|
|
Friday International Webcast
5 February 2016
TRANSCRIPT- MATTHEW OGDEN: Good evening. It’s February 5, 2016. My name is Matthew Ogden and you’re joining us for our regular weekly Friday evening broadcast here on LaRouche PAC.com. I’m joined in the studio tonight by Jeffrey Steinberg from Executive Intelligence Review, and Benjamin Deniston from the LaRouche PAC Science Team; but we have a very special guest joining us over video hookup this evening. We are joined by Kesha Rogers, who, as many of you know, is a leading member of the LaRouche PAC Policy Committee, but is also a national political figure in her own right. Kesha Rogers ran for the United States House of Representative in 2010 and in 2012, in Texas’ 22nd District, both times winning the Democratic nomination, and becoming the Democratic nominee. And then in 2014, Kesha ran a very high profile campaign for the United States Senate, in which she came in second against the eventual Democratic nominee, multimillionaire dentist David Alemiel, but she forced the campaign into a run-off election, and received national prominence in her campaign — which was focused mainly on shutting down Wall Street, restoring Glass-Steagall, and saving NASA. Now, I’m here to introduce Kesha Rogers, who is going to give some brief, or not so brief, introductory remarks to our webcast this evening, and then immediately after Kesha’s remarks, we will have a more extensive presentation from Benjamin Deniston , which will be elaborating on some of the details which Kesha will present. And after that, we will conclude our broadcast with our institutional question, which will be addressed by Jeffrey Steinberg. So, without further adieu, I would like to introduce to you Kesha Rogers: KESHA ROGERS: Thank you, Matt. So I think it’s very important for our listeners to have a conception of what it is that we mean when we’re launching a campaign in the effort to save the space program. Many people remember my campaign going back to 2010, when I launched the initiative of "Save NASA, Impeach Obama." And really, I’ve gotten a lot of different responses to this: "Well, what is your purpose? Do you want to save NASA to get something out of it, or because you’re a part of the space program — you worked for the space program." And no, it’s not that. It is actually what I represent, and what Mr. LaRouche represents: the fight for the common man, and changing the understanding the understanding of the conception of mankind. And if you really think about it, the space program has been something which is essential in understanding mankind’s unique role as a species, and changing the conception of mankind in relationship to the Universe. That’s been our most advanced conception of the space program. And when I launched my campaign for the U.S. Congress, and initiated the campaign to defend the space program, that was the principle which I was defending. Now, in 2010, when I launched the campaign for U.S. House of Representatives , around the theme of "Save NASA, Impeach Obama," it was not just to become a popular slogan; but that was the imperative in the fight to defend the true creative identity of mankind. And when it was announced that President Obama was going to shut down the Constellation program — remember, this was the program that was slated to focus on the developing of new booster rockets, the Apollo-style orbiters and 21st Century lunar landers, all of this with the goal of making long-term stays on the Moon possible. And when Obama chose that he was going to defund, and obliterate, the manned space program, I knew exactly what we were dealing with. And Mr. LaRouche made very clear that the fight that we were up against was a policy of genocide. Now, we saw this exactly, the intentions of this from Obama, when he pushed forth a policy that was the push for the continued Hitler-style health care policy. Remember, before the President had announced his intentions to cancel the space program, cancel the Constellation program, the program for getting to the Moon, this was around the time that he was pushing for the policy of the Hitler-style cost-effective, "lives unworthy of life" health care policy. And this is what we also witness as an escalation of the genocidal policies of the no growth, environmentalist agenda; and the push for a so-called man-made global warming agenda fraud. And what this made clear is that what we’re fighting against in the fight to save the space program, is a fight against a policy of death and genocide. It’s not about saving a particular project, or stopping the defunding. It is a policy and a fight to stop a no-growth policy that has taken over, against the progress of mankind. And so, now you look at this from the standpoint — I’d like to use an example of what we’re up against, and what mankind faces, in terms of the threat against mankind if we don’t save the space program; and if we continue to go with the budget-cutting, anti-science, anti-human agenda that actually does not recognize the role of mankind in changing and evolving, by changing its conception in relationship to the Universe. The idea of where we’re headed was really laid out very clearly by a great scientist and visionary by the name of Krafft-Ehricke. Krafft-Ericke was someone who had a vision that many people in the world today, and many people particularly in this nation, cannot even imagine; because he recognized this higher conception in the identity of mankind. And one of the things that Krafft-Ericke warned about in the direction that mankind and our society would go in, if we continued with the zero growth policy, was demonstrated in a schematic, or graphic, that he put out in a book, publication that he wrote, that was called "The Extraterrestrial Imperative." In 1971 he titled this graph "Growth versus No-Growth, Consequence World." You can see that graphic at some point here. It actually was published in a book compiling his programs and his vision by a collaborator Marsha Freeman, which you can