On January 19, 1964, Boston Honored Her Fallen Son John Fitzgerald Kennedy With A Performance of Mozart’s Requiem at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross
Join Us, Exactly 50 Years Later, In A Commemorative Performance.
SUNDAY, JAN. 19, 2014
3:00 PM
CATHEDRAL OF THE HOLY CROSS
1400 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02118
Admission is free. First come, first seated.
“From the past, man obtains the insights, wisdom and hope to face with confidence the uncertainties of the future.”
– John F. Kennedy’s remarks to the centennial of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1963, three days before his death
It is fitting that 50 years later we commemorate the spirit of cultural and economic progress that John F. Kennedy’s leadership represented for America and the world. With this spirit, President Kennedy confronted and sought to overcome the terrifying prospects of global war, poverty, and human degradation that faced our nation and the world during his time. In the intervening years, these existential problems have come to threaten mankind in even greater magnitude, but the national mind that had joyfully embraced the challenge to conquer the Moon, has been supplanted by a spirit that belittles the sacredness of the human individual and the power of human creativity.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem is a most fitting tribute to John F. Kennedy, as Mozart’s work communicates the same optimism and belief in man’s infinite progress to which President Kennedy dedicated his life. The spark of optimism which marked the Kennedy era, though dimmed, is still present among us because it is embedded in the very fabric of our nation from its founding.
Let us honor the memory of John Kennedy by not only reflecting on what was, and what could have been, but on how our culture has changed, and how we must now recommit ourselves to its renewal.
The concert will be performed by the Schiller Institute Chorus along with an orchestra and soloists assembled for the occasion by the Schiller Institute. The performance will be at the natural “Verdi tuning” of A=432 Hz.
The Schiller Institute was founded in 1984 on the initiative of Helga Zepp-LaRouche, wife of the American statesman and physical economist Lyndon LaRouche, for the purpose of reviving the paradigm of Classical culture and reasserting the right of all humanity to material, moral, and intellectual progress. It is named after Friedrich Schiller, the “Poet of Freedom” whose ”Ode to Joy” is immortalized by Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony.
The Schiller Institute announced today that it will present “A Remembrance of President John F. Kennedy and Recommitment to the Principles of His Presidency, Featuring a Performance of W.A. Mozart’s Requiem in D minor, K. 626” on Friday, November 22, 8:00 p.m., at St. Mark Catholic Church in Vienna, Virginia.
The concert will be performed by the Schiller Institute Chorus along with an orchestra and soloists assembled for the occasion by the Schiller Institute. The performance will be at the natural “Verdi tuning” of A=432 Hz, in keeping with the Schiller Institute’s decades-long campaign to return to the tuning which has been demonstrated to maximize the beauty of the singing voice and of fine musical instruments.
In its flyer for the concert, the Schiller Institute elaborates on why it is holding this event at this time.
“From the past, man obtains the insights, wisdom and hope to face with confidence the uncertainties of the future.” —President John F. Kennedy’s remarks to the centennial of President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, November 19, 1963—three days before his death
November 22, 2013, will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It is fitting on that solemn occasion to commemorate the spirit of cultural and economic progress with which Kennedy confronted, and sought to overcome, the terrifying prospects of global war, poverty, and human degradation that faced our nation and the world during his time. In the intervening years, these existential problems have come to threaten mankind in even greater magnitude, yet our national spirit of progress has been replaced with cultural pessimism and indifference. The great economic, scientific, and cultural projects begun then have long ago been dismantled, and their memory buried and all but forgotten. The national mind that joyfully embraced the challenge to conquer the Moon has been supplanted by a spirit that belittles the power of human creativity and accepts the inevitability of economic decline.
Therefore, to properly honor the memory of John Kennedy, not only must we reflect on what was, and what could have been, but on how our culture has changed, so that we can recommit ourselves to its revival. The spark of optimism which marked the Kennedy era, though dimmed, is still present among us, because it is embedded in the very fabric of our nation from its founding, having its roots in the great Renaissance thinker Nicholas of Cusa, in such works as his Concordantia Catholicaand De Docta Ignorantia.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem is a most fitting tribute to Kennedy. It expresses Mozart’s passion for the concept of Man which he saw, in his time, as forming the basis for the establishment of the American republic, that Kennedy would come to promote and defend, and because the young genius Mozart pitted his creations directly against the same regressive social forces which arranged the assassinations of the President, his brother, and Martin Luther King.
An honest performance of Mozart’s work communicates the same optimism and belief in man’s infinite progress to which Kennedy, following in Franklin Roosevelt’s footsteps, dedicated his life, in resolute opposition to those who wish to drastically reduce the world’s population through perpetual warfare and denial of basic needs, and in affirmation of that which distinguishes him uniquely from the beasts, namely his creative capacity to discover new, yet-unthought universal principles.
The Schiller Institute was founded in 1984 on the initiative of Helga Zepp-LaRouche, wife of the American statesman and physical economist Lyndon LaRouche, for the purpose of reviving the paradigm of Classical culture and reasserting the right of all humanity to material, moral, and intellectual progress. It is named after Friedrich Schiller, the Poet of Freedom whose Ode to Joy is immortalized by Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony. The institute has sponsored many international conferences devoted to promoting the idea that a dialogue among cultures can only be fruitful when it focuses on each culture’s noblest expression.
Peru’s signing an MOU joining the Belt and RoadInitiative during the Second Belt and Road Forum forInternational Cooperation April 25-27 has set into motion hugeeconomic development projects which China has been offering.
Peru’s Volcan mining company and China’s port and shippinggiant COSCO signed an agreement on May 13 to construct a megaportin Chancay, 50 km north of Lima. Chancay is a natural deepwaterharbor (maximum water-depth of 16 meters), capable of handlingtoday’s largest ships, but currently with no commercial portcapacity. Now it is to be developed into the biggest port onSouth America’s Pacific Coast, and serve as a “continental hub”for cargo between South America and China, with two specializedterminals able to handle container, bulk, roll-on/roll-off andgeneral cargo. Projected completion is in 28 months, with anestimated 9,000 jobs (1,500 direct and 7,500 indirect) created inthe process.
The signing ceremony was attended by Peru’s President MartinVizcarra and Transportation Minister Maria Jara, and COSCO’sChairman Captain Xu Lirong and Managing Director Zhang Wei, andreceived great national media coverage.
“COSCO Shipping will jointly cooperate with Peru to developthe Port of Chancay into an important hub port in Latin Americanear the Pacific Coast, which will promote regional economicdevelopment. It will become the new link and bridge for trade andeconomic exchanges between China and Peru,” Captain Xu said atthe signing.
President Vizcarra called the signing
“a milestone. Based onmutual connectivity of the Belt and Road Initiative, thecompanies from China and Peru jointly invested and developed theChancay Project, which lays a solid foundation for Peruvianeconomic development,” he said.
“The construction of the Port ofChancay will contribute to regional development, and we expect todevelop the Port of Chancay into one of the most important ‘hub’ports in South America, and a logistics center near the PacificCoast, which will promote regional trade and trade between Chinaand the Latin America.”
This new “regional hub” begs the question of the continentalrail network which has yet to be built. Not surprisingly,President Vizcarra raised the bioceanic part of that railnetwork, in a recent interview with Reuters. Vizcarrasuggested that China — among others — could be a naturalpartner to help finance and build the bioceanic railroad, becauseit would be purchasing its products. He referred to the CentralRoute, connecting Brazil and Peru through Bolivia.
This statement by the President of the Schiller Institute was distributed at the opening of the 68th UN General Assembly in New York.
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche President of the Schiller Institute
We all know that the current economic order in the world only allows a very small percentage of the population to live a life of luxury, that only a relatively small percentage live decently, that many languish in inhumane poverty, while what Pope Francis called “hidden euthanasia” is widespread.
Only a few people know that, just a few weeks ago, mankind avoided by a hair’s breadth the danger of extinction in a thermonuclear war, because that would have been the consequence of an escalation following a military strike against Syria.
Both of these dangers, which threaten the very existence of the human species, are ultimately the result of the economic system of globalization, in which “anonymous decisions” — signed by high-level officials — sacrifice man’s unique dignity and his life to mammon, the god of lucre.
The diplomatic initiative around Syria raises the hope that the danger of a regional and possibly world war has been once again averted. But as urgent as war avoidance is, it is not enough. If we, as a species, are to have a future, we need a real perspective for peace, a completely new paradigm, that leaves behind for once and for all the geometry of solving crises through war, and replaces it by defining the common goals of mankind.
Is it not in the interest of all people on this planet to ensure energy security and raw material security as quickly as possible, and by so doing to overcome an essential cause of hunger and of the war danger? Is it therefore not in the interest of all people and all nations to launch the best possible crash program for the use of thermonuclear fusion, along the lines of the “Manhattan Project” for developing the atomic bomb during the Second World War, but this time for peaceful purposes and for the good of all mankind?
Likewise, it is high time to put the legitimate demand of the Non-Aligned Movement for a just world economic order back on the agenda. Such a new order could begin with the proposal of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the latest SCO conference, to build the new Silk Road as the basis for peaceful cooperation among all the countries along that route. This proposal is totally in line with the proposal for a Eurasian Landbridge that the Schiller Institute advanced in 1991, in reaction to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. That concept has been expanded, in the meantime, to an international Landbridge to bring people together, which has gained many friends and supporters throughout the world. Such a worldwide infrastructure and development program would hoist us onto the next higher economic platform where hunger and underdevelopment could be eliminated forever.
