LaRouche: Support Election of `Good FDR Democrats'

In an international teleconference on Aug. 17, broadcast live on his campaign website, Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. engaged in a broad-ranging dialogue with 22 journalists. We publish here the text of his opening remarks, followed by a selection from the questions and answers.

LaRouche: I'll make a series of observations as to what the situation is.

Now, obviously, apparently today, we will have an acceptance speech, from Vice-President Al Gore, accepting the nomination for Democratic nominee for President. This is a catastrophe; it's a national catastrophe. Not only are both of the leading candidates at this time, totally unqualified for the office of President, in spite of, and because of their advisers. Their platform is horrible. But worst of all, we are coming into a period of unusual crisis globally, as well as nationally, which such unsuitable candidates--the fact that the American voter has no apparent alternative to these guaranteed failures--is a catastrophe for the United States, and a potential source of catastrophes for the world.

Now, my approach to the situation, given the reality in terms of the election, is to organize my position in the campaign, as a rallying point for bringing into power, in the Congress, as many good Democrats as possible. What I mean by a good Democrat, essentially, is a Franklin Delano Roosevelt Democrat: that is, a person who is committed, and qualified to be committed, to the defense and promotion of the general welfare of all citizens and their posterity, and who supports a relation with other nations, which is based on that same principle of mutual benefit. I would hope that by getting as many Democrats, and good Republicans, as we can find them, into the Congress, that we will have a majority in the Congress, which is ready to respond to a crisis, to prevent an out-of-control President from ruining the world, and for doing some good things as well.

Now, what's the nature of the crisis?

Most people alive today have no personal experience with the kind of crisis which the nation and world are experiencing currently. Despite all the hullabaloo in the United States, the United States, along with other nations, is on the verge of the worst financial crisis, globally, in several centuries--which will certainly hit the United States soon. Because of the nature of things, you cannot predict exactly when or how this collapse will occur, except that we're in the condition in which we know that the crisis will hit in some form very soon.

This is a very dangerous period. Already, the world is becoming much more dangerous globally, as the United States, and the British monarchy--the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand--as a five-nation combination of Anglo-American power, who are trying to dominate the world, are expressing their domination in the attempt to impose a globalized--that is, like a new Roman Empire--a globalized system of financial oligarchical dictatorship on the world as a whole. This financial oligarchy, this dictatorship, is about to blow up, in the greatest financial and monetary crisis in at least three centuries. So, under such conditions, the reigning powers in the world, centered in the Anglo-American powers, the financial centers of these nations, is in a desperate mood. And we find around the world, the desperation which reflects that mood.

For example, the United States recently has clobbered Japan, and western continental Europe, in ways which have estranged our allies in the Orient, the Far East, and in Europe, from the United States. We have similar situations in other parts of the world. The United States is presently estranging itself from the world, from nations with which it had formerly close relations, as a desperate effort to try to keep this global financial system in place--which won't work. So, therefore, we have a strategic situation which is beyond anything in recent decades of experience, of people alive today.

The world is extremely dangerous. And, as a result of these conditions, things are going to change rapidly. While at present, it would appear that George W. Bush is a guaranteed victor over an Al Gore, from whom Democrats are deserting in droves; but nonetheless, things can change suddenly, so there is no possible way of predicting exactly what's going to happen. We're going to have two significant third-party candidates, Pat Buchanan and Nader, running, which will make things complicated, especially under the present conditions.

The problem today in the United States is, politically, that the policies of the two leading candidacies are addressed to the top 20% of family income brackets in the United States; that is, people who benefit, or believe they benefit, from the present financial system, and its financial speculation. Whereas the policies of both leading candidates are directed against the 80% of family income brackets, the lower income brackets. This means that there is a conflict between both Bush and Gore, and organized labor, and the so-called ethnic minorities, African-American, Hispanic, and so forth. And also with senior citizens, and the poor generally. So 80% of the American people are in deadly conflict with the policies, the presently expressed policies, of the two leading candidates.

So, we have not only a global situation, which is extremely unstable, but we also have an extremely, increasingly unstable domestic political situation--among two candidates who are not much liked, one of whom has a lot of support, and the other of whom has lesser, dwindling support. So, this is a highly unstable period. No firm predictions can be made.