find. And also you can find that in the writing that she wrote that put forth that policy called "Why Mankind Has an Extraterrestrial Imperative," taking from the ideas of Krafft-Ericke. So, just to demonstrate — what Krafft-Ericke demonstrates in his chart is that the Earth is not a closed system, but is a part of an open world encompassing the Solar System, and all the Cosmos; and that is essential to overcoming limitations which face mankind through applications of science and technology. Now he contrasts this to the no-growth policy, similar to what we’re seeing today under President Obama, and his obliteration and dismantling of the manned space program, and our commitment to actually go to the Moon,—and not just go there, but to actually develop it in ways never seen or done before. This no-growth policy, the environmentalist agenda of the pushing for the carbon emissions cap and all of these things, which are an anti-science, anti-human agenda, — what Krafft-Ericke said is that this was the policy that was going to lead to stagnation, regression, extreme poverty, mass starvation, epidemics, increases in the death rates., etc. So let’s think about it. Where are we at today? A lot of people tell me, well, don’t talk about these things when you’re talking about the space program; only talk about the good things of the space program, and what can it accomplish for you here on Earth. Well, I have to say, the space program is not just for having some kind of relaxed, nice idea. It represents an identity of mankind: that our role as human beings is to transform the galaxy, transform the Solar System, and to actually solve the problems which face mankind. And that means that we actually have to work together as nations to do that. When you look at what we’re faced with right now, the conditions, the increases in the death rates, the increases in the numbers of people who are killing themselves through drug abuse, who have no vision; this was an intentional policy, And the intentional policy to take the world to the brink of thermonuclear war is not separate from the policy of what we’re seeing from the Obama administration that has been pushing a policy of genocide, to push a policy of war. And this is what has led us to the point of what Krafft-Ericke warned about in his graphic, and in his remarks, or his warnings, when he said that if we continue with a zero-growth policy, what the world would face is an anti-Renaissance policy. So, the anti-Renaissance policy, the anti-human policy, that we’ve seen under the Obama Administration, and its takedown of the space program, of the manned space program and everything that it represents for the progress of mankind, has to be looked at from that standpoint. And people have to stand up and fight. A lot of the scientists whom I talk to, and I go to various scientific meetings, they tell me, "Well, we’re going to try to do this without the government. We can’t depend on the government because they’re just going to cut us; and we’re just going to take what we can." But the problem with that is that you are rejecting, and allowing, should I say, the fact that we have gone away from a national mission; a national mission which was understood and identified very clearly through the vision of President John F. Kennedy. That’s what we have to return to right now. President Kennedy would not have stood for the current direction that our nation is going in in respect to the space program, in respect to our role in collaboration with nations around the world, in planetary defense of all people on the planet. And what we’re seeing right now, as a result of not carrying out the imperative of mankind to use the vision of space as that which is going to be our tool and our weapon for totally reorganizing man’s conception of what we can do here on Earth, to solve the problems facing mankind. There are many ways that we can do that. People say, well, how are you going to stop extreme poverty, how are you going to stop viruses like the Zika virus, and so forth? Well, this is what is going to be essential for understanding, what we don’t know can help us better understand the world that we live in, and better be able to solve the problems that we face right here on Earth. I’d say that China very clearly understands that purpose and that intention. And what China is doing right now is an inspiration to the world, an inspiration to the understanding that mankind can solve anything that’s put in front of him. Let me just make this point: this conception of the unique identity of the human species, evolving to change our conception and relationship to the universe in which we live, is something that Krafft-Ericke strongly believed in. And he called this conception, in his own words, man’s Extraterrestrial Imperative, and he developed this principle in his three core fundamental laws, which state: 1) Nobody and nothing under the natural laws of the Universe impose limitations on man, except man himself; 2) Not only the Earth, but the entire Solar System and as much of the Universe as he can reach under the laws of nature, are man’s rightful field of activity; 3) By expanding through the Universe, man fulfills his destiny as an element of life, endowed with the power of reason, and wisdom, of the moral law within himself. So, you think about that. How is it, right now, that China is carrying out that vision, and that intention, as opposed to what we see coming from the thermonuclear war drive, the anti-science, anti-visionary policy of President Obama? Which do you think that you should be fighting for? This idea that we could be exploring the back side of the Moon, that we could be exploring the far side of the Moon, that we can be figuring out things that mankind has never known; we can figuring out what resources are out there, that we can be using to better improve our conditions here on Earth. Maybe the use of Helium-3 for fueling and empowering the entire Earth? Those things are what China is looking at in line