Leesburg Cadre School Presentation
Cadre School Discussion, Questions and Answers, Part I (below)
Cadre School Discussion Questions and Answers, Part II

Meet Lyndon LaRouche
Dialogues Since September 11, 2001
Highlights of Activities of the Schiller Institute

Lyndon LaRouche Cadre School Discussion Nov. 11, 2001

A Socratic Dialogue: We're In a Revolutionary Period

QUESTION: Channel 33, a couple of weeks ago, in Arlington—they showed one of the interviews you had done; your predictions were great. I have two questions: One, since you were in prison, do you have the right to vote now? And two, I wanted to know, what are you doing differently to get your message out. I've just really gotten into politics the last six years or so, and I've just really started hearing about your ideas just recently, so, what are you doing differently to pass your message along? And, how do you communicate with people who really don't want to know these things? [laughter in the room] I mean, it's the oddest situation, because people are saying—the media comes out, and says, "Well, we've got to censor these things," and they're bragging about the fact that their censoring these things. And the public says, "We don't want to hear these things. We don't want these things to go on." So, I'm just curious: How do you get your message out now?

LAROUCHE: Well, we have no problem getting our message out; it's just that some of my associates have problems in getting the message out, not we—I don't have any problem. The point is, that the message goes out very effectively. My impact on U.S. politics is probably the highest of any individual not in a leading public position. The news—the so-called mass media—is my enemy. Now, they have not failed to give a lot of attention to me in the mass media. If you go back to, say, 1986, for example, the density of attacks on me, daily, in the leading television and other mass media in the United States exceeds that of any other individual outside of major public office. So, if people tell you I'm not known, I'm not getting the message out, you're being misinformed. We're doing an excellent job. I probably have more impact on international policy today than anybody who's not in the highest position of government. So, don't worry about that.

Now, the voting business: Because I was so successful, the enemy had to decide whether they were going to kill me, or just simply try to defame me, and cripple me. So they tried to cripple and defame me. They didn't succeed. I now have more fame and more influence around the world than I ever had before. So, that didn't work. And they did take the vote away. Now, also some of my friends goofed up, and I was going to get my vote back, but some of my friends in Leesburg just slopped up the job, and that wasn't taken care of; that's the only reason that didn't happen. But, there's no problem.

I have no problem in being effective. Some of my organization has a problem sometimes in being effective, because they're too defensive. If you know you're right, and the other guys are wrong, or foolish, then, you go out and you tell the truth. But the impact I had on the world, on just that one broadcast, interview I had on Sept. 11, between 9 and 11 in the morning [of Sept. 11], that morning, Eastern Daylight Time, has had great reverberating effect upon nations around the world. I don't think anybody else can say they've been quite that effective on that issue. So, I really don't have a problem.

But, there are people who have the illusion that I have such a problem. I have enemies: The mass media's an enemy; they lie all the time. But, there's no one in a high position in government, or in important positions who does not know my name, and does not know I'm out there are functioning. And this is not only true inside the United States; this is true internationally.

Q: That, I understand. I understand how you can say you affect policy. [But,] I'm an African-American male, so, I want to know: How can other African-American males, other people, middle-class people, be educated? I mean, these things you're saying are good things, are things that— they're good opinions, or, they're different opinions, but, if the majority of Americans, middle-class Americans, are going to the media to get their information, how are they going to become educated?

LAROUCHE: Well, if they don't listen to me, they're going to be dead! So, you don't have to worry about that.

Q: Well, how do they know... My point is, let's take the last election: 91% of African-Americans—economically we're suppressed; education—we're down—if 91% of African-Americans got together and said, "This is something that we're for. This is in a direction that we want to go in. We're nervous about this...."

LAROUCHE: Yeah, but, many people voted for Gore, which is about the most foolish thing they could do.

Q: Well, I think they didn't vote for Gore; they voted against George Bush. Most....

LAROUCHE: Well, that's the same thing. That was foolishness; they could have voted for me. They didn't.

