Formats: Video
LaRouche: “Pick a Destiny!”
Transcript:
Question: My question to you is this: What do we do, To transmit to the majority of the world's youth, who only live in the present, and do so very badly, the idea, that they have a real, concrete and effective future, based only on cultivating the creative capabilities of their mind, thank you!
LaRouche: I think it is fairly simple, based upon what I already have said today - Let's take the space program. We need to get at the heart of these matters, in an exemplary way, an exemplary way that should also be a highly practical way. I think the objective, because it involves a concept, of a change in the image of what man is.
When you go to constant acceleration, as a required modality, in flight of human beings from one planet to another, you are operating in a completely new kind of domain, the domain of the relativistic relations, relativistic travel, transport. This is a great challenge, because you have to think about when you are getting out of one gravity situation on earth, into this kind of artificial gravity. You are in a relativistic environment. Your definitions, your terms of thinking about the same old things you knew before, are now presented in a new way. The human race eventually has to live in the universe.
We have to live in the solar system. We have to live in the Galaxy, in the longer term. We have to face the challenges this represent. You have to think like an immortal person. That is to think in such a term, that you are thinking about mankind in the distant future, and you are thinking about your place in relation to mankind in the distant future, and even distant planets. Because you are looking for something in yourself, which has permanent value. We are all mortal. We are born, and we die. We are not animals. We are creative, thinking creatures. The meaning of our life does not lie in our biological existence as such, it lies in the meaning for humanity, before us, and after us, in what our lives have contributed to the existence of humanity as a whole. We have to see ourselves as human, in that way.
Therefore the best way, the practical way, is always to look ahead. To look as far ahead, as you can look, into the future. And see, what you must do for the future, so that your hand is at the tiller, long after you are dead, in that way. Obviously, if you are going to chart a course, you have to chart a good choice of course. So, pick one! Pick a destiny! Pick a destiny two generations, three generations, four generations before (beyond) you life today. Try to reach that far. Try to make something, that you do something that contributes to the future of humanity. Find your identity in the future of humanity after death. Commit the kind of acts, and kind of development, that mean that. And act accordingly, because that is the secret of true happiness. That is the pursuit of happiness, as understood by Leibniz, as recorded in his second reply to Locke, which became the cornerstone of our Constitution. First, through the Declaration of Independence, where it is the meaning of our existence as a nation. This was reflected, again, in the Preamble of the Constitution, in its own way.
We have to be immortal. We have to assume, be immortal, by assuming immortal responsibilities. Reach beyond our own life, to what we can do now, which will touch in a beneficial way, generations of people after we are dead. In that way you know, you are immortal. If you think like that, you know, you are immortal. If you can act like that, you do even better.
Webcast Excerpt: LaRouche Updates Triple Curve
Transcript:
"To get at some of the technical questions here: Let’s talk about this, just a minute from now. This Triple Curve, which I’ve used as a pedagogical device since about the beginning of 1996. I’ll discuss some of these difficult matters here. It explains itself, and this will be on the website [www.larouchepac.com] in many ways, again and again. The point is, you have three basic parameters you have to look at, In order to understand how our economy is functioning. The lower curve, the one that’s descending – These are all in terms of per capita rates – We have been descending in terms of employment in productive labor, such as agriculture, infrastructure, basic physical production, over this period, per capita. The percentile of the total throughput of the economy has been declining in these terms. We’ve also had an increase in the monetary aggregates, and the financial aggregates. Now, what has happened is, we are building up a monetary debt, built at a skyrocketing rate, relative to a declining actual physical output in production，which you can see in any community. How many factories are there? How many farms are there? What’s the level of productivity? What is it? Is it backward, or is it progressive? Is it technological progress? What’s the effect of the loss of the automobile industry, in this physical output relationship? Now, at the same time, we have had essentially, since 1966, we have had a skyrocketing increase, under the influence of the Vietnam war economy, a skyrocketing increase in the amount of monetary obligation. We have also had an increase in the financial aggregates. What has happened now, is, that we have moved to a period, which these values – as you will see, the financial aggregates have begun to fall. This decline in financial aggregates, which has occurred just recently, in this last period, is the onset of the breakdown crisis. So, we are dealing with this kind of situation, not what you are reading in the newspapers. This is also what I presented, back in 2007, in defining the problem which we face now. Either we fix this problem, as I described it, or we don’t make it as a nation."
August 1, 2009 Webcast Excerpt: “We Must Return to a Credit System!”
