Ingen tid at spilde: Vedtag Glass-Steagall, og tag til Månen
LaRouchePAC Internationale
Fredags-webcast,
25. november, 2016
Jason Ross: Diskussionen i aften finder sted to en halv uge efter præsidentvalget i USA den 8. nov. Siden da har vi set en hvirvelvind af spekulationer over udnævnelser til regeringsposter, inkl. nogle udnævnelser til poster i Trump-administrationen. Vi har også set betydningsfulde, internationale nyheder, såsom APEC-topmødet, der fandt sted i sidste weekend; topmødet i Asien-Stillehavsområdets Økonomiske Samarbejde (APEC), der meget betydningsfuldt inkluderede den filippinske præsident Duterte og den kinesiske præsident Xi Jinping blandt de mange tilstedeværende ledere. På denne konference understregede Duterte igen, at Filippinerne ikke længere anser sig selv for at være en amerikansk koloni; og landet forfølger en uafhængig politik, rent økonomisk, med Kina, der således er et modtræk til at skabe konflikt i f.eks. det Sydkinesiske Hav. Præsident Xi var på rundrejse i Mellem- og Sydamerika samtidig med, at han rejste til APEC-topmødet. Så ved siden af Peru – som var værtsland for topmødet – besøgte han også Chile og Ecuador, hvor han blandt andet talte om den bi-oceaniske korridor, en plan for en jernbaneforbindelse mellem Sydamerikas to omkringliggende have, Stillehavet og Atlanterhavet, og om at etablere videnskabsbyer. Han blev hyldet af præsident Correa i Ecuador, der betragtede Xi Jinpings besøg som den mest betydningsfulde begivenhed, der nogen sinde havde fundet sted i Ecuadors historie, baseret på det potentiale, som dette tilbød denne nation.
Dette Nye Paradigme, der i øjeblikket ledes politisk og økonomisk af Rusland og Kina, kommer som et resultat af LaRouche-bevægelsens og Lyndon og Helga LaRouches årtier lange organisering; der er således nu et Nyt Paradigme, der fører en stadigt større del af verden i en meget positiv retning. Vores job i øjeblikket er ikke at få de hotteste nyheder om, hvad Trumps udnævnelser bliver, osv. Det er at forme amerikanske politik, som vi med held gjorde det med at gennemtvinge en underkendelse af Obamas veto af Loven om Juridisk Retfærdighed mod Sponsorer af Terrorisme (JASTA). Og som vi nu står klar til at gøre, med at få Kongressen – under denne overgangsperiode, ’lamme and’-perioden – til at gennemføre Glass-Steagall, det nødvendige første skridt for en økonomisk genrejsning. Glass-Steagall er den lov, som Franklin Roosevelt fik vedtaget, og som skabte 60+ år med stabil, kedelig, stabil, produktiv bankvirksomhed i USA; snarere end den form for spillevirksomhed, vi nu ser.
Lad med vise dette kort [Fig. 1] for blot at vise lidt at den succes, som vi har set med det kinesiske program.
Programmet med nationerne i Ét bælte, én vej [OBOR], der inkluderer både – der er to komponenter i Kinas projekt i denne henseende; det Økonomiske Silkevejsbælte, med nationerne vist i blå farve, og det 21. Århundredes Maritime Silkevej i orange farve. Tilsammen refererer Kina til dette på kinesisk som initiativet med »Ét bælte, én vej«; på engelsk ofte blot kaldt initiativet for Bæltet og Vejen. Med hensyn til det potentiale, som dette har, er her blot nogle af tallene: 20.000 km højhastigheds-jernbanelinjer i Kina, alle bygget inden for det seneste årti – mere end i resten af verden tilsammen; et titals billioner af dollars i direkte investering i nationerne i området; en forøgelse af kontrakter om tjenesteydelser på over 33 % i løbet af blot ét år langs Bæltet og Vejen; Kinas Eksport/Importbank har udestående engagementer i flere end 1000 projekter og har for ganske nylig underskrevet aftaler om omkring 500 nye projekter i nationerne langs Bæltet og Vejen. 
Kina er i færd med at udbygge 150.000 stipendier, som tilbyder uddannelse til 500.000 eksperter til uddannelse i Kina; har etableret 500 Konfucius-institutter i hele verden; har initieret flere end et dusin økonomiske samarbejdszoner; frihandelsaftaler, og er i øjeblikket engageret i flere end 40 energiprojekter – inklusive omkring 20, der lige er blevet etableret i år i Bæltet og Vejens nationer.
Hvordan kan vi så blive en del af dette? I magasinet Chronicles udgave fra 21. nov. er der et forslag fra Edward Lozansky og Jim Jatrus. Lozansky er præsident for det Amerikanske Universitet i Moskva. De skrev en artikel med titlen, »The Big Three: America, Russia, and China Must Join Hands for
Security, Prosperity, and Peace« (De tre store: Amerika, Rusland og Kina må gå sammen om sikkerhed, velstand og fred). To uddrag: De indleder deres artikel, »Med Donald Trumps sejr over Hillary Clinton får vi måske aldrig at vide, hvor tæt Amerika og hele menneskeheden kom på atomkrig«. Med en beskrivelse af verdenssituationen afslutter de med et forslag: »Præsident Donald Trump kan rette tidligere amerikanske præsidenters fejl. Snarere end modstandere kan Rusland og Kina blive Amerikas vigtigste partere, og som er, er vi overbevist om, rede til at respondere positivt. Tiden er inde for Trump og Amerika til at tage initiativet til samarbejde mellem USA, Rusland og Kina hen imod en tryg, fremgangsrig og fredelig fremtid. Et Trump-Putin-Xi ’Store Tre-topmøde’ bør være en prioritet for den nye, amerikanske præsidents første 100 dage.«
Jeg vil nu bede Jeff Steinberg om at fylde verdensbilledet ud og forklare vore seere, hvilke flanker, hvilke håndtag, hvilke vægtstænger vi har for at ændre USA’s politik på dette tidspunkt?
