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LaRouche PAC Internationale Webcast,
26. maj, 2017.
Matthew Ogden: Vi befinder os nu lidt under to uger efter det verdenshistoriske Bælt & Vej Forum i Beijing, Kina. Som resultat af dette ekstraordinære topmøde har de forskellige dele af verden nu indledt processen med at konkretisere og konsolidere det, der blev diskuteret på dette forum; og de befinder sig i processen med at bygge det mest ambitiøse og langt det mest vidtrækkende infrastrukturprojekt i verdenshistorien – det såkaldte Ét Bælte, én Vej; det økonomiske bælte; den Maritime Silkevej. Dette nye paradigme, der repræsenteres af dette fredelige, samarbejdende win-win-udviklingsprogram med storstilede projekter og reel, eksponentielle eksplosioner i menneskelig produktivitet, er nu ved at blive den fremherskende dynamik på denne planet. Vi har en meget spændende rapport fra Helga Zepp-LaRouche, der, som det er vore seere bekendt, deltog personligt i dette Bælt & Vej Forum i Beijing; hvor hun deltog i flere plenarforsamlinger og rundbordsdiskussioner. Hun er fortsat med at holde private møder i Kina, siden topmødet sluttede. Så sent som i går holdt hun endnu en fremtrædende tale i Nanjing.
(Her følger engelsk udskrift af resten af webcastet. Hele Helgas tale vil kunne læses på dansk her på hjemmesiden i løbet af weekenden.)
So, let’s take a look here; this is what Helga LaRouche had
to say. She was a featured speaker at a conference of several
hundred people at the Phoenix Press Publishing Group
headquarters, which published the Chinese version of the New Silk
Road Special Report. It was a report-back from her attendance at
the May 14-15 Belt and Road summit. So, here’s a view of
beautiful Nanjing; this is where she was speaking yesterday. As
you can see, a very modern and high-tech Chinese city. She said
the following:
“The Belt and Road has injected optimism into many
countries, and the momentum is unstoppable. But bringing it
fully to fruition will not be easy,” she said. Then she
elaborated a little bit on that; she said, “Immediately after the
Beijing summit, the attacks against the Belt and Road escalated;
combined with attacks against President Trump, who had sent a
high-level delegation. The attacks were based on the absurd
charges of collusion with Russia in the election.”
“After the Cold War, the British and their American allies
wanted to create a unipolar world. In doing so, they have
destroyed the Middle East and left it in a shambles”; which she
said contributed to the refugee crisis. And she said, “The Belt
and Road will bring about the creation of the World Land-Bridge,
which will connect all continents.” This is something that we,
the LaRouche movement, have been fighting for, for over 40 years.
She concluded saying, “Transforming the Belt and Road to a World
Land-Bridge will realize politically for the first time, a real
future for the people living on this planet; and will establish
forms of governance for the world.” She made a very important
point, which we’ll take up. “But to fully realize this, you must
also study the ideas of my husband, Lyndon LaRouche, on the
question of economics.”
In addition to Helga, other speakers at this conference
were: Bill Jones, the {EIR} bureau chief for Washington, DC; and
a very distinguished gentleman, Professor Bao Shixiu, who’s a
professor of military science.
That’s the kind of optimism, you get a sense of the real
optimism that’s being expressed by Helga LaRouche; and that’s
what the world looks like to the rest of the world for anyone who
is not reading the hysterical American and European press. On
the other hand, for your average American citizen, the very words
“New Silk Road”, “One Belt, One Road”, “Belt and Road
Initiative”, these phrases are almost like a foreign language.
It’s practically unheard of, with hardly a mention of this
incredible development in world history that occurred over the
last two weeks. Hardly a mention of this in the mainstream press
aside from propaganda about how this project is just some sort of
front for a so-called “new Chinese imperialism” or other lying
distortions of what the implications of this idea, of this
vision, is.