Transcript:
"Look, now: Here we are! Go back to 2007, where I made this proposal, for reform. I said, we propose a reform, on the basis of the authority of the Constitution of the United States. That would have worked. Anybody who's intelligent, who understands the system, would have known, that what I proposed {then}, would have worked. We would not be in the mess today!
"But, who the hell, came up with this other idea? Of getting the United States into debt, for obligations it didn't owe?! In order to bail out London, to bail out the international monetary system! At the expense of the United States! To loot the United States and its Treasury, for the benefit of an international monetary cartel! What about "bail out"! To whom, did we bail out? Did we bail out our industries? Did we save the auto industry, or put it into equivalent form, something else besides autos? Did we {save} the American farmer? Did we {save} the infrastructure, of the cities of the United States and the states? {Whom did we bail out?}
"We bailed out the London bankers and their New York extension. We don't owe them anything: We just happen to have a government that says that.
"This is our nation. And the law of bankruptcy of our nation is our authority. If I were President, I would end this thing right now. And I'm sure, I could get the support of the great majority of American citizens, very quickly, simply by making clear what I intend to do: Put the whole thing in bankruptcy.
"You guys are going to live. We're not going to kill you – like Obama's doing. We're not cutting you off from health care, we're not trying to accelerate your death, we're not trying to get you to kill yourself. You're going to live. You're going to be employed. We're going to rebuild our industries. We going to {cancel} this filthy debt! Which we never really owed in the first place. Only some crooked traitors, or traitorous kinds of people, gave us this kind of debt -- it's not real. We don't owe it. We're going to go back to a credit system.
"And we're going to get some power. How're we going to get power? We're going to have Russia as a partner. And Russia needs a credit system, desperately, to solve its problems. But Russia can do a lot of things for us. Russia has vast mineral resources, in Siberia and related areas. These mineral resources are required, for the development of nations, because the Russians are very good at this; they're sitting on top of territory that has rich mineral resources. We have below, in the south of that, we have China, and other countries, which have a shortage of these mineral resources. Therefore, the development of Russia, its building up as a power, for power of {science} and {development}, is necessary, for Europe, for Russia itself, for China, and so forth. Japan's possibility of existing, depends upon this success of China and Russia. China requires cooperation with us and Russia. We require cooperation with China.
"For example, what about the debt of the United States to China, the dollar debt? The unpaid debt to China? What happens to the world if the unpaid debt to China is written off, because the United States dollar collapses? What happens to the world,then? If China collapses; China goes into a crisis, under those conditions, what happens? India's destroyed, not so much by an economic crisis, but by the chaos engendered throughout the world, where the spillover from what you're seeing in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and so forth, now spreads into there, and causes chaos there.
"So what we simply do, is, we take these four great nations, we use these four great nations as a pivot. Japan will jump in immediately. South Korea will jump in immediately, other nations will jump in immediately. But we have to get the four big nations to cooperate on an agreement, and the others will gather, and we'll have enlarged agreement.
"We then create a new international system, entirely a {credit system}, consistent with the design of the credit system built into the U.S. Constitution. All monetarism is {cancelled}!
"The only honor, is the honorable debt, which can be converted to a debt in a {credit system}. And the world will operate under an international credit system based on cooperation, on a fixed-exchange-rate system, among credit systems of nations of the world. We will, then, generate, in the range of 1.5-2% basic long-term loans, among nations, based on credit systems. These loans will be directed to, largely, to the driver of technological progress in basic economic infrastructure."
“The Future Of Africa”
Transcript:
“Then you look at Africa: We get the British out of Africa! The British are perpetrating genocide in Africa!—they and their accomplices. Get them out of Africa! Give Africa back to the Africans. Repeal decisions made by the United States in the middle of the 1970s. Restore Africa to its right, as a collection of sovereign states. Which means we must assist them, assist them in developing the infrastructure which is needed, to take a population in Africa, which is largely unskilled, in a modern sense, and to utilize infrastructure and other features, to increase the productive powers of labor effectively, per capita and per square kilometer.
"Africa has a great agriculture potential; but disease and other factors destroy that. The lack of infrastructure means that the utilization of improvements needed to realize that, are not there. Africa has large sources of natural resources: Enable Africa to use its territory, its agriculture potential, and its related resources, to become a positive factor in world economy. The world needs it!