Jeffrey Steinberg (efterretningsredaktør, EIR): Det er indledningsvist meget vigtigt at indse, at vi befinder os i en periode med forandring. Vi ved visse ting om konsekvenserne af det amerikanske præsidentvalg og andre nationale valg den 8. nov. Jeg mener, at Lozansky og Jatrus gjorde en fundamental pointe meget klart: Der forelå en meget alvorlig fare, baseret på Hillary Clintons kampagneretorik, baseret på politikker, der blev stadigt mere aggressivt forfulgt af præsident Barack Obama mod slutningen af hans otte år i embedet; at vi havde kurs mod den værste krise mellem USA og Rusland, som vi nogen sinde har oplevet – måske endda værre end Cubakrisen i 1962. Så Hillary Clintons nederlag er virkelig afslutningen af præsidentskaberne Bush’ og Obamas 16 år lange tyranni. Hvor hurtigt, vi kan vende politikken omkring under det nye Trump-præsidentskab, og i hvilken retning, udnævnelserne til hans administration vil gå, er alt sammen ukendte faktorer; vi har ingen vished om dem.
Det, vi ved, er, at især i kølvandet på APEC-topmødet, der netop er afsluttet i sidste uge i Lima, Peru, og som dernæst efterfulgtes af den kinesiske præsident Xi Jinpings statsbesøg til Peru og dernæst til Chile, og forud for topmødet var han i Ecuador; og vi ved, at der er en enorm mulighed derude for USA, under et Trump-præsidentskab, for netop at gå med i det, der altid har ligget på bordet som en åben invitation til USA; nemlig, at USA kan tilslutte sig projektet om Verdenslandbroen. For, uden et USA er det meget vanskeligt at opfatte dette som en Verdenslandbro, hvilket er det, verden virkelig har brug for lige nu. Der har været meget indledende telefondiskussioner mellem nyvalgte præsident Trump og den russiske præsident Putin; de synes at være blevet enige om at have et personligt topmøde hurtigt efter tiltrædelsen – som finder sted den 20. januar. Det er ligeledes tanken, at præsident Trump, efter tiltrædelsen, også ret hurtigt skal mødes med den kinesiske præsident Xi Jinping. Jeg mener, at Lozansky-Jatrus-ideen om et trilateralt møde ville være ekstraordinært værdifuldt. Det er vigtigt at huske på, at, i 1944, var det præsident Franklin Roosevelts kurs i sine handlinger for at etablere De forenede Nationer – hvilket skete i 1945 – at inkludere både Sovjetunionen og Kina i FN’s Sikkerhedsråds fem permanente nationer. Husk på, at Roosevelt forstod, at der var imperiepolitikker, der stadig var kernen i Det britiske Imperium med Churchill, og på lignende måde med Frankrig. Så ideen med at have Rusland – dengang Sovjetunionen – og Kina i dette permanente Sikkerhedsråds kernegruppe, reflekterede den kendsgerning, at Roosevelt dengang så udsigten til denne form for et alliancesystem hen over Eurasien. Jeg mener, at der er en historisk baggrund, for netop denne form for russisk-kinesiske samarbejde, at se hen til her. I de seneste 15 år har det været en hjørnesten i Lyndon LaRouches globale politik med et USA-Rusland-Kina-Indien-samarbejde, især omkring videnskabelige programmer; især udforskning af rummet, som basis for global fred og udvikling. Så disse ideer er fremlagt.
Den 20. november sagde general Michael Flynn, kort tid efter, at han var blevet udnævnt af nyvalgte præsident Trump som national sikkerhedsrådgiver, i et interview med Fareed Zakhari på CNN, at, efter hans mening, var den eneste måde at håndtere problemerne med den jihadistiske terrortrussel i Mellemøsten og Nordafrika på længere sigt at have et globalt samarbejde omkring en Marshallplan – han brugte udtrykkeligt dette udtryk. Han sagde, hvis man ser på, hvad Europa var i stand til at præstere i kølvandet på Anden Verdenskrigs ødelæggelser, og den rolle, som Marshallplanen spillede; det var ikke det hele, men det var et vigtigt element i den økonomiske genrejsning efter krigen. Et perspektiv af denne art er virkelig den vindende strategi for at håndtere befolkningstilvæksten og spredningen af den saudisksponsorerede jihadisme i hele Mellemøsten/Nordafrika-området. Det går også ind i Sydvestasien.