with what it has laid out as a win-win strategy for collaboration of mankind in advancing the Silk Road development project: The space program, along with the mission for the Silk Road development, creating new projects here on Earth; high-speed rail systems, where China is now announcing with its policy for the Moon, and its development of the new scientific resources that it is putting forth; that is going to be essential for the understanding of what the Moon represents as a launching pad for our ability to explore further our Solar System. This is what we should be fighting. And this is what I’m committed to, what Mr. LaRouche and our movement are committed to, that China is leading the world in being the leader of progress for mankind, in our Solar system, in our Galaxy; and that this fight is the fight that has to be waged. If we want to see an end to the policy of no growth, the policy of death that we’re seeing, coming from the trans-Atlantic system, coming from a bankrupt Wall Street system that is not committed to the development of mankind, but to stagnation, then we have to fight, at all costs, to make sure that we have a different conception of what it means to save our space program. And that means we can’t compromise with this President any longer. People who work in the space community and anyone who understands what’s at stake for mankind, can no longer compromise with this President. When you look at the fact that we have a completely insane policy, in terms of our election process, avoiding leadership, the fact that no one is putting forward this vision, a real visionary policy of a national orientation of where we need to take this country, a national identity, which the Space program and President Kennedy inspired people with. This is something you should think about; this is something that we really have to fight for; that we have to restore a vision and we have to actually put this nation back on the road toward Progress. And the space program is just what is necessary to do that. OGDEN: Thank you very much, Kesha. Now, very quickly, just before I introduce Ben, because Kesha invoked the legacy of John F. Kennedy, I just want to actually read a very short excerpt from a speech that John F. Kennedy made, down in Texas actually. Tragically, this is a speech that he delivered the very day before he was assassinated. This was his last speech, on November 21st, 1963. As some of you who have perhaps seen the performance of the Mozart Requiem that the Schiller Institute did, both on November 22nd, 2103, and also later in January of 2104 up in Boston, on the 50th anniversary of the death of Kennedy, many of you will recognize this speech, because an excerpt of this speech, in Kennedy’s own voice, was played during these two concerts. But, just because it underscores exactly what Kesha just said about the necessity of boldly exploring Space as an affirmation of the true nature of mankind, let me just read one very short excerpt of what President Kennedy said at that time. He said, "For more than three years, I have spoken about the New Frontier. [this] refers to this Nation’s place in history, to the fact that we do stand on the edge of a great new era, filled with both crisis and opportunity; an era to be characterized by achievement and by challenge. It is an era which calls for action and for the best efforts of all those who would test the unknown and the uncertain in every phase of human endeavor. It is a time for pathfinders and pioneers. Many Americans make the mistake of assuming that space research has no values here on earth. Nothing could be further from the truth. For our effort in space is not as some have suggested, a competitor for the natural resources that we need to develop the earth. It is a working partner and a coproducer of these resources." And then he concluded the speech by saying, "I think the United States should be a leader. A country as rich and powerful as this which bears so many burdens and responsibilities, which has so many opportunities, should be second to none. There will be, as there always are, pressures on this country to do less in this areaand temptations to do something else which is perhaps easier. But this research here must go on. This space effort must go on. The conquest of space must and will go ahead. That much we know. That much we can say with confidence and conviction." And then, finally concluding — this is the famous anecdote — President Kennedy said, "Frank O’Connor, the Irish writer, tells in one of his books how, as a boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside, and when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall — and then they had no choice but to follow them. This nation has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it. Whatever the difficulties, they will be overcome. Whatever the hazards, they must be guarded against. [w]e will climb this wall with safety and with speed — and we shall then explore the wonders on the other side." So that was President Kennedy’s final speech [given at the Dedication of the Aerospace Medical Health Center, San Antonio, Texas]. With that said, I’d like to ask Ben Deniston to come to the podium. BEN DENISTON: Thanks, Matt! Thanks, Kesha! Glad to have our Texas comrade joining us here today. I think just off of what’s been said so far, I think, the clearest counterpoint to what Kesha just discussed, in terms of Obama shutting down and destroying our space-faring capabilities, the clearest counterpoint is China, over the same time period, really establishing itself as one of the leading nations in the entire world, in terms of space exploration. And clearly vectoring their nation and themselves towards being the number one nation leading the world in space under the current trajectories: the U.S. clearly heading down; China on a rapid trajectory up. And I think, in this recent time period — the last few years — this really caught attention with China’s lunar exploration program. There’s been