From Volume 3, Issue Number 32 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Aug. 10, 2004

Latest From LaRouche

How the LaRouche Youth Movement Can Save Civilization

Lyndon LaRouche appeared as the guest of the LaRouche Show on Aug. 7, and was interviewed by LaRouche campaign West Coast spokesman Harley Schlanger.

HARLEY SCHLANGER: Good afternoon, and welcome to The LaRouche Show for Aug. 7, 2004. I'm Harley Schlanger, and I'll be your host today.

The LaRouche Show is live every Saturday at 3 PM Eastern Time, and can be heard on the Internet on LaRouchepub.com. Now, we will not be taking your calls during the first half-hour today, because our guest is Lyndon LaRouche, and after all, this is the LaRouche Show, and we want to give him the time to offer his insights on developments since the Democratic Convention ended nine days ago.

Up till then, Mr. LaRouche had been a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President. Following the nomination of John Kerry, Mr. LaRouche announced in Boston the formation of LaRouche PAC, to ensure the defeat of the Cheney-Bush team in the Nov. 2 election. Since then, Mr. LaRouche has been at the center of a dramatic shift in both U.S. politics, and global developments, and we'll hear from him on that in a just a moment.

For the second half-hour, we're going to be joined by three members of the LaRouche Youth Movement, who will be reporting on their organizing as part of this LaRouche PAC, in three areas of the country. We'll hear from Michelle Lerner in Boston; Merv Fansler in Detroit; and Sky Shields in Los Angeles.

So, let me welcome Lyndon LaRouche to the show. How are you today, Lyndon?

LAROUCHE: Well, I'm frisky, I think.

SCHLANGER: Well, immediately after the convention, you announced your plan for the November election. What was your thinking that led to the creation of the LaRouche PAC and the course you're taking now?

LAROUCHE: Well, it was obvious even before then. My intention always was to shape the course of U.S. politics, and in some degree, international politics, from an advantageous position. My candidacy—I was the best qualified for President, as events will eventually cause people to reflect—but in the case that I did not secure the nomination, and the Democratic Party was determined that I would not, predetermined that I would not, then I would hope that I could orchestrate the campaign for the Kerry election, to a sufficient degree, not only to ensure that he would win, but also to put in place the kinds of capabilities and organization which his Presidency would require to deal with problems which he does not yet understand. But, presumably, being a good-hearted fellow, and an intelligent one, would be willing to listen at the time he desperately knew he needed to listen.

So, that was my general scheme.

I also am concerned with something else, in which, in this past week's news, my wife Helga is much more important than I am.

SCHLANGER: Well, I was going to ask you about the parallel developments, because we have the aftermath of Boston, and now we have the revival by your wife of the "We are the People" rallies. So, why don't you tell us about that?

LAROUCHE: Well, let's take the case of the international Youth Movement. And you have someone who thinks as I do, Helga, who is a natural leader. I mean, she is a phenomenon. She's one of these people who is a natural leader, a natural political leader and philosophical leader. And they're very rare. She also has a certain amount of what was called in U.S. slang, "gumption."

So, what she's done, in fighting for defense of the Youth Movement's role in Europe and internationally: About three weeks ago, she directed the launching of the first of what had been three, up to now, Monday demonstrations in celebration of the Monday demonstrations that freed East Germany from the East German regime. Because the issue is similar. The issue is over the so-called Hartz IV program of austerity, which is a Nazi-like austerity program—actually, a Schachtian type of austerity program—sponsored by a number of people, including the Economics Minister in the present government of Germany.

SCHLANGER: Now, this has been passed by the German Parliament, has it now?

LAROUCHE: It's been passed, but the point is, that's like passing dysentery: you haven't stopped there.

