EDITORIAL
This Election Will Not Be 2016 Done Over—We’re Way Beyond That Now!
Oct. 7 (EIRNS)—Those like Hillary Clinton who have never understood what happened in the 2016 election, naturally expect (and hope) that the 2018 midterms will mark a return to “normal” U.S. elections. They make nonsense predictions like their claim that a statistic—the one that says that on average, Presidents have usually lost in midterm elections—ensures Trump will lose the House of Representatives. But nothing could be more ludicrous than to believe that any statistic from the past could control what Americans do now. It could only influence them if they were stupid enough to believe such an argument. But now, in fact, Americans generally are a lot less stupid than they were two years ago—or even two months ago. That is the real story of this election—although it is one that Hillary Clinton may never be able to understand.
The name for this phenomenon is “the mass strike,” as Lyndon LaRouche constructed this argument exactly 50 years ago, basing himself on Percy Blythe Shelley’s unfinished A Defence of Poetry of 1821, and Rosa Luxemburg’s The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions of 1906. Great works by two of humanity’s greatest leaders of the modern era. LaRouche most frequently cited a section towards the end of Shelley’s work, assuming his hearers were familiar with the writing as a whole. Describing historical periods preceding or accompanying “a great and free development of the national will” of England, Shelley wrote, “At such periods there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature.”
The spread of this “power” is not precisely voluntary, and is often unnoticed by the recipients. Its immediate causes in one or another case are usually unknown—as is seen both in Shelley’s and in Luxemburg’s arguments. Indeed it most resembles a perception rather than a thought—but not a perception by the usual organs of sense. Shelley continues from the sentence quoted above, to write “The persons in whom this power resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, the power which is seated on the throne of their own soul.”
If we can prevent the disaster of a Democratic House of Representatives, which would destroy the country by impeaching the President; if we can shut down Britain’s regime-change operation and put conspirators Obama, Mueller, Brennan and others in jail; and if we can use this mass-strike period to win hegemony for LaRouche’s “Four New Laws” and New Bretton Woods system—then, under those conditions, the whole world is now entering a new period of deep-going, far-reaching positive reform, comparable to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, but far broader in its implications. National sovereignty is being brought back from the dead, at the same time that sovereign nations fully engage together to win the “common aims of mankind,” as LaRouche’s collaborator the late Dr. Edward Teller put it.
What is all this—a forecast of the future? (“Never make predictions, especially about the future,” said Casey Stengel.) But its effects are already here today, in what Shelley called “the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.” You can call it the future if you like, but it is already shaping the 2018 elections, as it has been for some time before we noticed it. The “power” Shelley was writing about, we might call intensely awakened individual creativity—which is intrinsically social at the same time that it is individual. It is the only conscious power of negative entropy we know of in the universe. Its effects are seen in the volunteers joining Kesha Rogers’ flagship Independent campaign in Texas’ 9th Congressional District, but also equally in thousands of other ways which may seem to have nothing to do with each other.
How does it work? Americans (and not only Americans) are experiencing the most diverse kinds of effects, minute-to-minute, of all the indirect ramifications of the fact that the long nightmare which reached the deepest level of Hell under George W. Bush and Obama, may finally be coming to an end. (There are many other valid ways to phrase this as well.) This reflects itself, unawares, in changed personal relationships. In cultural factors and other areas too numerous to name. They are unaware of it, but at the same time they are changed by a perception, as it were, of something “gigantic” of which they are unaware.
A sort of reasoning is going on in their minds which is often implicit, rather than conscious. (Rosa Luxemburg’s Mass Strikeexplores this aspect very fully.) Take, as an example, the effects of the Kavanaugh hearings. What is their meaning for tens of millions of Americans, even if they themselves may not be aware of that meaning? “Think where we’d be now if Hillary had won. What an open sewer!” And where we will be if she claws her way back.
The major “Russiagate” documents which are being declassified by President Trump and Congressional committees will hit over the next few days into this mass-strike process.
The mass strike is occurring in the forcing-medium of the oncoming election. What does it mean for the “election per se”? Not only will this not be a “normal” pre-2016 election. It will not be a rerun of 2016 either—we’re now in a completely different world from where we were in 2016. Among many other effects, the mass strike means that unique creative interventions will be made, by ourselves and others and ourselves with others, to “turn the adversary’s flank,” and such interventions will re-echo and inspire all sorts of others, increasingly as Nov. 6 approaches.