If the nations united in the UN General Assembly decide to replace the profoundly immoral and unjust system of globalization by an order allowing an alliance of sovereign Republics — in the tradition of John Quincy Adams — to work together in the common interests of mankind, our civilization can enter, consciously, into the next phase of evolution.
Why should that not be possible? We are the only creatures who, thanks to human creativity, can consciously improve the basis of our existence through scientific and technological innovation, and thus raise our living standards and life expectancy. Likewise, we are the only species which can scientifically determine with precision where the next step of research into the physical order of creation must lie, to ensure the continued existence of our species in the universe.
The Earth is not a closed, entropic system with finite resources. Our solar system and our galaxy are only a tiny part of the universe, which develops itself anti-entropically. What is wonderful about our order of creation is that there exists a verifiable concordance between the laws of the macrocosmos — the universe — and of the microcosmos — our creative reason — which is expressed in the physical power of our immaterial ideas.
What we need today more than anything else is tender love for mankind, an audacious vision for the future which looks at our planet from the perspective of astronauts and cosmonauts who see no borders, but only one mankind, while at the same time looking to the stars.
Friedrich Schiller said as much in his poem, and Ludwig van Beethoven in his 9th Symphony put those words to music:
Every man becomes a brother Take this kiss throughout the world! Brothers, o’er the stars unfurld Must reside a loving father.
Our tormented mankind needs courageous leaders, committed to the mission of leading the world out of the danger zones of destruction into a better future, which is within reach!
[Transcript included] Helga Zepp-LaRouche gave an excellent 42-minute video interviewto GBTimes’ Senior Editor Asa Butcher on May 10. GBTimes is aChinese multimedia site based in Finland, and established toenhance a dialogue between China and Europe.
Transcript
GBTimes: We’ll begin. I’m going to focus on the Belt andRoad Initiative today, following on from the Forum in Beijinglast week. If you could describe your feelings on the outcome ofthe Forum that concluded last week in Beijing.
HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Oh, I think it was very a reallyimportant progress as compared to the first Belt and Road Forum.The first Belt and Road Forum was filled with optimism and theknowledge of all the participants that we were experiencing thebirth of a new system of international relations — that wasalready extremely important. But I think the Second Belt andRoad Forum saw a consolidation of that, so you have actually anew system of international relations which is overcominggeopolitics, and I think this is one of the most importantoutcomes, apart from, naturally, the enormous economicdevelopment which was presented. But I think the idea that youhave a system which has a win-win possibility for everybody tocooperate, is the way to overcome geopolitics, and that is theremaining danger, which after all, caused two world wars in thelast century. So this is a real breakthrough for humanity.
GBTimes: There’s been a growing criticism and backlashagainst the BRI. Do you think this is misunderstanding,suspicion toward this new system? What are your thoughts onthat?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: It’s actually a temporary phenomenon,because the funny thing was, here you had the largestinfrastructure program in history, ever, with enormous changesfor Africa, for Latin America, for Asia, even for Europeancountries, and the Western media and think-tanks pretended it didnot exist for almost four years! And then, all of a sudden, theyrealized, “Oh, this is really growing so rapidly; it is includingmore than 100 countries.” So they started what I think was acoordinated attack, slandering the Belt and Road Initiative, witharguments which I think can all individually can be proven to bea lie. It comes from the old geopolitical effort to control theworld by manipulating countries against each other, and with theBelt and Road Initiative, I think that possibility is vanishing,and that’s why they’re so angry and hysterical.
GBTimes: What could China do to reduce this demonization ofthe BRI?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think China is already doing a lot. Forexample, even Handelsblatt, which was very negative towards theBelt and Road Initiative in the past, they had to bring anarticle which brought out the fact that the whole argument thatChina is putting the countries of the third world into a “debttrap” is not holding. For example, the IMF just released figuresthat there are 17 African countries which may not be able to paytheir debt, but China is only engaged in 3 of them, and all ofthe others have huge debts to the Paris Club and to other bigWestern banks — so, who’s putting whom into a debt trap?
All of these arguments will be very easy to counter-argue,and the more China makes known its beautiful culture, people willbe won over. Because the beauty of Chinese painting, ofClassical music, it will win over the hearts. And the mostpeople understand what China is actually doing, the less theseattacks will be possible to maintain.
GBTimes: The attacks are more on China than on the Belt andRoad Initiative, you say?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, yes. They’re on China because Chinais the major motor behind it. And some of the attacks were thatChina is supposedly an autocratical dictatorship, andsurveillance state and all of these things. But first of all,concerning surveillance, I think the NSA and the GCHQ haveoutdone anybody already. And naturally China has a system whichuplifts the morality of the people: This is based on theConfucian tradition, and for some of the very liberal people inthe West, that is already too much, because it disturbs theiridea that everything goes, everything is allowed, and from thatstandpoint, any kind of emphasis on morality is too much forthese people.
GBTimes: Isn’t sometimes criticism of new ideas andinitiatives healthy? It’s what we understand here in the West, wedon’t openly unquestionably accept new things. We do question,and we are a little bit cynical sometimes.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: It’s superfluous. It’s a waste of energyand it distracts people from accomplishing what needs to beaccomplished: Namely, to overcome poverty in Africa, in LatinAmerica, even in Europe. You know, Europe has 90 million poorpeople, and I have not seen a plan by the European Union toovercome poverty by 2010, which China intends to do with its ownpoor people.
So I think it’s a waste of energy, and it comes from what Icall, when people put on geopolitical spectacles and haveneocolonial headphones, then they see and hear the world quitedifferently from what it is, namely, they only project their ownviews.
GBTimes: Having been writing about China for the last 5-7years, it has made a dramatic entrance onto the world stage, whenI started writing about it many years ago. And the speed of itsarrival, the size of the investments, it can scare a lot ofcountries — just family and friends who don’t know much aboutChina, they want to know about my job where I’m introducing Chinato the West, as this bridge. There’s a lot of amisunderstandings. Do you think some of it comes from thisignorance? And how could that be changed?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I have the feeling that everybody who was inChina, either as a tourist or as a business person, investing ortrading, they all come back and they have a very, very positiveview. People are impressed about what they see, the reallyincredible fast train system. Then, if you go in the region ofShenzhen, Zhuhai, Guangdong, Macao, Hong Kong, this is thepowerhouse of the world economy, not just the Belt and RoadInitiative.
Compare that with the decrepit infrastructure in the UnitedStates or many parts of Western Europe, for example. Less thantwo years ago, I was in Zhuhai at a conference, and we visitedthis bridge between Hong Kong and Zhuhai and Macao, linking thisentire triangular: And this bridge was built, I think, in sixyears or eight years, including planning! Now, in Germany, wehave a famous bridge between Mainz and Wiesbaden, which has beenin repair for almost six to eight years, and it’s still notready!
So, I think if people go to China, they come back and theyare completely impressed, because they see that in China, peoplehave now virtues, like industriousness, ingenuity, creativity —these are all values we used to have in the West, like when theGermany economic miracle was made in the postwar reconstruction,these values and virtues were German. But now, no longer. Now,we have all kinds of other crazy ideas, and therefore China istaking the lead.
So the people who go to China come back with a positiveimage, and those who have not been, naturally, they’re scared bythe negative reports in the media. So the more people canactually go and form their own image, the better.
GBTimes: I have myself, I’ve seen a disconnect betweenChina and Chinese society, and then the role of the Chinesegovernment, the more negative side that gets covered about in theWestern media. Do you think, for instance, with the BRI is justa way to legitimize the Chinese leadership in the world, and toraise it up to the same level that is given to the othercountries? Do you think that’s acceptable?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, it is a challenge. Some of the Westerninstitutions talked about that there is now a competition of thesystems, meaning the Chinese state model and the Western freemarket model. And in one sense, it is true; the only problem isthat if you have the neo-liberal system, especially after thecrisis of 2008, only favoring monetarist interests — the banks,the speculators — and the gap between the rich and the poorbecomes ever wider, naturally, then, if you have a country wherethat is not the case, namely, China having a policy which isoriented toward the common good, an increasing well-to-do middleclass of 300 million people, which in 5-10 years will be 600million people, and obviously the vector of development isupward, naturally that is regarded as a threat by the neo-liberalestablishment, which only takes care of its own privileges.
So in a certain sense, the challenge does exist, but I thinkthere is the possibility of a learning process, so one can behopeful that even some elements of the Western elites willrecognize that China is doing something right.
GBTimes: What do you think China could learn from theWestern mode? And vice versa, what do you think the two couldlearn from one another?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think China can learn a lot from the West,but I’m afraid to say, not from the present, contemporaries, or,there is very little to learn. Naturally, ESA cooperating withthe Chinese space agency, there is a lot of exchange possible.But in terms of general, cultural outlook, I think China has togo back about 200 years to find positive things in Europe, or theUnited States, for that matter. You know, European Classicalculture can be an enormous enrichment for China, but these arecomposers who are Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, orgreat poets. But these are all things which, unfortunately arenot dominating the cultural outlook of most Europeans andAmericans today. So there has to be a dialogue across thecenturies, and then both sides can profit from each other.
