Talere på panel 1: Dennis Speed, ordstyrer, Schiller Instituttet; Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. (videoklip); Helga Zepp-LaRouche, grundlægger og præsident for Schiller Institute; Dmitry Polyanskij, 1. vice-permanent repræsentant, Den Russiske Føderations faste mission ved FN; Hans excellence Ambassadør Huang Ping, generalkonsul for Folkerepublikken Kina i New York; Jacques Cheminade, formand, Solidarité et Progrès, tidligere fransk præsidentkandidat; Michele Geraci, økonom fra Italien, tidligere sekretær for udviklingsministeriet i Rom; Bassam el-Hachem, professor i sociologi, det libanesiske universitet i Beirut, Libanon; Antonio Butch Valdes, grundlægger af det filippinske LaRouche Society, Filippinernes demokratiske parti.
Videoarkiv af panel 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OCAxLIpAMY
Ordstyrer denne morgen, Dennis Speed, åbnede med to videoklip fra Lyndon LaRouche, et fra 1997 og et fra 2007, som præsenterede det fremsyn, der definerede LaRouches karriere. Kombination af disse videoklip understregede betydningen af samarbejdet mellem USA og Kina i forbindelse med større infrastruktur-platforme, samt den kritiske strategiske rolle, som nationerne USA, Rusland, Kina og Indien spiller i forbindelse med at gøre en ende på det britiske imperium, også kendt som det britiske Commonwealth.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche introducerede publikum til den bredere historiske baggrund og præsenterede det fremvoksende sammenfald af multiple kriser, dvs. pandemien, græshoppeplagen fra Afrika til Indien, den truende globale fødevarekrise, stigende arbejdsløshed osv., som uforlignelig med selv den mørke tidsalder i det 14. århundrede. Hun opfordrede verden til at opdage nye principper og identificere de langsigtede årsager til den aktuelle krise, eliminere dem, og åbne et nyt kapitel i universalhistorien, så vi kan afslutte geopolitikkens æra og etablere et nyt system baseret på menneskehedens identitet som en kreativ art.
Hun behandlede den igangværende optrapning i retning af atomkrig, som ses af den voksende propaganda, der drives af de samme elementer, som står bag kuppet mod præsident Trump, MI6 og Henry Jackson-Selskabet, men denne gang rettet imod Kina. Og dog udstiller denne operation også vores fjende, det britiske imperium, som et døende imperium fuldstændig afkoblet fra virkeligheden. Og hvis nogen skulle “betale” – som briterne nu insisterer på, at Kina skal betale for de økonomiske omkostninger ved virusset – skal briterne betale for deres forbrydelser mod menneskeheden og unødvendige tab af liv i de sidste to århundreder.
Fru LaRouche præsenterede et bredt intellektuelt overblik over den afstumpede liberale/nyliberale verdensorden, fra pastor Malthus ‘folkemordsøkonomi, der var baseret på den italienske Giammaria Ortes syn på befolkningskontrol, til den venetianske agent Paolo Sarpi og hans besætning af karakterer såsom Galileo, Newton eller Adam Smiths filosofi og de moderne udtryk i form af spilteori og computerstyret økonomisk spekulation baseret på korruption af videnskab af Bertrand Russell. Russells opfordring til lejlighedsvis at have en ‘sort død’ til at feje hen over verden for at “løse” overbefolkningsproblemet blev omtalt som karakteristisk for imperiets ondskab. Hun insisterede på, at løsningen er et helt nyt verdenssyn, der bygger på den videnskabelige udvikling af menneskeheden, såsom rumforskning, fusionsenergi og udvikling af det menneskelige geni.
Den næste taler var første vicerepræsentant i FN fra Rusland, H.E. Dmitry Polyanskij, som behandlede den igangværende COVID-19-pandemi, de bredere sociale virkninger og nødvendigheden af øget globalt samarbejde, især at undgå at beskylde hinanden eller bruge krisen til at øge konkurrencen. Han understregede også G20’s rolle i at tackle problemerne, især for udviklingslandenes vedkommende.
Han blev efterfulgt af Generalkonsul for Folkerepublikken Kina i New York, Huang Ping. Ambassadør Huang, der foretog sin præsentation via videooptagelse, idet han var forpligtet til at hjælpe med levering af nødvendige medicinske forsyninger, der ankom fra Kina til Boston samme eftermiddag, gav et overblik over den kinesiske tilgang og filosofi i forhold til den aktuelle pandemi og opfordrede til en udvidelse af samarbejdet mellem USA og Kina.
Der fulgte en kort række spørgsmål, hvor den videnskabelige rådgiver ved det kinesiske generalkonsulat i New York, Zhou Guolin, tog imod spørgsmål på vegne af ambassadør Huang. Det første spørgsmål omhandlede vigtigheden af et visionært topmøde mellem de 5 permanente medlemmer af FN’s Sikkerhedsråd, hvilket Rusland for nylig har foreslået. Et yderligere spørgsmål kom fra vicerepræsentant for Sydafrika i FN om atomkraftens rolle i udviklingen af Afrika. Også Hr. Polyanskij havde tid til at svare på spørgsmål, inden han måtte forlade konferencen for et andet virtuelt møde.
Jacques Cheminade, to gange præsidentkandidat for Frankrig, startede anden del af det første panel, med et oplæg, der implicit havde titlen: “Et Europa man ikke behøver at skamme sig over.” Hr. Cheminade præsenterede sit syn på den tabte sag i Europa under det nuværende system for kultur og politik, eller som han sagde, “Hvor løgnen er blevet en pervers kunst,” og behandlede derefter den form for ændringer der kræves for at genoplive de ægte suveræne nationer i Europa med henblik på at deltage i et nyt udviklingsparadigme. Han omtalte den 30-årige periode under den europæiske genopbygning efter 2. verdenskrig som et eksempel på det sande Europa.
Efter Mr. Cheminade fulgte Mr. Michele Geraci, økonom og tidligere undersekretær for Italiens ministerium for økonomisk udvikling. Hr. Geraci har omfattende erfaring i Kina som økonom. og spillede en central rolle i at introducere Kinas globale udviklingsprogram for Bæltet & Vejen for det italienske folk under hans periode i regeringen. Han behandlede sine erfaringer fra både Kina over en tiårsperiode såvel som sin erfaring i den italienske regering i de seneste år, med fokus på behovet for større ekspertise, kompetence og repræsentation af det italienske folk.
Udtalelser blev også fremsat af Bassam Al-Hachem fra Universitetet i Libanon om krisen i hans land; den delvise erklæring fra Butch Valdes – lederen af LaRouche-bevægelsen i Filippinerne, der talte om præsident Dutertes fremkomst og hans afvisning af den neokonservative/neoliberale dagsorden, som begyndte med hans åbenlyse afvisning af præsident Obamas neokolonialistiske politik (hans fulde erklæring forventes at komme søndag); og Daniel Burke, uafhængig kandidat til det amerikanske senat i New Jersey, opfordrede ungdommen over hele verden til at tage del i den globale udvikling gennem Lyndon LaRouches ideer. Der kom spørgsmål fra blandt andet ambassadøren for Costa Rica i Canada, Mali-ambassadøren i Canada og Nigerias ambassadør i Canada.
Der blev præsenteret en video med fru Zepp-LaRouche om den dybe betydning af hendes mands ideer og vores indsats for at fremstille hans “samlede værker” i mange bind, hvoraf det første bind nu produceres og kan købes på https: // larouchelegacyfoundation.org. Hun sagde, at hans ideer er “lige så vigtige i dag som Platons var mht. at igangsætte den italienske renæssance,” og hun afsluttede det første panel med en opfordring til ‘at være kampberedte’, eller bedre endnu, ”fyre op under sæderne” for at få folk til at rykke!
Transcript:
Panel 1: The Urgent Need To Replace Geopolitics with a New Paradigm in International Relations
DENNIS SPEED: Hello! My name is Dennis Speed, and on behalf of the Schiller Institute, I want to welcome everyone today to today’s conference. It is being broadcast all over the world; the conference is being translated into many languages — Spanish, Chinese, German, French, Italian. We welcome our international audience and thank the translators very much. Today’s conference is called “Mankind’s Existence Now Depends Upon the Establishment of a New Paradigm.” I’d like to welcome and announce our speakers for this morning’s panel, which is called “The Urgent Need to Replace Geopolitics with a New Paradigm in International Relations.” Our first and keynote speaker will be Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder and chairman of the Schiller Institute. His Excellency Mr. Dmitry Polyanskiy, First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations; Ambassador Huang Ping, Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in New York; as well, Counsellor Zhou Guolin, head of the Science and Technology section of the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in New York; Jacques Cheminade, chairman of Solidarité et Progrès, and former French Presidential candidate; and Professor Michele Geraci, an economist from Italy.
Seventy-five years ago today, April 25, 1945, Russian and American troops met at the Elbe River in Germany. This signalled the end of the Second World War in Europe. The postwar world, as envisioned by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a world that would be free of British and other colonial rule; but that was not to be. Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945, allowed the British and other political powers to downshift history. From 1945, Lyndon LaRouche, a veteran of the Second World War, vowed that — in the words of the poet Friedrich Schiller — “a purpose which higher reason hath conceived, which men’s afflictions urge, ten thousand times defeated may never be abandoned.” Lyndon LaRouche’s postwar experience in witnessing the Indian independence movement gripped him. He decided to commit his life to achieving that FDR dream of a world free of colonialism.
But Lyndon LaRouche also realized that to end imperial rule, what Winston Churchill had once called “the empire of the mind” must be defeated. LaRouche regarded Lord Bertrand Russell’s idea of scientific method to be as evil as were his ideas about society and humanity. Russell espoused ideas like this: “If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full.” LaRouche, opposing such a Malthusian view, wrote hundreds of documents over five decades that proved that were no limits to growth. Limits were only in the human mind. Alexander Hamilton’s design of the United States Treasury’s power to issue public credit for investment in the nation’s physical improvement expressed the same outlook. In 1985, Lyndon LaRouche produced a report entitled “Economic Breakdown and the Threat of Global Pandemics.” This forecast that the Malthusian financial policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would lower the resistance of populations worldwide, leading to pandemics and the deaths of millions.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, a LaRouche dialogue with many nations to avoid and avert that disaster, and most notably China, resulted in the issuance of this report, “The Eurasian Land-Bridge; The New Silk Road.” Helga Zepp-LaRouche visited several nations on behalf of this proposal, and it was a diplomacy of development, not geopolitics. In a public talk in 1997, LaRouche made these remarks regarding why China and the United States are natural allies in the pursuit of world economic development.
LYNDON LAROUCHE (video)
The Congress does not represent the United States; they’re not quite sure who they do represent, these days, since they haven’t visited their voters recently. The President is, institutionally, the embodiment of the United States, in international relations. The State Department can’t do that, the Justice Department can’t do it, no other department can do it: only the President of the United States, under our Constitution, can represent the United States as an entity. Its entire personality. Its true interest. Its whole people.
Now, there’s only one other power on this planet, which can be so insolent as that, toward other powers, and that’s the [People’s] Republic of China. China is engaged, presently, in a great infrastructure-building project, in which my wife and others have had an ongoing engagement over some years. There’s a great reform in China, which is a troubled reform. They’re trying to solve a problem; that doesn’t mean there is no problem. But they’re trying to solve it.
Therefore, if the United States, or the President of the United States, and China, participate in fostering that project — sometimes called the “Silk-Road” Project, sometimes the “Land-Bridge” Project — if that project of developing development corridors, across Eurasia, into Africa, into North America, is extended, that project is enough work, to put this whole planet, into an economic revival….
So that, what we have here, is a set of projects, which are not just transportation projects, like the transcontinental railroads in the United States, which was the precedent for this idea, back in the late 1860s and 1870s. But you have development corridors, where you develop an area, of 50 to 70 kilometers, on either side of your rail link, your pipeline, so forth — you develop this area with industry, with mining, with all these kinds of things, which is the way you pay for a transportation link. Because of all the rich economic activity: every few kilometers of distance along this link, there’s something going on, some economic activity. People working; people building things; people doing things, to transform this planet, in great projects of infrastructure-building, which will give you the great industries, the new industries, the new agriculture, and other things we desperately need.
There is no need for anybody on this planet, who is able to work, to be out of work! It’s that simple. And that project is the means.
If the nations, which agree with China—which now include Russia, Iran, India, other nations—if they engage in a commitment to that project, which they’re building every day; if the United States, that is, the President of the United States, Clinton, continues to support that effort, as he’s been doing, at least politically, then what do you have? You have the United States and China, and a bunch of other countries, ganged up together, against the greatest power on the planet, which is the British Empire, called the British Commonwealth. That’s the enemy.
And if, on one bright day, say, a Sunday morning, after a weekend meeting, the President of the United States, the President of China, and a few other people, say, “We have determined this weekend, based on our advisers and the facts, that the international financial and monetary system is hopelessly bankrupt. And we, in our responsibility as heads of state, must put these bankrupt institutions into bankruptcy reorganization, in the public interest. And it is in our interest, to cooperate as nations in doing this, to avoid creating chaos on this planet.”
The result then, is that such an announcement, on a bright Sunday morning, will certainly spin the talking heads on Washington TV.
SPEED: LaRouche’s view of China from 23 years ago has much to teach us today. Here is another excerpt from a speech ten years after what you’ve just seen, which was done in 2007, describing the LaRouche proposal for a new international monetary system.
LAROUCHE: We have to create a new monetary system. And what I’ve proposed is this: If the United States, and this is not impossible, if the United States should extend à proposal to Russia, to China, and to India to co-sponsor the formation of a new international monetary financial order, that could be done. The problem is that most nations, such as those of Western and Central Europe and other parts of the world, are not able to independently act in this way to initiate. However, if you get the United States and Russia, which are two of the largest nations of the developed world, formerly developed world, and you combine that with China and India, which are the two Asian nations which represent the largest ration of population of the world’s population. Then you have a combination which can provide a protective cover for joint action together with the nations of South America, for example, and Europe and elsewhere.
We have now an incalculable crisis worldwide in progress. This is not a financial crisis; this is not a financial scandal as such. This is not a scandal in any ordinary sense. This is a crisis to see who is going to run the world. Is it going to be a group of nations, or is it going to be the emerging new British Empire — or the re-emergent British Empire, which never really went away — which takes over from the United States, and establishes its world rule through globalization?
Therefore, what we have to do is this: The present world international monetary financial system is bankrupt. There is now way in which it can be reformed on its own terms and survive. Any attempt to maintain this system would mean a complete disintegration into a New Dark Age comparable to what Europe experienced during the 14th century, with the collapse of some of the Lombard banks in Italy at that time. That would happen. Therefore, the solution is to establish a new international monetary financial system. That could be done on the basis of the U.S. Constitution’s special provisions. Remember, the U.S. system is not a monetarist system. The U.S. system constitutionally is based on a credit system based on the Constitutional authority of the United States government over the utterance and control of its own money. In other parts of the world, countries’ financial systems have been controlled largely under the Anglo-Dutch liberal system in which this system, through its network of private banks — so-called central banks — actually dictates and controls governments. So, we’ve had an imperial world monetary financial system which has been traditionally centered on the British Empire essentially ever since February 1763. Against that, the only system which is surviving of any great significance today, is the alternative; the Constitutional provisions of the U.S. Constitution, which establish the U.S. dollar as a credit mechanism of the U.S. government. That is, under our system, when it’s operating — and it has not always operated that way obviously — under our system, we generate credit through a vote in the Congress; essentially House of Representatives. The President of the United States then acts upon that authority of this Federal law, to utter currency as credit against the United States itself.
Now the chief function of this credit is not just to print money. The function of this credit is to supply capital funds for long-term capital investments; especially in the public sector, but spilling over into the private sector. In the public sector, largely large-scale infrastructure projects for the states as well as the Federal government. This credit generally extends for a life period of 25-50 years in terms of modern economy. Therefore, we have a present world monetary financial system which does not function. However, if the United States affirms its Constitution, and enters into agreement with three other sponsoring countries, and other countries, then we can create a new international monetary financial system immediately; putting the entire existing system into bankruptcy reorganization to maintain the continuity of essential functions, and to start a program of actual net economic growth and development.
The hardcore of this over the long term would be long-term investment in basic economic infrastructure and development of the economies of various parts of the world. A cooperative set of treaty agreements of 25-50 years’ duration to create capital formation to bring the world up in the way that Roosevelt had intended, had he lived at the end of the war. Therefore, the United States must be reformed in the way consistent with its own Constitution, by offering cooperation with other countries — especially leading countries — to establish a new world system; a new version of the old Bretton Woods system which would provide for recovery programs of over 25-50 years of long-term investment throughout the world as a whole.
SPEED: Now, 13 years later, Lyndon LaRouche’s vision for the United States and the world must become a reality. We all over the world stand simultaneously on the precipice both of disaster and of the greatest potential in human history. We’re one human race, tied together in this whether we like it or not. Now more than ever, Lyndon LaRouche’s wise words and his passion for solving great problems is needed. There is an idea, a principle in drama, which Friedrich Schiller used called the punctum saliens. It is an idea which the keynote speaker for today’s panel is very familiar. The whole of civilization is now at a crossroads, and only from the higher realm of art, which is the same region from which statecraft comes, can the promise of a durable future proceed. That has been the life’s pre-occupation of our keynote speaker, and it’s always an honor for me to introduce the founder and chairman of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche.
The Crimes and Downfall of British Liberalism and The New Paradigm of the Future of Humanity
HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I’m greeting all of you who are watching this internet conference from all over the world, and I think you are all aware that the human species right now is confronted with an unprecedented crisis, which not only threatens the cost of many millions of people through illness and hunger, to sweep away many of the institutions which people thought to have been granted until now, and to plunge large parts of the world into a new dark age, including culturally, but it can also lead to a thermonuclear war that would potentially wipe out all of humanity.
This crisis is more far-reaching than that of the 14th century, when the Black Plague wiped out one-third of the population from India to Iceland. It is more serious than the Great Depression of the 1930s, because it can potentially destroy more economic substance. And if war does break out, it will be definitely more consequential than the world wars of the 20th century, because it would probably involve the deployment of thermonuclear weapons.
Due to globalization and the internationalization of many systems, including the internet, nuclear weapons, we are all sitting in the same boat. And unlike previous epochs, when one part of the planet was prospering and another was collapsing, this time there will be no partial solutions. More than ever before in our history, we as a community, as one mankind, are challenged to agree on new principles that can guarantee the long-term fitness of mankind to survive. That is the point of this conference: How can we identify the causes of this crisis, eliminate them, and open a new chapter in universal history that leads our existence out of geopolitical confrontation, into a level of reason that befits the identity of mankind as a creative species?
