LAROUCHE TO BERLIN CONFERENCE:
A Science-Driver Recovery or
Economic Extinction and War
[PDF version of this transcript]
Lyndon LaRouche gave this pre-recorded video keynote speech to a conference of the Schiller Institute in Berlin, on Feb. 25.
I shall speak on three subjects today—speaking from Virginia, in the United States.
The first is the danger of war, of global war. It's been steaming up since about the time that Qaddafi was murdered, after being taken captive; and in the plans for general warfare, involving the targetting, in the least part, of Syria and Iran.
But the major danger lies not there. What the world is facing, as I know from here, and leading circles know from here, and some know from other parts of the world: This will be, if it occurs, if the war starts, and it could start soon—it's been postponed successfully for some time now, that is for some months, but it could come on quickly—it will be a thermonuclear war, not a local war, not merely a nuclear war. It involves the thermonuclear capabilities of the major powers of the planet, in which the targets are chiefly Russia, China, and other countries, from one side, and the response that Russia and China would make, if a launch were actually unleashed against them.
So far, the saner bodies of mind in the United States have acted, in my view, correctly and courageously, to oppose any such kind of warfare from occurring.
The other side of the thing, in particular, is the fact that we're on the verge of a breakdown-crisis of the trans-Atlantic economic system. That does not mean that Russia, China, India, and so forth are not affected by this. It means that the principal immediate threat—economic extinction, virtually—lies in the trans-Atlantic region. And it's concentrated obviously on continental Europe in particular, and it's concentrated also on the United States. We're are on the verge of a breakdown-crisis—the present world monetary system of the trans-Atlantic region in particular, is doomed. But it's obvious that, under these circumstances, no part of the planet would come through alive, in much condition, around the world anyway, if such a war were to break out.
Now at the same time, as I said, the economic situation in the trans-Atlantic region is presently hopeless. That's the case, as I think many of you who are well-informed in Europe know, that we're on the verge of a breakdown-crisis there. We've passed the point that there are any solutions under the present monetary arrangements. There could be reforms which would avert this crisis in Europe; there are reforms that could avert this crisis in the United States.
What Is the Remedy?
The United States' situation, of course, is particularly important, not only for me, but it's important for you. What is required, is this: We presently have monetarist systems in the trans-Atlantic region, which are in a hopeless breakdown mode, that is, these systems can not survive the present period; they're doomed. What is possible, is a change, a rather radical change from the view of some people, which must be made, and can be made on short notice, which would get both the United States, in particular, and Europe, out of the danger of a general breakdown collapse. It would mean that the present monetarist systems of the trans-Atlantic region would have to be terminated by a reform.
Now, take the case of the United States in particular. What's the possibility of the United States avoiding a general breakdown-crisis, a physical-economic breakdown-crisis, during the coming months ahead? That's on the way now. A similar kind of process, of course, has hit Europe too. What's the remedy for the United States? In the United States there are two actions, in particular, that have to be taken as economic reforms. One, is that we have to re-install what was called the Glass-Steagall system. The banking system of the United States as such, without essentially dropping the present system, the United States' economy can not survive. Glass-Steagall is essential.
However Glass-Steagall is not sufficient. Because if we apply Glass-Steagall to the present banking situation, we will simply dump all the non-commercial parts of the banking system, dump them off, back to themselves; the government no longer takes any responsibility, the nation takes no responsibility whatsoever for the continuation and support of the present financial system, in its present form. That would save the United States. It would save it from a collapse. And without that, the United States probably would disintegrate, as an economy. A similar threat is hanging over western and central Europe at the same time.
So, in both cases, the use of a Glass-Steagall reform, as prescribed by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, would stop the collapse. It would not, by itself, produce a recovery; it would stop the collapse. In order to stop the collapse, we would have to go back to something the United States did, in the forming of its Constitution, under the influence of Benjamin Franklin and other people in that period. We would have to go to a credit system, which is what the United States Constitution was.
In other words, we use Federal credit—not monetary credit—Federal credit, to fund what are considered by reasonable people to be projects which would lead to a physical growth, both in the quantity and quality of the conditions of life, in the economy in the United States. The same thing could be done in Europe. It would be a more difficult problem in Europe, because the precedents do not exist in Europe, which exist in the constitutional system in the United States.
So our reforms, here, if adopted, would be more readily applied, than they would be, say, in a typical European situation. But, if the United States were to take these actions, these economic reform actions, these reforms would be immediately relevant to Europe. In other words, Europe—particularly, one speaks of continental Europe—if Europe made the same reforms that the United States would make in that case, Europe would find itself capable of going to a credit system, as opposed to a monetarist system; this would be a ready solution. And collaboration with the United States, in such a reform, or combined reform, would lead to a solution, an economic solution.
NAWAPA vs. the Greens
It would also lead toward a political solution. For example, in the United States we are producing almost nothing, and that is one of the reasons we have a problem. We shipped all our production outside the United States to areas where labor was cheaper, we said, and so forth. And so therefore, we are not a productive nation anymore. We should go back to that.
