HOW THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY CAMPAIGN FLOPPED

LAROUCHE HOLDS LIVE WEBCAST WITH ARGENTINE AND PERUVIAN YOUTH

LAROUCHE WEBCAST TO STUDENTS IN ARGENTINA AND PERU

From Volume 3, Issue Number 46 of EIR Online, Published Nov. 16, 2004

Latest From LaRouche

Inside the Democratic Party:

HOW THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY CAMPAIGN FLOPPED

by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

November 12, 2004

It should have been obvious from the start, that, as in the circumstances leading from the Versailles Treaty through 1945, the determining feature of the U.S. and European crises of 2001-2004 has been a continuing escalation of the collapse of the physical economy of the Americas and Europe, caused by an onrushing collapse of the world's present, floating-exchange-rate monetary-financial system. It was already clear to all who actually think among leading political circles of the world, that the issues posed by the accelerating onrush of a general collapse of that monetary-financial system, would continue to be the determining factor in all serious political life for years yet to come.

In fact, it was only the Kerry-Edwards campaign's dramatic shift to emphasis on the need to address the effects of the onrushing economic depression, which saved the Democratic ticket from an absolute rout during the last two months of run-up to the general election.

The inability of the Democratic National Committee's approved 2004 list of Presidential pre-candidates ensured that none of those candidates, individually, or as a whole, would be capable of addressing those economy-determined issues which will continue to be determining in the political process still, at the present moment today. Those who continue to disagree with that, still today, are engaged in a form of amusing themselves, which it were impolite to mention by name within the bounds of public intercourse. Since Nov. 3, some of those who made that crucial blunder in primary-campaign policy are still insisting on ignoring the continuing leading realities of the present moment.

The only worthwhile response to those who, still today, propose to ignore the crucial economic issues for a smorgasbord of single issues, is that this blunder of the Party has been the key to the collapse of the organization of the Democratic Party's former FDR social base since the 1980 primary campaign. The fact that President Clinton was helped to victory over Bush 41 by Ross Perot's campaign, and that Clinton proved himself a master of campaign tactics throughout his Presidency, and still today, provides us, when we imagine a party without a Clinton candidacy, an adjusted, truer picture of the trend of increasing political weaknesses in Democratic Party strategies since the losing 1980 campaign.

This deterioration was not the result of some random choice.

Just as Germany's once-powerful SPD destroyed much of its base by a post-1981 reorientation to the Green Party agenda, so the post-1968er Democratic Party adapted itself to the "post-industrial" ideology in the U.S.A., thus cutting the Democratic Party off, more and more, from its traditional Roosevelt base in what is today the lower 80 percentile of family-income brackets.

That error, which should have been clear to us all, over the decades since 1977, is not merely that the Party abandoned its appeal to the broad majority of the population; the effect of this prolonged shift in the Party's programmatic perspectives and allegiances, pushed the constituency from the lower eighty percentile of income brackets into a posture of begging or threatening withdrawal of support as the price for concession of particular, single-issue, or like pressures on the Party's campaigns. The lower 80 percentile thought of itself not as members of the Party, but as outsiders bartering for concessions from the party's "suburbia-centered" bonzes.

The fact that, since Spring 2000, the U.S. government's policies have accelerated the rate of "taking away" from the population, including those affected by the inevitable, sharp cutbacks in the "IT" sector that year, has created a situation in which the effort by Al Gore and others to capitalize on the Clinton legacy have failed to meet the challenge represented by the well-organized thuggery-in-depth mustered behind the Bush candidacies.

Thus, wherever the Party tries to buy off voter-support in the Party's habituated, unprincipled, piecemeal way, the sense of the combined effects of an accelerating economic depression and fear of the brutishness of the Bush machine, drives voters of the middle-income brackets into the wishful delusion that, contrary to all fact, those voters in the Nov. 2 election wished to believe in the delusion, even out of pure hysteria, that Bush has actually caused the economy to keep from falling, even to grow. It was the way in which the Democratic Party wasted the opportunity, from January until September 2004, to deal forthrightly with the actually leading issue of world politics as today, the onrushing general collapse of the world's present, floating-exchange-rate, financial-monetary system.

We now have $50-a-barrel petroleum, headed to $100 in the near term, and a U.S. dollar which has fallen rather precipitously, and still falling, to a level of $1.30 per euro. The collapse of Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan's U.S. mortgage-based-securities financial bubble, now threatened for early eruption, the Federal debt-crisis, and the U.S. balance-of-payments crisis, are among the elements which signal a sudden, deep collapse of the dollar, with all that that entails, unless a shift toward an FDR-type policy is put into the works very soon.

There are, of course, critics of the past two months effort of the Kerry-Edwards campaign. We notice that that rumble of gossip in the barracks is not inconsistent with the kinds of self-inflicted demoralization and gossiping which erupts among a potential combat force which has kept itself locked up in the barracks much too long. In net effect, what Kerry and Edwards did succeeded brilliantly; it just did not begin soon enough to deal effectively with the most crooked opposing election-machine on wheels to date, the thuggish machinery headed by Karl Rove.

It is a time for criticism, of course: just not the disgusting kind.

LAROUCHE HOLDS LIVE WEBCAST WITH ARGENTINE AND PERUVIAN YOUTH

November 11, 2004

Greetings from the host, Anuart Jarma.

Good afternoon, my name is Anuart Jarma. I am a member of the Liaison Executive Committee of the Rosario campus of the National Technological University, and a member of the Forum for Regional Dialogue of Rosario, which is an entity that was created at a very critical moment of the crisis which we Argentines have endured over the last years. This group has been formed by many different sectors of the community in this region—business layers, trade union layers, non-governmental organizations, civic organizations—as a forum for dialogue, for the purpose of exchanging ideas and coming to a consensus of views, and to face the task of recovering our country, which has suffered so greatly in this period.

For that reason, we are most honored to have Dr. LaRouche with us today. We are grateful to have him with us, and we appreciate the great deference he has shown us by being here. It is very generous on his part to communicate with Rosario, one of Argentina's most important cities, located in an area of great agro-industrial potential. Mr. LaRouche, welcome to our home.

I will now ask for a representative of the LaRouche Youth movement, Emiliano Andino, to take the microphone, and to be master of ceremonies for this video-conference.

We also have with us today members of the Secretariat of Culture of the National Technological University of Rosario, and also members of various representative entities, associations, trade unions, and business groups. So, now, I'd like to have Emiliano speak. Welcome.

Introduction by Emiliano Andino.

My name is Emiliano Andino. I am a member of the international LaRouche Youth Movement, and I would like to welcome all of you to this video-conference: "The Issue Is the Sovereign States of the Americas," given by former U.S. Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche.

I am speaking to you from the Rosario branch of the UTN university of Argentina. Other universities are also connected to this webcast: the UTN of Buenos Aires, the UTN in Cordoba, the National University of Lomas de Zamora in Buenos Aires province, and also the University of Callao in Peru. Other universities were also scheduled to join us over the internet, for which we don't yet have confirmation of their participation. I also want to welcome those of you who are listening by internet.

We would like to thank Mr. Anuart Jarma and all the other members of the organizing group here in Rosario, for their support. Without them, we would not have been able to carry out this event. Therefore, I would like to present to you Mr. Lyndon LaRouche, the man who should be President of the United States.

LaRouche: Thank you very much. As you know, the problems of Argentina are not regional, they're international. If there were any doubt of that, we have the case of the IMF involvement in the problems of Argentina, and other countries. Thus, what is happening on a world scale will reverberate into whatever we discuss in any part of the world, and notably this part of the world in the Southern Cone region of South America.

At present, the most recent event affecting world events, has been the death of Yasser Arafat, the longtime leader of the PLO. His death opens questions about the fate not only of the so-called Middle East, or Southwest Asia, but the world as a whole. And, as you know, Arafat was a fighter, a hard fighter for the Palestinians, against, in particular, the Israelis. Now we are in a situation where we are still trying to get peace between Israelis and Palestinians, a peace which is indispensable for the region of Southwest Asia, which includes Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and the Arab states, including Egypt, of course. And what happens there will tend to determine what happens on a global scale.

It's the way history is in the long run, and very much the way history is today. So, to understand this problem we're about to face, we have to start with consideration of that, and what happens in Israel and in the Middle East, on the occasion of the death of Arafat, whether or not somebody will step forward, now, to bring about an effective peace negotiation between the leadership of Israel and Palestine, will determine very much what happens to every part of the world at large, including in this case Argentina, as it affects the kind of international constellation of forces which will affect the fate of Argentina.

