HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE OCTOBER 29 WEBCAST
`Russia-China Accord Can Be the Start
Of a World Credit System'
by Alexander Hartmann and Nancy Spannaus
Oct. 30—Helga Zepp-LaRouche kicked off a series of high-powered international interventions planned for the days ahead, around the breakthrough developments toward a Four-Power agreement for a new world credit system, with her Berlin webcast on Oct. 29. Coming out of the mid-October Rhodes conference on the Dialogue of Civilizations, which included speeches by herself and her husband, American statesman and economist Lyndon LaRouche, Zepp-LaRouche presented the stark alternatives which face mankind. If nations cling to the casino economy, she said, there will soon be a "mega-crash" which brings mass suffering and a collapse into a new Dark Age. But, on the other side, there is the clear potential for building a new world financial system, which will reconstruct the world economy through projects like the Eurasian Land-Bridge.
Lyndon LaRouche will address the same crisis and opportunity with his own international webcast, scheduled for Nov. 11, from the U.S. capital.
Zepp-LaRouche, who, as head of the Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo), just completed an election campaign for Chancellor, confronted her German audience with the reality that the solution to the global crisis cannot come from Germany. In fact, Europe's nations have no ability to competently address the crisis, since they have lost their sovereignty under the treaties of the European Union. Rather, the solution to the greatest crisis mankind has ever faced, is going to have to come from cooperation among the Four Powers with the ability to confront the British-centered global financial empire: Russia, China, India, and the United States.
However, Zepp-LaRouche went on to report, there has been a dramatic new development on this potential, centered on the visit of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to China Oct. 13-15, which resulted in a series of breakthrough economic agreements, which qualify as a stepping stone to the Four-Power agreement which LaRouche has called for.
Realization of an Idea
She briefed the audience on the role that she and her husband have played in bringing this about, as the "idea-givers." She described their interventions at the Seventh Rhodes Conference on Dialogue of Civilizations, and the impact that their presentations had on the conference dynamic.[1] She noted, in particular, the beginnings of overcoming a certain distrust between the Russians and the Chinese, by means of their prospective technological cooperation (Chinese rail technology to the Russians, Russian nuclear technology to the Chinese).
Reporting further on developments in Russia, she described the newspaper Zavtra's interview with her husband, and the open letter written by human rights lawyer Viktor Kuzin to President Medvedev, which she said is being broadly discussed (both are published elsewhere in this issue).
Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche then reviewed the 20 years of work that she and Lyndon and their associates have put in, to developing the ideas that China, Russia, and India are working on today. From the European Productive Triangle after the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago, to the concept of the Eurasian Land-Bridge, she said, we worked to create high-technology infrastructure corridors; we addressed hundreds of conferences and seminars on these topics. We worked as if alone in the desert for a long time, but eventually things took off.
Among the events she highlighted were her trip to Land-Bridge cities in China (with Russian Academician Dmitri Lvov), discussions in India, conferences in Europe that brought in Eurasian political leaders and economic experts, Lyndon LaRouche's various interviews on Russian TV, and a seminar he gave in 2001 to a committee of the Russian State Duma. I report all this, she said, to show you that we were not just making suggestions, but working to realize this concept.
She then elaborated the content and significance of the proposal to build a railroad and tunnel across the Bering Strait, which would link the Eurasian and North American continents, opening up vast potential for world progress. She emphasized the importance of the development of the raw materials of the Russian Far East, which can also bring China out of the globalization trap. China had concentrated on building up coastal industries for exports to the West, but the economic collapse of the past two years has created a tremendous crisis there. The only solution is to develop China's internal market, particularly the poor inland regions. Chinese specialists helping to tap Russia's economic potential, for the benefit of both nations, will help enormously.
She contrasted the China that she saw in 1971, with that she saw in 1996—but noted that 70% of the Chinese population is still living in virtually Stone Age conditions, in the rural hinterlands. Now, however, with the recent agreements, China has begun to give its massive dollar reserves real physical value.
