Schiller Institute on YouTube Schiller Institute on Facebook RSS

Home >

Schiller Institute Berlin Conference, Feb. 25, 2012

Dialogue with Lyndon LaRouche

Back to Conference Main Page

Lyndon LaRouche Remarks to Schiller Institute Berlin Conference:
A Science-Driver Recovery or Economic Extinction and War

American economist, statesman and political leader Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. delivered this  pre-recorded video keynote speech to the conference of the Schiller Institute in Berlin, Germany,  on February 25, 2012. This presentation was followed by a live (and lively) question and answer session, which can be found here 

I shall speak on three subjects today—speaking from Virginia, in the United States.

The first is the danger of war, of global war. It’s been steaming up since about the time that Qaddafi was murdered, after being taken captive; and in the plans for general warfare, involving the targetting, in the least part, of Syria and Iran.

But the major danger lies not there. What the world is facing, as I know from here, and leading circles know from here, and some know from other parts of the world: This will be, if it occurs, if the war starts, and it could start soon—it’s been postponed successfully for some time now, that is for some months, but it could come on quickly—it will be a thermonuclear war, not a local war, not merely a nuclear war. It involves the thermonuclear capabilities of the major powers of the planet, in which the targets are chiefly Russia, China, and other countries, from one side, and the response that Russia and China would make, if a launch were actually unleashed against them.

So far, the saner bodies of mind in the United States have acted, in my view, correctly and courageously, to oppose any such kind of warfare from occurring.

The other side of the thing, in particular, is the fact that we’re on the verge of a breakdown-crisis of the trans-Atlantic economic system. That does not mean that Russia, China, India, and so forth are not affected by this. It means that the principal immediate threat—economic extinction, virtually—lies in the trans-Atlantic region. And it’s concentrated obviously on continental Europe in particular, and it’s concentrated also on the United States. We’re are on the verge of a breakdown-crisis—the present world monetary system of the trans-Atlantic region in particular, is doomed. But it’s obvious that, under these circumstances, no part of the planet would come through alive, in much condition, around the world anyway, if such a war were to break out.

Now at the same time, as I said, the economic situation in the trans-Atlantic region is presently hopeless. That’s the case, as I think many of you who are well-informed in Europe know, that we’re on the verge of a breakdown-crisis there. We’ve passed the point that there are any solutions under the present monetary arrangements. There could be reforms which would avert this crisis in Europe; there are reforms that could avert this crisis in the United States.

What Is the Remedy?

The United States’ situation, of course, is particularly important, not only for me, but it’s important for you. What is required, is this: We presently have monetarist systems in the trans-Atlantic region, which are in a hopeless breakdown mode, that is, these systems can not survive the present period; they’re doomed. What is possible, is a change, a rather radical change from the view of some people, which must be made, and can be made on short notice, which would get both the United States, in particular, and Europe, out of the danger of a general breakdown collapse. It would mean that the present monetarist systems of the trans-Atlantic region would have to be terminated by a reform.

Now, take the case of the United States in particular. What’s the possibility of the United States avoiding a general breakdown-crisis, a physical-economic breakdown-crisis, during the coming months ahead? That’s on the way now. A similar kind of process, of course, has hit Europe too. What’s the remedy for the United States? In the United States there are two actions, in particular, that have to be taken as economic reforms. One, is that we have to re-install what was called the Glass-Steagall system. The banking system of the United States as such, without essentially dropping the present system, the United States’ economy can not survive. Glass-Steagall is essential.

However Glass-Steagall is not sufficient. Because if we apply Glass-Steagall to the present banking situation, we will simply dump all the non-commercial parts of the banking system, dump them off, back to themselves; the government no longer takes any responsibility, the nation takes no responsibility whatsoever for the continuation and support of the present financial system, in its present form. That would save the United States. It would save it from a collapse. And without that, the United States probably would disintegrate, as an economy. A similar threat is hanging over western and central Europe at the same time.

