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Dialogue of Cultures

SCHILLER INSTITUTE

"The Mark of the Beast"
America's Children Are In
Mortal Danger

Conference Keynote
Helga Zepp LaRouche

Presidents Day, 2000

Other Conferences

Lyndon LaRouche Keynote to Presidents Day, 2000

Committee to Stop The New Violence

About Mrs. Helga Zepp LaRouche

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Mrs. Helga Zepp LaRouche, the president of the International Advisory Board of the Schiller Institute, gave this speech to the Presidents' Day conference of the Schiller Institute and International Caucus of Labor Committees in Reston, Virginia on Febrary 20, 2000. She made extensive use of film clips and other graphic material, which are not represented here; the text has been edited .accordingly. A videotape of the speech can be ordered by email or phone.

If you look at the world situation today, as a totality, then it is clear that we are already, now, in a civilizational crisis, which could become much worse than any collapse of society in the history of mankind so far.

And I'm not only saying that because soon we could have a new world war--and I'm going to talk about that--including the use of nuclear weapons; the collapse of the financial system into total chaos; but maybe even the worst aspect, the plunge into a moral and cultural crisis, on such a low level, as has never existed before. A plunge into barbarism worldwide, and when I say barbarism, I really mean barbarism, because the world is becoming very quickly completely dehumanized, in ways which are really worse than the beasts. And I'm going to prove that to you today.

This process of disintegration of entire nations, and the strategic confrontation among nuclear powers, is already going on, and it's being driven by a mad oligarchy, which is trying to preserve a system which cannot be preserved. The problem is, that people don't see the world as a totality, and the oligarchy makes a great effort to keep the population blindfolded. Especially in America--also elsewhere, but especially in the United States--I always have the image of the blind man and the elephant. The blind man tries to get an idea of what the elephant looks like. So, one time, he stands in front of the elephant, and he catches the trunk. Then he stands behind, and he touches the tail. Sometimes, he's on the side, and he has a leg. So, the problem is, with all these things together, he cannot get the idea of the elephant.

And, in the same way, many people are seeing aspects of the crisis as it affects them.

So, a homeless person, in Washington or in New York, for sure does not believe what Clinton said in the State of the Union address, that this is the biggest, longest prosperity ever. Now, a sick person, who has to get to the hospital, and does not find an emergency room when he needs it, for sure understands that the HMO system, and what is happening to the health sector, is kiling people. A parent whose 14-year-old child just murdered somebody in the neighborhood, for sure understands that the educational system, and the situation with the youth, are completely out of control. An African mother whose baby just died in one of the 33 poor countries in Africa, for sure does not believe what President Clinton just declared at the Washington summit, that globalization is good for Africa.

But hardly anybody puts the whole picture together. And therefore people are largely in the dark. And this is deliberately so.

The method of the oligarchy

An old Chinese philosopher once said it very openly: Keep the people stupid; it's easier to rule. And, as I will demonstrate, the oligarchy is involved in a gigantic effort to dumb down the population, to desensitize them, to put them under direct behavior modification, and even use brainwashing techniques on a large scale.

The reason most people don't realize what the situation really has come to, is because this process of desensitization has gone on step by step, and the cultural decay has occurred over a long period of time. As I will demonstrate, the method used for the strategic confrontation with Russia and China, the war game simulations done by the military, the method of the speculation of the financial bubble, and the films and video games which turn children in America, and elsewhere in the world, into killers, as happened in Littleton--this method is the same.

This method is essentially based on the British Enlightenment, and on the mechanistic assumptions of John von Neumann, and Norbert Wiener, who all go back to John Locke, and especially his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, namely, the idea that the human mind is a tabula rasa, and that so-called ideas are the result of sensuous experiences. Wiener, in his book Cybernetics, makes the argument that the human mind is like a Pavlovian dog, and that computers function on the same basis.

When we recognize that that method is being applied in the various fields of life, and is turning the world into hell, then we have the means to change it. But first, we have to recognize what that method is. So, therefore, I want to first look at the real world, at the strategic situation, and then, at how that method is being applied to turn it into a virtual reality, which nevertheless has devastating effects in the real world.

The strategic crisis

Now, especially the present strategic situation, between the United States, or the West more generally, and Russia and China, is a very, very advanced one. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was actually no real reason for NATO to continue to exist, because the entire self-definition of NATO was as a defensive alliance against the Soviet Union. But unfortunately, when the Soviet Union collapsed, George Bush, who was President at that time, proclaimed during the Gulf War, the New World Order, which, unfortunately, has been the policy of the United States, with very few interruptions, because the U.S. was basically put on auto-pilot during the Clinton administration.

And with this New World Order, there was the escalation of globalization, world government, Anglo-American unilateralism, and, despite the fact that President Clinton, here and there, tried to break out of this by trying to form a strategic partnership with China, by having a decent relationship with Russia, it was generally Gore, the Vice President, who was in charge of the policy toward Russia, and therefore the IMF reforms, which are regarded by Russia as complete aggression, with the aim of the destruction of Russia.

Now when the global financial crisis, after the Asia crisis, entered into its second phase, and there was a de facto state bankruptcy in August 1998, the financial oligarchy, that which we call the British-American-Commonwealth oligarchy, decided to have an escalation, both in terms of NATO expansion, and in having wars around the globe as a means to control the system. President Clinton in this period was completely knocked out, through the impeachment process, and up to now, he has not recovered at all. And the policy of Anglo-American unilateralism went into a new phase.

First came, in August 1998, the bombing of the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, and now it is an established fact that Madame Albright knew, ahead of time, that this was not a weapons factory, but that it was the only pharmaceutical plant Sudan had, so it was a deliberate, one can really say, murderous calculation.

Then came the bombing of Iraq, in 1998, which basically put the UN Security Council out of business. And then came the NATO war against Yugoslavia in March 1999, which--and that has to be stressed--really had nothing to do with genocide committed by Milosevic, but the NATO war in the Balkans was the instrumentality of a regional conflict for global purposes. And the idea was, basically, to drive Russia out of the Balkans.

Now, as everybody admits by now, this war has turned out to be a complete, utter military disaster, proving that the United States and NATO are practically incapable of winning a war. What they have done, is they have unleashed enormous destruction from the air, but the Yugoslavian army was not destroyed, and the hostile territory not occupied, but now all the countries of the Balkans--Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and naturally all the countries around Serbia, and Bosnia, and Kosovo, and so forth--are completely destroyed. And what you see there, is the concept of the military term, the glacis, destroying the territory, denying the territory to your opponent. These Balkan countries are never supposed to become part of NATO, but they, like other countries further east and southeastward, are supposed to build a glacis around Russia. That is why there was no reconstruction after the war, and there is a similar policy toward Central Asia. That's why these Islamic terrorists are being deployed in Chechnya, Dagestan, and other Central Asian countries, and the Russians have made very clear, that this effort to drive NATO further and further, and to contain the Russians further and further, that this is for them a line in the sand, where they do not accept any further pushing.