Some people may wonder why, in the middle of a pandemic and financial crisis, I’m also bringing up the question and the danger of nuclear war? Because the outrageous and malicious accusations against China made by the British secret services MI6 and MI5, and their propaganda outfit, the Henry Jackson Society of London, the Atlantic Council and various “cluster agents” on both sides of the Atlantic, blaming China for the COVID-19 pandemic because it supposedly either delayed the information about it, or even used biological warfare against the West. This comes down to an outward building of an enemy image for war. The insolence with which the Henry Jackson Society, the hard core of the liberal neocons and British war party on both sides of the Atlantic, is demanding billions of dollars in compensation, can only be seen as a provocation designed to prepare the ground for a strategic showdown.
That is the hysterical but ultimately desperate reaction of an Empire that realizes that it’s all over, and that the world will never again return to the already unravelling strategic orientations of a unipolar world, the so-called “Washington Consensus” and the “rules-based order,” that it was able to maintain at least as a facade until the outbreak of COVID-19. The calculations of the war party were wrong; it over-hastily declared the “end of history” following the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was also linked to the illusion that China had only to be given membership in the WTO in order to automatically develop into a British-style liberal democracy; and that all other countries would also be transformed into western democracies via a regime change policy either through color revolutions or interventionist wars.
China’s unique world-historical cultural achievement — that of not only lifting 850 million of its own people out of poverty, but also for the first time, giving developing countries, with the New Silk Road, the prospective of overcoming the colonial policy that is still implemented to this day by the IMF, as well as poverty that caused — was met with disbelieving horror by the various mouthpieces of the British Empire. After the western media had ignored the largest infrastructure program in history for about four years, attacks on so-called “autocratic regimes” like China, Russia, and others, were suddenly escalated by the same media, which have profiled themselves since 2015 in the “witch hunt” against President Trump, in collusion with the coup attempt of the British secret services.
But once the figures were released in March and April that showed that China had not only been able to crush the pandemic more effectively, but also to overcome the economic consequences of the crisis much more easily than the Western countries, which the privatization of the health sector had left totally unprepared for the pandemic, the tone towards China became shrill. The “rules-based order” of Western democracies, the only “democratic legitimacy,” has been shaky for a long time, and it now threatens to collapse, while Beijing is pursuing a “strategy of unrestricted warfare” it was claimed. The fact of the matter is that the liberal system of the British Empire has failed with a bang. But that does not mean that the forces allied to the Empire cannot still inflict enormous damage in their agony, for example by instigating a world war.
It is high time to rectify the names, as Confucius would say. If the idea is to draw up a list of guilty parties and compensation due for the current crisis, then it has to be the list of the effects of British liberalism, whose protagonist Winston Churchill carries the main responsibility for the lack of the most important aspect of the postwar Bretton Woods system that Franklin D. Roosevelt had intended; namely a credit mechanism for overcoming colonialism and industrializing the developing sector. Because of this lack, the British Empire’s control over the so-called Third World was perpetuated in the postwar period. This situation was then exacerbated after President Nixon terminated the Bretton Woods system in August 1971, which led to successive deregulations of the financial markets, the infamous out-sourcing to cheap-labor countries and IMF conditionalities. The one and only purpose of this whole policy was to maintain colonial looting and prevent any serious development in those countries.
How could anyone in the so-called “advanced countries” — and we now see with the coronavirus pandemic just how advanced they are — assume for even one minute that the brutal poverty in Africa, Latin America, and some Asian countries is self-evident or self-inflicted? If the West had done for the last 70 years what China has been doing in Africa since the 1960s, but especially in the last 10 years now, namely building railways, dams, power plants, and industrial parks, then all of Africa would enjoy the level of development you see in South Korea or Singapore or better today! Africa, as a result of these policies, has virtually no health system, no infrastructure; half of the population does not have access to clean water, sanitation, or electricity, because the British Empire deliberately suppressed them, working through the IMF and the World Bank, through the World Wildlife Fund, which considers the protection of an insect species in cases of doubt as more important than the lives of millions of people! If you take into account the overall effect of this policy, you will come up with a figure of millions of people whose lives have been shortened by hunger and untreated diseases! Contrary to the myth that the British Empire ceased to exist once and for all with the independence of the colonies and the handover ceremony of Hong Kong on June 30, 1997, it still exists in the form of neoliberal monetarist control of the world financial system; a control that has always been the quintessence of empires.
Another example of pure propaganda from the Empire is to say that Third World countries simply don’t want to develop. The reality is that even the concept of the UN Development Decades was de facto eliminated with the end of Bretton Woods, and its replacement by the idea of population reduction, the Club of Rome’s crude ideas about the supposed limits to growth, and the misanthropic notions of John D. Rockefeller III, as he presented them at the UN Population Conference in Bucharest in 1974, or Henry Kissinger’s scandalous NSSM 200 from the same year; which were just vapid molds of the assertions of the evil Pastor Malthus, the scribbler of the British East India Company, who in turn plagiarized the ideas of the Venetian “economist” Giammaria Ortes.
Lyndon LaRouche reacted to this paradigm change when he began, in a series of studies in 1973 on the effects of the IMF policy, to warn that the growing under-nourishment, weakening of the immune system, lack of hygiene, etc. would lead to the emergence of global pandemics. After the thousands of speeches and writings by LaRouche, which have circulated in the intervening five decades over all five continents, no one can say that the current pandemic was not foreseeable! Especially since LaRouche’s entire life’s work was dedicated, among other things, to working out development programs that would have exactly prevented it!
The fundamental reason why the liberal paradigm and the underlying the current transatlantic “rules-based order” have failed, and why the Establishment has proven to be so completely unable to reflect on the reasons for this failure, is linked to the axiomatic basis and the generally accepted assumptions of this paradigm’s image of man, as well as its concept of state and science.
After the initial emergence, during the Italian Renaissance, of ideas and forms of a State that consciously fostered the creative capacities of a growing proportion of the population and the role of scientific progress as a source of social wealth, the feudal oligarchy of the then-leading empire, Venice, launched a deliberate counter-offensive, in which Paolo Sarpi, as the leading thinker of that Venetian oligarchy, put forward his teachings, out of which the Enlightenment and liberalism ultimately developed. The idea was to control the scientific debate, but to deny the ability to know and to discover real universal principles, to suppress the Promethean potential — by force if need be, to reduce people to the level of sensual experience, and to turn the backwardness of “human nature” into a dogma.
From this tradition came the mechanistic scientific tradition of Galilei Galileo and Isaac Newton, the game and information theory of John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener, and more recently the algorithms that underlie the derivatives trading of today’s casino economy. The empirical and materialistic dogma and decadent image of man peddled by Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Malthus, Jeremy Bentham, John Locke and John Stuart Mill remain to this day the basis of British liberalism and the virus that has contributed more to the current state of the world than anything else.
The oligarchical mindset of the British Empire, which denies all men, but especially all colored men, the divine spark of creativity is expressed in full clarity in numerous writings and statements, if people only care to look for them, from Prince Phillip’s notorious wish to be reincarnated as a deadly virus, in order to help reduce the overpopulation of the human race, to the despicable outlook expressed by Adam Smith in his 1759 Theory of the Moral Sentiments:
“The administration of the great system of the universe … the care of the universal happiness of rational and sensible beings, is the business of God and not of man. To man is allotted a much humbler department, but one much more suitable to the weakness of his powers, and to the narrowness of his comprehension, they are of his own happiness, of that of his family, his friends, his country…. Nature has directed us to the greater part of these by original and immediate instincts. Hunger, thirst, the passion which unites the sexes, the love of pleasure, and the dread of pain, prompt us to apply those means for their own sakes, and without any considerations of their tendency to those beneficent ends which the great Director of nature intended to produce by them.”
Since these attributes all apply equally to animals, then it is obviously also okay to cull the herd periodically, just as the Spartans killed the Helots, when they thought they would become too numerous. This misanthropic image of man is amplified through pure racism, as Bertrand Russell expressed it so unashamedly in The Prospects of Industrial Civilization:
“The white population of the world will soon cease to increase. The Asiatic races will be longer, and the negroes still longer, before their birth rate falls sufficiently to make their numbers stable without the help of war and pestilence…. Until that happens, the benefits aimed at by socialism can only be partially realized, and the less prolific races will have to defend themselves against the more prolific by methods which are disgusting even if they are necessary.”
It is precisely this racist ideology which was the justification for colonialism, the slave trade, the opium wars, and, to be honest, it is ultimately also the reason for the monumental indifference shown by large parts of the population in the West when they hear the news about the locust plague in Africa and in some Asian countries, which could have been eliminated two months ago for a cost of only $75 million.
And nothing has changed in the fundamental support for eugenics among representatives of the Empire. That was emphasized once again by a columnist of the Daily Telegraph in an article in early March by Jeremy Warner:
“Not to put too fine a point on it, from an entirely disinterested economic perspective, the COVID-19 might even prove mildly beneficial in the long term by disproportionately culling elderly dependents.”
It is these barbaric premises of the liberal dogma, although it is hardly fashionable to admit their existence in the so-called developed countries, that led Lyndon LaRouche many years ago to stipulate that the combination of the four economically and militarily most important countries in the world — the U.S.A., China, Russia, and India — was required to carry out the urgently needed reorganization of the world order. This reorganization, however, must begin with the explicit and definitive rejection of the image of man of this liberal dogma and its political implications. The British Empire in all its forms, but above all in its control over the financial system, must be ended.
These four nations — the United States, China, Russia, and India — urgently need to convene an emergency conference and adopt a new Bretton Woods system that realizes FDR’s full intention, by creating a credit system that guarantees once and for all the industrialization of the developing sector. It should begin with the implementation of a world health system that builds up a health system in every single nation on this planet. First of all with a crash program to fight the coronavirus pandemic, but then reaching very quickly the same standards that were set out in the Hill-Burton Act in the U.S.A. or as it was the health standard in Germany and France before the privatization in the 1970s. As Roosevelt put it in his speech on the State of the Union in 1941, in the famous declaration of the “Four Freedoms,” where he stated: “The third [freedom] is freedom from want — which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.” First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt made it her personal mission to ensure that these Four Freedoms were incorporated into the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In Lyndon LaRouche’s 1984 “Draft Memorandum of Agreement Between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.” that defined the principles and the basis of the Strategic Defense Initiative which he proposed, and which was declared the official policy of the United States by President Reagan on March 23, 1983, and which was repeatedly offered to the Soviet Union to cooperate on a comprehensive nuclear disarmament program. LaRouche defined the conviction that represents an absolutely crucial aspect of his life’s work and the mission of this organization. The first article of this paper, the principles of which also apply to the cooperation among the four nations and all others who choose to join this new partnership, states:
“The political foundation for durable peace must be: a) The unconditional sovereignty of each and all nation-states, and b) Cooperation among sovereign nation-states to the effect of promoting unlimited opportunities to participate in the benefits of technological progress, to the mutual benefit of each and all. The most crucial feature of present implementation of such a policy of durable peace is a profound change in the monetary, economic, and political relations between the dominant powers and those relatively subordinated nations often classed as ‘developing nations.’ Unless the inequities lingering in the aftermath of modem colonialism are progressively remedied, there can be no durable peace on this planet. Insofar as the United States and Soviet Union acknowledge the progress of the productive powers of labor throughout the planet to be in the vital strategic interests of each and both, the two powers are bound to that degree and in that way by a common interest. This is the kernel of the political and economic policies of practice indispensable to the fostering of durable peace between those two powers.”
In view of the escalating anti-China campaign, launched by British intelligence, which has people in President Trump’s entourage attempting to outdo each other almost hourly in their accusations against China, including Secretary of State Pompeo, [Director of Trade and Industrial Policy] Peter Navarro, [Senator] Lindsey Graham, and [Fox TV host] Tucker Carlson, while various demonstrations of a show of force by the U.S. and NATO forces appear to be limited only by the number of COVID-19 infections among some of their crews, the existential question is posed of how the world can get out of this dangerous escalation. Are we doomed to relive how the overtaking of the ruling power by the second most powerful leads to war, as has already happened twelve times in history?
The combination of the coronavirus pandemic, the world hunger crisis, the impending financial hyperinflationary blow-out, and the depression of the global real economy is so overwhelming that it should be clear to every thinking human being that mankind can only get out of this crisis if the economic potential of the United States and China — supported by the other industrialized countries — is jointly deployed and increased in order to create the capacities needed to ensure medical care, infrastructure, and industrial and food production. It is in the existential interest of every individual and every nation on this planet to work towards this goal. We have to create a worldwide chorus among all other nations and many millions of people to demand just that!
The conflict between the United States and China only exists if those forces in both parties in the U.S. prevail, that are in the tradition of H.G. Wells “Open Conspiracy,” with the idea that the U.S. accepts the model of the British Empire as the basis of an Anglo-American controlled unipolar order, they can run the world. This vision of HG Wells’ was carried on by William Yandell Elliott, the mentor of Kissinger, Brzezinski, Samuel Huntington, up to the neocons of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). If, on the other hand, the United States harks back to its true tradition of the Declaration of Independence against the British Empire and of the American System of economics of Alexander Hamilton, then there will be a great affinity with China’s economic model which contains many of the principles of Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich List, and Henry C Carey. In the same way, the father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen, was very much influenced by the American System.
At the urgent emergency summit of the U.S., China, Russia, and India, and at the then immediately necessary founding conference of the New Bretton Woods System, the heads of state can take up on the spirit of the original Bretton Woods conference, at which the head of the Chinese delegation, H.H. Kung, submitted Sun Yat-sen’s proposal for an “International Development Organization.” Kung, one of Sun Yat-sen’s brothers-in-law, said in his speech in Bretton Woods:
“China is looking forward to a period of great economic development and expansion after the war. This includes a program of large-scale industrialization, besides the development and modernization of agriculture. It is my firm conviction that an economically strong China is an indispensable condition to the maintenance of peace and the improvement to the well-being of the world. After the first World War, Dr. Sun Yat-sen proposed a plan for what he termed ‘the international development of China’. He emphasized the principle of cooperation with friendly nations and utilization of foreign capital for the development of China’s resources. Dr. Sun’s teaching constituted the basis of China’s national policy. America and others of the United Nations, I hope, will take an active part in aiding the postwar development of China.”
As I said, Roosevelt supported the internationalization of this development policy during the negotiations, and he considered the increase of a high standard of living worldwide as the key to global stability. And he saw the way to do so in the internationalization of the New Deal policy.
The four main nations of the world — the United States, China, Russia, and India — must now establish a New Bretton Woods system and together with all nations that wish to join, a new paradigm in international cooperation among nations that is guided by the common aims of mankind. The fourth of Lyndon LaRouche’s four laws defines the qualitatively higher economic platform, the higher level of reason, of the Coincidentia Oppositorum of Nicholas of Cusa, on which the contradictions of geopolitical confrontation will be overcome.
International cooperation among scientists who rely exclusively on verifiable universal physical principles must replace the primacy of politics based on ideology and interests. Research into the “life sciences,” a better understanding of what causes the characteristics of life and its origin in the universe, is the prerequisite for the fight against the coronavirus and all other potential virological, bacterial, and other disease processes. As part of the world health system, we need to build up collaborative medical research centers internationally, where the young scientists of all developing countries will also be trained. The profound experience of the coronavirus pandemic is that the provision of health care must be a common good, and not serve to maximize profits for private interests. The results of this research must therefore be immediately provided to all universities, hospitals, and medical personnel in all nations.
Another area in which international cooperation toward the common goals of mankind is indispensable, is the achievement of energy and raw material security, which will be possible with the mastery of thermonuclear nuclear fusion and the associated fusion torch process. The international ITER project at the Cadarache facility in the south of France, a tokamak nuclear fusion reactor and international research project already involving the cooperation of 34 countries, is a good start, but the funding of ITER and other models of nuclear fusion must be massively increased. One of LaRouche’s central discoveries is the interconnection between the energy flux density used in the production process and relative potential population density. The mastery of nuclear fusion is imperative, not only for the living population, but especially for manned space flight.
Space research itself is the one area that would be unthinkable without international cooperation and which, more than any other branch of science, demonstrates in a positive way what the pandemic demonstrates in a negatively: That we are actually the one species that is determined by its future, and whose long-term survivability will depend on our learning to better understand and master the laws of the universe — including the at least 2 trillion galaxies that the Hubble telescope has been able to verify. Defense against asteroids, meteors, and comets is only one among many important elements of this. For developing countries, unlimited participation in research projects is the best way — through scientific and technological “leapfrogging” — to create the preconditions for economies that are able to provide all citizens with a good and safe life.
Nicholas of Cusa already wrote back in the 15th century that all discoveries in science should immediately be made available to representatives of all countries, so as not to unnecessarily hold back the development of any one of them. He also found that concordance in the macrocosm is only possible when all microcosms develop in the best possible way. The New Paradigm that we need to shape for cooperation among nations, must start from the common interest of all mankind, towards the realization of which all nations and cultures, in counterpoint as it were, as in a fugue, are intertwined and rise dynamically to higher stages of anti-entropic development.
Are we, as human civilization, able at this late stage of events to avert the tsunami of pandemics, famine, financial crisis, depression, and the danger of a new world war? Then the world needs this summit of the four nations now! If such a summit were to announce all these changes — a New Bretton Woods system, the four great powers joining hands in building up a global development program in the form of a “New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge,” a world health system, an international crash program in fusion and related research, a massive upgrade in international space cooperation, and last but not least, a dialogue of the Classical traditions of all nations with the aim of sparking a new Renaissance of Classical cultures in a similar, but even more beautiful way than the great Italian Renaissance overcame the horrors of the Dark Age of the 14th century — then a new era of humanity can be born!
Is there a reasonable hope that we can overcome the current profound crisis of mankind? I would say, absolutely! We are the only creative species known so far in the universe, which has the ability to discover new principles of our universe again and again, which implies that there is an affinity between our creative mental processes to these physical laws.
One thought that elucidates this optimistic perspective concerns one aspect of space research; namely, the seemingly accelerated process of aging in conditions of weightlessness, and the change of this process in hyper-gravity. A better understanding of this “space gerontology” is obviously crucial for the future of manned space travel to Mars and in interstellar space, and it is expected that it will significantly increase the ability of humans to have a longer healthy life.
