Germans in Dialogue with LaRouche
The following is a transcript of the discussion which followed Mr. LaRouche's main address on Nov. 17 to the party congress of Germany's Civil Rights Movement Solidarity party (BüSo). Due to technical difficulties, only brief paraphrases of the questions are given here.
Q: Could you elaborate on the terrorist attack of Sept. 11?
LaRouche: First of all, we have to eliminate certain myths about the events of Sept. 11 in the United States. What happened in the United States was a coup d'état attempt, against the Presidency of George Bush, by a military faction, at a very high level. This was not an attack from outside the United States: It was an attack from the inside.
Now, this goes back—those who've studied the history of irregular warfare, in the post-1945 period, such as the late Professor von der Heydte, would appreciate this immediately. And, I've had some expertise in these matters: That was a military coup d'état attempt, organized by a faction within the security apparatus of the United States, against the President of the United States.
The purpose was, to implement the policy of Zbigniew Brzezinski—a clash of civilizations war—in which a billion Muslims would be killing one another, and also everybody else in sight, as a result of being enraged, by the combination of what is happening in the Middle East, and the extension of that to a broader war.
It didn't work.
But something else did: The key reference for this coup, is twofold. First of all, the U.S. economy was collapsing, the world financial system was collapsing. We're at Doomsday on the world economy. It's finished, in its present form. So, just as in Germany, in 1933, in January-February 1933, a financial crisis of the deepest type—and this is worse than the Depression of 1929-33—provokes from certain desperate circles at high levels, coups d'état. Not only was there a coup d'état in Germany, organized from London and from New York, which brought Hitler to power, but, a similar attempt was made in the United States, in the form of an assassination attack against the President-elect, Franklin Roosevelt; and also, in a planned military coup against the U.S. government, to prevent Roosevelt from becoming President, just as von Schleicher was knocked out in Germany.
So, when you get into a period like this, of a profound crisis of the financial system, is the time in which, in smaller countries, less powerful countries, or in major countries, you suddenly have the danger of coups d'état, and related effects. That's what happened.
What happened that's different? While President—and President Bush has described this incident a number of times, since the event: Bush was travelling in a plane, he was told to get out of Florida, immediately, and get into Air Force One; he did. In the period, in going from there to an airport in Louisiana, he received a signal from President Putin of Russia. After they left Louisiana, on their way to an airport in Nebraska, a telephone conversation between Putin and the President occurred directly. At that point, Putin said to the President of the United States: "I know you're in trouble"—according to Bush's version of the story, and Putin was standing there, in Crawford, Texas, as Bush told this story yesterday. "At this point, I know you're having trouble. I know you've put your systems on alert. We're not putting our systems on alert, because we want to help you." "To help you": So, what happened was, is that the President of the United States intervened, with the help of the President of Russia, to turn a coup d'état, against the United States government. So, the coup d'état has not been crushed, but it did not succeed.
Now, if you look inside the U.S. government, you say, "How could a coup d'état occur? Who was for it?" Well, a lot of people are for the coup d'état! Brzezinski, for example! Kissinger, for example! People inside the administration: Wolfowitz, for example—the Assistant [S/B Deputy?] Secretary of Defense. Many people were for launching an immediate confrontation with China, and Russia, over the issue of bombing Syria, Iraq, etc.! A "Clash of Civilizations" war.
So, what happened, if you watch carefully, as has been emphasized by our people looking at this: Until 8 o'clock in the evening, that night—remember, the attack occurred at about 9 o'clock in the morning—8 o'clock in the evening, or after 8 o'clock, was the first time the name "terrorism" was used. How was it used? It was used, as I had said earlier in the morning, I said, "Some idiot is going to try to blame Osama bin Laden, for this thing"; which I said about 9:15 or 9:20 in the morning, on a radio broadcast. And they did. They said, "We're going to bomb Afghanistan." And they did. Why did they do that? Well, it's the nature of politics. Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden had nothing to do with the coup d'état that occurred on Sept. 11, that attack in the United States, as such. But: The Taliban and Osama bin Laden were a major security threat to Russia! And prior to the attack of Sept. 11, the United States, or part of it, had been financing support, through the Taliban, for disrupting Russia! What happened after Sept. 11, when the President of Russia, in fact, rescued the United States from a coup d'état, by his intervention (if indirectly, but nonetheless effectively), a new agreement was struck. "Okay. The American people are going to demand we go after somebody. We can't go after Zbigniew Brzezinski. We can't shoot Brzezinski. We can shoot the Taliban, because we don't like them. We can shoot Osama bin Laden, because he's no good. The Taliban have shown themselves to be very evil people we don't like. So, let's bomb them.
"Besides, everybody bombs Afghanistan, ever since the British started their wars there, during the 19th Century."
So, what you have is, the Afghanistan war is a hoax! There are real elements to it; there are real causes for it. But it has nothing to do with Sept. 11. It is a reflex, a political reflex to a combination of circumstances, in which the Sept. 11 situation occurred. No one in Germany, for example, is going to attack Israel, for its role in this, are they? Not publicly. Germans are not permitted to do that. But you have to talk about what Israel is doing. And you think about the Warsaw Ghetto, when you think about what's being done in Israel, against the Palestinians, by the present military dictatorship there. We all know that. But, it's not going to be said in Germany. Those issues are not going to be raised in the United States, either, about Israel's complicity in this operation.
Therefore, you find somebody else to bomb. Because it's political manipulation of populations and public opinion, which is still the name of the game.
Now, in this situation, the positive side: What Russia has been doing, since 1998—beginning with the Primakov effort as Prime Minister, and continued since then, by Putin, in his negotiations—is to do what we proposed, earlier, and during that period; to bring about a system of cooperation in Eurasia, which would be based on the power centers of agreement among Russia, China, and India; bringing other nations of Eurasia into economic cooperation, around this; and, in cooperation with Western Europe, as a provider of technology into these areas, where development is needed.
Since that time, Russia has made significant steps forward. There is presently, a very strong movement for a regional bloc in Asia, of Japan, Korea, China, and the nations of Southeast Asia. There're problems there, but it's a serious effort. The dynamic, is moving toward cooperation. Eurasian cooperation is the solution. It must be based largely upon economic cooperation.
And, that's the solution.
Those who run the coup, like Brzezinski, who designed the coup, with his "Clash of Civilizations," his "Chessboard game"—these fellows aim to destroy the possibility of such cooperation in Eurasia. So, therefore, I say, the answer is—even though I have very good relations with the Islamic world right now, because I've told the truth; and the Islamic world is in a frightened situation, and they want to hear the truth. But, the key to the solution to this problem is, to make this Eurasian cooperation work. And to achieve the victory of Eurasian cooperation, over the kinds of ideas, which are expressed by the people who plotted the coup, or the attempted coup d'état, against the Bush government in the United States, on Sept. 11.
