DENNIS SPEED

Lyndon LaRouche: A Talent Well Spent

These are the opening remarks of moderator Dennis Speed to the Schiller Institute conference in Morristown, N.J. on Feb. 16, 2019. Subheads have been added.

I’d like to welcome everyone to today’s Schiller Institute conference, “Let Us Create a New, More Human Epoch for Mankind.” Everyone here knows that this is an occasion which is momentous and historic. And everyone here knows that for many of us, the guiding inspiration of our actions, and in some cases of our lives, Lyndon LaRouche, is no longer physically here with us. We have a quote which is on the back of your program. I only want to refer to the first sentence of it, which is from Lyndon LaRouche on January 19, 2004; a speech he gave on the occasion of Martin Luther King’s birthday weekend:

We’re all mortal, and to arouse in us the passions while we’re alive which will impel us to do good, we have to have a sense that our life and the consuming of our life—the spending of our talent, is going to mean something for coming generations. The best people look for things—like Moses—that are going to happen when he will no longer be around to enjoy them.

When it comes to the issue of coming generations, or what he called economic forecasting also, there’s no one, from the standpoint of simple documented historical record, who was able to accomplish what Lyndon LaRouche did both in that field, and more importantly, in the field of human creativity. I am always honored, on all occasions, to introduce the person who founded the Schiller Institute, and I’m particularly honored on this occasion, to introduce her; and that is Helga Zepp-LaRouche. [Mrs. LaRouche, from the floor of the conference, rose to greet the audience, followed by extensive applause.]

An Astonishing Forecast

Rather than attempt to say anything more than that welcome could say, we will instead allow Lyndon LaRouche to speak for himself, which he was very fond and capable of doing. I mentioned economic forecasting. On July 25, 2007, a year before the world would hear about the necessity for an $880 billion, and then a several trillion-dollar, and then a $16.7 trillion, and then who knows how many trillions of dollars bail-out; before the world would hear about that, Lyndon LaRouche gave a speech on July 25, 2007. Let’s listen to an excerpt from that now:

This occurs at a time when the world monetary financial system is actually now currently in the process of disintegrating. There’s nothing mysterious about this; I’ve talked about it for some time, it’s been in progress, it’s not abating. What’s listed as stock values and market values in the financial markets internationally is bunk! These are purely fictitious beliefs. There’s no truth to it; the fakery is enormous. There is no possibility of a non-collapse of the present financial system—none! It’s finished, now! The present financial system cannot continue to exist under any circumstances, under any Presidency, under any leadership, or any leadership of nations. Only a fundamental and sudden change in the world monetary financial system will prevent a general, immediate chain-reaction type of collapse. At what speed we don’t know, but it will go on, and it will be unstoppable!

One of the most startling of his forecasts occurred in a combination of both a press conference that he gave—Helga was present for this—October 12, 1988 at the Kempinski Hotel in Berlin, where Mr. LaRouche asserted that the time had come for the reunification of Germany. This is one year before the fall of the Berlin Wall. All of us who were around at that time, who are honest, will admit that we had no idea what he was actually talking about. One year later, it occurred. Let’s listen to an excerpt from that speech:

Under the proper conditions, many today will agree, that the time has come for early steps toward the reunification of Germany, with the obvious prospect that Berlin might resume its role as the capital.

For the United States, for Germans, and for Europe generally, the question is: Will this be brought about by assimilating the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin into the East Bloc’s economic sphere of influence, or can it be arranged differently? In other words, is a united Germany to become part of a Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals, as President de Gaulle proposed, or, as Mr. Gorbachov desires, a Europe from the Urals to the Atlantic?

I see a possibility that the process of reunification could develop as de Gaulle proposed. I base this possibility upon the reality of a terrible worldwide food crisis which has erupted during the past several months, and will dominate the world’s politics for at least two years to come.

The economy of the Soviet bloc is a terrible, and worsening failure. In Western European culture, we have demonstrated that the successes of nations of big industries depend upon the technologically progressive independent farmer, and what you call in Germany the Mittelstand [Germany’s small and medium-sized entrepreneurs]. Soviet culture in its present form is not capable of applying this lesson. Despite all attempts at structural reforms, and despite any amount of credits supplied from the West, the Soviet bloc economy as a whole has reached the critical point, that, in its present form, it will continue to slide downhill from here on, even if the present worldwide food crisis had not erupted.

