Reclaiming the Future
For Our Youth
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
The chairwoman and lead parliamentary candidate of the Civil Rights Solidarity Movement (BüSo) party in the Sept. 22 German national elections, gave this keynote speech on Sept. 1 to the Schiller Institute's annual Labor Day conference in Reston, Virginia. It was at this conference that Lyndon LaRouche launched a national youth movement as part of his Presidential campaign (see EIR, Sept. 13). Helga Zepp-LaRouche was introduced by civil rights heroine and vice chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, 91-year-old Amelia Boynton Robinson, of Selma, Alabama. We include here the questions and discussion which followed Zepp-LaRouche's speech, from among the 1,000 conference participants and others listening by Internet. Subheads have been added, and the slides shown by the speaker have been omitted.
Introduction by Amelia Boynton Robinson
I think, so often, of the times that we saw the pressure that was placed upon us, from the city fathers, from the county folk. And in discussing it with my husband, especially during the time they said, "Get out town: You're going to be killed! You'd better not be on the street. We're going to bomb your house." And, in discussing it, my husband would say, "Well, I don't mind dying, but I want to die for something." And he did. And I'm proud.
And I think about now, and so many people, who can give their lives for a cause, for a good cause. Because, why are we living, if we are not living to give? And, if we are not living to give for those who need it most—and certainly it is the young people, who are coming up, and who are innocent. And one way we can give, is to give love. Give understanding, and try to destroy the evils that we find, so often, that are planted in the schools, on the streets, those who are hungry for money. And there is a lot that we can do.
And it's good to ask ourselves, occasionally, "Why are we here? What do we have to contribute?" And we all can contribute love. We know that young children, or babies that are born, are sweet and very, very innocent. And often, the seed of hate is planted, unconsciously, in some cases; consciously, in some cases. I am reminded of a little African-American boy, who was taken to town. And while the mother was shopping, the little boy found the toy section, and he started playing with the toys. Then a little white girl came up, and started playing also. And there was a bond between the two of them, with reference to the toys.
The little girl's mother came up, and grabbed the little girl, and said, "C'mon here!"
And the little boy said, "I was playing was with my friend!"
"That's no friend of yours, he's a nigger! Come on here!"
And the little boy became confused. He didn't say anything, until, at the dinner table, he said to his mother, "Mom, why can't I play with my little friend, because `he's a nigger'?"
And that was the seed, the beginning of the seed of discrimination and hate. He went on through school, and there he found discrimination, he found hate. And it grew and it continued to grow, like a bump, that becomes a sore, and finally a cancer. He began to hate. He hated almost everything that he was not concerned with. And finally, color was not in it at all: He just hated; and that hate got to the place, where it spread to people of his own race, and his own family.
And that's what happened.
And what are we living for? Are we living to do away or to destroy hate? And that is one thing, I think all of us can do. And we need, also, to search ourselves, and realize that hate is a cancer. It starts off with just a feeling that, "I don't like this," and "I don't like that." And then finally, it becomes a cesspool, and hate destroys us. It destroys our minds. It destroys our thinking. It's a bulwark, that we cannot do anything, but just go in the line finding friends, who are like we are.
Ask ourselves the question, again: "What are we living for? And why are we living?" The answer should be, "We're living for generations that are here, generations that are yet to come."
We can compare the children to a young, tender plant. And, for us who like flowers, and like the growth of vegetation, it is wonderful to get a stick, or something, and straighten up a flower or a plant that is growing crooked. We can do this to a child. Because we know, that if we get the best of anything that is growing, that we like, it needs watering; we pulverize the soil, occasionally; and sometimes, we give them a little fertilizer—and always, tender, loving care.
We do this to youth, because we are preparing them for the future—we, who are adults, and, of course, those who are senior citizens, realize that it won't be long before we pass from labor to reward. No youth is too young, or too old, to be reclaimed. None is too old, or too young, to have self-awareness, but we must be the ones to give it to them. And to be able to teach them to have self-expression, because it gives one confidence. This also gives one self-esteem. And, the beautiful thing about it is, we can play an important part for getting them ready, to take their rightful places as adults.
And I think we should let them know the importance of politics, and what part they can play in politics. I often say to young people: "When you're 18 years of age, you are able, then, to go to war. If you do anything wrong, you're punished as an adult. Then, why not go to the polls? Register. In many places you're registered when you are born, but in America, we have different ways. Some of us get a certificate; some get a card. And, whatever way it may be, we can encourage them, to say, "That is a badge of first-class citizenship. That's a badge of honor. Wear it, and take your rightful place as an American citizen, as an adult." Then, go to the polls—register first, and go to the polls, and vote for the lesser of the evil, as we have many evil people who are running now.
And, not only that: Begin to think of running for an office. Yes, 18, 19, 20 years of age—they can start with the smallest: a commissioner or a councilor, or whatever smaller office there may be that is political. Because, we're going to have to clean out the corruption, so they may just as well start now: as a commissioner or as what we call a "city commissioner" in my section. And they can run for office, and see that their community, or the section where they are representing, may be cleaned out. See that the street lights are fixed, if they are broken or out. See that the potholes are filled. See that the grass is patched. All of these things, start lowly and go to the top. But we, as citizens, will have to "train them in the way that they should go. And, when they're old, they will not depart from it."
Every adult should be a role model: in the home, the community, the churches—wherever it may be, it is up to them to be leaders. And if the youth is one who is running for any type of office, we ought to guide them. We ought to be able to show them the right way: Because, if they take over now, it is terrible, because this country is worse than a jig-saw puzzle. And, if we were to turn the government over, now, to the younger people, what would they have? They would have confusion; they would have people who are corrupt; they would have robbers; they would also have thugs and thieves—we've got all of these, with government, often. And we have chicken hawks! They will be destroyed.
So, we have to clean out, now, as Lyn has said, "We've got a job to do, to clean out this country's political government." And place in it, one that will be acceptable to the young people.
You will hear more about that, from who was once a youth—[laughter] she knows and she is able to give you first-class information, because she has performed work in her profession, that put her in touch with young people, and with older people. And because of her determination, and the direction in which she has gone, in her profession; her love for humanity; her striving to touch each warped life, in order that she might put him or her on the right track to recovery; she was loved and admired by all who knew her. But, she could not be but one Queen, and one First Lady: And this First Lady, and this Queen, is one that I present to you, who will tell you the story of what we ought to do, to straighten out this country, and to have those who come behind them reclaim a country that we will be proud of.
Thank you.
Keynote by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
Thank you very much, Amelia. You are my sweetheart, and my beloved mother.
