Proposal for an Egyptian Declaration of Economic Independence

This proposal was drafted by Hussein Askary, an Iraqi who is now head of the LaRouche movement in Sweden. It is crucially important not only for Egypt at a moment of life or death for that nation, but for all nations being subjected to destabilization and destruction by the British financial Empire. This article appears in the July 26, 2013 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.     Mike Billington

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Proposal for an Egyptian Declaration
of Economic Independence

by Hussein Askary

[PDF version of this article]

Summary: The interim Presidency of Egypt should make a public "Declaration of Economic Independence," in which it should be announced:

1. That Egypt is in a state of economic emergency.
2. That the government will launch a national economic reconstruction program tantamount to a postwar reconstruction plan, a program which will be binding on every future government according to the new constitution.
3. The government outlines specific medium- and long-term national infrastructure, energy, water, agriculture, and industrial plans.
4. The government declares all previous agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to be null and void, and freezes all free-trade agreements with the EU, and replaces them with bilateral economic cooperation and trade agreements with European nations individually.
5. A sovereign credit system to be established domestically to support a "National Reconstruction and Development Bank," to finance the necessary development projects. Foreign nations are invited to subscribe to the new national credit mechanism, either by direct deposits or by extending guarantees, including export guarantees to corporations that will provide technologies and know-how to the Egyptian reconstruction program.

These points have to be announced by the President, in a televised address to the nation, for a "Declaration of Economic Independence," to seek the approval of the people of Egypt. Following such approval, a national convention is to be held in which these matters will be discussed in more detail by Egyptian scientists, engineers, industrialists, and economists, in addition to public figures. The convention will be held under the auspices of the different ministries of the interim government.

Egypt's Dilemma, and Its Future

Egypt has been, since 1882, one of the main targets of the British Empire, first for looting, and later, for control and destruction, when the Egyptian people's character and patriotic nature rejected British imperialism. Since that time, and throughout World War I, World War II, and the Cold War era, Egypt has been the backbone of the Arab nations. If it goes, everyone else goes. If it survives, a better future for the Arab nations and those in Southwest Asia and North Africa is possible.

While observers are puzzled by the recent events in Egypt, and whether there was a military coup or not, or why Britain's ally, the Saudi Royal Family, suddenly shifted their position to help overthrow the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohammed Morsi, the only significant issue to keep in mind is that the British Empire's intention to destroy Egypt is still on the agenda. The British do not care who is in power.

What is important for the Empire is the policy of looting and destroying Egypt, which in the past 40 years, has been characterized by economic destruction through the IMF policies, which are backed by the recent U.S. administrations, and by Europe. That Qatar and Saudi Arabia are suddenly on opposite front lines in Egypt (while still united in the destruction of Syria through their support for the British-deployed al-Qaeda jihadists) means nothing in the eyes of history, since both the Saudis and Qataris are puppets of the same British Empire.

Anti-Islamist liberals of Egypt, who were mostly educated in British economic schools, are equally as dangerous to Egypt as a nation, as are the jihadists and Salafists. For the empire, it does not matter if the cat is black or white. What matters is that it adds dead mice to its account.

That is why the January 2011 "revolution" in Egypt never managed to bring about the changes in the tragic social-economic conditions of the nation, which were wrought upon the Egyptian people by the combination of the IMF, the European Union, and U.S. policies imposed through the Hosni Mubarak regime.[1]

Then, following the organization of new Presidential elections in June 2012, and when then-President-elect Mohammed Morsi issued his Presidential declaration and his "First 100-day program," it became clear that Egypt would not be relieved from these terrible conditions, and would enter into a new maelstrom of economic, social, and political crises leading to new upheavals and eventually to military intervention! This was made as a forecast by this author in July 2012.[2]

To make the point clear, here is the last paragraph of that article, which was published exactly one year before Morsi's removal:

"Morsi's First 100 Days program, which he announced after the elections, is nothing but a low-calorie diet for the Egyptian people. He effectively proposes to maintain the status quo of poverty, by focusing on keeping the bakeries open with subsidies (a policy which adds nothing new, as it was even followed by former President Mubarak) as the first point in the program, and keeping the streets clean and traffic rolling as second, and making sure the old subway system is running (and so forth). Such a program shows that this President is not serious about alleviating the poverty and social injustice in the country. If Morsi does not break with the IMF and World Bank policies, and immediately call for an emergency mobilization to issue national credit to launch such crucial projects as Africa Pass, this President will only prove the points raised by this author about the origin and purpose of the Muslim Brotherhood."

While providing bread to the people is necessary, this is not the only purpose of government. Instead of launching a massive reconstruction program, and breaking all ties with the IMF and its policies, Morsi's government emphatically spent the next six months begging ("negotiating with") the IMF to return to Egypt, and to extend a humiliating $4 billion loan. Adding insult to injury, the IMF refused. Not only did Mr. Morsi completely misread the internal situation in his country, and in the U.S. Administration he was hoping would support him, but he also failed to realize how bankrupt the IMF, and behind it the EU and the USA, are, economically and financially.

The misguided Morsi government and the economists who supported it tried to explain that the sum of the IMF loan was not the issue, but that the IMF loan would have become a "certificate" of good behavior for Egypt, allowing it to indulge in borrowing money from international financial institutions. This would have further enslaved Egypt with more debt.

The problem of the Morsi government, in addition to its hunger for power, and as a political pawn for Anglo-American geopolitics—in its role as part of the international Muslim Brotherhood organization—was not lack of money but its lack of vision and knowledge of true economics, physical economy.

Mistakes Could Be Repeated

Now, what is to be feared, is that the new interim government of Egypt, appointed by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces on July 4, will resort to the same temporary measures and solutions to keep the status quo, leaving even greater burdens to the coming government, which is supposed to be elected three to four months from now, if political stability is preserved in the country!

The new interim President, Adli Mansour, issued a new constitutional declaration on July 8, which said almost nothing about the state of the economy. He left it to interim Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi to tackle this issue. Article 26 of the constitutional declaration states that the prime minister "issues the necessary regulation for the construction of public utilities and interests after the approval of the ministerial cabinet, but if these imply adding more burden to the government's general budget, they have to acquire the approval of the President."

Now, for any government, whether in Africa or even Europe, to stay within the limits of its budget, leaves no space for any investments in public utilities, or any meaningful large-scale projects to put the masses of unemployed people to productive work and increase the productivity of the economy as a whole. This becomes even impossible in light of the fact that the Egyptian government deficit has been increasing at a rapid rate, especially since April 2011. The Egyptian Finance Ministry announced in March this year that the total budget deficit reached 10.6% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) in the first ten months of the 2012-13 fiscal year. The deficit reached US$26.5 billion, compared with $16.8 billion in the period from July to April of the 2011-12 fiscal year. This deficit was expected to reach 11.5% of GDP by June. In 2012, budget revenues were at US$50 billion, and expenditures were $77 billion.
Egypt has been borrowing in the international financial markets to finance its budget deficit, and has been receiving preferential loans and aid from Qatar, the main supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the region. Qatar has extended US$8 billion so far to the MB government. Following the overthrow of Morsi, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait pledged US$8 billion in loans and grants to the new government. But everything has a price, and these generous offers will tie Egypt to the process of forever chasing handouts to fill the deficit.

Qatar, on the other hand, was looking for booty in Egypt to loot in return for its loans, as was the case with its attempt to lease the Suez Canal Corporation, an operation which was stopped after massive popular protests. Another attempt by Qatar's "sovereign wealth fund" QInvest was to take over a 60% stake (worth US$250 million) in the largest Egyptian investment bank, EFG Hermes. The deal, which was rejected by Egyptian financial regulators in May 2013, was brokered by none other than JPMorgan Chase, which advised EFG Hermes and Goldman Sachs, which were advising Qinvest.

