General

With their case for impeachment falling apart, the British-American coup plotters deploying against President Trump and the American electorate predictably turned to the New York Times to preview John Bolton’s “memoirs”, to try to pump some life into their efforts for a regime change in the U.S. In her weekly webcast, Helga Zepp LaRouche said this is a sign of desperation, as their case has been effectively refuted by Trump’s legal team, and a significant segment of the population is enraged at the unconstitutional assault on the institution of the Presidency, and the increasing difficulty they are having to cover the cost of basic necessities.

The biggest danger the imperial forces behind the coup face has been Trump’s commitment to establish better relations with Russia and China. Not surprisingly, Bolton, one of those virulently opposed to this shift in U.S. strategic policy, is now being embraced by the same Democrats who in the past denounced him as a dishonest war-hawk. This latest eruption on behalf of the war party occurs as the President has put forward his Middle East peace plan, which LaRouche described as a potential first step toward an expanded negotiation process—one which must include the Palestinians, as well as the Russians.

With social chaos world-wide, and the war danger still real, she called on viewers to become active in the battle to defeat the geopoliticians with a great power summit, which can assure security and economic cooperation. A major aspect of this activity must be to revive the role of classical culture as a means of uplifting people.

TRANSCRIPT

HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hello, I’m Harley Schlanger from the Schiller Institute with our founder and President Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Today is January 29th, 2020. And as most of you are well aware, we are in the midst of this crazy impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate. There have been some significant developments in the last hours, the last couple of days, including the resurfacing of John Bolton, courtesy of the lying New York Times. Helga, what do you make of this situation, where it’s headed now?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think the emergence of Bolton, while naturally its designed to put the nail in the coffin for the impeachment of Trump, is also a sign of desperation. Because they could not prove the case, there is no criminal act which they could attribute to President Trump. But Bolton who obviously was guided to write this book — it’s supposed to come out and spill the beans about what Trump supposedly did in the phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine. Now, this is obviously an act of desperation on the side of the Democrats, because, if you remember, they used to attack Bolton as a liar, as a completely untrustworthy fellow, but now they are relying on him as the key witness.

Where this will go it’s too early to say. It’s Wednesday. Friday is the vote. If the Senate will allow more witnesses, in which case it would open up not only the potential to have Bolton testify, but the Trump team could bring into the Senate hearing all the other crucial people — Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, the so-called “whistleblower,” and many others. Adam Schiff, for example, they could bring out the entire British involvement in the coup attempt against Trump from the very beginning, the Christopher Steele dossier, the FISA Court, all of these things which were mentioned in the Horowitz report. So it could become a big mud fight. And if the Democrats succeed in getting Bolton as a witness, then maybe you have to have the whole truth out. That was the view of President Trump in the beginning. He said, let’s have a big discussion. Later he changed it and said it may be bad for the country to drag this out indefinitely. But if it comes down to that, then maybe the whole truth has to come out.

McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, said he doesn’t have the vote to block the witnesses. This is today, we have to see how this goes until Friday. But I think it is very clear that this is not functioning with the American people. We have picked up an increasing mood of the American population, that they really are enraged. And if you need one proof, yesterday, Trump appeared at a rally in south New Jersey, and there were 175,000 people registered to go to this rally. Naturally not so many could, but that shows you there is a tremendous ferment, and south New Jersey, that is where the so-called “deplorables” live, this is a poor working-class area and obviously this is where Trump is resonating very big in the population.

So, I think we are probably in the end stage of this coup attempt, despite the fact that the Democrats have stated their intention to keep dragging this on. Maxine Waters, for example, said they will continue this impeachment throughout the election campaign; but I think the Democrats are playing a very risky game, because the population is really sick and tired of this whole story.

I think it is becoming very clear this is a coup. There is another very interesting blog piece by Pat Lang, who says that in his former capacity as a person working for the CIA or the military in the dark field of covert operations, he recognizes that there was a continuous political campaign against Trump from day one, and if one operation doesn’t function, they pull up another one: This was Russiagate, then Ukrainegate, now the impeachment, and the Bolton thing being the latest such operation. So it is really a battle where the role of what some people mistakenly call the “deep state” — it really should be better called the Anglo-American British Empire intelligence apparatus — the role of these forces is becoming very, very open. And I think that that may change the character of politics not only in the United States, but internationally, for good.

