Transcript

First of all, I would like to express my great gratitude to the Schiller Institute, and to Lyndon LaRouche personally, for organizing such an interesting, large, and timely conference.

We represent a new intellectual club formed in Russia approximately six months ago, the Izborsk Club, which brings together various experts and specialists, with various ideological outlooks, who are thinking about the future—about what Lyndon LaRouche has just discussed here in such a profound and interesting way.

The topic of my short presentation may be situated as a continuation of the propositions set forth by Mr. LaRouche. Its title is “The Chinese Dimension of the USA-China-Russia Triangle Today.” I think that this topic should perhaps be somewhat expanded: The triangle should incorporate also the European Union, or Europe as such, insofar as these are the players in international relations which essentially determine the current political situation in the world, and the prospects for the future that the world and mankind are facing—as Lyndon LaRouche has just discussed.

The Korean Crisis

In order not to give you merely dry, theoretical considerations, I would like to begin my presentation by describing the dramatic situation taking shape in the world today, which is being trumpeted in mass media like CNN, ABC, Euronews, and so forth. Almost everybody is focussed on the Korean situation. Just now, before leaving the hotel this morning, I was watching the latest news from CNN, which reported on the special statement made by U.S. Secretary of State Kerry in Seoul, South Korea. He said that the United States, like the entire world, is extremely concerned about the nuclear threat from North Korea, and that the USA is extending its hand for dialogue with North Korea, and cancelling a number of maneuvers. Then Kerry got to the core of his speech, saying that he was now going to fly to Beijing, and that it was the Chinese leadership, the Chinese comrades, who should play the decisive role in settling the current crisis, which includes the threat of a military conflict with the use of nuclear weapons.

I think that this episode expresses the entire situation taking shape within this big triangle, or quadrilateral, that I’m talking about. What we see here, is that the United States, as the hegemonic world power and the player in international relations which has virtually an absolute concentration of military-strategic power in its hands, and which effectively runs the policy of such international economic policy organizations as the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, etc., was forced to turn to the People’s Republic of China—one could say, to fly to Beijing and kow-tow to the Chinese emperors—and request that they do something, somehow, to settle the situation between North and South Korea, in order to prevent Pyongyang from using nuclear weapons and placing the world on the brink of a nuclear cataclysm.

Herein, in my view, lies the secret of Chinese diplomacy. If we follow the logic, then certainly North Korea’s high degree of dependence on China, for both energy supplies (80-85%) and food, not to mention the technology side, has created a situation in which the United States, although it has both military-political and ideological power far in excess of China’s, is forced to appeal to the Chinese Emperor and plead with him to do something to help prevent a military clash.

Now, if we review the entire situation as it comes together, we see that this Korean crisis has eclipsed the situation in Iran and the situation in Syria, with everything being concentrated on this Korean segment. China thus has demonstrated that the United States has lost face, politically. And this is something very important in the Asia-Pacific region, where China traditionally, and continuing now today because of its very high development rates, lays claim to the dominant position.

Dangerous Return to Geopolitics

This episode is a particular case, but it’s one which easily allows making broader generalizations about the world situation. What have we seen, during the past several years? The world is returning to geopolitics. There is a resurrection of the lines typical of the traditional geopolitical constructs known to world politics in the 19th and 20th centuries, which had been on the back burner after the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, when the socialist bloc lost its place in international relations. It was in 1991 that the USA gained the ability to take a completely new approach to world issues. LaRouche talked about this. The USA would have been able to take the lead in addressing the global problems, which had been so much discussed in the 1980s. Instead, the USA focussed on strengthening its egotistical positions.

As a result, we witnessed an entirely new alignment, especially as we entered the 2000s. This involved, above all, the astronomical growth of the economic, political, and military power of the People’s Republic of China.

Here I should say a few words about Russia. Although in 1991-93 Russia came under the practically total political influence of the United States, under Putin this situation began to change. Now, Russia has begun to play an increasingly independent role within these geopolitical constructs.

It is quite clear that this rebirth of geopolitics is based on egotism on the part of the players in international relations. Under these conditions, each participant in these complex geometrical constructs—the triangle or the quadrilateral—is seeking his own benefit and attempting to achieve it, directly or sometimes indirectly (as in the case of Syria, where the USA and Europe are essentially smashing the secular state in order to shape a completely new situation regarding energy supplies to Europe).

This narrow egotism characterizes just about every player. This is an obstacle to any attempts at finding a common approach to solving the global problems Lyndon LaRouche was talking about. After all, it’s difficult to believe that such diverse players in international affairs as China, Europe, and the USA could be brought together around a single program. Yet the need for such a single program is absolutely clear and is hanging over the head of mankind.

Because of this, we can say with absolute certainty that the rise of this geopolitical thinking impedes the possibility of finding a common program. If we look at the countries involved, we can see that, in order to find a common position, the United States will need to give up its orientation toward maintaining de facto hegemony in both the military-political and the economic domains. All the countries in question will need to reconsider those positions and principles which are based on national egotism, in their relations with their neighbors. And what LaRouche mentioned is extremely important: to reject the now dominant theories of monetarism and liberalism in international economic relations.

Is it possible to bring about the rejection of these things? It seems to me that this will be difficult to achieve.

Effects of the ‘Asia Pivot’

Look again at the situation in the Asia-Pacific region. The United States has announced the Asia pivot, that they are shifting the center of gravity to the Asia-Pacific region. What does this mean for Beijing and the Chinese comrades? It means that they are beginning to sense that the United States, slowly but surely, is creating a system of restraints and counterweights, which in effect is a system for the military-political and military-strategic isolation of China.

China views this situation from the standpoint of the fact that the United States may, at any moment, cause a cut-off of hydrocarbon fuel and energy supplies to China, thus strangling the Chinese economy and creating socially unacceptable conditions for the existence of the Chinese people. From this standpoint, Beijing naturally has to look for a way out of this situation—some kind of guarantees. They need to look for a way to break out of the harsh system being constructed at the present time. This is the motivation for China’s seeking involvement in major economic projects in Central Asia, in countries like Kazakstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and the bid by the People’s Republic of China to achieve an abrupt spurt in relations with the Russian Federation.

It was no accident that the new Chinese leader Xi Jinping made the Russian Federation the destination for his first foreign trip. A number of fairly important agreements were concluded. Even more important is what was discussed behind closed doors, and what Xi and Putin would have agreed upon. Naturally those talks would have revolved around how successfully to defend their interests, as much as possible, in the face of American and European pressures.

Thus, what we see coming together, perhaps gradually, is new blocs. Without question, the creation of this new geopolitical system is driven by the inflection points in the economic and financial crisis, and much will depend on what happens with the culmination of the second wave of that economic and financial crisis. Very unpredictable scenarios and alliances are entirely possible. But it is absolutely clear that if each of the players fails to overcome its national egotism, then the natural process by which international relations, and these new blocs, become chaotic, may quite easily not only place the world on the brink, but actually plunge us into military-political clashes, perhaps starting at the regional level, and moving to a mega-regional level.

Move Toward Strategic Cooperation

In this setting, I believe that our conference has a very important role to play, and that, to a significant degree, it can demonstrate to the leaders of the major geostrategic centers, that it is necessary to move in a completely different direction: not toward construction of this new bloc scheme, but rather toward strategic cooperation projects, for which each country could contribute the financial, human, and cultural-ideological resources it possesses.

It seems to me that this kind of an approach, this kind of new political thinking—I don’t like to use that term because of its association with Gorbachov, and we know how Gorbachov’s experiment ended up in Soviet Russia, but, nonetheless, the need persists precisely for this—is something which Putin does have a certain sense of, and he is attempting to find points of tangency with Europe, with the United States, and, above all, with the People’s Republic of China.

I view Putin’s, and Russia’s, relations with the European Union with a fair degree of skepticism, especially after the situation that developed in Cyprus, when Germany in effect stabbed Putin in the back. I think that he will not forget this, in shaping his approach to Chancellor Merkel, although outwardly he will maintain his diplomatic smile. But life has demonstrated that Russia’s approach to relations with Germany will not be what it might have been, had a more civilized approach been taken.

As for relations between the United States and Russia, it is also difficult to discern great positive prospects. The proposal Washington is now making for radical nuclear strategic and tactical force reductions are essentially unacceptable for the Russian Federation, insofar as they affect the very foundations of our security. After the Soviet military machine was shrunk and effectively broken, our nuclear missile forces are left as the clearest guarantor of the inviolability of Russia’s borders. Therefore, while the situation with Washington will of course go forward in the form of diplomatic contacts and smiles, at the same time both sides will be preparing for the worst-case scenario.

In that context, the proposals Lyndon LaRouche was talking about could break this ice, if each of the participants were to adopt an absolutely and fundamentally new approach to the most important aspects of their statecraft. In this sense, I repeat that this means giving up American hegemonism, and, for regional powers, giving up their national egotism. And it means a new approach to how the world economy is organized.
Translated from Russian by Rachel Douglas

Transcript

First of all, I would like to thank the Schiller Institute, and Lyndon LaRouche and Helga Zepp-LaRouche personally, for inviting me to speak at this prestigious conference. My prepared remarks begin with a historical overview, but some events that occurred just yesterday have changed my plan. I shall begin, therefore, by telling you what happened yesterday.

Yesterday was April 12, which is marked in Russia, and worldwide, as Astronautics Day, because it was on this day [in 1961] the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made man’s first flight into space. Yesterday, it became known that Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin had sent a letter to President Putin, proposing to make the keynote topic of the upcoming G20 summit, the prevention of threats from space.

Secondly, President Putin announced that financing for the Russian space program will be increased to 1.6 trillion rubles by 2020. This is quite a hefty figure, essentially comparable with NASA’s budget.

After this short introduction, let me proceed to a characterization of the topic toward which Rogozin has proposed to shift the G20 agenda. This is the problem of the comet and asteroid threat. For quite a long time, mankind has been very sensitive to the existence of a threat from comets. Asteroids, of course, were not yet in the picture. People were thinking about comets, which have quite a frightening appearance because of the tail.

The ‘Horrible Star’: Halley’s Comet and the First Outbreak of Panic, 1910

The first periodic comet known to mankind is the famous Halley’s Comet. Observations of it are depicted in Babylonian astronomical diaries and in Chinese chronicles from the Era of the Warring States [203-221 B.C.]. The fiery “broom star” already then was considered a herald of impending trouble—the Roman Sibylline Books say that the comet will be a “sign of the sword, famine, death, and the fall of leaders and great people.” The appearance of the comet in the Fifth Century A.D. coincided with the invasion of Attila the Hun, and in the 11th Century, with the Norman conquest of England. The latter event is depicted in the famous Bayeux Tapestry (Figure 1). Russian chronicles of the 13th Century talk about “the horrible star,” with its rays extending to the east, the direction from which the Mongol hordes soon invaded Russia.

Figure 1 The Bayeux Tapestry

But it was only in 1910 that the approach of Halley’s Comet first caused a wave of panic, enveloping the entire civilized world. Ironically, this was the direct result of scientific achievements: for the first time, spectral analysis of the comet’s tail was done, revealing the presence of poisonous cyanogen gas, as well as carbon monoxide. It was known that on May 18 the Earth would pass through the comet’s tail, and this sparked a kind of “comet hysteria,” with people waiting for the end of the world. There was panic demand for “anti-comet pills” and “anti-comet umbrellas” (Figure 2). The famous Arthur Conan Doyle, inspired by this lunacy, wrote one of his best science fiction stories,The Poison Belt, in which the Earth passes through a “belt of poisonous ether,” and humanity for a few days becomes immersed in a deep sleep.