If you consider that Schubert only lived to be 31 years old, Mozart 35, Dante 36, Schiller 45, Shakespeare 52, and Beethoven only 56, then you have an idea of how much the geniuses of the future, with a life expectancy of 120 or 150 years, will be able to contribute to mankind’s development!
Therefore, join us in putting an end to the British Empire! And let’s create a truly human future for all of mankind! Thank you.
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SPEED: Thank you, Helga! Our next speaker is His Excellency, Mr. Dmitry Polyanskiy, the First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations.
HIS EXCELLENCY DMITRY POLYANSKIY: Thank you very much, distinguished colleagues. Thank you, Mrs. LaRouche for your very interesting presentation; there are a lot of things to process, and I’m sure we will do it. I am a diplomat as you know, and being a diplomat implies a little bit different way of speaking, so I can add to your presentation a couple of observations from a political and diplomatic perspective.
It’s absolutely sure that COVID-19 has created very serious problems for the whole of mankind. The most important of which is saving lives, ensuring our common security, bio-medical safety, and the preservation of human environments which should be comfortable and pose no threats to life and health. It has become absolutely clear that no state, no matter how powerful and wealthy it is, has all the tools to fight the pandemic. Everyone had to introduce drastic measures that can be potentially harmful to the national economy to contain the epidemic. We don’t know yet the scope of these consequences that most of the countries of the world will face; it is still to be calculated. So far, after almost half a year since we first heard about the coronavirus, no one has the vaccine, and no one has the efficient treatment proposals so far. We absolutely can win, but this is not the time of blaming and stigmatization. It’s the time of cooperation and supporting each other. It’s also not the time of contests — who did what, and who was more successful than others. It’s not a beauty contest. It is really time to help, to share experiences, and to listen to each other, and to find ways to work together to face this unprecedented challenge in modern times for the whole of mankind.
Russia is ready to face this challenge together with our partners. That is why, while taking all the necessary measures to combat the coronavirus at a national level, we also believe that is our duty to provide assistance to the others, to our partners. So, when we’re still at the very early stage of the spread of coronavirus, at the beginning of February, we donated items of personal protective equipment and medical supplies to China, which was very badly affected at this time. Teams of Russian doctors and virology experts were also sent to Italy and Serbia, who were in a more advanced stage of pandemic at that time.
Now my country is also struggling with very big forces combatting the pandemic. That’s why we now also welcome any assistance that can be rendered to my country, and we cooperate in this regard with many countries — with China, with European states, with the United States. As you know, early in April we delivered a plane load of humanitarian aid to New York, and we said this was done with open hearts, and we would accept any assistance we deem necessary at a later stage, which we already understood at this time we would inevitably face. That’s how cooperation is organized. Again, it’s not a beauty contest; it’s not a situation when somebody says we succeeded and somebody failed the exam. It’s not the time for this. It is the time to display readiness to render assistance and to give a helping hand. That is how all the responsible global actors should behave.
Now, when the situation in China started to stabilize, China is actually helping the whole of the world, including Russia, and we welcome very much this help. We think it’s normal. Recently, a number of African states addressed to Russia, asking for help in combatting the pandemic. We are considering these demands in Moscow, and I am absolutely sure that we will come to rescue it at a later stage when we will make a major breakthrough in our fight with the pandemic. That’s what we are doing right now. It’s also very important to point out that we are convinced that the response to this global threat should also be global. It would be a mistake to fragment and lump matters within our national borders.
We are absolutely convinced that the United Nations must play a pivotal role here. It is important that we all support the WHO [World Health Organization] as the main specialized UN agency and help it to coordinate global measures, and listen to its recommendations. These past months, the WHO has become the center of all information on the pandemic. I believe that anyone who studies the chronology of its actions, statements, and specific decisions, will be convinced that the WHO was efficient. Moreover, the fact that the WHO has played and continues to play a major role in countering the pandemic, is reflected in a recently adopted consensus resolution of the UN General Assembly, and the final declaration of the G20 extraordinary summit. It is also important not to forget about the declaration adopted by the G77 and China, that stresses the coordinating role of the World Health Organization in global efforts. We need to insure universal medical service coverage through this organization. Again, it’s time to be united and not to blame somebody, and not to stigmatize any country because of what it did or didn’t do. We should really support the WHO, we should make it a pillar of our efforts to combat the coronavirus now, and maybe at some later stage, because there are a lot of predictions that there might be repercussions of this pandemic earlier.
It is quite clear that the spread of the coronavirus has very badly impacted the economy. Again, I will repeat that it’s still very difficult to assess the damage and the consequences for economic development of the world and especially certain countries after the pandemic. Of course, the pandemic also very badly affected business, trade, investments, as well as currency exchange rates. We are still in the middle of it, so we can’t really start rectifying all this damage and finding workable solutions for this. You also can see that what is happening has increased demand for various products which have become in bigger demand than some countries could make them available. So, it’s also time for coordination. We believe that the G20 countries should play this role, and they should be in the driving seat of working out an economic agenda to help all of us establish a common framework for mutual economic responses to reload the world economy after these deep and profound shocks that were caused by the pandemic.
It is also, I will repeat it once again, it is also time for deep and frank solidarity, regardless of political agendas and preferences. We especially need to pay attention to developing countries, which face enormous challenges and should be assisted first and foremost.
I want to mention one more topic in this regard. It is also important that the media and social networks behave in a responsible way, because we are mostly speaking about the impact of the coronavirus on the health care system and economics. But it’s very difficult to assess the damage that is being done to the minds, to the perception of the users; those who are now in self-quarantine. They really are very hungry for any information that is available for them. That is why in this time it is especially important that mass media exercises restraint and a responsible approach, and does not spread fake news and information that has not been verified. The consequences of this can be really very profound. We attach a very big importance to this, and we try in Russia at the national level to combat all this fake news that is being circulated. We try counter them with information that is really proven to be good and to be reliable for the public.
It is also very important to assess, and this is maybe a question for philosophers. What will be the impact on human behavior? Will we be shaking hands again? Will we be giving each other hugs after the coronavirus is over? Or, will psychologically people try to avoid closer contact? Will they still keep social distancing even after the virus is over? Because this might change the way mankind behaves, and this might also very deep and serious implications for concrete individuals who are more vulnerable maybe and very eager to be embraced by the society, and for socialization. We need to think about this, and not to go into extremes in this regard; not to change the civilized behavior of mankind.
Another thing is also, we should avoid the situation where the world would totally go online, because now of course these online services have proved to be very useful, and they really are in big demand. This is normal; this is very good because it economizes a lot of resources. But it shouldn’t substitute human to human contact. I can tell you that in diplomacy, there are a lot of things that can be conducted only through personal contacts. There are a lot of confidential discussions that can’t proceed online. There are a lot of limits even now to sincere communication and discussion of topics, because we can’t so far meet personally, and we have to rely on this electronic means of communication. Again, we shouldn’t go to this extreme, because it’s very alluring to turn a lot of our activity online, and to organize a lot of meetings without physically looking at each other and feeling the emotions of each other. It’s very practical, but it’s very wrong. I think we also need to be aware of this trap which can await the world after the pandemic.
I will not speak any longer. I will be ready to take any questions for the time I am here. I would also at the end would like to say that the Chinese language — China was mentioned here already several times, and will be mentioned I’m sure many times more. The words “crisis” contains one character which is also “opportunity”; so it’s very wise that every crisis is also an opportunity, not only a challenge. So, we must come out even stronger out of this crisis, and we must work together and forget about certain things that seemed important to us because of some emotion or wrongly interpreted information. We need to see the end; we need to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We need to understand that only cooperation, coordination, and global response are what mankind needs right now. It’s not the time for falling out and quarreling, and for finger-pointing and blaming anybody. It’s time for helping; it’s time to be compassionate; it’s time to be generous. It’s time really to listen to each other, and to propose common, workable solutions to the world, which is in big need of these solutions. Thank you very much, and I wish a big success to your conference. Thank you.
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SPEED: Thank you very much, Mr. Polyanskiy. Our next presentation will be given by the Counsel General of the People’s Republic of China New York, Ambassador Huang Ping. But I have to say something about this. This is prerecorded because he is now in Boston for the purpose of meeting a plane arriving from China, which is delivering much-needed medical supplies for the people of Massachusetts. As some people know, that has now become a hotspot of coronavirus. It was requested that he and others be there to receive that plane. Elected officials from the United States will also be there. As I understand, young students from China who have been stranded in the United States will also be returning. So, we’re going to play that statement, and then we’re going to be going to questions. At that point Counsellor Zhou Guolin, head of the Science and Technology section of the consulate, will be standing in for the Ambassador. We’ll also be asking questions to Helga and to Mr. Polyanskiy.
AMBASSADOR HUANG PING: Mrs. LaRouche, President of the Schiller Institute, Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is my great pleasure to join this video conference hosted by Schiller Institute. We meet at a challenging time when the COVID-19 pandemic is ravaging the globe. Many families have suffered from this disease and lost their loved ones. Countless health care workers are fighting against the virus on the front line. At the outset, I want to express my deep condolences to all the families plagued by misfortune, and pay high tribute to those who are still holding posts at this extremely difficult time.
China was among the first countries hit hard by COVID-19. Under sudden attack of this unknown enemy, the Chinese government and the Chinese people have been undaunted and made a robust response. We have put the people’s well-being front and center since the outbreak began. We have acted upon the overall principle of shoring up confidence, strengthening unity, ensuring science-based control and treatment, and imposing targetted measures. We have mobilized the whole nation, set up collective control and treatment mechanisms, and acted with openness and transparency. What we fought was a people’s war against the virus. With hard efforts and great sacrifice, China emerged as one of the first countries to stem the outbreak. Domestic transmission has been largely stopped. Confirmed cases have declined to around one thousand, with dozens of daily increases that are mainly imported cases. Meanwhile, China has managed to restore its economy and society step by step to a normal order. Across the country, 98.6% of big industrial plants have resumed production, and 89.9% of employees on average are already back to work, a significant force to pull the world economy back on track.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China actively joined global efforts in combatting the disease in an open, transparent, and responsible manner. China timely updated the WHO, publicized the genome sequence of the virus, and shared our prevention and treatment experience without reservation. We have been offering assistance to the best of our ability, which has been widely recognized by the WHO and the international community. President Xi Jinping had phone calls with 29 leaders of countries and international organizations, and attended the Extraordinary G20 Leaders’ Summit on COVID-19. Premier Li Keqiang also talked on the phone with multiple foreign leaders, and attended the Special ASEAN+3 Summit on COVID-19. Between March 1 and April 10, China exported around 7.12 billion masks, 55.57 million pieces of protective suits, 3.59 million infrared thermometers, 20,100 ventilators, and 13.69 million goggles. As of April 12, we have dispatched 14 medical expert groups to 12 countries, and the Chinese medical experts had 83 video conferences with their counterparts from 153 countries to assist relevant countries in responding to the epidemic.
At the same time, we always care about the safety and health of overseas Chinese citizens. The whole diplomatic front has been mobilized and moved promptly to collect basic information of Chinese nationals abroad and their difficulties. We rallied them in a united campaign against the virus through mutual assistance. We helped them have access to local health providers and through remote diagnostics to those in China. We sent joint task forces to offer services and support. We put in place special consular protection mechanisms, and charted flights to bring home Chinese citizens who had been stranded abroad due to the outbreak. We find ways to solve problems for overseas students, and delivered health kits to every student in need. Recently, an important task of my consulate general was to assist under-aged Chinese students in our consular district to take ad hoc flights back to China. Although New York city is the epicenter, and there is a high risk of infection at the airport helping students get on board, many of my colleagues signed up the task without any hesitation.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the pandemic is still ravaging the globe, with more than 200 countries and regions affected, over 2.6 million people infected, and 190,000 died. It is likely to further spread in Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and other underdeveloped regions, causing more casualties. Countries that have been through the apex of the first outbreak must be vigilant about the second wave of outbreak. Even if we come out of the pandemic, we may face a domino effect: economic recession, social unrest, food crisis, refugee waves, and even international conflicts. Some people say that this is the biggest crisis facing human society since World War II. People around the world are in anxiety, and expect the international community to work out solutions together. As the two largest economies in the world, China and the United States are becoming the focus of global attention on whether they can lead countries to tide over this crisis.
As you know, the China-U.S. relationship is in an unprecedentedly difficult period. The United States sees China as a major strategic competitor, and is implementing a China policy of comprehensive containment and suppression through the “whole government strategy.” As a result, this relationship is increasingly facing the risk of derailment. Much needs to be overcome for the two countries to abandon differences and focus on cooperation. As the impact of this crisis on the world is rapidly fermenting, it is necessary to rethink our approach to growing China-U.S. relations, for the interests of not only the two countries, but the whole world at large. I would like to make three points for your consideration.
First, the epidemic highlights the interdependence between China and the United States. Neither side can survive the challenges without support of the other. In the 21st century, it is an unstoppable trend that different countries will be increasingly interconnected, thus having more common interests and challenges. The human society has indeed become a community with a shared future. In the face of global challenges such as infectious diseases, climate change, and terrorism, even great powers like China and the United States cannot manage by fighting alone. In his recent phone call with President Trump, President Xi stressed that the two countries should join efforts, strengthen cooperation in areas such as outbreak preparedness and response, and contribute to building a relationship based on non-conflict or confrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation. This points out the direction for the future development of our bilateral relations. Looking ahead, the two sides need to strengthen global governance cooperation in public health, economics, and finance, and establish joint prevention and control networks. We should collaborate in developing vaccines and drugs, better coordinate macro policies so as to counter the downward pressure on the world economy and maintain world stability and prosperity.
Second, the epidemic underscores the profound friendship between Chinese and American people, which serves as the mainstream of our relationship. As the virus takes toll in China and the U.S., our two peoples have chosen to mutually support each other instead of being indifferent across the Pacific. When China was in deep distress, people across various sectors of U.S. society lent a hand to us, for which we are always truly grateful. Now the U.S. has become the epicenter of the world, with more than 900,000 people diagnosed and more than 50,000 deaths. The Chinese people relate to the difficulties American people are going through, and we are willing to offer assistance to the best of our ability in return. According to incomplete statistics, China has provided the U.S. with over 2.46 billion masks, meaning 7 masks for each person in the U.S., plus nearly 5000 ventilators, 258 million gloves, 29.2 million surgical protective suits, and 3.13 million goggles. In the past few weeks, we have received numerous genuine [expressions of] appreciation from American people. I believe our two people’s friendship will become even stronger through the test of this battle. Our two governments must pay heed to the mainstream of our two peoples while growing this relationship. We cannot be caught by some extremists who keep sowing seeds of discord and decoupling between our two nations.
Third, the epidemic reveals the China-U.S. relationship is still facing complicated problems. In solving the problems and differences, we must stop appealing to the dark side of humanity and look to the bright side. Since the outbreak of this epidemic, especially after the situation in the U.S. got severe, we have noticed many negative voices about China in the United States. Some people accused China of concealing the outbreak, some even made up the story that the virus came from a Chinese lab and vowed to hold China accountable. Some people stigmatized China and discriminated against ethnic Chinese. I want to point out that there are some different views on the source of the virus in the international community. Virus tracing is a serious scientific issue and should be carefully assessed by professionals with scientific evidence. COVID-19 is a completely new virus, and its outbreak is unexpected. All nations need some time to understand the situation and respond to it. It is impossible for China to issue a warning to the world in the very early stage because of a small number of unknown cases. Some countries also initially mistook the COVID-19 for a common cold or pneumonia. Infectious diseases may break out in any country or any ethnic group. We must do our best to prevent discrimination against any country and group in this pandemic. American citizens may also encounter increasing discrimination abroad as the situation here gets worse. To blame and scapegoat other countries, to incite racial discrimination and xenophobia, will do no good in enabling the world to cope with the epidemic and its impact, nor will it help unite us in addressing other global challenges in the future. They will only bring chaos to the global governance, and cause more harm to peoples around the globe.
Ladies and Gentlemen, former U.S. president John F. Kennedy has realized very long ago that “When written in Chinese, the word CRISIS is composed of two characters — one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.” The COVID-19 crisis has indeed brought unprecedented challenges to the world, but it also offered unprecedented opportunities for countries to break new ground. I believe if we take a long-term perspective, remain courageous, cooperative, and innovative, we will be able to overwhelm the challenges, turn the crisis into opportunities, and unlock a better future for China and the United States, and for the human society. Thank you.
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SPEED: We’re now going to go to questions for approximately half an hour for all of our speakers up to this point. And I want to just say that if you have questions, you can send them to questions@schillerinstitute.org. I’m going to read the first question, which comes from New York City, it’s from a member of the Schiller Institute to the Russian representative, Mr. Polyanskiy. The question is: “Recently, Kremlin spokesman Peskov publicly discussed President Putin’s call for an urgent heads of state summit of the Permanent 5 members of the UN Security Council. He described President Putin’s call for what Peskov called ‘a truly visionary summit’. Given the great issues today of war and peace, the COVID-19 pandemic, and others, what format can be used in the very near term to hold such an urgent summit? Thank you.”
POLYANSKIY: Thank you very much for this question. This is a very important issue, and we are in the process of discussing it right now. The summit is on the agenda. As you know, there was a Russian proposal to hold a summit of the five member states. It was done before the pandemic, and of course, we have in mind its happening physically, not online. This is of course, a bit of a middle-term perspective. For the time being, there are a lot of ideas to organize a video summit of the five members states. We think that this will be a successful endeavor, but of course, we don’t need a summit for the sake of the summit. We need to breach our positions a little bit in order to make this summit possible to produce a certain impulse toward cooperation. That is why the agenda is now being very suddenly worked on. We are preparing documents, possible outcome documents of this summit. I’m sure that it will take place at a bit later stage, but we shouldn’t wait too late for it.
As I told you, diplomacy is mostly an art of communication, and of course communication should be perceived as physical communication first and foremost. You can’t do everything online; there are certain limitations to this. There are also certain challenges to online communication. This is not very favorable for sincere, open communication between the five members right now. But we are trying to do our best to substitute them with online means of communication. I am sure that in a very short period of time, you will hear some concrete ideas in this regard. Thank you.
