadership of the Democratic and Republican Parties in the United States.

Now, this brings up the question, of what kind of leadership is required in a time like this. Because you can no longer go by popular opinion. You come to a point, which is, because democracy signifies popular opinion, and because popular opinion is hopelessly, morally degenerate, you come to a point in which all of the political parties, the parliamentary systems, don't work anymore.

So, therefore, there is no democratic solution in the conventional sense of parliamentary politics. It doesn't exist. This means, as we've seen in the case of the way in which the Iraq War was at least postponed, if not deferred, indefinitely, this came chiefly, from what would be called, the ministerial side of government. That is, the U.S. presidency. Not all the elements in the presidency, but the institutions of the presidency reacted to this, and said--the majority, effectively: 'We will not do this.'

And the parliament--the Congress, failed to do anything significant. The political parties, including Clinton, failed to do anything. We did it through the presidency, the presidency of the United States. That is, the institutions of the presidency, the majority of them, including the military, moved to make a shift, of strategy, into the United Nations Security Council, to get it out of the hands of the chicken-hawks--these war-making draft-dodgers, who are controlling the war policy. And in the process, to get Saddam Hussein to accept an agreement with the United Nations, under which the United States would not go to war.

We succeeded so far, in preventing a war from occurring in September, when it was likely. In October, when it was likely. In November, when it was likely. In December, when it was promised. And we've now so far, seem to be have pushed it into January, possibly February; if not there, we've got it away for the time being. So that was done that way.

Look at the Period, 1928-1933

Now, this is dangerous, because, as I've said otherwise, we have to compare such a period like this, with a period in Germany, and around the world, between 1928 and 1933. And look at Germany in particular.

In 1928 you had the fall of the Mueller government, because the plan for reorganizing the international debt structure--the Versailles debt structure, didn't work. The Mueller government collapsed. That was the collapse of formal democracy as a mode of government in Germany--in Weimar Germany. You had, therefore, a succession of ministerial governments--that is, government which were appointed by the head of state. Not elected. Then finally, you had von Schleicher, who was a good choice of ministerial government, but on the 28th of January, 1933, Hindenburg, under blackmail, and under pressure from U.S. and British bankers, kicked von Schleicher out, and put Adolph Hitler in. Then, with the Reichstag fire, emergency laws were enacted, under which the Nazis established a dictatorship, in various successive steps. But from that point on.

So we're now in a period like that. Fortunately, we had Roosevelt in the United States, otherwise we would have had a fascist dictatorship in the United States too.

Now we're back in that kind of period, in which, for a short period of time, perhaps, ministerial governments--that is, governments without a real parliamentary base, will act to prevent terrible things from happening, maybe. But that will not go on indefinitely. If we do not get new leadership, if we cannot reform the processes of democracy, so they correspond to reality, rather than to present-day popular opinion, we are headed for probable dictatorship, or total chaos thoughout the world--one of the two.

What Kind of a Leader Do You Require?

Therefore, what kind of a leader do you require for a period like this? And that's the question I posed in this Thursday evening presentation in Budapest, which you have from the briefing.

And I've used, again and again, this comparison of the historical Jeanne D'Arc, who is actually portrayed in principle, with some dramatic license, but in principle, correctly, by Schiller, in his play. You contrast that with Shakespeare's Hamlet, which I did there. And Hamlet was incapable of leading his nation, Denmark, or the legendary Denmark, in a period of crisis.

Jeanne D'Arc, in a period where perpetual warfare was likely, intervened with her leadership, to save European civilization as a whole. Her sacrifice, her determination not to compromise, resulted in the British being kicked out of France, the first modern nation-state was ewstablished in France, under Louis the Eleventh, as a result of this. And later, you had Henry the Seventh, in England, the defeat of Richard the Third, the tyrant, resulted in a second nation-state.

But then, you had this Venetian process, and so forth and so on, which was a counter-, an anti-Renaissance movement, led by the Venetians, and by Charles the Fifth, and the Hapsburgs generally, which drowned Europe in prolonged religious war. Out of that you got this horrible mess called the, ‘Anglo-Dutch liberalism,' which, together with the Hapsburg reign, destroyed much of Europe. Europe was saved from that, but Europe never got an actual, modern republican government.

At this time, as through most of this period, the governments of Europe are based upon the neo-feudal model of a parliamentary system. These parliamentary systems are characterized by a lack of a real head of state, and a control over the parliamentary government by an independent central banking system, which has veto-power over the economic and related policies of the government. It is a tyranny of financial interests, which exert its command over the state, above the state, through its control over the central banking system, which is nothing but an agency--not of banks, but of financier interests, who control, and destroy, and create banks.

