LaRouche Speech November 17, 2023

The following is a transcript of the discussion which followed Mr. LaRouche's main address on Dec. 3rd to the India International Institute.

Professor Kaushik: Thank you, Mrs. LaRouche, for brilliantly supplementing Mr. LaRouche's ideas. I think we have some time at our disposal for discussion. So I throw it open for discussion and comments.

Dr. V.K. Chopra: I've listened to your fascinating address with great admiration and respect. In spite of my incredibly good formal education, and nearly 60 years of working experience, your address made me feel how ignorant and uneducated I am about world history. I would very much like to have your address in print, to be able to study intimately and educate myself. Regarding your prescriptions for the future, first of all, I fervently wish that we see you in the White House in 2004. [LaRouche: Thank you.] That in that high position, you will help implement the idea that you mentioned about the nation-state in your concluding part of the address.

LaRouche: Thank you very much.

The 40-Year Development Of India

Q: I'm Dr. Nirupa Sen, correspondent for Current Science. This is a question about what is your plan for the development of India, which you had sponsored. Are the plans, whatever is in the plan document, is it still relevant at this point of time? And, during your visit to India, what has been the response by the elites, regarding planning for the future of India? What has been the response to this generally?

LaRouche: Well, I would say the 40-year plan we did before, is an old plan. Now, 20 years later, the world has changed. It was done specifically with the idea Mrs. Gandhi was then Prime Minister, and our intent was to provide to her--we'd had discussion with her before, in earlier times--and it seemed that the most useful thing we could do for India, since she was disposed to know about such things, was to provide something that she and her associates could use in India, to devise a plan for India. Because we thought that the long-term view was needed, and we thought that about two generations would be required to realize anything that India would accept as a long-term view. And she, of course, was sympathetic, because she would always look at the poor of India, as her reference point: If it doesn't benefit the poor, there's something wrong. And that's my view. If it doesn't benefit the poor of India, to elevate their station, we've failed. If you've benefitted the poor, and uplifted them, why, then you're moving the whole country in the right direction.

Because we've seen things, as Mrs. Y-- pointed out to us, at one of the villages we visited, you can see the problem of the teachers in trying to get the parents to accept, bringing the children to the schools, the teachers who are devoted to trying to help these students, these young fellows. So that in order to make the revolution in India that was required, you would have to actually motivate the process in which education would really take off, and people would understand the importance of supporting it.

So, we said 40 years. And we looked at some of the things that are required--there were two or three generations required. So, it's still relevant. I would simply situate the same way of thinking, with some of the same objectives, today.

Q: The second part of my question: What response has there been by the policy planners of today, in the country, to your--?

LaRouche: Basically, it's been more of a spiritual and factual character, than anything else. Coming back to India--. You see, my view of relations is largely a spiritual one, in my sense of the term “spiritual.” That is, the cognitive powers of mind must be engaged; you must engage in transmitting concepts back and forth, not just words, not information. And my concern has been to establish relations, or re-establish relations, with people who think, who are the thinkers, people who are typical of the thinkers in India, knowing that the radiation of thinking, among thinking people, is the way in which science works, and in which politics really works. And therefore, I was more concerned to have the opportunity to report on certain things, which I thought Indians ought to hear from me, personally, because I'm prepared to tell the truth, whereas some other people from my country are not. And that India should have the advantage of hearing some of the truth of the matter, so that they could judge for themselves, how to look at some of these problems.

But, mainly that. It was spiritual. What do we think? To engage, to set forth channels for the future, where we're more efficiently engaged in communicating ideas, which might lead to useful results.

The U.S. Role In The Eurasian Land-Bridge Project

Vinod Sehgal: [former Indian military attaché to France] Two short questions, Mr. LaRouche. First thing, I do read publications worldwide, so at this point in time, which group or grouping would be the prime mover for pushing the Eurasian corridors, giving them effect?

Second question: Should it come about, what you are propagating, will it to some extent, diminish the power of the U.S.A.? And should that be the case, would they not oppose it? Thank you.

LaRouche: I think your question--let's take the second one first, because it's more straightforward.

No, it does not diminish the power of the United States; it increases the power it should have, while diminishing the power it shouldn't have.

For example, I live in a country where, for the past period, from 1977, the beginning of the Carter Administration to the present, 80% of the population, of family-income brackets, used to represent the overwhelming majority of the national income. Today, the 80% of family-income brackets, the lower 80%, represent the actual abyss in share of national income. Which means that we've been doing something terribly wrong since Carter, especially since Carter, economically.

Now, I want a nation--I'm an older man, I won't live forever (I don't think--nobody's offered me that). And therefore, I see this condition of my country, I say, “The country is not going to survive, unless we reverse this tendency.” The power of the United States should lie in the quality of its people, and the quality of the development of its people, and its historic mission, which, in my view, the historic mission of the United States is: Bring forth on this planet, a community of principle among perfectly sovereign nation-states, to end the last vestige of colonialism and empire, in any form, or guise. The point is, that there's a complication: is that any people has a certain cultural distinction, which tends to make that people a suitable subject of a national identity. And even though we may have exactly the same ideas, our cultural antecedents are different. And therefore, we approach the discussion of these ideas, in a somewhat different way, on consideration of our own respective national antecedents.

Therefore, when a nation wants to deliberate, it has the advantage, as a nation, of deliberating in terms of shared cultural antecedents, for its present ideas, even though the resulting ideas may be exactly the same as by another nation. Therefore, I think that the nation-state, the perfectly sovereign nation-state, is the form of society which must exist into the infinite future. We must not aspire to change that. Therefore, we must strengthen the right of every nation to be a sovereign nation-state, in the true sense. On that basis, we must now come to agreement on those things which are truly in the common interest of all mankind, and therefore, the relations--. That is my purpose.

The United States, because of the superiority of its Constitution--not the implementation of its Constitution, which may be another story, recently, right?--but the Constitution, which is based on the idea of a sovereign nation-state republic, a Presidential republic, which I think has proven to be the best form of republic you can have. That is, you must have an institution of some degree of relative permanence, which has authority, but which also has the consent of the people. And it must be based on a Constitutional--not a set of laws, but a Constitutional set of principles, by which the people cooperate and develop their laws. And that is the mission of the United States, to play that role, bestowed upon it by European civilization, in enabling us to come into being.

