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The Only Solution: Bankruptcy Reorganization
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Creating a Generation of Future Leaders
On how the youth movement can function in the Americas, Peru in particular: I think it's the same as here. First of all, what we need is a youth movement which is not an ordinary kind of movement. We have around the planet, people are being destroyed. We don't have the ideas in circulation among existing so-called adult generations, as distinct from the youth themselves. We don't have the ideas in general circulation which are needed for civilization to survive. Now, what we'd hope is that we'd have youth in various countries, attacking the very same kinds of problems which I've laid out here, in the case of the youth movement here. Like Gauss's 1799 exposition on the fundamental principles of algebra, for reasons I've laid it out. They're certain principles which are extremely important, and the youth must master them. They must master them, not as learning, but as a discovery experience. It's the same in every country.
We must also have a kind of international consensus among the emerging generation. I mean, people now, 18 to 25, presumably, would be, within 10 to 15, 20 years, in key positions of leadership in all kinds of institutions in their respective countries. We must produce now, a generation in various countries, which thinks in the same intellectual language, the language of ideas and principles, as in any other country. They must also be able to translate what they see in one country into the thinking of another country. Thus, we will be fostering a generation of future leaders of nations, who will be qualified to keep intact and prosperous, this idea of an international community of principle among sovereign nation-states.
And the youth who are doing this today, should think of themselves in those terms. They should think of themselves as immortal, or becoming immortal. To spend their lives in such a way, that the safety and prosperity of future generations is guaranteed. And don't let any force of pessimism get in the way. We're going to win, because we must win. We can not have what is happening to humanity go on. We have to give humanity reason to hope. And I can tell you what I've seen around the world. When youth start to move in the direction that they've moved among some in the United States, it inspires people. The way the thing in Peru started, is because they were inspired with what we were doing here. It's going on in France with some enthusiasm, because of what we've done here. A little more reluctantly in Germany, but it will go on there too. The youth are not the problem; some of our old fogies are the problem.
So, it's an international movement. You have to think of yourself as a citizen of the world in one sense. You have to care. You have to recognize common problems. You have to, at the same time, understand the principle of sovereignty, of national sovereignty, that the processes of deliberation by which a people establishes and maintains its own government, is a cultural process which is peculiar to that people, and they must be able to proceed in that fashion. Therefore, they must be sovereign. But while they're separate and sovereign, such governments must have an understanding of a common principle, and what the youth movements must think of, is the common principle. They'll get enough of the chauvinism easily the other way. They don't need that. The chauvinism comes easily. It's the sense of universal principle which is difficult to get.
Simply, I would say: more cooperation, more exchange, to have a sense of national sovereignty, national purpose, national mission, but also a community of principle around the kinds of things we've done as a pilot experiment here in the United States for the past three or four years.
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