EDITORIAL

Upcoming Elections: A Fight Against Wall Street and London

Oct. 14 (EIRNS)—Election Day for the U.S. midterms is coming on fast with the American population in a great ferment over the issue of defense of Donald Trump’s presidency from the “Russiagate” and related attacks. They are indeed Democratic attacks, but it has become clear to many now, that they were launched by British intelligence. Organizers with the LaRouche Political Action Committee have found tremendous interest, at the huge rallies being held by and for the President, in literature nailing the British coup attempt and explaining LaRouche’s “Four Laws” to save the economy from another financial crash.

This interest goes above and beyond parties. The ferment is also seen in many more or less party-independent Congressional campaigns. It is most important in Independent Kesha Rogers’ Texas 9th CD campaign, which has Rep. Al “Impeach Trump” Green, in heretofore the safest of safe Democratic seats, watching and worrying over every move Rogers makes and every new important endorsement she gets.

The underlying truth—however many understand it—is that a financial crash as great or greater than the 2007-08 Great Financial Crisis, is looming on the other side of Election Day; and therefore, the real target for those millions defending the President, is Wall Street and the City of London. The cause this time is the immense ocean of new corporate debt created through central bank money-printing after that Crisis—more recently, of consumer debt as well—and the way it has been packaged, securitized, and disguised by far larger masses of derivatives. A small “rehearsal” for that crash is occurring now in India, where the collapse and nationalization of a $13 billion government-guaranteed company is causing “contagion” losses across the country’s financial system. The plunge of national currencies in some of the biggest developing economies is pushing toward the bigger blowout which is coming.

What is really necessary to defend the Presidency is to meet and overcome that financial crisis, beating Wall Street and London in doing so.

That means to get President Trump to carry out those crucial promises he has not yet moved on: the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act; the “gleaming” new high-technology economic infrastructure requiring trillions in investment from a national credit institution. (That is what, from China, pulled the world out the so-called “Great Recession” from the 2008 crash.) And launching a new age of human space exploration, as promised in that beautiful March 25, 2017 video which was the President’s “Weekly Address” that Saturday. “If we can accomplish these things in space,” he concluded, “there is no problem we cannot solve.”

That includes the U.S.-China “trade war.” Together with the major, space faring powers India and Russia, America and China can establish a new monetary system, ditching the IMF and the WTO, and use it to create joint investments, in great projects of infrastructure in many countries, and in space travel.

LaRouche’s “four economic laws” outline that path of action for which the current political ferment of the American people is asking.

In fact the situation of Europe, with the rise of “nationalists” and the decline of traditional parties, is a very similar fight against Brussels and the City of London, and bounded by the same oncoming financial crash. Thus the importance of the upcoming election in Europe, the European Parliament elections over May 23-26, 2019.

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

James Jatras Makes Case That U.S. Must Get Off British Leash

Oct. 14 (EIRNS)—Former diplomat and advisor to the Republican Senate Leadership James George Jatras published a hard-hitting analysis Oct. 13 demanding that a “massive, coordinated hybrid campaign of psy-ops and political warfare conducted not by Russia, but against Russia, concocted by the U.K. and its Deep State collaborators in the United States… must stop.”

The article, titled “Britain on the Leash with the United States—But at Which End?” was the featured story in the Oct. 13 the Journal of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

Jatras says “But for far too long, largely for reasons of historical inertia and elite corruption, we’ve allowed that [British] government to exercise undue influence on our global policies in a manner not conducive to our own national interests.” Now, he says, the British are “employing every foul deception that earned it the moniker Perfidious Albion, seeks to embroil us in a quarrel with the only country on the planet that can destroy us….”

Jatras points out there are countries that may be run by Washington, but that is not true of Britain. Specifics of the peculiar U.S.-U.K. relationship stem from the period of flux at the end of World War II. The U.S. emerged from the war economically and financially stronger than the British, who lacked the resources to play that leading role. The U.S. had the resources, but could not be trusted in that role without British guidance. Jatras cites the British “scribble during negotiations regarding the U.K.’s postwar loan:

“In Washington Lord Halifax
“Once whispered to Lord Keynes:
“ ‘It’s true they have the moneybags
“But we have all the brains.’ ”

With Churchill’s 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech, close ties between sister agencies such as MI6, OSS, CIA, GCHQ, and the NSA were formed, and “sister agencies—perhaps more properly termed daughters of their U.K. mothers—were set up in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand,” which became “Five Eyes,” he says. In view of the history, “what then would policymakers in the United Kingdom think about an aspirant to the American presidency who not only disparages the value of existing alliances—without which Britain is a bit player—but openly pledges to improve relations with Moscow? To what lengths would they go to stop him?

