These Are the Days of Decision

by Tony Papert

[Print version of this editorial]

Jan. 16—Far beyond the level at which most Americans are daring to think today, the deepest issues of history and the destiny of man are being fought out during these earliest days of 2020. Decisions are being made in these moments, whose implications will play out for centuries. What is needed now are the men and women who can bring themselves to comprehend this.

Thus, the call of Helga Zepp-LaRouche and the Schiller Institute for an urgent summit of the Presidents of the U.S., Russia and China—in order to avoid the risk of war after the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani—was not merely a flash-in-the-pan idea conceived in answer to an immediate crisis. For lawful reasons understood and taught by Lyndon LaRouche for decades, it is precisely these three most-powerful sovereign nations—to be joined by India when that is possible—which have the unique ability to link arms, and by agreement among them, to put an end to the era of imperialism and geopolitics.

Helga’s thought was echoed most clearly by Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday, when he said the UN Security Council permanent members—Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States—must

eliminate the prerequisites for new global wars, and develop updated approaches to ensure stability on the planet, in full consideration of political, economic and military aspects of modern international relations.

On a related issue, we have reported that the London-centered adversary’s plans to deny President Trump a second term—which, if successful, would probably result in near-term nuclear war—revolve around three projects. First: a long, messy impeachment trial, even if acquittal is ultimately certain in the end. Second: Trump will be defeated if he is made to repudiate his campaign promises and involve the U.S. in war. The third flank is negative publicity: Michael Bloomberg intends to spend $400 million in anti-Trump advertising in swing states, where he is also deploying forces on the ground. The goal is to find the weak points in Trump’s support and ultimately defeat him as part of this whole squeeze-play.

But underlying this whole nefarious effort is Trump’s one great vulnerability—precisely the one that is never mentioned. Begin with the fact that U.S. agriculture and industry were already in depression, even before the Depression of 2008 stuck. And now, today, any cursory look past the transparently worthless official statistics, to the true physical-economic underlying conditions, shows that they have yet to recover even to their pre-2008 levels of misery.

President Trump’s Achilles heel is none of the things the media are pointing to. It is the depression bequeathed to him by Bush and Obama. As long as that depression persists, Trump is vulnerable (as the 2018 elections proved—if proof were needed).

It was this depression, his recognition of it, and his promise to overcome it, that brought President Trump to power. Once in office, he has made many economic improvements. He merits special praise as the only head of state to withdraw from the murderous COP21 Paris Agreement. Yet for all he has been able to do, the depression persists. It is still destroying the country; he still has not been able to lick it—not so surprising if you recall the Gargantuan efforts required of the Franklin Roosevelt administration to begin to roll back the Depression of those days, which was a far, far easier task than what we face today.

President Trump is well aware of the problem; he knows perfectly well that stock market indices do not represent the real economy, and ridiculed his opponents for that delusion during the 2016 election cycle. If more evidence were needed, look at the terms of the Phase One Trade Agreement just signed with China. It is predominantly a treaty to vastly expand U.S. industrial exports to China. Of the $200 billion in increased U.S. goods and services China has committed to buy over the next two years, fully $80 billion are manufactured goods. A Bloomberg wire claims the treaty will require a 56% increase in U.S. exports, which it implies is impossible.

The causes that have prevented President Trump from licking this depression have some kinship to the reasons he has been unable to withdraw U.S. troops from foreign wars as he has wanted to, or effectively fight the killer drug plague: corrupt officials, not just in the bureaucracy, but emphatically in the Congress as well. But the brainwashing of academia, officialdom, and the media with lying doctrines of so-called economics is a still more powerful factor in this case. Idolaters for whom empty catechisms like “free trade” overshadow any human, or even divine duty.

Reinvigorate the World War II Alliance

In these circumstances, there is no substitute for a mobilized, active and vociferous leading element among the Trump base, which understands and promulgates the proven solutions that Lyndon LaRouche developed for precisely this crisis—not for the 1930s or any other period, but for now. He summarized them in his “Four New Laws” of June 2014, which should be the beginning of a course of study for everyone who intends to help lead the country out of this crisis.

To return finally to the considerations with which we began, this is no “merely American” question. The United States’ role in the world is no less vital today than it was in the 1930s and World War II—indeed, we must now re-invigorate the World War II alliance in a new guise. For that, we must rebuild our economy, prominently including missions to the Moon and Mars, and retake our sovereignty from the usurers of Wall Street and the City of London.