GBTimes: In a sense, you’re very pessimistic about theWestern stands at the moment. Do you think China is the onlyoption available to the West at the moment?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: No, I’m not pessimistic, I’m just sayingthat you see that some of the elites, or so-called elites, arehardened in their view. You have others who are absolutelyrecognizing that the whole mankind needs to cooperate together innew ways, for example, Switzerland. You know the President ofSwitzerland, who participated in the Belt and Road Forum justsigned a memorandum of understanding, not only for Switzerland,but for a whole group of Central and Eastern European countries,which Switzerland is representing in the internationalorganizations.
So there is a big motion. You have Italy signing amemorandum of understanding with China, on the development ofAfrica. Greece wants to be the gateway between trade from Asia,through the Suez Canal all the way into Europe. Portugal andSpain want to be the hub for the Portuguese- and Spanish-speakingpeople around the world.
So there is a lot of dynamics and motions, I’m justreferring to some of the monetarist views and those people whotalk about the “rules-based order” all the time, but what theyreally mean is austerity.
So, I’m not talking about the West in general. I think theWest — I’m an optimist about the potential of all human beings— I’m only talking about certain parts of the establishment inthe West.
GBTimes: You mentioned Italy and Switzerland. Howsignificant is it that they signed up to the BRI now?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think this is extremely important. Firstof all, Italy, as you know, is the third largest economy inEurope. The north of Italy is highly industrialized and has alot of industrial capability; many hidden champions actually arein northern Italy. So, if such a country is now, as the first G7country, officially joining with a memorandum of understanding,this can become the model for all of Europe. And Prime MinisterGiuseppe Conte who just participated in the Belt and Road Forumcame back and said exactly that: That Italy plans to be theleader in bringing about a better relation between China andEurope. So I think this is extremely important.
And Switzerland, even if it may be a small country, they areindependent; they are sovereign, they are not part of theEuropean Union. And President Maurer just declared, or hisspokesman, that they do not need advice from the European Unionbecause they can make their own policy. So, I think this is alla new, healthy spirit of self-consciousness and self-assertion,which is very good, and can be indeed a sign of hope foreverybody else.
GBTimes: How do you see it impacting Europe, theirparticipation in the BRI, in the short term, and perhaps in thelonger term?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, there are different learning curves:Some are quicker, others are slower. For example, the so-calledfour big countries — that does not include Italy — that didnot send heads of state or government, but only ministers, Spain,France, Germany, and I think Great Britain, by not sending theirheads of state sort of expressed their reservation. But theneven the German Economic Minister Altmaier, who on the first dayof the Belt and Road Forum basically said, “we have to havetransparency and rules,” with the usual kind of arguments, butthe next day, he said something much more positive. He said: Oh,this was much better than I expected, the Chinese are actuallytrying to solve problems, and I will come back in June with alarge delegation of businessmen. So, I actually find this quitegood. It shows that eventually, I think, I hope, reason willprevail.
GBTimes: I think some of the obstacles for Westerncountries, is like Turkey refusing to participate because of theUighur problem; that there are other issues that aren’t relatedto the Belt and Road, that China has to overcome first.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: All of these problems will eventually besolved, because I think the key to solving of any regional,ethnic, historical cultural problem is development. If peopleactually see the advantage of turning non-developed countries orareas into prosperous ones, into having more youth exchange,young people understanding each other, people-to-people exchange,dialogue of cultures, bringing forth the best tradition of eachculture; plus, naturally, real improvement of living standards,longevity, I think that even if not all develop with the samespeed, we are at a tremendous change of an epoch of humancivilization. The idea of these local and regional conflictswill eventually not be there any more.
If I just can point to the fact that now the eightradio-telescopes working together, being able to make, for thefirst time, images of the black hole in a galaxy which is 55million light-years away, proving that Einstein’s theory ofgeneral relativity was actually correct — now, that, for me isthe sign of the future: Because this image could not have beenmade by one country alone. It needed telescopes sited in Chile,in Spain, in the United States, in the Antarctic, and you neededthe whole world actually working together to make such atechnological breakthrough possible.
I think that that will be the kind of relationship peoplewill have to each other in the future, and I think this is whatXi Jinping really is the kind of thing he means when he says, “ashared community for the one future of humanity.” Because thecommon interest will eventually come first, and then everythingelse will fall into place.
GBTimes: Another one of the criticisms was currently “allroads lead back to Beijing” rather than a multilateral approachto BRI, where it’s between other country, it always leads back toChina at the moment. Do you think that is a problem?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I don’t know. First of all, I think Russiahas a big influence, I think the African countries are becomingmuch more knowledgeable and confident about their own role. Thereare many Africans who speak that, in the future, Africa will bethe new China with African characteristics. So, I think it’s allchanging very quickly, and those people who complain that thereis too much Chinese influence, well, then they should bring intheir active, creative contribution, and define what the newplatform of humanity should be.
And I think China has said many times, and I have absolutelyevery confidence that that is the case, that they’re not tryingto export their social model, but that they’re just offering theexperience of the incredible success of the last 40 years of theform in opening-up, and basically tell developing countries,“Here, if you want to have our help in accomplishing the samething, we are willing to provide it.” And naturally, thecountries of the developing sector, which had been neglected, oreven treated negatively by colonialism, by the IMFconditionalities, when they now have the absolute, concrete offerto overcome poverty and underdevelopment, why should they nottake it?
So, I think all these criticisms are really badly coveredefforts to hide their own motives. I really think China is doingthe best thing which has happened to humanity for a very longtime, and I think the Belt and Road Initiative is the onlylong-term plan for how to transform the world into a peacefulplace. And I think that should be applauded and people shouldhave a cooperative approach.
GBTimes: My next question was going to be, how confidentare you that the BRI will pay off for China, but I get the sensethat you’re very confident.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Oh, I think it already paying off! First ofall, it makes it more easy for China to develop its own westernand internal regions, because they are now sort of integratedinto the Belt and Road transport routes to Europe, to CentralAsia, integrating the Belt and Road Initiative with the EurasianEconomic Union, and hopefully eventually also the European Union.So I think it is already bringing benefits to China.
And from an economic standpoint, the more a country exportshigh technology goods and technologies, the more than becomes amotor to develop one’s own industry even to high levels. So it’slike a self-inspiration, so to speak, and that is already payingoff. That’s what any country should do.
GBTimes: You mentioned technology: It’s also the digitalSilk Road, Digital Belt and Road. Of course, China has a lot ofcontrol over its internet, on the Great Firewall: How much of abarrier do you think that will be for countries to buildrelationships via the Belt and Road Initiative?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: You mean the G5 question and Huawei?
GBTimes: Well, partly that, too, but also the control ofthe internet inside of China, which is difficult for Westerncompanies to do business, to establish themselves, as there are alot of controls there. Do you think that could be a barrier, aspart of the digital Belt and Road, that’s also being discussed.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think there can be ways of makingarrangements which are satisfying to everybody. This wholequestion of “digital control” and so forth, is highlyexaggerated, because, if you look at who is controlling theinternet, you have the big firms, Apple, Google, Facebook, andthey are very linked with the Western government’s. You know, ina certain sense, after the scandal of the NSA listening intoeverybody’s discussions, which erupted a couple of years ago andwhich was never changed or remedied or anything, we are living ina world where that already happening. And I think China is notdoing anything more than the NSA or the already mentioned GCHQdoing that in the West.
So I think the fact that China has a competitive system, tothis Western system is what causes all of this debate. Becausethe people who had the control of the internet first, they shouldlike to keep it that way, and they regard China as a competitor,which they don’t like, but that’s a fact of reality now.
GBTimes: One question I have is why do you think the Beltand Road Initiative is needed, when there’s the AsianInfrastructure Investment Bank, now? Do you think the two aremutually exclusive, or do they work together?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: No, I think the Belt and Road Initiative hasmany financing mechanisms. You have the AIIB, you have the NewSilk Road Fund, you have a lot of the Chinese banks themselveswhich are doing the investment. I have been advocating for avery long time, that the West should modify its own creditinstitutions to work on a similar principle. Now, that would beactually very possible, because the American System of economy asit was developed by Alexander Hamilton, who created the firstNational Bank as an institution for issuing credit, that isactually very close to what China is doing. As a matter of fact,I would even go so far as to say, that the Chinese economic modelis much closer to the American System, as it was developed byAlexander Hamilton, and then revived by Lincoln, by Henry C.Carey, by Franklin D. Roosevelt; so if the United States wouldsay, we create our own national bank; and Germany, for example,would say, we go back to the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, theCredit Institution for Reconstruction, which was used for thereconstruction of Germany in the postwar period, which was also astate bank, — or it still is a state bank — then you could havea new credit system, whereby each country would have their ownnational bank; you would have clearing houses in between them tocompensate for duration of investment, or the differences betweensmall and large countries with lots of raw materials, or not somuch — you need these clearinghouses. But you could create anew credit system, a New Bretton Woods system with fixed exchangerates, having a stability in the system which the Western systempresently does not have.
So, I think that the more countries go to these kinds ofcredit financing of projects the more stable this new system willbecome.
GBTimes: Do you think the United States will ever becomepart of the Belt and Road Initiative, under the Presidency ofDonald Trump, or perhaps whoever is voted in next
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: That’s actually the big question, you know:Will the rise of China be answered by the United States, eitherwith a war, the Thucydides trap which some people have mentionedas a danger? There were in history twelve cases where a risingpower overtook the dominant power up to that point, and it led towar; and there were four cases where it happened in a peacefulway. Now, China, first of all, has offered that neither of thesetwo options should occur, but they have offered a special greatpower special relationship model, based on the acceptance of theother social model’s sovereignty, non-interference. And I thinkTrump with his America, First policy is more inclined to respondto such a model than the previous administrations of Obama andBush, who had these interventionist wars in the Middle East andeverywhere else for exporting their system of so-called“democracy” and human rights.
