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Helga Zepp-LaRouche Returns
to Radio Mindanao,
With Butch Valdes and the
Philippine LYM

December 2007

December 2--Helga Zepp-LaRouche was again a guest on Butch Valdes' Radio Mindanao program in the Philippines. Radio Mindanao is heard nationwide, one of the largest stations in the country. Philippines LaRouche Society leader Butch Valdes and several members of the Philippines LaRouche Youth Movement host the program every Sunday night from 8-9 p.m. Butch Valdes is also head the Katipunan ng Demokratikong Pilipino (League of Filipino Democrats).

After giving a briefing on the breakthroughs with Lyndon LaRouche's Los Angeles speech being run in the Chinese press internationally, and the wildfire organizing around LaRouche's Homeowners and Bank Protection Act of 2007, Helga answered questions from the LYM members, which is transcribed here.

Butch Valdes: Okay, we have a question from Jehan of the LYM.

Q: Hi Helga.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Hi!

Q: The synarchists are moving faster, and since the financial is collapsing, and continuously collapsing, they are using the media to fool people again, in introducing false solutions. There is this show on CNN which will feature that since the dollar is weakening is it about time to look to the euro to support the dollar? And what's worse is, they're saying that--the reporter seques to having a one-world currency instead. What can you say about this?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I mean, to look at the euro right now, is really very foolish: Because the euro, as a result of the dollar is at a record high. Now that is not very good for the European economies, because--because of the introduction of the euro, replacing the national currencies, basically--for example, Germany was in a very bad situation because it sort of co-financed a lot of the weaker countries, because they all of a sudden were part of the same unit. So as a result, the domestic economy of Germany, since the introduction of the euro, has suffered tremendously. This was compensated, however, to a certain extent, by a very large export. So Germany was the so-called in exports, especially of high-quality goods, machine tools and similar things, and that went fine, but, as I said, at the expense of domestic production, domestic buying power, the domestic wages, which were practically becoming lower and lower by comparison.

But now, with the low dollar, and the high euro, the exports are also threatened. As a matter of fact, several companies have already rung the alarm bell, that certain firms are about to go under, even Airbus, which is a really gigantic aerospace firm, which despite the fact that it had excellent orders, it has lots of new orders for new Airbuses, but nevertheless, the head of the firm just a week ago, said, that because of the dollar collapse and the high euro, his firm is in an existential danger and they may have to cut wages and other social benefits for employees, dramatically.

So the European economies can not survive very long with such a discrepancy between a low dollar and a high euro, and therefore it's a Pyrrhus victory to think that this is profiting Europe, and that therefore the euro would be an alternative to the dollar, because the high euro right now is destroying the European economy is a very dramatic way.

So therefore, people should not be so foolish: Because we are looking at the collapse of a world financial system. For example, the Asian economies, the European economies, they're all affected by what came out of this mortgage crisis in the United States, which has spread like a tsunami to every corner of the world. So unless there is a complete reorganization, as Mr. LaRouche is proposing it, to have a New Bretton Woods system, and basically declaring the old system to be bankrupt and replacing it by a new system, there is no solution. There is no solution within this system, because the central banks right now are caught in a Catch-22, because if they decrease the interest rate, to soften the collapse of the mortgage crisis and the real estate crisis in the United States, then that feeds inflation and a collapse of the dollar; if they increase the interest rate, what the Europeans would like to do to counter inflation, it will increase the collapse of the dollar even more.

So no matter what they do, there is no way out.

Now, the whole idea to have a world currency, is just completely nonsensical and would never function. Well, first of all, because of the absolute diversity and unevenness of the world economy, it would only profit the very rich and very money obsessed forces in the world. But it will not happen. It's a pipedream of some people, but I'm 100% sure that countries such as Russia, China, India, will never agree to such a world empire conception, so I think it's a waste of time to even discuss any longer.

Butch: Okay, we have another question from LYM Christoph.

Q: Hello, Helga this is Christoph.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Hi.

