Vi må mobilisere for at overvinde en ny mørk tidsalder.
Schiller Instituttets ugentlige webcast med Helga Zepp-LaRouche den 15. apri 2020

Det er kun idiotiske og selvbedragne folk der ikke indser, at vi står overfor en mørk tidsalder, medmindre vi mobiliserer for at etablere et nyt globalt sundhedssystem, indledte Helga Zepp LaRouche med at sige i denne uges webcast for Schiller Instituttet. Coronavirus-pandemien, som rammer nu, mens kasinoøkonomien er ved at falde sammen, kræver en total ændret tankegang.

Dette repræsenterer en moralsk test for menneskeheden, da der er mange som tror, at vi kan vende ryggen til fattige lande, eller værre, de indædte malthusianere der vil have befolkningsreduktion, og fortsætter med at insistere på at profit må prioriteres højere end menneskeliv. Hun opfordrede seere til at deltage i Schiller Instituttets mobilisering for et Nyt Paradigme, baseret på en kamp for
menneskehedens fælles interesser.

“Symptomerne på en mørk tidsalder er over alt”, sagde hun, idet hun pegede på eksempler som dem på plejehjem eller fænglser som er smittede og døende. Hun sagde, at hun forstår den smerte forårsaget af nedlukningen, enlige mødre hjemme uden nogen indkomst, små virksomheder som går nedenom, men at prøve på at komme tilbage til en “normal” tilstand øger risikoen for en endnu værre katastrofe, end den vi står overfor nu.

Lær ad hvad Kina og andre asiatiske lande gjorde for at håndtere pandemien. Bestræbelserne på at give Kina skylden for den globale pandemi er idiotisk, amoralsk og uærlig, tilføjede hun, idet hun understregede de sædvanlige mistænkte fra City of London og britisk efterretningsvæsen, som værende dem der fører an. Hun præsenterede den virkelige kronologi over den kinesiske mobilisering for at opdage hvad dette nye virus er og formidle dette videre til andre.

Det var Vestens arrogance, ikke et kinesisk røgslør, som har skylden. Den reelle antikinesiske kampagne har intet med coronavirus at gøre, men at Kinas fremkomst truer de neoliberale og geopolitikernes unipolære verdensorden.

Hun tilskyndede seerne til at støtte vores opfordring til en “Apollo-projekt”-mobilisering og for at organisere for Schiller Instituttets konference den 25.-26. april.

***

Afskrift på engelsk:

“We Must Mobilize To Defeat A Dark Age”

HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hello, I’m Harley Schlanger, with the Schiller Institute and welcome to our weekly webcast with our founder and President Helga Zepp-LaRouche. It’s April 15, 2020.

We’re clearly in the middle of a situation in which decisions are being made about what to do with the coronavirus, what to do with the economy. There are new reports coming out that the virus pandemic is spreading into different areas, including Africa and India. So Helga, how do you want to address this problem? Why don’t you go ahead and give us a picture of what you have?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: The situation really starts to look like a Dark Age, and I really wonder how long it takes some of these people who believe that this whole thing is just like a “flu,” or just a plot to impose world dictatorship, when they will realize this is a pandemic. And that because of the combination of the economic policies and the financial system failing, there is a real danger of a Dark Age. And those people who have not yet thought about it, should look at Decameron by Boccaccio, how he describes the Black Death in the 14th century: Because we are clearly, even in the so-called advanced sector, reaching, very quickly, such images. For example, in New Jersey, the authorities basically say that if people get sick in nursing homes, they should not be brought to the hospitals, because there is no space for them. Then you have an increasing number, for example, there is one nursing home in Richmond, Virginia, where out of 160 or so inhabitants, more than 120 are sick; 40 of them have died already. And a similar picture is developing in many nursing homes. Even in France, you have such situations, and in Italy, where people die at home, and they’re not being found. And then later they are being discovered. But especially, if the staff in nursing homes become infected, this is taking such a terrible development. Also, centers of juvenile delinquents in the United States, there is a very high ratio. The prison population and the staff in the jails and prisons are very much in danger and there is a high infection rate.