'Never Go To War Over Religion'
Q: In Islam, there is no separation between politics and religion. What do you think of this idea?
LaRouche: Well, the idea that you can not separate politics from religion, is the most dangerous idea you can imagine. We've had a lot of experience of that in European civilization. We had the Crusades, which were rightly denounced by Pope John Paul II as a great error. Especially in the period from the Second Crusade through the middle of the 12th Century—the 12th to the 13th Century. This was destructive. The effects of this were continued in Europe with the Hundred Years' War. They were continued in England with the Wars of the Roses. They were resumed, under Venetian influence, between 1511 and 1648, in terms of a series of religious wars, orchestrated by Venice, for the purpose of attempting to destroy the effort to launch and consolidate modern nation-states, which Venice considered a threat, to its rentier-financier interests.
So, therefore, we have discovered, from European history, that wars fought on the basis of religion, lead inevitably to dark ages for humanity. So, to have a war in the name of religion, is perhaps the greatest of all crimes. To motivate a war, on the basis of religion, is perhaps the most heinous of all crimes.
Well, how do we deal with this? Helga referenced this today, I'm sure, in her remarks: this question about ecumenical approaches. I have said this, on this question: Let's forget single-issue religion. Let's forget doctrinal religion. Let's find out what is commonly fundamental, to Christianity, Judaism—especially as Reform Judaism, in Germany, reflected that, or in the Polish Renaissance, the Yiddish Renaissance, in Poland and so forth—and also, in Islam, which is a by-product of the impact of Christianity. What is the central issue here? Now, in Christianity, I would contend, we are much better off (except some Christians I would like to disown; I'm not one of them). But, the point is, that we commonly agree, that man and woman are made, equally, in the image of the Creator of the universe. Now, that means, that there's something about mankind, that is special; that is not like the animals; that is in the image of the Creator of the universe. And, therefore, you must treat a human life with that respect. That, a sense of natural law, based on that definition of man, is the common feature of Christianity, Judaism (especially as expressed by Moses Mendelssohn), and Islam.
Therefore, the law must be: We have an ecumenical dialogue, which is a dialogue of cultures, centered on agreement to one principle in common: That man and woman are made, equally, in the image of the Creator of the universe.
Now, that says much about the way the Taliban treat their women! They don't treat the women as made equally in the image the Creator. They violate law! Natural law. And, thus, that's the basis for law. So, we said: "We agree on that."
Now, we have problems in other parts of the world. You have parts of beliefs, which are called religious, which we would not call religious—we might call them "ethical beliefs"; in which Confucianism, for example, is closest to Christianity. But other forms of belief, which do not accept the idea, that man is absolutely distinct from the animals. So, they don't accept that law. But, what do we do? What we do, as an example: We have this case of Matteo Ricci, who has just been, in a sense, elevated by Pope John Paul II; who was the great Jesuit missionary to China, who worked with China for years, and became a great influence in China. We follow the footsteps of someone like Matteo Ricci. We work with nations and governments, which do not agree, with this conception of man, to try to win them to it, the way Matteo Ricci worked with the Chinese, when he was influential in China.
So, our basic approach, is an ecumenical approach. Not a pantheonic approach: Not all religions are equal. We don't accept that. But that doesn't mean you go to war over religion. You must never go to war over religion. It's a matter of persuasion. It's a matter of example. It's a matter of finding out, what is the common principle. What is the really common principle? The principle of natural law. It's very simple: That man is not an animal. Man is something else. And therefore, every human life, every human mind, every human face, has a sacred quality to it: Which means, that that life must be nourished; it must be defended; it must be enriched; it must be capable of transmitting to future generations, the benefits of the past and of the present.
And that should be our law.
I find that, in my experience, there are fanatics, who call themselves Islamic. But don't worry about that. I mean, worry about it, but don't worry about it as a matter of principle. I find, in the reception I have in the world today, and I've been told by some of our friends: I'm all over the place, in the entire Arab and Islamic press, these days.
We're able to influence this process, in Islam, by doing a very simple thing, which is not done by the attack on Afghanistan: Tell the truth. If you tell the truth, then people should trust you. They may not trust you, but they should. And, if they should trust you, and they do: We've won.
So, tell them the truth. Give them the message. Say, "We agree on this. You agree?" They say, "Yes." Then, we have an alliance. We must make a strong alliance among those who share that view, of the definition of man, which is shared among Christianity, Islam, and Reform Judaism, in particular.
Science And The Classics: Keys To Change
Q: As you can see, I'm one of the youngest persons, here in this congress. You told us about the fact that we need to change our society, and you said, in several sequences: Well, we need this change to be done. But, how exactly, would you say this change has to be done? I don't understand. You know, as a young person, you try, of course, to tell the truth about the 11th of September, but can you give me, as a young person, advice, just to say, to my younger colleagues—to my younger friends—what can we change?
LaRouche: You develop two things, or two examples: One, is physical science. The other is in the Classics, especially in Classical drama. I mean, the most useful thing, in Germany, is Classical drama, for political education. Particularly, with Schiller, as an example—it's also true with Shakespeare—the Classical drama, is not fiction. Classical drama is a great mind's educational presentation of real history. Not real history as something to contemplate, but real history, as something that can be known, in the sense of understood as known. For example: The case of Jeanne d'Arc, is a case (apart from this thing about the relationship to the man, which is fictional in Schiller's play, relative to the real history; it's a different problem, but the same kind of problem: It's called men's clothes/women's clothes, which is in the real history). But, in every other respect, Schiller's research on Jeanne d'Arc, stands up today, against everything that is known about Jeanne d'Arc, to the actual history. And, Schiller based his drama on exactly that history.
The same thing is true of Don Carlos, which is one of Schiller's earlier works. It's an example of a real historical situation, in Hapsburg Spain, which was launching a terrible war in Europe, a religious war; continuing a religious war, which had been going on from 1511 to 1648, which resulted in the destruction of Spain, from which Spain has not recovered, to the present day. Remember, Spain was once a very proud nation. And, what Charles I and Philip did, destroyed Spain. It was religious war, that destroyed Spain. Bigotry destroyed Spain—from which Spain has not recovered to the present day! And, that's Schiller's lesson. Now, Schiller did work on the Netherlands war, in general. And, dealt with this consummately in the Wallenstein trilogy. Which, again, is the case: Wallenstein is not a hero, but he was a heroic figure, in a certain sense, that Wallenstein wanted to stop the war in, essentially, the right way. He was killed, because he wanted to stop the war. And, the reasons that are given, in defense of the killing of Wallenstein, are reasons given by people, who don't understand history, but have some Romantic conception, about what Classical drama is.