Now, after the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Russia and China were convinced that NATO was really aiming against them, and that this was a first signal indicating to them, that they were the target. Now, as a result, Russia has decided on a new national security doctrine, which is a significant change, insofar as they say that they do not exclude the first use of nuclear weapons, even if the attack on them is only conventional.

Now, for electoral purposes, Putin and others have said, no, we really didn't mean it this way. But if you listen, for example, to what the President of Belarus, Lukachenko, is saying, who just announced the new military union between Belarus and Russia, to build a troop contingent of several hundred thousand people, against the new enemy, meaning Poland (because Poland is now the eastern border of NATO), then it becomes very clear how dangerous this situation has become.

Ukraine is a complete powderkeg. These reform policies, and manipulations from the West, have turned Ukraine into a de facto dictatorship. Again, I doubt very much that Ukraine ever will become a NATO member, but it will be destroyed as part of this glacis conception.

The Ukrainian state is de facto bankrupt. They have to pay $3 billion to service the foreign debt this year, and they have $1 billion in reserves left. And it's a completely terrible economic catastrophe in this country.

Now, Defense Secretary Cohen, at the annual Wehrkunde conference, a big military conference which takes place every year in Munich, announced, somewhat surprisingly, that there is an enormous threat to the United States from the so-called rogue states. And then he lists those rogue states, as being Iraq, Iran, Libya, now North Korea. Now, there is something very nasty developing concerning Iraq. We have all kinds of signs that some new operation is being prepared. The German United Nations coordinator for the Iraqi food distribution, just resigned in protest against the continuous sanctions, and the devastating effects this has on the civilian population in Iraq. And we have indications that something more is behind that.

But, the claim that there are missile threats from these rogue states, is then being used to justify the need for a national missile defense program.

General Leonid Ivashov, from the General Staff of Russia, the Russian Armed Forces, immediately countered what Secretary Cohen said, by saying it was ridiculous to speak of a North Korean threat, because this country had no economic basis for such an attack at all. And it is only a disguise for the fact that the U.S. National Missile Defense System would be aimed against Russia and China. And I can assure you, that people in Russia are convinced that Brzezinski is not a lone voice, when he says that Russia should be split up. And it is also clear that people in China are fully aware of the fact that there are certain factions in the United States, Great Britain, and elsewhere, who are determined to prevent China from becoming a superpower, which is estimated to occur around the year 2010.

But the most sensitive strategic situation for China right now, is the Taiwan situation, where the present pro-Japanese, pro-Anglo-American President, Lee Teng-hui, who last summer had said that from now on, the relationship between the mainland and Taiwan, should be like that between two different states--which is completely unacceptable for the mainland--is a very tense situation. There will be an election in Taiwan on the 18th of March, and, depending on who will be the new President, we could have an early eruption of a conflict over Taiwan.

In the U.S. Congress, a bill was passed just recently, the so-called Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, with a vote of 341 to 70, which was immediately denounced by the Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister, Yang Yeshi, as a serious encroachment on China's sovereignty, and a gross interference in China's internal affairs. The reason for this heavy statement, was that this Act would establish direct military communication between Washington and Taipei, expand the U.S. training of Taiwanese officers, and basically include Taiwan in the planned National Missile Defense system over the United States and Japan.

Now it is exactly that kind of policy, which Clinton had already announced that he would veto, which will possibly lead to an early war between the United States and China. And here you have a blatant example of the method of war games, of taking real situations, and putting them into computer simulations, which can eventually lead to World War III.

The Weinberger war scenario-

Sir Caspar Weinberger--and I remind you that Sir Caspar Weinberger, the great American patriot, received the honorary knighthood, Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, from Queen Elizabeth personally--has written a book, which was published in 1996, The Next War, with an introduction by Lady Margaret Thatcher.

Now, to predict the performance of U.S. forces, and the outcome for America and her allies, the authors used the latest and most authoritative assessment of our technological resources, troop preparedness, and development capabilities, modelling their narrative on the Pentagon computerized war simulations (Figure 1).

Factors in projecting the cause of events, are geography, demographics, the so-called psychological traits of leaders (and how ridiculous that is, I will show you in a second); the political interests are just some of the additional ingredients which go into this war game mix.

Now, the Pentagon regularly conducts such fictional computerized war games, in which the U.S. is pitted against a variety of adversaries, under multiple conditions. And, interestingly, in this Weinberger book, they have simulations of such wars against North Korea and China, Iran, Mexico, Russia, and surprisingly, Japan.

Now, I will describe to you the scenario used in the war between the United States and North Korea and China, to give you the kind of thinking which these people are exhibiting.

It starts off that Kim Il-sung of North Korea, and Gen. Hu Chi, the chief of China's Central Military Commission, meet. They decide to launch a dual military action against South Korea and Taiwan. The assumption is that the U.S. cannot deal with two situations at the same time.

On the 15th of April, 1998, the KPA tank formations from North Korea move across the border into South Korea. The U.S. Air Force engages KPA air forces in battle. If the Republic of Korea and the Second Division cannot hold, the Allied air bases in South Korea would be overrun in a matter of days. That would compel the U.S. Air Force to retreat to Japan, seriously complicating air operations. Air power could help defeat the enemy, but it alone could not win the war.

Then the narrative describes how Kim Il-sung is sitting in his bunker, detached from carnage and violence.

The attack on South Korea puts the U.S. forces around the world on a full alert. They expect a war with China to start soon. Meanwhile, North Korea is on a total war footing; 800,000 armed forces, and 4 million military reservists are on the move. Soon, U.S. forces and Korean forces have to flee Seoul and retreat to Taegu, a base, and basically the U.S. is confident of winning the air battle, but worried about the situation on the ground.

Two days after the North Koreans cross the Demilitarized Zone, Japan enters the war. Tokyo agrees to commit air, naval, and limited ground forces. The government allows the U.S. Air Force access to several air bases on the Japanese archipelago, since in South Korea, the U.S. air bases will be overrun within days. Soon, Eagles from the 366th Tactical Wing, take off from Okinawa.

One day later, mainland China attacks the island of Quemoy, and Taiwan itself. The U.S. Marine Expeditionary Force, based in Okinawa, is already en route from Pusan to Taegu. The U.S. Army Second Division retreats to Taegu; Seoul and Quemoy fall on the same day. U.S. military commanders fear that if they effectively stop the KPA offensive, North Korea will use nuclear weapons. The elimination of North Korean nuclear weapons, therefore, is the most pressing concern.