NEW WORLD ECONOMIC ORDER
Chinese Media Slam Vice President Pence’s Hudson Institute Speech
Oct. 6 (EIRNS)—In addition to the official response by the Chinese government, semi-official media like Global Times and China Dailyhave stated their strong displeasure at Vice President Mike Pence’s Oct. 4 speech at the Hudson Institute—while continuing to call for good relations with the United States.
Global Times editorialized yesterday: “Pence ramped up U.S. accusations that China is interfering in the U.S. elections, claiming that Russian interference in U.S. elections ‘pales in comparison’ with Chinese meddling. He echoed a similar claim made by U.S. President Donald Trump at the UN General Assembly last week, but his evidence was pale and ridiculous. He only listed hearsay evidence.” The editorial stated that “Pence made the speech primarily for the midterm elections.”
As for China’s response, the editorial stated: “In the face of growing anti-China rhetoric by U.S. politicians, China has to continue opening up and strike back in the trade war while maintaining cooperation with the U.S. In particular, we need to limit our issues with the U.S. to the two sides and prevent tensions from affecting China’s relations with the entire West. More importantly, we have to prevent tensions between China and the U.S. from having a negative effect on our domestic policy and refrain from becoming conservative internally over the deterioration in the external environment. In other words, we cannot deviate from our path, and become extremely vigilant against a less open and more radical U.S. from penetrating China. This will be a major test for Chinese society.”
China Daily’s editorial had a similar tone: “Pence’s beggar-thy-neighbor speech at the Hudson Institute on Thursday was nothing but a duplicate of outdated concepts of Cold War mentality and zero-sum games. Speaking with fervor and assurance, but sadly without facts, Pence, in a stream of groundless accusations, accused China of aggressively trespassing upon U.S. interests…. What Pence wants is not a prosperous China, but an obedient China.” The editorial wrote that the speech displayed “a strong sense of condescending superiority complex.” However, they conclude, “the future of world peace hinges on the abilities of the two countries’ leaders to coordinate their national interests and prevent competition and tension, which always exist, from escalating to violent conflict.”
Global Times Journalist: Russia Could Be Bridge Between East and West
Oct. 7 (EIRNS)—Global Times reporter Sun Xiaobo made his first trip to Russia in September, and he reports in an op-ed posted today, that contrary to what he expected, when he walked the streets of Moscow he found a country inextricably connected to the West. Yet, in his various interviews and discussions, he found a lot of ambivalence and even pessimism among Russians about Russia’s relations with the West. “In fact, Russians I met during my stay in Moscow all seem to hold little hope for a thaw in Russia’s relations with the West. It would mean a daunting task for the two to bury the hatchet,” he writes. He suggests that trust between Russia and Asia might need a little work, too, “But since the 21st century is projected as the Asian Century, working more with emerging Asian countries, China in particular, can be a wise choice.”
He writes that Russia and China already have cooperative relations in a wide variety of fields, and that the two countries have a goal of $200 billion in trade by 2020. Furthermore, Xi Jinping attended the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in September for the first time, and in May, China signed an agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) on cooperation with the Belt and Road Initiative. “It seems to be a right track to stay on,” Sun writes.
“Russia will continue to be an independent and important pole in the world. Its past struggle with where to proceed may not recur, but the country will probably strengthen its cooperation with Asian nations and seek to improve its Western ties, as its idea of new Eurasianism shows,” Sun concludes. “It has to play the role of a bridge,” he says, and although Sun didn’t say, as Leibniz wrote.
Pompeo Optimistic after Meeting Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang
Oct. 7 (EIRNS)—U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Seoul at 5:15 p.m. local time today (08:15 UTC; 04:15 EDT), following his fourth visit to Pyongyang, where he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. In a brief public appearance with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Pompeo was optimistic but apparently not yet prepared to discuss the results of his meeting with Kim in public. “I will certainly tell you in private about our conversation, but we had a good, productive conversation,” Pompeo said, according to the State Department readout. “As President Trump has said, there are many steps along the way and we took one of those today; it was another step forward.” Pompeo effusively praised the work of Moon and the South Koreans in making that step possible, as Moon praised the U.S. side when he welcomed Pompeo.
