EDITORIAL
Zepp-LaRouche Webcast Contrasts Strategic Trump-Xi Meeting with British Empire’s ‘Get Trump Task Force’
Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—In today’s weekly Schiller Institute New Paradigm webcast on the “Silk Road Spirit,” featuring Schiller Institute Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche, host Harley Schlanger asked the “Silk Road Lady,” as Zepp-LaRouche is known, to comment on the dynamic that is unfolding around President Donald Trump’s upcoming trip to Asia, a highlight of which will be his visit to China and meeting with President Xi Jinping. Excerpts of Zepp-LaRouche’s remarks follow.
“As a matter of fact, this coming trip of President Trump to Asia will be extremely important, because this trip occurs in the context of a very, very dramatic strategic situation. We have all signs that a new financial crash is in the works…and there is an alternative already in existence, which is the incredibly dynamic Belt and Road Initiative, which has been initiated by China four years ago.
“And as we already made the point before the first summit between President Xi and President Trump in April, that the best way to solve the strategic situation is if we could get the United States and China to work together in the Belt and Road Initiative. That would mean Chinese investments in infrastructure in the United States, which is starting, slowly. There is the very good news that there is a new task force, which has been formed in San Francisco, California, which is supposed to make it easier for Chinese investors to invest in infrastructure in the United States. And there is a bidding going on where Chinese railway companies are trying to win the bid, to build fast train systems in California. So there are promising signs.
“But given the enormous destruction of the infrastructure, both through attrition, because all of this infrastructure in the United States, much of it is more than 100 years old, so it’s decrepit already all by itself; but then you had the hurricanes, Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico, and now you have the wildfires in California. So there is a gigantic requirement, and we want China to invest in infrastructure in the United States, as part of the Belt and Road Initiative.
“And on the other side, we want American firms to be involved in the many, many projects of the Belt and Road Initiative, in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America. So that must somehow more at the top of the agenda.
“And we are right now mobilizing, mostly in the United States but also elsewhere, that when President Trump makes this long-awaited and extremely important strategic trip, a state visit to China in the context of his Asia tour, we would wish very much that the Belt and Road Initiative is formalized. I think there are absolute potentials that this could occur. If it occurs, we really are over the hump of the danger of war: That is my deepest belief. Because the ‘win-win cooperation’ of the New Silk Road offers a new model, not only of relations among nations in general, but especially one big component has been the proposal by China to set up a new model of major-power relations. And if there would be such a transformation, I think the world would really enter a new era of cooperation in mutual benefit to end geopolitical games, to end for sure the policies of the Bush and Obama administrations of interventionist wars for regime-change, of color revolution, and you would replace that with a system of sovereign nations working together for their mutual benefit.
“If we can all work together to accomplish that, and I appeal to all listeners and viewers of this program to help us, because the mainstream media are still not reporting the extraordinary importance of this new dynamic, and therefore, it is not generally known well enough, but I think this must be changed in the next three weeks: So I’m really asking all of you to help to spread the message.”
Schlanger pointed to developments occurring around China and Japan, the role of South Korea and Russia, noting that this cooperation is what is being targetted by the attacks on President Trump. He asked Zepp-LaRouche to comment on these broader relations that are developing around the Belt and Road, and the implications of that with President Trump’s trip coming up in just a few weeks.
Zepp-LaRouche responded:
“I think there is a strategic realignment going on. I actually would like to talk about the battle inside the United States first, because there is right now, as you say, an attempt to prevent Trump from having a positive relationship with China and with Russia. Now the famous ‘Russia-gate’ is about to be put where it should have been from the beginning, in the trash can—namely, there is no evidence….
“Now, this is an incredible story, and we have produced a dossier about the apparatus behind the effort to impeach Trump or have a coup against Trump: Namely, it is all centered around Special Counsel Robert Mueller. [EIR’s dossier: “Robert Mueller is an Amoral Legal Assassin: He Will do his Job if You let Him” see EIR, Vol. 44, #39, Sept. 29, 2017.] And this dossier is an absolute bombshell, because it establishes without any doubt that the same people and the same apparatus which went after my husband, Lyndon LaRouche, in the ’80s, and afterward, is the same apparatus which covered up the Saudi role in 9/11, and which is now organizing, with the British intelligence, to set up a fake story against President Trump.