So then, you also have a situation where there is a collapse of the food supply. There was a food distribution in Nairobi, Kenya, where there was not enough food for the many people who were in need, and a riot broke out, and the riot police intervened with tear gas, causing these people to flee. A similar situation exists in many places, even in San Antonio, Texas, there was a food distribution through cars, and a line of 2,000 cars stretched out and in the end there was not enough food.

Similar situations are clearly threatening all over the place, and while the governments in the developing sector, in many instances have reacted more quickly than the so-called “Western” governments, because they had had Ebola, and other epidemics and disease outbreaks, so they did have early lockdown, but this is not sustainable. If you are sitting in a shack in Africa, with 10 people crowded in the same room, there is no point if you are being told to stay home, and you also cannot self-isolate. The Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed, who is otherwise doing an excellent job, he basically said, it’s not sustainable; we cannot keep these measures up. The same goes, naturally, for India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi just announced another extension by three weeks of the lockdown; but we had seen already these absolutely incredible scenes where service workers who only make income a day at a time, because everything is shut down in the service economy, they are trying to get back to the countryside, getting into overfilled buses, being stopped by police. The same is the situation in the favelas in Brazil.

I think the symptoms of a Dark Age are everywhere, and whoever does not want to see that is just morally unfit, because the only way how we can react to this situation is by doing exactly what the international Schiller Institute is doing: Namely, we are making a huge campaign to change the system, to build up a health system in every country, not just reconstructing health systems in the United States, Germany, France and other countries that used to have good health systems before the privatization over the last 30 years: But we need such a health system, on the top level in every single country, and that is the moral test for humanity to come out of this crisis.

SCHLANGER: Helga, one of the things that has happened in the last few days, is there has been aid being transferred from China, from elsewhere: There are these “Solidarity Flights” now going into Africa. This is small, but it does indicate the right direction, at least in terms of the immediate emergency, doesn’t it?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. This was very good. This was organized between the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy, whom I just mentioned earlier; then also the Jack Ma Foundation from China, the African Union, the World Health Organization, World Food Program, and it was a full planeload of all medical supplies, and very urgently needed and most welcomed. And from Addis Ababa, it was then distributed to all other African nations. And there is the intention to build up similar hubs all over the world.

But if you look at the amount of money involved, it was in the low three-digit hundred millions, and what would be needed, is naturally several orders of magnitude more; and that is obviously the big challenge, right now. So, that is why I want you to join our campaign, because we need to have a completely news system: Because, with the present casino economy, and just private donations, this will not be sufficient. You have to create a new credit system; you have to have a national bank in every country to issue credit for the construction, not only of a health system, but also of a corresponding infrastructure, and the beginning of real development, industrialization and the development of agriculture. And that can only be done with a New Bretton Woods system. And you know, there are many calls right now, emerging: In Latin America, for example, the President of Argentina Alberto Fernández said the old system clearly failed, we need a new system. There are calls for a Glass-Steagall banking separation. There are even calls for a New Bretton Woods system, coming from one of the former collaborators and employees of the Banque de France, the French central bank.

But we need this to be on the agenda immediately: Because this pandemic will not go away. As it looks now, it will be with us for at least — at least a year, until vaccines come online, and it may be longer.

SCHLANGER: Helga, one of the things that is most striking is the pressure that’s being put on governments in the Western countries to reopen the economy. Clearly, there’s a lot of suffering going on, but this was an economic crisis that preexisted before the pandemic. What are your thoughts about this pressure coming, in many cases from bankers, but also from small businesses to reopen the economy quickly. I think the French have announced they’ll be sending children back to school in the beginning of May — what are your thoughts about this?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I understand the pain for many people, who are cramped in small apartments, single mothers with yelling children, small businessmen who are losing their business, people losing their jobs — it’s a terrible crisis. But, at this point, if you loosen the economy too early, if you open up too quickly, it’s almost guaranteed that it will come back and be much more costly, than if you had followed what the Chinese did in Wuhan. And I can only repeat: If you open up now the economy now, without having a real testing of the population — and by testing, I don’t mean just the people who have symptoms. You have to do trial and error testing in supposedly unaffected areas, just to get a broad overview of what the condition of infection is, because if you’re not testing, you have no idea how widespread the infection is. Then, you have to have absolute protection of the population, you have to have a full supply of medical staff, medical facilities, protective clothes for the population whenever they go to a public function, like to work or shopping. All of these measures have to be in place beforehand. And I don’t think we have reached that condition yet. And there are many warnings that if you open up too early, you may pay a much higher price.