So instead, while your average American is sitting in the
sweltering heat in Penn Station, waiting for a train which has
been delayed for two hours because of some track derailment, or
literal disintegration of the track, while he’s sitting in his
car for hours in a traffic jam waiting to go through the Lincoln
Tunnel, or stuck in traffic on 495, or sitting at home looking
for a job to pay off hundreds of thousands of student debt that
he spent to get a degree that has earned him nothing. What is
the average American forced to listen to on the radio, or on CNN,
or while he’s reading the esteemed headlines in the so-called
venerable press, the mainstream media, the {Washington Post} or
the {New York Times}? Nary a mention of the new high-speed,
vacuum tube magnetic train that is being developed by China, or
the new rail routes that are being opened in Africa, or the
literally hundreds of great infrastructure projects that are
being built practically overnight along the routes of the New
Silk Road. But rather, what are you reading? Page after page
after story after article of McCarthy-ite scare stories about
evil Russian spies who have supposedly infiltrated and subverted
the entire Trump administration, lurking behind every desk in the
West Wing. Literally smuggling hidden microphones into the Oval
Office itself; the inner sanctum of the Trump administration.
They’re reading John Brennan repeatedly tell a Congressional
hearing “I don’t do evidence”; as he increasingly begins to sound
like a character out of a “Doctor Strangelove” movie.
Here’s a quote from John Brennan: “I know what the Russians
try to do. They suborn individuals and they try to get
individuals, including US individuals, to act on their behalf;
wittingly or unwittingly.” In other words, any American who has
some contact with Russia or Russians, may be a spy or a mole,
whether he or she knows it or not. Subversion, or possible
subversion, is everywhere; trust no one. There’s John Brennan
for you.
Now, Americans should ask themselves, why are we being
subjected to an endless, round-the-clock, literally nonstop
narrative of so-called collusion between Russian spies and the
Trump campaign, when even John Brennan himself was forced to
admit in that same hearing, under rigorous questioning from
members of Congress, that no, in fact, he has absolutely {no}
evidence of collusion, cooperation, or coordination. Let’s take
a look:
ALICIA CERRETANI [on video]: On Tuesday, Obama’s CIA
director, resident thug, and coup plotter John Brennan testified
in front of the House Intelligence Committee. His testimony was
then used by the crazed media to flame the ongoing coup against
the President for yet another day.
Who is this guy? Well, after his stint as CIA station chief
in Riyadh, Brennan became George Tenetâs gopher at the CIA, and
then authored the intelligence assessment that claimed Saddam
Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Credible guy, right? He
became Obamaâs CIA director in 2013, and regularly joined Obama
for the infamous Tuesday kill sessions. He helped overthrow the
duly-elected government of Ukraine using neo-Nazis, and helped
Obama encircle Russia and China with US military forces, setting
the stage for World War III.
On Tuesday, Brennan told Congress that based on his
intelligence experience (like the Iraq war intelligence
assessment), when he observed contacts between Trump campaign
personnel and Russian personnel he thought they might be
nefarious, even if the Trump campaign personnel were “unwitting”.
This has justified a full, unprecedented FBI investigation of a
Presidential campaign and all that has followed.
And just like the Iraq war, his “judgment” is not based on
“evidence”. As he explained, he “doesnât do evidence.” Listen to
these exchanges:
REP. TOM ROONEY: But with regard to the main question at
hand, in your experience with the Russians trying to involve
themselves in our election, did you every find any evidence, as
the ranking member spoke of collusion, while you were the
Director, did you find direct evidence of collusion between the
Trump campaign and Putin in Moscow, while you were there?
JOHN BRENNAN: Mr. Rooney, I never was an FBI agent, I never
was a prosecutor, so I really don’t do evidence. I do
intelligence throughout the course of my careerâ¦.
REP. TREY GOWDY: When you learned of Russian efforts, did
you have evidence of a connection between the Trump campaign and
Russian state actors?
BRENNAN: As I said, Mr. Gowdy, I don’t do evidence. We
were uncovering information and intelligence about interactions
and contacts between US persons and the Russians. As we came
upon that, we would share it with the Bureau.
GOWDY: So, was it contact that you saw, was it something
more than contact? What is the nature of what you saw?
BRENNAN: I saw interaction, and was aware of interaction.
But again, it raised questions in my mind about what was the true
nature of it; but I don’t know. I don’t have sufficient
information to make a determination whether or not such
cooperation or complicity or collusion was taking place.
REP. MIKE TURNER: But if someone left this hearing today,
and said that you had indicated that those contacts were evidence
of collusion or collaboration, they would be misrepresenting your
statements, correct?
BRENNAN: They would have mis-heard my response to the very
good questions that were asked of me. I’m trying to be as clear
as possible in terms of what I know, what I assess, and what I
can say.
