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This interview appeared as the cover story in the inagural issue of a new Macedonian political magazine called Manifest. The magazine presents a series of extremely polemical, and well thought-out articles and commentaries and is aimed especially at educating the youth of Macedonia (for details and a picture of the cover, click here). Lyndon LaRouche gave this interview from Wiesbaden, Germany to Umberto Pascali for Manifest magazine on July 25. Q: In the last few days, we've seen a very sharp collapse of the Wall Street stock market, which confirms what you have been saying for many years. So this is not a disaster, but, indeed, it is an opportunity. Can you explain for our readers what is really happening now and, above all, what should happen. LaRouche: What is happening now is a general breakdown of a system, which has developed internationally over a period of about 35 or more years. This was a change from the United States in particular, and also the United Kingdom, from a production oriented society to an imperial consumer society -- that is, relying more and more on getting, at reduced prices, material from overseas, from cheap labor, rather than producing it ourselves. In this process, what has happened is that we have built up a gigantic financial bubble internationally. This bubble is now disintegrating. Nothing could be done to save the present monetary and financial system -- in its present form. So the only thing that we can do, which is politically feasible, at this time, is to compare the success of the Roosevelt recovery and the relative success of the postwar reconstruction up until the middle of the 1960's, with the degeneration which exploded from 1971 on with the changed Bretton Woods system of today. Therefore, as a practical matter, we have to go back to the period of the depression of 1929-1933 where for different, but for somewhat similar reasons, the world had a depression. We are now going into a depression which is far worse -- it's already on -- and it is far worse than 1929-33. This depression has been in full effect since the spring of the year 2000. It has been going on for almost 2 years already. We're now going into a deeper phase of a worldwide economic depression caused by a monetary-financial system that has failed. So under those circumstances, the only remedy that will work, that is also politically feasible, is to restore the model of international monetary-financial system that existed between 1945-1958 in Europe, the United States, Japan and so forth. To restore that kind of system, but we also have to put the entire system through bankruptcy reorganization because we have hundreds of trillions of dollars of valuation of debt outstanding, but a total world product that is only estimated to be 40-odd trillion dollars. So you've got hundreds of trillions of dollars of obligations, on the record and off the record, which are now crushing down on a collapsing world physical economy, and obviously, the only thing that you can do is to put the system through financial bankruptcy, in which we will over the course of time, write off most of that financial debt as worthless debt, and consolidate the remaining amount of debt to an amount that we can manage. It is just like a bankruptcy reorganization. That is the only solution. And we are at the danger point, where if we do not solve this financial crisis, those forces behind the financial crisis are going to plunge us into a general world war, possibly beginning as soon as the August-October period. Q: So is there is a direct relation between the status of this financial bubble and the strategic situation? LaRouche: Absolutely. This is what has been said plainly by the US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. He has said don't worry about the financial crisis, we are going into a new period of war. And people are talking about this war as lasting as long as 100 years. They call it 'perpetual war' -- a long war -- a 'war against terrorism' -- they call it by many names. But this is to change the social and political institutions of the world, with use of military force and terror, as a way of dealing with a financial crisis. In other words, set up a dictatorship, in the same way that Adolph Hitler did in the 1930's, as a way of dealing with a financial crisis. Q: How is the collapse of this bubble going to affect the Balkans and Macedonia in particular? Will this impact the ongoing attacks against the country's national sovereignty and territorial integrity? Will this affect the potential new war adventures in the Balkan area? And even more: if the "LaRouche recipe" -- the New Bretton Woods and the Land Bridge projects -- were to become US policy and were endorsed by a coalition of countries in the world, how fast and how directly could this change the [Macedonian] situation for the positive. Can you explain how this mechanism would work? LaRouche: Well, it is very simple in a sense. It can change very rapidly, because on the day that we actually make a statement among a number of countries that we're going to do a reorganization of this type, you can immediately put into operation certain mechanisms of economic recovery. Most of the immediate measures which would cause a growth of employment -- which, of course, is crucial for any recovery -- would be in basic economic infrastructure. Now, therefore, take the case like the Balkans, the area below the Danube, all the way down to the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea, and the Adriatic. This whole area, while it is composed of different states, has a certain integral characteristic -- geographic and otherwise. Thus, in this region, large-scale infrastructure development projects, of the type that we proposed in the European Productive Triangle program, that kind of approach could go into effect immediately, if international institutions -- that is governments -- came to an agreement with Balkans governments, to share a general development program on developing roots of transportation, power generation and distribution, water management, and also use these as development corridors for concentration of industrial development. Under those conditions, we could have an immediate change in direction of the economic situation in the Balkans, and also the political situation. Q: And would this also change this dangerous countdown toward a possible new confrontation with Albanian