So, in both cases, the use of a Glass-Steagall reform, as prescribed by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, would stop the collapse. It would not, by itself, produce a recovery; it would stop the collapse. In order to stop the collapse, we would have to go back to something the United States did, in the forming of its Constitution, under the influence of Benjamin Franklin and other people in that period. We would have to go to a credit system, which is what the United States Constitution was.

In other words, we use Federal credit—not monetary credit—Federal credit, to fund what are considered by reasonable people to be projects which would lead to a physical growth, both in the quantity and quality of the conditions of life, in the economy in the United States. The same thing could be done in Europe. It would be a more difficult problem in Europe, because the precedents do not exist in Europe, which exist in the constitutional system in the United States.

So our reforms, here, if adopted, would be more readily applied, than they would be, say, in a typical European situation. But, if the United States were to take these actions, these economic reform actions, these reforms would be immediately relevant to Europe. In other words, Europe—particularly, one speaks of continental Europe—if Europe made the same reforms that the United States would make in that case, Europe would find itself capable of going to a credit system, as opposed to a monetarist system; this would be a ready solution. And collaboration with the United States, in such a reform, or combined reform, would lead to a solution, an economic solution.

NAWAPA vs. the Greens

It would also lead toward a political solution. For example, in the United States we are producing almost nothing, and that is one of the reasons we have a problem. We shipped all our production outside the United States to areas where labor was cheaper, we said, and so forth. And so therefore, we are not a productive nation anymore. We should go back to that.

For example, there’s one case, which is a rather famous case, known to people of science around the world: the case of NAWAPA, the NAWAPA policy, the North American Water and Power Alliance. If this were put into action, it would mean essentially that we were going into a period of about 30 years, as we find it was estimated originally, but it would be a development of the U.S. economy, which would be a leader in a very rigorous, accelerating rate of growth. That’s what we’re looking forward to.

This would mean a change in a lot of things. First of all, the great economic danger today, the greatest source of economic danger, physically, is the Green movement. Under the Green movement, there is no chance that civilization can survive. In the history of mankind, in the history of even species in general, the only way that life-forms have been able to succeed, is through scientific progress, essentially, or what is in the form of scientific progress and its application to the real situation. Without these reforms, mankind were doomed.

Now, for a long time, mankind has been subject to the domination of a kind of imperialist system, of which the Roman Empire is typical. But the Roman Empire, when it collapsed, was supplanted by the alternative Roman system, of Byzantium. Then, when Byzantium went down, we had a so-called Venetian system, which was established. This collapsed, again, in turn, into an absolute disaster. Then there was a recovery, under the leadership of people like Nicholas of Cusa, for example, in Europe. And this was a very important recovery: The foundation of the elements of modern European civilization was set into motion, then. We can apply the same approach, today, in terms of designing a new economy, new economic relationships for human survival.

The Threat of War

Now, what we’re facing on the military side: We’re facing, with the immediate threat of an organization of principally the thermonuclear powers of the planet, on the one side, that is the European trans-Atlantic side, and the thermonuclear power represented by Russia and China and other nations in Asia. The danger is, that unless this is prevented—and I’m proud to say that some people in the United States are doing their utmost to make sure this does not happen—it would mean a thermonuclear war, which would break out simultaneously, using things like thermonuclear weapons systems based in units such as the submarine fleet of the United States. That would be hell, beyond anything any ordinary person on the planet could imagine!

There are people in the United States and elsewhere, who are determined that this shall not happen. Because what would happen, if, for example, the U.S. and British fleets were to launch a simultaneous bombardment, with thermonuclear weapons, against Asian nations? Certain Asian nations would be forced to respond, immediately, on the announcement of such a launch, with their replies. The result would be very little left of this planet, which could be called civilized. Even if the extinction of humanity were not the result of starting such a thing.

So that’s where we stand.