EFG Hermes is typical of the corrupt financial institutions that are completely integrated with the Anglo-American speculative financial empire, and which were participating in the IMF-directed privatization of Egypt's state-owned enterprises and assets in the era of President Mubarak. The deal was deemed by Egyptians to be politically infected, as two of EFG's chief executives, Hassan Heikal and Yasser El Mallawany, are on trial, along with the two sons of the ousted Mubarak, upon charges of illegal share dealings in 2007 transactions.
More than a dozen domestic and international investment banks are active in Egypt, draining a significant amount of Egypt's private capital into the global financial bubble.

Declaration of Independence

China raises the ante

July 31, 2013 | Featured, Opinion, PerryScope

PerryScope
By Perry Diaz

China’s new 10-dash line

Consistent with her “salami-slicing” strategy, China published a new “10-dash line” map, which is one dash longer than the “nine-dash line” map published less than a year ago. That extra “dash” is placed near Taiwan’s eastern shoreline.
With the tongue-shaped 10-dash line, all the countries surrounding the South China Sea (SCS) would only extend 12 miles out to the demarcation line of what China claims to be her “national boundary.” China’s position is that these countries are not entitled to their 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) as mandated by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) — to which China is a signatory — because China claims “indisputable sovereignty” over the entire area.
In a major move last week, China announced that she has unified her coast guard into one organization that includes the maritime surveillance fleet, maritime police, and fisheries law enforcement. Prior to the unification, these vessels were not allowed to be equipped with weapons. Now, they are.
Code of Conduct

Joe Biden

The 10 ASEAN members, four of whom have overlapping claims on the Spratly Islands, are trying to convince China into agreeing to a Code of Conduct (COC) in the SCS. At the ASEAN forum last month in Brunei, China agreed to meet with the ASEAN members in September to develop rules to avoid conflict in the SCS.

Last week, U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, who was visiting India and Singapore, pushed China to negotiate a COC with ASEAN members. The question is: How far would China go along in developing a COC without giving up her sovereignty over the SCS? Which makes one wonder if China would offer to agree to a COC in exchange for the other claimants to waive their claims on all or part of the SCS.
China Dream

Xi Jinping

Indeed, that’s what Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” is all about. It must be remembered that Xi is first and foremost a pure Maoist. And he’d probably want to realize the emergence of China as the world’s number one superpower.

During the summit meeting between Xi and President Barack Obama in California last June, Xi told the media that he and Obama were meeting “to chart the future of China-US relations and draw a blueprint for this relationship.” Then he added: “The vast Pacific Ocean has enough space for two large countries like the United States and China.”
Lake Beijing

First Island Chain and Second Island Chain

Last June 27, 2013, an intriguing article appeared in the Want China Times titled, “China to take Second Island Chain by 2020: analyst.” It says: “Within seven years, China will be able to control the Second Island Chain — a series of island groups that runs north to south from the Japanese archipelago to the Bonin and Marshall islands — now that the PLA Navy commands the nation’s first aircraft carrier, according to the Hangzhou-based Qianjiang Evening News.”

The Second Island Chain runs through Guam, a U.S. territory. It delineates what is referred to as the Western Pacific from the rest of the Pacific. Simply put, if China succeeded in controlling the Second Island Chain, she would be right at America’s doorsteps!

Admiral Liu Huaqing (Photo/CNS)

The article also said: “In 1982, Admiral Liu Huaqing, the former commander of the PLA Navy and the mastermind of China’s modern naval strategy, said that it would be necessary for China to control the First and Second Island Chains by 2010 and 2020. The PLA Navy must be ready to challenge US domination over the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean in 2040. If China is able to dominate the Second Island Chain seven years from now, the East China Sea will become the backyard of the PLA Navy.”
The First Island Chain runs from Japan’s southern tip through the Ryukyu string of islands, through Taiwan, through the Philippines’ islands of Luzon and Palawan, and all along the western part of Borneo. Interestingly, the First Island Chain runs parallel to the 10-dash line’s demarcation.
If China succeeds in breaking through the First Island Chain and take control of the Second Island Chain, the entire Western Pacific waters would become “Lake Beijing.” And in the middle of Lake Beijing is the Philippines, isolated from the rest of the world.
But for as long as the countries in the First Island Chain — mainly Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines – are allied with the U.S., China would be blocked from gaining a foothold in the Pacific.
Pivot to Asia

U.S. carrier strike group

It did not then come as a surprise that the Obama administration has implemented the so-called “Pivot to Asia” that would shift 60% of the U.S.’s naval and air forces to the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR) by 2020 to counter a rising China. Indeed, the past two years saw the strengthening of the U.S.’s strategic partnership with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Thailand, and India; thus, forming an arc that would effectively contain China.

Subic Bay

With the deployment of the U.S. Seventh Fleet to the Western Pacific waters and 150,000 military personnel to Japan, South Korea, and Australia, China couldn’t break through the First Island Chain. Recently, the Philippines announced to relocate major air force and navy forces to the former U.S. naval base at Subic Bay. The Philippines is also negotiating an “access agreement” with the U.S. to allow the deployment of U.S. personnel, ships, and aircraft on a “temporary” and rotational basis; thus, allowing interoperability for joint operations of American and Philippine forces when the need arises.

Meanwhile, the former U.S. Clark Air Base is hosting an undetermined number of P3C Orion planes, the U.S.’s latest surveillance aircraft. The Orions are conducting maritime patrol to monitor activities in the SCS.
Game of Weiqi
A Chinese game called Weiqi (Go in Japanese), which means, “encircling game,” is a board game that originated in China 2,500 years ago. There are two players in the game. The rules are simple but rich in strategy. Played with white and black pieces (“stones”), the object of the game is to use one’s stones to surround a larger total area of the board. And whoever ends up with a larger area, wins.
During a breakfast with reporters last July 29, Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, the U.S. Air Force chief of operations in the Pacific, said that the U.S. Air Force will deploy “fighters, tankers, and at some point in the future, maybe bombers on a rotational basis.” He also said that the Air Force will “dramatically expand its military presence across the Pacific this year, sending jets to Thailand, India, Singapore, and Australia.” He also mentioned the possibility of using the bases at Cubi Point and Puerto Princesa in the Philippines and airfields in Indonesia and Malaysia. By the looks of it, the U.S. is ahead in the Weiqi game.
But a series of bold moves by China is threatening the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region. With the new 10-dash line, China is raising the ante. Is China’s hand strong or is she bluffing? The U.S. is calling China’s bluff.
(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)

Blair’s affair with Murdoch wrecked my marriage, says Wendi Deng

Blair’s affair with Murdoch wrecked my marriage, says Wendi Deng

Wendi Deng is reported to be devastated at the news of the torrid affair carried on under her nose between her husband and the then Prime Minister.
‘Of course, I was the last to know,’ she said. ‘The innuendo was everywhere if I’d just opened my eyes. You only had to read two lines of any article on Blair and my husband before the words ‘organ’ and ‘mouthpiece’ would appear.’
And it is only now that the full extent of her husband’s promiscuity has become clear to her. He spent the Eighties in bed with Mrs Thatcher, she has learned, and then followed a shorter, tempestuous on-off-off-off affair with John Major. ‘The worst part of it was the way he would brazenly flaunt it,’ says veteran Murdoch-watcher Bill Easton. ‘You only had to look at the latest Sun headline to see who he was in bed with at any given time.’
Ms Deng is now resigned to the fact that he will never change his philandering ways. ‘I remember the last election – as soon as Cameron and Clegg got into power, he was Googling ‘threesomes’ on his laptop.’
sydalg

http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2013/06/17/blairs-affair-with-murdoch-wrecked-my-marriage-says-wendi-deng/

Did Rebekah Brooks Fuck Rupert Murdoch and His Son Lachlan?

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Nitasha Tiku Saturday 2:59pm  80,146 246

Did Rebekah Brooks Fuck Rupert Murdoch and His Son Lachlan?

The long-awaited criminal trial of former News of the World editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, who face conspiracy charges related to hacking the phones of murder victims and celebrities alike, is slated for this September. According to a rumor spreading around News Corp, things could get salacious.