Q: A lot of them wanted Ralph Nader, and they were afraid.

LAROUCHE: No, they didn't want Ralph Nader. They're cowardly, that's all. Look, the leadership of the real African-American constituencies is largely centered in institutions such as the state legislatures, and trade union organizations, and things like that, outside the churches as such. And that overlaps the churches. Now, over the years, our relationship to these leaders on this level has been excellent. They know me; they know what I stand for. They praise me often. They say, "Well, we like you, but you have too many enemies, and if we're gonna get favors, we have to kiss butt." And so, they kiss butt! And Nader was kissing butt; there was no point to vote for Nader. He wasn't an alternative. They could have all voted for me in the primary. Many of them, when they came under pressure from the Democratic Party leadership, and from Al Gore, in particular, said, "We have to vote for the Democratic Party leadership, and Al Gore, to stop Bush." As a result of those shenanigans, they got Bush. And perhaps Bush will turn out not to be as bad as Gore would have been.

So, this is the kind of foolishness!

The point is, you've got a mentality, which I fight against, among African-Americans and others—this is not universal. There are notable exceptions. But, the African-American still thinks he's a slave. Too many. As a result of thinking you're a slave, what do you do? You go up to the back door of the big white house of the slavemaster, and you try to negotiate favors. And you say, "Don't give me my freedom; I'm not going to demand that. Just give me some reparations, so I can walk around with some money in my pocket." And, that's what happened. They went out for reparations, or went out for other kinds of things. They sold out!

Now, what's our problem? My problem is with the people. It's not with the enemy. The enemy knows who I am, and I know who they are. It's my own people, that are the problem. That is, African-Americans, for example: My own people, who I support, who I defend. The problem is, they keep going into the camp of the enemy. It's like, you know, you find this woman who loves you; she's going to marry you, and you find her in a house of prostitution one day! You say, "Wait a minute! You love me?" "Yes!" "Well, why do you go in the house of prostitution to work?"

Q: Well, I think that since Roosevelt, I think that African-Americans—they support Clinton. Since Bill Clinton came along—I know Bill Clinton—a lot of African-Americans—they weren't in love with Bill Clinton, but they thought that, this is an alternative that we've never actually seen, where he puts a better face up there, and I think that was a sign [?]... I haven't even voted; I'm 34, and I was totally disillusioned, until Bill Clinton's second election, when I started actually getting into it. I think it's difficult for a lot of African-Americans to come to resources like this, resources like you.

LAROUCHE: It's difficult because they're afraid. Because, look, if you come from a group in society, as most African-Americans do—they know they're being beaten down. Even though they may have this—they know they're second-, third-class citizens, when it comes to the people in power.

Look: Both parties, both party leaderships—the Republican Party and the Democratic Party—are run by racists. Nixon, in 1966-1968, in '66, had a meeting with the leadership of the Klan, and also, Trent Lott of Mississippi, down in the Southern states, and cut a deal with the racists! And I mean Ku Klux Klan-type racists. Then, in the 1960s, the Carter crowd, fearing that Nixon was going to take over the country by getting the racists on his side for the Republican Party—this was the so-called "Southern Strategy" of Nixon—said, "We gotta fight the Southern Strategy," said the Democrats. So, they said, "We're gonna get a racist of our own on the Presidential ticket. It's called Jimmy Carter." He was owned by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who's a real nut. Carter did more to destroy the U.S. economy, and the general welfare—including the welfare of African-Americans—than any other President since 1966! This guy. And, people voted for him. And they continue to do this!

The problem has been, that people say, "We can't win. You have to pick the lesser evil." And guess what they get? EVIL!

Now, my problem is very simple. It's to be patiently impatient with my African-American and other friends, who have this problem. And, I'm not going to desert them; I'm going to stick with them, and sooner or later, they've got to come around to my way of thinking about this. And when that happens, we're going to start winning.

