EDITORIAL
Two Tales of One City
June 28 (EIRNS)—On Thursday, June 29, an historic concert will be held in Carnegie Hall in New York City, in celebration of the life and work of Sylvia Olden Lee, trail-blazing Metropolitan Opera vocal coach and a long-time friend and colleague of the Schiller Institute. Sponsored by the Foundation for the Revival of Classical Culture, the concert features a 220-person chorus, of which the 110-person Schiller Institute NYC Chorus comprises half. Also participating is the Convent Ave. Baptist Church Chorus, led by Lee’s (and the Schiller Institute’s) longtime friend Gregory Hopkins, founder and head of the Harlem Opera Theater.
The concert in tribute to Lee will be followed the next day by a working symposium on the Verdi tuning at C=256, including vocal comparisons between selections sung at A=432 and A=440 or higher. The two-day process will be a major step forward for Lyndon LaRouche’s “Manhattan Project,” and the building of a 1000-1,500-person chorus as proposed over a year ago by LaRouche.
Such a classical cultural revival is essential to bringing scientific thinking back to the United States, in order to shift the country fully into the New Paradigm of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
But there is another New York, as we are being reminded daily. Yesterday, there was a disastrous derailment on one of Manhattan’s major subway lines, which led to dozens of injuries (fortunately no deaths—this time) and serious damage to the tracks and tunnel. No one has an estimate at this point of how long it will take to repair. But this is only the tip of the iceberg of the “Summer of Hell” that awaits New Yorkers beginning July 10, when an announced series of 20% cutbacks in service will begin, to permit necessary repairs to be carried out.
The fact of the matter is that the entire infrastructure grid of greater New York is imploding from decades of lack of maintenance and investment in new capabilities. The Schiller Institute is now preparing a full programmatic proposal for what has to be done, starting immediately, to address this crisis—which includes working closely with China and its world-class infrastructure capabilities.
In fact, the entire trans-Atlantic system is collapsing—both its physical economy, and its financial system—and cannot recover without writing off the bankrupt $1.5 quadrillion derivatives bubble, with Glass-Steagall and the broader policy of LaRouche’s Four Laws. This is evident in the current dead-end debate in Congress on Obamacare versus the Republican health care bill, both of which simply kill people in order to keep Wall Street’s insurance Molochs contented. And it is evident in the implications of the London Grenfell Tower inferno, which can best be called the Grenfell Crematorium, where dozens if not hundreds of such dangerous housing projects for poorer immigrants and others exist, as a result of the privatization of public housing and speculation in the British housing bubble—both courtesy of the bankrupt City of London and Wall Street.
Fortunately, the alternative to this murder, and associated cultural insanity, is coming into being around China’s Belt and Road Initiative. China’s President Xi Jinping has just announced that he will be holding summits with Russian President Vladimir Putin (on July 3), and Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Angela Merkel (shortly thereafter), both prior to the July 7-8 G20 summit in Hamburg. The Xi-Putin summit, in particular, can be expected to produce important new developments, as both sides have repeatedly stated over recent months, especially in enhanced coordination between China’s Belt and Road and Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) initiatives. It is also significant that Xi and Putin will be meeting immediately prior to the expected Putin-Trump meeting in Hamburg during the G20 summit. That meeting can be a “game-changer,” as they say, not only in bilateral U.S.-Russia relations, but in the strategic situation facing the entire planet.
The British Empire, and those in Washington who are carrying the Queen’s water, are perfectly aware of that fact, and are prepared to do anything, anywhere (not just in Syria), to prevent that from happening.
We, however, are similarly prepared to make sure that it does.
As Lyndon LaRouche heartily agreed last week, we shall make New York the turning point in history.
