Lyndon LaRouche Private Luncheon Keynote
Our Choice: Disaster or the Long-Term Options For Preventing It
November 2010
 Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. at webcast near Washington, D.C., November 6, 2010. |
Lyndon LaRouche gave the following keynote remarks to a private luncheon in Washington, November 15. He was introduced by EIR Washington correspondent Bill Jones.
WILLIAM JONES: My name is Bill Jones, you're attending a private diplomatic briefing with Mr. Lyndon LaRouche.
It's a busy day in Washington today. Congress came back today — oh, boy. Watch out. And, the freshman class, that's to begin in January also arrived — and boy! Is that quite a crowd. Watch out for this one.
So, everybody's asking the question, what's going to happen, what is policy going to be? Who's in charge? All of these are questions now, in terms of the policy of the United States. Mr. LaRouche in an extensive webcast on November 6th, gave his first comments after the volatile November 2nd elections on his view of the situation, where he essentially issued marching orders to his friends in the Democratic Party, people who have neglected to do what they should have done, which is why the election ended up the way they did, as well as the patriotic Republicans, to try and bring together a group which can take the measures necessary to save this nation. It's a serious situation, and of course, it has global implications: When there is folly in Washington, this will affect the entire world. And indeed, there is a lot of folly. And I won't mention any names, but we have to get rid of folly as soon as soon as possible, hopefully even before this new Congress gets together.
You have in your packet excerpts of Mr. LaRouche's webcast, which I urge you to read at your convenience when you get back. It's also available in toto, in electronic form... Secondly, one issue I'd like to also mention to you, is that we have a new publication which dates from an original publication we did in the 1970s, called Dope, Inc., which is really the history of the drug trade, how it developed, how it is financed, naming the names of the people who are responsible: This is now a new publication, and it's also available for purchase... if you want to order that on your way out, feel free to do that.
And lastly, I would urge you to keep on top of what's going on. It's going to be a very turbulent period as we go into this month and into the new Congress, and I would urge you to also consider taking out a subscription to our weekly Executive Intelligence Review Online...
With that, Mr. LaRouche.
LAROUCHE: Thank you. The news is all bad. But sometimes you have to make good news out of understanding bad news. I urged, and as usual, I find that my most effective operations are somewhat secret, because even though I want to say these things publicly, that doesn't occur, so I'm left with telling people about, not what happened today, but what is going to happen tomorrow, and that sometimes has worked and succeeded, and rather than trying to interpret what the current developments are, because I think current developments are not going last very long: Either for better or worse, the changes will come.
Now, for example, during the period prior to the recent U.S. elections, I had strongly urged leading circles in the Democratic Party, to take a certain course of action then, because I warned them, that if they didn't take those actions, then, they would find themselves in the midst of a catastrophe, after the election. That they had the opportunity, in fact, to shape and reshape the results of the election, and failed to do so, largely out of typical kinds of political cowardice, or organized political cowardice. So they did nothing which would have prevented the catastrophe, which occurred during the election, which could have been prevented. But they chose not to do it, because they didn't have the guts to do what would have worked.
And this is not surprising, because in the period of the wars, since World War II, the ability to execute a competent strategy in human interest, has become less and less and less. We get more wars, and less. We get more wars, and longer wars, and more perpetual wars, and we lose more, we lose more nations, to this wear and tear of long wars, which has been the curse of humanity, essentially since 1890, since Bismarck was fired on orders by London. We got into long wars in that period; we continued to be buried in long wars, today. We continued to be buried by cowardly politicians, who are in leading positions, who refuse to take the actions which would be equitable and would be accepted by people generally.