SCHLANGER: You mentioned that the case was not proven by the Democratic managers. In fact, I think Trump’s attorneys did a very good job of countering it. One of the most significant was the testimony of Alan Dershowitz, who made the point this was not just against Trump; it’s against the Constitution, it’s against the American Presidential system. I think that was quite significant, don’t you?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, Dershowitz is not a Trump supporter, he is a Democrat, and he had been very critical of Trump in the past. But he argued very strongly on the question that what is at stake here is the American Constitution: That this is a blatant attempt by the Democrats to turn the U.S., as a republic based on the Constitution, into a British Parliamentary system, that this goes completely against the will of the framers of the Constitution. He takes apart these arguments by the Democrats very efficiently. For example, this ominous notion, which they all of a sudden treated as if this would be the final proof of Trump’s crime, that in the discussion with Ukraine that he pursued a quid pro quo. Now Dershowitz says, so what about it? Even if everything Bolton is saying would be true, this does not constitute a crime, because a quid pro quo is what every head of state uses in any negotiation with any other state, so it is nothing special; it is what normal negotiations among states are. And I think these kinds of arguments which demystify the ghosts which are being created artificially, like this ominous quid pro quo, that he takes it down and takes it apart as a constitutional lawyer, I think is very, very useful. Because there is a lot of confetti spread around and thrown around to have a voice arguing for constitutional matters is extremely useful.

SCHLANGER: I think one of the things that came out from Dershowitz and others is this argument that a policy disagreement is not the basis for impeachment. And Helga, from the beginning we have been emphasizing that you have to look beyond the so-called facts of the case, because the facts of the case don’t exist. But what does exist is this coup, and we see this again in terms of the re-emergence of Bolton who has been opposed to what President Trump was trying to do in working with Russia.

How do you explain this to the American people? I think this is something that has not been fully explained fully enough by the President’s team, but I think we’ve done the job. How would you explain it?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, Trump — who obviously is not a simple person, he has many sides to him; he does use a language which antagonizes a lot of people — and therefore it is actually very important to note the fact that, despite the fact of all these things which one can argue “is this the style I like, is it not the style I like” — the point is the biggest mortal danger to the existence of the British Empire is the demonstrated willingness by Trump to seek a better relationship with Russia and China. And that has to be understood, because that is the most important. He has made clear that, given the opportunity, he is absolutely easy with Putin; this was demonstrated especially in the Helsinki summit, despite all influences around him to the contrary. He does want to have a positive relationship with China. He still calls Xi Jinping his “good friend.” He praises the great culture of China. And from the standpoint of the British Empire this is the end of them, because once they lose the ability to manipulate the great powers in a geopolitical manner, one against the other, then they will absolutely vanish. And given the potential which we have helped to create in terms of having a summit of these major powers, they are really in a panic.

So, I think it is important for the people who support Trump, especially in the United States, people should really think through, the world is in a terrible condition. We are sitting on a powder keg of a potential blowout; there are many problems we can address as we continue to talk. And there is no way how to solve these problems, unless you have a new level of politics which overcomes geopolitics, and that requires that at least the three Presidents of the United States, Russia and China work together and work out solutions for the world’s problems. If that does not occur there are incredible dangers.

So, the people who are anti-Russian but pro-Trump, or people who are pro-Trump and anti-China, they should really rethink their prejudices. Because a lot of what people think they know or what their dear opinion is, is the result of psychological warfare coming from the mainstream media and other operations. And the fact that Trump wants to have a positive relation with Russia for the sake of world peace, positive relations with China, is the most important factor of the strategic situation and it really explains almost every other aspect of the strategic situation.

SCHLANGER: We see this very clearly in the reaction of Adam Schiff, with trying to use Bolton as the key witness. Schiff, in his presentation as a Democratic manager, constantly stressed, we’re at war with Russia. And he lied about this, he made the whole case again, the Mueller case on Russia;, and it showed that this is a pro-war faction in the Democratic Party that’s opposing Trump.

