The Growing Danger of World War III Underlines the Necessity for a New Security Architecture
Moderator: Dennis Speed, The Schiller Institute (U.S.)
Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Germany), Founder, The Schiller Institute, Keynote Address: “Great Prospects for the Development of the Global Majority”
Connie Rahakundini Bakrie(Indonesia), Lecturer, strategic analyst, “Quadruple Foundations Towards Building the World Anew”
Prof. Wen Yi(China), Macroeconomist, Former Senior Researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, “The Secret of the Chinese Economic Success” Brief Q&A Session
Amb. Igor Romanchenko(Russia), Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Peru; Greetings to the Conference
Dr. Alexander Bobrov(Russia), Acting Dean of the School of Government and International Affairs, MGIMO University (Moscow State Institute of International Relations): “New Security Architecture in the Mirror of Russia’s Foreign Policy Concept 2023.”
Lt. Col. (ret.) Ralph Bosshard(Switzerland), Swiss Armed Forces; consultant, military-strategic affairs; “The War in Ukraine is an Indicator and Accelerator of the Decline of the West”
Michael von der Schulenburg(Germany), former UN/OSCE Diplomat; “The Absolute Importance of the U.N. Charter”
Panel 2 — Saturday, April 15, 1pm EDT, 7pm CET
The “Global Majority” and the International Peace Movement Are Fighting for the Same Goal
Moderator: Stephan Ossenkopp, The Schiller Institute (Germany)
Diane Sare(US), LaRouche Candidate for United States Senate, 2024; Keynote Address
Prof. Georgy Toloraya(Russia), Deputy Chairman, Russian National Committee on BRICS Research “The Expanding Role of the BRICS+ in Shaping a Better World”
Herman (Mentong) Tiu Laurel (Philippines), Political commentator, Organizer of the Philippine BRICS Strategic Studies think tank; “The LaRouche Movement Combatting the Remilitarization of the Philippines”
Mutalemwa George(Tanzania), Africa Peace and Development Network
Dennis Small(US), Executive Intelligence Review (US); Keynote Address: “The Missing Ingredient: LaRouche’s Principles of Physical Economy”
Cong. Benjamin Robles (Mexico); “The Fight for Food, the Fight for a New World Order”
Farmers and Fishermen: Robert “Bob” Baker (USA) Schiller Institute Agriculture Commission—”Three Principles”; Dr. Jaap Hanekamp (The Netherlands) Chemist, Professor, University College Roosevelt; “End the Nitrogen ‘Scientism’ Scare; Produce Food”; Philippe Grégoire (France) President of the National Movement of Cattle Breeders from Our Regions: “Cooperation, Not Competition for the Development of Each Country”; Bill Bullard (USA) CEO of R-CALF USA “We Food Producers Stand Together”; James “Jim” Moore (USA) Former President Alaska Trollers Association: “Anti-Monopoly Collaboration, Plus Science and Morality Mean Food for All”
Julio De Vido(Argentina), former Minister of Economics and Public Works, former member of Congress: “The Future Challenges Us: Resilience or True Transformation”
Marcos de Oliveira(Brazil), Publisher, Monitor Mercantil: “Brazil Is Back”
Pedro Páez(Ecuador); former Minister for Economic Policy (2007-2008), “Three Pillars of the Alternative to the Bankrupt System of Financial Speculation”
Diogene Senny(DR Congo); Secretary General of the Pan-African League – UMOJA; “Debt Cancellation to Generate an African Renaissance”
Dr. Mohammad A. Toor(Pakistan-US), Chairman of the Board of the Pakistani American Congress; “The World Needs the New Model of Development of the BRI”
Simon Miller(US); LaRouche Youth Movement: “Belarus’s Great Stone Industrial Park in the New Silk Road”
Q&A Discussion Period
Panel 4 — Sunday, April 16, 1pm EDT, 7pm CET
The Necessary Philosophical Foundations for the New Paradigm
Jacques Cheminade (France), President, Solidarité et Progrès, former French Presidential Candidate
Dr. Chandra Muzaffar (Malaysia), Founder and President, JUST International; “The Importance of the Chinese and Russian Engagement in Southwest Asia and the World”
Amb. Chas Freeman (US), former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, former Deputy Chief of Mission to China; “Chinese Diplomacy Replaces U.S. Militarism in the Mideast”
Graham Fuller (US), former U.S. diplomat, former Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council; “China Supersedes U.S. ‘Weaponization’ of Diplomacy With Development”
Shakeel Ahmad Ramay (Pakistan), CEO, Asian Institute of Eco-Civilization Research and Development; “A Contribution to the Discussion of Principles”
CONCERT—Sun., April 16, 4:00 p.m., ET.: The four panels of the conference will be followed by a concert by the Schiller Institute Chorus: “Let Us Have Peace: Handel Messiah”; Online & St Paul & St Andrew
Biden, Blinken and Nod can issue threats demanding that nations must submit to the arbitrary “rules”, but most of the world is moving out from under the Unipolar Order of the corporate cartels, which has lost all credibility. Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche for a discussion of what we, the citizens, must do to replace it, for a peaceful future of cooperative economic development among sovereign nations.
Email in your questions, thoughts and organizing reports to questions@schillerinstitute.org or join us live and post them in the YouTube chat.
With millions on the streets in the West, rejection from the nations of the emerging “Global Majority” and the unraveling of the speculative financial system, it‘s time for nations to adopt solutions drafted by Lyndon LaRouche. Join Helga Zepp LaRouche on Thursday to discuss bringing the New Paradigm of peace and real economic development into existence.
We want to hear from you, especially your thoughts on her call for an emergency conference to reorganize the financial system https://schillerinstitute.nationbuild…
Email in your questions, thoughts and organizing reports to questions@schillerinstitute.org or join us live and post them in the YouTube chat.
Call for an International Emergency Conference to Reorganize the Bankrupt Financial System
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche March 14, 2023
The tremors in the financial system felt around the world triggered by the run on Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in the United States, its subsequent closure and being put in receivership, are the clarion call for all governments in the world to act quickly to prevent a repeat of the 2008 crisis on a larger scale—larger and more deadly, because all the so-called “tools” of the central banks have been exhausted.
Given the extreme over indebtedness of the financial system coupled with a derivatives exposure of two quadrillion dollars, the “Everything Bubble” is threatened with the fate of what Wall Street-Guru Bill Gross compared to a supernova—a bright shining star that suddenly burns out. Between the Scylla of financial tightening triggering growing margin calls and a run on the banks, as occurred before the trouble of SVB, and the Charybdis of reverting to QE—letting hyperinflation eat up the debt—there is no solution within the system. In either case, be it a sudden collapse of the entire system, or hyperinflationary devaluation destroying people’s life’s work, the potential damage to billions of people and the likely death of millions is unacceptable.
The failure to address the root causes of the systemic crisis of the financial system in 2008, and the 15 years since of reckless creation of liquidity by Quantitative Easing (QE)—zero and even negative interest rates at the disadvantage of the physical capacities of the economy—in combination with geopolitically motivated economic madness, such as sanctions hitting the Western economies in a gigantic blowback, is resulting in a blowout of the system. Neither Schachtian austerity, nor “bailouts” or “bail-ins” will remedy the situation. Only an end to the casino economy and a return to sound investments in the real physical economy, aimed at increasing the productivity of the economy through capital intensive and energy flux dense economic production, will do.
If FDR were alive, he would declare a bank holiday, implement a Glass Steagall banking separation, a New Deal and offer American participation in a New Bretton Woods system according to his original intention to supply massive credit to increase the living standard of the people of the Global South. Unfortunately it can’t be expected that the current U.S. Congress has the stature or wisdom to do likewise.
While the efforts of the EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union), the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and the BRICS-Plus to create a new commodity-based currency and a new financial system may not have progressed sufficiently, given all kinds of restrictions and remnants of previous approaches, the drama of events could force the realization of existing intentions to be sped up. Since the very real possibility of an uncontrolled collapse of the financial system could accentuate the danger of the present proxy war between NATO and Russia, with China in the background, to escalate by accident or miscalculation, urgent action is required.
There must be an immediate emergency conference, whereby governments signal to the world that they will act together with good will to move to a new global security and development architecture, taking into account the interest of every nation on the planet. The first expression of such a new architecture should be the implementation of the Four Laws proposed by Lyndon Larouche: a global Glass Steagall system, a system of national banks, a new credit system, and international cooperation in the next generation of scientific and technological investments, such as thermonuclear fusion and space science.
This emergency conference must take place either as a conference of the UN General Assembly, or the G20. If these institutions are unable to respond, then other sponsors must be found, such as the BRICS-Plus, the SCO, or a combination of representative institutions. When the well-being and possibly existence of the human species is at stake, all ideological obstacles must be overcome.
Feb. 16, 2023 (EIRNS)—The Ukrainian government’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) today posted on its Telegram channel an attack on the upcoming Feb. 19 “Rage Against the War Machine” rally in Washington, D.C., under the headline “Anti-war meeting organized in USA with a call to stop supporting Ukraine.” The CCD—which is known for targeting individuals internationally who are opposed to the war, whom they accuse of being “information terrorists” and of spreading “Russian propaganda”—also exchanges data and targets with the notorious Myrotvorets website, which publishes a hit list of enemies to be “Terminated,” which they themselves state is taken in many cases from the CCD list. The CCD attack on the Feb. 19 rally ends by providing specifics of the date and location of the event.
Over recent months, the CCD target list has included dozens of Schiller Institute leaders and speakers at Schiller Institute events, some of whom have also been featured prominently on the Myrotvorets hit list as well—including Diane Sare, candidate for the U.S. Senate from New York, who is a scheduled speaker at the Feb. 19 rally, as are a number of other individuals on those lists.
The Schiller Institute responded to the new CCD posting by recalling that the CCD has been and continues to be financed by the U.S. government, specifically by agencies of the State Department. The Schiller Institute has also informed dozens of House and Senate offices, on both sides of the aisle, of the details of the CCD/Myrotvorets lists, urging that U.S. government funding be stopped and that their violent targeting of political enemies be prohibited.
The Schiller Institute takes the opportunity of this latest threat by the CCD to urge those Congressional offices that have been informed, and others responsible for oversight of such funding, as well as the relevant agencies of the Federal government who have heretofore supported the CCD, to help ensure that the Feb. 19 rally proceeds peacefully, as a group of Americans of disparate political ideologies join to exercise their First Amendment rights, calling for “Not One More Penny for War in Ukraine” and “Negotiate Peace,” among other demands.
“In the USA, an anti-war rally is planned with the demand to stop military aid to Ukraine and start peace negotiations.