"This fact was understood by President Franklin Roosevelt. In the midst of the Second World War, Roosevelt turned his thoughts towards a better future, a new era of post-colonialism to replace what he called the “18th-century methods” of the British Empire. Roosevelt’s son Elliot, in the book As He Saw It, related his father’s plans during a trip to Casablanca in January 1943:
“Over coffee, he got back on the theme of the development of colonial areas, increasingly one of his favorite topics. For a man who had never been in Africa before, he had picked up an amazing amount of information, geographical, geological, agricultural. Of course, I thought I knew the country pretty well: I had flown over a good bit of it, months before, photographing it from the air. But somewhere he had had a chance to learn even more than I had. We discussed the great salt flats in southern Tunisia, which must have at one time been a vast inland sea. He reminded us of the rivers that spring up in the Atlas Mountains, to the south, and disappear under the Sahara, to become subterranean rivers. “Divert this water flow for irrigation purposes? It’d make the Imperial Valley in California look like a cabbage patch!” And the salt flats: they were below the level of the Mediterranean; you could dig a canal straight back to re-create that lake—one hundred and fifty miles long, sixty miles wide. “The Sahara would bloom for hundreds of miles!” It is true. The Sahara is not just sand, it has an amazingly rich potential. Every time there is a rain, there is a consequent riot of flowers for a few days, before the dryness and the sun kill them off. Franklin and I winked at each other: Father was having the time of his life, his active mind and quick imagination working overtime as we all speculated on what intelligent planning could do for this land.
“Wealth!” he cried. “Imperialists don’t realize what they can do, what they can create! They’ve robbed this continent of billions, and all because they were too short-sighted to understand that their billions were pennies, compared to the possibilities! Possibilities that must include a better life for the people who inhabit this land…”
"By the time Roosevelt had spoken these words, Africa had already been subjected to hundreds of years of colonial oppression aimed at extracting raw materials, while stifling internal improvements. Railroads were built straight from foreign-owned mines to the coast for export, and even the gauge of the tracks between countries were made incompatible.
"Erasing this colonial legacy begins with fully integrating the continent with high-speed and magnetically-levitated rail, from Cairo in the North to Capetown in the South, and Dakar in the West to Djibouti in the East. These transportation routes would serve as the backbone of new corridors of development, including gas pipelines, telecommunications, and new industrial-city centers powered by fourth generation high-temperature nuclear reactors. Rather than resorting to unskilled labor to build what environmentalists call “appropriate technologies” we can upgrade the skill and productivity of the labor force through high-technology investments. Large-scale infrastructure itself raises the productivity of the individual worker or farmer, simply by transforming the environment he operates in. As in the case of the transcontinental railroad in the USA, the development of inland areas represents a historic shift away from the legacy of maritime control by the British Empire, as well as human mastery over the biosphere.
"…rail system, or maglev system, into Africa!" As a gift! From the other nations of the world, we're going to give them—as a gift!—a railway or maglev system, which is the basic system which means, that in these countries, they have the basic means to transport goods from one place to the other.
"That, and also power systems, and so forth, delivered to them, will enable them to do the rest. And that's the point.
"Combined with mass transportation and power development, large-scale water management can make the deserts bloom. The Congo River is second only to the Amazon, in terms of volume of water. Canals could divert water drawn off from the Congo, and channel it northward, to refresh and expand the dry Lake Chad basin, opening up vast new stretches of land for cultivation. Nuclear desalination means an almost limitless supply of fresh water from the oceans, water that can transform the arid landscapes of the Sahel region and the Sahara above it into garden spots through massive irrigation. Greening the deserts could turn some of the most under-populated areas of the planet into thriving agro-industrial centers. The rich soils of Sudan alone could feed the continent.
"The way you develop a people, is not by coming in and telling them how to do everything. You give them the things which will enable them to do something for themselves. And you help them do it.”
"Given the past century’s discovery of nuclear and space science, and the coming breakthroughs in fusion energy, it is long past time to realize that the only limits to growth for the human species come from self-imposed limits on the imagination. Along with the advance of science has come the proof that mankind survives only by changing nature, by unlocking the potentials inherent in nature, potentials which are realized only through creative reason.
"What potential geniuses, who today are being lost to childhood diseases, starvation, and war, might this African renaissance give to humanity? What new Mozarts or Einsteins in art and science among the children of today await only the chance to unleash their inherent human creativity? More than mere material wealth, this is the true notion of wealth embodied in Roosevelt’s vision for the post-war world."
