Int'l Webcast Conference:
A New Monetary System—Now!
Here is an edited transcript of Lyndon LaRouche's keynote address to a LaRouche Political Action Committee webcast from Washington, D.C. on May 1, 2007. A question-and-answer dialogue followed this presentation. The event was moderated by LaRouche's national spokeswoman, Debra Freeman.
[PDF version of this transcript]
[Media archive of the webcast]
What I'm about to announce to you, and follow up by a presentation on the subject, will produce incredulity in a lot of people around the world and around the country, especially inside the United States. But it's all true, and I shall indicate to you what some of you may not have taken into account, or didn't know about the nature of the world situation, and therefore, you would have doubts about what I'm about to tell you.
The situation now is such that the present monetary-financial system is so far embedded into a process of hopeless bankruptcy, that there's no way this system in its present form could ever come back or could survive. It's gone. The very question of the value of money—money is in doubt—to everyone who knows what is going on.
What must happen, if civilization is to be continued on this planet—it must happen very rapidly—is that the United States must enter into an agreement with Russia, China, India, and other countries, to establish immediately, an emergency, new international monetary system, based in conception, on the precedent of Franklin Roosevelt's launching of the Bretton Woods system in the period of 1944-45. That must happen, and can happen. Russia has already indicated, through President Putin, repeatedly, and through others—and I have some considerable investigation into this matter—an interest in working together with the United States, perhaps not with the jokers who are presently sitting in Washington, in the White House and similar places, but to establish a new relationship with the United States, different than that which now exists at the top, in order to bring together the nations of Russia, China, India, and the United States, and other nations, into treaty agreements which will establish immediately, a new emergency world monetary system, modeled in intention, on the agreement which Franklin Roosevelt orchestrated in 1944-45 for the post-war world.
That is the only option for humanity now. The time frame is immediate. This is not something for 2009. Or even 2008. It's for 2007, and it must happen now: Because the entire system is presently, hopelessly bankrupt. It's being held together by pins and needles, and chewing gum. I don't know whose chewing gum it is, but it's sticking under the seat—so, check your seat for chewing gum.
The October 1987 Bankruptcy
All right, now, what happened was, of course, the system, in the conventional sense, went bankrupt in October of 1987, which I had the privilege of predicting earlier that year, of an early-October collapse of the monetary-financial system in the U.S. It happened. What happened was the equivalent of the Hoover Depression breakout in 1929.
What happened then, at that point, is that a fellow called Alan Greenspan, who is not known for clarity, announced that, since he had been nominated to become the new chairman of the monetary system, the Federal Reserve System, he announced to Volcker, who was incumbent, still, then, and to others: "Hold everything!! I'm coming!" And he said, "Wait, and I'll fix it." Now, what he did, when he came in, he launched the wildest fraud you could imagine: Instead of facing the reality that we had gone into a 1929 Depression, already, he said, we're going to keep the thing alive, with what was later called a "wall of money." Of fake printing-press money, generated more and more, not in the form of printed paper, but in the form of electronic fantasies—agreements based on nothing.
Two of the things that were crucial in this, were, first of all, they turned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and similar institutions, into a mechanism for financing a wild-eyed speculation in mortgage-based securities. The second thing they got going, particularly starting from the time President Clinton was inaugurated, was the unleashing of a wave of money, a "wall of money," fictitious money, for essentially the so-called computer technology, information society program.
Now, as you know, in 2000, especially the Spring and Summer of 2000, while the election was going on and nobody was noticing reality, the bubble collapsed, the Y2K bubble. The "wall of money" poured in—you could get money from various sources for nothing! For less than nothing! We had a case out here, in Virginia, called Winstar, and money was being poured into this thing, which never produced anything! Executives were being taken on, given large salaries. The place never produced anything! And in due course, it went belly-up, and the people fled into who-knows-where, into various places—they took their insanity, and ran. But this was typical.