And naturally — and I’m not saying this goes for everybody — but it’s also very clear, some people could not care less about the developing sector and the population, and they couldnt care less about the elderly; and there is this very Nazi-like, Malthusian axiom, where people just think there are too many people anyway, and it’s a good thing that this is happening! I know that this is the case for some people, because they been speaking out quite openly, like Jeremy Warner, I think is his name, from the Daily Telegraph on March 3, wrote it quite openly like that.

So I think that we really have to fight for the adoption of what was learned in Asia in general — it was not just China, but China did the most efficient job, but it was in Singapore and South Korea, and I think that the Asian reaction was much, much more serious, than the Europeans or the Americans in their reaction. So, we have to really study what the Chinese did right, and just replicate it, because they have clearly have proven that they could defeat this virus in Wuhan. And naturally, such absolutely horrible ideas — fascist ideas — like “herd immunity”: “herd immunity,” if you have an infection rate of only 1%, well, that’s a lot of people dying! And some people take that into account, and just, you know, write if off. But I think the right way, is to try to completely wipe out the virus, and that requires harsh measures and not to loosen up too early.

SCHLANGER: And speaking of wiping out the virus, we have the other virus, which is that of the bailouts under way to keep the casino economy in business. It’s not going to work, is it, if you go ahead with the idea that we’re going to “go back to the old system,” because the old system was collapsing. It collapsed in 2008, and it was collapsing again back in September. That’s why there’s a real demand from you and the Schiller Institute, that we have a global health system, which includes economic policies. There’s an idiocy of the idea that we have to make a payday tomorrow, without thinking about the fact that the system itself is collapsed.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: It’s almost like vultures eating off corpses: If you see right now that the very firm which is supposed to manage the trillion bail-out package of the Federal Reserve, BlackRock, they are basically gloating and bragging that they’re running this whole thing now. And I think that the idea that you can pump money, and the Federal Reserve and the other central banks are now buying everything! They’re buying junk bonds! There is a junk bond revival, and all kinds of financial charlatans are advising their customers, “now is the time to buy junk bonds, you will make a fortune!” Well, you know, this is really the last straw before the collapse of the whole system in a hyperinflationary collapse. And it’s really nasty! Because, the rating agencies are downgrading the developing countries, Argentina and such countries, and it’s really a brutal fight where these vultures are trying to make the last round of profit, to make the rich richer, and this is reaching a point where you cannot do this, because you will cause riots, you will cause social upheaval, and as this pandemic gets worse, real social chaos is threatening.

So, the only way how this can be answered, is by implementing Glass-Steagall, now, before, for example the oil shale sector in the United States is completely at the verge of collapse, the oil price did not go up, even after Trump and Putin and the Saudis tried to have some arrangements; the oil price as of today, I think, somewhere at $20/barrel, and this is absolutely a timebomb. And therefore, we have to have, now, a Glass-Steagall reorganization, and the whole package that was proposed by my late husband in 2014: National Bank, New Bretton Woods, and reorganize the whole system. Make a new credit system, and then we can finance this, and we can restart the economy, after the pandemic is under control. And there has to be such a change! Because we cannot continue with this insane casino economy, which is causing havoc all over the world. It was that casino economy, which destroyed the health system, by privatizing it; it was that system which kept the developing countries down and prevented their development; and that is what gave rise to these pandemics.

So if people do not recognize that we have to change our ways, now, I think that this is the moral test, if the human species is capable to survive or not.

SCHLANGER: Another area to look at, you had mentioned to study what the Chinese did to deal with the pandemic. They’re also beginning to reopen the economy, but they’re doing it on the basis of continuing the Belt and Road Initiative, the infrastructure development. And yet, what we’re seeing from key networks in the West is the most vicious anti-China campaign, and this is something that you’ve been calling out. Where does this come from?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think it comes from a deep-seated geopolitical view that the rise of China necessarily means the downfall of the United States or the West in general. And I think that that view is a wrong view. China has, at no point threatened to replace the United States as the hegemonic power. They have offered cooperation on the basis of a win-win cooperation. They have offered to the United States a special great power relationship. And it is an absolutely absurd idea that one can prevent a country of 1.4 billion people, which has determined that it wants to go the road of scientific and technological progress, and has proven that that method functions, by lifting 850 million people out of poverty, and then, is starting to offer the advantage of such an approach, that you can stop that, other than by nuclear war! And that is, obviously, what some people are willing to play with.