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Xi Jinping To Hold Pre-G20 Summits in Russia, Germany; Hope High for Putin-Trump Meeting
June 28 (EIRNS)—The Chinese President has been invited by the Presidents of Russia and Germany for state visits prior to the G20 summit, before the latter begins in Hamburg on July 7. This will be the first encounter between the Presidents of China and Germany (Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who moved from his post as foreign minister to the President in March). Xi, who will make the two visits to Moscow and Berlin between July 3 and 6, will also meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Xi’s July 3 meeting with Putin can be expected not only to tune both leaders’ acting at the G20 Summit, but to include as well an exchange of views against the background of the Chinese President’s constructive meeting at Mar-a-Lago with U.S. President Donald Trump—with whom Putin is expected to meet on the sidelines of the G20 Summit.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the press in Krasnodar today, that he expected the Putin-Trump meeting would occur. “We assume that contact will take place, since the two Presidents will be at the same time in the same city, the same building, the same hall. It won’t be right, I guess, if they aren’t able to talk there and to discuss a lot of issues…. First of all, we should try to achieve normalization of dialogue, so that the dialogue is based on the fundamental interests of both Russia and the U.S.”
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel added his voice to those favoring such a summit: “The Federal government and I would hail a meeting between the presidents of Russia and the U.S. in the G20 framework.”
Little has been said officially so far about the Xi-Putin summit. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang announced yesterday that “during this visit [to Russia], the Chinese President will have a meeting and talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two leaders will exchange views on deepening the relations of comprehensive strategic partnership and cooperation and strengthening political trust between the two countries. They will also raise some pressing bilateral and international issues of mutual interest,” the diplomat added.
Over recent months both Presidents have pointed to this meeting in particular, as of decisive importance in coordinating policies between China and Russia, with an emphasis on further aligning the outlook and projects of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and Belt and Road Initiative. In its coverage of the upcoming summit, the BRICS Post observed: “Putin and Xi have announced earlier that the two sides are working on plans for docking China’s ambitious Silk Road project and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union.” The daily continued: “On Monday [July 3], Putin-Xi talks are expected to focus on economic cooperation as well as ways to strengthen global strategic stability. The two allies are united in their opposition to deployment of anti-missile systems in Asia and Eastern Europe, saying those who deploy them often acted under false pretenses. Beijing and Moscow are also united in their opposition to the unseating of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by external forces.”
U.S. Ambassador to Beijing Terry Branstad Stresses a Win-Win Approach to China
June 28 (EIRNS)—In his first appearance before the Chinese media as the U.S.’s new Ambassador to China, Terry Branstad stressed to reporters that he intended to work with the Chinese government for the benefit of both nations, as well as for the rest of the world, Xinhua reported today.
“We recognize it is an important relationship between the two greatest economic powers in the world,” and that both sides need to work together to deal with such pressing issues as the Korean Peninsula, he acknowledged. “We want to work together to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.” Branstad said that because of his relationship with both President Xi Jinping and President Trump, “I hope I can serve as a go-between to address some of these challenging issues,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
He also said he hopes to expand trade “that will continue to increase economic opportunities for the people of China, as well as for the people of the U.S.,” indicating that he looks forward to more trade of agricultural products between the two countries. Reducing trade barriers, he emphasized, would benefit both Chinese businesses and create more U.S. jobs.
The Ambassador also reported that, “during the time that I’m ambassador, it’s my goal to get to every province in China and to meet people from all of this great country.” He also indicated that he hopes to be deeply involved in arranging President Trump’s visit to China later this year. “We’re looking forward to being an important emissary working between President Xi and President Trump. I think their first meeting in Mar-a-Lago went over very well,” he said.
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
General Mattis Statement Helps Defuse the Syria Timebomb
June 28 (EIRNS)—U.S. Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis today told a press conference aboard his flight to Geneva for a NATO meeting, that the Syrian government had apparently heeded U.S. warnings against launching a chemical weapons attack and was no longer planning such an attack.
“It appears they took the warning seriously; they didn’t do it…. There had been no such attack,” Mattis said.
The Syrian and Russian governments have of course insisted all along that no such attack was ever planned, and stated that there was no evidence to support that contention. Nonetheless, Mattis’s remarks served to partially cool out a situation on the American side that was heading towards a potential strategic crisis—conveniently staged right before the expected Trump-Putin meeting at the G20 in Hamburg on July 7-8.
