Richard Freeman, of the Economics Desk of EIR, was the guest on this week's TLO Fireside Chat. Mr. Freeman heads up a team completing a major Schiller Institute report and policy proposal to solve the huge crisis ongoing in Haiti, which report is scheduled for publication in the EIR Online of Sept. 30.

After the Haitian earthquake in 2010, causing the deaths of more than 300,000 people, Lyndon LaRouche proposed a major reconstruction program for the nation: it was not acted on during the Obama Administration. Now, with the 2021 earthquake, and the assassination of the President, the much-worsened situation has generated a huge humanitarian crisis within Haiti, and internationally—with the refugee crisis on the US-Mexican border and much more. EIR will outline the urgent steps to address this with an immediate mobilization for water, health, power, transport infrastructure, and the US role in this. 

In discussing this situation, Freeman cited Lyndon LaRouche from 2004, “In my view, you always go to the worst case, to set a policy. In your own country, you look at the poorest layer of our population, and say, ‘Will this policy work for their children and grandchildren?’ And if it works for the poorest ones, justly, then it’ll probably work for everyone—as Franklin Roosevelt defined that: Always go to the “forgotten man.” Take the person who’s the greatest victim, of injustice or neglect, and start there; and prove that you are really for the general welfare of people, by showing you’re willing to face that problem. Look it in the eye and talk about curing it.”