So that's the situation: The situation now is terrible. It's desperate. But there are options. One hopes that at a certain point, that as things become more terrible, that some people will find out, that "going along" is worse than fighting, and we're in such a situation, now. For example: The United States and Europe are presently in a hyperinflationary spiral. The Europeans are somewhat less enthusiastic about the hyperinflation, than the people in charge of the Federal Reserve System in the United States. You're in such a situation, that if this trend were to continue, you would get into January and February, after the new Congress has assembled itself, in which you would probably have a hyperinflationary breakdown crisis of the United States, itself, going into March, in that period: We're on the road — in the United States, we are presently committed, under the present trends, to enter into a hyperinflationary collapse, comparable to what happened in Germany in 1923. That's the current implication of the current policies, of the Federal administration, the Federal government, and also of the Federal Reserve System. That is also the commitment, implicitly, of the British government.
Now, to understand how this works, recall that, in 1971, the United States very foolishly, under certain influences, cancelled the Bretton Woods system, that is the fixed-exchange-rate system. That was not the beginning of troubles in the United States, which actually began with the onset of the Vietnam War, the real troubles, a long war. And a long war, which was made possible by the killing of President Kennedy, because President Kennedy would have prevented the war in Indo-China from occurring. He was committed to it; he had the backing of Douglas MacArthur, and Douglas MacArthur's advice, of a policy of "No U.S. land wars in Asia!" Especially no long wars of the United States in Asia.
The President was killed, and the long war proceeded. Ten years of Indo-China War, by the United States, from which the United States never recovered, the economic and related effects, the demoralization that had occurred, never recovered. So therefore, you had a new element come in, and we had 1971: the cancellation of the fixed-exchange-rate system. But it wasn't just the cancellation of the system, and here, I come to a point which is not generally recognized, internationally, diplomatically, but it's the most important fact of this period. In 1971, two events occurred simultaneously: One, was the cancellation of the fixed-exchange-rate system. Second, at the same time, Lord Jacob Rothschild, on behalf of the British monarchy, launched a system called the Inter-Alpha Group. This Inter-Alpha Group now runs the world. It runs Wall Street, it runs the Federal Reserve System — and that's where the problem lies.
Therefore, the United States is, actually, today, contrary to many rumors, the United States is actually acting as an appendage of the British Empire. And the British Empire is not just the colonial properties of the British, which are still colonial properties, as people from certain countries can tell you, in Africa. But this is the whole system, which is now controlled by the central function of the Inter-Alpha system. Now, the Inter-Alpha system has a primary control over the trans-Atlantic part of the world. As you notice, look to the Pacific side, the Pacific Rim, you discover that China is operating independently of this system, and is fighting, resisting it! You see this expressed by one particular characteristic: The opposition to nuclear power in the trans-Atlantic region, and the emphasis on an accelerated approach to nuclear power on the Asian Rim — led by China, which is the most vigorous in this, and India is not far behind, in its vigor on emphasis on nuclear power.
The policies of China, currently, in terms of economic policy, its monetary policy, is sane. The policies of the trans-Atlantic region are insane. The problem is, that despite the fact that India has a similar policy — it's a different policy, but a similar one, it's a nuclear policy, India recognizes that, without nuclear power, an extension of it, it's impossible to solve the coming crisis of India. Because we have a large population which is typical of Asia, in which a very large proportion of the total population is very poor, extremely poor. In whole areas there virtually is no infrastructure, of any significance, to support an improvement in the condition of the larger part of the population. Despite the fact that the welfare of some of the less un-wealthy parts of the population has been improving somewhat.
You have also the fact that in Asia, on the Pacific Coast of Asia, you have much more commitment to progress, less vulnerability. Whereas on the trans-Atlantic side of the world, which is the British-dominated part of the world, the Inter-Alpha Group's domination of the world, we find that we're living in an actual catastrophe.
The sum total, for the world as a whole, is the danger that a general collapse, of the trans-Atlantic region, will cause such an effect on a global scale, that even the healthier part, such as China, India and so forth, Korea, Japan, and whatnot, which otherwise could make it, will be dragged down into the pit, by the collapse of the trans-Atlantic region. That's where this thing stands.