“Now, this is a huge battle. There is some fight: For example, Senator Grassley and Congressman Devin Nunes [Senate Judiciary and House Intelligence Committee chairman], both in their respective committees, pointed to the fact that there is collusion—yes, but not with the Russians, but with British intelligence….
“So this is an unbelievable story, and it is at this point, very unclear which side will come out on top. But it is the opposite from the way it is being portrayed: Namely, it is those people who are going after Trump who are the ones who should be investigated, and if they are found guilty, be put on trial. So that is really what is going on, and the aim is to make with Trump, like you remember this picture in Gulliver’s Travels where Gulliver was tied down by so many little ropes that he couldn’t move. And obviously, the whole idea of the campaign against Trump is that he is so busy defending himself, that he doesn’t get to his actual agenda.
“This is the battle on which the existence of the United States depends, and by implication the rest of the world, given the strategic importance of the United States.”
U.S. POLITICAL & ECONOMIC
Who’s Covering Up for British Intelligence?
Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—A special Fox News investigation by Catherine Herridge published last night, looked into how it was that the FBI and Justice Department have refused every request by the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), for information regarding the lurid anti-Trump dossier of British intelligence’s Christopher Steele.
Records show that the committee has made eight such requests since March, including subpoenas. Although the FBI and Justice Department are led by Trump appointees Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, “Sources close to the matter say that Gregory Brower, a former U.S. Attorney, is now the gatekeeper to such information as head of the FBI’s Office of Congressional Affairs. Brower is said to be close to former FBI Director James Comey, who named him to the job in March, two months before Comey was fired, and during a tense period in Comey’s relationship with Trump. Sources told Fox News that Brower has turned down requests, citing the special counsel investigation led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller.”
The Senate Intelligence Committee has also been rebuffed. “As it relates to the Steele dossier, unfortunately the committee has hit a wall,” Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) explained. “We have on several occasions made attempts to contact Mr. Steele, to meet with Mr. Steele, to include personally the vice chairman and myself as two individuals making that connection. Those offers have gone unaccepted. The committee cannot really decide the credibility of the dossier without understanding things like who paid for it? Who are your sources and sub-sources?”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has said there are “material inconsistencies” in the FBI’s replies to his questions about the dossier, and wrote to the FBI Oct. 4 to ask whether and how the dossier’s allegations were “confirmed” by foreign intelligence agencies, naming British intelligence in particular. Glenn Simpson, the founder of the Fusion GPS firm which commissioned the dossier, has refused to reveal sources and payments, even during a closed-door session with Senate Judiciary Committee staff.
Energy Secretary Perry Fights for Nuclear and Coal against ‘Free Market’ Deregulators
Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—Speaking before the Veterans for Energy on Oct. 6, Energy Secretary Rick Perry took head-on the argument that his proposal to make it possible to keep coal and nuclear baseload power plants operating, somehow interferes with the “free market.” Perry said, “Anybody that gets up and says that is lying….” At the end of last month, Perry had asked the rabidly pro-“free market” Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to consider changing market rules to allow utilities to recover their costs and generate some profit, in order to keep coal and nuclear plants open, that have been unable to compete with (non-free-market), heavily-subsidized renewables and artificially cheap natural gas. What Perry is proposing is that the Federal government take responsibility for assuring a reliable, reasonably priced supply of electricity for the population, which policy was the law under Franklin Roosevelt’s regulation of the industry, until the repeal of such law in the 1990s.
FERC, which was established to “oversee” and police the deregulated merchant markets in the 25 states that deregulated their utility industry, has done nothing of the sort. Its members should have gone to jail with the Enron executives who stole billions of dollars from citizens in California.
Not surprisingly, vocal pushback against Secretary Perry’s proposal has come from two of the three FERC commissioners themselves. FERC Commissioner Rob Powelson, a Republican and former Pennsylvania regulator, was quoted by The Hill Oct. 10, as saying: “I did not sign up to blow up the markets. When that happens, we’re done. I’m done. I don’t need this job.” Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur, a Democrat, endorsed Powelson’s comments.
