ZEPP-LAROUCHE WEBCAST

New Paradigm Requires Full Exposure
of Russiagate’s ‘British Character’

This is the edited transcript of the Schiller Institute’s New Paradigm Webcast of April 4, 2019. A video of this webcast is available.

Harley Schlanger: Hello, I’m Harley Schlanger from the Schiller Institute. Welcome to our webcast with our founder and Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche. It’s April 4th, 2019, and as always, there’s a lot taking place not known to most of you, unless you’re frequently on our website, because the media continue with their policy of blacking out the important developments while presenting the public with fake news.

We should start with the quite amazing scene of Congress whooping and hollering, to welcome the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, who’s come to the United States for NATO’s anniversary, and he’s pushing war. Helga, what’s the point of this trip? What’s he doing?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: It’s the 70th anniversary of NATO, but NATO really became a superfluous organization after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It could have integrated Russia, to have a useful purpose, as was discussed in 1991. Stoltenberg is in the United States speaking as a hawk of the war party.

He met with President Trump April 2, at the White House, and pushed the line that NATO must be ready to defend against that “authoritarian regime, Russia,” and on and on. President Trump had quite a different tone, saying that he wants to have a good relationship with Russia, and with China, and hopefully with everybody else. And despite the fact that some reporters were trying to push him to say something different, Trump stuck to this line.

Then, the next day, as you already said, Stoltenberg addressed a joint session of Congress, a privilege normally granted only to heads of government and heads of state. This rotten Congress celebrated him like a war hero, giving him several standing ovations. You have to ask yourself: “Is such a display consistent with the actual behavior of Russia and China?” Clearly not.

So your next question should be: “What is this war party really up to—given the existence of a whole chorus of such people?” The U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, also talked about the aggressive behavior of Russia. But it was NATO that announced it will be increasing its presence in the Black Sea. In the context of the upcoming, final election in Ukraine, we really must be attentive to further provocations. Then you had several of the leading members of the Atlantic Council testifying both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, all pushing this line—aggressive behavior. The first day of the NATO summit is also devoted to pushing this line of Russia being the big threat.

This is really worrisome. Meeting in Washington, the NATO foreign ministers all agreed to increase their defense budgets to 2% of their respective countries’ federal budgets, which is way beyond what Germany has been willing to do. And what is this supposed to lead up to? We’re already in the middle of an arms race, the cancellation of the INF Treaty, large troop exercises, etc. This doesn’t look peaceful at all.

Schlanger: There’s also discussion of challenging Russia in the Black Sea; in the Baltic Sea, encounters are occurring almost every day. In the midst of this, though, there was an act of sanity in the Congress yesterday from Republican Sen. Rand Paul and Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna, who jointly put forward a bill in support of President Trump’s decision to move troops out of Syria. Do you think it’s possible to move the Congress on this? It’s clear that the war party has the upper hand there, even after the Mueller report showed that there was no collusion with Russia, no obstruction of justice. Where do you think the Congress is headed on this?

Zepp-LaRouche: The good thing is that President Trump is basically setting a different tone. Some of these Democrats are still trying—despite the “nothingburger” of the Mueller report—to push anything against Trump. In the United States, there is a daily barrage of anything and everything against President Trump. One can only hope—given that the 2020 election campaign has already begun—that the voters will look at that and give them all the bill for their behavior and vote them out of the house.

Schlanger: The polls show that there’s still very little concern about Russia; that the concern is about jobs, about debt, about student debt, and so on.

Release the Russiagate Documents!

Just to go back to one other thing on Russiagate: James Comey was out talking about his fear of an investigation of the investigators, saying this can’t be allowed to happen. But this is something President Trump has said must happen. How important is it, Helga, that there be a day of reckoning for the people who ran Russiagate?