Now, the question is: Can the United States, in particular, because you're not going to get it from Europe — there may be some forces in Europe that are rational; for example, you have the case of Schäuble in Germany who, on this issue, is relatively rational, but he's being attacked by his associates, for his rationality. Italy is in a mess; France under the present President is a mess and will continue to be so! Spain is a hopeless bankrupt.
Most of South America, which depends on the Brazil axis, is also bankrupt, because all this whole area is controlled, primarily, by the Inter-Alpha Group! Which is the present form of the British Empire.
It was created in 1971 by Lord Jacob Rothschild, on behalf of the British monarchy. It was created and launched, in order to absorb the advantage that the British Empire had, by the collapse of the U.S., through the cancellation of the fixed-exchange-rate system. In other words, we already had a hyperinflationary tendency, embedded as a potential, in the United States, once we'd had a couple of years of the Indo-China War. It was already happening. But the global effects were hindered by the fact that the fixed-exchange-rate system still existed among nations. As long as the fixed-exchange-rate system adhered among nations, we had a strong resistance, in the fixed-exchange-rate system, against hyperinflation.
Since 1971, therefore, we've gone through various inflationary actions, in Europe and other parts of the world, which have resulted in the present hyperinflationary tendency within the world system. The hyperinflation is concentrated in the trans-Atlantic region. One of the biggest fulcrums of the hyperinflation, is Brazil: Brazil is a hyperinflationary nation, which pretends to be wealthy, but is actually bankrupt, and it has a social crisis embedded within it, between, in Brazil, the very poor, as opposed to the more wealthy — or less un-wealthy.
So therefore, a collapse of the trans-Atlantic region in the North Atlantic, would result in a catastrophe in the South Atlantic. And the abomination of the European and other treatment, of Africa, is a complicating factor in this, which ensures the worst effect.
So the question is, can we change this policy? Well, they can. The issue pivots on, in the United States, the Glass-Steagall standard. Now, if the Glass-Steagall, in its original form of 1933 — it was cancelled in the end of 1990s; Clinton was in trouble, and therefore, they rammed this thing through. But that is what the root of our problem is, right now. Without Glass-Steagall it's impossible, to stop the hyperinflation, of the United States, and of the entire trans-Atlantic region, in this time. We're at a point where, December will be crucial, and where the electoral process will be influential, because now we're going into an interim period between now and January, in which you have the so-called Congressional interim, where the former Congress is still technical sitting, or is able to sit, before we, in January, bring in the new Congress.
The new Congress is fascist, frankly, is fascist, just as fascist Hitler, what's being threatened, particularly in the House of Representatives. But it's such an extreme form of fascism, and so sudden, so pervasive, so mass-murderous, that it invites several possibilities, and some of them are extremely dangerous. In any world crisis, of this type, in the history of European civilization, a crisis like this usually results in an outbreak of wars and revolutions, as in the 14th century, among the most conspicuous things; as a somewhat different case, from the time of 1492 to 1648, in the long period of warfare, religious and related warfare in Europe during that period. So, in an extremely dangerous situation, where, as even in the United States, if the population which is being brutally oppressed, the great majority of the population are brutally oppressed, by this President and by this Congress, if that tension is increased, and there's no resistance to it, from the political institutions, then you have the threat of a Jacobin riot situation, inside the United States. That is, the kind of revolution which the French Revolution amounted to, where sheer desperation, motivates a population to insanity against itself. And you saw a sample of that, in the recent election, where people who were not insane, but who hated the Obama Administration, voted for the Republicans, out of hatred of Obama, and joined these Republicans, who are actually of this fascist disposition, in that process. That's the irony of this particular thing.
You have also other ironies you can observe in the United States. In Texas, Texas has gone fascist in this election. In the Case of California, California voted against the Republican Party, why? Because they hated Schwarzenegger, who was their hate-object; therefore, the Democrats won inside California, because they hated Schwarzenegger, more than the President. Where, in Texas, the hatred of the President was crucial. In New York State, you had probably the best reaction on the state level, because you had a victory on the New York State election sweep.