“Say ‘hello’ to Russiagate!…

“Either way, it’s clear that while evidence of Russian connection is nonexistent, that of British agencies is unmistakable, as is the U.K.’s hand in a sustained campaign of demonization and isolation to sink any possible rapprochement between the U.S. and Russia.”

Jatras names the plotters Andrew Wood, former British Ambassador to Russia; Stefan Halper, a dual U.K.-U.S. citizen; ex-MI6 Director Richard Dearlove; Robert Hannigan, former Director of GCHQ; Australian High Commissioner to London Alexander Downer; suspected British agent Joseph Mifsud.

Nor is Russiagate the totality of British meddling to torpedo relations with Moscow, he explains. A similar pattern appears in claims of chemical weapons use in Syria, by the White Helmets, which is largely funded by the U.K. government. The campaign to demonize Russia has expanded to alleged attacks against the World Anti-Doping Agency, OPCW, the Dutch investigations into the downing of Malaysia Airlines MH-17 over Ukraine, and more.

“But it’s not only aimed at Russia; it’s an attack on the United States by the government of a country that’s supposed to be one of our closest allies….

“But for far too long…” Jatras concludes, “we’ve allowed that government to exercise undue influence on our global policies in a manner not conducive to our own national interests. Now that government, employing every foul deception that earned it the moniker Perfidious Albion, seeks to embroil us in a quarrel with the only country on the planet that can destroy us if things get out of control.

“This must stop. A thorough reappraisal of our ‘special relationship’ with the United Kingdom and exposure of its activities to the detriment of the U.S. is imperative.” [Emphasis in original.]

‘Big Brother’ Facebook Shuts Down Hundreds of Political Sites Weeks Before Crucial Election

Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—Facebook has again exposed itself as a controlled entity of the massive intervention into the U.S. electoral process under the direction of the coup-plotters who are attempting to bring down President Donald Trump on behalf of the British Empire.

RT reports today: “Some 800 pages spanning the political spectrum, from left-leaning organizations like The Anti Media, to flag-waving opinion sites like Right Wing News and Nation in Distress, were shut down. Other pages banned include those belonging to police brutality watchdog groups Filming Cops and Policing the Police. Even RT Americas Rachel Blevins found her own page banned for posts that were allegedly ‘misleading users.’ ”

Glenn Greenwald, who strongly protested the shutdown of Alex Jones in August by Facebook, Twitter and social media outfits, tweeted Oct. 11 (although the tweet is no longer available on his page): “Those who demanded Facebook & other Silicon Valley giants censor political content—something they didn’t actually want to do—are finding that content that they themselves support & like end up being repressed. That’s what has happened to every censorship advocate in history.”

Paul Joseph Watson, part of Alex Jones’ Infowars, tweeted: “Unlike most leftists who laughed & celebrated when Infowars was purged by Big Tech, I vehemently oppose the censorship and deletion of left-wing pages by Facebook and Twitter. If you don’t support free speech for even your most ardent adversaries, you don’t support free speech.”

MintPress News, operating since 2012, and which published interviews from Ghouta, Syria exposing the fake chemical attacks run by the terrorists, tweeted: “Without warning or explanation, #Facebook just unpublished hundreds of pages including independent media outlets with millions of followers. Make no mistake, this is an extreme act of censoring the truth.”

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Global Times Editorializes, after Financial Crisis, Tariffs To Weigh on U.S.

Oct. 14 (EIRNS)—In an Oct. 13 editorial, “Stocks’ Fall Augurs Trade War Uncertainty,” China’s semi-official Global Times took the occasion of this week’s global stock market declines, to make a sharper point: After a financial crisis which may now be coming, the U.S.-initiated trade war will be a heavier burden on the American economy, than the Chinese.

“The White House once regarded the U.S. bull market as important capital in the trade war,” Global Times said. “Washington also used the good economic data in the past two quarters to boost morale.” But, “The U.S. stock plunge on Wednesday shows the U.S. leader that it’s unreliable to use temporary prosperity as armor in a trade war.”

