Genopbyg Amerikas hjerteland:
Fra ’Rustbæltet’ til ’Bælte & Vej’.
LaRouche PAC Internationale Webcast,
26. jan., 2018

Vært Matthew Ogden: I dag har jeg en særlig gæst, Bill Roberts, som er med fra Detroit, Michigan. Bill Roberts er LaRouche PAC’s kampagnekoordinator for Midtvesten, og vi har også set hans succes mht. at være kandidat til kongressen, hvor han vandt 41 % af stemmerne i det demokratiske primærvalg i Michigan.

Titlen på vores udsendelse i dag er »Genopbyg Amerikas hjerteland: Fra ’Rustbæltet’ til ’Bælte & Vej’«. Vores tema i dag er at se på kampagneplatformen til 2018-valget, som LaRouche PAC har udgivet og nu mobiliserer for på nationalt plan, og se på dette gennem Midtvestens linser, det såkaldte ’Rustbælte’, der engang var motor for økonomisk vækst i hele USA. Dette er vort lands produktive hjerteland, og dette har været epicentret for kollapset i vareproduktion og den specialiserede arbejdsstyrke i USA. Dette udgør kernen i vores evne til at bringe USA ind i en ny æra for store projekter og økonomisk udvikling, der typificeres af Kinas Bælte & Vej Initiativ; heraf titlen på vores udsendelse, »Genopbyg Amerikas hjerteland: Fra ’Rustbæltet’ til ’Bælte & Vej’«.

Kerneindholdet i LaRouche PAC’s valgplatform 2018 er, at USA’s præsidentskab omgående må vedtage Lyndon LaRouches fire økonomiske love og gå ind i en win-win-relation med Kinas Nye Silkevej. LaRouches fire økonomiske love er præcis det, der er nødvendigt lige nu, hvis vi ønsker at få midlet til at gå ud af det, der synes at være en »ingen udgang«-situation. Vi er nu i en nedtælling på fire dage til præsident Trumps State of the Union-tale på tirsdag. I takt med denne nedtælling, har vi optrappet vores kampagne nationalt for at sætte dette på dagsordenen: LaRouches fire økonomiske love, og USA må gå med i den Nye Silkevej.

At dømme umiddelbart ud fra præsident Trumps tale her til morgen på Davos Økonomiske Verdensforum, så vil han få brug for en ’omvendelse på vejen til Damaskus’ i løbet af weekenden for at komme til at forstå, at, nej – at tale om en aktiemarkedsboble og $7 billion i såkaldt »tilføjet værdi« eller merværdi på Wall Street, udgør ikke en økonomisk genrejsning! Faktisk udgør det selve problemet. Dette er præcis, hvad William White, tidligere cheføkonom for Den internationale Betalingsbank (BIS), advarede om i et interview, han gav i Davos til Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, og hvor han diskuterede det faktum, at vi praktisk taget uundgåeligt har kurs mod det transatlantiske finanssystems kollaps, af præcis denne grund: de billige penge, nulrente-politikken, der er blevet gennemført af Federal Reserve og den Europæiske Centralbank (ECB), har skabt det, som William White kaldte et »Catch-22«, et Punkt 22. Hvis disse rentesatser forbliver lave, vil vi have kurs mod en hyperinflationseksplosion af penge i systemet, og det vil føre os til en Weimar-stil hyperinflation, som vi så det i 1923. Men hvis ECB og Fed beslutter at hæve renten, vil »zombie-bankerne« og »zombieselskaberne«, der i de seneste flere år har eksisteret, baseret på denne politik med nulrente, billige penge og kvantitativ lempelse, kollapse indad, og vi vil få et kollaps af systemet i denne retning.

Ud fra William Whites standpunkt, så har denne advarsel »ingen udgang«.

Der er faktisk en udgang, og vi ved nøjagtig, hvad det er, og dette er, hvad præsident Trump omgående må vedtage. Udgangen består i Lyndon LaRouches fire økonomiske love: Rejs en brandmur i form af Glass-Steagall mellem kommerciel bankvirksomhed og de produktive investeringer, og så alt det møg, vi har i form af spekulativ værdi på Wall Street og City of London. Lad dette møg tørre ud og blæse væk; men beskyt de nødvendige, produktive, kommercielle bankvirksomhedsaspekter af vores økonomi. Erstat den spekulative økonomi med et kreditsystem i Hamiltons tradition, hvor man tager billioner af dollars i statslig kredit, via en ny Nationalbank, og dirigerer det, ikke til spekulation, men derimod til reel, fysisk værdi: til storskala infrastrukturprojekter, store projekter, nye industrier, vareproduktion og til en forøgelse af arbejdskraftens produktive evne i USA’s arbejdsstyrke; og især – som vi skal diskutere her i dag – i Midtvestens tidligere produktive arbejdsstyrke, og ligeledes bringe USA ind i dette store nye projekts Nye Silkevej.