Figure 2

It is now obvious that the fears of 1910 were unfounded. The concentration of harmful substances in the tails of comets is so low that they do not have any effect at all on the Earth’s atmosphere. Yet at that very time a real, terrible danger was close at hand. Neither scientists nor science fiction writers of that era saw it, although it loudly made its presence known.

From Tunguska to Chelyabinsk: 1908-2013

Two years before the panic caused by the passage of Halley’s Comet, in 1908, something exploded in the very heart of Siberia, near the Podkamennaya Tunguska region. Astronomers cautiously described it as a space object of cometary origin. The force of the explosion was 40-50 megatons, and its effects were seen even in Western Europe, where for several nights there was a ghostly phosphorescence in the sky. The brilliant Russian scientist Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, whose 150th anniversary we celebrate this year, very precisely defined the “Tunguska wonder” as “a clump of cosmic dust” (Figure 3).

Figure 3

But even this “clump of dust,” when it collided with Earth, flattened a forest area of more than 2,000 sq km, and it was only by good luck that there were no casualties. If the object that exploded over Tunguska had come four hours later, as a result of the rotation of the Earth around its axis it would have completely destroyed the city of Vyborg and reduced the beautiful palaces of St. Petersburg to ruins.

That was an ominous warning. But since the disaster befell one of the most uninhabited regions of the planet, rather than densely populated areas of Europe or the Americas, mankind simply ignored it.

Meanwhile, the “shelling” of the Earth from space continued. Especially noteworthy are the “Brazilian Tunguska” of Aug. 3, 1930, when the fall of a celestial body in the rainforest on the border of Brazil, Peru, and Colombia ignited fires that raged for days, and the jungles were depopulated for hundreds of square kilometers; and the Sikhote-Alin meteorite in 1947, whose fragments weighing a total of up to 80 metric tons fell in a meteor shower in the Soviet Far East.

But while these events occurred in sparsely populated areas, an asteroid that nearly exploded over the United States in 1972 could have led to a large-scale catastrophe. With a diameter of 80 meters, it entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the state of Utah, at a speed of about 15 km/s. If it had reached the surface of the Earth, the explosion would have been comparable in scale to the explosion at Tunguska, but instead of the 2,000 sq km destroyed by the Tunguska wonder, this time it would have been right at the center of a high-technology and densely populated country. Fortunately, the trajectory of the asteroid was very shallow, and, after flying above the Earth for 1,500 km, it exited the Earth’s atmosphere over Canada and was lost again in the vastness of space.

The most dramatic was the recent Chelyabinsk incident, when an explosion of a meteoroid over Chelyabinsk injured at least 1,613 people, mostly with minor traumas and cuts (Figure 4). The meteoroid itself was relatively small—about 17 meters in diameter and weighing about 10,000 metric tons (Figure 5).

Figure 4

Figure 5

It is worth noting that during the week of Feb. 11-18, 2013, the number of celestial bodies falling to the Earth increased dramatically (in fact, anomalously). Bolides were seen in the skies of Russia, Kazakstan, Japan, Australia, Cuba, South Africa, Morocco, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Britain, and Latvia. There were also peculiar silvery clouds, similar to those observed after the Tunguska meteorite impact. Perhaps Earth’s orbit was passing through an unknown meteor swarm at that time.

A crucial fact here is that the astronomers who were observing near-Earth space did not know about any meteor swarm. It was suggested that it could have been related to asteroid 2012 DA14, which passed by Earth on the evening of Feb. 15 at a distance of 28,000 km, but the trajectories of that asteroid and the Ural bolide were completely different. Thus, in February of this year the capabilities of modern Earth science to provide early detection of threats of cosmic origin were tested—and the results, unfortunately, proved totally unsatisfactory.

Surprisingly, the threat from outer space that had become apparent long before the fall of the Chebarkul meteoroid ((Lake Chebarkul in Chelyabinsk Region has been identified as the epicenter of the meteorite’s impact—ed.)) was not taken seriously for a long time. In fact, only the directors of disaster movies were interested, and it was not seen as something really important by either politicians or the majority of scientists. It is possible—although it is unlikely that anyone will ever prove it—that there were quite earthly, political reasons for that situation. For example, it would seem logical that development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, as it was put forward by the United States during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, would have to have inevitably led to the creation of at least an early warning system against threats from space intersecting Earth orbit.

But of course this did not occur. After the Cold War ended and the United States lost its main strategic adversary—an adversary which had spurred the development of the U.S. military and aerospace industry—people preferred to forget about the SDI. The price of this oblivion was the complete unpreparedness of the most technologically advanced countries on Earth to solve problems related to asteroid and comet threats.

Nonetheless, individual scientific teams have been doing research on the threat from asteroids and comets. There are about ten projects of different countries and organizations that have found 1,311 potentially hazardous asteroids (PHA). That calculation is based on observations from both ground- and space-based observatories, such as NASA’s WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer).

Although Russia has a vital interest in technologies to prevent and protect against the asteroid and comet threats simply because of its vast territory, the western countries hold first place here. However, in Russia too, there have been and still are groups and organizations working on both technologies for early warning and possible strategies for planetary defense. Among these organizations are the Expert Working Group on Space Threats of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Council on Space, which is part of the RAS Institute of Astronomy and is directly subordinate to Director of the Institute Boris Shustov; and a number of companies in the aerospace industry, primarily the S.A. Lavochkin Research and Production Association. The Aegis, AKO [Asteroid-Comet Danger], and Apophis special groups are under contract with the RAS Council on Space and with [the Russian space agency] Roscosmos. The following information is based mainly on materials from these organizations.

Possible Ways To Counter the Threat

In the entire history of observations, scientists have only once predicted a collision with a space body. This was asteroid 2008TC3, which observers discovered on Oct. 6, 2008, and within just 20 hours, in the early morning of Oct. 7, it exploded at an altitude of 37 km exactly where and when had been forecast: in the desert over northern Sudan, not far from the border with Egypt. The discovery was made using the 1.5 meter Catalina Sky Survey telescope. However, all experts agree that it would have been impossible in such a short time to destroy an asteroid or change its trajectory, even if it had been falling directly on New York City.

And then on March 2, 2009, a boulder with a diameter of 50 m flew by the Earth at a distance of 66,000 km—asteroid 2009 DD45. Had a collision with Earth occurred, it would have been a catastrophe several times worse than the Chelyabinsk incident. This asteroid was observed on Feb. 28—that is, three days before its passage—and by an amateur astronomer, not at a national observatory.

Obviously, the problem of preventing comet and asteroid threats has two components: a) improving the means of surveillance to allow (at least in theory) the detection of the most dangerous space objects in advance, and b) creating means of planetary defense.

The first task is completely solvable for large space bodies, such as the asteroid Apophis, whose dangerously close encounters with Earth are expected in 2029 and 2036 (Figure 6). Even in the case of Apophis, however, it is not absolutely certain that its orbit will not change as a result of factors not yet considered, and that it will not lead to a catastrophe on a planetary scale.

Figure 6

And it would be overly optimistic to assume that only Apophis constitutes a threat to our planet. The total number of undetected objects with a diameter of more than one kilometer is estimated by Russian scientists as “fewer than 40,” or less than 20% of the total number of potentially dangerous space bodies that are still unknown to mankind, but that “reside” in the Solar System. According to RAS Institute of Astronomy Director Boris Shustov, however, the total number of potentially Earth-threatening objects is between 200,000 and 300,000, and only 2% of those have currently been identified by astronomers (Figure 7).

Figure 7

In order to detect even these “lost” objects, we need to significantly increase the effectiveness of currently available early warning systems. First of all, we need to create a single planetary network for detection and prediction of asteroid and comet hazards. The network should include both already existing centers—the Minor Planet Center (funded by NASA under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (United States), the laboratory of the University of Pisa (funded by the European Space Agency)—and also new ones, with the widest possible geographical coverage. It is absolutely necessary to establish the elements of such a network in the Southern Hemisphere. As for Russia, the work ongoing within individual institutes and research institutions should be systematically organized; a single coordination point has to be set up for data collection and processing. This center should be formed initially as a node of the global (supranational) network.

Of course satellite telescopes, such as those launched by NASA and the ESA, can be extremely advantageous. But, just as in creating a system of planetary defense, it should be clearly understood that such devices will only be effective if they become components of a global planetary strategy, not just individual projects. On March 12 of this year, speaking before the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, Boris Shustov identified the main problem facing Russian astronomy: the lack of funding. It will require at least 58 billion rubles (about $2 billion) to create a comprehensive program for protection against the asteroid and comet threat, he said. As we shall see, these figures are quite comparable to the cost of one ambitious NASA mission. For Russian science, however, this sum is extremely large. But the event in Chelyabinsk could play a positive role here.

Most regrettably, up to now, all the projects in the field of space security could be classified as part of a “passive” strategy of making observations and calculations about these dangerous objects. The only example I know of the influence of man on a space object, is the bombardment of the nucleus of comet Tempel-1 during NASA’s Deep Impact experiment, in the Summer of 2005. Russian experts do not rule out that in this experiment, while studying the comet and ways to intercept it, results were obtained that could be used to develop new types of weapons. The experience of intercepting the comet’s nucleus at a speed of about 10 km/s could be used to create BMD systems. It is possible that there was also testing of models of hypervelocity strikes, needed to assess the effectiveness of new kinetic weapons known as “Arrows of God” [in English also “Rods from God”].

However, even if this is so, there still does not exist a single approved mission including development of a “counterstrike” against an asteroid. The Apophis mission, which is being developed at the Lavochkin bureau, does not yet have clear deadlines (other than the obvious approximate time of the asteroid’s approach to Earth). Ten days ago the head of Roscosmos, Vladimir Popovkin, did say that NASA has proposed to Russia a joint project to capture and transport to lunar orbit a small asteroid (500 metric tons). The idea is to capture this object somewhere in outer space, and use tractor technology to pull it into lunar orbit, where it can be studied with the help of robots or even during manned expeditions.

However, as far as can be understood from an article in Aviation Week, this is not an approved project, but only an initiative for which NASA plans to request an additional $100 million appropriation. The project, developed by the Keck Institute for Space Studies, provides for the capture of the asteroid with a special “bag”; it would then be towed into an elliptical lunar orbit or to a Lagrange point in the Earth-Moon system. If the project is indeed approved, the cost could reach at least $2.65 billion. Technologically, such a capture might look like what is shown in (Figure 8).

Figure 8

The possibility of countermeasures against potentially dangerous space objects, strictly speaking, comes down to two basic strategies: deflection and destruction. Deflection, of course, is preferable, since, first of all, the effects can be calculated more accurately, and secondly, because no irreversible actions are taken.

The means of deflection could be either soft (tractors, sails) or hard (targeted explosions, mine-laying, kinetic effects). The means of destruction involve powerful military technologies, including nuclear ones. This creates significant challenges for a planetary defense system, since using nuclear weapons in space could increase international tensions and create additional challenges to the security of the planet.

Therefore, we will have to proceed with a supranational project under the auspices of the UN. This is exactly what Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin, who was then still Russia’s representative to NATO, has said repeatedly, (( See EIR, May 11, 2012.)) in motivating the Russian initiative for an international project of global anti-missile and anti-asteroid planetary defense.

Rogozin’s Offer

Rogozin proposed the establishment of a civilian-military system for defense of the Earth from threats from outer space, of both military and natural origin, the latter in case of a dangerous approach to Earth by comets, asteroids, and other space objects.

Rogozin stressed that the idea of such a major project under the auspices of the UN, among other things, gives Russia an opportunity to seize the strategic initiative from the USA in deploying a global BMD system, including its segment in Europe. It will also make it possible to “package” a decision on establishing a truly unified and joint European missile defense system, into a major civilian project for space exploration, in which Russia has its own unique scientific, practical, and industrial role to play. Essentially, Russia and the United States could take on a noble mission to save the planet.

