April 20—The world’s leading finance ministers, central bankers, and private financiers gathered in Washington, D.C. the first three days of this week, for the annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. They admitted publicly that up to 1.7 billion people face a severe food crisis and hunger this year. They nodded sagely at reports that inflation of 50, 80, even 120% on food and energy products had exploded in Germany and across Europe, not to mention desperate South America. They concurred that the debt of low-income countries had become utterly unpayable and would be blowing out shortly. And they congratulated each other on their scorched-earth sanctions with which they intend to wipe Russia—and any and all other rebellious nations—off the face of the Earth.
And still they tried to console each other with the belief that, despite all of the above, very few countries will join China, Russia and the 150 or so nations that are part of the Belt and Road Initiative, which is providing an economic alternative to the dying and deadly trans-Atlantic financial system. As the IMF’s new chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas argued, as of now, he did not expect many countries to “make the choice that their future lies in jumping to the other side.”
The London Economist earlier this week was less starry-eyed. That leading mouthpiece for the City of London took note of the fact that most of the “emerging world” either backs Russia over its military operation in Ukraine or is neutral, with many nations seeing the West as “decadent, self-serving and hypocritical.” Even those who might reject the invasion, think it’s someone else’s problem. “This is a stunning rebuke,” The Economist growls.
In her weekly webcast/dialogue on April 20, Helga Zepp-LaRouche stressed that there is a global realignment underway, which is emerging around Russia, China and India. This is taking shape as her late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, had advocated with his Four Powers proposal to unite Russia, China, India and the United States. To create the necessary change away from the collapsing trans-Atlantic system, you need a coalition of nations powerful enough to stand up to London, Wall Street and Silicon Valley. This is occurring—the main question is whether we can mobilize enough forces in the U.S. and Europe to support this new strategic and financial architecture before those imperial interests defending the present bankrupt system provoke World War III.
“The conflict is not between the ‘democracies’ and the ‘autocracies,’ but between the colonial system and those who oppose it,” Zepp-LaRouche stated, as was presented in depth at the highly successful April 9 Schiller Institute conference. The immediate future, she said, will be increasingly tumultuous, adding that she is convinced that “we won’t get through this year without major developments.”
The task ahead is to continue and rapidly expand the process launched at that Schiller Institute conference, to bring growing international forces into that discussion and organize a sufficient force of nations and political groupings to actually convoke an international conference to create a new security and development architecture worthy of the dignity of Man.
