Printer-friendly versionSend to friend

LAROUCHE DISCUSSES THE DRIVE FOR A KERRY LANDSLIDE ON - - PHILADELPHIA'S 'VOICE OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY'

Here is Lyndon LaRouche's interview with WHAT radio in Philadelphia, the city's "voice of the African-American community." His host was Thera Martin Connelly.

THERA MARTIN CONNELLY: Good morning to all of you out there in radio-land. I'm Thera Martin Connelly, host of this program. We call it "Perspectives," and we come your way, Monday through Fridays 9 a.m. to 12 noon....

We are going to our Newsmaker line, where Lyndon LaRouche stands by. And Mr. LaRouche has been a candidate in this Presidential election, which will come to a head on Tuesday, Nov. 2. Let's go right to our Newsmaker line, and welcome Mr. LaRouche. Good morning, sir.

LYNDON LAROUCHE: Good morning.

CONNELLY: Thank you so much for giving us a bit of your time this morning, to help us start our broadcast day for this program. The decision finally was made, I guess, by yourself and the supporters who work closely with you, your campaign advisors, to pull out of the race, huh?

LAROUCHE: No, what we did is, in Boston, after the confirmation of the acceptance of Kerry's nomination, I immediately, publicly stated my support for his candidacy, and I'm now an integral part of the effort to win his election. And we're putting all our muscle in that direction.

CONNELLY: I mean, there definitely had to come a point in time, when you sat down with your advisors, and the people closest to you in the LaRouche camp, to say, "I'm having challenges, or obstacles, that I don't think are going to make sense for me to keep battling over, to get to Nov. 2"?

LAROUCHE: Oh no. I was never intended to do that. My intention was to support, unless we got an animal, to support the nominee. And my intention was, as I said before, is that after the convention, or at the convention, I would turn, and if Kerry were nominated, I would support him.

CONNELLY: Okay. Well, we're there, it's happening. And in fact, I met up with some of your supporters in our nation's capital last weekend, as I was attending the Congressional Black Caucus, and one of the individuals stopped me as I was getting ready to go into the Washington, D.C. Convention Center, and they were passing out the information that you are behind Kerry's election bid, at this point.

LAROUCHE: I'm quite serious about, yeah.

CONNELLY: Has the Kerry camp--well, I'm sure, of course, that they're happy to have your support. Additional votes always can be meaningful, once translated on Election Day. But, have they give you tools to work with? Are they being supportive?

LAROUCHE: Oh sure! Absolutely. We've got a whole host of people, in the Democratic Party, who are, shall we say, leaders of the Democratic Party base. And we're working together; we're working closely with Jim Carville and so forth. We're working right with the Democratic campaign committee.

CONNNALLY: Haven't seen a lot of television commercials; haven't heard a lot of radio ads on this campaign on the Kerry side. I was told by some of my sources, that that was going to pick up real heavy right after Labor Day. Well?

LAROUCHE: That's the intention. You've got the first shot out of the barrel with Bob Rubin's appearance with Kerry in Detroit. It's an extremely important development. Because, for the first time--I've been pressing, as you may know, if you've seen the correspondence I've had with the National Committee--been pressing for a number of things, including that the Kerry campaign must get off some of these other things, which have been discussed too much, and get on the fact that the economy is in the process of collapse. The collapse may come before the November election, and therefore the candidate, Kerry, must get out in front on this. And he did, in a limited way, with Bob Rubin, in Detroit.

And, of course, there was a contrary effect from a Wall Street Journal statement. But, nonetheless, I would say, that Kerry is going to keep on that line, which I agree with. But, I agree more emphatically than he does, that this crash is coming.

There are several things that are happening right now, which you, in your business, might want to know about, which I've been discussing: First of all, Bush has a number of immediate problems. If Blair is stepping down in London, that's rough for Bush. I don't think he can sink it. Bush is not capable, intellectually and emotionally, of admitting how bad his situation, especially with the economy.