“The Libertarian and People’s Parties of the USA are organizing a rally called ‘Rage Against the War Machine.’ During the rally, the speakers plan to address President Joe Biden with a number of demands, in particular regarding the war in Ukraine. Among them are ‘ceasing the financing of the war’ and calling for a ‘diplomatic settlement of the conflict.’
“The ad contains Russian narratives that the expansion of NATO to the east provoked the Russian invasion, and the war against Ukraine led to the threat of nuclear war with Russia.
“Invited speakers include former politicians, journalists, activists and musicians who have previously expressed pro-Russian rhetoric, including former US Democratic Party member Tulsi Gabbard and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters.
“The rally is scheduled for February 19 near the Lincoln Memorial in the center of Washington.”
KIM DOTCOM: Very good. Thank you for joining me. The reason we are here today is to talk about the state of the world, and this real dilemma that humanity is facing with this ever-escalating situation in Ukraine, as well as the escalation with China. I wanted to talk about that, and hear your thoughts and opinions about the situation and how it may be resolved.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think we really need a worldwide mobilization of all people of good will, because we are in such incredible danger. I just listened this afternoon to a debate in the German Bundestag, or rather a question introduced by the Alternative for Germany [AfD] on the revelations by Seymour Hersh, who has a long article about how the United States was behind the sabotage of Nord Stream.
We can talk about that in a little bit, but the reason why I’m mentioning it, is that the main speakers from the coalition government, and also from the CDU/CSU opposition, were so absolutely—I hardly find the right words—they were like robots, completely following pupils of an empire, touting a line, which if they pursue this any long will lead to the complete annihilation, not only of all of Germany, but of the entire world. But they were so convinced of what they said that it really raises the question of what goes into the minds of these people who are pushing confrontation, risking World War III, and they seem to be completely inoculated against a sense of reality, of the consequences of what they are doing.
I mean, we are on the verge of World War III, because the pressure which is being imposed by Zelenskyy, who is naturally not his own man; but the British are now demanding that NATO should confront Russia directly and not let the Ukrainians do the job. And Zelenskyy was just in London, in Paris, and in Brussels, demanding after the Leopard tanks and Abrams tanks; now he wants to have fighter jets, long-range missiles, and equipment which clearly has the purpose of getting into a war with Russia.
And the Russians, on the other side, they have determined that there is nobody in the West they can speak with, especially after former Chancellor Merkel and former French President Hollande admitted that they were pushing the Minsk agreement for only one reason: namely, to gain time for training of the Ukrainians. And that means they lied. So the Russians find themselves in a position where they say, “OK, if there’s nobody in the West we can talk to, then we have to make the decision on the battlefield.” So Russia is determined to “win”—I put this in quotes—in Ukraine, and the NATO General Secretary Stoltenberg, and the British and Americans and their stupid vassals in the rest of the continent of Europe, they say, “no, Ukraine must win, Russia must be defeated.”
So you have these two set in a confrontation, in a war of attrition, where the Ukrainian people are being ground up. The latest reports, which naturally are very difficult to verify, is that probably already 200,000 people died on the Ukrainian side; maybe 50,000 on the Russian side. And if you keep doing that, what happens to the Ukrainian people? They will be destroyed.
And this has the danger of totally going out of control, because the idiots in the West are saying, “Oh, we send tanks, and we sent howitzers, and we sent first light tanks and now heavy tanks. So you see, there is no red line, the Russians didn’t react.” But they constantly don’t want to say when Russia says this is threatening our core security interests, and eventually it will cross a red line and then it is too late!
This has the potential of leading to an all-out thermonuclear war, between NATO, the U.S., British, Europe, and with this fantasy to create a Global NATO, and to repeat with Taiwan and China, what was just done with Ukraine. It will lead to a world war! And if it comes to that, then there will be not one living person, or other form of life left. It will lead to an annihilation of the entirety of life on the planet, and that’s what these people are playing with.
So this is why we from the Schiller Institute have called for several initiatives to stop this, to demand an immediate negotiation; this is why we are supporting the offer by Pope Francis, who has offered the venue of the Vatican to have immediate negotiations, unconditional negotiations. And we are asking people around the world to sign that. And if you have listeners to who agree with that, I also ask them to sign this: Because we need an entire chorus of people worldwide to demand that this insanity must stop.
But then, naturally, also…
DOTCOM: I agree with you. I think the risk is very real, and the escalation that is taking place has put us on a course for World War III. You did mention some EU leaders that did not honor the Minsk Agreement, most importantly Zelenskyy has now also agreed that he never actually wanted to implement it, that his plan was always to not go along with it. And that is quite interesting, because, when he ran for election as the Ukrainian leader, his major campaign was about peace. And that he is a candidate for peace, that he wants to make peace with Russia, that he wants to resolve all the issues, and that is why he won the election. He became the leader of Ukraine on this peace ticket. And now, he basically admits that he lied to face of all his voters, because he never had the intention to implement any peace agreement. And that is a quite interesting development, I think.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. So said then-President Poroshenko before him. I never met Zelenskyy, so I really can’t say what is motivating him. After all, he was an actor, and an actor is trained to play all kinds of roles. I mean, look at the situation in the last March, in 2022: There was a possibility to have peace negotiations, and then Boris Johnson flew in from London into Kiev and basically told Zelenskyy, “no, cut it out.” And ever since, he’s been on this course to win and to demand more and more weapons.
We have reached a point where trust is completely lost: Nobody trusts anybody any more, and this is what is so incredibly dangerous, which is why the situation presently is much more dangerous than during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Because if you look at Khrushchev and Kennedy, despite the crisis, they had back-channel discussions, and you had a whole mechanism of dialogue behind the scenes, and that is nonexistent right now.
DOTCOM: I agree with that.
One question I have, since you live in Germany, and you know, I am German—that’s where I’m from—I was very surprised about the way that Olaf Scholz and his government have acted in the unfolding of this entire conflict. And I was very surprised that Germany didn’t have any kind of say in what’s happening here—it almost feels like Germany is being directed, what to do, and that the Scholz government is really just following the tune of the U.S. and British.
And to my surprise, given the German history, and involvement in two World Wars, Germans being taught in school about the history: My whole generation was ashamed for the acts of the Nazis and what happened during World War II—that we are now sending heavy tanks to Ukraine, and that we are again involved in a war that is killing Russians, to me makes no sense! Can you please explain to me, what you think, why this is happening in Germany?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: First of all, I think it is utterly disgusting, because it is very clear that this present coalition government is the worst government we had since the end of the Second World War. They swore an oath to defend the common good of the German people, and to protect them against harm, and they’re not doing that! They’re acting, not as a German government, they’re acting entirely as an Anglo-American government. And it is terrible! You know, because the majority of the people—I don’t have a scientific proof, when I say “majority”; that’s my guessing—the majority of the people at least in East Germany are absolutely not going along with that. Many people in West Germany are scared of World War III, but they don’t feel a handle. You know, you have bombardment from the media nonstop. For example, Deutschlandfunk, which is a radio network, which is supposedly close to the government, they have not one news item which is not having a spin in the direction of a narrative of what the U.S. and British and NATO want this story to look like.
So the normal people (again in quotes, “normal people”), if you don’t already have an idea how history works and that you look for sources to somehow make events explicable, and you only rely on the mainstream media, you are lost! Because there’s a bombardment. I think that Goebbels would be envious; he would say, “oh, they’ve succeeded in out-Goebbels”—that’s what British intelligence after the Second World War said was their intention, to “out-Goebbels Goebbels”—the mainstream media, and it’s not just the media, it’s also what Ray McGovern calls the MICIMATT, the military-industrial complex, plus congress, intelligence, media, academia and think tanks; he calls this for short the MICIMATT. And I think it is that apparatus which is trying to control the narrative of what is happening.
People have no sovereignty. We just looked up the 2 by 2 plus 4 treaty which was signed when German unification, occurred in 1990, and it is explicitly says, “Germany now is a sovereign country.” But if you ask the majority of the people, and you know, we are talking to a lot of people in the streets where we are organizing them, they say many times, “Oh, we can’t do anything in Germany. We don’t have sovereignty.” De facto, we {do} have sovereignty, and if people would act more sovereign in their head, a lot could be done! It’s a very dangerous situation, but the whole world laughs about Germany, and says, what’s wrong with these people? they can’t even defend their own interests.
DOTCOM: Yeah. I agree with you. The big question that I have in my head, is “Why?” I don’t understand it. It makes no sense: Germany is acting completely suicidal. The industry is being destroyed, there’s no benefit in any of this, for the German people. Quite the opposite: We’re on a path now, where we’re getting de-industrialized and the U.S. is actually taking advantage of that, with new programs that they’re launching to attract German industry to come over to the U.S., basically utilizing the situation that the U.S. has created with the coup d’état in Ukraine and with this proxy war, to take advantage of Germany and of other European countries.
How did it come to this? Why did Olaf Scholz and his government not see this? What is their motivation? Why are they going along with this? That is the big question that I really am struggling with.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, it’s a coalition government, and you have the Greens, which, if they ever started as a pacifist party (which I could comment on, as well), but they have turned into the war party; Foreign Minister Baerbock is joined at the hip with Blinken; you cannot differentiate what Blinken says and what Baerbock is saying. Baerbock is running around saying things which are absolutely unconscionable. She said, “We are at war with Russia.” Now, if that would be true, Germany would be annihilated right there! I mean, how can a foreign minister say such things? That just proves this woman has no knowledge, she is not competent to be the top diplomat of Germany, but she runs around the world and says things which are—you know, she went to Ukraine and she said that she will provide everything to Ukraine, even if the German voters are not agreeing with that! Now that’s a clear understanding of democracy, you know! [laughs] She couldn’t care less about what the voters think. I hope the voters draw the right conclusion, and vote her out of office at the first occasion!
So you have the Greens, which are the war party. They say and do things which are identical with what NATO wants. Then you have the Free Democratic Party (FDP), the liberals, and you have this strange woman in there in the Bundestag defense committee, Agnes Marie Strack-Zimmermann, who talks more like a cannon than a woman. So that’s the problem there.
Then Scholz (SPD)—I don’t know, Scholz in February a year ago, said that Germany will not deliver heavy weapons because that would increase the danger of World War III. And then Austin came, and they had this big meeting in Ramstein, and within three days, Scholz reversed course, and said, “Yes, yes, we’ll provide everything”—I have no idea. Maybe they have something on him, because it does not make sense. Because he said what he is doing right now is increasing the danger of World War III.
DOTCOM: Helga, Joe Biden said the same thing! He said, the moment we deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine, and staring into the camera and saying, “that will be World War III.” And now he’s doing just that: He’s sending heavy tanks, and now they’re talking about sending fighter jets to Ukraine as well.