SPEED: OK. Our next question, which will be directed in general to the panel, was from Ambassador Xolisa Mabhongo. He is the Deputy Permanent Representative of the South African UN Mission. He writes this question: “There is interest in several Africa countries either to introduce or expand nuclear energy. At the moment, South Africa possesses the only nuclear power plant on the continent, located in Koeberg, near Cape Town. Koeberg nuclear power plant has been operated safely for nearly three decades, and produces the cheapest electricity in South Africa. Although there has been a rapid development of renewable energy in recent years, coal remains by far the largest source of energy for the country. For South Africa and other African countries, nuclear power would supply a clean source of energy, enabling us to meet our domestic and international commitments to address climate change. It would also be an important source of base load electricity. For a country like South Africa, nuclear is the main alternative base load source of electricity to coal until realistic storage technologies for storing renewable energy are developed. The speakers on the panel may therefore wish to address the issue of a regulatory framework for nuclear power from their own experiences. Regulation, safety, and security would be the building blocks in the African continent as most countries would be getting into nuclear energy for the first time.” What I’ll ask if the Chinese representative has anything to say about this question, and then we’ll go to Helga, and then we’ll go to Mr. Poyanskiy.
ZHOU GUOLIN: This is a very big question by the ambassador of South Africa to the United Nations, but I think at this moment, new energy one of the most important sources for future energy to be developed. Notice in China we have already had a lot of development and efforts to make new energy available, like windmills and hydropower, like even tidal wave energy and a lot of others, also from plantations, as well.
At the same time nuclear energy is very important, also in China. After a few decades of development in China, nuclear energy development is very rapidly in China, also. South Africa is the same situation. I’ll just mention, there’s only one nuclear power plant in Africa, that is the only one in South Africa. To my opinion, that is to say, for nuclear energy the most important matter is the safety. Of course, we know it is a clean energy. I still remember that a short time ago, that Mme. Zepp-LaRouche just mentioned the ITER, the thermonuclear fusion reactor which is in Cadarache, France, which is also one of the very new ways to make fusion nuclear energy to be available in the future, maybe in a few decades of time.
We are just making as much energy as possible through different ways to make this new type of energy available in the future, because it is better than the traditional nuclear energy.
Anyway, in this regard, as the Science Counsellor in the General Consulate in New York, one of my opinions is that we need to strengthen cooperation between Africa and China, between the U.S. and China, between Russia and China, among all countries, we are kind of stakeholders: We need to get together to enhance, as our two distinguished guests just mentioned, only with cooperation internationally are we going to be successful in the future. So in terms of this, we think nuclear energy is probably one of the hopes for making more and efficient, and sufficient energy available in the future. Thank you.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Just briefly, I fully agree with Mr. Zhou, that international cooperation will be crucial: Africa will have the largest population in the world fairly soon, hopefully if this pandemic can be contained, and then, nuclear energy will be absolutely crucial. And I can only say, do not follow example of Germany! I think the exit from nuclear energy by the Chancellor Merkel was probably the biggest mistake of her government, and she made a couple of other ones. And I think even Europeans, who have been very anti-nuclear will come out of this crisis — this is my modest prediction — with the realization that you cannot have an industrial nation without nuclear energy. And in the meantime, until the Europeans get back to their senses, I think what you said Mr. Zhou is absolutely true: There must be an international cooperation among the pro-nuclear countries in the world, all helping Africa to access nuclear energy.
So, I think that hopefully, we can eventually overcome this absolute, irrational fear and demonization of nuclear energy, which is not grounded in science. Nuclear energy is an absolutely manageable technology, mankind can control nuclear energy, and all the cases which are always cited as the proof of the opposite, can really be refuted. So I think the way to go for the time being is to go for an international cooperation, as you said, Mr. Zhou.
SPEED: Mr. Polyanskiy?
POLYANSKIY: Thank you very much, Dennis, for this question. It’s really a big issue right now, what would be the future of energy in the world, and I don’t think there is a contradiction, or argument, between those who argue for development of nuclear energy, and for those who are speaking about increasing the share of solar and wind energy, the cleanest energies available.
The fact is the share of renewable energy, the real clean, renewable energy, I’m not speaking about biofuel in the world, is still very modest, and there are certain limitations to this, on the one hand. On the other hand, there is the demand of mankind for energy is growing and we, in Russia, think that nuclear energy is one of the best responses to this challenge. That’s why I absolutely agree with Helga LaRouche when she said that one should stop demonizing nuclear energy and citing the examples from the past.
As far as Russia is concerned, we have gone a long way since the emergence of the new Russia, and we have now very advanced technologies. We’re eager to help out many countries in the world to build their nuclear power plants, and we are absolutely convinced that these power plants are safe. And that’s why we think it would be a very good solution for the whole world to combine different sources of energy, not only nuclear, but also natural gas, which is quite a clean source of energy.
You know everything is relevant: Even some people say that the future is for electric cars, and they claim that this is cleanest energy technology available. They are, of course, right. But on the other hand if you want to charge a battery for an electric car, then of course, you will need a certain amount of conventional energy. And it can be produced by not very clean sources. Also, it’s a question of disposal of electric batteries, which can be very damaging for our planet.
So everything is very philosophical, and there are always two ends to every issue, to every question. And we think that international cooperation in the field nuclear energy should be developed, it shouldn’t be stigmatized, it shouldn’t be linked to any political calculations: It should be first and foremost based on the demands of humankind, and the possibility to provide clean and safe technology, to ensure the existence of nuclear energy. And as I told you, once again, Russia disposes such technology, and Russia is ready to help the whole of the world, including Africa, which is of course in big demand of energy, and this demand will be growing.
But, I would like to use this opportunity, also, to say goodbye to everybody and to thank everybody for the attention. I have another videoconference in a couple of minutes. That’s why I wish you very fruitful work and I wish you all the success, Helga, and to you, personally, I’m always very glad to communicate with you. Thank you, very much.
SPEED: Thank you.
The next question is from Earl Rasmussen, who is the Executive Vice President the Eurasia Center, and he is asking about the collaboration during the pandemic. He says: “Today we are faced with a global pandemic, which is challenging every country in the world. It seems to me that this is time to bring all together, set political divides aside, and work collaboratively to solve this present need. Yet, I see some countries with just the opposite occurring, where countries are hoarding needed supplies for themselves, trying to leverage conditions to continue foreign policy objectives, and create even more divisiveness. These actions only compound the situation and create an environment filled with mistrust, where what is called for is trust and a cooperative engagement. What steps can we take to improve international cooperation, to break down political barriers in order to not only solve today’s pressing needs, but those of the future as well?”
I’m going to ask that Helga you might take that, and then Mr. Zhou.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think addressed that in a way in my initial remarks, because I think we have to reach a point where the idea that each opinion is as good as the other has to go, because we would not be in this crisis if all these opinions would have been so great. And I want to refer to the great thinker Nikolaus of Cusa, who, in the 15th century said that in his view, the only reason why people from different nations and different cultures can even communicate with each other, is because they all have scientists, they all have musicians, they all have poets, and it is those poets, who, because they speak a common language, even if they speak, formally, a different language, they speak the language of science, of art, of great cultural ideas, that they can communicate with each other.
And I think in practice we have seen that in the international space cooperation, international scientific conferences, where scientists don’t have these kinds of problems which are artificially imposed by the politicians because they’re more interested in the subject, in the advance of science, in the beauty of collaborating in cultural projects — if you look at an orchestra, you normally find anywhere — be it in Asia, in the United States, or Europe, you find instrumentalists from all over the world.
So it is really that which unites people which is the common search for truth, the common truth-seeking in these areas. And therefore, I made in my initial presentation the proposal that one of the lessons to come out of this pandemic and the breakdown of the whole system, which we will see a hyperinflationary blowout, you know, just in parenthesis, if you look at the assets of the Federal Reserve which have almost tripled since the beginning of the year, and they’re supposed to double again in the next weeks! — we are in a hyperinflationary blowout — that’s just in parenthesis.
But, if we are to come out of this crisis, we have to take all the elements of the crisis together, and address all of them, because I don’t think a partial solution will solve any aspect of it. And how do you arrive at a scientific solution? You get the best scientific minds together, and let them define the policy: The artists, the scientists, the people who can communicate on profound ideas.
And I think politicians — you know, I think the image of the politician should also change. It should be more people who are either scientists or are really skilled people who know these principles, and the leaders of governments should be more like Plato’s philosopher king, and they should really try to be truth-seeking people, and then I think all the problems can be solved.
ZHOU: I think I’ve got three steps to deal with this pandemic. This pandemic, you know, this pandemic is from epidemic, so it’s become more and more serious; it’s all human beings in the world, in particular in New York as the epicenter, as the new epicenter in the world.
And to first establish, to make more awareness of the fact of this disease, for all the human beings across the whole world, make everybody understand the damages caused by this coronavirus, which is very terrible. It’s really takes lives, of all people, possibly. So this is the first thing, is to make people understand, you need to probably, for example, in public places, you need to wear masks, you probably need to wear gloves, you need to protect yourself; you need to protect others. So this is the first one, which is to make awareness of this coronavirus.
The second one is to share experiences. Because there are now more than 200 countries have been infected by this coronavirus, and a lot of countries have undergone a lot of experiences, like in China, because China was first hit by this very terrible coronavirus, in late January; in March it was very severe. So, we have already had a lot of experience in this case, we could share with other countries. Also in European countries, Italy, Spain, there were a lot of experience. And now in the United States, also. So we need to share the different experiences of all of these experiences for how to cope with this enemy, the human beings’ common enemy.
And the third one is we need to cooperate on research. You see, at this moment, because we don’t have a vaccine, yet; we don’t have very efficient drugs or medicines, yet. This is the most difficult period. If we have a vaccine, or a very good drug, then we will contain the coronavirus from spreading.
In this case, we need to clean our hands, and in all of the institutions involved, for example, the CDC in the U.S., the China CDC in China, and also other centers, other hospitals also, public housing institutions, we need to altogether to join hands: Only in this case will we make a concerted effort so we can cope with this harmful enemy.
These are the three steps: Awareness, sharing experiences, and joining hands for research work. Thank you.
SPEED: We’re going to be returning to questions in a little bit, and again, we want to thank everybody because there are a lot of questions coming, we want to encourage those. And you can bring those to questions@schillerinstitute.org .
We’re now going to return to a couple of people that we have yet to hear from and the first is Jacques Cheminade. Jacques is a longtime representatives of the LaRouche philosophical outlook in France. He is the president of Solidarité et Progrès. He’s a former French Presidential candidate, and he is a friend of the real America, not the fake America. So, Jacques are you with us?
A Europe Not To Be Ashamed Of
JACQUES CHEMINADE: I’m happy and honored to share with all of you, our challenge, “A Europe Not To Be Ashamed Of.”
I had a discussion, a few days ago, with Swiss author Jean Ziegler, about the emergency initiatives to be taken to build a new paradigm in international relations. He fully supports our objectives, being a historical advocate of justice, and sharing of food for all. In that context, we immediately agreed that Europe, as it is, is a desperate case, a lost cause, to be ashamed of. The hotspots in Turkey or in Libya, speak for themselves against us. Our mission is therefore, given the fact that European nations must play their part in this universal symphony — a harmonious tianxia, as the Chinese would say — our mission is to create instruments to be able to play the part of a Europe, a Europe not to be ashamed of.
I am going to start, briefly because it does not deserve much time, talking about what the European Union is presently doing or mostly not doing. It behaves like a leaderless group, a leaderless group of oligarchical waste, to be frank. The recent European Councils prove, despite the absence of the United Kingdom, that the same spirit of divide and rule, and the same spirit of submission to the dictatorship of money, prevail. To get out of this despicable and self-destructive mess, we need to evoke within ourselves the best of our cultural and economic traditions, for the advantage of every European nation and for all the other nations of the whole world. Is that utopian idealism? No, just the reverse. Because it is the selfish ideology shared, until now in the recent years, by all, the realistic and pragmatic ideology, that destroyed our common immune system, our public health, and our financial immune system. The result is that, confronted by the pandemic, we had none or not enough masks, tests, respirators, and we were unable to forecast something that our leaders claimed was unpredictable.
All those leaders failed, like Hamlets, not individually as such, but because their adaptation to the individualistic, selfish monetary greed of our society led their impotence to become criminal by negligence. To govern is to predict, and not to predict leads to one’s loss. Leonardo Da Vinci adds ironically that “not to predict is already to moan.” So let’s briefly see what the European Union and the European states have done or not done. To say it with one example, they have imposed “just in time” — flux tendu as they say it in French — just-in-time short- term financial rules to our hospitals, ruining their capacity to react properly. In reality, it is states that should rather function as good public hospitals, devoted to collective responsibility, truthfulness, and care for all, providing not figures and statistics as such, evaluated in monetary units, but ideas and initiatives to be simply more human.
So the first thing that Christine Lagarde, the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), the true armed branch of the European Union, what Christine Largarde had to say was: “Debt cancellation is inconceivable, maybe it will take dozens of years to pay, but it must be paid back.” Then, as the United States and the United Kingdom are doing, the European Union and the European states are throwing around billions and billions of euros, in part to save producers and assist consumers through more debt during this pandemic, but most of it is to infuse more addictive money into the financial circuits of the oligarchy. To make it simple: they are distributing electronic impulses called money, mostly to avoid a bankruptcy of their whole system. This is no more a so-called market economy, but a market economy without a market, where all the gamblers continue to gamble with tokens and marbles distributed by the central banks, which is the ECB in Europe.
Let’s be precise: The ECB used to be compelled by its own rules to repurchase securities from the banks, but only of a certain rating. It meant state bonds or triple A or A first-quality bonds. Now it decided, on its own, to repurchase high-yield debts, junk bonds of lost causes. So with fake electronic money, the ECB saves everybody, in a similar way as the American Federal Reserve! Beyond that, on April 9, the European Union finance ministers decided to create a facility package of EU540 billion — EU240 billions from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), EU200 billions from the European Investment Bank and EU100 billions from the European Commission. But most of it is borrowed, so-called leveraged money, borrowed on the markets! That money mostly goes back into the financial circuit, lending the borrowed money, the ECB is then a sort of go-between lender of last resort for the benefit of the scammers! The European states, on their side, organized massive, national aid packages: EU410 billion for France, EU1,100 billion for Germany, EU475 billion for the United Kingdom, comparable to $2,200 billion of the United States. Most of it is based on what? On new loans and deferral of charges, accumulating more debt without creating the means to reimburse it!
To make it understandable beyond the obtuse technicalities: The pandemic has only been a revealer of a financial hoax, based on an insane system of indebtedness, and a trigger for the crash but not the real cause! It is because of the financial situation preceding the pandemic that nothing was done to prevent it! “Logically, it did not pay” in the short term, to do something. Then when the pandemic occurred, there were no masks, no ventilators, no tests, and the only possible solution to deal with it was the confinement, the lockdown of the population. It had to be done, and it was done, but in an improper way, without any real cooperation among European nations, which as a consequence blocked the economy. And the solution has been to issue more fake electronic money, to counterbalance the halt of the economy, and prevent any bankruptcy, mainly, again, for the benefit of the scammers! More debt to save an over-indebted system, and most of it to save the initiated sharks! Then, suddenly, a Wall Street recovery occurred, through management of the bubble of all bubbles, without any chance, however, to have a real physical economic recovery within such a fake system.
Still, in Europe, the worst is to come: Because there is not enough money to keep the system going, the European Commission plans to either borrow EU1,000 billion on the markets or to take the European Community budget as a guarantee to print EU1,500 billions of so-called “perpetual debt,” based only on the payment of interests financed by an ecological tax, the capital being never reimbursed. Truly, we are aboard, what was called in the Middle Ages, the “ship of fools,” with arrogant captains pretending to give orders among icebergs, and bankers repeating frantically, as the Governor of the Banque de France François Villeroy de Galhau, repeating “You will have to repay this money! You will have to repay this money!” Of course, not the gamblers of British vintage and their associates, but all of us, producers and consumers together.
So, let’s get out of this mess! This European Union and the heads of its member states are an oligarchical waste. Let’s rebuild with the spirit that prevailed during the 30 Glorious Years of the European reconstruction after World War II, to do better — to do better, as Helga Zepp-LaRouche said, as it is needed to meet the challenge.
The starting point is that the best antidote against any pandemic is international cooperation. All the speakers have said it. This means human solidarity to build a win-win system, as the Chinese President has defined it in many, many of his speeches. The European Union, and more generally, the states of the west side of our hemisphere, unfortunately, follow in an opposite direction. Proof of it, is the disgusting fight among states to buy the masks that each of them lacked because of their selfish policies. And also, the individual incapacity to understand, when one of such masks is available, why it is necessary to put it on, not for one’s own individual protection, but to protect the others from our exhalations. These two occurrences show that the concept of the advantage of the other, which was the foundation for peace among nations in the Treaties of Westphalia, which correspond to the Confucian principle that what you do for others is what brings you on the way towards the Ren, this founding concept of civilization, both in the East and the West, has been somehow lost in our Europe of the 21st century. Our mission is, therefore, not only to do for the other all the good that we wish he could do for us, but to create the best conditions for her or him to create the good for all. It is notable, in that context, that China, Russia, and Cuba were the nations which came to help Italy, while in France and Germany, and all the more in the United States, many selfish voices denounced that as a propaganda operation, even though their own countries had done very, very little.
Second, comes the implacable commitment to tell the truth, which is symbiotic with the advantage of the other. Our official Europeans have become liars, it should be said. In France or in the United States, because we had not been able to produce or buy enough masks, they first claimed that they were not necessary. The spokeswoman of the French government even claimed that they were too difficult for us laymen to wear, “too difficult to put on, even for me,” she said. This type of lie is not to be blamed as a typical characteristic of this pushy woman, but is a result of a financial world where lying is thought to be a clever move to win, at the expense of all the other; lying has become, in that sense, a perverse art.
Third, if you look at the world, and at others right in the eye, inspired by a commitment to truth and to common good, you can anticipate what would happen, as opposed to what all our Western leaders are saying about the coronavirus. In fact, it’s even worse: they claim that it was impossible to anticipate something unexpected, while they accuse the Chinese government not to have anticipated the importance of what they themselves have missed! Even worse, there is a campaign, as was said before, to scapegoat China and blame her, and even sue her, to pay heavy damages!
To anticipate, is to measure the consequences of what you do or fail to do, and that is what is truly called to govern. If you measure those consequences, and therefore your own responsibility, you can forecast a phase change. Not by deducing, inducing or extrapolating from what exists, but by measuring effects of acts on the future. This is what the Pastorian epidemiologists — the various doctors who worked with Pasteur — and virologists called “sentinel medicine,” a medicine related to the space-time of the sick, which looks with the eyes of the future, to the relation between their physical environment and their sickness, always expecting change, and surprises, and taking them into consideration in order to progress. If instead, you drop human priorities in favor of linear statistics of financial profit, you are doomed to commit political crimes.