So, you have a mixed situation inside the United States: You have Texas, gone fascist. A real fascist is stuck in, as a new, elected Senator from Kentucky: Rand Paul. You have a defeat of this tendency, a victory of the Democratic Party in California, because of the hatred against this Nazi, Schwarzenegger. You have a sane factor in the electoral results in the state of New York.
You look, in Europe, the President of France is a great disappointment to the human race, at present, though that can change. France is now in a very unstable situation. The population of France is not very happy with its President, or the policies that go with him. Italy is in a mess. Germany is in a mess: There are factors there which could be very good under certain circumstances, but it's a mess, today.
Russia's problem is, that while it has a leaning in one direction, which leans toward agreement with China and India in particular, the problem is, the economic policy of Russia, presently, is tied to the Inter-Alpha Group. And the Inter-Alpha Group is a form of British fascism. So Russia has a conflict between these two tendencies in its own body, and among its own leading circles. The Inter-Alpha Group is totally a British — and always has been, a British agent inside Europe and inside Russia, in particular — inside the old Soviet Union, it's an operation there.
So, these are the problems we deal with. Therefore, the issue here, is the difficulty in getting a well-organized body of leading opinion, influential opinion, to take the necessary actions, and the actions exemplify what the possibilities are for the United States. Presuming that people in the United States come to their senses, as sort of a Christmas gift, perhaps, to itself, the first thing we have to do, is get rid of this President. The President is clinically insane. That's not a secret, that's not a guess: He is clinically insane, by all standards of psychiatry. He has a mental condition, which is comparable to that to the Emperor Nero and Adolf Hitler; so, this is not a very good thing to have. Therefore, as long as he remains President, and remains a tool of the British, which is what he is, then there's no chance for the United States, whose Presidency is a very powerful institution inside the United States, without getting rid of this President, and getting him ousted, which can be done under the 25th Amendment, section 4, because he's a mental case! And the Constitution of the United States allows, and recommends, the removal from office of any President, who's shown these paranoid tendencies, on mental reasons. Just the same way you'd fire a guy from a firm, who's gone insane, the head of a firm; you find he's clinically insane, he's dangerous, he's wild, and you would just remove him from office, and move him to some safe place and try to get him cured of his insanity. But get him out of office.
So, therefore, the first thing, is, you have to get this President out of office. Otherwise, there's no chance for the United States, and if there's no chance for the United States, then you have a chain-reaction, in which the trans-Atlantic section of the world financial-monetary system collapses! And that, then, hits Asia.
If, however, he is removed, the next step is, restore Glass-Steagall, the 1933 Glass-Steagall law of Franklin Roosevelt. That would mean, essentially, with nations which agreed with the United States on that, would mean that we would be restoring, effectively, agreements among nations to stop the hyperinflationary process, which is hitting the world now, by going to a fixed-exchange-rate system agreement, among nations. Which is what China's working for. China demands that its interests be defended, by the equivalent of a fixed-exchange-rate agreement. And that's right, that's what's needed. It's the only solution for dealing with this particular problem.
All right, if that occurs, then the question is, can we have a recovery? We can organize a recovery; we could organize a recovery from the United States immediately, despite the conditions of things as they are now. We've done it before; Roosevelt did it. It's been done before Roosevelt. It can be done! And we know how to do it. The question is, is there going to be the political will to do it? And, we have a very interesting option, which is not well known outside the United States.
Back in 1964, on the basis of the experience of the Roosevelt organization of a recovery, a company, the Parsons Company, a construction firm in California, presented a polished form of what was a "NAWAPA policy," the "North American Water and Power Alliance." Now, this program is still there, the design is still there, and it essentially remains a competent program. It would be a program whose implications are not merely for the United States, or Canada, and Mexico; they would affect the world as a whole.
