ZEPP-LAROUCHE WEBCAST

War Party Amplifies Its False Narratives

We present edited excerpts from Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s weekly online webcast. She is the founder and President of the Schiller Institute. The full dialogue was presented live on June 2, 2021, and can be seen here.

The ‘Wuhan Lab Leak’ Storytellers

Harley Schlanger: We’re in the midst of a very dense period of political, social and economic developments. Why don’t we start with the story that’s been hyped a lot in the Western media, the so-called Wuhan lab leak story, which is coming from, not surprisingly, the same sources that were responsible for so many other false stories and fabrications. Helga, what do you make of this story?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: It is very important to keep an historic memory. A lot of our supporters and contacts have said in the recent period that the whole strategic picture is so confusing, and it’s very difficult to differentiate what is true, what is wrong, and they’re mainly at a loss. The reason is that there is such an enormous amount of psychological warfare coming from the war party, that a normal person, a normal citizen, who is not fervently trying to find the truth is almost at a total loss. That induced confusion is an oligarchical method.

The story you just referred to is the story that COVID-19 originated in a virological lab in Wuhan; that maybe it was not intentional, but the Chinese covered it up and therefore are responsible for the COVID crisis and the economic damage which resulted out of it. This ridiculous, irresponsible story appeared on May 23 in the Wall Street Journal, written by Michael Gordon. Then two days later, it was picked up by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Becerra, and then one day later, President Biden said that he had ordered a 90-day investigation by the U.S. Intelligence Community to find out if the virus had come from this Wuhan lab.

This outrageous allegation did not begin with the Wall Street Journal. Last June, the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, made the same accusation, saying that if China is proven to be responsible for COVID-19, they will have to pay reparations. And now that story is all over—every tabloid, every newspaper is peddling this story, and therefore, it is extremely important to look at one of the journalists who wrote this story.

Well, it is the same person—Michael Gordon, who then with Judith Miller had on September 8, 2002, in The New York Times written the story about the so-called “weapons of mass destruction” of Saddam Hussein, the so-called aluminum pipes which [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein had supposedly imported to build centrifuges to build a nuclear bomb. Well, it was that fake narrative that was a key part of the drumbeat of falsities that led to the Iraq War: As a result, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed and several thousand U.S. soldiers were killed—and it turned out there were no weapons of mass destruction, that the whole thing was a hoax.

Now, the question arises, should not irresponsible journalists, who are obviously not journalists at all, but who are writers or instruments of that faction of the geopolitical war party, who want to have a confrontation with China, with Russia, if they would have the same, in quotes, “success” as they did with the weapons of mass destruction story in respect to Saddam Hussein, it could lead to a war between the United States and China; and there are many people who have warned in the recent period that if such a war would occur, the likelihood that it would go nuclear is very high.

So, the question to be asked is, can such individuals be allowed to get away with murder? Because the consequences of such scribblers, such liars, such manipulators is that the price is being paid by hundreds of thousands of people in the case of Iraq. I really think there should be an investigation, possibly a criminal investigation, of the real background behind these people writing such stories.

We had recently another story, I think it was in Newsweek that there are 60,000 individuals belonging to an army which has no oversight in the Congress nor anywhere else, and they’re concerned with cyberwar, many of them sitting at desks, manipulating the internet, planting false stories, doing all kinds of things, obviously part of a hybrid war, but there is no declaration of war! So, I really think that this is so scandalous that I would urge that there must be an immediate international investigation in the United Nations, in parliaments.

In any case, this story must not go through, because if it would lead to a war between the United States and China, as the war against Iraq and the murder of Saddam Hussein occurred, the consequences could be the annihilation of civilization. I think these people like Michael Gordon and Judith Miller must be investigated for what they did in the case of Iraq: Who told them, what were the circumstances, and, what makes Gordon try to repeat the same story now? I think this is a huge scandal!

