This article appears in the July 12, 2019 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
[Print version of this article]
Epilogue
A Punctum Saliens
The horror of what was just presented is not a bad dream—it is reality—but it is also possible to “wake up” from the delusion that things must continue in this fashion, to change direction in an instant. Rather than accepting the idea that things will only continue to get worse, we must instead imagine the United States as part of a new paradigm, 50-100 years from now. Future generations will live in a far different world: poverty has been permanently eliminated, relegated to a past era of human development; the world’s energy problems have been overcome by the mastery of fusion power, with all of its scientific and industrial benefits; international scientific and industrial stations on the surface of the Moon provide the basis for exploration of the outer solar system; billions of children are learning to sing and play in orchestras, and a renaissance of the most beautiful culture has grown to replace the degenerate entertainment culture.
Such a transformation of the United States and the world must begin now. The foolish economic notions underlying today’s tragic conditions have failed; therefore, the door is open to replace them with a real, scientific approach to physical economic progress. This is what you will find in the following pages in Lyndon LaRouche’s “Four New Laws to Save the U.S.A. Now! Not An Option: An Immediate Necessity.”
And therefore, an urgent decision stands before you, a punctum saliens.[fn_1] Human civilization is in the midst of a profound reorganization of relations among nations and peoples, a change to a new paradigm, based on fundamentally different ideas than those of the currently predominant system of geopolitical interests and finance-based economics. Will the U.S. join this emerging paradigm, and contribute to the creation of a new and just world system, thereby choosing to survive into the next decades and century? Or will we go down, clinging to the mast of the proverbial “ship” of the imperial system, characterized by the still-ongoing economic collapse and perpetual war policy which has been killing our citizens at an accelerating rate since the early 1970s?
Lyndon LaRouche has shown you the way forward. It’s time to join us, and mobilize.
[fn_1]. In a 1992 presentation, Helga Zepp-LaRouche explained the meaning of this term: “[Friedrich] Schiller used this notion in his great historical dramas, where the drama develops...in a historical setting, in which the fate of nations and peoples will be decided by the main figures, the heroes. The story develops, and for a variety of reasons—some depending on the positions of the heroes, some depending on events outside their control—things go wrong, and . . . a terrible crisis develops. Then comes a point where everything seems to be lost; the entire story concentrates in one point, and the hero gets another chance to overcome this crisis. Now it is up to him to save the nations and the people. He can do so if he’s strong, and if he has a good character; or he fails, because he has some crucial weakness or insufficient knowledge. This moment, where the decision is thrown back into the lap of the hero, is what Schiller calls the punctum saliens.” [back to text for fn_1]