Related

Rupert Murdoch Caught on Tape: “We Will Hit Back”

ExaroNews a British investigative web site, has just published the full transcript of a secretly recorded meeting between media mogul Rupert Murdoch… Read…

Sources tell Gawker that during the discovery process, emails were unearthed suggesting that Brooks had, at various times, had sex with Coulson, her boss Rupert Murdoch, and Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s son and the likely successor to his empire. A new twist on honor thy father.

In one of the emails, Brooks purportedly discussed the size of Coulson’s penis. It’s not clear if her estimation of his member was favorable or not.

In response to questions from Gawker, Steve Rubinstein, a spokesperson for the Murdoch family, said unequivocally, "There is no truth to these rumors." The lawyers representing Brooks and Coulson did not respond to requests for comment sent yesterday.

Whether the rumor is true or not, it is definitely circulating widely at high levels in the company. Three sources shared the claim of a sexual relationship between Brooks and Rupert Murdoch with Gawker; all three said they had learned the information through lawyers involved in the case. Two of those three sources are high-ranking executives at News Corp. The latter two sources had also both been told of a relationship between Lachlan and Brooks.

Related

Mystery Sex Affair Stuns UK Prime Minister's Office, Spurs Crisis Talk

According to an intriguing but frustratingly vague report in the Daily Mail, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and his office at No. 10 Downing Street… Read…

Rumors of the Coulson-Brooks affair have been floating around the Internet since last month when a vague report in The Daily Mail alluded to a “dynamite” sex scandal that prompted British Prime Minister David Cameron to hold crisis talks at Downing Street.

The prime minister's connection to the pair is two-fold. During the trial, Brooks will be represented by his brother Alexander Cameron. Meanwhile, Coulson's first job after after resigning as editor of News of the World was as director of communications for Cameron's Conservative Party. His next gig was as the top spokesman for Downing Street, before the scandal forced him to resign.

Related

Rupert Murdoch Gave Absurd $2.7 Million Pay-Off to Hack Editor

Poor Rebekah Brooks! The disgraced former News of the World editor and News International executive, who oversaw the paper and its parent company… Read…

Rupert Murdoch’s relationship with Brooks has been closely scrutinized over the years. In the midst of the escalating phone-hacking scandal in 2011, Murdoch told reporters Brooks was his first priority, just before the smiling pair walked into the Stafford Hotel opposite his London apartment. Wendi Deng, Murdoch’s soon-to-be-ex-wife, is widely-known to despise Brooks, who was granted a $2.7 million payoff and chauffeured limousine as a reward for her loyalty.

In a Vanity Fair profile published last year, Murdoch insiders described Brooks as an “imposter daughter.”

“Although Murdoch has four daughters, two of them grown, over the years he has seemed closer to Brooks than to any of them. She was, people say, like the fantasy daughter, the daughter he always wished he had—the one who never argued with him, who devoted her life to pleasing him. They reportedly swim together in the mornings when he is in London. She fusses over him at dinner parties—making sure he’s eating, that his wineglass is full. “She’s very attentive,” says one News International executive.”

According to our sources, the damning emails are expected to come out as evidence during the trial. Although the affairs are being gossiped about around British newspaper circles, the country’s stringent legal culture when it comes to reporting on criminal prosecutions and upcoming trials has, thus far, kept it out of the press.

When the Daily Mail reported the mystery affair in June, the papers' refusal to name names was attributed to a “super injunction,” which both prevents newspaper from publishing information and from discussing the injunction.
Nonetheless, some natives persisted.
The British blogger Paul Staines, who writes under pseudonym "Guido Fawkes,” dropped a hint that the sex scandal concerned Brooks and Coulson. Another British blogger named Tom Winnifrith also pointed the finger at the Brooks and Coulson:

“The reason the Government and David Cameron personally is terrified about this appearing is that he appointed Coulson as his spin doctor in chief instead of a safer pair of hands from the BBC on the advice of….the charming Rebekah. Rebekah was a good pal of his, lending him her horse to ride as they partied together in rural Oxfordshire. LOL.
And of course Rebekah’s lawyer is….David Cameron’s big brother Alex.

Related

People Are Googling "Wendi Deng Tony Blair"

In the wake of the news that Rupert Murdoch has filed for divorce against Wendi Deng, people seem to be entering the above-referenced search terms… Read…

Then there's the High Court of Stealth Online Stalking. Google: “Rebekah Brooks sle—” and you’ll get a prompt for the phrase “rebekah brooks sleeping with murdoch.” In a similar vein, the second prompt for “Rebekah Brooks affair” is “Rebekah Brooks affair Andy Coulson.” For our final search engine straw: “Rebekah Brooks ru—” will make Google wonder if you were searching for: “Rebekah Brooks Rupert Murdoch affair.”

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We’ll have to wait until September for more substantial evidence.

Correction: Brooks has never been represented by Alexander Cameron, but she has been represented in the past by an attorney who is a member of Cameron's legal chambers. While we contacted that chambers, we did not contact Brooks' criminal attorney before publishing this story.

Update: We just recieved this email from Brooks' attorneys:

Dear Ms Tiku

I act for Mrs Rebekah Brooks in her forthcoming trial before the Central Criminal Court.

I have today had my attention drawn to a piece on your website which is appearing now in the UK. The piece contains a number of false and scurrilous accusations. No prior notice was provided to me by you of an intention to publish this piece.

I have this evening referred the matter to the Attorney-General of England and Wales as publication of the piece of this nature in the UK before a trial constitutes the serious criminal offence of Contempt of Court. The matter has also been referred to the Crown Prosecution Service and the Trial Judge. No publication of any material that might prejudice a trial is allowed in the UK and the offence is punishable with a substantial sentence of imprisonment.
Please ensure and confirm that the piece is to removed immediately in order to mitigate any damage already done.
Yours sincerely,

Angus McBride

To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.

[Image via AP]

Pentagon Preparing for War with China?

July 30, 2013 | Opinion

By Graham Noble  
Guardian Express

Littoral Combat Ship

Few Americans know what goes on at the Pentagon – the headquarters of the United States military – and, most of the time, few care. Of greater concern is the fact that few of America’s elected political representatives know very much about what the Generals are doing, either. Currently – and without much congressional oversight – the Pentagon is preparing for war with China.
It is, of course, the job of the Defense Department to plan for various contingencies, including strategies for dealing with emerging threats. It was for this reason that, in late 2008, a strategy was born that has since developed into a major Pentagon project aimed at neutralizing the perceived threat of China, the world’s newest superpower. This project is now known as AirSea Battle.
The AirSea Battle project is, in its most simplistic form, the plan for pre-emptively attacking and neutralizing China. The project covers the development of new weapons, technologies and military capabilities that will be necessary for carrying out such an attack. Former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, gave the project his official blessing in 2010. The Department of Defense Quadrennial Defense Review Report directed the military to “develop a joint air-sea battle concept . . . [to] address how air and naval forces will integrate capabilities across all operational domains—air, sea, land, space, and cyberspace—to counter growing challenges to U.S. freedom of action.” Leon Panetta, who succeeded Gates as Defense Department chief, also endorsed the project and established the Multi-Service Office to Advance AirSea Battle, as described by Amitai Etzioni, Professor of International Affairs at The George Washington University, in an article for Yale Journal of International Affairs.
AirSea Battle requires “interoperable air and naval forces that can execute networked, integrated attacks-in-depth to disrupt, destroy, and defeat enemy anti-access area denial capabilities.” The project acknowledges that “[t]he scope and intensity of U.S. stand-off and penetrating strikes against tar­gets in mainland China clearly has escalation implications.”
Does the development of the AirSea Battle project mean that President Obama – or, indeed, the Pentagon – actually intends launching a military strike against the Chinese? There is nothing to indicate such an intention. In addition, China is not yet at the point where it could seriously challenge the United States, militarily. As Etzioni infers, however; the mere existence of AirSea Battle may prompt the Chinese to escalate their own defense spending and planning for military ‘contingencies’.
It should be noted that Pentagon officials deny that the project is aimed specifically at China. It appears to be widely accepted, however, that the scope and nature of the AirSea Battle clearly indicate that it is being developed with China in mind. As one senior naval officer put it, “Air-Sea Battle is all about convincing the Chinese that we will win this competition.”
The Chinese, of course, are aware of the project and are presumably in little doubt that AirSea Battle was developed with them in mind.
The most unsettling aspect of this Pentagon project, however, is that it has been neither reviewed, nor approved, by either the White House or Congress; it was conceived by the military and approved by the Defense Department, but appears to have moved forward with little involvement or oversight by the civilian leadership of the United States. In 2011, Admiral Robert F. Willard wrote to Defense Secretary Panetta that “[d]espite reports throughout 2011 AirSea Battle had been completed in an executive summary form, to my knowledge Members of Congress have yet to be briefed on its conclusions or in any way made a part of the process.”
The military, therefore is preparing for war with China without the approval of elected representatives. The Pentagon, it seems, is quite literally above the law.
http://guardianlv.com/2013/07/pentagon-preparing-for-war-with-china/