The Crisis in the West
Zepp-LaRouche then described the existential crisis which the United States is experiencing, ranging from the deserved collapse of President Obama's popularity, to the worsening conditions of life for the population. Five million people have lost their jobs since the onset of the crisis, she said; 1 million have also lost their unemployment compensation, and 3 million have lost their homes. Cities and municipalities are bankrupt and can do nothing to help. Meanwhile, $23 trillion has been spent for stimulus packages to save the banks, and now Obama is trying to recoup those losses by "health-care reform": massive cuts in health-care payments. This has sparked a mass strike process.
She forecast the next phases of crisis that can be expected—in commercial real estate and credit default swaps—and the policy fight in the U.S., including the debate over restoring the Glass-Steagall standard. Economists are currently studying Mr. LaRouche's writings, she said, especially his "Triple Curve," the schematic of a typical collapse function that shows monetary and financial aggregates sucking the life out of the physical economy, and soaring into hyperinflation.
As for Germany, she briefly discussed the situation after the recent elections, which resulted in the formation of a governing coalition of the Christian Democratic Union and the Free Democratic Party. The government's line is that the worst of the economic crisis is over, she said, but in fact, the future of a decent human society hangs by a thread. Germany, due to the strictures of the European Union, has no control over its own economy, and thus the destiny of mankind does not immediately depend upon Germany's actions. There are hopeful signs that the new German government will not submit totally to the EU supranational imperialists in Brussels, but its thinking is still imprisoned in globalization and monetarism.
She went on to describe the brutal austerity policies being considered by the new government—including with regard to health care and the swine flu pandemic, where the intentions of Britain's Prince Philip to reduce the world's population are being carried out.
Detailing the protests of Germany's dairy farmers, who are being driven out of business, she then gave a presentation on the cartelization of the food industry, which is actually the cause of the destruction of farming and farmers. She concentrated on Cargill's immense global power, but also described the crimes of Monsanto and Nestlé, among others.
Put the LaRouche Plan on the Table
The final section of the presentation was devoted to how the LaRouche Plan for global recovery of the physical economy must be put on the table by the Four Powers that have sufficient power to crush the cartels, which are now stronger than governments. We're not there yet, with the China-Russia agreements, she said, but we can see motion in that direction, in a seed-crystal form. We need an emergency conference to put these programs on the agenda. In reality, we're at a very dangerous moment, where, unless we make this change, we could see the 6.8 billion people on the planet reduced to less than 2 billion.
This is not a small suggestion, she concluded. We have to take up the concepts of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa and V.I. Vernadsky—the Cusa who argued that man's creative potential is the only source of wealth, and the Vernadsky who developed the concept of the Noösphere, the domain of the human mind, which constantly increases relative to the Biosphere and the Lithosphere. We need to adopt their passionate love for mankind, to promote the budding of this new system, she said, and I want to recruit you to this image: The image was represented by a short video of a young Asian boy playing the 'cello, accompanied by a pianist, performing beautiful Classical music.
The Goal Is the Common Good
During the discussion period, quite a few questions came up about Germany's role in such a reconstruction policy. In her answers, Zepp-LaRouche repeatedly emphasized that the most important requirement, if we are to overcome the crisis, is to think differently: "There are no shortcuts on the road out of the systemic crisis," she said. "Now an even greater crash threatens. If we really want to get out of this crisis, then everything that has to do with globalization has to go into the garbage."
The new credit system must, first and foremost, encourage the creative capacities of the individual. The state must do everything possible to promote the development of its citizens. "A developed, cultured person has better things to do than to maximize profits and sacrifice his life to vile Mammon. People will realize that globalization was the wrong way to go." The world order, she said, must be brought into harmony with the order of Creation.
In another reply to a question, she said: "For the first time in history, we are all in one boat. If part of the world goes under, then we all do." Therefore, what is needed is a broad discussion of these questions; but unfortunately, the mass media are not at all helpful. Therefore it is the citizens who must insist upon it.
In conclusion, she said, "I really want to ask you to get active. We have too few real citizens." In this period of dramatic tumult, "we must bring together a new elite, that is not wallowing in Mammon, but is dedicated to the common good."
A translation of Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche's full speech will appear in a forthcoming issue of EIR. It is currently available in video in German, and with English simultaneous translation, at http://bueso.de.
[1] See EIR, Oct. 23, 2009 for a report on the conference and the text of the speeches by Lyndon LaRouche and Helga Zepp-LaRouche.