So, what happened was that it started with about 30 or 40 people showing up for the demonstration three weeks ago. Then, a more significant number showed up last week. Then, this past week, this past Monday, 350 showed up in Leipzig. That unleashed an explosion, in which other parts of the German political scene, including the PDS, the East German Socialist Party, decided they're going to do the same thing. And other voices, including people who had been leaders of the 1989 demonstrations, said they were endorsing this too.

At that point, as of yesterday evening, the leader Wolfgang Clement, the Economics Minister for the present government, went out to denounce, not Helga by name, but denounce the operation. And then you had in the second channel, the national TV channel in Germany, a five-minute denunciation. But meanwhile, the buildup for a spread of the Monday demonstrations is in progress in Europe. And it largely is based on a youth movement phenomenon.

So, what this demonstrates—this one that Helga's leading—it demonstrates that the Youth Movement phenomenon is going to be the determinant of history in this period. If the Youth Movement is allowed to have its head, we shall win. If the Youth Movement does not have his head, and does not function as our Youth Movement functions, we will lose. That's the way history is going right now.

SCHLANGER: You described this as the end of more than 40 years of history. How is that the case, and what are the implications?

LAROUCHE: Well, you know, you had two phases of the postwar period in the United States.

The first shock was, you had Harry Truman—who was a factional opponent of Franklin Roosevelt—took the occasion of the President's death, before the President's body was fully cold, to reverse crucial features of Franklin Roosevelt's policy. He brought in, in effect, under the influence of people who had been at one time supporters of Hitler, such as Averell Harriman—he brought in these guys, who introduced modifications in the Roosevelt program.

Now, some things went well. The economic recovery program eventually—the recovery of Western Europe, was good. But this right-wing tendency was there. Truman's right-wing current, which was called McCarthyism—that's another name for it—was stopped by the Eisenhower election. Eisenhower gave the United States about two terms of Presidency, of relative stability, though the right wing was suppurating in the background, building power.

But then, at the beginning of President's Kennedy's term, you had the Bay of Pigs, an Allen Dulles operation. Allen Dulles was one of the door-openers to bring the Nazis into the United States in the postwar period, along with James Angleton. Then, you had the Missile Crisis of 1962, and you had then the assassination of Kennedy, and other things, leading into the, 1964, the launching of the U.S. official war in Indo-China.

Now, this process of events, the right-wing terror in the United States, the so-called anti-communist terror, turned many of the people who had been veterans of the war, and especially their wives, turned them into real sophist fanatics. And they didn't raise their children too well. They may have raised them fairly well financially, economically, but they didn't raise them well morally. We were under the influence of a moral degeneration, typified by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which was a corruption operation.

So, when these young guys, who had reached adolescence, were hit by the succession of the Missile Crisis, the Kennedy assassination, the Indo-China war, that those of them who were going from more privileged family backgrounds, from suburbia, into the leading universities of the country, took off their clothes, took drugs, and went crazy. So as a result of that, we went into a cultural paradigm-shift, from the world's leading producer society, to a post-industrial, utopian paradise, which became more and more imperial, in the sense that we were looting other parts of the world, rather than producing for ourselves.

We're now ruined, and we've come to the end of that system. The present international monetary-financial system is undergoing an economic collapse, right now. The past two weeks have been a threshhold of a general collapse, which would be equivalent, in some people's lexicon, to what happened to Hoover in October of 1929. The depression is on. And the people are trying to react to the depression the way they did in Europe, when they put in fascist regimes, in Europe, under the pretext of the economic depression at that time.

Roosevelt in the United States—and only Roosevelt, and only his election—prevented the United States from becoming a fascist state, like those which spread in Europe during that period.

So, we're now at the point that we have to go back to the policies, in a sense, the policy-paradigm of a Franklin Roosevelt, for a recovery program: his approach to these things, rather than the fiscal austerity program of an unwitting fascist—I don't think he could spell the word, President George W. Bush—the fascism of Cheney; the fascism of people who think like that, like Joe Lieberman in the Democratic Party. Or, we go to a Roosevelt-type of approach in philosophy, in which case the United States will play a leading role in saving humanity from this horror show.