Dette er, hvad præsident Trump må forstå om økonomi, og vi er i en nedtælling på fire dage til State of the Union, til at sætte dette på dagsordenen. Vores job slutter på ingen måde her; men formålet med denne 2018-valgplatform, som LaRouche PAC har udgivet, er tværtimod at vinde en kampagne, essentielt, for USA’s præsidentskab. Vi er naturligvis ikke i et præsidentvalgår, og præsident Trump er den behørigt valgte præsident og vil være vores præsident for de næste tre år, mindst, på trods af bestræbelserne fra Russiagate-kuppets side og hans opponenter, der forsøger at vælte hans præsidentskab; men den kampagne, vi kører, er en kampagne for USA’s præsidentskabs politik: Det er en kampagen for at vinde kampen om præsidentskabets politik.

I dag skal vi diskutere strategien, og Midtvesten, eller USA’s industrielle hjerteland, er et af de afgørende elementer i denne strategi. Om lidt vil I få at se, at præsident Trumps sejr i 2016-valgene, i realiteten skyldtes hans sejr i Midtvesten. Han var i stand til at bryde det, der kaldes den »Demokratiske blå brandmur«, og han vendte fire store, tidligere industrielle rustbæltestater, der havde stemt demokratisk, siden valget af FDR i præsidentielle valg; og han vendte dem og vandt disse stater: Pennsylvania, Michigan og Wisconsin, for ikke at tale om hans sejre i Ohio.

Hvordan gjorde han det? Han adresserede selve det faktum, at både det Republikanske og det Demokratiske Parti havde indgået en ’aftale med djævelen’ om en konsensus om, begge at være partiet for frihandel og post-industrialisering. Kandidat Trump sprængte hele denne konsensus i stykker, gik ind og sagde, »Jeg er imod frihandel, vi vil nedlukke NAFTA«, og han sagde i særdeleshed, »vi vil bringe industri tilbage til hjertelandet«. Vi vil få ny vareproduktion, nye jobs, og han krævede endda en »ny industriel revolution«.

Jeg vil gerne give lidt baggrund, før vi kommer til diskussionen, om, hvad det var, præsident Trump fik adgang til, hvad enten, han helt var klar over det eller ej. Men dette er i produktivitetens ånd, og jeg vil faktisk hævde, at dette ikke er Trump-vælgerskaren, men at det er »LaRouche-vælgerskaren«. Og det, vi vil gøre med denne kampagne for at lægge 2018 LaRouche PAC-platformen på bordet, er, at vi vil organisere denne vælgerskare omkring denne vision, de Fire Loves økonomiske program, og vi vil bruge denne indflydelse til at skabe en revolution i USA’s præsidentskabs økonomiske politik.

Lad os gå lidt tilbage i tiden, til det industrielle kraftcenter, som Midtvesten var kendt som, før det fik lov at sygne hen og blive til ’rustbæltet’. Dette skete pga. Franklin Roosevelts mobilisering under Anden Verdenskrig, med at tage det, som var bilindustriens maskinværktøj til biler – i Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin og i det vestlige Pennsylvania – og at tilpasse disse bilfabrikker og bruge den specialiserede arbejdsstyrke til at lancere det, der blev kaldt »Demokratiets arsenal«.

Så lad os nu gå lidt tilbage i tiden og se på denne nyhedsfilm fra Anden Verdenskrig, og I vil få at se, hvad vi mener, når vi taler om Franklin Roosevelts Demokratiets arsenal.

(Engelsk udskrift af resten af udsendelsen:)

NARRATOR:  President Roosevelt makes an unprecedented 9,000
mile tour of the United States, to see for himself the nation at
war.  Visiting armament plants from coast to coast, he stops at
the giant Chrysler tank arsenal, where he sees the Army’s latest
mechanized monsters, tested as they come from assembly lines.
Then, on to one of Henry Ford’s great bomber plants, where
the President and First Lady are greeted by Mr. Ford and General
Manager Sorensen.
Plane workers, delighted with the surprise visit, show the
President that wartime production is meeting the goal set, many
plants exceeding their quotas.

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT:  We shall send you, in ever-increasing
numbers, ships, planes, tanks, guns:  That is our purpose and our
pledge!