So they are well aware that these are red lines that they are crossing, that these are escalations that could lead to World War III. They have said it themselves. And here we are, and they’re doing it! And the next logical step is that NATO will somehow get involved on the ground. Because if you’re already providing heavy tanks and jets, well, we’re not far from that.
And how the Russians will react to that, I think no one should underestimate that they’re willing to go all the way, if their country is threatened, and if the NATO forces are entering Ukraine, I think that is a whole new level of escalation, where anything becomes possible.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: You know, I think there are some people who think that nuclear war is winnable. I think it’s the biggest insanity, because if you—I’ve read a lot of military papers by some nuclear experts, like Hans Kristensen, or Ted Postol from MIT, or Steven Starr. These are all people who have studied the mechanics of nuclear war, and why nuclear war is completely different from conventional war, and they have all argued that once you start, if you use one nuclear weapon, everything goes. And in the case of Russia, because of this escalation, Putin in the beginning of December last year, said that they may have to reverse the Russian nuclear doctrine, which in the past always rejected the idea of first use on the side of Russia. And Putin said, in light of what is coming at us, we may have to reconsider that.
And there is this Russian doomsday machine, this is a figurative notion, but they have a mechanism, by which, even if a first strike would eliminate the entire Russian leadership, they have set it in such a way that then there is an automatic counterstrike: And it would be total, total nuclear war, and the world would be finished.
But if you look, for example, at one of the maneuvers which takes place, I think every year, called Global Lightning, this is the idea that you have a protracted nuclear war, a hybrid war, some tactical nuclear weapons, and then a little bit of conventional war, space war, cyber war, all mixed into some sequences, and I think these strategies are completely delusional.
And I think the West is—I mean, let’s take a step back: why are we in this situation? Is Russia a mortal danger? Is China a mortal danger? No, it’s not! I know many people will freak out when I’m saying that, but the real reason why we are in this situation is entirely geopolitical: The problem is, that in 1990, when the Soviet Union was in the process of disintegrating, and the promise was made to Gorbachev, that NATO would not expand eastwards one inch—which now they claim was never meant and it never happened, but it did happen, and there are enough witnesses who confirm that this promise was made.
Then the problem was, that you had the neocons, who decided to go for the Project for a New American Century, the famous PNAC unipolar world conception, and everything was fine as long as Yeltsin basically agreed to the policies of the West, the shock therapy, the dismantling of Russian industry from 1991-1994; the Russian industrial capacities were reduced to only 30% of what they had been. That was all fine, Yeltsin’s administration had no problem with it. The demonization of Russia only started when Putin came in, and especially when he came back into the presidency the second time, and he started to reassert Russia’s role as a world player, and undoing what was intended, namely that the West wanted to reduce Russia to be only a raw materials producing, third world country, and that would have been completely fine. But when Russia started to say: No, we are defending the interests of Russia, we will not agree to be a ”regional player” as Obama even much later said. Then they started to demonize Putin.
If you look at the speech, since you are German, you can read it, that Putin gave a speech to the Bundestag in 2001—in German!—and he quoted all the German poets, and he really stretched out his hand and basically said “let’s work together, let’s have a Eurasian economic space, from Vladivostok to Lisbon,” there would have been the possibility to have a peace order, or as Gorbachev had called it, “a common European house.” (http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21340 ) But all these proposals were rejected by the West. And then Putin came back in 2007 to the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 10, 2007, he already was having a completely different language, and he said, with the NATO expansion the core interests of Russia are being violated; and I beg you, please respond to that. (http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034 ) But they didn’t respond!
So then, naturally, this was all aggravated with the rise of China. When they offered WTO membership to China, they thought that China would liberalize and would take the neoliberal system, and everything would be fine. And Fukuyama’s famous saying this is the “end of history” because the whole world will accept the democratic model, they thought by offering China the WTO membership that that would do it, and that would basically mean they would run an unipolar world where everybody would agree to the so-called “rules” of that system.
But, then China did not do that. China said, OK, we want to be a free market, and capitalist policies, but, we also have socialism with Chinese characteristics, and we will become more Chinese by resorting to our 5,000-year history, which is basically Confucianism and Chinese values. And they became very successful! They lifted 850 million people out of poverty. And then, especially, when Xi Jinping in 2013 announced the New Silk Road—I watched this, because this was our policy. We were very happy when Xi Jinping did that in Kazakhstan, because we had offered the Eurasian Land-Bridge in 1991.
So, as I was watching, and said, “what are the media now saying? This is the biggest infrastructure program in history, ever, which Xi Jinping is proposing.” For {four years}, there was almost no discussion in the major media about the Belt and Road Initiative, or as it was called OBOR at the time, for “One Belt, One Road.”
And then, all of a sudden in 2017 that shifted, and all of a sudden Russia and China were characterized in the security papers as “enemy,” as “adversary”; from “partner” to “competition” and “rival.” So that language started, and it’s very clear that the idea to contain Russia from becoming again a world player, and to contain the rise of China was there all along.
And that’s why I think this idea of cheating with the Minsk agreement fits that: The only explanation is that they have been convinced among themselves in the trans-Atlantic club, the whole time, that they would remain with the unipolar world, no matter what. And I think that’s really what’s behind the Ukraine crisis, because the Ukrainian people are just a pawn in this larger game, and the sooner they realize that, including Zelenskyy and all these other people, the sooner they realize that, the better.
DOTCOM: You’re right about that. I remember an interview with Putin, where he said he actually offered to join NATO to Bill Clinton, and that was turned down. And he’s always had that offer to be part of Europe, he wanted to be part of Europe. And then he stated on Feb. 10, 2007 at the Munich Security Conference, he said that this unipolar order isn’t working, that the U.S. is unilaterally breaking international law, and no one is doing anything about that, and that it is time for a multipolar world, where multiple countries work together to achieve a common goal of prosperity and security—mainly security. And that is where Putin really upset the U.S. establishment. Because he got a lot of positive feedback from countries that were victims of U.S. bullying over many decades, that have been subjected to sanctions, subjected to all kinds of finger-pulling from the U.S. to get its way. And so he kind of spoke for all of these victim nations, that were looking for an alternative to the U.S. way.
And then, shortly after the Munich conference, we had the global financial crisis, that was triggered because of the lack of U.S. regulation, and allowing this kind of gambling between banks with the mortgage packages. And that then led to the foundation of the BRICS. And BRICS, early on, made clear that they want to change the global financial system; they no longer trusted the United States to be the steward of a global financial system, or the reserve currency of the world. They saw what happened with the departure of the gold standard in 1971; they saw what happened with the U.S. government endlessly printing this currency, on the backs of other nations, and taking advantage of them because they did have the reserve currency status. And I think this is where the biggest threat to the United States formed, when these BRICS countries came together with a goal to change the global financial system and eventually to create a new, joint reserve currency that is backed by real assets, like gold, silver, energy, natural resources.
And ever since that happened, like you said, the view of the U.S. has completely changed. There is no way, any more, for a partnership with China, for working out its differences with Russia; it became very clear that the U.S. would have to take a more aggressive approach to try and bring them down and put them in their place, because the U.S. did not want to give up their hegemony. They wanted to remain the sole global power; they wanted to be able to use their weapon of sanctions endlessly to get their will, to extort other countries of their natural resources, and basically commit global theft, by running this reserve currency scheme, where they just print money on the backs of other nations.
So, this is really what this is, and I think this is what many people don’t understand, that the conflict in Ukraine is not at all about Ukraine! Ukraine is, like you said, a pawn in this geopolitical game where Russia is actually a victim of an approach of the U.S. to unbalance them, to do regime change, to install a new government that is more friendly to the U.S. so that they can extract all the natural wealth out of Russia, and keep them small.
You know, Ukraine is unfortunately, another U.S. victim. The coup d’état that led to a U.S.-picked government, which is well-documented in many reports, including a recorded phone conversation of Victoria Nuland where she is heard to pick who is the next prime minister of Ukraine. So it completely confirms that the U.S. was behind the coup, the Maidan, the protests, and that it was their goal to take control of Ukraine; to eventually put Russia in the position of war. Because they wanted to unbalance and weaken Russia and weaken its military, and utilize Ukraine and its army to make that happen.
Most people do not understand this bigger context in this chess game that the U.S. is playing.
And next, of course, is China. And again, Taiwan is going to become the new Ukraine in the effort to get China involved in a conflict with the United States.
And most people don’t realize how close the U.S. is coming to folding, because of its enormous debt, because its bombs are now basically seen as a toxic asset around the world. The U.S. has very great difficult raising new debt, and therefore, it must print more money, and therefore, we have this global crisis of inflation that is all based on the trillions of dollars that the U.S. government is printing and putting into global circulation. And then other countries follow that model, especially other Western countries, they all do quantitative easing; they all print more and more of their currency to keep their markets going, to keep their economies going.
So this U.S. model has created an enormous amount of debt, and a change in reserve currency is the threat, the big threat of the entire West to lose their prosperity to the BRICS nations, which, if they emerge successfully in the multipolar order, the current system is going to be left behind, and they all will be sitting on their debt without being able to print endless new money to keep going.
And so the real threat to the U.S., here, is that in a number of years, they may not be able to afford their trillion-dollar military expenses. They may not be able to afford their 800-plus military bases around the world.
So they understand that there is an urgency to do something about the situation {now}: They need to force Russia and China into submission, or lose their hegemony status, their reserve currency status, and therefore, their leadership status in the world. I think that is what people don’t understand about the reality of the geopolitical conflict.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. That’s the problem. But you see, we’re trying to find solutions, because, in my view, if the developments as they are set now, continue, this will end in a terrible catastrophe, and it may be the end of life on the planet. So we really have to think of what can we do?
Now, we have tried, since the beginning of the New Silk Road was announced by Xi Jinping in 2013, to tell the United States and European nations, that it would be so much more in their interest to cooperate. The problems in the world as so massive: We have the pandemic which has killed many people in the developing countries—why? Because we had no world health system; we have 2 billion people who have no access to clean drinking water; we have 1.7 billion people, who according to the World Food Program, are in danger of starvation; you have many countries which are in terrible condition, such as Afghanistan; now look with the earthquakes in Turkiye and Syria. That the West won’t lift the sanctions really discredits anybody who is refusing to lift the sanctions against Syria, when so many people are in danger to die! But that’s just in parenthesis.
But what we have been advertising, is, why don’t we have a situation of cooperation. Chas Freeman, who is one of the eminent diplomats of the United States, he said: Look, let the Chinese build rail lines, and put American locomotives on them! Let the Chinese build an airport, and you could put an American airplane on it and participate! Just to reconstruct Southwest Asia from these interventionist wars, look at the condition of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya; or many other countries in Africa. The development need is so enormous, and if we could convince the United States and European nations to participate in the economic reconstruction of these parts of the world, you could find a solution.