The U.S. has 500 combat aircraft in the area, including 120 U.S. Air Force planes in Japan, the U.S. Seventh Fleet is deployed in the Sea of Japan, two aircraft carriers with a total of 116 strike and fighter aircraft.

The frightening shadow of KPA nuclear weapons still hangs over the Peninsula. The KPA not only has missiles that could hit U.S. forces in South Korea, but also possesses the No-Dong-X ballistic missile, that could strike Japan, and even the West Coast of the United States, and all of Alaska. Since the United States has no defense against ballistic missiles, the only chance is to fight, find the sites, and hit them before these weapons can be launched. The problem is, if you do not hit them all at once, Pyongyang could be tempted to strike.

The idea is, use them, or lose them.

In the meantime, the question arises whether a U.S. war with China is on the agenda, since Taiwan is running the risk of occupation, if the U.S. does not support Taiwan. U.S. intelligence observers detect a full mobilization of the PLA forces. Over 1,000 aircraft from the mainland are now involved in operations against Taiwan. Taiwan's defense system has not advanced enough, because of U.S. reluctance to sell materiel to them, in order not to upset Beijing.

And then Weinberger says, ``When General Hu heard the news about the stunning victory of mainland airplanes in Taiwan, he had no expression of joy.''

And now comes one of these ``deep insights'' into the psychological traits of leaders. ``In fact, he was almost emotionless, as he shoveled food in his mouth. Hu always ate with the speed of a small dog, consuming meat in the presence of a larger dog.''

Now, that shows the level of thinking, and I can assure you, it is not better concerning the other assumptions.

In the meantime, U.S. forces, and KPA forces in South Korea, get deadlocked.

North Korea fires an M-11 single-stage missile, topped with a 20 kiloton warhead, against the 25th division of Taegu. The U.S. President orders an immediate counterstrike.

General Hu accuses President Kim of madness, and impatiently waits for Taipei to surrender. War between the United States and China now seems to be inevitable.

But the Taiwanese fleet makes a surprise attack on the mainland fleet, and then American carriers, battle groups, are cutting into the South China Sea. An EC2A reconnaissance plane gets shot down, and the order for a full contingent of American fighter aircraft to be launched from both carriers is given. The U.S. is now at war with China.

Then there is a big psychological reflection. General Hu says, ``What is at stake?'' If his gambit succeeded, his ambition told him that China would rewrite the entire international political order. A humbled America would be supplanted by a fast-rising, expansive China, eager to protect its interest. However, the consequences of failure would be just as revolutionary. Defeat would mean an overthrow of the Chinese domestic order, the likely dismembering of the Communist state, and the birth of a westernized regime.

So obviously, that is what the concern is, in terms of the future relations.

Then the book continues to describe what happens. ``The killing fields west of Taegu were unlike anything even the most hardened veterans had seen in combat. Remnants of nuclear radiation still clung in the air. The walking ill were a common sight, easily recognized by their thinning hair, persistent vomiting, and heavy fatigue.''

What follows is an allied counterattack, including forces from Japan, France, and Great Britain. Eventually China sends six rockets to Okinawa; five get intercepted by Patriots, but one gets through. It only has a conventional warhead, and therefore it's understood as a signal, as a warning, against further attacks on the mainland.

In the meantime, a top North Korean general assassinates Kim Il-sung, because he thinks it's crazy to throw around nuclear weapons, but eventually the situation requires China to use a nuclear weapon, and throws it at the Second Armored Division. Both sides then start to negotiate an end to the war.

Now, the story ends, with a so-called postwar strategic assessment by the Department of Defense, that the U.S. suffered 18,124 casualties, and that many of these deaths could have been avoided. For several years, the United States possessed the technological ability to develop and to deploy theater missile-defense systems. However, the failure of previous administrations to develop, and to deploy, these systems, led directly to the loss of life. This conflict also exposed the deficiencies of American policy toward Taiwan. Containment of China requires that America allow for the role of advanced aircraft, air defense systems, and naval vessels to Taipei. We should anticipate further conflict with China in the not-too-distant future. Computer simulations conducted by the Naval War College in 1994 and the CIA in 1995, predicted that a war between the United States and China in 2005, would lead probably to a victory for Beijing.

``Conclusion: failure to expand American military capabilities, and to support the procurement of advanced weapons systems by Taiwan, will doom the United States to further defeats in Asia.''

Now, when you read this, you can dismiss it, it's just stupid fiction. But the scary thing is, that Weinberger, who was after all Defense Secretary in the Reagan administration, and a British asset, as became obvious later, for those who couldn't see it before, this person is part of the Republican military establishment. And while Weinberger now works with Forbes, Forbes magazine, he is in the orbit of what the Bush-McCain policy would be. And the scary thing is that despite President Clinton's genuine efforts--and I really believe that he genuinely wanted to have a positive relation with China, a strategic partnership--this policy, as it is expressed in this war game, has been on auto-pilot, and is now being implemented by people in the Pentagon, by Defense Secretary Cohen, and the whole discussion about the TMD is exactly what this was aiming at.

Now, as you could see, the assumptions of this scenario are all completely ridiculous. It shows no understanding about the reality of China, the old history, the beautiful cultural traditions; it has no real understanding of what China's intentions are. That China has no interest whatsoever in going to war with anybody, let alone the United States. But it is the kind of thinking which, for sure, will lead to World War III.

And the reason I spent some time to show you this scenario, is because, if you read the whole book, and similar new books which have come out, it shows how their planned confrontation with Iran, Iraq, and all the other ``rogue'' countries is viewed.

What went wrong in America?

Now, let us take a step back, and look at the world, at what Anglo-American unilateralism is doing right now to the world. Not too long ago, there was once the idea that one country would dominate the world. And the 12 years of Nazism led to a total catastrophe.

Afterwards, in 1945, people were shocked, and they said, ``How could this happen? How could the beautiful Germany, the country of Schiller and Beethoven, fall so low?'' And there are many explanations of how the beautiful image of man of the German Classical period, of the Weimar Classics, step by step, turned into cultural pessimism. And maybe it is high time that we, today, ask ourselves, before World War III happens, how could it happen that the United States, the first true sovereign republic, the first sovereign nation-state, the Beacon of hope, the Temple of Liberty, has turned into a country which is feared around the world.

I assure you, I know for a fact, and I can bring thousands and thousands of witnesses: The United States is feared in Africa, by all the good forces. It's feared by many people in Latin America, and in Asia. It is no longer trusted as a strategic partner by Russia and China. But it is now regarded as the new enemy, aiming to destroy these countries.

Sure, we know a good deal about how this happened. The role of the British, the assassination of McKinley, [the roles of] Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, how the United States entered World War|I on the side of the British, and that Franklin D. Roosevelt died too early. But we have to look very, very strongly, at what went wrong subjectively; what was the process which allowed things to go so far, that today the youth of America is so dangerous, as we have seen in all these incidents, like Littleton.