Der findes altså enorme potentialer; de er i vid udstrækning foreløbigt ikke realiseret med hensyn til den forandring, der kommer med den ny administration. Men, som du sagde, Jason [Ross], så er der ingen grund til at vente til januar. Den nyvalgte præsident Trump krævede udtrykkeligt, i en tale i Charlotte, North Carolina, en genindførelse af Glass-Steagall. Det er i begge de to store politiske partiers valgplatform for dette års valg; både Demokraterne og Republikanerne har vedtaget det. Det var en Trump-delegeret til GOP [Grand Old Party – det Republikanske Parti] komiteen for politisk strategi, der introducerede Glass-Steagall. Der er senatorerne Elizabeth Warren, og vigtigere endnu, Bernie Sanders, som siger, at de er villige til at række over midtergangen og arbejde sammen med Donald Trump, hvis samarbejdsspørgsmålene inkluderer og virkelig begynder med Glass-Steagall. Så dette er noget, der ikke behøver at vente til januar og tiltrædelsen og den nye Kongres. Der er fremstillet lovforslag for Glass-Steagall i både Repræsentanternes Hus og Senatet. Et af forslagene i Huset har en ordlyd, der er identisk med Senatsforslaget. Som vi så det med vedtagelsen af underkendelsen af JASTA-vetoet, hvis lederskabet i Kongressen giver grønt lys, kan Glass-Steagall bringes til debat i begge huse og vedtages inden for få timer. Underkendelsen af JASTA-vetoet tog to timer om morgenen i USA’s Senat, og to en halv time eller så om eftermiddagen i Huset. Det opnåede man på en enkelt dag i Kongressen. Så der er ingen som helst grund til, at vi ikke omgående kan gennemføre det – i bogstavelig forstand i næste uge, når Kongressen atter samles efter Thanksgiving-ferien; og den vil sidde i de næste fire uger. Der er intet til hinder for, at vi kan få Glass-Steagall tilbage som landets lov før juleferien, så vi har det på plads til den nye administration; og tiden er rent ud sagt af afgørende betydning. Vi ved ikke, i betragtning af situationen med Deutsche Bank, med Royal Bank of Scotland, med de største, amerikanske for-store-til-at-lade-gå-ned-banker, der sidder på derivater til $252 billion. Det er 30 % mere end det var på tidspunktet for krakket i 2008. Det sidder på toppen af et meget tvivlsomt kapitalgrundlag på $14 billion; i virkeligheden er det sandsynligvis meget mindre end det, for nogle af de værdipapirer, som bliver talt med som kapitalreserver, er grundlæggende set illikvide og kan ikke – selv i nødstilfælde – gøres likvide.
Så vi kunne altså vågne i morgen, eller mandag morgen, eller midt i næste uge, og finde, at hele det transatlantiske banksystem er nedsmeltet. Så Glass-Steagall er altså et presserende hastespørgsmål; og det forudsætter dernæst de andre hovedelementer i LaRouches Fire Love. Det er et kreditsystem; investering i store infrastrukturprojekter; og en genoplivning af de mest avancerede, videnskabelige programmer, inklusive en storstilet tilbagevenden til rummet og det internationale arbejde for endelig at opnå det fulde gennembrud inden for fusion. Alle disse ting er på bordet, men igen, så er der ingen garantier; intet er blot tilnærmelsesvis sikkert mht., hvad det næste, der vil ske, bliver. Vi kan ånde lidt op, fordi faren for krig med Rusland og Kina er blevet meget reduceret; og der er en masse potentiale. Der er en masse af den form for overgang som fra Jimmy Carter til Ronald Reagan i luften som et potentiale; men intet af det er endnu fuldt ud realiseret. Folk må indse, at dette er et tidspunkt med store muligheder. Det vil blive et krav fra befolkningen under det rette lederskab, der er orienteret mod de rette politikker, der virkelig kan gribe muligheden. Hvis vi venter til januar eller februar næste år, hvem ved så, hvilke slags sabotageoperationer, man vil køre?
Man kan gå ind på Craigs Liste og finde dækgrupper for George Soros, såsom MoveOn.org og blacklivesmatter.org, der tilbyder $1500 om ugen for, at folk render rundt som idioter og protesterer imod resultatet af valget. Der er en hel del usikkerhed med hensyn til, hvad der foregår, samtidig med, at der er store muligheder. Vi må sikre os, at vi tager lederskabet mht. at gribe øjeblikket.
Ovenstående er første del af det Internationale Webcast; det engelske udskrift af hele webcastet følger her:
MAKE THE MOST OF THE OPENNESS IN POLICY NOW,
TO INSURE A NEW PARADIGM FOR THE UNITED STATES
BEFORE THE INAUGURATION
LaRouche PAC International Webcast, Saturday, November 26, 2016
JASON ROSS: Hi there! Today is November 25, 2016; and
you're joining us for our regular webcast here from
larouchepac.com. My name is Jason Ross; I'll be the host today.
I'm joined in the studio by Ben Deniston, my colleague here at
LaRouche PAC; and via video by Jeff Steinberg of Executive
Intelligence Review.
This discussion is taking place 2.5 weeks after the November
8, 2016 Presidential election in the United States. Since then,
we've seen a whirlwind of speculation about Cabinet appointments,
including some Cabinet appointments for the Trump administration.
We've also seen some significant international news, such as the
APEC summit which occurred last weekend; the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation summit that included very significantly new
Philippines' President Duterte and Chinese Xi Jinping among the
many leaders who were there. At this conference, Duterte again
emphasized that the Philippines no longer considers itself to be
a US colony; and is pursuing an independent policy economically
with China, countering the attempts to create conflict, for
example, in the South China Sea. President Xi Jinping went on a
tour of Latin America while he was at the APEC summit. So in
addition to Peru — which hosted the event — he also visited
Chile and Ecuador; where he spoke, among other things, about the
bioceanic corridor, a plan for a rail link between the Pacific
and Atlantic sides of South America; about setting up science
cities. He was greeted by President Correa in Ecuador, who
considered Xi Jinping's trip the most significant event to occur
in Ecuador's history; based on the potential that it offered that
nation.
So, this New Paradigm, being led politically and
economically at present by Russia and by China, comes as a result
of decades of organizing by the LaRouche Movement, by Lyndon and
Helga LaRouche; such that there is now a New Paradigm taking an
increasingly larger portion of the world in a very positive
direction. Our job at present isn't to get the hottest news on
what Trump's appointments will be, etc. It is to shape US
policy; as we successfully did in forcing an override against
Obama's veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act.
And as we stand poised to do now with getting the Congress —
during this lame duck session — to implement Glass-Steagall, the
necessary first step for an economic recovery. Glass-Steagall is
the law that Franklin Roosevelt had put in place that created 60+
years of stable, boring, stable productive banking in the United
States; rather than the kind of gambling that we see now.
Let me pull up this chart [Fig. 1] just to show a bit of
this success that we've seen along the Chinese economic program.
