ZEPP-LAROUCHE WEBCAST

To Shut Down the Coup Against Trump, Exonerate LaRouche!

This is the edited transcript of the Schiller Institute’s January 31, 2019 interview with its founder, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, by Harley Schlanger. A video of this webcast is available.

Harley Schlanger: Hello, I’m Harley Schlanger with the Schiller Institute. Welcome to this week’s webcast with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, our founder and president.

We’re in the midst of an escalating coup effort that’s being run against President Trump, on a number of fronts, but I think we’ll start with the most prominent one yesterday, the “Worldwide Threat Assessment” presented by his intelligence team, CIA Director Gina Haspel, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. They all seem to be contradicting Trump on every single strategic issue. So, Helga, why don’t we begin with that?

Fake News: ‘Worldwide Threat Assessment’

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Yes. This is indeed the same cast of characters who are working with British intelligence in the coup against Trump. The President of the United States is the one who has the mandate to set policy. It is quite amazing that all of these heads of intelligence are contradicting him, in every single positive initiative that President Trump has taken.

For example, Dan Coats emphasized and repeated the line that Russia and China are mortal threats to U.S. interests and security. This was one day before President Trump was to meet with Vice Premier Liu He in the context of the U.S.-China trade relations. So, it’s really poisoning the environment.

Coats said “we currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities;” that Russia is already planning to interfere in the U.S. 2020 elections; that China represents a huge cyber threat—and on and on.

On North Korea, Trump countered by tweeting: “Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen. Now a whole different story. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly. Progress being made-big difference!”

Countering Coats’ statement that ISIS has not been defeated, Trump tweeted, “When I became President, ISIS was out of control in Syria & running rampant. Since then tremendous progress made, especially over last five weeks. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago.”

Get Off the Psycho Roller Coaster

Let me interject one reflection: The world is absolutely tumultuous—many of our supporters have said that they feel like they are on a roller coaster. Think back to when you were younger (or if you are still young), and you took a roller coaster ride. At every point of the trip, your viewpoint changes completely—one time you are up, then you are down, you’re turning—it’s very difficult to figure out a cohesive picture. Many people today have this acute feeling of being on a roller coaster, that the world is completely in disarray and nothing makes sense.

But, if you leave aside all these seemingly confusing predicates, and concentrate on the fact that it is the collapse of the so-called “liberal democracy” system, and the collapse of the paradigm of geopolitics—of the efforts of people who are trying to keep the world in a geopolitical confrontation for purposes of manipulation that you are experiencing. The favorite game of the British Empire throughout its existence is chaos. Understand that it really is the fight of the old paradigm trying to keep the world in destabilization, versus the new paradigm of an emerging new system of international relations, spearheaded by China. We are living at time when a completely new set of international relations in the context of the so-called “Belt and Road Initiative,” or the New Silk Road is growing.

With that as a parameter, it is much easier to figure out current history. With such a perspective it becomes very clear that all the people who are right now attacking Russia and China as the biggest threat are wrong. Russia and China are not a threat. China has offered cooperation. China has a policy of new state-to-state relationships among the major powers, including to the United States. It is really very important that you not be confused.

The show was really given away by George Soros at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland where he said: “China isn’t the only authoritarian regime in the world, but it’s undoubtedly the wealthiest, strongest and most developed in machine learning and artificial intelligence. This makes Xi Jinping the most dangerous opponent of those who believe in the concept of open society.”

The “open society” is really the synonym for an abusive neo-liberal model of economy, that values the policy known as “everything goes,” and that promotes regime-change and color revolution—everything we have seen in the assault against the countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. That is really something you have to keep in mind. Think about Soros, and then you get a sense of how this whole thing works.