Again, the key thing here is, to develop an understanding, especially in the trans-Atlantic region itself, an understanding, in cooperation with the Asian section of society, especially the Eurasian section, I would say, of Russia, China, India, and other key countries; Japan, Korea, so forth; who in a system of cooperation, can solve the problems of this planet, through appropriate economic effort.

That’s where we stand.

And there are people in my country, leading people, who are determined to avoid such a catastrophe as this threatened war, now. We’re talking about something that could happen in the Spring of this year—it even could have been now—but, say, now the fair estimate is sometime in late March. It gets more sticky as you go down the line. But the great danger lies toward the mid-term of this year.

If we can understand that this is the danger, and we can stop the financial collapse which is now in process—because the financial collapse and the danger of a global thermonuclear conflict are matched together. There are people in my own country, who are working to prevent that from happening. And, I think you in Europe have to take this into account, too—that the direction in which Europe has been going, is toward catastrophe. The direction in which United States is going, under the influence of President Obama and under his Bush predecessor, is also the same direction.

A Science-Driver Recovery

If we do not resist and overcome these problems: the threat of thermonuclear war, and the threat of a continuation of the general breakdown crisis in process, and the measures for launching a new type of general recovery, based on going to high-technology methods, which will be based largely on the role of the development of exploration of nearby space.

It means the development of the Moon, as a cooperative project; it means the extension from the Moon, to Mars. How long will this take? It could take up to 30 years—as long as that—to get the ability to move a passage from Earth and Moon to Mars, within a week. And our objective is partly that.

But in the meantime—as we’re on the road, to what may be the date of starting of the Moon colonization, in the meantime, we face danger from nearby space. There’s an increasing danger from particles, objects floating around there. Some of these objects, if they were to hit planet Earth, would probably cause a general extinction of the human population.

We have the technology we could develop, now, to protect Earth, in particular, from such a crisis. It means a science-driver program. It means an end to all these things called “environmentalism.” Because the environmentalist program—and the population-reduction program which is advocated by the British monarchy, which is to reduce the human population from the present 7 billion people down to the order of 1 billion—such policies as those, if continued, would mean the extinction of humanity.

And these are the problems we have to face. And, that is my view. That’s the way it looks from here.

Number one, we need an economic program, which includes a science-driver program, in the direction of space development, for the defense of mankind on Earth—otherwise we’re at risk. We must prevent the danger of thermonuclear war, which is sitting on our porch right now, which some forces in the world are working hard to prevent from occurring. At the same time, we must correct and redirect the course of trans-Atlantic economic development, in particular, away from the trend since the killing of President Kennedy, since which time—the starting of that [Vietnam] War and the killing of Kennedy—has marked the United States in particular, on a downward pathway, all the way through, in terms of economic development, in terms of cultural development. We must deal with that. We must recover our economy.

So, three things: Prevent this war, go to space, and save the world economy.

Back to Conference Main Page

 

Questions and Answers with Lyndon LaRouche

back to top

Back to Conference Main Page

Questions and Answers with Lyndon LaRouche

Q: Lyn, this is Liliana [Gorini, president of Movisol] from Milan. I have a brief question which is both from me and from a number of parliamentarians I met a few days ago in Milan. One of them is a friend of yours, and I’m sure you know who that is, and he greets you. They are planning to introduce the Glass-Steagall legislation also in the Chamber of Deputies at a very high level, besides the bill already introduced by Senator Peterlini in the Senate, and they were wondering during the discussion we had—as you already mentioned in your speech right now—if, in the United States, this has been stopped by the sabotage of Obama in Congress, and has not been introduced in the Senate, would such legislation in Europe help? And would it ignite a discussion which relaunches the Glass-Steagall legislation also in the United States? Thank you.

LaRouche: It would have a very positive effect on the United States, because you have a virtual dictatorship, a reign of terror over the members of the Congress, the political parties, and so forth, in the United States. The courage being shown currently, as you may know, is coming from the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and it’s only the action of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, which has blocked the launching of a general cascade of war, which would lead to a thermonuclear world war, at this time.