Along the One Belt, One Road nations which includes both the —
there's two components to China's project on this; the Silk Road
economic belt, which you see the nations in blue, and the 21st
Century Maritime Silk Road in orange. Together, China refers to
this in Chinese as the "One Belt, One Road" initiative; in
English, often just the Belt and Road initiative. As far as the
potential that this holds, these are just some of the figures:
20,000 km of high-speed rail in China, all built within the last
decade — more than the rest of the world combined; tens of
billions of dollars of direct investment into nations of the
region; an increase in services contracts of over 33% in just one
year along the One Belt, One Road; the Export/Import Bank of
China has outstanding involvement in over 1000 projects, and just
recently has signed up about 500 new projects along the Belt and
Road nations. China is extending 150,000 scholarships offering
training for 500,000 for professionals for training in China; has
set up 500 Confucius institutes around the world, has initiated
over a dozen economic cooperation zones; free trade agreements,
and is engaged currently in over 40 energy projects — including
about 20 that were just set up this year among One Belt, One Road
nations.
So, how can we become a part of this? Well, a proposal was
made in the November 21st issue of {Chronicles} magazine by
Edward Lozansky and Jim Jatrus. Losansky is the President of the
American University in Moscow. They wrote an article called,
"The Big Three: America, Russia, and China Must Join Hands for
Security, Prosperity, and Peace". Two excerpts. They open their
article, "With the defeat of Hillary Clinton by Donald Trump, we
may never know how close America and all mankind came to nuclear
war." In describing the world situation, they end with a
proposal: "President Donald Trump can correct the mistakes of
past U.S. presidents. Rather than adversaries Russia and China
can become Americaâs essential partners and are, we are
convinced, ready to respond positively. Itâs time for Trump and
America to take the initiative for U.S-Russia-China cooperation
towards a secure, prosperous, and peaceful future. A
Trump-Putin-Xi 'Big Three Summit' should be a priority for the
new U.S. Presidentâs first 100 days."
So, I'd like to ask Jeff Steinberg to fill out the world
picture, and detail for our viewers what are the flanks, what are
the handles, the levers that we have for shifting US policy at
this time?
JEFFREY STEINBERG: Thanks, Jason. For starters, it's very
important to realize that we're in a period of significant flux.
There are certain things that we know about the consequences of
the US Presidential elections and other Federal elections on
November 8th. And I think Lozansky and Jatrus made one very
fundamental point quite clearly: That there was a very grave
danger based on the campaign rhetoric of Hillary Clinton, based
on the policies that were pursued even ever more aggressively
towards the end of his eight years in office by President Barack
Obama; that we were headed for the worst crisis between the
United States and Russia that we ever experienced — worse
perhaps even than the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. So, the
defeat of Hillary Clinton really is the end of the 16-year
tyranny of the Bush and Obama Presidencies. How rapidly we can
turn the policies around under the new Trump Presidency, where
the Cabinet appointments are going to go, these are all unknowns;
they're not certain to us.
So, we do know that particularly in the aftermath of the
APEC summit meeting that just concluded last week in Lima, Peru,
which was then followed by state visits by Chinese President Xi
Jinping to Peru and then to Chile afterwards; and prior to the
summit, he was in Ecuador. We know that there's a tremendous
opportunity out there for the United States, under a Trump
Presidency, to precisely join in what has always been on the
table as an open invitation to the United States; namely, for the
United States to join in the World Land-Bridge project. Because
without the United States, it's very difficult to conceive of
this as a World Land-Bridge; which is really what the world
requires right now. There have been very preliminary phone
discussions between President-elect Trump and Russian President
Putin; they seem to have reached an agreement that they will have
a face-to-face summit meeting soon after the inauguration —
which is January 20th. The idea, similarly, is for President
Trump, once he's inaugurated, to also meet quite soon with
Chinese President Xi Jinping. I think the Lozansky-Jatrus idea
of a trilateral meeting would be extraordinarily valuable. I
think it's important to remember that in 1944, the orientation of
President Franklin Roosevelt in the move to establish the United
Nations — which happened in 1945 — was to include both the
Soviet Union and China among the permanent five nations of the UN
Security Council. Remember, Roosevelt understood that there were
imperial policies that were still at the core of the British
Empire with Churchill, and similarly with France. So, the idea
of having Russia — the Soviet Union at the time — and China in
this permanent Security Council core grouping, reflected the fact
that Roosevelt at that time saw the prospect of that kind of an
alliance system across Eurasia. So, I think that's there's an
historical basis to look to here for exactly this kind of
Russia-China cooperation. For the last 15 years, a cornerstone
of Lyndon LaRouche's of global policy has been a
US-Russia-China-India cooperation, particularly on scientific
programs; especially space exploration, as the basis for global
peace and development. So, those ideas are out there.
On November 20th, soon after he was named by President-elect
Trump to be the National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn,
in an interview with Fareed Zakhari on CNN, said that in his
view, the only way to deal with the long-term problem of the
jihadist, terrorist threat in the Middle East and North Africa,
was for there to be a global cooperation on a Marshall Plan — he
used that term explicitly. He said, if you look at what Europe
was able to accomplish in the aftermath of the devastation of
World War II, and the role that the Marshall Plan played; it was
not the whole thing, but it was an important element of the
postwar recovery. That kind of perspective is really the winning
strategy for dealing with the population growth and this spread
of Saudi-sponsored jihadism throughout the Middle East-North
Africa region. It extends into Southeast Asia as well.