So that, the study of Classics, from a standpoint of understanding history, particular crucial history, is one of the best educational modes for educating people politically.
Secondly, in science: The case of Kepler is exemplary. Or, you can take a simple problem, which has continuity. For example, Gauss is rich, even in his first major work, which is his doctoral dissertation, on arithmetic. This is full of this kind of thing. Riemann is an example of that, but you'd only understand Riemann, against the background of Gauss: Then it's fully understandable—and Kästner.
So, we have, in science—you have experimental cases, which can be made clear, virtually to a layman audience. The key thing here, is to get inside people the sense of excitement of knowledge, as opposed to learning. People go to school to learn. They learn to copy a formula written on a blackboard. They learn to copy something recited from a textbook. Or given in a lecture. They learn how to choose on a multiple-choice examination.
Do they know anything? No. They have learned much, but know almost nothing. The experience of knowledge, which is the thing that distinguishes a human being from an animal, is what they lack. And so, for a simple example, even the simplest ones, which are genuine examples of Classical composition in art, or of Classical examples of scientific discoveries; or even the dialogues of Plato, which are full of this kind of thing: Those examples are things, which are accessible to most people in the population, if somebody prepares the lesson well enough; and can be understood. And, the most important thing, is, not what the person comes to know, as such; the most important thing, is the experience, in the mind, of a person, who now says, "I know what you mean by knowledge!"
Remember: Kant said this doesn't exist. That's one of the problems in Germany, is Kant. As we say, in English, "I Kant." [laughter] "You Kant do it," huh?
But the experience of the idea of knowing, the idea of the act of discovery! Which inspires people to become scientists! Why does a person want to become a scientist? They are ecstatic about it! Why does a person become an actor? It's a lousy profession, in many respects. But, good professional actors, sometimes by doing all the trash they have to do to make a living, have the pleasure of actually doing on stage, or in other forms, actually creating a character in a professional way! And, this has a very essential role, in Classical art. So, people choose professions of this type, because of the passion, the joy, that practicing the profession means. In politics, the trick in politics, is to impart to a population, the sense of joy, which the great scientist gets, that draws a student into becoming a great scientist. Or draws an artist, into becoming a great artist. Passion. It's not riches, it's not this, it's not that—you have to survive, I suppose, huh? But, the real thing, is, the joy, the passion of knowledge. The excitement. The satisfaction.
All great experiments, for example, usually involve a tremendous amount of work by the experimenter, to make a discovery: over years. What kept the person doing that? Working at these discoveries, over years? The passion! The joy! Of doing that kind of work. The joy of knowing that one is human, because you can do something, that is truly human, that is not animal: You can participate in making a discovery, which will be useful to mankind.
And, our job, in organizing, I believe, is to reach out to people, with that approach. Don't argue with them as much. You may discuss anything, but don't argue; don't try to argue them into a position. Rather, have them have a sense of their ability to make discoveries: the joy of doing that, and, be inspired; say, "This is the way I want to live."
That's what makes a good politician.
The Nation-State and Credit Creation
Q: I have a firm which has been trading with Asian countries for many years. There is a proposal, by some non-governmental organizations, to set up a kind of United States of Asia. What do you think of that?
LaRouche: The problem is, that this kind of project can only be undertaken by sovereign nation-states. That is, on the scale we're talking about it now. The key thing is credit: All of the major projects, which will inspire people in Asia, to lift their heads up with joy, are long-wave projects, which are investments, which require credit extended over periods of a quarter-century. Now, the only way, in which mankind can generate that kind of credit, is through the nation-state. And the problem we have in Europe, right now, and the problem you have, also, in dealing with the UN, is: Neither the UN, nor the euro, can create credit.
Look at a real situation right now. We've lost trillions of dollars in the United States, recently, from the financial accounts, in the past year. Probably $10-12 trillion have been wiped from the books in financial accounts. We're on the verge of a collapse of the mortgage system. Remember, $12 trillion: That's more than the calculated GDP of the United States in a year—it's been wiped out. We are in a depression, which is worse, already, in terms of rate of depression, than that of 1929-1933. Already, in the United States. You're seeing similar things in Europe. The rate of collapse—Eichel can not keep up with the rate of collapse of the budget. It's impossible.
So, therefore, under these circumstances, in which we probably will get—several hundreds of trillions of dollars of financial assets will be wiped out. These are the normal financial assets of banks and other institutions; and governments, too. Where are you going to get the credit, to create mass employment—not only mass employment within nations, but mass employment in trade among nations on long-term agreements? The only way you can do that, is with the sovereign nation-state, which takes a responsibility, as a state obligation for creating credit by will of the state. These credits, then, are applied, through agreements among nation-states.
That is—for example: Let's take the maglev, and some other things, with China and Germany. The way in which the maglev can progress, is with a multinational agreement on long term, 25 years or so, involving China, with the extension of this kind of technology. There are other technologies of the same type. So, what is needed, say, between Germany and China, is a set of agreements. Now, also, some of these agreements will involve Russia. So, we will have, in that sense, a three-nation [agreement]. We have a plan, now, for Sakhalin, in northern Russia, Siberia, to connect it to Japan, by rail. This is already under way. We have projects, which involve Canadians and others, for building a rail connection from Siberia to Alaska, and therefore down through all the Americas. Big projects. We have similar kinds of large-scale projects there.
So, now, you have a picture of a nest of agreements, which involve largely things that are 25-year investments—that is, 25-year credit extension. This must be at 1-2%, no more; simple interest, no compound interest. Then, you must turn around, and, inside Germany, for example, must create or expand the industries, which are going to meet the contracts on Germany's performance in these agreements with China, Russia, and so forth.
You have vast areas of potential development of raw materials, for example, in Siberia: Central and North Asia, which can not be developed, except by large-scale infrastructure projects, and which must be developed by integration of cooperation among many nations. Again, credit.
So, therefore, what is needed, essentially, is that; is, you have to say: We're going to bankrupt the system, because it is bankrupt. But, by bankrupting the system, we're not cheating anybody, we're simply recognizing an accomplished fact. As in any good bankruptcy. We're now saying, we're not going to destroy the economy, for the sake of the bankruptcy. We're going to act, to ensure that the economy not only survives, but grows. And, then, we'll be able to handle our problems.
So, we do that. That's an agreement among states. Not through the United Nations, which can't do that. The religious figures, as such, can't do that. It has to be an agreement among states. National governments, which are sovereign, which can honor their debts, on a 25-year period. And a nest of these agreements among governments, is then the way we can have the greatest rate of growth, humanity has ever known, in Eurasia, during the next 25 years. If we get a clear image of that, and I would go back to my experience in Asia, during the end of World War II and immediately following: I was in Burma and I was in India. You'd find people, who were getting the equivalent of about 16¢ a day wages, as coolies for the British Army, in India. And some of these would come up to me, and talk to me about U.S. help in getting textile and other industries and machinery into India for the postwar period. Whenever you touch countries with great benefits, you will find, all other things considered, the people will respond to great benefits. They will be inspired by them. They will be inspired by that change: The best can be drawn from them.
