Lyndon LaRouche Addresses
Denmark-Sweden Seminar
November 30, 2023

Well, let's talk about two issues, one primarily the one I addressed in my Thanksgiving Presidential address, which was published in the briefing on Friday morning. And, the other is the  relationship of, that is, the parliamentary problem; and the other  being the relationship of Europe and the United States to what is  happening in Eurasia, especially the Eurasian Triangle developments among Russia, China, India, and the countries associated with them, in these ventures.

First of all, the crucial thing for anyone to understand, right now, is that, we have come to the end of a long, ideological cycle. And I'm referring to a particular cycle--we're in many cycles; we have the post-war cycle; we have other cycles, in terms of history. But, in particular terms, about 1964, about the time the United States launched its commitment to a war in Indochina, officially, until the present, is one cycle, which has taken over Europe, which has taken over world relations, and so forth.

Now, this was, essentially, with a very crucial point of inflection in 1989-1991, when the Soviet power collapsed: With the collapse of the Soviet power, a new phase-change within the cycle came into existence, which is now, we're looking at, right away. This situation has resulted in a general breakdown of elementary human mental behavior, among the parliaments of most of the world, especially of the Americas, the U.S. Congress, and the parliaments of Europe. This is a crucial problem.

This is also a reflection of a vast mental problem, a mental breakdown, in the top 20% of income brackets, of the leading circles of Europe and the Americas. The point is, if the person next to you is in the upper 20% of income bracket (I don't think any of you are suspected of being so tainted), then you’ll have a mental problem. Or, if you are otherwise, not a member of the upper 20% of income brackets, but are emotionally attached to something which is being part of that layer, then you are probably suffering a very severe mental problem: A mental problem, which is manifest in the absolute breakdown of mental life, among the parliaments of Europe, generally speaking, and the Americas.  This is also a breakdown in the leading, or most politically influential layer of the population in general. This is a breakdown in what is called "popular opinion." If your neighbor shares popular opinion, get them to the nearest psychiatrist, immediately--we have an emergency on our hands. Because of the nature of this cycle.

As I've said before, what happened was, over 1964 approximately, the post-war tendency of the so-called "Utopian tendency" of Bertrand Russell and H.G. Wells, and their followers--the so-called "world government through nuclear warfare" tendency--this took over, increasingly, with the death of Franklin Roosevelt and the inauguration of President Harry Truman. This was not, however, predominant. Two things remained: We were, in the post-war period, especially up to the middle of the 1960s, committed to economic reconstruction of the world, especially Europe, the Americas, and a few other locations. We also had a strong resistance, to going to the Roman imperial, Waffen-SS style in politics, which was coming out of a group called the Utopians, which essentially were the people, who were the implementers of the policies set into motion by Russell and his type.

So, in the 1960s, a phase-shift occurred, in which we abandoned, in the United States and under Harold Wilson in Britain, abandoned the idea of being producer societies, whose values were based on increasing our productive powers of labor, and ameliorating life through that method; to becoming a post-industrial, consumer society. This was marked among the university-age youth of the '60s, of the so-called "rock-drug-sex youth counterculture."

The result is, that the people who are in top positions of power today, were people who entered adolescence or post-adolescence, during the period following the two events: That is, the combination of the missile crisis of 1962, the launching of the Indochina War, and widespread introduction of the rock-drug-sex youth counterculture, called the environmentalism, post-industrialism, consumerism, ecologism, and whatnot.

So, this was the culture shift. These people who came out into adolescence or adulthood, during this period, have no rational experience, of operating as responsible persons, in a producer society. They are essentially parasitical in their outlook, and think in terms of credit-card debt-management, consumption, standards of consumption, lifestyle, "how I feel," "how my neighbor feels," "what my neighbor's sex-change was," these were the dominant things that go on in that circle.

So, this is popular opinion. This is also the characteristic of the political parties of parliamentary systems, even down to little nut groups, like the Trotskyist cults. They all share this same kind of moral decadence, this intellectual decadence. And this is what the problem is with parliaments: They can not make consistent decisions, which have any competence, because the world of consumer society--that is, of imperial post-industrial society--has collapsed.