some recent advances in that. So, I want to open, just by highlighting this program. Because it was just in December of 2013 that China made the first soft landing of a rover on the moon in decades — since the mid-’70s, with their Chang’e 3 mission. They deployed the Yutu rover as part of that mission. And this, I think, really shook the world and grabbed the imagination, the attention, with China doing something that hadn’t been done, again, in decades. Now, this was one part of their lunar exploration program, the Chang’e program, which generally has three phases: the first phase, which is now completed, was sending orbiters to the moon, to orbit the moon, investigate it from orbital sensors, etc. The second phase, which is now ongoing, is these soft landers and rovers. On December 2013, they had a brilliant success with the Chang’e 3 mission and the Yutu rover. And we’ve just been given some more high-resolution images of this mission, so if you haven’t seen them, go on line and see some of the spectacular images we now have available from China’s mission. Now, as part of the landing-and-rover component, you had the Chang’e 4 mission, which was initially reserved as a backup, in case something went wrong with the Chang’e 3 mission. Well, the Chang’e 3 was such a big success that they didn’t need to just repeat what they’d done before, they didn’t need this backup mission. So, it’s been now announced that it has a new objective, of landing on the far side of the moon. That’s part of the second phase. The third phase is actually landing, acquiring a sample from the lunar surface, and returning that back to Earth. And that’s also ongoing. But it was just recently that it was announced that this Chang’e 4 mission, this completion of the second phase — the landers and the rovers — as I said, is going to go to the far side of the moon. Before, they were saying, maybe 2020; now, recently, they’ve announced it’s going to be the end of 2018. So they’ve also accelerated the timeframe. Now this will be the first time ever that mankind has landed anything on the far side of the Moon. All the Apollo missions were on the near side; all of the Soviet missions were on the near side — their unmanned missions to the Moon. We’ve sent orbiters around the Moon that have imaged the far side, imaged the whole thing; but this will be the first time mankind has ever landed something on the far side. If people haven’t seen it, I’ve pulled up a nice graphic [Fig. 1] just to illustrate for people, there may be some confusion in language; people sometimes refer to the dark side of the Moon or the far side of the Moon. It’s not always really dark; you could say dark in terms of mankind’s knowledge of it, which is a fair expression. If you’re not literal about dark; it’s not always in the shadows, but it’s always away from us. This [Fig. ??] is a time lapse of an entire lunar month. So, here you can see an entire cycle of the Moon, from new moon all the way to full moon, back to new moon. And as you can see if you look closely, the same side of the Moon is always facing us as it orbits around the Earth; so that’s why we call this the near side, the opposite side is the far side. So, all of the missions we’ve conducted have been on the near side in terms of landings. The difficulty in going to the far side is that you’re in a constant radio black-out; you can’t communicate with the Earth, because you’re always facing away from the Earth. So part of this Chang’e 4 mission is to send a relay satellite out to what’s called the L-2 point, or sometimes libration 2 or grange 2 point. You can see the schematic here [Fig. 2]; this is kind of an interesting stable position in the gravitational interaction between the Earth and the Moon. And these are something space agencies have used to great effect in terms of finding kind of "parking spots" so to speak in different orbital locations; where we can place instruments and have them be kind of in a steady location. So this image obviously isn’t to scale, but you can see this L-2 point which is in the direct line between the Earth, the Moon and this L-2 location. So the intention is to send a relay satellite to this L-2 location; it will always have a line of sight connection back to the Earth. And it will also have a line of sight connection to the Chang’e 4 lander. So, China will be positioned with this set-up to have the first-ever landing and direct investigation of the lunar far side, requiring this relay satellite. So, this is a first; this is a first for mankind, ever. And this was just solidified recently, so this is quite exciting. Now, one thing that comes up is, why the far side? What’s so interesting about the far side? And there’s a few things I just want to highlight; because this is very important for what Kesha discussed, which she referenced in terms of Krafft-Ehricke’s insightful understanding of the necessity of mankind’s developing into a species of the Solar System, so to speak. The far side of the Moon offers certain unique and critical points of investigation for mankind. One, it’s thought that it has a higher concentration of helium-3; which we’ve discussed. Now, some of this is not totally known, and some of this might be answered with some of these missions; but it is thought that because the near side is often shielded by the Earth, that has blocked some of the depositing of helium-3 on the lunar surface on the near side. But the far side always, which is always facing away from the Earth, is thought to have a higher concentration of this helium-3, probably the best fusion fuel known to us; deposited by the Sun, the solar wind. The Sun’s been creating this unique isotope, pumping it out into the Solar System; and it’s been embedding itself on the lunar surface for a few billion years, so you’ve got a build-up there. Again, it’s something we’ve discussed; it’s been long known to be probably the best option for advanced fusion reactions — this unique type of helium fuel. And again, it’s thought to be