So, as of 2000, while Al Gore was running (Who knows? He's always running; he should see his doctor), during this period, the system changed. And in came George Bush, the George Bush Administration, and George didn't know what was going on. He was simply a stooge for Cheney. And new measures were put in, especially, what they planned, was to go to war! And the decision to go to war was not made after 9/11: It was made in the beginning. And some of you may recall that I forecast publicly, that we could expect something like what Göring had done, Hermann Göring in February of 1933: Where Hitler had been elected Chancellor and everybody was laughing, saying, "This jerk's going to be outta there, quick." But then, what Göring did, he set fire to the Reichstag, the parliament building of Germany; and on the same night of that, the same guy [Carl Schmitt—ed.] who's behind some of the Federalist Society people here, put through a law, promulgated a law, under which Hitler was given dictatorial powers. And he retained and increased those dictatorial powers, from February of 1933, until the time he died.
And you know what happened to the world after that, as a result.
So, this is the kind of thing which happened, which we called 9/11 and similar kinds of things: that the new administration coming in, the administration which was created artificially out of mud or something worse, less pleasant substance, by George Shultz, the guy who led in putting in the Nazi regime of Pinochet into power in Chile! And under whose direction from Chile, the Southern Cone, Operation Condor, which was a Nazi-like mass murder of people, was conducted.
And this kind of government, under Shultz, who represented that in our history, together with Felix Rohatyn, who is also a Nazi-banker type, pushed through policies, which were dictatorial policies. And on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, the attempt was made to push through actual dictatorial powers. They didn't succeed in going all the way. They got quasi-dictatorial powers, in the hands of Cheney and company: And that has been the history of the United States, from that time to the present time.
Now, Cheney is not that important; in some respects, he's only a thug. He's a broken-down relic of a failed football team, who has the weight, but not the brains, that go with that qualification. He was once a lineman with the telephone company; they wouldn't let him climb anything, because he might fall and break something. So he's not really a great talent. He's actually owned by his wife, who keeps him as a sort of a mascot, ties him up outside at night, except on two occasions where he helped to give birth to daughters. This guy is not a brain, he's a bully. He's a mafia collection agent; that's what he is.
But he works for groups of bankers and others, associated with George Shultz. And George Shultz is not just a figure in the U.S., he's an international figure. And the center of power lies not in the United States, it lies in London, of which Al Gore is virtually a citizen, these days; at least, he's a British agent. He's officially an agent of the British government, and of the British monarchy. His titles come in part from the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles: The program that he's pushing today, comes from Britain, not from the United States. This kind of thing.
The 'Golden Generation'
So, a dictatorship was imposed upon the United States, not a full dictatorship, but what has acted pretty much like one. And we have a whole generation, the Baby-Boomer generation, of people who were born especially between 1945 and 1957, 1956, actually; a specific generation which was brainwashed in a very specific way—that's the white-collar generation, not the blue-collar generation. The blue-collar generation of that period was not the same as the white-collar generation. The white-collar generation are the "We are the wonderful children," born then, being told, "We are wonderful, unlike the blue-collar types. We are wonderful! We're going onward and upward! We're going to be the power!" This was the period of the "white-collar" myth, the period of "The Organization Man." And the Organization Men, working with the corporations, largely military-related corporations: "We're going to run the world!"
And then, 1957—February 1957: We had the deep recession which continued into 1961. And that was the end of the power of the Baby-Boomer generation. But the little kiddies, born between 1946 and 1956, of that generation were embedded from their families, with a certain ideology, which became known as the "68er" generation ideology. These kiddies, who hated blue-collar people, they hated factory workers, they hated farmers, they hated engineering, they hated science, and were determined to create a paradise, in which none of these things existed. And over the period, as my generation began to die out, in the 1980s in particular, and toward the end of the '80s, they took away, they shut down the industries, with their influence. They did insane things, to stop technological progress. They destroyed our farmers, they ruined our industries, they bankrupted our working people, from industry; they ruined everything: And they called themselves, "The Golden Generation"!
