LAROUCHE WEBCAST
Cancel Wall Street! Go for
Glass-Steagall & the Fusion Economy
[PDF version of this transcript]
In his weekly Friday evening webcast Sept. 27, Lyndon LaRouche was joined by several members of the LaRouche Policy Committee, Bill Roberts, Kesha Rogers, Rachel Brown, and Michael Steger, and by moderator Matthew Ogden, who read the first question, from a Washington, D.C. source.
Q: Mr. LaRouche: With the agreement on a new United Nations Security Council resolution on Syria, and the recent P5+1 meeting in New York City, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, there has been potentially serious progress toward resolving the two most dangerous crises in the Middle East region. Secretary of State Kerry met with Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif in the highest-level official meeting between the two countries since the Islamic Revolution, and the attitude of the new Iranian government seems to be open to a successful P5+1 agreement.
Russia's efforts at reviving the Geneva II process, and the Syrian government's signing of the chemical weapons ban, and moving forward to the verifiable destruction of all of the chemical weapons stockpiles, has so far moved the process forward in a way that was not possible just a few months ago.
Of course, President Obama has been severely boxed in by an outpouring of public opposition from the American people, and a bipartisan war-avoidance effort led by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a coalition of representatives and senators.
Our question to you is the following: Can these recent breakthroughs with Syria and Iran lead to an overall paradigm shift in the Middle East, away from the traditional Great Game? What are the necessary conditions for such a shift?
Obama Is on the Skids
Lyndon LaRouche: Well, the question would appear complicated. For me it's not complicated, but when you try to explain it to people, it becomes complicated for them. Because the situation now is that essentially, President Obama is ready to be ditched. When and how that ditching might occur is uncertain, and there could a countermeasure or more complicated measure. But, we're in the period where the current President is on the skids, shall we say, and it's a question of how slippery those skids may prove to be. It could be longer or shorter. But right now, the general opinion, in terms of leading circles in the United States, and to some degree, abroad, is in a direction of ending the Obama Administration. That's the direction. Now other things could happen, but this is the general trend right now.
The problems are many. We know what the breaking points are, and the uncertainties lie in who's going to trip and fall first.
For example, Obama could trip and fall very easily. And institutions around Washington and so forth are aware of this, and are being alert for this. There's a great degree of discussion and examination of what the prospects might be. It's an unstable situation, but the direction is sliding downhill, for Obama.
It could be other things. There's always an accident that can happen quickly.
For example: The Queen of England is indisposed, shall we say, and she and her husband are presently permanently indisposed. William, the crown prince, so to speak, is scheduled on the skids to be the next King of the British Isles—even though the British Isles may be broken because the Scots may kick their way out of it.
So, it's that kind of complication, in the sense that there are certain things that are uncertain about the situation. But the trend is correct. The trend is, we're on the road, if we are successful, to dump this President; and the complications include a number of nutty Republicans, who are really clinically insane, as far as I can determine. So, there are complicating factors all over the place. But essentially I would say that the current President is on the skids. It's a question of how soon, and how fast he slips.
As of now, until we get a new government, nothing is certain. And I think that's what people in Washington and in relevant circles would conclude. The point is, apparently, this Administration is on the skids. How fast Obama is going to slide down, or whether he trips, all of these things—he's an unstable personality anyway. So, therefore, you have this unpredictability factor in him. And he's faced with a situation he will never be able to accept, which means that he's a freak show on his own.
So, that's where we stand. We're now at a point where we have a highly unstable situation. The leaning of options is toward an early dumping of this President, or his capitulation, or his giving up the ghost, or whatever. But there is a chance, a very good chance, that this can be a winnable situation for the United States, and other nations, in the immediate future.
The Real Cost of Bailing Out Wall Street
Matthew Ogden: Now I'm going to transition directly into a subject that we had a discussion with you about last night. This is on the matter of the deterioration of the standard of living of the American people since the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999, in conjunction with the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York, Sept. 11, 2001. I'm going to ask Bill Roberts to come to the podium, to ask the first in a series of questions on this matter.