So, there are great potentialities; they are largely as yet
unrealized in terms of the change coming with the new
administration. But I think, Jason, as you correctly said, there
is no reason to wait for January. President-elect Trump, in a
major campaign speech in Charlotte, North Carolina, explicitly
called for reinstating Glass-Steagall. It's in the platforms of
both major political parties from this year's elections; the
Democrats and the Republicans both adopted it. It was a Trump
delegate to the policy committee of the GOP who introduced the
Glass-Steagall. You've got Senators Elizabeth Warren, and more
importantly, Senator Bernie Sanders, saying that they're prepared
to reach across the aisle and work with Donald Trump if the
issues for collaboration include and really start with
Glass-Steagall. So, this is something that does not have to wait
for January and the inauguration and the new Congress. There are
Glass-Steagall bills in both the House and the Senate. One of
the House bills has the identical language as the Senate bill.
As we saw with the JASTA veto override vote, if the Congressional
leadership gives the green lights, then Glass-Steagall can be
brought to the floor of both houses and can be debated and voted
within a matter of hours. The override of JASTA took two hours
in the morning for the US Senate, and two and a half or so hours
in the afternoon for the House. It was accomplished in one
legislative day. So, there's no reason whatsoever that we can't
move immediately — literally next week when Congress is back in
session after Thanksgiving; and they're there for three weeks.
There's no reason that we should not have Glass-Steagall back as
the law of the land before the Christmas recess. So that we hit
the ground running with the new administration; and frankly, time
is of the essence. We don't know, given the situation with
Deutsche Bank, with Royal Bank of Scotland, the largest US
too-big-to-fail banks are sitting on $252 trillion in
derivatives. That's 30% more than it was at the time of the 2008
crash. That's on top of a very questionable capital base of $14
trillion; the reality is that it's probably much less than that,
because some of the assets that are allowed to be counted as the
capital reserves, are basically illiquid and can't be — even on
an emergency basis — made liquid.
So, we could wake up tomorrow morning, or Monday morning, or
the middle of next week, and find that the entire trans-Atlantic
banking system has blown out. So, Glass-Steagall is an urgent,
immediate issue; and it then begs the other three key elements of
LaRouche's Four Cardinal Laws. Which is a credit system;
investment in major infrastructure projects; and a revival of the
most advanced scientific programs, including a major return to
space and the work internationally to finally achieve the full
breakthrough on fusion. All of these things are on the table,
but again, there are no guarantees, there's nothing that's even
remotely certain about what's going to come next. We can breathe
a little easier because danger of war with Russia, with China is
greatly reduced; and there's a lot of potentiality. There's a
lot of the kind of transition from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan
in the air as a potential; but none of it is fully realized yet.
So, people are going to have to realize this is a moment of great
opportunity. It's going to be an outpouring of the population
under the right kind of leadership, directed at the right
policies, that can really seize the opportunity. If we wait
until January of February of next year, who knows what kind of
sabotage operations are going to be run?
You can go on Craig's List and find George Soros front
groups, like MoveOn.org and blacklivesmatter.org, offering $1500
a week for people to run around like idiots, protesting against
the outcome of the election. There's a great deal of uncertainty,
in terms of what's going on, at the same time that there's great
opportunity. We've got to make sure that we take the lead in
seizing the moment.
ROSS: Great! Thanks! In terms of the long-term outlook of where
we're going to go, what our policy should be, a major aspect of
this goes beyond legislation that affects us only here on Earth.
A major component, in fact the fourth component of the Four Laws
of Mr. LaRouche, the last one being the fusion driver crash
program, is connected with our existence beyond the planet, also
out in space. Ben wrote an article that's going to be in the
upcoming issue of the Hamiltonian about what a U.S. space
policy ought to be, and about the really long-term goals that we
have to have, and why this is important and essential. So, could
you tell us about that, Ben?
BENJAMIN DENISTON: Gladly! As viewers are aware, this has
been an ongoing subject of discussion. Mr. LaRouche, as Jason is
saying, has put a major, major focus on, as a critical part of
the needed recovery program and the future of mankind. In this
article we tried to elevate people's thinking about space,
especially in the context of so many years and administrations
and decades of just zero-growth policies.
One thing that's being discussed now, which is interesting
and useful, is how much NASA has been hijacked for this global
warming crap. A lot of NASA's budget has been redirected to
"Earth sciences." Not all Earth sciences are bad. There's a lot
of interesting science to learn about the Earth. But Earth
sciences is often a front to push this fraud of some man-made
global warming crisis. So, there's some discussion about NASA
being redirected away from wasting their time on this phony,
phony, fake crisis, which is not something we need to be
concerned about, and redirecting back to exploration. Surprise,
surprise. The Moon has come back now as a central subject of the
discussion. Anybody who had any sense would realize that once
Obama was out, this crazy asteroid mission [The Asteroid Impact
and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) mission] would likely be tossed
aside. Anybody who is serious would recognize that the Moon is
the next place to get back to.
As Jeff was referencing, there's a lot of discussion, a lot
of openness. From our work and discussions with Mr. LaRouche, I
think it's critical to really raise the level of discussion to
the right basis. We can have exciting missions, we can have
inspiring missions, but the question to ask is: are we going to
have a program where the investments are going to be the basis
for creating a whole new level of activity, that will allows us
to do orders of magnitude more than we were able to do prior to
that investment? Is this going to create what Mr. LaRouche had
once defined as a "physical-economic platform?" Is this going to
create an entirely new platform of activity, of potential — of
infrastructure, of energy-flux density of technologies — which
comes together to support a qualitatively new level of potential
activity for mankind?
That is the issue we want to put on the table right now.
This goes directly to the vision of Krafft Ehricke, the early
space pioneer who worked very closely with Lyndon and Helga
LaRouche in the '80s, who was one of the leading space
visionaries, who had outlined in great detail the initial basis
of mankind expanding to really becoming a Solar System species.
I'm going to get back to his work in a minute. Mr. LaRouche's
concept of the "platform" is really critical. He introduced this,
I think it was around the year 2010, 2009, something like that.
He was coming up against a real lack of understanding of the
significance of what "infrastructure" really means, in its true
scientific sense. Unfortunately, this has become somewhat of a
buzzword that a lot of people throw out there. "We need to
rebuild our infrastructure" has become a kind of a hot
campaign-trail word to use to get some support.
