Author: Alicia

Last week, the Schiller Institute inaugurated a weekly webcast, to bring to the attention of citizens throughout the world the incredible new dynamic which has been unleashed around China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI is defining a New Paradigm for mankind, which means an end to geopolitics, with its endless wars, its bailouts and bail-ins of bankrupt financial institutions, and its demands for deadly austerity against the vast majority of people. This dynamic, which Mrs. LaRouche characterized as the “Spirit of the Silk Road” represents an opportunity for mankind to achieve a new era of peace, through development.

In less than a month, President Trump will travel to Asia, with visits to China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines. His meeting with President Xi Jinping has the potential to be world historic, building on the positive rapport between the two from their initial meeting in April in Mar-e-Lago.

The forces of the neocon transatlantic oligarchy are engaged in a desperate deployment to prevent this relationship from developing into full collaboration. That is what is behind the “Get Trump” operation and why it must not be allowed to succeed.

For the US and European nations to join the New Silk Road is the only way to escape a new financial crash, which even outgoing German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is warning about.

Join Helga Zepp LaRouche and the Schiller Institute this Thursday, for a full strategic update as this dynamic is unfolding.

There are several signs of renewed fight against Special Counsel Robert Mueller emerging from the beginning stages of our circulation of the Mueller dossier. Here is a roundup:

A widely published AP wire from the evening of Oct. 10, claims that there is a split in the Trump camp among those cautioning Trump to avoid antagonizing Mueller and those urging the President to engage in aggressive war against him. Those urging aggressive war cite Trump’s lawyers, who are cooperating with Mueller, as dangerously naïve. As we have repeatedly pointed out, the President himself would be wise not to personally war against Mueller. Rather, the public should be chopping Mueller’s undeserved reputation to bits and demanding that Congress end this fiasco. The President should concentrate on the flanks, opening the 9/11 flank on the Saudis with all its implications for Mueller and joining the New Silk Road, making good on his campaign promises. That’s why we are the indispensable element in winning this war.

The Washington Post published an Op-Ed on Oct. 11, entitled, “Robert Mueller cannot save us,” by resident new Resist member and WAPO editorial board member, Quinta Jurecic, praising Mueller, literally, as an epic Deep State hero, the anti-Trump, but bemoaning the prospect that Mueller will probably find no illegalities by the President himself. She calls for direct action. This is significant, because she is also an associate editor of Benjamin Witte’s Lawfare blog, which was a leak point and cheerleader for former FBI Director James Comey.

Senator Chuck Grassley, clearly acting on some sort of tip, issued a letter to the FBI on October 6th, seeking clarification of any alleged confirmation of information in the phony British Christopher Steele dossier. Grassley says he wants to know whether any details of the dossier are the result of confirmations by foreign intelligence services rather than U.S. investigators. He says, for example, that the UK intelligence services received the dossier, and could be claiming to validate portions of the dossier without really disclosing the basis for any such finding, in effect recirculating the same fabricated allegations but giving a foreign state imprimatur to the self-same nonsense. Unsaid in Grassley’s letter is that almost all the claims in Russia-gate have been sourced from the British and allied spook agencies without further presentation of evidence on the U.S. side. That includes the FBI’s reliance on Crowdstrike for its forensics on the DNC and Podesta computers.

In fact, the lack of such evidence was made clear by the pathetic presentation on October 4th by Senators Mark Warner and Richard Burr, to the effect that Senate Intelligence has no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia after reviewing thousands of pages of documents and interviewing hundreds of witnesses, but that they nonetheless believe that the Russians meddled in the 2016 election because the intelligence agencies say so, but have not been able to conclude that the Russians had any electoral preferences!

On the House side, the media was in a frenzy on Oct. 10 and 11, because House Intelligence Committee chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, signed subpoenas from the Committee delivered to Fusion GPS regarding the infamous British Steele dossier. Turns out that the entire GOP majority on the Intelligence Committee was behind the subpoenas seeking information about who paid for the dodgy dossier and how it was circulated. Fusion GPS is presently defending four defamation lawsuits by private citizens defamed in Steele’s dossier and is obviously seeking to avoid truth telling. The actions by Nunes and Grassley followed reports of Mueller himself meeting with the British fabricator, Christopher Steele.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry has published two useful articles at Consortium News (see Russia-gate Jumps the Shark and The Mystery of the Russia-gate Puppies) during the same period, dealing with the various claims by Mark Warner and the media that the pesky Russians infiltrated the American mind and switched the results of the election via Google search mechanisms and Facebook ads. Parry points out, Facebook only came up with what it calls Russian-linked ads — meaning that someone with a Russian name, bank account, or web address purchased the ads — after Senator Mark Warner publicly threatened the company. Warner sits on key committees regulating the internet. Among the devious devices used by the clever Russians to lure Americans in, according to Warner and the media, were pictures of puppies. Those familiar with Facebook marketing know that pictures of puppies are the most widely employed click bait in all Facebook advertising.