I do not foresee the possibility of genuine peace between the United States and Soviet Union earlier than 30 or 40 years still to come. The best we can do in the name of peace, is to avoid a new general war between the powers. This war-avoidance must be based partly on our armed strength, and our political will. It must be based also, on rebuilding the strength of our economies.

At the same time that we discourage Moscow from dangerous military and similar adventures, we must heed the lesson taught us by a great military scientist nearly four centuries ago, Niccolò Machiavelli: We must also provide an adversary with a safe route of escape. We must rebuild our economies to the level at which we can provide the nations of the Soviet bloc an escape from the terrible effects of their economic suffering.

On November 9, one year later, the Berlin Wall fell. On approximately November 10, from jail where he was incarcerated unjustly, Lyndon LaRouche began to formulate a plan which went through various stages, first referred to as the European Triangle, later referred to as the New Silk Road, and then later referred to as the Eurasian Land-Bridge, and ultimately the World Land-Bridge.

Hundreds of New Cities!

That began a dialogue spearheaded by Helga with Russia, China, and many of the nations of the former East Bloc. But that vision that Lyndon LaRouche had at that time had already been preceded by much earlier discussions. We are all very dramatically impressed and grateful for what was done by the nation of China in lifting 700 million people out of poverty. We’re going to play for you now, something that Lyndon LaRouche discussed with his organization in 1978, at the time that he initiated his first campaign to see the Democratic Party nomination for President. On that occasion, he defined an idea that later on we would refer to as a new economic platform. But he defined a task for America and for Americans that he wanted his Presidency to initiate.

You know what we’re going to do? We’re going to build nuplexes. How do you build a nuplex? You’re going to go out and dig a big crater. You lay a big footing, unless you’ve got bedrock. You don’t care what the terrain is like. It makes no difference. Wherever you are, blast it out, build a crater. Build a crater covering an area the size of a city, a city of a half-million people, or 100,000 people. But build a crater for an industrial city of a new type, from six, seven, or eight stories below the surface. Built it up. Build it up to the surface. On this thing, stick two nuclear plants, of one-half to two gigawatts each, to get a balanced load. String industries around this, using this energy to cut low distribution costs, like child bracelets. Put a chemical industry in there, that sort of thing, desalination, and so forth, using the waste heat and the electrical power. Build housing for the families, modern housing, housing that will last 100 years, for the families of the people who are going to be brought in to do the construction which will be done and completed within a period of 4-6 years.

Build the on-site cultural programs: Schools, universities, technical schools. Everything that a city requires.

And when the project is completed, at the end of six years, these people occupy the factories, because they have been educated. And gradually the Europeans and others who have been phased in will be phased out, except for a few key technicians.

The city, then, is built. It’s modular. You can change it. You can develop it with no big cost. Its transportation systems are built in, and modular for any technological improvements which will be significant in the next 100 years.

The city functions, now, in 4-6 years.

We’re going to build hundreds of these in the next 25 years. Hundreds of them. Hundreds of new cities throughout the world, especially in the developing sector.

These cities will be linked together. They will form a network of high-technology culture, planted in the middle of the rest of the population. And from these cities and through these cities and their universities and technical schools and technical services to the surrounding areas, we’ll lift one generation of the human race up from barbarism and oppression into modern life.

And, in the next 25 years following that, we’ll complete the job. And, within 50 years from now, the human race will be transformed, as we city-builders intend to do it. We’re going to mobilize every industry that exists that’s viable, and every one that can be created, to do it. We’re not going to export a few 10 or 20 billion dollars’ worth of additional exports. We’re going to export hundreds of cities.

Poetry, Unfailing Herald of the Awakening

That is the vision of a poet. Lyndon LaRouche introduced many of us to what you’re about to hear. Here is his reading of a section from Percy Shelley’s “A Defence of Poetry” in 1973:

During a period of reaction which occurred among British intellectuals in the wake of the French Revolution, there was an attempt to explain creativity and art as being something which was explained in which art itself, as independent of political movements of that time.

In rebuttal of this, Shelley wrote an essay, one of his several important essays—I’ll refer to another one later tonight—entitled “A Defence of Poetry.” I’d like to read a section from the conclusion of that, which is a thesis from which we shall work to provide a setting for the purpose of this program:

“For the literature of England, an energetic development of which has ever preceded or accompanied a great and free development of the national will, has arisen as it were from a new birth. In spite of the low-thoughted envy which would undervalue contemporary merit, our own will be a memorable age in intellectual achievements, and we live among such philosophers and poets as surpass beyond comparison any who have appeared since the last national struggle for civil and religious liberty. The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry. At such periods there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature. The persons in whom this power resides may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, the power which is seated on the throne of their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations; for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age.”