Mattis had earlier engaged in damage-control resulting from White House spokesman Sean Spicer’s June 26 night comments threatening Syria with retaliation for “another” chemical weapon attack, about which the U.S. supposedly had intelligence. On his Monday overnight flight to Europe, after Spicer’s remarks, Mattis did not even make reference to any purported Syrian chemical weapon attack, but instead focused on areas of cooperation between the U.S. and Russia:
“We deconflict with the Russians; it’s a very active deconfliction line. It’s on several levels, from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of State with their counterparts in Moscow, General Gerasimov and Minister Lavrov. So we just refuse to get drawn into a fight there in the Syria civil war; we try to end that one through diplomatic engagement. If somebody comes after us, bombs us or takes a heading on us or fires on us, then under legitimate self-defense we’ll do whatever we have to do to stop it.” He also stressed that the U.S. would not fire “unless they are the enemy, unless they are ISIS.”
Although Mattis’s interventions—and whatever others have occurred in and around the Trump administration, out of the public eye—are useful, the problem has not gone away. The British Empire is fanatically committed to ensuring that Presidents Trump and Putin not meet, lest they establish a decent working relationship as Trump did when he met Chinese President Xi Jinping in April. More British-orchestrated provocations can be expected in short order, in Syria or anywhere else on the planet.
As Lyndon LaRouche has long advised intelligence specialists, when you know the enemy’s intention, do not focus only on the one area where the trouble is currently coming from; always be aware of what might be happening where you are not looking.
Moscow Warns: Allegations against Syria ‘Invite’ Terrorists to Launch Chemical Attack
June 28 (EIRNS)—Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a new statement today, saying that it considers White House allegations of a Syrian chemical weapons attack to be an “invitation” to terrorists to launch a provocation using chemical weapons, and adding that any U.S. military action against Syria would be a violation of the UN Charter.
“We consider these new insinuations on the issue of weapons of mass destruction—in the worst traditions of 2003 NATO intervention in Iraq—to be nothing less than an invitation for terrorists, extremists and armed opposition in Syria to fabricate another mass provocation using chemical weapons,” the statement asserted. “After [the provocation], the ‘inevitable punishment’ for Bashar Assad should follow, as envisioned by Washington.”
Speaking at a press conference in Krasnodar, TASS reports, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov elaborated: “I expect that this time, the United States will take into account the need to actually ensure the non-proliferation of chemical weapons, and will refrain from speculating on some intelligence data that is so secret, no one may see it, in order to provoke others and create pretexts for new attacks on the Syrian government forces fighting terrorists.” He emphasized that any U.S. provocation against the Syrian Arab Army would be met with “a dignified and proportionate reaction” by Russia.
Lavrov did report that, prior to the June 26 White House statement charging that Syria was planning a chemical attack, he received a phone call from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who, “to prevent misunderstandings,” informed him that the statement was being crafted. Lavrov also said that Russia expects the U.S. and European countries to work to de-escalate the situation in Syria, rather than take action that threatens Syria’s territorial integrity.
Similarly responding to the White House allegations, Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov called them “complete nonsense … these assumptions aren’t based on anything; no one provides any facts,” RT reported. They serve only to impede efforts being made in Astana and Geneva to resolve the Syrian crisis, he said.
Syrian President Assad Visits Russian-Run Air Base in Hmeimim
June 28 (EIRNS)—Syrian President Bashar Assad yesterday toured the Russian-run Hmeimim Air Base in Syria, accompanied by Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov. It is not clear if this visit had been scheduled earlier, but either way it sent a clear message to those considering a new attack against Syria. Assad reviewed all the military hardware, and climbed into the cockpit of the latest Su-35 warplane.
The President wrote in the visitor’s book, that he visited the base “with all joy and pride,” and thanked Russia for helping “their brothers of the Syrian army and the Syrian people in defending the unity and sovereignty of Syria, and fight against the terrorists…. Most importantly, they gave blood, which is the most precious thing anyone could give to his fellow human, and the Syrian people will not forget the stance of their Russian brothers,” report the official SANA news agency.
RT reported that Assad and Gerasimov discussed coordinating actions between the two countries against ISIS and Al Nusra. Xinhua wrote, “The President’s visit to the base apparently aims to showcase confidence and the strong alliance with Russia in the face of the U.S. threats.”