“With the trade war at a stalemate,” the editors wrote, “the U.S. will sooner or later approach a turning point.” Without explicitly identifying that turning point as a coming financial/banking crisis, the paper continued, “The U.S. must hope that China surrenders as soon as possible. Once the U.S. passes the turning point, it will face much more pain in the trade war…. The stock market has a limited impact on the whole Chinese economy and the Chinese economy [as well as its trade—ed.] has withstood this round of impacts. What will happen to the U.S. stock market and how it affects the U.S. economy remain to be seen.”

Buried in the editorial is this brief reference: “Technology shares, as the front line of the trade war, led declines…. Bloomberg’s slanderous report on China already affected the stock price of Apple and Amazon.”

In fact, denials continue to be made at the highest United States levels regarding the Bloomberg article, from Oct. 2, which contained potentially the biggest poison pill against U.S.-China economic relations. This was Bloomberg’s “anonymous sources” claim that servers delivered by the Chinese company Supermicro had embedded spy chips. These servers were ordered by all the cloud computing companies IBM, Apple, Google, national security computer networks, etc. Bloomberg charged a major espionage coup by China, implanting spy hardware. This has been denied by all the companies involved, most emphatically Amazon and Apple which say they have run major investigations with no result; also by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officially, twice; and on Oct. 10 at Senate Homeland Security Committee hearings, by both DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Wray told the committee, “Be careful what you read.”

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Xinhua Reviews Impact of China Port Construction in Europe

Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—Xinhua today posted a review of the impact of China’s port construction in Europe. A picture at the Piraeus port in southern Greece shows the old port, “lying idle, rusty,” next to the “ ‘Piraeus 3 that arrived in March from Shanghai,” and has “greatly improved the capacity of the local ship repair business, a regional pillar industry hard hit in the debt crisis, according to Li Weina, general manager of the shipyard.” It continues that on Sept. 28, “Greek Parliament Speaker Nikolaos Voutsis visited the Piraeus Port Authority,” pointing out that “Piraeus was the fastest growing port in the world, now ranking 7th place in Europe and 37th worldwide based on the projects carried out in recent years.” Voutsis is quoted: “The investment of COSCO Shipping in the port of Piraeus has proved to be mutually beneficial to both sides and it is important that it, in a difficult period, helps the country overcome the crisis.” Over 3,000 people have been hired at the port, while thousands more jobs have been created in the peripheral industries since COSCO made the €1 billion investment.

In Belgium, reports Xinhua, “COSCO acquired the port of Zeebrugge in late 2017 and brought in strategic investors in 2018.” COSCO, with 76% of Zeebrugge’s shares, “plans to build a diversified logistics service platform, together with the Zeebrugge Port Authority, to serve the entire continent and the British Isles.”

The port of Rotterdam has seen an increase of container traffic, with a quarter of its inbound cargo coming from China, while half of China’s deep-water cargo routes to Europe stop first at Rotterdam, Xinhua reports. And in Finland, “COSCO’s new fleet has started to dock at the Helsinki cargo port to help local pulp and wood producers increase their exports to the Chinese market. The modern ships with the latest design can take voyage both in the high north and down the Indian Ocean.” This is one-third of Finland’s pulp export, which is the world’s largest.

Xinhua further reports: “Mutual economic benefits have been guaranteed by the improved maritime business—more investment in ports, better design in cargo vessels and stronger link between harbors and railways.”

Italy Government Seeks To Replicate FDR and New Deal To Stabilize Economy

Oct. 13 (EIRNS)—The Italian Parliament approved the government Document of Economy and Finance (DEF), which plans an increase of the budget deficit to 2.4% of GDP, on Thursday Oct. 11, violating EU austerity rules. Representing the government in the Chamber of Deputies was European Relations Minister Paolo Savona, standing in for Finance Minister Giovanni Tria who was at the IMF meeting in Bali. According to protocol, Tria should have been represented by one of his undersecretaries, therefore the choice of Savona has a high political significance. This was a slap in the face to EU institution leaders who had earlier vetoed Savona for the job of Finance Minister.

In his reply to critics from the opposition, Savona said that he personally would have liked to spend much more, but the decision was taken to proceed with “prudence” and nevertheless demonstrate that investments and not austerity improve fiscal stability.

