...... ...................Larouche Online Almanac

Published: Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2004

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Lyndon LaRouche was interviewed on Dec. 16, by "Front Street" hosts Charles Traylor, Wendy Huntley, and Bob Fitrakis on Columbus, Ohio station WVKO 1580AM/103.1FM.

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'EMPOWERMENT RADIO' QUESTIONS LAROUCHE — ON 'CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN'

Lyndon LaRouche was interviewed on Dec. 3, 2004, by Dallas/Ft. Worth station KNON's "Empowerment Radio" program, hosted by Tunde Obazee. The program is nationally syndicated, and the taped interview was scheduled to air on KNON 89.3 FM on Dec. 13, as well as by webcast at www.knon.org.

The Economy

World and Nation-State

This Week in History.

December 20-26, 1783

Washington Resigns His Commission; — Returns to Mount Vernon on Christmas Eve

On Dec. 23, 1783, George Washington entered the Maryland Statehouse at Annapolis and returned his commission as Major General of the Continental Army to the President of the Continental Congress. This was a source of wonder to many in Europe, who had assumed that the victorious general could now claim a throne or even a total dictatorship. But Washington was aiming toward the establishment of a true republic, and his words and actions during the fall and winter of 1783-84 made his ultimate goal crystal clear.

During the summer and fall, while the final negotiations for independence were taking place, Washington was planning for the settlement of Ohio and the new lines of transportation infrastructure which would be built to the west. When he penned his farewell orders to the Continental Army, he reminded his soldiers of the extraordinary nature of what they had accomplished: "The singular interpositions of Providence in our feeble condition were such, as could scarcely escape the attention of the most unobserving; while the unparalleled perseverance of the armies of the United States, through almost every possible suffering and discouragement for the space of eight long years, was little short of a standing miracle."

On Nov. 25, the Continental Army escorted the Governor of New York as he reestablished civilian rule over New York City. Then, Washington bade an emotional farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern and boarded a barge which took him across the harbor to New Jersey. In Philadelphia, he was greeted with parades and illuminations, and he managed to take the time to buy Christmas gifts for his wife Martha and their two adopted children, Eleanor and George Washington Parke Custis. The Washingtons had adopted their two youngest grandchildren after Martha's son, Jack Custis, had died of camp fever shortly after serving at the Battle of Yorktown.

General Washington then left Philadelphia for the Maryland Statehouse in Annapolis, where the Continental Congress was meeting. He took his written commission out of his coat and addressed the President of Congress:

"Mr. President: The great events on which my resignation depended having at length taken place; I have now the honor of offering my sincere Congratulations to Congress and of presenting myself before them to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the Service of my Country.

"Happy in the confirmation of our Independence and Sovereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of becoming a respectable Nation, I resign with satisfaction the Appointment I accepted with diffidence. A diffidence in my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which however was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our Cause, the support of the Supreme Power of the Union, and the patronage of Heaven.

"The Successful termination of the War has verified the most sanguine expectations, and my gratitude for the interposition of Providence, and the assistance I have received from my Countrymen, increases with every review of the momentous Contest.

"While I repeat my obligations to the Army in general, I should do injustice to my own feelings not to acknowledge in this place the peculiar Services and distinguished merits of the Gentlemen who have been attached to my person during the War. It was impossible the choice of confidential Officers to compose my family should have been more fortunate. Permit me Sir, to recommend in particular those, who have continued in Service to the present moment, as worthy of the favorable notice and patronage of Congress.

"I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of my Official life, by commending the Interests of our dearest Country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them, to his holy keeping.

"Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life."

Although George Washington was able to reach Mount Vernon on Christmas Eve, as he had promised Martha, his resignation from the military did not mean that he would not be active as a private citizen. As soon as the new year began, he again took up his campaign to ensure that the weak and bankrupt American Government under the Articles of Confederation would be replaced by a superior form of republic. As he had written to the Marquis de Lafayette in 1783, "We stand, now, an Independent People, and have yet to learn political Tactics. We are placed among the nations of the Earth, and have a character to establish; but how we shall acquit ourselves, time must discover.

"The probability (at least I fear it), is that local or State politics will interfere too much with the more liberal and extensive plan of government, which wisdom and foresight, freed from the mist of prejudice, would dictate; and that we shall be guilty of many blunders in treading this boundless theatre, before we shall have arrived at any perfection in this art; in a word, that the experience, which is purchased at the price of difficulties and distress, will alone convince us that the honor, power, and true Interest of this Country must be measured by a Continental scale, and that every departure therefrom weakens the Union, and may ultimately break the band which holds us together."