Zepp-LaRouche: I think such an investigation must happen, because the British character of the coup must be exposed—two years and an enormous amount of taxpayers’ money was wasted as Trump correctly said. And more importantly, that this should never, ever happen again to an American President. But unless it is stopped, it will happen again, because this is the method of control. Given that that Congressman Devin Nunes has turned over a whole bunch of documents to Attorney General William Barr to investigate these things, that Trump alluded to the fact that his lawyers are doing a good job, saying that all of these documents must be released and made public, I think public pressure is required to keep things on a straight course.

Two Tendencies in the U.S.

Schlanger: At the same time that we’re seeing the anti-Russia side of things, there is an increasing drumbeat against China, precisely at the point that there are significant shifts occurring in Europe. China has made progress, with the MOUs being signed in Italy and Luxembourg. The second Belt and Road Forum is coming up later this month in Beijing: Do you think the timing of the attacks on China is a coincidence—that all of a sudden we see escalating attacks on China?

Zepp-LaRouche: It is really is very ominous. President Trump is hoping to get an agreement in the U.S.-China trade talks, which look promising from what we see in some statements, including those in the Chinese media and from some Chinese politicians. But there are also news articles that point to the complete inconsistency between those people who hope that the U.S.-China trade talks will come to a positive conclusion, and those who declare China to be an adversary or rival.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said repeatedly that the projects of the Belt and Road Initiative constitute a national security threat to the United States because, as he put it, they have national security implications both for the United States and for “our friends and allies.”

Now, this is completely ludicrous. China’s clear intention, its stated policy, and actual record, has been to build ports, roads, and railways in those countries that urgently require infrastructure. China has repeatedly emphasized that it does not plan to overthrow the present order, it is not trying to create spheres of influence, but on the contrary, has invited all nations, including the United States, to cooperate with China in these endeavors.

Look at the sharp contrast between President Trump—who continues to talk about President Xi as his good friend and says that China is a great country, which I think is the healthy and sane view—and the attitude clearly expressed by all the intelligence services, and also from Trump cabinet members including Secretary of State Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Vice President Mike Pence, all pushing the line that the Belt and Road Initiative is a big threat.

Now, this has to be resolved; otherwise you cannot go in the direction of solving the world’s problems, especially with the proposal of my husband, Lyndon LaRouche, for a Four Power agreement. You cannot have an adversarial relationship with Russia and China, and at the same time hope you can solve the world’s problems, including the danger of a coming crash, which we should talk about in a little while. This has to be resolved.

And it’s very unfortunate that the United States, this time, is not planning on sending a high-level representative to the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Two years ago, the United States sent Matthew Pottinger, who was relatively high level—not high enough. We had campaigned for President Trump to go himself.

This year, more than forty heads of state and government are expected. I think it is really a mistake for the United States not to participate because, as I said, you cannot at the same time have it both ways—have China as an enemy-image, and have good trade relations.

Cooperation in Space

Schlanger: In one area —space—it appears as though there’s good cooperation between the United States and Russia. Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Roscosmos, praised the cooperation with the United States. At the same time, Trump seems to be taking a Kennedyesque approach to a Moon-Mars mission. How important is this as a flank against the anti-Russia, anti-China line coming from the neoconservative geopoliticians?

Zepp-LaRouche: As we have stressed many times, if you want to solve the problems of the present, you have to define the future of mankind, and then apply that view from the future as the way to solve the problems in our present time. Obviously, joint space research, space travel, space cooperation in a Moon-Mars program, as President Trump has actually put it back on the agenda is very, very good. He wants to have Americans back on the Moon in five years; he wants to have a Moon-Mars commission to work out the next steps for the Mars mission. He also mentioned the need for international cooperation in that, and as Rogozin, just emphasized, the relationship between Roscosmos and NASA are fortunately very good.

Starting this week, three American astronauts will undergo training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia for three months before being sent to the International Space Station, so this is all going in the right direction. And we have the very exciting news that China’s Yutu-2 rover has awakened again after the two-week lunar night, and is working again on the far side of the Moon, taking measurements of rocks and performing other experiments.