The draft initiative stated: “This humanitarian project for saving civilization pushes its military component to the background and places in a different light the role of the UN, which would have to become its ‘political sponsor.’ Planetary defense of the Earth could become an important stimulus for international research and military-industrial cooperation among the countries of the West and the BRICS, with a leading role for Russia.

“Those who decided to publicly reject participation in such a project would risk contempt in the eyes of the world, being perceived as short-sighted reactionaries, and even worse, as potential aggressors who are indifferent to the future of civilization and are pursuing narrowly national goals of domination in outer space.”

Given Rogozin’s increased political weight and authority, as well as his strong support from the Russian military-industrial complex, there is reason to hope that such a system will be a priority of the Russian space program in the next few years.

It should be noted that Russia definitely has something to offer in the creation of a global system of planetary defense. I am referring mainly to the Citadel system, developed at Lavochkin (Figure 9). This system was worked out “on paper” more than a dozen years ago; it was assumed then that it would take no more than 7-8 years to implement the hardware. The political decision to create the Citadel Planetary Defense System (PDS) was not made at that time, however, perhaps because it would have required effective cooperation among different countries and space agencies.

Figure 9 Schematic of the Citadel Planetary Defense System

The Citadel PDS is a complex, layered system, but with fairly simple basic elements. Moreover, all its major elements (or their prototypes) were already developed in the Soviet Union.

These include many types of rocket and space technology, nuclear weapons, means of communication, navigation, and control, etc. Now we have a unique opportunity to use these tools, many of which were developed for military purposes, not for destruction, but to protect humanity from dangerous celestial bodies.

To prevent a collision of dangerous celestial bodies with Earth, the plan is to use interception, based on the infrastructure for space flights (space launch complexes, means of control, etc.). It will use, inclusively, special reconnaissance satellites and interceptor spacecraft capable of acting upon the dangerous celestial bodies.

Reconnaissance spacecraft are a small class of apparatuses, such as the American Clementine, created on the basis of SDI technology. The light weight of the reconnaissance spacecraft will allow them to accelerate to high speed and thus reach a dangerous celestial body faster than a heavy interceptor. During the flight to the object, they ascertain its characteristics and transfer the data to ground control, to refine the interception plan and its effect on the dangerous space body. After that, the necessary commands are communicated to the interceptor spacecraft, which maneuvers closer to the object and impacts it for the purpose of deflecting it from its Earth-bound trajectory or destroying it. Experience acquired during efforts to create missile defense may be useful for this. Kinetic impact or a nuclear explosion will be used against the dangerous object.

It is proposed that the basis of the planetary defense system will be the Citadel-1 operational reaction echelon, intended for protection against objects of less than 100 m in diameter—the type that most often collide with Earth. Due to their small size, their detection will be possible in the range of several days to several months before collision. This places severe restrictions on the timing to ready the interceptors, primarily the launch vehicles.

A Launch Vehicle Available

Currently these requirements are met by the Russian-Ukrainian launch vehicle (LV) Dnepr (a conversion of the RS-20 intercontinental ballistic missile, code-named SS-18 by NATO) and the Zenit LV. The time required for preparing to launch—from a few minutes with the Dnepr to 1.5 hours with the Zenit—makes them the only ones in the world that could be used in the operational reaction echelon.

The Russian-made launch vehicles have quite large capacities: if an interceptor is launched using the Zenit LV, the mass of a nuclear device delivered to the asteroid can be about 1,500 kg. The power of such a nuclear device would be no less than 1.5 megatons, which could destroy a stony asteroid [S-type asteroid] with a diameter of several hundred meters. If several blocks were docked in Earth orbit, the power of the nuclear device, and therefore the size of object to be destroyed, could be substantially increased.

Initially it was assumed that the basic spacecraft for creating reconnaissance satellites and interceptors could be vehicles such as the Mars-96 and Phobos-Grunt, developed at the Lavochkin bureau. However, quite a number of failures have plagued vehicles made by Lavochkin, significantly reducing the probability that the Citadel system will be built by the Russian space industry alone. Probably the best option would be combined missions, whereby Russia would provide the launch vehicles, and the spacecraft would be built by NASA and the ESA.

Interception of large asteroids and comets at great distances from the Earth will require implementation of a long-term response echelon, comparable to the function of the operational reaction echelon. There will, however, be important differences. In particular, these means of interception will generally not destroy dangerous space objects, but rather deflect them from a collision course with the Earth. Therefore, depending on the characteristics of the dangerous celestial body, its orbit, and the time available, not only nuclear devices but also others could be used to deflect it—kinetic (“Rods from God”), reactive, “space billiards,” etc. For this we will need to have large payloads of various types for assembly in Earth orbit of heavy interceptor satellites with multi-stage propulsion units.

Thus, to deflect cosmic threats will require resources from the whole world, and especially from countries possessing space and nuclear technologies (Russia, the United States, Western Europe, China, Japan, India).

There will obviously have to be a continuous cycle of project design and other work. This could be done on the “green wave” relay principle, whereby the results of work initiated in Europe, for example, would be continued in the Americas (after transmission over computer networks), followed by Asia, etc.

Of course, for such work to be quickly organized, mankind must prepare beforehand a kind of Mobilization Plan for the Defense of Earth, in case a threatening situation arises.

A base in resources, science, and technology will not ensure success in the fight against threats from space, unless we develop and implement a planet-wide strategy of indirect actions to avert threats. This shifts the problem of defense against asteroid and comet threats from the purely scientific domain to the political. We need to develop an effective strategy for systemic prevention/deflection of threats to the very existence of civilization on Earth. Otherwise, humanity will continue to play Russian roulette with the Cosmos, and in this game, as we all know, you cannot win every time.
Translated from Russian by Susan Welsh

Transcript

Thank you for all appearing today.

I want first to alert you all, as to why there might be some suspicions about my credulity. First, you need to know, I have no TV set; I don’t go on Facebook or Twitter; I, in fact, read hard books, not off of Kindle, things like Plutarch’s Lives in the real, hard volume. I never watched, or were concerned with American Idol or who wins the Super Bowl. I concern myself with the moral barometer of myself in the world. So you just need to know those kinds of background understandings.

The second observation I’d like to make is, today isn’t the first time where mankind has given concern to the dangers from outer space, and what it could harbor. There’s a tale told about Pope Calixtus III [r. 1455-58]—it may have been apocryphal—but, the Christians were battling the Ottoman Turks in Serbia and elsewhere. The Pope excommunicated Halley’s Comet: He thought it was a bad omen for the outcome [of the war]. It didn’t seem to affect the clash, and indeed, Oliver Cromwell took that to heart at the Battle of Marston Moor [1644] in the English Civil War. He instructed his troops, “Pray to God, but keep the powder dry.” Still, very Earthbound.

Now, I want to discuss what I consider is necessary to make civilization worth preserving; because we have to ask, well, there have been many other species that have gone extinct as well, and we don’t necessarily mourn over the dinosaurs, for the lack of Tyrannosaurus Rex. So, we want to make certain that our species is worth preserving, before we decide to deflect all the dangers from outer space.

A ‘Civilization Genome Project’

So I’ve decided to undertake what I call the “Civilization Genome Project.” It’s different than the Human Genome Project, because it focuses on what we need, collectively, as humans, in organizing government and developing a political and social culture that’s worthy of survival; that raises us above an animal-like existence, whose preoccupation is with money, power, sex, and creature comforts; domination for the sake of domination. That’s the animal-like existence that we, as humans, need to repudiate.

And I’ve attempted to make a sketch of what I describe as the “Misery Index of the World,” and to ascribe what proportion is human beings killing, oppressing, persecuting other human beings, and what proportion is from tsunamis, natural disasters; well over 95% is human beings murdering, oppressing, dominating other human beings for reasons of bigotry, control, and other very pernicious motives. And if we want to make the life of society of the world better, we need to focus in the short run, on stopping human beings from creating misery for others. And this is not just tens of thousands; this is billions. If you think of the oppression, killing of people because of gender; they can’t go to school; they’re killed because of their racial, or religious, or national, or ethnic affiliations—very, very bigoted and morally contemptible motivations.

Now, when we think about the bedrock, the Genome Project for government, the first principle that we have to accept, which has been repudiated for most, if not all of mankind, is the understanding that the final end of the state, is to make men and women free to develop their faculties and be morally accountable for their trajectories and destinies. That is the final end of the state. It’s not to have a level of health insurance, or GNP, or unemployment; it’s not to dominate others and be number one or number two in the world, where nations line up like football teams, who get rankings every week.

But that is the final end of the state: It is promoting individual challenge, strength, and happiness through their own ways. That is success. Success is not being able to tell other countries what to do. Success is not attempting to cram what you think virtue is, down the throat of somebody else. Success is giving every individual a fair opportunity to succeed in their individual ambitions. Say, that’s the number-one precept that needs to be inculcated amongst every single government of the world! And that would reduce the Human Misery Index, many-fold overnight.

Checks and Balances

Now, the second fundamental genome principle of civilization, is in the organization of government, recognizing that, because men are not angels, we must separate or fragment power, so no one faction can tyrannize over another. It’s what our Founding Father James Madison styled, “making ambition counteract ambition.” We cannot depend upon angelic features of those who cling to power, especially among the political species, who are not a random sample of the population. People are attracted to politics because they love domination, they have egomania. They need attention.

And that’s why we need checks and balances. We know what will happen: You give them limitless power, no matter what their background. For example, the current occupant of the White House: He claims the authority to kill anyone on the planet that he says, in secret, “Hey! You may be an imminent danger. You may be associated with al-Qaeda. I need no checks; I always get it right.” That’s what happens with limitless power.

So checks and balances are indispensable to creating civilization. Without them, tyranny ensues. And that’s in part a recognition that if we have to choose between a danger of too strong a government, that has to be endowed with some authority, because the [lives of] creatures in a state of nature, are what Hobbes described as “poor, brutish, nasty, and short—we know human nature is depraved without leadership, and we need government to prevent predation, stealing, killing. But, between choosing between a too-weak government, and a too-strong government, we know we have to choose for a weaker government, because government is always capable of vastly more evil than any individual or group of individuals.

If we think of the mass murders, the suicides, the genocides, Mao, Stalin, hundreds of millions! Hundreds of millions! The genocide, the Holocaust, compared to individual murders, dwarfs the amount of evil that can be perpetrated. And that’s why the fundamental principle of all government action is, the rule is liberty; the exception is the encroachment on liberty. And the government always needs to surmount a very high hurdle to justify encroaching on your liberty—spying on you, detaining you, suppressing your speech—a very, very high standard. Because a government too strong is a government that will destroy the whole reason that we have civilization and liberty.

Due Process of Law

Now, perhaps the most important idea in the history of civilization, and the one that has to be inscribed in our government, is due process. Due process of law. It was the first recognition of man that, “I could be wrong”; there’s more than my way to look at an event. Nietzsche once said, there are no facts, only interpretations. There’s great wisdom in that. There are multiple ways to interpret an event! You don’t have a monopoly on wisdom. Due process: Before you impose any kind of sanction, any kind of penalty, hear the other side out, an opportunity for a defense, a decision by an impartial individual who has no vested interest in a particular outcome.

Due process: That intellectual humility, “I could be wrong”, has to be a centerpiece of every Constitution, everygovernmental dispensation. Because we see what happens without due process: That is the history of injustice, right? Anonymous, unchallenged accusations that send anybody to prison, anyone to the death chambers.

