ZEPP-LAROUCHE WEBCAST

We Can End the Self-Destruction of the West

We present here the edited transcript of Harley Schlanger’s weekly interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche from Germany on November 3, 2021. The full video can be watched here .

Harley Schlanger: Welcome to our weekly dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of the international Schiller Institutes.

We have a lot going on, including the Ghouls gathering in Glasgow for the COP26, but let’s start with something in the United States: An election took place yesterday, in which the Democrats who thought they would coast to victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race, were upended. Helga, what do you have on that? What’s the significance of this?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Well, it is significant, because the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Terry McAuliffe, had the support of the entire top leadership of the Democratic Party—Obama, Biden, Kamala Harris—and their whole focus was against Trump. The Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, he campaigned more or less on issues. I think it was a very significant signal to the Democratic Party that they may indeed look at a complete turnover of their majorities in the 2022 midterm election for Congress.

So, I think this gives them something really to think about, because none of the election promises of Biden have been realized. The infrastructure projects have not been realized, then the promise to have free dental care for the elderly was not realized. So, I think they have now less than a year to come to a different programmatic orientation. It basically would mean they would have to scrap the Green New Deal and distance themselves from the support of the Wall Street policies. And it’s very doubtful that they will be able to do that. That, together with the not-so-great result of Gov. Phil Murphy in New Jersey, is definitely a warning shot which should have an impact, if the establishments were able to reform, which none of them has demonstrated, so far, that they’re able to do.

But I think that shows you that we are in a very fueled situation, and it should also teach the voters a lesson, that to vote one candidate out who does not perform and then vote another one in who does not perform, and then you vote the other one back in—I mean, that is not a very good idea. So, I think something else should occur altogether.

Schlanger: One thing it definitely shows is that the Democrats did not learn anything from what happened in 2016. Now, you mentioned that Biden has not gotten things passed. He was at the COP26 conference, empty-handed, because he had no legislative victory for infrastructure, for the Green New Deal. But he did go there and attack Russia and China. How did that go over?

Zepp-LaRouche: That was not exactly a wise thing to do, because, given the absolute confrontation line coming from the U.S., the U.K., the EU, and NATO against Russia and China, I’m pretty sure that there are intelligent people in both countries who recognize the self-destructive character of this Green Deal. And why should they interfere? They see these Western countries dismantling their own economies—maybe they’re just looking at it to see how they self-destruct.

The attacks are also completely unfounded, and this was noted by former UN Deputy Secretary General Pino Arlacchi, who commented in an Italian blog that the fact that China is the largest emitter of CO₂ should surprise nobody, because they have become the largest economy by now. And if you look at the emissions of the United States 20 years ago, they were the largest, in quotes, “sinner” in respect to CO₂ emissions.

So, I think a lot of this debate is completely ludicrous. One can already say now that the COP26 can probably be called FLOP26. Russia was not there, China also. India said that they will have climate neutrality by 2070—that’s 50 years from now. And I think that no one should be at ease considering the goal pronounced by Prince Charles and David Attenborough, a really hard-core advocate of depopulation—they said incredible things there! Prince Charles called for a “military-style” implementation of the policy, which goes beyond governments, which should be implemented globally by the private sector.

This absolutely confirms what we put out in our pamphlet on the “Great Reset,” where we warned that these people are intending to implement a global fascist dictatorship with an absolutely aggressive program for depopulation, because that’s the consequence of what they’re proposing. And Prince Charles said it, and also Sir David Attenborough said it—he said, the fewer people who are on a planet with finite resources, the better.

This is just totally stupid, because the whole thesis about the “limits to growth” on the planet, this was a fraud when the Club of Rome and Dennis Meadows and Jay Forrester came out with it in 1972! It was based on a computer model which completely left out the redefinition of what resources are through scientific and technological progress. Lyndon LaRouche, my late husband, wrote a very important book in 1983, There Are No Limits To Growth. But this Malthusian lie is continuously trotted out, and obviously these people want to eliminate scientific and technological progress and turn history back to a time before the industrialization, back to the Middle Ages and to the population levels which existed then.