TURNER: So, you would say that’s a misrepresentation of
your statement, yes?
BRENNAN: I would say that it was not an accurate portrayal
of my statement, absolutely; it was inconsistent with my remarks.
TURNER: So, let me go to the next step. If someone saw
what you saw, and only what you saw, with respect to those
contacts, if they looked at the intelligence that you saw, where
you said it might have been benign, might not have been benign,
and then they characterized what they saw as having been evidence
of collusion or collaboration, they’d be misrepresenting the
intelligence, would they not?
BRENNAN: I don’t know what else they have seen that could
corroborate or —
TURNER: If they saw only what you saw, they would be
misrepresenting the intelligence, correct?
BRENNAN: I presume they would be misrepresenting what it is
that I saw. Again, I don’t know —
TURNER: Thank you. I appreciate that, because I do believe
that there are members of this committee who deserve that
counsel. Because your specificity gives us an understanding of
what we’re reviewing, and I do believe there are those who
reviewed some of the information that you have seen, and
represented to the public absolutely incorrectly and
misrepresented it.
CERRETANI: Itâs time for Americans to see the world as
Brennan and his cohorts see it. Their establishment has their
panties in a bunch, not over Trump-Russian collusion, but because
Donald Trump said he is ready to work with Russia and China on
terrorism and economic development, ending the miserable years
under Bush and Obama which Brennan so faithfully served. Trump
needs to keep his promise; end the regime change wars and focus
on rebuilding the economy. And the same goes for our Senators and
Congressmen: Suck it up, move on, and back Trump up on rebuilding
the country.
OGDEN: So, as you can see, we have a petition on that
subject which is available on the LaRouche PAC website. It’s
called “It’s Time to Rebuild the Country”; the website is
lpac.co/rebuild. This is a petition which you can sign and you
can circulate.
So, to take up that question — “It’s time to rebuild the
country” — I’m joined by Jason Ross as I mentioned earlier; who
spent the last week in New York City, conducting meetings with
some top engineers and discussing what must be done to form a
task force, a national action force, to address what is rightly
being called an infrastructure emergency. It is expressing
itself very acutely in New York City, but it’s a general problem.
Before I bring Jason on, I want to show a couple of headlines to
give you a flavor of what New Yorkers are experiencing right now.
Here’s the first: “Nothing Can Save New York City Commuters from
a Summer of Hell”; “Long Island Railroad Riders Could Be in for a
‘Summer of Agony’|”; “MTA Taking on ‘Crushing Debt’ for Expansion
Projects”; “New York Governor Urges Trump to Provide Emergency
Funds for Penn Station”; and “If You Want to Understand America’s
Infrastructure Problem, Just Look at New Jersey!”
So, Jason, why don’t you give us a flavor of what’s going on
up there in New York?
JASON ROSS: Sure! I can say a bit about what’s going on up
here, and then I think the really important aspect is about where
the solution can come from. Some people like to look for local
solutions, which in the case of New York is simply not possible
here. In terms of what the region is facing, I’ll just give a
couple of examples. One is New York Penn Station, which is where
the New Jersey Transit trains come in from New Jersey, it’s where
the Long Island Railroad trains come in from the east, and also,
Amtrak trains use it. It serves about 700,000 passengers every
day, busiest train station in the United States. The tunnels
that go under the Hudson River from the west side of Manhattan,
are over 100 years old. They received damage during super storm
Sandy, and without repair, they’re expected to potentially fail
anytime within a decade or so. But it’s unpredictable; they
could fail sooner. Basically, it’s a ticking time bomb.
Were one of these tunnels to fail, there would literally be
probably about 100,000 people unable to get to work in the
morning, or get home, or run their errands or do whatever they’re
doing. 100,000 people. That’s an awfully large number of
people. Also related to this, Matt, you had mentioned the
“Summer of Hell” for Long Island Railroad commuters. Coming out
of Penn Station to the east, are tunnels that cross the East
River. Of the four tunnels, there are two that are going to be
undergoing repair and maintenance. During that time, the
availability of trains is going to be decreased; this is the
“Summer of Hell”. This is going to be a major bottleneck for
commuters. Then coming up in 2019, the L train, which crosses
the East River and heads to Williamsburg and Brooklyn, is going
to be closed down for over a year. That tunnel needs such major
maintenance; again, an over 100-year old tunnel serving the
busiest metro system in our nation. When that is closed for over
a year, that’s going to cause major disruptions.