NARRATOR:  And the President’s words meant action.  America
became the Arsenal of Democracy. …
Working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, where General
Motors is undertaking to produce more than 10% of all war
matériel fabricated from metal.  Thousands of workmen in four GM
divisions turn out machineguns in a mass-production basis.
Output is months ahead of schedule….
General Motors has pioneered in applying mass production
methods to the manufacture of aircraft.  Work goes on day and
night under the adept fingers of General Motors men and women.
They are producing an avalanche of weapons for victory in General
Motors manufacturing centers all over America.  Machine tools,
the master tools of industry and of victory are made at a
constantly increasing rate…. [end video]

OGDEN:  So “machine tools, the master tools of industry and
victory” are made at an ever-increasing rate.  That was the
Arsenal of Democracy.  That was Franklin Roosevelt’s economic
program.
Now, what happened?  President Trump, in the 2016 election
did what all other candidates have refused to do:  He refused to
take what he called the “forgotten men and women” of the United
States, very much so, these formerly industrial, skilled labor
force, and he said, you will be the forgotten men and women no
more.
Contrast that to what Hillary Clinton did, where she took
these states — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — took them
for granted, and in fact, never even went to Wisconsin for a
campaign event — and lo and behold, on Election Night, surprise,
surprise, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, all went for
Trump. And in fact, that was the key to his winning the U.S.
Presidency.
How did he do it?  Well, let me play this clip for you from
President Trump’s going to Ypsilanti, Michigan to the Willow Run
auto factory, and where he discusses the Arsenal of Democracy,
and calls for the creation of new industrial revolution.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Great Americans of all backgrounds
built the Arsenal of Democracy, including the legendary Rosie the
Riveter, who worked here at Willow Run. You know that. [cheers] Seventy-five years ago, during the Second World War, thousands of
American workers filled this very building, to build the great
new airplanes, the B-24 Liberator, at peak production — listen
to this — it’s not the country that we’ve been watching over the
last 20 years: They were building one B-24 every single hour.
[cheers]  We don’t hear that, we don’t hear that any more, do we?
We’ll be back, we’ll be back, soon.  The most amazing
people.
And while that’s incredible, it’s a tribute, really, to the
teamwork, determination and patriotism that lives on today, in
each and every one of you.  Great people — you’re great people.
Now, these hundreds of acres that defended our democracy are
going to help build the cars and cities of the future.  So I ask
you,  — that’s fine, ’cause you’re rushed — so I ask you today
to join me in daring to believe that this facility, this city,
and this nation, will once again shine with industrial might.
[cheers] I’m asking you to place your faith in the American worker
and these great American companies. [applause]  I’m also asking
you, to respect, and place your faith in companies from foreign
lands that come here to build their product.  We love them, too.
Right?  We love them, too. [applause] I’m asking all of the companies here, today, to join us, in
this new industrial revolution:  Let us put American workers,
American families, and American dreams first, once again.  May
God bless the American worker.  May God bless the Motor City.
And may God bless the United States of America.  Thank you, thank
you. [cheers] [end video]

OGDEN:  And there you have it. So let’s put on the screen
here, the electoral map, and this is a very interesting map [Fig.
1] and I’m actually going to ask Bill Roberts to discuss it with
us a little bit.  But this was published by the Washington Post
immediately after the election victory by President Trump. And
you’ll see here, the title is “The Former Obama Strongholds
Sealed the Election for Trump.”   And I’ll let Bill describe what
we’re looking at, but you’ll see there, the concentration is in
the rust belt, in the former industrial heartland, there, and
that’s the region of the country we’re talking about here, right
now.
So Bill, tell us what we’re looking at in that map and
explain to us exactly what the strategy for victory here, has to
be.