Bill Roberts: Lyn, you raised the real factor of the cost of supporting Wall Street and the financial institutions, in terms of the hyperinflationary increase in cost to the American population of certain basic commodities—grocery items, housing, and these types of things—especially since the attacks on Sept. 11, but also dramatically, since the Quantitative Easing and earlier such bailouts of Wall Street.
And I just wanted to read a few statistics, which I think are rather shocking, since people may not even quite realize just how dramatically the cost of basic things has increased over this period.
Obviously, the price of gasoline has increased dramatically, from about $1.46 [in 2001], as a national average, to around $3.59 today. The cost of residential heating oil has increased from about $1.38 a gallon to about $3.65 a gallon. The average cost of monthly rent has gone from about $715 to about $1,100 a month. New home prices, on average, have increased from about $136,000 to today about $242,000. And if you go through the basic grocery store items, you'll find, across the board, an increase on a large number of items, a 50-100% increase, or more, on even basic things like bread, flour. Eggs have more than doubled in price.
Now, that's price. That's a monetary figure, and on the one hand, if people's incomes increased that much, you would say you would maintain a kind of breakeven. However, just since 2009, if you look at the increase in the earnings of the American population just over the last four years, 95% have only increased their income by about $500 over four years—so, in other words, only about $11 a month.
However, if you look at the top 1% of the income earners, their average income over this four-year period has increased by an average of $1 million.
And so, what we're looking at is that the American people are being absolutely screwed by this bailout. The American population has been lied to by the American President, about us coming out of this recession, but clearly there is sort of a "frog in the boiling pot" syndrome. The American population has been clearly lied to about the real cost of the bailout, and I want you to just tell the American people the truth about this process.
LaRouche: Well, it's easy to tell the truth; it's difficult to tell people the truth, because they'll be so shocked, once they get the picture.
You have actually two aspects to the income in and out of the United States. One, you have what the ordinary people, and ordinary businesses and so forth are experiencing. Then you have Wall Street and its international counterparts. They are in the highest rate of hyperinflation of all.
What this means practically is this: Obviously we intend to end this nonsense, because we cannot just go on killing our own people. We cannot do that. So, therefore something else is going to have to give way. And what's going to have to give way? Wall Street. Everything that Wall Street represents, both in the United States and outside the United States, is intrinsically worthless—intrinsically. There is no justification for them receiving any money.
Now, you look at this crazy thing that goes on in terms of counting up the figures. It's a complete fraud! And what will have to happen: Suppose we put in Glass-Steagall; it's what we have to do. What will be the effect in various categories, including Wall Street? Wall Street will be wiped out, as it should be, because its claims are absolutely worthless. Maybe there's some fractional thing that's of significance. But what we've been doing in this Quantitative Easing policy, is actually characteristic of this whole system.
The United States will collapse if we don't shut down Wall Street! That's inevitable. There's no way you can maintain Wall Street and the United States at the same time.
We Are at a Breaking Point
Now you also have the Queen of England and her husband, and the British royal family. Now, they are on their last legs. I don't know how many legs they have, but whatever it is, they're on the last of them. She is extremely ill, in various ways; he is monstrously ill. The entire British royal family, except for William or something like that, is just not eligible to function, if the thing is breaking down.
So, therefore, we're at a breakdown point. First, we're at a breakdown point, in terms of the United States, in terms of the economy. There's no way you can solve this thing peacefully. Those costs that he [Roberts] has cited are absolutely unjustified. There's no possible way of justifying them. They have to be cut—arbitrarily, if necessary—and just cut these things along the line. We're going to have to cut most from Wall Street, because Wall Street is nothing but a swindle, a pure swindle. There's no justification for Wall Street's existence in its present form. If we were to make an honest case for Wall Street, they would get a pittance, relative to what they have outstanding. Because what they're putting forward is gambling debts. Wall Street has one kind of asset: gambling debts. And if you cancel those gambling debts, Wall Street is finished. Well, Wall Street has to be finished, because it's a question of, are you going to have the United States and other nations, or are you going to have a hopeless situation for mankind?