And, in that case, you don't need any spiritual factor, as such. The act of charity, in the Classical Greek or Christian theological sense (not the other sense)—the act of charity in and of itself, evokes love from the recipient, of that kind of expression, particularly when it's in a tangible form. And, if we can agree among nations, knowing that our survival, our well-being, the well-being of our descendants, depends upon these kinds of agreements, we can do it.
The problem we have today, which I think you're addressing—the problem is, the presently reigning institutions, including the United Nations, are hopeless, when it comes to implementing this kind of program. We need a revolutionary sense, which can only come from a sense among nations, that the present system has failed. Stop trying to find a solution within the present financial and monetary system. It has failed. The present political system has failed. It has failed to change the financial and monetary system. Therefore, accept that fact. Say, "Fine! But the nations still exist. The nations should be sovereign. We, as nations, can decide. Let us decide. Let us change parties, let us change whatever we have to do. Let us do the right thing. We have to think about the next 25 years and beyond." And, I think, under those conditions, we can do what would seem, today, impossible. We've done it before, in history. We just have to do it again—on a bigger scale, perhaps, than ever before.
Putin Saved the United States
Q: Isn't Bush underestimating the corrosive effect that the war against Afghanistan is going to have, in U.S. relations with Islamic nations?
LaRouche: Well, that's obviously a problem which I'm greatly concerned with. I think there is a danger. I think that the Bush Administration underestimates the danger, for various reasons. But, we can not have this thing going on, for much longer, because the abrasive and corrosive effect upon Islamic nations, which are so frequently targetted, can lead to an uncontrolled explosion. Which is precisely what Brzezinski and Co. are seeking. And, that is the problem. And, therefore, it is necessary, I think, to mobilize all the more.
Well, I'm doing one thing, of course: I'm being picked up in a lot of the Arabic and other press, in what I'm saying. And, just demonstrating to people in Islamic countries, that somebody cares about them: This is nonsense; it's unjust; it shouldn't happen. We agree; we wanted to do something about that. That, in itself, means that you have not closed them off. And, the more people that do that, the better. To keep the dialogue going.
We obviously have to go beyond that. We have to mobilize. We have to mobilize for a sane solution. My basic thrust is, "Go to reality." Reality is: This was a coup d'état attempt against the President of the United States. And, the only thing that saved the President of the United States, from the worst of effect, was the intervention of the President of Russia.
Now, exactly what that intervention by the President of Russia means, in its fullest, I don't know. I know, essentially, what's reported to me; and I know what the President of the United States has said on only three occasions, about that intervention. So, therefore, in a sense, the intervention of Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, on that day, with the President of the United States, saved the United States government from the worst possible consequences of that coup attempt. Now, sooner or later, that reality has to become clear. It has already begun to be made clear in a certain degree, in a funny way, from France, by what is published by a section of the French intelligence group that I don't particularly like. But, they happen to have told some of the truth (not necessarily all of it). And, it was picked up by Le Figaro, picked up by others. And, is echoed, in a sense, by the way Le Monde covered a book, implicitly referring to this matter. So that, you know that in Europe—in France, in particular, but in other parts of Europe as well—we know from the activities of John Paul II, that there are forces which are moving, to try to get this thing back into some kind of rational shape.
And, obviously: We've got a lot of work before us, which still has to be done.
The Taliban Are a By-Product
Q: I am from Nigeria. You said that what happened on Sept. 11 was a coup d'état in America. And, that it was directly targetted to the President of America. To my own understanding, I think that the coup d'état was already planned, and carried out by the Americans, too, within themselves. Then, why did they bomb innocent civilians in Afghanistan? And preparing a longer list, like Iraq, Syria, and all that, saying that they were involved? Thank you.
LaRouche: That, I would have to say, first of all, is the way that politics works, in the world these days. Nearly everything that I know about politics, and I know a good deal, or similar things: Politics is essentially irrational. Parliamentary politics is more lies, than anything else. And, that's the way things happen. But then, political decisions are made, based on a political process of a parliamentary type; then somebody gets killed as a result of implementing that so-called compromise. It's what happened in this case. For example: Were the Taliban innocent? Was Osama bin Laden innocent? Innocent of what happened in the United States? Yes. Were they innocent—are they terrorists? Of course they are! Of course they are! Who created the terrorists? Ah-ha! It was created by the United States, Britain, and Israel. They created them. This particular operation was created in the 1970s, chiefly under the direction of Brzezinski, who was then the controller of Carter. That is, Brzezinski is the man who picked Carter to become the Presidential candidate, who became President. He was the controller, the chief controller of the Carter Administration.
He started the Afghanistan war! He went to Egypt, to the Islamic Jihad, and began recruiting from the Islamic Jihad, and others, to go Afghanistan to fight a war. They started a fight. They ran a coup in Afghanistan, provoked the Soviets and tantalized the Soviet forces to move into Afghanistan, in defense of their friends: And that's how the Afghanistan war, from 1979 through 1988 continued—that way! They did it!
All right. Now, what is Osama bin Laden? Osama bin Laden was a playboy of disgusting habits, from an area of Saudi Arabia near Yemen, who was used by the Americans! The Taliban were a by-product of the Anglo-American intelligence operation. The Israeli intelligence operations, which are generally privatized, were all over it! So, you can see, that what I was up against—here, I was sitting on one side, in a sense, talking to one side of the National Security Council (the top part), to which I was doing what became known as the SDI, as a policy. And, on the other extreme was Oliver North, and George Bush (the father), and some other people, who were my enemies. Now, these guys who were my enemies, were the guys who were running this kind of warfare: It was called "Iran-Contra." Drug-financed, weapons-trafficking-financed, private mercenary armies, recruited from all over the world, and used as a substitute for regular military forces.
So, the United States, Israel, and Britain created this entity, of which the Taliban and Osama bin Laden are simply a by-product. These entities operate today, based on drug-running. The Taliban are funded by drug money! The biggest source of opium products, into Europe, comes from that part of the world. Most of the terrorist operations of the world, are run by similar kinds of operations—black operations, financed in that way. So, this kind of thing is going on.
So, obviously, they should be cleaned up. We should shut down every drug operation in the world. We should shut down every illegal weapons-trafficking operation in the world; all these things: We should dry this mess out, that the United States, the British, and the Israelis created. Shut it down! Because they are killers. Because they do do the things they do. But, bombing the people of Afghanistan, was obviously not the solution.