Now, why is it that the American population allows the institutions of the BAC oligarchy to become such a threat in the world? How could it be that the country of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy Adams, Lincoln, and FDR, became like this?

I started to look at some of the things Lyn [Lyndon LaRouche] has been talking about, the experience from World War II, when it was, in a certain sense, self-evident that the United States would help the rest of the world to overcome their underdevelopment with Western technology.

White collar' moral corruption

Lyn has talked many times about the corruption of his peers in the postwar period, and I studied this a little bit, because I think if you want to see how this step-by-step corruption occurred, you really have to look at what went wrong in the period of the end of the '40s, the begining of the '50s.

I read a couple of books. One of them is called White Collar, and you get a real insight, because what they describe are the characteristic changes of American society, in this period. Lyn was talking yesterday about the insanity of the population--and the funny thing is that this author describes it as a psychiatric investigation.

By and large, the changes that took place in the Truman period, the so-called McCarthy period, the development of suburbia and the values associated with it, the development of a greed for gain, that people more and more, in suburbia, were concerned with trivial affairs, which absorbed their attention, and shaped their characters. The children of these families, who then became the Baby Boomers, often were the objects upon which parental frustrations were projected. So, the parents either burdened them with overindulgence, fighting, competing for their affection, or imposed strong discipline, so that the child would ``amount to something.''

Generally, there was much misery and defeat for these youth.

The desire for gain became uppermost, and spread into all of social life. There was a shift from the old entrepreneur, to a new type of entrepreneur. For the old one, wealth was not a value in itself, but rather a means for an unruffled way of life. The old middle class, about whom another author, W.E.H. Lecky, wrote in 1896, was distinguished beyond all others for its political independence, its caution, its solid practical intelligence, its steady industry, its moral standard, a class of serious moral habits, filled with its own dignity. No longer is there the effective will to power of the old middle class, but rather the tenacious will to fight off encircling competitive menaces.

From this series of small-scale wretchedness, a fretful assertiveness is fed. Human relations are poisoned, and a personality is formed with whom it is not pleasant to exchange political greetings.

The old middle class had a civic spirit, where people would try to benefit the community by voluntary work for its public enterprises. Then, big business moved into the small towns and suburbs, and the issue became to be invited to their social affairs, to marry your children into these circles. And those who could not keep up with the Joneses, or would refuse to recognize this new dynamic, they would be regarded either as eccentric dwarfs, or cheap imitations. The wives of the officialdom of the big firms, became the models for the wives of the old middle class. And the biggest crisis in these suburbs, was not to be invited.

A new type of entrepreneur emerged--the idea was to get ahead. Don't expect that things can be done legitimately. And often these new types were not so bright, and it was hard to say if they could get ahead based on their own wits, or the lack of wits of others. The old captains of industry were replaced by managers, the CEOs. The new elite was the people who had the most of whatever there was to have.

Also, the old professions, such as medicine and law, were invaded by the managerial demiurge. Instead of the old family doctor, the bureaucratization of medicine began. The effect of this bureaucratization was that it sowed the seed of corruption. When irresponsible decisions prevail, and values are not proportionately distributed, universal deception must be practiced by and for those who make the decisions.

Now, the intellectuals who worked for these bureaucracies imposed on themselves a mental self-censorship, to have their published and spoken opinions conform with what they thought was the opinion of the organization they worked for. So they became mouthpieces, rather than truth-seeking people. Perhaps the intellectuals were always drawn into the orbit of the ruling class, but there, in the middle of the twentieth century, the recoil from detachment and the falling into line, seems more organized, more solidly rooted, in the centralization of power. Intellectuals became helpless in a fundamental sense, that they felt that they could not control what they were able to foresee. Naturally, such frustrations only would arise in those who had a feeling, a compulsion, to act, because the detached spectator would not even feel his helplessness, because he never tried to surmount it.

Now, for the political man, there was a dilemma, because if he tried to state his convictions, he could never have the chance to win power. If he behaved realistically, that is, in line with the major parties, he would not be able to sustain any enthusiasm for politics. And the artists, the independent artists and intellectuals, who normally are the ones who should be able to resist stereotyping, and consequently the death of creativity, they were pulled more and more into the demand of power as well.

The channels of communication became more and more monopolized by the political party machines, based on vested shams who continued to monopolize the chances of effective political organization. So, the opportunities to act, and communicate politically, became minimized, and the intellectuals became employees of tendencies they opposed, and were opposite to what they would like to stand for. This all gave people a sense of defeat and powerlessness, and they invented for that the cult of alienation, and the fetish of objectivity.

There was, at the same time, a change in the identity of the salesperson. The old salesperson would try to improve things for the customer, and would have some professional pride, to make things work better. Now, there would be a sense of powerlessness: People would turn into social pretenders--saying, ``I really don't have to work, I'm just doing it for the fun of it''--and at the same time, there was a change in the white collar workers, with this bureaucratization, where basically, the key question was the hierarchy in the office: who can give the orders.

And let me just tell you. One thing which is the most striking for any European who comes to America, is this unbelievable hierarchical snobbism, that whoever has epaulets is allowed to say something, and somebody who may not be in the position, but has very good ideas, is completely ignored.

Now, this has to do with the fictitious sense of closeness to the manager or the boss. That this closeness actually brings prestige. So if you can say, ``the boss said,'' that gives you authority, and rarely ever, do the people themselves have such authority. But by inner identification, they often have a strong illusion of authority, and by outward manner they impress it on others.

Then there is the status panic, the struggle for appearance, not truth. Therefore, the leisure of many middle-class people is entirely taken up by attempts to gratify their status claims. You see that, because if you go to a mall, you see these poor people who work all week and are two hours in a traffic jam, so they have really no time whatsoever, but then, on their free days, they go to these ugly, terrible malls, just to ``keep up with the Joneses,'' and that way their whole life is taken away.

So, just as work is made empty by the process of self-lament, so leisure is made hollow by status snobbery and the demands of emulative consumption. One does not make much of a showing, except by the unremitting demonstration of the ability to pay. This is the only means to impress others. So you have to have the appearance of success rather than substance. Therefore, emotions become a ceremonial gesture by which status is claimed, alienated from the inner feeling they supposedly express.

Vacation is the high point of status change, because one can buy the feeling of a higher status, even if it's only for one week. And for this experience once a year, often long stretches of gray workdays are taken into account.

Now, I think you get the flavor of how people in suburban life turned into phonies, and why these parents of the Baby Boomers were not able to instill that quality of truth-seeking in their children which would have prevented them from becoming an easy prey for the kinds of cultural paradigm shifts which the oligarchy then imposed in the middle of the '60s, with the sex-drug-rock counterculture and the utopia of the post-industrial society.