If you look at the history of the African-American struggle for civil rights in the United States: Remember, the Democratic Party cancelled civil rights in the 1996 election. They cancelled it. And moved to cancel it again, and succeeded, in the year 2000 election. And African-Americans, knowing that, turned out to vote for the party leadership, on the Gore ticket, which had moved successfully to nullify the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Q: I don't know. I have a hard time understanding [how] African-Americans are afraid. I've only heard African-Americans protest this war. I've only heard African-Americans stand up and say, "This is wrong, with the media." I haven't heard mainstream, I haven't heard anyone else say it. African-Americans stand up, and they protest—I mean....

LAROUCHE: Sure, they protest. But that's not good enough.

Q: Well, I mean, they may have a choice between George Bush, who's electrocuted African-Americans left and right; and they have a choice between Al Gore, who's supported by Bill Clinton, who's giving them jobs, and a little bit of hope and insight into the future. I mean, African-Americans—this has been a struggle, a fight, forever. I mean, for the last 400 years...

LAROUCHE: Yeah, but people don't know the facts of the matter. They don't find the facts; the facts are there. Al Gore was a guy, in 1996, who acted to nullify the General Welfare Clause [of the Constitution], and to eliminate welfare rights. And he ran for President, from that point on, when it was announced that he was going to run for President four years later, on that program. That's what he's done. Al Gore moved to nullify the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Al Gore has done absolutely nothing for any African-American. Bill Clinton was foolish on this thing. Bill Clinton capitulated to Gore and the Southern Democratic Leadership Council of Al From and company—capitulated on this issue of welfare. And the suffering that's going on in the United States, which was increased, was increased by that.

So, the African-American didn't get anything out of that.

And when you choose the lesser evil, you get the evil you chose. Now, whether one is lesser or not, you'll find out later. But when you choose evil, whether you think it's lesser or not, what you're going to get is evil. The trick in this stuff, is to have the independence to stand up for what you really want, and what you really need. Find out what it is! And fight for it.

Q: You ran on the Democratic ticket, earlier. Are you still a Democrat now, or are you...

LAROUCHE: Yeah, sure.

Q: So, you're part of it then. I mean, if the Democrats...

LAROUCHE: I'm the opposition to this treason...

Q: But, I think a lot of African-Americans see Democrats and Republicans as the same now. Don't you need third parties, fourth parties, fifth parties?

LAROUCHE: No. I think we ought to take over the Democratic Party, for example, or else, make a new one. One of the two.

Q: What's the strategy to take over the Democratic Party?

LAROUCHE: It's coming apart right now. So, it's not much of a problem, is it?

Q: [Laughs] Well, everything is coming apart right now.

LAROUCHE: Of course! That's the point!

[Q: laughs] You're in a period, which some people call a revolutionary period. Things that people thought were impossible up to now, are suddenly not only becoming possible, but probable.

Q: So, where does the revolution come from—now that we see that it's possible for a revolution to take place in America?

LAROUCHE: Revolution comes from the top. When some leaders have the guts to do what I do: to stand up for what they know is true; don't sell out; don't go for lesser evils; state the truth of the matter; fight for it; and be patient with the people, hoping that the people will come to their senses in time, so that we can act in concert, and fix a few things.

Q: Great, great. Well, I don't want to take—I mean, I've been up here for a while [laughs]—I'll give someone else a chance.

LAROUCHE: I think it's all relevant.

Q: I've really enjoyed talking to you. Thanks a lot.

LAROUCHE: Okay. Good.

There Is No In-Between

QUESTION: Hi Lyn. This is from a contact of ours, friend, from Pakistan. He's a mathematician who works stocking food over at Giant right now, a typical Northern Virgina type. He was watching the UN General Assembly on TV yesterday morning, and was reflecting on your proposals, and was saying that what you're suggesting is ideal, that the New Bretton Woods/Eurasian Land-Bridge and so forth is a permanent solution for all our problems. Each nation has a voice, nations live like a family. And then his question was this. That this is very idealistic, but it's not possible in our lifespan. It needs revolutionary change in many states, many, many countries. You can't get there in one jump. What is a practical compromise between that ideal and today's world? I thought you'd like that question.