So that anything done from Europe which goes in the direction of necessary alternatives to the insanity being run through the Senate and other parties under the Obama Administration may be crucial.

For example, take the case of what Russia and China are doing. Both Russia and China, and some other countries, are actually the last ditch of defense, for the world, against a thermonuclear launch. And let’s be clear on what this is: The first act of war—of crucial, real war—will occur as a launch of submarine-based and other thermonuclear weapons, in a full blast against Russia, China, and other nations, especially in the Asian regions. There would then, of course, be an automatic response to such a launch from Russia and China, which are both thermonuclear powers. That would mean there would be very little left of civilization on the planet for a long time to come, if ever!

So what we’re in, is a situation of madness. Madness is controlling the United States, but through the British Empire. And your big problem here is the British.

In Europe, as you know, the situation is temporized in some respects by the overall economic situation. Europe, as you know, is in the process of economic disintegration. It’s past the point that this thing was planned to be resolved. And therefore, there isn’t much left of civilization, unless some of us, in various parts of the world, can unify to support those typified by General Dempsey of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, who are now the blocking point—and have been the only serious blocking point—against the actual launching of a war, a thermonuclear war, which would start, probably with an Israeli attack on Iran, a further attack on Syria: These things would merely be pretexts to set off a general thermonuclear war, which would probably obliterate much of the population of the territory of this planet.

The reason that this condition can exist, is, as you know, in Europe, the power of the European nations has been broken to a large degree. The United States is now capitulating more and more, in its government circles, capitulating to the terror, run from Britain into the United States through the Obama Administration. We are on the verge of actual threat of a general thermonuclear, not nuclear, but thermonuclear war. The capabilities exist, and the intention exists to deploy them. So that anything that comes from Italy, for example, at a significant level, or anything in Europe, breaks the pattern of the capitulation in the trans-Atlantic region to the British-Obama coalition.

Taking Up the Galactic Challenge

Q: What is the purpose of life? If we do achieve everything that we’re fighting for, and humanity does get out to space, do we just keep on developing for all eternity?

LaRouche: We’re going through a new phase. If you look at some of the reports we’ve produced here in the United States, from the Basement, from the science-driver Basement, we could probably, now—to reach Mars, for example, would require probably two decades of work. The principles on which this would be based already exist. The planning stage for a launch of travel from Earth to Mars, within a lapsed time of one week, is now a physical principle, it is not yet an adequately developed principle. But it would be a thermonuclear—again, a thermonuclear propulsion system, which would take us from Earth orbit to Mars orbit in about a single week.

At the same time, this is not just an exploration of space. The fact is that we’re getting into a more dangerous part of the galaxy for the Solar System, which means that we’re already receiving galactic problems, which are unprecedented at any time since human beings existed about 7 million years ago, here. In other words, in the whole history of the galaxy, the Solar System has never been in this kind of condition, during the 7 million years that mankind has existed on this planet.

So therefore, we have also—and Russia has emphasized for its part—the danger from large rocks, such as asteroid remnants around us, hitting Earth now, which is an increasing probability, as well as other galactic and related conditions. Therefore, as the Russian government has proposed, there should be a cooperative agreement between East and West, essentially United States, Eurasia, so forth, on the defense of Earth, means for the defense of Earth for various kinds of catastrophes, which are to be expected as a kind of new kind of weather system for mankind to experience now.

There also are other, deeper implications of this, but those are the most essential ones up front.

So, we’re now at a point, where we need to have this kind of development, which will be the greatest stimulant, actually, at the same time, for the economic development of mankind. We’re on the verge of the crisis of this type. We’re also on the verge of a corresponding opportunity, if we mobilize ourselves to take other actions which are necessary at this time, for the defense of human life on this planet, and for the advancement of human life in the Solar System generally.