So, that's where it stands. Now, the trouble is, that those people who are "in the business," shall we say, don't want to talk about that. But the fact of the matter is, the Quantitative Easing program, which is the most guilty thing in this whole process, shows you that we're dealing with nothing but an out-and-out fraud.
So, the point is, the only solution is to cancel Wall Street. How do you do that? Glass-Steagall! The installation of Glass-Steagall will immediately force the collapse of Wall Street. And that is the blessed event we're waiting for. Children coming along as blessed events, that's fine, but this is a real blessed event, getting Wall Street shut out of business. And it's the only way the United States can be saved. The United States will die if we don't cancel Wall Street. And I don't think the United States should die.
An Abusive Relationship
Kesha Rogers: I want to follow up on that very point. I think we have made our intention in this organization very clear, that we must cancel Wall Street now. We have to shut down the looting and the pillaging by Wall Street. But I want to get at the fundamental thinking of the relationship of the population to Wall Street. Because it's almost like a battered-wife-to-her-abusive-husband syndrome. There was a poll that recently came out, asking: Do you think that Wall Street lies? Do you think that Wall Street steals? Do they pillage? Do they rape the population?
And of course, an overwhelming number of people say "yes." But, at the same time, when asked: But do we need Wall Street? Is Wall Street an important facility?, more than 67% or so overwhelmingly still said, "Yes, we need Wall Street."
So, I think that the population needs some uplifting. They need to understand why they don't have to take this abuse anymore; why, if we crush Wall Street, we can once again lift the population out of this abusive relationship, into a relationship of understanding what their truly human identity is, and how we can progress as mankind once again.
So, can you give the population some uplifting as to why we don't need Wall Street?
LaRouche: Yes! Delighted to do so!
Well, the point is the fact that people are not confident that they can get rid of Wall Street. That's the only reason they would answer the question in those terms. They don't think they have the power to be rid of Wall Street. They think Wall Street will persist, and they're going to have to deal with it, and hope they can negotiate with it for a better deal—which will never happen.
So, therefore, put that thing to one side.
Wall Street has got to go down.
Now, the way it has to go down, is a series of operations; and you have to think about the psychology of the great mass of American citizens and so forth, to understand how this thing works. What you have to do, is take some preemptive measures, first of all. What's a preemptive measure? Well, break Wall Street! Preempt it! But that can only happen if you have set up a substitute to sustain the incomes of our people. That means you've got to take over from Wall Street, and have our government actually take these things away from Wall Street—which they don't deserve, in their looting—and transfer that kind of wealth that's available as a result, to the people. Because once the people see that their government will treat them fairly, they're not going to want Wall Street at all. As a matter of fact, they don't want Wall Street now; they just are afraid of losing it.
And therefore, the question here is one of leadership. You know, people are voted in to something, and therefore they have this authority, and they're re-elected, but all these terrible things happen to [the voters].
So, therefore the issue here, is to recognize the fact that we don't have a government we trust, and we haven't had one for some time.
So, therefore, there are too many Bushes out there. And they're not burning bushes, though that might be an improvement. But the Bush family, including the grandpa Bush, Prescott, the one who put Adolf Hitler into power in Germany; and the son, George H.W. Bush, was wimpy, but he was also very evil. And I think he's now running around in a kiddy car, or something like that; now he's on sort of a quasi-retirement program. And the grandson is also a mental case of some characteristics. So, we don't need the Bushes! Moses was the one who dealt with the bushes, and that's the end of it! So, we don't need Bushes, but we do need a government!
So, the first thing we have to do, is get the Glass-Steagall program. Get the Glass-Steagall program through. Make it clear that's what we're committed to. That commitment has not been stated. If members of Congress would say that they're committed to a Glass-Steagall program, and what that means, and a new basis and a new deal—a new real New Deal—for the American citizen. Assure them that they have security under the government, without these [Wall Street] creeps being brought into the deal.