But, you listen to the United States: The motivation was, the United States people lost 5,000-6,000 people in those attacks, and they need revenge. After they get revenge, we'll do something else. And, that's what happened. The people of Afghanistan were hit as a free target, as an exercise in ostensible revenge, against the people of Afghanistan. Under the pretext of attacking something which is not responsible for what happened on the 11th of September, but which are dirty people. That is, they are drug runners; they are killers! And, they destroy nations, and cause all kinds of havoc. And, they should be arrested. They should be detected—but in a lawful process. Not to destroy nation-states. Not to do this kind of thing.
But, this is what happens in politics, often. Someone says, "Okay. They're dirty: They may not have committed this crime, but we're going to hang them for it!" And, that's the way it's done.
Taking Responsibility for the World
Q: The situation in Nigeria is desperate, economically and politically. What can we do to make people recognize the drama of Nigeria, and of Africa, more broadly?
LaRouche: You have to accept a certain reality. As I've emphasized, repeatedly, there are only three national cultures, on this planet today, who are capable of taking intellectual responsibility, for the condition of the planet as a whole. These are: the British monarchy, which runs a number of parts of the world, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, as well as the United Kingdom; and which is the controller of the financial markets of the world. Not the United States, London is the center of financial transactions of the world. Then, you have the United States, which is a nation, which does not consider itself as having been defeated, or occupied. Then, you have Russia, which by temperament, as a national culture, sees itself as a world culture; it can think in world terms.
China is a strong nation, in some respects, but it does not think in terms of taking responsibility for the world; but simply negotiating the kinds of conditions it wants in its immediate environment.
Most nations in the world, do not take moral responsibility, for the conditions of life, in other parts of the world. They don't.
Now, the problem, then, comes down—is, you have a world, which is still dominated, by a combination of the Anglo-American powers, and Russia. Intellectually, that's the case; emotionally, intellectually. In Europe? What happens? In Europe, the leading institutions of government will say, and every government will say, "We can't do it, because the Anglo-Americans won't let us. We won't think this, because the Anglo-American occupying powers won't let us!" Japan thinks the same way. Some countries are indifferent to the conditions of other countries—simply indifferent—which tends to be the case in Oriental cultures. In Africa, the situation is hopeless. It's being looted.
So, therefore, the problem lies—is: Who is going to straighten the mess out? Now, making a general moral appeal, for Africa, which many people have done, will not work. Because you don't have any morality to appeal to, on these kinds of issues. No one's going to do anything about it. They might give some money. They might do something else, to try to help somebody in trouble. But, they're not going to change the systemic conditions, under which Africans live! Which would mean overturning the power of the Anglo-Americans, today! The Anglo-American syndicate that runs Africa! You want to change a condition in Nigeria? In Central Africa? Any part of Sub-Saharan Africa? You've got to go get permission from London and from Washington, and New York. And, if you can't get permission from London, and Washington, and New York, you're not going to get the permission. If you try to implement it, they'll kill you. And, they do in Africa. They kill people, who displease them.
So, therefore, the problem here, is: How do we get the kind of change of attitude, about the world that we require, to deal with these kinds of horrible inequities? We're involved with Africa, as most of you know; deeply involved. It's a very frustrating, a very horrible experience, what's happening to our friends in Africa. And, our inability to do much about it, is even more horrible.
But, the point is that, my concern in Germany, in particular, is to try to get Germans, like the French and Italians and others, to stop accepting the role, of being captives of the occupying Anglo-American power—at least, not intellectually! And, to begin to think in terms of world responsibility, as a part of a European civilization, which has the advantages, that civilization has; and to use that. What kind of a world do you want? What kind of a world should you want? And, to express that! It's the only thing you can do in Germany; or in other countries. All you can do, is that! And, hope that there's somebody else, in another country, and another country, who will agree with you on that. And, therefore, as a concert of sovereign nations, you might be able to solve a problem, which otherwise will never be solved. Therefore, the thing that frightens me, in the sense of being in Germany, or being in continental Europe generally, is the sense that, continental Europe sees itself as an area, which is virtually a colony, a satrapy, a territory occupied, by the occupying Anglo-American powers. And, the worst thing, is not the physical domination. The worst thing is, the internal self-domination, which the European imposes upon himself or herself. And, that puts obstacles, to thinking clearly.
In other words, we are responsible, as human beings, for the world as a whole. A few people, like the people of the United States, or the people of Russia, or the people of England—or at least, around the royal family—are in a situation, where they are habituated to think that, "Well, we can decide what is good for the world. And we'll take responsibility for the world."
We should all take responsibility for the world. We should all think that our governments, as we substantially have them, as instruments of sovereign nations, will have something to say about the condition of the world, in all its parts.
Until we get to that point, you're going to find a situation, like today, in which the United States, the British monarchy, and Russia—particularly the United States and the British monarchy—are going to determine what happens in Africa, or any other part of the world.
Of course that should change. But we have to think of how to change it.
'The Best Nation Ever Created'
Q: Is America governable?
LaRouche: I'll be quick on this: Well, obviously, the United States is governed—remember, the United States' problem is, that it's probably the best nation ever created. That's it's problem. What happened, of course, is that the United States was created by Europe. It was not created by the United States. It was not created on the frontier. What happened was, at the onset and in the wake of the religious wars of 1511 to 1648, it was impossible in Europe to realize the establishment of sovereign nation-states, such as those which had been pioneered by Louis XI in France and Henry VII in England.
As a result of that, the best minds of Europe looked toward the Americas, the colonies in the Americas, like the old Classical Greek conception, as colonies in the Classical Greek sense, which might develop republics, as Plato played around with Magna Graecia for a while. As republics, and thus, bring that back to Europe.
Now, the most successful part of that occurred during the period of the so-called American Revolution, in which France, and then the League of Armed Neutrality, organized by Europeans—largely the followers of Leibniz. Leibniz was the single most powerful influence on the culture of the United States; created the United States. But, no sooner had the United States been created, than France was destroyed from inside, by a 1783-1789 process, which led to the Jacobin Terror, followed, in short order, by Napoleon Bonaparte, which is the first modern fascist! He was the predecessor of Hitler. And, France has not fully recovered from the effect of that legacy of the Code Napoléon, to this day!
So, Germany was crushed in the Thirty Years' War. It was gradually coming out; then, it was betrayed, at the Vienna Congress. So that, Europe only formed parliamentary governments, which essentially were an extension of the feudal system—a reform of the feudal system—in which the state apparatus, in a parliamentary government, is this kind of imperfection.