“I insist much on the fact that it is necessary to replicate, a hundred years later, what Roosevelt did with the New Deal and his reforms. He put together the industrialized part of the northern United States with the agricultural part—which included serious flaws of racism—and he succeeded. Therefore, it is my belief that the experiment we are conducting in this moment is really a large effort of national unity, of coincidence between the interests of the advanced and the backward—economically speaking—parts of the country.

“The conclusions of the initial pages of the DEF are clear: They say that it is an ambitious program and we are therefore aware of that; but the New Deal program was ambitious too, even if in a different context … it aims at responding to the increase of poverty since the crisis, especially among the youth and large families, and in the southern regions of the country.

“We all agree that the country needs investments. Therefore, let us start to build a New Deal. … But the government program is very prudent, because we are aware that we must implement those reforms that Roosevelt started. Roosevelt made a substantial reform in the financial sector, on competition, on industrial relations [read: Glass-Steagall, anti-trust legislation, pro-labor reforms]. Those who know history … know that he took very important initiatives.”

Savona pointed to the fact that Italy produces €50 billion per year in savings surplus that are not used. This defines a potential of up to €150 billion for the next three years (the span covered by the DEF), which could be used for investments. Italy is living “below its resources, contrary to what they say especially at European level,” Savona said. The government plans to increase investments by .01, .04 and .05 in the next three years and nevertheless, critics call this “unfeasible” and illusory, he said.

The Deputies approved the DEF by 331-191; the Senate by 161-109.

Symposium on Projects Adds to Momentum for China-Japan Relations

Oct. 14 (EIRNS)—Senior Chinese and Japanese government officials began a two-day symposium Sunday in Tokyo—the 14th Annual Tokyo-Beijing Forum—at which the degree of Japanese participation in the Belt and Road Initiative great projects program of China, is again the subject, reported Japan Times.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Oct. 25-27 will make the first state visit to China by a Japanese leader since 2011; this was announced by the Chinese Foreign Ministry Oct. 12. At the Tokyo meeting, Wei Jianguo, vice chairman at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, revealed that during Abe’s visit, about 1,000 people will attend a signing ceremony for more than 60 joint projects involving Japanese and Chinese firms.

“Those projects are all designed to jointly develop ‘third-country’ markets in countries outside of China and Japan,” reported Japan Times. “During the symposium, Chinese officials repeatedly urged Japan to jointly promote third-country development projects in what is seen by some as a push by Beijing for Tokyo to join its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, which is centered on massive infrastructure projects in Central Asia, Europe and the Indo-Pacific region.”

“Right now, the China-Japan relationship has a forward-looking momentum. High-level contacts have been maintained and exchanges in various areas have been strengthened,” Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua told the symposium.

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

International Space Station Could Operate without Crew, but Risk Is Commercial Companies

Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—At a NASA briefing at Johnson Space Center yesterday, Kenny Todd, ISS operations integration manager, said there is “a little bit of margin,” for how long the Soyuz spacecraft parked at the ISS could be there before it reaches the end of its 200-day lifetime in December. There is always a Soyuz parked at the ISS to bring a crew back in case of emergency, and on a regular schedule to rotate crew.

In a worst-case scenario, Todd said, if the Soyuz has to leave before it could be replaced, it should be feasible to operate the ISS without a crew for a limited amount of time. He said they could “do a minimal amount of commanding” from the ground. Todd further said he had “every confidence our Russian colleagues will figure out what’s going on,” and that “technical issues don’t know political boundaries.”

The actual threat is not to the ISS, but that grounding the Soyuz could be allowed to put pressure on the two commercial crew companies—SpaceX and Boeing—to start manned flights to the ISS earlier by lowering safety standards. That fear was expressed yesterday at a previously-scheduled meeting of the independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (political pressure has always been suspected of being a factor in the 1986 failed launch of Challenger).

The panel is concerned that a schedule-driven flight decision “poses a danger that sound engineering design solutions could be superseded, critical program content could be delayed or deleted, and decisions of ‘good enough to proceed’ could be made on insufficient data.”