The thing is, this is not an accident; it’s not as though
these things were unforeseen. Due to decades of
under-investment, the infrastructure of New York City, the
largest, most important city in the United States, is really at
catastrophic levels. Even the planned outages are going to be
very debilitating, and were something to occur to the Hudson
River crossing heading into Penn Station from the New Jersey
side, you would have an absolute disaster. You’d have to change
the bridges and tunnels to be buses and carpools only, for
example. Major disruption, very major disruption.
What I think this shows us, in addition to the $100 billion
to $1 trillion that would be required to really revamp the system
in New York, to standardize the types of sizes of the trains, or
have platforms that can operate on both New Jersey Transit and
Long Island Railroad trains; not to get into all the detail on
this. Let’s talk about what would make it possible.
You opened up the show discussing Helga LaRouche’s visit to
the Nanjing, following her participation in the Belt and Road
Forum in Beijing two weeks ago. This Belt and Road Initiative
outlook, the types of financing that are involved in this, the
funding, the way that this infrastructure is being conceived and
put together; this is something that’s absolutely essential in
the United States. Infrastructure isn’t little bits and pieces
that get put together to make individual commuters or the
movement of goods easier. What it is, is a platform as a whole,
required for a certain level of productivity. So, we require
both an increase in the productivity of the United States,
productivity in the sense of producing things. Producing
something for the future, as exemplified by scientific research
or high-technology manufacturing, by the space program. These
are things that are incredibly productive in achieving a greater
potential for the future. When you say what is the platform on
which a higher level of productivity can exist, then the answer
to that question is things like national rail upgrades; very
high-speed rail, for example, along the eastern coast of the
United States, throughout the country. A large investment in
revamping in the New York City metro system, for example; but far
beyond that. Nationally, rail; power plants. Upgrading our very
old power plants to new, higher technology, more efficient and
safer nuclear power plants; fourth generation nuclear power
plants.
The kinds of upgrades that are needed are on a scale that is
so large, that it requires a commitment from the nation. This, I
think, gets to the Four Laws of Lyndon LaRouche, the proposal
that he’s made for what’s necessary for real economic recovery in
the United States. With Glass-Steagall in place and the
potential to actually direct the economy in a productive
direction, you’re going to need a national banking approach.
We’re going to need the ability to finance large investments in
infrastructure in projects that will not bring a return. This is
the biggest problem people have in understanding this. You’re
thinking about value in terms of money. Does the New York subway
pay for itself? Do people pay enough in fares to pay for the
system? These kinds of things really miss the point, because
they ignore the qualitative incommensurable change in
productivity that’s made possible by an infrastructure platform
as a platform.
As Mr. LaRouche considers it, in creating a synthetic
environment, an artificial environment, a manmade, nurturing,
improved, better environment around us; where our surroundings,
the world that we live in, is, to an increasing degree, one of
our own creation. The resources that are resources to us in our
daily life, or on a national economic scale, are not those of
2000 years ago. They’re not the resources of good land for
agriculture — although of course, we use that; or of resources
that are sitting around. Fish in the ocean or the river that you
can catch. They’re resources that are underground; they’re
resources that are very hard to separate from each other.
Separating out rare Earth elements for their use; mining aluminum
ore and creating aluminum with a process that requires a great
deal of electricity. The ability to use the resources of the
future to increase our power as a species; that’s the real key
direction that infrastructure must be approached from.
The way to avoid the bit by bit, piece by piece, piecemeal
user fee approach to infrastructure financing, is to acknowledge
its unique role in the economy as something that’s of
governmental responsibility and something whose returns are
inherently indirect and should not be looked for in terms of
direct money made by them via user fees. It’s just a completely
wrong way to look at these things.
The way to make this possible is going to go far beyond
Donald Trump’s proposals for investing $1 trillion in
infrastructure over the next decade via a process that pulls in
private money via PPPs (public-private partnerships) and the
like. What’s required is not annual appropriations, not private
financing, but an ability to have national credit over a longer
term loans via a national banking approach to make it possible to
build these 5-, 10-, 25-year programs at rates that are
affordable. So we can put in place this necessary physical
environment; create the platform that we would want to live in,
where we’re able to move efficiently. Where new areas for, for
example, affordable housing open up, when you’ve got a better
transportation system. You don’t have to live quite so close to
an expensive city center to be able to get a job there. You can
enjoy more of your time when you have an efficient and productive
infrastructure platform.