Obviously, this goes against the present policies of the City of London and Wall Street, and the military-industrial complex, because their whole system has been based on short-term maximization of profits, creating more billionaires, and more millionaires, while the majority of the world population is getting poorer. So it’s very hard to see that these people would change. But, maybe, if you take all the other forces—the farmers, the trade unionists, the industrialists—this is a breakdown crisis.
I think the other thing that most people don’t understand now, is that this is not a normal crisis, this is not just like even not before World War I or World War II. I think this is the end of an epoch, and we are at the beginning of either the destruction of civilization or at the beginning of a completely new epoch.
And the image I always use to get people to understand what I mean is, for example, when you look at the Middle Ages, what were the predominant axioms of thinking, the values. You had the superstition, you had scholasticism, you had Aristotelianism, you had witchcraft, you had the Inquisition. You had all things which were utterly irrational. And that all culminated, then in the Dark Age of the 14th century, with the Black Death and the breakdown of society.
But then you had the Italian Renaissance, and you had Nicholas of Cusa, a preeminent thinker in Germany; you had Louis XI, the King in France, who created the first nation-state. So by all these developments, the modern times were able to be started, really with the 15th century. And that started what we call modern times, which lasted about 600 years. And what were the dominant values in that time? It was the nation-state, the idea that you had a sovereign nation-state where the government could only govern with the consensus of the governed, and the reciprocal relationship between the representative and the government and the people.
Now, that was the first time that you had the participation of the individual in the process of government. Before you had oligarchies, oligarchies were….
DOTCOM: Well, the beautiful thing, Helga, during that time, you could afford to make a mistake, and adjust course, and learn from it, and build something out of your error. The problem that we have today, is, if we make this ultimate mistake of World War III, there is no coming back from that. I don’t think people realize that.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, that’s true. But let me just finish my argument, a little bit: What I wanted to say is that this modern time had a completely different set of values, and these were the idea of the nation-state, the total limitless perfectibility of the individual, science and technology; and if you apply science and technology for the common good, it can lead to an increase of the living standard of the individual, an increase in the organization, all of these changes.
And I’m only using that as a pedagogical reference point to say, if we get out of this crisis now, we will enter an era which will have a completely new set of axioms, and that, I always say, will bring humanity into the age of adulthood. Because I think oligarchism, which is now the problem still, and colonialism, these are sort of the childhood diseases of humanity, if you look at the larger arc development of mankind.
And what do I mean by the axioms of the new time? It will be the idea that people will recognize that we are one humanity, that there is a higher interest of the One human civilization, which distinguishes us from all other species. We are the creative species, we are only people who can discover the physical laws of the universe—this is generally called science and technology—and if we apply that science and technology in the production process, it leads to a better living standard for everybody, it leads to an increase in the longevity of people.
And we are on the verge of making thermonuclear fusion energy commercially usable. Now, that will be incredible, because that means that we will be energy secure for tens of thousands of years. We can have raw materials security, because through the fusion torch method, we can separate isotopes from garbage, we can put them together in a new fashion, create artificial raw materials. That means, all the reasons for poverty and tension, that will go away.
Then if you think about the possibilities of international cooperation in space science, and space travel: We have to think in terms that we are the immortal species. The Sun will give us trouble here on Earth in about 2 billion years at the latest, and we had better think what we’re going to do by that time! We can’t start thinking about it in 2 billion years. We have to now go on a course of action, like building a village on the Moon; eventually getting a city on Mars, and then, when we have fusion power as spacecraft propulsion we can think about interstellar space travel, because the speed of travel will be completely faster.
I’m saying, what we have to do, is we have to think, like with the Hubble Telescope, and now with the James Webb Space Telescope, we can look into the universe. With the Hubble Telescope, we already recognized that there are at least 2 trillion galaxies! Now, I want people to really think that through: Because, for me, to even imagine our galaxy, the Milky Way, it’s already mind-boggling. But when you think {2 trillion galaxies}! I cannot imagine that!
But you have to start thinking that we are living in a universe which has laws, and because of science and technology, we can understand these laws better and better. For instance, thermonuclear fusion is nothing other than to replicate processes which are happening on the Sun, and making them useful for the needs of man for energy on planet Earth. So that means there is a correspondence between what we as creative people think, in our mind, forming ideas which are valid ideas and are adequate ideas because they lead to results that we can leave the planet Earth, that we have space travel. So they’re functioning: That means there is a correspondence between the laws of our mind, and the laws of the universe.
And I think we have to start rethinking the whole thing: Because if we are just thinking as earthlings, then we have our nose to the ground, and everything looks gray. But if you look at the evolution of the human species over a longer arc, in 10,000 years we came from a society of basically hunter gatherers, to people who now have little mobile phones, we have conference calls all over the planet, connected with people.
So we will move into a completely new era: for example, there are many people who are upset about artificial intelligence, and digitization and all of these things. Naturally, they have dangers, if the people emotionally and intellectually are crippled. But just think what could happen if we educate people in the right way, and then robots will take over a lot of the physical work. And if you look at how some people are working hard and fighting to get even a single meal a day; with the existing technologies, we could build a world where people can spend most of their time to develop their creativity. And my image of where the future will be, is that we will not be idiots who play videogames all day long and ruin our minds with pot smoking and other silly stuff like that; but we will have relationships among ourselves like between Einstein and Planck, or between Schiller and Humboldt, or other such people. If you read their letters, you can actually see, these were real human relationships where they respected the creative intellect of the other, and took joy to develop ideas together. And that is my image, where humanity will go.
So the way I look at the present crisis, is just this is a terrible crisis we have to solve, but there is tremendous hope that we really can reach a completely different world. And that’s the new era I’m talking about.
DOTCOM: That’s a beautiful vision, Helga. But what makes you think—let’s assume all of this takes place, AI becomes a useful tool for humanity, that labor will be done by machines—what makes you think that the oligarchs, the richest on the Earth, will want to share the planet with the slaves, the labor that they now don’t need any more? You know, what makes you think that they’re willing to share this utopia, this prosperity with billions of people around the world?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Because the billions of people are the many, and the oligarchs are the few! [laughs] They’re not that powerful.
I mean, look, in a certain sense, why would anybody accept an oligarch? Because people are not educated. Let’s just introduce another idea: I have said, at least since this war broke out, I said we urgently need a new security and development architecture, which takes into account the interest of every single person on the planet, and every nation on the planet. And this must be modeled on the Peace of Westphalia, which ended 150 years of religious war in Europe. And they came exactly to that conclusion, that a peace only functions if it takes into account the interest of everybody.
Now, if we have that, I said—and I suggested Ten Principles, which are not 10 separate points, but they belong to a whole, let’s say, comprehensive approach. [https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2022/11/30/ten-principles-of-a-new-international-security-and-development-architecture/]
If you want I can briefly touch upon it. Let me just do that:
The first principle is that we need absolute sovereignty of all nations, because without sovereignty, there is no participation of the individual in government.
Secondly, there must be an immediate agreement to eradicate poverty, hunger, and underdevelopment.
Thirdly, we need immediately, a modern health system in every country.
Fourthly, we need universal education for every child {and} every adult. What I mean by universal education is that, Wilhelm von Humboldt designed this, and I think this is still the best education model: because the idea of the Humboldt education system develops the potential of every child. To it belongs, very briefly, the universal history; the command of your own language in its highest expression, which is poetry, because what you can’t express, you can’t think; natural sciences, geography, and so forth: A rounded personality.
Now, just to stay at that point for a second, if you develop every child in this way, everybody will be a genius! This is the definition that Schiller had about the “beautiful soul,” and Humboldt applied that concept of Friedrich Schiller to the education system. And Schiller said the only people who are beautiful souls, people for whom freedom and necessity, passion and duty are one, is the genius, because only the genius is the person who changes the rules in a lawful way. It’s a long concept, but I’ll leave it at that.
So if you have an education system where more and more children, young people, students, and also more and more adults are educated, and are becoming creative, oligarchism will vanish. The idea that you would accept a higher class, be it nobility or be it financial nobility or whatever, only exists and only functions when people are kept backward, stupid, uneducated. That’s the whole oligarchical model, to keep people in that state, so that they can rule over them.
But with the BRICS, this is already breaking up, because there are many countries that have recognized the function of education as being that which unlocks the creativity of everybody.
Now, to return to my Ten Principles very quickly: Obviously, you need a credit system which is able to pay for all of this. So you need a credit system in the tradition of Alexander Hamilton, or the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, in the reconstruction of postwar Germany; or many of the Chinese banks today are functioning according to that model.
Then, you need a global infrastructure development, which is what we have proposed with our World Land-Bridge report, that you need infrastructure as a precondition for the economic development of every continent and eventually they will all be connected through bridges, tunnels. We will really develop the world in such a way that all people can have a decent life.
Then, I have added the last three Principles of this Ten Principles program are, let’s say, more the philosophical underpinning of the whole thing, because this is not just economic and scientific proposals. And the first one, is the idea, you have to educate people to think the One humanity first. That’s in one sense, very difficult, because many people have a very hard time to think, not in terms of their national or geopolitical interest. So, Nicholas of Cusa, who is the greatest thinker of the 15th century, at least in Europe, had the idea of the Coincidence of Opposites, which is the idea that the human mind can always think a higher One, a level of unity where all the conflicts which appeared on the level of the Many, no longer exist. So this idea of the power of the creative mind to think a higher solution, that is what is the method of thinking. Einstein, by the way, said the same thing. He said, people should not expect problems to be solved on the level where the problem arose, but they have to think in a higher fashion. And man is the unique being which can think this way. Naturally, Nicholas of Cusa came to this idea through a theological consideration, that the higher One is God, but it’s a method which applies to everything: You can apply it to politics, to economics, to science. So that is very important, this idea of the Coincidence of Opposites as a method of thinking.
Then, what I already touched upon before, we have to find a way of resolving differences of opinions, which is not arbitrary. And that is the idea that I said before, that the laws of the creative mind are in affinity to the laws of the physical universe: Thermonuclear fusion is one example. Space travel is another one. The coincidence of macro and microphysics another one. And that will help us to become adult and find a way of verification. For example, if you have international space cooperation, people have to be rational, and they have to work together, because when you are in a spacecraft, you cannot just drop out of there and do something else, because then you won’t have a good life expectancy. But if you work together you can enjoy the beauty of what you are discovering.
Then, the last Principle, which I think is the most controversial, at least in terms of the reactions I got, is, I said that the assumption must be that the nature of man is essentially good, and that all evil comes from a lack of development, and therefore can be overcome.