NASA Administrator Bridenstine in Russia To Strengthen Space Partnership

Oct. 13 (EIRNS)—NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, talking to reporters yesterday at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, said that Russian engineers have a “really good idea” of the cause of the Oct. 11 engine failure of the Soyuz rocket carrying two crew to the International Space Station. Bridenstine had gone to Baikonur, Kazakhstan to attend the launch of a two-man Russian-American crew to the ISS. “I think the investigation is going to go swiftly,” he said. Bridenstine said, “I fully anticipate that we will fly again on a Soyuz rocket, and I have no reason to believe at this point that it will not be on schedule.” The next flight is scheduled for December. “No changes [in the schedule] have been made,” he said. Praising the Russian and American rescue teams, he said, “Not every mission that fails ends up so successful.”

Bridenstine made a video earlier this past week in Moscow before the accident, in which he emphasized that his job is to strengthen the U.S.-Russia space partnership. Yesterday he praised the relationship between Moscow and Washington in space: “To keep space separate from the political environment has always been our tradition, and we want to keep that going forward.”

OTHER

Colorado Exemplifies Devastation Caused by Marijuana Legalization

Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—U.S. Attorney for Colorado Bob Troyer has exposed what six years of commercialized marijuana legalization has brought to that state: a gigantic increase in marijuana use, particularly by youth, soaring black market and drug cartel activities, and virtually no net revenue gain for the state.

The horror described by Troyer is exactly the result intended by the British Empire’s Opium War against the U.S., implemented by Barack Obama and George Soros.

In his Sept. 28 Denver Post op-ed, “It’s High Time We Took a Breath from Marijuana Commercialization,” Troyer reports:

“Now Colorado’s youth use marijuana at a rate 85% higher than the national average. Now marijuana-related traffic fatalities are up by 151%. Now 70% of 400 licensed pot shops surveyed recommend that pregnant women use marijuana to treat morning sickness. Now an indoor marijuana grow consumes 17 times more power per square foot than an average residence. Now each of the approximately 1 million adult marijuana plants grown by licensed growers in Colorado consumes over 2.2 liters of water—per day. Now Colorado has issued over 40 little-publicized recalls of retail marijuana laced with pesticides and mold.

“And now Colorado’s black market has actually exploded after commercialization: we have become a source-state, a theater of operation for sophisticated international drug trafficking and money-laundering organizations from Cuba, China, Mexico, and elsewhere.”

Production is not more-controlled, as the legalizers promised. “Last year alone the regulated industry produced 6.4 metric tons of unaccounted-for marijuana, and over 80,000 black market plants were found on Colorado’s federal lands.”

Nor has alcohol and opioid use decreased as promised. “Colorado’s alcohol consumption has steadily climbed since marijuana commercialization. How about the industry’s claim that marijuana will cure opioid addiction? No, a Lancet study found that heavy marijuana users end up with more pain and are more likely to abuse opioids.”

Like the tobacco, alcohol and opioid “addiction industries,” the marijuana industry “makes the vast majority of their profits from heavy users, and so they strive to create and maintain this user market. Especially when users are young and their brains are most vulnerable to addiction,” he wrote.

And has Colorado state’s revenues risen? “No, because there’s been no net gain: marijuana tax revenue adds less than 1% to Colorado’s coffers, which is more than washed out by the public health, public safety, and regulatory costs of commercialization.”

Obsession with Migrant Issue Makes Europe Irrelevant for Africa

Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—Today’s issue of Neue Zürcher Zeitung has a one-page article on “Europe’s Paralyzing Fear of Africa,” criticizing that the European Union focuses primarily on how to pay African governments to stop migration to Europe in the short term, whereas “projects that aim for longer term improvement of living conditions onsite are moved to the background.”

“With its Africa policy, Europe is missing to see the signs of the time,” the article states, comparing the “dynamic of this continent” which Xi Jinping addressed during his Africa tour in July—his ninth such tour—at a time when the European Union preferred to hold a special summit on migration vessels in the Mediterranean. But in India, Turkey, in the Arab Gulf states, Russia, Brazil, even in Indonesia and Thailand, the slogan “Let’s Go To Africa!” can be heard everywhere. “Economically speaking, the European states today only play a secondary role in many countries of Africa,” the Swiss financial daily writes. “Europe is just missing the chance in Africa, to position itself on one of the economic growth markets which have grown scarce.” Europe’s Africa policy is leading nowhere, it is on a dead-end road.