The Lead
Reality Is Stronger than Ideology; Stop Warfare, Build the Physical Economy
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche,Marcia Merry Baker (EIRNS) — Dec. 18, 2023
The toll of death and misery rises by the hour in Gaza, with the latest official count of 19,500 dead, dozens of thousands wounded, and over two million suffering.
Yet the United States continues its lone stance in the UN Security Council, to oppose a ceasefire, talks and rebuilding in Palestine/Israel. The UAE is submitting a new resolution this week, and reports are that the U.S. is already cavilling, and opposing it.
Similarly, the U.S., UK and NATO decree there can be no negotiations and ceasefire for Ukraine, where the population is already down by half.
Behind the disgusting pretense cited by the Global NATO bloc of defending Western “values,” in these and other cases, two things stand out: First, the military-financial-industrial-complex of Wall Street/London is supported off the backs of everyone. And secondly, the actual social and economic conditions of the Trans-Atlantic NATO zone are rapidly falling apart.
A dramatic example of protest against this, is the mass farmer action today at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Farm protests are occurring in many cities in Bavaria and other states. Farmers are demanding affordable gas for their machinery, and other measures, in order to continue to produce food. But the German government’s policies, following the leader after the U.S., are backing warfare, and destroying the German physical economy, even food.
Schiller Institute founder and leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche, reviewing these situations with associates today, summed up the strategic picture with these remarks:
I think it’s not so difficult if you look at the strategic situation from the top. Why are we in the crisis we are? Because–as by the way, Sergei Glazyev had said so pointedly in his letter for Lyn’s 100th birthday–the countries that follow Lyndon LaRouche are doing well; and those that don’t, don’t. I think it’s really as simple as that, because if you look at why it is that Asia—above all China, but also other Asian countries and also now the BRICS, the BRICS+, the SCO, and other such organizations tend to do much better in terms of growth rates, it is because they have been applying innovation. They may not call it with the same terms like Lyn would discuss it in physical economy, but the entire Chinese economy is based on innovation, innovation, innovation. This is why they didn’t have a cycle of boom and bust; because they have been continuously applying the breakthroughs in new discoveries into the economy. That’s why they had a steady curve upwards while the West was collapsing.
Why is the West collapsing? Because they are wasting all productive capacity in what used to be called “primitive accumulation” in the Soviet Union. The West is doing the same thing. Do you think the almost $1 trillion military budget in the United States is not a waste, and primitive accumulation against the actual physical assets of the economy? Has it done any good for the United States to have built almost 1000 military bases around the world, when all they offer to these countries is to become training grounds for wars? They offer “security,” they offer training in the war against terrorism; but they don’t offer development. That’s why these countries have turned away from the United States and the West towards the Belt and Road Initiative which offers development.
It’s really not that complicated at all, and all this military build-up, all these interventionist wars to keep up the American way of life, as Bush Sr. said in the case of the Iraq War, has not done anybody any good. So, it’s a failed approach. You cannot build an economy by building military fortresses to protect your privileges when the rest of the world is no longer going along with it because they have an alternative.
So, I think it’s very important that we somehow say, look, this whole military-industrial-financial complex is doing the wrong model. They should stop it and agree to be peacefully turned into plowshares before they ruin all of us. I think this intervention– it’s very clear that this is not functioning and ideology is crashing against the wall of reality.
For example, look at what happened in Germany right now, where the Constitutional Court made the long-overdue decision that this fraudulent accounting had to stop. Now, what happened to the big transformation of the economy, the Green Deal? It flops because the pots are empty. The Constitutional Court said you cannot use money anymore for purposes you have not declared. They had to stop the e-car subsidies from one day to the next. So, all the people who bought an e-car with the idea that they would get a several thousand euro subsidy, [Finance Minister] Lindner just said, “Sorry, the pot is empty.” That will happen to a lot of things.
So, I think this idea that reality is stronger than ideology, [reality being] otherwise called natural law, or the mandate of heaven, or however you want to call it [is true.] There is a higher lawfulness which you cannot bend forever, without the laws of the universe bending back. They swing back to where things belong, and I think that’s a very clear demonstration of this principle.
The way out obviously is that we have to go back to the idea of physical economy, the American System, Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich List, Henry Carey, Count Witte, all of these people who knew how to build an economy. They have been proven right, and Lyndon LaRouche has carried that philosophy and physical economic theory a lot further. That is what it comes down to. If you want to survive, go back to LaRouche; if you want to go under, go the way of military spending until you are dead, one way or another.
Contents
Strategic War Danger
- New Gaza Ceasefire Resolution Headed for UN Security Council (↓)
- In Israel, Austin Argued for Low- Not High-Intensity Killing, and Pledged More U.S. Weapons (↓)
- Nuclear Tensions on Korean Peninsula Soaring (↓)
- Transnational Foundation Statement on Gaza Genocide, Offers Solutions Including Links to the Belt and Road (↓)
- Russian Prime Minister Mishustin To Meet with Xi Jinping, as Russia-China Economic Cooperation Intensifies (↓)
New World Paradigm
- Wang Yi Meets with D.P.R.K. Deputy Foreign Minister (↓)
- Kherson’s Governor, an Engineer, Explains Rebuilding Russia's Former Ukrainian Region (↓)
U.S. and Canada
- U.S. Homelessness Soaring, Up 12% During 2022, and Still Rising in 2023 (↓)
- German Farmers Protest at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate and Other Cities (↓)
Science and Technology
- Will Milei Exterminate Argentine Science? (↓)
- Rosatom in Discussion with Nicaragua on Building a Nuclear Medicine Center (↓)
Harley Schlanger Update
Watch The Daily Update with Harley Schlanger, a short video update available every weekday morning from The LaRouche Organization.