Now, I think that that is absolutely the case, because if you give every child the opportunity to develop its character in a beautiful way, the child will naturally be creative. There will be many, many, limitless possibilities of genius, because no one genius will ever be the same as the other one, but that is really what is the nature and the character of the human being, to be limitlessly perfectible in terms of his or her intellect, and in terms of his or her beauty of his or her character.
The lack of development results in evil. But because it is that connection, it can be overcome. The more we unleash creativity, the better. For example, the Russian scientist, Vladimir Vernadsky, described that the biosphere will increasingly be superseded by the laws of the noösphere, and that is an inbuilt law of the physical universe. And I think that that is why we have all the reasons to be optimistic, if we overcome this present crisis, because, the universe is said to be creative.
Anyway, what I would like is that people should please read my Ten Principles. [https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2022/11/30/ten-principles-of-a-new-international-security-and-development-architecture/] You can download them from the Schiller Institute website, and read them. And I would like to initiate an international discussion, because it’s the idea that we as a human species should be able to give ourselves an order, which makes the long-term survivability of us as a species possible. And I want this to be debated, I want to have people discussing it, and hopefully, we can initiate and inspire nations or groups of nations to say, “Yeah, let’s have a conference to discuss how should such a new security and development architecture look like?” And I think if more countries would do that, like the BRICS, like the SCO, like Eurasian Economic Union [EAEU], the African Union, and other organizations, and they would say, let’s have a discussion, how can we set up a system which allows the entire humanity to survive: I think we can turn the tide.
DOTCOM: Helga, that all sounds incredible, and you obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this, and that’s why I’m happy to have this conversation with you, because you are a big thinker. The problem is with the people who are currently in power, who are running things, are representing a system that I don’t think is open to this change. It sounds so logical and easy, but the reality is incompatible with these ideas. The problem that we’re seeing is that we have one bully superpower, that does not want to give up its power in the world, that wants to defend it at all costs, and is willing to go all the way, including the end of humanity if necessary if it cannot maintain its power and if it cannot maintain its prosperity.
Because let’s be realistic here, for a moment: If Russia and China succeed; if BRICS creates this new, multipolar order; if the U.S. dollar is no longer the reserve currency of the world; and if the financial system is changed to something more fair and inclusive to other nations, what it means, in consequence is a fall of the U.S. empire, is a collapse of the U.S. government under the weight of its debt; it’s the end of the U.S. military power. And it’s the end of the problem of the U.S. oligarchy class, because with this fall will come grades of unrest, potentially civil war. You know, so how are we going to avoid all of this, to get to the school that you are proposing, which is a beautiful one!
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yeah. I don’t have a recipe, because I think mankind has never been faced with such an incredible challenge. On the one side, annihilation, and I really mean annihilation, because if it comes to nuclear war, I think many , as I mentioned, including Steven Starr at our recent conferences [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn4STJEGP3Y], had very clear descriptions how a nuclear war would be followed by a nuclear winter for at least 10 years, and people who did not die in the nuclear war in the first hours and weeks, would die of starvation, because nothing would grow any more for the next several years. So that {is} the reality, and I’m very, very aware of it.
And I think I can only say, you should use the short video by Steven Starr, who is a extraordinarily good nuclear specialist; he has made video animations of how nuclear war would look like. If you go to the Schiller Institute YouTube channel, you can find that video. And you should spread it. Because I can tell you, I think if every person on the planet would have seen that video, you would have 8 billion people in the streets. Because only absolutely insane people, maybe 0.001% would still go ahead with what they’re doing, but the majority of the 8 billion people would be in the streets and saying, “we don’t want the annihilation of mankind.” So to get this video around is really a very important thing you can do.
So the first thing, is we have to make sure that many, many people know this. This is why, for example, together with a group of Latin American legislators, we started a series of conferences, last October, and we’ve had four conferences since, with the idea that we have to create a world movement of world citizens. Now, the idea of a world citizen comes from Friedrich Schiller, after whom our institute was named, and he had the idea that there is no contradiction between being a patriot and being a world citizen.
And the fact that a world war threatens everybody, makes everybody {immediately} a world citizen.
So what we need is a movement of world citizens, of people who say, “We do not want to be ground up in a thermonuclear war. We want to have a new paradigm of international cooperation.” This is a very important component of how I think we can get out of it, and I also agree with Gilbert Doctorow, who is an American expert on Russia, and he just wrote an article in which he thinks we’re extremely close to World War III. And he says, the only thing which can save us right now, is a very powerful, growing peace movement around the world. [https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2023/02/08/the-coming-existential-threat-do-we-act-in-common-or-is-it-going-to-be-every-man-for-himself/]
And I think so, too. I think we need to have a lot of people, coming out and saying, “look, we want to go {not} in the direction of confrontation with Russia and China.” And we have now, on Feb. 19th, we are planning to have a big demonstration in Washington, which fortunately has the approach of really overcoming the usual divisions among people. So there will be speakers from—Diane Sare from the LaRouche organization will be a speaker; the Libertarian Party, the People’s Party, Tulsi Gabbard, Ron Paul, and many others, basically from the right and from the left; of people saying, because of the joint danger, let’s put all the conflicts aside. We can struggle and fight about climate, and economics, and cultural values, once we have secured that we live! Because if we’re all dead, what difference does it make? [https://rageagainstwar.com/]
So I think this is a very important idea. And there will be similar demonstrations one week later, on Feb. 25-26 in Europe, in many different cities. And those have to be built! There has to be a real, total mobilization of people to say, we do not want to go in this direction!
And then, the other thing is, I think President Lula, the new President of Brazil, has now initiated what he calls a “Peace Club,” of developing countries. He wants to invite Indonesia, and China, and India, and all these nations, which overlap with the BRICS, that they basically say they want to be mediators; they do not want to be drawn into a geopolitical confrontation between the West and Russia and China. And they’re representing, potentially, the vast majority of the world population. And I think if some of the people in the United States find out about that, the governors, the city councils, the mayors, the lawmakers, the trade unionists, the small and medium industry people, the craftsmen, and that also goes the same for Europe, I think it’s not a monolithic bloc.
The military-industrial complex is the power to be right now, but America was not started as an empire. It was started as a republic! And there are many people who are quite aware of that and want to go back to the idea of a foreign policy, like John Quincy Adams created, for example, who said, “we should not go out for foreign monsters, and seek wars abroad. But we should have an alliance of sovereign nations working together.”
So I know it’s a big job, and I know the present reality is not looking like it, but if you don’t have a vision and you don’t have a plan where the solution is, you will not find it. But if you have a vision, and then you work hard to get there, you have at least a chance to realize it. And if many people join, it can be done!
DOTCOM: Yes, so the vision is beautiful, and I applaud you for it. If you were starting, let’s say, with a clean slate, with non-manipulated minds that have been brainwashed by the constant propaganda in the mainstream media, {maybe} that would be achievable. But people today are so ignorant to the real danger of nuclear war, what’s really happening in the world, they are being told by the media that they watch on the TV or on the internet, that Russia and China are bad, that they need to be put in their place, that the U.S. is the only nation that can bring peace and democracy to the world—this is the kind of brainwashing that has been taking place for decades now, including from Hollywood.
How are you going to go up against that, and try and build a movement that can be big enough to get critical mass?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, in a certain sense the Non-Aligned Movement was already very close to establishing a new world economic order in 1976. Because my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, had proposed an International Development Bank as the tool to generate credit to overcome the underdevelopment of Africa, Latin America, Asia. And for one year, we talked to many countries, the embassies and in the countries where we had people. And then, at the Non-Aligned summit in Colombo, in 1976 they adopted that program as a final document. So this was 75% of the world population saying we want a new world economic order. I remember, I called up the DPA, the German press agency, and I said, “Oh, this is great! When are you going to report this?” And he said, “oh, we’re not going to report this. This is not newsworthy.” And I said, “What?! 75% of the human species wants to have a new world economic order, and you’re saying it’s not newsworthy?” They never reported it. But then, what happened was, the entire international oligarchy destabilized Indira Gandhi, they destabilized Sri Lanka Prime Minister Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike; they killed Pakistan’s Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto—so the whole Non-Aligned Movement disintegrated, and they didn’t become very active for decades, actually.
And that has now changed. It has really changed—
DOTCOM: Helga, if I remember correctly, for these ideas, your husband was then persecuted by the U.S. government. And isn’t that what they do with anyone who comes forward with new ideas that potentially harm the status quo that they are so in love with?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. That danger does exist. I’m not saying it’s not without dangers. But thinking it through, should I die in World War III, or should I try to change it in time? I think what I’m saying now is less dangerous than to die in World War III.
DOTCOM: I 100% agree with you. And the world would be a better place if we had more people thinking like you, and having visions like you. I fear a lot of what you’re saying, by the way: we are soulmates when it comes to this. But I’ve also seen over the years, how frustrating it is to be in this fight, and not get the traction, that a person like Julian Assange is still in jail, despite his great journalism and exposing the truth about what’s wrong in the world. I see movements being manipulated and destroyed by the U.S. deep state, by infiltrating groups, by making them fight amongst each other, by creating psy-ops techniques to get these groups suspended and destroyed and people thrown in jail.
It’s just like, what we are up against is so evil and so advanced in its evil and the methods that these evil people are using to stop any kind of movement in its tracks.
Because you’re right, we the people, we have the power, but we don’t know how to take this power any more. Because people have really been dumbed down by this propaganda, all these fears put into them, all these worries put into them. Plus they’re living this comfortable, online clickbait life, where they just want to play their games, or be on Netflix, or have fun on Twitter. People are just so manipulated by a system that doesn’t want any change, it has become so difficult, even in this extreme situation of crisis, where we are facing nuclear annihilation, the destruction of the human race: We are closer now than we have been in the Cuban Missile Crisis. But it seems like the human consciousness has not caught up to this. People are not getting it, and not understanding how serious it is.
You know, you and I, we are complete outliers. We are so left field, with our understanding of the world and our vision of how beautiful it could be, we are in such an enormous minority. And I just wish there was a way to get more people to understand this, and to actually care about it, to not be willfully ignorant, but to make an effort to try and save the world. And I think that is the biggest problem, that we are all facing.
These people who are in power and who are working towards our destruction, they can rely on all of those who will do nothing, and who will just be ignorant and who will ignore the present danger.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Actually, I wanted to continue this story with the Non-Aligned Movement, because the only reason why I referred to 1976 and the destabilization, now, they’re coming back! The Spirit of Bandung is very much alive. I participated in a conference in Jakarta, only online, and I just was on another conference in Paris of the same grouping: These are all people who revived the Spirit of Bandung, the first conference between Asia and Africa in 1955, that adopted the Five Principles of Peace Coexistence. And the Non-Aligned Movement, which was dormant for decades is now coming back, and it’s coming back in the form of the BRICS-Plus! You know, the BRICS, they have an economic GDP which is larger than the G7. And now, 17 countries have applied for membership in the BRICS, including Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Indonesia, Egypt, and many others.