In this context you mentioned the British Empire, the geopolitics: We’ve now seen at least the beginnings of the so-called “deal of the century,” of a peace plan for the Middle East. From what you’ve seen so far, what’s your analysis of this?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I mean we knew this was in the makings, it shows the handwritings of Jared Kushner. It is a first step and I think if you look at the international reactions, which I will mention in a second, it shows it has at least the potential to start a negotiation process. If you look at the proposal itself, naturally it was proposed between Trump and Netanyahu, who faces criminal trial back at home, so he was probably very happy to have that occasion. And it gives Israel practically everything they would possibly ask for: It reaffirms Jerusalem as the unified capital of Israel; it says the settlements are okay in the West Bank; the Golan Heights, the Syrian territory, belongs to Israel, so it has all of these things. It gives security guarantees to Israel fully.

The interesting thing is, that it does talk for the first time about the U.S. promoting a Palestinian state. Now the Palestinian Authority was not involved in the discussion, so they even rejected this plan before it was published, because they said all the decisions made before, point in the direction that it does not represent any Palestinian interest. President Abbas called for an emergency summit of the Arab League, which will take place on the Feb. 1. Naturally, the proposed Palestinian state, from a territorial standpoint, is extremely meager. It basically cuts out a lot of the interesting parts. To make it viable, will be very difficult. The proposed money over a certain period of time of $50 billion is not a hell of a lot.

So I think the reactions to it — I would like to mention a couple of them — first of all, Netanyahu will immediately leave Washington and go to Moscow to discuss with Putin. Various Russian spokesmen, Lavrov, Peskov, Kosachev, the head of the International Relations Committee of the Federation Council, they all said they would study it, we will look at it intensively; and negotiations have to be based on the involvement of the so-called “quartet” — the quartet meaning the United Nations, the EU, Russia, and the U.S. In any case it’s an international approach and even the EU foreign representative, Josep Borell, said it has to be based on respect for all the UN resolutions concerning Israel-Palestine, and the representative of the UN General Secretary said, it has to be in respect of all UN resolutions, including the one that Israel has to go back to its pre-1967 borders. So that naturally is not what’s here proposed, but that is the reaction from international forces.

I think it’s useful to start a negotiation process provided that the Palestinians agree to that, which they have not so far. But I want to say very clearly, that it is good to give security guarantees for Israel. That is absolutely crucial. But I think there is not going to be a peace in the region, in Southwest Asia, if you don’t give security interests to all relevant parties, and that includes emphatically Iran. If people go back in history and look at which peace treaties functioned and which didn’t, you have the Peace of Westphalia which explicitly formulated the principle that for the sake of peace, you have to take into account the interest of every other, and that’s why the Peace of Westphalia was such a groundbreaking work and led to the whole development of international law; as compared, in total contrast to the Versailles Treaty, which going against all historical evidence, presumed Germany was the only guilty party for World War I, all the reparations had to be paid by Germany, and that laid the ground for the developments which then led to the Great Depression of 1929 and naturally the emergence of the Nazis, and it led to World War II. If you don’t have a peace which takes into account the interest of every party, it cannot function.

And most importantly, you have to look at the region as a whole. You have to look at Afghanistan—a mess; Iraq—pretty bad; Syria—totally destroyed from the senseless war; Yemen. You can even go into North Africa: Libya. Look at the result of what President Trump clearly wants to end, namely, these endless wars. Therefore, if you want to reconstruct this area and have a durable peace, what you need is an economic development for the entire Southwest Asian region, and that can only happen if all the great powers work together. I think the immediate perspective is given, because the Chinese have offered to Afghanistan, to Iraq, to Syria, to extend the New Silk Road. Also the Arabs have many interests of cooperation along the Silk Road with China. That is the only way how you can have the hope to calm down this region. And rather than trying to continue geopolitical games, I think all the great powers—Russia, China, India, the United States, European countries—they should all join hands and reconstruct this area, and then you can have the hope for peace.

So, I think the extension of the New Silk Road from China via Iran, Iraq; into Turkey, Syria; into Egypt, all the way to Africa, developing Africa in the same way. Then, through Turkey, extend the New Silk Road to Europe, to the Balkans; to connect via the Central Asian corridors — If you have a total peace plan like that, I think it can be really the basis for peace.

And I would hope now, this is now a first step. It needs to have more steps. But I think it’s a negotiation basis, and people should take a positive attitude, and then, hopefully, it can lead to the result of a real peace in the region.