And therefore, that's the power I desire.

The United States, as part of an Anglo-American financier interest, to dominate the world as an imperial maritime power, which is the present aspiration of some in my country, I abhor. And the sooner that's gone, the happier I'll be.

Russia's Eurasian Character

Now, on the influence: Curiously, but not accidentally, the most important influence I think I have outside my own country, is in Russia. This has a long history to it--not an unturbulent history, as some here know--but it's a long history.

First of all, the importance of Russia is, that there are only three national cultures on this planet, which have a true sense of sovereignty in respect to the world as a whole. India has a sense of sovereignty in respect to Asia. China has a sense of sovereignty in respect to Asia. But when it comes to managing world affairs, the only three cultures which will assay to manage world affairs, are the British monarchy, the culture of the United States, and the culture of Russia. None of which have been colonized, none of which--at least not in modern times--none of which have been occupied by foreign powers, at least not in modern times. And therefore, we have deep in our culture, an imbedded sense of authority. So, when it comes to saying, “Overturn this piece of junk called the present monetary system,” an American or Russian can say that readily. And the British monarchy would say, “Well, if we chose to do it, we might do it.” That sort of thing.

But the problem is, that countries of continental Europe, the countries of Asia, do not think that way. They think of: How do we learn to reform the existing system, to live within it? Don't destroy the house, but find better quarters within it.

And thus, Russia, which was a power, and which is a power in its instinct, responds differently than other nations. Under Yeltsin, no. Under Putin, yes. I can't--I'm not going to underwrite Putin. But I say: The difference is that Putin represents a Russian President who represents Russia, where Yeltsin didn't. And therefore, whatever he does, he's Russian. He proceeds from the sense of Russia's role on a world scale. His negotiations with India are exemplary. His negotiations with Japan; especially with China; the intervention in trying to bring the two Koreas together, despite the U.S. effort to separate them again--these kinds of things. The negotiations with, going to Kazakstan, the trip of the Pope to Kazakstan, and the instant welcoming of that by Putin. Other things of this sort. And the dealing with the United States.

So therefore, what's happened is, the transformation of Russia, which has gone through three phases in this century--more than three, but three principal phases: from czarism, and its breakdown; from Lenin and what followed, to the breakdown in 1989-1991; and now the breakdown of the world globalization system. Globalization is now effectively dead, or else we are dead--one of the two.

So therefore we come to a point, at which you need people who are willing to think in terms of: “What are we going to do about the condition of this world? Not the condition of our nation, but the condition of this world?”

In Russia, there's a current, which is largely centered in the intelligentsia of Russia, many of whom were intelligentsia as part of the old Soviet system, many were dissenters within that system. But they're different from the old Communists, the old Marxian Communists. They're different in the sense, that, as I do, they see the individual as the maker of history; we do not believe in “objective forces of history.” We do not sit back and say, “We have to follow world public opinion, the objective forces of history.” World public opinion today stinks. I don't follow it. I propose to change it. We know we have to change it. We know we have to change the ideas within countries.

Therefore, the responsibility is like that of the scientist. No scientist has learned anything if he doesn't make a revolution. No political leader is worth much, unless he makes a revolution. Because there always are challenges, which require leaders who can pull the institutions of society away from their habituated ideas, into the new ideas which the society must adopt. And I've expressed this with this effort.

We had two conferences in Russia: One, which my representatives were at, where my paper was submitted; a recent one, on the spirit of science in Russia. Another one, which will occur soon. Both involve a recently deceased friend of mine, Pobisk Kuznetsov, a Russian scientist of some significance, and which represents the core of the Russian scientific community, which were all his friends, including all of the scientific institutions. And I proposed that we have a discussion of the continuity of the work of Mendeleyev and of Vernadsky. Now, I don't completely agree with Vernadsky's picture, but Vernadsky was a great scientist, and a great discoverer--very valuable for all of Asia. Because, what we're engaged in now, is a great transformation of the noösphere. That's the way to look at it. We've got to transform the biosphere, and the noösphere, into forms which are both sound, scientifically, and also in the interest of mankind, of the nations.

Therefore, as we look at the Central Asia and North Asia aspect of Eurasian cooperation, the question of the ecological development, the biospheric development, the noösphere development of Central Asia, and into the tundra regions of North Asia, is the key part of the development of the Eurasian continent. My view is that Russia is a Eurasian nation. It is not simply in Europe and Asia, but it is Eurasian in character. It has Eurasian instincts as a nation, as a national body. It has ties to China, to India, to other countries, which are crucial, which are unique. That doesn't mean that India and China always agree with Russia, but it means it's a bridge country, between Western Europe and the countries of East and South Asia. And therefore, my concern is to get Russians to adopt that view, and thus, to help to bring together--.

For example: Let's take the question of bilateral relations between China and India, which are much discussed here, and I suppose are much discussed in China as well. How do you deal with the fact that, especially since 1962, there has been a continuing sense of a potential military conflict between China and India, which affects all of us? How do you bring these nations together? How do you define a common interest, over and above this continuing issue of conflict?

I've suggested, as also every Asian nation, East Asia and so forth, is inherently in conflict. Korea with Japan. Japan with China, and so forth. Southeast Asia, the same. Within Southeast Asia, within Indonesia, there's conflict. So the problem of Asia, is these conflicts, these traditional and other conflicts, which make it difficult to set up any long-term, durable agreement, especially on a bilateral basis. My view is that on a multilateral basis, if we can create a platform of common interest, which is more compelling than any bilateral conflict, that nations will find the impulse to overcome the causes of bilateral conflict, and come to a durable sense of common interest. And I think that Russia is the nation, which has come through czarism, Communism, and, worst of all, liberalism, and now hates the stuff, in a world which has to abandon economic liberalism as the price of its survival. You can not be an economic liberal, and actually expect to contribute much to the survival of your nation in any part of the world today.