Neocons Provoke Trump: Syria, Huawei CFO

Schlanger: You mentioned the provocations before the trade talks, the fact that Coats singled out China for special attack. Also Christopher Wray from the FBI said that all of their offices in the United States are on alert to look for Chinese spying operations. Well, right on cue, as Chinese and American negotiators were meeting in Washington, starting yesterday, two sets of indictments came down concerning the Huawei investigation, one in Seattle and one in Brooklyn, with the charges that Huawei is a cell phone company preparing very sophisticated spying operations into the United States. I find that somewhat ironic, coming from people connected to the National Security Agency, who have, as Edward Snowden pointed out, reams of data on every single phone call made!

This is the pattern, isn’t it? Whenever there are discussions—Trump meeting with Xi Jinping—for example, during their first meeting at Mar-a-Lago, we had the Syrian attack; when he was meeting with Xi in Argentina, Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada. All of this is part of the pattern of this coup operation.

It’s a Coup All Right!

Zepp-LaRouche: Absolutely. Many people understand that. Many more are starting to get a sense that there is such a coup. From our experience, in the last days, what really shook people up in the United States was the arrest and indictment of Roger Stone, an old friend of President Trump’s. Many people realized that this is all orchestrated especially with former CIA head John Brennan announcing, on the same day, that many more names will be named. Even the Washington Post had to admit that in all of Mueller’s investigation, he has yet to produce one shred of evidence of Russian collusion. All the so-called “crimes,” including those of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, are so-called “process crimes,” having nothing to do with Russia or collusion, but rather people lying to Mueller investigation interrogators—“crimes” that would never have happened, had there been no investigation.

More and more people are really starting to see that there is a coup going on. And it is really something which has to stop. The best way to stop it, as we discussed last week, is to sign the appeal to President Trump to exonerate my husband, Lyndon LaRouche. The same apparatus that conducted the persecution and prosecution against him in the 1980s, is the very same apparatus that covered for the actual criminals who carried out the attacks of Sept 11, 2001, and it is also the same apparatus that is going after President Trump right now. Help us make this a very loud appeal for the exoneration of my husband. This appeal will help people sharply focus on the problem and how it can and must be rectified.

President Trump should declassify all the Christopher Steele documents, make the British role clear to all. This whole process can be stopped, but it requires urgent action.

Schlanger: One aspect of the Stone arrest was the heavy-handed deployment of FBI agents, brandishing powerful weapons, wearing body armor,—sending a chilling message, “Don’t speak up against Mueller, don’t defend President Trump, or this could be you, next.”

Who Is Juan Guaidó?

Speaking about coups, we have information on the operation being run against Venezuela, with the support of people including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and National Security Advisor, John Bolton, along with others that cross party lines. This guy who’s been chosen as the “interim president,” Juan Guaidó, seems to come right out of the Project Democracy/color revolution operation mold.

Zepp-LaRouche: Actually, he was a very unimportant, middle-level person, who has been groomed for a very long time by the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, the International Republican Institute, and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. All of these institutions are cut-outs for the intelligence community—and are all part of Soros’ global regime-change/color revolution apparatus.

Juan Guaidó in 2005 belonged to a group of Venezuelan students who went to Serbia, where they participated in the Center for Non-Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), an outgrowth of another organization called Otpor (Resistance), which was part of the color revolution apparatus involved in the toppling of Slobodan Milošahević in 2002.

These operations are all known to Russia and to many other countries in the world. Right now, there is a clear dividing line: On the one hand there are those countries—the United States, Canada, Israel, and the Europeans—that immediately endorsed this self-proclaimed “interim president,” claiming that Nicolás Maduro did not win the election. They all support the idea expressed by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who went out of his way to demand that Maduro had to declare early elections in one week!”

A number of other countries, Russia, China, Turkey, Mexico, Uruguay, and some others, said: No, the principle of the UN Charter applies—the determination of who the President is and the outcome of the election in Venezuela, is entirely a matter for the Venezuelan people to decide.