I'll explain, because this is probably the example, the most crucial example, of how we could get out of this mess: We have, in the United States, a water crisis, a major water crisis, particularly in the area between the Mississippi River and the West Coast, especially west of the 20-inch rainfall line.. The loss of water, potable water, is resulting in a subsiding of the land, in the Western Central States, and a decline in the water supply throughout the entire region. We have a general decay of that region.
Now, the cure is obvious, and the cure is what was proposed by the Parsons Company. We have enough water coming in, in North America, to meet this problem if we manage it. It starts with the Arctic, in the Yukon and Alaska. We have a great mass — as in the case of the Congo, as in the Transaqua case — we have great mass of surplus water, that is, water that simply flows out into the ocean, without being useful to the people on the landed side. If we divert this water flow, from going directly into the oceans, and move this water, through the land area, on its way to the ocean, as is proposed in Transaqua in the case of Lake Chad, then we can immediately have a benefit, in terms of the increase of food supplies and so forth. I mean, bringing Lake Chad back to what it had been several decades ago, would be a revolution for Africa, and could be a turning point for the conditions of life in Africa. But similarly this NAWAPA.
But NAWAPA has other implications: NAWAPA involves a water management program which goes up to 5,000 feet in elevation, in a massive diversion of this water through a trench, which manages this whole system. The effect of this accumulation of water, and this flow, would mean that the amount of water which is saved, would not only be available for use, for development of food supplies and other improvements, but would mean that a factor of 2.7 times, of rainfall increase would occur in the United States. That is, for every increase in the water supply in the NAWAPA system, you would get 2.7 times that amount of moisture coming down in rain, over the total territory of the United States. The project is much bigger than the Chinese Three Gorges Dam, it's a much greater project, just on the water side alone.
Now this project, if implemented, would be implemented now, by aid of nuclear power, not because we would have needed nuclear power to run the NAWAPA project, but because nuclear power has many advantages, in terms of the effects of that.
This would open things up, and the obvious first connection is two: One, the first connection is the connection of Alaska to Russia, to Siberian Russia, through the Bering Straits. And there are two proposals One is the rail connection, and the other is a submarine connection, a tunnel, and both of these things are actively considered. The opening up of this connection, between North America and Siberia, would change the conditions in Asia: It would mean the immediate development of the rail system from the existing rail systems in Siberia, up to the same point, the point of this tunnel; that would mean that for the Asian nations, it would mean that the mineral resources of Northern Asia, which are considerable, but exist, often in very difficult territory to deal with, which the Vernadsky Institute in Russia, is experienced in knowing how to deal with.
That the mineral resources which are needed by China and other Asian countries to the south, would now suddenly be available for development, with a new agro-industrial, etc. revolution occurring in that territory.
We also have, in the Darién Gap, an area which was planned by President McKinley to be developed, to connect North America and South America, economically and otherwise, was stopped by the Theodore Roosevelt. But the Darién Gap is still, today, an excellent project, which, by going through Colombia, reaches out to development potentialities throughout the entire southern hemisphere. So, we have this project.
That's not the end of it, however. The destiny of mankind, is actually going toward colonization in space. This is inevitable. We're not talking about colonization in space, now, although there could be exploratory measures to prepare the way for that, as to Mars; there are many things we don't know about, so just saying "we're going to colonize space," is a very nice idea, but actually trying to do it, you've got to stop and think about exactly what you're doing, what you're running into. And some of these problems are not well understood. But the idea of doing it, is excellent! I would say, by the end of this century, or before then, if we wish to try to that, we could take the steps which would enable us to discover exactly how pull this off successfully. Hmm?
And also, this NAWAPA project, in terms of its byproducts, also indicates certain things in the Arctic region, which are very significant for understanding life, better than we understood the principle of life, the long-term function of life on this planet and other planets, before.
So what we have before us, is the possibility, with this project, which would actually cause 4 million people, in the United States and Canada, to be employed, in just this project. And they would be brought into it, very rapidly. This project alone, together with NAWAPA, would mean an elimination of this present crisis for the United States, and by chain-reaction, to other parts of the world. This is the kind of direction in which the human race has to go!