Lyn: Okay. There is no compromise. There is no middle ground. The leap is not only necessary, but is quite feasible at this time. Look at a few facts. Fact number one: The present international monetary and financial system is now disintegrating. It's finished. If you attempt to continue by certain secondary reforms, continue the present monetary and financial system, you will get the plunging of the entire planet into a new dark age, in which the level of population on this planet will drop below a billion people, maybe far below a billion, within a period of about a generation or so. In which most of the existing nations of this planet will disappear biologically; entire languages will disappear, over a generation or two of such a dark age.

Here's where we are: After 35 years of a process of decline, from the kind of economy and economic policy we had between 1945 and 1963, we have been, since about the middle of the 1960s, we've been on the downslide, since 1971, we've been under a self-doomed floating-exchange-rate monetary system. The planet is now collapsing, disintegrating. In the meantime, there are people in Eurasia, centered around Russia, China, India, Iran, other countries of Eurasia, which are moving into agreements. Now this includes people in Korea, government people, both North and South Korea; this includes Russia; it includes China; it includes Japan; it includes most Southeast Asian nations, including Malaysia; to some degree Thailand, Indonesia, Vietman, and so forth. These countries are moving to form a new kind of coalition of nations in Eurasia, especially continental Eurasia, to cut agreements with European countries that require markets for long-term agreements on transfering technology from countries that produce high technology, into countries which have a shortage of the high technology needed to improve their productive powers and solve their problems.

Now this is there.

We have in Egypt, which is a very influential African nation, an initiative in that same direction: to bring Africa into the same picture. We have people in leading positions in governments in the Americas, including some people in the United States, who agree with that orientation.

So, what we have is, we have two things: We have, on the one side, a collapsing system; the present system—forget what the news media say about Wall Street—this system is finished. There's no way that this system is not going to disintegrate into bankruptcy. That is: the present U.S. economy is now bankrupt. And that bankruptcy is going to hit very soon. And it's the bankruptcy, generally, of the international system; but the United States system is going down the drain in the immediate period, now. It's headed toward bankruptcy. Toward collapse.

All right. On the other hand, you have the alternative, from Eurasia and elsewhere, of people who agree with me, on a Eurasian development policy and a New Bretton Woods, in one degree or another, on a New Bretton Woods, but they're coming around to that. So therefore, you can have the choice now—the human race has a choice of accepting the kind of thing I have proposed, and which other countries are now working toward, or have proposed, and going down the drain, or the toilet, as you may call it, with the present system. So, there is no in-between. You either go down the toilet, or you don't. And if you don't do what we're talking about in Eurasia, you do go down the toilet. So, there is no in-between.

What there is, is an organizing process—and the problem is just this: As I've said a number of times, to understand the world presently, you have to understand that entire nations and peoples really don't have a sense of any power to change things. What they believe—and the ones who are better informed would tell you—that there are only three national cultures, still on this planet, which would think of changing the world system. The three are: the British Monarchy, which is very confident in its ability to define plans for the entire world; the United States people, as a national culture, will think in terms of initiating proposals to create a new world system; the Russians think the same way. Now China is a very independent nation, in its own way, and thinks about the world adjusting to China's needs, and will think in terms of cooperating with things it likes, and not cooperating with things it doesn't like. India is very much the same. Pakistan, of course, as you probably know, is in terrible condition, in terms of the economy and other kinds of things. But, essentially, the culture of Pakistan, or the people of Pakistan, they would tend to think in a way, not unlike India. You have Iran, which thinks similarly. So, you have countries, which, three countries, in which the national cultures enable them to think in terms of global systems. You have other countries which do not believe that they have the ability to initiate those kinds of changes. If you can put together one or two countries which do think they have the ability to initiate changes, and if you can bring to the same table, other nations who will participate in that kind of discussion, with a sense of their joint ability to do something about the world system, you can make major changes.