But I think that has been recognized by Russia, by China, and by India. India has said many times, if there is a climate problem it was caused by the so-called advanced countries, and they should take care of it, and not the developing countries. One should not underestimate that the power of coercion coming from this crowd, the British royal family, and their cohorts, is nevertheless very big. For example, they forced South Africa to accept a deal whereby they get a miserable $8 billion for making the commitment to move out of coal. So, I’m not downplaying the meanness and almost Satanic intention of these policies, but they’re also not very successful, and if the West is so stupid as to continue to implement these policies, they are destroying themselves, and that, I think, has been understood by many forces around the world.

Schlanger: And watching this shows that there may be no limits to stupidity, when it comes to this crowd.

Now, this policy, the Green New Deal, combined with the neoliberal policy, the defense of the big international banks, has triggered a hyperinflation which also is waking people up to the absolutely impossible position that they’re going to be put in if this goes through. The inflation rate is growing rapidly. What’s the picture that you have on this?

Zepp-LaRouche: There are many basic and raw materials which are now skyrocketing in price. One of them is wheat flour, which has increased by 38%, and it is creating a huge crisis, because in France, there is now a debate to increase the price of the famous baguette. That price has been stable for the last 100 years or so. When you start to increase the price of this basic food, which every French person eats every day, that will surely be quite some fuel for social unrest. The same goes in Italy for pasta. And then you look at countries like Turkey, where the inflation rate is now 20%. Now this is a serious, significant eating away of the savings and the income of the people—naturally not the billionaires—but normal people are starting to feel it very significantly, in addition to the increase in energy prices with winter starting to set in.

So, I think this demands all the more urgently that Glass-Steagall must be implemented. And only if you implement a global Glass-Steagall system, whereby you stop the speculation—you have to eliminate speculation, and it requires the political will to do so, but it can be done.

Schlanger: And there are some people who are attributing the poor results of the Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia to the fact that the number one issue in the polling after the elections was the economy and inflation.

Operation Ibn Sina

Now, along with this, we have something that you’ve been fighting for, for quite a while: A policy toward Afghanistan which truly reflects the best interests of both the United States and Afghanistan, to have humanitarian aid and to fight against starvation, and freezing; but the policy hasn’t changed from the West. In fact, it seems to be doubled-down. And this is causing a problem with migration and so on. What’s the latest from Afghanistan?

Zepp-LaRouche: The figures from the World Food Program and the World Health Organization are absolutely horrific: 55% of the Afghanistan people are in danger of not making it though the winter: that’s 22 million out of the 38 million population. And that is in large part the effect of the blockades and the sanctions, the fact that the U.S. Treasury, Commerzbank, and Bundesbank in Germany, the Bank for International Settlements, are all holding back money which rightfully belongs to the Afghan people. There is a cash problem right now in Afghanistan. The country cannot import food or medicine, and therefore, the crisis is getting worse by the day, as it gets colder.

It is a complete scandal! The G20 met, and Afghanistan was not even on the agenda! I mean, if I needed one more proof that the Western civilization is about to collapse for moral reasons as much as for wrong economic policies—there is a huge difference between what the West does—Europe and the United States—and Afghanistan’s neighboring countries. The neighboring countries, they also conducted conferences in Tehran, and they’re trying to stabilize the situation as much as they can, but if you leave it to the countries of NATO that were in Afghanistan for 20 years, and left the country in a complete rubble field, it really tells you that they are not only inhuman, they have no concern for humanitarian issues, but also that they’re stupid!

What is happening right now, by treating the Taliban government the way they do, rather than giving them a chance to see if they will fulfill their promises to integrate with the international community, and to not allow terrorism from the territory—by withholding the funds the Taliban is being forced to look to producing opium. When you are starving, you probably are tempted to produce the only thing which will give you a chance for survival, even though the Taliban, for religious reasons, don’t want to be involved in that. They were not involved in opium 20 years ago. Only after NATO came into the country, did the drug production and trade explode.

The other thing which is caused by this policy is the danger of a new migration problem: If you have more than 20 million people faced with the choice to either emigrate or try to get to Europe or some other country where they have a chance to survive; or to stay home and starve, well, I guess everybody could make that choice for themselves to see what would happen.

