ZEPP-LAROUCHE WEBCAST

Behind the Green New Deal: Hjalmar Schacht

Megan Dobrodt: Hello, I’m Megan Dobrodt, standing in for Harley Schlanger. I’d like to welcome everyone to this week’s dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and chairwoman of the Schiller Institute. Today is July 29, 2021.

I think we have a lot to discuss today, Helga, on the strategic front, on the economic front—which, as we’ve been urging to our viewers, are really one and the same crisis. So, why don’t we start with the escalating offensive to push the idea of man-made climate change, which has only risen to complete hysteria following the very devastating flooding events in Germany of the recent weeks. We also have the upcoming COP-26 climate summit in Glasgow, which is planned for this November. So, Helga, maybe you can update us on what’s happening on this front.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: As we have said many times, man-made climate change is a hoax. What is really behind it is that the financial system of the trans-Atlantic sector is completely bankrupt and about to go into a hyperinflationary blowout. So, the central banks, headed by Mark Carney—former Governor of the Bank of England—and other central bankers are trying to “shift the trillions,” by keeping the bubble going, just another round, by going essentially to the same policy as Hjalmar Schacht did 80 years ago. They are trying to secure the complete control by central banks over any issuing of credit for industrial production, by preventing banks from giving credit for real production, and shifting “the trillions” into a new bubble—green technology and alternative energy resources. The central bankers are forcing the exit from nuclear power and the shutting down of the use of fossil fuels.

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is supposed to come out with their final preparatory report on August 9th for the Glasgow COP-26 meeting in November. What is being said ahead of time is that the report will cause complete alarm. This was echoed by an updated statement by 11,000 so-called “scientists” who say that drastic cuts have to occur in human activity, because the climate change is so dramatic. And they also admit for the first time that a declining population is a required element.

Now, that’s what we have been saying the whole time! The real aim of this is that the Malthusians which happen to sit in the City of London and Wall Street, want to cut the population. They want to go for a massive population reduction. This is the danger of a new fascism, and people should not be confused about that. Because it’s not true that there is a consensus among scientists that climate change is due to anthropogenic causes.

There has always been climate change; you always go from ice ages to warm weather periods. This has been going on for millions of years. But this present scare is designed to impose really a global fascist dictatorship of the central banks. It is fascism, And if this is not opposed, it will lead to social chaos, because all these policies will lead to dramatic price increases in energy, in food production. You will collapse the real economy; it can only lead to complete catastrophe. Then, the weak, the poor, the people in developing countries, will be the victims.

You already see right now the schemes which are being made. For example, Mark Carney, who said there has to be a deal between the developing countries whereby they get money directly for making agreements that they will not develop.

If you look at the world right now, we are in the middle of a pandemic; we are in a world famine of biblical dimensions, as David Beasley from the UN World Food Program keeps stressing. And these people want to cut human activity, which consequence would be no development in the developing countries, and drastically cutting back the living standard dramatically in the so-called advanced sector.

People have to wake up! The fact that we had a flood in Germany was due not to climate change; this is a complete lie! This was due to the fact that existing programs of infrastructure investments were not done because Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble wants to insist on his black zero balanced budget. In one of the rivers that was flooded in Germany, the Greenies managed to remove certain dams in order to allow the fish to swim more easily up and down the river. The result was that there was no way to regulate the recent enormous rainfall. So the Green policy and the black zero, balanced budget policy, the non-investment in infrastructure was responsible for this flooding. So, I can only warn people that this is not settled at all. It is a gigantic fraud with the intent to impose these murderous policies upon the vast majority of the people of the world.

Dobrodt: It seems like not every nation is willing to go along with this; at least, not completely. For example, Egypt recently has made major moves toward nuclear energy and building up their nuclear sector. They’ve brought in Russia’s Rosatom to help them build nuclear reactors. Also, just a few days ago, the President of Bolivia inaugurated the construction of a new nuclear research reactor in El Alto. And then, along the same lines, the nations of South and Central America just came together to create the Latin American and Caribbean Space Agency. The Foreign Minister of Paraguay—Acevedo—at that ceremony said, “We may not yet have satellites to place in orbit, but we are beginning to place into orbit those enemies of success, those apostles of failure, the mediocre, and the resentful.”

The Schiller Institute conference on July 24, less than a week ago, which you initiated, was very successful exactly on this issue; to intervene on the lies and the fraud of this Malthusian climate change hoax. Maybe you could tell our viewers a little bit about that conference. [See coverage elsewhere in this issue.]