So, if you look at the corruption of Lyn's peers, how they were unable to prevent the Baby Boomers from turning into such spoiled brats, and how these Baby Boomer parents are unable to protect their children from what is being done to them now, then you see the full tragedy of American cultural decay.

Attack on the sovereign nation-state

Now let me--before I come to the actual point of my presentation, I would like to add one more reflection. As part of the total globalization and the effort to establish world government, there is presently taking place a complete attack on the sovereign nation-state around the world. The form it takes in Europe is to basically attack, with corruption scandals--in Italy, which is already completely destroyed, in one sense, but also in Germany and France; then you have this farce around this so-called new danger around Haider in Austria, which is a complete joke. Where were the demonstrations against Margaret Thatcher, who was worse than Haider in every respect of policy? But, if you look at what happens in Germany right now, where Kohl, the Chancellor of unification, possibly could go to jail, the CDU, the most state-caring party of the postwar period, is in a deep crisis, and will have to pay 40 million deutschemark fines, or something, for the corruption and bribes they took.

Now, I have stated elsewhere, and I will not do that at this point, that the context of this present dismantling of the political institutions in Germany was the geopolitical decisions around German reunification in 1989-90, the Gulf War, the imposition of the European Monetary Union, and the elimination of the German mark. But now, I just want to identify this context here. I want to basically talk about the method of this corruption, because it is true, bribes were given, millions of marks were distributed, but it is unbelievable how now everybody is completely acting out their part in a script of a soap opera, leading to the total self-destruction of the German political system. And I can only tell you, that what is happening now in Germany, can only be compared to the barrage of TV and radio news about the impeachment of Clinton--Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky--I mean, you have a similar attack on the political system right now in Germany, completely dominating everything.

But, I want to look at that for a different reason, because it is extremely important that this is not just a degeneration, but that you can study that corruption is the method of the oligarchy, and is the method of the system.

Richter's `high art' of corruption -

Now, I found a very revealing book, which, unfortunately only exists in German, but it is definitely worth reading. It's called The High Art of Corruption, written by a very evil person called Horst-Eberhard Richter, who develops in this book, in a systematic fashion, why corruption is an indispensable instrument of the ruling class. He calls openly for the rehabilitation of corruption as a legitimate method, and describes how he has training seminars for top managers and politicians in the Ars Corrumpendi, the Art of Corrupting. He says:

``Who wants to govern must corrupt. The interaction of the corruptors and the willingness of the corrupted is what creates and maintains order. Since the real leading elites in society only consist of a very small number of people, discreet training, in the form of individual instruction, and in smaller seminars, is not problematic.''

And then he advocates the use of paragons of corruption as guiding stars, and then quotes Machiavelli to the effect that the corrupter has to be convinced that the corrupted ones are all latently corrupt. If he ever would trust that they were capable of love of humanity, truthfulness, and justice, he would be lost. In human history, now and again there appear longings for a utopian society of mildness and love. Even, rarely, a top politician or top manager becomes infected by this virus. That is then a complete catastrophe. And therefore, Richter uses his training seminars to do everything to stop such a person and to have them leave his course as happy, power-egocentrics, and unencumbered ``elbow-athletes.''

So, for the psychological fitness training to succeed, he ways, it's important to have a scientific legitimization, and the key is to get rid of this uncomfortable idea of a conscience. And he wants to demonstrate that this is a completely artificial construct, and the so-called proof is that a small child has no conscience whatsoever, because it rips out the legs of a fly, it tortures little animals in general, destroys everything it can get ahold of. Then he says, ``The goals of our society--expansion, strength, increase of power--demand victory types who represent these goals. But only he can win who wants to defeat others, expand, push others back, occupy power and increase it, keep others down. The myth of conscience would be, should our best fall for it, the death of progress.''

Then he says, the biggest disappointment is if some among his students who are highly gifted, stick to this belief of a universally binding conscience. And he says, therefore, yeah sure, this love thing, it occurs because there is a basic instinct of species preservation, and that is better preserved in women, because they have to take care of infants, but women in leadership are only a temporary viral infection, one hopes.

And then he says, ``In the old days, power elites knew exactly how to get rid of dangerous rebels who wanted to change the world based on their conscience. Socrates had to drink poison when he tried to shake public dogmas, and tried to teach the youth an ethic of truth. Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross for his teaching of agape and love of mankind.''

And then he says, ``To be blunt, conscience has no place in politics because that means the inability to act. Rather than having an ethic of conscience, let's have an ethic of responsibility, because this is a nice flexible notion.'' And then he quotes Max Weber, ``No ethics in the world gets around the fact that for the achievement of good aims, in many cases, one has to use morally doubtful or dangerous means.''

Look at it this way: The morals of the people got corrupted, but the people who did the corrupting did it very consciously. The people who imposed all these value shifts, away from inner-directed people, away from truth-seeking people, people who wanted to work for the general welfare, who wanted to have a meaningful life, turning them into greedy monsters, people only concerned with their gratification, with their pleasures--all these changes which have occurred in the 50 years since the Second World War--there was an elite all the time, sitting somewhere at Tavistock or MIT or I don't know exactly where, who thought, how can we corrupt the people consciously?

And, you know, Kohl is a typical example, because while he did certain things for unification, after he was caught with these millions of bribes, he said, ``I only took these millions for the sake of the party.'' Now, it turns out that it was neither good for the party, because the party is now dissolving, nor was it good for the country, because it's now being destroyed as a result of this.

Then the book continues with a chapter called ``Masters and Idiots.'' And Richter says: ``It's a big advantage in Germany that the tendency to stick to principles has led to a situation where, in no other country has one been so successful in keeping critical intellectuals, sensitive aesthetical humanists, totally separated from the political and economic power centers. This surgical removal of the so-called conscience from politics and economics naturally is not a German invention, but''--he gives the credit to the British Enlightenment, Mandeville, and others. ``Universities have perfectly adopted this new trend to have the inner-world subjects where one can think as much as one wants about the ennoblement of the soul, the inner purification of social harmony, separated from the power-oriented subjects.''

In his training courses, Richter makes sure to discourage sensitive lilies: The inner-world-oriented ones have a deal with the power-oriented ones: ``If you don't intrude in my inner world, you can do, in the sphere of the economy and politics, what you want.'' The powerful one, on the other side, says, ``In return for your willingness to give up any effort to realize your ideals in reality, I give you a false freedom. You can have a total contempt for me, but you have the right to develop any feeling of God-likeness, and you can even speak about it.'' Preventing the virus of utopian idealism from breaking out of the reservation of the inner world, is the key issue.

``If, however, an original thinker comes along, who cannot be bought off through prizes, honors, and so forth, then one has to be aware of the beginnings. In the name of accepted norms and political standards, they have to be eliminated from the realm of power, driven back into the ghetto of intellect, firebranded as rats and roaches.''