That's where it stands. That's all we need. We've got to win the confidence of the people. And the problem is, like, these crazy Republicans in the House, who are making a mess of everything: This kind of confusion actually causes fear among the people. They think this thing's going to get shut down, there's no justice, there's going to be some kind of rough treatment. So, therefore, we have to attack those kinds of Republicans, and tell them if they want to play these games, they should get the hell out of the Congress, because there's no place for people like that under these circumstances.
But the essential thing is, our job is to assure the people, in fair and clear terms, that we are determined—and can be efficient in that, if we're given the power to do so—to ensure that they will be taken care of fairly—that they can count on it. Once they have a demonstration of that assurance, they will be fully for it, as they were for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932-33.
A Few Good Presidents
Rachel Brown: We had a banner on Capitol Hill this week that said "Shut Down Wall Street! Not the Government!" And you're right, that it's just been a total distraction for Congress and the people. Anyone watching the media thinking that this is a real thing is very childish, in the face of what is really happening.
So, I just wanted to read a quick quote from your recent paper, "Man Is No Beast" [EIR, Aug. 30, 2013], where you say: "It would be foolish of nations today, to assume that the right to govern anyone, or several nations, were merely a matter of a legal contract of some sort. Neither a mere contract, nor the lack of one, could fairly define the truly valid basis for a role of the government of a people. There must be some inherent principle respecting the discovered nature of a self-government of a people. It must be a principle which is inherent in the intrinsically noëtic powers of the human species. It is those creative powers, as distinct from those of the beasts, which alone define a system of natural law among human beings, and therefore mankind's predetermined rights and obligations."
I thought you could discuss the real role of government, as opposed to how people are acting, as it is right now.
LaRouche: You know, most of our Presidents in the past have been stinkers. They really have! We have very few Presidents who've actually been worthy of the appointment. This is a matter of fact. One of them was Franklin Roosevelt.
Now, Franklin Roosevelt, knowing that, and trying to lead the American people who had been beaten up again and again by swindlers, had to address the people in a way, to get himself elected first of all, and also to maintain his role as President, through the difficult years of an attempted recovery. So, what he had was a series of talks, of Fireside Chats. In these Fireside Chats, he simply stated, again and again and again, and exemplified these statements by illustrations of the points, what his points were, and on this basis, he received the increasing support of the American citizen.
And that was the way the recovery occurred. The moment he was dead, the U.S. Presidency went in the opposite direction. We had a definitive turn for the better later on, with another President [John F. Kennedy], who got himself shot, by people on the wrong side of the ticket, inside the United States itself. It was an inside job, to kill this President, and immediately a lot of people, including the Dulles crowd, took over the direction of our Presidency.
And since that time, and since the assassination of Kennedy's brother Robert, there have been Presidents who were not bad. But when you look at the Bush family, and the Bush family history, and some other things like that, you understand why nothing seemed to work—why a Bush, another Bush, the son of the guy who put Hitler into power in Germany, took over, in a virtual Vice President job, but then went into an actual Vice Presidency, for two terms, then became a President for one term, after he was almost thrown out. And then another President came in for two terms. And then we had this monster in 2001, which was the 9/11 event. And since that time, we haven't had a decent occupant of the Presidency. That's been the situation.
So, therefore, we have to understand these things, and tell the people it's the truth!—as I just summed up some of the highlights of the truth: This is the truth! We had a great President who was assassinated at the beginning of the last century [William McKinley]. Then we had a string of Presidents who weren't worth much, and some who were totally negative. We had nothing until Franklin Roosevelt that was worth mentioning, and after his death, we plunged back into the same kind of crap again for a while. Then we got a President, a former commander in war [Dwight Eisenhower], and he did something to ameliorate the problems, but then Jack Kennedy came in, squired by Eleanor Roosevelt, who was his chief advisor and campaign manager, in fact. And then they killed him.
Since that time, there has been no net progress in the conditions of life of the U.S. population—no net progress whatsoever. We have yet to have a President who is either willing to, or willing but not able to, because the opposition was too strong. We have not had decent Presidents most of the time of the existence of the U.S. Presidency. We've had skunks, of all kinds, again, and again, and again. We've had assassinations of the best Presidents—not all of them, but most of them who went out, were assassinated, or given something like that treatment.
