Urgent Appeal To President Clinton To Convoke
a New Bretton Woods Conference!
The world economy, with the exception of China, is faced with an accelerating collapse of industrial capacity and the skyrocketing of unemployment, which has led to a political mass-strike process, shaking the foundations of many governments and social institutions around the world.
The unavoidable bursting of the international derivative bubble, or any relevant political event, could trigger a chain-reaction of stock market crashes and banking crises in many countries, leading toward the vaporization of the international financial system within a matter of days. The political, social and military consequences of such a systemic crash would be incalculable.
Meanwhile, the tragedy of the so-called IMF reform policies in the former Soviet Union is now laying out, in the form of a monstrous collapse of production, a demographic disaster and an unprecedented criminalization of society, which has resulted in an even worse and more rapid catastrophe than has already occurred in Ibero-America and Africa. If the present course of these international policies is not changed, entire nations will vanish from the map of the earth, as is already demonstrated in Africa. And, as the conditions in Bulgaria and Albania illustrate, even Europe can plunge into a new dark age in a very short time. Germany, for example, has reached de facto the same level of unemployment as when Hitler came to power.
Thus, many governments, parliamentarians, and leaders of social institutions are confronted with the unacceptable dilemma, that if we are to fulfill the conditionalities of the IMF, or such requirements as those of the Maastricht Treaty or the Balanced Budget Amendment in the United States, we would have to act against the most vital interests of the people, whom we represent. But the international financial institutions have no right to require that the debt to them be paid with a pound of flesh of each of our citizens.
The U.S. Declaration of Independence states:
``When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the Earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.''
In this spirit we say, that not for ``one people,'' but for the peoples of the world, it has become necessary not to dissolve the political, but the financial bands with the presently hegemonic financial institutions.
In the Declaration it is further stated: ``But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide New Guards for their future security.'' Such a condition has emerged, threatening to throw our entire human civilization into chaos and barbarism.
Therefore, we appeal to you, President Clinton, to use the Powers of the Presidency of the United tates, to convoke, on an emergency basis, a new international Bretton Woods conference, to replace the present bankrupt monetary system with a new one. A global debt reorganization, the establishment of fixed-parity exchange rates and a new set of trade and tariff agreements are the absolute precondition for stability in world economic and financial relations, which are required for a return to economic growth.
It is also required that sovereign governments have exclusive responsibility for the emission of currency and the creation of credit and that, in the tradition of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's bold anti-depression programs, they make available cheap and long-term credit lines for large-scale investments in infrastructure, industry, and agriculture. The outline of a new world economic system is already taking shape. Led by the initiative of the Chinese government, several countries of Asia are currently engaged in the construction of the ``New Eurasian Landbridge.'' By integrating all of the Eurasian continent economically, a similar ``Landbridge'' development is planned which will soon also connect the U.S., via the Bering Strait, and Africa, via the Near East, bringing economic development and prosperity to all previously landlocked areas of the world.
As a cornerstone of this global reconstruction program, the economist Lyndon LaRouche has emphasized what he terms the ``Machine-Tool Principle.'' This principle is the recognition that the economy must be based on the fact, that it is solely the creative reason of the individual which is the source of wealth in society. It is the continued ability of creative reason to formulate adequate hypotheses about the laws of nature, which leads to scientific and technological progress. These discoveries are applied in the form of new, improved machine tools and in upgrading the skills of the labor force, resulting in increasing productivity of the productive process. The global economic reconstruction must therefore put absolute priority on Classical, universal education and the strengthening of the creative powers of the individual.
The building of the Eurasian Landbridge as the cornerstone for similiar infrastructure and economic programs for Africa, Australia, and the Americas is the only way that economic development can bring peace and stability to all corners of the world. Such a policy is therefore in the strategic security interest of the U.S. It is also in the tradition of the Founding Fathers as a policy for a community of principle among nations.
We appeal to you with the utmost urgency to take the necessary steps, so that your Presidency does not mark the beginning of a new dark age, but that of a new golden era of mankind.
(By adding my signature below, I authorize my name to be used in conjunction with this statement in newspaper and other publicity for the statement. Affiliations are for identification purposes only.)
| Name | Address | Affiliation |
| Natalya Vitrenko |
|
Member, Ukrainian Parliament |
| Helga Zepp-LaRouche |
|
Founder, International Schiller Institute |