So, therefore, we need to create a platform of perceived common interest, in a new order of relations among sovereign states. And Russia, I think, is prepared to play that role, whereas nations such as Italy, Germany, France, are not. And therefore, Russia is one of the best defenders, as being in Eurasia, of the idea of a specifically Eurasian interest of cooperation. And it becomes, therefore, one of the best catalysts for bringing the United States into that picture. Even though the present President of the United States does not please me, in any particular respect, nonetheless, the relationship which has developed between Putin and Bush, since their meeting in the Balkans, and the more recent developments of Sept. 11, can become, and should become, the basis for a sense of a commonality, a mutuality of interest, between the United States and the Americas in general, and Eurasia. If that commonality of interest can be established, then the fate of Africa is also ensured.

The Preservation Of The Nation-State

J.C. Kapur: [publisher of the magazine World Affairs and owner of the Kapur Solar Farm] I would just like to make a small comment, that I think one of the most significant things, which you have said in your speech here, and which we are confronted with in India, in the process of our development toward the future, would be the destruction of the nation-state. You said, destruction of the nation-state to a considerable extent, has been realized in Africa, has been largely realized through genocide, or whatever arguments you may have.

Now, to destroy a nation-state like India, which is 6-7,000 years of history, and if you did still not destroy it, after 500 invasions and 300 years of colonialism--we are still around. Why are we around? Why is this nation not destroyed?

So, I would say that behind that, is the cultural situation in India. There is a hidden, psychic link which connects people all the way from the lowest corner of India to the north: that hidden psychic link. So somehow, whenever an endeavor has been made to destroy the nation-state, they have rushed to destroy the culture. Because it's obvious that without the destruction of the culture, the destruction of the nation-state can not take place.

So that is why, amongst the things which you have seen today happening in this country, is an attempt on the culture. Whether you are meeting differences between Muslims and Hindus, which in a pluralistic country which accepted everything, which allowed everybody to come in--that break is taking place. They are trying to create rifts between the Christians and the Hindus, who protected the Christians in the other areas, to come to India. Seeing the whole process. So, therefore, I think it is the most significant thing, globalization can not function without the destruction of the nation-state. And the nation-state can not be destroyed, unless one would destroy the culture.

So, the process which is going on today, is the process of destruction of cultures, such as the tribal cultures of Africa, tribal cultures of Latin America, tribal cultures of many of the other countries of the world. This is what is happening.

Now, therefore, in fact, anything which India, and other countries in part, can do, I feel will be only be possible, if we can protect that pluralistic culture of this country, which allowed the germination of all kinds of things which happened in India. So, under these circumstances, I feel the most important element today is, how to protect our culture.

Secondly, the most important thing is that: How to bring about that, during the periods of transition, which you have said that the financial system is breaking down: How do we see that, before the system really breaks down, there is something very positive visible, which can become acceptable to a large mass of the people around the world? Otherwise, attempts will be made, as from colonialism, you went to Bretton Woods; from Bretton Woods you moved to the next stage, to bring in disparity, having the different currencies; and now something else is being done. The same thing will happen again. We have to see that that doesn't happen. This is the key in my view.

LaRouche: I'll just say one thing quickly on this, on your remarks. Since you raised the question, we should have discussion about the Cato Institute [report] and others, which had been published subsequently, on the attempt to influence Clinton and his circles on India and other countries. I think it's extremely important that that publication be widely circulated among relevant Indian circles, to know--and this should be circulated worldwide--to understand one of the problems. What you reported to me in this respect, explained something to me, which had mystified me recently, on an encounter I had on just this issue, and I couldn't understand why the Clinton circles would be so enraged, and so upset, about this question. You explained it to me, by pointing to that Cato Institute, et al., business. And I think it's extremely important that that be publicized widely, and that it be publicized widely among relevant Indian circles, so they know exactly what the problems were in the Clinton policy toward India and Asia, generally, and understand some of the problems which spill over, through State Department circles, in dealing with India now.

Kapur: The only problem there is, which my friend here said something about: The Cato report was on the front page of almost every newspaper in India, in small print. A number of things were said from their report. But only the print area. People largely, even highly sophisticated people, can not connect the entire Cato report, and the contents of the report, and the significance of the report, to the total picture as it is in Washington. So the issue is, of the understanding of the implications, not the publication of the report.

LaRouche: Yes, I know. We agree.

We Must Eradicate Global Poverty

Shri Chandrajit Yadav: LaRouche, Mrs. LaRouche, your visit to India is a very welcome visit. I must introduce myself. I am a former Union minister and former Member of Parliament, as my friend K.R. Ganesh, sitting by my side. I think that you're visiting India after 20 years? [LaRouche: Seventeen years.] Seventeen years. Even that is a very long period.

I wish you could visit more often, to this part of the world: not only India, Russia, Southeast Asia, China, because as you rightly said that, this part of the world will play a very important role in shaping the new, just economic order. And I think that one lesson which is good in itself of 11 September, although it was a very tragic event, but I think that the whole world must try to learn the lesson from that tragic event, why this thing had happened. Why terrorism was not taken note of earlier, and why all of a sudden, terrorism has become the main target for the international community.

I think that there are several injustices going on. As you said wisely, that economics must be for the poor. The mission of economics is not only to create wealth, and to create more wealth and go for greater development and create a different kind of monetary system. But its humanist mission should be: To, for the welfare of the human being, to create, to diminish hard labor, eliminate poverty on a very large scale, in the whole world today; and growing unemployment, at the same time growing disparities. And therefore, social tension is also increasing very much.

One objective of the present world system does not seem only to dominate--certain capitalists of the world want only to dominate the whole world--but also they are making the entire humanity as the victims of materialism. The one major problem in my opinion is, the growing sense of materialism, and also consumerism. Because today the whole effort of the capitalist world is, to create a system or a society of consumerism, make individuals and human beings totally materialistic, and as you very rightly said, that you have a sense of a spiritualism. But one target seems to be, destroy spiritualism! And that is another major danger. So, the entire developing countries are being subjected to a new kind of economic imperialism. As you made the very significant remark, that Africa has become a no-man's-land. It's a major continent! But now, the first target was Africa, to destroy that continent, nations totally subjugated, and dependent on others. And now they're making a force, really, to make the entire developing countries as dependent on them.