Now, that's the way I look at this process. Our process is to get people thinking in this direction, to get the influence of this kind of thinking inside various nations, and at the same time, to create the conditions under which more and more representatives, of more countries, come to the same table to think in terms of what they, as representative of a sovereign people, or what should be a sovereign people, are willing to discuss, in terms of what kind of a world we want to live in. This is the time in which that kind of a discussion must occur.

I don't know exactly when we can succeed. What I know is, what we can do now, is, day by day, further the process of discussion among people representing many countries, to bring more and more people who are typical of many countries, together, talking with each other about this problem. I think that's our best hope.

The Return of the 'Forgotten Man'

QUESTION: I'm a student at Howard University. One of the basic questions I wanted to ask you; you have a lot of good ideas I'm very interested in. However, to piggyback on what the last person said: It's like, America for years has been driven by the capitalist idea, the capitalist society. I think that you have a lot of good ideas, but the main idea I was trying to get out though, is, right now, the United States has a lot of concentration of the power around the world. [But,] I think everybody wants a little peace, and as America, we're still driven by the money; money's in a lot of the situations, ideas, and policies that we do. How can we change the ideas and progession [?] of the United States, to look past what would be, what's more economic, the best economic opportunity for them, and to actually ask, what would be better for the world in general, for the future.

Lyn: In 1947, I had a meeting with some friends of mine, and they were working on developing a process, which became known as "Xerox." Xerox became a leading company in the United States, highly successful. The word xerox became a name for copying anything: you know, "xerox this," "xerox that." You can almost xerox babies, you know, make babies by xeroxing them, or something. Now, Xerox just went belly-up. You're going to find many other corporations are going belly-up. You're going to find, right now, we're in a process—for example, Swissair went bankrupt; a major Canadian airline went bankrupt, liquidated; Sabena Airlines, the national airline of Belgium, went bankrupt. Others are going to go bankrupt. United Airlines says it's going to go bankrupt this coming year; it may not happen, but they say they're going bankrupt this coming year. They have a hopeless situation. Many other companies are going belly-up. Wall Street is going to go belly-up.

So, you have people who are— Go back earlier; I spoke of 1947, and the birth of Xerox, and the cycle of Xerox from inception to bankruptcy. Go back earlier: Go back to the 1920s, which I remember. I was still a child then, but I was a fairly active child and knew what was going on around me. Then, people were disgusting, almost as disgusting as they are today. That was the Flapper Era: People were totally immoral; and they were fascinated with Wall Street, in making money on Wall Street. Not as crazy as they've been recently, or today, but they were pretty crazy. Then suddenly, 1929-1932, '33: The Depression hit, and I saw the changes.

And then, in 1932, Franklin Roosevelt, who was then Governor of New York State, was running for the Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, and he went down into West Virginia, and he gave a speech on the subject of the "Forgotten Man." Now this was a time in which a lot of people thought of themselves as the Forgotten Man and Woman. They were out of jobs; whole communities were shut down economically. Disaster everywhere. And nobody seemed to care. And Roosevelt said, "Forgotten Man. We've got to do something about it." And then he was elected, and in March of 1933, he became President. And he set into motion a recovery process, which was not perfect, but it occurred. And it was a change in values of the American people, under the impact of the Roosevelt recovery program, from the kind of moral degeneracy which had been rather typical of Americans during the 1920s. We're in such a period now. People are about to lose everything.

Take the housing situation: You have a crazy housing bubble. You have a crazy situation in which many Americans, who are so-called "homeowners"—but they're actually mortgage victims—have mortgaged themselves up to prices which their houses won't sell for. They have their personal income—their personal expenditures at the grocery store, and similar places—depends upon the money they've raised by increasing the mortgage, the value of the mortgage on their house. Now these mortgages are about to collapse, this mortgage bubble which Alan Greenspan has created with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, this bubble is about to come down. There's already a collapse of a similar bubble in England in progress, the United Kingdom. It's coming here. What's going to happen to those poor people, who now have a house that may be listed at $400.000, $500,000 or more, up to a million, who, one day are going to find out they have not a million-dollar house which is mortgaged? They're going to find out they have a million-dollar debt on a house they can't sell for a couple-hundred thousand. So, this is the situation we're in. Whole communities are destitute; states are going bankrupt. These are the conditions we face.