What Helga is doing in Germany, and in Europe generally, with the Youth Movement in particular there—without the Youth Movement in Europe, there'd be no hope for Europe whatsoever. It wouldn't make it. It's our Youth Movement in Europe which is the sparkplug which may save Europe from the inside. But the cooperation between the United States, going in the direction of a youth movement demand here, and a similar phenomenon emerging in Europe, that combination, is precisely what we need to save civilization.

SCHLANGER: Now, part of this problem with the reverse paradigm-shift, is that you still have people in the Democratic Party, as you mentioned, Joe Lieberman and others, who think that FDR has to be written out of the party, but at present, there are fights breaking out around FDR. How would you respond to those Democrats who are saying, "Well, the FDR approach is not relevant today, because we have computers, we have globalization." How would you answer that?

LAROUCHE: They're insane. They're nuts. I mean, the point is, first of all, the collapse of the bubble—. Take what's going to hit these guys.

You spread around the country, if you map the country: The country has been physically collapsing, over especially, the past 25 years, especially since about 1979-1982. Now, what's happened is, there's been a shrinking in the parts of the country which were once productive. The collapse of manufacturing, the collapse of privately owned agriculture, that is, of independent-farmer agriculture. The collapse of cities. The collapse of infrastructure. What is called the U.S. economy is becoming narrower and narrower, around a few parts of the country, while the rest of the country decays.

Twenty% of the population, the upper 20% of income brackets, is the bastion of "let's leave things as they are. Let's continue the present trend." Eighty% of the lower income brackets of the population, have nothing. So, we're having a social crisis, a social conflict is building up, right now.

The nub of this thing, the typical nub of this, is the oil price. The oil price is now, in Europe, it's gone to nearly $45 a barrel, headed toward $50, maybe toward $60. A $50 to $60 a barrel oil price would collapse the ready-ripe-for-collapse world economy, especially the U.S. economy.

At the same time you have a real-estate bubble. The real-estate bubble is one of the largest bubbles inside the United States. And it goes with those funny shacks, going at $300,000 to $600,000 apiece, and you hope a wind storm doesn't blow them down, which around certain areas, like the greater-Washington, D.C.-area. These things are going to transform people from homeowners in name, to either squatters or homeless. And this is going to be a mass phenomenon.

So, right now, the world is about to be hit by an international economic crisis, a monetary and financial crisis, beyond any thing in people's memory, living people's memory, right now. So that those who are running around smugly, and saying everything is fine, are not going to believe that much longer. So, the question is, what's the alternative?

SCHLANGER: Well, you are the world's leading physical economist, and you've been reviving the Classical principles behind physical economy and advancing them, beginning with your breakthrough in the '48-52 period, your work with the LaRouche-Riemann model, and this is what's behind your unparalleled record in economic forecasting. I suspect that they're not going to be able to keep your record, and your activity in this, out of the news much longer, as this thing hits.

LAROUCHE: Well, look what's happened in Germany. The second television program, and the Economics Minister of the present German government, went ablast against Helga. They couldn't mention her name.

You have a similar thing in the United States. The Convention, the Boston Convention, broke through that, and this is largely because of the style and method of work by the Youth Movement. The persistence, the music, the beauty of the deployment broke through. And there are many people in the party who agree with me, including influentials. But, they're afraid of disunity in the party, because people like Joe Lieberman, who hate me. And Joe Lieberman is a fascist.

He was brought into the Senate by the intervention of the Buckley family, who are authentic pro-Nazi fascists. They're on record, they're Nazis. Joe Lieberman also got support from the tip of Florida, from a bunch of fascists down there, who moved from Cuba into Florida. So, you've got people who, legitimately, hate my guts, because they're of a different species than me. And some of them are in the party. You know, that sort of thing.

But the point is, can the party find the guts to unify itself around a program which is a winning program. Joe Lieberman will just—.