BILL ROBERTS:  Sure.  Matt, let me just start out by saying
that there was recently an article published by a local
representative, representing Macomb County [Michigan],  I think
one of those counties that was an Obama-voting county, probably
voted for Obama twice, and then shifted and voted for Trump.
What this local elected official was arguing for a decent
high-wage, what’s called a prevailing wage, for union employees.
And he made the point in that document that this policy actually
started with Henry Ford; it started with Henry Ford’s decision
that he was going to pay his workers $5 a day to produce cars,
and this wage would allow them to be able to buy the car that
they were producing.  So this is the coalition of producers which
we now have to mobilize to define, the standard of competence on
which national elected officials are going to run their
campaigns.
Now, let me bring back up this map, here:  What you’re
looking at, these are the districts across the country that voted
for Obama twice, as in the dark yellow; and in the light yellow
are districts that voted for Obama once.  But all of these shaded
areas then were the counties that switched, that swung and voted
for Donald Trump in 2018.  So these are traditionally Democratic
areas, where Trump went in and campaigned, where Hillary Clinton
did not, and he really made his focus the “forgotten men and
women,” who were part of this very advanced — I think “rust
belt” is a kind of derogatory term, because in fact, the labor
forces associated with these regions, whether they be farmers or
skilled workers, produce extremely advanced products, to the
tolerances of a thousandth of an inch, or even smaller.  And
Trump tapped into something that Lyndon LaRouche identified
later, which is that, this was part of actually a global process
of voters rejecting the failures, the failed policies of the
trans-Atlantic financial system, the destruction of the skilled
workforce; the overrunning of these areas with an epidemic of
drugs, of opiates; the failed regime-change wars.  And they voted
for the policy, and not the party.
And so, these are obviously going to be areas in which both
the parties are going to be looking in the election to try to
swing the vote.  The problem is, neither party has the policies
that can address the dire situation that these forgotten men and
women find themselves in.   Neither party’s leadership has a
competent program to be able to directly address these blue
collar and rural districts in the upper Midwest, in terms of the
kind of economic destruction they’ve seen.
So, it really falls upon the campaign of the LaRouche
Political Action Committee, and what we have to find is the
standard of competent that can actually rebuild these areas.  The
LaRouche Four Laws, the identification of the necessity of the
United States cooperating with China and countries that we can
align our credit systems with, in order to actually capitalize a
national infrastructure bank and a full economic recovery.
I would just say that, you know, you have Democrats on the
one hand, who continue to push the fraud of the Russiagate
investigation, as if this hasn’t been disproven, and moved to
other slanders against Trump, such as the Durbin fraud of the
racist remarks that Trump allegedly said.  None of the voters in
these swing areas, they absolutely hate this kind of stuff.  And
then, on the Republican site, Trump has really got to be able to
break with this GOP/Wall Street backed leadership orientation
within his own party, in order to be able to address, similarly,
this voting base.  Because Wall Street- backed policies are not
going to finance an economic recovery.  Trump has already said
that the public-private partnerships are not going to function to
build the vast amount of infrastructure that’s required.
So the LaRouche Political Action Committee and our team here
in the Midwest, are looking at races of interest, not necessarily
ones that are going to come down to Republicans versus Democrat,
but maybe even ones where there’s an interesting difference in
the party primary first — in other words, in the immediate
period, in the immediate campaigns, is there an Obama-backed
candidate, for example, who is running against someone who has
the support of building trades, of engineering societies?  Has a
real interest in the revival of the productive economy, and this
is our domain to shape.
As you said Matt, this is really a LaRouche constituency.
And I’ve been in these areas:  I mean, these are people, that
voted Democrat in every election in their entire life, and then
they voted for Donald Trump.  And it was the question of the
“fair trade not free trade,” it was the issue of bringing back
manufacturing; it was the commitment to seeking solutions beyond
geopolitics, beyond the regime-change wars that have been, really
disproportionately hitting these post-industrial and urban
communities that have made up a disproportionate number in the
Armed Forces recruitment.
So, if you look, there is 53% of these communities that
shifted over and voted for Trump after having voted for Obama:
This is an interesting demographics of producers who are
clamoring for real leadership.  There is a profound, profound
vacuum of leadership, that I know from our forays into the state
legislatures in the recent weeks, are really demanding a way in
which — and they have not found this solution outside of what we
have presented to them — but a way in which you can actually
capitalize, a sustained and thorough, scientific-driven,
infrastructure-driven economic recovery over the next 10, 15, 20
years.  And what strikes these local elected officials more than
anything, is that they have not been presented with any other
plan at all that even identifies an approach to amassing the kind
of investment that you will get with the LaRouche plan and that
you will get with the cooperation of the United States with China
and with countries like Japan.
So, I think it’s an extremely fertile situation if we
intervene with a kind of vigor now to define the only competent
solution which exists for candidates and for constituency groups
to demand that those candidates campaign on.