Biden: Alliance with Phl at the ‘core’ of US strategy

July 30, 2013 | Featured, Politics & Government

By Camille Diola
The Philippine Star

Vice President Joe Biden, speaks about the U.S. policy toward the Asia-Pacific region at an event hosted by the Center for American Progress, in Washington, Thursday, July 18, 2013. AP PHOTO/MANUEL BALCE CENETA

American Vice President Joe Biden said in a speech that the alliance with the Philippines is among the cornerstones of the United States’ defensive and economic strategies in the Asia Pacific region.
“The core of our strategy in the region are our alliances: Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand,” Biden said, sharing his take on the United States’ policy in the region at the Center for American Progress on Thursday (Manila time).
Biden said the US’ strategic ties with these countries that have transformed economically the past years are at the center of President Barack Obama’s “re-balancing” policy, shifting its focus from Western nations to Asia.
“Economically and strategically, it’s clear why the United States has to re-balance, to direct our resources toward the Asia Pacific region,” he said.
Biden also admitted that building alliances with the five countries as well as India, Singapore and Indonesia have not been without risk, as many of them suffer from disputes.
“In the Asia-Pacific, we saw a region of remarkable promise but also genuine uncertainty and political risk. Many nations have experienced rapid economic transformation that has fundamentally created a new dynamic: rising ambitions and rising tensions,” Biden said.
To address the challenges, he said that the US’ “entire national security and economic teams” are committed to solving concerns in the Pacific region.
The strategy consists in “strengthening our alliances, deepening partnerships and investing like never before in regional institutions to help manage disputes peacefully,” Biden said.
Seeing the disputes over the South China Sea with China claiming almost the entire territory, Biden urged China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to draft a binding code of conduct over the sea territory.
“That means no intimidation, no coercion, no aggression and a commitment from all parties to reduce the risk of mistakes and miscalculation,” he said.
“It is in everyone’s interest that there be freedom of navigation, unimpended lawful commerce, respect for international laws and norms and a peaceful resolution of territorial disputes,” Biden added.
Biden also said the US wants to help create 21st century “rules of the road” to help Asian nations integrate and achieve security and prosperity.
To spark growth, nations must raise their standards. He says there must be fewer border barriers and better protections for intellectual property, the US vice president said.
Another highlight of Biden’s address is about the US’ relationship with a growing superpower in China–calling the ties both of “competition and cooperation” and not of inevitable conflict.
He said Americans like to compete and that competition is good for both countries. U.S.-China relations have been aggravated by economic rivalry, accusations of cyber hacking and China’s inaction in extraditing NSA leaker Edward Snowden. – With reports from AP
http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/07/19/988881/biden-alliance-phl-core-us-strategy

July 29, 2013

What the "War" on Whatever is Really About

7/29/2013 12:01:00 AM

 

Every time our culture passes gas sideways, liberals love to trot out the theory of “income inequality” as the culprit behind it.
From the modern theory of “bullying,” to global warming, to breast cancer, to riots in Sweden, France, or the disappearance of the arctic ice shelf, income inequality looms large in liberal cosmology.
At a time when more people in the history of world have become upwardly-mobile, solid members of the middle-class, liberals believe that they must stop the natural process by which people are moved out of poverty in favor of some sort of state-sponsored program that ensures “fairness.” 
From the Huffington Post:
Participants in the annual World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland are citing worldwide income inequality as a problem that needs immediate attention, according to multiple reports. The political, cultural and business leaders convening in Switzerland this week are the latest group to express pointed concern over the growing gulf between the planet's richest and poorest citizens.
Several of the wealthiest Davos attendees have told the press that they believe the current lopsided distribution of wealth is unsustainable -- that the "global social-economic order will change, if we want it or not," in the words of one industrialist quoted in Bloomberg.
It's not just them. The Forum's annual Global Risks report names "severe income disparity" as the issue most likely to affect the world over the next 10 years. And a poll of Davos participants conducted by Bloomberg News found that more than half believe income inequality is bad for economic growth -- a conclusion also reached by the International Monetary Fund last year.
About two-thirds believe governments should take active steps to address the issue, the survey also found.
The Davos summit, taking place this week, comes after nearly a year of international protests inspired by a lack of economic opportunities, from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park, and on the heels of numerous studies showing much of the world's population struggling with deprivation.
So to sum:
1)  Income Inequality is “settled” science.
2)  The world will end if we don’t address it.
3)  Rich people and government types- our betters- agree on this.
4)  We must do something about it immediately.
And whatever else they are saying, they mean for you to pay for it.

Obama even had the "audacity" to suggest to young Africans that they can't aspire to have big homes, cars or even air conditioning.
"Ultimately you think you about all the youth that everybody’s mentioned here in Africa," Obama wagged while in Africa, "if everybody’s raising living standards to the point where everybody’s got a car, and everybody’s got air conditioning, and everybody’s got a big house the planet will boil over." 

You see, “Income inequality” means something different in Egypt than it does in Sweden or the U.S, even though liberals would have what happened in Tahrir Square versus what happened in Zuccotti Park was part of the same phenomenon.

Much of the hype about income inequality in the Western world is more about the changing dynamics of society and the make-up of households than it is about income.

The Pew Trust recently released a report that shows that one of the prime movers behind income inequality, isn’t income at all, but the growing number of single mother household, which have rocketed from 7.3 percent of all households to 25.3 percent of all households since 1960.

While noting that 40 percent of all households now have either a woman earning more than a man or a woman as sole provider, the study also says there is a huge difference between married households and single mother households.