SCHLANGER: We'll get a sense of that in the days and weeks ahead, the less than three months, because you're deploying the Youth Movement into key fights with this perspective—both of moving the party back to the FDR tradition, around your platform, and secondly, showing the truth about the devastation of the physical economy. Why don't you give the listeners a little bit of your sense of how this deployment is taking place, and what they can expect from the LaRouche Youth Movement over the next 90 days?

LAROUCHE: All right. First of all, what we did is, we said we're not going to end what we did in Boston. So, we have a team in Boston, who are doing, in Boston, followup on what was done during the Convention. Because, obviously, the character of the Boston area, is such that you can actually enlarge the potential, national potential, in that area, rather quickly. So, rather than run away from it, we have a team staying there, a top team of youth, staying in there, and doing the job. That's going to be a feeder point for—,%. Besides, also, that's the candidate's home area. He lives on Beacon Hill, as a matter of fact.

So, it's his home area. So, we'll use that as a launching point for what we're going to do as a national campaign.

We're going into the industrial, former industrial areas of the Middle East. We're going from Louisville down the Mississippi River, along the Missouri, along the Ohio River of course, and down to the Gulf of Mexico, down by way of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Channel, into Alabama, parts of Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas, and so forth. We also have, of course, our California West Coast operation.

So, we're going to take these areas, where we have candidates that want our support, we will help them, and we will try to get strategies which can win.

So, we're not going to be able to determine the outcome of all of the vote, but by going at areas where we can do a job, we will turn enough of the vote, to make a difference. And if some other people, seeing what we do, do the same, we're going to bring the unexpected vote into play. We're going to bring the "forgotten man and woman" into play as voters. People who have not voted recently are going to overwhelm the vote of the usually voting voters. And that's our strategy for winning this election.

SCHLANGER: Okay, you're listening to Lyndon LaRouche. We have Lyndon with us for about another eight or nine minutes. This is the LaRouche Show, which can be heard every Saturday at 3 PM EASTERN TIME, on larouchepub.com. If you wish to send an e-mail for participation in the second-half of the show, with the youth, you can send one.

Now, Lyn, to go back to this strategy you just outlined for the intervention into the campaign, it's directly modelled on your approach to physical economy. In a sense what you described, the industrial heartland, the TVA-area, it's what you called more than a year and a half ago, almost two years ago, a Super-TVA. How does that address the problem that we face in the country?

LAROUCHE: Well, there are two things.

First of all, you've got to change the way people think. That can be done fairly easily. See, people keep talking about money. They talk about "the" market, as if this were some kind of Delphic god, and have this magician, a babbling magician, Alan Greenspan. People are paying attention to this idiot, this dangerous idiot.

All right, now what's the reality. Let's take the United States. Imagine you're looking coming in from Outer Space, on the territory of the United States. And you have ability to see a panoply of the changes in the United States, say, since 1926, up and down. Down into the Depression. Up out of the Depression. Postwar recovery, and then a downslide in the physical economy of the United States, which begins essentially in the middle of the 1960s.

Now, you look, county by county. Break each county down into 100-square-mile areas. Break each part of the population of those countries down into 100-family units. Now, let's look at all the physical factors of consumption and production, in these areas. Let's look at kilowatts of power generated. Let's look at things like water, water supplies. Let's look at the health care. Let's look at housing. Let's look at employment. Let's look at manufacturing output. Look at all these things which are physical things—reality—on which the productivity and the well-being of the population depends.

And you go around the country, and you find place after place, county after county, state after state, is being destroyed by the present policies.

Then you have babblers talking about: Wall Street's on the way up. There's a recovery on the way. And as long as people talk about money, ask the financial experts, "How is the market doing?" Say, the market is bankrupt. Money may be worthless tomorrow, unless we make changes.

