May 1, 2026 (EIRNS)—The 152nd consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) on Friday, May 1, began with an update from coalition initiator and Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche. “We are seeing day by day what in the history books probably will be reported as the destruction of the presidency of U.S. President Donald Trump,” she said. Not one of the Iran war aims has been reached. “The status of the United States as the unipolar world power, claiming that they can keep control over the world … that is the emperor without clothes in front of the eyes of the whole world.” Moving on to the April 27-30 visit to the United States by the United Kingdom’s King Charles III, she said, “King Charles … tried to deny the importance of the American Revolution altogether. I mean, the American Revolution was the first anti-imperial revolution.” Trump attempted to negate its significance when he called it the “Anglo-American Revolution.”
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), reported that Trump says Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni insults Jesus; her responses were polemical, including: “Do you know what insults Jesus? Bombing innocent schools in Iran and sending our brave men and women to die in another endless war, hiding the Epstein files and then refusing to prosecute anyone involved.”
He went on to say that “The President of Russia [Vladimir Putin] pointed out that if the United States and Israel resume military action, this would inevitably lead to an extremely adverse consequence, not only for Iran, but for Iranʼs neighbors…. Putin stressed that a ground operation on Iranian territory would be particularly unacceptable and dangerous.”
Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, and former UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories from 2008 to 2014, addressed the April 27-30 U.S. visit of King Charles, saying: “Trump himself envisions his ultimate identity to be the first American king. And in that sense, he’s trying to emulate the externality of what it means to be a dynastic leader, who has no respect for restraints other than his own internal will and moral priorities…. And it is ironic, of course, that it comes at the [250th] anniversary of the American Revolution. And itʼs the most perverse celebration of that revolution, then one could dream up.” He described the United States as “an empire in decline,” that was only able to use its mammoth military to intimidate the rest of the world. “And this brings us to this abyss that frightens our main supposed rivals, Russia and China, the adults in the room that are trying to bring a kind of rationality back into the practice of geopolitics.”
Zepp-LaRouche responded, “According to the monarchy theory, these people are good by nature, by Godʼs creation, while the normal people are evil, and therefore you need a ‘Leviathan’ strong state to suppress their evil…. [P]eople should not be blinded by the pomp and luxury, but what is underlying this idea is fundamentally this disrespect for the sacredness of every human life.”
Garland Nixon, veteran progressive radio and television talk show host, compared the U.S. Congress’ adulation for King Charles to the similar way they responded to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He reminded the participants that Israel was created as a British imperial project, and that when people assert that Israel is controlling the United States, that simply means that the British, by extension, are still controlling us. After the Democrat-sponsored “No Kings” rallies, he observed: “thereʼs the king, and they just fall down worshipping, you know, at the altar of the king. Thereʼs a great irony there. And again, and they treated Netanyahu like a king.”
He addressed the question of whether we have a real democracy; we are allowed to vote, but the elected officials routinely do the opposite of what they had promised the voters. He urged that voters “not be naive enough [to think] that we can go to the wolf and lobby for the wolf to become a vegetarian.”
Falk added: “I found very disappointing in a way, the ‘No Kings’ protests activities, first because they were preoccupied with what injustices were occurring in the U.S. without understanding or comprehending the harm that we were doing to the rest of the world. And the demonic impact we were having on the history of our times.”
Historian Lynne Speed of the Schiller Institute also condemned that adulation shown to King Charles: “The acquiescence to this perversion by the President, the Congress, and many of the American people demonstrate the enormity of the problem and the work we have to do.” She described research she had done into the true nature of the American Revolution: “The participants in the revolution were far more diverse and colorful than what is generally thought or taught. In a sense, theyʼre very much like America and the world today. These people were Black, free and enslaved, White, abolitionists and slave owners, Native Americans, rich and poor, and from every ethnic group and religious persuasion. And they hailed from many nations around the world.” She shared images from a calendar she has prepared to commemorate the 250th anniversary of independence.
Diane Sare, U.S. independent presidential candidate, discussed the exemplary role of Alexander Hamilton: “[H]is conception of economy very much … presages that of Lyndon LaRouche, that itʼs not money, itʼs credit, itʼs about the future, and itʼs about creating a multiplicity of ideas and labor so that you need an ever-growing workforce with particular skills, and that all of the unique talents and capability of your workforce can be brought to bear.” She went on to cite President George Washington’s farewell address:
“But as it is easy to foresee, that from different causes & from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly & insidiously) directed….”
Discussion
In response to a question, Sare said, “[W]hile itʼs true that there were many nefarious activities undertaken by the government of the United States, we seem to be under a kind of umbrella group, which weʼve loosely identified as the Epstein class, but it really is a group of billionaires, and somehow they seem to control … as my friend Doug Macgregor talks about, the CIA, the Mossad, and the MI6 really function as one agency, one entity. So, I think the question is how can we liberate mankind from this and actually get back to having governments of nations.” She described her lobbying activity in the U.S. Congress, saying, “[T]he staffers whom we met with were quite … affected by seeing that people around the world are watching the United States, and know enough about our form of government that theyʼre not going to be fooled and merely blame the President when you have a body which is elected to represent the American people, which has the power to do something about this.”
There was a wide-ranging discussion on the nature of government, the difference between a democracy and republic, and whether the Magna Carta was really a forerunner of the Declaration of Independence, as is sometimes claimed, or it simply codified power-sharing between the king and the oligarchy. Helga Zepp-LaRouche referenced 15th-century Catholic Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, who put forward the notion of the “consent of the governed.” Speed noted that Britain still does not have a written constitution, and the oft-referenced “pursuit of happiness” has nothing to do with pleasure: It is the right of the individual to do good, as discussed by Cotton Mather. Zepp-LaRouche warned that apart from the dumbing down of the population, digitalization and AI create new avenues of manipulation. [eir]