“The income gap between the two groups is quite large,” says Pew. “The median total family income of married mothers who earn more than their husbands was nearly $80,000 in 2011, well above the national median of $57,100 for all families with children, and nearly four times the $23,000 median for families led by a single mother.”
So, in other words, traditionally married couples, with moms as breadwinners, enjoy a household income that is 40 percent higher than the national average and nearly 400 percent higher than single moms.
The only people surprised by the finding are liberals.
As our contributor at Political Calculations wrote back in October of 2011:
[I]f people with very high income earning potential join together to form families and households, and increasingly do so over time, perhaps because such people might have things in common that make forming themselves into families and households an attractive proposition, then income inequality among families and households will increase.
The same holds true for the opposite end of the income earning spectrum. If people with really low income earning potential join together to form families and households, or perhaps if they choose to split apart, and increasingly do so over time, then the resulting low income family and household will also make income inequality among families and households rise, even though there has been no real change in the amount of actual income inequality among individuals.
Liberals are getting wise to the argument that maybe people who get married and stay married do better than ones who don’t. And it worries them. This is just the type of argument that conservatives will use to bolster the traditional family unit that has been around for 7,000 years of recorded history.
So to combat this kind of nonsense progressives trot out their old standby, a liberal academic expert in some new science, to lets us know that all is not as it seems: “Stephanie Coontz, who teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College,” reports NPR, “says women know they'll be better off if they marry a man who earns a good wage, but they may not have that option.”
NPR doesn’t even bother to cite any statistics beside professor Coontz assertion that high school graduates make $4.00 per hour less in constant dollars than they did in 1979- a statement for which I can find no evidence. 
"In many low-income communities, there are not many men like that available," says Coontz of good wage-earning men. "Poverty is as often a cause of unwed motherhood as it is a result."
So now it’s poverty that’s stopping people from being married, not a liberal ideology that is hostile to marriage in general. What are you gonna believe? 7,000 years of use and tradition, or Ms. Coontz and her liberal betters who teach modified home economics on the side?
“Whenever someone expresses moral disapproval in a legal context,” says U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan in regards to the only type of marriage liberals approve of- that is gay marriage- “the red flag of discrimination goes up for me.”
So as Father Robert Barron observes, Kagan has an ethical objection to those of us who might have an ethical objection to the state of marriage in the U.S. But somehow Kagan’s ethical objection is morally superior to anyone else's. Ethical objections put forward by liberals somehow defy the moral relativism that supposed to apply to the rest of us knuckle-draggers who cling to our guns and religion. 
But here is the punchline that liberals are getting at: People who stay married- presumably to spouses of the opposite gender- and reap the benefits of their commitment need to pay for those who can’t or won’t.
“US children in single mother families have a poverty rate of 63 percent when only parental earnings are considered,” says the Nation, “comparable to the 61 percent average for children in single mother families in other high-income countries. But when transfer payments are included—such as a government child allowance, unemployment insurance and other assistance programs—the US rate only declines to 51 percent, while the peer countries average poverty rate falls all the way down to 27 percent.”
See it’s your fault that single mothers are poor. And your fault that Africans can't have air conditioning.

We need, it seems, to follow the European model, because, yeah, that’s working out so well right now.
Just ask Ms. Coontz. She has a Masters in European History.
Her class American Families: Historical and Sociological Perspectives studies “the gender and sexual norms of the 19th century, including variation by race and class, then examine the changes pioneered in the early 20th century. We discuss the rise of the 1950s male breadwinner family and then follow its demise from the 1960s through the 1980s. We end the quarter by discussing new patterns of partnering and parenting in the past 30 years.”
The class runs from 9 AM to 5 PM on Saturdays. It is offered for part-time credit only, because, yeah, it seems like it’s working out real well right now.

July 29, 2013

First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Lawyers

Mike Adams

7/29/2013 12:01:00 AM - Mike Adams

The New York Times and the Huffington Post have been very critical of recent legislation by the House and Senate of the State of North Carolina. But neither of those liberal news outlets - and I use the term "news outlets" loosely - have recognized their recent attempt to restore due process in one of the most oppressive judicial systems in the country. Indeed, the UNC system is among the greatest antagonists of fairness and due process in the entire nation. Since this is a bold assertion, it demands elaboration.

Students in the UNC system are routinely brought up on charges of violating speech and conduct policies that are so vague that no one - not even the people who write and enforce the policies - understands exactly what kinds of speech and behavior they prohibit. When students are brought up on these vague charges, they are denied lawyers. Crucial evidence from investigations is often redacted prior to hearings. Verdicts resulting in suspension and expulsion of students are often decided and printed before the actual "hearings" begin. Often, after students are deprived of due process and expelled, they are ineligible for tuition refunds. It is the kind of "justice" one would expect in the Middle East or in Latin America.

After liberals ignored these problems for years, conservatives got to work last session sponsoring bills designed to address them. One of the bills, passed by the Senate in late July, authorized a legislative study of the issue, specifically to look at a student’s right to counsel in the hearing process. The other, passed by the House in May, spells out those rights. In the interests of full disclosure, I was involved in drafting that legislation.

The bill we passed in the House would allow a student to be represented during a hearing by a licensed attorney or “non-attorney advocate,” except in a case involving academic dishonesty or in front of a student honor court which is fully staffed by students. I am proud to say that the bill was sponsored by Representative John Bell who was a student of mine at UNC-Wilmington in the late 1990s.

Bell took particular interest in the issue as a result of a case involving his old fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, at UNC Wilmington. In that case, SAE officers were called into a hearing and questioned about an alcohol-related incident. Because the conduct in question was technically criminal, they asked for attorneys. UNCW officials refused to allow them counsel. When the students asked a second time, those same officials suggested that they might be violating the Seahawk Respect Compact by taking a "disrespectful" tone with their interrogators.

When I heard a tape recording of the entire exchange, I was appalled and decided to take action with the help of some attorney friends. For the record, UNCW later threw the fraternity off campus for refusing to cooperate with the investigation - in other words, for asserting their rights to due process. At that point, we decided to take the issue to the legislature.

The bill that was filed in April said a student could seek representation from an attorney “during any formal stage of any disciplinary procedure." The measure was later amended, at the UNC system’s request, to include the exceptions for academic dishonesty cases and any incident handled by a student-staffed honor court. Predictably, The UNC system is still opposed to the measure.

But Bell’s bill passed the House on May 15 by a vote of 112-1, after receiving just two minutes of floor debate. The vote was lopsided for a simple reason: everyone but the UNC administration recognized that Islamic terrorists in Gitmo have more rights to due process than college students in North Carolina. (For the record, the one representative who didn't support the measure left the session early. He didn't actually vote against it).

Presently, legal representation or assistance of a student by a lawyer in most instances “is neither required nor encouraged,” according to written UNC system policies. The only exception is when a student who faces a university administrative hearing simultaneously faces off-campus criminal charges.

When a university hears of possible criminal conduct by a student, there is an incentive to move forward without alerting the off campus authorities. By taking the matter into their own hands, they may expel a student at a hearing devoid of due process. Worse, the university may decide to hold court over a matter that the police have already investigated and decided to drop without so much as a single arrest. The latter was the case with the incident involving SAE at UNCW.

But now, that is all about to change. Put simply, our little university by the sea has ticked off the wrong legislature and the wrong representative. And the good news is that the new right to counsel bill isn't the only student rights bill to recently pass the house and head toward the senate. There's another one coming down the pipe that will not be well received by administrators with dictatorial tendencies.

That other bill will be the subject of a future column. In the meantime, I hope that other conservatives will decide to join me in the battle for campus due process. It sure is fun to be a community disorganizer promoting hope and change from the inside of an ideological echo chamber.
Update: Since the writing of this column, the North Carolina Student Administrative Equity Act has passed the Senate. It is on its way to the desk of the state’s Republican governor. The author wishes to thank all those who made this victory possible.

The US, Russia nad China

EIR

MICHAEL BILLINGTON

Leibniz, LaRouche, and the

U.S. Link with China, Russia
EIR Asia specialist Michael Billington
gave this speech to the Schiller Institute
conference in San Francisco on June
29, 2013.1

As has been discussed here, the
Obama Administration and its British
controllers are driving the world very
rapidly toward war against Russia and
China, over Syria, which Russia will
not allow to be turned over to terrorist
mobs as was done in Libya; meanwhile
in Asia, Obama has adopted the Air-Sea
Battle doctrine for a war with China.2

My intention here is to show you
that the idea that Russia and China are
natural adversaries of the United States
is entirely a British concoction, despite
the fact that many dumbed-down
Americans have swallowed the British Kool-Aid. The
fact is that the natural connection between the United
States and Asia—both Russia and China—began long
before the founding of the United States as a nation-
state, and even before the “discovery” of America by
Christopher Columbus. America began, in fact, as a

1. Previous coverage of the conference, including keynotes by Lyndon
and Helga LaRouche can be found in EIR, July 12, and July 19, 2013.
2. See Michael Billington, “ ‘Air-Sea Battle’ Is a Plan for War on
China,” EIR, June 28, 2013.
Courtesy of Janus Kramer


thought-object in the mind of
some of the greatest minds of
Western civilization—in particular,
Nicholas of Cusa and Gottfried
Leibniz. It was as real then
as it is today, for the nation is not
just a physical location, or a government,
recognized only by our
senses, but it is a dynamic process,
an idea, the City on the Hill,
the New World.