Well, what I want to do today, is I want to tell you how the world situation looks from a European point of view. And I want to also give you a report about the election campaign of the BüSo in Germany, and I want to tell you why we must do everything not to have this war against Iraq, and how easy it would be to put together a solution.
Crisis in the Atlantic Alliance
Now, much more than most Americans know, we have a gigantic crisis in the Atlantic Alliance, and I was actually quite amused to see that even the Washington Post this morning has a headline on the front page: "Diplomatic Gap Between U.S. and Its Allies Widens." Now, I would say, this is a very mild understatement, because, right now, you have an earthquake going on in the whole world. And I think it is very important that you know about this, because, unlike what some people are telling you, there is no, absolutely no support—except some crazy people in Britain around Blair—but otherwise, absolutely nobody in the world, who supports the war against Iraq. As a matter of fact, in the entire Arab world, in the Islamic world, in China, elder statesmen in Europe, young people, are horrified. And it is very clear, that much more than I have seen in the United States, in Europe, people are extremely clear about the connection of the financial crisis—the systemic end-phase of this crisis—and the insanity of the war drive.
Lyn's reputation in the recent period has gone up internationally, because people recognize that he was absolutely right in predicting the financial crisis, and his critics were wrong. This slide shows the headline of the German newspaper of our movement, reporting about the historic webcast Lyn did on Jan. 3, 2001, basically the day the Bush Administration came in, and you can see "LaRouche Says the Economic Crisis Will Run Over Bush." And, you remember also,
that until November 2000, the financial media and the politicians and Greenspan, they were telling you, that the boom will last forever, that you will never again have a crisis; that all you have to do is buy stocks and you will become a millionaire.
But, now we have a situation where this has collapsed; this was a headline in the Financial Times in July. It says "Lies and Treachery," and it discusses the discussion of how Enron and WorldCom and other managements filled their pockets with millions of dollars, while laying off 20,000, 30,000 people, and how they were all involved in fraud, in balance-sheet accounting lies, and insider trading, and how this has created a gigantic confidence crisis.
This is Welt am Sonntag: "When Does the Bubble Burst?"
Next: "Postwar Record in Bankruptcies," discussing basically the unprecedented waves of bankruptcies.
Next: Here you have a cartoon. Basically, it says, "Keep up the confidence. The markets will be fine." You can see, it's already over the edge.
Next: "Panic in the Stock Exchange. Investors in Panic Fleeing Out of Stocks."
Next: "The Second Great Depression Is Threatening."
Now, you should know that the perception that, between Argentina, Brazil, Latin America, the depression in Japan, the dollar collapse, the dollar crisis, the bankruptcy of the private households, the bankruptcy of communes internationally—people know that we are already in a second depression.
Next: Here it says, "Hoover and Bush," and it has the two curves of the stock markets in the '20s and '30s, and today. This is a formulation we coined.
Next: Here you have "Chaos in the U.S. Markets Propels Euro Above $1." And everybody knows that the reason the euro is going up, has nothing to do with the possible strength of the European economy, but is entirely due to the weakness of the U.S. and the dollar.
Next: "Bush Is Dramatically Losing Credibility."
Next: "The Growth Markets Are Now at the Crossroads." But look at the picture on the left: There you have Death, the Grim Reaper. So that's the image people have of the condition of the financial markets.
Next: Here, this is the new predator capitalism. You only see the eyes of a cat, with dollar signs in the eyes. But the article then goes on about the predatory nature of the capitalist system, meaning especially, the Anglo-American model of it.
Next: Here is Powell looking for a trace of the brain of George Bush, and he has a very hard time in finding it.
Now, you may remember, that before Sept. 11, these kinds of cartoons were all over the place, in England, in Europe, in continental Europe, and it all stopped abruptly when Sept. 11 came, and the whole focus shifted. But, as you can see, now these cartoons are back, and are part of the environment.
Now, what all our banking contacts, especially in Europe—in Switzerland, in Denmark, in France, Germany, England—they all are telling us, is that there is no question that the thing is over, the financial system is finished. One banker told us, "If we would admit the outstanding credit of our bank, we would have to write off so much, that the core capital of our bank would be minus; and that would be the bankruptcy of the bank." And that is the condition of all major U.S. banks, all major European and Japanese banks. And they also say that September will become so turbulent, that the Federal Reserve will run out of maneuvering room, completely.
Then, you have all these new Achilles' heels of the system, which could all trigger—and there is a general perception, it is only the question which of these Achilles' heels will trigger the final meltdown. One big factor is the fact that Saudi Arabia, which has now been put on the enemy list by some insane people inside the United States, is moving its money out of the dollar, but so are many other people; Asian central banks are replacing the dollar as a reserve currency with gold; Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia announced that from now on, Islamic countries will have trade among themselves, by balancing it through a gold-backed accounting unit.
Resistance to War
So, we have to expect, that this financial system will go into total, total turbulences in the next days and weeks, and that the war drive will get more hysterical to the extent that this is the case. But the resistance is gigantic. All of Europe, Russia, China, India—everybody is completely opposed to this war. End even in Great Britain, you have a large part of the military establishment who are opposing it. For example, the former chief of the defense staff, Field Marshal Lord Bramall, said, if now the United States would attack Iraq, it's putting petrol on the fire, rather than water. Sir Michael Quinlan, the architect of the nuclear deterrence under the Thatcher government, basically warned in the starkest terms that it's not only stupidity, but a crime, and will lead to terrible consequences for the United States itself.
‹scNext slide: Here, you have a reflection of this.
‹ecNext: Basically, people warning that if Blair does support Bush, then he will be ousted fairly soon.
Next: Here, this is a cartoon blasting the unconditional support of Bush for the Sharon government. "My vision is two states living side by side in peace and security." And then you have Sharon saying, "My ass!"
Next: Here, people are very upset about the new doctrine of the United States to have preemptive wars without proof of the guilt of a country. This is freaking people out, I can assure you.
Next: Here is a warning, that already the situation in Afghanistan is very far from being over. Remember that in November, there was a victory pronounced, but in reality, it's now a quagmire, and this will be nothing compared to what it would mean if the war against Iraq would start.
So, basically, the worry is that this will lead to an incalculable situation. On German TV, there was just a program by a famous journalist, with the name of Scholl-Latour, who travelled to the "land of evil," so to speak, to Iraq, and he travelled from the north to the south, and he gave the following report: He said not one country in the entire region wants this war; not Saudi Arabia, not Kuwait, not even Turkey. And it will not be like the last time, where basically air bombardment occurred. But this time, if the United States goes in, it will take a lot of ground troops, and then, there will be terrible urban guerrilla warfare. Because the Iraqi population has been bombarded for 11 years. And they are now resigned to their destiny, and they have a deep, deep anger, and their resistance will be fierce. Remember that the United States told the Shi'ites in the south, the last time, that they should go for a rebellion, which led to 300,000 people dying, and then, the United States abandoned them. So, the desire to do this again, is not exactly so great.
