The Great Crash of 2004-2005 Is Here!

LOOKING AHEAD TOWARD STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVES FOR REORGANIZATION OF A PLANET IN DANGER

From Volume 3, Issue Number 49 of EIR Online, Published Dec. 7, 2004

Latest From LaRouche

The Great Crash of 2004-2005 Is Here!

by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

November 28, 2004

It is time to speak, in the spirit of Aeschylus, Shakespeare, and Schiller, of the Great American Tragedy of 2004.

Some featured cartoons in the weekend British and U.S.A. press, among other relevant sources, have announced that the world's present, great monetary-financial crisis is now accelerating into its phase as a general collapse.

Typical of this lunatic situation is the rising chorus of voices heard from Asia and Europe, which propose an immediate withdrawal from the collapsing U.S. dollar now, while, they propose, something of value must still be salvaged by pulling away from the dollar, "in time." Contrary to their delusions, the trend toward a "basket of currencies," as an alternative to the dollar, will merely accelerate the already onrushing world-wide depression.

Such a proposed solution is something clearly designed by "basket-cases," a scheme under which those nations act to accelerate the collapse of the dollar, thus pulling the whole, dollar-based world monetary-system down around their own ears, all the quicker.

So much for that world-wide assortment of liars and gullible fools who had insisted, up through November 2nd, that the actually collapsing U.S. economy, the economy now under the wonderful statesmanship of the world's worst idiot, President George W. Bush, Jr., was already on the way to a triumphant parade. So, Bush, like the famous Emperor of Hans Christian Andersen's tale, was seen by credulous true believers, as wonderfully clothed, and, so garbed, and garbling, moving outward and onward through the coming pages of history into the chilling nightmare just beyond the outskirts of his, and credulous admirers' delusions....

LOOKING AHEAD TOWARD STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVES FOR REORGANIZATION OF A PLANET IN DANGER

Lyndon LaRouche addressed the Seattle cadre school on Dec. 4 2004, for about 45 minutes, and then took questions for another 20 minutes.

LYNDON LAROUCHE: Hello? Here I am.

HARLEY SCHLANGER: All right, go ahead.

LAROUCHE: Okay. Well, there are three things, in a short time I'll mention today. First of all, is the aftermath of the so-called election of Nov. 2. And there will be hearings this coming week, in the Congress called by Conyers, on that subject. So, that should be quite interesting. We'll be attending it, of course. And you'll have more on that.

The second thing of course, is the financial crash and the economic situation.

And thirdly, I'm currently writing a paper, which is in preparation, for something which is to happen in February! So, we are looking a bit ahead, not just at the past, or today.

Well, I'll take these three things in a row. First of all, as you can get from today's briefing, which gives you a more up-to-date view of the matter, we are mobilizing the American people, as you would mobilize in a war. Now, in a war, you don't just go out and fight. You have to pick the places you choose to do battle. And you don't choose the place to do battle, because you "like that spot." You choose, because you can see in that choice, you can start a process of motion, in a war, which will lead toward victory in the war. So, you don't react to a situation, by simply reacting, on the basis of a short-term reaction: You look at the long-term consequences of the pathway you have chosen, to win a war.

Now, we have a case, in which we have a President, who is, as you have seen (I think, if you watched), this President is becoming more insane by the day. He has now got himself whipped up into a real "God complex." Now earlier, we had talked about President Bush, George W. Bush, being a mental case, who is largely controlled by people such as Condoleezza Rice, and is dominated, in terms of policy, strategic policy, by the Vice President, Dick Cheney. And we've mentioned people behind Cheney. We have focussed in particular on George Shultz, who is the one who sort of created Condoleezza Rice out of mud, and got Cheney out of a garbage pail. Such is our advisors.

Now, the President has gone through a change. The recent election has caused him to believe, that he is virtually God. And what has happened, is, he has now moved in to take over a number of issues, directly from the White House. These are not things that he dreamed up, but they're things that he has adopted as the things he's going to do, and he's done them in his typically stupid way.