The real understanding of what qualitative revolutions in
infrastructure systems mean for mankind's continual creative
progress is not connected to the way most people use that term.
Mr. LaRouche defined the very profound and critical assessment of
looking at the development of human civilization in these stages
of platforms. He said, go back to thousands of years ago, when
the dominant cultures were trans-oceanic maritime cultures. What
you began to see, with the development of inland waterways,
inland river systems — he had put a big point on what
Charlemagne was doing during his reign in central Europe in
developing these canal systems and river systems — was a
qualitative revolution above what had existed prior, with these
trans-oceanic civilizations: the development of these inland
waterways. That defined a new platform of activity that supported
a qualitative leap in what civilization was able to accomplish.
The next leap came with the development of rail systems,
railroads, especially trans-continental railroads, typified by
what Lincoln had spearheaded with the trans-continental railroad
across America. With these rail systems, with the new
technologies of steam engines powering these rail systems, the
higher energy-flux density of coal-powered steam engines, this
enabled mankind to begin to develop the interior regions of the
continent, in completely new ways, and defined a totally new
relationship of mankind, of civilization, to the environment
around him. It defined a qualitative increase in mankind's
"potential relative population density," as LaRouche had
developed that metric for understanding the science of economic
growth. It made things that were at one point incredibly
expensive or challenging or risky, become just day-to-day regular
activities.
I think back to the early phases of these frontier
explorations of the American Continent. You go back to the Lewis
and Clark Expeditions, where to travel from the east coast across
the entire mainland of the continent to the west coast required
someone like the leading skilled frontiersmen, and a very
dangerous, very challenging mission, which was a very brave
undertaking for a handful of people to actually be able to
accomplish that. Some decades later, with the rail system, with
the infrastructure of this railroad platform, any family could do
this. With your young children, you could hop on the rail line
and get across the country. Any entrepreneur could come out and
take advantage of the development of new territories that were
completely inaccessible before. It was a complete transformation
in our most fundamental ability to exist on the planet in these
different territories.
Now what does this have to do with space? This is how we
should be thinking about space exploration, space
development–things that we view today as incredibly expensive,
difficult, dangerous missions. We should be thinking now what
kind of investments can we make to ensure that those then become
regular, day-to-day even, activities that we can support very
easily. What will it take to create a Solar System
physical-economic platform that will enable mankind to do much
more, much easier, than we can today? That's the metric we want
to set. That's the measuring rod we want to utilize, to determine
what kind of space program, what kind of policy we need today.
In breaking this down, this might not include everything,
but in some of our work in the Basement with our discussions on
this subject, I think we can really, very usefully look at three
categories of activity — three categories of infrastructure and
technologies — which define the basis, you could say the
pillars, of a Solar System platform, of an ability to
qualitatively expand mankind's ability to access the Solar System
in completely new ways, to make things we currently view as
singular flagship missions, [into] just regular, easy activities
that we can do, orders of magnitude more of than we can now.
What we want to look at are these three categories of activity:
(1) Access to space. What's our ability to get from Earth's
surface up into Earth orbit? Initial basic access to space.
(2) Travelling in space. Getting around the Solar System. Getting
from one planetary body to the next.
(3) Developing resources. Developing the capabilities to utilize
the resources available to us throughout the Solar System, not
having to take everything with us everywhere we go, but be able
to develop the wealth that's available out there; to utilize it
on site and transport it around, even bringing stuff back to
Earth that we can't necessarily get from Earth.
If you look at these three pillars, these three categories
together, and if you make qualitative breakthroughs in each of
these together, this really comes together to define a new
platform of activity, a new standard that will enable the kind of
leap that will transition us from viewing space as a Lewis and
Clark style expedition, to a trans-continental railroad style
relationship to the Solar System.
I just want to take a couple minutes and go through just
some sense of what areas we can see breakthroughs in each of
these categories. Go to the first slide we have displayed. [Fig.
1] It has been said that getting from Earth's surface to low
Earth orbit, is half-way to anywhere in the Solar System. In a
certain sense that's very true. If you have a sense of the
scales, that might sound very, very strange, because, just in
terms of distance, low Earth orbit [begins] about 160 km, about
100 miles, up above your head. If you want to travel to the Moon,
you're talking about hundreds of thousands of miles. If you want
to travel to another planet, you're talking about millions of
miles.
It's a little funny to think that the first 100 miles,
compared to hundreds of thousands or millions, is actually half
of the trip. But if you look at the energy requirements and what
it takes to actually start from just being on the Earth's surface
and getting into orbit, that is the case. It is a tremendous
amount of energy requirement to get from Earth's surface up into
Earth orbit.
The graphic here displays this, in terms of travel from
Earth's surface to different planetary bodies, measured in the
standard terms used for Solar System travel, which is your change
in speed. To get into Earth orbit requires not just going up 100
miles, but actually changing your speed, from your current
velocity sitting here on the Earth, to something that will allow
you to stay in orbit. If you want to change orbits, or travel
around, you can measure that, in terms of changes in velocity.
So that happens to be the metric here; but you can see the lowest
dark blue bar on each of these graphics shows that literally far
more than half of the requirement is just getting from Earth's
surface to Earth orbit.
ROSS: So, this is half of the speed that you're getting;
this doesn't mean half of the energy, or half of the fuel, or
anything like that.
DENISTON: Yeah. Once you start to include that, it would
be even more energy requirements; because you've got to lift your
fuel that you're going to use for the different travels into
orbit with you. It definitely gets a little more detailed if you
want to get into it, but this is literally the change in speed
requirements to get into Earth orbit and then to leave Earth
orbit is very significant.