An International Anti-Malthusian Alliance

Zepp-LaRouche: The conference on Saturday was just one more important step of what we have been doing for a while. We are building an international anti-Malthusian alliance, because all of these schemes are really nothing else than modern versions of what Malthus said, and he was just an agent for the British East India Company, trying to develop a so-called theory for their practices of colonialism in India and other places. We now have working with us scientists from South Africa, other African nations, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Holland, the United States, and we are in contact with similar scientists in Russia and other Asian countries. They all have extensive models and research and data analysis which absolutely put into question what is being put out by the IPCC.

So, I can only suggest to you, our viewers: Go to the Schiller Institute website, watch these panels from last Saturday, and get it around. Because it’s not true. One of the lies which is being peddled is that there is a consensus among the scientists. Far from it! As a matter of fact, the scientists who spoke last Saturday are not just individuals, but each of them represents groups of such people in their respective countries. One group issued a letter on their own saying there is no climate emergency; sent this letter to the EU Commission, to the General Secretary of the United Nations, and to all governments.

I think that the minimum of what is needed is an honest debate on the causes of climate change. Some of the speakers on Saturday said that there may be positive effects of climate change. In warming periods, food and other things from nature grow much better. So, it’s not a settled question at all.

Dobrodt: The other day, I was speaking to one such scientist, who is not going along with the lies. And he said that at first his group thought they could just convince people with reason. But now he realizes that it’s a much bigger political fight. So I just bring that up to underscore what you’re saying about bringing together a worldwide anti-Malthusian alliance to really leverage this across the entire world.

The Real Strategic Danger of World War

Why don’t we turn our discussion now to the strategic war danger?

Representatives of the United States and Russia just concluded a series of meetings in Geneva, talks on strategic arms control. This is a follow-up on President Putin’s and President Biden’s meeting in Geneva last month. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who was at the meeting, said afterwards that the discussions were very down-to-earth, very business-like, very focussed, conscious, and rational.

What’s your assessment of this situation? Are things headed in the right direction?

Zepp-LaRouche: I think any reasonable person on the planet hopes that that is the case. I think it’s a tiny, baby step in the right direction, that these strategic stability talks are taking place in Geneva. But unfortunately, that’s not the whole picture. President Biden, almost at the exact same time, had a meeting in the offices of the National Director of Intelligence, Avril Haines, a meeting with many representatives of the intelligence community, in which he said yes, we have to cooperate—meaning the United States with Russia and China. And there are areas where such cooperation is necessary. But he also said that these countries could become “mortal competitors” down the road. And then he proceeded to say that if it ever would come to a “shooting war with a major power,” then it would be triggered by a major cyber breach. And remember, major powers are nuclear powers.

That is almost an invitation for third party forces to set up a cyber-attack which then could be blamed on either Russia or China; let alone talking about a shooting war with one of these nations. Then President Biden said of the Russian President Putin, “he’s sitting on top of an economy that has nuclear weapons and oil wells and nothing else. Nothing else. Their economy is—what? —the eighth smallest in the world now—largest in the world? He knows—he knows he’s in real trouble, which makes him even more dangerous, in my view.”

This is the same type of derogatory language that we heard from President Barack Obama, who had said Russia was only a regional power. And that was the reason why President Putin and the Russian government then proceeded to develop qualitatively new hypersonic and other weapons, which undid—at least for the time being—the entire global nuclear defense system of the United States.

Now, that’s the kind of arms race which is a question of self-defense. But from the standpoint of the productive capacity of the Earth, any kind of arms race in a world which is in such a dire condition, is just a complete waste. Obviously, the United States is now trying to catch up. But it is that kind of talk that is poisoning the atmosphere, and it’s very dangerous. How can you build up trust? There is already a complete loss of trust among the so-called West and Russia and China, and all their respective partners and allies.

How can you have any kind of strategic stability when, on the one side, you say “Let’s have a rational discussion,” but at the same time, there are many geopolitical destabilizations. Biden also met the opposition leader of Belarus, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. She also met with Victoria Nuland, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

You start to wonder, is there another regime change operation against Belarus in place? That’s what Victoria Nuland did in Ukraine. Then you have Blinken running around, presently in India, clearly trying to develop a special relationship between the United States and India in an anti- China, anti-Russian position. This is all very fragile. I think if people were to understand how fragile world peace is, they would not sleep and that would be better than sleepwalking into World War III.

Dobrodt: Well, I’m glad you brought up China, Helga, because the situation with China is not much better; one maybe could claim it’s even worse. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin either just concluded, or maybe he’s still on, a tour in Southeast Asia, where he’s visiting many nations; making big speeches about pulling these nations together into an alliance to defend their rights in the region. This is obviously aimed at China. Tell us more about what’s going on in this situation.