For example: His created economic team. Remember, that if you followed the so-called debates on television, that he denied, emphatically, and said it was a lie to accuse him of planning to privatize Social Security. One of the things he's doing: He's pushing the privatization of Social Security, in the White House! And things like that.

Things on issues on strategic issues. He's flip-flopping, but he's pushing things, as if he were God: "I'm now the President. I can move the universe. I will repeal whatever laws of the universe I choose to repeal—because I'm God." This the way we stand right now.

So therefore, we are headed for a real crisis. Even in the political processes alone. But, when you consider the economic and financial situation, you begin to get the full impact of the insanity radiating from the White House, at present.

I'll give you an example of insanity: It is the history, since the Second World War, the history of development of covert operations, which happened beginning with the Office of Special Services, OSS, during the war. Now, OSS operations overseas were run by the State Department, not by the Defense Department. For example, we had a friend of ours who became the chief of field operations for OSS in Italy, up until the time that Roosevelt died. And he was working under the direction of the State Department.

In the post-war period, we were very careful in creating the security system, to separate the CIA and related institutions, from the military. We had one cross-over point, which was difficult: That was the National Security Agency. The National Security Agency was a spin-off in large part of the intelligence services or the communications services, of the military. We were very careful to keep special operations, out of the military, as much as possible. Even if they were military in character, we shifted them over to the CIA for covert operations, in order to avoid a situation, in which an act of intelligence operations in peacetime, would be construed as an act of war, or something tantamount to that, in dealing with another country.

Now, what Bush is pushing, with Goss's attack, from the White House, on the CIA—especially on the covert operations—is to shut down—it's not really getting revenge against some CIA people. This is an attempt to shut down, institutionally, a capability of the Central Intelligence Agency, and to transfer those functions to the military, to the Defense Department. Not to the military properly, but the Defense Department means military properly.

So therefore, that means, that intelligence operations of a type, the covert type, which used to be considered as diplomatic operations—if there was any complication as a result of them—it would flop back against the State Department—are now tantamount to a potential act of war, an act of aggression.

And that is what is going on from the White House.

You have, similarly, with the case of Gonzales being pushed. Gonzales is the guy who wrote the paper, on which the crimes perpetrated at Abu Ghraib and similar things, were done. The President is pushing that.

So, we have a dangerous idiot in the White House, operating with a God complex, who makes everything that's bad about this administration, makes it worse. And he believes that he has been given a mandate from Heaven, to do this. And he's not going to pay attention to anyone—in his own government, or outside—who has any expression of disagreement, who even blinks at him the wrong way!

Hah—you want to talk about Hitler? Well, this guy's not Hitler, because he's more stupid than Hitler. But otherwise, that's what we've got.

So, that is a major problem.

Now therefore, what're we going to do: Sit back for four years, and wait for the next election? Are we going to sit, and let the country go to Hell, and do nothing? Are we going to try to "get along," and "be nice," with this situation? We're not doing anything wrong! The President's wrong! And he's bad! He's violating our Constitution; he's violating everything. Including principles of good judgment. He's threatening this country! He's threatening the future of this country! He's as bad as an enemy spy, in the White House!

How do we deal with that? Without destroying the constitutional structure of our country? Because, we can not go out and act as rogues, against our own government, against our own Constitution. We have to operate within our constitutional framework, and what is understood as our constitutional framework, of legality.

Where does our attack go? Our attack goes to the political scene, again. We go at questions of law, legality, to defend legality, as kept within a constitutional framework. Where do you do that? Electoral issues! The most obvious thing: Human rights issues, electoral issues, things like that. But, especially electoral issues, that go directly to the question of government. And to the question of a bad election, which is what we have reported, as of now.

So therefore, we picked a place to start our battle. And we don't go out to lose battles. We don't pick battles to lose them; or where we might lose them; or where we're at a great disadvantage. We find a place, we can win a battle: A battle which is worth winning; a battle which has a moral justification; and a battle which is pertinent to our objective. In this case, human rights.