Reuters reports that shortly after arriving in South Korea following the visit, Pompeo posted a photo of himself walking with Kim on Twitter, saying: “Had a good trip to #Pyongyang to meet with Chairman Kim. We continue to make progress on agreements made at Singapore Summit. Thanks for hosting me and my team @StateDept.” An unnamed U.S. official told Reuters separately that Pompeo’s trip to North Korea was “better than the last time” but further efforts were needed.
While Pompeo was on his way to Pyongyang, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, who handles nuclear weapons issues and negotiations with the United States, arrived in Moscow from Beijing. According to a report in Japan’s Kyodo News Service, Choe will meet with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov on Oct. 8, and then, on Oct. 9, she’ll participate in a three-way meeting with Morgulov and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou, who doubles as China’s Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Affairs. During her trip, Choe is expected to seek support from China and Russia, both traditional allies of North Korea, as Pyongyang envisions advancing denuclearization talks with Washington, Kyodo reports.
Bolivia Vows To Speed Up Construction of Bioceanic Railway
Oct. 6 (EIRNS)—After the International Court at The Hague ruled Oct. 1 that the Chilean government has no obligation to negotiate with Bolivia on the issue of granting Bolivia sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean—Chile confiscated Bolivia’s Pacific Coast territory during the British-orchestrated 1879-81 War of the Pacific—Bolivian President Evo Morales announced Oct. 2 his intention to accelerate construction of a bioceanic railroad extending from the Atlantic port of Santos in Brazil, through landlocked Bolivia, to the Pacific port of Ilo in Peru.
For years, Morales has aggressively promoted the development of the 3,500 km rail line, known as the Bioceanic Integration Rail Corridor. Both Peru and Brazil have officially committed to the project, although Brazil’s economic and political instability has cast doubt on the firmness of its commitment. Paraguayan and Uruguayan officials have participated in several technical planning meetings, and Argentina has expressed interest in joining. China has also taken an interest in the project, but has not jumped on board in a major way at this time.
In his press conference, Morales vowed that Bolivia will never renounce its sovereign claim to the Pacific coast, but for now it will push the rail project forward, so as not to have to depend any longer on northern Chilean ports to export its products, the use of which is guaranteed by a 1904 treaty.
The goal is to begin rail construction in 2019. La Razón of Bolivia reported Oct. 2 that Morales announced plans to build up Puerto Busch, a port on the Paraguay River located in southeastern Bolivia, which today requires a $600 million investment to expand and develop it into an efficient port from which to export Bolivian products to the Atlantic. Former Bolivian President Jaime Paz Zamora has proposed that Morales work closely with Peru in a “great binational project” to build a megaport between Ilo and other ports in southern Peru.
According to Bolivia’s Public Works Minister Milton Claros, reported by Sputnik Oct. 5, the government is in the process of pinning down the $14 billion financing for the rail project with a consortium of European companies. A Swiss-German grouping will be meeting in Bolivia at the end of October, to make “concrete decisions,” Sputnik adds. Financing will consist of a public- private partnership, and the German firm Herrenknecht AG and the Swiss firm Molinari and Stadler have been named as top contenders for the contract. Molinari is currently involved in building an urban electric train in the city of Cochabamba.
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
British Empire Gaming Cyber War Against Moscow
Oct. 7 (EIRNS)—The British Empire has gone into overdrive to hype the alleged Russian threat to Europe. The Murdoch-owned Sunday Times reports this morning that British defense chiefs have war-gamed a cyber- attack on Moscow to shut off the lights in the Kremlin—as a means, supposedly, to deter Russian attacks on NATO. They chose this route because they concluded that the only other means the U.K. might have to respond to such Russian aggression would be via a (suicide—ed.) nuclear attack launched from a Trident ballistic missile-armed submarine. Planning exercises on the threat posed by Russia have left officials “ashen-faced” at the speed with which confrontation with Moscow could escalate, according to the Times account.