China is not an aggressive force. But naturally, it does threaten the idea of a unipolar world order, which some neo-cons and British elements in the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union had tried to impose, and doing so by interventionist wars: The Bush Administration and then Obama, they did all of these interventionist wars, with the idea of regime change, color revolution, and that has gotten us to the crisis we have now in Southwest Asia and the refugee crisis.

But, you know, the idea that you have to stop the rise of China is very dangerous. And we see it right now that this campaign is absolutely led by British intelligence — as a matter of fact, the former head of MI6 came out yesterday, and after President Trump, unfortunately, very terrible, cancelled the funding of the WHO, by blaming them that they would have been responsible for many deaths, that they did misinform the United States — I don’t even want to comment on that, because it’s just factually not correct — this former British MI6 person said, that Trump should not have focussed on the WHO, but on China. And the Henry Jackson Society [in the U.K.], which is a totally neo-con, one of the worst reactionary institutions you can imagine, they came out and made a bill where they said that they want to sue China, so that China would have to pay for all the costs which have resulted as a result of the pandemic!

Now, the fact that the German tabloid Bildzeitung is publishing this today on page 2, the full story, quoting the Henry Jackson Society, having a long list of bills, you know, what was the cost for the taxi drivers, for the hotel owners, just 20 categories, that China should pay that — after yesterday, Pompeo on page 3 listed the whole arguments against China — that is the final proof that this Bild tabloid is part of the Integrity Initiative — formally or not, I don’t care — but de facto they’re spreading the propaganda of the British Empire. I mean, they just proved that in the last days, if it was necessary to still have a proof.

But they’re trying to hype up the population against China, and it is factually absolutely not true! I’ll just give you the figures, because, when they say that China was “hiding” information about the virus, it is factually not true. The first cases of some new, unknown disease became known in Wuhan on the Dec. 23 [2019]. Then, on Dec. 30th, they reported a suspicious number of people having pneumonia. Then on Jan. 3, the Chinese national health commission gave out guidelines how to treat these cases. And on Jan. 4, already, those medical people in Wuhan contacted their U.S. counterparts and the WHO and informed them about that. Then, three days later, on Jan. 7, the medical scientific personnel in Wuhan were able, for the first time, to isolate the coronavirus strain, and this was praised then by the whole international medical community, for the extraordinary speed in which they succeeded to isolate this new strain.

So, I think that that is the record. And I remember, because we paid attention to it when it happened.

And at that point, already, given the fact that there was SARS and MERS before, the Western governments could have absolutely mobilized their production of masks, of ventilators, hospital beds and so forth — but they didn’t do it! Instead, they kept repeating for weeks and weeks, “no, masks are absolutely of no use.” German Health Minister Jens Spahn said, “oh, the virus will never come to Germany.” He kept repeating that into February, saying, the German health system is perfectly prepared for any eventualities, but they really did not take it seriously, until March, when the whole thing erupted with a speed which left everybody breathless. And then, they kept say, you don’t need masks. And they did not say, you do need masks, you do need mass testing, let’s produce everything which is necessary, but they kept adjusting to the line about what was medically necessary to what their meager resources were. And that is a fact. You can say that for all European countries, and it’s still going on, to a certain extent, now.

So, I think that the attack on China is the most foolish, most immoral, and lying operation, because if there is one country which did succeed, at least for now — because it’s a pandemic, you never know what will happen down the road — but they were able to contain and stamp out the virus in the hotbeds of Hubei Province and the city of Wuhan. And rather than thinking, maybe it was the centralized government system which China has, which was the reason why they were able to react so quickly, gear up the production of the entire country; and maybe it was the extreme liberalism of the West which was the reason why it was not possible, maybe one should think that the liberal/neo-liberal system has some inherent flaws, and rather than discussing that, they go into this deflection and attack China.

I think it’s very dangerous, and it’s very stupid. And I think it should stop, and people should really not be led by the nose by these lying mass media, which have nothing to do with journalism: They’re really the forefront of the intelligence community, trying to feed propaganda in order to further their aims. But it has nothing to do with honest journalism, at all.