In the recent election process, the Republican Party in particular, especially the led by Cheney and by the President's advisor Karl Rove, went out to conduct a campaign, to try to discourage, or ban, voters who might vote Democratic, from the polls. This is called "voter suppression." Which is a violation of law, under Federal law. And is a violation of the Constitution. That is, the attempt to suppress the vote, of a category of people, for the purposes of determining the outcome of an election, is a crime on two counts: First of all, it's a crime against the Constitution, because otherwise the electoral process doesn't mean anything; and if you destroy the electoral process by which we compose our government, you are, now, violating the Constitution. So, it's an attack on the Constitution. It also is an attack on the rights of our citizens, the rights of our people. And therefore, it is a crime.

So therefore, in the recent election, what the Republicans did—and they did it conspicuously, including initiatives from Ashcroft, the Attorney General, in support of this effect—went out to suppress, by various means, many of them overt and well-known and done in public—to suppress the voting rights of intended voters, or categories of people, who they thought might swing the vote tally to the Democratic side over the Republican side.

Now, we've got them dead to rights: Because, in any instance of two cases, confirmed cases, of someone interfering with an election, to attempt to suppress the right to vote, of citizens, that is an offense under Federal law.

That is where we've chosen, to start the battle, to save the constitutional character of the U.S. government. And to attempt to save this nation, from the consequences of an administration, which has presently gone wild. Gone in the Adolf Hitler direction, quite literally. The man's nuts! And we said so, during the campaign: We were right. Those who said we were wrong, were wrong: This man is nuts.

And you've got a nut in the White House, looking for wars, looking for violations of human rights, against our own citizens as well as people abroad: That's a dangerous nut. It has to be controlled.

So, the fight for constitutionality has to begin with the choice of battle. Now, some people said, "Let's go out and fight for the vote recount." Well, that's not wrong to demand a recount. But, it doesn't win you the battle! And if you put all your forces into that, you're going to lose it! The way MoveOn and Howard Dean are trying to do—it's a mistake. You lose the battle from the start, and therefore you are going to discourage and demoralize—and lose the war!—for our Constitution's system.

Therefore, pick a battle we can win. And, the battle that the enemy can not afford to take away from us: Because, if the enemy wins that battle, by defeating us on this question of vote suppression, the U.S. government declares to the world that it is no longer a constitutional government. It has gone outside the realm of constitutionality, absolutely, in terms of the composition of government; in terms of the credibility of elections.

You want to talk about issues of election credibility in Ukraine? In which the United States is doing the greatest amount to cause that crisis there—by similar methods? You want to come back and say the United States has got the right to do that? Hah-hah-hah! Doesn't work: The world turns against you. And it has many grievances against the United States. The world has many grievances against this government of the United States, which are built up, especially, over the past period. Grievances, which also date from the way the Balkan Wars were run, under U.S. influence, together with the British.

And if the world, which is beginning to hate and fear the United States, finds the United States no longer has legitimacy at home, because of voter-rights suppression, and things like that, then the influence of the United States collapses. And we're in trouble.

All right, now, at the same time, as we warned you, the international monetary-financial system is disintegrating. The economy is disintegrating. But, knowing this, those behind the scenes, in the United States and Europe agreed to do certain tricks to postpone the general financial collapse of the system, until after the Nov. 2 election in the United States. That agreement was made earlier in this past year. It was one of the reasons why the electoral campaigns of the Democratic Party, in the primaries, were so screwy: Because they were impelled not to raise certain issues, the issue of the economy. And being impelled not to raise the issue of the economy, they had virtually nothing to talk about. And they were out there, impotent, stomping around, assuming the economy's all right. And therefore lying to the American people, when the American people are suffering, as a result of the economic developments.

Now, the ability to postpone that has ended. And the ability to negotiate agreements to deal with that, has collapsed because of the putative election, or re-election, of George W. Bush: That agreements that could have been reached, between the United States and European countries, on trying to handle the inevitable crisis that's coming on now, those agreements are not possible. And therefore, the breakdown—which is not caused by Europeans; it's caused by the Bush Administration—the breakdown in international relations on this issue, caused by the Bush Administration, and by the insanity of the President himself, has brought on the already-onrushing, temporarily delayed financial crisis, with a vengeance.

