LaRouche: State of the Union Address, 2003

- President Whose Downfall Would Be Yours -
page 4

- President Whose Downfall Would Be Yours -

When I first scheduled this address, it was assumed that President George W. Bush, otherwise known as ``43,'' would have made his address a week earlier, and that I would be responding, essentially, to his address. But for some reason, because of his advisors or because he wanted to hear what I had to say first, he changed his mind, or changed his schedule, and is now speaking about seven hours from now, later tonight; and I hope he does take time out to respond to what I have to say today. It's important that he hear it.

Around the country, there are many Democrats, and some others, who are hoping that George Bush--that is, number ``43''--will stumble. At present, to the best of my knowledge, the President and his advisors as I know them, haven't the slightest idea in the world, of what to do about the present world economic situation, the domestic economic situation, or the strategic military matters of the world. Everything I'm getting, and I'm getting it from fairly good sources--they don't know which end is up. They're trying to play pool under the table! And it doesn't work too well.

But many people are gloating over this, and saying ``Ahh, now we can beat George Bush in the coming 2004 election.'' That is a stupid, counterproductive operation.

Admittedly, George Bush ain't much. But, he's a sitting President--however he got the job, which I credit largely to the efforts of Al Gore, he {is} the sitting President--and there are certain categories of decision which must come across his desk and be made by him. He is surrounded by a Presidency, which is a lot larger, of course, than him--he is not a very large person; he lifts weights, but he hasn't got {that} kind of weight--and in the Presidency we have the military; we have the regular serving military; we have retired military, who are very important; we have other institutions which are concerned about the military questions, such as the intelligence institutions; we have people who are in government, or have been in government, who are influential around the Presidency, who can help to shape economic policies; they know how things work in government.

Looking at it from the other side: If I were President today, I would know that as a person there is very little I could do, without the support of these institutions.

And therefore, we must think, not only about the President as such, as an individual who's going to make the decisions all by himself. He cannot competent decisions and implement them; he depends upon the institutions, chiefly, of the Presidency: military, intelligence, and so forth and so on; including people who are no longer in office, but who have great influence on office because of their reputations and standing in the past.

So therefore, what I must do, since I understand this problem far better than the President does, and probably far better than the Presidency as a whole does--certainly far better than the Democratic Party as a whole, or the Republican Party as a whole--I have a singular responsibility because of my knowledge, to present the policies which this incumbent President should be implementing. Our job is to make sure that he gets successfully through the next two years. Don't worry about how to make debaters points against him. His tragedy, his downfall, would be this nation's downfall, and your downfall. Start thinking as citizens, not as if you were in some kind of a barroom competition or debating society.

We must save this nation with a President who does not have the qualifications in himself, a President should have, for a crisis of this sort. I do. Therefore, I shall assume my responsibilities to him, as well as to our institutions and our people.

- When the Institutions Fail -This situation that now confronts us is not entirely unusual in history. We've had it before: in the period leading up to World War I; in the period of the 1928-33 run-up to the international crisis which started essentially in Germany; and through World War II. You come into crises around the world, in which popular opinion no longer works. What popular opinion says you must do, fails. Leading institutions, which have been habituated to react in a certain way, fail. The generally accepted assumptions of policy, fail. And you find yourself in something which should never have happened.World War I. Sure, it was the British Monarchy; especially the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, who organized World War I, to put the continent of Eurasia against itself so as to ruin it, so it could never become a challenge to the maritime imperial power of the British Monarchy. {But,} the war would never have happened if the Kaiser had not been a fool; if the Austrian Kaiser had not been a bigger ass than the German Kaiser; if the Russian Tsar had not been a fool; and if the French institutions under Clemenceau had not been virtually criminal, as well as the British. And therefore, it was a war which should never have happened. There was no justification for its occurrence. It should have been prevented. It was not prevented. And the ruin of Europe, as a result of that war to the present day, is a monster.The ruin of Europe by the First World War--the continent of Europe and Britain also--was worse than the ruin that Europe suffered in the Second World War. A piece of folly! Because nobody, including the leading parties, the heads of state, were willing to come to a sensible conclusion at that time.1928-33. There was no reason for that Depression to happen! Wilson was probably the leading author of that Depression, with his crazy, racist ideas. This man was {President}, and from the White House, re-organized a mass creation of the Ku Klux Klan! And this was President? The man was an evil fool, and the Democratic Party picked him--with the help of Teddy Roosevelt, who made his election possible. The Depression should never have happened. The policies at Versailles, which led to the Great Depression of the late 1920s, should never have happened. But nobody would stop it!World War II should never have happened. I'll refer to that again, but coming to the point: War is not inevitable! A war in Iraq is not inevitable. Unless cowards permit it to happen, and fools in government, it will never happen. Because Iraq is not a nation to be bombed. Iraq is not a theater of war. It is a detonator of war; a war which would become a worldwide war--the same kind of foolishness which we saw in the first two World Wars, the two World Wars of the last century, and in the Depression. This must be stopped, now!Anyone who says you've got to go to this war, because of this reason--they don't know what they're talking about; they're fools. It must not happen.

Next Page

|| - page index - || - chapter index - || - download - || - Exit - ||