Former Sen. Sam Nunn, Others Tell Trump and Putin in Open Letter, ‘Cut Knot of Distrust’
June 28 (EIRNS)—Yesterday, leaders of the Nuclear Threat Initiative(NTI), an organization representing a broad spectrum of establishment strategic and international policy veterans, wrote a timely open letter to Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, telling them that they must use their upcoming summit in Hamburg to counter the “knot of distrust being tightened, choking off the ability of governments” to collaborate on common interests. Former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, NTI’s co-chairman, former British Defense Secretary Des Browne, and former German Ambassador to the U. S., Wolfgang Ischinger, advanced a four-step action program. The institute also includes prominent figures such as Igor Ivanov, former Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexey Arbatov who heads the Russian think tank IMEMO, and former U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, among many others.
Their first proposal is for the nations to jointly declare that nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. Next is the creation of a NATO-Russia Military Crisis Management Group to restart military-to-military dialogue between the two leading nuclear powers. The third is to jointly block terrorist groups from access to nuclear materials. Lastly, they advise discussions on cyber dangers involving strategic warning systems and nuclear command and control.
Lozansky Urges Trump To Look to Reagan Advisors To Resolve U.S.-Russia Crisis
June 28 (EIRNS)— In an opinion piece published June 25 in the Washington Times, Edward Lozansky, president of the American University in Moscow and member of the American Committee for East-West Accord, urged President Trump to avail himself of the expert advice of former members of President Ronald Reagan’s inner circle, who were deeply involved in Reagan’s negotiations with then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to repair their bilateral relations.
If Trump is to fulfill his campaign promise to improve relations with Russia, Lozansky recommended, he must use the valuable resource represented by such individuals as former Secretary of State James Baker, former diplomat Chas Freeman, the last U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock, and political columnist Pat Buchanan, among others, to resolve the current crisis in Moscow-Washington relations, which are so bad that “one can expect at almost any time that the two powers will go into direct military confrontation, with catastrophic results for all.”
Presidents Trump and Putin are expected to meet at the G20 summit in Germany, Lozansky wrote, and “the good news is that both Presidents are eager to work toward a mutually beneficial U.S.-Russia relationship.” However, he warned, “we need Reagan’s wise men to help overcome the efforts of those who have other goals and objectives which have nothing to do with the security of the United States and survival of humanity.” Lozansky recalled Reagan’s remarks about those who opposed his nuclear deal with Gorbachev: “[S]ome of the people who are objecting the most, whether they realize it or not, those people basically, down in their deepest thoughts, have accepted that war is inevitable.”
There is no time left for political maneuvering, Lozansky Further warned: “Mr. Trump should get on with what he promised during the election campaign using Reagan’s banner.”
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
Roger Stone Tells ‘Beyond the EU’: Trump Must Restore Glass-Steagall as Promised
June 28 (EIRNS)—Roger Stone sent a message to the conference in Brussels “Beyond the EU,” in which he addressed the issue of Glass-Steagall and the Trump Presidency. Stone, who is a legendary political operative who helped elect Presidents from Nixon to Reagan, and was a key mover in the successful 2016 victory of Donald Trump, wrote:
“I am sorry I could not be with you, as I had hoped to be. I fully share your concerns with the outrageous, unregulated speculative practices of the so-called Too Big To Fail banks and the ‘Shadow banking system,’ and the protection of those practices by governments, and Central Banks. The repeal of Glass-Steagall regulation in the U.S. in 1999 opened the door for scandalous speculation, which drew credit away from productive businesses and industries, and allowed for the creation of numerous debt bubbles, with banks carrying large volumes of non-performing loans. When these bubbles pop, it is the people that paid, through loss of jobs, businesses, home foreclosures, and useless and painful austerity measures, while the banks and financial institutions were given bailouts of tax payers’ money, and now are allowed to conduct ‘bail-ins,’ taking money away from their clients.