Q: I just felt each of here wants to have a bit of an elaboration on what LaRouche really means by declaration that we are still on the winning side. In one of our briefings we've been receiving LaRouche declares that we are still on the winning side, but seeing the developments, of course, of the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act in certain states, particularly in Pennsylvania. Does this actually mean that there is somehow a great sense--well, that is a kind of hint of certainty, that our HBPA will be eventually installed, and that certain strategies leading to the solution to the systemic financial collapse? In our case, in the neighboring countries, the installation of the New Bretton Woods would be seriously discussed in the future, after such installation of HBPA would be made in the states? Well, maybe just a bit of elaboration to enlighten us.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Yeah, I think--well, I mean, you see that the Congress right now has been very reluctant to go with this legislation. The main reason, I think, that we are in the hot phase of the Presidential campaign--unfortunately, all the Presidential candidates have taken large amounts of money from the locusts, the hedge funds and similar institutions, and therefore, naturally, the party leadership in both parties, is very reluctant to move against the speculative funds, and put the banking system in order.

But that looks completely for the people on the level of the grassroots. For example, if you have millions of people who are losing their homes, and you know, this year, it's going to be more than 2 million people who are already kicked out, or who will be kicked out, and that rate is increasing, this alone leads to a tremendous social crisis, because you have many families who all of a sudden are homeless, and many just leave the house, and don't even sell it, because they know it will end up being in the possession of the banks anyway. So many of them just leave their house and go somewhere else. And then you have entire streets where the houses are empty, and then naturally, vandalism occurs: Because bandits are breaking in to steal the faucets, because the faucets are many times out of copper, the price of copper right now is very high, and you can sell it on the scrap market.

So you have a complete social crisis, and therefore, our efforts have been very successful to get an increasing number of city councils and mayors and state legislators to introduce the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act 2007, which Mr. LaRouche has designed as a firewall, to protect the homeowners, because you can not have millions of people sitting on the streets, losing everything. But you know, the point is, you also need to protect the banks, because if the banks collapse, then naturally, the economy can not function, because without functioning banks, economic processes are coming to a halt as well.

So that is why we had really also in this past week a tremendous success. For example, in Pennsylvania alone, I think it's now altogether 12 or 13 cities, where the city council completely endorsed the LaRouche proposal. The most important this past week, was Philadelphia, which after all, is the first capital of the United States 200 years ago, and it has a very proud republican tradition. And there is now a growing momentum for this proposal also in many other cities around the United States. And what Mr. LaRouche meant by that "we are on the winning side," is that if we just keep getting more and more cities, and city councils, and state legislators who are in direct contact with the affected population, it will assert itself, and I think that is really what we can see right now: That if you are in an existential crisis, then even a small force--I mean small from the standpoint of numbers, not from the standpoint of power of reason and ideas--that even a small force can effect a change in policy.

So I would say that these two things, which all happened, in a certain sense in the last week, going in the first step in the direction of an FDR reorganization domestically in the United States, with the HBPA, the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act, becoming stronger and stronger inside the United States; and then having the Chinese endorsement for the four-power negotiation for the world financial system on an international level, I think these two breakthroughs of the last week mean that we really have put the kind of reorganization Mr. LaRouche has been pushing, very powerful on the agenda, and I think nobody who's aware of how real processes work, has not been aware of this breakthrough.

BUTCH: Helga, going back to one of the major proposals of LaRouche on fixing up the whole financial system, he said that the four countries--meaning the United States, Russia, China, and India--must get together, agree on the kind of development program the world should have, and a change in financial system, and the rest of the world is going to follow.

Now, judging from Mr. Putin has been saying, especially espousing Franklin Delano Roosevelt's type solution for the present problem, and also looking at the reaction of China to Mr. LaRouche, and I'm sure India is not going to be much problem in terms of developing a new financial system, now the real problem seems to be the United States. And this is focused on not just Bush and Cheney, but something that is much more--probably even deeper than both of them, which means the Congress, House of Representatives and Senate, so on and so forth--the efforts of Mr. LaRouche have been, to say the least, gigantic, in terms of moving the whole of the United States. Where are we in this stage?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think that the strongest factor is that the leaderships of both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, they are totally truant to the big financial institutions. But they only represent the interests of the upper--I would say not even 20%, but it's more the upper 5% or the upper 1%, or the upper 3% and then the people around that who are profiting from that outlook. But you know, given the fact that financial system is collapsing, a lot of people are losing a lot of money, of these upper 20% or these upper 5%, and they are really in a very precious situation, because of their illusions are going to bust. But it was the point of Mr. LaRouche since a long time, that the only way how the United States can be put back into order is by not focusing on the upper 20% or the upper 5%, but to focus on the 80% of the "Forgotten Man and Woman" which is exactly what Franklin D. Roosevelt had done in the '30s, when he organized the United States out of the Depression, with the New Deal, to become the most powerful economic power by the end of World War II.