in the highest concentrations on this lunar far side; so that’s important. It also has a unique geology. You can see here [Fig. 3], these are images taken by, I believe, a NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has taken very high resolution images of the entire Moon, as it’s orbiting the Moon and still is. And you can see that the far side looks dramatically different than the near side. The near side has many more of these dark patches; these marias, which were produced by volcanic flows. The far side has less of that; and the far side is thought to have a more direct representation of the earlier stages of the Moon, less affected by volcanic and other activity later in the evolution and development of the Moon. So, if we want to answer some basic questions about the Moon, its position, its interaction with the Solar System; I would add the interaction of the Solar System with the galaxy, places where we can get long, deep records about what experiences different parts of planets have had over the past billions of years, this is really crucial stuff. So there are certain interesting features you can see on the far side of the Moon. If we go to the next graphic [Fig. 4], here we have an elevation, a topological graphic; you can see different heights. The orange, red, white are very high elevations; green into blue and purple are very low elevations. One of the places that’s of very high interest for investigating on the lunar far side, is this very large impact crater; this deep crater, basin that’s near the south pole on the far side. And it’s thought that this is certainly a likely potential for where China might want to land their Chang’e 4 mission. This is also of great geological interest, because this is one of the largest impact craters we know of in the entire Solar System; and it’s so deep that it’s actually penetrated down into some lower layers of the lunar surface, which makes them accessible for our investigation. Now, some people might think, lunar geology, how interesting can that be? This is just a giant, cold rock up there; how much can you learn from that? But we’re constantly being, I would say, "put into our place" with our realization of how little we know about the Solar System, about planetary bodies. When the Apollo astronauts went up to the Moon, they brought up seismometers to measure seismic activity. They thought they might measure things from thermal expansion from heating of the Moon, from meteorite impacts; and they measured those things. But they also measured deep seismic activity in the Moon; they didn’t think that could happen. They didn’t expect it; we still don’t really have an explanation for why the Moon is still seismically active. Just in the last couple of years, we’ve found evidence that the Moon was volcanically active within the last 100 million years. Prior to that, we thought it hadn’t been volcanically active for billions of years; we thought it was just a dead, cold body up there. Now, speaking in geological terms, the relatively recent past, we see that it’s been volcanically active; that was not expected at all. Not only that, but the times when the Moon was volcanically active are the same times when the Earth has experienced very high intensities of volcanic activity. Is that a coincidence? Maybe. Is that an indication of some larger scale process affecting the Solar System as a whole? Very well could be; and these are the types of things that point us up to the larger systems of the galaxy. A lot can be said; the point is, it’s amazing how little we know about the fundamental basics of the Solar System, of planetary bodies. And so, it’s crucial to get up there and actually investigate these things. I’ll just end on one other critical component, which has been raised as another potential part of this new Chang’e 4 far side lunar mission; which is opening up an entire new window to our investigation of the universe as a whole — our knowledge of the universe. People are probably aware that we don’t observe the universe just in one part of the electromagnetic spectrum; we see, biologically, in the visible range of the spectrum, we see visible light. We know that’s just a tiny fraction of the entire spectrum in which processes in the universe radiate; emit electromagnetic radiation. And as we’ve discovered more and more parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, we’ve also developed instruments to look into the universe in different ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum. And we’ve been pretty much surprised every time we’ve done it, by finding things we didn’t even expect. Here’s one image [Fig. 5], just to illustrate, of the Sun; these are all pictures of the Sun, taken at the same time, but taken with different, very precise windows of the electromagnetic spectrum. Just to give you a sense of how much difference we see, and what different processes we see, and what different activity we witness when we look in these different parts of the spectrum. Here’s another image [Fig. 6] of a galaxy, looking at another galaxy. If we look in the optical — what we’re used to seeing with the Hubble Space Telescope sees, what your backyard telescope sees — when we look at this particular galaxy, all we see is what’s displayed in the bottom left corner there. It’s a kind of fuzzy, somewhat elliptical blob structure of this galaxy. If we shift to a different part of the spectrum, and look at the radio [frequencies], we see something completely different which you would never know was even there if you just looked in the optical; which is these giant, massive radio emissions, or structures of plasma emitting in the radio-wave part of the spectrum. So, an entire critical phenomenon, central to what is going on with the fundamental physics and properties of these galactic systems, is completely invisible in the optical; and it’s only when we look in certain wavelengths that you get a completely new window. So, we’ve been doing this obviously for decades. We’ve