“This process played a major part in the election of Donald Trump as President, who campaigned to put an end to these practices. His election victory was due to the rejection of the Bush machine in the Republican Party, and the Clinton machine in the Democratic Party, both of which had the support of Wall Street and the City of London, as many voters were fed up with the arrogance of those who used fancy economic models to steal the bread from their tables.
“But the people behind these schemes and scams are now trying to remove Trump, in what is really an attempted coup, to prevent him from restoring real growth to the American economy, among other significant reforms he is proposing. It is my hope that President Trump will fulfill his campaign promise, to repeal the banker-and-derivative friendly Dodd-Frank bill, and replace it with restoring Glass-Steagall.”
COLLAPSING WESTERN SYSTEM
Fed Chair Yellen Lies that Another 2008 Financial Crisis Is Not Likely ‘in Our Lifetime’
June 28 (EIRNS)—Federal Reserve System Chair Janet Yellen announced that there would no more financial crises “in our lifetime,” in a public exchange June 27 in London with British Academy President Lord Nicholas Stern, one of the world’s leading greenie genocidalists. Yellen was bragging that all the major U.S. banks had passed the first part of their stress tests, leading her to pronounce: “I think the system is much safer and much sounder” than 2008.
Pam Martens, in her “Wall Street on Parade” blog today, accurately described Yellen’s ludicrous claim as “an illusion built on quicksand.” She continued that “Yellen now follows firmly in the footsteps of former President Barack Obama in misleading the public on the derivative risks that remain at the mega Wall Street banks.”
Martens pointed the finger directly at the derivatives bubble, asking if Yellen could possibly be “unaware of the systemic risk in derivatives still on the books of the largest, insured depository banks in the U.S. The run on any of the major Wall Street banks would not be limited to depositors. Their derivative counterparties would attempt to grab capital ahead of the next guy, sending rumors flying and driving down the share price of the bank in the stock market, further intensifying the panic by wiping out billions of dollars of equity capital.”
EIR’s estimate is that there are currently upwards of $1.5 quadrillion in total world financial assets, about 90% of which are derivatives—a thoroughly unpayable, criminal speculative bubble that must simply be wiped out with a Glass-Steagall reorganization of the entire financial system.
London’s Grenfell Tower Was an Apartment House Turned into a Crematorium
June 28 (EIRNS)—The criminal June 14 Grenfell Tower fire catastrophe in London can be laid directly at the feet of the ruling Conservative Party’s housing and austerity policies. In 2011, shortly after it came into power in Great Britain, the Tory-led government passed a housing law which mandated the city councils to begin selling off the public housing flats under their “right to buy” policy which, along with budget cuts to local governments, forced the local city councils to sell off tens of thousands of properties worth billions of pounds. This added appreciably to the notorious British real estate bubble.
In wealthy London districts such Kensington and Chelsea, the borough at the center of the Grenfell Tower fire, public housing flats were sold to the highest bidder for fabulous sums.
“All local authorities face a considerable challenge as a result of government policy that requires them to sell their housing stock while constraining their ability to invest in it,” one of the council spokesmen is quoted as saying by the Guardian. “We fully support the Local Government Association’s campaign to ask government to look at this position again.”
It has now emerged that gas heating had been installed in the Grenfell Tower just prior to the fire. More than two-thirds of the pipes had not been fire-proofed as required by fire regulations. The Guardian published photos of the gas pipes along the ceiling of the hallways to gas pumps and furnaces that were fully exposed in the halls. The National Grid agreed to protect the pipes serving individual apartments, which had been installed over the winter, but had only completed a third of it by the June 14 conflagration. Residents had informed the London fire brigade that they were so frightened by the exposed pipes “that they are having a panic attack.”
“If there was a gas leak on one of those pipes and someone was smoking, that would be the end of the building … we demand that the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organization [KCTMO] must … give assurance that the building is secure by tonight before everybody goes to bed. We wait to hear from you and the leadership of the KCTMO, not in due course but now.”
Between the petroleum-based cladding and the exposed gas pipes, something as minor as an apartment’s faulty refrigerator, which is blamed for starting the fire, turned the entire building into a Nazi-like crematorium in a matter of minutes.