So, the policies of the West right now are really disgusting and self-destructive. In the meantime, many organizations have picked up on what the Schiller Institute demanded some weeks ago, to at minimum release these funds belonging to Afghanistan. A great many international charity organizations have joined that demand, and we will escalate this campaign. There is a very short time in which to change policy to save the people there.

And one of the initiatives we have launched is to start with building a modern health system in Afghanistan. Look at the spread of COVID; 90% of the people have no access to medical supplies; only 100 hospitals [are] left for 38 million people! Two thousand facilities were shut down! So, I’ve called for something which I call “Operation Ibn Sina,” because Ibn Sina—in the West, he is known as Avicenna—was a thinker of the 11th century, one of the great thinkers in the tradition of Plato and this tradition; he was a philosopher, but he’s most known for his medical breakthroughs in his Canon of Medicine, which was the standard medical textbook, being used in Europe, until the 17th century.

So, the Afghan people have already claimed the tradition of ibn Sina. There is an Ibn Sina University, Ibn Sina Hospital in Kabul. It is important to give this effort a symbol, something which appeals to the pride of the greatest tradition of Afghanistan. Ibn Sina is one of the most famous doctors in world history, so let’s call the operation to save the Afghanistan people, “Operation Ibn Sina.”

And if you are interested in helping to do that, contact us, and we’ll tell you how you can be of help.

Schlanger: You already mentioned that the economic policy, the freezing of funds, the IMF withholding Special Drawing Rights, and so on, may lead to an increase in opium poppy production, drug production, which would flood into the Western countries, as well as into Russia and China. There’s already a very serious drug crisis in the West, and we’re going to be putting out a report on that. How is that progressing?

Zepp-LaRouche: You have right now, as part of this collapse of the Western system, an incredible offensive by the drug lobby and the drug mafia in all of Latin America. Look at the poor nation of Haiti, where drug gangs have completely taken over control of the country, kidnapping, killing, stealing fuel, holding it back. It’s so bad that the President of the Dominican Republic has called upon the world community to intervene. He is very concerned that all of this criminality may get into the Dominican Republic and lead to a complete destabilization of the country. So, our program to reconstruct Haiti is one of these other extremely urgent points of intervention.

In the United States, we are now evaluating the statistics [about the effects of drug legalization]. The legalization, which exists now in several dozen states, has led to an increase in addiction, and an increase in criminality associated with drugs, despite the legalization. It has led to an increase in the contamination of the so-called “legal drugs” with toxic substances; and it has led to more young people (from the age of 12-17) having increased drug use, including a cannabis syndrome which people have with drugs. It’s increasing traffic accidents associated with drugs. So, all around, the result is abysmal, and it demonstrates [that] the argument that legalization will eliminate all of these problems is just a complete lie. It just makes more people addicted and destroys more of the cognitive potential of the population.

We will publish that. I plan to put out a statement confronting the so-called “traffic light coalition,” the parties trying to form a government in Germany right now, who all are pushing legalization, and obviously they can not even read what’s been published in the United States, or they have worse motives. But we have to fight to stop this from happening in the countries where it’s not yet taking place. As the case of the Netherlands also shows—this was the subject of a cover story in Der Spiegel magazine—it leads to an increase in criminality and horrible developments all around. So, legalization should absolutely not happen in Germany.

Schlanger: In the midst of all this, the influence of the Schiller Institute has been growing significantly. You, especially, have been interviewed all over the world, and there was recently an interview with you on China’s CGTN television network, which I think would be very interesting to hear what the Chinese were asking, and what you had to tell them.

Zepp-LaRouche: It’s interesting, because you have right now an escalation in the anti-China campaign. And I find it absolutely incredible. Almost all the accusations against China—and Russia, for that matter—are being conducted by the West itself, and they project what they do on China. So, the interview was mainly on the question of democracy in the West and democracy in China. Xi Jinping has developed a notion called “whole process people’s democracy.” Sometimes these Chinese notions are a bit awkward for Western ears, but what it refers to is that the democratic process inside the Communist Party is based on a meritocracy, whereby the most qualified people are selected, those who have contributed most to the common good, and they progress. But this is done in a democratic way. Once such an election takes place, there is continuous discussion, and accountability, unlike in the West, where a politician has a big speech in the election and then afterwards, the opposite happens.