Also, they have the Russia crisis, you may have seen, indirectly reflected by statements from Russia, from the foreign minister of Russia, and from our Secretary of State on this issue. There's a real crisis about the United States reaction to the terrorist attack on Russia from inside the North Caucasus, with some backing from the U.S. and some backing from other quarters for those attacks on Russia.

CONNELLY: And what were those concerns around the reactions of the U.S. government?

LAROUCHE: Well, it was crap. There are people in London and in U.S. who want Russia to do, and be dismembered and gobbled up; extremely unhappy with Putin's refusal to allow the millionaires or the billionaires in Russia to control Yukos oil, for example. And so therefore, you had, in that atmosphere, this attack on Russia has occurred. This is not some isolated group in Chechnya, it's a much more broad thing. So, it's a strategic problem. And so, you get the Secretary of State try to do a hard-nose on this against Putin, and that's not going to work. And Putin has made it clear, it's not going to work.

So, Bush is facing a crisis. It's a crisis, that Bush's emotional constitution will not enable him to take care of competently. Cheney probably is scared, because Bush can not cope with this. Bush can not take certain kinds of bad news. He'll go crazy.

CONNELLY: Lyndon LaRouche, our guest on the Newsmaker line right now. Most recently a former Presidential candidate--I think I'm correct in being able to introduce you that way--now having thrown his support behind U.S. Sen. John Kerry and his bid for election to the Presidency. If you have a question or comment for our guest, call us right now, at 267-285-1340 ... or you can call us toll free at 1-866-746-1340.

Now, Mr. LaRouche, depending on what state you might be living in right now, various would-be voters for this upcoming Presidential election, may they still possibly see your name on the ballot? And if so--not all? No states?

LAROUCHE: No. It'll be on the Kerry ballot. What we're doing, of course, we're campaigning in various areas: Pennsylvania; of course Washington, D.C. that's a base of operations; in New Jersey; in New England, especially out of Boston. Then, we're running from Michigan: We're intensely concerned with Michigan, Ohio, down the Ohio River to Louisville, Kentucky; down the Mississippi River to those states, the Southern States: Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas; and then we have a big contingent on the West Coast, in California, in Washington state, and in Oregon state.

So, we've taken certain areas of the country, where we have the muscle to make a contribution. And where we have a situation--where the situation there, requires our particular style of additional effort on this thing.

CONNELLY: I've heard it said, that whichever political party wins the state of Pennsylvania, that'll say who's going to win the day: Have you heard that talk?

LAROUCHE: Yeah, I've heard a lot of talk. But, of course, what's going to decide the election is the following: You've got to jam-up in terms of estimates--and nobody really knows what's going on, and it will change suddenly. So, any prediction, now that it's going in a certain way--pay no attention to it. Just look at and say, "Well, maybe it's true and maybe it isn't."

Because you have developments which are breaking developments, in the coming months, if not later: That is, during the month of October, breaking developments in the United States and internationally, including economic developments, are going to change the whole ball of wax.What I'm looking at is two things: Not the usual voters. Not the ones who voted three out of four last Federal elections. I'm looking at the lower 80% of family-income brackets, which have been turned off from voting recently; I'm also looking at the youth interval, 18- to 25-year-old group: These are the new factors, which can mean a landslide victory for Kerry. And that's what I'm working to get.

CONNELLY: All right, let's go to our phone lines. Dan joins us from North Philadelphia. Good morning, you're live on Perspectives with yours truly, Thera Martin Connelly and Lyndon LaRouche.

Q: Good morning. How you guys doing today?

CONNELLY: Morning!

Q: I've got a question for Mr. LaRouche. I've been up and down the East Coast, and everywhere I go there seems to be this LaRouche Youth Movement people. You know, they're singing Bach, they're singing these Negro spirituals. Mr. LaRouche, can you tell me why you chose to, you know, why you chose to sing, rather than continue this "rap or rock the vote" stuff.