Now, if you think of what they have done to Lyn and to us, I think that this gives you a very good insight into why they fear that a person who talks about the soul, about conscience in this way, is regarded by the oligarchy as such a threat.

Then Richter talks about brainwashing through TV. He says that ``the TV, used in an appropriate fashion, is a most wonderful instrument for mental corruption--one does not have to teach anybody in the power elite. It corresponds to the unconscious desire not to have to think yourself.'' Then he advocates bite-sized answers, because ``no matter what the question is, the bite-sized answer immediately covers the issue up and prevents deeper reflections. The TV man actually likes actuality, not history. The audience only sees the top of the process, and not its historical evolution, and especially not any directionality into the future.'' He calls this bite-sized thinking a ``synthetic Alzheimer's disease.''

The brainwashing of American children

So, if what Richter describes for Germany is true, I can assure you, it is worse by several orders of magnitude for the United States. And, I come now to the last chapter of this report. And again, I want to pose the question: How come the American people have become so passive, that only 30% of the eligible voters vote? And even that doesn't mean much, because if the election is rigged between the leadership of the two parties and the media, there remains actually no choice. But the more compelling question is, how come the American people have become so indifferent to the suffering in the world, which is so obvious? How have they become so credulous, that they think they live in prosperity when they are only bound by the chains of illusion? It is only explainable by the long story of the mind-war escalating step-by-step, conducted by the oligarchs, getting people to accept more corruption, and more corruption. And the role of the media and the entertainment are the most crucial thing. A process over years and years has made violence and perversion more acceptable; people don't even notice it any more.

Now, I'm going to present to you an overdose of the kind of thing that children see every day on TV all the time. And I'm only doing this, so that you can recognize this as the enemy.

Actually, I would like to ask all the children in the room, when the videoclip starts, to close your eyes. And I put you on your honor, that you will only open your eyes when I say you should do so.

The first clip I'm going to show you, from ``Friday, the 13th,'' is actually a very old one. It's made in the '60s, when the Baby Boomers were teenagers, and it is today a so-called cult movie.

Scary sounds. ``It must be my imagination.'' Screams. ``Bill|...'' Screams. Scary music. ``Kill her, Mommy. Kill her.''

``She can't hide. No place to hide.''

More scary music. Screams.

Now, this is an old-fashioned horror movie, but it is one of the first movies, to my knowledge, where the notion of a killing-spree, is the ultimate purpose of the movie, where there is absolutely no positive resolution, no lesson to be learned, as in a Classical drama, but only a senseless killing which leaves people with a complete sense of horror.

Now already in 1972, the Surgeon General's report was already warning about a link between media violence and violent behavior of children. The American Medical Association, years ago, already said that media violence is America's number-one health-care emergency. Why is there such a constant denial and obfuscation of that fact? The answer is that the people who should report about it are the very people who are doing it, namely, the national media, the television industry, and they know that they are the responsible ones, as military psychologist Lt. Col. David Grossman says.

Now, a child who watches this, or who watches [someone] beat his Mom, or who watches 100 violent acts on TV, is primed to repeat these actions in the future. Why does a child repeat behavior? Because the behavior children observe in the first five years of their lives cannot be unlearned.

I'll give you another short example of what one can see, and versions thereof, because there are literally thousands of such things on TV every day.

Voice: ``Twelve in the night. Feasting on blood and the sins of our flesh. The haunt of their power lies in the bloodstone.''

Another voice: ``She stole the stone from me.''

Third voice: ``Kill her. BLOOD!'' Screams.

Voice: ``An evil from another dimension has possessed the children.''

Voice: ``She is the first to be sacrificed!''

Voice: ``It's controlling their minds and feeding their hates.''

Voice: ``Presenting Clyde Barker, `The Art of Horror,' a spellbinding 30-minute look at the man who created the classic `Hellraiser' film series.''

Voice: ``If you do have a motivation, however outrageous it is, however erotic, however dark, however forbidden the imagery is, I think people have an appetite for it. So I always say, just get on and do it. If we care about the craft we're involved in, we care about it because it can communicate to large numbers of people.''

Screams. Loud music, noise.

``Jesus Christ!''

``Not quite.'' More screams.

Zepp-LaRouche: If you are horrified, that's good, because I want you to be horrified.

Long before the massacre in Columbine High School in Littleton took place, which caused a national outcry, there were dozens and dozens of cases of violence and even killings in schools and neighborhoods, which never made it beyond the local news. On Dec. 1, 1997, in Paducah, Kentucky, the 14-year-old Michael Carneal took six guns, waited for the daily prayer session in the school to stop, and then shot three girls: Jessica James, Kayce Steger, Nicole Marie Hadley, and wounded five others. Later, the police seized his computer, and it turns out that he was an avid computer user, who had looked many times on the Internet for obscene and violent movies. One of the movies he was hooked on, was called ``Basketball Diaries,'' together with another one called ``Natural Born Killers,'' which also played a key role in the Littleton massacre. Here is a film clip:

Rock music. Laughter. Gunshots. ``Greasy, f-- pig!|... You're less than a man. Are you clean? or are you sloppy and wet?''
``You stupid b--!'' Crash. Ghoulish laughter. Screams.

Zepp-LaRouche: Now they burn the mother in the bed, after they have stabbed and drowned the father.

Screams. Rock music. ``They're hot. They're hot.''

Zepp-LaRouche: Here, they're being celebrated by teenagers around the world as heroes, shown on TV, because they killed Mother and Father.

Rock music. Yelling. Gunshots. Screams. ``You ain't seen nothin' yet.'' Laughter.

``Sh-- man. I'm a natural-born killer.''

Zepp-LaRouche: Now, from the ``Basketball Diaries'':

``It was Death for the first time. His face was thin and wrinkled, almost ape-like. His hair, just gray patches on his scalp. He looked 60 years old, and he was 16.

Rock song: He was 12 years old, fell from the roof on East Two-Nine. Kathy was 11 when she pulled the plug; 20 cigarettes and a bottle of wine; Bobby ... looked like 55 when he died. He was a friend of mine.

``Might as well mainline. I'm scared of needles. But I gave in.'' Loud music.

Zepp-LaRouche: The role of drugs is an extremely crucial element in this:

``It was like a long heatwave through my body. Any ache or pain or sadness or guilty feeling was completely flushed out.''

Woman's voice: ``You just go right down to this corner and you make a left. It's right there. What are you doing? Let go. Let go. Let go of that [loud noises, scuffle]--SCREAMS.

Male voice: ``What are you doin'?

Screams. ``GO!'' Traffic noise.

Loud rock music.

Boy goes into the classroom and shoots the students and the teacher.