Now, our problem is today, as in the late 1920s and early 1930s, an international cartel of financier oligarchical interests, who are not banks as much as they are controllers of banks, as a kind of Venetian oligarchy. This system, which was known in the 1920s and 1930s and early 40s, as the Synarchist International, gave us the spread of fascist states across most of continental Europe, and only the intervention of the United States prevented Britain from joining Hitler during the spring of 1940. The Roosevelt intervention in the situation, by backing Britain's resistance to Hitler and by rewarding the Soviet Union and other measures, made possible the rescue of civilization from a nightmare which would otherwise rule the world today.

Now, once again, we have come, as in the 1920s, to a great international monetary-financial crisis, and also an economic crisis. This process, especially since 1971-72, has been crushing the world. The floating exchange-rate system. It has crushed Argentina, which was once one of the wealthiest countries in the world in terms of standard of living, and we need not detail here what the condition is today. This deterioration of the condition of life in Argentina, as in other countries in South and Central America, as in Mexico since 1982, is a result of the role of this international Synarchist financier interest which has been controlling international monetary financial policy thoroughly since that time, and we have been resisting.

Now, we've come to the point that that system is finished. Whatever happens, nothing can save the IMF system in its present form. There is no measure, no magic, no method by which the IMF as presently represented, will continue to exist, because the international monetary-financial system is hopelessly bankrupt. It is not bankrupt in the sense that it could be reorganized in its present form. The only thing that could happen with the IMF, would be that governments, a concert of governments, put the IMF and related banking systems, central banking systems, into receivership, for reorganization of these banking institutions.

Now, what would have to be done at that point, is of course what Franklin Roosevelt did in the United States in March of 1933 and thereafter. Remember, our Constitution in the United States, as little as it is observed now by the present government of the United States, nonetheless makes the United States unique among republics, in that our Constitution provides for the non-existence of any central banking system, even though we have had some snuck in here and there, like the Federal Reserve System. Under our Constitution, only the federal government has the power to create currency. The Federal government is responsible to manage currency and credit on behalf of the nation. And the government is compelled by its Constitution, by the preamble of the Constitution, to use its power, including the power over the currency, to defend the absolute sovereignty of the nation as a republic, to defend the general welfare of all of the people, and to defend both the sovereignty and the general welfare at present, for future generations, for posterity. Roosevelt did that.

Presently, that's what we have to do. All nations around the world, the entire system is about to go under. We are on the verge of a greater depression than western European civilization has known since the 14th century dark age. This is much worse than the depression of the 1930s, and it's coming on fast and cannot be prevented now. The only way the effects of the crash can be prevented is by the intervention of a concert of sovereign governments, to put the international monetary financial system into reorganization.

You see what is happening now. The case of Argentina. The demands of the bankers, including the IMF, is to impose upon the people and nation of Argentina, conditions which amount to genocide, to turn all of Argentina into a vast concentration camp, and to squeeze Argentina's people and resources for what the country no longer has. It no longer has the means for payment of these debts, and therefore, to proceed with these would be a Hitler-like or worse, genocide against the nation and people of Argentina. The same thing threatens South America and Central America as a whole. It also threatens other parts of the world.

So therefore, we have come, at the time of Arafat's death, to a point of crisis, a turning point. We've now had a recent election in the United States. The election is not concluded. George Bush is not yet the re-elected president of the United States. The process has to go through the Electoral College, and several things could happen during the course of the proceedings through the Electoral College, including the effects of the present examination of the way the election was conducted, and what the results are. Also, if the Electoral College cannot resolve the differences, then the matter goes by our Constitution into the Congress, which has to take over, when the Electoral College has failed, in choosing a President and Vice-President of the United States.

But, under the putative new President of the United States and the presently incumbent President, there's no indication of any policy which will prevent the conclusion of the worst financial collapse in world history. That's where we're headed.

Therefore, the question is to find leadership in this difficult time, to lead nations in putting this financial system through reorganization, to restore something similar, on a world scale, to what was established at Bretton Woods by Franklin Roosevelt, in 1944: to establish a new world monetary system of fixed exchange rates, a new system of credit, and a mobilization of credit to rebuild the economies of the world. We can do that. That will work. Physically it's feasible.

The question is, which way are we going? If we go the way of the present Bush Administration policies, the present policies of the European countries—Western and Central European countries—the policies of the IMF, then humanity is going to plunge into a dark age. The question is, whence comes the leadership, and the will to bring nations together, to force the necessary change in international as well as national institutions, required for people to survive? Our objective can be no more nor no less immediately, than ensuring nations the rights they had prior to the onset of this crisis, prior to 1971-72 in terms of rights. The rights to rebuild their economies by that standard, that yardstick of performance. We must ally to that end, among ourselves. We must agree to that. We must find governmental and other influential forces which can induce governments to make the kinds of decisions we require for them.

Do not believe that, even if Bush is confirmed, that the present policies of the Bush Administration will go forward. This is not the end of things. This is not the end of time, the fact that Bush might be elected again. Because Bush faces problems. The United States is bankrupt. The housing system, the mortgage system of the United States, like that of the United Kingdom, is bankrupt, is ready to blow. The United States has a current account deficit. It's bankrupt.

The price of petroleum is now around $50 a barrel, internationally, headed toward $100 a barrel. Soon, that increased price of petroleum will hit every part of the consumer sector of the economies of the world. We have a vast speculation in raw materials, a speculation which is concentrated in the United States, in Western and Central Europe, in a different way in Russia, and China is not a holder of raw materials, but it is the biggest bidder for raw materials on the world today, as you see in neighboring Brazil, where China has shown a great interest in Brazil, and also more recently, China has now shown a similar interest in Argentina. So, the world is dominated by great raw materials cartels, buyers and sellers, in a crashing system.

But there is, generally, in Europe and elsewhere, there is no concern for rebuilding the economy in the sense of the productive powers of labor and the general welfare of populations.

So, and this government of Bush is going to face that. The European governments are going to face that. Their banking systems, the banking system of the United States, the banking system of Western Europe, is hopelessly bankrupt. It cannot be saved in its present form. It cannot be reorganized in its present form, in its own terms. Only government intervention, to put the banking system through drastic reorganization, in bankruptcy, in order to protect the population, to maintain the continuity of essential physical economic functions, can save the system.

We have to bring about a condition under which governments will make that, and the US government, among others, is going to face the challenge of this crisis. You're going to see upheavals in the US government, whoever is the government. It cannot be avoided. This is a very dangerous period, a period in which wars and revolution can spread. Generally, asymmetric warfare planetwide.

There is a solution. The solution is essentially a concept. It's the concept on which the United States was founded at a time that the situation was seemingly hopeless. In 1763, the Anglo-Dutch liberal system, at a treaty in Paris, in February, had established the British Empire as a fact. That is, the empire of the British East India Company. The situation for Europe was then almost hopeless. This empire was about to gobble up everything, including the remains of the Hapsburg Empire. But some in Europe supported the cause of the United States, in particular, and they also supported people in various parts of South America, as in Colombia and other states of the Americas, in the hope of building republics in this hemisphere, with the hope that such republics would make a reform in international affairs, which would lead in return to the establishment of true republics in Europe as well as in the Americas.

The United States was the first and only successful effort, but the French Revolution, which was organized by the British East India Company, prevented France from making the change which Lafayette, Bailly, and others, wanted to make, to make a constitutional monarchy modelled on the same principles as the recent US Constitution. That did not happen. Hell broke out, and Europe has not had a true republic as a government ever since. We had approximations under Charles de Gaulle at a certain period, high point of the Fifth Republic, a serious effort of building France as a true republic. We've had desires in that direction in other countries. But today, the United States remains the only nation with that kind of constitution, even though we abuse it.

The time has come, when we of this planet, realize we cannot continue to have wars, of the types of wars we have now. We cannot resolve the problems of humanity by going to aggressive war. We cannot resolve these problems by going in with military force, to try to change governments or social systems by force. We must now return to the principles of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, to establish a system throughout the world of perfectly sovereign nation-states, committed to the principle of promoting the general welfare, the sovereignty of nations, the welfare of their peoples, peace among nations, and cooperation for posterity.

Because we cannot fight wars anymore, the way we used to. Nuclear weapons and the terrible effects of asymmetric war today, are such that a general warfare would mean the extinction of civilization on this planet. Therefore, we must find a peaceful solution.

It does not mean we give up defense. But defensive warfare is far different from the kind of aggressive war which Vice-President Cheney, for example, has been pushing in recent periods. We must end aggressive war on this planet forever. We must bring about conditions where peace is expected, where peace is the exit strategy for all conflict, and where just solutions are proposed. And thus, while we don't know definitely what will happen in the future, we don't know what will come out of this period because we don't have the governments in place who are presently committed to the right ends.