LAROUCHE: Oh, because that's us! That us. And we found that internationally, even though the Bach Jesu meine Freude is in German, it's one of Bach's most famous compositions (it's a hymn, actually), and Negro spirituals, which are also Classical music, since Harry Burleigh and since Dvorak worked and recognized the Classical musical character of the Negro spiritual, these are an integral part in a part of the Classical culture of the United States. As opposed to some of the new-fangled, overnight, come and go, kinds of fads in the United States.

This kind of singing, gets to the heart and soul, of people in the United States, from all kinds backgrounds, except let's say the Ku Klux Klan, which don't like this thing too much. And that's what we are. We are that, we present what we are. We're putting our support in the campaign on the basis of what we are, not on the basis of what somebody else is.

Q: Mr. LaRouche, do you think that'll have any effect in the population. What do you see coming out of--?

LAROUCHE: Oh, it's brilliant. One of the things that happened in Boston, we put in over 100 youth in there. And they were singing. And what they did, and what I did in Boston, from the place where I was based in Cambridge, across the river, was actually very important in switching the convention onto a track that's now workable.

It's been that way all over the country. This works. What we're doing works very well. It's a very significant, unique contribution. It's significant in California, where we were the only effective force, in the districts we took as our responsibility in California against Schwarzenegger--we took the Los Angeles as a place we concentrated; we took the Bay Area, as a place we concentrated: We beat Schwarzenegger there! In every other part of the state, the Democratic Party lost it.

So, we're pretty effective.

CONNELLY: Thank you for your call, Dan. Appreciate you.

We have to go to break for a moment. We'll come back and give you an opportunity to chat with a couple more of our listeners, if you've got the time, Mr. LaRouche....

This is Perspective. My Newsmaker is Mr. Lyndon LaRouche, on our line with us. And we're going to go back to our phone lines and talk with you. Sadiq [ph] joins us from Logan. Good morning Sadiq, thanks for your call today!

Q: Good morning, how you'all feel this morning.

CONNELLY: Great, great.

Q: I had a question for the gentleman--and maybe you, if you probably heard. You may have heard something about it. I heard Tavis Smiley earlier today, this morning--caught the last little bit of what he was talking about. And he was saying something about, the Republicans are supposedly trying to get Kerry to denounce Al Sharpton, or something like that? Anybody familiar with that? Is that a problem, where that comes from?

LAROUCHE: No, I'm not sure. I know Sharpton is cooperating with Kerry. That's all I know.

CONNELLY: Absolutely. Rev. Al Sharpton was at the side of John Kerry just the other night, at the Washington, D.C. Convention Center for that big dinner the Congressional Black Caucus held. I watched standing next to Senator Kerry for at least 15 minutes or so. Rev. Jesse Jackson was on the other side of him. We was well-flanked by two, well-recognized, and to many, well-respected African-American ministers here in our country.

Q: Well, maybe that's something we need to listen out for, pay attention to. Because he was saying something about, he was giving information that states that somebody in the Republican Committee, somebody up there, one of those jokers trying to do something in China, put pressure on Kerry for some reason, to denounce Al Sharpton. Now, he said, that Kerry's not going to do it, but they're supposed to be doing one of their scare tactics or something like that. But, he said he had some very reliable sources--

CONNELLY: Well I will certainly put my information out there--[overtalk]

Q: And when you come across it, let us know here, because I'm trying to find out what's going on.

CONNELLY: Yeah. I'm interested. I am interested in finding more. Thank you for calling this morning.

We're going to go on to AJ. AJ joins us from South Philadelphia. You have a question for our guest?

Q: Yes, good morning. How you doing Thera?

CONNELLY: Great, and you?

Q: Magnificent.

Lyndon LaRouche, I'd like to ask you a question: Are you familiar with the International Economic Security Reformation Act?

LAROUCHE: No. There is something like that in the wind; I don't know the details of it.

Q: It's known as NETHERA. Can you hear me now?

LAROUCHE: I can hear you now.

CONNELLY: He said he was somewhat familiar with that name, that title. But, go ahead with your question.

Q: Well, basically, I basically wanted to know--I see that you're backing Kerry. I'm wondering if Kerry for that particular act?