And therefore, this revolution of the 68ers, which was actually a product of this phenomenon, in the post-war period, of people who hated Franklin Roosevelt, and wanted to destroy everything in the United States that represented Franklin Roosevelt—they couldn't do it all at once. But after the Kennedy assassination and the launching of the War in Indo-China, they were able, step by step, to do that. And using, especially as the 68ers typify this: Use the generation which had come to adulthood, the generation born from 1946 through 1956, use that generation as a ramrod, as in the streets of the United States and elsewhere, during the Spring, Summer, and Autumn of 1968, to unleash a cultural revolution, which was the secret of destroying the United States.
What did they do, the 68ers? The 68ers, first of all, started with a class instinct, against the working people and farmers and scientists of the United States, the ones who were hated by the 68ers on the street. And with this, they divided the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party had been based on farmers, and working people, and ideas of that type. The 68ers were against it, in the name of the Left! But the Left was really the Right! The children of the same people who created Hitler in Germany, back in the 1920s and 1930s.
So, they divided the Democratic Party, and brought a potentially fascist movement in, through an American President, Nixon. Nixon was not the problem; Nixon was the instrument of conveying the problem. He was not the disease, he was the carrier of the disease. And he didn't even know what the disease was. This was a product of what was called, by Eisenhower, the "military-industrial complex," that combination which had taken over the country, with the aid of the Baby Boomers, with the aid of the 68ers! Who had destroyed the opposition, an opposition which was not exclusively tied to the Democratic Party, but the hard core of it was in the Democratic Party, and it was in the Franklin Roosevelt tradition, as Kennedy affirmed that, when he was President. That was destroyed.
Since that time, if you belonged to the lower 80% of family-income brackets in the United States, you and the conditions of life upon which your traditions are dependent, has been systematically destroyed. The attempt to destroy Social Security, the actual success in destroying the health-care system, and so forth and so on, are products of this process. We have what is, in effect, a fascist regime in the United States, today, which is called the Bush government.
And you have a revolt against this, coming up from within the generation of young people between 18 and 35, young adults between 18 and 35. There's where the revolt is. The instinct is there. Because the Baby-Boomer generation, that is, the white-collar generation—not the people of the blue-collar 68ers, not the farmers, not the poorer people, but! those who represent the white-collar culture, of the Baby-Boomer generation, which was built up by brainwashing of children, during the period of 1946 through 1956: Out of that, has come, now, a destruction of the United States and a fascist system.
But, what we have, is, we have now a generation of young people, young adults between 18 and 35: As we saw this past week in California: We had a situation, around the issue of the impeachment of Dick Cheney. Throughout this country, in the recent period, you've had a mobilization, since the Democratic Party took over the Congress, a mobilization to block any attempt to impeach Cheney—saying, "We'll do it when we get into power by the next election in 2008. We'll get into power in January 2009, and then we'll eliminate the problems." They'll never get that far. They won't have a government by January 2009, the way things are going now, unless there's a change.
So, this is where the problem lies.
We Now Have To Make a Choice
Now, therefore, if the United States is going to survive, and if the world, in fact, is going to survive, we're going to have to get rid of this problem. We now have to make a choice—it's not a matter of, you can "choose" to go one of two ways: You can't choose. You choose one way, or you go the other way. You either choose to eliminate Cheney and what he represents, or you go the other way: "Look, Ma, no United States." "Look, people who are looking at the United States, no world." Because, the U.S. dollar is the reserve currency of the world, still, despite its problems: If the dollar were to collapse, you would have a chaotic chain reaction globally, a collapse of trade, a collapse of financial values, which would mean the whole world would go into, not into a depression, but a financial and economic new dark age, comparable to what happened in the middle of the 14th Century, then.
So therefore, we have to do something immediately, to prevent the collapse which is oncoming, which, if it came, now, would be a new dark age. And the key to this, is you must save the role of the United States dollar as a reserve currency, otherwise, the whole shebang goes down under.
Now, there are many people in high positions, who don't agree with that. They say, they have an idea for a "system," to replace the U.S. and the U.S. dollar, which is their intention. This idea, by this fellow Benn Steil, of the Council on Foreign Relations: The guy's an idiot, but he's an informed idiot. He's an idiot, because he's trying to save the system, which he likes. The system which he likes can not be saved. The system which institutions like the Council on Foreign Relations propose, could never work! They're finished!