Therefore, the United States was isolated and weakened. But its tradition was the strongest. And, when Lincoln won the war against the Confederacy, a British puppet, then, the intention to destroy the United States by the British became ferocious. The way this expressed itself, was, that the success of Lincoln, and the success of the U.S. economy, in the period from 1861 to 1876, produced, in Japan and in Europe, imitations of the American model. The most important cases, immediately, were Germany: 1877, Bismarck changed his economic policy, based on the success, in the United States, of the industrialization policy. Russia: Mendeleyev, 1876, went back to Russia [from the Philadelphia U.S. centennial exposition], and started the process of building railroads and industries. In Japan: A revolution in Japan was organized directly by a student of Henry Carey's, E. Peshine Smith, which gave Japan a modern industrial society, as a revolution. Similar things happened, in China, with Sun Yat-sen, and so forth.
So, the British concern was, to destroy the United States! How? By destroying its friends in Europe, in Eurasia. How'd it do that? By geopolitics. By World War I. By putting the fools—the Kaiser, the Tsar, and the other Kaiser (who was a bigger fool than the other one), and the French (Clemenceau)—against each other. And, Europe was destroyed, and has been destroyed, over a period of a hundred years, by this process of geopolitics. Two geopolitical wars. Who put Hitler into power? Wasn't Germans. It was ordered from London and New York. For, why? For geopolitical reasons. To get Germany to go into a second war, and destroy itself in destroying the Soviet Union. That's why it happened.
That's the history. So, therefore, in coming from my country, we've had, in the 20th Century, only two Presidents who approximated what I represent: One was Franklin Roosevelt, who was only an approximation (I have many disagreements with him). But, he represented the tradition of the American tradition. Kennedy, who, with all his problems, was coming more and more to become a real President—then they kill him! Largely over the Berlin issue. They killed him.
Since then, we've had no President, who actually represents the American intellectual tradition. I'm the only candidate, who does. In the past period. The only candidate who represents the American intellectual tradition.
But, our tradition is a powerful one. It's the same tradition that Europe has, in the struggle for the nation-state, the struggle for culture. So, we have a common interest. Our common interest is to bring these nations into cooperation, in order to bring the world into a decent order, of the type that the American Revolution was created by Europeans, to bring about.
So, it's a war! I look at things, in the long term. I have many ancestors. They go back thousands of years. I hope to have many people in my posterity, going ahead thousands of years. We look at ourselves, I hope, as the middle point, between the past and the future. Our job is not to complain about the present, but to ensure the future.
The Antidote to Mass-Media Brainwashing
Q: Who controls the mass media?
LaRouche: The mass media are controlled by a financier oligarchical cabal. CNN, for example—perfect example: Look at the history of CNN, how it was formed. A perfect case of it.
But, to understand this, really, you have to go back to the origins of the modern rentier-financier system. It's in the decay of Byzantium. They developed an adaptation to the idea of the Roman Empire, in Venice. Venice was the controlling force in Europe, actually, off and on, to the end of the 17th Century, from that time. It was an actual imperial maritime power, based on a rentier-financier interest, which, through these methods—in the image of Tyre, of ancient Phoenician Tyre—controlled Europe.
So, what you have, was an interest—people use "capitalism"; I wouldn't use the word "capitalism," for example. It doesn't mean anything. Marx made a big mistake, by using the word. One of his worst mistakes. There is no such thing as "capitalism." There is a rentier-financier interest, which wants to keep most of the human race as cattle; which plays one section of humanity against the other. Always did. The Roman Pantheon's an example of this. You organize the world into different religions, and then set the religions to fight each other, as a way a small power, an oligarchy, can control the world: setting one group of people against the other.
The mass media have been taken over, especially the Anglo-American mass media, and then, in continental Europe, have been taken over, and are dominated, if not entirely controlled, but are dominated by these kinds of rentier-financier interests. They're the ones who turned the minds of people into victims of George Orwell's Big Brother.
The populations today are mass-brainwashed. And the prinicipal source of mass-brainwashing is the mass media. Not merely the news media, because there are no news media to speak of, any more. What is called "news," is merely another branch of the entertainment media. They don't present news, they present entertainment: what so-and-so's opinion is. They present sex; they present all this kind of stuff. No content. So, the mind of the population—the populations are largely controlled by the mass media. The only way to beat that, in history, is the method that Plato used: You have to actually get people to discover the pleasure, of experiencing the discovery of actual ideas. Ideas as a universal principle.
Remember, the fight in Europe has always been along these lines. Take in Germany, for example: Germany was almost destroyed, destroyed by several things, including the French and English Enlightenment. And, along came people like Kästner, who brought into being Lessing, who brought into being Moses Mendelssohn. And, around this circle, you had the birth of the German Classical movement, which persisted. German culture is largely—all its good modern parts, are based on that offshoot, of this Kästner-Lessing-Mendelssohn circle, which are called the "Classical Circle" in Germany. The Classical Circle was based—as Lessing demonstrates, and Kästner demonstrates for mathematics—on this idea of experiencing the act of discovery of a universal principle, and being able to prove that it was universal, whether for mathematics, or something else; or, for art, as Lessing did for Shakespeare, for example. Lessing made Shakespeare accessible: Lessing made Shakespeare accessible—to Englishmen, as well as for Germans of that time.
That kind of experience is the only weapon we have. The weapon people have can be in their own homes, their own neighborhoods, their own circles of friends: Of simply developing and nourishing Classical culture. Because that teaches you, and reminds you what the difference is, between genuine ideas, and nonsense.
Mendelssohn and the 'German Jew'
Q: How do you see the "Jewish question"? Also, what do you think about embryo stem cell research?
LaRouche: Of course, there's been much of the myth of the Jew. I think the best way to understand the role of the Jew in German history, and in modern European history, is to look at the case of Moses Mendelssohn—his importance, and the importance of the work of Mendelssohn; and to look at the fact that, prior to Mendelssohn's time, and the time of his collaboration with Lessing, that the Jew in Germany was virtually a non-person. Only a handful, which were legalized Jews, were able to function. And, most of them lived in the worst—worst possible conditions.
And, it was the emancipation of the Jew, first in Austria by Joseph II, and then also in Germany; and the influence of this in Prussia, in particular—Leipzig, and also in Saxonia. Leipzig and in Berlin, and so forth, were key centers of this. But the emancipation of the Jew resulted in a proliferation, because of the influence of Moses Mendelssohn and the Classical renaissance—the proliferation of artists, scientists, and so forth, among German Jews, which created the phenomenon of the German Jew, which did not exist prior to the phenomenon of Lessing. Yes, you had a few people who were close to Bach, and so forth, in Leipzig—of the Bach tradition in Leipzig. But, you didn't have a significant [number]. Of course, you always had these few Jews who were used as money-changers, who were used by the princes. But, the modern Jew was a German Jew. And, what I object to, of course, in this celebration of this crazy mausoleum they're creating in Berlin, is: What about the German Jews? Why have blank slates? What about those who contributed to Germany greatly, in the late-18th Century, in the 19th Century, into the 20th Century, who were among the most precious, and most valuable citizens of Germany? And one of the greatest proponents of German culture?! How can you have a celebration of the Jew in Germany, in Berlin, if you don't celebrate, specifically, these great figures—not merely Albert Einstein, but these great figures, who contributed so much to German culture? If you take the Jew out of German culture, modern German culture, there is no modern German culture! And, that's where the problem lies. The problem is, modern German culture has been destroyed: Otherwise, everyone would know who Heine was; would know who Moses Mendelssohn was; as well as leading scientists.