But we have a great crisis, in which governments which have failed are going to be put to the test, in which the will of the people can intervene effectively. And if it intervenes amongst a number of countries effectively, we will have changes in the behavior of governments. We will have the opportunity to come out of this crisis alive. That's the condition we face. The development of a system of fraternity among sovereign nation-states, the promotion of the existence of sovereign nation-states, and the promotion of economic progress and technological progress throughout the planet, these are the objectives around which we must mobilize.

If I were President, or had been elected President, I could promise you great things. I've not been elected President, obviously, and am not about to be elected President within the near future. That's obvious. But my objectives are still valid. I have been a part of the Democratic Party's campaign for seeking the presidency. We will continue on the course we're working out, and we will hopefully make a contribution to this process.

So, I cannot promise you anything, except my dedication and the dedication of people like me, to the kinds of ideas I represent. But I can say, we do have a chance. There's always a chance for humanity. And there's nothing worth doing, except fighting to build that chance for humanity. Any other choice of action would be foolishness. Thank you.

Emiliano Andino: We now continue with the second part of this conference, which are the questions we'd like to ask Mr. Lyndon LaRouche. Would anyone present here in Rosario like to ask a question?

Q: The first question that one must ask, is: Just a couple of days ago, the elections in the United States were held. The million dollar question is, what awaits us as a result of the results of the election in the United States?

LaRouche: What awaits us is dangerous uncertainty, a period of very dangerous uncertainty. Remember, the inauguration occurs on the 20th of January. We now have the better part of three months in which to await the actual inauguration of the new president. In the meantime, there's great uncertainty within this presidency, and there is a tumultuous process, political process, now ongoing inside the United States, in particular. Also in Europe. But, the first few days following the completion of the election on November 2, was a period in which people suddenly let down. There was confusion. There was confusion in the state of minds of people. Now, in the past several days, that confusion is waning away, and I've been able to play a significant part inside the United States, among these institutions, in helping to bring an end to the confusion.

We are now in the process of mobilizing within the Democratic Party, an effective way of dealing with the prospect of the election of Bush, his inauguration in January. We also have a large number of Republicans, and the Republicans who do not like what the Bush Administration has represented, but supported the Republican presidential candidacy nonetheless. They are now very upset. There's going to be tumult in the US political process. There's the danger that the Bush Administration may launch new wars, like the escalation presently at Fallujah, to try to compensate for the internal political crisis inside the United States, and also in Europe. The crises that face the Bush Administration, especially the economic crisis—remember, the economic crisis is coming on fast, right now. The United States is on the edge of a general collapse. How long this general collapse can be postponed is not certain, because this involves subjective factors as well as objective ones, but the preconditions for a general chain-reaction collapse of the international financial monetary system, exist right now. And that is the predominant fact.

We have all the particular crises, which are going to have a political effect. We have the growing sense of dangers of new kinds of epidemics, disease epidemics, which may be worse than those we've had in recent times. And a sense of no preparation for dealing with them. We have a sense of all of these kinds of problems. And also possible new wars.

For example, we have the case that I mentioned earlier, of Arafat's death. There is a man in Israeli prison, who if Sharon wanted to, and if the United States would press Sharon to do it, could be pulled out of prison as a negotiating partner with Sharon, for bringing about, or negotiating, some kind of peace between the Palestinians and Israelis. If they did agree to any acceptable terms, that would in a sense bring the crisis in the entire Southwest Asia, into some kind of order. We are obviously going to work for that. Even while Bush is president, we're going to work for that, because the reality of circumstances is going to push many inside the Bush Administration, as well as the Democratic Party, to seek to bring about that reconciliation, long-awaited now.

And so the death of Arafat, as I said at the beginning of my remarks today, the death of Arafat is a turning point in history. It's a point at which decisions are forced upon the world, postponed decisions, about the question of the prospect of peace in Southwest Asia as a whole. You can't talk about Iraq without talking about Israel/Palestine. You can't talk about Turkey, without talking about Israeli/Palestinian relations, or about Iran, or about Egypt, or about Darfur in Sudan. You can't talk about any of these areas, without talking about the death of Arafat, and what that poses. It's a chain-reaction situation. So there's the element of uncertainty.

What we do know is, we're going into a crisis. That nothing is fixed, nothing is certain, except the circumstances of crisis. That we will have opportunities to influence the process. We're not just screaming in the wilderness. We in the United States who are determined to do something, are determined to do something. We are the most powerful nation in this world politically, if not as much in other respects as we think we are. But if we make important decisions, among a significant part of our political establishment, those decisions will affect the world. If those decisions are good ones, they will affect the world beneficially. And all I can promise you is that, those of us in the United States who are part of that effort, if we succeed, we will bring about a beneficial change in the present trends in world affairs.

Emiliano Andino: For those of you who are following this presentation over the internet, and all of the other universities that are participating, I want to remind you that you can send in your questions by e-mail to: argentina@wlym.com. Lyndon LaRouche will answer all of your questions. Just include your name, and your e-mail address, and if we don't have time today, he will be glad to answer those questions subsequently. I'd also like to remind you to please ask your questions slowly and clearly, so that the simultaneous translators can translate for Mr. LaRouche—please show a little compassion for the translators.

So, I'd like to take another question from Rosario, if there is someone else who would like to answer a question here.

Q: My question is, if the United States, with Israel, were to attack Iran, would the military response of Iran be similar to that of Iraq, in your view, or would we be facing a different situation from Iran? Thank you.

LaRouche: The attack on Iran would be an act of insanity, but since there is insanity within the US establishment, especially around Vice-President Cheney and company, it is not impossible it will happen. Of course, it would be impossible for Israel to attack a site in Iran with missiles, for example, missiles supplied by the United States, without the consent and support of the United States. An attack on Iran is not like an attack on Iraq, or at least Iraq today. This will have chain-reaction effects, and you cannot look at these areas one at a time.

We now have an area, as I said, Southwest Asia. The center of Southwest Asia is Turkey, number one, and Turkey can become involved in Iraq and Syria, because of the Kurdish minority factor in the northern part of Iraq. You have in Transcaucasia, on the borders of this area, you have Armenia and Tajikistan, which are very important in respect to Iran. Iran borders the area. Then you have the Arab states, including Egypt, which are the immediate environment. This is one unit, this is one package. Sudan is also part of the package. It extends deeper into Africa, and other parts of the world. So that, if you start a war attack on Iran, you do not attack another nation. You escalate the already existing conflict within Southwest Asia as a whole. In other words, you'll turn the entirety of Southwest Asia, including its critical role in world petroleum supplies, into an area of crisis like that of Iraq today, an area of asymmetric warfare.

So, anybody who would condone a US, or US/Israeli attack on Iran, with missiles, as has been proposed, has to be in effect clinically insane. But it can happen, because we have people in the US government and elsewhere, who are clinically insane.

I don't think that, for example, that Sharon is clinically insane. I think he's a gangster, more than an ideologue, but he lives in a country which is highly ideologized. The point is, it is not irrational, because I'm doing it too, for the United States government to go to Sharon, and other governments to go to Sharon, and say, if you will negotiate with the Palestinians, to get an end to this strife in that part of the Middle East, we will support you in that. For example, you take a man out of prison, a Palestinian, you negotiate with him, and get an agreement which is a two-state agreement in principle in the Middle East, and we will support that fully, with our resources, in order to ensure peace, prosperity and well-being for the people.

So, we will do that. But the alternative is that there are people who don't want that. There are people who want chaos and insanity, and they exist among the so-called neoconservative faction inside the US government, they exist in Israel, madmen; they exist in other parts of the world. There also is tinder on the other side. There are people in the Arab and Islamic world, who have some very dangerous ideas about some larger empire or something, or some larger system. These can become dangerous. In other to prevent these from becoming major factors in the region, and more broadly, we have to bring stable peace among nation-states and peoples today, wherever possible. That stability, that peaceful stability, is our security in every part of the world. And what happens, as I said earlier, in the so-called Middle East, what happens there now, will determine in one degree or another, but significantly, every other part of the world, including South America.

LAROUCHE WEBCAST TO STUDENTS IN ARGENTINA AND PERU

The following is a transcript of a webcast and discussion with students in Argentina and Peru, on Nov. 11, 2004.

MODERATOR: We are now ready for the question from Buenos Aires. Good evening. I would like to ask you, what do we face, we Argentines. What can we do in this face of this situation, and what do you think what type of arrangements should there be with Brazil. Should we have a free trade agreement, or the other kinds of agreements which are being established?