I very highly appreciate your concern for the developing countries, especially for Asia, and also for India. Otherwise, in 1981, you'd not have taken care to produce the “Forty-Year Plan For The Development Of India.” That shows your concern also. And your friendly feeling for Indian people, which I very much appreciate.

I will say that you seem to be speaking with a strong sense of conviction, that the present monetary system, international monetary system, is finished, has no future. But there has to be some kind of alternative system. I would like you to finally throw more light--that when this present international monetary system is finished, then what kind of alternative system will emerge? At the world level, as well at the regional levels? And especially for the developing countries? Because the basic problem today, are that two-thirds of the population lives in these countries, and they are not making progress, they do not seem to have any future. Even in our country--I would just like to bring to your notice--I'm sure that seeing your interest in the area, you must be doing so. But, just to remind you, that after 52 and 53 years of our independence, almost one-third of our population--and when I say one-third, it means almost 30 to 40 gross of people, 300 to 400 million people--it's not a small population. They are still living below the poverty line, and that poverty line is an inhuman poverty line. Even safe drinking water is not available to them. Another one-third of our population, is living with very sub-standard living. Thus, two-thirds of India. It means 600 to 700 to 800 million people in India are living a really substandard life.

What future is for them, if we become only the victim of the present exploiting system? And as you very rightly said--I am very glad that you have a very original idea, that we aren't speaking of making some reforms within this existing system--that won't work. There has to be some alternate view--part, of development. There has to be some alternate view--part, of ideas, and thinking, and a vision! After all, human beings are not only just to live from one day to another day. We must build a prosperous, a cultured, thinking society.

So, I think that these ideas have to be discussed at length, as Professor Kaushik said: very unfortunately, because you, obviously, after a long time, to sum up your ideas through your magazines, are known to people, but you are known only to the intellectual people. You should be more known to the common people, more thinking people. And if you visit more, I'm sure that there will be people to organize the larger-scale discussion with you. You have some very original ideas, and those ideas have to be discussed.

So, I'm saying, that in India, we have, as I said, two-thirds of the population living a substandard life. We have in India, between the age group of 6 and 14--our children--60% are not going to school. And if they are going, then within two or three years there are large-scale dropouts.

Our women, 36% of our women, are illiterate. They have not been able to go to school, because of the poverty, because of the social system. We do not want that--I'm not using that word “Taliban,” people may misunderstand, and I don't want to use that--but what unfortunately happened in Afghanistan the last few years, closing schools for girls, destroying schools, making them live a life of animals. So I'm saying that these are the problems, problems of Asia, problems of Africa, problems of even Latin America, and I say, in a sense, the problems of two-thirds of the people in the whole world.

So, I'm glad that you visited, and I'm glad for Mr. Maitra, who provided us some opportunity, informing us that you're visiting Delhi, and therefore we were able to come and understand your ideas, your vision, and also have some kind of dialogue. I wish to I thank you again, and I wish you visit India soon again. Thank you.

LaRouche: Thank you very much.

Ecologism Means Genocide

Dr. Padma Seth: [member, National Women's Commission] I have a little question. You have clubbed Malthusianism, globalism, ecologism. I'd like you to explain about the ecology part: Globalization we suffer, Malthusianism we--

LaRouche: The ecology idea was developed by the group of Bertrand Russell and H.G. Wells, and their associates, and was foisted upon the world under the infamous book, published in 1928 by Wells, called The Open Conspiracy. And you find the essentials of the program are there.

This idea, of course, came from the progenitor of H.G. Wells, Thomas Huxley, who created Wells out of mud. So, this comes from the ideology of the Haileybury school; this comes from Benthamism, and so forth. And they're spread around the world with the idea that if you accept the idea that man should not alter nature--that there's a balance in nature which is predetermined, and you must not alter it--that what you will do, by simply making that demand, you will ensure genocide.

Now, Wells made it clear, as did Russell, that genocide was desirable, and technological and scientific progress had to be stopped, in order to promote genocide, to keep the world's population within dimensions which they found agreeable, and to keep people as stupid as possible, by denying them, by making them hate technology, making them hate science and technology. Which is what you get in most of these crazy terrorist movements which are created; they are generally anti-scientific, anti-humanistic movements.

This came into vogue, on a popular basis, with the Indo-China War period. It was established as international policy by the British government, by British intelligence, through people like Dr. Alexander King, and others. It was spread into the Soviet Union, through the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. It was an operation which was run by Cambridge University, the Cambridge systems analysis group. It was spread throughout the world. It was spread in India widely by the associates and followers, the networks, of Bertrand Russell, who--to me--presented this argument.

So, this is a form of insanity.

You know, the way to approach this problem is as I have done. And, on this account, the ideas of Vernadsky are extremely important. Vernadsky defined the biosphere in a rigorous way, from the standpoint of geology. Oh, by the way, I've seen the latest Current Science magazine, for example--had some interesting business on the question of geology, in this last week's issue. It's really quite fascinating, and important to consider. Particularly when it refers to the condition of parts of India. Fascinating.

In this point, the question of human existence, is, man has cognition. Not, man is an animal, but, man has cognition, has the same right and obligation to transform the biosphere, as life has the right to transform the abiotic domain. Man has the obligation to do that. It is man's nature to do that. Man does that by fundamental scientific discovery, and applying those discoveries, to increase the potential population density, and power, of the individual members of society. And therefore, any intervention against that, is anti-spiritual; it's a violation of the rights of nature of man.

But this is what's being done. The biggest source, the biggest argument, for the destruction of civilization, which has occurred in the past 31 years, has been based on the spread of the doctrine of ecology. If we eliminated that doctrine of ecology, as taught by these circles--. It was spread already in the early 1940s, or mid-1940s, from the Bertrand Russell circles, such as the Unification of the Sciences Project in the United States and elsewhere; spread through Margaret Mead, the Wiener crowd, and the John von Neumann crowd--these kinds of ideas were spread. And they were spread around the world.