The Venezuelan crisis situation is being staged in another effort to entrap President Trump. Trump was approached by Sen. Marco Rubio and other elected officials from Florida. This crisis is an effort to prevent any kind of cooperation, especially also in Ibero-America, where the Silk Road perspective does exist and is growing stronger.

Mexican President López Obrador wants to cooperate with President Trump on infrastructure investments in all of the Central American countries as part of a joint effort to stop the migrations. This approach is in the right direction. I agree with Pope Francis—not all the time, but in this instance—when he said: “What is it that scares me? Bloodshed and civil war.”

China has pointed to the worse-case scenario—a possible repetition of what happened in Syria, many years of civil war, which then would explode into the whole Ibero-American continent.

So, it’s really important that people look at the history, and not fall for the narrative being peddled, based on the surface of the percussive events. The British Empire has been meddling in Venezuela, in particular, for a very long time: They had ties to Hugo Chávez, related to the deal Chávez had on drug trafficking with the Colombian narcoterrorists, the so-called “Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,” (FARC). The FARC is really a gang/countergang intervention that people should not fall for.

There is a very useful article, “The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the U.S. Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader,” by Max Blumenthal and Dan Cohen, posted in a blog called Grayzone that goes into the long history. We will produce some documentation, based on previous studies in our own publications. We will update these materials to demonstrate clearly that the situation is not what it appears to be. For sure, it’s not an issue of Democracy, and it is not just a question of oil, even though that is being portrayed now as the big issue. It is the old paradigm trying to prevent the new paradigm from emerging. As long as you keep that as a concept, it will all be much more comprehensible to you.

Schlanger: Among the supporters of the coup in Venezuela is the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The so-called “interim president” has said he would bring the IMF in. This has been the pattern in Central and South America: It never works. The idea that the International Monetary Fund is concerned with the well-being of the people of Venezuela is a joke and most people in the region know that.

The other point you made that’s really important, Helga, is the Chinese involvement in Central and South America. Go to our website and look at that. Chinese presence could fit perfectly with President Trump’s discussions with López Obrador of Mexico for an infrastructure solution there.

Brexit

Helga, you mentioned the sad state of Europe, the fact that the major European countries are supporting the coup. We see there a complete mess—and there’s more to say on Brexit. Let’s start with that, because, there, inside the country that houses the City of London, is a complete and total mess!

Zepp-LaRouche: It seems there’s no solution. There was a funny cartoon in one of the German papers this morning, showing two parakeets repeating the same line many times. One is shouting “No border in Northern Ireland!” and the other, “Negotiate, negotiate!”

There is no solution in this present combination, and as of now, the British Parliament has not agreed to extend the date beyond March 29, when the UK is scheduled to leave the European Union (EU). That day could be extended, were all 28 EU members to agree to do so. It may happen at the last moment, but I think that the condition of the financial system is so precarious that one cannot exclude that the Brexit chaos will be used to blame the larger chaos on Brexit, when in reality the whole banking system is bankrupt, not just the City of London.

Federal Reserve Stops Tapering

One sign of that is the fact that the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank has stopped tapering; it stopped the marginal, incremental increases in interest rates, realizing that if the federal funds rate was raised more, that would have the potential to blow out the whole system.

While U.S. Federal Reserve Bank has stopped increasing the interest rate, the European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Japan and even the People’s Bank of China are all continuing with various forms of quantitative easing. That shows you the world’s financial and economic system is in a very precarious state. Only by discarding the present system and instituting the programmatic proposals my husband and put forward several years ago—global Glass-Steagall banking separation; a national bank in every country; an international credit system, and a New Bretton Woods currency exchange rate stabilization system—and then cooperating at a higher level in the Belt and Road Initiative, in joint ventures for the development of Africa, Latin America, and various parts of Asia, as well as in Europe, and the United States, will we avoid the catastrophic effects of a crash that is about to hit, not very far in the future.