The war games that the Times cites were based on three scenarios: a Russian occupation of some small islands off the coast of Estonia in order to test NATO’s Article 5 commitment; the Russian seizure of Libyan oil fields that also sets off a new migration crisis in Europe; and the use of irregular forces to launch attacks on British forces or threaten their new aircraft carriers. At the same time, 5,500 British troops took part in an exercise in the Omani desert “to improve readiness for any confrontation with Russian tanks or hybrid forces such as those deployed by Putin in Crimea.”
At the same time that the Times report came out, former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove was on Sky News describing, among other things, what he claims is the “Russian DNA.” He warned against underestimating the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency, which he called “a big, powerful well-funded organization” which can still cause problems. “We’re no longer in the Cold War, and I don’t see the threat that Russia presents now as equivalent to the situation we had during the Cold War,” he said. “However, Soviet espionage has never stopped. It’s deeply embedded in Russia’s DNA to use the capabilities that it has to disrupt other nations, to pursue their own national interest, to reinforce Putin in power, and the attack in the U.K. fits a historical pattern. Russia historically has always used assassination as a weapon. It’s part of the Russian political DNA. It’s a rather terrible thing to say, but it’s a violent country and they tend to kill each other.”
Russian Envoy Bogdanov Says Four-Way Syria Summit Being Blocked by European Partners
Oct. 6 (EIRNS)—The Russian President’s special envoy for the Middle East and African countries and Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told TASS that the four-power summit on Syria—including Turkey, Russia, German and France—is in effect being blocked by the Europeans.
“I don’t know when such a meeting may take place,” he told TASS yesterday at the Dialogue of Civilizations Forum in Rhodes. “Such a meeting between Turkey, France, Germany and Russia has been failing to take place until now due to the position of our Western, European partners, not because of Moscow.”
Such a summit has been the initiative of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with the backing of Russian President Vladimir Putin who hopes to hold it in the second half of October. Foreign policy aides to the four nations’ leaders met in Istanbul in mid-September to discuss a possible agenda for such a summit.
Bogdanov also told TASS that the second Syrian National Dialogue Congress may take place in Damascus, if Syrians agree to it. “It [the Congress] may continue in Sochi,” he said. “However, just like the Astana format, the Sochi format can be held in any other place. Ideally, it would be good if it happened on the territory of Syria itself, so that Syrians would determine their own destiny, and we would help them on that matter.”
On the sale of the Russian S-300 missile defense systems to Syria, Bogdanov said that “It is an element of boosting security, and, what is most important, it is not aimed at any third party. It is a purely defensive system geared to ensure security of our citizens, our servicemen at Hmeymim.” France’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnès Von Der Muhll stated, “France notes with concern the delivery by Russia of sophisticated anti-aircraft capabilities for the benefit of the Syrian regime.”
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Russia Is Bracing for Further Economic Warfare
Oct. 6 (EIRNS)—Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told Rossiya-24 TV on Oct. 5 that he hopes the U.S. will not impose sanctions against Russian state debt, but if it does, Russia will find a way to cope, reported TASS.
“Let us not be ahead of the events; hopefully that is the measure of last resort, though our overseas partners are considering such legislative initiatives. I agree that is not very pleasant, as we enter the borrowings market more and more each year, and plan to boost those borrowings next year to finance the Development Fund to be used to implement national projects.” Siluanov said that if there are further sanctions, “Foreign investors will hardly participate in our domestic financial market…. Previously foreign investors accounted for 33% of all investments in the total debt structure, whereas today it equals around 27%.”
EU Commission Rejects Italian Budget Plan
Oct. 6 (EIRNS)—EU Commissioners for Euro and Social Dialogue Valdis Dombrovskis and for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici sent a letter to Italian Economy Minister Giovanni Tria, claiming that Italy’s deficit targets are a “source of serious concern.” The move is out of protocol and resembles, albeit at a lower level, the “ultimatum” sent in summer 2011 to the Italian government by Mario Draghi and Jean-Claude Trichet, respectively incoming and outgoing presidents of the European Central Bank, which started the economic warfare and the coup that eventually replaced Italy’s legitimate government with an EU-executioner cabinet led by Mario Monti.