The NATO and G7 Summits

Schlanger: The other interesting point you made is the role of Sir Richard Dearlove, who came forward with the so-called Wuhan leak story well over a year ago. He was one of the people, when he was Chief of MI6, who pushed the fake “weapons of mass destruction” story, so it’s absolutely the same people involved. Now, we have coming up the NATO summit and the G7 summit. The G7 (Group of Seven) is composed of seven of the world’s largest economies–Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the United States. There are meetings going on in which they’re talking about the importance of being prepared to confront Russia and China. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has had some very interesting and sharp comments on this.

Zepp-LaRouche: Portugal is the present President of the EU Council. Foreign Minister Lavrov met with Portugal’s Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva— and a delegation of the European Union. He said that the situation between the EU and Russia is absolutely alarming, there is a complete loss of trust. He said it can be reversed, but it means that completely different principles will have to be introduced. And the big test will be the upcoming two summits, the NATO summit, and the upcoming G7 meeting, to which, among others, President Biden will travel, to be physically present.

Let’s see what it will be exactly. There has been talk of the G7 wanting to come up with an “alternative Belt and Road Initiative” which means no large-scale infrastructure, for sure not the kind of industrial parks that China has been building. It’s an outrageous effort to reintroduce the old colonialist system with modern means, and under conditions of a pandemic and world famine, it means massive depopulation. Since the developing countries are very vulnerable, and they’re not so strong to resist these things, I think it does require an open discussion, because this is too much.

Now, there is no money yet available, and it’s also not clear where it is supposed to come from, but it’s also not clear where this “alternative Belt and Road Initiative” is supposed to be built, because the Europeans want to have it in Africa, the United States wants to have it in Latin America, and Japan wants to have it in Asia. So, what they will probably do is to issue some guidelines and both summits can be expected to have a lot of rhetoric against the dictatorships and authoritarian regimes of Russia and China, and some others. But I cannot see how, from these two bodies, anything can come which addresses the real problems which are many, in the world.

Inflation Is Going to Hyperinflation

Schlanger: One of those problems is hyperinflation, which we’ve been warning about for quite a while, related to the quantitative easing (QE) and the flood of liquidity that’s not there for saving the real economy but for bailing out the deeply indebted banks and corporations. Hyperinflation is also hitting Europe. Do you have some thoughts on that?

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes. As you say, we have been the only ones saying that with this “QE” money-pumping, zero interest rates, negative interest rates, you can do that for a very long time, but eventually it will explode into a hyperinflation, as it did in 1923, when Germany’s Reichsbank printed money to pay both the war debt and the reparations to France, Britain and so forth. For a long time, you didn’t see anything, but then, starting in the summer of 1923, the inflation started to skyrocket, and then it went hyperbolic, and by November, people were bringing money by the wheelbarrow to the baker because the price of bread changed by the day. And then it was ended.

Today, this is not limited to one country, like it was in Weimar Germany: This is now practically the whole world. [China’s] Global Times had an editorial warning that this excessive money creation by the Federal Reserve is now spilling over, threatening to affect the whole world with the hyperinflationary effects, and that countries should guard themselves against these effects.

The inflation issue and hyperinflationary issue is now out everywhere. Even tabloids like Bildzeitung in Germany are warning that the savings of the pensioners will be eaten up by this inflation; the official inflation target by the ECB [European Central Bank —ed.] is 2%; in Germany, it’s already officially 2.4%, but that is obviously not the real story. For example, in everything having to do with oil and oil-related production, you get inflation rates of 40%, or 50%. Biofuels, such as maize, have seen more than 100% inflation. This is clearly getting out of control. And added to that is the crisis of shortages in materials. The entire construction sector in Germany, for example, and probably other European countries as well, has incredible shortages: There is a lack of wood, among other materials. Trucks cannot be repaired because there are no spare parts.

It really shows that the economic situation is much more fragile. Remember that there is normally a delay factor between when commodity prices go up and when they later hit consumer prices. But we are now reaching the point at which this is clearly becoming very visible. And it should be a reason for utmost concern.