Those are the fundamental principles of government that are essential to preserving civilization.

The last one, and perhaps the most important, is the understanding that nations, as nations, have no independent interest that transcends that of enabling all of its citizens to live free. There’s no national interest in controlling resources, in expanding its territory, controlling oil supplies. This idea of national security—well, we don’t dominate the East China Sea, the West China Sea, the Asia pivot, we have to control the Middle East—what is that? A nation as a nation, it’s an artificial construct! They’re only human beings! Nations are made of human beings. You say, “the goal of the nation”—the final end is to make the individual in that nation free, to develop their faculties, and have moral accountability for what they do with their lives. That is success. The process itself is success.

These challenges that we confront are not at all novel. We aren’t the first generation that has conceived of these necessities, in order to diminish the Misery Index of the world. And it goes back to the Old Testament of Ecclesiastes: “What has been will be again; what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the Sun.” Now, that doesn’t mean there are not new technologies; he wasn’t writing at the age of the Internet, and I’m sure there will be something that will supersede the Internet. There are technological changes. But the motivations of mankind, the challenges to live a life that’s beyond animal existence, has been with us from the outset. It’s like the French say, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Adult Virtues

Now, I’ve articulated at least the Genome Project with regard to how we can see and construct governments. But government alone is not the success story that we need to pursue. We need a political and a social culture as well, a political and social culture that undergirds these precepts of governmental action if you will, or limits on government. And perhaps the most important social, cultural norm, has to be one where you and I, the society in general, honors and applauds what I call the “adult virtues”: wisdom, restraint, humility, modesty, resisting domination for the sake of domination; not selling our soul for a mess of potage. That’s what the social culture needs to reward, not necessarily through money, but by giving deference and social status, applauding people who display those virtues, and ostracizing those who are like Donald Trump, or Bloomberg, or other people who flaunt wealth and utterly have philosophically empty lives! Empty! These people are moral wretches, and they need to be treated in that way!

And we need a culture, then, that rejects as juvenile, as something you grow out of at age five in the sandbox—the craving for sex, money, power, creature comforts, “Hey, pay attention to me”—all those ill-conceived habits that we see on every stage in the world, every day, in the world of politics. We have the most wretched people, who acquire, and assert, power, which has led, in the world, to this high-water mark of a Misery Index.

We need to go back, in our own private lives as well, and understand, as Socrates did, that the unexamined life is not worth living. Just existence for its own sake is not good enough. We have to ask ourselves, “Why are we here? Why are we on this planet?” What can we do, to make life more gentle? More honorable, than exists simply by pursuing and seeking gratification for appetites? The higher life form.

And this is the challenge that civilization faces today, as it faced it yesterday, and it will face this challenge tomorrow. Because every individual is born with the same DNA, right? Doesn’t matter where, whether you’re in New Zealand or in Siberia, the United States, or Somalia. All the species start at the same point, the same DNA. And these same moral challenges are going to confront every generation! All we can do, the living generation, is, for those yet to be born, to preserve those standards of freedom and honor and morality, that will give them the same opportunity that we’ve enjoyed, to struggle against these evils that persist in mankind.

And that is what I suggest is our obligation in leaving the conference at the end of two days. We don’t control the world. What we do control, is us! What we do control, is what motivates our lives. What we do control, is whether or not, within our space, within our ability to motivate others, we are able to live an honorable life that eliminates what we see as the oppression, the preoccupation with adolescent goals, that has led to the degradation of the species, whether we’re on the edge of a thermonuclear war—we’ve been that way for a long time—most of you in the audience probably lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, where we did think that maybe the Earth would perish, very soon.

But remember, you control your destiny, your moral life; you can have no excuse for blaming somebody else for that.

Now, we may not succeed. The history of mankind is not one that shows that people with the greatest and most noble ideas succeed. Many of them get burned at the stake; many of them perish without being rewarded at all for their courage and heroism. And we have to accept that that may be our possibility as well, because we know, in this audience, we are not the majority. The majority sits on Wall Street—they’re defense contractors, they’ve got vast amounts of wealth. They exert vast amounts of political power. They have a monopoly on legalized violence.

But what they don’t have, and what we have, is a philosophical soul, that marches forward, irrespective of these enticements that are intended to divert us from what we know is a higher life form.

Thank you.

Transcript

Hello. My name is Jason Ross. I work with Mr. LaRouche’s Basement Research Team in Virginia. My other hat is that I’m the editor-in-chief of 21st Century Science & Technologymagazine, and our last published issue was on planetary defense.

I am very happy to follow the excellent presentation of Mr. Benediktov on planetary defense, on the Russian proposals for international cooperation. He covered many of the technical aspects and the threat of asteroids very well.

What I would like to focus my presentation on today, is Mr. LaRouche’s economic outlook, which underlay his initial proposal for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Mr. LaRouche’s view, of human creativity as the fundamental source of economic wealth, and of being able to consider a global measure of economic value, as opposed to an addition of local economic values, saw the buildup of the SDI not as a cost, not as a burden, but as a source of great economic profit. Think how different that is from the current U.S. anti-missile system, which has a cost, is expensive, but provides no great spin-off technologies, as the Strategic Defense Initiative would have.

So let me discuss the concept of energy-flux density that Mr. LaRouche referred to. He did not propose kinetic kill vehicles in the proposal made in the 1980s, but instead the use of “new physical principles,” including breakthroughs in laser and particle beam technologies, as well as fusion. Now, while there were advancements anti-missile system, these were not the SDI.

We heard about some of the developments in the anti-missile system at our last Schiller Institute conference in the United States, but this did not represent the intention of the SDI, or the Strategic Defense of Earth, now. The purpose of the SDI was not only defense against missiles, but for political cooperation with the Soviet Union—which the U.S. is not pursuing with its anti-missile system, in regards to Russia—and, for the spin-off technologies and the economic profit that it would bring. It would be similar to, but much greater than, President Kennedy’s mission to go to the Moon. The Apollo program had a large cost, but it had zero net cost, a negative net cost because of the benefits that came from the technologies.

In the case of the Strategic Defense Initiative, and the need today for technologies for Strategic Defense of Earth, including the necessity of fusion, the developments will not only be technological, but scientific as well. This has a very great potential.

Energy-Flux Density

So, what is energy-flux density? There is a problem in applying scalar metrics, where we use one kind of ruler to understand many different processes. For example, economists, who study the economy in terms of “money,” are never actually studying the economy. Or, if you look at physics, there is a unit of “energy.” There is something real about energy, but there is an understanding that is lost when we consider purely energy itself. Rather, with the concept of energy-flux density, we begin to look at the quality of sources of power, not only the quantity.

Now, by the quality of power, I don’t mean a fancy Swiss watch—I mean the opposite of quantity. So, for example, if you have a scientist who studies rocks, he’s used to dealing with mass, density, perhaps temperature, electrical conductivity; if he were looking at a dog, he isn’t even considering many of the things a veterinarian would look at, such as heartbeat, metabolic rate, nutrition. A pure biologist could not understand human beings; without a concept of culture, a biologist might try to cure all social problems with medicines, instead of changing the culture in which people exist, or their thoughts.

So, from the standpoint of physics, from the standpoint of economics, energy-flux density is crucial for understanding the different sources of power.

For example, if we use muscle power, whether human muscle power, or the muscle power of an animal, it’s very limited, and it consists in mechanical motions. With the use of burning coal to create a steam engine, yes, we still make mechanical motions, but they’re much more powerful than what could be done by, say, a horse. With the use of electricity, you can measure electrical power, in terms of horsepower as a physical unit, but electricity does so many things you cannot do with an animal. I think we can all think of many examples: There’s nothing you can do with a horse that can make the headphones we’re wearing, work. It’s a different kind of power.

With fission power, and then especially with fusion power—if we develop fusion, the benefit will be that electricity will be almost free; the other benefit is that new qualities of economic activity are possible. Take, for example, the ability to use a fusion torch for recycling purposes, to break down material into its elements, in a similar way that we break down petroleum products into the different kinds [of elements] now.

For the SDI, or the SDE, we need, as a source of power, fusion; we will not be able to move asteroids with windmills! We cannot use mirrors to take the solar power to move an asteroid. We’re not going to do it by returning empty soda bottles for 15 cents. This outlook of humanity will not defend us against an asteroid. And currently, fusion power, at least in the U.S., is funded far below the funding for stupid solar panels—it’s ridiculous. We could completely change our relationship to the physical world by the development of fusion power, which would change our relationship to materials, for example.

Potential Relative Population Density

So, to apply this to human economy, Mr. LaRouche has used the concept of potential relative population density. So, the potential population density, in a certain area: How many people could live there? What is the potential? How has that changed over the years? If we look at this chart (Figure 1), of European population, over the past centuries and several millennia, we see a dramatic increase in the number of people that are able to live here. This is not because people are having more babies; it’s not for reasons like that. It’s that, as we transform as a species the way that life does as a whole in evolution, we really do become like a new species, when we have a new platform of scientific development to stand on.

When life moved from the oceans to land, it dramatically began to increase its power on the Earth. We do the same thing when we develop new sources of power, for example, for agriculture, or the study of medicine.

This is something that’s very natural for human beings. It would be unnatural for us not to continue this trend. That would be like a reptile saying that a mammal is “unnatural.” Or, it would be like a rock saying a lizard is “unnatural.” The rock says, “Hey! I’m just sitting around here, and you’re moving, you’re walking on top of me, you’re sitting on me. You know, I don’t enjoy this, it’s unnatural.” But lizards aren’t rocks, and human beings are not animals.

So, compare different cultures today: As was just discussed, China today has some ambitious programs. They have a three-phase lunar program that they began several years ago. Phase two will land devices on the Moon. Phase three is to bring back material from the Moon, something that, until now, only the United States and the Soviet Union have done. India is moving forward: They sent a probe to the Moon in 2008. They plan to send a satellite to Mars this year, which will make them the third nation to do so.

We just heard a great deal about Russian proposals for international cooperation on missile defense, which, yes, if we’re using nuclear weapons, it absolutely must be international—and it must involve civilian and military aspects, something that NASA must understand.

And in the U.S., NASA has a mission to land a man on an asteroid by 2021. This is a joke. Nobody really takes this seriously. There’s really no point in standing on an asteroid. You would probably need special boots to do it, because the gravity is so small on an asteroid, that if you sneeze, you will fly off of it! In fact, right now, with the sequester in the United States, NASA scientists can’t even go to meetings anymore! They can’t go to conferences! So, right now, NASA can’t send a man to the Moon, NASA can’t send a man to Mars; they can’t even send a man to Paris, Berlin, or Tokyo for a conference!

The ‘Basement’ Science Project

So, we must have a total shift in our activities and our priorities, and we also have to have a revolution in how we practice science. I want to say something very briefly on this: Mr. LaRouche’s “Basement” project has taken up a study of the internal history of science, going back to the first modern scientist, Kepler, up through Fermat, Leibniz, Gauss, Riemann, Planck, Einstein, and Vernadsky. I will show you briefly, one very amazing result that came from some of our studies.

This might be difficult to understand, but we can talk more later. What you’re about to see here is, you’re seeing these rings appear. What the animation (see video below) is showing, is, in each frame of the video, all of the dots that make it up are the centers of the orbits of various asteroids. And we’re choosing the asteroids based on their average distance from the Sun. Here, they’ll be drawn in, as we’re moving farther from the Sun.

Now, there’s not enough time to fully discuss this, but taking the approach of Kepler and Gauss, that there must be a reason for why the universe is so, and not otherwise, from the standpoint of Leibniz, who said: Yes, God is completely powerful, but He is also so wise, that he does nothing without a reason.