The other feature was, that with the collapse of the Soviet power system, that the English-speaking imperial powers, saw themselves as in a position to set up a one-world empire: This is called "globalization." This is called "free trade" in a radical form. This is typified by the introduction of NAFTA, in relations among Canada, the United States, and Mexico. This is typified by the attempt to bring the British in on an English-American system, like the NAFTA free-trade system, and so forth. This is the euro; this is the Maastricht agreements. These are all efforts to destroy the residue of the sovereign nation-state economy, a producers' form of society, in order to go to something, which is a caricature of what happened in Rome, during and following the Second Punic War: when Rome shifted, and Italy shifted, from being largely, still, a producer society, dependent upon the production at home, such as that of the farmers, the Gracchian reforms. Then, the failure of the Gracchian reforms, the defeat of the Gracchi, and the earlier successes of the Flamarian [ph] reforms, typify what this change was.

So, Rome became a parasite, with extensive use of slavery, ruling the rest of the world, and fighting wars of perpetual genocide along its borders, called the "limes" policy. What has happened, we now have that kind of policy: The collapse of the Soviet system--these lunatics decided that they can have a one-world empire, Bertrand Russell- or H.G. Wells-style, forever. And they're determined to use the supremacy in nuclear weapons, on the ground, on the sea, and in the air, to compel the entire world to submit to a world government, run by them.

Now, who is "them"? This gets interesting, when you get to Denmark, because it becomes a very sensitive subject, among names like Baring [ph]. In this process, of the attempt to destroy the Renaissance's effect on Europe, Europe was divided into two general groupings, which were induced to engage in war against one another. This is typified between 1511 and 1648, by a series of religious wars, out of which emerged two major factions, which came to a rather crucial point in the 18th Century. On the one side, you have the Hapsburgs. The Hapsburgs represented the idea of a one-world empire. (They called themselves Catholics: They weren't even human, so there's a little different problem there.) On the other side, there developed a Venetian model in the north:  This was the Anglo-Dutch liberal model. Now, Anglo-Dutch liberalism is nothing but a copy of ancient Venice, but a copy in different territory, and with somewhat different cultural antecedents.

But, Venice had emerged, from the fall of Charlemagne--actually from the accession to power of Otto III, as Emperor--Venice emerged dominant imperial, maritime power of the Mediterranean region and most of Europe, a power held by a financier-oligarchy, of the Venetian financier families. As Venice's power waned, as a state, after the Treaty of Westphalia--particularly in the last quarter of the 17th Century--power shifted significantly, with a dwindling Hapsburg power--toward an Anglo-Dutch liberalism, based upon the sea trade, the maritime trade, first from the Netherlands, and then from England, as England grew as a maritime power.

In due course, through that parent, William of Orange, and the India Companies, which he led, and the takeover of England, which consolidated this power, you had the emergence in the 18th Century, of the Anglo-Dutch liberal model, which included Copenhagen and other places in the North Sea, and so forth, which were all part of this former Hansa League, which had been taken over from the Netherlands. And this was then spread to England.

England is, by nature, as attested by the existence of what is called "central banking" systems. Now, central banking systems are noting but a consortium of private power, of financier interests--not necessarily "banking interests," but "financier interests." These financier interests control an institution, of central banking, which is relatively independent of government, and which even able to dictate terms, to governments. Now, that is the liberal system. That is the Anglo-Dutch liberal system, which is what the United States was founded to avoid; even though they get an infestation of this kind of nonsense, from time to time, as we have now.

So, the result of that is, you have European governments never really worked. Because European governments were never truly sovereign, with very rare exceptions, momentary exceptions. Because they were always conditioned, as they had been under the Lombard bankers, they had been conditioned into submission of political authority, to conditionalities imposed by what we call today "central banking" systems: Financier blocs, which were able dictate terms, including political terms, to governments. And therefore, European parliamentary systems, which had been more or less consistently based on so-called "central banking" system, or "independent central banking" systems, are not truly sovereign governments but are rather, a kind of peculiar partnership, in which the government is often the junior partner, and the financier interest controlling the central banking system, are the senior partners. They dictate money, issue of money; they dictate exchange rates; they dictate collection policies, bankruptcy policies, so forth and so on; and investment policies. So, actually, governments in Europe, at present, are essentially toys, playthings of central banking systems, of those financier interests, which are based on the Venetian model of imperial, maritime power by financier-oligarchical interests.