So, I think that if the United States, Russia, India, China and other spacefaring nations and organizations such as the European Space Agency would all cooperate, all the problems really can be solved. Rogozin made the point quite clearly in his interview, saying that people “who professionally engage in space activities are perfectly aware that they need each other.” And since our whole planet and the whole human race is in space, so to speak, I think that that outlook is what should be applied to all the other problems we have on our planet.

Two Tendencies in Europe

Schlanger: We can see the Four Powers coming together in space, so why not on Earth?

That brings us to what’s sometimes a painful topic, the situation in Europe. We’ve seen the very positive effects recently coming from President Xi Jinping’s trip to Italy and Luxembourg—the Memos of Understanding signed by those countries formalizing their participation in the Belt and Road. We also have reports from two German cities, Duisburg and Bremen, showing a very clear desire for collaboration with China. But we also have crazy statements, like that of the French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire about Europe being the “new empire.” Please give us your sense of how this fight is shaping up in Europe.

Zepp-LaRouche: I think we have in Europe the same two tendencies that we’ve just discussed in the United States, that is, President Trump trying to reach out to Russia and China, and the war party trying to block him. That same conflict exists in Europe.

You mentioned the French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, who just authored a book, The New Empire: Europe in the 21st Century. I find it quite incredible that people have the guts and the nerve to praise Europe as an empire. In the book, he says that we need Europe not to be “an empire of domination,” but “a peaceful empire,” to counter the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, and to counter Trump’s “America First” policy.

I think this kind of view, given that the Belt and Road Initiative is clearly not about geopolitical confrontation, but is open to every nation and organization that wishes to cooperate, this view by Le Maire is the old geopolitical view, which in essence led to two world wars. And it will lead nowhere today, other than war, because the British Empire is not doing so well these days. Everybody is laughing about the shenanigans of Prime Minister Theresa May. No one knows how Brexit will turn out. And no one dares to say if her negotiations with Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn will produce anything. It’s possible, but doubtful. So that remains a mess.

I think the view that we need confrontation with other so-called big powers like China and the United States, is just a rotten view. And therefore, it is much, much better that you have the developments of Italy joining the Belt and Road Initiative; Luxembourg, which is really amazing, given that Jean-Claude Juncker was the Prime Minister of Luxembourg—but now Luxembourg has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China.

Even in Germany, there are many signs of the desire by German industry to not be left out. You mentioned the Bremen conference that I attended: This was the founding of the Federal Association of the German Silk Road Initiative (BVDSI), and despite the fact that there were two very nasty, lying attacks by the tabloid Bildzeitung, the attendance was excellent. There were 150 people, with not one seat empty, and the spirit was very realistic and sober.

The speakers included the author, Dr. Karl Pilny, who correctly pointed to the fact that the historic period has shifted, and is still shifting to Asia. He said that the next century will be the Asian century—we in the Schiller Institute will make sure that it’s not only an Asian century, but it’s true that the economic momentum has shifted to Asia. Professor Pilny said that the pendulum of history has swung back to Asia and pointed to the fact that people who study the history of China, in particular, but also other great Asian nations, will realize that China, but also India and other Asian nations, were in the forefront of the history of the planet for millennia, having contributed incredibly in science, in art, in culture.

Another speaker, an economist, pointed to the fact that the momentum is already there, and either Germany cooperates, or Germany will be left completely behind.

Once there is the opportunity to express themselves, German industrialists will grab this opportunity. If you look at this month’s orders for capital goods and consumer goods, both have dropped significantly—capital goods orders are down 6%—this is not a small drop—and consumer goods orders are down something like 3.5%.

A Brighter Future?