But: They believe! They believe! They BELIEVE!—that this is the way the world must be. They BELIEVE in paradise ... even if it's Hell. As long as they manage it. Or, at least have a franchise.
But, it won't work. What this guy writes in Foreign Affairs is a piece of idiocy! It's a piece of criminal idiocy! It's national suicide! It's world suicide! He proposes that three, essentially, privately controlled currencies run the world.
What about the dollar?! Every value, in the world today, internationally, is premised on the determining role of the dollar, and obligations of the dollar, as a reserve currency.
For example: If the dollar collapses, what happens to the assets of China? Boom! If the dollar collapses, what happens to the assets of India? Boom! If the dollar collapses, what happens to Europe? Boom! What happens to the United States and every other part of the world? It goes down. Because, under this system, without a stable currency, without a standard of value, in commerce, you can not maintain the system. And if you can't maintain the system, if you begin to shut down the factories and the other facilities, as the result of a financial breakdown, you have something worse than a depression: You have a dark age. Therefore, if you don't save the role of the dollar, as a reserve currency, as a standard of monetary value, then the monetary system itself can not be sustained.
However, these guys, like this guy from Foreign Affairs, wants to eliminate the dollar, wants to eliminate the United States—he's not a patriot: He wants to eliminate the United States! He says so, if you read it carefully. Read the intention. What's he proposing to do? That's his intention. His intention is to destroy the United States. By destroying, particularly, the reserve role of the U.S. dollar. Whereas, if you look at the obligations spelled out in dollars, worldwide, as to China, as to India, as to Europe, as to elsewhere, the entire system goes under.
It's a dollar system. You can pretend it isn't. You can talk about going to other combinations of currencies, blocs of currencies: It won't work. Because, the whole world is held together today, by the debt of the United States. And therefore, if you can not defend the position of the United States, as a debtor nation, the world as a whole, now, will go under.
So therefore, you have these crazy ideas, like this Steil, from the Council on Foreign Relations, well, why does he express these ideas? Not because he knows what he's doing, but because he's grasping at straws. He's assigned to say [panting], "H-h-h-h-h—we're going to sink the dollar! That's good. We need a new currency—huhuhuh." Huh? He's panting! He's like the eunuch, panting for a sexual relationship! There's nothing else to dream about.
But, if people believe him, and believe people like him, then we all go to Hell—for a couple of generations, and the population of this planet will go from over, in terms of billions, will go from over 6@c4, to less than 1, in a very short period of time. Whole languages will disappear, whole sections of culture will vanish, with that kind of dark age: As Gore's already proposed to wipe out the population of Africa, with his program. That would happen.
So therefore, defending the dollar as a reserve currency, is necessary, for every sane nation, and every informed and sane part of the world population. The system is bankrupt. What we have to do, is declare bankruptcy, and put the international financial system into receivership, where governments hold and decide what to do about the bankrupt monetary-financial system. They take action to ensure that what must be paid, what must be active, what must continue, will continue. Pensions will continue to be paid. Investments in productive enterprise will be made. Payments on whole categories of outstanding obligations will be suspended, or cancelled. For example, all gambling debts should be cancelled, immediately, by action of a monetary form. Because there's no investment: Gambling debt doesn't represent wealth. So, cancel the gambling debts—and they're the biggest part of the debt of the world right now, is gambling debts, in one form or the other. And then, take measures, through the use of power of governments, to come to trading agreements and credit agreements, which not only maintain the level of present physical activity, but actually increase it.
The Government Must Take Charge
Now, there are several things that have to be done: First of all, we have to reverse the destruction of the economy of the United States, which has gone on, especially since 1971. We have destroyed industries. We are a post-industrial society. We depend upon the production of other parts of the world. We do not earn our own living. We go into hock, to buy the things we don't produce. And we have nothing to show, with which to pay for the things we buy. And the margin is debt. Our health care is vanishing; our factories are going; our farmers are being bankrupted. Farming has been transformed from a source of food, into a source of ethanol, and other foolish things of this type.