been putting up satellites to look in more intense energy ranges; in the UV, in the x-ray, in the gamma ray. We’ve been going the other direction, looking at infrared; longer wavelengths, lower energies, down into the radio. And there’s still a lot to be done; we’re constantly looking with better resolution, we’re looking farther, we’re getting clearer pictures. But there’s one large chunk of the spectrum where we’ve never even looked in the universe; we’ve never even been able to image the universe in what’s referred to as very low frequency radio waves, every long wavelength radio waves. And for simple reasons, we just fundamentally cannot do this from the Earth. Many of these longer radio waves just simply do not penetrate down into the Earth’s surface; they get bounced off of the atmosphere, the ionosphere structure of the atmosphere. This is a range where we do a lot of our own communications, so it’s very noisy in these regions; and the Earth itself emits very strong signals in these regions. So, it’s basically impossible from Earth, even from Earth orbit, to observe the universe in this entire low-frequency range of the spectrum. So, for decades, people have been talking about the perfect location for us to do this being the far side of the Moon. Again, the far side, always facing away from the Earth, is constantly shielded from all the noise from the Earth. The Moon has an incredibly miniscule atmosphere, so these signals can penetrate down to the lunar surface. And the Moon is shielded from noise from human communications, natural noise from the Earth system itself; so we have a unique window from the Moon to begin looking at the universe in a completely new part of the spectrum. This has been discussed since the 1960s; it’s been studied in detail by numerous teams in terms of the importance of opening up this new part of the spectrum, and really demonstrating the far side of the Moon is really the only place we’re going to be able to do this. There’s some discussion about what we might find in this region. Certain fundamental processes of galaxies are thought to only radiate in this region; certain fundamental processes of our own Sun are thought to only radiate in this region. We still don’t know why we get these explosive events on the surface of the Sun; these solar flares, these coronal mass ejections, which actually pose a threat to our astronauts if we have them in space, and also our satellite grid and electrical systems. We still don’t understand the basic physics of how these explosive solar events occur; this part of the spectrum has been posited as being crucial to understanding how this activity occurs. And all the way up to galaxies; a lot could be said. But that’s only stuff that we’re positing as potential things we might expect to find; we also are going to be surprised by the things we don’t expect to find. So, this particular observation and this low-frequency window is being proposed as a potential part of this Chang’e 4 mission to land on the far side. This could be the beginning of opening up an entire new window into the universe; showing us things all the way from activity of our Sun, our own Solar System, our own galaxy, up to outside galaxies. This is a crucial thing. And this just serves as a critical contrast to what Kesha opened up with. China taking clear, decisive steps; establishing themselves as a world leader in space exploration, and now positioning themselves to take fundamental first steps into new domains that mankind has never opened up before. That’s the direction mankind should be going in; that’s the direction China’s going in. And you contrast that with where we’ve gone under Obama, in the exact same time, and I think you get a very clear picture of what the challenge is. OGDEN: Thank you very much Ben. And finally, we’ll conclude our broadcast here tonight by asking Jeff Steinberg to deliver Mr. LaRouche’s response to our institutional question for this evening; which is a very relevant and timely question. It reads as follows: "There are mounting tensions between NATO and Russia, at the same time that Secretary of State John Kerry is attempting to work closely with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in seeking an end to the five-year Syrian war. And, US and Russian military officials are in intensive discussions about avoiding an unintended military encounter in northern Syria. What are your recommendations for ways to bridge the differences between NATO and Russia, and move towards a more harmonious co-existence? What are your ideas about how to bridge these differences?" STEINBERG: Thanks, Matt. Well, I think that the major point that should be resonating in everybody’s mind right now after hearing Kesha’s presentation and then Ben’s presentation, is that it’s obvious; that the greatest area of cooperation between the United States, leading countries in Europe, Russia, and China, is in pursuit of the common aims of mankind. And that is man’s extra-terrestrial imperative; to make scientific discoveries in cooperation with the other great nations of this planet. If you think about the challenges that have just been presented in summary about man’s quest to understand the nature of the universe, to understand our Solar System and to look beyond that into the larger galaxies; then it’s very obvious that the United States, China, and Russia have far greater common interests than the kinds of differences that now at the same time leave us on the potential verge of a war that could very easily become a thermonuclear war of absolute extinction of mankind on Earth. So, the starting point has to be understanding the great challenges and the great quests of mankind; and from that standpoint, it’s very important to look and consider what has been done to us. How the United States, which was pioneering some of the greatest discoveries; Matt quoted from the final speech of President Kennedy. All of you out there undoubtedly remember President Kennedy’s speech launching