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Published: Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2004
Today is:
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Volume 3, Issue Number 50
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November 29, 2004
First, let us speak of tragedy.
Let such caricatures of poor King Canute as President George W. Bush, Jr., howl their denials, while they can still be heard. Let him shriek in futile rage against those thunderous winds of chaos which were already hurling themselves against the increasingly bankrupt national financial systems of the world. That chaos, now excited to the greater turbulence caused by the desperate antics of such poor, enraged fools as he, now descends with its own, added, uncontrollable fury upon our hapless, present world monetary-
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financial system. So, now, just a few weeks following our modern Canute's recent claims of electoral victory, the oncoming waves of a great storm of global breakdown crisis are striking on the gates of the governments of the world, and are already pounding the hoaxster's illusion of Bush's economic recovery to shreds. The terminal breakdown-crisis of the 1971-2004 world monetary system is thus now fully under way.
In that Classical definition of tragedy which takes its origin from ancient Greece, but contrary to the incompetent, Romantic doctrines usually taught in university courses on the subject of drama, a tragedy does not represent a calamity whose primary cause is an error by the current leadership of a society. Rather, both the selection of, and the relevant failures by that leadership are determined by the systemic features of the culture and institutions within which both that selection of leadership, and the forces acting upon its behavior are operating. Such is the U.S. situation today.
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This Week in History
.December 13 - 19, 1714
Celebrating the Birthday of a Great Scientist And Grandfather of the American Revolution
No, it's not Benjamin Franklin, although our birthday celebrant collaborated with the somewhat older Franklin on both scientific and political matters. Born on Dec. 19, 1714 in Boston, John Winthrop was a member of the fourth generation of the Winthrop family in America, and was the great-grandson of the original John Winthrop who planned and led the settlement of Massachusetts Bay Colony. This later Winthrop became the leading scientist in America, and was renowned in Europe as an astronomer, mathematician, physicist, meteorologist, geologist, and the world's first seismologist.
Both Franklin and Professor Winthrop, as he came to be known, were protégés of Cotton Mather, whose many scientific works included a study of comets. Like Mather, both Franklin and Winthrop fought superstition and irrational fears about science by educating the American population in Classical scientific method, and by publicly demonstrating the wonderful results of scientific breakthroughs. As they created an informed citizenry, Franklin and Winthrop also inspired much of the future leadership of the American Revolution. In Winthrop's case, his students included Samuel Adams, John Adams, and John Hancock.
John Winthrop was an excellent student at Boston Latin School, and entered Harvard College in 1728. When he graduated in 1732, he had already developed a strong interest in mathematics and astronomy. Happily, a London merchant-banker named Thomas Hollis, to whom Cotton Mather had dedicated his Christian Philosopher, endowed a Professorship of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard. When the first occupant of this position proved incompetent, John Winthrop, at the age of only 24, was appointed to the position. Ben Franklin reported on Winthrop's installation ceremonies in his Pennsylvania Gazette of February 1, 1739.
The new professor made observations on sunspots, the transit of Mercury in 1740, lunar eclipses, meteors, and comets. He also began a 20-year series of meteorological observations. One of his most important international collaborations was during the two transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769. Two European observatoriesGreenwich and Parissent out five different observing parties to America. Harvard and the Province of Massachusetts participated by granting the use of the Province's sloop to carry Professor Winthrop and two assistants and instruments to St. John's, Newfoundland.
Winthrop's lectures on the transit of Venus demonstrate the lucid literary style and infectious good humor which was so admired by his students: "A transit of Venus over the Sun is the most uncommon and most important phenomenon that the whole compass of astronomy affords us. So uncommon is it, that it can never happen above twice in any century; in others but once; and in some centuries it cannot happen at all. And the importance of it is such as to supply us with a certain and complete solution of a very curious problem, which is inaccessible in any other way. On both accounts it well deserves a very particular attention.
...more
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Feature:
TOWARD A SECOND TREATY OF WESTPHALIA
The Coming Eurasian World
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
November 29, 2004
First, let us speak of tragedy. Let such caricatures of poor King Canute as President George W. Bush, Jr., howl their denials, while they can still be heard. Let him shriek in futile rage against those thunderous winds of chaos which were already hurling themselves against the increasingly bankrupt national financial systems of the world. That chaos,nowexcited to the greater turbulence
Economics:
PRIVATIZE AND POVERTIZE
Bush's Lies on Social Security Could Cost Americans Trillions
by Paul Gallagher
Starting with a Dec. 6 meeting with Congressmen, President George W. Bush began a drive to privatize and loot some or all of the $125 trillion which American workers are scheduled to contribute to Social Security over the next 70 years, proving himself a liar in his repeated campaign promises that he would 'not touch the benefits of America's retirees.'