So therefore, the government must take charge, in the same way, and under the same authority, the same constitutional authority that Franklin Roosevelt used during the 1930s. The job is bigger than what Roosevelt faced, admittedly; but the same principles will work. There are constitutional principles. They're not some wild innovation at law. They're going back to the principles of the American System as Roosevelt understood it, and succeeded, in taking a bankrupt nation, the United States, in the 1930s, and transforming it within a decade, into the most powerful productive power the world had ever known! A productive power that saved the world from Nazism, that saved the world from the consequences of that. That created the possibility, at the time of Roosevelt's death, to free the world of colonialism, and to establish a federation of nations, of respectively, sovereign nation-states, to cooperate in the development of the entire world in an equitable fashion: to end misery and to bring justice.
That was stopped! Truman stopped that immediately at the end of the war. Truman immediately turned to support of recolonization: of the recolonization of Indo-China; the militarily forced recolonization of Indonesia; and phony forms of freedom in Africa; a phony arrangement, which is still chaotic, in India; and so forth. The United States supported the British—especially the British—in recolonization of areas that had been struggling for freedom, and were on the verge of getting it. Prevented development, in regions of the world that wanted freedom and development, and could have had it, had Roosevelt lived.
So, go back to that: Go back to what made us the great power, which at the time of Roosevelt's death, could have fulfilled the promises of the Roosevelt Administration. But the other guys took power, on Roosevelt's death. The only solution we have today, is to go back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's work, pick up the staff again, and resume what should not have been stopped. And what you find, is, intelligent nations around the world recognize this. Some are not so powerful. But some are relatively powerful. China has today, 1.4 billion people in population, the largest part of the world population. India has over 1 billion people. You have a similar pattern of population, not as big, but the same pattern, in much of Asia. Russia is still a powerful nation, with great potential. And it's a Eurasian nation, that is, it's a combination, from its history of a nation with ties to Europe, and ties into Asia. It's the bridge between European civilization and Asian culture.
If you unite these nations, including the United States, with a determination to save this world from Hell, and if you have Russia, China, India, agree on immediate negotiation of special agreements, to stabilize the situation and to create the foundations of a new development of world affairs, it can work: Because other nations, weaker nations relatively speaking, will join, if offered the opportunity to participate in this. And they will join it, largely through what Roosevelt intended the United Nations should do, as a body, not of globalization, but a body of bringing respectively sovereign nation-states together in cooperation for their common interests of humanity.
So, it's perfectly feasible. And we've reached the point that there is no other sane choice.
A Political Earthquake in California
Now, in California this past week, we had a demonstration, in a relatively small, but indicative form, which shows how close we are to the possibility of doing that [see National lead]. You had, as a result of a number of things, we went into that, and the leaders of the Democratic Party had committed themselves not to impeach Cheney. Well, a lot of them are getting money from George Shultz's controlled circles, financial circles. A lot of the leading candidates are getting their money, directly or indirectly, from George Shultz's circles—Democrat or Republican. This includes Felix Rohatyn, who's one of the moneybags of the Democratic Party, and who's a fascist. He was one of the guys who financed the Pinochet takeover of Chile. He's a real fascist. There are others of the same character. Soros is a different type. But he's also in a similar position. But then, you have the bankers who are mainly, directly, behind George Shultz, as their American point of reference.
So, the Democratic Party, which is looking at things in the small, the older guys, said, "Don't impeach Cheney! George Shultz doesn't want us to impeach Cheney." Just go ahead, and try to win the next election, if you can—hahahaha!! If you survive to do it!
But, the young people, and the poorer people of the country, don't agree. The poorer and younger people of the nation, the United States, don't agree with this policy, which was taking over the leadership of the Democratic Party. The word was out: "No Cheney impeachment!" I said, "No!" Well, but there happen to be a lot of people out there who want a Cheney impeachment. The impeachment of Cheney is one of the most popular projects in the world right now. Everybody wants to get rid of Cheney, so what's the problem, buddy! The guy's a criminal. He committed the crime. We got him red-handed: He lied, and he got us into a war by lying! Together with Tony Blair of London, who lied! And the President would have lied, if he'd been intelligent enough to know it was a lie. What's the problem? He's done everything, every treasonous act in Creation! What're you waiting for!?