A Silent Genocide
Transcript:
"Is it possible for genocide to become a populist issue? Or is it just plain sick. The entire world is focused on the "genocide" in Darfur--dozens of humanitarian groups have devoted their efforts to stopping it, college speakers have committed their time to making others aware of it, and the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Al Bashir because of it. Meanwhile, south of Sudan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 400,000 Congolese have died every year for the past decade as result of lack of clean water and health care. In Zimbabwe, over 4000 have died in the recent months alone from the recent cholera epidemic and more are suffering from other water born diseases due to restrictive UN economic sanctions, which have blocked all aid from entering. Since January of 2007, over 870,000 Somalians have been displaced and sent to refugee camps in the wake of intense civil war and conflict, with one of the largest death tolls ever recorded for Africa. The main cause of death? Diarrhea, due to lack of potable water and necessary infrastructure.
"It is this silent genocide which is not being discussed. And this genocide is not due to the so-called brutality of African leaders, but is, in reality, a result of the extreme underdevelopment of the entire continent. The lack of proper water management systems, of decent healthcare standards, of an "integrated" modern railway system, and of suitable educational facilities is the true cause of the tragedy in Africa--this is the center-piece issue which we must address today in any discussion we have regarding the continent.
"Currently, pressure is being put on the Obama administration to take a position in supporting the ICC indictment of Bashir, by Susan Rice, our UN ambassador, who is recognized as a "leading expert" on Africa. However, as Lyndon LaRouche stated in his March 21st webcast, not only is Susan Rice not qualified to speak on the Sudan situation, but her actions will destroy Africa and any possibility for a US-led economic recovery for the entire world. After all, it was Susan Rice, as under-secretary of state for Africa under Madeleine Albright, who instigated many of the US hostilities against the Sudanese government, including her policy, along with Al Gore, to bomb the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum in 1998. Today, as the US ambassador to the UN, Rice has become a crucial part of Obama's cabinet. As her actions during the Clinton presidency through to today dictate, Obama must not listen to Susan Rice. She does not know anything about the true history of Africa nor what is required to solve the crisis in the region.
"Now, if we are serious about understanding what to do NOW regarding Sudan and the rest of Africa, then we must understand the nature of the British Empire's operations in the continent. Today, we witness a complete lack of development in the entire region--utter devastation! But, why is that? Is it that the African people are inferior? Or if they are not, if they are truly human, as apart from mere beasts, then how is it that Africa was destroyed?
"Take the case of Sudan, where much of today's current political conflict is centered. President Bashir cannot be held responsible for the atrocities and civil war in the darfur region because the entire conflict was staged, directed, and fomented by the British Empire--a track of activities and events that takes us back to British geopolitical warfare at the turn of the 20th century.
"Imagine this. A long line of French troops, led by John Baptiste Bashal, had just come off of a long trek from Senegal across the entirety of central Africa, and into Fashoda, a city in central Sudan. The British column, headed up by Lord Kitchener, arrived in Fashoda coming from Egypt down the Nile, following their bloody massacre of the Mahdi movement at the battle of Omdurman. There they stood in Fashoda, British and French, facing each other for months, with not a gun or canon fired on either side. Bashal's plans to cut off the British forces at Fashoda had failed. Kitchener's objective was to keep the Nile, the gateway through Africa, under the control of the British. Finally, following months of stalemate, and increasing geopolitical pressure and upheaval from the European continent, including the British orchestration of the Dreyfuss Affair, the French quietly folded, and the Fashoda agreements were reached.
"The Fashoda agreements divided Africa along arbitrary borders, giving the French everything west of the Nile, including Chad and Morroco, and giving the British Sudan, Egypt, and modern day Kenya. Since then, the British have done everything in their power to manipulate these borders, instigating artificial tribal conflict and warfare. This is the true reason for the Darfur conflict today, which lies on the British created border between Chad and Sudan.
"The problem is that years of colonial occupation and instigated warfare have left little opportunity for real economic progress. Africa has been in the dark ages for the last century and more--it is the lack of basic infrastructural and the constant conflict over scarce water resources and arable land which is the real silent killer.
"So, if you really want to solve the conflict in Darfur? Then build nuclear desalination plants and irrigation channels to divert water into the arid region. US President Barak Obama must take a firm stance towards developing Africa--it is the least our first African-American president can do. Don't get caught up in faulty and dangerous advice on Sudan and Darfur. And most of all, don't be drawn in by a populist view of "genocide."
"After all, how many people are we willing to let die, before you realize that popular opinion is just plain wrong."
Emergency Statement to President Obama
Transcript:
"You may recall that I was the only person, back in July 25th 2007 who warned of exactly what has happened to the world economy since. Now, more recently, a few leading economists have come forth, to, in their own way, support views which coincide with my own. I say, as an expert, as people who said the contrary over the intervening years, that this policy, which has been foisted upon the President of the United States, can sink the United States and his Presidency very quickly. There is no way the President could expect to survive, politically, from this policy even in the relatively short term.