So, the American people have not had a clear shot. Now we're coming back to the point, that we have to realize, given this, and given the kind of swine that have occupied the Presidential chair, that you have to do a lot of hard work to regain the trust of the American citizen. And that's the first thing that anybody coming into a position of power, or advising power, has to take into account. You have to have a President who the American people can trust, and who they can believe they can trust. And that's what's essential. As Franklin Roosevelt demonstrated, if you do that, you can probably govern effectively—but just don't die on them.
Energy-Flux Density Is the Proper Measure
Michael Steger: As people probably know, the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report—of Climategate fame—has come out today, and the scientists of any decency are running as far away as possible from it. It is a clear fraud. It is virtual global warming, virtually, possibly, with high confidence.
Scientifically, this report has been shown as a fraud. There's been no global warming—on this planet, at least—since 1998. We've got an ice sheet growing in the process. But more to the point, is that this entire environmental agenda that was developed explicitly in the wake of John Kennedy's death, to shut down the progress and development that you just referenced, by our great Presidents. In that context, since 2001, we have seen a doubling of our electrical rates in the United States, while we've seen a plummet of the real income of the American people.
Now you have politicians in all layers of American politics, who have come out and said, "Look, this is not a Great Recession, this is a Great Depression, with a capital 'D.' " And in the same context, we had a member in California, who said he's renounced his membership in the environmental movement, in essence—that this has destroyed the jobs and the livelihoods of his people, and this can no longer stand.
At the same time, we had a protest of sorts by 20 members of Congress against the recent decisions by the Obama Administration to essentially shut down any new coal plants in the United States, which is 40% today of the electricity of our country. And members of Congress made relevant points: One, this is a depression. Two, this is the basis of manufacturing, and of industry and development, currently in the United States.
But I think the real point—as people know who have been following these webcasts now for nearly a year, and perhaps your work for longer—is that the real question is energy-flux density. And as the recent report by the Basement Team on "Nuclear [[NAWAPA XXI:]] Gateway to a Fusion Economy" [[http://archive.larouchepac.com/node/27962]] shows, had we committed to the ambition and ideals of John Kennedy's Presidency, we would today have doubled, not our price of electricity, we would have doubled the kilowatt-hours per person in the United States—that is a much more true metric of profit in a human economy than any games on the New York Stock Exchange, or any other accounting measures.
So I think the question does come down to a question of energy-flux density, and I think it's appropriate for you to address more your sense of this process.
LaRouche: Well, that energy-flux density is the proper measure. But you want to get a good grip on that, rather than just treat it as a reply to a question.
The human species is unique among all living species, and it is that uniqueness of the human species over all other living species, which defines the proper approach to that question. For example—you have, as I've said on a number of occasions, but it's worth repeating—mankind emerged, to our knowledge, in southern Africa, which was a convenient climate at that time for that to happen. We don't know exactly where the first man, as man, was born, but we have indications from archaeological evidence, that mankind was discovered, by careful calculations of scientists, was calculated to have used fire for cooking his food, her food.
Now, from that point on, mankind has always moved, in general, when successful, up the ladder of thermodynamic growth. And that growth, which went through various levels of chemistry to higher orders of chemistry, has been the defining characteristic of a human society: that you go up the scale, by going to higher forms of energy-flux density. And this is, of course, a doctrine that I've been preaching for a long time. The measure of progress of mankind is energy-flux density, and the usefulness of the form of energy-flux density—a gain.
Thermonuclear Fusion Is the Future
Now, we've come to a point, where the precondition for the future of mankind on this planet—the future precondition—is now thermonuclear fusion. Thermonuclear fusion is now the one basis on which to launch the resurrection of the human species to full capability.
And this means essentially now, because Europe is such a mess—made a mess by the euro system, by the British system. And then we have a Queen who is no longer capable of being competent, even if she wished to be, and her last stroke was pretty much incompetence or worse. The whole wretched family is a stinking mess. And you have Prince William, who is sort of a junior to the job, and has not yet been called in to work. I don't know how well he would work, but he's the only one I know of that really is likely to be successful at being a king of the British Empire or something.