So I think President Trump has said very clearly that hewants to have a good relationship with China. He calls PresidentXi Jinping his friend all the time. And I think the presenttrade negotiations actually, in my view, demonstrate that theUnited States would suffer tremendously, if they would try todecouple from the Chinese economy. They probably would suffermore than China, because China is much more capable, in my view,to compensate for the loss of the relationship with the UnitedStates.
But I think that the hopefully reasonable way would be tosay, “OK, let’s use the foreign exchange reserves of China whichthey have in terms of U.S. Treasuries; let’s invest them throughan infrastructure bank in the United States, to help to modernizeAmerican infrastructure.” And that would be an urgent need,because if you look at the U.S. infrastructure, it’s really in aterrible condition, and President Trump, who is talking today, Ithink, with the leading Democrats Pelosi and Schumer on a newinfrastructure legislation; the sums which are discussed here,from what I have heard so far, are so small! First of all, theRepublicans don’t want to have Federal spending; the Democratsare talking only about “repair,” and small issues.
So, what is lacking in these discussions is a grand design,where you would take the approach China has taken for themodernization of its infrastructure: To have fast train systemsamong all the major cities, to have slow-speed maglev trains forintra-urban transport. Now, you could take that same approachand modernize the entire infrastructure of the United States. Andif China would, in turn, off that U.S. companies would integratemore into the projects of the Belt and Road around the world, itwould be beneficial for both. Some American companies are alreadydoing that, like Caterpillar, General Electric, Honeywell, butthat could be a real incentive for the United States to go in tisdirection.
Hopefully it will happen that way, because if not, I think aclash between the two largest economies would be a catastrophefor the whole world: So, let’s hope that the forces of good willall work together to get to this positive end.
GBTimes: Let’s talk about the Schiller Institute itself asa think tank. What is your day-to-day role in the promotion ofthe Belt and Road Initiative? How do you work to support it?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Oh, you know, this all goes back to thelife’s work of my husband, who died recently: Mr. LyndonLaRouche; who spent, actually, the last 50 years, to work on veryconcrete development projects. The first such project wepresented in ’76 in Paris. This was a comprehensive plan for theinfrastructure development of all of Africa. Then we workedtogether with the President of Mexico José López Portillo on aLatin American development plan — this was ’82. We worked withIndira Gandhi on a 40-year development plan, and also in thebeginning of the ’80s, we developed a 50-year development planfor the Pacific Basin. And then, when the Berlin Wall came down,and the Soviet Union disintegrated, we proposed to connect theEuropean and Asian population and industrial centers throughdevelopment corridors, and we called that the EurasianLand-Bridge.
So we have been engaged in these kinds of big projects forthe transformation of the world economy for the last decades, andnaturally, we proposed it to China in the beginning of the ’90s.I attended a big conference in ’96 in Beijing, which had thetitle, “The Development of the Regions along the EurasianLand-Bridge.” And China, at that time, declared the building ofthe Eurasian Land-Bridge the long-term strategic aim of China by2010. Then, naturally, came the Asia crisis in ’97, so the wholething go interrupted.
We were very happy when Xi Jinping announced the New SilkRoad in 2013, because, in the meantime, we had kept working forthis. We had many conferences, actually hundreds ofconferences and seminars all over the world. So this is has beenone major point of what the Schiller Institute has been doing forthe last decades. So naturally, we are very happy that now, whatwas only planning on our side is now being realized by the secondlargest economy in the world, and therefore, it becomes reality:And that makes quite happy.
GBTimes: Is there anything else you’d like to add? I’veasked my questions and a lot more. Is there anything we haven’ttouched upon, you’d like to talk about?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: We could talk a little bit more about theculture of the New Silk Road.
GBTimes: Please — in what way?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think that the New Silk Road, or theBelt and Road Initiative, it’s not just about economics andinfrastructure. But I think equally important, if not moreimportant, in my view, is the cultural side of it: That it couldlead and will hopefully lead to an exchange of the besttraditions of all cultures of this world. And by reviving thebest traditions, like Confucianism in China, Beethoven inGermany, and Schiller; Verdi in Italy, and so forth and so on, itwill ennoble the souls of the people, and I think that that isthe most important question right now, because I agree withFriedrich Schiller, according to whom this institute is named:That any improvement in the political realm can only come fromthe moral improvement of the people. And therefore, I think it’salso very interesting to me that President Xi Jinping hasemphasized the aesthetical education as extremely important,because the goal of this is the beautiful mind of the pupil, ofthe student.
Now, that is exactly what Friedrich Schiller said, who inthe response to the Jacobin Terror in the French Revolution,wrote his Aesthetical Letters in which he develops hisaesthetical theory, which I find is in great cohesion with whatXi Jinping is saying; and that has also to do with the fact thatthe first education minister of the Chinese Republic studied inGermany, and he studied Schiller and Humboldt; his name was CaiYuanpei — I’m probably pronouncing it wrong again — but hewas the first president of the Beijing University, and I thinkthere is a great affinity, a much greater affinity between thethinking of the aesthetical education as it is discussed by XiJinping and as it does exist in the Schiller-Humboldt traditionin Germany, in particular. I would just hope that that kind of adialogue could be intensified, because then I think a lot of theprejudices and insecurities about the other culture woulddisappear, and you would bring back and bring forth the best ofall sides.
GBTimes: How could this be accomplished, do you think? Whatsort of forms?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: You can organize conferences, you can moreconsciously make the poetry known — I think poetry is very, veryimportant, which is naturally not so easy, because as Schillersaid, you have to be a poet in two languages to do justice to thepoetry of one language. You could have more conscious theaterperformances, not just as an entertainment but involvingstudents, children, adults, and make more exhibitions, make moredeep-level understanding of the other culture.
I think China is doing an enormous amount of that, but Iwould have still some suggestions to make it more thanentertainment, because many people go to these things, and theydon’t quite “get it” what it’s all about; and then, it was nice,but the deeper philosophical, poetical, musical meaning could bemade more pedagogically intelligible, and I think that would be away of opening the hearts of more people, because they wouldrecognize what treasures are there to be discovered.
GBTimes: Do you have any closing words on the Belt and Roadyou’d like to share with our readers?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think we are probably the generation onwhom later generations will look back to, and say, “Oh! This wasreally a fascinating time, because it was a change from an epochto another one.” And I have an image of that, which is, thischange that we are experiencing right now, is probably going tobe bigger than the change in Europe between the Middle Ages andmodern times. In the Middle Ages you had people believing in awhole bunch of axioms, the scholastics, Aristotelianism,witchcraft — all kinds of strange beliefs — and then, becauseof the influx of such thinkers as Nicholas of Cusa, or theItalian Renaissance, the modern image of man, of science andtechnology, of the sovereign nation-state, all these changeshappened, and they created a completely different view of theimage of man and of nature, and the universe, and everything wecall “modern society” was the result of this change.
Now, I think we are in front, or the middle of such anepochal change, where the next era of mankind will be much, muchmore creative than the present one, and that’s something to lookforward to, because we can actually shape it, and we can bringour own creative input into it. And there are not many periodsin history when that is the case: So we are actually lucky.
It is difficult to gain a visceral sense of the immensity of energy involved in an asteroid or comet impact on Earth. Although asteroids and comets can range anywhere from meters to many kilometers in diameter[ref]All sizes of comets or asteroids will be given in the length of the diameter of the object, unless otherwise noted. E.g., a “1 km asteroid” refers to an asteroid with a diameter of 1 km across.[/ref] (imagine Mt. Everest falling from the sky!), the actual effect of an impact is greatly enhanced by the enormous speeds involved. The total kinetic energy released in such a collision is the product of the mass of the impactor multiplied by the square of the velocity, and the impact speeds range from 10 to 70 km/second, or 20,000 to 150,000 miles per hour![ref]For comparison, a typical passenger jet travels at around 500-600 mph (~250 m/s); the speed of sound (at sea-level) is about 770 mph (343 m/s); and the fastest jet ever flown (unmanned) was NASA’s X-43A scramjet, which reached mach 9.8, which is 7,500 mph or 3.1 km/s.[/ref]
For example, take two notable cases: 1) the impact of an extremely large object, ~10 km, creating the 180 km diameter Chicxulub crater in the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, formed around 65 million years ago, which may have helped put an end to the dinosaurs; and 2) the Tunguska event in Siberia, Russia, in 1908, which, though believed to have been caused by a much smaller object, only about 30-50 meters across, resulted in local devastation. These two significant cases will help provide a sense of a range of possible scenarios.
Based on studies of Mexico’s Chicxulub crater, it has been estimated that a roughly 10 km object, hurtling at around 20 km/s (~45,000 mph), slammed into the Earth ~65 million years ago. Though the exact details of the effects are left to models and simulations, we can certainly get an idea of the scale of destruction: mega-tsunamis[ref]Megatsunami is a term used to describe a tsunami that has wave heights which are much larger than normal tsunamis. They originate from a large scale landslide or collision event, rather than from tectonic activity. A recent example is the 1958 Lituya Bay megatsunami, near Alaska, which resulted in a wave hundreds of meters high, the largest known in modern times.[/ref] thousands of meters high; an expanding cloud of boiling dust, vapor, and ash; rock and other surface material ejected out of the atmosphere, raining back down over a huge area, redhot from its atmospheric re-entry; and shock waves that trigger volcanic eruptions and earthquakes around the entire globe.
