Nuclear Power Is Crucial
for Reconstruction
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
At a meeting of the LaRouche movement in Europe on Dec. 29-30, 2005, Lyndon LaRouche was asked about the revival of the German economy, and its role in the survival of Europe. Here are excerpts from his replies. See EIR, Jan. 6, 2006, for his initial presentation.
European Recovery Depends on Germany
A questioner asked about recent trade union demands for higher wages, and how the LaRouche movement should intervene. LaRouche stressed the global impact of developments in the United States, and went on to discuss the situation in Germany.
... I think, in Germany, we're in the best situation, for the reason that the potentiality for the recovery of Europe as a whole, western continental Europe as a whole, depends absolutely on the German economy. Without the German economy, a general economic revival of the economy of Continental Europe is impossible.
The German economy's collaboration with Russia is crucial. A Russia-Germany collaboration in economics is absolutely crucial. The future of the entire region, depends upon a division of labor, a cooperative division of labor, throughout continental Eurasia. And the road to cooperation in continental Eurasia is through Germany—now from Berlin, to Moscow, to China, to India, and similar places. That's the possibility. It's a 50-year perspective: We're talking about projects which require a 50-year lifespan of investment: in infrastructure, in developing new technologies and so forth. Of taking the waste areas of Central Asia and making them habitable. Developing new kinds of resources. Developing more efficient mass-transit systems. Eliminating dependency upon the automobile in the form of gasoline or diesel combustion; to new forms, which are now about to emerge and become actual. If the society continues, for example, we are going to have a hydrogen-based vehicle, soon—a new type, absolutely new type. It's coming. Ford is working on it, others are working on it. We have the capability of developing it.
It can not develop, however, without a return to nuclear energy! Windmills, out! Nuclear energy, in! And a development of massive nuclear energy: Which means as many as possible, mass-produced, or semi-mass-produced, pressure vessels of the Jülich type for example, are absolutely necessary to be able to generate the hydrogen for this change in technology. This change in technology must mean, therefore, hydrogen generation by nuclear means, all throughout the territory of Eurasia.
Because, this means producing locally, fuel, hydrogen fuels, or hydrogen-based fuels, in every part of the continent. Because you must have fuel, in every part of the continent. Instead of hauling kerosene, petroleum products, all over the continent, at great expense—a low-grade product at high expense—you now will produce hydrogen-based fuels, in local areas, whose principal waste product is called "water." It's not exactly a pollutant.
So, that's one of the kinds of things. And therefore, that means a fundamental change in the way we organize. This is a 50-year investment program. And it must be conceived as a 50-year investment program. It means that capital budgets, in terms of credit of states, in the order of magnitude of 25- to 50-year terms on credit, for the installation of large-scale infrastructure systems, which will probably be 50-60% of the total investment in the economy throughout Eurasia, in the coming 50 years.
So, the image is there. And these little leaks, of moves in a positive direction, are merely the stepping stones for having the real discussion. If they want to save jobs, how are they going to save jobs? One thing we're going to have to do in Europe, as we're doing in the United States, we're going to have to go to hydrogen-based fuels: that means, nuclear power. That means, Don Quixote can go to work on the windmills....
A Period of Transition
To a question on the priorities for the LaRouche Youth Movement, LaRouche explained how the situation in Germany has changed, since the Sept. 18 election.
...You have a situation where the German government, at present, the coalition government is highly unstable—despite all the horse manure, it's unstable. So, under these conditions, there will be a change in government. A change is inevitable.
What happened was, that Schröder and the Red-Green coalition reached the point that it was impossible for that government to govern Germany, under a Red-Green coalition. As long as the Greenies were in, there was no solution for Germany. Hartz IV [austerity plan] was actually created by the Greenies, by implication. Because all of the things that should have been done, and should have been proposed, were not proposed, because they would require things like nuclear energy, things that the Greenies wouldn't stand for. That would mean, for example, go back to agriculture, instead of what was done by the Greenies; stop the windmills, build real power plants.
So therefore, they had to go outside the Red-Green coalition. And if the Schröder candidacy could not win a majority, or a dominant position in the coalition, they had to accept that risk, because Germany could not survive under a Red-Green coalition.
Therefore, you're now in a period of transition, where you're trying to group—as we are in the United States, with this bipartisan tendency around our work—you're trying to regroup the anti-Green forces, who are for rebuilding the economy in some kind of a coalition. The present Merkel coalition can't do that. It's only a preparatory step. Only a smashing step, from the United States, could create the situation in Germany, in which an early change in the character of government, and the policies of government can occur.
They've got to break free from the euro! Without breaking free from the euro, except as a currency of account, there's no possibility that Germany will survive. If you're for the euro, you're against the existence of Germany: It's that simple.
So therefore, you need a process, a political process, which is oriented toward the reality that the world situation, in Europe in particular, is being determined in the United States, by what does, or does not happen inside the United States, with a positive development. This means, that you're in a race against time, to try to get Germany out from under the ECB [European Central Bank]! Because, there's no survival of Germany unless you get it out from under the ECB. The political process in Germany is controlled by the ECB! German firms are being gobbled up by these parasites, who are coming in and grabbing them up. That can be stopped by government, but you've got to have a government that can do that!
So therefore, you've got to stop the takeovers, you've got to stop the destruction, the looting, the parasites. It's a race against time. So therefore, the government of Germany, if Germany's going to survive, is going to change. It's going to change, not because somebody's going to go out and kill somebody, to change the government. But, because it's necessary to shift the composition of government, in a way that Schröder actually started.
Schröder was faced with an impossible situation: The government was ungovernable—as long as the Greens remained in. Therefore, he had to get rid of the Greens. That involved a problem. And the enemy went out, and they went to Lafontaine, and they went to the poor, old ex-Communists, as a coalition, to try to stop, and defeat, Schröder. Which they probably did, in the sense of defeating what his intention might have been, or his ambition might have been.
But the process goes on. The question still arises: You've got to have the authority of the German government to create to debt capital, long-term debt capital, to refinance the building of industry, to get people back to work, and to say "screw you" to the British and the French, "we're going to rebuild around Berlin!" And AEG's going to stay in Berlin!
But, you have to have the political power. Therefore, we, in the United States, are concerned, for the sake of Europe as a whole, that Germany reach the condition where it has a government, which is truly capable of governing, and governing with the effects of getting rid of the euro, and going back to becoming a real nation again, and telling the French and British they made a big mistake, and they should go and wash their underwear, instead of bothering us!
So therefore, we in the United States depend, strategically, on the success of Germany in this direction, toward a Eurasian orientation....