OGDEN:  And that’s exactly the declared intention of this
2018 Platform from LaRouche PAC, is to seek out those
constituency groups, but more so to create those constituency
groups that are going to, through leadership and organization,
will demand this scientifically informed economic agenda; what
LaRouche has laid out.  Glass-Steagall to erect a firewall;
reorganize the financial system; national banking as Alexander
Hamilton did it; trillions of dollars in Federal credit for
infrastructure, new industries, productive employment; and then
all under a driver.  Like the same kind of driver you saw there
for the Arsenal of Democracy; that was a mission orientation.
The kind of mission orientation that we need today is the space
program and for fusion power.  These are the kinds of drivers
that create the top-down organization that economic activity can
participate in, and then will feed into and have a
self-reproducing kind of increase in productivity.
Now what happened in Detroit, and what happened in Michigan,
and what happened in the Midwest, was not something that was just
a crisis of the last few years.  This has been decades and
decades in the making, and it goes back even before NAFTA.  What
occurred was a loss of that commitment that Franklin Roosevelt
had to productivity and to productive employment.  We actually,
Bill, you and I worked together to produce a video several years
ago, around the time that Detroit was forced to declare
bankruptcy.  It was called “Detroit: A Test Case for Genocide”.
In that video, we put together an animated graphic that showed
the population increase in Detroit due to the mobilization around
the Arsenal of Democracy; but then following that, and with the
abandonment of that commitment to industrial production, the
population decrease which has occurred for several decades, and
which has now gotten to a critical point.  So, this is actually
an animated population graphic, and I would like to just put this
on the screen.  You can listen to the narration there.  This is
from the original video, “Detroit: A Test Case for Genocide”.

VIDEO:  The population of Detroit began to explode around
the turn of the 20th Century; increasing exponentially around
1910.  However, with the crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great
Depression, the population of Detroit began to level off and even
decline for the first time in its history.  It wasn’t until
Franklin Roosevelt’s Arsenal of Democracy that the population
began to grow again, surging to its maximum in 1950 with a
population of over 1.8 million people; making Detroit the fifth
largest city in the United States at the time.
However, after 1950, the population began to drop once
again, slowly at first, but accelerating over time.  By the year
2000, the population had collapsed to under a million, and by
2010 to 713,000; less than the population was a century before.
A more than 60% drop from its peak in 1950; a loss of over 1
million people.  This will only continue to accelerate at an
ever-increasing rate under the bankers’ dictatorship now
controlling the city. [END VIDEO]

OGDEN:  That was the despair and the crisis which really has
been many generations in the making in Michigan, in Detroit, that
Lyndon LaRouche was seeking to resolve when he called for a new
re-tooling of the auto industry back in 2012 to 2013, and even
prior to that around the bankruptcy of the Big Three
[automakers].  What he was calling for at that time, was to say
“Let’s re-tool the auto industry, and let’s use this machine tool
capability — the ‘make anything’ industry — to build the kinds
of lock and dams, the bridges, the high-speed rail, the
components for nuclear power plants; the kind of materiel that
you would need to mobilize an emergency economic recovery of the
United States.  The fact that that wasn’t done, has created even
worse conditions of impoverishment and despair.  As you pointed
out, Bill, some of the pockets of the worst opioid epidemic are
in these former industrial, former skilled labor communities.
This is the constituency which elected President Trump, but what
has to happen if President Trump is going to deliver on the
promises that he made?  How is this going to mobilized?  What
kind of economic recovery, what form is that going to take now
from the standpoint of the Midwest?