As an immediate measure, to allow Georgia Power and its partner utilities to complete construction of the two new Vogtle nuclear power reactors, Georgia Power reported Oct. 12 that it has a “conditional commitment of approximately $1.67 billion in additional loan guarantees” from the Department of Energy. The loan guarantees bring down the “risk” of the project, as perceived by Wall Street, which lowers the interest rate the banks charge.
At the moment, these are the only two nuclear power reactors under construction in the U.S.
President Trump Takes on NBC’s Fake News and ‘Fake Nukes’
Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump has again denounced the NBC network for pushing fake news, this time over the allegation that Trump had called for a “tenfold” increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during a July national security meeting. In a Twitter comment, Trump referred to the NBC report as “pure fiction,” and threatened to pursue revoking NBC’s license to broadcast. In its report, Sputnik International’s headline called them “Fake Nukes.”
NBC claimed that Trump’s comments were made during a July 20 national security meeting, which included the Vice President, Secretary of State, Defense Secretary and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, among others.
Insulting NBC by equating it with the violently anti-Trump CNN network, Trump said the story was “pure fiction, made up to demean,” and asked “at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License”? in a pair of tweets, yesterday.
Elaborating later during a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump said that “we don’t need an increase” in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. “But I want modernization and I want total rehabilitation. It’s got to be in tip-top shape.”
“I never said that,” referring to NBC’s allegation that he demanded a “tenfold increase” in the nuclear arsenal. “Right now we have so many nuclear weapons I want them in perfect condition, perfect state…. It’s frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write and someone should look into it,” Sputnik quoted him as saying.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis confirmed the President’s rebuttal, saying the NBC story was “absolutely false,” and referred to NBC’s “erroneous reporting” as “irresponsible.”
NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Russia’s President Putin Meets with German Businessmen, as Trade between Two Nations Increases
Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—Russian President Vladimir Putin met today in Sochi with owners, board chairmen and CEOs of about 20 major German firms active in Russia, including Bauer, Wintershall, Linde, Knauf, Siemens, Metro, and others, at the initiative of the German Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations. President Putin was joined at the meeting of about 50 people by President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan.
Putin said that although China had surpassed Germany as Russia’s leading trade partner, German-Russian economic relations had not weakened at all, but strengthened, and that German-Russian trade had increased 25% over the last year. It was noted that German investment is growing, with new companies opening practically every week.
Putin set a particular task of increasing the involvement of small and medium-sized businesses in Russian-German trade, in part to further Russia’s goal of raising the share of small and medium-sized businesses in its own economy up to 40% by 2030.
Wolfgang Buchele, the chairman of the German committee, said that German polls invariably show support for friendly relations with Russia, and that the sides should overcome stagnation in relations. The committee supports the German government’s opposition to new, potentially extraterritorial American sanctions, and will do all it can to overcome any uncertainty which might curtail new investments. “At present, Germany is very positive as regards investment in Russia, and I strongly hope this will remain the case in the future as well.
“The activities of German companies in Russia and Russian businesses in Germany are on the upsurge. We consider this a brilliant example of very good and successful economic development. This is why I think it would be appropriate to talk about new joint projects today.
“We believe Russia’s main trial, challenge and number one political task is to continue optimizing its infrastructure, increasing labor productivity, for example, by introducing new technologies, and developing competitive export goods with a high share of localization in Russia.
“Thus, German manufacturing companies that have a presence in Russia and invest in Russia, intend to sell their goods not only in Russia but also export them to other countries.
“Therefore, it is important for us to have value chains in the country that would receive components and raw materials in Russia and would not have to import them, and this is the path we should follow together. However, I believe that there are good prospects for development here.”
Asian Development Bank Predicts Philippines Will Be One of Region’s Fastest-Growing Economies
Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—In an article in The National of the United Arab Emirates, journalist Anthony Rowley wrote that “the pendulum of fate has since swung back,” pointing to Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s drive “to end the infrastructure deficit that the Philippines has suffered for decades.”