LAROUCHE: I don't think so. Kerry's economic policy is not yet decided. He's being strongly advised by Bob Rubin, and Bob Rubin is probably one of the most competent people in the political scene, in Kerry's camp. I'm probably a little stronger than Bob is on some things, but Bob has a very special inside track, and I think Kerry will be influenced by what Bob says, and probably what I say, more than by other sources.

Q: If you want further information, you might want to go too www.nethera.com and get some more information on that.

LAROUCHE: There are things coming out of the administration that I don't like, that we're going to try to kill.

Q: Say it, again?

LAROUCHE: We're going to try to kill some of the stuff coming out of the Bush Administration, and some parts of the Congress. We think we can do the job. If we can win the election, we going to certainly do the job.

Q: To basically give a quick synopsis on NETHERA, what it's about, it's a forgiveness of credit card and mortgage debts; abolish the IRS; elimination of the Federal Reserve--[overtalk] Constitutional law in America. You know, we're not under Constitutional law in America at this time.

LAROUCHE: Oh yes, yes. Well, there are talk about.

But, this thing--I've heard about this. It's not going to fly.

You see, you're dealing with a different situation: You're dealing with a threat of a collapse of a general collapse of the banking system internationally. And under those circumstances, this won't work. The only thing that'll work, what is overriding, and you'll get emergency action from the White House--particularly if Kerry's elected--and also from the Congress on this: We're going into a situation, in which only what Franklin Roosevelt did, in March of 1933, is the only thing that is going to work.

Q: What you're saying, when Franklin D. Roosevelt, he kind of put us under emergency and then eliminate the Constitution?

LAROUCHE: No, he didn't do that. That's the story some people tell--don't believe any of it.

Roosevelt understood the Constitution and acted upon. It was Hoover, who didn't understand the Constitution. The Constitution prescribes, that in a crisis, the security, the sovereignty, the general welfare of the people, and the welfare of posterity, are the overriding law of the United States, in a matter such as an economic crisis--

CONNELLY: AJ? Excuse me, I gotta move on, so you can continue to listen.

Q: Can I ask another question.

CONNELLY: A short one. A short one.

Q: Well, basically, I want to know, do you feel basically that we're under Constitutional law now? And I'll listen--I'll hang up, and listen.

CONNELLY: Thanks for your call. Call again.

LAROUCHE: The Constitutional law, I know fairly well, and I assure you that Roosevelt never violated the Constitution. Though some right-wing Republicans, of the right-wing crazy variety, will keep insisting upon that.

CONNELLY: Mr. LaRouche, before you go, the concern about fair elections unfolding on Nov. 2: Are you comfortable that the Kerry campaign, that the government, and all other entities that would be involved with counting people's votes, will do it properly, and we'll not have another election stolen?

LAROUCHE: I'm not confident. I'm worried, and therefore, I'm putting a lot--and some other people, too--putting a lot in it. My basic approach, as I say, is: We've got to turn out a landslide victory, that will overcome any meddling with the vote. We're going to have to do what Al Gore did not do: We're going in for the big win. And that means getting the poor and getting the youth out there, fully organized, and just swarm this thing. Load the ballot boxes with honest votes, and overcome any swindle factor they try to pull.

CONNELLY: I thank you so much for your time. I think I heard one of your staff say, that you're not even in the country, as we're speaking, but you still made yourself available to us, and we appreciate that.

LAROUCHE: Oh, I'm travelling. I'll be in Europe for a few days, on some business here.

CONNELLY: All right. You be safe. Godspeed coming back to America.

LAROUCHE: I shall! Thank you.

CONNELLY: All right, thank you, sir. That's Lyndon LaRouche. He was a candidate for President in this Presidential campaign. But, I guess that, days just prior to the Democratic National Convention unfolding this summer, he made the decision--looking at the numbers, looking at the polls, looking at everything that happened from the primary until mid-summer--that this wasn't his time. And he got out of the race, and has thrown his support behind Democratic U.S. Sen. John Kerry.