the Apollo program, and vowing to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade; not because it was easy, but because it was one of the great challenges to mankind. So, we need to understand that at this point, the United States has fallen into such a black hole that we’re going to need to collaborate with Russia, with China, to dig our way out of this and to launch a genuine and viable space program that’s forward-looking into the future. Today, because of the Obama policy of ending the Shuttle and then cancelling the Constellation program, it’s impossible for an American astronaut to reach the International Space Station without hitching a ride from the Russians. So even in the most rudimentary sense, what we are doing in space, the very limited efforts that we’re engaged in, is something that we’re no longer capable of doing on our own. Way back in 1972, NASA was in the process of developing a nuclear-powered rocket; and it was all about the plans for a manned mission to Mars, which was expected to occur sometime in the 1980s or 1990s at the latest. Instead, we’ve been grounded. Now, at the same time, on this question of NATO and Russia, earlier this week in a speech before the Economic Club of New York, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter gave a preview of the new US defense budget that’s going to be announced in the coming days by President Obama. And in that speech, Carter made absolutely clear that the United States now characterizes Russia and China as the two greatest security threats to the United States. This is 25 years after the end of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, the end of the Cold War; and the beginning a very brief period to actually build up cooperation on major international security issues. The Nunn-Lugar Act poured hundreds of millions of dollars into a cooperative program with Russia to secure the nuclear weapons systems that were now dispersed among former parts of the Soviet Union; countries like Ukraine, Kazakhstan and others. Where there was US-Russian collaboration in securing the nuclear fuel, in dismantling some of the ICBMs; and there were steps that were moving in a direction towards positive cooperation — the space program, the International Space Station program was a reflection of that. But now we’ve reached the point where suddenly, for reasons that have no rational basis whatsoever, we are defining Russia and China as the strategic enemies. So, yes, on the one hand, Secretary of State Kerry and some leading circles within the Pentagon, within our uniformed military services are struggling to work with Russia on basically reaching an end to a five-year war that’s been one of the worst genocides that we’ve seen in recent history; that’s taken place in Syria. And so, yes, we have those areas of cooperation; but at the same time, there are other leading figures — including President Obama himself — who are attempting to do everything possible to demonize Russia, to demonize President Putin. The very day — January 25th — when Kerry and Lavrov had hoped to start the peace talks in Geneva to bring a ceasefire and then an end to the Syria conflict, BBC Panorama aired a broadcast that was a scathing, personal, scurrilous attack on Russian President Putin. And the star attraction of that broadcast was a US Treasury Department official named Adam Zubin; who basically made a series of scurrilous name-calling attacks against President Putin. Two days later, on the 27th of January, the official spokesman for President Obama — Josh Earnest — at the White House, praised the Zubin comments and said that this was a very good reflection of what the US thinking is about Russia. To carry matters further, and again, bear in mind you’re looking at British-engineered provocation, BBC just 24 hours ago, aired another broadcast, a scenario of World War III, turning into a thermonuclear war and pinning the blame on Russia by claiming some kind of mythical Russian invasion of one of the Baltic states. These kinds of provocations are a reflection of a desperate and bankrupt British Empire system, which includes Wall Street; and includes what’s been done to the American economy, to the American people to destroy the productive powers of our labor force. Particularly in an intensifying fashion over the last 15 years, when the British have basically controlled the Presidency of the United States during the Bush-Cheney and now even more so, under the Obama Presidency. Now what Mr. LaRouche emphasized in the immediate flashpoint of the situation in Syria, is that you’ve got ostensible US allies — specifically Turkey and secondarily Saudi Arabia — that are doing everything that they possibly can to instigate an incident in the context of the Syria conflict that will draw NATO and Russia into a strategic war. We’ve already had the experience months back, of Turkey shooting down a Russian plane, claiming that it was violating Turkish air space. Even the most in depth accounts that represent the Russians violating that airspace — and there’s a lot of reason to dispute whether that ever even happened — say that it was in Turkish airspace for a grand total of 17 seconds. That is not a breach that warrants a shoot down at a point that Turkey was also attempting to invoke the collective security aspects of the NATO charter. In other words, Turkey is carrying out provocations against Russia that are intended to draw all of NATO — including the United States — into a strategic confrontation with Russia, at a point where that could very well trigger the start of a general war leading to a nuclear war. Now it’s well known that the Erdogan government in Turkey has been on the dole of the Saudis for the last period, particularly and especially since King Salman replaced King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia. The recent elections in September, when Erdogan’s party won a slight absolute majority in the Turkish parliament, was the result of billions of dollars in Saudi money