HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE WEBCAST
The Choice Before Europe:
American System, or Fascism
by Nancy Spannaus
Sept. 25—Speaking before more than 120 guests in Berlin on Sept. 22, Helga Zepp-LaRouche presented her third webcast as a candidate for Chancellor in the German national parliamentary elections of Sept. 27. Zepp-LaRouche, who heads the Civil Rights Solidarity Movement (BüSo), entitled her presentation, "What Will Happen After the October Crash?" and took the occasion of the event to deliver a number of well-aimed shocks at both the German population, and other Europeans as well.
Over the course of the last two months, the BüSo, which is running slates in seven states—Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, and Bavaria—plus 43 direct candidates, including two in Hamburg; one in Zeven, Lower Saxony; and one in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, has given the nation the only alternative to the disastrous bailout-and-austerity policy which all the established parties have promoted. Zepp-LaRouche, who has been a well-known political figure in Germany for more than 30 years, has also appeared in the state-mandated TV spots, and addressed dozens of meetings on the way out of the crisis.
In her major TV campaign ad, Zepp-LaRouche states:
The crisis that I have warned about for years is now here [showing her election posters from 2001 and 2002]. All those who are responsible for the current disaster, by virtue of their incompetence, should resign and stop acting as if they could find a solution with the same failed axioms.
Before the elections, the government will make every attempt to prevent the truth about the extent of the crisis from coming out.
The truth is, that the entire worldwide financial system is headed towards a complete crash, and will take the German economy down with it into the abyss. Just as a mass revolt against the government has broken out in the U.S., because the population is supposed to be saddled with paying for the trillions of dollars that have gone to the banks, we, here in Germany, are threatened with ungovernability this Autumn, when austerity is to be imposed to counter mass unemployment and company bankruptcies.
There is a way out, and it's our program: In order to allow the banks to once again invest in the real economy, their toxic waste must be completely wiped out. That is my 'patent remedy'!
Just as the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, [Reconstruction Finance Bank, KfW] helped to organize the economic miracle of the 1950s and '60s, we, today, should pour public credit, to the tune of billions of euros, into infrastrucure and production, so that 10 million new productive jobs can be created.
I am running for office because I know how the crisis can be solved!
Shaping the Debate
Compared to other major election campaigns, the BüSo, this time, has made a significant breakthrough in putting the crucial economic issues on the table. Local press, and many blogs, have taken up the subjects uniquely broached by the BüSo, including a massive expansion of nuclear power, and the creation of millions of new productive jobs.
By contrast, the two candidates of the established parties, incumbent Chancellor Angela Merkel (Christian Democrat) and incumbent Vice Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democrat), are doing their best to ignore the reality of the devastating economic breakdown crisis—not to mention, the clear intentions of the bankers to force through draconian austerity meausures immediately after the election.
Zepp-LaRouche dropped three bombshells in the course of her opening address (the full text will be published in next week's EIR, and the video is available in German, with English simultaneous translation, at http://bueso.de).
First she systematically documented the lies from the established press and parties that the economy of Germany, and of the world, has gone into an "upswing." Germany is an export-oriented economy, she said, but look at what's happening: From June 2008 to June 2009, exports declined by 18.7%! And then, look at jobs: Since July 2008, over 200,000 jobs have been lost in Germany alone. And if you look at the OECD countries as a whole, unemployment has gone up by 45% since July 2007.
Next, the BüSo Chancellor candidate presented the reality of the mass strike process in the United States, and the actual Nazi health-care policy of the Obama Administration which helped to trigger it. Using a series of video clips from a huge Sept. 12 demonstration in Washington, she conveyed the revolutionary spirit which citizen after citizen expressed, in the face of a policy which has provided tens of trillions of dollars to the banks, while threatening to cut trillions from health care to the nation's elderly and poor. These aren't right-wingers out to sabotage universal health care, she declared, but people fighting for the lives of their parents and children.
Most dramatic, however, was Zepp-LaRouche's extensive presentation of the hidden history of the crucial influence of the American System of economics, on the development of Germany as an industrial nation, at the end of the 19th Century. Through extensive use of quotes, she showed how German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was influenced by the American system of protectionism, against the British free-trade system, in his program to bring Germany out of its virtually feudal state. Her address, which heavily quoted Bismarck associate and economist Wilhelm von Kardoff, blew apart the standard lies about German history being oriented to the British, not the Americans. Nor did that American tradition die with Bismarck's ouster, since it was picked up by economists such as Wilhelm Lautenbach and Vladimir Woytinsky in the 1930s, both of whom tried, unsuccessfully, to implement a protectionist, pro-growth policy which could have allowed the defeat of the Nazis.
After her 90-minute presentation, there was an intensive discussion with the assembled guests. Many left the event with extra literature to distribute, and with a clear sense that they had finally found a candidate with the qualities of leadership required in the midst of a worldwide crisis. "She is really a feisty person with a strong personality, a real leader," was one comment. "She is really fantastic!" Another said, "Could you imagine standing up and speaking like that for hours, and about all these topics?"
As Zepp-LaRouche said at the conclusion of her opening presentation, Germany will be beset by storms that one can hardly imagine, after the Sept. 27 election. Thus, it is up to the citizens to help the BüSo to not only get into the national parliament, but to become a movement which will ensure that Germany plays a positive role in the concert of nations, and gets its soul back.