Finally, Scott Balber, the lawyer for the Agalarov family involved in the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower, has released emails leading up to that entrapment attempt. The newly-released emails clearly show all involved, other than British publicist Rob Goldstone, to have considered this a meeting on the Magnitsky Act sanctions against Russia and not for purposes of offering official Russian government dirt on Hillary Clinton to the Trump campaign. The release fully supports the claims of the Trump team that the meeting went nowhere and did not involve what was stated in Goldstone’s fabricated email. They also support the EIR “Mueller dossier’s” conclusion that the meeting was a British-orchestrated entrapment.

For the full syllabus, homework, and access to the teachers, register here.

Welcome to Part Two of our economic series examining Lyndon LaRouche’s economic forecasting method, lead by three members of his Scientific Research Team. This week—How do you measure the growth and progress in an economy? Textbook economics notions of GDP, market analysis, and monetary theory fail to provide a measure of true progress or decline. Economics is fundamentally a physical process, and we start by understanding the role of technologies and machinery in improving the productive powers of labor.

Immediate funding for protective and productive infrastructure projects, in multiple U.S. states and in Puerto Rico, has forced its way back onto President Donald Trump’s plans as he prepares for an 11-day trip to Asia which includes a crucial summit with President Xi Jinping in China.

Pundits and Washington insiders had been in agreement that Trump’s trillion-dollar infrastructure build had “faded on the agenda” and been postponed to 2018 at earliest. But Trump’s own unique comments, against public-private partnerships, for rebuilding Puerto Rico’s infrastructure, and for recognizing that its debt is unpayable, have brought Democrats rushing to the White House to discuss a plan. And Xi Jinping’s China is building major new infrastructure virtually all over the world except in North America, and would invest to help build it here.

First, the White House has requested $29 billion in new funds to FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers, and HUD for recovery in Texas (which requested $18.7 billion of it), emergency recovery in Puerto Rico (which has requested $8 billion), Florida, and other southeast states. This can be voted this week in the House, but is not economic infrastructure funding.

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló told a delegation of U.S. Senators he flew over the island on Oct. 7, that he is preparing another request, for either loans or grants for long-term rebuilding of the island’s infrastructure “within weeks,” not giving any details publicly. A Texas State Representative, Republican Ron Simmons, has called for the formation of a state infrastructure bank to fund reconstruction along the Gulf Coast. Given the size of the investments needed, the state bank would best be supported by a National Bank for infrastructure.

Trump’s legislative aides held another meeting with members of Congress from both parties Friday to discuss infrastructure. These are exchanges of what clearly remain vague ideas on all sides. But Infrastructure Committee chair Rep. Bill Schuster (R-PA) claimed after the meeting that a White House infrastructure plan now exists and will soon be publicized.

Building a new economic infrastructure in Puerto Rico cannot be done, however, without setting aside the great majority of its $72 billion in debt. Even the Control Board set up under Obama’s PROMESA Act of 2016 recognizes that Puerto Rico cannot, even with now-deadly austerity measures, pay more than $800 million or 1% of this debt annually — in other words, not even interest.

It took President Trump, and no other national elected official, to state this publicly and say Wall Street’s debt would have to go. Then, Democrats who had led the “slow, indifferent response” attack on Trump enthusiastically chimed in. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) — who said “Donald Trump, you wanna take care of that one? Hallelujah, I’m with you. If you eliminate the debt, like Donald Trump says, you don’t need a control board and therefore you don’t have to make decisions anymore between paying the bondholders, and many of them are unscrupulous members of Wall St. hedge funds…” — can stand for others like Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) and others who reacted in much the same way.

But in fact Puerto Rico is already unable to borrow on the municipal bond market, and would be cut off from credit indefinitely if its debt were just “wiped out.” It has to be reorganized, illegitimate debt written down, and the rest made payable over a long period by being absorbed into a Federal credit institution which can help build the new infrastructure. Just as with any Texas State Bank grappling with tens of billions of Gulf Coast rebuilding investments, “setting aside” Puerto Rico’s debt requires a National Bank for infrastructure.