There is also, says Scholl-Latour, a perception in the entire region that Bush got himself locked in, that he can't go back, even if he wanted.
Now, the Europeans are absolutely terrified by this pattern of statements by Bush; by Rumsfeld, who compared Saddam Hussein to Hitler; by Cheney. I mean, they are just horrified, because they say that history shows, whenever you have a pattern of such statements, that then, this develops its own dynamic, and they can't actually get out of it.
Now therefore, the war is, as of now, happening, despite the opposition. But one should be very clear, that this will have incalculable consequences, and there is already a tectonic shift in the whole world as a result of this.
Now, if you remember that Lyn and I were, in the beginning of June, in Abu Dhabi, and I used the opportunity to watch television—not that I speak Arabic, but I just wanted to get an impression. And I can assure you, if Americans would see the same pictures about the massacre going on in the Palestinian territories, with tanks moving into houses where women and children are sitting—just, you know, with tanks just rolling over the houses; how wounded people cannot be treated by international aid organizations; I can only assure you that the whole Muslim Arab population is already horrified: How can the United States, which many thought would be their friend, how could they allow this?
So, I can only tell you that, if now, with the war in Afghanistan, which already catalyzed the Clash of Civilizations, if now, on top of this, you would have an attack on Iraq, the danger is, that the entire region, from the Maghreb, the Near East, the Middle East, the Gulf states, Pakistan, India, Indonesia—this whole region of the world would go up in flames.
And then, the big question is: What would happen with Russia? What would happen with the Russian military, who are not exactly happy that the United States is now sitting in various Central Asian countries—in Georgia, something which was always regarded by the Russian military as an absolute red line, which could not be crossed? What will happen to the reaction of China, which reacted very, very horrified about the fact that it was put on the list of countries against which the first use of nuclear weapons was a possibility, according to the Pentagon report?
Now, the point is, that if this attack occurs, and I talked about this with many people from Egypt, from Jordan, from other countries: If this attack occurs, the general view is that you do not have to give an order to commit terrorism, but you would have an explosion of terrorism worldwide. And, when I pointed out, "Yeah, but that then is exactly the kind of dark age which we are warning about"; then, many times you hear the answer, "Well, Inshallah, what else can we do? But that is going to happen."
So people should just know, we are sitting on a powderkeg, which is totally ready to go.
Then, on top of it, we had this insane briefing by the RAND Corporation, and this nobody, Laurent Murawiec, about how Saudi Arabia is the enemy number one of the United States, and how the United States should occupy the oil fields, directly. Now, put yourself in the minds of the Arab Muslim population, when you hear this: that the United States should just come, and occupy the oil fields.
A Shift in Germany
Now, this is why Schröder, who after Sept. 11, had said that Germany would have unconditional solidarity with the United States, has now completely shifted—and I must say that the BüSo campaign, for sure, had a big part in shaping the environment in Germany. And Schröder now says, that if such an attack occurs, Germany will not send one soldier. And the new defense minister of Germany said: Germany is not a vassal of the United States; if the United States attacks Kuwait, we will pull out the ABC Fox vehicles, which Germany has presently deployed in Kuwait.
Now, several of our military and security sources in Europe are worried, that because the opposition is so big, that the only way you could get this through now, is to have, like Sept. 11, a mega-terrorist event, and then claim these were biological or chemical weapons from Iraq, and then, go for the war without delay, so that no opposition can form itself: to create a fait accompli. If this happens—and we should crystal clear about it—then the world is on the road to Hell.
Now, what is very interesting is that many leading Europeans are speaking a language, which, in my memory, is completely unheard of. People who were strong Atlanticists, pro-American, pro-NATO, pro-Israel, never having any criticism of the United States, are now speaking a completely different language. For me it was among the most surprising things that the former chief editor of the conservative German daily Die Welt, Herbert Kremp, had three articles in Rheinische Merkur, and then in some other papers as well: "Are the Americans the Romans of Modern Times?" And then, he basically says, that the United States is in the process of building an empire, more driven than planned. But that the United States, already had before imperial phases, but now, the whole thing is moving to become a drama on a global scale. And he says, "This has the seed of a horrifying tragedy, because there is an overstretching of the moral and material capacities. And this overstretching of moral and material capacities, is what always brought down empires."
Therefore, he ends his articles by saying, as always hoped in these situations, one can only hope that a philosopher might take the throne. Now he doesn't say "Lyndon LaRouche should become President of the United States," but I'm saying that!
Next: This is an article by the former Chancellor of Germany, Helmut Schmidt, who had a heart attack three days after he said this, but hopefully, he is recovering now from a bypass operation. He said, in Die Zeit: "Europe does not need to be placed under a guardianship. Never before," he says, "was the U.S. policy so imperial. Europe has to live with that, but we must not submit to it." And then, he quotes Robert Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Brzezinski, Wolfowitz, as being spokesmen for a reckless power politics, who would now have an inflationary boom. He quotes Brzezinski saying: "The United States should control the Eurasian continent." He quotes Wolfowitz: "NATO is out, because the task defines the coalition, and not the other way around." And then, he quotes Kagan quoting Hobbes, that only absolute power guarantees peace and security.
Well, it is known that that kind of peace is always the "peace of the graveyard."
And then, Schmidt says, "The influence of the nationalistic, egocentric intellectuals, with an imperialist attitude—their influence in the United States was never greater."
Now, you have to remember, Schmidt is as much an Atlanticist, as you ever have seen. And, I'm trying to tell you there is a complete shift around.
Among the political elite in Europe, especially the older generation, who still have the experience of Adenauer, Robert Schuman, De Gasperi, Jean Monnet, who were all involved in the great building of the reconstruction of Europe, who created the European Coal and Steel Community, and so forth—among these people, who have the memory of the Second World War, who have the memory of the reconstruction of Europe, they are discussing, among themselves, the parallel of the United States today, to the fall of Classical Greece, and the Peloponnesian Wars.
And indeed, and I'm going to try to show you this, that there are such similarities between Classical Greece and America. And I would urge you to study this, and draw the adequate conclusion.
