PRESS RELEASE
LaRouche Tells Germans
To Prepare for Mass Strike
June 15, 2010 (EIRNS)—A significant political intervention into the debate in Germany over the future of the financial system was made during a seminar held by EIR's European bureau in Frankfurt June 10, keynoted by Lyndon LaRouche. Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened the event with an overview of the breakdown in Europe, drawing a chilling parallel between the hyperinflationary bailout policy coupled with devastating austerity for the people, and the 1930s policy of Brüning. EIR's Dean Andromidas then gave a lively report on the debate in the U.S. on reintroducing the Glass-Steagall Act, from LaRouche's July 2007 webcast to the recent developments in the Senate, and presented the role of the LaRouche movement as a catalyst for the mass strike process building in the States.
He was followed by LaRouche, who located this mass strike process in the historic background of the more than 200 years of conflict between the Americans and the British Empire, focussing on the moral quality and sense of immortality required to win the battle against the imperial system (see EIR, June 18, 2010).
This was followed by an intense discussion, during which LaRouche took the opportunity to tell the Germans that if they were experiencing pessimism as to whether things could really change, they should look back to the 1989 peaceful uprising in Eastern Germany when, suddenly, people took to the streets shouting "We are the people." That was a real mass strike, and it can be done again, he said. Once the U.S., where 80% of the people are for Glass-Steagall, makes the change, Germany can too.
In the dialogue between the audience and LaRouche, a former savings bank official, who observed that although Germany never really had the equivalent of a Glass-Steagall standard, it did have 80 separate pieces of legislation telling bankers what they should not do. With this system, German banks did fairly well as industry-financing banks, with no major problems, until 1992. But the abrogation of those laws drove Germany's banking system into difficulties.
The consul of Sri Lanka welcomed the Glass-Steagall initiative, giving the example of his own country to illustrate how separation of banks works well and promotes economic growth: Growth rates have doubled in Sri Lanka since the legislation was changed. An African attendee noted that as soon as the U.S. takes a step forward, it will have a remoralizing effect on African countries as well. And a German entrepreneur called on everyone to become more rebellious toward the institutions and fight against their unjust and destructive policies.
The seminar was concluded with a report by EIR's Claudio Celani on the monthly press conference of ECB governor Jean-Claude Trichet, and a review by EIR's Rainer Apel on the perspectives for Germany's high-tech industry (maglev systems, high-temperature nuclear reactors, nuclear fusion power), once Glass-Steagall is re-enacted and the present monetarist constraints that block investments are removed.
LaRouche's concluding remarks focussed on the importance of addressing the sense of immortality in people's minds, and of awakening the commitment to real science, for example, in the crucial field of cosmic radiation, a problem that must be solved, if mankind is to colonize the universe, beginning with Mars.
A similar call to action was issued by Helga Zepp-LaRouche at a June 5 seminar of the BüSo in Leipzig: "Now, that the system has come to an end, we need another peaceful revolution like in 1989!" Another BüSo seminar is planned in Cologne on June 26.
