Author: Alicia

David Stockman, the former Congressman and Reagan’s Office of Management and Budget director, wrote in his blog on Feb. 12 under the title: “Shoot Bank Of America Now—The Case For Super Glass-Steagall Is Overwhelming.” He targets Bank of America, which was exposed Thursday in the Wall Street Journal for yet more criminal activity, this time involving tax evasion by moving U.S.-based funds covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) to London for certain stock operations which are illegal in the United States.

But his attack is on the system as a whole. He writes:

He says the entire banking system requires a

On Glass-Steagall he writes:

Stockman also suggests capping all banks to 1% of GDP, or about $200 billion.

He concludes:

As the euro area finance ministers gathered in Brussels Wednesday for the Eurogroup meeting, in which they hoped to get Greece to sign an extension of the genocidal loan agreement, tens of thousands of supporters all over Europe demonstrated, to show support to the Greek government. According to a Canada-based Greek activist, the call has now gone out, for rallies worldwide on Sunday, Feb. 15, the day before the next Euro finance ministers’ session.

In Greece, pro-government rallies were held all over the nation, despite freezing weather. Though the English-language Greek media speak of “more than 10,000” demonstrators in Athens, the photographs show the entire Syntagma Square filled, which easily means 50-100,000 people. In Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, more than 10,000 took part. Tens of thousands rallied in many other cities. Slogans included “Breath of Dignity” and “No Step Back.”

On his Twitter account, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras wrote:

“In cities around Greece and Europe, the people are battling for negotiations!”

In Athens, government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis commented that the Greek people have given birth to the new “movement in the squares” and support the government efforts against poverty and unemployment.

“Hope has driven fear away,” he said.

Rallies were held throughout Europe: Four rallies were held in Portugal, five in Italy, one in Spain, three in France, as well as rallies in Cyprus, Germany, Belgium, U.K., plus New York and Brazil. Cities in Europe included, at least, Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, London, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Lausanne, Rome, Lisbon, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Madrid, and Helsinki.

LPAC organizers in New York.

In Ireland, Gerry Adams spoke at the Sinn Fein demonstration in front of Leinster House, the parliament in Dublin, in solidarity with Syriza. He castigated the Irish government for refusing to back a European debt conference. “It’s obvious that the Government know who they’re in bed with—the elites, and they’re not going to get out of that bed.”

LaRouche movement organizers attended the rallies in Paris, Berlin, and New York.

The following statement was circulated by LaRouchePAC organizers on Wednesday in New York at the “Breath of Dignity” rally held in solidarity with the Greece.

LaRouche PAC, the U.S. political organization led by Lyndon LaRouche, stands in solidarity with the Greek people on this day. We are Americans who recognize that the extreme austerity, brutal conditions, and genocide imposed upon the Greek people by the troika stem from the actual fiscal bankruptcy of the City of London and Wall Street monetarist regimes. They, not the people of Greece or its government, are bankrupt. They can only continue to exist by cannibalizing whole populations in support of the financial bubble they have created, and precipitating a World War, starting with the current plan for a war with Russia.

LPAC on the street in solidarity with the Greek people, organizing for a new international economic order.

The alternative starts with the recognition that they are bankrupt, that their actions no longer carry the aura of inevitability, that the emperor has no clothes.

We are Americans who recognize that a new, bold alternative future for mankind has been posed by the BRICS group of nations and that a huge step in that potential development was set in motion by the Greek elections. The BRICS propose to develop mankind’s physical economic infrastructure on this earth and to extend mankind’s dominion to the solar system and beyond. In addition to harnessing the energy and imagination of younger people in bold adventures on behalf of mankind, the BRICS propose that economics should serve the needs and dignity of man, rather than the continuation of the bankrupt monetarist system currently enslaving and killing whole populations and proposing, through World War, to exterminate the human race.

We are Americans who stand apart from our present government, which acts consistently under the British and Wall Street thumb. On the one hand, we look to America’s past and that spirit which revolted against the British system and imposed, through New York’s great genius, Alexander Hamilton, a new form of government and economy on this country, a government devoted to scientific invention, economic development, promotion of the general welfare — a government which drew its inspiration from the best of European culture, including, most specifically, the great Greek philosophers and poets and the great Renaissance in which mankind leaped forward from a dark age imposed by the oligarchy.

On the other hand, we look to create a future worthy of humans. We applaud your courage and will stand behind you. We urge you to lead Europe, with the BRICS group of nations, into a new human Renaissance. There is a limit to a tyrant’s power. In the words of that great poet, Friedrich Schiller:

The dignity of Man into your hands is given, Protector be! It sinks with you! With you it is arisen!