To give a rough sense of scale, the energy released by such an impact is estimated to be in the range of 100 million megatons of TNT, 20,000 times larger than public estimations of the entire global thermonuclear weapons stockpile (see table I). In addition, besides the immediate effects of collision, an impact this large would launch so much dust and debris into the atmosphere that a dust cloud would cover the entire planet, blocking out the Sun for years: the impact winter, only one of many possible long-term, global effects.
Fortunately, the Chicxulub case represents an extreme, and relatively rare threat. Such large impacts, though more destructive, are much less frequent than smaller impacts. As will be expanded shortly, our neighborhood in the Solar System is populated with many asteroids and comets; however, the frequency of impact by these objects, generally, is inversely proportional to their size. Nevertheless, while a big object, in the range of 1 km or larger, can create massive global damage, even a relatively small object, can cause significant damage.
One often-cited example of an impact thought to be caused by a smaller object is the Tunguska event, in which a sudden explosion leveled roughly 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 square kilometers in Siberia, Russia. Though some mystery and debate still surrounds this 1908 case, the most well-supported theory is that the blast was due to a comet or asteroid exploding as it impacted the atmosphere, disintegrating before it could hit the Earth’s surface, and generating a massive blast wave.[ref]Though the Tunguska event drew and has continued to draw intense interest and study, no unambiguous, single impact crater has been found. For example, there is some evidence that it could have been generated by a massive release and explosion of natural gas from underneath the Siberian crust. In any case, we investigate the asteroid-impact theory in this report.[/ref]
Setting aside any lingering debates on the subject, studies have been conducted to determine what size asteroid or comet could have flattened 80 million trees over a region the size of a major metropolitan area. The results of these studies have shown that an object only 30-50 meters across could have generated such a blast wave.[ref]See, Comet/Asteroid Impacts and Human Society: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Peter T. Bobrowsky, Hans Rickman, Springer, Feb 21, 2007 – 546 pages.[/ref]
In order to put the range of threats further into perspective, this table presents a comparison of the levels of energy released from various types of events, both manmade and natural.
Structure and Composition
It is also highly important that we determine the physical composition of the interplanetary bodies. Some of the deeper implications of this will be discussed in the sections on defense options and exploratory missions, but here we must note that not all of these objects are structurally similar. Some are almost solid iron-nickel, some solid rock, while many others are loose piles of smaller objects held together by their gravity (sometimes referred to as flying rubble piles).
The Objects
The next question is, where do these objects come from? Our solar neighborhood is much more populated than you may realize. Here, we concentrate only on two specific classes of objects: near-Earth objects and long-period comets. The classical image of our Solar System, four inner planets, then the asteroid belt, followed by four outer planets, while true, does not present the full picture. As Johannes Kepler indicated, and as Karl Gauss proved, there is a major discontinuity between Mars and Jupiter separating the inner from outer planets, which is the home of the majority of the asteroids in our Solar System. However, in addition to this “main belt” of asteroids, there are other populations of asteroids and comets. Some share Jupiter’s orbit. Some dwell in between Saturn and Uranus. Many populate the area of the inner planets, including around Earth.
The most successful way to further investigations of the ordering of the entire Solar System will be an elaboration of the methodological approach of Kepler and Gauss, the great minds who discovered the ordering of the Solar System. Instead of starting from pairwise interactions, we must investigate the Solar System as a single, harmonic system, taking a top-down view of the orbital systems and subsystems. Ultimately, applying those methodological considerations will be the key to improving our understanding of the orbits, and determining well into the future what bodies may threaten our planet.
Consider, first, a class of objects known as near-Earth objects (NEOs). This class of potentially threatening objects are mostly asteroids, but include some short-period comets.[ref]The comets included in the near-Earth objects grouping (sometimes referred to as short-period comets) have dramatically different orbits than the long-period comets mentioned above. Some of these short-period comets can have orbits that are similar to that of asteroids, and constitute a small part of the total near-Earth object population.[/ref]
The defining character of NEOs is that they orbit the Sun in paths that are either in the same general region as the Earth’s orbit, or can even cross the Earth’s orbit on a regular basis, raising the possibility of a collision with the Earth at some point in the future.
Though not all NEOs pose a threat to the Earth, a large number could. Of these, a number have orbits which come within 0.05 AU of the Earth’s orbit, and are large enough to cause damage to the Earth. These are referred to as potentially hazardous objects (PHOs).[ref]AU stands for astronomical unit, the average distance from the Earth to the Sun. It is used as a standard measure of distance in the Solar System. Also don’t be fooled by the image above, as bodies in the Solar System orbit within a thin volume, not a flat plane. Two orbits that may look like they intersect, when drawn on paper, may not, because one could be above the other.[/ref] This particular class of objects are of great concern for government agencies and scientific organizations all over the world, who have set out to find and track them, in order to identify potential threats, and to give advanced warning time to prepare defensive actions if needed.
Before going into the current estimations of the NEO population, how to observe and track them, as well as defense options, we must first identify a second class of potentially threatening objects, long period comets (LPCs). The orbits of these comets are completely different from those of NEOs. Whereas NEOs spend their entire life in the inner Solar System, long period comets spend the vast majority of their lifetime out in the farthest depths of the Solar System (often well beyond the orbit of Pluto.) The extreme ellipticity of some of these distant creatures can take them on rapid trips through the interior of the Solar System, and possibly across Earth’s orbit.
These create a number of significant problems for defending the Earth. First, the key to planetary defense is early detection. While we have had success in detecting NEOs which populate the inner region of the Solar System, it is basically impossible, with present technology, to see the vast majority of these long period comets when they are farther away. Not only does this dramatically shorten warning times, but, since the majority of these comets take hundreds of thousands of years to complete a single orbit around the Sun (some even take millions of years), we know little to nothing about the nature of the long period comet population. In addition, from what we do know, they are often very large, and can have impact speeds of up to about 70 kilometers per second (over 150,000 mph), significantly greater than asteroids.[ref]Remember that the energy released on impact goes up with the square of the speed. To give one example, the 70 km/second impact speed of a comet, going three and a half times faster than the 20 km/second impact speed of an asteroid of the same size, would deliver over 12 times more energy.[/ref]
Currently, compared to NEOs, we see far fewer long period comets passing our region of the Solar System, so it is expected that their impacts with the Earth are much less frequent. However, they have hit the Earth in the past, and if one were on a future impact trajectory, its great speed, large mass, and undetectability until close to the Earth would make it a particularly dangerous global threat. These are the type of bodies that could eliminate all human civilization with one impact.
There is also reason to believe that the population of long period comets which pass into the interior of the Solar System is not completely random. The current hypothesis is that these long period comets may originate from an extremely distant spherical structure surrounding the Sun, at the farthest reaches of the Solar System, known as the Oort cloud. Presently we do not have the observational capability to see comets that far away (a 10 km object at 10,000 times the distance of the Earth from the Sun is hard to spot), but it is thought that the number of large comets (larger than 1 km) in the Oort cloud is in the range of trillions.
Since they extend so far beyond the Solar System, these comets become sensitive to galactic factors. Other stars coming close to our Solar System can perturb the Oort cloud, changing the orbits of potentially millions of comets. Beside individual influences, at these distances, the gravitational effect of the Sun is less dominant and the general gravitational field of the galaxy begins to have an influence—an effect which varies as the galaxy evolves, and as our Solar System travels through it.
Even though our current scope of understanding regards these galactic processes as having slow, long-term effects, they are the type of considerations that mankind must begin to take into account at this stage. First and foremost, there is still little in the way of solid knowledge about these outer regions of the Solar System, and much less known about our Solar System’s relationship with our galaxy and how those galactic changes affect us here on Earth. There are many theories and models, but as we are reminded by the fact that recent readings from the two 35-year old Voyager spacecraft continue to surprise the scientific community, we cannot assume that we understand these neighboring regions, or the solar-galactic interactions, until we go out and investigate.
If there is some doubt as to why mankind has an imperative to understand our solar and galactic environment, let long period comets draw for us a larger neighborhood.
While our current capability to defend against the threat of long-period comets is limited, the state of our knowledge of near-Earth objects is less uncertain.
Population and Impact Frequency Estimations
Due to their close orbits, near-Earth objects can be observed and tracked with Earth-based and space-based telescopes. Following on a few decades of observation programs, astronomers have developed a significant catalogue of known near-Earth objects. Depending on how well and for how long each individual NEO is observed, computer models can be used to extrapolate each NEO’s orbit and trajectory, years or decades into the future.[ref]Obviously, the more observations of an object we have, and the better those observations are, the better the forecast will be. Still there are certain subtle effects which require greater investigation, such as composition, spin rates, and non-gravitational effects, such as an uneven heating/emission action referred to as the Yarkovsky effect. Moreover, there are questions about the methodology of the computer models themselves: they generally rely on only a few dozen large bodies to model the field through which the others pass.[/ref] These multi-decade extrapolations are crucial, since the key to defense against a potentially threatening asteroid is having as much advanced warning time as possible.
Presently, we are far from having discovered and tracked every NEO, and that must be done. The limited population that has been characterized by current surveys has been used to extrapolate statistical estimations of the expected total NEO populations. For example, in September 2011, a NASA-led team published updated estimations of NEO populations based on the data obtained from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope.