So, the American people are in the process of receiving a great shock. For the moment, the shocking effect of Sept. 11 and the anthrax scare has occupied the attention of a lot of people, but also has distracted their attention from an ongoing shock: the economic shock of a collapsing system. We have to be alert to this. As again, in politics, I'm an older man, and I know something from history about being patient. You have to be impatiently patient about a problem like this. You have to be impatient to solve the problem, but patient about the fact that people may not be ready to move at just the time you think they should. That's my policy. I'm ready to to move. I'm initiating everything I can. The rest of us simply have to do the same thing I'm doing, but also, be patient. You're going to have to accept the fact, there's very little we can do that we want to do, on which we will not rely upon support from a lot of the American people, and others.

And that's what we have to do. We have to organize; we have to get our friends over the hump in facing reality. But on a day when they turn to us and say, "Hey, Joe, you were right. What do we now?" That's the time we can move, and that's what we have to prepare for. But we have to clear our heads in the process. We have to get clear heads about what has to be done, not just go with words, but clear heads, clear ideas. Because when people turn to you, and say, "Hey Joe, I agree. What do you do now?" You can't tell them things that aren't true; you can't tell them foolishness. You've got to have a clear idea of what should be done. You can't mislead people. That's our big problem.

Q:I just want to say: Keep on doing what you're doing.

Lyn: I shall. I shall.

Q:Some people are going to hate you whatever you do, but, say, yeah, that's right. All right then.

Lyn: Good. Have fun.

The Goof-Up in the Middle East

QUESTION:How would you speak to a Somalian, who says their country has been invaded by Moslems, some Arab, I think, and some Pakistani [Lyn: laughs], and who was disgusted at the way these people treat their women, and is also disgusted at the backing that the Americans gave them, and the bombing of Somalia back in the early '90s; how all the people of Somalia were kind of lumped into one category, and who is thoroughly convinced that Yasser Arafat is terrorist number one, and though she doesn't openly support the Palestinian assassination policy, or the bombing of Afghanistan, she's not about to oppose it.

Lyn: Well, let's take a quick tour of the horizon on this one. Go back to 1975: Nineteen seventy-five, I was in Paris on a meeting; I was supposed to address a conference of a group of Middle East and African nations, and others, including some French, Gaullist people. It was an international conference, to go on for about a week with me, on the subject of creating a new banking institution for the purpose of promoting development, and for discussing the question of the general reorganization of the financial system, following the Fall 1975 meeting at Rambouillet, which was the second phase of the floating-exchange-rate-system agreements. So, on this occasion, among the people I was working with, was the Ambassador of Somalia, and a number of Arab countries, chiefly. This was sabotaged by Henry Kissinger. But, let me indicate to you what Kissinger, as Secretary of State, was doing at that time.

Until 1975, during most of the postwar period, the Horn of Africa area had been an organized conflict, in which the United States, as represented under Nixon, by Kissinger, had taken over Ethiopia; while the Soviets, the East Germans, the Cubans, had set up an operation against Ethiopia, in Eritrea—which was the basis of the Eritrean mess now—and, at the same time, Somalia, which was a consolidation of two colonies, one British, one Italian, was protected, in a sense, or assisted, by the Soviet Union. Kissinger cut a deal, in which these people switched sides. Somalia went over to become an asset of the United States, of Kissinger; Ethiopia also; and Eritrea was told to behave itself, by the Soviets and others, because of the switch. So the Soviet influence took over Ethopia, while the United States took over Somaliland, and Eritrea was still a pot, simmering over the two conflicting movements.