They were spread into Russia. They were one of the most crucial factors in bringing about the internal self-destruction of the Soviet Union. With the spread of the ideas of ecology, through the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis channel, which was actually a British intelligence channel, and created in parallel, because Moscow was suspicious about bringing the Club of Rome into Moscow directly, so the same group that created the Club of Rome--Dr. Alexander King, and so forth--created the IIASA, together with people like McGeorge Bundy in the United States, as a channel for corrupting the Soviet Union. And one of the most successful influences in causing the Soviet Union to destroy itself, was ecology.

From Audience: The Pugwash Conferences, also.

LaRouche: Right.

We Must Increase The Power Of The Biosphere

Dr. Seth: May I have one more? Excuse me. My question was more on the environmental aspect. And soil erosion and similar problems; and congregation in the cities. That's my problem. And environmental pollution. This also includes population ... the growth and density of population. So I think the quality of the culture should also interest you, because it's not merely nature, but human culture.

LaRouche: Well, human culture--. The point is, the job, is the question of national governmental and world policy. Our job is to improve the biosphere for man's existence, not to destroy it. That's why you have to have a scientific approach, you can't have an arbitrary approach of any kind.

For example: We need to increase the power of the biosphere as a whole, which means you have to increase high-grade biomass.

For example, forestation in the Deccan: You need to change. You need to change the water transport systems, to transform deserts into places. You have to manage the oceans. You have to manage the land, for mankind. You have to take the same approach to the planet Earth that you would attempt to take, in Earth-forming the Moon ... or Mars, for example. For example, if we're going to put scientific stations on Mars--and we have reasons to do so--we're going to have to create a synthetic environment, beneath the surface of Mars, and we're going to have to know how to do it.

When you put people in space, well, you've changed a lot of things about human life, as going into space. These are not the same conditions in which human life was designed on Earth. Therefore, you have to know how to deal with these policies.

So therefore, you have to have a science. That's why I push this--I push this question. You must have a scientific approach to this question, and use Vernadsky, and his concept of biosphere and noösphere, and use that as science; and say, we must look at how we manage our planet, and beyond, from the standpoint of science. And therefore, national policy, and national law, must be based on science, not the kind of pseudo-science which present-day ecology represents.

The Coup d'État Against The Bush Administration

Q: I would like you to explain your analysis of the Sept. 11 events.

LaRouche: The Sept. 11 events were an attempted military coup d'état inside the United States, against the Presidency of George Bush. There was earlier reference to this question about terrorism. We use the term “terrorism,” but I do not define terrorism as an independent category. That is a big mistake. It's a mistake in discussion of the situation in Afghanistan now. That is not the issue.

We have things that are called terrorism, but what we have really is, under the conditions of nuclear supremacy, nuclear weapons supremacy, major powers resorted to use of what is called irregular warfare, as a substitute for regular warfare. See, from the period of the various things that developed in the 16th Century, around Leonard da Vinci, and Machiavelli, the concept of warfare, suited for modern civilization, was defined. And during the 18th Century--as a result of the American Revolution, as the result of the reforms particularly by Carnot in France and by Scharnhorst in Germany--you have reforms in military art, which gave to the modern regular army, and the idea of the rule of law.

The Treaty of Westphalia was a key part in European history, of defining a rule of law concerning warfare. And unfortunately, that's been abandoned today. The reason we had that law, we realized the danger inhering in religious warfare, and ethnic warfare. That is, people must not kill one another because of ethnic issues. They must not kill one another over religious issues. This is the essence of the progress of modern European civilization, is presumably to recognize that.

So what we did, having reached, with World War II, the highest rate of development of modern warfare, we immediately retreated from modern warfare, to sub-modern warfare--a decadent form, which is called irregular warfare. Now, irregular warfare are means other than uniformed, acknowledged military means, to accomplish political aims, like those of warfare, within one's own country, or in foreign countries.

For example, there is no such thing as international terrorism. International terrorism is only what we call irregular warfare, which is organized by governments. Now, I've done a number of studies of a number of terrorist organizations. None of them are independent. Independent terrorist organizations either do not exist, or they don't survive very long. An independent terrorist organization goes out on the street, and it's going to be wiped out very quickly, by any government. The only way in which a terrorist organization can flourish, under the pretext of being independent, is because some government, or similar authority which controls governments, is protecting it.

Now, in this case, you had the development of this in an extreme form, in the 1970s especially. It started in the 1960s, late 1960s, with the development of terrorism to promote a post-industrial society--that was the original purpose. That continued into the 1970s. In the 1970s, we had, with Kissinger and Brzezinski as National Security Advisers, a new form of--particularly after the SALT agreements of 1972--you had now the use of irregular warfare as a surrogate for warfare between the United States and the Soviet Union--an extension of what happened in Vietnam.

Every form of terrorism of any importance since that time, is that.

Let's take the case here, of the Sept. 11 event. The problems in Afghanistan really started with Kissinger's operation to overthrow the Shah of Iran, which is a British intelligence operation, planned by Bernard Lewis, who is the number-two of the British Arab Bureau. And all Kissinger's policies against Iran, were planned by Bernard Lewis. All of the important policies on the “Arc of Crisis,” and “Clash of Civilizations,” were planned by Bernard Lewis, the policies of Brzezinski, then and now.

So, in the middle of the 1970s, Brzezinski and his friends went to the Islamic Jihad organization in Egypt, and began to recruit people from Islamic Jihad into this operation, which became known as the Afghansi. They went to a Wahhabi tendency in Saudi Arabia, and got money from some of these--you know, you have all these princes there, they pass out money. So they got some money from these various princes, to finance an army called Islamic Jihad, or became known as the Afghansis.

For example, you had the case of Goldsmith, Jimmy Goldsmith, who was a key operative in the Pakistan area, for British intelligence, in partnership with the United States in running the Afghanistan operations of the late 1970s. In 1982, the operation was taken over by George Bush, in partnership with Jimmy Goldsmith. So the warfare in Afghanistan, and terrorism in that area, was run--it was run through certain interests in Pakistan, which were bought. Most of this was done with weapons trafficking and drug trafficking, which financed it. So we had to create large armies of irregular forces, of volunteers, as a troop of mercenaries, just like the British East India Company did in India, in which the troops that were brought in, were not British regulars, they were not British forces, they were British East India Company private armies, and mercenary armies. So, mercenary armies were again on the scene, under various guises, conducting irregular warfare.