China & Russia: Perspective on a
Four Power Agreement

Schlanger: Helga, a lot of people are suspicious of the Russians and Chinese, saying these two countries are about to set up a new financial system. But, from your discussions and your experience in these matters, are there people in Russia and China who understand the possibility, or are aware of the possibility for a Four Power arrangement, using that as the basis for a New Bretton Woods?

Zepp-LaRouche: That’s the big question. I think the Chinese for the most part tend to be more optimistic about changing the course of history. Assuming all goes well in the upcoming Chinese trade talks with President Trump—with up to a month to actually come to a final agreement—I think that the Chinese will be able to have a positive perspective on a Four Power arrangement, leading to a New Bretton Woods agreement.

The Russians, in my experience, tend to be very pessimistic. They are looking at the possible U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, at the overall aggressive tone against Russia, and they think there is only a very small chance, if any chance at all, that the United States will change for many years to come.

Ending the Nuclear Weapons ‘Chicken Game’

At a two-day conference in Beijing of five of the declared nuclear-armed powers—Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States—that opened on January 30, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov pointed to the rapidly increasing strategic dangers, saying this a very dangerous situation.

Anybody in his right mind, who is not willing to risk the future existence of the human species, needs to rapidly promote dialogue and cooperation. We cannot allow this “game of chicken” to keep going. It could really blow up the whole human species.

To develop some hope that this can be change, I think the Russians need to see some signs that Americans and Europeans are willing to depart from their insane confrontation course. That change, however, cannot come from Russia; it can only come from inside America and Europe.

Italy: Synergy with Russia & China

Schlanger: There was an interesting statement from Italian Senate President, Elisabetta Casellati, who was just in Russia. She talked about the importance of the European-Russian relationship. At the same time, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi is on tour and he just had a meeting with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in Italy, in which they talked about the synergy between Italy and China, a term I think Undersecretary of the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, Michele Geraci first used. Clearly there are efforts from some European countries, most markedly from Italy, to move in a direction of dialogue and cooperation.

Zepp-LaRouche: This visit of Mrs. Casellati to the Russian Federation Council, the upper house of Russia’s legislature, was very important, where she said that you cannot talk about European identity without Russia—that Russia is playing the most important role in a very fragile strategic balance. She called on other western countries to move in the direction of cooperation.

In general, I think the Italian government, contrary to all the vicious attacks against it by the mainstream media, is really showing the way! Wang Yi was just in Rome. He met with Prime Minister Conte, and they agreed that cooperation between China and Italy is of strategic importance, and that it will involve cooperation in industry, agriculture, and investments in all kinds of areas. China and Italy are developing a deep strategic partnership.

This is very important. Italy, despite all the bad things being said about it right now, is the only of the major western countries that is showing any sense. Both Spain and Portugal, to a certain extent, are being sane also, both want to cooperate with the Belt and Road Initiative. But if you look at the rest of Europe, it is a complete mess.

Germany: A Colossus with Feet of Clay

I would like to mention the case of Germany. Germany is about to lose its identity and character as an industrial nation. Now, that has not yet sunk in with many people throughout the world. Most people in other countries still have the image of Germany as a key industrial power—a nation with a rich culture, and a strong economy.

In reality, Germany today is a Colossus with feet of clay because of the Green policies it had adopted, including exiting from nuclear energy, without having an alternative energy secured. Now, we have this incredible drumbeat and the government’s agreement to exit from lignite by 2035 or 2038. There are some crazy people demanding that this be done by 2030. There’s also a campaign to ban diesel cars in major cities.

All this is enormously expensive. Commercial energy prices are already twice that of France; the cost will be enormous. Energy costs will increase by 100-200 billion Euro in the next several years. Energy-intensive firms are already leaving Germany.

But more importantly, once the collapse of these kinds of jobs sets in, many young people will emigrate. There will be nothing left for them in science and technology in Germany. Then you will have a situation in which the demographic curve will rapidly worsen. People will begin to experience a complete collapse in living conditions.