People should read this interview or take the time to watch it. They produced very nice footage for it. I was able to bring in the quote from George Washington’s farewell address, in which he blasts the existence of the party system. Many Americans may know this. They showed a book with the text as I could read the quote, in which Washington warned of the evil effects that would happen if one political party were to try to outdo the other one, that conflict is perpetuated this way.

And I was also able to bring in some of the ideas of Nicholas of Cusa and his concept of the coincidence of opposites, which I find very useful. If the Chinese audience learns about George Washington and learns about Nicholas of Cusa, I think it’s a contribution to the dialogue of cultures, because it helps to understand the other one if you know their most important thinkers. So, I think this was very useful.

Schlanger: This coincides exactly with your late husband’s idea of what “corridors of development” are. They’re not just rail lines or factories, but it is an understanding of other cultures. And this is something that’s horribly lacking in the United States, where you have this seeming lack of empathy with the conditions in any other country. But it also appears, Helga, that there’s not a lot of empathy within the United States with people who disagree.

Now, we’re going to be having another Schiller Institute conference coming up on Nov. 13-14, which will be introducing to people, again, this concept of the “coincidence of opposites.” What’s scheduled for this conference?

Zepp-LaRouche: Oh, the conference will be super important! I can only invite you, all our viewers and listeners, to absolutely reserve the time. It’s on Nov. 13 and 14. It will have four panels. We already have lined up very, very important speakers from Russia, from China, from the United States, and from Europe. The first panel is, “Can a Strategic Crisis Between the Major Powers Be Avoided?” This panel will address such crisis spots as Taiwan, which are increasing tensions and could lead potentially to war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan. Then, there is the same thing over Ukraine with Russia. All of this is part of the strategic situation, which is at an incredibly dangerous point right now. So that will be extremely important—and you will not get such open discussion anywhere else. Many of the participants and speakers of previous conferences have said again and again that they regard the Schiller Institute as an absolutely unique platform for such a dialogue to occur.

Because, as you may have noticed, the mainstream media is pretty much what was called during the Nazi period Gleichgeschaltet—completely unified and not allowing any opposing views. For example, if you say that there are large numbers of scientists who claim that the IPCC data is not correct, you are eliminated from the media! There is a complete dictatorship in the major media and increasingly also in the social media.

So, this platform is very important. We will have top-level people from many countries, who will be speaking openly and frankly about these issues. So, this is a must.

And the second panel is on the economic breakdown, and hyperinflation. We will also address the economic breakdown of entire countries, as we are now seeing in Afghanistan and Haiti; the drug problem; the explosion of prices.

Then a third panel on the next day, on the question of the science of climate. We will have many very important scientists to discuss thermonuclear fusion energy, and space cooperation. So, this will be very optimistic, because it shows you where to go.

And then the fourth panel will be on the cultural demise of the West and what to do about it: namely, to have a dialogue of cultures, and a cultural renaissance of Classical cultures in the best traditions around the world. So, this will be beautiful.

I will put out very soon the more precise program. In the meantime, you can find the invitation on our website. You should register, and get it to all of your friends, and look forward to an enjoyable, very creative weekend.

Schlanger: And for those of you who are interested, that’s on the Schiller Institute website, where you can register and read the invitation. And I would urge you to think about making sure you share this with people on your own social media accounts, because this is the kind of discussion that is so lacking at this point, and you’re not going to find it anywhere else.

So, Helga, we’re about at the end, is there anything else you want to mention?

Zepp-LaRouche: No. I think it’s the time to get active. Because we are at a watershed in history, and your action, your personal decision to help the realization of existing solutions is extremely important. So, get active with us, and join with our efforts.

Schlanger: Helga, thanks for joining us again this week, and we’ll see you again next week.

Zepp-LaRouche: Till next week.