Zepp-LaRouche: It’s a kind of brinksmanship which I think is probably the most worrisome potential theatre of war—the South China Sea, the situation around Taiwan. I can only say that in the Chinese-American community in the United States in particular, but also in Europe, there is a huge worry among overseas Chinese who see the bellicose tone, who think that maybe a war between the United States and China is inevitable in the short term, and they are scared. There was also all this anti-Chinese citizen, anti-Chinese student, anti-Chinese scientist moves in the last month, going back to what happened during the Trump administration. People are really scared, because it is very clear that if the independence advocates in Taiwan were to receive signals that they should go for independence, this would be crossing one of the red lines that mainland China will not accept.

If it were to come to military confrontation, it’s generally expected that the Chinese will win, very clearly—look where Taiwan is, and what military power do the Chinese there have. Then, the question is, would it come to the use of nuclear weapons? I’m absolutely convinced that the arguments of people like Ted Postol and Hans Kristensen and other experts on nuclear weapons are absolutely true; that once you use one nuclear weapon, the entire arsenal will be used, for reasons which have to do with the logic of the difference between a conventional and a nuclear war.

Now, that would be the end of civilization. I think the idea to contain China, to prevent the rise of China is not feasible. It’s not feasible unless you use nuclear weapons and you destroy the entire human species. China was one of the leading nations, or the leading nation actually for centuries, until about the 17th Century. And now they are undoing what was done to them in the Century of Humiliation by British imperialism, by the Opium Wars, by the very difficult 20th Century.

China is conducting an economic policy which is obviously doing a lot of things absolutely right, which is why China was able to lift 850 million people out of poverty; why they are now in a position to help other developing countries to go in the same direction. This is a good thing. China has made a tremendous civilizational contribution by doing that. Where would the world be in the middle of pandemic, in the middle of a famine, if China’s economy was still in the condition it was 40 years ago? There would be almost no hope of getting going the kind of engine to pull the world out of the depression.

So, the idea of containing China is wrong. I know that many of our viewers have been profoundly influenced by the media campaign portraying China as a monster. But China is not a monster. I think the success of the Chinese model of economy is something many countries should learn from. We have discussed this in the past. In many ways, what the Chinese economic model has accomplished is very much like the early American System of economy of Alexander Hamilton. It’s just a much more dirigist approach. But that used to be the approach of the Western economies; that was the method of the German economic miracle which helped to reconstruct Germany after World War II. Germany, after World War II, had the same kind of dirigist orientation as China now has. So, there are a lot of myths, but I think the narrative that China is the enemy is completely false. And the Chinese government has said many times that there is no basis in reality to portray China and Russia as such enemy images. Their policies are not doing what they are being accused of, and if there were a willingness by the West to cooperate in solving the world’s problems, all these purported dangers would vanish practically overnight.

Afghanistan: Turning a Holocaust
into a Renaissance

Dobrodt: Speaking of cooperation, I want to turn to Afghanistan. You issued a statement earlier this month following the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, stating that it was absolutely urgent that the neighbors of Afghanistan—including powers such as China and Russia—come together with agreements with Afghanistan to rebuild Afghanistan into an economically modern Renaissance nation. And that crucially, the United States had to brought into this cooperation for the good. Along these lines, we’ve also just had the visit of Taliban leaders to China to meet with Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and there was a very important meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tajikistan which took up this issue of the future of Afghanistan.

So, could you say more on this? What’s your perspective on this?

Zepp-LaRouche: I said that the Afghanistan situation, for a very short period of time, represents one of these unique moments when you can change the direction of policy. I even compared it to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, where, for a very short period of time, with the German unification following, there was a potential to establish a peace order, because communism had just vanished. That opportunity was missed for geopolitical reasons. This is a whole other subject, but there was a short moment of maybe several months, a potential that it could have led to the Eurasian Land-Bridge. What we see with the New Silk Road today, we suggested that when the Soviet Union collapsed. It would have totally changed the history of the world if that would have been accepted.

Now we have the situation with Afghanistan, where NATO troops are being pulled out. The question is, will this lead to a continuation of the war in the form of a civil war? The Taliban and ISIS, al-Qaeda, government forces are all continuing the war with terrible results: the growth of terrorism; growth of opium production. And throwing the whole region and beyond into chaos; that is a danger. Or can it be a situation where a peaceful solution can be found, where all the parties of Afghanistan somehow settle their own affairs?

The Afghanis are very proud people, who really do not want foreign powers meddling in their internal affairs; they’ve had enough of that. All of Afghanistan’s neighboring states—the Central Asian republics, Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, India—all these people have an interest in ensuring that this region develops peacefully. The existing Afghan government has indicated that they would appreciate the collaboration with China and the Belt and Road Initiative. The head of the Taliban political commission, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was just in China meeting with Wang Yi. He said that the Taliban does not intend to do anything that would be against the interests of China. And Wang Yi, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, said that China is absolutely committed to the territorial integrity of Afghanistan, and non-interference in its internal affairs.