Commitment to the advantage to the other, truthfulness and anticipation is what is required: Then what they call “black swans” today, can be expected consequences of disastrous decisions for humanity. This is why Lyndon LaRouche, fully committed to the destiny of humanity, was able to predict the disastrous consequences of the August 15, 1975 decoupling of the dollar and gold, ushering in an era of financial and moral deregulation — financial and moral deregulation, together — which would lead, if nothing was done to change the directionality of the society, which would lead such societies to global pandemics. He wrote various warnings on this issue, that other speakers will talk about, but such warnings were not taken into consideration, out of financial greed, out of the failure of our societies.
Then came the Washington Consensus, an agreement of the Western powers to compel the not-yet-developed states to reimburse their debts at the expense of all their infrastructure projects in public heath, education and transportation, a debt much higher than the lent money because of the piling up of compound interest. It is through such a process that these not-yet-developed countries became “underdeveloped,” as they were called. This criminal behavior has led to the present situation and demands an immediate intervention from us in the West, together with China and Russia, to launch a top-down program of a global anti-pandemic mobilization. This is what Mauro Ferrari, president of the European Research Council of the European Union, tried to do, to enforce a scientific program to fight the virus, but he had to resign on April 8, in the middle of the pandemic, because his program was not even examined by the European authorities. We have ourselves, from the Schiller Institute, proposed our LaRouche’s “Apollo mission” to defeat the global pandemic because heads of state pretend to be mobilized, as if in a war, but are unable or unwilling to lay out strategies, propose mobilizations or think differently. The truth, is that they are prisoners of at least four viruses which inspire their anti-human policies or paralyze their possible intentions to fight, they are either paralyzed or anti-human.
The four viruses, which altogether represent the viruses of empires founded upon slavery or serfdom through debt, are the financial virus, the Malthusian virus, the geopolitical virus, and the bureaucratic virus. Any form of international cooperation for the common good demands the eradication of such viruses, which in our European history have spoken different languages and accents, but who are today definitely British, the British Empire, as Helga Zepp-LaRouche explained before.
The financial virus should be obvious for most of us. There are no dark forces dooming us in some dark places; we are being robbed as the British Empire always did and does, throughout a world where the Sun never sets. It is based on the management of an odious and illegitimate debt, never based on useful programs to create platforms of development, but on the endless possession of financial assets. Such a system is unable to promote the discovery of new physical principles generating, when developed as technologies, an increase in the potential relative population density. The relation between that potential relative population-density, and energy flux-density was the fundamental discovery of Lyndon LaRouche. Today’s Europe is unable to provide the means to sustain at the present level even its own population: The needs to sustain its present density are above the potential necessary to improve its future density. so therefore, this is how LaRouche established scientifically that the West is, within its present way of functioning, doomed: The ECB or the American Federal Reserve may produce trillions of fake money, but never masks, ventilators, steel, bridges, airplanes, machine tools in general — they are unable to issue credit for a better future, because their eyes are fixed on what I would call the sterile nostrils of the past, not on the minds of those who in the past created the conditions for our future.
The second virus is Malthusianism, the social expression of the financial virus. It stands on the so-called “fact” that the world is composed of limited resources, and that production growing in an arithmetical proportion while the population increases in an exponential, geometric way, and this can only lead to total depletion of resources. Like what? Right, like a virus or as a cancerous metastasis, which is exactly what the Club of Rome had to say about us human beings. I confronted Aurelio Peccei, the president of the Club of Rome, on this issue. And Helga confronted other members of this Malthusian crowd. Therefore, humans have to reduce their consumption and their reproduction, also, to adapt themselves to limited resources. Could this be true? Yes, if the world was defined as a relatively fixed whole, producing limited resources — well, yes, this is the world of the financial oligarchy! It means an entropic universe, ruled by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is true in a closed environment; socially, again, its environment defined by the rule of the financial oligarchy!
But the real universe as a whole is different: It is in continuous expansion and does not obey the Second Law of Thermodynamics, only valid in a locked-down system. The human being is in agreement with that law of development of the universe, being human because of his creative capacity: He elevates to the level of new resources what was waste at a relatively inferior stage of development. The very founding of science is this capacity beyond induction, deduction, and the Aristotelian principle of non-contradiction. This capacity to find solutions to existing problems, as Einstein said, with a mode of thinking of a higher form than that which has generated those existing problems. True, genuine science is anti-entropic. Europe, in that sense, has become a problem in itself: The European Union is an entropic box full of bureaucrats. It is laughable, yes, but its consequences are not: All Malthusianisms, whatever form they take — and the British Empire is a clear proof of that — lead to racism, crime and self-destruction.
The third virus is the geopolitical virus, the one-world expression of the financial and Malthusian viruses. It is the policy of the City of London and Wall Street, the British Empire, as it w as said, heir of Venice and Amsterdam. For those present-day neo-conservatives, on both sides of the Atlantic, the political universe is a battlefield where enemies are doomed to fight, the winner grabbing all the power and all the money at the expense of the losers, whatever the cost of the battle, in terms of destruction or deaths of human beings. So-called Global Britain, in terms of the Henry Jackson Society: financial globalization, Malthusianism and geopolitics, with always the same ideology and criminal way of behaving, even if it has today Five Eyes, instead of just one and a monocle. Such a world, unable to generate more human power, inescapably leads to war to grab more of the limited resources.
The last form it takes is the bureaucratic virus. It is the typical virus of the European Union, the virus of the servants, the virus of a voluntary bondage. It is an order based on a finished world, like the world of the present viruses, always submitted to an outside power and opposed by its very nature, to the inclusion and development of any creative idea. Fearful, and through its fear, the servant of the other three viruses, fearful, like all administrative systems. All administrative systems are like that, if it is not directed by a strong political will, they become addicted to that evil proclivity to bend. It is the very nature of the European Union, subjected to an outside federator, as de Gaulle once said, the rule of the Anglo-American form of the British Empire, with a euro junior partner of an international dollar, not the currency of the American nation, but that of the world markets, of the men who rob the world, as accurately described by one Nicholas Shaxson.
Against that destructive universe, Professor Didier Raoult, of now hydroxychloroquine fame, has something very interesting to say. In an interview with Le Monde, given at the end of March, he said the following: “I think that it is about time that doctors return to their position, together with the philosophers and the persons that share a human and religious inspiration, at the level of moral reflection, even if some prefer to call it ethics, and that we need to get rid of mathematicians, which are but meteorologists in this domain.” This is as valid for choices of public health measures as for the definition of international cooperation among nations. Statistics and mathematics maybe define a useful realm of already-created entities, but could never generate something new, breaking with the rules of the game for humanity, either new physical principles, discoveries of principle, or forms of better social solidarity. To pick up mathematics and administrative rules as ways to make the main decisions in times like ours is therefore a crime against creativity. The European Union and the way our states are organized, as entities obeying neither human solidarity nor creative powers, make of us the victims of the viruses that I mentioned before, the deadly viruses.
That is why I am speaking to you today: To call for a Renaissance of Europe in a true concert of nations. Think about it one moment: Let’s evoke among us now Cervantes and Goya, Erasmus and Comenius, Rembrandt and Leonardo, Rabelais and Dante, Schiller and Leibniz, and so many others, first of all Beethoven on his year, this year. We need them to inspire a true Europe, looking as far as China and America, a true Europe to be a bridge and not a dead-end on the way to the graveyard. We need a new, young, more dedicated and more human leadership, who in turn needs our knowledge. Let’s think above us and act together to save from the coming hunger, death and locusts, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, Chad, Zimbabwe: Let’s be again patriots and world citizens, with a renewed passion for our nations to bring the better of them to the advantage of the others, for a win-win project of civilization, a World Land-Bridge, as it has been our policy defined by Lyndon LaRouche and Helga Zepp-LaRouche, a World Land-Bridge from the Atlantic to the Sea of China, eastward and to the Americas westward.
I hear from my balcony people joining hands and clapping to express their solidarity with our caregivers. The caregiving of our nations are the Four Laws of Lyndon LaRouche. Many of us are going to tell later about those laws to promote and nurture human creativity against all abuses. Not as a code or a formula to repeat, but as a power coming to challenge us from the realm of human thinking, from the noösphere.
We owe to our people in the hospitals, to our farmers, to our industrial workers, to our aged and often abandoned fellows, to the potential of the handicapped and the working poor, to our neighbors of all continents, also to our Yellow Vests, to make of these Four Laws the principled ways leading to our future, shaping a Europe no more to be ashamed of. Let’s find together the vaccines against our four viruses, to accomplish great things, let’s be truly unlocked and unblocked very soon.
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SPEED: I want to thank Jacques Cheminade for his remarks, and particularly his reminding us that this is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven.
The next speaker is Mr. Michele Geraci. He’s an economist from Italy, he was also the former undersecretary to the Development Ministry in Rome, played a critical role in the East-West dialogue with China, a tradition that goes back in Italy to at least the 13th century. We’re very happy to have him with us from Italy.
MICHELE GERACI: Thank you very much. I’m very happy to be here. I will give a quick thought on some of the hot topics for the next 15 minutes more or less. I would like to draw from some of my experience that you just mentioned as part of the Italian cabinet until recently, and also in my capacity as one of the main enthusiasts about Italy joining the Belt and Road Initiative with China, that followed my ten years spent in China.
What I’ve seen in my year at the Italian government is that we have been facing a deep crisis. We have a big dilemma that has halted progress in our society, and the dilemma is between competent and representative nests in the members of the cabinet. The assumption has been, up to today, that politicians who obviously had consensus of the people take the role of politicians and then make decisions based on the analysis, the input from the people who work within the ministries, the directors and so on. And, this model does not require a politician to be particularly knowledgeable about a specific subject.
Now, in the past, we used to have more stability in government, so the politician actually would continue to be in ministries for a number of years, during which they could, little by little, acquire some expertise in their own field. However, we have seen in the last five years, the government changing every year, every year and a half. Take my example, 15 months in the government. Now, that period of time is obviously not enough to allow a politician to gain relative competences and skills, because of the high frequency change. So they need to rely on the directors, the employees, the civil servants. However, they face another problem, the opposite: They’ve been there for many years, 10 years, 15 years, no incentives, no promotion, no bonus, no rewards; they cannot go higher too much, they cannot go down, they cannot be fired. So they themselves have very little incentive to efficiency and productivity. And, again, this worked well in the past, because changes, external variables were not as frequent and as intense as they are now.
So, if I look at how government were run 10, 15, 20 years ago, well, a politician would stay there a long time; the civil servant with not too much impulse, at least if they knew what was enough, they would pass it on to the politicians, they would have time to learn, and the system pretty much would work.
Now, the speed of changes of external variables don’t allow people to learn in time, within the timeframe of their mundanes. And this creates a very serious lack of competence among both the politicians and the civil servants layers. And obviously, the political decision-making process of policymakers, they have nothing to hang on, they have no data, no analysis on which they can make decisions, and therefore, we have entered what I would call a world of randomization of the political decision-making progress.
So the question that we have asked is, should the politicians be experts? And how do we move the line between what [inaudible 53:30] they should represent the people no matter what their background is, they can be well-educated or not educated at all, but as long as they have votes, they should be ministers? How do we come up with a solution to this dilemma, with the fact that we need experts, and we don’t have them in needed political or civil servants’ layer — and I’m talking in general. Of course, there are very good people, at both levels, but in general, this is the problem that we are witnessing.
Now, when we don’t have enough knowledge, you base your decision on feelings, on old stories, on what you were told, but you read and have time to process and think through about. And so, you tend to make not just decisions, but also statements that have a disconnect with reality.
And now, I bring the example of growing anti-China sentiment that we have seen, even in the Italian public debate in European and in the Western public debate. There are many reasons for that, and I don’t want to elaborate, because they’re very well known. The one that I want to bring to your attention, was this mismatch of knowledge and time to learn that does not allow people to learn. And this was in a way, also one of the main goals why I pushed so much on Italy joining the MOU [movement of understanding] on the Belt and Road: Because regardless of the economic benefit to join this infrastructure project, at least we succeeded in having the Italian general public discuss about China, like it had never done before. For the last 12 months, the media, the politicians, have brought China back at the center of their discussions.
Now, 90% of what I hear is completely wrong, but we do step by step. At least we are discussing China, we’re discussing the Belt and Road, we are discussing the effect of these global changes, artificial intelligence, technological development, climate change that people — trust me, they were, yes, formerly disgusted, even at the government level, but really not well-addressed for their intrinsic nature. So this anti-China sentiment that I see, on the one hand, I am worried, because I see it increasing, and everyone writes on the previous statements by other people, without thinking too much. On the other hand, I’m going to be optimistic, and because it’s based on a lack of knowledge, I do hope the way the knowledge increases, and people have the time to learn, study and maybe take part in events, such as this one today, they will reverse back in their criticism and at least form an opinion based on fact and analysis. And this is really what we have been trying to bring to the Western-, Italian-, European Union-level discussion table. Analysis, fact, data, not just concept based on old stories they naturally get wrong.
Now, I want to bring the example of the virus: I heard about “black swan.” I compare it more to a “gray rhino,” an animal that is there, visible, but people ignore it. They either pretend not to see it, or they cannot see it, but it’s an event that was there, and this was what really happened in Italy. When we first knew about the Wuhan situation in mid-January, toward the end of the month, we in Italy had all the time to plan, both the lockdown, the economic measures, the financial measures, how to discuss with the European Union, with the Central Bank, with the European Commission — we are now, at the end of April, three months later, still discussing what to do, what measures to take, whether to use app for contact tracing or not — three months later! And while this was a “black swan” in November, in December, maybe for China, which may not have expected such an outcome, for us in Europe, it was a “gray rhino”: We had the luck to look into the future, just by looking at what was happening in China, in Korea!
But we didn’t. The “gray rhino” is sitting there, people turning their heads away, not wanting to see it. Why? Because of this idea that I see ingrained in many of my colleagues, that is, basically this: Whatever China does is wrong. There is possibly nothing that we can learn from China, when we do benchmarking exercises, we probably should not even look at China, we should not even ask, let alone, the questions.
And this is really one of the most serious problems that we are facing in our society. Because that is mixed with the psychological problem to say, that the problem that we have in our own countries is mostly because of our own mistakes. But, as in story-telling, we need to find external reasons, we need to create a monster, which is not us, but someone else, so we can fight it, we can blame it, we can fight it, and then we can be the hero to solve the problem.
Of course, this is all imaginary. And this does not solve the situation. It may create some popular support, because people will believe the story; a large majority of the people would be inclined to believe the monster/hero story, and this increases consensus for politicians, increases misunderstanding in the population, and completely gives our countries like the final stripe in making it able to actually respond to the core root of the problem. So, it’s almost as if we live in a disillusion novel.
This is what we have seen in these few months. The thing that really makes us different, and I again compare our Western values with the Chinese values, and the thing that really makes us difficult to accept, maybe sometimes objectively, is that we live in a society where the individual, of course, comes first, where the dream is an individual dream, the American Dream is an individual dream, it’s the dream of a person. In China, it’s a collective dream, it’s the dream of the society as a whole of the country. And yes, there is of course, an element of the individual, and people of course take advantage of it, but the general trend, that the big difference that I have noticed is this collected versus individual dream.
So, we do not only find it difficult to accept learning from this model which is very different from ours, a model that we fear could invade as in Europe. But, really, we have seen very little evidence of China really wanting to export their social, economic and political model to Europe. Of course, they know it would never work.
But this puts us in a crisis, because now, we are asking ourselves, does free trade work, or not work? Does printing money work, or not work? Does the European Union work or not work? So far, I’ve seen, for example, the European Union being good at solving problems created by the very existence of the European Union itself: So it’s a meta-solution to a problem. There is no marginal value that is immediately visible, including solving maybe the action of Mario Draghi, during the eurozone crisis. Yes, he has stopped the crisis, but the crisis was there, because we had a common currency; other countries with individual currencies did not need a European Union solution: they solved it according to their own means, and pretty much everyone did relatively well.
So, the thing that really, may I say, “bugs” us most in Europe is this philosophical conflict about the “model,” the “democracy” or not, the collective versus individual, is that we are maybe starting to realize that the average Chinese person does not care very much what we want to sell them in terms of a model. I have seen, with some exceptions of course, generally very happy. They put value in other values. They attach value to other things, not the things that we do. And this is something that we really — and this is my personal effort, when I was in the government, and now, while I’m back in academe, to try to tell our people that not everyone shares entirely the value — and certain values may be universal, yes, but they get cascaded down to the individual in different extents, in different layers.
I conclude by repeating what Helga said before: We probably need a Renaissance. We need to look back 400, 500, 600 years and it is from here that really, our Europe society can reemerge. This is something that I’ve argued for, now for a number of years and I’m very happy to hear it again, today. This is both a cultural challenge, but it’s also a cultural asset that we have, and we must use. And it is also one of the potential responses to the challenges of artificial intelligence, that may wipe out many of the jobs of many of the tasks; but perhaps it would find it hard to attack these soft-skills, the arts, and creativity.
The Belt and Road, I hope it is something that could help bring two worlds closer to each other, increasing reciprocal knowledge and understanding, and when the knowledge increases, the perceptional risk decreases; and just like in financial investment people, are more willing to take steps, to get closer, and maybe to do more business together, more exchanges, and they would look more at the opportunity and not at the threat.
I’ll stop here, and leave it for Q&A. Thank you, very much.
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SPEED: Thank you very much, Mr. Geraci. We’re going to go right to the questions & answers now. And I think what I want to do, just for a moment, given the format and the multiplicity of the participants, I want to ask Helga if there’s anything that you would like to say at this point, before I begin with the questions. We do have many, but I just wanted to know if you had any reactions that you wanted to convey at this point?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: No, but I would like to ask Mr. Geraci a question myself.
Given the fact that you have been living in China for 10 years, I think it would be very useful for our international audience if you would just give us some of your personal experience. Because, you know, my experience with the Chinese people is that they’re really very benevolent. I find them almost naïve in their outlook, in their openness. And I think the Western people have a completely different mindset, and therefore they expect many times things which I find they’re projecting on Chinese, or what they claim Chinese intentions are. But, maybe you can give us your view on this matter. Because I think, if we want to get out of this crisis as a civilization, I think to develop trust, and to develop a new way of getting rid of prejudices and getting rid of wrong ideas which are based on ignorance, is one of the most important ingredients. So, if you could just tell us what your findings are about your 10 years in China?