The Rise of Athenian Power
We know a lot about how the beautiful, ancient Classical Greece collapsed, especially from the writings of the founder of scientific history-writing, Thucydides of Athens, who lived from 460 to approximately 404 B.C. Now, he describes also, the pre-history of the Peloponnesian Wars, which were the wars of Greece, and especially Athens, against the Persians, which lasted from 500 to 479, and then from 470 to 448 B.C., and ended then, in the Kallias peace between Athens and Persia. Now, in these wars, Athens, which after all, is the cradle of European, and therefore, also, of American civilization, had to assert itself in many ways. For example, in September 490, occurred the famous battle of Marathon, where the military reformer, Miltiades, defeated the Persian army which was three times more numerous, through a double-flanking operation. And then, the famous story was, that one soldier ran all the way from Marathon to Athens to report the victory. And still, nowadays, people are commemorating this with the marathon runs.
Athens became the pioneer for all of Hellas after the victory of the so-far unconquered Persians, and was on its way to becoming a political superpower. In 483, it engaged in the construction of a large fleet of 200 ships, and there, especially Themistocles, who also was involved in the port of Piraeus, was instrumental.
In September 400 B.C., it came to the victory of the Greeks over the Persians in the naval battle of Salamis. On the advice of Themistocles, Athens did not take revenge against those Greek states which had cooperated with the Persians. This was a very wise decision, because that is how you get peace, that eventually, you have a peace plan like that.
The result of the Persian wars, was that the Persians gave up their intentions to conquer, and this gave Greece the political and spiritual freedom to save their mental life. In 478, Athens was asked by the Ionians to become their protector against the Persians. In 477, they founded the Attic Maritime League against the danger of the Persians, which was basically an alliance between Athens and the Ionian cities, which then had to pay tribute. Delos became the seat of that league, and all members had equal voting rights.
In the meantime, Athens became the strongest economic power, and that led to an increasing alienation between Athens and Sparta, which also was manipulated by the Persians. In 470, the son of Miltiades, Cimon, continued the war against the Persians as the head of the fleet of the Maritime League. And in 467-465, there was a double victory by Cimon in Eurymedon in South Asia Minor, over the fleet and the army of the Persians. The tensions with Sparta grew.
And in Athens, the process of democratization continued, because Athens was the birthplace of the famous democracy. In 462, Pericles and Elphaeates made a motion that all political decisions and powers should be given to the council, the commissions, the jury courts, and the people's representatives. In 458, you had the completion of democracy, because the so-called third class could participate in the political process, and there was the stripping of the power of the oligarchy. In 460-457, there was the construction of the long wall in Athens, and Athens became the largest fortress of Greece.
Sparta got involved in various alliances, for example, with Thebes. And Athens continued to annex Boeotia, Locris, and Phocis, and eventually became hegemonic in central Greece.
In 456, there was the relocation of the bank of the alliance, to Athens. And in 449, there was the double victory of Athens at Salamis over the Persians on Cyprus.
From the League to the Empire
In 1444, at the already-mentioned Peace of Kallias between Athens and Persia, they then moved to the transformation of the Attic Maritime League, into the Attic Empire. As a matter of fact, after the peace with Persia had been concluded, this military alliance had become, actually, superfluous. So, at that point, they should have just abandoned it. But they transformed it into the Attic Empire, and from now on the allies had to pay tribute, as before. Under Pericles, who was annually elected as the strategist, which was an important position, Athens continued on its way to democracy. But, as Thucydides wrote in his book, in reality, Athens was only a democracy by name: In reality, it was the Monarchy of the First Man.
However, it was a mixed situation, because, on the one side, you had this transformation of Greece into an empire; but, you had, at the same time, this beautiful evolution of thought and Classical culture. For example, the cultural circles around Pericles, were Herodotus, Anaxagoras, Hippodamus, Sophocles, Phidias, and others.
But in the meantime, the members of the Attic Empire got reduced to subjects. In 425, more than 400 city-states were members. The big problem was, that the wars against the Persians had gotten more and more under the total leadership of Athens, and the Athenian Empire, and Athenian imperialism emerged.
At the moment of the collapse of the Soviet Union, between 1989-91, George Bush senior declared the New World Order, and basically, the point was to redefine the East-West relationship, and not just to continue with the policy, against which there was no enemy any more. And, then they decided that they needed an enemy, for empire controls, and that Islam should be that new enemy.
Now, the allies, whom Athens had been the protector for against the Persians, became the subjects, and had to continue to pay tribute. The Gulf War, which took the momentum away from German unification, cost $60 billion, most of which the allies had to pay.
There was a reversal of the relationship of the protection and the faithfulness, and Athens developed the reputation of a tyranny. Sparta, which never had any democratic reforms, and where mainly an oligarchical system remained continuously, pursued any alliance to break this power. Thucydides, in his book about the Peloponnesian War, which lasted from 431-404, describes how, out of a limited war, beginning between Athens and Corinth, it became a big war between Athens and the Peloponnesian alliance.
The island Melos had remained neutral for several years; and then, Athens demanded that Melos should become an ally. In reality, they wanted it to become a vassal. And Thucydides gives a very fascinating account of this: The Athenians sent negotiators to Melos, and then the Melians said, "Well, you say we can have a calm discussion; that is fine. But, why do you then immediately go to war with us? You obviously insist on having the last word, anyway. If we don't capitulate, it means war. If we capitulate, it means slavery."
The Athenians said, "Don't speculate about the future. We could make the point, but we don't, that our victory over the Persians has given us the right to rule. But the point is, that only among people with the same power, is there right and law. But the powerful does what he wants, and the weak has to obey."
The Melians said, "Since you don't want to listen to law, and argue with utilitarian arguments, consider this: You could be defeated once, and then your brutality could be taken as a model, and you could be treated in the same way."
The Athenians said: "For a power that rules over others, like the Lacedaemonians, from whom we have nothing to fear." (The implication is, that oligarchical systems always get along very well.) "What we have to fear much more, is a rebellion of the underlings in our own country. We are here to subjugate you, and discuss how this can be done to both our advantage."
The Melians said, "How can slavery be as advantageous for us, as for you, the rulerships?"
The Athenians said, "For you, it is more advantageous to become a subject, than to die; and for us, it is a plus, that we don't have to kill you."
The Melians said, "Can we not stay neutral?"
The Athenians said, "No, because your adversity damages us less, than your friendship. Because this would make us, in the eyes of our subjects, weak. And your hostility, on the other hand, is a sign of our power."
The Melians said, "Since you seem not to hesitate in the face of anything, to impose your power, and are willing to throw the independent countries into danger, would it not be the biggest shame to capitulate, rather than do everything to resist?"
The Athenians said, "Not if you think. The point is not to prove your bravery, but to exist or not. And not to approve someone who has so much more power than you."