coming into the coffers of the AKP and essentially buying off the current Turkish government. Between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, furthermore, you have two of the leading instruments under the control of this desperate British Empire. So, you’ve got a situation which in many ways is reminiscent of the imperial games that the British were playing that led to the outbreak of the First World War. Except we’re in a very different world right now; a world defined by thermonuclear weapons. And when you consider the fact that the entire trans-Atlantic region is going through both a financial and a physical economic breakdown, at the same time that Russia has made several qualitative advances in its military capabilities at the strategic level down to the conventional level; you’ve got to come to the conclusion of desperate lunatics in the British monarchy, in the Obama administration, who have no idea of the consequence of their actions, are driving the world towards a thermonuclear confrontation. If you have a collapse of the real economy, you have a collapse of the ability to fight a war in depth; and in the era of thermonuclear weapons, what that means is that you’re going to be quicker to resort to the use of nuclear weapons. And so what’s going on in Syria, now we have the threat that Turkey’s going to invade northern Syria. At a so-called "donors’ conference" for a future Marshall Plan for rebuilding Syria after this disaster, a top official of the Saudi Ministry of Defense announced that Saudi Arabia was preparing to send combat troops into Syria. And Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter here in the United States, immediately jumped up and praised the Saudis for their plans to carry out a military invasion. Now, the Saudis have no capacity to do that; they’re losing their war in Yemen. Yet, when the Saudis talk about that kind of military action, assume that we’re talking about other nations that are on the Saudi payroll, starting with Turkey. And of course, Turkey, as a NATO country, has made it clear that they will invoke the selective security part of the NATO charter; to draw all the NATO countries, the US included, into a confrontation with Russia in Syria. The Russian support formally invited by the Assad government, has reached the point since the beginning of the Russian engagement at the end of September of 2015, that the various jihadist groups and Saudi-backed insurgents are in the process of being decisively defeated. In a military campaign, you can never give a date certain about these things, but right now the noose is being tightened up in northern Syria around the area of the critical city of Aleppo, to where the sealed border between Syria and Turkey is beginning to become a reality. Turkey has been the major supply route for weapons and other support into the Islamic State, the Nusra Front, and the various Saudi-backed Salafist groups that have been fighting against the Syrian government. With that border sealed, with Aleppo being rapidly encircled, we’re reaching a point where the Syrian government, with Russian backing, could achieve a strategic breakthrough in that fighting; it could be ended militarily even before the peace talks that Kerry and Lavrov are working on are concluded. So, this is a desperate situation if you’re sitting in London, and you’re looking at the Turkish and Saudi options suddenly beginning to erode. So, we’re at a moment of grave danger, where an action by Turkey could be the trigger. Remember, it was an assassination in Sarajevo that was the notional trigger of the First World War; when, as Mr. LaRouche has been pointing out for years, that war really began in 1890, with the British intention to start a war, when Bismarck was dumped as Chancellor of Germany. So on the surface, there are events that are occurring, but on a deeper level, we’re looking at the actions of a dying empire. So, if the United States is serious about reviving and rebuilding relations with Russia, and by extension, with China as well, the first thing that has to happen is that the potential trigger point for a complete explosion, leading perhaps to a thermonuclear war, has to be curbed. And that means that sane forces within the United States, sane forces within Europe, within NATO, are going to have to come down hard and heavy on Turkey. And Erdogan is going to have be told, "Cut it out!"; the Saudis are going to have to be told, "Cut it out!" And one of the most effective first steps of doing that, vis a vis the Saudis, would be to insist that the 28 pages from the original 2002 joint Congressional inquiry into 9/11 be made public in the widest possible fashion right now. The Saudis were behind 9/11 on behalf of the British; going for a Bush-Cheney dictatorship over the United States. That’s the truth of the matter; and that truth has been systematically suppressed by suppressing those 28 pages — first by Bush, and now by Obama. So, if you want to stop an imminent danger of war, if you have any desire whatsoever for the United States to resume the efforts towards the common aims of mankind — meaning, an alliance with Russia, an alliance with China to move forward with these great projects into space, into our Solar System, to explore the depths and then on to the galaxy — then you’ve got to take certain emergency immediate measures to basically cut off the danger of war before we find ourselves in a situation where this planet is in the greatest jeopardy in the entire existence of mankind. OGDEN: So with that said, I would like to bring a conclusion to tonight’s webcast. I would like to thank very much Kesha Rogers for being our special guest tonight and joining us at the beginning of the show. I think people can look forward to hearing much more from her in the coming days and weeks. I’d also like to thank Jeffrey Steinberg and Ben Deniston for joining me here in the studio. And thank you all very much for tuning in; please stay tuned to larouchepac.com. Good night. |