So, that's what the point is. So, now we have to look at these things in these terms: Are we increasing the energy-flux density of the way we generate our sources of power? If we are not, then we are going down. We're going down in the direction of the road to extinction. The alternative now, is you have two ways—higher energy-flux density. Well, there's one thing you can do with it. One thing you can do with it, is to empower production: raise the standard of living of the human species; increase the power of defense of the human species against asteroids and things of that nature, which are roaming around looking for suckers. Or, on the other side, we can hope and pray.
So, the best thing we can do, is to concentrate our policy on going toward a thermonuclear fusion standard in developing the future economy of the planet. That's what it is. Anybody who has anything contrary to that to say, is an idiot, or a villain of some kind!
Now, we're not going to get controlled thermonuclear fusion right away; it's going to take time to get it, because people have been sitting on thermonuclear fusion for a long time. It should have been going into effect in the beginning of the 1970s! It was ready to go into effect about that time—that is, to build the process. And you know, we've had all these decades in which we haven't done anything, or we've gone backwards.
So therefore, we have to have a policy of saying, "We're going to go toward a thermonuclear-fusion drive of empowerment of the trans-Pacific region. Why? Well, because it's there—because we have problems of the water supplies in the United States, from the Mississippi on westward, across the Pacific, and into parts of Asia. And a thermonuclear-fusion program, built up from the beginning now, will lead, in some time, a decade or so, to the time we have a thermonuclear-fusion driver in the trans-Pacific region of the planet, which will spread to other parts of the region. That is the only program of substance which can actually meet the challenge we face now.
And the other side of the thing is, that the suppression of controlled thermonuclear fusion, by restricting it to little Tinkertoy kinds of expressions, and not a serious thermonuclear-fusion program: No serious such program exists now. The potential of starting it is there; it will take a number of steps to realize that. But in the meantime, we can organize on the assumption that we're going to do that, and empower the planet with thermonuclear fusion. The fact that we make that commitment, means that everybody else can go to work on the assumption that we're going to do that.
And that's where we must go. We must have the actual energy-flux density applicable, in that form, which will meet the goal of securing humanity's existence for the coming future.
This means also the defense of Earth against ugly objects in the Solar System and so forth, which are near us. And any one of these things, if they hit the right way, could knock the whole human species out of existence on this planet.
So, therefore, those kinds of considerations typify what is necessary for man to do, to save mankind. Anyone who's saying something to the contrary, is either an idiot or a criminal. And you can sort that out for yourselves.
Putin's Wisdom
Ogden: In the interest of putting one world leader in dialogue with another world leader on the stage of history today, I would like to reference some remarks that Russian President Vladimir Putin made at the end of last week, in a discussion that he held at the Valdai International Discussion Club. He identified the deterioration of Western civilization—really, the post-Kennedy-assassination paradigm of decay. And I think Putin's remarks get directly to the point of some of the questions that we're addressing here tonight. I'm going to read just a few excerpts from what he said:
"We can see how many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their roots, including the Christian values that constitute the basis of Western civilization. They are denying moral principles and all traditional identities: national, cultural, religious, and even sexual.... Without the values embedded in Christianity and other world religions, without the standards of morality that have taken shape over millennia, people will inevitably lose their human dignity. We consider it natural and right to defend these values."
And then later in the speech, he said:
"[Every country] has to have military, technological, and economic strength, but nevertheless, the main thing that will determine success is the quality of citizens, the quality of society: their intellectual, spiritual, and moral strength. After all, in the end, economic growth, prosperity, and geopolitical influence are all derived from societal conditions. They depend on whether the citizens of a given country consider themselves a nation, to what extent they identify with their own history, values, and traditions, and whether they are united by common goals and responsibilities."
My question is: What is it in the American national identity that the citizens of the United States must rediscover now, if we are not only to save our own country, but to save Western civilization?