And with this proposal to focus on the homeowners and also the people who paying rent, because it's not just the people who have homes, but also a lot of people basically are in danger of not being able to pay their rest, is exactly this idea that you have to mobilize the 80% of the lower family-income brackets, and that then becomes the most powerful force.

Now, obviously, with the Bush administration--and not only two times George W. but also previously Bush Sr., and also the Clinton period was not completely pure, it was a mixed bag--I mean, people around the world have developed a very, very negative picture of the United States. I know that from Europe, I know it from the Arab world, I know it from India, from Russia. And there's no country in the world where the United States has not completely lost in terms of the image and the reputation, and many people equate the United States with negative Bush/Cheney image. But if you look at it that way, it's too short-sighted, because the Franklin D. Roosevelt tradition is still alive, the Martin Luther King tradition is still alive, and after all, America was founded 200 years ago as a republic, and it was for a long time called, correctly, the "beacon of hope," and the place people looked to for republican freedoms.

Now, this was the networks of Benjamin Franklin, which united the best minds of Europe to work together to create a republic in the United States, this was clearly the policies of such people as Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy Adams, Lincoln, so there is this other America, which we are right now trying to revive, and Mr. LaRouche therefore has designed a project, basically to really discuss what are the principles, what is an American? So that the people who are saying that they are American Presidential candidates, that they really have to measure up to.

So rather than saying, this is bad and terrible, we are fighting for the soul of America, and we are trying to remind America, that it can be again a "beacon of hope" if it stops trying to be an empire, which what the neo-cons essentially tried to impose after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

So, it is an undecided battle, but I think--we definitely have the handle how to get America back on the tradition of the republic, and reject the idea of being an empire.

BUTCH: We have a question of LYM Ver.

Q: Yeah, Helga, this is the question: As the grave thing happened to the whole world as we are facing a prolonged dark age with the crash of the financial system, it seems that so many problems are everywhere. You have a corrupt leadership, a dumbed-down population, a country stricken with poverty, youth living in virtual reality, et cetera, you know, the list goes on. When the whole population is living in ugliness, how do we organize the population the people, which seems a gargantuan task, and how do we lift them up from this ugliness, and make them see beauty?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Well, you know it's funny, because the same question was actually asked by Friedrich Schiller, the German poet, when the French Revolution collapsed, and betrayed the hopes of the European republicans, at the time that the example of the American Revolution could be replicated in Europe. You know, there was a big hope that this could happen, but then, when the French Revolution went under in the Jacobin Terror, Friedrich Schiller said, "A great historical moment has found a little people," the object chance existed, but the subjective moral condition was not there.

So then he wrote the famous Aesthetical Letters where he posed the question exactly as you have done it now: What do you do if the governments are corrupt and the masses are degenerate? If that was the case during Friedrich Schiller's time, it is all the more true today, because I would say most of the governments are definitely even more corrupt, and the masses are even in much worse shape, simply because of the entertainment, of the TV, of the soap operas, of the video games, of the virtual reality, most people, old and young are addicted to.

But I think that the answer that Schiller gave is still the same one: that first of all you have to present people with powerful ideas, in drama, in literature, in poetry, in music. And as Schiller then was describing in the writing called The Theater as a Moral Institution, he said, only the best people respond to these ideas, and then from there, it goes in milder beams, it distributes itself through the entire population.

So in a certain sense, what we are doing internationally, especially with the LaRouche Youth Movement, now de facto organizing in all five continents, where we bring beauty to the population, where we have the chorus work, where LaRouche Youth Movement members are developing the ability to have beautiful voices, according to the Italian bel canto method, and singing Classical music, like Bach or Mozart, or other great composers, and that way, touching the hearts of people, and showing them a different ideal of man, a different conception of why man is completely different from all other species, than it is really in the virtual realm of TV, video games, internet, cyberspace, which is really portraying man as completely mechanistic and all emotions are aggression and negative.

And I think that the idea of beauty, and great Classical art is still the best way to really penetrate the soul of people, and get across to them the idea that man is really something very beautiful, it's just in the grip of an oligarchy right now, which has managed through the old trick of all empires, through bread and circuses, through games and banal entertainment, to reduce people into actual mental slaves!