"First of all, it is incompetent, it is un-Constitutional, and it will destroy the United States. And the people out there -- not the liberals he is listening to, from the higher paid liberals, but the typical citizens out there, the lower 60% to 70% of the population will turn against him harshly, if he does not abandon this foolish policy. There is a solution, and there always has been one solution, since I specified that between July 25th, 2007 and September of 2007: Put this entire system into bankruptcy reorganization. Take all the crap and throw it away! Reconstruct the banks according to Glass-Steagall standards. Bail out the banks. Don't bail out the creditors! Bail out the banks, by providing them credit, government credit, which enables them to build their way back to solvency. Don't buy out the speculators! Don't bribe the speculators! Otherwise, you're not going to be President much longer, Mr. President.
"I've been doing everything I can, to help you survive as President, and succeed. But this, this mistake you've make now, under bad advice -- under incompetent advice, can sink you, and sink the Presidency, and sink the United States. Because if you go down now, you're going to take the United States down with you. And you are going to get increasingly unpopular over the coming days and weeks. So change, now. Abandon this policy which is un-Constitutional, in any case. And it is not only un-Constitutional, it is immoral! So, be a moral President: Reject this! And I am sure, that you will find that the great majority of the American citizens will come to your aid, if you do this. Cut it out, now, Mr. President -- it's a terrible mistake. I'm the expert: I'm the best-qualified expert. Yeah, there are other people who agree with me, more or less, among leading people today. But, I'm the expert, and I am telling you: Don't make this mistake. It's like political suicide. Stop it, now!"
“The Cold Truth About Climate Change”
Transcript:
"The recent cold wave hitting the northern hemisphere has led some to ask, “What ever happened to global warming?” Al Gore might have been trying to convince you that scientists believe the Earth is heating up, but it appears that mother nature doesn’t agree. Even though the extremely cold weather does not really demonstrate anything about long-term climate change, real science shows that we may, in fact, be on the verge of a new, global ice age.
"To the best of scientific knowledge, climate change is driven by changes in the orbital relationship of the Earth to the Sun, which affect the amount of solar radiation reaching the high northern regions. There are three major cycles that could affect the Earth’s climate.
"First, the wobble of the spinning Earth, called the precession of the equinox, is combined with the rotation of the orbit as a whole, to create a cycle where, every 21,000 years, the north pole of the Earth points in such a way that Summer in the northern hemisphere is happening when the Earth is farthest in its orbit from the Sun. This is the situation today. Second, the angle of inclination of the Earth’s axis, or obliquity varies over 40,000 years from about 22 to 25 degrees. And, third, the elliptical orbit itself changes shape, getting more or less circular, over a period of between 100 and 400 thousand years.
"The first suggestion that climate was driven by astrophysical sources, was proposed in 1830 by English astronomer John Herschel. Later, American scientist Louis Agassiz suggested that the yearly advance and retreat of Alpine glaciers might have a much longer cycle, and could periodically form continental ice sheets, causing hitherto unexplained geological formations. Today, we call these periods of widespread glaciation ice ages.
"The modern version of the astronomical theory was due to Vladimir Koeppen. He and his son-in-law, Alfred Wegener studied how the amount of solar radiation hitting the Earth could change as the superposition of the three major orbital cycles - precession, obliquity, and ellipticity - reinforced or canceled one another. In 1920, Koeppen collaborated with Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovitch to make precise mathematical calculations of the combined effect of the three cycles. Today, his results suggest a 10,000 year cycle of glaciation.
"A northern hemisphere glaciation might begin if the Earth is in such a configuration, where the ellipticity of the orbit is at its maximum, while its axis pointed toward the sun at its farthest orbital position. Glaciers typically grow and advance during the winter months, destroying everything in their path, depressing the ground under their enormous weight. During the Summer, they naturally melt and recede, or calve pieces into the oceans.
"However, if the Summer is not warm enough, because of the configuration of the Earth in its orbit, the glaciers won’t recede back to their earlier position, but will begin advancing, year upon year. More and more of the Earth’s water will become locked into them, lowering the levels of the oceans, as their bulk engulfs more and more of the Northern hemisphere. Eventually, they would again reach as far down as Chicago, pushing the wreckage of Montreal and Copenhagen down to lower latitudes. When they finally melt thousands of years later, they would cause massive, canyon-forming floods, wiping out the civilization that might be left on the ice age coasts.
"So, if you’re in a panic, trying to reduce your carbon emissions, breathe easy. We are living in a dynamic universe. Climate change is a much more complicated process than you once imagined."