LaRouchePAC and EIR are pushing this clear and necessary idea in the otherwise vague “infrastructure” debate. Its main opposition is the so-called “Delaney plan” of presidential candidate, ex-Rep. John Delaney of Maryland. It would provide perhaps $200-250 billion for national infrastructure investments, gotten from repatriated corporate tax-avoidance funds abroad, and would involve hedge and vulture funds in its capital. LaRouche’s “Hamiltonian” National Bank will provide trillions in credit, and open the door to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

European Parliament member Marco Zanni (Italy) has intervened into the Spanish crisis by arguing that the factions should end the “war between the poorer and the less poor,” and unite their forces to defend the nation-state against the EU dictatorship. Zanni was interviewed by Sputnik, and also posted a longer Facebook statement which integrated the Sputnik interview.

In his Facebook post, Marco makes it clear that neither Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy nor the Catalans are on the right side. “It is a war between the poorer and the less poor, where, however, both are losing, and those responsible for it, the real winners, stay behind a window to enjoy the show and their victory.

“The euro and austerity policies, with their nefarious effects on the economy and living conditions of the population, especially the weakest layers, have fed conflicts and tensions within the EU, both among different layers of the population and different territories inside the same state, and transnationally, among states.” Such tensions are bringing us back to historical periods and “socio-political situations that could precipitate the situation in an even more dramatic way. Forget the 60 years of peace and prosperity: Today, the effects of EU policies are feeding a dangerous civil war inside of Europe and inside member states.

“I conclude by reiterating a concept which, beyond everything, I consider fundamental for our battle against the EU dictatorship: Today, the room for discussion and democratic fight inside this rotten system is and will be the nation-state and our national constitutions. Within this state we must continue our fight for a substantial, not a cosmetic democracy, to re-establish social-economic protections written clearly into our Constitution. It is therefore our task to defend the integrity of the nation-state as the natural space for democratic dialectic.”

Zanni concluded with a reference to the consultative referendum organized by the Lega Nord Oct. 22 in Northern Italy: “We can certainly discuss more or less autonomy in the management of resources and competences, and this can be positive, but always within the frame of this container [i.e., the nation-state]. To preserve the integrity of the nation-state is a fundamental step to carry out our fight against illegitimate and anti-democratic institutions.”

In Sputnik, Zanni said that “the most important political consequence of what happened… [on Sunday] in Catalonia, will be the end of this minority government and the end of the political career of Rajoy,” Zanni said to Sputnik. “In fact, without the support of the Basque Independence Party [the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV)], he [rajoy] will not be able to pass the 2018 budget in the parliament; that will trigger early elections in spring of 2018, without a clear view on the result. …

“For the EU, the consequences could be twofold: There could be a negative impact on future reforms of the EU and the Eurozone (Rajoy has been one of the most important allies for EU institution and Brussels), and an impact on the stability of Spain and Spanish government, that could bring Podemos or other anti-EU parties to power in Spain.” In his Facebook statement, however, Zanni made his view clear that neither Podemos nor any other political formation in Spain constitutes a real threat to the EU at this point.

Zanni also stressed that in the case of Spanish police brutality in Catalonia, the EU has not used Article 7 of the European Treaty, which establishes the procedure for penalizing member states for rights violations, whereas they did use it against the Polish and Hungarian governments.

Helga Zepp LaRouche, the Founder and Chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, will inaugurate a weekly English-language webcast, to spread what she calls the “New Silk Road Spirit” to the world. Mrs. LaRouche is one of the most prominent intellectual authors of the concept “The New Silk Road becomes the World Landbridge”. Since Chinese President Xi Jinping put the New Silk Road, the Belt and Road Initiative, as it is now called on the agenda four years ago, it is lifting tens of millions out of poverty, and puts an alternative to the dangerous idea of geopolitical division of the world. Known internationally as “the Silk Road Lady,” Mrs. LaRouche is often featured in the Chinese press for analysis on the BRI, and the global strategic situation.

To register for the series and receive the class syllabus, updates and access to the class series teachers, visit lpac.co/econ2017

Welcome to the first class in LPAC’s 2017 Economic Class series highlighting Lyndon LaRouche’s method of economic forecasting streaming live here at 7:30 pm eastern. Today, the United States has the opportunity to abandon a dead, failing geopolitical and economic system, and join with China, Russia, and other nations in a win-win paradigm of joint development. However, standard textbook economics fails to provide the needed scientific understanding of human progress and development. We have to turn to Lyndon LaRouche’s science of economics as the basis for this new historical paradigm, starting with his discovery of Potential Relative Population Density.