Now, the power of Europe, the economic power of Europe: Europe's domination of the world--and its domination by leadership, not domination by conquest--has been based on the Renaissance, on the emergence of truly sovereign nation-states, based on the principle of truthfulness, the Platonic principle of truthfulness, which is called "agape"; it is known in English usage, as "general welfare" or "common good." So, therefore, governments are obliged to rule, in the interest of the general welfare, the common good; and that includes their rule over financier and banking systems, in order keep these systems functioning within the bounds of the interest of the general welfare and the common good.

What happened during the post-war period, with the oligarchical system rising again, after the death of Roosevelt: In the middle of the 1960s, a drive was made to rid the world the world of the influence of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Presidency. The result was, the post-industrial society, or the shift toward a consumer society, an imperial thrust, which was played out between the Soviet system and the Anglo-American system, until 1989-1991, when the Soviet system died, effectively.

At that point, the Anglo-American Utopian system saw itself emerging, spreading its wings--its wet wings, which like vultures, were hanging out in the Sun to dry, before flying--and these vultures were determined to set up their Bertrand Russell-style, nuclear weapons-dominated, dominant world empire; regulating world population; conducting perpetual wars against Islamic and other populations, and so forth and so on.

So, that's the situation we face.

Now, we come to the point, that the fact that this system, the liberal system, the Anglo-Dutch liberal system, inherently does not work: Because the failure to increase the physical productive powers, the labor per capita, results in a collapse of society. What is seen as result of the change, especially in 1964, is that, increasingly, especially after 1971, the rate of monetary value attached to physical objects has increased; whereas the physical value produced per capita, has decreased. This system of speculation has reached the point, that it's no longer impossible to maintain the system.

However, all social values and ordinary "success" and "lifestyle" values, within the populations, are based on the assumption, that the post-industrial, ecologist, liberal system, that is defined recently, is the way things work! Their credit-card lifestyle is based on the assumption--which is really more extensive in the United States, than in Europe--but this kind of mentality has so corrupted the population, that neither the parliamentary parties, nor the population in general--especially the upper 20% of income brackets (or those who define themselves, ideologically, part of the upper 20%) are capable of rational thoughts, about the crises which confront us now. They're in a state of quasi-schizophrenic denial, as a mass-psychotic phenomenon of denial, which is based on the attempt to maintain a system, that does not work.

It's like the fellow, who's trying to--you know, he's down in the Titanic, and sinking. And he's sitting down there, under the bulkheads, sticking oars out in the water, to try to paddle the Titanic to safety. That is the spectacle, of your typical so-called "upper middle-class" mentality, through Europe and much of the United States today.

And it's for that reason that parliaments and similar institutions tend not to work. Because, neither popular opinion, as merely popular opinion, nor the system, works. But, they're trying desperately, to find solutions within the framework of the system. They're trying to say, "Let's cut, cut, cut! Austerity will save us! We must have more austerity. We must have more austerity! We must have more austerity!! We must have more austerity!!!" Meanwhile, the system gets worse and worse, with each dose of this poison, , for some strange reason.

Okay. On the other hand, you have a program of survival, which began to emerge largely at my suggestion, out of the Summer and early Fall of 1998, with the collapse of the GKO bond speculation in Russia. At that point, I proposed, that we had to put up a counterbalance, to the collapsing of the economies of Western Europe and the Americas, by building up the economies of the Eastern Eurasia. And this buildup must occur, based on a strategic agreement, among Russia, China, and India, which are quite dissimilar cultures, but, if they could agree on a common principle of cooperation, this would be a framework, within which our nations--with still different cultural antecedents--could join and work.