And so, we're now in the process of breakdown. That means, that between now and Jan. 20, when the so-called inauguration is to occur—who knows what we're inaugurating? a chimpanzee?—that all kinds of things can happen, and are likely to happen.

The international monetary-financial system is now in a breakdown collapse. This fluctuation, recently, this past week, in the price of petroleum: Somebody has dumped large holdings, based on financial derivatives—large holdings, in petroleum futures, on the market. We don't know exactly who has done it. We have this "China Aviation Oil" company, which is the subject of this. But, we don't know, because of the complexity of derivatives operations, we don't know exactly where the problem lies. Though many people suspect that it's British Petroleum, which dumped a lot of its holdings, its financial-derivatives-based holdings in petroleum, on the market to try to bail itself out of a crisis. Maybe it wasn't British Petroleum, but they're involved in it. Somebody did it.

Now, this collapse in the petroleum price, at the same time that the dollar is collapsing, as it collapsed again another notch yesterday, at the same time that other collapses are occurring, signify the extreme turbulence in the international monetary system. And we must expect a big hole in your Christmas stocking. So that, by Jan. 20, no one knows what the condition of the world will be. But we do know, that the way it's going now, whatever that hole is going to be, it's going to be horrible.

So that, in this time, the policies of the U.S. government, are going to undergo shocking changes: both for the worse; and also, in the sense that the willingness to fight, or the sense of the need to fight, will increase.

Now, the problem is, that, outside the Democratic Party presently, and outside the circle with which we are cooperating, there is no effective resistance against this developing situation. The hearings which are called by Representative Conyers, for the Congress for this coming week, are a rallying point. He's put out a whole series of things which are all very substantial, very carefully researched, very carefully prepared. They're right: to start the fight, to open—on the floor of the Congress—to open the battle, the choice of first battle, in the beginning of a war, a war which we intend to win.

And while various people are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, such as Howard Dean's MoveOn, we are moving with deliberation, and with care, to choose a course of battle, or series of battles, which leads in the directions of an opportunity for victory.

We're also doing something else: If we do not launch this war, now, in this way, when we reach the point of crisis where people are ready to admit a change is needed, there won't be an army in the field. So, our mobilization is to keep the army in the field. To keep the process of mobilizing, around these battles, the correct choice of battles. To keep the army in the field, just as the American Revolution was fought, under George Washington: Keep the army in the field, as when going across the River Delaware, to attack the Hessians, or the long battle at Valley Forge. This kind of approach to warfare, as like MacArthur, for example, in the Pacific war, starting from Australia to win the war against Japan.

We're in that kind of war, politically. We've chosen the first scene of battle, in what will be a series of battles, to win a war. Now, when you've got to your eye on the relationship between the battle and the war, you don't say, "Are we going to win this battle?" Well, we say, "We're going to choose a battle we don't intend to lose. Or, that if we have to retreat from this battle, we will retreat having gained strength for the next battle."

And that's the way it'll go.

Now. Then, the third question: The question of what we plan for February. On Jan. 12, we will be having the first of a series of international seminars, among select representatives from various countries, on the subject of Strategic Perspectives for Reorganization of a Planet in Danger. The first will occur, as I said, in Europe; where people from Russia, the United States, and so forth, will be meeting, with some others, for a high-level discussion among people who are influential representatives of currents in their own countries.

We intend to go beyond that, to a second meeting for which the preparation will be made in the first. The second meeting is presently tentatively scheduled for February: And this will involve, the question of the global relations between European civilization, as such—that is, the United States and the Americas, Europe and the Americas—and Asia. And the paper that I'm producing now, from a U.S. standpoint, is focussed on both of these, but especially on the second: on the February target conference.

The question we have, is this: We in the United States, whether it's clear in your heads, yet or not, we in the United States are the only viable form of constitutional republic on the planet today. Now, we violate our Constitution, and we've violated it terribly, in the recent period. But our Constitution is still the only Constitution, which is a model for a modern nation-state, sovereign nation-state.