The Melians said, "But there is hope that luck is sometimes on the side of the weaker."
The Athenians said, "Yeah, sure. Hope! But if it promises golden mountains, you only realize through damage, how treacherous it is. Your fate hangs by one hair, so don't believe in wonder-cures."
The Melians said, "But God will not let us down, since we are fighting for a just cause and the Lacedaemonians will help us."
The Athenians said, "Ha! God and the whole world is on the side of the strongest. This is a universal law for all times. And you would act in the same way, if you had the power."
Melians: "But we can count on the Lacedaemonians, since they can count on our friendly attitude."
Athenians: "In war, what counts is not attitude, but power! The Lacedaemonians see that more than others. Your forces are too weak to resist. Don't fall into the trap of honor, which so often has brought ruin to people. Many have been seduced by the nice sound of the word `honor,' and have thrown themselves into self-destruction, through their own stupidity. Be reasonable! Don't think your honor is at stake, if you give up resistance against a superpower. You still have the choice between war and security: Don't let your ambition let you take the wrong choice."
And with that, the Athenians left.
The Melians had a meeting among themselves and discussed that they could not give up their community, which had lasted for 700 years. "We trust in the gods, who have protected us, so far; and the help of man, the Lacedaemonians, that we can stay neutral. And we will ask you Athenians, now, to retire from our country."
The Athenians said, "You alone seem to regard the future as more important than what is front of your eyes."
And they immediately began to launch hostilities against the Melians. After several military operations, the Melians had to surrender to the Athenians, who immediately put to death all the grown men, whom they took, and sold the women and children for slaves, and subsequently brought in their 500 colonists and inhabited the place themselves.
Thucydides then describes how, after the death of Pericles, the demagogues Cleon and Alcibiades changed from a defensive strategy, to offensive operations—a kind of early preemptive war conception—which he characterizes as one of the reasons for the catastrophic development of the war, from an Athenian point of view. The description of the campaign against Sicily is one of the high-points of Thucydides' book. Supposedly, the Athenians came to the help of the allied city of Segesta against Selinus, which was allied with Syracuse. In reality, they just wanted to make Sicily a colony. They lost both the fleet and the army, and the surviving Athenians became slaves.
This defeat marked the decisive change in the whole war. In 405 B.C., the Spartan military commander Lysander could defeat the last Athenian fleet. The power of Athens completely collapsed and Lysander moved, in 404, into Athens.
`Beware of the Athenians, Mr. Bush'
So, the famous democracy in Athens was completely imperial. It had a system based on slavery, and Plato was completely critical of it, and said that democracy is just the other side of the coin of tyranny. And, it is very interesting, that the famous tragedian Euripides wrote a play, The Trojan Women, which he performed, in essence, at the height of the Peloponnesian War, when Athens gave its imperial ambitions its last impressions, with the Sicilian campaign, in 415. Euripides was completely against this war, and portrayed the war in the full horror, from the point of view of those who were defeated. Already, in earlier years, he had warned: If, in any decision to go to war, everybody had the image of their own death before their eyes, Hellas would not be torn apart by the insanity of war.
And maybe that should be given as advice to some of these chicken hawks, today.
It was a tragedy that Classical Greece destroyed itself, by becoming an imperial power. And would it not be a total tragedy, if the United States, which once was "the beacon of hope, and the temple of liberty," should go the same way? And, is it not alarming, that older statesmen make this parallel: They say, that the Peloponnesian War ruined, first, Athens, and then all of Greece. Today the danger is that the United States, as the only remaining superpower, creates the impression with China, with Russia, and other nations, that nothing is more important than military power.
So, that is where we are at, and people in the whole world know it. People know that the United States is becoming an empire. And they also know, that what is at stake is the entire body of international law, as it developed since the Peace of Westphalia, in 1648. Bush, the President of the United States, said, explicitly, that he is for international law, if it is appropriate for our time, and if it is in the interest of the United States. Beware of the Athenians, Mr. Bush!
Now, this whole question is one big focus of the BüSo campaign. But, we have now a situation, where all of Europe is against it: Schröder, [Christian Democratic Chancellor candidate Edmund] Stoiber—even Stoiber—so that the U.S. Ambassador in Berlin already came out with an extremely angry response. But, the whole discussion about preemptive war, about the first use of nuclear weapons, horrified people who have the memory of one or two world wars.
Yesterday, there was an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, warning of the consequences, that the whole idea of a just crusade would be fatal; that the danger is, in the context of such a situation, Sharon would use a nuclear counterstrike, if Israel was attacked—which it almost certainly will be, if the attack on Iraq is launched—and that this will open a Pandora's box, which will cause the rage of 1 billion Muslims, and this is all an expression of a terrifying short-sightedness, caused by the arrogance of imperial power. This the leading, conservative daily in Germany.
Now, as a result of this insanity, U.S. influence in Europe has already lessened significantly, and Germany is experiencing an unaccustomed sense of sovereignty. Germany begins, for the first time, to think in a sovereign way.
A `LaRouche Plan' for European Reconstruction
I, in the BüSo campaign, focus especially on the question, that, if one wants to stop the war, one has to overcome the cause for the war danger, which is the systemic collapse of the financial system. Because, we have, not only the financial and economic crisis, but, in Europe right now, in several countries, we are hit by the worst flooding in at least 160 years, and experts are actually saying there is no known flood, which was worse—that it's actually a millennial flood. Three rivers, the Danube, the Moldau, and the Elbe, had flooding in August, especially in the south and southeast of Germany, large parts of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, and now in the Balkans. This was due to heavy rainfall, and the amount of water, which normally takes several weeks to fall, came down in one day.
These floods wrecked thousands of bridges, for road and railway traffic. Several tens of thousands of kilometers of highway and roads; countless private and public buildings, urban infrastructure, telecom cables, water pipes, electricity lines, and, for example, the beautiful city of Dresden had the worst destruction since the Allied air bombardment in 1945. And you could see people crying who had already once before lost everything, through the bombing, and then they had to live in the G.D.R. [communist East Germany], and then, in the last 12 years, they slowly, slowly started to build up some little apartment or house, and now, they have lost everything again. And I can only tell you, the shock is absolutely gigantic.
In Germany alone, 4.2 million people were affected by the first wave of the flood, and more than 100,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes, with the help of 20,000 soldiers, 120,000 civilian volunteers. In Czechia, 30% of the territory was flooded; 220,000 people evacuated. And the damage will increase, since now, the floods are moving into North Germany, down the Elbe, and into the Balkans, down the Danube. So, only for the first phase of the destruction, the price-tag for Germany alone, was $20 billion. And everybody said, "This is the worst natural disaster of our lifetime." Schröder called a national emergency, and Schmidt said, "It is not enough to reconstruct what was damaged, but we have to have a gigantic, qualitative jump, which brings the East far beyond the condition before the flood. Not the politician is required, but the statesman."