GERACI: Thank you. Thank you, a very interesting question.
I’ve seen widespread people very nice, very welcoming. I have had luck, almost like anyone who has ever lived in China for a decade, to see a transformation that for us, a columnist to analyst, is like a dream to see it under our own eyes, what a country can do; and by doing this analysis, we also had the luck to meet the people! So I was lucky enough to talk to, of course, the Premier and the President, but also any farmer. I took the initiative to make a documentary myself in the rural area. So I really tried to learn about China, both on a geographic and on a society layer, trying to cut to the cross, and I’ve seen a widespread sense of welcoming, curiosity, and I have been very much welcomed in all my jobs, I traveled around, I’ve been helped when I was in difficulties. And this I think is the essence of China, and to some extent, of many Asian countries.
Now, the question would be, why is like you said, that some people may have a different perception? And I think this is due to what I would call, a bias sample. People, for example in Italy, have a perception of China from what they have seen since 1982, when the first people from Wenzhou moved to Italy, and of course, there was a competition in the textile industry, which has, in the eyes of some Italians, destroyed our own industries, or our competition. We continued to have the rhetoric that China, and the value of the renminbi, they do subsidies to the companies and so we suffer from unfair competition by China. And so this animated a people to people feeling.
So people transcend this concept, which is macro-label between government to people-to-people, and that, unfortunately brings some antagonism towards individuals, to the point that during — this was at the end of January in Italy: We started to have a little bit of maybe racist or anti-Chinese sentiment, and I myself, I took the initiative to go around in Milan, in Rome, in the areas where most of the Chinese people were living, and being seen in the restaurants, shaking hands with them, to exactly give the idea that the virus does not have a passport.
Anger, if I may, I even predicted that we should be most worried not about the Chinese who travel from Wuhan to Milan, which obviously was a concern, but mostly my worry was from people from Northeast, not to Italy, from Milan — Italians, who would travel to China, and come back to Italy. Because I had seen the Chinese attach a lot of importance to this virus and I’ve seen the reaction to their behavior, and in a way, almost the safest members of the commune, because they knew how to do it; the Italians underestimated the risk, not because of their own fault, because of the reason I said before. And so, it was probably due to some of them that the virus arrived “en masse” as we have seen in Milan and Veneto — also because those are two regions that trade a lot with China. So, where goods travel, also people travel.
Now, I think the niceness of Chinese people may also be related to the level of income. So this is a process that maybe we’ve seen throughout societies. Poor people maybe things would be nicer, people in the middle who have a higher perception of themselves that the reality tend to be a bit nastier; and then you need to go really higher, higher, people who are extremely successful who don’t need to impose their own personality. So, at the moment, because the Chinese population is still made largely by very, very low-income people, I would say, that yes, the large majority of Chinese people are very nice, and the invitation to people who listen to us, is do not extrapolate what you see in this environment, because you also have not nice guys in Italy, in France, in Germany, in China — everywhere. If you do business, you are representative of a subsegment. The population is a different thing.
My invitation is go, travel, and get lost in the countryside of China, to see and meet what the real China is.
SPEED: Yeah, OK! That’s a favored method of travel for many of us, particularly in your country, Mr. Geraci.
GERACI: Please do, in a couple of weeks when things get better. We will welcome you.
SPEED: We’re going to go to our first question, which is from His Excellency Ambassador Cheikh Niang. He is the Permanent Representative of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Senegal to the United Nations. Here’s his question: “Within the new international relations paradigm that you are advocating, how do you think we can effectively reform the current global governance framework, in a way that will allow the fullest participation of the Global South, both in addressing political challenges, more common in that part of the world, and in correcting the yawning economic imbalances between the developed countries and the developing ones? And how do you envision to get around the unavoidable hurdles to arrive at such a reform?”
I’ll go to you first, Helga, and then to Jacques, if he has a response, and then back to Mr. Geraci.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think the combination of the crises which is becoming — in the beginning, you know, people played it down, “it’s just a common flu,” or very few people knew what a pandemic is, that a pandemic is something which is a global phenomenon, and it has specific characteristics, in terms of how you contain it. And given the fact that the coronavirus is really a new virus about which we don’t know yet a lot, or at least not enough. There was an underestimation about what would be the dynamic unfolding. I think this is slowly changing. I think some people are getting quite worried about the incredible dimension of this.
Then, you have the undeniable fact that the present trans-Atlantic financial system, for sure, but in one sense, also the global system, is blowing out. The money pumping by the central banks is reaching a dimension where we are getting very close to, as it was maybe in the summer-fall 1923, in Germany, shortly before the hyperinflationary blowout of the system occurred. This can happen very, very quickly. If the central banks keep doing what they’re doing now, and there’s no indication that they intend to change it, we are shortly before such a point of no return.
Then you have the hunger crisis: This is becoming now a big subject, that the destruction of the food, the consequences of the coronavirus on the food production, the fact that the farmers cannot sell their product to the market because the restaurants are closed; because the restaurants are closed there are no deliveries to the food banks [for the poor], so I can only tip on the multifaceted interconnection of this crisis, which will, in my modest opinion, create such a dimension of the crisis that the solution which I was talking about in the beginning — that you need the top governments of the world to say, we take responsibility for the fate of all of humanity. And while I understand that President Putin thinks the permanent members of the UN Security Council should be gremium, Mr. Polyanskiy was talking about the G20, I don’t think that combination of governments right now is willing to do it, simply because there are some countries involved that would rather defend the interests of the City of London and Wall Street rather than recognizing that you cannot continue on the past course.
So, I think that the best thing which can be done, is what I said also in my remarks: That we develop an international chorus of countries, of nations, and many individuals and institutions, that simply speak out and say, “Yes, we endorse this idea that there must be a New Bretton Woods system. You must have a credit system which will allow for the first time, the intention of Roosevelt to be realized, namely, to have the industrialization of the Global South, of the developing countries, and that must occur now.”
And I cannot see any other pathway. I cannot see any kind of evolution. You need an emergency summit! And then, you cannot solve all these problems in one summit alone; there will be more summits. But I think we have to move to the idea that the common aims of mankind must be taken care of by the most important, most powerful countries, as representatives of the others. And the reason why my husband suggested, many years ago, this combination of these four countries, is not that it would be exclusive of all the others, but first of all, if you do it in the United Nations, it does not work. Two hundred countries or so is just too many, and democracy has some real flaws in terms of getting to decisions, especially under emergency conditions. But these four countries are pretty representative of the West, the United States is a sort of primus inter pares of the West; at least it used to have that understanding; then, naturally, Russia, China and India can be trusted to represent the interests of what used to be the Non-Aligned Movement; now it’s a combination of the Global South, the African Union, the different Latin American organizations, the BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Organization of Islamic Countries — all of these organizations sort of, in my view, can be trusted by the combination of these four countries, if they work together.
So, the best which can be done, under this incredible, emergency — which will, I fear, get much worse in the next weeks and months — that the more countries and the more leaders speak out and say, “We demand such a solution,” the better. Because I think we can shape — and that’s also the purpose of this conference of the Schiller Institute — I think we can shape the public demand that such a solution be put on the agenda.
That’s my answer.
CHEMINADE: I would only add that, with his limited means, Senegal had been doing quite well. They have a very good Pasteur Institute, not with French people, it’s Senegalese — and they are planning to produce masks for a few cents, and tests for say, about $1. So there is this sense of the interest of the nation, of the country.
This is extremely valuable in the context that Helga said before, which means that all these nations of Africa, they would bring something into an association, to develop Africa, of the United States, China, India, and other countries, including France and including Turkey, for example, Africa can bring a sense of its own interests in its scientific development, and a sense, also, of social harmony. And this sense of social harmony in Africa, combined with a sense of social harmony of China, and what we can bring from the Western countries, including, of course, the United States, and France in Western Africa, and other countries in Eastern Africa, these can bring a combination which Africa would be a sort of catalyst for this change in the world. And this would demand an input of all of us, to create that, and Africa would be not a country that only needs to be helped, as such, but a country that would make a jump into the future exactly like China did.
GERACI: I think let a lot of what I would say has been said already.
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SPEED: Very good. Now, I understand that we are about to hear from Bassam el-Hachem. He’s a professor at the Social Sciences Institute at the Lebanese University in Beirut. But I remember him from about 30 years ago or maybe more, with some activities we were doing both in France and also here, in America. I haven’t heard from him for a long time.
While we’re working on getting Mr. el-Hachem online, I should just say, in a few moments after a few more questions, we have a particular presentation around what is called the LaRouche Legacy Foundation. This involves our reprinting the works of Lyndon LaRouche, who passed away Feb. 12th of last year. I want to make sure that people know that, and there will be a link to encourage people get their own copy of the first volume of Mr. LaRouche’s collected works that we’ve printed.
Are you able to hear us? There you are, haven’t seen you in at least 30 years.
BASSAM EL-HACHEM: Yes. How are you?
SPEED: Not bad. Glad you’re still around!
El-HACHEM: Thank you. I’m going to speak in French. I think we’re prepared to do something about that. [as interpreted]
Mme. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, my friends from the Schiller Institute, dear listeners, I cordially greet you from Byblos in Lebanon, and it is precisely on Lebanon that I will focus my remarks. My country is going through a terrible economic and social crisis. This is known, since we know Cheminade and Christine Bierre in Paris over the years. But we are suffering in miniature, the global problematic issues which the conference is dealing with, among them, the crisis of an unprecedented popular uprising, which started on Oct. 17, and which to this day invincibly continues its course, despite even the present lockdown.
I only have 5 or 7 minutes, so I will go to the essence of the matter. I will make small points on the list.
Concerning the crisis and breakdown crisis in Lebanon, there are three main aspects. First, there’s a financial and economic collapse taking shape with a public debt which is close to the astronomical figure of $90 billion, which corresponds to 170% of the GDP, coupled with a very heavy debt service, the equivalent of 10-11% of the GDP; and a budget deficit amounting in 2019 up to 16% of GDP, but also coupled with a serious deficit in the balance of payments.
Secondly, the real living conditions in Panirsus [ph] are in continuous decline, until things come a deterioration of the purchasing power of incomes following an endemic stagnation of wages, going hand in hand with increasing taxes on imported products, which is close to 80% of products consumed in Lebanon. And as of summer 2019, the beginning of an amputation of the pay of public service and armed forces retirees. And also unemployment rates in the order of 30-33% of the workforce living in Lebanon, especially among the youth, which is pushing young Lebanese into exile.
And thirdly, there’s the scandalous dilapidation of infrastructure and the services which they provide. Electricity which is now being cut, and lockouts.
As far as the forces which are behind this crisis, I see the following, there are three parts. First, fundamentally, there’s the problem of the corruption in power, the main coordinates which have not changed since the beginning of the ’90s, except for some minor adjustments since 2005. Besides small changes, corruption actually never ended.
Secondly, there’s a fundamentally rentier economic and financial policy in force since then, favoring indebtedness and attracting capital to be placed in treasury bills at annual interest rates reaching at one point, the very worrying threshold of 40-45% on the treasury bonds. This resulted in an increase of the debt of the state, accumulation of private fortunes resulting from just embezzlement, to the detriment of the public interest, and the subsequent ruin of agriculture and industry, from which potential investors diverted to the advantage of purely financial banking investments.
Thirdly, of course, the war in Syria and its harmful effects on the Lebanese economy with the influx — and I’m not speaking about the last 60 years from the Palestinians and the tragedy of all these refugees who flee from the war in Syria and its harmful incidents on the Lebanese economy, from a huge mass of Syrians who are fleeing the war, exerting about 1 million persons who were added to the 4 million population of Lebanon. This created an overwhelming picture of the Lebanese workforce, and the market for local products, and on the other hand an unprecedented closing of the land route, irreplaceable for the transport for Lebanese production both in industry and agriculture, to Jordan and all the Arab Gulf countries, in particular, especially the Iraqi market.
As for the obstacles to the way out of the crisis, the following can be said: 1) a systemic policy of the United States, which are the oppositions to a solution, it’s a systematic policy of the United States with economic and financial sanctions coming to relay the gunboats of long ago, in the privileged service of Israel, which strangles the country of the cedar, which is pressuring the banks.
- pressures similarly exerted by the same superpower to force this country to modify the course of the land and sea borders with Israel and occupied Palestine, which has an impact on delaying Lebanon’s progress on its oil and gas exploration in the Mediterranean, as much as possible.
- the United States of America also prohibits us by proxies any resumption of dialogue with the Syrian government, which held out with the help of its friends and allies, in particular Russia, Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah, which hinders any solutions to our economic progress. Those are linked to the transit of our goods through the Syrian territory, as to the desire to return as soon as possible, after 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon because of the war at home since 2011.
- glimmers of hope are a way out, however are on the horizon, but without outside help, there is a big U.S. pressure also on the IMF of not giving the required credits to Lebanon to confront its crisis.
What are glimmers of hope to get us out of crisis, and I want to conclude with that, but without foreign help we cannot succeed in putting them into application.
- a possible recovery of public money robbed by criminals that we no longer ignore in deposits in foreign accounts, whose amount would be something like $160-$200 billion, which is tax money outside Lebanon.
- The neutralization of regional factors. I just said of the Palestinian cause and the Syrian question, an essential condition for excluding regional interference from the Lebanese scene, whether it be Iran or Israel, Saudi Arabia, and so on.
And 3) a restructuring of our economy has to favor, to the detriment of the profit system, the productive sectors of the physical economy, namely agriculture, industry and technology.
All of this, and I want to close with that, however, nothing is likely to be possible, except in the context of a refoundation of relations among nations on the basis defended by the Schiller Institute, and Lyndon LaRouche on the basis of a win-win situation, and new, more balanced financial and economic order, bringing an end to the dangerous hegemonism of the U.S. practice to the extreme and giving in its place, to all nations, large and small, a voice in the management of world affairs. So, it is not to reflect on such an alternative that we are here, today, united. Thank you for listening.
SPEED: Thank you very much, Mr. Hachem. I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were in Lebanon as opposed to France. I misspoke. And I hope you’ll be able to continue to participate with us in the conference.
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We’re going to go now to our next question from Mauricio Ortiz Ortiz, the Chief Ambassador from Costa Rica to Canada. Here’s his question: “In the 1940s Costa Rica decided to create a health system with universal coverage, to abolish the army, and invest in education and healthcare. Later, in the 1970s, we created 1,041 rural primary healthcare posts. We also protect, approximately 30% of our biodiversity, and two years ago launched a program to decarbonize our economy. Up to now, we have 675 cases of COVID-19, and 6 deaths, one of the lowest mortality rates in Latin America. Our desire is to exchange experiences with other countries. Will the Schiller Institute encourage the United Nations, the multilateral banks and other organizations to support the governments of undeveloped countries to invest in preventive rural health and health systems for universal coverage? How can this be accomplished with a world system which currently focuses more on trade and profit than on social issues? And Helga, I’m going to ask that you take that up.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yeah, we have a call since about six weeks or four weeks ago, for a world health system. The reason why we did that, it’s pretty obvious, this is one of the most fundamental human rights you can imagine, and the pandemic underlines exactly the absolute shortage — I mean, Costa Rica may be in a relatively better situation, but I think almost all developing countries are very, very far from what is needed.
Given the fact that the pandemic unfortunately, it was clear that it would become worse and worse, so I asked for a world health system, with the idea that as the pandemic is getting worse, the demand that such a world health system which would put up functioning health systems in every country on the Hill-Burton standard, of the United States Hill-Burton Act in the postwar period; or the French or German systems which used to be quite good, until the privatizations started: That every country has the right to that kind of a standard.
And the pandemic makes it clear, because even if in the beginning some countries may have thought, well, they only have to take care of themselves, the fact that it’s a pandemic, which means that it’s global, that it’s expanding to the South, that it will come back in a second wave, and possibly even in a third wave — if you look at the Spanish flu from 1918-19, it came back in a second and a third wave which were even much worse than the first wave.
So, with that idea in mind, the understanding that we cannot continue as we have done in the past will become a growing, self-evident truth, and the idea that everybody has the right for a functioning health system is a protection for everybody! It’s not just for the affected country, but we’re sitting in one boat, because if we don’t provide that to the developing countries, then it will come back and kill more and destroy more of our economy, and it will just get worse and worse.
So, the idea of now putting a world health system with an idea of a decent health system in every country on the table, in a certain sense, sooner or later requires, how should this be financed? And then you come to the question of the casino economy will never do it, because the reason why we are in this mess, is because they have been going for profit maximization for the last decades. That brings the question then, of the urgent need to have a credit system, a New Bretton Woods system:
I would actually ask everybody who is watching, to simply take up this demand, that the idea that every single country must be provided, first with a crash program to fight the virus, but then you need infrastructure, because even if you can take the Corps of Engineers and set up hospitals in the middle of the desert, well, you may be able to maintain that for a few days or whatever, but then the question comes, how can you build up the infrastructure?
So, in a certain sense, the answer to your question is, that we have to have global development totally. This is why the program which the Schiller Institute published after Xi Jinping announced the New Silk Road in 2013, we were very happy, because we said, this is what we have been fighting for since ’70s, so we actualized all the programs we were working on, the total development plan for Africa, for Latin America, for Asia, the 50-year development plan for the Pacific Basin, the Oasis Plan for the Middle East, the Eurasian Land-Bridge, which we already called the New Silk Road in the ’90s — and we actualized all of these programs in new study, called “The New Silk Road becomes the World Land-Bridge.” Now, this book was greeted very much in China, it was translated into Chinese; the Chongyang Financial Institute sent copies to all the major universities and think tanks. It was translated into Arabic. It exists now in German and in French. A second volume was produced, an extension of it, “The Extension of the New Silk Road to West Asia and Africa.”
So, if you take all of these studies together, they are an absolute blueprint for a global development plan. And I think we have reached the point where, either we get the so-called Western countries, that is, the United States and the European nations, to cooperate with the New Silk Road in the development of Southwest Asia, Africa, Latin American, Central and South America, and that has to be a cooperative effort. And we have to overcome geopolitics: I know that for many people that sounds like a utopian conception, but I’m absolutely certain that the dimension of the crisis will become so absolutely clear — between the financial blowout, the destruction of the physical economy, the pandemic, as it was mentioned earlier by one of the other speakers, potential social unrest, the refugee crisis — that the idea that you need to put on the table a solution which addresses all of these problems, in cooperation will become a more and more convincing idea. And it’s the only winning idea.