So I think overall, New York City is a case study. You’d
say that if this can happen in New York, and you think about the
importance of New York City and the nation, the importance of the
businesses that are located there; you’d say that there is enough
of a pull that this should never have been possible for this to
occur in New York City. But it has, and it’s just an
illustration of a dramatic underinvestment nationwide; and
something that has to be reversed in this way that Mr. LaRouche
has been very unique and very correct in proposing for the United
States.
OGDEN: Well, Jason, you have unique perspective, because
not only have you spent the last week up in New York, but you’ve
had the opportunity to travel to China. Maybe you could just
tell us a little bit; just a personal eyewitness view. What’s
the difference between being an American walking around the
streets of New York City right now with crumbling infrastructure,
versus being in China, walking around Beijing with a blossoming
high technology commitment to modern infrastructure?
ROSS: Well, some people might say it’s an unfair
comparison, because the metro system in Nanjing is basically
brand new; it’s a decade or two old. And in Beijing, there’s
been significant expansion of the lines. But the fact is, that
even older cities — take Seoul, South Korea; they’ve had major
upgrades to their subway system. They put in the screen doors in
the stations so you don’t have trash or people falling on the
tracks; it makes it safer, it makes it possible to air condition
the stations. These are the kinds of things that New York could
have retrofitted; but if you look at the situation today, you’ve
got the interesting aromas in New York subways. You’ve got the
famously unreliable performance. In contrast to that, the
Chinese, for example, high-speed rail network, where you’re able
to go an equivalent distance as that between here and Chicago —
meaning Beijing to Shanghai — you can go in five hours in China.
That same trip by rail here in the United States takes 19 hours.
Or, take New York to Washington. It’s kind of insane for
somebody looking from the outside, to see these two major cities
of the United States separated by travel really takes hours.
It’s a little under three hours even with the “high-speed” Acela;
which is isn’t very high-speed. By road, you’re looking at more
than five hours. This would be a one, one and a half hour
travel. It’s really a question of how we’re thinking about
ourselves; the fact that these kinds of terrible conditions are
being tolerated. And the fact that of these stupid, stupid
economic policies that have made this possible, continue to be
tolerated.
Mr. LaRouche has pointed to the post-Kennedy shift in
orientation of the United States, away from a future orientation,
away from investments in the future, away from physical
productivity towards finance. You can have all of the exotic
investment derivatives that you want, but that’s not going to get
you home any quicker if the train is late, or because a bunch of
trash on the tracks caught on fire and delayed the subway line.
OGDEN: One thing about that. First of all, infrastructure
goes far beyond just transport infrastructure. Obviously there’s
the power production and what you can provide in terms of energy
density towards manufacturing and all of the agricultural
technology that is involved in a modern infrastructure platform
for a nation. But one question I think is interesting, and we
discussed it a little bit. We take for granted that the idea of
faster transport is just a modern idea and that we should have
faster transport between cities. That sort of stands on its own,
it is true. But what role does that play in terms of the science
of economics? Productivity and what does that allow us to do
economically that we couldn’t do before without this kind of
high-speed transport?
ROSS: Well, let’s also take it on the level of the Belt and
Road, where some of these areas, it’s not just going from
moderate to high speed transit; it’s going from a two-week voyage
through the mountains by road to one that only takes a few days
in the location I’m thinking of right now. But think of the
value of land in a certain area. What is the value of a piece of
land? It depends on what the surroundings are, what is the
environment; including, very importantly, probably most important
these days, the created environment — the constructed
environment. That nurturing, synthetic, artificial, manmade
human environment that we’ve created. If you’ve got an area, and
now you’ve got access to high-speed rail, you’ve built several
fourth-generation, a very highly efficient nuclear power supply.
You know it’ll be on 24 hours a day; the rates are reasonable.
You’ve got a water supply system backed up by desalination to
ensure that it’s always available; and you’ve got an efficient to
get people, employees, and goods around. The value of that area
has now just dramatically increased; not just in financial terms,
like the rent would be higher on a piece of land there, if you
owned a building. But it actually is more productive. You can
move things around more quickly; you can go from a prototype
design to creating goods more rapidly. You’re able to waste less
time having whatever it is that you’re producing or working on
just being in transit going from place to place.