We decided to apply this approach—Kepler’s method—to the asteroids, to start trying to look at the asteroids, as a system, to look for a structure in the Asteroid Belt. The swarm of asteroids that Mr. Benediktov discussed, where they seem to come in a greater number all at once: Why is this? If we have a hypothesis about the structure of the asteroids, maybe this will make it much easier to find them; maybe this will change our view of how to move them. ((A written report on the Basement’s asteroid research is available at: http://schillerinstitute.org/conf-iclc/2013/0413_frankfurt/AsteroidUpdate.pdf (PDF format. Right-click the link and select “save as” or “save target as” to download. Use Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the downloaded file. Opening this in your browser may not work.)))

So this is something that the LaRouche Research Team is discussing, and we’re starting to confront NASA scientists with this, who are trying to figure out—no one has seen this before. So this is a new observation. Kepler would be very happy.

A Wonderful Gift to the Future

Let me say, to conclude here, that the path to that is offered by the SDE concept of the common aims of mankind; this allows us to give a very wonderful gift to the future. In one generation, or more like two generations, as some of the first visitors and perhaps settlers to the Red Planet, to Mars, are taking their one-week trip to get there on a fusion rocket, they might wonder how foolish we were, in the beginning of the 21st Century, to confuse banks for the real economy, or why we were so fixated on using less energy, instead of developing better sources of new energy? Or why we separated our trash into 15 different colored bags, instead of recycling it with fusion?

Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche was telling me the other day about a report she had read, that German youth are among the least happy, but it is not because of physical poverty. I think a large part of it comes from the omnipresent Green outlook, where children are taught that they are disease on the planet—you know, “you are a cancer”; that the best possible role for your life, is to not exist! To have no impact on the world—you come, you go; it’s as if you were never there. That’s not exactly an optimistic outlook!

Compare that with a mission to go to Mars, to discover new sources of power, to master matter-antimatter. And I think what we can do, is really give a wonderful gift, because the greatest gift that a nation, or a culture, can give to its members and its future members, is the knowledge that those people lived lives that were not only good and useful, but in fact, necessary for the future.

We have to have a direction, that we’re moving to where people are necessary, and not burdens that we should euthanize when they reach 70 years of age. So, by adopting this SDE approach, the new technologies needed for planetary defense, and getting Glass-Steagall and a credit system immediately to make it possible, I think we are giving the future a very wonderful gift!

Thank you.

Transcript

There’s a certain element of short but sweet in what I have to say. It may be sweet for some people, but not for others. It’s sweet for me, because it’s the truth. And it’s a truth which is generally not recognized at all; and therefore, the truth that is not recognized at all is inherently the most beautiful of them all.

We’re in a situation now, where, in point of fact, especially in the Americas, and in Europe and Africa, for example, mankind is in the greatest danger of virtual extinction of the species ever known to us in historical times. There may have been prehistorical periods which are legendary, shall we say, as opposed to historical, but never before, since those prehistorical times, has mankind ever faced a danger to the human species as great as the world as a whole faces today.

The center of that problem lies between Europe and North America. All the other regions of the other nations are simply secondary. They are not the principal drivers, nor do they provide the solution for the situation.

The key to understanding this is to shock a number of you, especially those who are European, as to what the situation is today. Everybody knows, I think, in Europe and beyond, that we have a great hyperinflationary financial crisis, and that populations are being starved, probably starved to death, in great numbers, in various parts of this part of the world. And they’re doomed, unless the solution to this problem is identified and understood.

Mankind is on the verge of a quasi-extinction. This is not something “down the line.” This is something in the immediate future. It’s a problem which must be identified now, correctly; it’s a problem which is not understood in most parts of Europe; it’s little understood in the United States, though in the United States we have a better understanding than anyone else does. This system is about to go into a collapse.

A Doomsday Sign

Now, there’s an intention behind this. The intention has been bespoken by the Queen of England, who considers herself the Empress of the world—and to a large degree she is. Europe, for example: Western and Central Europe are nothing but puppets of the British Empire. You don’t have nation-states any more. You don’t have sovereignty any more. You have a system, and the system is run essentially from London. And if their system continues, and is not defeated, the power of the British Empire over Europe, or most of Europe, most of Western and Central Europe, the power over the United States, right now, means that the doom that is threatened, seems to be almost inevitable.

The hyperinflation which has struck Europe and the United States, simultaneously—it’s a Doomsday sign. And the rate of production of necessities is falling, and it’s falling at an accelerating rate, and will continue to fall at an accelerating rate, as long as this trans-Atlantic system of power continues.

And no one in Europe has a chance, now, of doing much about it. Because they’re all tied in, so heavily, to the so-called euro system. The euro system is a mass suicide system of the unwilling.

Now, what’s wrong? Why is this hyperinflation—and this is a hyperinflation which makes what happened in Germany in 1923 a simple problem—this is the virtual extinction! Now, the British Empress, the Queen of England, has specified—we had this series of discussions involving Copenhagen, ((The November 2009 British Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Trinidad and Tobago, prior to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, was addressed by Queen Elizabeth II. Sir John Schellnhuber, who was made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order (CBE) of the British Empire in 2004, by Queen Elizabeth, told a March 13, 2009 pre-meeting for the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference that the carrying capacity of the planet is below 1 billion people. See http://larouchepub.com/other/2011/3845london_war_depop.html.)) at one point; it was shifted from there, and the British Queen went off in a different direction. It now has gone with a program of explicit genocide, mass genocide. Specifically. She’s said it not on one occasion; she’s said it repeatedly. She emphasizes it today. It’s the policy of the President of the United States today—it’s a policy of genocide against the trans-Atlantic population, in particular.

And it’s a very efficient genocide. If not stopped, it will kill. What her goals are: The immediate prospect is to reduce the world’s population from 7 billion people, to somewhat in the order of magnitude of 1 or 1.2 billion people. That’s her policy.

That policy is being implemented throughout Europe, especially Western and Central Europe. That policy is being implemented inside the United States itself; a policy of deliberate genocide has been specified by the Queen of England and her puppet, the President of the United States, has now declared his support for that policy. We’re going to have the greatest rate of accelerated death in the United States coming on, if this President remains President.

The policy is not his. The policy is hers. She bought and paid for him, with drug money, a vast flood of drug money which was used to secure his election as President of the United States.

He carried out that kind of program all the way through. He carried it out in the form of warfare. What happened in Libya; what is spreading into Syria; what is threatening throughout all of Africa; what is going on in the Middle East; what the threats are to Russia—all these things—the threats to China now. All these things are being done by her, chiefly through her instrument, the current President of the United States, who’s nothing but her stooge, for her!

That’s what we face.

Beating the Money Game

Now, how do we deal with this? They have an argument. The argument is, we’ve got a money problem. And we’ve got to solve the money problem: “We’ve got to be nice to money, even if it means being mean to people. Even if it means killing them!” And that is exactly what the policy is of the current President of the United States. He has not gotten it voted up yet, but that’s his policy. That’s his intention. His intention is genocide against a major part of the population of the United States, as well of Europe.

So, unless we can solve this little mystery, of what’s the money game, then we’re not going to solve the problem.

So, therefore, I’ve come to that particular point. What is the problem? Why are Europeans so stupid as to put up with this? Why are European governments more stupid than the people? Naturally, they’re more stupid—that’s how they got to be governments. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been allowed into government, if they hadn’t been stupid, malleable.

There’s only one solution, and that solution is Glass-Steagall. But most people don’t know what Glass-Steagall is. They think it’s a new kind of adjustment system. No. Glass-Steagall is the fundamental law of the United States. Glass-Steagall is the name given to that law, at a specific time in history.

It was not just the United States. It was the forerunners of the United States. This is something that comes out of Nicholas of Cusa, for example, and his great influence, and the great scientific development which occurred, that was then destroyed largely, by periods of great warfare, in Europe, in particular. Civil war.

Columbus was a follower of Nicholas of Cusa, who said the solution is to leave Europe, and go across the oceans to the people of other parts of the world, and build up a civilization, a global human civilization, which will make it possible for all parts of humanity to enjoy what human beings are, and should be allowed to be.

We had religious war. What did this lead to? Well, Columbus’s expedition didn’t work out too well; the original Columbian settlement, the middle Mexican settlement, these things worked out fairly well. But they were destroyed under the influence of the oligarchical system.

So, then you had this thing that came from a few Dutch, a few French, a few British, Irish, and so forth, and they came over across the water into the North American continent, as well as the South American continent. And in the United States, in particular, in that area we made two efforts to solve the problem which Europe faced, as a result of this situation.

They said, let’s leave Europe. Let’s get some people out of Europe. Because it is impossible to solve this problem in Europe. And it never has been solved. It just vibrated back and forth. Some progress was made, but things became weaker and weaker and weaker.

Well, we had something that worked out in Massachusetts, finally, in that century, the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Now the Massachusetts Bay Colony was an act of genius. It created the economic system on which the United States was based.

Now the Massachusetts Bay Colony was crushed by the Venetian party, so-called, the same Venetian party that destroyed the independence of the Britons, and made them slaves of the New Venetian slavery system. And so, the new slavery system came into North America, into Massachusetts, where we had had the first economic system on which the United States was based.

We then got into a war with Britain, which had been taken over by the New Venetian Party. And Britain had become an empire, during the middle of that [18th] century.

At that point, in the middle of the century, the people in North America, including some of my ancestors, had set forth on a new system of economy, a revival of the same system as the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s system. And it worked. And there was one man who actually figured out how to make the principle work, and he was, of course, Alexander Hamilton [1755/57-1804], whose brain designed the American System, the only competent system that solves this kind of problem.

Then the effort was made which succeeded.

But then we were crushed. The British, in particular, were constantly trying to get us to crush our new republic. We had a few great leaders in this republic, initial leaders in this republic. And then we had another group; and then they were crushed in turn. We were crushed again; we were crushed by a British intervention in what was called the Civil War of the United States. We came out of that successfully, but then we were betrayed again by British intervention, British imperial intervention.

Churchill’s Perfidy

And then we got our power back, and then some damned fools in the United States decided to go join and support the British in the war called World War I, the most stupid thing that was ever done.

We came out of [War War II] successfully, under Franklin Roosevelt, who represented the same policy as Alexander Hamilton did, in defining the economic policy, the founding constitutional principle, of the United States. Franklin Roosevelt understood that policy, and put a version of it through. And it worked. We won the war. Unfortunately, Franklin Roosevelt died.

He died; why did he die? Because the British killed him. How did they kill him? Well, we were fighting this war, World War II, as it was called, and Roosevelt was the leader of the nation; he was the leader of the international effort to save civilization. But then Churchill had a cute idea: Let’s not win the war too soon. That was the British policy. Let’s not win the war too soon. Let’s wait until Roosevelt is dead. Then when they saw that Franklin Roosevelt was about to die—and this is a matter of eyewitness, not my witness knowledge on some of this stuff—then they went and ended the war, after Roosevelt had died.

They wore him out, with the illness he’d gone through. They wore him out deliberately. And Churchill did itdeliberately. He prolonged the war in Europe, to prevent the United States from going back to the policies of Franklin Roosevelt, and the commitments that Roosevelt had made to the peace. The entire peace policy of Franklin Roosevelt was obliterated, under the direction of Winston Churchill, and that sort of process.

Well, then, we were in trouble. Harry Truman, the President who replaced President Roosevelt, was a bum, a Wall Street bum, and a whore for the British Empire. They used nuclear weapons. Started by whom? Started by the British Empire, not the United States.