[Mumbling:] "Well, the word is out—don't bother with Cheney. We decided! Don't go at Cheney!"
But many of the people in this country, didn't agree. The impeachment of Cheney is more popular than ice cream! (Some people don't like ice cream, because they think it's fattening—that's the difference.)
But the problem was, the people of this nation, especially the lower 80% of family-income brackets, do not believe any more that they have any independent power. They're only permitted to go out and vote for approved candidates, or approved issues. They're not permitted to say, "Hey, wait a minute, c'mon: I got a different idea." They're not permitted to say that! Or, they can say it, and they can be called a kook! The press won't report it. So, the people, the majority of people, the so-called "will of the people," where is it? What's that, a death testament? Or a real will, a living will?
No! The people were not represented! The people don't simply go out and scream, and say, "We want this," and the loudest voice wins. The people have to have a system of representation, through which deliberation of ideas and issues can occur. In which their voice is heard, in which their mind is engaged, in which their opinions are considered. We don't have that in the United States, today. We have people who run the country, and people who say to the others, "Okay, you guys can stay in your place. Do as we tell ya. Listen to us, we're the wise guys. We don't have to explain it to you now. We'll tell you later. We'll tell you, in January of 2009, what this election is about."
So therefore, we needed a catalyst, and our job was to be the catalyst. So, you had people coming into the Democratic Party Convention in California, as around the country—as in Vermont, as elsewhere, in Louisiana, other parts of the country—probably 100 locations this past week, saying, "Impeach Cheney."
Why wouldn't the Democratic Party do it? When the majority of the Democrats want it! And know, rightly, that this is what must be done—now!
Why didn't it occur? Well: Wheeling and dealing. Go along to get along!
So, if the majority wanted it, how are you going to get a way, in which you get the majority to have their will expressed? And respected?
Well, what we did, is we were the catalyst, especially our Youth Movement, inside the Democratic Party, which triggered the process by which the desire of the majority of the people, as represented there, could be expressed. And the people were like water in a dam: And you puncture and open a little bit of the dam, the water comes flushing out and it takes over the landscape! So, once we took the step which breached the hole in the dam, that was damming up the works, of the Democratic Party—"Oohhh!! Okay." Whoosh! Impeach Cheney is back on the table, in California and elsewhere.
And that's how the will of the people is properly expressed. And that's what the role of leadership is in society. It's to know what has to be done, and recognize this is the problem: that the old guys who were in power, particularly the veterans of the 68er phenomenon, people today between 50 and 65 years of age, are controlling most of the positions of power in the United States, as a social phenomenon. The majority of the people, below 50 years of age, especially the large majority which is emerging in the 18- to 35-year age-group, has no efficient representation in the United States. Therefore: Talk about democracy? Buddy, we mean it! Real democracy—not vote it, yes or no. But, participate in the process of deliberation, by which policy is made and adopted. The right to vote is not freedom. The right to participate in the process of deliberation, by which the issues are defined: That's freedom! The right to develop, and to know, and to have the capability of making those kinds of contributions: That's freedom! And the way to have freedom, is to give freedom the right to express itself.
And right now, the test of freedom, is the impeachment of Cheney.
If you get rid of what is jamming up the works, at the top, in Washington, something which is crumbling—the Bush Administration, is disintegrating before your eyes—but you don't know whether it's the head that's going, or something else, but something is going there—it's disintegrating. You're now in a situation, where, under conditions of crisis, if you have the mobilization, and, if you are engaged with and respected by the majority of the people!—if you open the gates of deliberation, to participation by the people of the United States, especially the lower 80% of the family-income brackets—we demonstrated it in California: You can open the dam! And the waters will flood forth! And the changes that must be made, can be made suddenly. And those nightmares which besiege us, today, can be washed away in the process.