The Fraud of Embryonic Experiments
On this question of the embryonic experiments: This is a scientific fraud. Don't attack it theologically, though I could. But attack it as a scientific fraud. Vernadsky has demonstrated, and Vernadsky's experiment—which I have written about, others have written about—has demonstrated that there are three different, distinguishable classes, of universal physical principles in the universe. And they exist everywhere in the universe.
One, is what we call the "abiotic principles" of non-living processes. But, these do not exist alone, or by themselves. You have also in the universe, another principle, which does not come from abiotic, or so-called mechanical, principles: It's called "life." It's a principle of life. The third principle, is cognition, a quality of ability to change the universe, which exists only in the mind of the human being. So, the human being is a living creature, but it's more than a living creature: It's a cognitive creature, which is the literal, physical meaning, of man and woman being made equally in the image of the Creator. This quality of cognition, which permeates the universe, as creative power, is expressed only in one species: mankind, which is made in that image.
So, when somebody says they can get life out of non-life, they're practicing fakery, not science. When they say they can get intelligence out of biological processes, as such, they're practicing fakery.... What is done with this embryonic T-cell operation, is a brainwashing operation, which is intended to degrade the conception of man. And, it's a criminal thing: There's no reason to do it. None whatsoever. Because you don't have to get T-cells from embryonic T-cells: You get the best T-cells, the most appropriate for any person, are in that person themselves; if you can extract them, and culture it.
Those are the essential problems.
The Perpetrators of the Sept. 11 Attacks
Q: Who do you think really was behind the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?
LaRouche: Often, as in hunting an animal, in many investigations, you never know the personal name of the animal. But, you know what kind of an animal it is. From the very nature of what was done, even our limited knowledge of exactly what was done, on the 11th of September—and most of this information was available to us immediately, if you have the technical knowledge to recognize it. It was done under the command structure, which is the highest level of military planning, using methods which are so-called "special warfare methods"; and using, and turning off and turning on, certain security measures, which should have been functioning, or should not have been functioning, at that time.
That could not have been done, by anybody from outside the United States. It had to be done from inside the command structure. Therefore, we know, it was done inside the command structure at the highest level, including people who are active in the military security command! That's how coups are usually done, isn't it? In most countries. That's how it was done in Germany, in 1933—twice, in January and February. That's how a coup is made.
So, we don't know who it was, but we know what they did; we know what the motive was; we know what the objectives are. The motive was, first of all, Brzezinski's "Clash of Civilizations," to start a general clash of civilizations war, in Eurasia, provoking an Islamic war against civilization. That does not mean unity of Islam against Europe: It means, causing as much hell, and fighting, among normally Islamic groups, as possible; playing upon differences, and national differences, and religious differences—in the Islamic world, as well as outside; and, creating a situation in which no development, and no cooperation in Eurasia is possible. That's what Brzezinski said. Read his book, the Chessboard. Read the other books, read the history of this thing. Exactly what they did.
Also, the peculiarity of this was, it was done in the context of the biggest financial crash in all modern history. Now ongoing. In which the system itself is about to go! Get the picture: The Anglo-American system, rentier-financier system, which has been struggling to control the world; which thought it had assumed total power over the world, with the collapse of the Soviet system; within about ten years after the collapse of the Soviet system, finds itself is doomed!
Now, what happens to an oligarchical power, which senses that it is doomed? And it is doomed. It says, "Either we will rule this world, or we will destroy it." How does that express itself?
Well, you have an alternative: You have in Eurasia, which is more clearly expressed in Russia's relationship to other nations in Eurasia now. You have a tendency toward economic cooperation, and cooperation for security, that is, for stability and security. You have a very strong impulse from Germany, in particular, for trade with Russia and China. As a matter of fact, these are the only two areas of the world, with which Germany's exports are increasing! In every other part of the world, Germany's exports are collapsing. Now, France and Italy also require this opportunity. Because the only opportunity for the survival of the nations of Western Europe, is to expand production, to meet the needs of what people in Asia need. And, people in Asia need the means by which to transform the poorly productive areas, and the poorly productive populations, into more productive areas and more productive populations. For example: China needs thousands of new urban centers, in order to absorb its population and upgrade it. These centers must have technology, to do that. They must have means of increasing their agricultural potential, to do this. We, in Europe, can supply much of what they need. We shall make long-term agreements, which will be beneficial to us, to do that. We, together with they, can build a transportation system, across Eurasia, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, so that it is cheaper, and more profitable, to ship goods by land transport, than by sea. We can do that.
We can open up sections of Eurasia, which are not yet developable, economically. We can change the water characteristics of Eurasia. We can tap resources, which we can't use, because they're inaccessible for lack of infrastructure: Mineral resources, the largest concentration of mineral resources in the Earth, are in Central and Northern Asia. Next largest is Africa; next largest is South America, which may be a rival.
So, in this, we have a great opportunity, to do this. And the enemy knows it. Moreover, we see the expression: Despite the vacillation of the Chancellor here on many issues, the response to the idea of Germany's exports to Russia and China, of course, is foremost in their thinking. Why? Naturally! The same thing is going to occur in the French mind, the Italian mind—it already does.
So, what's the danger to the Anglo-American? The Anglo-American says, "Hey! We're not needed any more! We can be partners, but we're not going to rule the world any more. Because these people, with the collapse of our system, are capable of getting together, and finding a fallback alternative of survival in the case of the general collapse." Brzezinski, and people like that, say, "No! We will destroy the world, before we let that happen!"
Now, there have been discussions of this kind of thing, as in July of the year 2000, in the New York Council on Foreign Relations. There have been many discussions to this effect, in terms of the various think-tank operations, policy committees, papers published. And, there's been the Brzezinski phenomenon, with his Grand Chessboard.