Like Lyndon LaRouche today,
Cusa and Leibniz not only dreamed
about the future, they saw the
future—both the horror of a future
under imperial domination, and
the great potential of the New
World which they set about to
create a republic free of the oligar


chical control of European monarchs and global Empire.
As we will see, Gottfried Leibniz had already established
the natural alliance between the future United States and
both Russia and China, before the official founding of
our nation.

That natural alliance was restored under Franklin
Roosevelt, to defeat the British-created Nazi movement,
and is finally coming back into being today under
the inspiration of Lyndon and Helga LaRouche, based
on the concept of a New Paradigm for the Survival of
Civilization. Great projects, such as the Eurasian Land-

July 26, 2013 EIR Conference Report 39


Bridge, and the tunnel under the Bering Strait, uniting
Russia, China, and the United States by rail, and bringing
them together into a common mission for the future,
can and must fulfill the creative discoveries of our forefathers,
and end the power of Empire once and for all.

Bridge, and the tunnel under the Bering Strait, uniting
Russia, China, and the United States by rail, and bringing
them together into a common mission for the future,
can and must fulfill the creative discoveries of our forefathers,
and end the power of Empire once and for all.

The discovery of America by Columbus, as is now
well known, can be attributed directly to Nicholas of
Cusa, and to his close friend and colleague Paolo Toscanelli,
who suggested to Columbus that the Far East
could be reached by sailing west, including the belief
that a New World lay in between Europe and Asia. Columbus
carried with him on his voyage a map provided
by Toscanelli.

As I reported last November in Frankfurt, at the first
of these New Paradigm conferences, Leibniz was not
only a follower of Cusa, and the seminal philosopher
and scientist of his age, but also one of the great statesmen
of history. He worked with Peter the Great in
Russia to establish the Russian Academy of Sciences in
1724, worked closely with the Jesuit missionaries who
had become the core of the scientific institutions in
China, and even arranged a treaty between Russia and
China over border issues and cooperation—the first
East-West treaty in history. He published a journal, Novissima
Sinica (News from China), in 1697, which analyzed
the writings of Confucius, Mencius, and the
greatest mind of the 12th-Century Song Dynasty Renaissance,
Zhu Xi, which had been translated by the
Jesuits, and made them known across Europe. A quote
from that journal will be relevant to my report on the
developments in the U.S.

I consider it a singular plan of the fates that
human cultivation and refinement should today
be concentrated, as it were, in the two extremes
of our continent, in Europe and in China, which
adorns the Orient as Europe does the opposite
edge of the Earth. Perhaps Supreme Providence
has ordained such an arrangement, so that, as the
most cultivated and distant peoples stretch out
their arms to each other, those in between may
gradually be brought to a better way of life.

In his analysis of the Confucian philosophic outlook,
Leibniz said: “It is pure Christianity, insofar as it
renews the natural law inscribed in our hearts.”

Remember this concept for later.

Gottfried Leibniz collaborated with Peter the Great in Russia,
to establish the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1724. His
“Novissima Sinica” (1697) analyzed the writings of Confucius,
Mencius, and Zhu Xi, and made them known across Europe.


Leibniz in America

The American Founding Fathers were profoundly affected
by the works of Leibniz, and maintained contact
with the Leibniz circles in Russia, especially in the Russian
Academy of Sciences. During the American War of
Independence, British warships were seizing Russian
(and other) ships which were trading with the colonies,
until Benjamin Franklin and other members of his American
Philosophic Society made direct appeals to their associates
in the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg
and certain Russian diplomatic contacts, leading to the
creation of the League of Armed Neutrality. The League
of Armed Neutrality declared that Russia (and other officially
neutral nations) had the right to trade with the
colonies, and would consider any British attack on neutral
merchant vessels as an act of war.

After the war, American naval hero John Paul Jones
went to Russia, and helped build the Russian Navy, and,
of course, America’s greatest statesman John Quincy
Adams became the first Minister to Russia in 1809. Leading
Russian circles translated and published Alexander
Hamilton’s “Report on Manufactures” in 1807, telling the

40 Conference Report EIR July 26, 2013





Tsar that its principles were fully applicable for developing
Russia as a continental country. And the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers worked directly on Russia’s first railroad,
from St. Petersburg to Moscow, in the 1840s.

The British spent much of the 19th Century trying to
break up the United States and Russia (and China),
through warfare and economic sabotage. The Crimean
War against Russia in the 1850s was aimed at splitting up
Russia; it was soon followed by the British-instigated
Civil War in the United States, intended to split this nation,
and to maintain free trade in slaves, and in cheap cotton
from the slave plantations. To some extent, the Civil War
was also an extension of the two British Opium Wars
against China in the 1840s and 1850s—again, waging
war to defend the free trade in slaves, and also opium.

Again, the U.S. ties with Russia were crucial in the
victory over the British Confederacy. How many people
today know that the entire Russian fleet was deployed
into New York Harbor, and also, right here, near San
Francisco, in 1863, at the crucial point in the Civil War?
The Russians had informed the British and their French
allies that, were they to proceed with their plan to intervene
on behalf of the Confederacy (a peace mission,
you understand, a humanitarian intervention to protect
civilians, due to the Brits’ moral concern and the responsibility
to protect civilians in the Confederacy
from the marauding Northern armies), then the Russians
would intervene to defend the legitimate government
of the United States.

If this sounds familiar to what is going on in Syria
today, that is no coincidence.

Lincoln and Russia

President Abraham Lincoln
also understood, even as war
was breaking out, that the
United States was extremely
vulnerable, as long as the continent
remained divided. California
had become a state in 1850,
after the 1848 Gold Rush
brought tens of thousands of
Americans—and thousands of
Chinese—to California, but
transport to the West Coast took
several months, and was treacherous.
This was one reason that
part of the Russian fleet came to
San Francisco—to prevent any
British incursions in the unprotected
region on the Pacific.

So Lincoln and the Congress launched the Transcontinental
Railroad project in 1862, even as war was
raging, to connect the nation from east to west by rail.
The result, of course was the development of cities and
farms across the continent, and eventual statehood for
all the area in-between.

Another purpose was the outreach to Asia. The U.S.
had been largely excluded from Asia—in fact, our major
commerce in Asia before the Civil War had been carried
out by Boston merchants, outright British agents, who
were openly part of the British opium trade—including
the family of William Weld, the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney
who prosecuted LaRouche in the 1980s.

Efforts by courageous missionaries and others to
counter the British in China and Asia generally were
easily crushed by the overwhelming British power. But
the Transcontinental Railroad was an arrow through the
continent pointing directly at China; it opened up the
growing industrial might of the Union to trade and investment
in Asia (Figure 1). It is well known that 80%
of the workforce on the Railroad was Chinese, and that
the Chinese workers were greatly respected for the
quality of their work.

Less well known, is that Russian engineers were in
San Francisco at that time, and, as the telegraph wires
spanned the North American continent along with the
railroad, so also, Russia and the U.S. began building telegraph
wires up the northern coast of the Pacific, through
Russian America (now Alaska), with the intention of
crossing the Bering Strait and crossing Russia all the way
to St. Petersburg. The Bering Strait project was only de