I call your attention to a statement made by President Clinton in the conclusion of his address to the Democratic convention in Los Angeles, in which he described a situation from his youth, when he saw a world, which he thought was stable, which suddenly became unstable. And he described that situation in general terms, to the conference, to the convention. I think that's a very appropriate remark. None of us knows exactly what might bust loose, at any time during the next 11 weeks. No one does. I don't know--I probably know better than most.

But it's a highly unstable world, a highly unstable U.S. political situation, and we're going to have to play it by ear.

Therefore, my policies are well known. I've documented them, I don't have to repeat them here. They're in writing all over the world. I say on the domestic side, I am staying with the people who've associated themselves with me, in the Democratic party, who are committed to represent the lower 80% of the family income brackets in the United States, their right for justice, and to represent that point of view as an elaboration, and continuation, of the Franklin Roosevelt tradition inside the Democratic party. And to hope that we can elect, on the state level as well as the Congressional level, as many officials who represent that point of view, as possible.

We're looking for Democrats, but if a Republican is going to represent that point of view, we will be very happy to welcome him into the fold. Thank you.

Doug Thompson, Arkansas Democrat Gazette: ... When it was announced that there would be no [LaRouche] delegates from Arkansas to the Democrats, Mr. LaRouche essentially promised a floor fight. How did that go?

LaRouche: Well, the point is, what we did, since it was obvious that the thug tactics were going to prevent any discussion on the floor; what I did immediately, is, I said, I've got a responsibility, a moral one, and therefore, I asked some people to hold an Ad Hoc Platform Committee Hearing, in which former Sen. Eugene McCarthy participated as a coordinating figure, along with others. I think that that Ad Hoc Platform session performed its function very well, brilliantly, in fact, and provided a benchmark for which the American Democratic Party voters, particularly among the have-nots; those who are senior citizens, who are among leading have-nots; those who are in the so-called ethnic minorities, who are among the have-nots; or labor in general, which is, in general, among the have-nots; that these people who assembled as leading state-level Democrats, for that Platform session, and the people who came to that, created a reference point.

Now, what's happened now, is that the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles has been the catastrophe for the Democratic Party which Al Gore and Company made it. So, my thinking is, okay, I'll stick to the Democratic Party. I'm loyal to the people of the Democratic Party who are loyal to what it was, and I'm not running away from it. And that's where I stand.

Al Gore will go, as he's gone before; lost every big election that wasn't from Tennessee, for state office from Tennessee. He's proven himself, once again, unelectable. The Democratic Party should walk away from this convention, and the defeat that he's going to bring upon it, saying, "Okay, Al is a failure. We're not going to make that mistake again." Well, I'm going to be there. And a lot of good Democrats who stand with me, and others, we're going to put the party back together again.

José Neme Salum, Excelsior, Mexico: After the Mexican elections, which resulted in the victory of an ultra-liberal government, and given that a similar government may head up the United States, what alternatives, Mr. LaRouche, do you think we Mexicans have, to be able to face the risk posed by there not being either a hard, nor a soft landing of the U.S. economy, but rather a "Concorde effect," that is, an explosion in mid-flight? And, at the same time, how can we salvage our sovereignty, in order to retake the road toward national development?

LaRouche: Well, first of all, what either George Bush, or Al Gore would represent, according to their present policies and program, in the United States, would be an attempt to install a variety of fascist government. The kind of globalization program that Al Gore represents, as typified by his attacks on the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir bin Mohamad, shows that this man is of the category which Michael Ledeen called, in his book, Universal Fascism--in point of fact, Al Gore is a universal fascist. In point of fact, the crowd around George Bush is of the same temperament, and equally brutal, perhaps more so.

So that from the standpoint of these two candidates, Mexico hasn't got much of a chance, or any other country.

However, there are other considerations. As I've said, this situation is not going to continue. There is no inherent stability or inherent simple linear trend in any events in any part of the world today, in point of fact. If you want to look at what Mexico's future is internationally, look to Asia. What is now in progress in Asia, before the Okinawa summit, and more so afterward, is a distancing of Japan and other countries of Asia from what is called the Washington Consensus: that is, Japan and other parts of Asia are no longer going to accept the kind of policy dictates which came out of Washington as of October 1998. In the meantime, very soon--we don't know what day or what week--this international financial system will collapse. It will be the biggest financial collapse in the history of European civilization in three centuries. That is inevitable.