ROBERTS:  Well, if the news media had actually reported what
Trump did when he was in China, Trump secured $254 billion in
direct investment into these various states you’re talking about.
West Virginia, which has been decimated by Obama and by the drug
epidemic, West Virginia is set up to receive $84 billion in
direct investments from a Chinese company, as a result of the
trip that Donald Trump took to China and the friendly cooperation
of China and the United States, facilitated through these two
leaders — the President of China and President Trump.  Now,
that’s more money than any known proposal proposes to have the
Federal portion, the Federally-funded, matched portion of
investment in U.S. infrastructure.  You look at any plan coming
from Democrats, that’s more money than the Federal government is
going to capitalize in an infrastructure program.  So, the first
question on anyone’s mind who now knows that — if you tell that
to them — since the media is not readily reporting that is, “How
is China able to invest so much in infrastructure?”  Of course,
the answer is that China has an American System policy bank;
that’s how China is able to capitalize these vast development
programs across the continent of Asia into Africa.
Now of course, China and Japan are both willing to put
probably a total of about $1 trillion or more into capitalizing a
policy bank in the United States.  It doesn’t have to be a direct
investment.  A number of direct investments by China were
rejected on the basis of supposed security concerns.  So, they
don’t have to be direct investments, but we can simply capitalize
a national bank and then utilize the approach we have in the
past, such as a new gas tax, to finance such debt, such a
national banking structure.  I think this is something that used
to be very commonplace; this is how Franklin Roosevelt did
things, this is how Abraham Lincoln did things, and it’s a kind
of forgotten method.  If this would have been reported that, in
fact, this is the dynamic that exists in the world that is
driving massive development throughout the planet, then everyone
would be talking about this already.  Everyone would be wanting
to know how China is able to do this.  They would be demanding
that the very Henry C Carey system that the Chinese love to study
so much is exactly the basis on which we now unleash a 10-15 year
process of massive infrastructure investment; and that the way
that you pay for this, is through massive revolutionary
breakthroughs in technology keyed off of breakthroughs in the
manned space mission and the expansion of NASA, and in fusion
power.  That it’s the revolutionary scientific advancements, not
money per se, which actually is what pays for this process.  The
Chinese understand this, too; which you can see in their fusion
program and in their highly developed and growing space program.
The media has certainly been aiding and abetting an
unfortunate process in this country; where the elections will
tend to be very partisan, low level, least common denominator
kinds of discussions; hot-button topics.  But it doesn’t have to
be.  Everything that we’ve just gone through here in terms of the
history of how the United States has been a productive country
and has been a scientifically revolutionary country driven by the
machine tool sector, and has had institutions that make it
possible to finance such revolutionary developments; that these
are not only available to the United States, but that this is
already a process driving most of the world.  In fact, the
President of the United States has been the most open President,
and is very open to working with these other countries within
this very sort of dynamic.  So again, our objective — we have to
sort of evangelize; because there are so many people out there
who, if they simply knew what was happening in the world and if
they had the LaRouche Four Laws solution at their fingertips,
they would gladly demand it.  They would gladly reach across the
aisle to work — Republicans working with Democrats on mobilizing
big Federal expenditures for infrastructure; Democrats gladly
dropping the insane anti-Trump tirades, and instead urging him to
break with Wall Street, and reach across the aisle and work with
Republicans who are willing to collaborate on an anti-Wall Street
policy, an American System policy along with Trump.  So, we found
tremendous openness.
But we don’t want to just go to the candidates for the
endorsement and for them to campaign on these policies — on the
New Silk Road, on ending the coup against the President, and on
LaRouche’s Four Laws.  But rather, we want to get to their base
of support — the skilled labor unions, the professional
organizations, the engineers, the voting blocs in general and the
state legislatures, the super constituents.  We have to have an
accelerated process of educating these individuals on the unique
LaRouche solution that you are not going to get from the party
leadership at this point, who are really too much stuck in the
old paradigm.  But if we introduce these constituents to the New
Paradigm, sure, of course, gladly they will take that instead of
this lame discussion that you’ll otherwise get at these
candidates’ debates.

OGDEN:  And LaRouche PAC is uniquely positioned to do that;
that’s why it’s so necessary that we put out this platform, this
statement of intent and that we’re conducting a national
mobilization.  LaRouche PAC, especially there in the Midwest with
the productive labor force, the working class constituency,
LaRouche PAC has an extraordinary amount of authority on the
ground among those kinds of labor organizations and productive
workers.  I would say also Bill, you personally have an
extraordinary amount of authority because of what you have been
engaged in there for years; including, as I mentioned at the
beginning, a Congressional campaign that you ran in 2012 there.
You got 41% of the vote in the 11th Congressional District there
in the 2012 Democratic primary.
Now, I’d actually like to play a clip for our viewers of
testimony that you gave in front of the Detroit City Council in
2012, when this entire rigging of the LIBOR rate came up and the
city was dealing with “Oh my gosh!  How are we going to repay
these debts and are we going to have to declare bankruptcy?”
Here’s the intervention that you made around Glass-Steagall and
the necessity of immediately instituting this kind of Franklin
Roosevelt policy.  So, this is testimony from July 24, 2012 at
the Detroit City Council.

ROBERTS

:  My name is Bill Roberts.  I am running for
U.S. Congress, and I do so for the same reason I’m here today,
which is that if I were not here to say what I’m saying today, no
one would say it.  I’m calling on the Detroit City Council to
reject any cuts that endanger the lives of human beings, and
instead to publicly call for and fight for the reinstatement of
House Resolution 1489, the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall; which
both Congressmen from Detroit are co-sponsors of, to break up the
too-big-to-fail banks.  The reason why I bring this up today is
because it is clear that 75% of major cities enter into interest
rate swaps.  These interest rate swaps were rigged against cities
at the highest level; at the LIBOR — the London Inter-Bank
Offered Rate.  This is murder.  This is not insider trading; this
is murder.  It has resulted in cuts to departments that have
killed people.  There are people at the highest level involved in
this.  I call upon the Detroit City Council to stand up and have
the guts to tell the private bankers that they are going to jail.