What is happening, for example, on the borders of Northern India now, in Nepal, and Sikkim, and so forth, the Naxalite operations, these are operations by powers. These are not independent movements. This is irregular warfare against India, on what is considered the most vulnerable part of India.

On Sept. 11, you had this faction inside the British, the U.S., and other interests--had been operating with these objectives. However, if you're going to run a coup d'état, a modern coup d'état--. One must not believe the newspapers; one must understand how a military institution functions. If you're going to run a military coup d'état, you don't go out and recruit people to it. You don't ask them to join the coup d'état. You get them involved, because of their involvement in other things you're doing. That's the way the Kennedy assassination was set up. People who were involved in the Kennedy assassination were recruited around a screen of organizing an invasion of Cuba. That's how the Kennedy assassination was set up. The people who were in the Kennedy assassination, the masses of them who helped set it up, all thought they were going for an invasion of Cuba. And a continuation of the Lansdale attack plan for the war against Cuba. A U.S. military attack on Cuba.

So, the way it works is, you have a tight circle of top-ranking people on the inside of the military. These people on the inside orchestrate the mobilization of forces for undisclosed, or misdisclosed, purposes. They then deploy these elements, like military units, to their assigned functions. And if they survive, it's after the accident has occurred, that they know what they did. And even then they don't know what they did.

That's how you do a military coup.

The way we define the Sept. 11 events is very serious, very simple. Every government has security arrangements--particularly every major power--which are intended to apply to the potentiality that a section of its own military, or police, might be corrupted, and therefore, might be used to arrange a coup d'état. That is, any sensible government. Some of you have been near the PM [Prime Minister] position, you know this stuff; that you have to anticipate the danger of a coup d'état. This has happened a number of times in India. So therefore, you have precautions, security precautions, in the military and in the police forces, which are intended to detect, and prevent, the success of any enterprise of that sort.

In the United States, as a nuclear power, we have very special kinds of protection arrangements, detection arrangements, intervention arrangements, stay-back, sleep arrangements, deep-penetration of agents, and all kinds of things, to be on the inside of whatever might be planned. The only way you could run something like what happened on Sept. 11: You had to be on the inside, and you had to have control over shutting off certain security arrangements. Which is why you ask yourself: Why, after the first plane went up, and then the second soon afterward, and then the Pentagon attack, why were there no F-14s stationed--as they're supposed to be--waiting for the order to shoot down the plane which is on the course of doing that? How were these things done? Some Arab pilot trained in some flying school is going to fly a modern jet, at speeds of up to 500 kilometers per hour, do a J-turn, and go into an object at the 86th story of a 110-story building, which looks almost like a pebble, or a golf ball, to a pilot approaching at that speed, when he makes that decision? No, you don't do that.

Nor is this done by some Arab coming in and taking over the pilot's seat. Maybe somebody took over the pilot's seat, but it wasn't some Arab who took over the pilot seat; it was a highly trained pilot, who knew exactly what he was going to do, and was trained for it many times before. It was done from inside the U.S. military.

Now, then you look at it afterward.

You say, why did it happen? Well, when this thing happens, you know what was done. For example, if you get a tiger that goes into a village, and kills people, you know it was a tiger. You then have to find out which was the tiger, and you go out and find it. But you know a tiger did it. You don't wait until you get the name, rank, and serial number of that tiger, before saying a tiger killed these villagers.

The same thing with the cobra. You don't know which cobra did it, if he got away, but some cobra did it.

So, the same thing. We don't know to this day, which of these uglies did it. But we know why it was done....

From Audience: Why?

LaRouche: It was done for the obvious reason: clash of civilizations. Now, you look at the subsequent events. If you had any doubt about what the purpose was, the subsequent events tell you. You have a major fight, factional fight, within the U.S. government, within the Bush Administration, in which the President and Powell and others, like General Zinni, are out to prevent a continuation of the Israeli slaughter against the Palestinians. To bring about an enforced peace, aimed at an independent Palestinian state. That's the policy of the President of the United States. That was the policy of the President of the United States before Sept. 11. It's the policy of the President after Sept. 11.

Now, he's a poor President, but nonetheless that's his policy, and that's his intention. He has many people in his government who are on the opposite side. Well, we know who they are. You can see it in India, on CNN, if you get the CNN broadcast. You can see it on the Murdoch chain. You can see it from the Washington Post. You can see it in other press which express a different view. There's a major fight inside the United States of: “Should we have a clash of civilizations war?” Clash of civilizations war means, that Sharon does what he tried to do once, and will do again, and the Israeli Defense Forces will do it: is to climb up, tear down al-Haram al-Sharif, and put the Third Temple of Israel on top, in place of the mosque. You do that at the same time you're killing Arabs and Islamic people all over the world, what have you got? You have incited a worldwide religious war.

Which is what their purpose is. Brzezinski has said so. Kissinger has said so. So what you have, is the devolution of the development of irregular warfare, in the post-1972 period, in which military commands are polluted by the use of mercenary tactics, but under regular military command, to conduct surrogate wars. Such as those you're seeing in Nepal, Sikkim, and right in India today, which is the problem here.

So that the problem is, therefore, you have an inadequate President, who's trying to defend the world and his government, against the destruction of civilization, by a generalized religious war, and once you start an Islamic religious war, in and outside Islam, you're not going to stop it that easily. All the ethnic pots will boil.

And that's the intention, to destroy civilization. That's coming from London; it's coming from people inside the United States--the supporters of Al Gore, the supporters of the Attorney General of the United States, and others, and crazy military people. It's coming from inside Britain, similar faction there. And it's coming from those inside the United States, and British, who control the IDF command--which, if you want to talk about modern Nazis, the IDF command is your modern Nazis....

So, that's the essence of the matter. And it should be a lesson to us all, as to the nature of the world in which we're living.

What Kind Of New World Economic Order?