And as you said, the SCO meeting—Shanghai Cooperation Organization—and also some other meetings which took place in the last week, clearly show a potential that if the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor were extended into Kabul, into Central Asia, you could start to build the kind of infrastructure which would complete the Eurasian connectivity as some countries call it, which is completely coherent with the Belt and Road Initiative. You would bring in infrastructure, agriculture, and industry into the whole region in an integrated way. That way, you could then establish a health system in Afghanistan, which is practically non-existent. You would develop agriculture instead of opium production. You would increase the living standard, life expectancy. It would be beneficial for the Afghan people and all the neighboring countries.

This coming Saturday, the Schiller Institute will be hosting a seminar with important speakers from the region, during which we will propose exactly this approach. Hopefully, it will involve cooperation between the United States, Russia, and China. The Afghan Ambassador to China, Dr. Javid Ahmad Qaem, said recently that Afghanistan is the one place where the United States and China could cooperate. Hopefully, once you start to cooperate in a very serious fashion someplace, this could become the model of really changing relationships on the strategic level, which I described earlier, as a step in the right direction of a peace approach at large.

I think from the standpoint of world history and humanity as a whole, the world stage is right now in Afghanistan, and a lot depends on whether this historic moment is used for the better.

Dobrodt: Helga, I think that’s extremely important, especially considering the assault that has taken place against citizens of the United States and Europe and other nations over the past decades, which has really degenerated the culture into one dominated by ugliness, violence, and war. I think if people really concentrate on what you just went through and allow their imaginations to be filled with a vision of what perhaps is one of the most destroyed parts of the planet, very quickly turning into one of the most beautiful and flourishing parts of the planet, that would really provide the basis for people to start to understand what you’re bringing up about this historic opportunity.

Commemorating Lyndon LaRouche
on August 14

Moving towards our conclusion, you mentioned the conference that we’re holding this weekend, which will be July 31st, this Saturday, starting at 10 a.m. Eastern U.S. time; 4 p.m. Central European time.

Is there anything else you want to say about that conference, or anything else you’d like to tell our viewers before we go?

Zepp-LaRouche: I think the 14th of August conference will be a milestone, because it will commemorate the prophetic statement by my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, who was probably the only economist who recognized the significance of what President Richard Nixon did on the 15th of August 1971, when Nixon destroyed the Bretton Woods system by replacing the fixed exchange rate with floating exchange rates. Lyn said at that time, that if the tendency towards monetarism is continued, it will lead to the danger of a new fascism, a danger of a new war, and a depression. Or we could go for a completely different system.

That was absolutely on the mark, and we are now at that point. We are looking at the danger of a new fascism in the form of Hjalmar Schachtian economics, which is what is behind this Green New Deal. And we are looking at the danger of war. And, we are in a depression, but for certain bubbles, one absolutely can say that.

So, we will review all of this. We will also review the remedies that were presented by Lyndon LaRouche. And we will have an extraordinary number of speakers, who knew my husband, or who have studied in depth his work. And that is what we want to catalyze, because the solutions of Lyndon LaRouche are still absolutely the best way to get out of this crisis. Prepare to be part of this. Reserve the date; register; participate in the discussion; and get the news about this conference around as widely as you can.

Otherwise, in conclusion: Many people are so distraught about politics; they are pessimistic; they don’t see any positive vision for the future, and that leads to cultural pessimism which is the disease that leads to fascism. That’s what it did in the 1930s, and that’s the danger now. If people were to listen, to carefully consider the need for a change in the paradigm, we could have returned politics to being a force for the good in the world. It’s not a law of the universe that politics must be dirty, and that politicians must be corrupt. There have been periods in which politics, public policy, was a fountain of the good, like under Solon of Athens, for example, or Louis XI in France. I could probably come up with a whole bunch of other examples, when mankind progressed.

Right now, we are called upon to answer the question: Do we have the moral fiber in us to survive as a human species? As you mentioned, there are so many people who have aspirations to go back to the best traditions of the great cultures. There was a beautiful speech on July 16 by the President of Uzbekistan, who called upon all the great thinkers of history of that region to be activated. The idea that developing countries want to be space-faring powers is fantastic. They want to leapfrog under-development and become part of the space-faring community and enter a new chapter in the history of civilization.

So, join us, and let us try to make politics a force for good. I absolutely think it’s possible.

Dobrodt: Go to schillerinstitute.com to register for this Saturday’s conference on Afghanistan. Sign-up so that you don’t miss any of our updates, and become a member of the Schiller Institute, to join in exactly as Helga has just called upon you to.

Helga, thank you very much. This has been a wonderful discussion, and we look forward to next week.

Zepp-LaRouche: Thank you; see you next week.