I should just tell you that this week, there was the German organization of psychoanalysts, who--finally!--after I had called for the forbidding of aggressive killer video games many years ago, they now finally came out and also called for prohibition of killer videos, by making the argument which is so obviously, namely, that killer video games is killing all capacity for compassion in the children. And that is really true. Because if you look at the effect what the virtual reality of video games, and MySpace, and Second Life, and whatnot on the internet, what it is doing to people, it is really crippling them! It is turning off and destroying their compassion, their ability to have empathy, and sympathy for other fellow human beings, and therefore, we have declared a virtual war against this virtual cyberspace. And we just brought out in the United States a new pamphlet, which we are also going to republish in different versions in all of Europe, to really try to free especially the young generation from these mindless games, and ridiculous activities. And we have, obviously, a much harder time to get people to join the chorus and to learn to think and make scientific breakthroughs than mindless video games, but nevertheless, once you set the creativity free of young people and old people alike, they are much more powerful, and can be really a changing force in real history.

BUTCH: Yes, Helga, we only have a couple of minutes left, and I just wanted to mention to you, that every time you've called, and our friends from Leesburg call us, we get a very--we get the feel of our leadership very much inspired, by the uplifting ideas that are shared with them.

And now what I'd to request, Helga, for you to address all of our listeners now, all of those that have been wanting to be one with us in this whole movement, but are unable physically, or financially, or any which way, what it is that the Filipino people can do, in order to join in this whole effort, and what can they do to move forward to be ourselves.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think that it is important that even if some of our listeners are in a difficult situation because of a lack of money or lack of mobility to really join fully, I think that the best thing you can do, is to try to reject the values which are being sold as the things to go with, like "big money," big fashion, label, designer clothes, and all of this stuff which the media is presenting in Hollywood movies and similar places, as the thing which are the worth of your life, and if you don't have them, if you don't have these status symbols, you are really not so important.

Reject that! Throw it out of your mind! What makes life important is the development of your mind. It is the cognitive powers, it is that you take the time to try to study, and that is not something where you are dependent on big money, or big wealth, or other status symbols, but I think it is the idea that you recognize that each human life is extremely precious. And even if you can only do a certain amount, start to study the ideas which you are getting in contact with, start to study the ideas of Lyndon LaRouche, of Edgar Allan Poe, of Cooper, of Schiller, of Leibniz, and write to Butch and the other members of the LaRouche movement in the Philippines; get in contact with us, and find a way to be part of this movement. Because, what is really so joyful, is that we are right now, really the force which makes history.

As I said, we may not be the largest organization in the world, but we are for sure, intellectually and morally, the most important organization worldwide. And I'm saying that without arrogance. I'm saying that because based on the ideas of Mr. LaRouche, who has revived all great discoveries of the whole universal history, and has created a movement where people who are beginning to this movement, they have access something to something which is much, much more important than millions of dollars, or some big cars. Because we have found a way of rediscovering the great ideas which have brought mankind forward in the last several thousands of years.

So, that is what is really important: to be able to use your mind, and to discover, that when you develop your own creativity, and you become compassionate for the other human beings and you don't want them to be in mental slavery, because you also want them to use their minds, then you have something which is giving meaning to your life, in a completely different way, than the normal entertainment around you has ever in store for you.

So, with that idea, we have managed, despite the fact that we are really fighting against tremendous financial oligarchical forces, we have managed to put the ideas of a just new world economic order on the table, because with the New Bretton Woods, which has now been endorsed by the Chinese government, very clearly, the idea of rebuilding the world economy, on the basis of the Eurasian Land-Bridge--and not only for Eurasia, but extending it to the Americas and to Africa--the whole question of a new just world economic order, is absolutely visible on the horizon as an option, and then hopefully we can also change the economic conditions in the Philippines, and bring real economic development for every person living in the Philippines right now, and I think this is absolutely within reach.

So, I want to encourage the listeners: Do whatever you can to keep contact with this movement. If you can reach us, contact us, get some publication, distribute it among other people, help to build this movement, and you will have done the most important you can do for your own future, and that of your children and your grandchildren.

BUTCH: On behalf of the Filipinos and all of your friends here, Helga, I thank you very much, for sharing your precious time and all your precious ideas. Thank you very much.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: yes, it was nice to be with you. I hope I can come back.

BUTCH: We look forward to that, always. Thank you, bye.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Bye.

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