Privatizing Social Security Is 'Enron II'
by Richard Freeman
The failed Chile model of Social Security privatization, which has cost Chilean retirees their pensions for 25 years, is nonetheless the model which the insane George W. Bush insisted, at the APECsummit Nov. 19-21 in Santiago, Chile, is a 'great example' to be rammed through immediately in the United States.
Bush's Chile Model: Take Their Pensions and Run!
by Cynthia R. Rush
Almost 25 years ago, in 1981, the free-market ideologues directing the economic policy of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's military junta in Chilemost of them trained at the University of Chicago in the fascist quackery preached by Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayekprivatized that country's Social Security system. Today, Chile is George W. Bush's model for Social Security privatization. Chile took $22 billion deposited in the government-run Social Security fund and handed it over to 18 private investment funds, known as AFPs (Pension Fund Administrators).
European Labor Rejects 'Frankenstein' Directive
by Rainer Apel
In late November, a number of labor unions from several European countries staged protest actions against the European Union Commission and its 'Bolkestein Directive' for radical deregulation and privatization. Three thousand members of the European Federation of Building and Food Workers, and the European Federation of Public Service Unions, marched in Brussels on Nov. 25, under the banner, 'Bolkestein Equals Frankenstein,' and charged the EU Commission with proposing 'death to the European social model,' by imposing 'the law of the jungle.'
International:
Eurasian Nations Counter U.S. 'Unipolar' Insanity
by Mary Burdman
Since 1998, when financial crises in Asia, Ibero-America, Russia, and the United States nearly crashed the whole system, a 'survivors' bloc' has emerged of nations which, as Lyndon LaRouche then described them, are not willing to go down with the wreckage of the U.S. dollar system. Were George W. Bush not in the White House right now, the United States would be leading the 'survivors' bloc.' Until sanity can be imposed on Washington, the three Eurasian giants, Russia, China, and India, are doing what they can.
From Arabia Felix To Modern Yemen
by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
In late 1990, when the U.S. government of the senior George Bush was preparing to go to war against Iraq, there were a handful of countries which resisted the drive. Jordan, the Palestinians, Sudan, and Yemen were those few which, despite massive arm-twisting, bribery, and outright blackmail at the United Nations, refused to capitulate to a war policy they considered wrong. All these forces were severely punished for what was considered insubordination; their citizens, who had found employment in many of the rich Gulf countries, like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, were sent back home. Hundreds of thousands flooded into Jordan, and an estimated 850,000 Yemeni workers were expelled from the neighboring Saudi kingdom.
First National Conference of Yemen's Youth Union: Youth Are Key to Future
by Our Special Correspondent
Although Yemen is an ancient land, it is also a very young country, whose two parts, divided by foreign occupation, were unified only in 1990. The problems which the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh has faced, since unification, are many, and awesome.
National:
Conyers Takes the Point Against Bush's Voter Suppression
by Edward and Nancy Spannaus
The senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, told a packed hearing room on Dec. 8 that Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee will go to Ohio to hold hearings there, to examine voter disenfranchisement and irregularities in the Nov. 2 election. Conyers' promise came during a forum on 'What Went Wrong in Ohio,' which was so crowded that an overflow room was needed.
AIPAC Raid Spotlights Escalating Spy Wars
by Jeffrey Steinberg
On Dec. 1, FBI agents raided the Washington office ofAIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee). It was the second time in six months that the Bureau obtained and executed search warrants on the powerful Israel lobby; but, intelligence community sources report, unlike the polite and low-key raid of Aug. 27, 2004, the December action had FBI agents invading the AIPAC headquarters with guns drawn, carting off computers, and serving grand jury subpoenas to four top officials.
Torture-Report Leaks Point to Rumsfeld, Cambone, and Boykin
by Edward Spannaus
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top civilian aides, such as Stephen Cambone and Gen. William 'Jerry' Boykin (now operating on the civilian side of the DoD), are caught deeper than ever in the growing prison torture scandal, by newly disclosed documents from military and civilian agencies involved in the so-called war on terrorism. The new disclosures totally undercut Rumsfeld's contention that the torture abuses were the work of a handful of 'bad apples' among low-level troops. The 'bad apples' are actually to be found at the highest branches of the Pentagon.
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Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
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