Nuclear Power, Not Nuclear Weapons

Then we got that straightened out, and went through a process of fighting back against what Churchill and others had done. We had weapons, yes. We had a nuclear arsenal, yes. (And Britain had a nuclear arsenal, given to them by us.) But it was not to be used unless there was a real need to use it. We did not want to unleash what nuclear weapons meant as a weapon of warfare. We were willing to have the weapons, but don’t utilize them as a policy. Don’t try to get into a war by using nuclear weapons. Do anything possible to avoid having to use nuclear weapons.

And nuclear weapons were not the purpose. Nuclear weapons were a variety of something else. Nuclear weapons were a reflection of nuclear power, where people like Einstein and Max Planck, in the 1890s, had already envisaged the basis for nuclear power.

And it’s a natural thing for mankind to use nuclear power. It’s an unnatural thing not to use nuclear power. It’s an insane thing not to use nuclear power. Because the continued existence of man, in the face of the threat from inside the Solar System, from asteroids and other things in the system, which are now becoming an increasing threat, and source of threats—that will be reported elsewhere, later today. There was never a purpose for nuclear weapons. The Nazis had even thought about using nuclear weapons. Hitler had killed it, at that point.

But the intention of the nuclear policy did not come from a nuclear-weapons policy. It came from the need for progress of man’s condition; of increasing the productive powers of mankind; for raising the standard of living of mankind; for increasing the density of power per capita and per unit of territory. We are now going to be going to thermonuclear power, not as thermonuclear weapons—we’re going to thermonuclear power in order to get to Mars faster.

Because without thermonuclear fusion, you cannot get to Mars conveniently; mankind will never get to Mars, to live on Mars, without thermonuclear fusion as a power source. We will never be able to deal with the threats to mankind from asteroids and things like that, unless we bring those means to practice. Not for warfare, but for the development of man’s role inside the Solar System, at least in the inner part of the Solar System. So, that’s our nuclear policy.

Glass-Steagall Will Save the United States

How does all this work with the economy? Well, what we are proposing, and what we are working for—I’ll just give you brief background—we had an organization inside the United States, which had in it a branch of our organization, which involved younger people. I positioned myself in the recent years to take the group of young people, young adults, and to build an organization within our existing organization, which would be the part of growth and our future role in politics.

Then, during last year, during the Summer and early Autumn, I just said at one point, “Look, what we’ve got to do, we’ve got to shut down everything else we’re doing, in order to take the core of our organization and get into Washington, D.C. in the period of this election campaign, and just sit on that whole pile of people, of members of Congress and similar kinds of people. And let’s get our policy put through, and let’s educate the Congress.”

And that’s what we did. Now today, we have reached the point where we do have a significant influence, far greater than anything we ever had before in terms of the United States. And the core of what we are proposing is Glass-Steagall.

Simply, the Glass-Steagall policy, if applied, will save the United States. If Europeans wish to survive, they will do the same thing. They will take a carbon copy of Glass-Steagall and bring it into Europe immediately, and eliminate any other variety of economic-policy system. And that’s what’s needed.

What people don’t understand in all of this, what Europeans don’t understand—they don’t understand what economy is all about. That is, actual physical economy, human economy. We can learn a lesson from the animal kingdom, because the animal kingdom evolves. Evolution is the natural state of living processes. As far as we know, the general trend of all living processes is based on evolution. The evolution to higher energy-flux forms of existence.

And every bit of progress in mankind’s status has always been a result of utilization and recognition of this principle. Now, in the animal kingdom, the animals that aren’t so efficient, die; they go extinct. The same thing is true of nations. Nations that don’t progress, die; they go extinct. Europe is going extinct. The United States has also joined the self-extinction club, under the past two Presidents, under the banning of Glass-Steagall.

And therefore, what’s happening in Europe, in not considering Glass-Steagall, or not applying it; what’s happening in the United States, even though we have a better knowledge of Glass-Steagall, and we have much more support for Glass-Steagall; but even in Europe, independent European thinkers are thinking in terms of Glass-Steagall as an economic reform. Even many people in England, many people in the British system, who are bankers, are saying, “We must go to Glass-Steagall.” They know in fact that nothing else will work except Glass-Steagall. Without Glass-Steagall right now, civilization is dead! It cannot survive.

Mankind Evolves Voluntarily

What does all this mean?

First of all, take two things: One, all life is based on an evolutionary process, under which species go from lower qualities of development to higher. That’s the animal kingdom; that’s the law of evolution. Now mankind is different than all other kinds of animals, because mankind has the power to evolve voluntarily. Mankind evolves voluntarily, not by changing his biology, but by changing his mind. And the utilization of noetic powers of mind, and no animal species really has noetic powers of mind. Only human beings have noetic powers of mind.

And therefore, the object is always to go to higher levels of technology, which means kill off the green policy! If you want to survive, end the green policy; because that’s a death sentence. It’s a suicide pact! Mankind must always progress; we must always learn from the animals and apply the principles the animals don’t know how to do. Rise to a higher energy-flux density. How do you do that? You make physical discoveries; you go from lower forms of energy-flux density to higher forms of energy-flux density. You find new applications.

Mankind is, for the moment, helpless against the asteroids which have arrayed against us inside the Solar System. We’re helpless against the comets. We saw recently in Russia, we saw some quickie asteroids shooting through there. If they had a little more energy-flux density in that territory, you wouldn’t have had a large number of people injured, you would have had mass deaths. Mankind is faced with mass death if we fail to progress adequately and rapidly enough to defeat the problems.

In the United States and in Europe, you have a common suicide pact; it’s called the green policy, which is a species suicide pact. It’s mass death! Without the increase in energy-flux density expressed in terms of technology and pure power as such, there’s no future for mankind on this planet.

Therefore, what’s this economic problem then? Which is what all my talking up to here is about. Unless we go to the equivalent of a Glass-Steagall policy, which is to say that our policy is to increase our energy-flux density represented by applications to man’s benefit. At the same time, this is reflected in another way.

Again, we can learn from the animal species. Progress, evolve, or die! Progress, evolve, or go extinct! That’s the law; that’s the law of nature. Mankind is the only creature which does it voluntarily and can do it voluntarily, and that is by making discoveries with the mind, with the powers of mind to discover new principles, higher principles of development. Nobody but mankind is known to be able to do that voluntarily. And people who decide to give up that voluntary right, that voluntary capability, are committing their own mass suicide.

Nicholas of Cusa in the totality of his work and his influence, he was the engineer of science, was the engineer of progress. He was the salvation of Europe, from what had been the misery and the horrible conditions of the earlier centuries.

And therefore, this is a moral question. What’s our economic system? Why is our economic system such a genius, as opposed to the poor Europeans who don’t understand this yet? What is the principle? The principle of progress, the principle of going to higher energy-flux density, to higher standards of productivity. To be able to defend Earth and the people on it from the kinds of things that threaten Earth now, and the kinds of things that threaten the people of Earth now.

The American System

How do we do that? Well, it goes back to the American System. The American System is progress, progress, progress, as expressed in the currency of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Again, that’s the beginning of it. We were crushed, we went back to the same thing.

We had a genius among us—Alexander Hamilton—who made it clear how the United States economic system could be made to work. And because we existed, even as a relatively weak power inside the Americas, the fact that we were promoting, as Benjamin Franklin had done, as his predecessors in Massachusetts had done—they based themselves on a policy of progress, of scientific progress. And on an understanding that scientific progress is based on increasing the productive powers of labor, which means such things as just plain innovation, or scientific discovery.

And we actually drove Europe into progress. Our existence forced Europe, it forced even the British to reckon with progress. And that the basis of money as such is not the basis of economy; the basis of economy is productivity, of increase of the energy-flux density, or increase of the productivity of our production in general.

The problem is, what are the other systems? You have the monetary system, the pure monetary system, the currency system. What’s wrong with that? Well, the common currency system has no built-in feature of a drive for progress. Therefore, currency, a gold currency, is not the basis for progress. A silver currency, a monetarist system, is not a basis for progress.

The basis for progress is an increase in the manifest benefits of the productive powers of labor, so that every time that you are acting and producing, you are producing at a higher level than you were producing the day before. You do that in Classical music; you do that in Classical drama; you do that in everything that man does that’s good.

And therefore, our currency, our system, the American System, the American Constitutional System, is baseduniquely on the concept associated with Alexander Hamilton. We have never achieved anything of notability as a nation in the United States, except on the basis of the application of Hamilton’s principle! And if you base yourself on a monetary system, a pure monetary system, you are not requiring progress; you’re not requiring physical and technological progress. So how can mankind survive if we don’t progress? If we just wear ourselves out, and, like animals, die because we become antiquated?

So therefore, our system is based on a credit system; the same system that was used in the United States, by our greatest early Presidents and their associates. The great things that were driven by the science-driver program. In Europe, the great pressure of the American Revolution forced more attention to this, because nations were competing. If they wanted to compete in Europe, they had to do something about trying to overtake and catch up with each other, to do something better than the next guy.

And it came to the idea of the system of investment, in our system; when it’s applied, we always increase the productive powers of labor. And we recognized, that to do that, you have to increase the productivity potential of the population. You have to go to higher technologies, always, always, always, higher technologies. Master territories that before you couldn’t inhabit. Conquer things that frighten you.

And the next phase we’re at now, now, as you will hear from our other source here today [Jason Ross], the concentration is going to be on energy-flux density and things of that nature. It means getting out there in the Solar System, out to our neighbors in the Solar System. And beginning to get the power through scientific discoveries, and scientific development; to get out there and control the threats to mankind which are represented by these flying rocks out there, of which there are millions, between the Venusian and the Mars vicinity. They’re out there waiting to destroy us. The intensity of these rocks coming by us is higher.

One of our people noted today, that if we were going to be hit by an asteroid, which was big enough and fast enough to destroy human life on Earth, there’s not a damned thing we could do about it, within a year. If mankind’s survival is going to depend upon going out and developing systems of defense against these kind of threats, and going out and reaching farther and farther, so the ability to defend the existence of the human species is made possible. We cannot do that without thermonuclear fusion as a standard of productivity for mankind in the future.

And so the principle is simple. It’s the principle of the United States: progress. The principle of Nicholas of Cusa: progress. The principle of Charlemagne: progress. Charlemagne understood economy better than anybody in Europe today does. It’s true! He actually calculated, he had a whole census. He examined the whole domain that he dominated during the period of his lifetime. He united the water systems. That was still being done in Germany back in the 1990s, in the final stages. He found out how much people had to eat, how much it cost to build a great system—which broke down after he was out, as they went back in history, went back to an earlier form.

But always this is a principle of progress, that man has a duty of progress, and has had it all along.

But now we’ve come to a time where we’re now not looking out at the Solar System as a passive thing. We’re now seeing new kinds of problems; and the thing that threatens mankind now, that really should frighten everyone, frighten us into doing something good about it, is to increase technology, the energy-flux density of technology; reverse the green policy which is our suicide pact in Europe, and in part of the United States. A green policy is a policy of human mass death, because without progress, the conditions of life under which man is able to continue life, human life on this planet, cannot do it.

And right now, the landmark of that at this stage lies in dealing with the threats of those asteroids out there. What once I used to call the Strategic Defense Initiative, when I pushed that policy and we got a lot of people to accept it, in Russia as well, or in the Soviet Union as well. And similar kinds of things. These kinds of inventions; these kinds of discoveries of principle, which depend upon mankind always becoming better than himself. Whoever you are, whatever you represent, you must become better than yourself.

We have a Solar System, and the Solar System is a nice thing to have, and we can use it; but also the Solar System is something which can kill you. And you better learn how to use that. And that’s my point.