So, you have, on the one hand, an action occurred; it's directed against a certain effect; you don't know the names of each of the guys who did it (we have our list of suspects, but we don't know—yet), but we know what the animal was who did it. Secondly, we know what the motive is. The motive, thirdly, coincided with something very specific: It coincided with the policy of the question of Middle East peace—the Oslo Accords. And, this was the case where President Clinton made a big mistake: He did not make a big mistake on picking up on the idea of Middle East peace. But, he made a mistake in being fooled and intimidated by Barak. Because, Arafat agreed to everything that a Palestinian leader can agree to in principle, in order to get peace, at Camp David. Everything possible, he conceded. But, then, Barak came in, with one more additional demand, on al-Haram al-Sharif, which no Islamic leader can possibly trade off. It can't be done. And it shouldn't be done! Shouldn't even be considered. This is the issue of war! Of religious war.
So, what's happened is, you have a religious war, being run by the Israeli military command, using Sharon as its political puppet. It's not Sharon—it's these guys. They could kill Sharon tomorrow, if they thought that would enhance their process. They'd do it themselves, just the way they killed this guy Ze'evi. Same thing. Their purpose is, to get a general Middle East war, targetting Iraq, targetting Syria, and spreading throughout the entire region: It includes Sudan; it includes Egypt; eventually, Somalia. It's their general policy.
So, it occurred at the point that a crisis is occurring; somebody moves with a so-called "pro-Israeli" operation, to make a coup against the President of the United States, in order to unleash the Clash of Civilizations conflict. To prevent Eurasia from getting together, and to seize the moment of opportunity when they think they can do it, at the moment of crisis. That's what we're up against. And, the fortunate thing is that, somehow, something happened in history, on the way to the coup: That President Putin of Russia intervened in just the way to stall this thing, without solving it.
My problem is, how do I get the United States government out of this mess, out of this Afghanistan mess, and go to what it should go to?
Physically Efficient Principles
Q: Do you see any positive aspects coming out of Bush's war against terrorism? And, on Vernadsky: Is there evidence of cognitive beings living elsewhere in the universe, other than on Earth?
LaRouche: Let me take [the question] on Vernadsky first. No, very simply, it is that experiments were done by Pasteur, and others who followed him, Curie and so forth, which influenced Vernadsky, who, from the standpoint of geology, what he called biogeochemistry, did an examination of the way in which the Earth has been formed by life. That is, for example, our atmosphere and oceans were created by living processes, as by-products of living processes. They're not otherwise found in nature.
Wherever we find these kind of phenomena in the universe, we would know life had existed there, say, as on Mars. That's the way the Mars question is posed: Can you find natural products, or natural effects, of the presence of living processes, such as signs of water, deposits of water, or other things, on a planet? If you have that, you know that life either exists there, or did exist there.
So, he generalized this thing on the study from the standpoint of biogeochemisty, of the history of the products of living activity, in changing the composition of our planet as a whole. Changing its chemical composition, for example. For example, if you want to find out where certain kinds of mineral deposits are located, you would go to Vernadsky's school, to know how living processes had caused certain kinds of concentrations of raw materials to be located in one place, rather than another, such as gases, and things like that.
Now, the same thing was done by Vernadsky with respect to what he called the noosphere, saying that man's action on the biosphere, transforms the biosphere to a higher degree of development, just as the action of life on the Earth transforms the Earth to a higher level of development.
The same thing can be approached Classically, from the standpoint of Plato, on through the work of Leibniz in particular, and my own work, which is where I got into this thing. We can prove, by the same standards of scientific experimental proof, that the cognitive processes by which human beings are able to generate, and share, discoveries of universal principle, by which mankind increases its power over nature, that these principles are generated by a physically efficient principle; just as life is a physically efficient principle. That doesn't mean that you have to find a germ to find life. It means there's a principle in the universe which, under certain conditions, will cause a life-form to appear.
Now, we don't have any indication of human beings, cognitive beings, floating around in space. But under certain conditions on Earth, a specific form of life was transformed into a cognitive form, by a cognitive principle. These principles are universal physical principles. In other words, the idea that physical principles are those we think of in terms of a Cartesian manifold, is a fallacy. People like Max Planck were right, and Mach was wrong: that there are physical principles, which must be judged to be physical principles by the fact that they have a physically efficient effect, by their action on the universe. And cognition is one such thing.
So, these do not exist outside the Earth, in a sense. They permeate the universe. You might say, "In the beginning ..." it was all there. And under certain conditions, this force of cognition, which is always an efficient principle in the universe, takes the form of transforming a particular type of living process, man, into a cognitive being, as in the image of the Creator. And that's the point. Not outside the Earth.
Great Discoveries Come Out of Adversity
In this matter of the present crisis: It's true that all great discoveries tend to come from adversity. It's only when a great crisis confronts us, that we're willing to consider giving up our ways. It's like you tend to get out of the house when you discover it's burning. It's sort of, one of the incentives to move forward sometimes in history, of that sort. Get off the ship, when it's sinking—that sort of thing. So that's a part of the process.
So, yes, in this process, there will be some of that effect, and it will be useful. For example: I don't think that any of the leading political parties in Europe today, have much life expectancy, including those of Germany. We have a situation in the United States, in which I have a certain influence in the Democratic Party, and the present leadership of the party, generally, around Gore, is doing everything possible to try to prevent me from exerting influence in the party.
Well, if I don't exert more influence in the party, the Democratic Party is going to disappear. The Republican Party is in the process of disintegrating—not as obviously so, but it will disintegrate. So, you have a situation in which there are disintegrations of political parties in many parts of the world. And it's logical. They don't function. They're dead.
So, the creation of new parties is not a catastrophe, as long as you get the right results. And, therefore, that's the problem. We are faced with that challenge, the question of what happens in the crisis.
Bush? Bush is what I described him as. Earlier this year, and earlier, what I had said he was going to do, what he was going to be as President, and he has been exactly what I said he was going to be, up to Sept. 11.
On Sept. 11, he underwent an epiphany, not a likely thing for a person of his professed religious persuasion. He underwent a certain degree of epiphany, when the voice of Putin came over the radio, or the radio communication, to his plane, while he was travelling to Nebraska, he had an epiphany: That his friend Putin, the President of Russia, was going to save his government, and save the United States.
You see this often, when a person is in crisis, even the most improbable person. You see this, for example, in the case of Mozart's The Abduction. Where Mozart changes the end of the Abduction from the original script. You see this in Mozart's later opera, La Clemenza de Tito, where the transformation of the script by Mozart makes the same point: That, sometimes under crisis, a person of the most improbable moral likelihood, under conditions of crisis, may be inspired to play the best role of which they're capable, which may be useful.
The problem the President of the United States faces, the present incumbent President, is, he has no chance of surviving successfully, as President, with his former policies. He's got to find new policies to survive. It's like the man who's been thrown under water, protesting, "Don't throw me in the water, I can't swim." You say, "Well, you're in the water, you better start."