A Commitment to Mankind's Future
LaRouche: This goes back to many centuries, with the existence of Nicholas of Cusa. And Cusa's role actually was rather peculiar in one sense: that he had his own views, in terms of what he was, a priest, and so forth; and he was the most important thinker, scientifically and otherwise, of that entire century. But then, toward the end of his life, he turned it around a bit, and put the emphasis on the future of humanity outside of Europe. And he died in the meantime, before anything happened in that direction. But then, what he left behind was a commitment for his followers who lived after him, to develop humanity across the great ocean waters—to get away from Europe, which was hopelessly corrupt, in his opinion—and he was right, totally right. They had gone through a very dark period in the century before that. And while there was a great Renaissance during that period, after that, they nonetheless began to go back into the same old pit again.
On the basis of that experience, Cusa specified the necessity of sending people from Europe across the oceans, to different continents, where we could save humanity from the kinds of things that were occurring, recurringly, in Europe and the Mediterranean region.
He died, but then Christopher Columbus, who visited places in Portugal—because he was a famous sea captain already of that time—where he met a priest, a bishop, who was a close friend of Cusa. And therefore he was informed, in detail, by Cusa's survivors, and by himself. And then he undertook a commitment to carry ships across the Atlantic to found a new nation, a new nationality, on the other side of the Atlantic, from which we could create a new society, purified of the filth which Europe and its civilization had become.
Now, what was done then, was the attempt by Europe—the British, and others, and the Dutch especially—to destroy the development of a civilization across the other side of the Atlantic. And the chief exponent of this was Massachusetts. Massachusetts became the center of the development of the prospect of a new civilization on the other side of the Atlantic. And that was crushed in the 1660s by the Dutch, because the Dutch were actually the bastards who did the dirty work in England, and so forth. Remember, the Dutch royal families moved across the English Channel to Britain, and there they established what was called a British empire, which was actually a Dutch empire; the British were just the stooges who suffered the whole process.
And so, this has been the history of mankind: the destruction of mankind; the attempt to save mankind on the basis of Cusa's initiative as the starting-point; the efforts, again, repeatedly, to try to maintain the United States or the American System; and the crushing of that repeatedly by the drunkards and swindlers and drug-pushers of the world—they're called the British Empire.
Now this whole system is coming to its end. The power of government has now evolved, to where the power of government lies not only militarily, but also economically, in thermonuclear fusion and the things leading into thermonuclear fusion. So, therefore, our mission, then, is to ensure that—not out of selfishness, but out of regard for humanity as a whole—and to use the United States as the instrument to make that possible, because we're really inherently a powerful nation.
And across the Pacific we have neighbors. And these neighbors—there are plenty of them out there, still. So, therefore, if we cross the Pacific by way of the Bering Strait and so forth, we can create, across the Pacific waters, from the Mississippi River westward toward Asia; and there, with thermonuclear fusion as our perspective, we can rebuild the power needed to establish, in that region, the new impetus for the recovery of the ruined, old nations. And that's what we have to do. That has to be a mission.
Because, you know, the question is this: People think of, what do you want out of your personal life? It's a silly question! Because you're living as a human being, and you're not concerned about your estate, not if you're intelligent—your money—that's not what you're concerned about. Because you're going to die. Everybody is going to die, apparently. We have not encountered any exceptions to that, so far, in the record.
Therefore, what's the purpose of living, if you're going to die? Because your living, while you live, is a means by which humanity can prosper, if you do what you're supposed to do, of your own volition. And that attitude, that commitment, is what's essential: the commitment to the future of mankind—not as some kind of selfish venture. But we have a capability which we have, as human beings, and we don't know of any nearby planet which has something similar to what we represent. And therefore, since what we represent, to the best of our knowledge, is the finest thing we know of in the Universe, in terms of living beings, we have to defend ourselves, and also cause ourselves to prosper, on account of future generations. We cannot separate our own interest from the generations of the future.
And there is where we have to put ourselves. We in the United States have been gifted with a great opportunity, which was generated implicitly by Nicholas of Cusa. That prospered, struggled, was defeated, crushed, came back, again and again. And that's what we have to represent—only this time, we've got to do a slightly better job, and make sure that the successes we create are enduring.