As a result of this process, a war was organized between Somalia and Ethiopia over part of the territory. This war resulted in a degeneration in the area in which the formal government of Somalia was destroyed. And Somalia was turned into a collection of competing armed gangs. So this is typical of what was done in that area.

Now, on the question of the Middle East and Arafat: Arafat is, to all intents and purposes, an honest man. The agreement for the Oslo Accords, and the other agreements of peace, have been negotiated with Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization, with success. That is, everything which could possibly be reasonably agreed to, between Israel and the Palestinians, has been agreed to on the Palestinian side, by Arafat. You could refine it, you could make it more perfect, but the essential agreement was there. Each time we came to the point of agreement, we've had a goof-up. First of all, on the Oslo Accords: When the Oslo Accords were reached, I was pushing a regional economic development for the entire region, saying that, without economic development, there's no possibility of durable peace in the region. Therefore, a mere agreement to a peace settlement is not going to work, unless you have an economic complement to improve the conditions of life for all the people in the region: that would be the basis for peace.

Then came the World Bank, and put pressure on various Arab governments not to go with this kind of economic implementation of the Oslo Accords. At a later point, Bill Clinton, who has some good instincts, but sometimes doesn't carry them out too well, entered this negotiation between Arafat and Barak. Now, Barak was duplicitous, but Barak was under threat from the Israeli military command, and he was convinced that he would be assassinated if he agreed to economic development with Arafat, which Arafat and company were prepared to work on. Then, Barak, at the last minute, threw in a klinker, and demanded that the Muslim world agree, through Arafat, to turn over the second-holiest place in Islam, a mosque on a mountain there, in Jerusalem, called Al-Haram al-Sharif, and make it a Jewish temple to be taken over, actually, by certain American Protestant circles, who want to create the Battle of Armageddon, and similar kinds of festivities.

Arafat refused. Clinton, at that point, goofed. He was trying to maintain his relationship with Barak, was trying to pressure Arafat to make a concession to Barak on something that no Arab could ever agree to. And the President was wrong; Clinton goofed. All right; so Barak fell, as a result of this. Sharon came in—now, Sharon is not the worst; he's very bad, he's very evil, but he's not the worst. The Israeli military, which would kill Sharon just as quickly as you can say "Barak," or "Clinton," or "Arafat," keeps the thing under pressure. They are determined to have a war. They are backed in this, by Zbigniew Brzezinski, and similar people in the United States, who want this war in the Middle East. The President of the United States, President Bush, has been, so far, resisting that war, the start of that war in the Middle East, generally. The Europeans demand, including the British, that no such war be launched, but there's tremendous pressure inside the United States to push that war, from certain circles.

So, that's the kind of reality we have to look at, to understand this process.

Also, in the case of terrorism: forget the terrorism; there is no terrorism from Afghanistan, or from Osama bin Laden, of any significance to what happened on the 11th of September. This was a distraction. The truth was, the problem came from inside the United States. There is a force which is out to run a kind of coup against the President of the United States—against George Bush and company. They pulled this off for the purpose of trying to push through what Brzezinski calls the "Clash of Civilizations" geopolitical strategy. And that is, which means, including a war in the Middle East. So, as a compromise, the U.S. government decided to bomb Afghanistan, which is a no-win targetting operation, as a way of getting some pressure off the Bush Administration, and hopefully, to distract attention from the danger that the Israelis and others would force the launching of a general Middle East war.

These are the kinds of realities of the situation we deal with today. My answer to this is, we have to get to the truth of the matter, get the truth out. Don't go with the popular mythology; don't—if you see it on the mass news media—don't believe it. If your friends are looking at the mass news media, and they see something on it, warn them not to believe it. That what you see on the general mass news media, is either nonsense, that is, it has no relevance whatsoever, it's diversion, or it's absolute lies. And that's our problem.

So, we should just stick to our last; find the truth out, and get it out, and hope that people will understand something about how the world really works. And then maybe they'll understand how to do something about it.

Continue to Cadre School Discussion Questions and Answers, Part II