So if you add on these 17 countries, you will have a new combination which will simply be the power bloc of the world, and the economic dynamic, in any case, is not any more in Europe; and the United States is doing a little bit better because they are now selling expensive LNG gas to Europe. But the economy is in terrible shape! Look at their infrastructure. Does the United States have 1 kilometer of high-speed rail? No, they don’t, but China has 40,000 km of fast trains, and they’re now building a maglev which can go 600 km/hour.
Many Asian countries, the Asians are much more optimistic than the Europeans or the Americans, because they’re looking at their 5,000-year-old history and they say, from that perspective we want to have the next century be the Asia Century. And they’re not so downtrodden, like the people in Germany, for example.
The Germans are the most stupid people, at this point. I hate to say—I’m a total passionate patriot, but I look at my contemporaries, I’m not so proud of them at all.
DOTCOM: I agree with you on that.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: But I think we should not lose our sense of humor. I think we should make fun of these people who are behaving like servants to this empire. But I think the more we interact with China, with India, with other countries of Asia, the better. Because I think the dynamic is shifting: We are experiencing the end of colonialism, because many countries of the Global South do not want colonialism any more. And they are essentially telling me, what Nehru said the Bandung conference, that colonialism—you know at that time Independence had been fought for almost every country, but Nehru and Sukarno said: Colonialism does continue to exist in the form of the access to credit, the means of trade. And that’s still true today!
And there are many countries of the Global South that completely reject that, which completely reject listing to sermons of European bureaucrats, telling them what they should do and not do. Like, for example, they want to tell these developing countries, you can’t use coal, because it’s bad for the climate; but then they look at Germany, they look at Germany and say, because of Robert Habeck, who is the most incompetent Economics Minister you can possibly think of, he is now reopening all the coal mines, because he has ruined it with Russia, so no more gas from Russia; so then the developing countries like Nigeria and others are saying, “you are preaching water, but you are drinking wine, so why should we listen to you?” And they reject this!
So we are in a very—I’m for stretching out the hand to these Europeans. I don’t want Germany to collapse! I want Germany to wake up and say, look our interest would be to cooperate with Russia, China, and all of the other nations, in reconstructing the world economy, and that is the only way we can have a future.
And we have to keep saying that: And the more people joining us to say that, the better.
DOTCOM: I think the fear is probably what this would entail, the risk that this entails. It’s almost stupid of these leaders to think that the risk of nuclear war is less of a problem than the risk of maybe adjusting their prosperity levels a bit, and becoming a part of this multipolar world, and then building in an atmosphere of cooperation, without a single big bully that calls all the shots. If you really, realistically look at it, I think the option of a multipolar world is much more desirable than World War III. And I can’t understand why the leaders in Europe are not seeing this, and are driving this train into the wall.
If you don’t mind, Helga, what I usually do, when I have discussions with guests, I then open up the floor. I have a few people that have raised their hand. Do you mind if I open it up and let some other people ask you some questions?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, go ahead.
DOTCOM: OK. Some people have requested, I’m going to move them up as speakers, and then we’ll just have a very civil conversation here. Everyone, don’t try and speak on top of each other, try and be respectful, and when you ask Helga a question, let her finish. Let’s start with Dr. Jeff.
Q: Oh, I appreciate you very much for allowing me on, Kim Dotcom. Two questions: The first one is, I’m listening, and you’re saying the world is facing World War III. There’s many ways to conceptualize this: We could say, World War III started when World War II ended, but, what exactly is the evil you’re referring to?
The second question I have is, what is with all of the arrests, the times you’ve been arrested and many of the questionable practices, and it just makes me wonder why all the people in this broadcast are listening to?
Those are my questions, and they’re honest questions, sir.
DOTCOM: Are you asking me, or are you asking Helga?
Q: I’m asking you, sir. The first one is what exactly is the evil you’re referring to? And let me then parse your response.
And then the second is, what is with all the legal history that you have? I’m wondering why all the people in this broadcast would give you any credibility?
These are honest questions.
DOTCOM: Well, let me respond, I’m happy to answer your questions. The evil that I’m talking about is a U.S. government that, since the end of the world war has killed over 20 million people in its wars around the world, in over 37 victim nations has committed coups d’états in dozens of nations in order to extract their natural wealth and that is what I call evil. I think the government that has…
Q: OK, fair enough…
DOTCOM: And by the way—let me finish—I think that’s respectful.
I also think that it’s evil to start a conflict with Russia and China over the fear of losing hegemony and of losing the leadership status that the U.S. government demands in the world. And that there are thousands of people dying in Ukraine every day, as a consequence of the geopolitical chess games that the U.S. government is playing. And that to me is evil. Would you not agree with that?
Q: Well, let’s get to Ukraine in a moment, but the first part I agree with you, sir. I’m a Reagan Democrat; I was right of center, I was a Republican. I left the party when I thought it went off the rails. But if you’re talking post-World War II war crimes, absolutely, I agree with you 100%: Vietnam, Iraq, I mean, the war crimes, you’re exactly right there.
As far as Ukraine, I have a suspicion that almost every war, post World War II, that the U.S. has been a mistake. Maybe not Korea, but everything else has been a mistake—and illegal most likely. But this might be the right one to be involved in, or fighting it by proxy, and I don’t know if you accept the alternative. Do you accept Putin taking over Ukraine?
DOTCOM: No, I think what Putin’s goal is, and if you follow this conflict from the beginning, let’s start with the proposal from Putin to the U.S. for a treaty to ensure peace in Ukraine; the only conditions that they had were security guarantees and that Ukraine would not join NATO. And the U.S. hasn’t even responded to that. [https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/rso/nato/1790818/?lang=en]
So this entire war could have been avoided by ensuring Russia that Ukraine would not become a part of NATO and that the U.S. is not going to put offensive weapons into Ukraine.
Q: OK. This is probably beyond the scope of my call, the Ukraine situation. You know, the decision to negotiate with Putin is Ukraine’s decision, and the U.S. policy is that we will support Ukraine in whatever diplomacy they want to do. We don’t initiate diplomacy on this.
I was just wandering if you could speak to the second situation. I haven’t heard—I’m very impressed, I haven’t heard anything off the wall, otherwise. I guess I’ll withdraw my last question, because that’s only been about the legal history. I’m just going to—that’ll create a lot of conflict.
DOTCOM: Not at all. And you know what? I do…
Q: But going back to Ukraine, sir, it’s not the U.S. place to negotiate with Putin.
DOTCOM: Let me do respond to your second question, because I think it’s fair to ask why anyone would listen to me? First of all, I have 1.2 million followers, because people do like to listen to me. They feel like I make sense with what I’m saying; my tweets are quite popular, and people take me seriously. The fact that I have legal history is something that a lot of people like you don’t understand. I was a major supporter of WikiLeaks; I was a major donor to WikiLeaks in its early days, after the “Collateral Murder” video was released, I was probably the largest donor to WikiLeaks for quite some time. So I became a target of the U.S. government for my political activism, and for trying to make the world a better place, similar to Helga’s husband, who had also been persecuted by the U.S. for his ideas.
And the case we’re talking about here is a copyright case. It’s a case of first impression, it’s novel, it has never happened before, and never happened since. It’s a case that has cost the New Zealand government quite a bit of reputation and the U.S. government has been fighting me for the last 12 years. And I’m still here, and I’m still standing, because I’m not someone who bows the knee to an evil, global empire that tries to bully everyone, to get their way! I’m just not someone who does that.
And I think a lot of people who spend a bit more time and reading about my case, they do understand that it is a great injustice, and that’s why they come into my spaces, and they follow me on Twitter and they listen to what I have to say.
Q: Fair enough. And I just want to close by saying, and you’ll get the last word on this: I really appreciate your willingness to engage in the conversation with me. You’re not being defensive about my questions, that I appreciate very much.
Back to Ukraine, I think we’re at a standstill in your position. I would love to see a settlement, but it has to be initiated by Ukraine. Last word, and thank you very much, sir.
DOTCOM: I appreciate that, and no problem. Any kind of question is welcome: I’m not shy to answer any of that. And I agree with you: I think Ukraine needs to get to the negotiation table. But the big problem is, when that occurred previously in the conflict, and Ukraine was willing to enter into a compromise and enter an agreement with Russia, it was the U.K. and the U.S. that stopped it and told Zelenskyy that they are not ready to negotiate any kind of peace with Russia. Because the goal, as you can find out, if you study a bit more about this conflict—read the RAND report about unbalancing Russia. That is the whole goal of this campaign in Ukraine, is to weaken Russia, to stop Russia from succeeding with China in its plan of establishing….
Q: [interrupts] What’s wrong with that, though? What is wrong with that? And the thing is, I don’t have any confirmation of what you’re saying, that the United States interfered with any process that would have led to diplomacy between Ukraine and Russia. But…
DOTCOM: It’s a well-established fact. Just recently, the former prime minister of Israel confirmed that. He gave an interview and he said that the U.S. and U.K. bombarded the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. [https://youtu.be/qK9tLDeWBzs?t=9018 }
Q: I didn’t know that.
DOTCOM: Yeah. You don’t seem to know a lot of things, but we’ve given you a lot of time now, so I hope you educate yourself.
Q: Thank you {so much} for your being receptive to my questions.
DOTCOM: No problem, have a nice day. All right, now is there someone else who maybe has a question for Helga?
Q: I got one. Can I ask? Hello, Helga, you brought up a really good point about Germany, and it’s kind of also a tender subject in history, because everybody kind of knows the history very recently in Western civilization. But I noticed, after the Second World War, it’s always been sensitive, and I kind of get the sense that German people want to—I mean, they have a very long and proud history, Germany, way before the world wars, and they want to kind of return to that pride, they want to return to that identity, but there’s this existential guilt from the whole rest of the world. And first of all, why does Germany today tolerate that kind of ostracism of people for one event, when, you know, everyone’s guilty of something, right? The Americans are guilty, the Japanese, the Chinese, the African nations, everyone’s guilty of some kind of monstrosity to one extent or another.
But why is it that, I think the whole rest of the world holds onto not just with Germany, but a whole lot of other monstrosities, like colonialism—why does the whole world today, in the 21st century, hold onto that stuff like it happened yesterday?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think that the idea to contain Germany has been a hobby by the British since a very long time. You can take it back to the beginning of the 19th century, when they looked at Wilhelm von Humboldt and they said, “Omigod, if this guy has an education system where he makes everybody a genius, then that’s the end of the oligarchy.” And I think the ousting of Bismarck was a British-instigated affair, because they feared that Bismarck’s policy of treaty he had with Russia would basically make it impossible for British geopolitical manipulation.