Schiller Institute Conference June 26-27

This is why, at the next Schiller Institute conference, which will be on June 26-27—and you should register and reserve the date—the issue of hyperinflation and the necessary instruments against it, namely, to implement a global Glass-Steagall banking separation law, and the other three of Lyndon LaRouche’s Four Laws, will be a major subject of that conference. If you really are concerned how to save your money, you should listen to that conference, and not to the gold bugs, because they will try to make money out of this situation. But we will discuss at this conference the only realistic way the livelihood and life’s work of literally billions of people can be protected. Because if there is a hyperinflation coming on internationally it will affect every economy, even those that have relative capital restrictions will be hit, because it will have a tremendous impact on the world market. So, attend this online conference, and definitely join our forces. You can register for the conference at https://schillerinstitute.nationbuilder.com/20210626-27-conference.

Schlanger: While we’re talking about this, we have the other green scandal, which is the attempt to create a new financial bubble, a green financial bubble. At the center of this is the former Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, who is now selling these carbon certificates to poor countries. This is completely crazy. The policy is openly now, no development in the Global South. This is the ultimate imperial policy, isn’t it?

Zepp-LaRouche: It’s a pretty outrageous and naked effort to reintroduce colonialism, because what Mark Carney is proposing, for Africa in particular, is that they should sign agreements to not develop their resources, to even reforest their arable land, and then basically get some money from the certificate trading whereby they sell their certificates to firms in the West, that have production and CO₂ emissions. It’s an incredible story: It’s basically an agreement for the Global South to not develop. The present Chief of MI6, Richard Moore, says MI6 will internationally police that these agreements are being fulfilled.

German Green Party Is a War Party

Schlanger: And, as with almost everything we’ve discussed so far today has some outrageous element to it, we need to pick up on the outrage in the political situation in Germany, where the Green Party is pushing depopulation with the Green financial bubble that we just discussed, and also a war policy. And this is Baerbock, and Habeck who was contesting for Chancellor candidacy and lost. But they’re obviously in an alliance for these crazy policies.

Zepp-LaRouche: Baerbock spoke recently at the Atlantic Council, which ran a story afterwards under the headline, “Annalena Baerbock in Synch with Joe Biden.” And that is unfortunately, absolutely the case. The Atlantic Council is a think tank which represents the military-industrial complex, completely. If you look at the list of people on the board, and advisory board, it’s a good representation of the military-industrial complex, and therefore, it’s not surprising that Robert Habeck went to Ukraine, met with President Zelensky, and supported the sale of lethal weapons to Ukraine, in complete violation of even the Green program, which says no weapons should be sold to areas of war, which Ukraine clearly is. And naturally, Zelensky is now saying, “I demand that Germany should sell weapons to Ukraine,” which really is an outrage.

If you think about what happened 75-80 years ago, Germany should not be enticed into selling weapons into war zones! This is so outrageous that only if people are completely oblivious to history could you even make such an outrageous proposal. But even some of the Green Party members now can see that this is really a complete outrage. One can only hope that in time more and more people will see the character of this new leadership of the Greens—I was never a friend of the Greens, but compared to these people, Petra Kelly was a sweetheart!

Schlanger: [laughing] As you just pointed out, it’s not just that they’re selling weapons or offering to sell weapons to Ukraine, but knowing that those weapons will go to Nazi units inside Ukraine’s defense and security forces, makes the point even more extreme. Helga, is there anything else?

Zepp-LaRouche: In closing, let me say that I know people now want to go on vacation and have a break from COVID, but unfortunately the subjects we touched upon are not going to go to the beach. They’re going to stay with the world and that’s why we need thinking people, people who are willing to take responsibility as citizens. That is what is most lacking now. Our upcoming conference on June 26-27 is an enormous opportunity for people to step up as citizens in the most profound sense of that word. It will be a forum where an alliance of anti-Malthusian people from all parts of the world will come together, and you should be one of them.

Schlanger: Helga, thanks for joining us today, and we’ll see you next week.

Zepp-LaRouche: Till next week.