What Is an ‘Unconscious’ British Agent?

Q: We have a question here from a former Iranian diplomat. He asks you the following: “Mr. LaRouche, you once said in an address that [Iranian] President Ahmadinejad acts, without knowing it, like a British agent. My question is, how does that function? How can one be a British agent unconsciously?”

LaRouche: By being foolish enough to believe you are doing something, when you’re actually walking into a prepared trap. You’re an unwitting agent. You decide to do something, and you think that your ego entitles you to try to do it. You fail to recognize that what you’re walking into is a great trap. But sometimes people’s egos—and often in history, foolish people with big egos, think they intend to do one thing, and their actions result, and they’re accomplishing exactly the opposite. And that’s the case.

I don’t think the problem of Ahmadinejad today is a crucial problem. The point is, everybody intends to bomb Iran! Whatever the politics in Iran, the fate of Iran today, depends largely, positively, on Russia and China, and also India, which wish to prevent this kind of nonsense. The intention to cause such a problem no longer requires anything from Iran. It’s already there from Britain and from the present Presidency of the United States.

U.S. Generals Are Blocking the War

Q: I had two questions: The first one is that you had recently mentioned again, the lack of political commitment, especially in the youth generation, and we have a lot of young people here, so I wanted to ask if you could go into this again, because I think this has to be discussed again and again. That’s the first question.

And the second one is coming from someone else, who right now is not able to ask the question, and I’ll just read it: “You said repeatedly that to stop World War III, we need to rid the U.S. of President Obama. My question is, are the generals opposing the war, clear on the Obama danger, and are they ready to call for his impeachment?”

LaRouche: Well, I don’t know about the impeachment, but I think the implication is, it would lead in the direction of an impeachment. The main thing they are trying to do, is a defensive action to prevent the world from going into this world war. These American generals, and others around them, are committed to this goal. In that sense, they’re committed to an alliance of nations, which includes China, which includes now India; India’s opposed to this nonsense, it is an ally of Russia and China and so forth on this point. But since the absolute insanity of any attack, now, on Syria, Iran, and so forth—because those attacks now, are a continuation of what was done to Libya, earlier, under this President and his British controllers. So under these conditions, we are headed, right now, into that kind of war.

On the one side, we have the majority—really, the traditional majority in Israel wants no part of any attack of this type on Iran at this time! Only British agents, like the present leader of Israel—British agents as such, not Israeli patriots, but British agents, are doing this under British direction. And if they could get this started, it might set off a thermonuclear world war!

So the problem here is, yes, you have people around the world who are not talking about taking countermeasures, they’re simply saying, “This confrontation must not be allowed to happen.” That’s what’s being said. You see, Dempsey, who’s the chief spokesman for the U.S. military, is standing up. But because he stood up, you have all the clowns in the United States who are for the war, or are foolish enough to support it, actually asking for his elimination! Dempsey typifies the last official block against the occurrence of thermonuclear World War III! And that’s what the situation is.

So, their people therefore, are not proposing to go to war against the United States and Britain over this issue; they are simply taking the position, number one, that it should not be allowed to happen. We will not cooperate in such a war.

On the second thing, the question is what are you going to do to stop it? And the essential intent for this war is coming out of the United Kingdom, out of the British monarchy. It is not coming out of the United States or other places. Nobody on this planet with any brains wants such a war, except the British and Obama and people like that in the United States.

Russia has been very clear on this, repeatedly; China’s been clear; India has most recently made itself clear vocally on this question. And I don’t think anybody in western and central, Continental Europe wants it.

This might be the end of the human species! But when you get fanatics on the loose—I mean, just ask yourself: Do you know what a thermonuclear mass assault is? Do you know the amount of thermonuclear power that would be instituted even from the U.S. submarine fleet, as an initial launch? Do you realize what that would unleash, automatically, from China and Russia, in response to the signs of such a launch? Do you imagine how much of Europe would exist under those conditions? How much of the United States would exist under those conditions?