The economic outlook must change. Look at Duisburg, which is located at the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr, and is one Europe’s largest inland ports. In collaboration with the Belt and Road Initiative, Duisburg has expanded—there are now 47,000 jobs in the port directly or indirectly related to the trade with China; 35 trains arrive there every week from Chongqing. The whole region has started moving forward. There are some bottlenecks in the infrastructure going out of Duisburg—the famous Rhine Valley is completely overflooded with trains. These bottlenecks can be solved with modernization; a tunnel could be built to relieve some of the traffic congestion. I think that the potential for overcoming all these economic difficulties through the cooperation with the Belt and Road Initiative are enormous, contrary to the propaganda that is coming from these geopolitical mouthpieces.

Schlanger: We just heard that there will soon be a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Italy, to build on what happened during Xi’s visit, so I think this is also in sharp contrast to the collapse that’s going on, and the division in Europe.

Zepp-LaRouche: It’s being prepared right now. Italy’s ambassador to Russia, Pasquale Terracciano, said that they’re preparing a spectacular trip for President Putin.

I think the need to put a different agenda on the table, one of cooperation, is urgent. After Xi’s visit to Italy, Italy’s Finance Minister, Giovanni Tria, participated in the Boao Forum for Asia, March 26-29 in Beijing—the Chinese equivalent of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. There he put out a warning, saying that he sees very clearly signs of a pending new crash, much bigger than 2008, and he warned that a global reduction in the economy in general, could become the trigger point for such a general collapse.

And we have just heard the new figures that the Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs), leveraged loans of firms that have indebted themselves—the equivalent of what the Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) were in the 2008 crisis—could, in an economic downturn, become the trigger point for a chain-reaction collapse. Dealing with that looming crisis is quite urgent.

We really need to discuss urgent measures. What my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, proposed, is still the only way to go: We need Glass-Steagall, to protect the commercial banks; we need to separate out the casino part of the economy; we need a national bank in every country; we need a credit system; we need to cooperate with the Belt and Road Initiative in the development of Africa and the reconstruction of the Middle East; and in doing so, all the European countries and the United States, will find an approach for cooperation with Russia and China. Then we can solve all the problems, really. Such international cooperation is the only way to go. All other roads lead only to Hell on Earth.

Importance of Lyndon LaRouche’s Ideas

Schlanger: I think it’s crucial to put together what you said earlier about Le Maire’s book, The New Empire, with an op-ed written by the British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt in the Washington Post, titled “Britain Has Been Shaping the World for Centuries. That Won’t Change with Brexit.”

One of the great areas of importance in Lyndon LaRouche’s work was his differentiation between the two systems: An imperial system, based on slave labor, based on destroying nations, no sovereignty, destroying science and culture and so on; and the creative power of a republic that depends on developing its citizens. When people think about why we’re mobilizing for Lyndon LaRouche’s exoneration, the issues that he raised in his 40 years in public life, these are the very issues that are shaping every single event on the planet today. Do you have any further comment on that, Helga?

Zepp-LaRouche: I think the issues that were raised by my husband, for practically the past 50 years must be consulted. We will produce many documentaries; we will feature all of his activities and revive all the writings which went along with them; his work in Latin America, his work with José López Portillo; his work on Latin American integration; his work with Indira Gandhi on a 40-year development plan for India; all these Africa programs—all of these ideas that he worked on, are still the very ideas shaping and forming the next 50 years. He insisted that a new paradigm of thinking must govern. In particular, the scientific ideas of Vladimir Vernadsky must control and shape the relations among the Eurasian nations, for the world to get into a safe future.

So I can only appeal to you, again: Sign the petition for the exoneration of my husband. Read his works! Become one with us in in this fight, which we will relentlessly continue until justice has been established. The attack against President Trump and the prosecution of my husband and his associates are one and the same issue. I ask you to join in this fight and do the best thing you can do for the future of all of humanity, which is to create the environment in which President Trump will exonerate my husband, Lyndon LaRouche.

Schlanger: You can find the petition for the exoneration of Lyndon LaRouche on the Schiller Institute website, www.schillerinstitute.com.

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

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, till next week.