LAROUCHE: What we have to do is recognize the nature of power in the world. And, also recognize that global solutions, as such, will not work.

To bring about stable government requires sovereign government. A sovereign government in which the people of a nation participate consciously in shaping the thinking of the nation, and the policies of the nation. For example, some of you were in universities. You know that ideas involve the use of language, the use of ironies of the language, of the culture; and therefore, in discussing ideas among yourselves, that only those who are participating in the characteristic ironies of the language and the culture can really come to an agreement in intention on matters of principle, as opposed to bargaining over bones. Therefore, we must maintain the system of perfectly sovereign nation-state republics. But, then, we must have a means by which the force of interest of sovereign nation-state republics can be brought to bear on the world situation in an efficient way. That method is not the United Nations, as such, thought the United Nations may be a convenient vehicle for bringing about certain forms of agreements, as Lopez Portillo of Mexico attempted to do unsuccessfully in the autumn of 1982.

But, what's more important, in my view today-I have a growing international youth movement, which represents, largely, in the college age group of 18 to 25 years of age. These are people who are young adults who, under happy conditions, would expect forty to fifty years of future life before them, who are now saying to their parents' generation and to their nation, you have given us a society which has no future. We want a future. This is a common aspiration among youth of that category that I work with in various parts of the world, in various parts of Europe, in Mexico and so forth. Youth of the world that we are in contact with, all express this same thing, the 18 to 25 group, those who have not given up, those who still have optimism about life, say we have been given a system, a world system, a national system, which has no future. We, with 25 to 50 years of life before us, see ourselves in this society with no future. We want a future. We want to turn to our parents' generation and say let us build a future. Let us provide for the grandchildren that we are going to have Let's ensure a future. Let's have a meaning in life. Let's stop this running into pleasure seeking without purpose and without meaning.

Therefore, my view is to mobilize nations, or within nations, the forces of conscience which are represented by youth within that category, say the 18 to 25, college-eligible youth, as an international force, each patriotic in respect to their own nations, but also allied, in terms of collaboration on a global scale, to attempt to bring the community of nations to agreement on policies. At present, the United States is the dominant power in the world. Not that its behavior entitles it to be that, nor that it is the most productive nation in the world. It is now a great parasite nation, sucking the blood of the poor of the world. But, it has a powerful position. To make peaceful decisions now, in favor of any or all parts of the world, we must induce the consent of the United States government. Europe is incapable of generating that kind of leadership, presently. No on in Europe can do it. They can contribute to this, but they can not initiate it effectively, unless the Untied States is drawn into it.

Therefore, my purpose is to draw the United States into that. But, not to say to people in countries such as Argentina, you are not important. You are extremely important! Because, what we must work toward, in the very near future, is a system of comprehensive agreements among sovereign nation-states about a new world economic order among nation-states. An order which is based on the best aspects of the old Bretton Woods system. An order which enables the nations to recover and to rebuild, in the way they had hoped that they had the right to rebuild in earlier times. We need to bring to bear the conscience of the world on this and that means that any movement, especially among youth, as part of the political process in every country should be considered an effective force on the international conscience, including the conscience of the United States itself, directly.

My attempt has been to draw the attention to the will and desired of this generation of youth from all parts of the world upon the youth in the United States and institutions in the Untied States. This is my leading effort in the recent election campaign in the United States. I think we must have an international organization of understanding among ourselves. That we look at our young people, our young adults, those largely of the age of many of you, 18 to 25, should be in universities or equivalent education, should be the people who are going to contribute to leading the future of the nation 25 years form now and beyond, and to bring a force of conscience, for you as young adults, for example, looking at the world at large, turn to your parents' generation and others and say, let us work together to give the world a future and our nation a future.

And, that's what we need. We need an international force of conscience which will ensure that reasonable agreements, prepared and submitted to nations, will find support among those nations. Because, what we must have, in my opinion, we must have a new version of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, not only for peace and for natural rights among the people of nations, but we must have a new kind of Treaty of Westphalia which says, we uphold, as absolute, the right to the perfect sovereignty of nations. And to the rights of the people of those nations. We have come to a time when war must be abjured, though defense, if necessary, is not outlawed. But, we must seek an end to war. We must seek an exit strategy from the time of a war, into a time of cooperation, in which the differences among nations, those differences which pertain to the cultural development of a nation to its personal sense of sovereignty, those differences become a source of strength to the world, rather than the principle basis for a principle of conflict. That's our chance, I think, at this time. I think that idea can win, and certainly, it must win.

MODERATOR: Now if our people in Lima are ready, in Peru, I would like to have their question come in by telephone. Is there another question is Rosario, we lost the connection to Lima.

QUESTION: We have a question that we are asking here in Argentina which hasn't been really fully clarified for us, which is the issue of the foreign debt. Although certain basic arrangements have been reached, this is not been fully resolved. Unquestionably, the composition of the Argentine debt, there are unquestionably both legitimate and illegitimate elements in this debt. Lamentably our federal congress, which is the body which should have intervened and taken, been involved in this question of the debt, because that is what our constitution says, expressly. Unfortunately, it has not yet done this. So, what do you think, Dr, LaRouche, should be the temperament, or the view with regard to this issue of the debt that we are facing?

LAROUCHE: []?with the evolution of the government during this period of crisis, by several governments in Argentina in this period of crisis, that the debt is largely illegitimate in the first place. And that the conditions of collection of debt imposed, especially by the so-called vulture funds and its advocates in the IMF system, is not only unjust but it is pure usury. It is against natural law. No Christian, for example, could accept those terms of collection which are demanded by the vulture funds and by their agents, such as the representative of the IMF.

Now, the problem is simple a question of will and power. The impulse of the Argentine institutions has been predominately to say, the debt is second, the nation and people of Argentina are first. That what would normally occur is you would declare the debt to be in bankruptcy, in receivership. And you would say, well, we will look at the debt piecemeal through an administrative process, first of all to determine which debt is legitimate. And, of the debt which may be legitimate, which is urgent. And, you would set up a schedule of a program of retiring the debt. The debt which is debatable would be frozen or cancelled. For example, financial derivatives debt, which has no basis in actual benefit for the borrower, is, essentially, side-bets, is gambling bets like side-bets on a horse at a race track. It's not a bet on the horse. It's a bet on the bettor. Therefore, such debts should be automatically cancelled.

The problem is that the international derivatives is the largest part of the international financial system today. And, therefore, if you decide to cancel the derivatives system, you are going to collapse the whole system, because, the system without the derivatives would collapse immediately. The system, with the derivatives, is about to blow up.

So, therefore, the question is one of power. The problem Argentina faces: Is Argentina capable of going to war to defend itself against the constellation of physical forces, which will be brought against Argentina, in totally resisting the debt. That's the problem that the government of Argentina faces. Therefore, we need a clear understanding of what is right and what is wrong. We can not change that. We should not change that. If the debt is wrong, if the debt is unjust, if the collection is unjust, we must say so. If we nave to submit at the point of a gun, if they are going to rob us, we may have to submit. But, we will still not say that the debt is legitimate. And, at some future time, when we have the power, we will ask people to correct that mistake.

In the meantime, our hope depends upon mobilizing friends, who's a matter of conscience and self interest from other parts of the world, recognize that what is being done to Argentina today is what is on the way to be done to France and Germany, right now. And, under the new administration under Bush, if he does as he proposes with Social Security, for example his so-called privatization of Social Security, it's going to be done to the people of the United States too.

So, therefore, what Argentina, on this issue, is one of the front battle lines of a world struggle for humanity against this class of predators. How Argentina should respond to that is a practical, strategic question. The moral question, to me, is clear. The debt collection proposals are wrong, unjust, and criminal; because, they will kill people in Argentina. And human life comes first. The problem is a matter of power. Where do we find the power to successfully impose justice on this situation. And, therefore, we have to broaden the consciousness and struggle against this kind of abuse.

But, we must never give up our honor. We must never force ourselves to say that something that is evil is true; that something that is unjust is just. We must say that this is unjust. You are able to impose it upon us, you impose it upon us. Not of our will, but yours.

MODERATOR: OK, I trust that there will now be a question from Lima-

I study at the University of [] in Lima, Peru and I would like to know what you think, Mr. LaRouche, as to how the government of President Bush is going to act with regard to the Free Trade Agreement's with the countries of Ibero-America; and how, in the future, this type of aide or economic help will develop in terms of free trade?