42 Conference Report EIR July 26, 2013
serted in 1867, when the Trans-Atlantic cable was successfully
laid, but it had opened up the region, and contributed
to the U.S. purchase of Alaska from the Russians
at that time. And of course, the project is now being revived
by the LaRouche movement, and the Russians, in
the form of the rail connection over the Bering Strait,
connected to the NAWAPA project
and related great projects internationally—
the International
Land-Bridge.
Following the Civil War, Lincoln’s
economist Henry Carey
carried the American System and
the idea of transcontinental
nation building to Europe—to
Germany, where Bismarck created
the German nation based on
American System principles;
and to Russia, where Count
Witte led the effort to create the
Trans-Siberian Railroad, once
again connecting the Atlantic to
the Pacific, this time across the
Eurasian continent (Figure 2).
The Oldest and Newest
‘Empires’
On the U.S.-China connection,
I want to talk about a single
individual whom you have almost certainly never
heard of. But that very fact speaks volumes about
what has happened to this nation. Rev. William
Speer was a dentist and a Presbyterian missionary
who went to Canton (Guangzhou) in 1846 to open
the first Presbyterian mission there. He became
fluent in Cantonese, but was forced to leave for
health reasons after five years. He then spent most
of the rest of his life working with Chinese immigrants
in San Francisco, opening the first Asian
Christian Church in the U.S. (now called the Presbyterian
Church in Chinatown), as well as a
school and a dispensary (now called the Chinese
Hospital). He spoke widely, published many
pamphlets in both English and Chinese, and authored
a book in 1870 titled: The Oldest and the
Newest Empires, China and the United States.
(Don’t be distracted by the term “empire”—he
used the term benignly to mean a nation with a
universal mission.)
I want to read to you several passages from his book,
which you will immediately recognize as coming from
the Leibnizian tradition. On Speer’s view of China in
America:
“It is hard to account for the common estimate of
China and its people in Great Britain and America other-
Central Pacific
Union Pacific
Completed later
FIGURE 1
The Trans-Continental Railroad
FIGURE 5
U.S. Passport Service

wise than by attributing it to the influence
of the bad East India Company
and the diabolical opium trade.”

wise than by attributing it to the influence
of the bad East India Company
and the diabolical opium trade.”

Reflecting his debt to Leibniz
and Leibniz’s global vision, consider
these passages. On the nature of the
Chinese people:

“Both Confucius and Mencius
saw with bitterness the utter inefficiency
of truth which looks no
higher than earth to reform society
or to stay the power of human passions.”
Speer believed that there

were “few nations of the world
among whom the freedom of
the people is more large, more
squarely founded upon their
intelligence, or more carefully
guarded against despotism,
than in China.” He notes that in
the Middle Ages, China was
the greatest and most civilized
kingdom on Earth, but China
had remained stationary while
the West moved forward with
the coming of the Renaissance.

In a quotation from Leibniz
in all but name—and recall the
quote I read from Leibniz at
the beginning—Speer wrote:
“For centuries past the most
philosophic minds have predicted
the vast consequences
which should ensue when the
two opposite currents of
empire—one eastward, one
westward, since the beginning
of time—should at last meet
and flow together. Upon our
Pacific Coast, this consummat-


Sun Yat-sen was trained by American missionaries
who were steeped in the tradition of Alexander
Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln. Sun went on to build
a republic in China based on those American System
principles. This statue, modelled on the one in the
Lincoln Memorial, is located in the Sun Yat-sen
Memorial in Taipei, Taiwan.

Rev. William Speer (shown here with his
wife), a Presbyterian missionary, went to
Canton (Guangzhou) in 1846 to open the
first Presbyterian mission there. He later
worked with Chinese immigrants in San
Francisco, opening the first Asian
Christian Church in the U.S.


ing event of the history of the world
has now commenced.”

And on the nature of the human
being, he again reflects Leibniz’s insistence
that the truth is written in
our hearts, referring to “the eternal
principles of right which the Governor
of the world has written in the
chambers of the human heart and
made deeper and more authoritative
than any statutes of human appointment.”
Alexander Hamilton, he
writes, “presents their nature with
the clearness of the light of the Sun”:

“The Deity has constituted an
eternal and immutable law, which is
obligatory upon all mankind, prior
to any human institution whatever.
He endowed man with rational facilities
by the help of which to discern
and pursue such things as were
consistent with his duty and inter


est, and invested him with the
inviolable right to personal liberty
and personal safety. The
sacred rights of mankind are
not to be rummaged for among
old parchments or musty records.
They are written as with
sunbeams, in the whole volume
of human nature, by the hand
of Divinity itself, and can never
be erased or obscured by
mortal power.”

Elsewhere, he quotes, essentially,
again without naming
him, from Abraham Lincoln’s
Second Inaugural Address. Remember
this is published in
1870 (just five years after the
end of the Civil War): “The
Ruler [referring here to God],
in due time, asserts and displays
divine justice and power
by the terrible punishment of
oppressors and wrong-doers,
and compensation of those
who have suffered. The history
of African slavery and the

July 26, 2013 EIR Conference Report 43


judgments it brought upon us is surely the lesson which
this nation should never forget.”

judgments it brought upon us is surely the lesson which
this nation should never forget.”

Conclusion

This vision was snuffed out, as the British, as they
have done repeatedly in our nation’s history, succeeded
in using ignorance and corruption to unleash in the
United States an era of racist exclusion laws and similar

policies to undermine the assimilation of the Chinese
into the U.S. melting pot. Reverend Speer fought this
insanity, and also spent some time in Hawaii, where
later, the great Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen was
trained by American missionaries steeped in the tradition
of Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln, and
went on to build a Republic in China based on those
American System principles.

The mission today is the same, but the consequences
of failure far greater. Transforming the U.S., and reestablishing
the historic alliances with Russia and China,
are necessary if civilization is to survive. LaRouche has
emphasized repeatedly that we must restore not only
the vision, but the way of thinking itself, of the great
minds who have shaped this nation, such as Cusa and
Leibniz, and LaRouche, who saw the future, acted to
destroy Empire, and created the City upon the Hill. It is
ours to lose, or to create anew.

and a new era for the Philippines started. President

Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave us new hope in im-
Butch Valdes: The Special plementing many of the things that he had done for

the United States. He paid particular attention to theRole of the Philippines Philippines, because we were, at that time, the only

colony that needed to be given independence by the
Butch Valdes, leader of the Philippine LaRouche So-U.S., through the promise that he had made to the rest
ciety, sent this greeting to the San Francisco Schiller of the world.
Institute conference. After granting us independence, the sorry thing

that had happened was, Roosevelt died. But not with-
We here in the Philippines take inspiration from the out starting certain infrastructural development pro-
words of Mr. Lyndon LaRouche, as he has on several grams, initiated by the very same people who may
occasions told us, via our radio program, that our have started the Tennessee Valley Authority, putting
country, the Philippines, has a very special role, in the Philippines on a foundation which would allow
trying to save civilization. Just as we have been, over us the opportunity to develop as well.
the past so many centuries, the gateway of Western The role of the United States, as a leader nation,
thought moving towards the Eastern part of the world, since 300 years ago, has not stopped. It has become
we, today, have that special role: to share with the rest even more significant and necessary at the present
of the world’s population from this part of the world, time. We call on the members of the international Lathe
ideas which are needed to be assimilated, the ideas Rouche movement; we call on the citizens of the
that are needed to be implemented, in order for us to United States of America; and we call on the leaders
save civilization from this present, ongoing collapse of of the United States of America, to do everything that
the financial system, and threatening a situation that it takes to implement, to reinstitute the Glass-Steawe
all are very scared of, that is, World War III. gall law, as a primary and necessary step towards

Our history with the United States goes back all saving not just America, not just the Philippines, but
the way to the 1900s, or even before—but specifi-the rest of the world.
cally the 1900s, when the U.S. had bought us from This has been your legacy since 1776, and this
Spain, after Spain colonized us for close to 400 years, should be your legacy from this time on.

Intellectual Revolution: The Necessity of the Thinkers and the Revolutionary Minds

Intellectual Revolution: The Necessity of the Thinkers and the Revolutionary Minds

July 25, 2013
by Jose Mario de Vega

This humble paper is an affirmative response to the lucid and scholarly essay of Ms. Natalie Shobana Ambrose’s “Empowering our thinkers”, The Sun Daily, July 12th.

illustrado
Though I overwhelmingly concur to her general proposition, I beg the indulgence of the reader that I may be allowed to adumbrate and elaborate on the various theses that she laid down.

Indeed, “throughout history, the most dangerous people to any regime have not been the thugs, thieves or murderers but rather the thinkers and the intellectuals. For centuries governments have crafted laws limiting the opinions and vetoing findings of studies from being publicised or rubbishing theories that do not fit with their agenda. So much so modern academics find that they constantly self-censor or thread far away from what is deemed sensitive or controversial subjects as a form of self-preservation and survival.”