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Feature:

Drive To Stop Bush's 'Pinochet Plan' To Loot Social Security
by Paul Gallagher
A monstrous delusion, in the service of saving a falling U.S. dollar and a bankrupt international monetary system, was presented by George W. Bush's so-called Economic Summit on Dec. 15-16. A lock-step parade of globalization ideologues, beginning with Vice President Dick Cheney, claimed a 'great recovery' for the crisis-ridden U.S. economy—and then demanded to save the dollar by grabbing trillions of dollars from the Social Security benefit funds of tens of millions of Americans.

Pinochet's Indictment: The Real Significance
by Cynthia R. Rush
On Dec. 13, Chilean Judge Juan Guzma´n Tapia announced the indictment and house arrest of former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet on charges of kidnapping nine dissidents, and murdering one of them, under the military regime that began on Sept. 11, 1973 and ended in 1990. Reversing a 2002 court ruling that had concluded that Pinochet's mild dementia made him unfit to stand trial on any charges, Judge Guzma´n stated that the 89-year-old Pinochet was 'mentally competent to face a criminal trial in Chile.'

Chile: Private Pensions A Quarter Century On
by Manuel Riesco
The author is a member of the board of CENDA (Center of National Studies of Alternative Development), of Santiago, Chile, www.cep.cl. Riesco is also External Research Coordinator (on social policy matters) for the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). He can be reached at mriesco@cep.cl.

Interview: Arturo Martínez
Chile Labor Leader: No To Fascist Pension Plan
If you had the opportunity to speak before a committee of the U.S. Congress about Chile's privatized pension system, what would you tell them? This was the question posed by EIR to Arturo Martínez, president of Chile's largest labor federation, the Unified Labor Federation (Central Unitaria de Trabajadores, or CUT) on Dec. 14. His answer was blunt...

An Obituary for London's 'Chilean Economic Miracle'
by Dennis Small and Cynthia Rush
For over two decades, EIR has been exposing the fascist reality behind the so-called 'Chilean economic miracle' touted by Wall Street and the City of London. For example, in our Sept. 1, 1981 issue, Mark Sonnenblick wrote an article entitled: ' 'Free Enterprise' Doesn't Work: The Chilean Model,' which reported: 'The Friedmanite reforms have markedly reduced the productive efficiency of the econmy; resource allocation is increasingly irrational.' In the April 3, 1992, issue we published a feature called 'The Fraud Behind Chile's Economic 'Success Story.' ' And on July 21, 1995, EIR published an in-depth analysis of Chile's economy, with the above title. Although written almost a decade ago, the central points remain fully valid today; and so we publish the following excerpts...

Ryan-Sununu Bill: Case Study of Looting Plans
by Richard Freeman
'If you asked the Chilean people, they would say that Social Security privatization is the best thing that the Pinochet dictatorship ever did.' Asked if this was his own view, the individual said, 'Yes, there are real criticisms of the Pinochet dictatorship. That [privatization] is the best thing it ever did; it was a huge boon for the Chilean economy.' The speaker is Tom Giovanetti, president of the Dallas, Texas-based Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), in a discussion on Dec. 13.

Social Security As FDR Defined It
by L. Wolfe
This is adapted from New Federalist newspaper, Dec. 20, 2004.
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law on Aug. 14, 1935, only a relative handful of citizens were covered by private pension funds. If you weren't wealthy, or didn't have an extended family with means, there was no place that you or your family could turn to if you were in economic distress, except charity.


The Economic Hit Men

Shultz and the 'Hit Men' Destroyed the Philippines
by Mike Billington
The U.S.-orchestrated coup which overthrew the government of Philippines' President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 was a classic case study of what John Perkins describes in his recent book, Confessions of an Economic HitMan, as the post-World War II preferred method of imposing colonial control under another name. In the Philippines case, George Shultz performed the roles of both the economic hit man, destroying and taking full control of the Philippine economy, and the coup-master, deposing the Philippine President in favor of an IMF puppet—while calling the operation 'people's power.'