OGDEN:  Now, within the next year, Detroit was forced to
declare bankruptcy under Rick Snyder and financial manager Kevyn
Orr.  And exactly one year later, in July of 2013, Lyndon
LaRouche went on record and was asked what has to be done to save
the city of Detroit, to save the entire industrial heartland, and
what kinds of solutions are on the table?  He talked about
Glass-Steagall, but he talked about an expanded Glass-Steagall
solution.  So, I’d like to just play this clip from Lyndon
LaRouche for you.

LYNDON LAROUCHE:  What is the situation of the United States
in terms of its economic development over the period, say the
last really effective Presidency went down?  What happened,
particularly with two terms of the Bush family and this latest
phenomenon, is that the economy of the United States virtually
does not exist.  And that’s true in the case of the auto industry
in particular, which is the center of this whole thing with
Detroit, is the auto industry.  It’s not just the auto industry
in Michigan, nor is it in the northern states around Michigan.
It goes all the way through the entire system — north, south,
east and west.  The U.S. economy does no longer function!  And
there is no hope for this nation under the present conditions,
unless we change those conditions radically.  Therefore, we have
lost the auto industry.  Do you know how important the auto
industry was?  Do you know how important back in 2005 and so
forth when we fought to save the auto industry?  And I was
playing a leading part in that fight.  Do you realize what
happened when the auto industry went down?  Do you realize that
we no longer are a nation capable of meeting our own needs?  Look
at the food supply.  What’s the food supply of the United States?
How do parts of the farm area work?  Nothing works!  Especially
since George W Bush became President.  Since that point, there
has been a disintegration throughout Europe and throughout the
United States and other parts of the world.  We no longer have a
sustainable economy.  What we have is the possibility, with
special efforts, to revive the economy.
Now, what we’re going to have to do — we’ve got some people
in Detroit, for example.  They’re unemployed, essentially.  There
are few of them left in the other odd industries that they fled
into as machine tool specialists and so forth.  What we’re going
to do is create a new industry, based on the core of the skilled
people who can play a key leading part in assembling a
replacement for what used to be called the auto industry.  The
real name for the auto industry as it was since World War II, is
the machine tool industry; that’s its character.  So, our job is,
in the case of Detroit, you cannot solve this economic problem by
sitting there or by following some politician’s recipes.  What we
can do is seize control of the situation.  Only through
Glass-Steagall can we save the United States; otherwise the
United States is doomed without Glass-Steagall.  Because there is
no agriculture, there is no machine tool system, there is no
labor production of any significance; that’s it.  So therefore,
unless we get Glass-Steagall in, we will not be able to make an
immediate change from the kind of economy on which you’re
operating now, which is a hopeless failure.  By changing quickly
to bring agriculture back, to build up the water systems that we
need for feeding our people; all these things depend upon
Glass-Steagall.  Not just Glass-Steagall itself, but an expanded
version of Glass-Steagall.
Therefore, the issue is, unless we can seize the hands of
power in the United States and organize the government to behave
like the government, not like it’s been doing recently; and go in
there and put Glass-Steagall into effect quickly.  Having done
that, we’re going to have to — in addition to Glass-Steagall —
we’re going to have to create a credit system to supplement
Glass-Steagall in order to finance the things that have to be
built up in terms of production which are needed to restore this
nation.  Without those actions, there’s no hope.  You don’t have
a chance; there is no other option.  Grab the United States; put
it back to business as best you can, and use some innovation.
But above all, apply Glass-Steagall as I know how to do it; and
some other people also know.  The very fact that we restore the
confidence of the people in their own nation — that is, the
United States — by taking immediate action; which means large
amounts of fundraising and fund contributions to get farming and
industry back going immediately.  We have to have — just as
Roosevelt did during the period of the onset of the Depression,
his first years.  We had people; we put them to work.  They
weren’t really producing anything; they were stuck in there with
shovels and picks and so forth out in the streets.  They weren’t
really producing things, but they were there; and they had a job.
And they had the beginnings of a family income, and they had a
future.  That’s what Roosevelt gave them, and that’s what we now
have to give the people of the United States.  We cannot give
them much, because the friends of the Bush family have stolen so
much there’s not much left for real people.  But we can restart
the process of production; restart that; and that we can do.  And
that we {must} do.  Without Glass-Steagall, we cannot do it.
So, the lives of the people of the United States depend upon
Glass-Steagall.  And Glass-Steagall can only be delivered by
Glass-Steagall Plus.  Glass-Steagall Plus means that we’re going
to take the junk that is junk, and we’re going to cancel it.
Most of this banking crap is worthless; there’s no value in it.
So why are we continuing to bail it out in a hyperinflationary
rate?  We don’t need it.  Put the thing through processing, and
you will find that when you go through the paperwork, all these
banking systems, the Wall Street crowd, all of them; how much of
these things they claim they own are actually real?  I don’t know
if they could come out with a penny of it for a giant.  So
therefore the point is, we have to restore the United States; get
rid of this crap, and do what Franklin Roosevelt did.  It’s going
to be more difficult than what Franklin Roosevelt faced in his
time, but the principle is, we’ve got to do it.  That’s the
answer; we’ve got to do it and get the message across to the
people.  That’s the only thing; there is no other chance.  Forget
this Republican nonsense; they’re just wolves trying to find a
place to bark in.  But that’s the answer, and there is no other
answer.