Prof. Arjun Sengupta: [School of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University; former economic adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi; former adviser to International Monetary Fund Managing Director Michel Camdessus] I wanted to intervene for a very simple reason. After I heard your speech at Jawaharlal Nehru University, you probably remember, you gave me a book to read. This is your book on recovery [The Road To Recovery]. And having read that, I was quite excited, and I thought that probably this would be a good way of starting a major movement around the world, where every country, or at least leaders of every country which are thinking in terms of a new vision, could unite.

Now, I wanted to explain what I understood from your book, and your discussion, and whether that is something which you'd like to own, and then we can all join.

Frankly, in that kind of a vision, your very interesting discussions about the Sept. 11 events, and the conspiracy and all that, are interesting. They can be challenged. As you know, you are a good academic, so you know that any of these statements requires empirical justification. They can take us to a different kind of a debate. But they are not germane to the main point, or the main theoretical framework, that you are building up. And that is why I would concentrate on that particular theoretical framework that you are building up.

It is also not necessary for you to attack consumerism. My esteemed friend, Mr. Chandrajit Yadav, talked about it. People may or may not like consumerism, but it is not necessary for you to attack that. In fact, all of us who are old, say that we are against consumerism, but the younger people don't, and you have to carry the younger people. So I would say that that is not germane to our discussion either.

I think attacking globalization is also not germane. What is important is, and I think in your book you put it very well, it is not globalization, but our failure to channel, control, regulate, globalization. Like a market economy. A market economy can exist, and can do quite a lot of good things to many people, and in terms of efficiency, technology; but it requires guidance. It requires governance. I want to put it in this way, because it might give you some kind of popular support if you attack globalization, but this would deflect your main line of your thesis, which is not attacking globalization as such; but ways to regulate globalization.

And similarly, I think that Mr. Kapur has raised a very major point about cultural identity. In your framework, national states will exist, and should exist, as cultural units. But will not exist as isolated economic units, or isolated political power centers. In fact, the most important message that you give, is that in this new world, the old power-balance game is no longer going to work. So nation-states, focal points, or power centers, will no longer exist.

Similarly, nation-states as economic entities going against each other, will not be able to function. The only way nation-states can exist is as the cultural units, because cultural identities remain; and they remain because people like to share their identity.

If this is the case, as I understand, you have three elements in your whole structure. You would like to build up an infrastructural system, which will enable private entrepreneurs and private individuals to function, to have innovative activities; because you believe entrepreneurs are still the basis of technological progress. And they should be able to function. But there is a function of an enabling environment of which infrastructure is very important, which can not be built up by private market interests; which will require an international understanding of providing resources, at a cheap cost--2% or so--and it is because the [desired private] rate of return is much higher than that, so we can not marketize that rate of return.

So, your first point is to build up that global infrastructure. In fact, I don't think it is even necessary for you to limit yourself to Eurasia. This can be done for the world order.

And if that is done, then you allow the private entrepreneurs to function, compete with each other, be vectors of technological progress, use this infrastructure.

And thirdly, social arrangements based on equity and democracy.

These are the main points--and empowerment, which follows from there.

And talking about the new international system--but these three would be the basic elements--in which the United States itself should be very much interested. Because as I mentioned, the United States could now cease to be a military-industrial complex, and move toward helping build up that infrastructure system all over the world. It will give it kind of a push. It will also be a system in which the Russians, the Indians, the Chinese, all of them would be interested, because they could benefit from that.

Now, I am putting it in this way--if my understanding is correct--then you probably could unleash a new movement that all of us could join. It is not a question of just populist pressures here and there. The people want to be happy; they want to be rich; they want to have more goods, more opportunities, more freedoms. Your system will provide that, and will move to a different international order, which would be a humane world order, based on a universal fulfillment of all human rights--this is also another point which comes out from your presentation.

Thank you very much.

Protectionism And Wages

LaRouche: I say, generally, yes, I'm in concurrence with the general thrust of your remarks, on all points.

The entrepreneurial thing contains one little problematic feature: The importance of protectionism. For example: the importance of protectionism in wages. You must have a wages policy which protects the wage-income of the worker in the household. You must think of wages not in terms of individual workers; you must think of wages in terms of household income, as units. And that's an area of protectionism which must intervene in the entrepreneurial area; as well as in other areas.

You must also protect the capital investment of the entrepreneur, by regulating prices at such a level--you might call it fair prices, as opposed to fixed prices, but fair prices--which guarantee the entrepreneur the right to a price, and a protected price, in the market, which is equitable for his long-term investment and so forth, and recovery on that. So therefore, you are fostering the entrepreneurial; you are not actually an entrepreneur, but you're doing for the individual entrepreneur what he can not do for himself. It's to create the environment in which he can function.

Similarly with other things among nations. Protectionism: You must provide protectionism for those things which are important, but for which they can not protect themselves. Such as international trade, and so forth. And once you include that, then I would say, “Fine, yes.”

Professor Sengupta: This is the main area where we can have a long debate. Your wages protection--if, by protectionism, you mean sacrifices protection--this wages protectionism is not feasible to maintain, except for what is for the future. Only if there is productivity backing higher wages--

LaRouche: Exactly.

Professor Sengupta: Now, your capital protection is very well-taken, provided we have no alternative way of subsidizing capital; and this is what you were saying, that you are trying to provide it in terms of prices; the alternative may be subsidizing--

LaRouche: The key thing is the family unit, and the education of the member of the household.

Q: That is the most important. That is reflected in your basic human rights that you speak of--

LaRouche: Exactly.

We Must Free States Of Oligarchism

Q: I hope you are going to be the well-informed President of America--about India; because one of your Presidents did not know about the Indian Prime Minister. [Laughter.] Senior Bush, not Junior Bush. Junior Bush knows Vajpayee very well.

What I am going to ask you--because in the new economic world order, in the past years, sir, we had lots of contradictions. The contradiction is Israel. The contradiction is Palestine. And the contradiction is India and Pakistan itself; the two countries that nuclearized. And our past experience with America is very bad.