This was shown in the last great war, under Roosevelt. Remember, all of Continental Europe west of the Soviet borders, was taken over by fascism, beginning by the British-led operation under a Venetian banker, Volpi di Misurata, which put Mussolini into power in 1922. And Volpi di Misurata, more than Mussolini, was the actual designer of that Fascist regime, and that policy of fascist regimes.

This was done by a group of international bankers, in which Italy, under Volpi di Misurata, was the first blow. This went on, to actually get the Hitler dictatorship and the other fascist dictatorships, which had taken over all of Europe, west of the Soviet borders, during this period; during the period from 1922 through 1945, through May-June 1945.

Now, the United States under Franklin Roosevelt, prevented the United States from going into fascism. And the role of the United States under Roosevelt, not only stopped fascism from coming here, but it actually was a key factor, without which the world, as a whole, would have gone under fascism, and under, in fact, the Nazi world domination.

So, this is typical of a special quality in the United States, which is lacking in Europe, and which is lacking also, in a different way, in a more general way, throughout countries outside European civilization—Asian countries for example, China, India, so forth.

So therefore, today, we in the United States have in our constitutional form of government (as opposed to what Bush is doing, for example), we are the only nation on this planet, which is capable of mobilizing other nations into a concert of forces, to deal with the present threat. The reason is simple: The world is dominated, and has been dominated increasingly since 1783—since Feb. 10, 1763, in a treaty at Paris, under which the British East India Company became an empire. Not the British monarchy, that came later, but, the British East India Company.

Now, the British East India Company was known in that century as the "Venetian Party." That is, that in a process of succession, what had been for a long time the power of Venice, a Venice then allied earlier with the Norman chivalry, had dominated medieval Europe, from about 1000 A.D. until the end of the 14th Century; had dominated Europe with what was called an "ultramontane" system, or the medieval system. There had been, in this period, from the time of Charlemagne on, attempts to establish modern nation-states, based on the principle of the common good, starting with Charlemagne. But, the Venetian influence, as a successor to the power of Byzantium earlier, had moved to crush the attempt, from Charlemagne's time on, to create a nation-state.

The struggle continued. The case of Abelard of Paris; the case of Dante Alighieri; the case of Frederick II Hohenstauffen, for example, were examples of this: of the fight to establish a nation-state against the so-called ultramontane interests, which was actually simply a Venetian financier-oligarchy, working in partnership with the Norman chivalry. The crowd that ran the Crusades, for example.

So, the first modern nation-state was established on the heels of a great financial collapse of the Venetian system, temporarily, in the so-called 15th-Century Renaissance: where the foundations of the first modern nation-state were established, which gave us the first modern nation-states, in France under Louis XI, and in England, following Louis XI, under Henry VII.

But then, the Venetians, with the taking of Constantinople (which they organized) by the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, organized by the Venetians, the Venetians came back in power. The Venetians ran, from 1492, essentially, beginning with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, by this Nazi, the Grand Inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada, ran religious warfare in Europe, up through 1648, through the Treaty of Westphalia, in the attempt to exterminate the modern nation-state, which had emerged around the Council of Florence, the idea around the Council of Florence, and around Louis XI's France and Henry VII's England.

Out of that, there was a new attempt to establish the modern nation-state, which centered around Cardinal Mazarin, who had been the chief architect of the peace Treaty of Westphalia, in 1648, and his designated successor, Jean-Baptiste Colbert of France. But, as a result of the Fronde-based corruption of Louis XIV, who played into the hands of an Anglo-Dutch Liberal crowd—the Anglo-Dutch Liberal crowd was nothing but the Venetians, speaking Dutch and English. So, the Anglo-Dutch Liberal crowd orchestrated a series of wars, concluding with the so-called Seven Years' War, which established the British East India Company, on Feb. 10, 1763, as the dominant power on the planet, and imperial power.

And this party, this Liberal party, this Anglo-Dutch Liberal party, was then called—and called itself—the "Venetian Party" because it was a continuation of, and reincarnation of, in English-speaking form, of the Venetian party of yore.