Germany as an industrial country is absolutely at risk. All of the schemes about Industry 4.0, about having energy autarky in your own house with solar cells and a 3D printer in the basement—these crazy schemes that are being discussed have no correspondence with reality. The majority of the rest of the world is moving—the countries working with China—in a completely different direction.

Germany’s condition is extremely critical. Many people are now wondering, “What is going on? Who is pushing all of this?” Even the Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia, Armin Laschet, said, well, it’s all fine and good to care about the climate, but you can only drive it so far. If you make people’s lives totally miserable, you will risk provoking a Yellow Vest explosion in Germany.

I think that that is about to happen. It has only started in Stuttgart as of now. But I think, below the surface, things are brewing in Germany.

Schlanger: It’s not just Germany; it’s Europewide, it’s in the United States, and it’s coming from the people who imposed this British imperial, neo-liberal system, which has failed miserably! They are going to find more and more resistance. The question is, will the resistance have leadership with solutions? That’s why LaRouche’s Four Laws are so critical now.

Helga, is there anything else you want to talk about?

Zepp-LaRouche: Everyone should really seriously think this through. Reject all prejudices. Look with clear eyes at the so-called western model of “liberal democracy” that is being hailed as the best model.

France: Police Use ‘Sting Balls’ on Demonstrators

Look at what’s happening in France now. French President Emmanuel Macron is deploying the French police with brutal “sting-ball” grenades, which have small charges of TNT and little rubber bullets which can penetrate the skin.

Many Yellow Vest demonstrators have been struck in the eye, and have been blinded, or been deafened by exploding sting balls. This is extreme police brutality. Have you heard the European Union attack that? I haven’t. They are very quick to attack “police brutality” in Africa, or in Latin America, but they have not said a word about this. So much for “Western values.”

A discussion on the subject of the common good is in order, we can only touch on today. Perhaps we can discuss this more in a subsequent program.

The slanders against China, as they were articulated in the December ARTE documentary, “The World According to Xi Jinping,” is spreading and has led to a situation in which much of German middle-level industry is becoming more and more insecure about engaging in business with China. They are being bombarded by mass media, think tanks and the EU. These firms are intimidated by this anti-China propaganda, and really don’t know how to judge China’s intentions. This despite the fact that most really big corporations (including those from Germany), are all in China.

China is offering a model which for the first time is giving developing countries the ability to overcome underdevelopment. Overcoming underdevelopment is the only way that the migration crisis will be stopped. China is also offering a peaceful model of cooperation, in the tradition of the Peace of Westphalia; with a foreign policy “in the interest of the other.”

Keep a Cool Head, Act Decisively

People have to keep a cool head, to think clearly and act correctly and decisively on this battlefield of the most extraordinary information warfare, fake news, psychological manipulation, and black propaganda, all of which is intended to induce the feeling of being on a roller coaster, from which perspective it very difficult to see things from the top. You have to train your mind to see things from the top. Don’t fall for this news, and that news, but look at the long arc of development, and then you will see which countries and which governments are doing something for the common good, and alleviating poverty. Then look at the countries in which poverty, a drug epidemic, and youth violence are getting worse. Read what the leaders themselves, say. Read the speeches of Chancellor Merkel, of President Trump, of President Xi Jinping, of President Vladimir Putin, and others. Read their speeches and inform your own judgment.

Read what my husband Lyndon LaRouche has written. He is a source of practically limitless wisdom. If you haven’t already done so, add your name to our call for his exoneration, and get others to sign it. Let’s build a world based on the beautiful ideas he has proposed.

Schlanger: In keeping with your idea that we should have a discussion of the common good as a concept, I recommend that people read what you’ve written on that subject, which is available on the Schiller Institute website. I urge people to dig into these articles and take a look at the ideas. Make it your purpose in life to ensure that governments act in the interest of the common good.

So, Helga, thank you for joining us, and we’ll see you again next week.

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, till next week.