What you're seeing now, is that. You're seeing, as recently restated again and again from Russia, and elsewhere. You're seeing the emergence of, what I called, backed in 1998, the "Strategic Triangle." The Strategic Triangle can not work by itself. It is a component, it is a phase-space, of the global system which is essential for a global system which works. The immediate implication for Europe, is that--Europe is dying, Western Europe. The economies of Western Europe are dying: Germany is dying; all of Western Europe is dying, economically. The only way you can save it, is an increase in its return to conventional European export trade: which means, essentially, producing for  high-technology capital-goods export, primarily. This would save Germany, which already depends upon China, as its only significant growth customer. This is essential for Italy. It's essential for all of Europe.

Only a stable Strategic Triangle system, as a partner of Europe, represents a normal baseline, sufficient for a revival, of an otherwise doomed world economy. And, one would assume that the United States would, with the Americas as a whole, would cooperate and would participate in that kind of new, international monetary system, financial system, economic system.

So, the point is, the resistance to that, is what the problem is. But, the resistance comes, not only from the opposition by the parliamentary parties; opposition by the upper 20% of the populations, who are clinically insane, in Europe and the Americas; but also, the pure inertia of popular opinion. You have the Classical case of a true tragedy on a global scale: You have a society, which is morally incapable of surviving, as long as it clings to what is considers its presently adopted values; its presently adopted assumptions, axiomatic assumptions.  This is tragedy: Tragedies are never caused by leaders of society. They're caused by the lack of leadership in society, leadership for change, for necessary change--which is what I'm doing: providing the leadership for necessary change, because, around the world, there is no other such leadership. Other people who are echoing what we are doing, as you see in the spread of the Strategic Triangle, which I proposed in 1998, is now a hegemonic tendency, among the leading nations of that part of Eurasia. Well, that's not exactly the lack of influence, and we're doing some good. We have influence in other parts of the world.

But, those who resist what I represent, represent policies of governments, and nations, which are doomed, if they continue with their present policies.

This is often the case in history. This is the true case of the fall of empires. This is the true meaning of all Classical tragedy. Don't believe any other interpretation of any Classical tragedy than the one I just gave you: They're all incompetent. And they're the babbling of fools.

These are the true elements to consider, from Europe. We must have the policies I've proposed, which are the only existing, feasible alternative, to the suicidal destruction, which is inhering in the present parliamentary systems, and in popular opinion. Especially popular opinion, deeply embedded, in those ideologically self-identified with the upper 20% of family-income brackets, in Europe, the Americas, and so forth.

These people are insane. Therefore, we have to change them. Now, even a few among us would say, "You have to go and influence them, by appealing to their existing values." That's like trying to give advice to a guy, who absolutely refuses to discuss getting out of the Titanic, when it's sinking. What you may have to do, is clobber the guy, put an arm-lock on him, take him up to the bridge, and throw him overboard! Otherwise, he will not possibly survive. And even that's precarious.  But, that's your problem.

And, my problem is, I have to do that, despite the reluctance among  many of you, among us, to do what I say what must be done. Despite the fact the evidence is all in: I've been right; those who have opposed me on this, have been wrong. But, they're still clinging, out of fear, to popular opinion, and trying to ingratiate themselves with leading institutions, which are themselves morally and intellectually bankrupt. And, thus, as many cultures in the past, plunge into a tragic demise, which is what faces us unless we change things.

So, that's where we stand. So, you're in a very interesting period in history. Times have existed like this before: The empires, like Mesopotamia, have collapsed repeatedly; other empires have collapsed. We're now at the point, that the present world system is on the verge of an early, rapid collapse, into a generalized Dark Age of the planet--unless we succeed.

In order to succeed, you have to be clear. You've got to be uncompromising, when it comes to dealing with clinical insanity of the type very prevalent today. You have to recognize the problems of governments, is not that this party is not that good; or this party is not that good. The problem is, all the parties stink. They all stink! They stink for one reason: Because popular opinion stinks! And the stink is elected to parliament. And the parliament spreads the stink--which is what it's elected to do! And, if the stink doesn't work, therefore the governments don't work, and the people find that, they too, don't work!

So, that's a very interesting situation. To me, as a person of an historical bent, it is extremely interesting. I sit back, and I'm very sad about what's happening to the human race; but I'm very happy, that, in this best of all possible worlds, as Leibniz defined it: Stupidity will not prevail.

Have fun!

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