LAROUCHE: The usual assumption on these kinds of questions in various parts of the world, is the assumption of: the will of the President of the United States is all-powerful; that whatever he desires to do will happen. We've come into a time where that is no longer self evident. For example, we face the worst crisis in the current account deficit of the United States in its history. We face the imminent collapse of the real estate bubble of Britain and the United States, that is the mortgage-based security bubble. We face the effects of the price of petroleum which is now reached $50 a barrel, eh, which is double what the amount which is stably durable in the world system. The value of the dollar is collapsing. The dollar, as of today, is, the last I heard today, a Euro is worth a $1.30, as opposed to what was the target value of one dollar for one Euro. And, it threatens to go to $1.50 or to $2.00. The rising price of petroleum, and raw materials generally, must tend to devalue the dollar, such that those nations. We have come to a time when war must be abjured, though defense, if necessary, is not outlawed. But, we must seek an end to war. We must seek an exit strategy from the time of a war, into a time of cooperation, in which the differences among nations, those differences which pertain to the cultural development of a nation to its personal sense of sovereignty, those differences become a source of strength to the world, rather than the principle basis for a principle of conflict. That's our chance, I think, at this time. I think that idea can win, and certainly, it must win.

MODERATOR: Now if our people in Lima are ready, in Peru, I would like to have their question come in by telephone. Is there another question is Rosario, we lost the connection to Lima.

QUESTION: We have a question that we are asking here in Argentina which hasn't been really fully clarified for us, which is the issue of the foreign debt. Although certain basic arrangements have been reached, this is not been fully resolved a war against the resistance in Vietnam.

So, Bush is not all-powerful. His choice of decisions are not necessarily going to happen. For example, take the support that he got in the state of Ohio. He got the support of people-the marginal support he got, which was reputed to be his margin of victory there, was based on Protestant evangelicals, who were upset about a proposal for homosexual marriages, a proposal which never could be enacted into law. So, people in churches were mobilized to turn out en masse to vote against homosexual marriages, when the vote didn't mean anything. It was called Issue #1. But, none the less, this had an effect on the election.

At the same time, the people who voted for this thing actually believed, contrary to all reason and evidence, that Bush was keeping the U.S. economy prosperous, at a time that all the facts, particularly in the state of Ohio, showed that the U.S. economy in the state of Ohio was collapsing without [bond ?]. And, the evidence was there on the table. So that, what happens is, that you have an unstable situation in which the reality as it catches up with the White House, and catches up with politics, will intervene to change the ability of the President of the United States to act in a willful way. He may react insanely, like the Emperor Nero or the Emperor Caligula, but, the effect of his actions on the world will be determined, more and more, by reality and less and less by his personal will.

MODERATOR: We are now going to go to a question that came in by email, since we want to give this opportunity to someone who is following this somewhere in Argentina, a fellow by the name of Octavio. He says: Once you get out of a world or a national crisis, how do you go about consolidating your situation, and to avoid future collapse. The history of civilization seems to be a long series of achievements followed by then periods of economic or cultural decay. How to avoid this type of a repetitive cycle, How to avoid the creation of conditions which lead to decay, because this seed gets produced frequently under pre-existing conditions, supposedly during the period of growth and progress?

LAROUCHE: Oh, hah, hah, hah, this is really an interesting question; not an obscure question, but a very interesting one which goes to the heart of all questions.

First of all, to the best of our knowledge of history, of actual history, including elements of history which are not normally recorded history but are adducible from the facts of the case, the archeological and related facts, mankind has been on this planet for perhaps two million years, according tour studies of this matter. And, so, that's a long time. European civilization emerged, oh, about the time of the emergence of Ancient Greece, about 700 BC. It emerged from a dark age under the influence of Egypt. European civilization, the basis of it, emerged about 20,000 to 17,000 BC when the great ice pack on top of North America began to melt and the seas rose by about 300 to 400 feet in level.

But, mankind was living before then in large maritime cultures and things like that, and went through many crises. But as we know history, particularly European history, starting from Egypt and Greece, for example, we see a pattern in it which has certain unique features. First of all, modern European civilization, and the existence of modern nation-state economy began during the Fifteenth Century in Italy, and elsewhere, during the Renaissance. This was the first time, as was the case with Louis Onze [sp] in France, Henry VII in England, and an attempt around Isabelle in Spain, to form true nation-state republics in which the head of state was accountable to the people for the promotion of the general welfare of all of the people.

In all previous societies, even in those which had elements of progress, it was generally accepted that a part of humanity could be treated as either wild cattle or as herded cattle. And in most, so-called, nations most of the population was kept as herded cattle. The great reform that was started in this Renaissance (even though the roots of it go back much earlier, back to, for example, Solon of Athens) was to say: no more can some men keep other men as cattle; but, we must treat people as human.

The human being is distinguished from the ape by one quality: the ability to make original discoveries such as those of physical, scientific discoveries, by which the power of the human species, the physical power of the human species to exist is increased. So that, instead of having three million people on this planet, which is what a higher ape might have achieved at the maximum, we now have six billion people on this planet. This is entirely due to creative discoveries, such as typified by physical, scientific discoveries, which have enabled man to increase his power over nature.

Up until the Fifteenth Century and beyond, society was dominated entirely, characteristically, by the virtual enslavement of most of the human population, as wild cattle which were hunted down, or herded human cattle. And therefore, the natural human capabilities of people were not realized. So, you would have within those sections of the population which were not treated as herded human cattle, you would have a certain flourishing of culture, which has past on from generation to generation.

But, the entirety of the culture, as under the Roman Empire, never participated in that progress. With the Fifteenth Century we began to evolve a society, a form of society, in which the American Revolution was crucial, the North American Revolution, in establishing a form of society in which the right, the political right, of every person to be treated as human, and to be developed as human, not a herded cattle; the end of slavery, for example, the end of quasi-slavery, peonage, for example.

So now we have the benefit of humanity which normally, doesn't actually have it, but normally has access to scientific and technological progress; to participate in it, not merely to contemplate it. Not merely to use the technology that's given to them, but develop it.

And therefore, we've come to a time when we should be able to have a society in which all members of society participate in the full sense as human beings of creative capabilities with the educational opportunities that match the promotion of those capabilities. We should be able to bring to an end the kind of horrors which still linger in the world today, where we still treat people, as in Africa, as among the poor in Mexico, for example, among the poor of Asia; we still treat the majority of humanity as virtual human cattle. And it's from the corruption, that keeping people as human cattle engender, that the great evils of society in the past and present have flown.

Today we have the opportunity, I would hope, of recognizing the great error in the past, and also recognizing the achievements of modern European civilization, and the modern European nation-state, and to bring to fulfillment the promises made for a true republic which all persons are treated equally as creatures made in the image of the Creator, and endowed with those qualities, and given the right to express those qualities. In that case, I believe, we can achieve peace and durability and prosperity on this planet.

If we go back to the system under which we insist that a few wealthy and powerful circles can treat the rest of humanity as if they were cattle on a farm, then the same old crap, the same old hell, will come back again. The time has come for us to preach the Gospel of mankind, mankind made in the image of the Creator. And when we look at a human being, a child in particular, we say, that is made in the image of the Creator. Let us develop that individual appropriately.

MODERATOR: I'd like to ask if there is any other group that's following us in a university, and if they would like to let us know if they're gathered, listening to this, and we can report this over the air.

I think that the next question is from Buenos Aires, if they would like to ask it.

Good evening, Mr. LaRouche. Dr. LaRouche, I wanted to congratulate you for your effort to try to solve the problems that are facing all of us, not only Argentines, but also foreigners as well. Six months ago, I was able to speak with a group of Americans, couples in particular. And they said to me that they saw, in the Bush government, a problem which was going to get worse. And, I think that this man shows a clear mental instability and that he should be treated clinically, and to reach the situation that he is in, it is the U.S. powers that be that have reached that level of insanity as well.

We're a country that produces food, basically, and 54% of Argentines, for a number of years now, have not even had enough to be able to eat adequately. So, we know, as well, that 44%, approximately, of Americans work in weapons factories, arms factories. And this creates war on a periodic, recurring basis. That's another kind of problem which is dragging all of humanity down. I recognize that there are also, in the United States, such as the people that I spoke with, people of good will, people with good sentiments. And, I would hope that there would be collaboration from their part because we are willing to cooperate with them. And then, everyone who is mentally sane would also want to collaborate. That's my remark.

LAROUCHE: Well, I think the 44% involved in military industries in the United States is way exaggerated. We have more unemployed than that right now. But, it is not the military, as such, which is the motive, though many people think that the military industries control the impulses of the United States. They don't.