Just the whole point of the U.S. system, the system which we’re trying to revive as a Glass-Steagall system today, is the only system which provides for a survival of civilization. So let’s dump all those things that people have as cheap-shot successes. There’s only one thing that will save mankind—increase the productive powers of labor. And don’t stick to stagnant old ideas. There are new threats and new opportunities and new happinesses out there waiting to be seized. People have to know they exist, and then they have to choose to accept them.

Transcript

Dear friends of the Schiller Institute, distinguished guests from many countries: We are coming here together at the fourth conference of the Schiller Institute within less than five months, because we are determined to inspire a new paradigm in the history of mankind, a paradigm which is reflected in the true identity of the human species, man as a cognitive being whose identity is that of a creative species, where each individual on the planet, in principle, has a limitless potential for self-perfection.

The sense of identity must be governed by that innate creative potential, not only to develop our own creative abilities, all the potential abilities innate in us, but to do so with the explicit desire to contribute one’s own life to the further development of the human species as a whole; so that, when our own life comes to an end, since we are all mortal beings, that we can die with the certainty that we have contributed with all our ability to the progress and progression of mankind, to the best of all our possibilities; that we have, with our life, added something to ennoble our species.

And it is with that vision, that in the new paradigm, the relations among human beings will be guided by agape;the relations among nations will be guided by the fact that we are happy about the development of the other nation, and that we understand that harmony, concordance on the planet, and in the future beyond that, is only possible through the development of all human beings and all nations, in a vice versa relationship.

This new paradigm must also be guided by a new method of thinking: It is the method which Beethoven has called “so streng wie frei,” “as rigorous as free.” It’s Schiller’s idea of achieving freedom through necessity, and the only condition in which this is possible is the beautiful soul, according to Schiller—the person who does what is necessary with joy, who finds his freedom in fulfilling necessity, and for whom duty and compassion are the same thing. And as Schiller correctly said, the only individual for whom this is possible, is the creative genius.Now the future paradigm has to be guided by love for mankind, by compassion, and joy in the realization of the creative potential of all other individuals. In the same way that we are joyful about the compositions of Beethoven, or the great poems and dramas of Schiller, or the discoveries of Leibniz and Einstein, or the elevated perspective of our astronauts and cosmonauts, when we as human beings relate to each other, as scientists do, discovering a new principle, discussing the hypothesis of how mankind can progress as artists, communicating metaphors about a better future condition of civilization.

Now, this image of man must be the basis of the new paradigm if mankind is to survive. And it is only from this positive vision of the future that we will mobilize the moral strength and courageous energy to replace this present paradigm, which is completely based on depravity and evil.

The Present Road to Catastrophe

Now, with the present paradigm, it is very clear, that we are, as a civilization, on the direct road to a catastrophe. We are now experiencing the full disintegration of the trans-Atlantic financial system: between the quantitative easing, hyperinflation, and quantitative stealing, we see right now the most brutal expropriation scheme, expressed in what the new head of the Eurogroup, Dijsselbloem, called the “Cyprus template,” which means the total destruction of the real economy for the sake of maintaining the life expectancy of the casino economy, for just a few weeks or months. It is combined with a violent attack on the living standards and life-expectancy of the population. It is killing people by the millions!

The second fundamental danger, which is coming from the same source, is the danger of thermonuclear war. Because even if the crisis around the Korean Peninsula can be contained, which people on that peninsula hope very much, if you look at the totality, you have the Syria situation spinning out of control; you have the danger of a strike against Iran; and it could very well be that Southwest Asia develops into the cockpit for World War III. Now, it seems that in light of all of these dangers, which everybody can see, nevertheless, the governments of this world are not doing anything efficient to get the world on a different course. So, it seems that civilization is almost on autopilot toward self-destruction.

In light of this mortal danger, there is almost no public debate about what is really important. The public debates, as they’re raised by governments, politicians, the media, are completely trivial, in light of what we really are facing. In reality, we have a truly murderous expropriation scheme underway. We are threatened with a new fascism, we are losing democracy, we are losing our constitutions! The trade unions are losing all the labor rights which have been fought for, literally for centuries. We are losing the social welfare state. We are losing all accomplishments of civil and human rights, without there being any public outcry.

It is exactly the process which started, really, with the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and which was basically a fight, where the oligarchy was determined to eliminate the axioms which had made Franklin D. Roosevelt possible. And I must say that I’m very happy that Lyn is here, because, if you reflect over the last 40 or even 50 years, or in Lyn’s case even longer, he has been the one individual who has pointed to each change of the paradigm in the negative direction. It was Lyn, who on Aug. 15, 1971, in an absolutely visionary way, said, if this paradigm is continued, and if we continue on this road of monetarism—this was really the beginning, with Nixon’s decoupling the dollar from the gold reserve standard, by eliminating the fixed exchange rates, and by creating the casino bubble, or starting this money creation in offshore islands—it will lead to a new depression and a new danger of fascism.

Now, if you look at the series of deregulations which took place in the ’70s and the ’80s, ever more away from production, toward speculation, the next major blow was the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999. This was really the absolute escalation of this present bubble economy, the creation of the so-called “creative financial instruments,” the derivatives market. Then came the final blowout in July 2007, when Lyn made the famous webcast on July 25, one week before the crisis erupted, saying the system is hopelessly bankrupt and all that we are going to see now, is how the different elements of the destruction will come to the surface.

Lyn immediately introduced the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act, which would have stopped the disintegration right there. We had, at that point. tremendous support in the Congress, among the mayors and the state legislators in the United States; but you had the brutal intervention of such evil individuals as Felix Rohatyn and others representing Wall Street, and the Congress, at that point, capitulated.

Shortly thereafter, on Sept. 15, 2008, you had the Gau [worst-case scenario], the threat of a systemic collapse, from the collapse of Lehman Brothers and AIG. And for a very short period of time, the international governments and financial community and many others were so shocked, that they considered, for a very brief moment, to return to the Roosevelt idea of a Bretton Woods, in the form of a New Bretton Woods; but instead, at the next G8 meeting, they decided to go for the most gigantic bailout process ever. In the United States, and in Europe, they literally put in trillions of dollars and euros, maybe up to 30 trillion altogether. And I think some of you may still remember the famous words of Federal Chancellor Merkel, ((Press conference http://articles.marketwatch.com/keyword/merkel/recent/4 with British Prime Minister David Cameron, June 7, 2012.)) who said at some point: We don’t have to worry, because the EU has provided us with a magnificent toolbox. So we will take these tools as they are needed, and these tools will be sufficient to fix the problem.

The EU ‘Toolbox’

This EU toolbox was designed after the British example, and Merkel declared that you all can be confident, because your savings, at least up to EU100,000, will be absolutely safe. The first tool which was taken out of this toolbox was the bailout mechanism, which was essentially a scheme to transform the private debt of high-risk speculators, into public debt. It was the idea to turn the speculative gambling debt into state debt; so all of a sudden, the states were indebted, while the managers received big bonuses, and the banks, being saved this way, continued their speculation against the very states which had just bailed them out, impoverishing the population ever more, because now the state debt had to be compensated for with draconian austerity programs, in the tradition of Brüning, and for the sake of the sacred cow of balanced budgets, fiscal pacts—and so, they proceeded with absolutely brutal cuts.

So, as a result, the countries of Southern Europe are dying: Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, have experienced a complete destruction of their economies. And then came the Cyprus crisis, and the famous “Cyprus template,” as it was called by Dijsselbloem.

First, they had the proposal to tax the deposits of up to EU100,000 by 6.75% and almost 10% for those above, which was rejected by the Cyprus Parliament. Then, finally, they said the “Cyprus template” is what we mean by the “bail-in” tool.

Now, in investigating this more deeply, it turns out this tool was in preparation for a long period of time. It was discussed and worked out in a paper by the Bank of England and the FDIC in the United States. It was supposed to steal deposits on behalf of the so-called “G-SIFI,” the “global systemically important financial institutions.” And if you look at that paper of the BOE-FDIC, it has relatively tame language, as compared to a paper by the EU Commission already written in 2011, namely, the “Discussion Paper on Debt Write-Down Tool—Bail-In.”

What they basically prescribe there, is, rather than relying on the taxpayers for another round of bailouts, they came up with the scheme to stop the contagion by allowing the public authorities to spread the unmanageable debt of the banks to the shareholders and creditor-depositors. And they called this the “debt write-down tool.”

This tool, they say, should be “efficient and avoid any circumvention.” But the most scandalous formulation in this text is: “Liabilities originated on derivatives exposures should also, in principle, be included in the scope of the tool. However, the effective application of the tool to those exposures is not as legally straightforward as for other types of liabilities and it may raise some concerns in terms of financial stability.” Now, if you free that language from the usual bankers’ gobbledygook, what it actually says is: Burning the derivative debt might be legally too complex to carry out and have grave implications for financial stability; or it would blow out the system right away, so therefore, let’s pay the derivatives debt, and instead seize the depositors’ money, which is legally easier to take, because they cannot resist it, and it does not pose a grave risk to financial stability.

So theft from the depositors is easier, and it really gives new meaning to the famous phrase of Bertolt Brecht, ((In The Threepenny Opera.)) who I (as an exception) want to quote, who says that it’s one thing to rob a bank to make a lot of money, but if you create a bank, you make a lot more money.

And everybody who brings their money into a bank from now on should know, that the moment you give your money to the bank, the bank owns the moneyde facto, and is at liberty to grab it. Because this is what the “Cyprus template” really means, where, in one case in Cyprus, they cut 40% of deposits in one bank, and all others, above EU100,000, were taxed. And EU100,000—you know, you should not fall for the spin! Because, they say, “Finally we forced the banks to contribute to the bailout!” Well, EU100,000 is easily the operating capital of any small firm to pay wages, materials costs, and so forth. So it’s really a complete, deliberate destruction of the economy.

So this is one form, and the other form is, like in Spain, where they encouraged, or basically forced more or less, more than 1 million households into buying so-called “preferential stocks”—the preferentes—of banks, and then, in the case of one large bank, Bankia, they just said, “Sorry, we’re writing down the debt of this bankrupt bank, so all of you who have stock will lose more than 99%—so, too bad!”

So that is just simple theft, it’s a crime, it’s robbery. And this is exactly what preceded the implementation of Glass-Steagall in 1933, when, in the case of National City Bank and National City Company, the depositors and employees were also forced to buy stocks, and then the National City Company speculated in these, and those who were insiders in these speculations made a lot of money out of it, and filled their pockets with it. Then, in the wake of the crash of 1929, and in the following years, 1930, 1931, these depositors lost most of their money, their life savings were gone, while National City Bank remained open. It was one case of “too big to fail.” So, this proceeded until the FDR came in, and the Pecora hearings.

Franklin D. Roosevelt closed all the banks, and declared a banking holiday for 11 days, and made, in that period, a thorough inspection of all 14,000 banks in the United States, forced them to write off worthless securities, and 4,000 of these banks were closed permanently. Other categories of banks that were sound, but lacked liquidity, were provided with that liquidity through the Reconstruction Finance Corp., and then the sounder banks were allowed to open again. Under the Glass-Steagall Act, the commercial banks from then on, were inspected quarterly by the Federal Reserve, to make sure that they would not return to the gambling procedure as before.

Ferdinand Pecora describes in great detail, in a very nice booklet called Wall Street Under Oath, how he interrogated all the CEOs of the big Wall Street banks and how amazing admissions came out that they didn’t even know the scope of their taxes, because they had never paid them in their whole life, and things like that.

The Cyprus Template

So, if you look at how the Glass-Steagall Act and the Pecora Commission ended the Depression in the United States, and if you compare what these EU guidelines are proposing, you can see that it is the exact opposite: That what the EU is now preparing, is a guideline, which was admitted by [European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs] Olli Rehn, to make the Cyprus template the new guideline for the entire EU, which can be applied whenever you have to save the so-called systemically relevant banks. That means that the derivatives speculation will be protected, and they want to have absolutely murderous austerity for the people and the nations.