How Mexico Fought the Hit Men
by Gretchen Small
'The discovery, starting in the mid-1970s, that Mexico possesses much larger petroleum reserves . . . than had been previously realized, affords it a unique opportunity among larger Third World sector countries to substantially reduce the time . . . necessary to become a modern industrial nation. . . . By no later than the year 2000, the great majority of 115 to 120 million Mexicans should be able to enjoy a standard of living comparable to that of the average inhabitant of the West European nations in the year 1980.'


Economics:

China Warns Foreign Exchange And Hedge Fund Speculators
by Mary Burdman
The disastrous financial losses suffered by China Aviation Oil (CAO) in Singapore from speculation on oil price derivatives, have set alarms ringing in China. Just at the time that the Chinese leadership is making unprecedented public statements demanding that the United States take measures to deal with the dollar crash, and warning that they will not give in to pressure from either international financial speculators, or the U.S. and Japanese governments, to up-value China's international currency, the renminbi, against the dollar, came the bad news from Singapore.

French Senate Study: For A 'Neo-Colbertist Europe'
A working group of the French Senate's Economic Affairs Commission has published a report, 'For a Neo-Colbertist Europe,' which calls for an immediate reversal of the recent moves toward further deregulation in France. The study's title refers to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the Finance Minister for King Louis XIV, who is a symbol of the policy of state promotion of industry and infrastructure.

Report From Germany
Without New Concepts, Labor Will Lose
by Rainer Apel
A pragmatic struggle for jobs can't succeed in a collapsing economy. Labor leaders must think big! In-depth reform must occur very fast in Germany's labor union bureaucracy. A review of the year 2004 shows numerous occasions in which workers with a combative mind could have won in the fight against large- scale job losses and income cuts.


International:

Iraqi Elections Planned Amid Danger of Civil War
by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
Will elections be held in Iraq, as scheduled, on Jan. 30, 2005? Doubts have been cast on this schedule, which the U.S. Administration and the puppet interim Iraqi government have been frantically pushing, and for good reason: The ongoing, escalating guerrilla warfare against the occupation forces, has created what is euphemistically referred to as a 'security situation,' under which nationwide polls cannot be held.

Genocide: Millions Dead in Congo
by Lawrence K. Freeman
Genocide: The deliberate and systematic extermination of a national or racial group
A just-released report by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) documents that the worst case of ongoing genocide anywhere on the planet is occurring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R. Congo). Only the Nazi-implemented holocaust against the Jewish people was more horrific, although the number of deaths in the D.R. Congo may turn out to be greater.


National:

LaRouche Spurs Broad Fight Against Bush's Election Theft
by Edward Spannaus
' 'We've got them dead to rights on violations of Federal law, on Voting Rights Act violations,' said Lyndon LaRouche in an interview on a Columbus, Ohio radio station on Dec. 16, in discussing how the Republicans stole the Nov. 2 Presidential election. 'That is a crime,' LaRouche continued. 'That's a five-year federal sentence, to be caught doing that crime! Whereas simple vote fraud is more difficult to deal with. But, if you go at the criminal violations, which are Federal criminal violations, in terms of election tampering and in terms of Voting Rights Act frauds, then you open up the whole area, you have to investigate the whole territory, in which these crimes have been committed—which means the entire question of the vote fraud is now looked at, from that standpoint.'

GOP Rams Through Police-State Bill
by Carl Osgood
The Intelligence Reform bill that passed the Congress on Dec. 7 and 8 is yet another textbook example ofhowthe Republican leadership rams through legislation without giving members a chance to study it before the vote. Little notice was given to the police-state provisions in the bill until after it was passed. Instead, most of the attention was focussed on bickering over what authority the new Director of National Intelligence will have with respect to the intelligence agencies in the Pentagon. Once House Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) was satisfied on that question, the bill passed easily with too little debate.

Conference Report
A Dangerous Game With Ukrainian Sovereignty
by William Jones
Speaking at a hearing of the House International Relations Committee on Dec. 7, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) called for a General Accountability Office investigation to determine whether U.S. funds had been used to benefit the election of former Prime Minister Victor Yushchenko in recent Presidential elections in Ukraine. Paul was specifically targetting the funding dispersed through the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the National Endowment for Democracy and its constituent bodies, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute.

View This week's Almanac Section*, as a long .pdf file.


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Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

speaks to the Martin Luther King Day Prayer Breakfast in Talladega County, Alabama on Jan. 19, 2004

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