Since then, various estimates continue to be refined as increasing amounts of data from Earth-based telescopic surveys are received. One of the more recent available estimates was released in April of 2012, and presented by the head of NASA’s NEO program, Lindley Johnson, at a May 2012 Workshop on Potentially Hazardous Asteroids.[ref]http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/2011_AG5_LN_intro_wksp.pdf ; April 17, 2012, Alan B. Chamberin (JPL).[/ref]
As is clear in table 2, we have been rather successful in identifying most of the larger NEOs. Of the discovered populations, some fit the specific category of potentially hazardous objects, meaning that their orbits come close to or even directly cross the Earth’s orbit. Currently, 152 of the discovered 850 near-Earth asteroids larger than 1 km are classified as PHOs, although none are expected to collide with Earth over the coming century. This is important, since 1 km is a rough division line between objects which would create truly global effects if they struck the Earth, and objects whose impact would produce a local or regional effect.
Still, this leaves the vast majority of medium and small-sized objects undiscovered: ~80% (over 21,000) of the middle-sized NEOs, ranging from 100 to 1000 meters; and ~99.5% of smaller NEOs, 30-100 meters (recall that the Tunguska-sized event is associated with objects in the range of 30-50 meters).
Any of these undiscovered objects could already be on a short-term collision course with Earth, unbeknownst to us. Some are guaranteed to be, at some point in the future. We are still essentially flying blind through our populated region of the inner Solar System.
Further analysis has provided estimations of the frequency with which various sized NEOs and comets impact the Earth.[ref]For example see, Catastrophic Events Caused by Cosmic Objects; 2008, Springer; Chapter 2, “Size-frequency distribution of asteroids and impact craters: estimates of impact rate.”[/ref] As implied by the NEO population estimates referenced above, and as indicated in the graph on the preceding page, there is a direct relationship between the size of the NEO, the population level, and the impact rate.
These estimations of NEO populations and impact frequencies are still approximations, and should only be taken as temporary reference points, paving the way for more rigorous investigations. We cannot entrust human lives, or potentially human civilization, to betting on statistics which purely extrapolate from past events. They can be utilized in limited applications where useful, but only on the path to obtaining a principled—causal—understanding of the system. This requires both a dramatic expansion of our observational systems and our space-faring capability generally, as well as renewed methodological approaches to understanding the organization of the Solar System, and its relationship with the galaxy. Reliance on statistical extrapolations from the past leaves mankind completely blind to unexpected shifts away from present trends, driven by the development and evolution of the Solar System and galaxy—a process driven by future changes.
This article was written by Mrs. Helga Zepp LaRouche, Founder of the International Schiller Institute and president of the Schiller Institute in Germany, for publication in the May 2012 German language magazine “Ibykus.”
What has become of our world? Top bankers are warning about the “apocalypse”—which doesn’t prevent them at the same time from stuffing seven-figure bonuses into their pockets—as if burial shrouds had pockets! Politicians are willing to sell their own grandmothers in order to calm down “the markets,” while the General Welfare which they have sworn to protect, has been erased from their vocabulary. Heads of government who have just finished expunging democracy and constitutional rule from their own countries, are now prepared, under the pretext of concern for democracy and human rights, to march from a “humanitarian intervention” into a neighboring land, straight into a thermonuclear apocalypse.
Hundreds of millions of human beings are under dire threat of starvation, disease, and lack of clean water; but meanwhile at church councils, the use of bio-fuels is defended, and the popes of environmentalism get decorated with the Medal of Honor for stopping agricultural production and water management, causing millions of human lives to be lost. For decades, “society” has been tolerating the tearing down of one bastion of civilized behavior after another; and so is it any wonder now, that twelve-year-olds are downloading pornographic videos onto their smart phones and showing them around on the school playground; or that it’s considered almost normal that individuals riding the subway or walking on side-streets are “ripped off,” and have to relinquish all their valuables in order to forestall something far worse? Might we not, then, say that a society in which teenagers are the most menacing social grouping, can be considered a failed society?
This list of social evils could be expanded in many directions. It’s certainly true that the root of many of the problems lies in the false axiomatics of economic, military, and social policy. Yet perhaps the most important area where development has gone completely awry, is the shift in cultural paradigm in the western world over recent decades.
Even if during the decades of Germany’s post-war reconstruction everything wasn’t perfect, nonetheless the vector of development was positive: There was an enormous desire to rebuild, and secondary virtues such as diligence and honesty—virtues later denigrated—fostered the General Welfare and promoted social cohesion. Our schools were still governed by the Humboldt educational ideal, namely that developing beauty of character within each student was at least one aspect of the goals of education. Classical culture in music, poetry, and the fine arts played an important role in all grades, but especially in our Gymnasia.
The fact that this has long not been the case, is due to many factors: the Frankfurt School’s deconstructive role regarding Classical music and poetry, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the advent of “director’s theater,” the Brandt educational reforms, the ’68er movement, the counterculture, and pop culture in general. The end-result of all these influences is a cultural wasteland: shriveled hearts, bereft of all ability to experience profound intellectual emotion; and for many of our fellow men, a loss of the ability to judge, with any sense of justice and injustice supplanted by a striving to conform to popular opinion.
If Schiller, already in his own time—and even more concretely after he witnessed the failure of the French Revolution—had to ask: “How has it come to pass that we are still barbarians?”, then how much more urgently would he be posing that question, horror-filled, today? Unfortunately, yet another facet of our time demonstrates how right he was, that a society that has degenerated from a higher level to a lower one, is more despicable than one that is still striving to free itself from underdevelopment. In his Fifth Aesthetic Letter, Schiller writes:
“Through his actions, Man portrays himself—and what an awful form do we see depicted in our present-day drama! Here brutalization, there decadence: the two extremes of human corruption—and both united in one age of history!
“In the lower and more numerous classes, we see raw, lawless impulses, unleashed after all bands of civil order have been dissolved, rushing with ungovernable impetuosity toward bestial satiation…. Its rudder gone, our society, instead of speeding upwards into organic life, is relapsing back into the inorganic domain.
“On the other side, the civilized classes present us with an even more detestable spectacle of decadence and depravity of character, which disgusts us all the more because it feeds upon the culture itself. I no longer remember which ancient or modern philosopher remarked that the nobler person is all the more abhorrent in his self-destruction; but one will find this true in the moral realm as well. From the savage, run amok, there emerges a madman; from the disciple of art, a worthless nothing.”
In further letters, Schiller discusses how, in view of this situation, any improvement in the political domain can only come about through the ennoblement of individual man’s character—an insight which is equally true today as it was in his own time. But whence, asks Schiller, is this ennoblement to come, when the masses are desensitized, and the nation is in a state of barbarism? And in his Ninth Letter he arrives at the point “toward which I have been striving in all my previous remarks. This instrument is Classical art; these wellsprings open up to us in their immortal exemplars. Art, as well as science, is absolved from everything based on mere sense-experience and imposed by human convention, and both enjoy absolute immunity from the arbitrariness of men.”
The key to overcoming the present existential crisis therefore lies in affording people access to their own creativity, in rekindling within them the divine spark which brings their full human potential to fruition. Our task is thus to strengthen this faculty of the human spirit—a place where scientific discoveries are made, which is the same place where Classical art is born, and where musical and poetical ideas are developed according to the criteria of Classical composition. Whenever man discovers new universal scientific principles, or when the composer or poet harkens to the rules of Classical composition, or lawfully extends them, then the creativity of an inventive mind comes into complete harmony with the creatively self-developing physical universe.
And thus, if we wish to survive the present crisis, a renaissance of Classical culture will be the absolute prerequisite. Therefore the Schiller Institute, along with its cultural journal Ibykus, supports Lynn Yen’s initiative (see below), and calls upon all artists and friends of Classical art to become part of a worldwide movement which will continue to fight for this renaissance until we have banished the current Dark Age—just as the Golden Renaissance of the 15th Century banished the 14th-Century Dark Age, and as German Classicism overcame the destruction wrought by the Thirty Years War.
Friedrich Schiller once wrote: “it is through Beauty, that one proceeds to Freedom” He speaks not of mere physical beauty, but the deeper beauty of the mind, a mind rendered more beautiful through its ability to both perceive itself, and to articulate its inner, most noble aspirations. This is the gift and the right that we must give to young people all around the world, who are the future of humanity. We owe this to both them, and the poets, of all forms of Art and Science that gave us Classical culture, not as a set of rules, but rather of principles of thought, leading humanity to a better, more productive, happier life.
This May 13, 2012, at the Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall, a concert was performed by master pianist Tian Jiang. Over 1700 students, parents and teachers from over 80 public schools in the New York City area, most of whom have never been inside of Carnegie Hall, and many who have never heard Classical music, participated in the joy that the mind experiences when the beauty of human emotion and human intellect become one. In a program of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Chopin, spanning almost two centuries in composition, and almost two and a half hours in performance, there were riveted silence, prolonged applause, and standing ovations from a crowd who the popular opinion of today deems “unable to comprehend or become interested in classical music”. Even two and three-year -old toddlers in the audience listened quietly in attention throughout the entire performance of Mozart’s Fantasy in C minor, Beethoven’s “Appassionata”, and Brahms “Handel Variations”.
In the aftermath of this concert, we received numerous letters from teachers, parents and students, asking for more of such opportunities for this sustenance for the mind and soul. We therefore considered: why not make true Dr. Martin Luther King’s desire and intent, as expressed in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech: “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.”