A Fundamental Change Has To Be Made

So we've come to a point, in which a fundamental change has to be made, in which the governments of the world generally, and the popular opinion of the world, is insane. So you have to have a leader as you did not have, in the case of Hamlet, as you did have in the exemplary case of Jeanne D'Arc, who intervenes in a seemingly impossible situation, to introduce a principle upon which the revival of society, or its step-upward, can be accomplished.

Now the person who is capable of doing that, requires certain qualities. That is, the leader, who--democracy will never do that for you, by definition. Democracy in a time of crisis like this, is a failure, and always will fail. Because popular opinion will fail, because it's rotten. It's wrong. Therefore, you have to have something exceptional introduced into this situation to save society.

What are the qualities of a leader, who goes against popular opinion, as a leader, and has the knowledge and will to lead society out of its own self-destruction. Such--Hamlet did not. And what was Hamlet afraid of, as I emphasized on Thursday? Hamlet was not afraid of death. Hamlet was a soldier. A killer! By instinct and profession. But he knew that he was wrong. But as you see in the famous Third Act soliloquy, he states that he could fight, but what happens after you die? It was not fear of death that caused Hamlet to fail. Quite the contrary. It was his fear of immortality.

Now, immortality means, to a leader, as a functional characteristic of a qualified leader for a time of crisis, immortality means, what it means in the case of Jeanne d'Arc. The ability to go against popular opinion, on the basis of willing to spend one's life, even by death, for the sake of future generations, and for the sake of the long process of humanity's existence.

Therefore, only a leader, who operates from that kind of sense of immortality, which is shown in one case by Jeanne D'Arc, and is shown by every great leader in a time of crisis.

For example, in the case of France, when France was about to be destroyed by a fascist coup d'état over the Algeria issue, Charles de Gaulle for a moment in the case, as well as other times, showed himself a true leader, by standing on television before the French nation and the world, describing the crisis, and saying, "Aidez-moi." "Come to my assistance." And he succeeded. They came to his assistance. The improbable thing happened. He saved France from the fascist coup. Because he was willing to put his life on the line, for the sake of the immortal outcome of his life for future generations.

Now it wasn't entirely a success, as we see today. But it was a great moment. And it was a moment of true leadership.

We've now come to a time where that quality is required. Those of you, who are adopting the role of becoming leaders, or becoming part of a leadership of society, will find the only source of strength you have, that really counts, is your commitment to the future of humanity and the nation. And your willingness to spend your life's energies, in devotion to the outcome of your life. To spend you mortal life wisely. Not to get killed prematurely! That's not in the program.

But to risk everything--fortune, welfare, security, everything, for the sake of your immortality, what your life will mean to future generations.

And only a person who has that kind of commitment, who has development which qualifies them in knowledge to do that job, can be a leader in time of crisis. And has you look around you in this hemisphere, for example, there are very few people, who can do this. For example, I'm probably the only person, the only living person in the United States today, who is actually qualified to become the President of the United States under these conditions--under these world conditions, as well as U.S. conditions.

So that's the point. And what one has to do, in looking at things in that manner, gives you an instinct within yourself, for knowing what you need to understand. What you need to do. How you need to proceed, to mobilize peiople for this.

Generally, the leadership will work the following way. We have now a youth movement in the United States. It took about three years to get it started. As you will see, it is now working well. Who says it is perfect! Nothing is perfect. But it's working well. We have a real youth movement. Not a sans coulotte youth movement, but a youth movement of people who are functioning like a univerity on wheels. Who are studying some of the most profound concepts, the essential profound concepts of science and history, at the same time they're doing the laboratory work, on the streets, in the university campuses, in the parliaments, in the legislatures, and other institutions. They're exerting leadership.

They are inspiring people of an older generation, who otherwise would be moral and intellectual corpses, to come out of their death-like state and to get out there and do something. And these people are inspired; they say, 'hey, these young people are moving. It's wonderful. We do have a future.'

So you guys have got to create that impression in places such as Mexico, that there is a future. And to mobilize young people to do their work, to provide that kind of leadership, to inspire older generations, who are still living, to believe again, that there is a future. To waken them out of their torpor, and get them in motion.

I think we're going to win. We have no guarantees. It's going to take everything we have in us, to do the job we have to do. But I think we're going to win. I can smell victory. And I would like you to have that smell too. So go ahead, and 'shoot me'--what have you got to ask?

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