Now, that is exactly what the BüSo campaign is now focused on: Namely, that we have to get rid of the Maastricht Stability Pact, because, if we stick to this, then there is no way that this reconstruction can occur. Because the European Union does not allow its member-countries to have public deficits larger than 3% of the GNP. Remember, that the whole Maastricht design was against the German unification, and to make a strong German economy weak, to take away the strong d-mark, and replace it by a weak euro, and to strip governments of the right to make sovereign decisions for the general welfare.
[Romano] Prodi from the European Union already freaked out, and said, "The floods cannot be taken as a pretext to circumvent the Stability Pact." So, Schröder, reflecting, on the one side, the subjects defined by the BüSo campaign, took some important steps, because spontaneously he said, "I don't care if it violates Maastricht and the Stability Pact"—nevertheless, is not yet at the point, where he really would do the necessary things. So, they put together a package of 7.1 billion euros, which has useful aspects, but it is far too little. For example, it includes debt forgiveness for the victims, which the banks already heavily opposed and freaked out, because, as banks normally do, they demand their pound of flesh.
Now, the BüSo is intervening in this situation with a mass "extra," where we do not just demand the reconstruction of the damage. But, already before the flood, there was a severe crisis in the eastern, new states of Germany: Because, you remember, in 1989, when the Wall came down, we were the only ones who had a conception of what to do. The Productive Triangle—which was the idea to take the entire economic space from Paris-Berlin-Vienna, and develop it through investment in high technology, in modern infrastructure like the maglev train, and to then have development corridors into the East, to Warsaw, to Moscow, and to the Balkans. And it would have been a kind of "LaRouche Plan," for the development of the East. Instead, you remember, that the only banker who echoed these ideas, the chief of the Deutsche Bank, [Alfred] Herrhausen, got assassinated before he could launch a proposal to have such a development; and then [Detlev] Rohweder got assassinated, who was in charge of the privatization of the state-owned industries of the G.D.R., and he had just come to the conclusion, that the public welfare was more important than privatization. And then he got assassinated, and his successor, Birgit Breuel, went for a complete, radical shock therapy, so that the entire industrial capacity of East Germany got wiped out.
And, that has led to a situation, where, psychologically, many people in the former G.D.R. feel really cheated. It is not that they have a nostalgia for the G.D.R. Absolutely not—maybe a handful of people. But the majority of people just had the experience that the imposition of the free-market economy, was worse than the experience of the G.D.R. And, that is really something! You know, I had many campaigns and meetings in 1989 and 1990, where I presented Lyn's warnings, and I said, "If you make the mistake now, to superimpose on the bankrupt communist system, the equally bankrupt free-market economy system, the result will be an even larger economic disaster."
And now, many people agree, that the whole world economy is as bankrupt as the G.D.R. economy was in October '89.
A Gigantic Opportunity
Now, therefore, this crisis represents at the same time, a gigantic chance to go with an emergency program, which doesn't just repair the damage, but builds a more solid infrastructure for the future, which naturally must include land reclamation, flood control, overflow areas, flood plains. But, this is not enough! Because, in Germany, we have mass unemployment. The official figure is now 4.2 million; in reality, if you count all categories of unemployment, it's already more than in 1933.
So therefore, what we need now, is the so-called "Lautenbach Plan." Now, this is a reconstruction proposal, made by Dr. Wilhelm Lautenbach, who, in 1931, was an economist in the Reich's Economics Ministry. And he had a meeting with the Friedrich List Society, in which he presented the idea, that, under the simultaneous condition of a world monetary crisis and a depression, the usual market mechanisms don't function any more. Just as Greenspan lowers the interest rates a dozen times, without any effect. So we are in a similar situation. So, he said, under this condition, the market forces alone don't remedy the situation, and the state has to intervene. And therefore, the state should first get rid of unemployment, because that is the most costly for the economy at large. And second, the state must provide credit lines for investment in areas, in which you would invest anyway, if the economy were functioning well. And it must build real capital assets. So that there is a counter-value for these credit lines. So, he said, if we would do this, then you could prove, that the tax revenues later on are greater than the credit lines were in the first place. And the obvious area for such investment, is large infrastructure programs.
Now, this is obviously what we have to do today. We need a massive infrastructure reconstruction program; obviously using the maglev train for inter-city transport, because we want to emphasize rail and waterways, and not so much highways, where you are—in Germany, at least, and in Europe—in jams all the time. Waterways, for example, the Rhine-Main-Danube water system is a perfect example of how you can transport cargo and people, all the way from the North Sea to the Black Sea. We need to build new ports—inland ports, oceangoing ports. The air traffic has to be stabilized and secured. We need power generation and distribution for industrial use; health care; education.
Schröder, realizing that he was about to lose the election, because of the economic crisis, picked on this proposal by the BüSo, to use the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, which was the main instrument for the reconstruction of the post-war period, and he made the proposal of the so-called Hartz Commission, to use the Kreditanstanstalt for certain job creations. Unfortunately, it's only an element of our proposal, and not the whole thing: namely, to have the so-called "job floater bonds," to put out bonds to create jobs. But this only functions if you have a framework: namely, the Eurasian Land-Bridge, as the focus of such investments.
Now, also in Italy, the result of Lyn's many trips to this country—Lyn traveled to Italy, probably a dozen times in the last years, and he has a whole following, not only of parliamentarians, but of industrialists, who love him! In Milan, in many other Northern Italian cities, they have hosted him many, many times. So, now the Italian government has picked up on one of our ideas, namely, to have an infrastructure agency, outside of the Maastricht system, modeled on the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau. And several ministers in Italy, have come out in the last week, saying, that now a review of the Stability Pact is mandatory, and we want to start production again.
Now, these shifts are the result of the work of the BüSo and the other political organizations we have in Europe, since '89, where we had literally hundreds of conferences, millions of pieces of literature about the Eurasian Land-Bridge, and now a break with Maastricht is actually under way.
Eurasian Diplomacy
Also, in a large way, the Eurasian Land-Bridge is now on the table in many countries, as a conscious alternative to the Clash of Civilizations policy, and as a war-avoidance strategy. If you look at all the different steps, it is actually very exciting: The President of South Korea, Kim Dae-jung, came to Europe, to Strasbourg [the seat of the European Parliament] last December, and he made a passionate appeal to Europe, that Europe should help to construct the Silk Road as a line of peace. Now, negotiations between North Korea and South Korea are resumed, and there is a full strategy, by the South Koreans, the North Koreans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Europeans, to prove that North Korea is not a country of evil.
