March 26, 2010
The topper to Harley Schlanger’s visit to Utah was Jack Stockwell’s show Friday morning. LaRouche Youth Movement member and Democratic Candidate for U.S. Congress from Texas’s 22nd District, Kesha Rogers, opened the first 30 minutes, demonstrating why qualified optimism, combined with ruthless determination, can overcome long-entrenched axioms. Stockwell’s regular Friday philosophical pessimist, Paul, was in the studio with Schlanger, to provide a useful foil for Rogers. He continued to do so for the next 90 minutes with Schlanger, during which Stockwell asked Schlanger to present the European intellectual precedent for the American Revolution and U.S. Constitution. Schlanger reviewed the intellectual tradition from Nicholas of Cusa and the Renaissance, through Kepler, Leibniz and Bach, to the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Benjamin Franklin. When Paul said, “This is just `LaRouche 101,’ Schlanger tore into him, as to how what he thinks is legitimate pessimism becomes nothing but an excuse for accepting the degeneracy which he claims to abhor.
Callers into the program were unanimous: We want to hear more from Rogers and Schlanger, and less cynicism. When Paul belittled Schlanger’s discussion of how classical culture, especially tragedy and polyphonic music, is a necessary precondition for what Paul called “spiritualism,” callers intervened again — one said Mozart is better than modern music, another said that LaRouche is right, only a real Renaissance can change our society. Another called in to say he was sending a $200 check to Kesha’s campaign. In the end, Stockwell gave a very beautiful summary, saying that, thanks to Lyndon LaRouche, he is now optimistic, and, thanks to Harley Schlanger, he thinks it is possible to provoke people without making them bitter, but desiring, instead, to know more, and, thanks to the LaRouche Youth Movement, he has hope that young people can be inspired to make their own discoveries.
[An audio file of this interview will be available shortly.]