With the ceasefire agreement reached yesterday between Putin, Hollande, Poroshenko, and Merkel, the real question remains: Will Europe and the world plunge into general war, or will a genuine alternative be achieved?

What drove this extremely fragile agreement was the recognition by some in Europe that the world was on the cusp of a world war. The issue is war or no war. Clearly, the French are breaking out of the war momentum, and some in Germany are shaky, but aligning with the French. One way or the other, the outcome of war or no war will shape a whole new process globally.

What is far too often ignored is the fact that the entire drive for war is because London and Wall Street are in a panic over the bankruptcy of their entire system. There is nothing that can be done to save that Empire system, but we are at the point where that system is either replaced altogether, or we plunge into general war or general chaos. That is the nature of the moment. The bankruptcy of the London/Wall Street system is the key to everything.

The Saudis are an extension of that British Empire System, and the chaos and dark age genocide we are seeing in the Middle East is just an extension of what the British and Wall Street have in store for the entire planet, unless they are stopped. As we can see in the stonewalling against debt forgiveness for the Greek people, who have been subjected to horrible suffering, these people would rather destroy the planet than lose their system and lose their power.

The Minsk agreement is in jeopardy of being sabotaged and turned into a trigger for general war, so long as Nuland and her Nazi legions remain on the scene and in power in Kiev. Obama is a just a patsy for the British, but under these circumstances, the patsy factor is significant. Obama, under the influence of people like Nazi Nuland, can be the trigger for a total war. There is strong evidence that Nuland is a Nazi, and she must be thrown out as part of any sane war-prevention effort. This is no time to evade the obvious truth.

So far, within the United States, the voices of opposition to war have been largely suppressed or confined to the edges. This pattern was breached significantly Wednesday with a speech to 200 dignitaries at the National Press Club by former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock attacking the policy of the West, and specifically Obama, toward Russia over Ukraine. Matlock, and the moderator of the event, Ambassador Chas Freeman, also broached the overriding reality—the danger of nuclear war.

The fight in Europe over the future of the British Empire, ostensibly centered on Greece and the demands for a continuation of the Troika austerity genocide, is going to blow back big into the United States, because of Wall Street’s ties to the entire London bankrupt system. The Republican Party is going to be hit very hard because of their undying loyalty to Wall Street. Anyone believing that the British System will survive on the basis of either kicking Greece out of the euro, or forcing Greece to bend to the Troika, is insane. It is the entire system that is bankrupt beyond repair. Either there is a total orderly shutdown of Wall Street and London, or we have war or chaos. Wall Street is in jeopardy and that extends to the GOP.

The Empire System is collapsing, and the danger is a plunge into chaos, as we saw in Europe during the Dark Age.

A complete change is needed, on the model of how Europe changed with the actions of Joan of Arc and the emergence of the Cusa Council of Florence. Cusa created the basis for Kepler and Leibniz. If you take up Vernadsky’s concept of the Noösphere and the absolute distinction between mankind and animals, and work your way back to Kepler, you have the foundations for the kinds of changes in thinking that are required to survive this onrushing crisis for mankind.

The “Normandy Four” — Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia, Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, Francois Hollande of France, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel — who first met on the Ukraine crisis in Normandy last June, worked in Minsk last night for 17 hours, accompanied by their foreign ministers and other negotiators, to reach an interim agreement on stopping the escalation of bloodshed and a strategic showdown in eastern Ukraine.

A ten-point agreement titled “A Set of Measures for Implementation of the Minsk Accords,” referring to the Contact Group agreement reached last September, but only partially implemented, was signed not by the four, but by the members of the Contact Group: Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics leaders Alexander Zakharchenko and Leonid Plotnitsky, Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov, Ukrainian ex-President Leonid Kuchma, and OSCE Special Representative Heidi Tagliavini. This group simultaneously met through the night at another location in Minsk, with Tagliavini, as well as Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov, shuttling between the two meetings. Putin told the press in the morning that the length of the talks had been caused by Poroshenko’s refusal to negotiate directly with the DPR/LPR leaders, while Merkel said to journalists that Putin’s pressure on the latter had been crucial in reaching any agreement at all.

The accord provides for a ceasefire in the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, starting at midnight, Feb. 14-15. Artillery and other heavy weaponry are to be pulled back sufficiently to create a minimum 50-km safe zone; the Kiev forces are to pull back from the current line of engagement and the DPR/LPR militias from the demarcation line of Sept. 2014. The OSCE assumes “monitoring” functions. There is a commitment to “dialogue on modalities of conducting local elections in accordance with Ukrainian legislation and the Law of Ukraine ‘On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Lugansk Regions’,” followed by talks on the future of these regions.

