February 16, 2008 (LPAC)--Intersecting the ongoing global financial collapse, and a politically charged environment in Munich over the planned construction of a maglev route from the Munich Airport to the downtown train station, Lyndon LaRouche and Helga Zepp-LaRouche spoke before an overflow crowd of 130 people on Feb. 13 at conference in Munich, Germany. The meeting, entitled "Maglev: The Technology of the 21st Century," was sponsored by the Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo) and the Fusion Energy Forum (FEF). The conference was addressed by Tom Gillesberg, leader of the Schiller Institute in Denmark; Michael Haberland of the pro-maglev organization Mobile in Munich; Werner Zuse of the FEF; Prof. Harry Ruppe, a space scientist who worked in the U.S. Apollo Project, and was a pioneer in Mars exploration while working with NASA; and Toni Kästner of the LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) in Germany, and moderated by Elke Fimmen, chairwoman of the BüSo in Bavaria. In addition, the Italian economist Dr. Nino Galoni, spoke during the discussion. The meeting received greetings in support of the BüSo campaign for maglev from the president of Technical University of Munich and from Solidarité et Progrés of France. There were guests from Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Denmark, and the United States.
Construction on the Munich maglev route, which would be the first in Germany, could begin as early as this Summer despite an hysterical and sophistical campaign to stop it, led by the SPD mayor of Munich, and financier circles in London opposed to Germany playing a role in global infrastructure development. The organizing for the event, which culminated in a rally on Marienplatz on March 12, was spearheaded by the LaRouche Youth Movement.
In her opening remarks, BüSo chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche stated that the issue for Germany is whether it will submit to the anti-technology ideology imposed on Germany by the Maastricht Treaty, in the tradition of the post-World War II Morgenthau plan to deindustrialize Germany, or whether it becomes once again the land of inventors and thinkers. Germany can do this, by implementing the technology of the future in developing the maglev in Germany, thus contributing to the building of a world land-bridge with this technology. As Zepp-LaRouche pointed out, the Eurasian Land-Bridge, which is already being implemented Eurasia, represents the reconstruction program needed to rebuild the world economy in the wake of the financial collapse, and that Germany has a positive role to play in this.
However, Germany will not be able to play this role if the new European Treaty, the so-called Lisbon Treaty, is imposed from the top down. This treaty, which was agreed upon at the EU summit of Dec. 13, 2007, would fully eliminate the national sovereignty of Germany and other European nations. This treaty, which could result in Tony Blair, the architect of the Iraq War, becoming President of Europe, is being forced through without debate, on orders from London, despite the fact that most of its provisions were overwhelmingly rejected in popular referenda held in 2005, in France and the Netherlands. As Mrs. LaRouche emphasized, Germany and the world require a New Deal, but Germany cannot do this with the Lisbon Treaty. She therefore called for a mobilization of the population to resist the treaty in order to defend German sovereignty and the general welfare of the German population, based on the German Basic Law.
- Weimar Hyperinflation: Then and Now -
Lyndon LaRouche began his remarks by comparing what is happening in the U.S. today to what happened in Weimar Germany in 1923, when the entire German economy collapsed in a hyperinflationary blowout. We are not faced with a mortgage crisis, he said, but rather, with the danger of a New Dark Age. Since 1971, with the decision to abandon the fixed exchanged rates of the Bretton Woods system, the world has been building up a financial bomb, which is now exploding. After reviewing key inflection points in this process, LaRouche focused on the fact that after the Soviet Union collapsed, as he had correctly forecast, Germany was destroyed. He and others with whom he collaborated had prepared a solution to the Cold War. However, although the Soviet system collapsed, the solution he proposed was not realized, rather, exactly the opposite. Instead of a reunified Germany becoming the focal point for developing Eurasia, Margaret Thatcher and her puppy Franc@alois Mitterrand imposed the Maastricht Treaty. As a result, Europe is ruined. Its productive potential is lower than at the time that the Berlin Wall fell. There has been no prosperity in Europe or the United States since then--only more money.
LaRouche emphasized that the only weapon of defense against general collapse, as in 1923, is the power of sovereign nation-state. In 1923, Germany was not sovereign, nor is it sovereign today under Maastricht and the proposed Lisbon Treaty. Under these conditions, Europe is not a determining factor in its own welfare and existence.
Governments must put their economies under protection, bankruptcy reorganization. The state must intervene, to maintain pensions, medical care, etc. As in the case of LaRouche's Homeowners and Bank Protection Act, you have to construct a dam to hold back the water, to prevent things from becoming even worse. Then you have to introduce measures to regrow the economy. This requires large-scale infrastructure projects, which cannot be private investments. Public credit must be provided for such projects, either directly or through private banks. Right now, every leading private bank in the U.S. and Europe is bankrupt. When the books are opened you will see that they are already bankrupt.
To achieve the necessary program of growth based on large-scale infrastructure requires a New Bretton Woods system. Therefore, LaRouche reported that he is working to ensure that a new U.S. President will bring the United States into a four-power agreement with Russia, China, and India, to carry out the necessary financial reorganization.
Earlier moves in this direction, such as that advocated by Friedrich List and implemented after the U.S. Civil War with the transcontinental railroad, and the spread of this idea to Germany, Russia, and elsewhere, have not pleased the British, who have launched three wars to stop this threat to their empire. Once again today, the British intend to maintain their empire through the Maastricht policy and by trying to orchestrate the outcome of the U.S. elections.
John McCain will probably be the Republican nominee, but he's sick and may not survive until the Inauguration. Barack Obama may not last, because of a scandal being prepared to eliminate him. Hillary Clinton is hated by financier circles in London and their friends in the U.S., while New York Mayor Bloomberg, the oligarchy's chosen candidate, has $11 billion, and is backed by the pro-Nazi George Shultz and Felix Rohatyn crowd. A Bloomberg Presidency will implement a Mussolini-style policy for the U.S.: infrastructure projects subsidized by the state, for the benefit of London financial interests.
- A New U.S. President -
That is what I am fighting, LaRouche said, and I am not fighting it alone. The task is to get the system under control during the course of the year before the election. The person who emerges as the future U.S. President becomes a power in shaping policy. When a leading candidate for President emerges, and the incumbent President is on the way out, the institutions of the Presidency in the U.S. will rally to protect the will of the population. It used to be this way also in France and Germany.
In conclusion, LaRouche showed a four-minute video, produced by a team of young scientists of the LaRouche Youth Movement, known as the "Basement Team," comparing the hyperinflation of Weimar 1923 with that of today. The LaRouche Political Action Committee is using the video to great effect with the U.S. population, as well as with Members of Congress, city councils, and state legislators.
The meeting, which lasted for over 5 hours, was characterized by lively and passionate discussion and an extraordinary level of concentration. Participants in the second panel polemically refuted the sophistical argument that the Munich maglev line is too expensive and can't be afforded, pointing out that the opposite is the case, Germany cannot afford not to build it.
The presentations by Professor Ruppe and by LYM organizer Tony Kästner on space exploration and the nature of man contributed to the participants rising above mundane considerations to think in terms of man's role in the cosmos. This was underscored by the perfomance, concluding the event, of the German song "Die Gedanken sind frei" ("Thoughts are free"), by the LYM chorus.