minorities which risks to be repeated in Macedonia? According to all indications the Anglo- American forces, the so-called International Community is continuing to favor the pro-KLA policy and to pressure Macedonia to give up progressively any vestige of national sovereignty and territorial integrity. These forces are pushing for the creation of a full fledged protectorate. More generally, we are witnessing the elimination of sovereignty in virtually every country in Southeast Europe. Will the "LaRouche Recipe" have a direct impact on this? LaRouche: Yes it will! Take for example the Albanian problem. The Albanian problem would not be the problem that it is, if it had not been developed as a problem by especially the British and US circles. So, in this area, these circles created a destabilization force, a permanent destabilization factor. If the United States and Britain, under pressure from the countries in this area or from Europe, were to stop this operation, then you would have less capability for continuing this kind of destabilization. So obviously, there is a relationship; it is not a simple, direct relationship, but my view is that if you have agreements among nations, both in the Balkans and in neighboring countries, for a certain policy of stability, based on economic growth -- reconstruction -- that those political forces will find efficient ways to control problems like that one. Q: Your name has recently popped up quite a few times in Macedonia. In particular, lately in the form of a bizarre approximation of a slander by a gentleman who insists that the Macedonian leadership is so bad that they "read LaRouche." Obviously, after several interviews with you both on TV and in the printed media, your name is quite well known in Macedonia. And people, including young people, want to know more abut your ideas and your proposals. Many are asking: what can Macedonia do in this situation? What can the government of Macedonia do? The apparent paradox is that you represent in economic and philosophical terms the American system that emerged from a revolution against the British colonial empire, but the official US now is acting in opposition to those original American principles including in disregarding Macedonia's rights as a sovereign nation. You are the America many people in the world would like to be the official America. How can they help the real America to emerge? How can this historic paradox be solved? LaRouche: Well, it depends on who is President of the United States. It also depends on other things as well. But, the United States government has been at times my friend, and at times it has acted as my enemy. For example, I got along well with some people at various points -- not that we agreed -- but we had correct relations, we talked to each other, we found points of common agreement, and we proceeded on that. For example, the SDI, and other things -- I agreed upon with President Reagan during the period that he and I were cooperating. We didn't agree on the economic policy, we disagreed on a lot of other things. But we had relations which were proper and decent relations. Now we also had, to a certain degree, proper and decent relations with President Clinton, and with many political figures in the United States. So the answer is that I represent a certain tradition in US history which can be traced from Benjamin Franklin, through John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt -- that's called the American Patriotic Tradition. We have also in the United States, an opposite view, which has always been of the opposite view since 1763. So there are two forces in the United States, I represent one, and some of the other fellows in government represent the other, and the other guys do not come out and honestly debate me, they simply rely on spreading slander and misinformation and threats. So if you know that, that answers the question. The other guys obviously fear me. In the United States, those forces are probably more afraid of me personally than any other individual. So far, even though they have tried to assassinate me a couple of times, and it didn't come off -- officially even, by official agencies-- but, on the other side, many people who would like to have me dead, don't want me to be a martyr, so they don't kill me, but they do everything else they can to possibly embarrass me. Q: The Prime Minister of Macedonia, in a recent speech, said that Macedonia wants to have direct relations, sovereign nation to sovereign nation, with other countries in the area, including Albania, without supra-national "mediation" or control. Your analysis on this very point has also circulated in Macedonia. Especially the idea of restoring the Peace of Westphalia model: a community of sovereign nations collaborating for the common good and the mutual development. What can you say about these statements coming out from Macedonia? LaRouche: Well, I think that the obvious thing, is that the fact that the government of Macedonia has made such a statement is very useful. Now, the question is how do you follow up on it? Well, the government can in its own way, approach other governments and try to suggest this idea to them. They can also do something else: they can have a private political initiative, which involves people who are from the various countries, who start a continuing dialogue on that theme -- with the intent that that dialogue could become, not diplomacy directly, but implied diplomacy. Where sometimes you can't negotiate directly diplomatically certain things, but you can do indirect diplomacy: having representatives from various countries meet to discuss, and if they are intellectually influential people, who meet to do these discussions, then their ideas about cooperation can become generally accepted among the official forces. And then you can reach an official agreement. I think that that is what has to be done. I think that the statement by the Prime Minister is extremely useful. It should be followed up, encouraged and supported and broadcast -- that is, make sure that it is known -- and also say, well, while he is doing that, shouldn't some other private people from the various countries have some kind of a continuing forum where the discussion of the implementation of such a program could be carried forth? And hope that that forum will become an intellectual influence to bring about the result which is proposed. |
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