Think about it. When you’re shipping things, say you’ve got
a type of production facility and you’re shipping things by ocean
and you’re counting on a certain number of car parts arriving
every week. Well, there’s always a certain number that are just
sitting out in the ocean in transit; it’s just wasted inventory
basically. So physically, those are maybe a small type of
improvement to look at, but the type of economy that’s made
possible as a whole. You could do the best urban planning you
want, you could have a wonderful system in some area; but if that
area didn’t have electricity, it doesn’t matter how well things
are laid out. It doesn’t matter how clean the water is around
it, how perfect the weather; you’re simply going to be limited in
terms of what processes you can engage in. Transportation,
energy, access to resources. I think the real way to look at it
right now is we have to keep in mind, whenever we’re talking
about infrastructure or platforms, we have to talk about nuclear
fusion. Because that’s really the thing you’ve got to keep in
mind. How will our relationship to other people, land area,
resources, how is that going to change with the development of
commercial nuclear fusion? Where the price of energy will come
down dramatically; where our ability to process resources will be
dramatically eased. How is that going to change the
productivity, the value of every person, the value of the
platform of constructed environment that we’ve got? You have to
always keep that in mind. What’s the next level going to be?
I’ll say one more thing. You brought up agriculture. Think
about the important role of space infrastructure in agriculture
today. The ability of GPS positioning; the ability to get a very
good sense of conditions on the ground of agricultural
conditions, of weather, of location; and the way that changes the
way you approach to fertilizing, taking care, harvesting of the
field. So, the space program, where our space infrastructure is
playing a major role here.
So, what are the next levels of infrastructure going to be?
Let’s keep that in mind.
OGDEN: I think that’s the key. It’s vision; it’s where are
we going next. Where is the world in the next 50 years? Can we
imagine a new platform of human existence which is incommensurate
with the one that we currently have? It’s very important to look
backwards in history and say, prior to the discovery of nuclear
fission, what was possible and what was not possible? Prior to
the development of widespread electricity? So, if you look at
the incommensurate changes over time that the human species has
gone through, can you imagine what the next incommensurate leap
is going to be? I really do think that that is the beauty of
this Belt and Road Initiative. Go back 40 years, go back as I
think Helga mentioned in the remarks that I quoted in the
beginning; go back to when Helga LaRouche and Lyndon LaRouche
were first campaigning for this idea of a new international
economic order around the International Development Bank. This
became this vision of this productive linkage between East and
West, uniting Eurasia; it was known as the Eurasian Land-Bridge.
This was the vision for the New Silk Road that now in 2013 was
adopted by the Chinese government and is now a reality. Forty
years ago, would you have even imagined what has now become
possible because of what China has committed itself to?
It requires those types of visionaries at every stage of
history to say where do we go to next; what is the next leap that
mankind has to take? I do think, as we’ve discussed, the next
leap is moving mankind into near-Earth space and then beyond. We
have to become an extraterrestrial species; not just one that
makes expeditions with two-man, three-man capsules to the Moon
and back. But actually building up an infrastructure as we have
here on Earth, to create these kinds of artificial environments
in space. You project that vision of the future back onto what
we should be doing here on Earth, and a lot of these things just
become kind of obvious. We shouldn’t have trains derailing
coming in and out of Penn Station, if we’re actually a species
worthy of colonizing Mars.
ROSS: Right. You’re talking about looking back to the past
to look at something having been a breakthrough originally. Some
of the equipment that’s currently operating in the signalling in
the New York subway is from the 1930s, when those relay boxes and
things like this go back to the Roosevelt administration. And
they’re still in use; thankfully, still working for the most
part.
OGDEN: Do they use Morse Code to signal when the train’s
coming into the station?
ROSS: There are rude levers and things like this.
OGDEN: I thought it was unique that in this speech that
Helga made in Nanjing, as I mentioned, she was speaking to the
Phoenix Publishing House, which published the Chinese version of
the “The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge” special
report; which is the {EIR} Special Report from two years ago, and
now this is circulating in Chinese. But she was sort of giving a
report back on what’s the progress that we’ve made; what are the
breakthroughs that we’ve made so far; what do we have to do next?