So, as a result of that, we fought, with support from Europe, to establish a republic in this country, which would be independent of the imperial power, centered then in Britain, of the British East India Company: That was the issue of the American Revolution, from 1763 on. And by 1766, it had become clear to the Americans, led by Benjamin Franklin, that a break with England was now inevitable, because Britain was an empire which would not tolerate the existence of sovereign nation-states in the world. And so therefore, we fought for our independence, with support from Europe, to establish on our shores, the first, true modern nation-state, constitutional nation-state.

And our Constitution, echoing the Leibnizian principle of our Declaration of Independence, is, to this day, the only state on this planet, which has a Constitution, a constitutional principle, which is consistent with the requirements of a true modern nation-state.

And, the fact that Franklin Roosevelt was able to invoke that legacy, as Abraham Lincoln had earlier, enabled the United States to lead in the resistance, uniquely, of the successful defeat of Nazism in that period.

But, the threat of Nazism, came from the Venetian Party. That is, from a syndicate of international financier-oligarchical families, which control the central banking systems, the so-called "independent central banking systems," of Europe, and which attempt to control, similarly, the United States. These are the same interests, which have taken over, in 1971-72, taken over—entirely, top down—the IMF, the World Bank and so forth.

So, we are in a situation, now, in which, we are now faced with a new threat of fascism, a threat of fascism, which comes from the same international financier-oligarchy, that brought us the Hitler threat of the 1920s—for the same motive. We are now the only nation on this planet, which constitutionally, is free of control by a so-called "independent central banking system": which is nothing but a gangster syndicate, of Venetian-style financier-oligarchical interests.

Our job, now, as under Roosevelt, is to move to save the world from what would otherwise be an almost inevitable plunge into global chaos, a Dark Age: by mobilizing the United States to play the same kind of role, now, that it played under Franklin Roosevelt, during the 1933-1945 interval. In this process, our task is, today, as Roosevelt envisaged it before he died, that to win the war against fascism, by moving quickly to free the planet from the last vestiges of colonialism, i.e., British-led, British-style imperialism. This was the intention. This would have meant countries such as India, others, would have immediately had independence, with U.S. backing, and we would have cooperated with them for developing, in their own countries, forms of government consistent with our own principle, according to their taste; but consistent with our own principle.

That was stopped, the minute Roosevelt died. Because Truman, who was an agent of the enemy, that is, of these enemy forces, went over with Churchill and company, to impose several things: First of all, Truman stopped the peace treaty, or the surrender of Japan, with the Emperor of Japan. It was under the Truman Administration. The negotiation had already been made. The minute that the United States said it would sign a peace treaty with the Emperor of Japan, and acknowledge his authority as Emperor, the Japanese were ready to surrender. Truman, or the Truman Administration, prevented that from happening, because the Truman Administration intended to use the nuclear bombs, that it could not use on Germany any more (it had intended to bomb Germany with the nuclear weapons: Berlin). It could not do that. Therefore, they wanted to do it, someplace else. And they did it, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There was no military reason, for dumping those nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was done for geopolitical reasons, to establish a principle of conflict, under the Truman Administration. This policy of Truman was partly halted, when the news came, in the middle of the Korean War, that the Soviet Union had developed the first operational thermonuclear weapon. At that point, the Truman policy of preventive nuclear war, the same policy we have from Cheney today, was stopped. And the world shifted to what was called "thermonuclear detente." This was a process over the course of the 1950s, leading into the agreement of 1962, with Kennedy, and so forth—negotiated by the author of preventive nuclear warfare: Bertrand Russell.

So now, we came into a system, beginning with Truman's change, reversal of the policies under Roosevelt, we're now back at the same point: We're at the verge of a fascist takeover of Europe, and elsewhere, which would lead to dictatorship. And once again, the United States is called by destiny, to lead the fight to prevent the takeover of the world by a form of Nazism, worse than that which Hitler represented, back in the 1930s and 1940s.