There are provisions for amnesties and prisoner exchanges, as well as humanitarian aid to the Donbass. Kiev commits to restoring wages, pensions, and banking system function in these areas, while it is supposed to gain “full control over the state border,” including between the DPR/LPR and Russia, after the elections and after constitutional reform in Ukraine, “the key element of which is decentralization” and a “special status” for the Donetsk and Lugansk Regoins — all by the end of this year. All foreign fighters, “mercenaries,” and their weapons are to be pulled out of Ukraine.

After the talks, the four heads of state spoke to the press separately, raising concerns that they had differing interpretations of the accord from the very start. Later in the day Thursday, however, the declaration by the four titled “Declaration in Support of the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements Approved in Minsk on February 12, 2015” was published. They state “full respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine” (with no mention of Crimea), and express their commitment “to undertake all possible individual and joint measures to this end.”

The declaration specifies that Germany and France will provide technical expertise for restoring the banking system, and states that the four leaders “share the conviction that improved cooperation between the EU, Ukraine and Russia will be conducive to settlement of the crisis settlement,” for which there are to be continued three-way talks between the EU, Ukraine and Russia on energy issues, as well as concerns related to Ukraine’s Association Agreement with the EU. The Declaration also includes a formulation on commitment to “a joint humanitarian and economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific, based upon full respect for international law and the principles of the OSCE.”

Putin’s remarks indicated uncertainty about the situation around Debaltsevo, the railway junction between Donetsk and Lugansk where up to eight thousand Kiev troops may have been trapped. He said that Ukraine refused to recognize that this was the case, leading to unclarity about the ceasefire and the lines of demarcation. According to reports from both sides, the Russian and Ukrainian Armed Forces chiefs of staff were to be in contact Thursday on making a professional determination of the situation there. For his part, DPR leader Zakharchenko said that if Kiev violates this accord, there will be no further talks.

The United States and Europe, still refusing the offers of credit, investment, and scientific cooperation from China and the BRICS-allied nations, are in a grave dual crisis. They face a war confrontation with Russia — which, all sane citizens recognize, means a thermonuclear war of destruction awaits. And they face the increasing threat of a financial blowout of exploding Wall Street derivatives bubbles, triggered by the collapse of the euro, the oil debt bubble, or both at once.

Any financial columnist or bank analyst will tell you now: It’s “inevitable” that either the new Greek government capitulates to more austerity and effectively murders its own citizens; or it is forced out of the euro, its exit triggering, they say, a currency breakup and financial chaos.

What they don’t accept, is the possibility that Greece could, instead, change the entirety of economically collapsed Europe! In recent days, some of the largest demonstrations in years in Europe have backed up exactly this “impossibility.” Backed by the mass effects of broad anti-Wall Street, anti-austerity movements in a number of countries, Greece could win, and shift all of Europe towards shedding its immense, dead debts and creating new credit for development — EVEN, joining with the new international development banks of the BRICS-allied nations to do this.

This is our objective, and we, LaRouchePAC and EIR, are in the center of this possibility, and putting everything we have into it.

Geopoliticians of all stripes pronounce it “inevitable” that either Vladimir Putin capitulates to ongoing intense financial/economic attacks on Russia, or the “Ukraine” escalation goes on, toward the looming threat of world war with nuclear forces on a hair-trigger.

But none of them anticipated that two European leaders would suddenly launch a last-minute diplomatic initiative at the highest level, which has so far survived the Obama-British desire to kill it.

Nor do they have any idea what will follow this. That depends on human creativity in a crisis. A month ago, because of the huge international impact, on the day of the Paris attacks, of a press conference in Washington exposing the Saudi/British role in the 9/11 attacks, a revived French national unity began to appear. That national unity has now spilled over into a determination to stop Obama and the British from triggering a war with Russia. Such a determination changes the possibilities of “mere diplomacy” in the face of oligarchies set on war.

But more is required for peace — actions to neutralize “Nuland’s Nazis,” the extreme right-wing and fascist forces who dominated the “Maidan coup” in Kiev just a year ago. Is this “impossible”?

At a time of deep crisis like this one, this comes down to a characteristic of completely “unpredictable” human creativity, capable of changing the inevitable, if backed up by fight.

This truth was expressed in a brief but powerful discussion by EIR Founding Editor Lyndon LaRouche discussion — addressed to exactly these dual crises — on Feb. 8. LaRouche had first opened this up, more deeply, on Feb. 3. That discussion, which should be read, or better, listened to by anyone who wants to change the world for the good, can be read and listened to here.