It was this remark that she made that to fully realize all of
this, you must study my husband’s science of economics. It
really is true. Beginning to understand these things not just
from the standpoint of transport corridors and train tracks and
highways and these types of very necessary projects; but to
understand it from above in terms of the science of human
productivity and how the human mind harnesses new technologies
and uses them to build these increasing platforms of human
existence. You already have the world engaging in a process of
which they’re not even quite conscious of what they’re doing.
It’s necessary to become fully conscious of what this process
actually is, in order to carry it forward to the next level.
Let me ask you one more political question, Jason. On the
ground there in New York, how are people responding to, on one
side this 24-hour nonstop news cycle barrage about Russian spies
and so on; and then on the other side, being told that there’s
this incredible process that’s underway, this breakthrough that
happened in China that they’re not even being told about? What’s
people’s response to that?
ROSS: I don’t know how different it is from other places,
but overall, people are getting really sick about hearing about
Trump-gate and Russia. People are really sick of it. Either
that, or they’re going along with it and they kind of listen to
it. But what really gets through to people is when you’re
discussing thinking about the future. This is what people really
do respond to. They say, “OK, what are we going to do? The
election happened. What’s our future going to be?” If your
favorite historical figure ever were the President of the United
States right now, what would be the policies you’d want to get
implemented? OK, let’s start making those things happen.
The potential to do this in a very new way, both shocks some
people or seems impossible to others; but I attended a forum
about US-China economic relations the other day, and one of the
things that came up was one of the presenters was going through
various studies about the economy in China. About how the middle
class is exploding, how poverty is diminishing very rapidly; the
percentage of the population that’s actually poor is going down
very quickly; and about the level of optimism. There was a chart
of optimism among different nations; it measured as survey
questions. “I think my children will have a better future than I
do.” And in all segments of China, this was very positive in all
segments of China. For the middle segments of China it’s 60-70%;
even a majority in the lower income segments as well. There’s
just this tremendous sense that things are getting better, things
are moving forward; the next generation will have it better.
Then on this chart, you have the United States, way down here
almost at the very bottom, along with the Western European
nations. So, I just think — I know this gets away from asking
how people respond here, but it’s a very important point, I
think. In keeping with the shift of the center of gravity in the
world, the importance economically and politically, away from the
trans-Atlantic and towards Asia where everyone is expecting the
majority of the growth in the world economy in the next decades.
Along with that, you have this sense of happiness and optimism in
that part of the world. In these old, sour nationsâ¦. It’s also
changing in Europe, but in the trans-Atlantic, the government
leaders can say whatever they want, but if you actually ask
people what they think about what their future looks like, it’s
very grim. The contrast between these two outlooks — you had
asked earlier about New York versus China — as a personal
anecdote, that was one of the huge differences that I saw; was
this overwhelming sense of optimism from people in China. It’s
getting better. We can absolutely have that sense here as well,
by making it a reality; by throwing off the stupid ideas that are
holding us back. By throwing off this slavish adherence to Wall
Street and London; by tolerating the avowed supremacy of finance
over actual human contributions. It’s a choice we have to make.
OGDEN: Exactly! That was exactly the point that Helga made
in her speech in Nanjing; she said “The Belt and Road has
injected optimism into many countries, and the momentum is
unstoppable. But, to fully bring it into fruition, it will not
be easy.” So, we have our work cut out for us here in the United
States. I think this idea of a task force of engineers and real
qualified minds who are going to put their minds to work on how
to construct this vision for how the United States can join this
New Silk Road dynamic; it’s a very important one.
I’d like to put on the screen one more time the address to
the petition: This is “Congress: Suck It Up and Move On! It’s
Time to Rebuild the Country”; lpac.co/rebuild. I encourage you
to sign that petition and to circulate it, and to become involved
in what you just heard from Jason. Spread the news about this
dynamic of optimism that is sweeping the world, and the
possibility that this is something that could happen here in the
United States.
Thank you so much, Jason; it was a pleasure talking to you
from your remote location. I’d like to thank everybody for
tuning into our webcast here today. Please stay tuned for more
news from Helga Zepp-LaRouche; we’ll keep you updated as her
travels continue. We’ve got some definite breakthroughs that we
can be expecting over the coming days. So, thanks for joining
us, and please stay tuned to larouchepac.com.