Zepp-LaRouche: Now, this is exactly the scene which was repeated in Littleton, modelled on this.

Heavy metal rock; percussive sounds. Weird voices. Screams. Roars. Male voice: ``I love the ritual.''

Female voice: ``Oh, Mary, if you can....'' Drug dealers in action are shown.

Zepp-LaRouche: This is what the head of the New York stock exchange supports, Mr. Grasso.

More rock music. ``F-- em!''

``What's your problem, man?''

``What's your problem, man?''

``You sold my girlfriend some sh-- the other day, you almost killed her. What'd you put in it--rat poison?''

``Hey, Mom, I need you to give me some money. Okay?

``I want the money. I want the money in the house. Where's the f-- money?'' Aagghh! Screams. ``NO!!''

Rock music. Heavy beat.
(end clip)

Zepp LaRouche: So, I hope that you see that this is going on in America every day. When the police looked into the computer games that Michael Carneal had used, they discovered that he was also hooked on the famous game ``Doom,'' which is a pattern of moving quickly from one target to another with an emphasis on headshots. Carneal, a 14-year-old boy, who had never shot a gun before, hit eight people with eight bullets, five to the head, three in the torso.

The parents of the three girls who were killed are now suing the producers of these satanic video games and movies in a $130 million suit. The attorneys make the argument that the ``Basketball Diaries'' movie represents a nihilistic glamorization of irresponsible sex, senseless and gratuitous violence, hatred of religion, disregard of authority, castigation of family, drug use, and other self-destructive behavior, and that therefore, it is a harmful influence on impressionable minors.

The military psychologist Colonel Grossman, who teaches courses on the psychology of killing to the Green Berets and Federal agents, has been hired as an expert witness in this case. He points out that point-and-shoot video games have the same effect as military training techniques used to break down a soldier's aversion to killing. These games, however, he says, are more powerful than military training games. Therefore, the United States Marines has now bought a version of this ``Doom'' to train their soldiers.

Some games incorporate role-playing elements and the creation of a plot with characters. What makes these games unlike any other form of media violence, is that you are not just watching a movie, you are in the movie. You are not just fascinated by Schwarzenegger blasting a bad guy to pieces. You are actually pulling the trigger. Getting killed is a drag, because suddenly the game is over, and the only way to remain master of it in this intoxicating new universe, is to kill.

One father said, oh, it's not so bad, because it gives the children a better sense of control. Because what they see in the news, they have no actual control over, but they can take this little piece of mirrored reality and control and beat it.

A later version of one of these computer games called ``Daikatana'' supposedly gives a new dimension of realism, taking advantage of the roaring processing speed of computers and powerful three-dimensional graphics, accelerator cards. Physical reality suggests that you are sitting in a chair, operating a mouse and a keyboard. The computer screen replaces your field of vision and you believe that you are actually creeping around a corner, afraid the enemy is lying in wait. You feel your pulse quicken. When the monster jumps out, real adrenalin roars through your body. Everything is so lifelike, you almost can feel the wet blood.

What this is, is that the oligarchy is consciously destroying whatever is human in the human being. It's using certain techniques for a deliberate behavior modification and even brainwashing, because this is brainwashing. If people see this again and again, their minds are dead.

So it's a very conscious policy by the oligarchy, by Hollywood, to dehumanize the population, to desensitize them, and to develop the idea that when you shoot, an automatic reaction sets in before you even have time to take a moral choice about what to do.

This is why these police shootings, like the famous [Diallo] case on trial in New York right now, where four policemen shot 41 bullets at an unarmed man, was just on the basis of such police training.

Now, if you are killing an object, thousands and thousands of times, it becomes your second nature. Now just confront with that what Moses Mendelssohn had said about Classical drama and why great Classical drama is necessary, so that people can confront themselves with the great issues, to train their emotion to feel noble and elevated so that when they are confronted with a moral choice in real life, that moral behavior becomes their second nature.

Now, one of the Littleton killers, Eric Harris, had worked up to 100 hours reprogramming the ``Doom'' video game to make it more or less explicitly the plan for his attack. Investigators of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles concluded that he had incorporated the Columbine High School floorplan into the game. So, Harris had reprogrammed the game also to be in a ``God'' mode, in which the player is invincible.

The cult of Pokémon

If this is horrible, and it is, there is something even more dangerous. It is something about which 99.9% of the parents are absolutely clueless. It is something which I have only known about for four weeks, and it's Pokémon, and it is, in the truest sense of the word, a bug which is infesting the minds of millions of children in America.

A couple of weeks ago, I got accidentally into a discussion with a little boy of six years old, who told me for the first time about Pokémon. I had never heard of it. And he was a very nice little boy, a very bright kid, and he was bubbling over, ``Pokémon this, Pokémon that.'' So, after half an hour of conversation, I was absolutely horrified about the set of values this little boy had adopted in the context of the Pokémon fever. For example, fighting is good, because you have more power to smash your enemy. You have to smash the poor, because the poor will become robbers and kill you, and therefore you have to kill them. And things like that. The little boy was just saying these things--no sign of compassion, and the most unbelievable prejudices. I was completely shocked, and that actually was the beginning of this project which I'm presenting to you today.

So, I tried to find out what this Pokémon was, and I was clueless, like all adults. I asked everybody, nobody knew; so I saw an advertisement in the Washington Post about a so-called Pokémon tournament in a mall near Washington. So, I took one Sunday afternoon and went there--and what there was, was a huge display--I mean, since all malls in America are the same, you can imagine, it went from Sears all the way to Hechts! So it started in front of Sears in the middle, inner aisle, and there was a big table, a display, where children were playing so-called Pokémon cards. It's the question--you can have more powerful cards. There are actually 150 Pokémons.

There's an unbelievably aggressive marketing strategy behind the tournament. The sales team is going to 20 American cities, inviting thousands and thousands of children to play in a tournament, get their name posted--it's a whole inner world.

There are actually 150 Pokémons. Pokémon is the short form of ``pocket monster,'' and these different pocket monsters have different powers, so you can play a game, a newer game, called a stadium game, where they have a big screen and 20 smaller screens, and mesmerized little children and their parents playing this. The idea is, you pick six Pokémons and you have four fighting techniques.

I asked some of the little girls and boys standing in line waiting to play this, ``Why do you like this game?'' And they said, ``Because they're fighting! Because they're fighting!''

I said, ``What's so great about fighting? Isn't it nicer if people love each other and get along well?''

``No! No! No!''

They were just like aggressive explosions. So, for the sake of this project, because I wanted to find out, I put myself in line waiting to play this Pokémon game, and after half an hour I was finally in the place, and I could play against a six-year-old.