SCHLANGER: As we’re discussing these things, there’s been something that has just emerged as a strategic concern in the last days, really last weeks: the spread of the coronavirus out of China. President Trump, in a comment a couple days ago, praised the Chinese for the way they’re handing it. The anti-China lobby is going crazy against China. What’s your assessment of where we stand in dealing with this virus?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, one of the leading Chinese scientists, who is charge of managing this crisis, said that he thinks the peak of the epidemic may be in ten days from now. That would be a very good news. China has done a very big job, by putting about 60 million people into quarantine. In major cities, people are being told to stay home. They have a letter out for the elderly, that they should especially not leave their apartment, because they are more at risk than other people. I think it is an incredible job. There was just a meeting between President Xi Jinping and the leadership of the WHO, the World Health Organization. They praised China, by saying they did an absolute fantastic job, by also giving a standard of how to deal with such a crisis. From an objective standpoint, there is no question that China is handling this extremely well, building three hospitals of more than 1,000 beds in a week — I don’t know what other country could do that at this point.

As you mentioned, there are also some really degenerated minds, who have absolutely no respect for human life. One is the unspeakable Danish newspaper Jyllands-Post with its cartoon, which showed the Chinese flag with the stars in the flag being replaced by the coronavirus. China protested very strongly, and basically said that this is a complete contempt for human decency, and should not be regarded as a cartoon. I think our colleagues from the Schiller Institute in Denmark also put out a similar statement, absolutely condemning the degenerate mindset coming from such “cartoons.”

Other than that, if this Chinese scientist is correct, then hopefully this could be resolved very soon. Naturally, doomsday-sayers, who say the economic impact could be a trigger for the world financial collapse. I don’t think that is more than a cover story, for the fact that this financial system is bankrupt as it is.

SCHLANGER: These very same central bankers and financiers, who have bankrupted the financial system, are circulating this new report from the Bank for International Settlements, talking about the “Green Swan.” They are now saying that the scapegoat for the crash will be man-made climate change. Obviously, this is another aspect of the cover-up, isn’t it?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yeah. The “Black Swan” is a synonym for the big financial crash, for the “everything bubble” to collapse, which we are very close to. So, to blame the climate crisis for such an event is ridiculous. The effort to impose green financing, and in that way destroy the basis for industrial economy is a danger to the financial system, if it needed another one, other than the one caused by the insane bailouts and quantitative easing policies.

So, I think this is an absolute lie. I think we are entering a period, where not only a crash is hanging on the horizon, but the effects of this financial policy are causing the entire society, in many countries, to disintegrate. I only want to mention two situations: One, I think now eight weeks of strikes in France; this is not reported at all, but I know about it from our French colleagues. These demonstrations and strikes are becoming more violent all the time. That is the result of the government policy, because the French police have the policy of throwing out sort of a net, isolate different groupings, and basically drive them into violent reactions.

This doesn’t only come from antifa and Black Bloc, but it comes from the Yellow Vests. For example, you have lawyers who are so absolutely furious about the attack on them, that they have thrown down their robes by the hundreds. Tax accountants who throwing their tax codes on the floor. This is really getting out of proportion. And the government of Macron is making absolutely no concession, but keeps absolutely with the line of BlackRock, which is really what this pension reform is driven by.

You have a similar situation now in Germany, where the German farmers, who are now basically fighting for their existence, they have now changed their tactic. They do flash-mobs at political meetings: All of a sudden, you have 250 tractors showing up; they block the warehouse deliveries from the large food chains. They say they are now being destroyed, between a rock and a hard place, because the food chains lower the prices for their products way below the parity price — you can forget, not even the producer’s price. And then you have the European Union legislations which make it impossible for these farmers to continue to farm.

So, we are looking at a real social explosion, not only in places like Chile and Lebanon and Algeria, but also, increasingly, in the European countries. I can only see this continuing, because if people like [European Commission President Ursula] von der Leyen implement their green legislation, thereby raising the prices for everything—electricity, transport, food—then this social ferment will just explode, because many people are already at the end of their means.

I think this is going to require our intervention, globally, to impose what we have proposed many times, the full package of LaRouche: the Four Laws, Glass-Steagall, national bank, New Bretton Woods, crash program for fusion and space cooperation to increase the productivity of society, and cooperate with the New Silk Road. That is the solution, but we need more people to help us in this mobilization. So, go to the links provided at the end of this webcast. Subscribe to our Alerts and other publications. Sign our petitions and mobilize together with us. I think that’s the only answer you can give.