He also reported that even as recently as 1986, with the end of the Ferdinand Marcos era, the Philippines was regarded by many as a “poster boy” for development. The end of that era, however, brought “political turbulence and economic stagnation.”
Rowley cites the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) optimism regarding the Filipino economy. The Philippines “will be one of the fastest-growing economies in the region this year,” predicts Aekapol Chongvilaivan, economist at the ADB’s Philippines division. “This is significantly higher than other middle-income countries in the region, such as Thailand and Malaysia, and it is comparable to the fastest-growing emerging markets like Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia,” Chongvilaivan told The National.
One other aspect behind such optimism is the Filipino President’s success in “forging close links with China,” writes Rowley. Rowley cited Jin Liqun, president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment bank (AIIB), the Beijing-based multilateral financial institution founded in 2016, who Rowley says, believes “China is another nation … which has a strong belief that building infrastructure is an essential precondition for strong economic growth.”
Chongvilaivan told The National: “Since the beginning of the current administration in June 2016, the [Filipino] government has achieved substantial progress in ramping up infrastructure. We’ve seen a remarkable increase in public spending, [and] disbursements are on schedule to achieve the infrastructure spending target of 5.3% of GDP.”
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Catalonia’s Separatist CUP Party Heads Movement for ‘Degrowth’
Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—What a surprise. The small Catalonian CUP (Popular Unity Candidacy) party, the most radical of the separatist groupings composing Carles Puigdemont’s makeshift parliamentary majority demanding regional “independence” from Spain, and which positioned itself as the kingmaker in the recent attempted breakaway putsch there, is not only promoting the British Empire’s separatist ploy to destroy the nation-state. They are also leading a campaign for “degrowth,” a policy of radical economic devolution closely associated with the Malthusian ideas of Commander of the British Empire Hans Joachim (“John”) Schellnhuber, among others.
The spokesman for the CUP, Sergi Saladie Gil, recently stated in a speech before the Catalonia parliament: “Degrowth is an indispensable path to achieve the sovereignty” of Catalonia, “and would be comparable with the establishment of a war economy.” He explicitly premised his argument on the Club of Rome’s notorious Limits to Growth book. In another interview, Saladie Gil pronounced: “Our organization sees the process toward the independence of Catalonia as an opportunity for a break with a political regime,” in order to achieve “authentic sovereignty, especially in those fundamentals of life, such as energy and food. And we understand that degrowth is an indispensable route for reaching sovereignty in these things.”
On Sept. 6-7, the CUP’s Saladie Gil presented and debated a “Parliamentary Interrogatory About Degrowth” before the Catalan parliament—purposely the same week that the separatists voted to hold their illegal Oct. 1 referendum for independence—which asserted that “the search for infinite growth generates devastating global problems…. The concepts of progress, growth and development must be revised.” The fascist statement argued that, “with much less energy available, radical changes to our lifestyle” will be required. In light of “the limits imposed by the biosphere,” the “exciting process towards the creation of the Catalan Republic” must be characterized by “building a new relationship with the biosphere based on environmental and social justice … a new scenario characterized by the lack of material things and energy.”
Another prominent degrowther from Catalonia, Barcelona Autonomous University Professor Federico Demaria, couldn’t agree more: “Some critics accuse degrowth of being too unrealistic. But the true fantasy is thinking that the global economy can grow infinitely in a finite world… Not only is growth not possible, it’s also not necessary and not desirable.”
The CUP and the rest of the degrowth movement trace the roots of their radical communitarianism and environmentalism to the 1970s writings of André Gorz, the Vienna-born French theoretician of the New Left, who, along with his close friend Herbert Marcuse, was a product and follower of the British Empire’s Frankfurt School project.
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
Palestinian Groups Fatah and Hamas Reach Reconciliation Agreement
Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—Talks between the two rival Palestinian organizations, Hamas and Fatah, taking place in Cairo under the sponsorship of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Egyptian Intelligence, have yielded an agreement on how the two will cooperate in the Gaza Strip. Details were to be released at a press conference later today.