So, the mystery dissolved very quickly, because once you know, it's very simple. As I said, you pick six or so of the 150 Pokémons, and you have four types of weapons in this particular game (there are other games), and then you can attack your opponent either through fire--you throw fire at them--or electricity, lightning, or you destroy them through seismic shock, and eventually you outdo your opponent.

It's totally mechanistic; there is no way to influence this game, other than this mechanistic pushing of the buttons. No creativity. No cognition. It is less than a Pavlovian dog, because the Pavlovian dog at least gets something to eat in the beginning.

So, I asked some parents, ``Don't you feel that this game will further the aggressions of the children?'' and these parents had no idea. They said, ``No, no, my child is not aggressive. These other children may be aggressive, but my child--not.''

Then I tried to actually get more involved and find out more about it, so I went to a video store, to see if I could get a video of this Pokémon, because I didn't want to waste money to buy a Game Boy, because only if you have a Game Boy can you play the Pokémon game. In this video store, I saw a father and a little son. And what did the father do, he looked at porno videos, violent videos, just stocking his weekend supply, and the little boy said, ``I want Pokémon! I want Pokémon!'' Naturally, the father had no idea, he wasn't interested in what the little boy was demanding, because he had his mind full of his own fantasies.

Now, next video clip please:

Sounds of crashing, smashing, screaming, ``Mommy Mommy.'' Electronically amplified voice over loudspeakers: ``Our next match is between Hit and Steel Dude, and Steel Dude is hard as a rock.'' ``Yo Dude, this time hit Hit???''

Sounds of crashing and thudding. Female voice: ``Don't show any mercy! Kick, kick, kick, kick.''

More sounds of electronic music thumping pounding. Unintelligible yelling. Screaming, sounds of engines vrooming.

Adult voice: ``You did it!'' Kid's voice: ``All right!''

More horrible sounds of voices, one voice cuts in, ``What are you doing?''

``Kick, Kick''

Voice sounding like Donald Duck: ``Your secret weapon is ready!''

``All you gotta do now is use this remote control.''

``Have Hit jump up and then flip the switch. One hundred thousand volts will run through the ring followed by an explosion.'' Maniacal laughter.

``One thing's wrong.''

Unintelligible screaming.

Kid's voice: ``All right! Use the seismic guns now.''

Crashing, screaming.

Kid's voice: ``We did it!''

Horrible noises.

``We did it!''

Sounds of audience cheering.

``It's been quite awhile since he sent me a new Pokémon. I wonder what he's captured this time?''

``What is that smell?''

Horrible noises, running water, panting and gasping.

``We could have suffocated.''

Donald Duck voice: ``The city has been plunged into darkness by a power failure.''

``A power failure is it? I can identify with failure.''

Zepp LaRouche: Now, that is what is on Fox TV every afternoon, on the children's program, and all the latch-key children and many others are consuming it. There's a whole industry around it, tee-shirts, bed sheets, watches, and many, many, many things.

Now you have to understand that this poisons the minds of children up from the level of three years old.

Now in these Pokémon cartoons--this comes from a cartoon series--you have eight- to ten-year-old kids who direct and fight these monsters.

For example, there's one story where Sabrina, one of the girls, gets attacked by the Dream-Eater, which is a gas Pokémon which sucks out the opponent's soul. (That's actually written there.) So, then you have a high-level haunter who appears suddenly, steals people's souls, and then vanishes. And there's a dialogue among the kids about what to do: ``We have vowed that we have our revenge, so we will keep fighting till the bitter end.''

Then they say about Sabrina, who is by now dead, because her soul has been sucked out, ``Who would have thought that such a sweet girl like her would become so consumed with the desire for revenge?'' Then they say, ``The haunter may have eaten her soul, but she's still able to tell us where she is, through telepathy.''

It's completely insane, and has no connection to reality, but it is a poisoning of the mind in the worst way.

As I said, they have an extremely aggressive marketing strategy. When I was in this mall, there were about 20 salespersons who were directing things, ``More light here, more sound there.'' There, children engaged, ``pull them here, pull them there.'' It was unbelievable, it was like an army trying to lure these children there. They tried to get them to become trainers of this game, and basically to get them into a Pokémon League. They say how you can get to the next store, which is the road to becoming the world's greatest trainer, so there really is an effort, and there's a craze--you should see these little kids, they are completely mesmerized. They are totally obsessed.

Now, there was one little girl in line, a tiny little girl. And I asked her Hispanic-looking father how old is she, and he said, three years old. And he was very proud that his little girl could already play this. Now, what does it do to the mind and soul of a three-year-old child, to play such a game, which is entirely based on fighting, aggression, attack, revenge, smashing your opponent? I asked one of the salesmen, who was maybe between 18 and 20 years old, if he played Pokémon too, and he said, ``Oh no, I play some of the more challenging games.'' And you know, obviously, Pokémon is the initiating soft drug leading to the hard drug.

Now as everybody knows, the minds of children are completely impressionable, because children learn primarily through imitation and through play. But what is there here to imitate? Aggression. And what is completely lacking? Love, compassion, joy, beauty. The play is completely mechanistic. It is exactly what Norbert Wiener poses as a task in his book Cybernetics, that one has to find a neurological mechanism, matching the theory of John Locke about the association of thought based on sensuous experience. Now in Pokémon, there is no discovery, there is no hypothesis, no creativity, no soul, no cognition. Pokémon is the Dream-Eater which sucks the soul out of the child and turns it into a potential little killing machine.

The parents of the three dead girls from the Paducah killing have sued the following video game and movie companies: ID Software, GT Interactive Software, Midway Home Entertainment, Atari Corporation, Interplay Production, Nintendo of America, Atavision, Hepcon Entertainment, Sony International, Interactive Studios of America, Eidos Interactive, and eight more companies. And the following movie producers: Time Warner, Polygram Film Entertainment, Island Pictures, Palm Pictures, New Line Cinema, and two Internet providers.

Now I think that's a good list for starters, and we should add the ones which are not yet on that.

Jack Thompson, one of the lawyers representing the parents, declared, ``We need a nuclear war against these people.'' And I agree.

Thompson is also working with teachers, parents, and students at a school in Flint, Michigam in a project to pay children to turn in their violent video games to be destroyed. I propose that that example be repeated throughout the United States and all over the world, because a truly Satanic oligarchy has declared war against our children. Let's declare war against them!

It is up to you if this country, and for that matter the rest of the world--because, as I tried to demonstrate, the large issues, the war games, and these computer games are based on the same method; therefore it is a question of the rest of the world--have a chance to survive only if these things are eliminated.

Don't worry about guns, because Pokémon-trained kids will kill you with fire, lightning, electricity, or anything else. And the more Internet connections to schools we have, if there are no fundamental changes in the education system, the more little monsters you will have--and they are not going to be Pokémon monsters.

And that is my report.



schiller@schillerinstitute.org

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