So rather than focusing only a side aspect, I think we have to really move with the idea that the only solution is this concept of a World Land-Bridge to overcome underdevelopment forever. And development does not mean more quantities. Some of the greenies of the West, they always think when you say “development,” that you mean more of the same. But we’re not talking about more of the same.
For example, I mentioned earlier that the representatives of the developing countries should all be immediately integrated in the training of this research in the life sciences, any breakthrough must be distributed to everybody; developing countries should do the leapfrogging by immediately training some of their young people to be on the top of the vanguard sciences so that the overcoming of underdevelopment will occur in leaps and big steps, and not just repeating all the steps made by the industrialized nations.
I think we are at a point where we either reach a completely new era of mankind, and I have said in the past, this change must be as big as that between the Middle Ages and modern times, separated by the Italian Renaissance. The change to the future has to be even bigger. We need to put mankind first. It’s OK to be a patriot of your country, it’s absolutely wonderful and a good thing. But the interest of a nation should never again be ahead of the interest of all of humanity, and I think if this crisis teaches us anything, then it is exactly that approach, that we have to be united by the common aims of mankind, first, and then we can settle all the regional, all the national questions after that.
So, I think we have to really fight for this big transformation into a new era of civilization, the World Land-Bridge being the absolute way to go; the New Bretton Woods being the absolute precondition, and starting with the world health system, I think we can cause an avalanche of demand in this direction until it is accomplished.
SPEED: Do either of the other have any response? Mr. Geraci, you have your hand up.
GERACI: No, I just comment on what Helga said: I think the emphasis is, yes, on humanity is important. The question then remains for countries like Italy and even mine which was a so-called “nationalist” government, the belief is that you can help others only if you are first stable on your own feet, a little bit like planes, where you first put you own mask on, you stabilize yourself, and then you’re able to help others. I think we all agree that the goal should be humanity; I think the question would be then, what’s the path? What are the first building blocks to reach that goal that we all agree on.
CHEMINADE: Yes, we have absolutely to change our thinking. If you look at the preceding world thinking of these last 40 or 50 years, since August 15, 1971, but already before, it said, “how much money do we have?” And there is never enough money to do things useful for mankind. We don’t have the money. So, that was always the answer.
How vicious it is right now! Because when the world’s this collapse of the financial markets, then they issue money, but not for mankind. They issue money to save their own interest and their own financial markets. So we have to absolutely shift our world thinking and thinking in terms of what’s necessary for mankind. Then, it’s because of that that we produced this “LaRouche’s ‘Apollo Mission’ To Defeat the Global Pandemic.” We started from what is needed globally. And then we established how we would lead credit and the financial means to accomplish this. So it reverses completely the world thinking, to add to what Helga said.
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SPEED: Thank you. We have a special presentation. I just received a copy of this — I don’t know if everybody can see it online, but Lyndon LaRouche Collected Works, and this is put out by the LaRouche Legacy Foundation. And Helga you may have something to say about this, and we have we can also show.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, let me quickly say: First of all, we have created the LaRouche Legacy Foundation which has the aim to preserve the work of my husband, and make it available to the whole world. We want to put out his Collected Works, and that’s a big job! Anybody who has known Lyn, he has written, on a good day, 80-100 pages — print ready! — with all the footnotes, with all things which normally the editorial does, and I have not counted it yet, but if this Collected Works series becomes into the 50, 60, even 100 books, I would not be surprised.
Then we have all the videos. We have the letters, the memorandums, the internal communications to important people around the world, in governments and so forth. So this is a gigantic job, which I think, in terms of the historical significance of Lyndon LaRouche, is absolutely crucial. I think it is almost — I don’t want to call it a tragedy, but I want to call it an unbelievable coincidence, that one year, approximately one year after he died, on Feb. 12th last year, you have the absolute fulfillment of all the things he said, many, many times, in speeches, in conference addresses. And if you now look, the breakdown of the whole system — he had said in many times, in many ways with many predicates. And I know that many people will say, “Yeah, that’s LaRouche, he exaggerates, it will never come to that” — now we are here! If you read what Lyn said in the ’70s, in the ’80s, in the ’90s, in the 2000s, you will be surprised.
This first volume is just some of the most important economic works: So, You Wish To Know All About Economics? The Science of Christian Economy; Earth’s Next Fifty Years, and some other writings. I would really urge you to get a copy of this book, and make it your joy, to acquire every single book as it comes out, which the Legacy Foundation wants to do, at least two per year, maybe quicker. I want you to contribute, so that we can speed up this work — make it your own question to preserve the legacy of Lyndon LaRouche.
I made a video last year to somehow give you some of the reflections of why I think this is important. Maybe we can see the video now, and then I’ll make some concluding remarks
HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Hello to all of you. Many of you have participated in the outstanding memorial for my husband, Lyndon LaRouche, or you have viewed the video in the meantime, and then, you got a taste of what a beautiful mind my husband really had, and how important the ideas are for the world today. As a matter of fact, I would put him on the same level of thinkers, those thinkers who maybe you have only one per century, and would change, through their intellectual contribution, the entire body of knowledge of their time, and lay the foundation for future generations to come. So I put him on the same level as Plato, Nikolaus of Cusa, Kepler, Leibniz, Einstein, because he contributed to all of the works of these great thinkers something unique: the LaRouche method of thinking. And I’m absolutely convinced, that if we would publish right now his collected works, which is a gigantic task, because he was one of the most prolific writers of this time, it would have the same effect as the introduction of Plato to the Italian Renaissance.
Now, let me explain to you what I mean by that: The Italian Renaissance was prepared by many factors, by the work of Dante, Petrarca, many sculptors and great painters, but what really caused the spark to really make the Renaissance what it became was the introduction of Plato and the thinking of Nikolaus of Cusa. Nikolaus of Cusa belonged to a circle of humanist thinkers who believed that you had to go back to the original documents of all times, of all events, and handwritings.
So in this capacity, he was sent by the Pope to find out if the Filioque question was in the early documents of the early councils of the Church. Now, the Filioque was the question which had separated the Orthodox and the Catholic Church: It was the question, does the Logos emanate only from the Father, which was the belief in the Orthodox Church, or does it also emanate from the Son, Filioque. Now, Nikolaus went to Byzantium, and he did find all the handwritings of the early councils of the Church, which did contain the Filioque.
This was a complete breakthrough because that meant that he could convince the fathers of the Orthodox Church to come to the Councils of Ferrara and Florence. So, in 1437-38, he came with a whole delegation of about 700 people, the Emperor of Byzantium, the Patriarch, and many scholars; he traveled from Greece to these councils. And already on the way, because he talked to people like Georgius Gemistos Plethon, who was the 83-year-old adviser of the Emperor and he was the top scholar of Plato in Greece. He actually wanted to introduce Plato, to have a Renaissance in Greece, and hew as refuting Aristotle. He thought that Aristotle had absolutely misrepresented Plato’s ideas, or he was not capable of understanding them. He said, Aristotle is completely incompatible with Christianity.
So, the dialogue between Nikolaus and all of these scholars, meant that Nikolaus had a breakthrough, already on that trip. He came to develop a method of thinking which he was very self-conscious about, and he said: I’m now saying something which no human being has ever thought before, and that was, the principle of the concidentia oppositorum. This is the idea that the One has a higher value and higher magnitude than the Many, and that the human mind can always overcome contradictions by developing a level of reason on a higher plane which gives you a way to solve problems which were not solved on the lower plane. And that idea, indeed, was the completely breakthrough in thinking, because Aristotle had said, you cannot have something being true and being the opposite of something, not being true; and all these thinkers, including Nikolaus said, this is a completely low level of thinking, because you remain on the plane of contradictions, while Nikolaus in the Apologia Docta Ignorantia, which was his rebuttal of a scholastic professor from Heidelberg, Johannes Wenck, he said Aristotle is really a very low level of thinking, like the ratio of an animal, but no better. While the method Plato developed, and which I now develop further, is like the creative thinking being self-conscious about itself. It’s like standing on a high tower, and from that viewpoint, you can see the searcher, that which is being sought, and the process of searching, and that gives you a completely different approach.
Now, this delegation arrived in Ferrara, and there were many lectures hosted by Cesarini, who Cusa had devoted his De Docta Ignorantia to, and all these scholars then listened to Plethon, and Bessarion, who was the Archbishop of Nicaea, and they were introduced for the first time to the entire works of Plato, which in the rest of Europe, other than Greece, had been completely lost after the fall of ancient Greece, after the Peloponnesian War. There were a few copies in some monasteries, but nobody could read Greek, and when Petrarca tried to learn Greek, he couldn’t find anybody who would teach him, so he never was able to access that. But he knew that this guy, Plato, had to be extremely important, because Augustinus, in his writings referred to them.
So, these lectures sparked an incredible intellectual ferment, and fortunately, among the listeners was somebody from a very wealthy family, namely, Cosimo dei Medici, and he financed a crash program for the translation of the works of Plato.
The combination of Cusa’ writings and the emergence of the entire works of Plato laid the foundation for the paradigm shift which separated the Middle Ages from the modern times — the Middle Ages being characterized by scholasticism, Aristotelianism, belief in witchcraft, superstition; and then, the new ideas, the new paradigm, a new image of man emerged, and a completely new conception that there was the possibility of infinite perfectibility of each human being, that science and technology could study the laws of the universe, and that this would be the basis for the improvement of the living standards, an increase in population: So it was a complete revolution and it laid the foundation for everything good coming out of the European history for the following 600 years to come.
I’m absolutely convinced that the publication of the collected works of Lyndon LaRouche would have a similar, if maybe even more powerful effect today. Because, what do you have today: You have, in the West, a complete cultural crisis. You have a collapse of moral values, you have the sciences dominated by utilitarianism and the idea of profit. Many scientists are just bread-scholars: They work for their salary, but they are not trying to find truth. I mean, this is a known phenomenon among all the faculties around the world, that if you get enough money, you publish whatever you are told to publish.
Now, the cultural collapse of the West is obvious to everybody — the drug epidemics, the terrible youth culture, the ugliness in the so-called arts, and many more such phenomena. So, I’m absolutely convinced that if we would publish, now, as quickly as possible the collected works of Lyn, it would spark an incredible excitement, because the ferment already exists: Because while the West is in a Dark Age, that is not the case for all of the world, because the New Silk Road, sponsored and originated by China, that spirit, the Spirit of the New Silk Road, has already caught on in about 126 countries which have joined the Belt and Road Initiative, and who have the idea that there will be a completely new time when poverty and underdevelopment can be overcome.
I participated just three weeks ago in the Asian Dialogue of Civilizations, which was an extraordinary event in Beijing. Forty-seven nations participated, and they were all very proud of the Asian ancient civilizations, going back many thousands of years, — 5,000 and more — and they were conscious of the fact that many of these civilizations were cradles of all of humanity.
Now, they think that the Asian Century is coming, or has actually started, and that the West is in a condition of decay. I think what the Asians are doing is great; it’s a great inspiration, but I also think we cannot leave Europe, the United States, to collapse, but that we need to have an approach where all countries and all continents prosper at the same time. And I’m absolutely convinced that this can only be done, that all countries are joining the New Paradigm, that we develop Africa together, with the Africans; that we will overcome underdevelopment in Latin America, in Asia, and all the pockets of underdevelopment in the United States and in Europe; but that we need a Dialogue of Cultures bringing back the best traditions of all Classical cultures; but that especially, the most advanced thinking ever thought, which was the thinking of Lyndon LaRouche, will really spark a similar fundamental Renaissance in the sciences and the arts, and the whole discussion of the image of man, what happened in the Italian Renaissance, happening for the future of humanity.
If you think that is a worthwhile idea, then I would ask you: Be generous and help us to make that work. You can help in many ways, and contact us and we will find a task for you to be a part of this exciting project. But also think that we need your financial support to do that, but do it in the spirit that it is upon us, now, to shape the new epoch of civilization, which hopefully will be the age where human beings will relate to each other as human beings, and that the future of mankind will be like the relations between Wilhelm von Humboldt and Friedrich Schiller, or Albert Einstein and Max Planck, and that nations will relate to each other in a completely new spirit, something which Nikolaus of Cusa called the spiritorum universorum, the New Silk Road Spirit, and that the works of my beloved husband are the crucial spark which will make that possible.
[end video]
SPEED: Helga do you have some final remarks?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: We would like to send out copies of that book to many libraries internationally, so obviously, we do need support to do that, but I think if we would have these books available for students, for curricula, I’m absolutely certain that the specific method which my husband developed, — we will hear more about it in the next hours, and tomorrow. But I think that the specific LaRouche method of thinking is the most advanced thinking which mankind has produced so far.
Now, you may say, “She says this because she loved her husband.” But it’s more than that. It’s that also, but I’m absolutely certain that the contribution which Lyndon LaRouche has made is of absolute importance to the solution of the world problems like now. And that’s why I just want you to buy the book, to think how you can help, and think about spreading the ideas of my husband. Because I think that that is — first of all, you will be completely shocked, to see what he said, how early. As you heard with the two videos, which Dennis played at the beginning, many of what he said is as actual as if he would have said it this minute. And that unique power to anticipate and to make a correct prognosis, and then, come up a solution, that is something which must be studied by many, many people around the world. That’s is what I want you to know.
SPEED: The link to LaRouche Legacy Foundation is on the Schiller Institute conference page, https://www.larouchelegacyfoundation.org/collected-works/volume1
I’ll make a comment of my own: We were known as Ramsey Clark said — Ramsey Clark, being the attorney for Lyndon LaRouche at the point that LaRouche was unjustly incarcerated. He talked about the idea that the “LaRouche people were the book people,” referring to the story Farenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, which talks about all the time when human knowledge was being persecuted. And what happened was that a group of people who refused to allow civilization to die, became “books.” They were the living embodiment of various works. That’s what we are. And that’s what Lyn was: He was a living embodiment of over 2,500 years of Western civilization, and much more besides.
We again say, if you go to the Schiller Institute conference page, the link for https://www.larouchelegacyfoundation.org/collected-works/volume1 is there and if you go there and purchase it, we’ll not just appreciate, but you’ll appreciate it.
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I understand that we have someone here in New Jersey, Daniel Burke who is an independent candidate for U.S. Senate, among other things and he’s been doing some work of a very specific nature with respect to today’s proceedings. Daniel if you’re there, go ahead.
DANIEL BURKE: Good! Thank you very much, Dennis. My name is Daniel Burke, I’m a LaRouche independent candidate for U.S. Senate in New Jersey. I’m 33 years old, my wife and I, we have a 2 year old daughter; I’ve been a member of the LaRouche movement for about eight years.
And my message is for the students and youth participating in this conference, and people who are thinking about them.
Four weeks ago, Helga joined a videoconference with 70 people from 12 different countries on 5 continents: these were primarily students and youth. She appealed to them to build an international youth movement, and since then, we’ve held a series of classes, readings and videoconferences among youth, in different languages, drawing them into this event.
Join us in building that youth movement, to inspire the tens and hundreds of thousands of students and youth we need to get the governments of the world to adopt our approach. The LaRouche movement is not here merely to loosen the grip of popular beliefs. The nations need a new organizing principle, they need a new scientific hypothesis of what mankind is, and will be. And it has to be agapic, loving in the divine sense.
Is it true that we’re insignificant specs of dust, in a cold, amoral universe? Or, a cancer on Mother Nature and deserving of all the punishment we received? If you reject those ideas, as you should, then what are we, in fact? The power that lies at the essence that is intrinsic to all human individuals is willful creativity, an ability shared by no animal species, to increase our power in and other the universe, by uncovering its laws — laws which are imperceptible to the mere senses.
It’s very difficult, one thinks, to consider your personal positions within such a profound scheme. It’s not easy to take seriously the dreams that all people share at some point in their early lives, of ending poverty, war, famine, and disease. It seems as though everyone has abandoned those dreams. “Who am I to say I know better?”
However, consider which is healthier for your soul. Should you accept, instead, the condescending voice of cynicism that says, “No one person can make a difference; let the Infinite scroll soothe your rumpled ego?” Or, should you accept those who say, “I can fix all the problems of humanity. Just eliminate human beings!”
Now, I’m asking you to join the LaRouche movement. Take the Devil by the nose, attack the corrupt and stupid axioms that allow the City of London and Wall Street fascists to gain control; and prove to yourself the true nature of mankind.
We’re asking you to join us in ensuring that there’s a growing force of students, workers, scientists, teachers, farmers, doctors, nurses, poets, artists demanding a new paradigm, and the actions needed to make it happen, beginning with Mr. LaRouche’s four economic laws.
Then, in fifty years—when I would be 83 and my daughter 52—we will have seen the greatest growth in human culture, science and economy ever known in history. And we can consider that our own contributions may have been absolutely necessary for it to happen.
In two weeks, on May 9, we will hold the second International Youth Video Conference. Help us to organize it. Work with us to mobilize the greatest number of people into meaningful action for this new paradigm. You can sign up for the youth video conference at the link on the screen, http://bit.lp/si-youth, which I encourage you to do immediately.
If you, yourself, are not a youth, please share this with a youth that you know. Help us to reach out to them and introduce this solution-concept for humanity, and nix the crisis.
Thank you!
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SPEED: Thank you, Daniel. Let me just say that we’re coming up a bit on time; we have about 18 minutes or so left. I’m going to be combing a few questions, here, which I’ll direct to the panelists, asking one and then see if the others want to respond.
I want to take the first question from Her Excellency, Mrs. Fatima Braoulé Meité, Ambassador of the Republic of Mali in Canada. She asks:
“COVID-19 has an effect, in particular, on the most vulnerable in society, be it those in Africa, in Europe, in America, or anywhere else in the world. Most of these people have a poor education. They have little access to health care, and are often jobless. The result is a higher rate of mortality. So, in fact, COVID-19 exposes all that should have been done—but was not—for all these people. Every state should now re-examine how to better intervene in all the social fields, even it means to nationalize some services, which had gone to the private sector.
“Unfortunately, Africa is little discussed, when considering the actions that should be taken in the post-COVID-19 world. The only Western voice with the courage to propose a structural solution for the African countries was that of [French] President Emmanuel Macron, when he proposed the cancellation of the African countries’ debt, in order to allow these countries to fight the COVID-19 while tackling, in-depth, the structural problems. Unfortunately, his call has not been heeded. This opportunity for political dialogue on the post-COVID-19 era, and the change of paradigm which the Schiller Institute offers on what should be our new way of acting, must take care of this question, and support President Macron’s proposal and open the ways and the means necessary for that.”