So, there's improvements being made in rocket systems to get
up more efficiently, but there are new technologies that are just
sitting there on the horizon; they've been sitting there for
decades, frankly, that would dramatically lower the cost, lower
the requirements, and the point is, dramatically increase the
accessibility of space to mankind. One technology that has been
discussed for a long time is space planes. Here in the graphic
you can see a relatively recent article covering studies in China
on interest in China to develop what some people call
single-stage-to-orbit space planes. So, you can get on a plane
on a runway — it's probably going to be a little bit longer than
your standard runway for airplane travel — and you can ride a
single space plane from the runway all the way up into Earth
orbit. A lot of this depends upon much more advanced engine
designs that can utilize the oxygen in the atmosphere at higher
speeds and at higher altitudes to continue to provide thrust.
But these things could dramatically lower the cost, the energy
requirements of getting people and payloads up into Earth orbit;
far more than a lot of the discussion about these reusable
rockets and some of the developments going on in improving rocket
systems to get from Earth's surface into Earth orbit.
ROSS: This is a technology that was in LaRouche's "Woman on
Mars" video from the 1980s, right? It talked about beginning
with an airplane, and then turning into a rocket. The big
benefit being that you can use the oxygen in the atmosphere
instead of carrying it with you, is that right? Is that what
makes this more effective?
DENISTON: Yeah, absolutely. These rocket systems have to
carry the oxygen as part of the rocket to combust to provide the
thrust. These are more innovative engine designs —
air-breathing engines that can use the oxygen in the atmosphere.
As you said, this has been researched in the United States with
different scramjet designs. Yeah, Mr. LaRouche featured some of
this, which he had developed I think in some close discussion
with some Italian colleagues at the time in his collaboration
with the Fusion Energy Foundation; and had made it a major part
of his "Woman on Mars" mission.
But this is being developed; this is live. Again, you're
seeing clear interest in China; there's interest in the United
States; there's a company in the United Kingdom that's developing
very interesting engine designs that can utilize these
capabilities. If you want to take it a step further, another
thing that's been discussed is using vacuum tube maglev
technologies to launch from Earth orbit into space. This might
be a little more frontier and not quite as around the corner as
these space planes; but this is the kind of stuff that we should
be thinking about. Again, the point is, completely
revolutionizing mankind's access to low-Earth orbit and then to
the Solar System. So, this is the first major hurdle. If you
get some solid infrastructure developments that can enable
mankind to overcome this hurdle more easily, you're creating the
basis for a much broader expansion of mankind's activity.
The next pillar, the next category is travel in space. And
again, this is an issue that Mr. LaRouche has been campaigning on
for decades. Space travel requires nuclear reactions; chemical
fuel just doesn't have the energy density to provide quick and
efficient access to the Solar System. We can get to the Moon;
that's OK. It probably would be nice to get there a little bit
quicker, but that's our next door neighbor in terms of the Solar
System. If you want to get to Mars, you want to get around to
other places in the Solar System, you've got to get to nuclear
reactions. The heart of this is the fact that the energy
density, the energy per mass of nuclear reactions is, on average,
on the order of a million times greater than the energy per mass
in chemical reactions; even as broad categories, setting aside
the particular fuel you use in either case.
A million times is just a big number, but for one quick
comparison, you take the fuel used for the Space Shuttle launch
— those two solid rocket boosters on either side, the large tank
in the middle filled with liquid fuel. You take the weight of
all that fuel together, some of the most advanced chemical
reactions we have for fuel for space launch; how much weight of
nuclear fuel would it take to contain the same amount of energy?
You're talking about 10 pounds! One suitcase full of nuclear
fuel contains the same amount of energy as all three fuel tanks
of the Space Shuttle. To be fair, you couldn't necessarily use
that fuel the same way to launch the Space Shuttle; you have to
have systems that can actually combust it and get thrust out of
it. It's not just the energy content as the only issue, but that
is the defining characteristic that makes nuclear reactions key
to getting around the Solar System; enabling things like
travelling at constant acceleration. Instead of just initially
firing your thruster and basically floating on an orbit to get to
different planetary bodies — which is what's often proposed for
getting people to Mars; which would take on the order of six,
seven, eight months to do. If you had nuclear reactions —
especially fusion reactions — you can be accelerating for half
the trip, and decelerating the second half of the trip; you can
cut that time down to weeks or even days.
We were all excited that New Horizons got to Pluto.
Unfortunately, it didn't have the fuel in it and the engines to
slow down when it got there; which is too bad, because it spent
ten years getting there, and even just passing by in the course
of a couple of weeks, found amazing things. Imagine if it
actually got to stop and stay? If you had nuclear reactions,
that the type of stuff you could be doing. If you had
one-gravity acceleration, so you're constantly accelerating,
providing the thrust that creates the equivalent of one Earth
gravity for the crew on the space ship, it would literally take
16 days to get to Pluto. Compared to New Horizons taking ten
years to get there; that's when the orbits are closest, but maybe
a few more days in sub-optimal conditions.
You're talking about a complete revolution in our ability to
efficiently get around the Solar System; travel to different
planetary bodies; visit multiple locations. If you want to send
people to Mars, this is the way to do it. If you want to send
people out to other places, this is the way to do it. Even
robotic missions; you want to get around and do way more
exploration. There's so much we don't know about all these
planets, about their moons; there's just so much to figure out.
These are the kinds of systems that are going to create vast
improvements in our ability to do it.
And again, the third category is developing the resources in
space; developing the ability to utilize what's available to us
on the Moon, on Mars, on different asteroids. This is something
we don't really do at all, yet. So, you have to bring basically
everything with you through that very costly energy-intensive
first hurdle of getting from Earth's surface up into Earth orbit,
through travelling the vast distances of space. This is just
this very early pioneer style mode of activity. Whereas, if
we're going to be serious about this, we need to develop the
capabilities to utilize the resources that are there; and
eventually look to serious industrialization and development of
advanced systems out in space, on-site at different planetary
bodies. One critical driver to this whole thing that we've put a
major focus on is the development of helium-3 from the Moon.