The Foundation for the Revival of Classical Culture is issuing a call to all Classical and Classically trained musicians around the world, to donate time and to participate together with us, in the performance and teaching of great Classical composition in the strictest of Platonic aesthetics, in the best of Schillerian sentiments, to the youth of the world. Let us, in all major cities of America and beyond, revive the practice of Classical Culture, for the betterment of mankind and for the love we bear our children and all children.
The latest revelation from an FOIA request on the dirty doings of Christopher Steele is another bombshell, demonstrating that one must hold the British responsible for the dangerous coup attempt against President Trump. And as more evidence emerges daily of the British role, in direct coordination with the Obama intelligence team, where does U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo go to whip up anti-Russian, anti-Chinese sentiment? To London, of course, where he proclaimed that the “Special Relationship” between the U.S. and the U.K. is thriving!
In this week’s webcast, Helga Zepp LaRouche reviews the ramping up of hot spots, especially by Pompeo and Bolton, who are acting at odds with President Trump’s often-stated wish to have good, cooperative relationships with the two nations. Describing the anti-China rantings of intelligence officials, Congressmen and media as a “Yellow Peril rampage,” she emphasizes the importance of getting the U.S.-China trade talks back on track, as a step towards U.S. participation in the Belt and Road Initiative.
This article appeared in the September 14, 2012 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
by Hussein Askary September 9, 2012
The Stockholm World Water Week, Aug. 26-31, sponsored by the Swedish state’s International Development Cooperation Agency, and such global cartel companies such as Nestle and PepsiCo, but dominated by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Stockholm Environmental Institute, and similar malthusian propaganda outlets, promised to be orgy in green ideological madness, where African and Asian nations are regarded by Europe and the U.S.A. as an embarrassing burden, and that those nations should be convinced that their misery could only be reduced, but not relieved, by small hand-outs, instead of large-scale industrial and infrastructural development.
In recent years, World Water Week (WWW) has become an exhibition exposing the economic and moral bankruptcy of the trans-Atlantic world, while the rest of the world, Africa especially, is on its way to getting a divorce from it.
The world has changed dramatically since the Copenhagen 2009 Climate Change Summit where nations of Africa and South America, backed by China, India, and South Africa, nearly staged a walkout from the conference. Their message was: Our national sovereignty and right to development are still sacred principles. The demise of the British-dominated financial and banking systems since then, has made this bankruptcy even more obvious. This year the Africans came to Stockholm with a different character and attitude, proudly presenting their relatively bold development programs, telling Europe and the United States (still in a friendly tone to avoid political tension): “These are our visions. Take them or leave us alone!”
The only ones who dared to mention the fact of the trans-Atlantic bankruptcy were the LaRouche movement organizers who, not being invited, stood outside the conference compound, distributing hundreds of pieces of literature and talking to many delegates. Their discussions with the attendees reflected the same phenomena observed inside the conference.
Almost exclusively, all European and American attendees attacked the idea of nuclear power, and any large-scale or continental water projects, as proposed by the LaRouche movement. Sometimes, their reactions became violent, because the presence of the “LaRouchies” disturbed what they intended to be a controlled environment inside the conference. On the contrary, African and Asian delegates welcomed these large-scale infrastructure ideas, and expressed their support for them.
One aspect which shaped the discussions is the shift in the economic tendency in the world, as in the Pacific region, where China, Russia, India, and their allies have taken a different course for dealing with the economic crisis. Their method is based on the best of those utilized by such great Western leaders as American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, putting emphasis on large-scale infrastructure and science programs. These policies have been abandoned in the West since the murder of President John F. Kennedy, and replaced by the anti-industrial and superstitious green ideology on the one hand, and financial speculation on the other.
The impact of the real economic cooperation between China and Africa was discussed on the sidelines, though not openly. China’s own development programs, such as dam building, were attacked by several Western speakers in the conference (see below).
For the first time, EIR was inside the conference, as this reporter was covering the conference as part of the press corps.
Confab Host: Africa Biofuels Scandal
The main sponsor of World Water Week, the Swedish Ministry of International Development Cooperation (IDC), is itself involved in a number of scandals related to depriving African farmers of their land and water for food production, in order to produce biofuels. The scandals around the IDC, which were revealed by a reporter of the Swedish radio program Ekot, are related to the Swedfund, a wholly IDC-funded hedge fund. Ekot focussed on one of the many Swedfund projects which is carried out in Sierra Leone.
The available evidence shows that Swedfund, in collaboration with the biofuel company Addax, has fraudulently stolen productive land from farmers to produce biofuels. This has caused both water shortages and hunger among the farm families.
In the village of Woreh Yeama, for example, the contract made with the farmers, which they did not really understand, states that they will lease their land for 50 years (!) to Addax for $3.20 per year/acre. The farmers were promised jobs in Addax, and health care and schools for their children. None of this materialized.
The water in the area is used for irrigating the sugar cane to produce ethanol for automobiles in Europe. So, the population is starving and thirsting in Sierra Leone due to the Swedish aid project.
This is your host of the World Water Week!
Biofuels Defended ‘Objectively’
A one-day WWW seminar was arranged to deal with the question of biofuels, water, and food security. Here, the organizers had the following to say about the disgusting use of land and water resources for the production of biofuels:
“Bioenergy and water are inextricably linked. In an already water-stressed world, bioenergy development may in places compete with other water and land uses such as crop cultivation for food production. At the same time, by leveraging the introduction of efficient water management techniques and providing energy for water pumping and cleaning, bioenergy development also provides opportunities to improve water productivity and increase access to water. Proper integration of bioenergy systems into forestry and agriculture can even reduce some of the impacts of present land use, such as eutrophication and soil erosion. Concerns remain however, that exploitation of water resources in bioenergy projects may undermine sustainable livelihoods in producer countries, and that existing policy frameworks and voluntary sustainability standards are inadequate.”
Thus did the seminar deal with the issue “objectively,” as stated above, while no mention was made of the crimes committed by the state-funded companies and their collaborating “charitable” hedge funds and companies in Sierra Leone and Tanzania.
Solving Problems or Dying Slowly
The most striking phenomenon between, on the one hand, the African and Asian WWW participants, mostly from the Indian Subcontinent and Southwest Asia (as China and Russia, interestingly, were not participating or probably not invited), and their European and American counterparts, is that the former focused, in their presentations, on solving the water-and-food crisis, while the latter focused on the problems themselves, as allegedly caused by population growth, and the aspiration of the developing nations to develop modern economies. The malthusian ideology of Limits to Growth of the Club of Rome and the WWF’s anti-human population prejudices, were predominant in the presentations of the European and American delegations.
These trans-Atlantic nations’ speakers focused solely on “environmental” crises, repeating ad nauseam such sickening jargon as “ecological foot prints,” “carrying capacity,” “scarcity,” “conflicts over limited resources,” “pollution due to population growth,” “transparency,” “governance” of resources (meaning abolishing the responsibility of the sovereign governments to make decisions about their natural resources and economic policies, by handing power down to local inhabitants, international NGOs, and multinational corporations), and similar gobbledygook.
Their arguments, put simply, are that human beings cannot create new resources. They base everything on the Second Law of Thermodynamics, claiming that everything—including life and human civilization—will, sooner or later, die off, in a heat death. Human beings speed up that process by attempting to alter nature’s order, through their selfish aspiration to have higher living standards, by using their creativity to develop ever-more advanced forms of technology, and thus, higher and more dense forms of power.
So, the only way to deal with this, the green ideology asserts, is to “slow down” human activity, and condemn life to a slow death instead!
But since human nature rejects such notions, they have to be packaged in glossy pseudo-scientific computer models, or, simply imposed by force on weaker nations, or by denying them the technological means for development.
Having excluded nuclear power, and creation of new water resources through desalination or transfer of water, the only thing left to think about is how to survive in a vicious world with limited resources. For Africa, Asia, and South America, this means to coexist with misery and poverty in a “transparent” way, and by managing the poverty equally and with “good governance.”
This is no mere academic chatter. It is the strategic policy of the U.S. Administration under President Barack Obama, among others. This was revealed in “The Global Water Security” report, issued in February of this year by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It is based on the same premise, i.e., that you can only manage scarcity, not create new resources. “We assume that water management technologies will mature along present rates and that no far reaching improvements will develop and be deployed over the next 30 years,” it stated. It foresees “water wars” and social upheavals as a consequence.
The Trans-Atlantic Non-Vision
A screening of the various papers presented at the conference (Source: “Abstract Volume, World Water Week in Stockholm, August 26-31, 2012, Water and Food Security”), gives a taste of the deadly non-vision from the trans-Atlantic elites. For example:
Two papers presented an attack on China’s development plans, which, in reality, are inspiring other developing countries. One, by Dr. Thomas Henning, Philipps University, Marburg, Germany, is titled “Implications of Yunnan’s Aggressive Hydropower Development on Regional Food Security, Changing Land Utilization and Livelihood.” The second, by Stuart Orr, WWF International, Switzerland, titled, “Dams on the Mekong River: Lost Fish Protein and the Implications for Land and Water Resources,” attacked China and its allies in the Mekong River Basin.
Henning writes:
“China is aggressively developing its energy sector in which hydropower plays a crucial role. Within China, Yunnan province has a key role for hydropower development, making it even a global key region for hydropower. In about 15 years it will have an installed hydropower capacity of more than 90 GW. It is based either on often controversial large projects (LHP) along major rivers or on smaller projects (SHP), both creating hydroscapes. SHP are often considered a priori an environmentally and socially sound renewable energy. But in Yunnan they are falling into one of the richest bio-, geo- and ethnic[ally] diverse regions. There is a notable lack of knowledge studying the cumulative implications of the SHPs, including its consequences on food security, changing land utilization and livelihood for the diverse ethnic groups.”