So, Kim Jong-il, the Chairman of North Korea, went to Russia, and there, Putin offered that Russia would help to reconstruct the old part of this railroad, which goes through North Korea. And just now, they announced, that, because of the help of Russia and the Europeans, this rail connection between North Korea and South Korea will be already completed this November.
The head of the industrialists' association of Rome, [Giancarlo Elia] Valori, just went with a large delegation to North Korea, where they met with Kim Jong-il, and they said, that they want to help to build a rail from Trieste, to Austria, Hungary, Russia, all the way to the Far East. And then, very important, Valori and his delegation said, that Kim Jong-il is a very intelligent man, extremely well-informed about the world, and obviously not at all how the Anglo-American media are portraying him. So, Valori said, "Kim Jong-il has a very clear idea, that the future of Korea is in Europe." Also, the Japanese Prime Minister, [Junichiro] Koizumi, is going to North Korea, shortly.
And then aspects of this cooperation: Russia is involved in extensive economic cooperation with Iran. They also announced, that they will have a $40 billion economic cooperation package with Iraq. In China, a very important shift occurred: For the very first time—and you know, we were many times in China, and tried to explain to people, that the global system was in bad shape, and they didn't really want to listen—but now, there was, for the first time, a very important, official article, about the implication of the coming dollar collapse for China, and how it has to review its entire perspective.
Now, also, the fact that Lyn was invited by this Taiwan/Mainland China meeting which just took place two weeks ago, in Los Angeles, is very important: that the Eurasian Land-Bridge is back on the table. And, that also for the peace between Taiwan and Mainland China, the Eurasian Land-Bridge is the obvious context, in which a crisis can be avoided.
Then the fact that Iran, just in July, invited Amelia Boynton Robinson and Muriel Mirak-Weissbach to Tehran, and I think one other city, is an expression of the fact, that Iran is seeking to have contact with a different America, than that which is being portrayed by the Administration.
But many other forces reflect the work Lyn and our movement have been doing for the last 30 years. Remember, that we are the force, which stuck to our principles: We were fighting for an African development program, in the '70s; we worked with López Portillo for Operation Juárez: Today is the 1st of September, and that was the day López Portillo implemented, at least for Mexico, Operation Juárez. Now, I remember that day, because on that very day, Lyn and I were invited to the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau in Frankfurt for a luncheon with the top leadership of this bank. And we had just arrived; it was something like 11 o'clock, and had a little reception. And then the leading derivative trader came into the meeting, and said, "Oh, there's a terrible catastrophe: Mexico has just declared capital controls. This is end of the system! This is terrible!" We were smiling, and said, "Oh, no! This is actually very important, because this is the way to save the banking system, including the U.S. banks," which if they had agreed to the reorganization LaRouche proposed 20 years ago, would not be at the point of bankruptcy they are at today. So they should learn the lesson as well.
But, as a result of all of this work, and I guess you heard yesterday [during the evening panel] about it: Lyn was honored by the city council of São Paulo, and we had many private meetings also, in which it was expressed very, very clearly, that Brazil—which is now faced with Argentinization, as the entire Latin American continent is—that people are now looking at the Eurasian Land-Bridge, because this is the only alternative on the table.
But also, in India, where we were in December, invited by many of the ministers who were in the Cabinet of Indira Gandhi at the time; and also we were received by the President of India, K.R. Narayanan. People remember, that more than 20 years ago—25 years ago—we already worked on a 40-year development program for India, which Indira Gandhi was about to implement: which was the idea that you need two generations to bring up the not-developed people, by developing infrastructure in the internal regions of India first; and then have universal education for every child, at the latest, in the second generation, and that way, make the jump out of underdevelopment.
So, for a long time, the people, the leadership in India, especially of the Congress Party, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and after the assassination of Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi, they thought that there was no hope to ever have a new world economic order, and that globalization was the only game in town. So, when we came, not the first time—but Lyn came back to India for the first time in 18 years—and we presented the Eurasian Land-Bridge as the way to concretely make a just new world economic order, Lyn was received as a legendary figure. I mean, he was received as the beloved visionary who still believes in the idea of Nehru, of Mahatma Gandhi, of Rajiv, of Indira Gandhi. And they trust Lyn completely—completely. An American, completely trusted—it's a rare thing.
But also, in December, immediately after the India trip, we went to Russia. And there we have a whole, large network of many hundred Russian scientists, Academicians, who know Lyn in depth. And I can assure you, not only are they the best scientists in the world, but they also read—they really read, and study. They take Lyn's writings more seriously than any other group of people I have encountered. And it shows. And they celebrate Lyn, today, as the Vernadsky of our time. And, they also see, that if Russia has any hope, then it is exactly in the ideas of the Eurasian Land-Bridge.
LaRouche in the Arab World
Now, Lyn's reputation in the Arab world has really jumped up completely, and I never saw this more clearly than when we went to Abu Dhabi at the beginning of June, where Lyn was invited to give an address about the future of petroleum in the 21st Century, in the Zayed Centre, which is also an organization of the Arab League. And Lyn gave the most beautiful speech.
First of all, Abu Dhabi is a remarkable country—a little country, which has only had oil for about 20 years. And they have really used their new wealth in a very, very good way. Abu Dhabi is a city of 1 million people, mostly foreigners—totally, totally, totally modern. And, actually, not like Houston—it's actually quite nice. It has beautiful palm trees. It has fruit trees, where the population is allowed to pick them for free. Then, they have an island there, for about 200 square miles, which was a complete desert 20 years ago. And, since they have a policy of using irrigation to try to reconquer the desert, parts of the island are already out of the first stages of re-gardening; so the vegetation is already quite big. Other parts are newly cultivated, so now you have giraffes there, and other large animals, eating sweet fruits. And, then, birds, new birds, recognized for their north-south travel in the Spring and Autumn, that this is a perfect place to take a short stop. So, it really is a beautiful example, that you can reconquer the desert.
So therefore, Lyn's speech was received extremely well, because he said: Well, the future of the Middle East is obviously not a question of oil, because it's a fossil fuel, which actually is too precious to be used as an energy source. It should be much more used for chemical production and other such things. And the future of the Middle East, is clearly water. And if any one of you has flown, let's say, from Central Africa to the Middle East or the Gulf, you fly for hours and hours over desert: desert, desert, desert. There is not one green spot. So therefore, water is the obvious question.