She then asks for a comment. Let me take the liberty to combine that with something that also came from an African diplomatic mission in Ottawa—a very short question that I think can be done as a corollary to this:
“We have noted the recommendation for a summit between the huge powers, that is, the United States, China, Russia, and India. In your view, which of these countries do you think will better push for the interests of African countries, especially on economic matters?”
I think what I’m going to do, is slightly revise what I said, and ask Jacques [Cheminade] to answer first, and then, I’m sure, the other two of you will have something to say; and then we’ll go from there.
CHEMINADE: Macron sometimes says words that may be useful. He called for this cancellation of all of the African debt, not only the debt of the poorest countries. He also issued a declaration with Tunisia, supporting UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ [call for a] world ceasefire.
This is good, but they are things in themselves. What you need is a higher standpoint. This higher standpoint would mean the programs of development needed by Africa, and with whom. And how France could work with other nations to create this combination, this international cooperation that is needed for the development of Africa. This is not done.
Look at what was not done in France for the elder people in the retirement or nursing homes. What was not done by the Yellow Vests, what was not done inside the nation, this cannot be something separate with what’s done for African countries. You need an overall poise, supported from inside France for an absolute commitment for mankind.
This is not yet there. We’re doing our best to create the spirit for that, but it’s a very difficult situation, because there are all types of influences, including our own Macron, like Trump [in the U.S.]. There are not good people around both of them, going in a very different direction.
Also, there are provocateurs in the whole country, as you see in the United States. We have the same in France. People are calling for May 4 as a day against the lockdown: “Go [back] into the streets, be free, be happy!” So, you have all that, also happening in the United States. It’s used to disrupt our countries.
The only way that our countries could escape this offensive of disruption, is to have a real commitment to everything that was told of today.
So, at this point, for example, the French media never covered LaRouche, except once or twice, to slander him; and seldom covered me. They only covered me during the Presidential elections, but after it was finished, full silence against our ideas. That, for me, would be the Rosetta Stone of what is done or not done, and we should judge from that standpoint.
SPEED: Helga, do you want to say anything about that, or should be continue?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think that there are a lot of good proposals, by Guterres and others. For example, I think the end of sanctions is absolutely a requirement. And, naturally, the case-fires are also very important; the debt moratorium, the Jubilee—all of these things are absolutely crucial.
But I think what is lacking, as Jacques was just indicating, is how to remedy—even if you eliminate all the debt. Where do you get the new money? For that, you need a credit system. In the aftermath of this conference, we will publish a selection of articles by my husband on the New Bretton Woods system. A credit system would be beneficial for everybody. Okay, maybe the Fortune 500 would not be the winners of this, but everybody else—the middle-level industry of the advanced sectors, the countries of Africa.
We published the first comprehensive book about African development in 1976. It started with an integrated infrastructure program for the whole continent. It has ports, highways, fast train systems, industrial parks, industrialization of agriculture. In the book are described large projects, like the Transaqua project to bring water back to Lake Chad.
There was an absolute clarity on what needed to be done to immediately start to industrialize the African countries, naturally with their participation and their say-so as to what should be done and what should not be done.
But, I think it’s not a question of a lack of clarity of where to start. Many countries in Africa are now committed to having a middle class, to becoming a middle-level-income country in the near future. And that is absolutely achievable.
I think that is what needs to be put on the table, but it can only be done with a New Bretton Woods system.
SPEED: Since Mr. Geraci is an economist, I’d like to ask him what he has to say.
GERACI: On this discussion of debt cancellation, I think there was à proposal by Macron, or maybe by [French Minister of the Economy and Finance] Bruno Le Maire, who probably asked only for a debt delay repayment, not cancellation.
And so, I think, like Jacques said before, sometimes these are announcements that have very little relationship with reality.
I would like to answer Her Excellency from Mali. This is a problem we also have in Italy. We worry a lot about where to get the money from, how to finance it, who should give it to us—but very little attention is paid to what to do with the money.
I think we need to have the other side of the question very well developed, because this has been the problem in the past, including Italy—that we have 155% debt-to-GDP, going to 160% very soon—because we really don’t have an industrial plan; we don’t really have a plan to support the economy during this [coronavirus] crisis.
If I may advise all our listeners and ambassadors and policymakers who are listening: Draft, in details [unclear word: 12:15.6] industrial plan. Because, when the plan stands on its feet [is stood up?], the money comes. Finance tends to be a little bit more forgiving, and it reaches to where the good ideas are. I want to balance the focus of my takeaway from today. Let’s not just focus on where to get the money from, but really each country, county, city, region should have a very well-developed and integrated plan of what to do with it.
I’m talking here as a former investment banker, myself. As much as we may not like finance, individual investors’ money flows to where there are good investment opportunities. Of course, some of these projects are not there to make money; they are social projects. But, nevertheless, the plan needs to be equally detailed, even if there is no financial return, just to maximize the money.
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SPEED: Okay, thank you. We have a lot of other questions that we’re not going to be able to get to. There is one presentation in particular that I want to get to. We’re going to show a couple minutes of it. It was recorded for this conference by Antonio “Butch” Valdes, head of the Philippines LaRouche Society. We are going to have this available online. And we’ll try to show the full presentation in our final panel tomorrow. I’m going to show just a few moments of it here, because I want to make sure that people know about it and know what he had to say. And then we’ll return to a final question, which will be to Helga, and then conclude.
Butch Valdes: Presentation to the April 25-26 Schiller Conference
(note- the first part of this was in the Sunday briefing. Here is the full presentation.)
Greetings from the Philippine LaRouche Society. Thank you for allowing us to share our insights, as to how we find ourselves playing a significant role in the global peace effort. For most of us observant with both international and local affairs, the past decade has been most foreboding, causing heightened apprehension due to increased tensions among the superpowers.
The overthrow of the 2014 Ukraine leadership by, admittedly, the CIA, and the subsequent encirclement of Russia and China by Obama’s Asian pivot were major steps being taken by the Western allies, asserting military dominance over those who dared to defy them.
At about the same period, the destruction of Syria, care of the manufactured ISIS and mercenary terrorists used in the overthrow of Libya’s Qaddafi was in full operation, intending to take out President Assad, to replace him with a puppet government. But they did not expect President Putin of Russia, and President Xi Jinping of China to collaborate in deterring effectively the British and Obama move to fast-track the world into a war.
And just to move quickly forward, neither did they expect a leader of a client state — or a better description is a “compliant state” — to be thrust into the Presidency of our Republic, by an overwhelming majority. Duterte made no promises, except to fight terrorism and do battle with the drug syndicates. Even if his vocabulary needed some refining, he said, “my admirers readily tolerated the expletives.” Because he epitomized the anger long suppressed by the alliance of falsely elected government officials and the oligarchic corporations causing desperate conditions of life.
Yet nothing has so unified the country, more than the incident where, shortly after his election, even before his inauguration, Obama gives him a call, to remind him of the obligations that the previous corrupt government had made with him, regarding the Visiting Forces Agreement and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Act, virtually establishing the Philippines as the most proximate U.S. military base facing China, and consequently its nearest target in case of a nuclear confrontation between the two powers.
What seemed to get Duterte more incensed, aside from the condescending tone of Obama, was the threat that unless our President submit to these dictates, he will withdraw a $700 million assistance earmarked by the U.S.A. for the Philippines. Duterte retorted by saying, “he can keep his money and go to hell! We are no longer your colony.”
I believe many Filipinos got enamored to the newly elected leader, after this. Until this day, four years into a six-year term, he still enjoys an 87% popularity and approval rating. For once, over so many decades, including the administration of Marcos, and those before him, the Filipino people felt like a truly sovereign nation.
Inevitably, this strained relationship brought us closer to Russia and China. Yet, subsequent improved relations with the U.S., upon the election of another phenomenal leader, President Donald Trump. It’s worth noting that whether President Duterte knew the implications of what he did, when he asserted our independence, we in the Philippine LaRouche Society could not resist with the voice out to constituents and friends in government our approval of these events. Immediately, we knew that the Philippines was going to play a key role in establishing peace in the Southeast Asian region.
But so, too, did the soldiers of the CIA, George Soros, and deep state, or whatever the names they are called. They went into a relentless campaign to disparage the President, using the mercenary opposition and mainstream media in accusing Duterte as a China puppet, who had placed the country into the “debt trap,” conveniently ignoring that we have been in one for the past four decades, courtesy of the IMF and world’s money-lenders.
The demonization of China has been well-orchestrated, ironically including the so-called “leftist” elements, whose former battle cry was to put down American imperialism, are now massively demonstrating against the expansion plans of China and her intentions to attack and occupy the Philippines — now calling on their American imperialists to protect poor Filipino fishermen.
Despite all these geopolitics being played by characters associated with the financial oligarchy, manipulators of Wall Street, politicians and a host of other British agents, we observe that Trump is standing his ground, not to be lured into intrigues concocted by people in his cabinet, or mainstream media on China’s and Russia’s intentions toward the United States. It is obvious by his confident demeanor that his relationship with Putin and Xi Jinping is far from being antagonistic — which bodes well for the whole world.
But we all know, that matters have taken a very sharp turn, for the worse, recently. The pandemic will not spare the Philippines, and many third world countries similarly situated. The resulting economic conditions will turn from bad to worse, for all countries. It is not good for the world’s population, but definitely a boost for the intentions of those who want it destroyed.
If not for China’s Belt and Road Initiative, started in 2013, the global infrastructure program, historically the greatest project ever conceived by man for mankind, linking all seven continents by land, by high-tech transport systems, now with 150 registered nations willing to join, there will be no alternative project of this magnitude that can match the staggering effort being undertaken by those, who, like the mythical god Zeus, will destroy the mortals. These mortals, who in a short 30 years, have risen from decrepit conditions to becoming the second largest economy in the world; a people, the most extensive railway system doubling that of the world’s combined; a country, which has started to help develop the African continent, the most exploited people in the planet, constructing a railway from South Africa to Egypt, covering 9,000 miles, roughly three times the length from New York to California; a country which has brought its whole population of 1.4 billion above the poverty level: They did not do it by occupying other countries, nor did they intimidate others to buy their goods, or control their currencies, and establish 600 military bases all over the world to enforce their will over others.
They did the way other great thinkers and leaders would have done: Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon LaRouche. There is a saying, that the tree that bears much fruit will attract those who will throw stones at it. The U.S. and other countries have two options: One is to join those whose vision of the world is based on geopolitics, in which they stupidly take sides and ally themselves with whomever they consider to possess greater military might, in anticipation of a world nuclear conflict. Or, collaborate with China, Russia, India, and over 100 other countries, the Philippines included, in a global collective effort to stem the devastating effects of an ongoing collapse of the world financial system, in confluence with a pandemic which threatens human population with millions of deaths. In a real sense, the world’s faith and 8 billion lives lies in the hands of one Donald Trump: His decision time is running short, because the enemies of mankind are on a massive effort to stop him from doing what is right.
We in the Philippines will do what we can to influence our decision-makers, not to fall into the China demonization trap. We are confident that the local opposition and the leftist elements have not been able to convince our people that China has taken control of the Philippines. On the contrary, it’s the U.S. naval assets which are sailing and docking in our ports, needing no permission to do so.
Just as Trump is the principal obstacle to World War III, Duterte’s presence is a deterrent to the deep state, to use us as a launching pad for a preemptive strike against China. It is certain that both these leaders are among the top in their demonic list.
We join Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the whole LaRouche movement, friends and the rest of the world, in making this clarion call for all to hear: That where there is great crisis, there is great opportunity to make the necessary changes for our civilization to succeed. It is our duty as human beings to be worthy of the creative powers given to us by our Creator. We in the Philippines commit to do our part, in a true agapic spirit to save humankind of self-destruction, in the name of Truth, Justice, Peace, and Development, so help us God. Thank you.
SPEED: So, if you want to hear more of that exciting presentation, you can get it from our website. As I said, we’ll try to get the entirety of it played tomorrow on our concluding panel.
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This is the final question for this panel. It is from Ambassador Samson Itegboje, the Chargé d’Affaires of the Permanent Mission of Nigeria to the United Nations. Here’s the question:
“Her Excellency, Mrs. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, talks about the need to establish a new world health system, and for the United States, China, Russia and India to be the front-liners in that regard. This is an ideal.
“But the ideal must be put on the same wavelength with reality to determine the practicality of this ideal. The reality today, is what she refers to as ‘casino economy,’ or, ‘neo-liberal system of the West.’ In her view, the neo-liberal system of the West has inherent flaws, hence its unpreparedness to cope with COVID-19.
“My question is: In the face of the upsurge in nationalism, how can the world achieve the new world health system that you are clamoring for?”
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I thank you for that question, because I want you to remember what was in the video played by Dennis in the beginning—Mr. LaRouche talking about the U.S. Presidency; that it’s the President, not the Congress, not the Cabinet, but the President of the United States who represents the entire country.
Obviously, we also have designed this Schiller Institute conference with an eye on that particular perspective, because I think the problems of this world can only be solved on the level of the leaders. I think President Trump, given all the trouble he has had, starting with Russiagate, the efforts to impeach him—all of this—comes from the same circles that are now behind the anti-China campaign: MI5, MI6.
Why do they hate him? And why does the House of Lords say they will do everything to prevent a second term of President Trump? Because he has responded to some of the aspirations of the American people. They have voted for him; he has started to have a good relationship with President Xi Jinping; he wants to have a good relationship with Russia; he has relatively no problems with Prime Minister Modi.
Given the fact that you have such an incredible crisis, the casino economy and the Wall Street and City of London forces are not all-powerful. They can be overruled. If you ask yourself, “Where should it come from, if not from the top leaders from the most important governments?”
If you at what President Trump said in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, one-and-a-half years ago, he said that every nation has the right to take its own nation first. America first, but also Philippines first, Mali first, Germany first, France first. That must not be a contradiction, because the very design of the New Silk Road is based on the principle that there should be an absolute respect for the sovereignty of the other country; there should be the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs; respect for the different social systems.
If you take what I said earlier, that you put mankind first, there is absolutely room for an alliance of perfectly sovereign nations. And it happens to be that that is already in the American foreign policy tradition, because that was the approach John Quincy Adams took, who had exactly that idea. Also, that it was not the purpose of the United States to go outside and chase foreign monsters, but that the idea was to build such an alliance of republics.
I think that is what we have to do. The EU is useless. It does not represent the interests of its members, and it keeps doing things which further the dissolution and disarray. So, is that a problem for Europe? I don’t think so. We should go back to the idea of Charles de Gaulle, of a “Europe of the fatherlands.” De Gaulle also said that French people are not cows who eat grass, but the French people should have a mission.
Everybody should have a mission! And, if that mission of every country is in the direction of the one humanity, you can solve this problem and you can overcome these contradictions. In a certain sense, it does require the method of thinking of Lyndon LaRouche, but also of Nikolaus of Cusa’s “the coincidence of opposites.”
There can absolutely be the interest of every nation presented by patriots, without that they become chauvinists. You can have the interest of the patriots of the different nations relating to each other and furthering their interest in a win-win cooperation, where everybody works for themselves, but at the same time, the interest of the other.
That was the principle of the Peace of Westphalia. The Peace of Westphalia, the beginning of international law, resided in the fact that after 150 years of religious war of which the 30-Year War was only the final concluding part, there was almost nobody left to enjoy the victory. So, for four years, people sat down and worked out principles which started with “the interest of the other.’ That is really the principle we have to have.
We have to have worldwide development—a world land-bridge, the New Silk Road extending to all continents, including the rebuilding of the United States. Anybody who has recently been in the United States has seen that the infrastructure is in a terrible condition. You need to build new cities; you need a modern transport system. You need a transport system in Latin America; in Africa.
What we’re really talking about is a global system of infrastructure building, starting with the health system, but extending into all other areas of infrastructure. And then, once you have established such a common economic interest, which will be in the interest of every country, because even the United States would gain a lot more by participating in all of these project, than with the present policies of the military-industrial complex. They think they have to preserve raw materials, and so forth.
But that’s not the source of wealth! Read LaRouche, and you will find out why this is the case.
Once you have established the common economic interest, you can build a common security architecture. NATO is obsolete. NATO should have been dissolved at the end of the Soviet Union. Now we need an economic basis for a new security infrastructure which serves the security interests of every single nation on this planet. It can be done!
That is the kind of change we have to think about. The strategic defense of the Earth, the idea that we are unprotected against the danger of comets, of meteors, of asteroids, should be a common aim. Early warning against volcano eruptions, against tsunamis, a common defense against viruses and other diseases.
All of these things are so pressing, that if we put our efforts all together, I think we can change the agenda. In a certain sense, it’s not an option. It is the absolute necessity to get out of this crisis.
So, that is why I’m optimistic. Because sometimes, when there is not enough reason you can appeal to, then the policy of the burning shirt may help to get people’s asses out of their chairs.
SPEED: All right. So, I want to thank everybody for participating today. I think that was a heartfelt sentiment that was expressed there a moment ago, with which we all agree. I want to thank His Excellency Mr. Dmitry Polyanskiy, First Deputy Representative of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations; His Excellency Ambassador Huang Ping, Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in New York; Counsellor Zhou Guolin, head of the Science and Technology Section of the Consulate.
I want to thank, of course, Jacques Cheminade, Chairman of Solidarité et Progrès; Professor Michele Geraci, from Italy, who was very important in bringing about the Memorandum of Understanding between China and Italy, and very important in our understanding today of how Americans should think about the people of China, as opposed to simply seeing them as “the Chinese,” as a kind of abstraction.
And, of course, Helga Zepp-LaRouche.
I want to thank all of you for being with us. We are going to be continuing our conference. This is just the first panel. Panel 2 starts in just under an hour. It’s called “For a Better Understanding of How Our Universe Functions.”
I also want to say that this [holds up newly released printed book] is the first volume of Lyndon LaRouche’s Collected Works.
You can purchase this volume online.
I want to welcome all of you to your first experience with Lyndon LaRouche, if it is your first, but I also want to encourage everyone to get everyone else that you know is thinking about how our civilization has to be rebuilt, to tune in to the rest of this conference. You can, of course, do that, as I said, beginning just about an hour from now. Thank you, and we’ll see you in a little while.