Said dangerous people, namely the thinkers, the intellectuals, the iconoclasts, the mavericks and independent observer has always been the irritating thorn to any regime, especially a state that is perceived to be unjust, unfair and perverted.

More often than not, said regime’s program to neutralize these individuals is to either eliminate them or silence them by sending them to the dungeon or by banishing them altogether from the territory of the said country.

Another vicious method being resorted into by these kinds of regimes is to enact laws that stifle, delimit, impede and denounce the unorthodox opinions of the said intellectuals.

Added to this is the Macheviallian act of the said regimes of harassing, questioning and denying the very position of these intellectuals whose radical views do not subscribe or follows the “official” program of the state.

These evil regimes also forced the thinkers and the independent observers to conform to the state-sanctioned policy.

Some, gave in due to pressure, hence instead of pursuing their research and project up to its conclusion; they engage in an internal conflicting act of censoring themselves, editing their work, doctoring their data, altering their findings and worst, some even decides not to proceed with their endeavor at all.

The reason is plain and simple: they have to engage in all these preposterous and ridiculous means for purposes of self-preservation and survival.

This is a shame!

As the writer contended:

“This missing voice is a great tell-tale of how authoritarian a government is and how much or little such talent is valued in the society. We see this throughout the world – talented academics who would rather bypass the red tape of taking on local issues as study topics instead embark on ground-breaking research in other lands so as to not rock the boat back home.

“Malaysia has not been spared in this respect. Not only have we lost bright stars to other lands by limiting the very essence of their work, we have also inevitably dumbed down our thinkers through fear, bureaucracy and threatening their livelihoods.

“Malaysia is going through fascinating transformation both socially and politically. In the last 10 years, the change has been profound. Yet so little study has been done amid all the political cacophony, and the Malaysian academic voice has been rather quiet. We have to ask the question why.”

Comment:

By reason of fear and reprisal, persecution and state violence, some scholars, instead of embarking on ground-breaking enterprise and earth-shaking endeavor would rather avoid the great possibility of offending the powers that be and instead leave their country of origin and hesitantly exile themselves to other lands that is more tolerant and appreciative of their talents, potentialities and bright ideas.

This is a tremendous lose to the native land of the said researcher and a big goldmine to the adopted country.

Why?

This is a clear case of brain drain to the country of origin and as already noted; a gold mine to the new country or sanctuary.

The one that will benefit from the product of the intellectual labor and academic insights of the said scholar will not be his/her own native country but the nation that is presently adopting the said researcher.

This is not a new phenomenon, when Socrates was condemned to death unjustly by the stupid mob, his student Plato cannot bear the thought to stay in the city that killed his teacher so he decided to leave Greece for a while.

The same is true of Aristotle, when his student Alexander the Great dies, he also decided to leave Athens, saying thus that his act of leaving is his way of “saving the Athenians from sinning twice against Philosophy.”

The writer’s question is totally in point: why is it that despite the fact that Malaysia is going through a fascinating transformation both socially and politically in the last 10 years wherein the changes has been so rapid and utterly profound; ironically so little study has been done amid all the political cacophony and why the Malaysian academic voice has been rather quiet?

This is irony of all ironies, indeed!

It is beyond dispute that it is the author herself that squarely answered her own query.

Undeniably, the local bright stars are leaving the country due to the lack of equal opportunity, unfair policy, unjust government selection program, social injustice and the stupid conception of the state of affirmative action.

Added to these list of grievances and complaints is the irrefutable fact that “we have also inevitably dumbed down our thinkers through fear, bureaucracy and threatening their livelihoods.”

This is a shame!

Again, we return to the perennial social evils of the problem, namely: the act of the state in belittling, mocking, irritating, questioning, and harassing the thinkers through fear, bureaucratic brouhaha and economic blackmail.

Not added to this is the state’s act of political persecution such as dismissing the academic from the university or college, suing the said lecturer, teachers or professor and engaging in a character assassination of the said intellectual by using the vast powers of the government to disrepute the integrity of the thinker and put into doubt the product of his/her labor and scholarly work, when the only fault of the said academic is that his or her work is critical of the government or run counter to “the official line” being promoted by the state.

For those who decided to stay and confront bravely the perverted system of corruption, they must also face the full wrath of whole state machinery.

This is precisely the reasons why the thinkers and intellectuals had not taken advantage of this hotbed of potential study topics and areas of possible research.

Imagine an academic that will write a thesis which title is: How could the BN form the government when they are only voted 49% of the population?

Will the government accept that kind of research?

And what do you think will happen to those intellectuals who had undertaken the said studies? How are they going to be treated?

The answer is: either they are dismissed from their posts, or their contract will not be renewed or perhaps they will see themselves at the dock appearing before a court answering some silly and flimsy charges or their books will be ordered to be banned or they may die accidentally or they may disappear mysteriously or they may struggle economically to find some sponsor or funding that will going to support their work.

I concur with the writer that the problem I feel lies in space. The exact term being use in political science is the so-called “democratic space”.

Again, the bold questions posited by the writer are highly in point:

Is there a space where people are empowered to provide evidence-based critique?

Comment:

Yes, there is a certain degree of “space”, but here’s the caveat: be ready and be willing to face the repercussions and consequences of your intellectual actions.

A true thinker and a genuine intellectual that proceeded to present an unorthodox work to the public must be ready and utterly prepare to hear the following idiotic and preposterous charges:

    “if you don’t like it here, leave!”
    “go back to where you came from”
    “what more do you want, ingrate?”

All of these are the price that an intellectual and a scholar have to pay and confront bravely in order to his or her quest of pursuing the truth and consequently spreading his or her ideas and thoughts to the public and the world!

“It seems far easier for a foreigner to write a book, article, thesis on Malaysian issues than it would be for a local. If we don’t agree with their findings – we can rubbish it as not correctly understanding Malaysia since they are an outsider. Of course the other argument is that Malaysians are too emotionally embroiled to carry out such studies. Perhaps there is some truth to it but that is not a good enough reason to leave a gaping hole in research work by local thinkers.”

Comment:

On the Question of Empowering the Intelligentsia?

The great Russian novelist, Maxim Gorky said that the existence of the intellectuals is necessary in any form of society.

In my view, an intellectual has no nationality, because genius is universal. Nonetheless, I concur with the author that a community must produce its own thinkers and intellectuals before the world claim him or her.

Therefore, the Malaysian academic must rise above their “emotional embroidery” and carry out their studies — against all odds and regardless of the adverse consequences — whatever they may be.

To quote the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.”

The Role of the Intellectuals

Professor Noam Chomsky said that “it is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.”

To quote from my article:

What is an intellectual?

According to Wikipedia, an intellectual is: a person who uses thought and reason, intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning, in either a professional or a personal capacity and is:

1. a person involved in, and with, abstract, erudite ideas and theories;

2. a person whose profession (e.g. philosophy, literary criticism, sociology, law, political analysis, theoretical science, etc.) solely involves the production and dissemination of ideas, and

3. a person of notable cultural and artistic expertise whose knowledge grants him or her intellectual authority in public discourse.

Based these definition, an intellectual is a person or an individual who is involved or is engaged in creating erudite ideas (whether abstract or not) and making some theories.

The primordial duty of the intellectual is to disseminate ideas. He or she is of notable culture and held some artistic expertise which standing gives him/her a sense of intellectual authority in public discourse.

Who are the intellectuals?

There is no iota of doubt that the intellectuals are the philosophers, the teachers, the writers, the poets, the artists and the like!

The French existentialist philosopher and Marxist revolutionary, Jean Paul Sartre pronounced that the intellectuals are the moral conscience of their age. He passionately believed as he himself lived his life the way he wrote and taught that: the task of the intellectuals is not limited by merely observing the political and social situation of the moment, but undeniably to be involved and engaged actively in all of society’s issues and concerns. Finally, he also maintained that part and parcel of the duty of an intellectual is to serve as a voice of the marginalized, the oppressed, the idiots, the exploited, the lowest members of the society and indeed to speak out—