The content of the letter was leaked to La Repubblica on Oct. 5: “We call on the Italian authorities to ensure that the (budget) will be in compliance with the common fiscal rules and look forward to seeing the details of the measures,” said the two-page letter, which La Repubblica excerpted.
The letter is viewed as a hostile act by both government supporters and adversaries, and vindicates warnings by European Affairs Minister Paolo Savona, who had said last week that, Italy, with an anti-austerity budget, “threw down the gauntlet to the Old Europe. Now we must win the war, because it will be war.”
In an indirect response, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Alberto Bagnai tweeted: “They are ridiculous. Imposing austerity on us has created enough problems, and also on their homelands. Those Fathers of Europe, who believe that their daughter will run faster by unloading one of her manufacturing legs, are dangerous, but above all ridiculous.”
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
Trump Is ‘Emboldened To Challenge the Essential Logic’ of the Anglo-American Empire
Oct. 7 (EIRNS)—Veteran investigative reporter Gareth Porter, in a column posted on Truthdig on Oct. 2, has found that President Donald Trump really is opposed to the Anglo-American Empire, particularly in the Southwest Asia, though he doesn’t mention the British Empire side of it, and some of the other characterizations of Trump that Porter uses may be open to debate. “He has complained bitterly, both in public and in private meetings with aides, about the suite of permanent wars that the Pentagon has been fighting for many years across the Greater Middle East and Africa, as well as about deployments and commitments to South Korea and NATO,” Porter writes at the outset. “This has resulted in an unprecedented struggle between a sitting President and the national security state over a global U.S. military empire that has been sacrosanct in American politics since early in the Cold War.”
Porter draws on the Bob Woodward’s Fear: Trump in the White House, for a number of accounts of the tug-of-war between Trump, who doesn’t understand why the U.S. has to have troops all over the world, and his advisors, who claim that those troops are needed to do things like keeping bombs from exploding in Times Square, and otherwise keep the peace around the world. “Trump’s national security team became so alarmed about his questioning of U.S. military engagements and forward deployment of troops that they felt something had to be done to turn him around,” Porter reports. This was in the summer of 2017. The other standard argument that they gave him, which U.S. and British officials repeat ad nauseam with respect to Russia and China, is that we must maintain the “rules-based, international democratic order,” which Porter characterizes as the term used to describe the global structure of U.S. military and military power, because this had “brought security and prosperity,” a statement which casually ignores the decades of destabilizing wars in Southeast and Southwest Asia that the U.S. has engaged in.
What’s clear from Porter’s account is that Trump hasn’t bought any of it, though he’s acceded to some of it, particularly on Syria and Iran, and Porter worries that Trump may eventually totally cave in. “But Trump’s unorthodox approach has already emboldened him to challenge the essential logic of the U.S. military empire more than any previous President,” Porter concludes. “And the final years of his administration will certainly bring further struggles over the issues on which he has jousted repeatedly with those in charge of the empire.”
Commerce Secretary Ross Pushes Anti-China ‘Poison Pill’ in Trade Deals
Oct. 6 (EIRNS)—Reuters reported that U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross stated yesterday in an exclusive interview that the U.S. had succeeded in placing a “poison pill” provision in the new USMCA trade pact with Mexico and Canada, and that it would try to do the same in upcoming negotiations with Japan and the EU. The provision, under Article 32 of the USMCA, prohibits any of the three parties from negotiating any trade agreements with “non-market economies”—a clear reference to China—without the approval of the other parties.
“It’s logical; it’s a kind of a poison pill,” Ross stated, and saying that it is “another move to try to close loopholes” in other trade deals that “legitimize” China’s economic practices. As for whether it will serve as a precedent for other trade agreements now being negotiated, Ross said: “We shall see. It certainly helps that we got it with Mexico and with Canada, independently of whether we get it with anyone else…. People can come to understand that this is one of your prerequisites to make a deal.”
The spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Canada Yang Yundong made a statement Oct. 5 which decried Article 32.10 as “dishonest behavior,” as it includes provisions in the trade deal “fabricating the concepts” of different standards for non-market economies. “We deplore the hegemonic actions taken by some country, which blatantly interferes with other country’s sovereignty. … No matter how other countries adopt trade restricting actions against China, China will consistently pursue opening-up at its own pace….” Yang stated.
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