You know, in order to maintain supplies of raw materials — we don't run out of raw materials; what happens is, we dissipate the organization of the best concentration of raw materials. So it becomes more and more costly, in terms of physical effort, to get the same materials tomorrow, that we required today. In order to compensate for that, we must increase the energy-flux density, of application. And by technology, by raising the platform of technology to a higher level, we're able to — in terms of human cost — to actually increase the supply of raw materials, at a lower human cost for these raw materials, because we increase the productive powers of labor. And by increasing the productive powers of labor, and using new technologies, more high-energy-dense technologies, we can overcome this problem.
What happens is, when we go with this NAWAPA project, we are actually getting into the questions of the biological side of the technologies of space exploration. And to do other things: We are changing, increasing the management of the planet, by going systematically about the reorganization of water management on this planet! And one of the great crises of all nations on this planet, is a problem in water-management! We could increase food supply, with water management and power: The two are related.
So, what we are faced with — a disaster. But the disaster forces us to look at the long-term options, for resisting that disaster, preventing it. And for hope for the future, for mankind. And all those elements are present! They're available! The question is, choice: Where's the political choice? We don't need any more empires, what we need is cooperation among nation-states, because what we need, in order to develop nation-states, you have to develop the culture of the people, and you have work with the culture of the people! Because you must always develop the poorest people, culturally! In their own culture! So you increase their capability to understand things, and to develop new technologies, and master these technologies.
Therefore, you can not have imperialism! You can not have an imperial power that is superimposing its will, on a people of a culture! You must work with the culture, not against it. Therefore, you must have a partnership, among national cultures, which is based on a certain agreement on common aims of mankind. And when nations can agree to a fixed-exchange-rate credit system, as opposed to this monetary system, and similar kinds of things, we can solve these problems!
The question is, the problem we have to solve is not these problems; the solutions are known to us. The question is, how do we solve the resistance to make these changes, these forms of cooperation, which will lead to the solution to the problem? And you see today, for example, you'll find that the fascist element in the new elected people, Republicans coming into the Congress, they say, that this fascist program, which they're demanding, which means cutting the possibility of living for a large part of the U.S. population, it means the mass murder of a whole part of the population! It means something comparable to what Hitler did! They will say, "this is the only choice."
It is not the only choice! There are other choices: the choice of high technology, the advancement of technology, the choice of cooperation in great projects, which develop land-areas, which enable people through that development, to solve their own problems. A fixed-exchange-rate system, which is required if we're going to have an equitable thing, it's the thing China's asking for: They want a fixed-exchange-rate system, which is essential, to balance an orderly system of development of the world.
These measures, these programs, can save humanity. They're available. The question is: Where is the will, to push aside this present insanity, this present monetarist insanity, which is threatening peace and killing nations?
And that's where we stand: And therefore, I think, that the promotion of policy discussions, which change the subject from the pessimistic, brutal outlook among some governments, especially inside the trans-Atlantic region today, that, if that thing can be exploded, and if the truth of what is possible is brought forward, in contrast to this evil, I think there is a solution! And therefore, fighting for that solution, is the only political mission, for me, which is worthwhile.
And there is a goodness in people out there, which somehow has to be mustered. There's a potential willingness, within the human race, for this kind of change. The problem is, we have political institutions which have acquired power, over the control of political policymaking, which resists these necessary changes. And they're centered largely in the British Empire, which is really the world empire, as typified by an actually bankrupt institution, which is the British imperial system, called Lord Jacob Rothschild's Inter-Alpha Group, which controls about 70% of the world's banking, right now. And it's the dominant force controlling the policy of the United States, from the top down.
So there are options, if we understand them. And if we can find the people, who have the will, to take the steps to make sure these options are not only understood, but adopted.
Thank you. [applause]