SCHLANGER: And it’s very dangerous that this propaganda is being backed up by military maneuvers. The so-called “elephant walk” which just took place in Guam. Maybe you can say something about that.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yeah! I think this is not the time to show military potency, in a macho kind of behavior. Because, I agree fully in this point, with UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres, who called for a ceasefire of all military action, to concentrate everything on fighting the pandemic. I fully agree that there should be a complete end to all sanctions against all the countries which are targetted by sanctions right now, because it does prevent these countries from fighting against the pandemic effectively. But I think, especially such military operations, like this “elephant walk” in Guam, which is essentially an exercise, rehearsing a mass takeoff of fighter jets, of bombers, of drones, helicopters, just the whole arsenal, in a show of force. Obviously, Guam, what is the obvious target? It’s China. Also, the continuous bellicose talk of NATO, that NATO has to be prepared for everything, even in the middle of this pandemic, it’s just stupid! It should stop.

I think the military should be used for a positive purpose right now: Whatever capacity they have in terms of Corps of Engineers, they should be employed — in part, they’re doing it already, in the United States, where it’s very useful, where they help the supply of medical goods, they help the disinfecting of apartments where people have died — these are useful jobs and they should be encouraged. The U.S. Army did that in Northern Italy, when there were too many corpses for the medical authorities in Italy to take care of it. So there is a useful role for the army in this situation.

But this is an absolute sign that if we don’t change the attitude right now, stop geopolitics and start to think about the common aims of mankind: This is the level we have to have. And there must be a retooling of a lot of this production: Why should we waste, and even President Trump talked about it a little while ago, where he said, he wants to enter discussions with Putin and Xi Jinping, because there is this incredible waste of huge military budgets. And in a world of such needs, why can we not retool all of this military production, and produce the kinds of things which are necessary? And the people who have made such an enormous amount of money off the military-industrial complex, up to this point — don’t they have enough? I mean, they have already multi-billions! So, I mean, there is a limit to all of this, and we are at a point where the common good of people, of many people in the world, of billions of people has to come first place.

And this is what will be the subject of our upcoming conference of the Schiller Institute, and I ask all of you to register for this conference [https://action.larouchepac.com/20200425_national_conference], and help to spread the news that it’s taking place, because the change of the paradigm will be the main subject of this conference. And it will be an extremely important intervention into this present crisis, with the aim to change the parameters, and establish a completely different paradigm.

SCHLANGER: And this will be an online conference, April 25-26. You need to pre-register, but you can find a registration form on the Schiller Institute website [https://schillerinstitute.nationbuilder.com/20200425_national_conference].

And Helga, finally, in terms of our mobilization, you’ve also been behind the drafting of a global health, almost a bill of materials call, which is also available on the website [https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2020/04/11/larouches-apollo-mission-to-defeat-the-global-pandemic-build-a-world-health-system-now/]. What should people do with that?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yeah, as a matter of fact, we should put the link underneath this webcast, and I would ask people to read it, and if you agree — it’s basically a call, what needs to be done in terms of this health system in every country, what kinds of materials must be produced, how to go about it. If you agree with that approach, then I would ask you to distribute this “‘Apollo Program’ for a New World Health System,” as widely as you can, in social media, among your friends and colleagues, and help us in this mobilization. Because I think, as this Dark Age aspect that I mentioned in the beginning will become clearer — and unfortunately, I’m 100% certain that we will see much more horrible pictures in the next weeks and months — and the need to change the system, the entire system, will become clearer and clearer. So the more people are fighting for this world health system, the better the hope is that we can get it accomplished in time, and that we save many, many millions of people from dying. So, join this mobilization, distribute this call, join the Schiller Institute conference, and become active with us, because this is an existential question for all of humanity. And we need to reach a completely different paradigm of thinking, where war and geopolitics have to be put in the garbage heap of history, and we have to go for a new Renaissance of humanist thinking, of dialogue of civilizations, of cooperation instead of confrontation, and this is a worthwhile fight I’m asking you to join.

SCHLANGER: Well, Helga, I think you’ve made it very clear, and people should study what you’ve said on this, look at the material we’re putting out, and join us.

So, until next week, we’ll see you then.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Till next week. And stay healthy!