So, I’m saying, there were many points in the German history where the idea was that Germany should be contained, and naturally, when German lost the Second World War, there was a {huge} effort: There were several waves of brainwashing. You had the occupying power, the so-called “reeducation” was not so noble as it may sound, because when Germany was at the worst hour of its history, everything was bombed out, there was a natural impulse to go back to better ideas. In philosophy, you had a discussion of natural law; in music, you had people playing concerts in bombed-out factories. So there was, out of this horror, came an impulse to go back to the best ideas Germany ever produced.
But then came the occupying powers, and they installed a political system where they picked people they had chosen in the exile, who were in Britain or elsewhere, and they imposed them as leadership. And that kind of control, unfortunately, exists to the present day. Then you had the Frankfurt School, that was another wave of brainwashing.
You had the Congress for Cultural Freedom: The Congress for Cultural Freedom was an operation by the CIA, of cultural manipulation and it dominated the entirety of cultural life. They had 120 cultural magazines. They introduced modernist music, 12-tone music, atonal music, and they insisted that if you have a concert, and you want to play Beethoven, you also have to play some atonal composer. It was just to destroy the idea of beauty.
Then out of the Frankfurt School came the ’68 movement, and then from the ’68 movement, which was essentially a Maoist movement, looking at the Cultural Revolution in China—not so much Maoist, but more Gang of Four—that then was transformed by the Club of Rome into the ecologist movement. They started with the idea of {Limits to Growth}, the world has developed until 1970, but then it came to an end, and now you have to go into austerity and zero growth, all of these things.
So now you have a population which is really thoroughly brainwashed! I can only say that the German population, from all the people I know, and I had the fortune that I could travel quite a bit in my life around many countries—I must say that the Germans are the least sovereign, they are the most boxed in. And then you have an elite, which is not a real elite but these are people who are so full of themselves that they don’t want to learn! There is a German proverb, which Kim, you may understand, “{Dummheit und Stolz wachsen auf einem Holz}” (Stupidity and pride grow from the same tree”). It’s difficult to translate as a rhyme in English. But that is, you know Josep Borrell, he’s not German, but he’s the head of the EU diplomacy: He said, Europe is a garden and everything outside Europe is a jungle. I mean, what kind of idiocy is that? That has become the laughingstock around the world, because people say, “These Germans and these Europeans, they think they are so good and so extraordinarily exceptional, they’re almost Americans, how exceptional they are!” I’m kidding! Because this idea of “exceptionalism” is really racism! To think that you are so much better than the other people—
In any case, all I’m saying is the Germans are not free, they’re not sovereign. That has been a game for a very long time; George Friedman, one of these geopolitical thinkers in the United States, says, it’s been for more than 100 the aim of American politics to keep Germany and Russia separate. And they have now accomplished it quite well, with the Nord Stream explosion, and the present war situation.
But it’s not so much American, it’s also the British: The British are really the masters of manipulation, and that is the problem in Germany right now. There are some people who can see through that, but in West Germany, they are for sure the minority. East Germany, there are many more people [who can see through that], and it’s almost that the unification is being undone right now, because the people of the German states in the East, they do not buy this story about the demonization of Putin, and they do not agree with the present policies.
So it’s really a very incredible moment in German history, because I can only say, the debate in the Bundestag, today, about this demand by the Alternative for Germany party to have a question period concerning the article by Seymour Hersh, who claims that it was the United States that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines, this was debated in the Bundestag. And you had two parties on the so-called right and the so-called left, the Left Party [Die Linke] and the Alternative for Germany, the AfD, whose speakers picked up and said we demand an international investigation about what Seymour Hersh is saying.
And then other people were so absolutely speaking like perfect Atlantic Bridge vassals. All of them said, “Yes, I’m a vassal”—no, no, they didn’t say that, I’m kidding. But it really was something else! If you have a chance, if you want to study political impotence, then listen to the speeches of these people.
DOTCOM: I’m looking forward to watch that [Bundestag debate on Seymour Hersh’s exposé] later today, because I am quite interested in that. My observation is that the Seymour Hersh story is going to blow up. It is so detailed, so specific, that there is no way that this has been made up with some kind of fake story. I think Seymour Hersh has documented very well, how this sabotage happened. And in the eyes of German citizens, this must be the change indicator. You know, this must be the moment when Germans say, “Hey, wait a minute. If the U.S. blew this up, in order to make sure that we are siding with the U.S. in Ukraine, because we don’t really have an alternative now—there’s no point in trying to negotiate for peace, because we’re not going to get cheap gas out of Russia anyway, now that the pipeline is destroyed. This lie that was fabricated that Russia did it [blew up the pipelines] themselves, for some crazy reason, all of that doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
I believe Germans are going to look at this, and say: “Why the hell would we support these activities in Ukraine, with the United States, if they have acted against our interests, and basically did a terrorist act in destroying our gas infrastructure that we have invested billions in.”
Don’t you think that this could be a moment where Germans wake up?
HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think that the people who are now not being able to pay their energy bills anymore, and a lot of small shops and firms go bankrupt, because they just can’t afford these prices, you know, it’s a tragedy! Germany is facing a complete collapse, deindustrialization. And Seymour Hersh mentions in his article that the people who did that, who plotted this, said, “Look, this I no kids’ stuff: This is an act of war.” And they were extremely concerned, according to what Hersh is saying in this article, that it remained a covert operation and that it would remain secret. Because the perpetrators were obviously quite aware that this {is} explosive, because what do you need enemies for, when you have friends like that?
So, I think we should demand an international investigation and Russia should be part of it. It was their pipeline, and if nobody has to cover up anything, then Russia should be involved.
DOTCOM: Absolutely! And what’s also quite telling, is that at the White House press briefing, yesterday, none of the journalists were asking a single question about the Nord Stream pipeline case. And I would suggest that that was a request by the White House to the press corps, saying, we’re going to make some sort of statement about it, don’t ask us anything yet. They want to avoid questions about this case.
And when you look at the story of Seymour Hersh, he’s saying that internally, within the intelligence community and the Pentagon, there was quite some opposition to this terrorist act by the U.S. government. And I think this is why he got the scoop; this is why he got the story, because people who were involved in opposing it, are probably now the ones that have been leaking the details about it to him—in such detail, that it would be very, very difficult for the U.S. government to shut this thing down.
And I think this is an explosive moment in this entire affair. Because without the support of Germany, this whole Ukraine proxy war is done! And now the German people have a chance to look at this crime that was committed by the United States against German interests, and say, “why the hell are we still considering these guys a partner?” And I think there may be something brewing up, here.
But let’s go to Eva. She had raised her hand for a while. Eva, what is your question?
Q: Thank you for having me. I’m from Spain, so I’m from Europe, and first, before asking, I would like to say something on behalf of Europeans: That what Helga said, part of it I agree completely; there’s another part that I can’t agree at all, about Germans and Europeans.
The way that people think has nothing to do with what the oligarchs do, because you said that they were stupid—it’s not true. I mean, it’s much more realistic, because I know German people and I know how they think—it’s much more realistic, if you want to see it in English, the way they think, for example, how Tucker Carlson projected it. A few months ago he had some tweets with interviews to German people, saying how disgraced they were with their government. So Germans are not stupid.
And to be honest, it makes me a little bit distrust, because it’s the most dangerous way of deceiving, saying some things that are completely true, and which we all agree with; and others that are not, that are completely the opposite. Because it’s the best way to deceive people, thinking that Europeans are complying, accepting all this. Not at all!
I mean, it’s being censored in all the media, and the millions of people, including Germans, protesting in the streets, asking for Russian gas, protesting against Ukraine. So, no, Germans are not complying! Me, either, from Spain, and in many countries. I mean, it’s not true that the people are complying, and that the people are stupid.
So I think it’s important to differentiate that, because I know it’s a fact, which obviously, I cannot include the whole population. There are still some people who see that only watch TV. But something that during the last year, because of the U.S. war against Russia, changed drastically. I mean, now, everybody is tired, completely tired—it’s like, even those who don’t follow alternative views, they’re also tired. Because like, for whatever excuse, they are ripping us apart, they are stealing everything from us!
DOTCOM: Eva, if I may respond to that real quick: You are right, there are some protests, and I’m following that very closely. We have protests in France, we have protests even in Germany. Whenever Scholz is giving a speech somewhere, a public address, he’s getting booed offstage. There are people that, of course, are protesting.
But I think what Helga and I are worried about, is that we’re not seeing the {millions} of people going into the streets that would be required to change course in something as serious as a World War III, or a potential nuclear escalation. You know, for that to be getting on the radar of politicians, and them feeling really threatened in their positions, it would require millions of people to mobilize and go into the street. And I think that is not happening, unfortunately.
Q: OK, on that, I agree. In my country, Spain, all the protests were small enough to be completely silenced, because they were not organized by any political party, or political parties….
So, in that I agree. But the mentality of the people, that’s the point that I want to make, they are not stupid. Only that we the people don’t know how to organize, yet. But it’s not that people are compliant. That’s the point.
DOTCOM: Well, Helga, that’s a call to action. We need to make sure that all these people who are not stupid…
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, if somebody is threatened with the annihilation of everything you believe in, all your ancestors ever did, all your composers ever wrote to music, all your poets ever wrote in poetry, and this is all threatened—and you are still not in the streets: Is that stupid, or not? I would say, it’s stupid.
And I should probably explain: I’m coming from Trier. This is the oldest city in Germany. This is, by the way, where Karl Marx was born—so just for identification. And in Trier, we have a love for the polemical method. Because I had German teachers who said, you don’t get people polemically incited, you don’t get them to think. So when I’m saying the present, contemporaries are behaving stupidly, it doesn’t mean that I don’t love Germany. I said before, I’m a passionate patriot, but only because I have an image of what Germany could be, and I want to catalyze through my activity that they become what they could be, their potential.
But right now, the German population at large is not getting rid of this government, which is not defending the interests of the German people. If Scholz was saying, one year ago, “if we are sending heavy weapons to Ukraine, this increases the danger of World War III,” then he does it, increasingly, over one full year, and now we are at the point where we {are} a war party! We are training Ukrainian soldiers on Leopard tanks, that makes us already a war party. We are sending these tanks, and we are just on the verge of making Germany a target of a nuclear attack in the context of World War III: I mean, that is the context, why I am saying, it’s better to be polemical and have people freak out, and I much more happy as a result of what I am saying: People get mad at me, but then they start to think and they look into the facts, and then they come to the conclusion that maybe what I’m saying is right; rather than people going to sleep, feeling good and happy, and be dead!