It is not even people in the United States who control the United States. It is international financier circles which control the United States. The same financier circles of the United States, of the United Kingdom, of the continent of Europe. The so-called synarchist international, people like Lazard Freres in France, for example, and similar kinds of institutions. The ones that put Hitler into power in Germany. These people are the power. It is the bankers of this type, of the Venetian tradition, who are the source of the problem. It does not come from the organic secretion of the people.

There is another principle here, which is a very sensitive principle, when people talk about democracy, the principle of leadership. Most people do not make up their own minds how to run their own country. The policies of most countries is not made by the people. As a matter of fact, the opinions of most of the people are made by those who know how to manipulate the opinions of the people. For example, the financier oligarchy that controls the major news media, entertainment media, of the United States. They control the opinion making of the people under ordinary circumstances. The same is true in Europe. The people do not organically secrete the policies of their governments. And, do not blame the people for the policies of their governments. Blame the institutions that control the opinion of the people, on the one hand, but also blame those who do not develop an independent expression of the true interests of the people to counter those of the big manipulators of opinion.

So, the question here, largely, boils down to leadership. It's like the leadership of a commander-in-chief of military forces in times of war. A true leader is a person who embodies into themselves a sense of moral responsibility, greater than any personal interests of their own otherwise, for the fate of the nation; who also incorporates an intellect and capacity to judge the nation. These are the great commanders, who as politicians or generals, sometimes both, have created the great nations. The sense of the commander-in-chief.

Most people think of themselves as little. They think of themselves as begging for this, or demanding this, and they will not risk themselves for the sake of the nation. They will do what they think they will have to do to get by. The sense of immortality among people who call themselves Christians, I can tell you, is very low. If we were going to judge Christians by those who actually believe, where their actions in immortality of the soul, you would find there are very few Christians on this planet. So, this quality of the people, which we would like to have in them, the quality of the sense of immortality, the quality of acting as a true citizen, whose concern about the future of their nation, as an individual citizen, who makes his or her own opinion accordingly, that we desire. But, that, unfortunately, we do not have.

What we have, as among young people sometimes, we have a movement of young people who, while they are in the age of 18 to 25 or so, are people of ideas. They've come out of childhood, out of adolescents. They are now thinking of themselves as adults. They think about the society they are building. They think about the future of the society, and locate their idea about themselves, if they are not selfish pigs, in the future of their society. What am I doing for society? What must society be? What are the true ideas that society must have to survive? And, it's from those layers of people, and the renewal of leadership, generated and refreshed from within the ranks of young people like you, that true leadership may come. Where you find that what's most important to you, as you look at having become an adult, and look at your parent's generation before, and see the nation going to hell, you ask yourself, "What are we going to do with our lives? What do our lives mean? What does it mean for our nation? What can we do that would cause us, later, to die with a smile on our face at having lived a good life, for humanity? What is our sense of immortality?"

Young people have a greater tendency for that than many older people, or children who don't have any sense of that. And, that's where leadership comes from.

Look at the leadership of the American Revolution. Lafayette was 19 to 23 when he general of the armies of the United States in the fight for freedom of the United States. Alexander Hamilton, one of the greatest figures of the United States, the founders, was of the same age group. Most of these people were young people of your age, or similar ages, who formed the leadership, who, under the direction of a handful of leaders like Benjamin Franklin, wrote the U.S. Declaration of Independence, formed the Constitution of the United States. And, you will find similar parts in the history of other countries, in the formation of their republics.

So, when you look at this kind of problem, look at the function of leadership. I can tell you, my problem in the United States-I look around me. And, I find none of the prominent figures of the United States, of my age or much younger who are actually qualified and think like true leaders of the United States. They all have some small minded personal agenda, or some small minded fear, like Hamlet in Shakespeare's Hamlet. They are not leaders. They are not commanders-in-chief. They're not like Charles deGaulle was in France, in terms, especially, in the leadership of the Fifth Republic, before 1963, before the assassination of Kennedy. They are not leaders. We have carefully tried to breed societies in which leadership is despised, true leadership. Self-sacrificing, personally self-sacrificing, leadership, who devote their lives to the benefit of the nation and other nations, that's lacking. That's what the problem is.

We had another question before on this, the same direction; on the future. We have a society which lacks leadership. My appeal to you young people, my appeal to young people all over the world, is I know that from among you those of us who are older, particularly your parent's generation, depend upon the role you emerge to play in producing, from among your own ranks, a sense of what moral responsibility of leadership is. To give inspiration to the entire people of your nation and of other nations. To build something that is more durable than we have now. To understand, fully, the great achievements of modern European civilization. That we created the nation-state, we created the idea that every human being is sacred. You can not treat them as herded or hunted animals.

These rights, which exist on the books of many of our constitutions and our theories, are not observed in practice. You know that. You can study that. You can understand that. It is up to you. And, I can tell you it is true in the United States, as well as in Argentina and other countries, it's up to you, to give the spark of inspiration to your parent's generation, to say that they have children, young adults, who, prepared and trustworthy, are leading their nation to a better future. If we have that among enough nations, we can say that what our questioner asks— the danger of going back once again to the same old crap— we have a chance to prevent that. We certainly should try to do that. Not only to get out of this crisis, but to hope that in the process we prevent going back to repeat the same old crap that humanity has gone into, in its ups and downs, too many times before this.

MODERATOR: Good. We will continue with a circle of questions. It's now [?]. And, we have a question here from Sebastian.

QUESTION: I have two questions I'd like to ask you. First, what is your view of what's happening here in Ibero-America, Latin America, with governments such as Chavez in Venezuela, which here is more associated with, also with that of Cuba, which has been enduring a blockade, an economic blockade from the United States for 50 years or more. What's the situation in Bolivia, in your view? The victory of the broad front in Uruguay with Paba ray bascus [sp]. And, also, the situation here in Argentina. So, that would be one question.

My second question is, if we try to generate this current that has consciousness, based on youth and the universities here in Argentina, I'm sure that in Brazil and other parts of Latin America it is similar, the youth that actually go to the universities are actually very few. The number of people that actually go to university, in fact the people who finish high school or middle school is not that great. So, if we needed to generate a change, if we are going to limit ourselves to only a sector which is such a small minority. Those are my two questions.

LAROUCHE: Very good. In the case of Chavez, you are talking about a blockade in a country which has a oil wealth reserve, relatively speaking, which other countries don't have. The oil reserve of Venezuela is very significant in the Chavez phenomenon and in the special situation of Chavez.

What we have, as you said, all through the economy, we have these situations. Now, I know personally from my experience that what happened to Argentina, there was a determination in 1982 to destroy Argentina. I know it personally. I fought in the attempt to prevent it. Obviously, I was not successful. But, I developed friends in Argentina, and elsewhere, in the course of defending it. The same year, 1982, there was a determination to destroy Mexico. The destruction which I had feared and which Lopez Portillo, the President of Mexico, fought against. We were defeated. But then, the cause still exists. And, I'm still part of the cause, as in the case of Argentina.

In the case of Bolivia, it is a similar case, but somewhat different. It was an effort when the President of Peru, Fujimori [sp] went to a meeting in the continent and gave a speech and the speech was an excellent speech, an excellent proposal for a system of cooperation among the states of South America, or some of the states of South America, based on Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay and so forth, a very good idea. And, he was immediately, from the United States, a coup was run against him, with the aid of some drug pushers, to get him out. He is now in Japan.

The case of Bolivia, it's a related case. Now, Bolivia, you have a large farming population and they are now going coca. Why are they going coca? Because that's the only crop they can sell. Are the peasants for putting coca, cocaine? No. They need money. They need to live. And, if the United States were intelligent, which it is not, sometimes, we would have moved in and provided the government of Bolivia with cooperation in developing alternative crops. Because, the peasant of Bolivia is not interested in the coca, not in that way. But, he wants to live. He wants to raise a family. He needs income. So, therefore, if we cooperate to give the people of Bolivia the chance for alternative means for a healthy economy, it would be possible, as it was done recently, before then, to mobilize the people of Bolivia to free themselves of the grip of the drug mafia. But, the United States did not. Why? Because, some people in the United States, who are very powerful, like drugs. They like the cocaine, which is produced cheaply in South America, which is then, with other drugs, marketed on the world market at a great profit, to financier interests; like the former head of the New York Stock Exchange, who made a deal with the Colombian drug pushers for profit. For the profit made on the elevated price of cocaine, and so forth, when it is shipped into the United States, into the world market. And, the same thing is being done today to Bolivia.

These are things which, I think, we can all know. They are historic facts. Those who are of my age, or somewhat younger who lived though some of these experiences of 1982, know these things first hand. Because, we were engaged in a fight to defend Argentina and Mexico, and other countries, against what has happened to them since then, for the past twenty years.