Our Noetic Powers

Many of us had the privilege of meeting Lyndon LaRouche back in the 1970s. I met him first in December of 1970 at Columbia University. Some of us were rash enough to think that we could master what he knew in a period of a few months. Maybe everybody wasn’t like that; I was less like that. Forty years later, the one thing you had learned was that that was probably not going to happen. At the age of 90, Lyn gave a talk in Europe. I want to point out that while we say he is a poet, and that’s certainly true, Lyn was always, shall we say, very frank about his view of circumstances, politics, and people. Please play the next excerpt.

Without Glass-Steagall right now, civilization is dead. It cannot survive. What does all this mean? First of all, take two things: One, all life is based on an evolutionary process under which species go from lower qualities of development to higher. That’s the animal kingdom. That’s the law of evolution.

Mankind is different than all other kinds of animals, because mankind has the power to evolve, voluntarily. Mankind evolves voluntarily, not by changing his biology, but by changing his Mind. The utilization of the noetic powers of Mind. No animal species really has noetic powers of Mind. Only human beings have noetic powers of Mind.

Therefore, the object is always to go to higher levels of technology, which means kill off the Green policy. If you want to survive, end the Green policy, because that’s a death sentence. It’s a suicide pact.

Mankind must always progress. Learn from the animals! And apply the principles that the animals don’t know how to do. Rise to a higher energy-flux density! How do you do that? You make physical discoveries. You go from lower forms of energy-flux density to higher forms of energy-flux density. You find new applications.

Now, mankind is, for the moment, helpless against the asteroids which are arrayed against us inside the Solar system. We’re helpless against the comets. We saw recently in Russia some quickie comets shooting through there. If they would have had a little bit more energy-flux density in that territory, you wouldn’t have had a large number of people injured, you would have had mass death.

Mankind is faced with mass death, if we fail to progress adequately and rapidly enough in order to defeat the problems.

In the United States and in Europe, you have a common suicide pact. It’s called the Green policy, which is a species suicide pact. It’s mass death. Without an increase in the energy-flux density, expressed in terms of technology and pure power as such, there’s no future for mankind on this planet.

With these kinds of ideas, you would think that Lyndon LaRouche would be a loved figure. Why was that not the case?

Creativity As a Way of Life

In the final concluding excerpt from him, I think you’re going to hear why. He was, almost from birth, an enemy of—well, it had many forms, many names—the British oligarchy and so forth; but it was really Stupidity. Virtually from birth. He believed that Stupidity was not an excuse. Let’s hear our final excerpt.

The Organization, having achieved a certain level of development, and the world requiring certain things from the Organization, the Organization should continue to grow. It should never stop. Any time the Organization finds no new thing to shock it, then it has yet to learn; then creativity has stopped. Creativity is not a voluntary thing. “Oh, I think I’ll be creative today.” It’s not like that; it’s a way of life. It says, “I’m not a cow.” I can never reach a level at which I want to, forever thereafter, squat with the same level of understanding and achievement that I have achieved now.

There is no point in the evolution of progress at which I want to stop. If I have completed the ascent, from some kind of globigerinian creature to a cow, I’m not going to say “Now I’m a cow. I have reached a level of perfection so far above the globigerina that I want to stop; I don’t want to go any farther. I want to sit here and chew my cud and contemplate what I have achieved.”

That’s not life; life goes on. If I can become this, I can become something more. It is necessary. There’s no limit; there’s never an end. If there’s an end to new things to be conquered, new things to be mastered, new changes in the sense of advances in humanity, humanity ends. It goes off the cliff. Gone. Humanity is not a cow; it is not a horse; it is not a chicken. It is not some creature which is fixed by nature to do the same thing as his grandfathers and great-grandfathers. That’s alien to humanity.

If my great-grandfather did it, I shouldn’t do it. Because all I’m doing is repeating his life, rather than using his life as a foundation for advancing further. Therefore, by repeating his life, I make his life boring and meaningless. By using his contribution, to continue the process of human advancement which he, in his turn, furthered, I give meaning to his life, by not re-living it. If I re-live his life, I turn his life into a bad play, without meaning.

Creativity is a way of life. So, I’d just to say on behalf of all of us, and much of the rest of humanity, “Thank you, Lyndon LaRouche.” [applause]