Only our Constitution provides the basis in constitutional law, for the kind of leadership which we must now provide. And therefore, our Constitution is what we must rally around, and fight for, to restore it to its true authority in principle, as specified by the Preamble of the Constitution in particular; and to mobilize and encourage the forces around the world to join with us, to avert this terrible thing which is about to descend upon the planet as a whole.

In this process, we face unfinished business. In European civilization, that is, Western Europe, Europe in general, the Americas, and some other spots around the world, there's a clear understanding of the principles, or the general characteristics of a sovereign nation-state. You have to understand, that in most of the world—in Asian countries, for example—the idea of a sovereign nation-state does not exist. There are a few cases where it does—but in general, no.

So that, when you're talking about trying to create a world order, of peaceful cooperation, of principle, among a system of sovereign nation-states—as opposed to this fascism, called "globalization"—you find that on the other side of the fence, in the Asian countries, there is no clarity about what a sovereign nation-state actually is. There's a certain sense of trying to imitate, as you see in China, as you see in India and so forth, a sense to imitate what looks from the outside like the good features of a sovereign nation-state of a European type. But, there's no understanding of principle of that.

For example: Take the case of India. You have, out of over a billion people now in India, you have about 300 million who are living in, shall we say, acceptable conditions of life—wealthy to acceptable. But, you have about 700 million people who are extremely poor. Who are living under a nation, like India, virtually as human cattle.

You find, in China, a parallel condition; different but parallel. China has a population of over 1.3 billion people. But, again, in a country which has some people who are well-off, productive, skilled, well-educated, you have a larger part of the population is poor, extremely poor, and deprived of those conditions of life, which we would consider acceptable for citizens.

We have, still, therefore, in Asia, acceptance of the idea—a long-suffering acceptance, that some people are destined to live the life of endangered human cattle.

Now, the difference of European civilization is, since the Renaissance in particular, has been the constitutional sense that we must not subject whole categories of people to the conditions of life of enslaved, or other human cattle: That all people have the right to exist as human beings, and as citizens of republics. That idea is not clearly established, functionally, in Asian countries. Yes, we've taken steps backward in our own country. But: We, in European civilization, either understand, or have a conditioning to, the idea of a true nation-state, in which every person in that state has inherent human rights to be human, not to be human cattle.

In Asia, this is not established. It is regretted. The respect for humanity is there; sympathy for human beings is there. But, the idea of a system of government which assures that as a right, an efficient right, does not exist.

So therefore, if we're going to establish on this planet, what must be established—largely because of conditions of warfare, technology, whatnot—a system of sovereign nation-states, as a community, a cooperating community, then we have the challenge of entering into a principled agreement among nation-states, a treaty agreement among nation-states, to that effect: Which means that nations of Asian background must understand what many of them do not yet understand: How Europe developed, among all parts of the world, Europe developed the first, and only, clear conception of a system of government which guaranteed the human rights of all persons. We may not have lived up to that, but we adopted the principle. In Asia, generally, that principle is not clearly adopted.

So therefore, our problem in bringing the world together, for something like the Treaty of Westphalia, a treaty of agreement, long-term agreement among nation-states, like the Treaty of Westphalia, depends upon our winning the people of Asia and elsewhere to an understanding of this principle, of the sovereign nation-state. And thus, we have to enter into, not a negotiation on differences—that's nonsense, it won't work. It'll be just another piece of minestrone, a stupid soup. We have to win them to an understanding, an insight, into what the principle of the modern nation-state is, as distinct from the habits of Asia—and some of the habits which persist in European parts of the world.

So, that's what we're doing. If we're going to come out of this, we must pull the world out of the greatest financial crisis, the world has ever known, which is now onrushing. We have to bring agreement among states, which are part of the European heritage, the modern European civilization's heritage. But we have, at the same time, to deal with the reality of the growing population of Asia, and other countries outside the European system: We must establish a global agreement, in the form of a treaty agreement, like the Treaty of Westphalia among nations.

But, in order to do that, we must also have a comprehension, of what the principle of that agreement must be. And that is a responsibility, which at the present time, is rather unique to me, personally, because of my position in our organization and so forth.

So therefore, that's what that's about. Okay. That's what I had to say.

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