So, how do we prevent that? Well, these things were not accidental. They were done by a very definite, international, financier interest. When we fought against these things, we were fighting against that financier interest, which includes the Bank of Scotland, the Bank of Sant Andir [sp] in Spain which is a partner and practically a member of the Bank of Scotland and in cahoots with the British Royal Family institution. These are the kinds of institutions of international power which determine these kinds of policies.

Very simply, put it this way. The problem of European civilization, since about 1000 AD, about the time that the Venetian oligarchy, the financier oligarchy, made a long time treaty with the Norman chivalry, Europe and European civilizations have been menaced and dominated by a Venetians type of financier interest, which has acted in an imperial way, after reincarnating itself with Dutch and English identities, has continued the same policies. So, today, the world is dominated by a financier oligarchy, family financier oligarchs, who, as a concert of action, dominate governments.

The peculiarly of the Constitution of the United States is that it prohibits that kind of control, though we do have that kind of control over much of the policy of the United States. But, it is outlawed by our Constitution, even though we do not defend our Constitution in that respect. The problem in the world is we do not recognize that we are living within an empire. The name of the world empire is the Anglo-Dutch Liberal System. The Anglo-Dutch Liberal System is a system of Venetian style, financier oligarchy, where concerts of family banks, of family financial institutions, which control great banks, and which control government, which control political parties, are able to, from behind the scenes, impose their policies on the world. And, that's what they've done.

The policy under which Argentina was destroyed, and it was largely destroyed as many of you know, in 1982 and afterward. It was destroy because it was determined that [two things were going to have to be determined]. First of all, as you know in Argentina and Patagonia and elsewhere, Argentina has tremendous potential for growth and development in its natural resources. The development of the under-developed parts of Argentina would make the basis for one of the great powers of the planet. And, the determination was to stop that. As a similar, different operation, but similar in effect, was done in Brazil. The same thing was done in Peru. A similar thing was done in Colombia. Similar thing is being done now in Venezuela.

These powers, which have their interests expressed by Henry Kissinger in 1975 in his National Security Study Memorandum 200. The perspective of this oligarchy, this financier oligarchy, is to get control of the raw materials of the world, the primary raw materials, including petroleum. And, to have syndicates in the United States, in the United Kingdom, as well as in other parts of Western Europe. A different kind of situation in Russia, which is sitting on top of a vast amount of resources. The resources of Africa, which the Anglo-Americans control, and petroleum and so forth.

So, what you have is a great syndicate of raw materials cartels, which are the same thing as financier, speculation cartels. They are dominating the world. They are determined to hoard the future of the raw materials of the world, and to prevent the populations of the world from controlling the raw materials in their own countries. And, that's what's happened. It's laid down by Kissinger clearly, but Kissinger's not the author of the policy. He was just an articulator of the policy. But, that is the policy that we are under today. That is the policy under which Argentina was crushed in 1982, which all of the countries in Central and South America, except Chile, so far, have been more or less crushed, to the present day. That's our problem

Now, what about this conscience question? What we have to do, and what I am doing with the youth movement I am developing, is concentrating on precisely this question of consciousness. What I am doing is turning this youth movement, which is 18 to 25 age group, college age, from all kinds of backgrounds, and turning them into a kind of university on wheels, or on feet. It's a ragged elite. The future rulers of the world, in rags, as an elite of youth. They are mastering the fundamentals of physical science. They are mastering culture. For example, one of the key points in our cultural program is, you take the Bach, Jesu Meine Freude, and the mastery of the performance of that as a motet, which is one of the features of our program. So you develop an elite among young people, not an elite of privilege, but an elite of conscience, and elite of knowledge, which understands that the human being, essentially is not an animal. That the human being has a power of creativity which no animal has, a quality of the individual human being which makes the individual in the likeness of the Creator. And, one's consciousness of that, that other human beings are made in the likeness of the Creator, in that respect, and that our relations to them and our cooperation with them must be based on that, is the basis for building up a idea in society which can lead to the promotion and preservation of the kind of society we need.

MODERATOR: We now have two questions which have come in by internet. But, before that, I want to ask Buenos Aires to ask us the next question.

QUESTION: My question to you is, why do those elites, those power elites, why are they not better known, publicly. And, if we were to make these known, or, have you, in making these names known, have you ever faced any threats in making these names known publicly?

LAROUCHE: I had 420, approximately, people coming to kill me on the 7th of October, 1986, over the issue of SDI. At that point, President Reagan was going to Reykjavík to meet with Gorbachov [sp], then the head of the Soviet Union. And, the issue that was going to be discussed at Reykjavik was, again, SDI. In that period, in the months preceding that, the Soviet government had unleashed with all kinds of press channels, including the press of Risa Gorbachova [sp], the wife of Gorbachov [sp], attacks on me, demanding my imprisonment or assassination by the U.S. government. There was a similar sentiment expressed by circles within the U.S. government. Now, since I had a certain friendly relationship to the President of the United States and his immediate circles, President Reagan at the time, before the actual shooting started, the U.S. government intervened and ordered these 400 forces not to do it. That's the only reason I'm alive. Then an agreement was made among these circles saying, kill him. The other circles said, don't kill him, the backfire would be too great. Well, they said, well, if you put him in prison, and he goes to prison, we won't kill him. But, if he is not sentenced and goes to prison, we'll kill him. And, I went to prison for five years. Bush put me in, Clinton got me out.

This is only typical of my life. I have been threatened by assassination and actual assassinations repeatedly over the course of my life, since 1973, on these kinds of political issues, because I named the bankers, and [] exposed the bankers. This came again toward the end of the 1970's. So, I have been repeatedly the product of assassinations and similar kinds of mistreatment by powerful forces, precisely because of what I had done. Yes.

The reason it is not more widely done is there are very few people who are stubborn like me, and who do it anyway.

MODERATOR: OK, I am going to continue now with a couple of questions that cam in, in writing, over the internet. What is your view of the Chinese investments in Argentina? Are they of benefit, or will they be simply a exploitation of our resources?

LAROUCHE: Look at this from two standpoints. First of all, from the standpoint of China. China is the world's greatest bidder for raw materials in the world today. Now, where are the raw materials? China is bidding on oil sands in Canada. China is bidding on vast resources in Brazil. China recognizes that Argentina has a very large supply of undeveloped raw materials. China will come here, into Argentina, obviously. The other countries are trying to establish monopolies on raw materials. You have the United States, which is reaching out for monopolies on raw materials. You have the Western and Central Europe, including the United Kingdom, grabbing raw materials. Most of the raw materials of Africa are grabbed already by Anglo-American-Dutch interests who's already stolen them, and, are killing as many Africans as possible to prevent the Africans from using up those raw materials. Russia is a different situation. Russia has a vast concentration of mineral resources in Central and North Asia, which only Russians know how to develop adequately. So, Russia is a power, the power in terms of having raw materials which other people would like to steal. China has very few raw materials relative to its population. Therefore China is reaching out toward Central and North Siberia, and reaching out to markets in other parts of the world to lock up markets from which it can buy what it wants.

Now, China's motivation, in case of Brazil and Argentina, is obvious. The question is, what should be the attitude of Brazil and Argentina to what China is doing? There's nothing wrong with China and Brazil and Argentina trying to get some partnership in cooperation. You in Argentina know it, that, if you can get some kind of productive partnership which would get some income into the situation for you , it would be helpful. If you could have some development of natural resources of Argentina, which exist, in order to raise the level of employment to get some of your people off the streets and into some kind of quality employment, to rebuild the families of Argentina, that would be beneficial.

So, therefore what we have is the two sides. The recognition of what China is doing in world context, what that means. At the same time, to recognize what we should do in response to that. We should not reject it. For example, China may be interested in developing the second Panama Canal, because it wants to get the vast amount of raw materials available from Brazil. And, the best way to do that is to have a large scale, equivalent to a sea-level, functionally, canal through the isthmus of Panama. It's something that Japan was proposing to do some years ago back in 198 4 or so. And thus, to have a direct, a more efficient, access to the Atlantic coast of Brazil, which would be very significant. The soy beans, and other growth which China requires, can be done on a very large scale in Brazil. For Brazil, this may be very beneficial in the sense that large areas of Brazil which are insufficiently developed, might be developed as a result of that stimulus. The same thing might be true of Argentina.

So, what I think we have to do is to just take a realistic, conscious understanding of what is going on in the world, and decide how we are going to react. And, react in terms of defending our honorable interests in our treaties with our new partners.

