Learn From Schiller:
Think Only The Highest!
System Change Now!
By Helga Zepp-LaRouche,
Founder and Chairwoman, Schiller Institute
Federal Chairwoman of the Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität, or BüSo)
Dear Citizen!
The 250th birthday of our great Poet of Freedom, Friedrich Schiller, and the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall, are very much internally connected with each other. At that time, in November 1989 and in the months afterwards up to the reunification on October 3, 1990--thus in the great moment of Germany--we indeed faced Schiller's yardstick: Would the great moment find a great people? Would we succeed in establishing a new, more human society and an actual order of peace from the peaceful revolution?
In retrospect one must unfortunately answer this question in the negative. The reasons are many: Margaret Thatcher and Francois Mitterrand attempted everything to prevent the reunification, and then agreed with George Bush, Sr., to do everything to contain the reunified Germany within the EU-structure. The West Germans have to blame themselves, that in the face of this geopolitical manipulation they were only all too ready to contribute their share to subjecting the new Federal states to the brutal rules of globalization. Those East Germans, who seriously sought a third way, did not recognize the only plan, which would have made this possible and were very rapidly pushed aside by the unification bureaucracy.
In this year from November 1989 to October 1990, I warned in countless speeches against imposing upon the bankrupt communism the likewise bankrupt market economy. Thus, one could perhaps remove wealth from the states of the former Comecon for a few years through primitive accumulation: but then after a certain period an even greater collapse would occur. And we are precisely at this point today. Only that this time the bad debts, with which the taxpayers are saddled, are the toxic waste of the banks, which the speculators, who have gambled, have produced.
The system of so-called globalization is more bankrupt today by several orders of magnitude, than the economy of the DDR and then the Soviet Union had been. The systemic crisis, which has destroyed enormous industrial capacities in the real economy since the end of July 2007, and in which the governments of the G20 states have proven to be the henchmen of the banks and financial institutions, will go on until a fundamental reorganization is undertaken.
You, the citizens, must wake up immediately!
Don't you see, that our beautiful Germany is completely destroyed? The new Federal states are more and more depopulated. The average age is over 60 years in not a few villages and municipalities. The lack of prospects above all of the youth is expressed more frequently in senseless violence; confidence in politics disappears more and more.
But also the old Federal states are in disintegration: more and more traditional companies, Woolworth, Hertie, Karstadt, Quelle, perhaps soon Opel and hundreds of suppliers, not to mention the tens of thousands of medium-sized companies -- follow the thousands of traditional companies, which have already vanished. The farmers are struggling for survival. Poverty is growing. And the costs for the gambling are to be passed on to the population! Germany is in existential danger!
The propaganda line, that the worst is already over, is only window-dressing on the part of those, who want to continue the casino economy. And why should the gambler worry? If things go wrong, then the governments are ready for battle to save the system-relevant banks with taxpayers' money, after all the banks are too big to fail. The reality is that the casino operation runs today more excessively and more wildly than before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers about one year ago. and the next mega-crash is immediately forthcoming.
This must come to an end now. We cannot permit the financial oligarchy to drive our nation completely into ruin. We need a system change!
The current system of monetarism and of globalization must be replaced by a credit system, which is oriented towards the General Welfare and which finances the real economy. Lyndon LaRouche has presented the argument for a long time, that only the alliance of the four most powerful nations of the world, namely, the USA, Russia, China, and India, is strong enough to put a new financial architecture on the agenda.
And here there are by all means very positive developments. On October 3, during a three-day state visit of Prime Minister Putin to China, 12 comprehensive cooperation agreements were concluded between Russia and China, above all as regards the construction of infrastructure and the high-technology area, with a volume of 500,000,000,000 dollars. With this, the otherwise potentially valueless dollar reserves of China were covered by investments in the real economy. This accord can be the beginning of a new credit system, provided that other nations get involved together with Russia and China in similar long-term development programs.
That is the concrete form of the third way, of which the civil rights activists spoke in 1989. And it is also the beginning of the implementation of the program, which Lyndon LaRouche and the BueSo proposed at that time, initially the so-called Productive Triangle Paris-Berlin-Vienna and from 1991, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the construction of the Eurasian landbridge. The central idea of this program consists in connecting the industry and the population centers of Europe with those of Asia through development corridors. Through this integration of infrastructure the landlocked regions of Eurasian can be developed, the productivity of the economy of these nations and the living standard of the population can be raised.
The way out of the economic crisis for Germany also lies in the investment in the construction of the Eurasian landbridge. For our small and medium-sized companies, mechanical engineers and skilled workers possess enough know-how and still have the industrial capacities, which are urgently needed in the gigantic expanses of the Eurasian continent. Conversely, Germany is dependent on long-term cooperation agreements of 50 or 100 years, with which we can secure our raw material and energy supply.
If Germany participates in this new credit system between sovereign nation states, we can achieve in Germany once again productive full employment on a very high technological level. We must return to the awareness, that the only relevant source of wealth lies in the development of the creative capacities of our own population, and not in the maxim of free trade, buy cheap, sell dear. Therefore, the construction of a strong productive domestic market and the best possible development of the cognitive potentials of our citizens are the best precondition for making a German contribution to the reconstruction of the world economy in the new system.
But we also need a system change in our heads. We must not only dispose of the toxic waste of the banks, but rather we must also dispose of all the mental crap, which came along with globalization -- therefore, for example, the pursuit of profit, vacuous entertainment, the maximization of the enjoyment of the Here and Now, and the counterrevolutionary proposition, You can't do anything anyway!, which we should delete from our vocabulary forever.
If we want to use the great chance of a system change in economic policy and in our heads, if we want to implement the great vision of an order of peace for the 21st century, then there is no better mentor than our great poet Friedrich Schiller. In his works we find all the sublime ideas, which can give us the inner strength for this change. For example, the idea, that each person has the potential, to develop into a beautiful soul and into a genius.
In 1989 the potential great moment of the Germans was lost. Today, where we are dealing with an even more dramatic system collapse, we must use the chance, which lies in the fact that the neo-liberal paradigm of globalization has failed. The LaRouche Plan for a just, new world economic order must be put on the agenda.
In this sense, let us celebrate the 250th birthday of Friedrich Schiller and the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall!
Every man becomes a brother, Take this kiss throughout the world!
Your Helga Zepp-LaRouche
November 7, 2009