The question is going to be, how do we put the world back together after such a financial collapse? In Asia, right now, the efforts around the Asian Monetary Fund, and cooperation among the ASEAN nations, plus Korea, China, and Japan, is to build a defense against the collapse of the present international monetary system, the so-called IMF system. I believe they could be successful, in part. I think that what is going to happen then, is there will be a contest between those who agree with the ASEAN-plus-3 group on establishing a new monetary system, some people in western continental Europe, who are thinking in the same directions, and others, including nations in Central and South America. I think the mood will be, with the discrediting of the Anglo-American system, monetary/financial system, that people in desperation will suddenly abandon their submission to the London-Washington dictate, and will suddenly demand that London and Washington--Washington, in particular--come to a more reasonable arrangement in establishing a new monetary system.

In Washington itself, a financial collapse--remember, a financial collapse in the United States means the potential of 30% or more unemployment very soon--under those conditions, which are worse than those of the 1929-33 period, the American people, particularly with 80% of them as victims of this system already, are going to be in a stage of political revolt. Now, under those conditions, the danger is, that a regime such as that of an Al Gore or George Bush, will tend to try to impose a fascist dictatorship to repress the revolt by the 80% of the U.S. population. Most of the world, on the other hand, will be going in a different direction.

I think that under those conditions, if we do a good job in the remaining 11 weeks of this election campaign in the United States, that we can create the situation in which the United States' prevailing opinion will be moving in a different direction than the kind of fascist threat which we're getting from the Anglo-American financial oligarchy group, that is, from the Blair-Gore-Bush group. I think that that can be successfully resisted. I'm optimistic. I know that this can happen. I know that Hitler happened in Germany when it shouldn't have happened in 1933. Such things do happen. But our policy must be to fight against the possibility of such things, and to prepare to cooperate with other nations to resist that.

I think there can be a very sudden and dramatic reversal of trends based on the kind of phenomenon which Franklin Roosevelt represented in the early 1930s. I'm hopeful. I can't guarantee anything. Nobody can guarantee anything. But I'm hopeful we can do that. And I think that the only thing that makes sense is to commit ourselves to that prespective, and be willing to fight for it....

Arelya Mitchell, Mid-South Tribune, Memphis, Tennessee: Not so very long ago, you had something about Mexico should look toward Asia as far as a financial model? Can you expound on that, and also, with Africa, with all the events that are happening on the continent of Africa, what type of policy should the United States have toward Africa, and emerging African nations, I should say?

LaRouche: My view is that the United States, as the principal of the old Bretton Woods system, and the actual founder and initiator of the International Monetary Fund in its original form, should morally and politically and strategically, assume its responsibilities for acknowledging the bankruptcy of the present International Monetary Fund system. Under those conditions, the United States should support a conciliation with other parts of the world, to create, on an emergency basis, a new monetary order, a new financial order, modelled on the successful features of the postwar system, the first 20 years of the IMF. And in order to provide a new system of stability, in which the United States will be a supporting and contributing partner.

Now, at this point, you have two focal points in the world, in reality, in which there's a struggle in that direction. The leading movement in that direction, which involves the greatest part of the human population, is the ASEAN-plus-3 group....

Therefore, what is coming out of Asia, in terms of the discussion around the Asian Monetary Fund, as expressed recently by the agreement between North and South Korea, as a part of that process--if you combine that with the discussion which is going on in France and some other circles in Europe, you say, well, the United States should be talking to our continental European partners, as to the members of the ASEAN-plus-3 group; we should be, or the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, perhaps right now, should be meeting with these people to say, "Okay, we are prepared to consider scrapping the presently bankrupt international monetary system, and to take emergency action to set up a new one." In that case, the ideas which are circulating now in the ASEAN-plus-3 group, from Korea, from Japan, and so forth, and from Mahathir of Malaysia, for example--these ideas are the ideas which are in the interests of the United States.

Now, as far as Africa is concerned: Africa is a disaster-area. Africa has had no freedom to develop during the entire period since 1971, so therefore, we are going to have to, other nations are going to have to agree on providing arrangements for Africa, largely in infrastructure development, which will let Africa begin the process of its own development. In the meantime, we have to recognize that this disease crisis in Africa, is a threat to Africa and to all of us, and we must take such measures as are necesasry to fight these problems in Africa as a way of defending our own interests....

The United States is presently estranging itself from the world, from nations with which it had formerly close relations, as a desperate effort to try to keep this global financial system in place--which won't work. So, therefore, we have a strategic situation which is beyond anything in recent decades of experience, of people alive today.