And if you only look at the result this has caused so far, you have Greece, which has been turned into a Third World country, where young children and students are looking in the garbage cans for food; where children come to school and cannot follow the what the teachers are saying, because they’re malnourished, they’re hungry, and they can’t concentrate! In Italy, the suicide rate is going up. Greece and Spain have youth unemployment around 60%! Portugal is disintegrating.

In Great Britain, there is going on right now, the total slashing of the social system: 660,000 households which have received rent subsidies, have now had to move to smaller apartments or face reduction of their subsidies. But since there are not enough small flats, and since the free access to legal services has been cut, many of these people are ending up on the streets. The social payments are no longer indexed to inflation, and even the government admits that all these measures will send at least 200,000 children below the poverty line. At the same time, they have reduced the income tax for millionaires by 5%, which means they will earn £100,000 more per year.

Large categories of disabled people no longer are recognized as disabled, and have to pay for their care and transport themselves. In many cases, five or six services are being cut out at the same time. The needy are no longer receiving even a tiny amount of money: Instead, they get food stamps or coupons for the soup kitchens.

In the United States, the same thing is going on with the new Obama budget. Obama wants to cut $1.2 trillion over ten years: out of this, $400 billion from Medicare, which is killing old people; $200 billion from Social Security; $380 billion through the so-called chained CPI, which is behavioral economics gobbledygook, which says that if you have an increase in the price of beef, well, then just buy chicken and you won’t feel the inflation in the beef price! And this is only the beginning.

The Cyprus template gives people a very mild foretaste of things to come. Basically, after the Lehman Brothers crisis in 2008, nothing was done to write off the toxic waste, and nobody knows the exact figure, because all of these derivatives are traded in OTC arrangements, over the counter, so no central bank, no government, no authority knows the amount. Then you have the huge shadow banking sector, which is probably bigger than the official sector. And French economist Jacques Attali in 2010 said it may be as much as $1.4 quadrillion! And in Europe alone, the derivatives market is supposed to be $230 trillion of outstanding derivative contracts.

So if this derivatives bubble bursts, you will have a larger blowup than was threatened after Lehman Brothers, because the whole system is filled with much more hot air and virtual money than it was then. It could come then, to a complete systemic collapse.

One has to consider that the “template” remark by Dijsselbloem was not really an accident. It was part of a strategy to get the population used to the idea that their income will be stolen, because this is the only method which is left: to take the savings and deposits of the population. And it should be also clear that under these conditions, the deposits up to EU100,000 are not safe! Because they cannot be: If you calculate all the people who have up to EU100,000, the banks in no way can ever pay this, because you are looking at several trillion, which would have to be compensated for, in Germany alone, for people who have these savings. And this money is not there, except if you print it, which is actually happening already with the quantitative easing of Mario Draghi, Ben Bernanke, and now also the Bank of Japan.

So, if you look at these things together: You have the brutal, murderous Troika austerity, the bail-in bank robbery, and you have now the entire world financial system at a hopeless point of collapse.

Fight for Survival

So therefore, the only remedy, which we have to discuss at this conference—and I want people, through the different presentations today and tomorrow, to go out of this conference with the absolute resolve that Glass-Steagall must be implemented, and it can be implemented, exactly as Franklin D. Roosevelt provided the example, because this is the absolute necessary first step, to prevent an unimaginable social explosion, which nobody can imagine the consequences of.

It is also obvious that the EU Commission, the Obama Administration, and the British oligarchy in general, want to use this crisis to go for a final dictatorship. When the new U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Jack Lew, was in Europe and met with the EU Commission, they issued a joint statement that they want to use the new “resolution tools,” which is exactly the Cyprus template, and to go for a banking union, the collectivization of the debt, a full-fledged fiscal union, and a political union—i.e., a political dictatorship in Europe.

In Southern Europe, the people have already understood that this is a fight for their survival. The measures implemented increase the death rate; there is a complete destruction of the real economy. In Germany, there is discontent, supposedly only “fatigue” by the population at being the paymaster of the whole thing; and in the meantime, the media and the politicians are still successfully playing the different peoples against each other. So the media portray the Greeks as lazy, the Cyprus crisis as being caused by the “Russian oligarchs”; in Spain, Mrs. Merkel is pictured with a [Hitler] moustache, and if you look at all these things, it’s like the blind men and the elephant: One man says the elephant is a thick column, because he happens to be the man who touches the leg; the other one says, “Oh, no, the elephant is a flexible snake,” which is the one who touches the trunk; and the third one says, “No, the elephant is a thin cord”—he happens to have the tail.

Now, it is high time that we throw off these blinders from our eyes. The monster which we are dealing with, which is threatening life on this planet, is the British Empire. The name of the game is population reduction. Every five seconds, a child under ten years of age dies, for no good reason! Because the present planet would have the potential to feed,easily, 12 billion people or more.

But the Queen of England and Prince Philip have stated repeatedly that their aim is to reduce the human population from 7 to 1 billion. And Hitler already gave the example, that through conscious starvation you can weaken groups of people up to the point of extinction. So what we are seeing right now, in terms of the Third World, and now increasingly, in terms of Europe and the United States, is exactly that kind of deliberate starving people to death.

The Threat of War

But the British Empire, which is really the combination of the financial institutions, the central banks, the investment banks, the hedge functions, the private equity funds, the insurance companies, that British Empire wants global domination, and wants to destroy, once and forever, the sovereign nation-state. And it is clear, that from that standpoint, Russia and China are the biggest obstacles.

The policy of regime-change, which, since it destroyed Iraq and Libya, is operating against Syria and Iran, really is aimed at confrontation with Russia and China. And if you look at the NATO and EU expansion after the collapse of the Soviet Union; the expansion and building of the U.S. anti-missile shield in Eastern Europe, with the Patriot deployment in Turkey; the development of the so-called “Asia pivot,” it is very, very clear that what is in preparation is a first-strike capability against Russia and China.

This was admitted in the official journal of the U.S. Air Force, Strategic Review Quarterly, about two months ago, where they claimed that the modernization of nuclear weapons, the delivery systems and targetting, in the meantime has become so precise, that it would be possible to take out, with a first strike, the nuclear arsenal of any nuclear opponent, without nuclear fallout.

Now, if you remember, both the UN Charter, but especially the Nuremberg Tribunal, clearly stated that not only a war of aggression, but the intention of a war of aggression, is committing a war crime, I think that what we are looking at is war crimes. And I mean, we have to bring these people to account. The war against Iraq, which wascompletely based on the lies of Tony Blair, who was the author of the famous memo which was used by Colin Powell in his speech in the United Nations, was all lies. Afghanistan, all based on lies.

Right now, there is a big motion by the families of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center victims, who demand that the 28 pages of the 9/11 Commission Report, which are still classified to the present day, have to be released, and you know, the truth will come out. Sept. 11 was not what the official line is, and therefore, the whole Afghanistan War was based on lies, because it was not an attack by an enemy force from Afghanistan, requiring the invoking of Article 5 of NATO.

The war against Libya was a war crime. What is going on in Syria right now, is a murderous policy against a legitimate government of Syria. And it is not even al-Qaeda and al-Nusra: The anti-drug czar of Russia, Viktor Ivanov, just made a statement saying that the rebels in Syria are financed by the transnational crime cartel, financed by the heroin from Afghanistan!

One of our speakers on the podium, Bruce Fein, made an argument in New York, that war legitimizes the killing of an enemy which, if it would not happen in the case of war, would be murder. Now, since all these wars are based on lies, that makes the initiators of these wars—that makes the British Empire, and it makes the present administration of the United States—de facto war criminals. If it comes to a thermonuclear war, which is the immediate danger of the extinction of the entire human species, then the crime is a bigger one than at any time in history. And if we cannot change this paradigm, which is extremely close, then we are no smarter than the dinosaurs who became extinct, together with about 98% of all living species, 65 million years ago.

Organizing the Future

So therefore, let me come back to the beginning: We must have a new paradigm if mankind is to survive. The absolute, necessary, irreplaceable first step must be Glass-Steagall, where we implement the Glass-Steagall law in the United States first, and then in every European country and possibly other countries around the globe, and simply wipe out all these trillions, hundreds of trillions of derivatives debt and other toxic waste.

Glass-Steagall must then be followed by a credit system, the idea that a credit system is not based on money. Money has no intrinsic value and if you need proof for that, you just have to remember December of 1923, where people used the reichsmark bills for wallpaper, because that was the cheapest paper people could have.

A credit system, on the other side, is the means to organize the future, to organize the prolonged, continuous existence of society, with the only aim to unleash the creative potential of the population, to increase productivity for the common good. So what does the sustainable existence of civilization then mean? Well, I think we have to remember that on Feb. 15, the events at Chelyabinsk in the Urals—where, not only did the asteroid pass by the Earth, which was known about in advance, but you had a meteor shower which was not detected by any agency in the West or in the East—was a very useful wakeup call: that our planet is not a self-evident phenomenon, sitting where you can only be concerned about life on the planet, but that we are situated at a very vulnerable moment in processes which are governed entirely by the Solar System and the galaxy.

Yesterday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin made a proposal to make the meteorite danger a leading topic at the G20 conference which will take place in St. Petersburg: “The scope of the task of neutralizing the asteroid danger will require the concentration of global intellectual resources, and the scientific and technological capabilities of Russia, the United States and other countries, which will require collaboration. And that cooperation will promote trust among the countries and as a byproduct, the condition resolving the conflict over the ballistic-missile-defense crisis.”

Now, this is the option, because if we move civilization away from the present thinking of defending the past, defending the banking and monetary system, we can start thinking about how we can now invest in the kinds of things which we absolutely need as a civilization to survive. We have to think about the world from the lofty perspective of the astronauts, the cosmonauts, where several, after returning from space travel, reported that when you look from outer space at our blue planet, you don’t see borders, you don’t see military blocs, but you see, actually, one humanity.

I believe absolutely, that if we get rid of these present policies, through the combination of the policy measures which we propose—Glass-Steagall, credit system, global reconstruction—then the present paradigm, which is based entirely on depravity, on greed, on a complete lack of compassion for the suffering of billions of people, on finding pleasure in sadistic entertainment, that these will be overcome, as the childhood disease of mankind, and that we will outgrowth it. We will outgrow it, in the same way as little, nasty four-year-old boys who hit and kick their neighbors in the shins, eventually outgrow that nastiness, and become scientists and artists, and become human beings.

I believe that through the development of man, the idea of Nicolaus of Cusa, that sin is the lack of development, that evil can be overcome by intellectual development, and especially the aesthetical education of man; when we reach what Krafft Ehricke called the “extraterrestrial imperative,” namely that man becomes a species in space, that we will leave this behind us.

For those who are believers in the fact that there is a Creator, I think that the true identity of mankind is to be imago viva Dei, the living image of God, where we, as instruments of God, carry on the process of creation on the planet, and beyond. And for those who don’t believe that there is a Creator, well, you have to study the laws of the universe more deeply, and then come eventually to the same conclusion as Kepler, who said that the more you study the beauty of the laws of the universe, the more you come to the conclusion that there is a magnificent plan behind all of that.

So, with this optimism, let us proceed with this conference, and after this conference, go out with the absolute passionate love for mankind, that we are not going to allow this beautiful species, which is capable of such fantastic achievements, to die, just because we have now reached a low point. And that we will achieve, with the passion for mankind, with the love for mankind, a foretaste of what future generations will perfect.