Look at the physical reality. Look at what you have to wear, to eat. Look at your clothing, look at your health care. Look at whether the community offers employment or not, and what kind of employment. Is the farmer still producing, the independent farmer, still producing? Are the water systems working? Are the power systems working? Are the railroads still working? Do we have an improved type of rail-mass transportation, or do we have turning super-highways into parking lots at rush-hour time.

So, you look at the physical reality of the nation, and say, "This is the problem. This downward trend in the physical conditions of life is the problem."

The homeless people are the problem. The growth of the number of homeless people. The destitution spreading: These are the problems. Look at this, and say, "This must be changed." Force the people to look away from the financial reports, from the "boolah, boolah" of the television networks and so forth. Look instead at physical reality. And in the physical reality of things that people can see and know, the truth is told. Once people respond to physical reality, rather than the boolah, boolah of the financial reports, or the doubletalk of a psychotic President, then they will react accordingly, at least the lower 80%.

The lower 80% have to be encouraged to stop being the lower 80%, to stop being the underdogs, and recognize themselves as citizens, who must think like citizens, who must exert the power of citizens, who must vote for themselves, in effect, by choosing a candidate who is for their interests, actually, not beg for what kind of marriage, or how many abortions per block are going. But play to reality. And our job is to convey reality, physical reality of the ups and downs of a changing pattern of existence in our country, and abroad, and put that before them. Under that case, you choose the right agenda, they will begin to choose the right response.

SCHLANGER: The other thing, I think, that has completely shocked the political world has been the singing of the LaRouche Youth Movement, and for you, this is a special concept, a special idea. You have a specific approach to music, which has caused—and I've seen it from being out there with the youth, and watching mouths drop open, of people who think they don't like you, and are saying, "How can these people be with LaRouche, and sing Bach so beautifully?"

So, we have about three minutes left, Lyn. Can you just tell us why this works, and how this functions to bring beauty to people, causes them to stop and think.

LAROUCHE: Well, you know, it's a result of the fact that there's been a cultural degeneration, an orchestrated cultural degeneration in the United States, as in Europe, during the entirety of the postwar period. The ideas of Brecht: decadence, extreme decadence. But there are certain principles on which the human race, particularly European culture, developed, and developed especially since the 15th-Century Renaissance. Among these, are music and poetry. The legacy of Dante, the legacy of Petrarca, and so forth. These great legacies. The legacy of Classical Greece.

So, all I've done is say, we've got to look at economy not as just physical economy, or money economy. We have to look at the consumption, and life of people, not merely in terms of so-called physical effects. We've got to look at it in terms of their mental life, their spiritual life; and Classical musical composition is not merely a taste. It is the development of the understanding of a fundamental principle that distinguishes human beings from beasts.

Now, when people get into actually using the principles of Classical well-tempered counterpoint, as developed by Bach and all of his followers, that has a power, to bring a sense of beauty into life. A sense of social beauty, especially when you have four-part counterpoint, as we're using, largely, in the kinds of things we're doing.

And this touches people, because it touches something in them that's there. Something they don't ordinarily use. Where they say, "That is beautiful.

And the key to life, the key to real politics, the key to the ability to withstand suffering, is the sense that you are experiencing, and in social relations, particularly, something that is beautiful. You can come to it with the dingiest rags, and the poorest diet, and you come into an area where you are surrounded by beauty. You are uplifted. Your pessimism shrinks away, and you look at your rags, and you look at your hunger, and you say, " Obviously, can't we make these things better too?" And that's what works.

SCHLANGER: Well, I wish I could keep you on for another couple of hours, Lyn, but I know you've got a busy schedule. I'd like to thank you so much for being on with us this afternoon. And everyone should know you'll be keynoting the National Conference of the Schiller Institute on Sept. 4, in Virginia, and I'm sure we're going to be hearing a lot from you between now and then. So, Lyn, thank you very much, and we'll turn it over to the LaRouche Youth Movement.

LAROUCHE: Thank you.

All rights reserved © 2004 EIRNS