SCHLANGER: There’s another aspect to this situation, which you’ve addressed many, many times: which is, the social explosion, the social ferment, and social disintegration are occurring at the same time as there’s a cultural collapse, which is engineered by the same British Empire, destroying the image of man. You’ve just written an article on this; you are quite prolific on this. What do people need to know about how we reverse this cultural collapse?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I launched a campaign which I called an “Open Letter to the Lovers of Classical music.” I deliberately do not address this letter only to people in Germany, but I really want to address it to everybody who thinks that Classical music is important for the mental health and creativity of people.

We will put the link of this Open Letter below, so please download it, read it, circulate it, comment on it, because I want to generate a debate. There was this unbelievable assault, where some so-called modern composer dared to change the finale of Fidelio in a performance in Darmstadt. What came out was absolutely horrible ugliness. So, please read my letter and circulate it.

But it points to something which I think is really of a general nature. If you look at what is happening in the United States, you have the drug epidemic, you have the school shootings; you have a lot of violence as a potential breaking out very quickly. In Germany, you now have churches being robbed. People are stealing the sacral instruments for the church service, pictures from the walls. You have attacks on first responders, on the police — I mean, this getting very, very ugly. I think what all of these symptoms—which I could tell you a long, long, long list of, but you probably all know it—all of these are symptoms of a decaying, collapsing society, like the end of the Roman Empire, or some other cultural collapses.

This very dangerous and this is why I take this attack on Classical music as extremely important to be countered. Because if you look at Europe, Europe is in terrible condition right now; political unity doesn’t exist. We just found that the German government already in 2018, at a conference in Berlin on Africa, deliberately countered the proposal which was adopted in 2018 in Abuja, Nigeria, by the governments of the Lake Chad region demanding implementation of the Transaqua project, which we have discussed many times on this show; and Germany gave only Greenie arguments, basically perpetuating the colonial world-outlook toward Africa, condoning the disgusting policy of the EU against the refugees from Africa and Southwest Asia, which is really a murderous policy. The Pope called these camps for refugees “concentration camps,” which I think is absolutely on the mark.

So, if you look at all of these things, the only positive thing which Europe still has — other than its potential to be an industrial powerhouse, if we change our ways; but that is not in the cards right now, if you look at the EU—so the only thing which we is our great Classical tradition: The Italian Renaissance, which indirectly President Trump referred to in his speech in Davos, by pointing to the Cupola of the Florence Duomo, by mentioning the beautiful Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, by referring to the European cathedrals. That ennobled view of man, including the German Classical period, the German, Italian, and other Classical music in general, these are the most precious heritages of Europe which we could contribute to the shaping of a New Paradigm in the world.

And if you have, right now, as a continuation of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) operation, the ongoing destruction of Classical music, with disgusting Regietheater; you can’t go into a German theater any more, since quite a while, without people copulating on the stage, being naked, doing absolutely obscene things. András Schiff, the great pianist, wrote an article recently, where he said that in New York people are talking about this kind of theater as “Eurotrash.” What this unspeakable so-called composer did in this re-write of the finale of Fidelio is nothing but Eurotrash; and that is a mild expression for what was presented there.

We have to defend Classical Culture. We have to go back to the idea that we need beauty in art. I fully agree with Friedrich Schiller, who in a letter exchange with his friend Christian Körner, said that art which is not beautiful, is no art, it’s trash (those are my words, not those of Schiller).

So, I would really ask all of you who have any sense that we cannot allow the continuation of this destruction of great culture to go on, that you should join with us, and that we really create a Renaissance movement as a counter to that. This is completely in the spirit of my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche. His spirit is alive, especially as all of his prognoses in respect to the financial system, the strategic situation, become more obvious; there is a growing recognition of the increasing intellectual role of the work of my late husband. I want to encourage to always include the demand for his exoneration, because people have to have unmediated access to his works, because it is that, what great minds have written, what great composers have composed, which gives us the inner strength to get out of this crisis of humanity. So, help us in really making this Renaissance movement.

SCHLANGER: We also have the benefit that this year is the 250th anniversary celebrating the birth of Beethoven. Your husband gave us the marching orders: “Think Like Beethoven!” which is the way out of this

So, Helga, thank you for joining us today, and we’ll see you again next week.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, till next week.