The WWF, which is generally concerned with wildlife, is suddenly worried about the threatened loss of protein intake of human beings in the Mekong River Basin region, from potential changes in fish habitat and migration in the river, were China and its neighbors to proceed on their plans to develop hydropower, modern agriculture, and industries in the Basin.
Orr writes:
“Most of the 12 million households in the Lower Mekong Basin would be affected by alteration of fish availability, as fish is the main source of dietary protein. Estimating the water (water footprint) and land area (land footprint) that would inevitably increase in order to replace lost protein from fish catch, is one of the most important challenges in terms of addressing key impacts of the Mekong River basin dams.”
Having excluded aquaculture (fish farms), a common practice in northern Europe, as “impossible” in the Mekong River, the WWF is attacking the idea of allocating new land for modern agriculture and livestock to produce more protein for the population as man increases his “footprint” on nature.
These arguments, like Thomas Malthus’s attempt to prove his theory of population as mathematically sound, by excluding from the equation—or computer model for his modern-day followers—technological improvements from the production process that yield increased food production per capita/square kilometer, these quackademics are not falling far from the tree. However, this is no mere academic discussion: If these types of persons are allowed to shape policy in the Western world that can hinder real development in the developing world, they would contributing to massive crimes against humanity.
Pessimistic Prognostications
Another case of locking the doors of the theater and shouting fire, is a paper introduced by Dr. Dieter Gerten from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, the same institute which was co-founded by such anti-human population ideologues as Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. While on the face of it, Gerten’s paper sounds positive, as it is titled “Water Requirements for Future Global Food Production, Potentials of On-Farm Green-Blue Water Management to Increase Crop Production,” all his arguments in the paper go contrary to this objective.
“Climate change, population growth and changing diets will put joint pressure on the world’s fresh-water resources via increased demand for the production of crop and livestock products,” he writes. Discussing his institute’s computer models, which exclude nuclear power, hydropower, and water desalination to produce new freshwater, he adds with pseudo-scientific precision: “This global-scale model study quantifies how much water is required to produce a balanced diet. By comparing the requirements with available blue and green water on present agricultural land per country, water scarcity can be determined in more detail compared to previous scarcity models” (emphasis added).
The conclusion is that under Gerten’s 17 climate models, by 2070-99, water scarcity will increase under rising atmospheric CO2 concentration and population growth.
“Water scarcity will aggravate in many countries, and that means a number of countries are at risk of losing their capacity to be self-sufficient.”
So, what happened to the positive impulse suggested by the title of his paper? Well, Dr. Gerten states: “But improved on-farm water management can significantly relax this situation: Methods to increase crop water use efficiently, such as reduction in unproductive soil evaporation and harvesting run-off water for use during dry spells, can increase crop production by up to ca. 20% globally.” But then the hammer of death comes down, as he concludes: “However, adverse effects of climate change cannot be fully buffered by such management, and even if maximum efficiency increases were achieved, green-blue water resources will not be sufficient to meet the requirements for producing the specific diet for more than 9 billion people.”
The real conclusion he wants to be drawn from this is that only population reduction, and decreasing the rate of economic development across the globe can “solve” the problem.
That is the message which was delivered from the highly developed Germany and Europe to the Africans who came to Stockholm to see what solutions can be adopted to solve the grave water, food, and poverty crisis!
Other such depressing cases were presented by, for example, the extremely cynical paper of Prof. Jurgen Schmandt from the Houston Advanced Research Central (U.S.A.) and Prof. Gerald North from Texas A&M University, under the title “How Sustainable Are Engineered Rivers in Arid Lands?” They argue that river engineering and dam-building and modern irrigation systems, as the case in the U.S.A. proves, are useless in the face of climate change and sedimentation! They take the case of the Rio Grande River, which they studied as proof that the storage capacity in the river’s reservoirs will decrease by 6% annually, leading to massive environmental damage. Or, without adding new water resources—as the waters that can be generated by such projects as NAWAPA XXI[1]—the only thing left is to “conserve” and “shift to less water-consuming crops.”
Even worse than the theory that you must dig a hole and lay down and die slowly, is that these two honored professors intend to travel around the world and spread the word, that river engineering, dam building, and modern water irrigation systems do not help. It is not clear yet, if Schmandt and North will be joined in their global tour by a preacher from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) of Texas, to garnish their scientific work with biblical citations from the Book of Revelations.
The African Perspective
Contrary to this anti-human and satanic view, the Africa Focus Day held on Aug. 28, and attended by several African water ministers, concentrated on solving the problems of food and water, in spite of the fact that Africa by itself does not have the means to accomplish this, and that many of its leaders are still suffering from the control of the British empire’s institutions and agents. However, the presentations and discussions, which this reporter had the opportunity to follow closely, were held in a freshingly normal human atmosphere.
Africa’s massive problems need massive investments, and need a new way of looking at the question of cooperation between North and South and East and West, different from the now-traditional policies of small handouts of aid. The African representatives, especially the African Minister’s Commission on Water (AMCOW), headed by the Egyptian Water Resources and Irrigation Minister Mohammad Bahaa el-Din Saad (see interview below), presented important and realistic visions for solving Africa’s problems.
Although these plans lack such important elements as the investment in science-driven technologies such as nuclear power, and large-scale transcontinental water projects such as Transaqua for refilling the Lake Chad from the Congo River waters, or transcontinental high-speed-rail networks (see review of PIDA, below), their discussions were completely opposite to those of the doomsday prophets from Europe and the U.S.A.
Whenever such serious issues as nuclear power, railway integration of Africa, creation of new water resources through water transfer, or nuclear desalination to create new water resources, were brought up in the discussion inside the conference by this reporter, or by the LaRouche movement activists outside the conference, the answer from the majority of the African and Asian participants was: “Of course!”
In one of the exhibition halls, the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) had a booth proudly presenting plans for hydropower projects, especially on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, and in Sudan. Dr. Abdulkarim Seid, an expert of the NBI’s Water Resources Planning and Management Projects in Ethiopia, gave this reporter a tour of the dam and water-management projects being built in the region. He focused especially on the Ethiopian Millennium Dam which is being built on the Blue Nile near the border with Sudan.
This dam will produce 6,000 mG of electric power, making it the largest hydropower project under construction in Africa. Together with its auxiliary water management schemes, it will reduce water sedimentation in the downstream dam reservoirs, especially in Sudan. This fact was confirmed by Sudan’s Federal Minister for Water Resources Seif Eldin Abdallah, who lamented the fact that Sudanese dam reservoirs are affected significantly by the sedimentation problem emerging from soil erosion in the Ethiopian highlands during the rainy seasons, which extend from August to October. He referenced the case of the massive dredging costs in the canals of Al-Jazeera Agricultural Project in Sudan, one of the most important agricultural zones in Africa, and which is threatened by this problem.
However, Dr. Seid was, like other African participants, focused on the solution. He gave the example of the Ethiopian cooperation with China to raise the level of the Roseires Dam on the Blue Nile to increase its reservoir capacity. Contrary to reports about conflicting interests among the Nile Basin states regarding the construction of new dams upstream, Sudanese President Omar Hasan Al-Bashir met with Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi in April, to express Sudan’s support for the construction of the Millennium Dam in Ethiopia.
Although many of the papers by African and Asian participants in the seminars mentioned above were plagued with the greenie jargon used by the European and American participants, in an attempt to be accepted by the conference organizers, they were generally solution-oriented. For example, a paper presented by Abby Muricho Onencan from the Nile Discourse group from Uganda, under the title, “Greening the Nile Basin: The Nexus (water, energy and food), the Key to Cooperation,” argued for increasing regional cooperation in the building of modern multi-purpose hydropower projects, as a self-evident fact.
Onencan wrote:
“Through the cooperative arrangements under the Nile Basin Initiative, it has become evident that broad-based water service interventions in energy utilities and irrigation services benefit everyone and play a major role in improving sustainable and dignified livelihoods. Through various designed multi-purpose projects like the joint Multi-Purpose Project, the NBI has clearly indicated that it is better to approach a project with the aim of reaping a myriad of benefits…. As water resources become scarce, water will be pumped long distances or be produced through alternative means, such as energy-intensive desalination processes. Modern water management, including establishing monitoring networks and data centers is dependent on reliable access to electricity. To achieve water security, which means the provision of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihood, ecosystems and production, energy must be available.”
No further comment is necessary.
‘No’ to the Oligarchy’s Four Horsemen!
Africa’s and the world’s water, food, and energy requirements are clearly threatened, and both the cause and solution of the crisis is a shift in the view of the human race’s role in nature and the universe. This also means a shift in the political-economic practices nationally and globally. If we accept the British empire’s malthusian religion, then we need not do anything, as we wait for the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse to descend upon us.
Otherwise, as free men and women, belonging to sovereign nations, we should reject this oligarchical notion, and embrace instead, the Promethean, humanist vision, that we, as created in the image of a creative universal soul, are capable of being masters of our fate, not slaves under the whims of nature and the imperialist oligarchs and their hypocritical quackademics.
To translate this vision into policy for nations, regions, and continents, view the policies presented by Lyndon LaRouche and his associates (www.larouchepac.com).