So, Lyn said: Why don't you imagine that you are sitting in a space ship, and you are looking at the planet from a certain distance? And now, imagine that the 20,000 years since the last Ice Age are, in a time-lapse fashion, reduced to a few minutes. And then you can see how, out of the pluvial periods, the glacial area goes back; the vegetation, which in the beginning is very lush, also goes back; the deserts start to enlarge and grow; and eventually you reach the present situation of the deserts today. Now, this is a pedagogical way for you to imagine that you can also do the opposite. If the desert could conquer this area, then through desalination and irrigation, you can actually reconquer the desert and make it gardens and habitable for the people who are living there.
So, people were extremely happy with this speech by Lyn, and, as you know, there are also many people in Egypt, who absolutely want for Egypt to become the connection of the Eurasian Land-Bridge. As a matter of fact, institutions associated with the Egyptian governments have had, already, several conferences about the historic role of Egypt, to be the "bridge"—because Egypt is the only country which is both Asian and African, and therefore, the natural bridge for the Eurasian Land-Bridge to go all the way into Africa.
Another point should be the Sicily-Tunisia connection; and now, since the Italian government is building the Bridge of Messina, another project which we have been fighting for for a long time, this becomes more obvious. Because the distance between Sicily and Tunisia is only something like 60 kilometers, and since there is the plan to build—as part of the Eurasian Land-Bridge—also a bridge or a tunnel from Korea to Japan, of 57 kilometers, why can we not build a bridge from Sicily to Tunisia? And also, another bridge via the Strait of Gibraltar.
Turn the Policy of United States Around
Now, all of these things are going on, and they are very hopeful signs. Ten years ago, we defined the Eurasian Land-Bridge as the way to put a completely new relationship between the East and the West, the North and the South. And now, many countries in the world are actually operating on this basis already. Therefore, what is needed: We have to turn the policy of the United States around. We have to get the United States to cooperate with this. The United States must go back to its policy of a community of principle of perfectly sovereign nation-states, which are united by a higher common interest for the welfare of all people of this world.
The Eurasian Land-Bridge, being extended through the Americas and through Africa, is the vision for the future: either now, as war avoidance and a true peace policy; or, after a dark age. But it is the future.
Now, Vernadsky made a point—like several other great thinkers—that we are living in a period where, for the first time in history, man is embracing, by his life and by his culture, the whole outer envelope of the planet. For the last 20-30,000 years, there has been an increasing rate of the creation of the Noösphere out of the Biosphere. We see, already, that the Noösphere is becoming a geological process—the Noösphere being the Biosphere overworked by scientific thought. And as Lyn yesterday correctly said, one has to add the whole cultural creative side to it.
The history of scientific thought is becoming, already, a geological phenomenon, which is prepared by millions, perhaps by billions, of years. If you think how difficult it was, in the pre-Ice Age mammalian period, where man had to struggle against big animals, it was not so clear that he would survive. But he did. And why did he survive? Because man, unlike the beast, is capable of creative reason.
So, a process of evolution which took billions of years, and where the increase of reason is becoming a fact, despite the unreasonable setback we are experiencing right now—such a process is not a short-term, transient geological phenomenon, but one which is not to cease. With man, for the first time, a being is on the planet which self-consciously can act on the basis of the laws of the Noösphere and the universe. Friedrich Schiller, my beloved poet, has put the same idea in a very short statement: "What the plant does unconsciously, you, Man, do deliberately"—follow the laws of the universe.
The great Indian philosopher, Sri Aurobindo, who, in my view, is extremely important—he was born in 1872 in Calcutta—had the same conception as Vernadsky, describing the evolution of the universe from the inorganic, to the organic, to the reason of Man. And he—and I fully agree with him—said that mankind in its present form is not the end-product of evolution; but mankind can and will reach a state, where the spiritual side will become the dominant one; and the material side—the greed, the lust, all these lower things—will vanish.
Man is the first creature on this planet who can consciously cooperate with the force of evolution. And if you look at evolution, how it went, really, through an incredible process, it is leading to an international unification of separate peoples; preserving and securing, however, their national life, but drawing them together into an overriding oneness.
Another extremely valuable Indian poet, [Rabindranath] Tagore, had a similar idea: He said, "The universe is a family. Her intent has been to unite, but not to subjugate others, but by inventing ways that one can draw strength from diversity, in countless ways, for the benefit of all."
Dialogue of the Cradles of Civilization
The Eurasian Land-Bridge, in my view, is the beginning of the age of reason, wherein all nations of this world can work together for a higher principle, in the interests of all. Schiller, in the Universal History, made the point, that to explain our present existence, it is necessary to take the entirety of universal history into account. If you look at it from that standpoint, after the last Ice Age, there were four great cradles of mankind: China, India, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. I'm totally excited about the discovery of a new city which was just found 40 kilometers off the coast of Gujarat [see article in this section]; and it turns out that this city is 9,500 years old. It's 7 kilometers long and 4 kilometers wide—it's a gigantic city—and this makes it 5,000 years older than the oldest so-far-known cities in Mesopotamia. And that puts that city, which is 40 meters under the water—obviously, from a time when the ocean level was much lower—as far away [in history] from the cities of Mesopotamia, as we are away from the pyramids of Egypt. That is a long time! I find this totally fascinating, because it forces us to rewrite the entire human history, and obviously, there was a trans-Atlantic, high culture, much earlier than the historians, so far, have really admitted.
All these different cultures—China, India, Egypt—had many phases, of high points of culture, and sometimes one was the avant-garde, and sometimes the other. For example, in Baghdad, around 700 A.D., Baghdad was the most advanced city in the whole world; which I think we should consider, before we bomb it. Many great thinkers, scientists, and artists from these different cultures, who contributed progress in astronomy, agriculture, shipbuilding, in many other things, influenced their successors over the centuries and over different cultures.
The Rig Veda—the oldest Indian writings—the old Persian philosophy, the wisdom of ancient Egypt; they all went into the creation of European civilization, and therefore, they are also the roots of America.
Now we are at a point, where we either go the way of an imperial Greece or Rome—where a dark age and the self-destruction of the United States is the very likely result—or, America finds its true roots. For example, in this 7,500 B.C. city in India; or the 3,500 B.C. Egypt. I am convinced, that if we combine the Eurasian Land-Bridge, with a dialogue of cultures in which we focus on the best traditions of each of these cultures, not only will we have the biggest boom in the history of mankind, but also, by taking the best pearls from all of these cultures and making them known to all of mankind, we will have the most beautiful Renaissance which ever existed.
Therefore, I want to make an appeal, especially to young Americans, that that is the way to go, and that's how we can reclaim the future, for you and for all of us.