OGDEN:  So, that was from 2013, but as you can see, that’s
the core of Lyndon LaRouche’s Four Economic Laws; that’s the
entirety of the program.  That’s the kind of voice of authority
that we have to come into the scene with, and speak with that
kind of forcefulness, that kind of authority.  That’s exactly the
voice of Lyndon LaRouche that this constituency bloc can be
formed around.  As I said, what Trump tapped into — whether he
knew it or not — is indeed the LaRouche constituency there in
the heartland, in the industrial Midwest.
So, Bill, I just wanted to let you make some concluding
points, but this is the theme.  We can very rapidly take this
so-called Rust Belt and bring it into the Belt and Road
Initiative; and bring the New Paradigm of great projects into the
Midwest and awaken that kind of optimism.  So, Bill, I invite you
to just go ahead.

ROBERTS:  Well, I think what Lyn said right there is
absolutely key; that’s it.  People got brainwashed into thinking
that money is the key to wealth; that money is economy.  And Lyn
said “No. Cancel a lot of that money.  We don’t need the money.”
People said, “Cancel the money?  How can we do that?”  The point
is, you don’t need it, and what you need is, you need the machine
tool capability, you need the advanced farming, and you need the
things that go along with that.  I wish we would have had a
graphic in terms of where the funding goes in a national credit
system, because that’s really what he was addressing here.  But
the key is, you need the credit.  We can build everything we need
to.  The people, the “toolies” in these areas as they call them,
in these counties where people switched profile and voted for
Trump; they understand this.  They understand how what is central
to an economy; what is essential to a productive workforce.  The
issue is credit.  You don’t need Wall Street trying to make
11%-12% off of any money that they loose from their hands.  What
you need is to organize the credit; then the people can build the
economy.  You don’t need the straitjacket of this monetary
system.  In fact, if Trump doesn’t move against this Wall Street
financial bubble, this will bring the country down.  It’s a
ticking time bomb right now, waiting to go off; as William White
and others have said.  This thing is ready to go.  If this is not
moved against with the Glass-Steagall policy, we’re looking at a
complete and utter disaster.  But the good news is, we don’t need
it.  It’s simply that the American citizenry, the people watching
this today, have to take it as a personal challenge that we have
to create among these constituencies of the country, the notion
that there is a standard of competence for Federal office.  That
standard of competence is the comprehension of this principle;
this non-monetarist credit system principle that we have been
discussing today.
I guarantee that if you do that, people will listen.

OGDEN:  Well, let me put on the screen one more time “A
Campaign for Victory: The Campaign to Win the Future”.  This is
the electoral platform that LaRouche PAC has put out for 2018.
And Bill, you’re right in the middle of mobilizing the
constituencies there in the Midwest.  We need a national
mobilization to endorse this platform; not only candidates for
office, but Bill, as you said, the building trades, the labor
unions, the productive workers, the agricultural organizations.
These are the constituency bases that need to come to understand
this as principle.  The link is there on the screen:
LPAC.CO/YT2018.  This is the LaRouche PAC election platform for
2018.
We’ve got a lot of work to do, because it is our
responsibility to communicate what you just said, Bill.  This is
a non-monetarist principle; it means that you have to raise your
level of comprehension of what economics is really all about.
This is not monetarism, this is not Wall Street; this is a
question of what makes mankind a unique creative species, and how
is that reflected in national economic policy.  So, that’s what
is contained in the LaRouche PAC 2018 Campaign to Win the Future.
We ask you to join our mobilization; endorse this, and become a
part of what we’re doing nationally.  This is our strategy for
victory.
So Bill, thank you very much for joining me here today.
It’s good to hear from you; it’s good to hear what’s happening
out there in the Midwest, and we look forward to being in touch a
lot more.  I think we can look forward to a real mobilization.
So, thank you very much.
And thank you for tuning in to larouchepac.com.  Please stay
tuned; we have a lot of work to do, and we’ll see you next week.
Thank you.  Signing off, this is Matthew Ogden.  Good night.