France’s political parties are unified in President François Hollande’s opposition to Obama’s war against Russia, and denounced it in the strongest terms. The Socialist government of Hollande; the conservative Union for a Popular Movement Party (UMP) led by former French President Sarkozy, and Marine Le Pen’s National Front party declared, as Sarkozy stated it,

“The interests of the Americans with [regard to] the Russians are not the interests of Europe and Russia.”

The break with the captured British pawn Obama came over his intention to send lethal weapons to the Nazis in Kiev. This would be a “casus belli” for Russia, against the U.S. and its coalition “partners.”

Former French President Sarkozy addressed the Congress of the UMP Feb. 7,

“We are part of a common civilization with Russia. We do not want the revival of a Cold War between Europe and Russia.”

With regard to Crimea’s decision to secede from Ukraine, Sarkozy said,

“Crimea has chosen Russia, and we cannot blame it [for doing so]…. We must find the means to create a peacekeeping force to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine.” He added further, “Ukraine is not destined to join the EU. Ukraine must preserve its role as a bridge between Europe and Russia.”

President Hollande himself called for broader autonomy for the Donbass regions of Ukraine. They need “rather strong autonomy” from Kiev, he told France 1 TV Feb. 8. Hollande’s foreign minister Laurent Fabius said there must be no new sanctions imposed on Russia or Ukrainians while the “Normandy” negotiations are ongoing.

Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Front, called EU Headquarters in Brussels “American lackeys” over the EU Ukraine policy. She told reporters

“the aim of the Americans is to start a war in Europe to push NATO to the Russian border.”

Even stronger were the Feb. 8 statements of former Foreign Minister François Fillon to the public broadcaster France 5, that the United States is

“attempting to unleash a war in Europe, which would end in complete catastrophe….Total war caused by the Ukrainian conflict is absolutely unacceptable.”

Two things are clear, then. Very forceful French pressure is driving the last-minute diplomatic efforts to snatch a ceasefire from the jaws of the U.S.-British drive for war. And France itself continues to be affected by the revolutionary impulse of national unity from the huge marches following the Paris terror attacks a month ago. That potential revolutionary change was noted immediately then by Lyndon LaRouche, who said that the “28 pages” press conference on the day of the attacks had launched a change in the world situation.

President Obama and German Chancellor Merkel seemed to be in agreement in their press conference Monday that the way forward in Ukraine in the conflict between Russia and the West is through continued diplomacy rather than war. In her comments, Merkel said,

“Whenever you have political conflict, such as the one that we have now between Russia and Ukraine, but also in many other conflicts around the world, it has always proved to be right to try again and again to solve such a conflict. And there’s always a point where you say, well, all of the options are on the table, we’ve gone back and forth, but then one has to think again. Whenever you have political conflict, such as the one that we have now between Russia and Ukraine, but also in many other conflicts around the world, it has always proved to be right to try again and again to solve such a conflict.”

Obama’s comments were in the same vein, albeit expressed somewhat less convincingly:

“My hope is that through these diplomatic efforts, those costs have become high enough that Mr. Putin’s preferred option is for a diplomatic resolution. And I won’t prejudge whether or not they’ll be successful…. If they are not, then we will continue to raise those costs.”

Obama then went on ominously,

“Now, it is true that if, in fact, diplomacy fails, what I’ve asked my team to do is to look at all options — what other means can we put in place to change Mr. Putin’s calculus — and the possibility of lethal defensive weapons is one of those options that’s being examined. But I have not made a decision about that yet. I have consulted with not just Angela, but will be consulting with other allies about this issue.”

Obama had also indicated that NATO would be beefing up its military posture along the Russian border.

“Along with our NATO allies, well keep bolstering our presence in Central and Eastern Europe — part of our unwavering Article 5 obligation to our collective defense. We will continue to work with the IMF and other partners to provide Ukraine with critical financial support as it pursues economic and anti-corruption reforms. We discussed the issue of how best to assist Ukraine as it defends itself, and we agreed that sanctions on Russia need to remain fully in force until Russia complies fully with its obligations.”

In reply to a question on Greece, Merkel insisted on the Troika conditionalities:

“The German policy, ever since 2010, has been aimed at Greece staying a member of the Eurozone. I’ve said this time and again. The basic rules have always been the same. You put in your own efforts, and on the other side, you’re being shown solidarity as a quid pro quo. The three institutions of the Troika — the ECB, the European Union Commission, and the IMF — have agreed on programs. These programs are the basis of any discussion we have. I’ve always said I will wait for Greece to come with a sustainable proposal and then we’ll talk about this,” she said.