For example, there's one case, which is a rather famous case, known to people of science around the world: the case of NAWAPA, the NAWAPA policy, the North American Water and Power Alliance. If this were put into action, it would mean essentially that we were going into a period of about 30 years, as we find it was estimated originally, but it would be a development of the U.S. economy, which would be a leader in a very rigorous, accelerating rate of growth. That's what we're looking forward to.
This would mean a change in a lot of things. First of all, the great economic danger today, the greatest source of economic danger, physically, is the Green movement. Under the Green movement, there is no chance that civilization can survive. In the history of mankind, in the history of even species in general, the only way that life-forms have been able to succeed, is through scientific progress, essentially, or what is in the form of scientific progress and its application to the real situation. Without these reforms, mankind were doomed.
Now, for a long time, mankind has been subject to the domination of a kind of imperialist system, of which the Roman Empire is typical. But the Roman Empire, when it collapsed, was supplanted by the alternative Roman system, of Byzantium. Then, when Byzantium went down, we had a so-called Venetian system, which was established. This collapsed, again, in turn, into an absolute disaster. Then there was a recovery, under the leadership of people like Nicholas of Cusa, for example, in Europe. And this was a very important recovery: The foundation of the elements of modern European civilization was set into motion, then. We can apply the same approach, today, in terms of designing a new economy, new economic relationships for human survival.
The Threat of War
Now, what we're facing on the military side: We're facing, with the immediate threat of an organization of principally the thermonuclear powers of the planet, on the one side, that is the European trans-Atlantic side, and the thermonuclear power represented by Russia and China and other nations in Asia. The danger is, that unless this is prevented—and I'm proud to say that some people in the United States are doing their utmost to make sure this does not happen—it would mean a thermonuclear war, which would break out simultaneously, using things like thermonuclear weapons systems based in units such as the submarine fleet of the United States. That would be hell, beyond anything any ordinary person on the planet could imagine!
There are people in the United States and elsewhere, who are determined that this shall not happen. Because what would happen, if, for example, the U.S. and British fleets were to launch a simultaneous bombardment, with thermonuclear weapons, against Asian nations? Certain Asian nations would be forced to respond, immediately, on the announcement of such a launch, with their replies. The result would be very little left of this planet, which could be called civilized. Even if the extinction of humanity were not the result of starting such a thing.
So that's where we stand.
Again, the key thing here is, to develop an understanding, especially in the trans-Atlantic region itself, an understanding, in cooperation with the Asian section of society, especially the Eurasian section, I would say, of Russia, China, India, and other key countries; Japan, Korea, so forth; who in a system of cooperation, can solve the problems of this planet, through appropriate economic effort.
That's where we stand.
And there are people in my country, leading people, who are determined to avoid such a catastrophe as this threatened war, now. We're talking about something that could happen in the Spring of this year—it even could have been now—but, say, now the fair estimate is sometime in late March. It gets more sticky as you go down the line. But the great danger lies toward the mid-term of this year.
If we can understand that this is the danger, and we can stop the financial collapse which is now in process—because the financial collapse and the danger of a global thermonuclear conflict are matched together. There are people in my own country, who are working to prevent that from happening. And, I think you in Europe have to take this into account, too—that the direction in which Europe has been going, is toward catastrophe. The direction in which United States is going, under the influence of President Obama and under his Bush predecessor, is also the same direction.
A Science-Driver Recovery
If we do not resist and overcome these problems: the threat of thermonuclear war, and the threat of a continuation of the general breakdown crisis in process, and the measures for launching a new type of general recovery, based on going to high-technology methods, which will be based largely on the role of the development of exploration of nearby space.
It means the development of the Moon, as a cooperative project; it means the extension from the Moon, to Mars. How long will this take? It could take up to 30 years—as long as that—to get the ability to move a passage from Earth and Moon to Mars, within a week. And our objective is partly that.
But in the meantime—as we're on the road, to what may be the date of starting of the Moon colonization, in the meantime, we face danger from nearby space. There's an increasing danger from particles, objects floating around there. Some of these objects, if they were to hit planet Earth, would probably cause a general extinction of the human population.
We have the technology we could develop, now, to protect Earth, in particular, from such a crisis. It means a science-driver program. It means an end to all these things called "environmentalism." Because the environmentalist program—and the population-reduction program which is advocated by the British monarchy, which is to reduce the human population from the present 7 billion people down to the order of 1 billion—such policies as those, if continued, would mean the extinction of humanity.
And these are the problems we have to face. And, that is my view. That's the way it looks from here.
Number one, we need an economic program, which includes a science-driver program, in the direction of space development, for the defense of mankind on Earth—otherwise we're at risk. We must prevent the danger of thermonuclear war, which is sitting on our porch right now, which some forces in the world are working hard to prevent from occurring. At the same time, we must correct and redirect the course of trans-Atlantic economic development, in particular, away from the trend since the killing of President Kennedy, since which time—the starting of that [Vietnam] War and the killing of Kennedy—has marked the United States in particular, on a downward pathway, all the way through, in terms of economic development, in terms of cultural development. We must deal with that. We must recover our economy.
So, three things: Prevent this war, go to space, and save the world economy.