Helium-3 being an absolutely unique, excellent fusion fuel; which
is basically absent on Earth, but relatively abundant all over
the lunar surface, and could be an excellent fuel for fusion
propulsion in space and also to provide electricity energy back
here on Earth. There's been years of serious study and designs
and investigations of how to go to the Moon, develop the systems
to process the regala[ph], extract the helium-3; and initiate
real industrial-style processes; developments on the lunar
surface. That's just one example. You want to get oxygen,
hydrogen, metals; asteroids are also potentially very useful
places to develop the resources. So, as a third category, the
general idea of developing advanced capabilities to utilize and
create what we need in different regions of the Solar System.
If you put this together and look at these things
synergistically as integrated technologies, infrastructure
systems, levels of energy flux density; as a whole they define
for mankind a completely different relationship to the Solar
System. The question is, are we making investments that are
bringing us to that level? Can we say that the investments we're
going to make in this next administration are going to be taking
mankind in that direction, to be able to support these
qualitatively higher levels of activity to the point where we can
honestly look back in a couple of generations and see the space
activity going on now as equivalent to Lewis and Clark style
explorations of the West; and have mankind have the capabilities
to regularly visit many planetary bodies and do all we want
around the Solar System? That's the vision that we need.
We were talking about this with Mr. LaRouche earlier today,
and he again said, "Your starting point is Krafft Ehricke." And
Krafft Ehricke's industrialization of the Moon really I think is
the critical driver program that can get a lot of this going. As
I said, we have helium-3 on the Moon; that puts fusion directly
right there on the table. You're talking about developing
industrial capabilities and mining capabilities on the Moon. If
you're serious about doing this, you want to increase our access
to space from the Earth's surface. So, it is excellent that
we're seeing a lot of discussion about the Moon coming on the
table again; but I think the issue is, are we going to pursue
this Krafft Ehricke vision for a real industrial development?
Although he might have used different terms in discussing it, he
had exactly the same conception that Mr. LaRouche has: That this
is the basis for mankind's much broader expanse. Really the
essential nature of the type of qualitative changes that mankind
goes through in his natural growth and development as a very
unique species on this Earth and hopefully tomorrow in the Solar
System.
As Jason mentioned, some of this is discussed in an article
that's going to be released in the next issue of the
Hamiltonian. This is an ongoing subject of discussion, but
with the openness now, I really think it's critical we set the
level of discussion on that basis.
ROSS: Mmhmm; that's aiming pretty high, that's good. I
think that's a really apt description that you got about
comparing Lewis and Clark. It used to be a really difficult
thing to cross the continent; now it isn't. Or think about the
Silk Road. The ancient Silk Road. If you're trying the develop
that region of the planet with camel caravans, and you contrast
that with what China is able to do now with building rail
networks and helping build them and road networks in these
neighboring countries; you totally transform the relationship to
that area. The old development of human settlements along
coasts, along oceans or along rivers; and then by the chemical
revolution, by the ability to have steam power — also canals
earlier, but still connected to water; but with steam power, it
made it possible to open up the interior of the continents. And
with the potential for nuclear power, then the Solar System
becomes something that's accessible to us in a meaningful or more
regular way than an exotic, years-long, life-threatening trip.
The other aspect, which you talked about is, if you look at
what's going on with the New Paradigm in the world; what China's
doing, with the way things are being reshaped politically also
around Russia. And then you look at the scientific advancements
that are being made, where China's got a very top-line in the
world super-conducting tokamak for fusion research. The major
breakthroughs in terms of lunar exploration — that's China right
now; China's going to be landing on the far side of the Moon;
China had the first soft landing on the Moon in decades. This is
really a potential. With their far side of the Moon landing,
China will be able to take the first photographs of our universe
in the very low radio range; it's never been done before. We'll
have access to a whole new sense of sight about the universe
around us.
So, I think it's very exciting. It's definitely much more
thrilling than most of the discussion that takes place about this
policy or that policy, when you think big like that.
DENISTON: Mr. LaRouche's platform concept is so key. People
just don't have the idea of this type of qualitative leaps that
are natural for mankind. People are so accustomed at this point
to just slow, incremental progress if there's any progress at
all. It's going to be a fight to get people to think on this
level again.
ROSS: Yes! So much of what is considered to be progressive
or useful is only nudging people toward being better savers or
something; compared to the kinds of huge changes that are going
to be needed. I think that's a very good image that we've given
people. Let's end it with that. I think the thing to take from
this also is that we have got a lot that we need to do; a lot of
policies to put into place; and a wide open opportunity to make
it happen right now. Including, as Jeff was emphasizing,
Glass-Steagall is absolutely doable during this session of
Congress; even before the inauguration of the next President and
the next Congress in January. This is something we can do right
now, next week, in this period.
The ability to understand this concept of the platforms, of
the history of economic development of the United States, a real
major aspect of economic science, comes through studying
Alexander Hamilton. So, if you have not been working through
Alexander Hamilton's reports, I urge you to get in touch with —
if you're near one of our offices, one of our locations, to join
us for these readings. Get a copy of these reports yourself.
The book, Alexander Hamilton's Vision contains all four of the
reports, along with Mr. LaRouche's Four New Laws to Save the USA
Now. And you don't have to get into a fistfight at a Walmart
parking lot to pick it up, either.
Let's end it with that. Please sign up through our website
if you haven't already, to find out how to get involved with us.
Get our daily email, join us via the action center; let's be in
touch, and let's make this happen right now. There is nothing to
wait for; the situation is open. So, thank you for joining us;
thank you to Ben and Jeff. Thank you for all the work that you
have done and that you will do in the period immediately ahead.