MODERATOR: OK, we still have a few minutes left in this presentation by Mr. LaRouche. Now, we come to Rosario [sp], if there are any further question here in Rosario [sp]? Very well, then I will go ahead with a written question that came in today, which actually came in this morning. A man by the name of Brown, said, You define economics as how we reproduce ourselves and you define the American system as a system which has, also, societal influence on the development of the economy. So, why then, don't you include any sort of societal influence on the question of demographic changes which are part of the way in which we reproduce ourselves economically< other than by saying that economic growth will somehow take care of everything? This is a question that came to us from the United States By a gentleman by the name of Brown.

LAROUCHE: No, that's an incorrect view of what I am proposing. I'm in the tradition of Alexander Hamilton, whose famous report to the Congress of 1791, On the Subject of Manufactures, is typical of my view, to the day. My views are much more elaborated and speak for a much more modern development of society, but the principle is essentially the same. The idea of modern economy, that is a rational systematic idea of modern economy, first cam from Gottfried Leibniz and developed during the time that he was associated with Jean Baptiste Colbert in France, until 1676, when he went back to Germany. But, he continued to develop the idea of the science of physical economy from that time on. The only competent science of economy is that which comes form Leibniz alone. The problem has been that, especially with the 1763 Treaty of Paris, February 1763, the British East India Company established itself as a royal empire. It had grabbed India. It took North America, Canada, so forth, and other parts of the world as part of a growing British Empire, an Empire controlled by a company, the Anglo-Dutch India Company. So, the system of finance which has controlled the world hegemonically, from that time to the present, has been a lunatic system, called the British system, or the free trade system, as it became known.

This is not economics. This is monetarism. It was a system of, how do you steal profitably, and run your economy as a theft economy. The American system was differently conceived. Our economy is not primarily based on monetary theory. Our economy is based on physical considerations in the way that Leibniz defines the principles of physical economy. These are reflected in the Constitution of the United States, and are articulated in a large degree by a succession of the world's leading economists, such as Hamilton himself, such as Henry Carey, his father Mathew Carey, and by Friedrich List. And, in the case of Argentina, you may recall, that during the time of Lincoln and following, that Argentina became very strongly attracted to the U.S. model of economy, particularly on the emphasis of physical economy, which came largely from the United States. In 1877 period Russia joined those who recognized the United States superiority in economy over those of Europe. At that point, Bismarck in Germany, adopted the American industrial system as the German system, which led to the rise of power of Germany as an industrial power in the world. Japan was transformed in 1877-78 under the influence of Carey directly, in the Japan system of industrial development. China, in a later point was transformed, in its objectives in economy, by Sun Yat-sen, the founder of modern China.

So, the idea that the monetary system, as popularized in universities today, is economic is nonsense. It is not really economics. It is monetarism. We start, in the United States, as Roosevelt typifies his recovery of the United States from the Hoover-Coolidge depression, we start from physical. What we do is we say that the United States creates the currency, the U.S. government, by a lawful procedure described in the Constitution. The government is the only agency in which it is allowed to create a currency. No private interest, no central bank. This is regulated. And, the circulation of the currency is also regulated and managed. It is managed by protectionism, by systems of taxation and protection and tariffs and trade which ensure that the proportionality of share of income, as measured in money through the economy, flows in a way which promotes certain physical interests. Originally, it was agriculture, infrastructure and industry, and the promotion of useful foreign commerce.

So, we are, by nature, a protectionist system, which is a form of management of a monetary economy designed to meet the requirements of its science of physical economy as defined by Leibniz, as adopted from Leibniz and from Colbert, Jean-Baptiste Colbert of France, adapted to the constitutional system of the newly created United States.

That system, the American system, properly understood, works. And, there is a social control. For example, state control, the state is responsible for the military. Most people accept that, except for the Vice President, who thinks it should be privatized for the benefit of Halliburton. So, national defense, and disease, is a responsibility of the government. The government may enlist private agencies to participate in defense of disease, may help support and create a control to provide for private hospitals and other facilities, for private physicians protection and functioning. The government must also take responsibility for those things which are not a local interest of some property owner, such as the welfare of water systems, the general organization of power systems, the organizations of mass transportation, the insurance of the provision of adequate schools for the total population, the responsibility for the development of every square kilometer of the land area of the United States. We create regulation hoping to assign to private interests the responsibility for fulfilling the requirements which government knows to be needed. The purpose is to encourage the creative powers of the individual citizens or the conscience of citizens to come up with creative solutions which meet the objectives which government recognizes as beneficial or necessary. That's the American system. It is not much understood in the United States today, where idiots have been running the universities and teaching economics generally for a long period of time. But, that's the American system. My system.

MODERATOR: OK, there is a final question here from Mariana and Rosario [sp] and it is the occasion also for your concluding remarks. Good evening, Mr. LaRouche. What is the role that the pseudo-religious movement, the so-called new era, what role does it play in the cultural and the moral values of our civilization? Thank you.

LAROUCHE: If you have a section of the population, as we have with our fundamentalists, in the United States, who are clinically insane, you have the following picture. You have a section of the U.S. population which no longer believes that it has any functional relationship to government. It therefore will go to medicine men, to magicians, to ask them to intervene magically. Now, the worst of these are called the Protestant Zionists. Now, the Protestant Zionists, fundamentalist Zionist is a very nasty creature. He is the worst of all these pseudo-religious types. He believes that there must be a Battle of Armageddon, and he's going to try to make it happen on time by incantation. He believes that if the Battle of Armageddon occurs, he won't have to pay rent next month. He believes that once Israel is established as a power under his control that he will kill all the Jews who don't convert. He's anti-Semite. He is a Zionist, anti-Semite. Now, this phenomenon was developed in England during the 17th Century among the British Israelites, so-called. Who said, we are the children of Israel. Therefore the Jews who are not the children of Israel, who are fake, we are going to have to kill them.

Now, this crowd-how do you get this kind of crowd? We had in the United States, earlier, something like this with the grandfather of Aaron Burr, the traitor, Jonathan Edwards. And, this kind of evangelization of telling people they are worthless, they are the most contemptible slime on the planet, but God is going to be merciful with them if they make a contract with God today, God will give them women. God will give them money, will give them all kinds of goodies. Not because he likes them; in fact, he despises them, but because they sign the contract. This is the characteristic of the American Protestant fundamentalist whose disease has spread in other parts of the world. The characteristic, otherwise is, they're are people who believe they have no power in society. They don't think of themselves as citizens who are responsible participants in making the decisions of society. They think of themselves as people who are appealing to a secret power, the power of some idiotic preacher, who's more satanic than anything else. And that's the problem.

My view of the remedy for this is you don't go around and slaughter them. Some people would think that that's a good idea. I don't. You treat them as idiots, and try to find out who you can save from idiocy. What we have to do is realize that whenever you, in society, condemn a significant segment of the population to a sense of powerlessness in society, when they feel they have no efficient connection to the making of policy or the things that control government, they will seek mysterious powers of all kinds. They will join strange cults, strange clubs, anarchist clubs, other kinds of clubs, against society out of poor hatred against a society which they believe gives them no efficient place in recognition. They will go in these wild religions, for precisely the same reasons.

Therefore, our function is to bring these people in, to bring them into the educational system, to bring them into society, to cause them to find themselves as members of society as efficiently participating members of society. So, that when they have a problem, instead of going someplace and throwing a bomb, or becoming a violence prone idiot, going out and killing people to try to express their anger, they will go to the institutions of society and, finding a reasonable ear for their complaint, they find an agency which may not agree with them, which may reject what they say, but will open a dialog with them which convinces them that they do have an ear, and they are a part of the influence in the making of the policies of society.

So, this phenomenon is resolved, generally, of taking whole sections of society, excluding them from a sense of participation in the society as members of the society. We make them outsiders, and then they go outside reason to try to find a god or a devil who will give them their pleasure.

MODERATOR: Dr. LaRouche and other collaborators who have helped in this videoconference, we want to thank you enormously, infinitely, for your intellectual contribution at such a high level which we have received from you this afternoon. This video conference will be reproduced with a large number of students that were unable to come with us today, but because there is about 5,000 students that come to this department alone in this university, and unfortunately, this is the class time and this is a period close to the exam time and therefore, we will have to reproduce this text and therefore we want to say thank you. We want to say good-bye to you. Thank you greatly for your intellectual contribution, and we would like to, if it is OK with you, would you like to leave us with a final message for this youth that follows you with such great concern and attention. What is your contribution and we are always available for your help and communication in the future.

LAROUCHE: Thank you very much. I would simply say in return, that my affection for your country is enhanced by this experience. The personal contact, which I enjoy richly, and feeling a part of you as you are guest on this occasion makes me happy. And, I would hope that we may benefit from this exchange in the future.

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