What the concern is now, is not to go to war, and see who could win the war. The concern now, is who is going to save the human species from an extinction threat, being launched at British initiative, with complete, fanatical support from the current President of the United States. That’s the issue! There’s nothing else as important as that. There’s nothing else as significant as that. And all the sane people around the world are agreeing on one thing: This must not happen.

But you have a few people who are determined that it shall. And the United States, with British alliance, has probably the greatest thermonuclear kill potential on the planet. And what would be intended was a full launch of that capability.

This is not nuclear warfare. This is thermonuclear warfare. It is not thermonuclear war incidents. It’s a consistent world war, and with thermonuclear weapons, if you’re going to launch them, you launch them all! Because you’re not going to get a second chance.

And that’s the way we have to look at this thing. This British-U.S. policy, behind the whole scheme in Libya—the whole Libya scheme was nothing but that. There’s no rational problem in that part of the world, nothing! Nothing important. It’s a fake! There’s no threat from Iran! There’s no threat from Syria! There are no atrocities in Syria, compared to those that are being created by the people are trying to stir it up!

It’s all a part of this pattern. And you see the mass insanity on this planet from governments and others. It’s astonishing, to see how serious the thing is! How insane it is!

And I could say a lot more on it, but that’s the essential way I look at this. It’s what I know. And it’s what leading circles in the world know. Right now, Dempsey has been the leading block against the launching of thermonuclear war on this planet.

Cure the Planet of the Green Movement

Q: Hello Mr. LaRouche, this is Sergey [Pulinets]. I have a very simple question about this madness. What do you think of these people who want to start this war? Are they really mad? Do they have some hope to survive after this conflict? What do you think?

LaRouche: What their major intention is, is the following. This is typical of warfare, of general warfare, in history. But most people have not been studying this thing for a long time, and the last generation which really understood this kind of warfare, was my own generation, and there are very few of us left. So the younger generations in the world, are not really prepared, to understand this problem; only, generally, older people, people of one generation younger than I am, are the last people who would tend to understand this kind of threat, and how this kind of mass insanity came into being.

Let me give you an example: It’s comparable and it’s relevant. Let’s take the case of the Green movement. Next to thermonuclear war, the Green movement is the greatest immediate threat to human life on this planet today. And yet, this is being spread. The scientific proof of that is clear. There is no competent scientific disproof of that: The intention to reduce the human population by Green methods would result in putting the human species in a situation like those of the dinosaurs, and like the other species, living species, which went extinct, because their behavior involved this kind of behavior that’s proposed as the Green movement.

It’s the Green movement mentality which prevents people from understanding what the nature and solution for the major threat is. Our major problem on this planet, of a positive type, is to restore high-technology investment, to go back to, beyond what we’ve known heretofore. To end the Green movement, and to cure the planet of the Green movement. Because if the thermonuclear war doesn’t kill us and cause an extinction of the human species, the Green movement today is doing that. A bit more slowly, but just as certainly.

So the question is, you’ve got to look at the mentality of people in government, people in leading circles. And you examine their minds, and say, “How could they come up with a Green movement?” “How could they come up with thermonuclear war?” It’s the same kind of mentality of saying, “We are going to have our way, or we’re going to kill you.” And that’s what the Green movement is: We’re going to have our way, or we’re going to kill you. Thermonuclear war: Let us have our way, or we’ll kill you.

And that’s where the problem lies.

We have very few people on this planet, who have a capability to understand the lessons of history, in these matters. Two generations or three generations since World War II, people have gradually, step by step, lost their understanding of what the meaning of general warfare is, and general destruction is. We have a younger generation which is now in charge. They don’t think in these terms; they don’t believe in the lessons of history! And therefore, out of their kind of stupidity, their cultural stupidity, they refuse to understand that the kind of toys they want to play with can cause the extinction of the human species, or something approaching that.

Back to Conference Main Page