Signed in the presence of Egyptian General Intelligence Director Khaled Fawzy, the agreement includes deployment of 3,000 Palestinian Authority police officers in Gaza, to patrol the borders with Israel, and also the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, and the handover of Gaza administration from Hamas to the Palestinian unity government no later than Dec. 1. At a press conference following the signing ceremony, Fatah leader Azzam Ahmad, who signed the agreement with Hamas delegation head Saleh Arouri, said, “The Rafah terminal will be improved and refurbished, and the presidential guards of the P.A. [Palestinian Authority] will be stationed along the Gaza borders by Nov. 1.”
The talks are part of the Egyptian President’s effort to achieve a Palestinian reconciliation as a necessary step to restarting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
“The agreement will allow the national unity government to fully carry out its tasks in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of Jordan,” the head of the Fatah delegation said, according to Sputnik.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the agreement marked a “final end to division” of the Palestinian political movements. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said: “We’ll go to any length to implement the agreement and turn over a new leaf in the annals of our people, forever closing the book on our divisions. The most important thing is the agreement’s implementation.”
Meanwhile the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper and Egyptian media published a report Oct. 10 claiming that an Israeli delegation also arrived in Cairo at the beginning of the intra-Palestinian talks and met with top Egyptians.
OTHER
EIR Strategic Alert Discussed in Italian Sovereignist Blog
Oct. 12 (EIRNS)—Prof. Luciano Barra Caracciolo, currently chairman of the Sixth Section of the Italian State Council, a body of the administrative judiciary, included a lengthy discussion of the content of the two latest issues of the EIR Strategic Alert newsletter in his “Orizzonte48” blog, which represents leftist sovereignist views.
Caracciolo introduces the EIR articles to his readers as having “a twofold advantage: first of all, they [represent] a long-standing U.S. viewpoint [he links to the Italian Wikipedia on Lyndon LaRouche]. Sure, it is just ‘one’ of the possible viewpoints from the U.S.A., but the fact that they still exist is indicative in itself. Secondly, they aim in any case at providing a global scenario and, independent of the chosen causal explanations and the priorities they suggest, they are based on a good ability to give news on facts and data to which, otherwise, the mainstream media system would give no emphasis, depriving Western public opinion of any chance to understand what is really going on in the world.”
Barra Caracciolo quotes EIR Strategic Alert articles at length, beginning with the Catalonia issue, including the Leopold Kohr angle to “cantonize” Europe explained by Nouvelle Solidarité editor Karel Vereycken to Sputnik, the “Quo Vadis Europe” editorial of the last EIR Strategic Alert (which is the title of Barra Caracciolo’s own post), Quantitative Easing feeding the bubble, the German electoral mess, the infrastructure debate in the U.S., including Trump on Puerto Rico debt.
He corroborates EIR Strategic Alert’s analyses and reports with other sources and his own remarks. On Catalonia, for instance, he quotes the Aspen Institute magazine Aspenia saying: “Betting on all or nothing, and infinitely stretching the proceso sobiranista, presenting independence as the panacea of all evils, is helping the Catalan government to avoid dealing with a society which has been hit hard by the economic crisis and has suffered austerity policies, zealously implemented not only by the [ruling] Partido Popular, but also by the Puigdemont group that has ruled the region since 2010.”
A chart shows that the so-called “autonomist” parties in Catalonia have cut social spending 100% more than the average Spanish figure.
After quoting Vereycken on Leopold Kohr as the father of European separatism, Barra Caracciolo adds his own remarks that “Kohr’s thought has been a major inspiration for the green movement, bio-regionalism and anarchist movements. It has also influenced Ernst Friedrich Schumacher, who took inspiration from Kohr for his book Small Is Beautiful.
Finally, introducing EIR Strategic Alert’s report on the debate on financing infrastructure in the United States, Barra Caracciolo emphasizes that “in the following report, the issue is ‘how’ to finance any intervention in the general interest on the territory” and warns readers not to adopt the Malthusian view according to which each U.S. state has its own debt.