We Can Save This Planet
Then, you come back to practicality. What is the only solution, for the immediate threat of a plunge into a dark age during the year 2007, perhaps on your Summer vacation, which may be permanent this year, hmm?—what can be done to solve this problem? Well, the first thing we have to do, is, we have to stabilize the international monetary system. How do you do it? You get a group of powerful countries together, to initiate a motion which puts the whole world financial system into receivership, for control by actions by governments: essentially what Franklin Roosevelt did, during the 1930s. Put the bankers into hock, under the control of governments, and regulate the system, and get some justice back in the system.
At the same time, to recognize what must be done, to rebuild the shattered economy of the world: how to get back to becoming a productive society? Based on scientific progress; on industry, on agriculture; development of infrastructure; the development of skills; security; the improved standard of a physical standard of living, for the world: How do we do that? Well, we can to do it. There are things which must be done, and can be done, now. Things which are known: for example, let's take the case of nuclear power. Nuclear fission power is on the rise. It's unstoppable, unless we go to a dark age. Even the right-wingers of the world, generally, who are not absolutely nuts, are for nuclear fission power. If you look at the pattern of increase of contracts and intentions for nuclear fission power development around the world, it's enormous.
Consider the issue of freshwater supplies, which are now in jeopardy in many parts of the world, and which you can not have, by any means except by assistance of nuclear fission power. If you do not realize the importance of going to thermonuclear fusion, as a technology, you can't solve many of the raw materials problems in the world. With thermonuclear fusion as a technology, we can solve many problems of chemistry, which we otherwise can not solve economically.
So therefore, if we take these missions of developing infrastructure, leading with the international freshwater crisis, dealing with other things of that type, which we know how to fix, traditionally, and for which technologies which are appropriate, exist and are known: We can save this planet! Not by some miracle bestowed from above, but by our own will, by adopting those measures, and institutional provisions which will enable us to do it.
Therefore, our job is, as in California this past week, knowing that there's a bomb waiting to explode out there: The bomb is the public opinion of the lower 80% of the family-income brackets of the U.S. population, and similarly in other parts of the world. If you unleash the ability of this lower 80%, what Franklin Roosevelt called the "Forgotten Man"—unleash that! Let it participate in the process—not just vote up or down—participate in the discussion! And understand that their voice in the discussion is considered important: It's a part of the process of deliberation. They're part of the process of deliberation. That's what the "consent of the people" means! Participation in the process of deliberation. Having the facts available, having the discussion back and forth occur, so that when the decision is made, they participated, whether they agreed or not, they participated. And their voice was heard. Their interests were respected. Under those conditions we can solve these problems.
We have also: China has a major problem. China is actually wealthy in one respect, but it's becoming poorer all the time, in other respects. You have Communist Party billionaires in China, because the Communist Party, when they adapted to capitalism, decided that some of their party figures should be the big capitalists. So they got Communist Party billionaires. But you also have vast underdevelopment in China, of the people of China. And China knows that they have to shift, and deal with this problem.
You have India: The poor of India are poorer than ever before. Maybe the upper 20% may be somewhat much better off, but the lower 80% is not. The Congress Party of India is disintegrating, because it has lost its contact with the people it still had under Indira Gandhi. And it's fragmenting into many parties. But India knows it needs to have a change, that the 80% of the poor in India must have some justice: which means fresh water, it means all kinds of things like that. And we need a system, a world system, which provides that.
Most of the nations of Asia, the people in the governments know that. They want that! They want a solution! So therefore, when you get some of the bigger powers, like Russia, which is a very significant power, because it's a Eurasian power, with important technologies—united with India and China, as is happening today—all you have to do, is to engage the United States, as a partner, with these three nations, and with other nations, to create the bloc which can change the world. And we can do it overnight. Russia has stated its willingness to do that—the President of Russia, and leading circles around him. We can have that agreement, tomorrow! If we have the right government in Washington. It's on the table, it's available to us, now. And the American people, if they knew what it was, would want it!
Our job is to make sure they know it exists.