And so my point is, America knows how to create things, but doesn't know how to use them. They created Osama bin Laden; but then they didn't really rehabilitate Osama bin Laden. And the outcome was the 11th September. Similarly, the U.S. destroyed--helped in collapsing--the Soviet Union. And what happened? The scientists left the Soviet Union, and they settled in different countries; and they produced anthrax.

So, are you going to take care of all these things in the new economic order? Please tell me, because we are also fighting with terrorism, very heavily, like you are right now fighting. For you, it's a new experience; for us, it's long term. Thank you.

LaRouche: First of all, Osama bin Laden was, in a sense, an Anglo-American creation, not an American creation. You have to say “Anglo-American,” or you miss the target. He was essentially a unit deployed by Anglo-American interests to subvert Central Asia and Russia; to spread something else in the Sufi areas, like Afghanistan and Chechnya, which no Sufi would tolerate--

Q: I need one intervention. I'm quoting you only. You said that all the militant groups need state protection, or protection from similar institutions. Osama bin Laden studied in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the best institute of America. And secondly, he was protected--his ideas and everything were protected, when the Cold War was going on.

LaRouche: Well, it was the British government and the United States government. And he was nothing but a drunk and a woman-chaser in his youth, who later became a different kind of degenerate--

Q: [From audience]: And he did not study at MIT.

LaRouche: The problem is the control of states by a phenomenon called oligarchism, the Venetian tradition. And to the extent that certain financier interests are able to subvert governments, control governments, and use the instruments of governments to their advantage, these kinds of problems arise.

What we have to do, essentially, is to have an economic system which does not allow the encroachment of oligarchism of that type, into our systems. If you set up the right kind of economic system, these things can not survive. These things are intended to promote that [oligarchical] kind of economic system. Therefore, if we tear down that kind of economic system, it will have no power base on which to operate.

The Issue Of Cultural Identity

Professor Kaushik: Thank you. Now, I think, Mrs. LaRouche, you may have the floor.

Helga LaRouche: I just wanted to address what several people mentioned: this question of cultural identity as being crucial.

I disagree a little bit with what you [Professor Sengupta] said--that one should not attack consumerism and materialism. I think one has to make, especially, young people conscious about it, because if you look--I did--at the TV here, at some of the “Bollywood” [Calcutta's film industry] productions, you have almost an Indian version of Britney Spears. And the problem is, that you have a lot of young people, of 10, 12, 15 years old, who all try to imitate these pop videos. And they walk around like this.... And in a certain sense, this is mental slavery. Because the stupidity and the banality of this is so big, it stupefies people and makes them, again, a new version of game for the international oligarchy.

Now, we have right now the danger of a real clash of civilizations. You have the danger, that if this present situation in Afghanistan, and everything that hangs around it, is not stopped--if, for example, the hawk faction in the United States and Great Britain is victorious, and they are able to spread the war beyond Afghanistan, maybe to Iraq; or, who knows, Iran was mentioned, Somalia--then the danger could be of a real war of civilizations; of Christianity against Islam, against Hinduism, against Confucianism. And you can really see all of these cultures clashing in a perpetual war.

Now I believe that Leibniz was right, that we indeed, do live in the best of all possible worlds; that in front of a very big danger, something is called forward in people, to outdo a big evil with something even more good. I think this is part of human nature, that if challenged in this way, you can produce something beyond what is presently the threat.

In that sense, I think that the Renaissance of each culture--of Indian culture; of European culture, which right now is almost lost among many people, especially the young, they don't know anything about it any more--I think that if we look at it this way, that each culture is now called upon to revive its best traditions; the best traditions and not the bad traditions, you can have a dialogue among these cultures, where each culture focusses on the best aspects of the other one. And to do that, obviously, you have to have a concept of your own culture first, because, otherwise, you have no basis from which to talk.

Now, Nicolaus of Cusa, who is one of my favorite philosophers from the 15th Century, had the idea that the only reason different cultures can even talk to each other, and understand each other, is because each one produces scientists, wise men--and women, for that matter--poets, composers, people who have a universal language with which they can communicate. Therefore, I think if you start to look: What are the universal principles in each culture--in Indian culture, how is this reflected? in Confucianism, in Islam, in other cultures: That way we can start the dialogue. And I think that out of a terrible crisis and danger to mankind right now, if we start to approach it this way, we will overcome what I call the childhood of mankind, which is oligarchism. Because I don't think oligarchism is something that will be with us forever. And once we start to do that, and start to know the other culture, from the standpoint of knowing our own culture and cherishing what it was contributing to universal progress, I believe that people will eventually--when all children will have the chance to learn about the other cultures in this way--we will start to love them. Because once you start to recognize the beauty of all of these different cultures in the world, it will be like the crown of pearls; where you will be strengthened in what you do, in what your identity is, but you will also be enriched by the contributions of the others.

And since we are for the first time sitting in one boat--I mean, we have reached a point in history where either we all make it, or none of us will make it--then I believe, that through such an exchange of different cultures, we will be able to make a new Renaissance like nothing in the world before.

So I'm actually optimistic that we can turn this crisis into something brilliantly new.

Professor Kaushik: Thank you. Well, I think we have had a very fruitful brainstorming session, for which our thanks go to the couple here, LaRouche and Mrs. LaRouche, and to all the participants who made illuminating observations. So far as I am concerned; well, I am an incorrigible Marxist-Leninist adherent of Mr. LaRouche. [Laughter.] I did my post-graduate degree at Lucknow University.

For me, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, since 1991, my contacts with Mr. LaRouche have been like a refresher course in Renaissance, in European history; European history from a different perspective. And I must say, with due deference to what he believes in and what he says, that I find a lot of common ground between Marxism-Leninism creatively interpreted--creatively, not in the nomenklatura way--and, at least in the present situation, what he has been saying. I want to tell him that had Lenin been alive, he would have come out with the same conclusion, after the analysis of rentier-speculative capitalism. Well, what else do we call it?

I know your Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin, and Roosevelt, and Friedrich List--but then in the reality, we wind up with rentier-financial capitalism. It must not be called anything else but capitalism.

But let us not go and fight about it. I thank my guru, profusely, and I thank you all for your participation. We look forward ... [applause]. So please, come again.

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