The people of China, the government of China—different policies, different views, but nonetheless, understand this need: cooperation among the United States, Russia, China, and India. Every intelligent patriot of those countries knows that, and agrees on that. They may not agree on other things, but they agree on that. They agree, that with this kind of agreement, the world can shift into a period, away from war, and back to diplomacy. Because that combination of power in the world forces control over warfare, and forces the issue back to diplomacy. And every nation in the world, that's sane, wants diplomacy rather than warfare.
The problem is the British and the United States government, presently, don't want peace! They don't want diplomacy: They want warfare. And that's what we've seen since the year 2000.
Are We Sane Enough?
So therefore, we have a wonderful opportunity before us, an opportunity created by necessity. We have an option before us. It's the only option that exists: The question is, are we sane enough to take it? Are there enough people in the United States, who are sane enough to support it? Can we break through the barriers in the institutions at the top today, to unleash the implicit will for deliberation, among the people of the United States, among particularly the lower 80%?
As in all history, revolutions are made—not just bloody revolutions, but all kinds of revolutions—are made by the generation of young adults between 18 and 25 years of age, a generation which continues to perform that function up to the age of about 35. That's the generation we sent to war, isn't it? It's the generation that fights every war, isn't it? It's the generation which produces the young leaders, who succeed the leaders in power, in time. It's the generation which absorbs new ideas, and transmits them to succeeding generations. It's the generation which introduces the reforms which make society proceed from one generation to another.
You know, every important project in the world, tends to be a long-term investment, and long-term investments have lifetimes of 25 to 50 years. And it's the younger generation which has a perspective of a 50-year investment, or at least 25-year investment. In changing the conditions of life within that nation; that is the generation which has the spark and the commitment and the dedication to seeing it through, to make it happen. And the older generation rejoices in what these younger people are doing, because that is the meaning of their lives. The meaning of the life of the older person, who is not a Baby Boomer, but of that age, is to have a generation coming after them, which is going to give meaning to what they have done, and what they have been.
The Baby-Boomer generation, the white-collar section of the Baby-Boomer generation, lost that. They don't believe in their own children. They don't believe in their own ancestors. They believe that they are something perfect. They are the "Golden Generation"—like that of Athens, which destroyed Greece, so Greece has never come back from what it was then, to the present day. And this was done by the "Golden Generation," which plunged Greece into the Peloponnesian War.
We have, today, a "Golden Generation" which has been the instrument—not the cause, but the instrument—by which the United States has been plunged into wars: the war in Vietnam, the wars in Southwest Asia, and the prospective wars which are looming today. So, we need to replace the idea of the Golden Generation, with the idea of the immortality of the human being, whose mortality is connected to become immortality, with preceding and ensuing generations.
And if we come to this point of crisis, and realize that's where we are today, as this financial system and everything around it is about to collapse, that we have one shot, one chance, to avoid a dark age: and the chance is now. And the step that will make the difference, is for the United States government to respond to what Russia has proffered, and other nations have proffered, China and India, to enter into forms of treaty agreement, long-term treaty agreement, under which we address this problem of our world, bring other nations into partnership with that agreement, and do essentially what should be obvious: to get back to a tradition, which in our country, most recently, was the Franklin Roosevelt tradition—get back to the tradition which we had once, and cooperate with other nations on that basis, and, all these problems can be solved.
And therefore, as I've said today, what has to be done, is, we have to get a new Washington, before 2009. The step is to get rid of Cheney, put him into pasture. Or, maybe a swamp, if that's where he prefers. Change the government, in a constitutional way; react to the emergency, with emergency measures which are appropriate; and recognize, the crucial thing is, the financial system, including the U.S. financial system and monetary system, is going bust, right now! So therefore, let's do what's obvious: Let the governments agree, to freeze, to put the banking system, the financial system, into receivership, for reorganization. A process of reorganization which will save the matter of national and international credit; will permit us to launch the large-scale projects to reverse the present tendency for decay; and to share with other nations, the joy of participation in common interests, in development, which means security for us all, and for generations to come.
Thank you.
[The question-and-answer dialogue followed.]