So, I think that that is really important. And I already said before, that I think almost the German unification is being undone, because there is a huge divided between the people in the West of Germany and the people in the East. So I did not say that people are calm. I said there is a division, and that division is very visible, and it has to do with the history, that it’s very difficult to sell the people in East Germany the idea that Russia is this all-evil force. They don’t believe it. They don’t go for it.
But people in the West, many people are unfortunately repeating the 24-hour bombardment of the media propaganda, which {is} the NATO line. I’m sorry, I’m living in Germany. You’re living in Spain, so maybe that’s a difference in perception, also.
Q: I apologize if it offended you. Maybe I misunderstood. I just wanted to clarify that the people are not stupid. It’s just difficult to move…. So, what I mean is that people do want to act, on what’s going on, but it’s just really difficult to do so. Thank you for giving me the voice, and I think it would be good to talk about mobilizing.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Let me just add two points: One way to act is to support this initiative by Pope Francis, who has offered the venue of the Vatican for immediate peace negotiations. We are collecting signatures from everybody all over the world, and if there is a powerful chorus of voices, supporting the Pope, I think this will have an impact. Not so much on the Pope, because we don’t need to do that, because the Pope is already doing it. But it will wake up more people, and for example, at the last conference of the Schiller Institute, we had a group of clergymen from different denominations all supporting the Pope: These were Pax Christi, the Catholics; Baptists; different Protestant churches; Imams, and that is also a way of building a peace movement by getting people to support this Pope.
Then, also, make people aware of the Peace Club, which President Lula of Brazil is catalyzing.
Then, we have demonstrations in Europe on Feb. 25 and 26: We want to have as many organizations joining and organizing such events. So if you would help us to organize this in Spain, that would be wonderful. We have Spanish-speaking members in the Schiller Institute. If you want, I can get you in contact with them, and you can work with them.
So there are many ways, but let’s just {move}: Let’s not sit down before it’s too late.
DOTCOM: Helga, you mentioned the Pope, and I find that quite interesting, because he has been outspoken about the Ukraine war and has been speaking out about the risk of nuclear war and World War III. Why don’t we get all the major religious leaders to join forces and come together, and ask their followers of their religion, to go out and protest, and to go into the streets, and to demand—I mean, these religious leaders certainly have the power to mobilize. Wouldn’t that be a great idea?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, absolutely! In certain sense, that’s what we’re doing already. As I said, at the last Schiller conference, we had representatives, clergymen, from the different religions, and we are trying to get the top religious leaders everywhere, to support the Pope. If we would succeed to get all the religious leaders to back that, I mean, the Catholics alone have more than 1 billion people. Muslims are more than 1 billion people, and so forth and so on. So I think that is a very important component. And I think you should, if you agree with me, Kim, you should call on all the people who are your followers, to join that movement. That would really be powerful!
DOTCOM: Yeah, I would love that! Is there anything concrete, that I can link to about this conference at the Vatican? Like when is that taking place?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, it is an offer. And we have written an Open Letter to the Pope. [https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2023/01/05/open-letter-to-pope-francis-from-political-and-social-leaders-support-call-for-immediate-peace-negotiations/] This was initially by a group of Latin American legislators and a former Latin American President, Mr. Donald Ramotar from Guyana; then you have some former ministers from Latin America. We all initiated this letter to the Pope, by supporting what he is offering.
And now, we are collecting signatures. And everybody who thinks that that is a hopeful approach, should just sign it and circulate that letter, and make that go viral. Because that would be a very powerful way to make your voice heard.
DOTCOM: Daniel here is a speaker as well: If you guys could prepare some kind of tweet, with a plan of action for my followers that they can look at, I would absolutely happily retweet that, and comment on that as well.
Because, you know, as crazy as this may sound, there is a lot of disconnect now in religion, especially younger people don’t really buy into it any more. But if these religious leaders can mobilize tens of millions of people, protesting in European streets, that may actually be a turning point, to force politicians to the negotiation table. And even for those who are not followers of any religion right now, if they see that enough people are mobilizing, and have a critical mass, they will join in, and you may suddenly have a movement that could turn this whole thing around.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Exactly. Exactly. I have been asked by many people, why the Pope? There are some people who don’t like this Pope, or don’t like aspects about this Pope. And I said: Look, you need a figure who is above politics, because you don’t want to be partisan in this mobilization, and the Papacy is an institution which is more than 2,000 years old, it does represent a continuity of Christian values and Christian thinking; and other religious leaders can very easily relate to this in an ecumenical way.
So I think if you would support that, Kim, I think it would be very powerful, because if we can catalyze this, as one very important current—because we have to get every possible force together! I don’t think—if Lula wants to get a group of nations from the developing sector, all the better! All these efforts should be merged into one effort: The cry for peace.
DOTCOM: Yeah, what we need, Helga, is a kickstart. We need something that gets a movement going, where people feel like, “Omigod, I’m not alone, there’s others out in the streets, demonstrating.” And that kickstart would be religious leaders—not just the Catholic Church, but Muslims, Buddhists, everywhere around the world, religious leaders would come together and tell their followers, this is the time to fight for humanity. Otherwise, everything that we have been preaching for 2,000-plus years was for nothing. It’s all going to go down the drain. We’ll all be gone, you know, the end of humanity.
So if they make that message quite clear to their followers, I think that could be the kickstarting moment. Because I think a lot of people who are not taking action, like what Eva said earlier, “what am I going to do, alone on the street, protesting?” There needs to be some kind of movement that has the magnetism and critical mass to suck other people in, that are already fed up and ready to go and protest.
So, yeah: I will support that, 100%. Let me know a concrete plan, or a concrete suggestion how we get this process started, and I will 100% support it.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: You’ll get that tweet today, so don’t worry. I mean, the fact that this whole initiative started with Latin American legislators, both sitting and also former congresswomen, congressmen. You know, the Latin American people do not think that the nuclear war coming from the Ukraine crisis is so far away that it would not hurt them. They are quite aware of the fact that if it comes to a global nuclear war, every corner of the world will be affected!
And right now, if you go to the Schiller Institute website and look at the last conferences, in one panel, we had several of these religious leaders and in another panel we had several diplomats and legislators from developing countries, from Latin America, from Africa, and that is exactly what we have to catalyze. That’s what I mean by this world movement of world citizens.
As a matter of fact, given the fact that I come from Trier, I said: “World citizens of all countries unite!” [laughs] I think you recognize the similarity to Karl Marx’s “Proletarians of the world unite.” But I keep telling people, you know, Karl Marx was only the man from Trier, but here you’re talking to the woman from Trier. [laughter]
DOTCOM: Well, you know, Helga, the beautiful thing about the Pope is he has this network of churches and priests around the world. If the instructions come from the top, that we are now going to go out and really demand peace, you know, with people on the streets, I think that could be the catalyst to turn this whole thing around, and prevent World War III. So maybe the Church may be doing something really good for humanity.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. And Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who is sort of the foreign minister of the Vatican, the Secretary of State, he is also trying to organize a conference, in the tradition of the Helsinki conference. Now, that may not be exactly like it was, but what I’m proposing, with the new security and development architecture does require such a conference. You know, that’s the other thing: If we get active institutions to organize such a conference and invite many countries and discuss these principles: What should be the principles on which an order is built, which allows the durable survivability of the human species? I think that’s the big challenge: Are we intelligent enough to give ourselves an order which allows the cooperation and co-participation, coexistence of everybody?
DOTCOM: OK, very good! I think for a start, getting a kickstart for a movement for peace, to mobilize people to go out, which is going to pull others in, is going to be probably the best plan of action here. And the sooner the better. Who knows how much time we have?
So, it’s great that we had this conversation, because in the beginning I was, like all great ideas, but where’s the mobilization? Where are we getting the people that are actually going to fight for this? And the solution is right in front of us: The churches still have a lot of followers, they still have a lot of power in getting boots on the ground, in the cities, protesting. And that will automatically bring everyone in as well, who is currently not sure what protest to join, where to go, because there’s just not much happening.
So, I’m quite happy with this idea, and anything I can do to make this happen, I will absolutely do it. But I think the Pope needs to understand the urgency of this: Yes, it’s nice to have some peace meetings, and hopefully some leaders will agree to come together at the Vatican to sit down and talk—but if that isn’t happening anytime soon, then we need to go to Plan B, and mobilize the religions of the world to save humanity.
That’s a beautiful, beautiful conclusion of this space, and let’s work on that together. I love it.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: OK, super! I’m very happy. So, let’s do it, let’s really try to move this.
DOTCOM: All right! Let’s not give up hope. Everyone who was here, thank you very much. I will do another space to update you, on the actions we have taken. Maybe, Helga—how about we do this once a week, and give people frequent updates on what’s going on, and how they can engage. And maybe also we can also on Twitter, grow this movement: Today we had up to 2,000 people concurrently listening to us. I don’t see why we can’t have a room with 10 or 20,000 people, in a couple of weeks. And hopefully, I get Elon and some other people to join us, as well, in this effort, to give it more visibility.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: OK, super! I’m onboard!
DOTCOM: All right, well, thank you very much. You have a good rest of your evening. And thanks to everyone listening. I will make a tweet about what Helga is suggesting, later today, or maybe tomorrow. And then just amplify that, and help us save the world! That would be fantastic. My kids would appreciate it.
The revelation from acclaimed journalist Seymour Hersh that the U.S. was behind the explosions which hit the North Stream pipelines raises a series of issues which open the potential to end the war. As NATO defense ministers meet, there are signs of deep problems within the alliance, including the lack of an industrial base needed for the long war to weaken Russia that many had intended. Hersh’s reporting not only makes Germany a “global laughing stock” over its silence and inability to defend its security and economic interests, but makes clear this was an “act of war,” exhibiting the recklessness” of the Global NATO policy.
This is fueling a mobilization of anti-war forces, with a potential to break through the “left-right” profiles that keep opponents of the war divided. Zepp-LaRouche urged viewers to join the marches and demos in all countries. She announced that the Schiller Institute will sponsor Zoom meetings in the next two weeks, one on the broader implications of the Hersh story, the other on the urgency of breaking the sanctions policy increasing the death and suffering in Syria.
In conclusion, she reviewed her thinking behind her drafting of the Ten Fundamental Principles to create a durable peace. These are not a laundry list of policy points, but the basis of the kind of deliberative process which engages people in the manner of philosophical thinking which can produce the transformation in the population necessary for such a durable peace. She called on viewers to send her their thoughts on these principles, as part of that dialogue.
Col. Richard Black: On Monday, there was a terrible earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria. It was a 7.8 on the Richter scale; a shallow earthquake that was very damaging. It has hit Syria’s second largest city, Aleppo, and done enormous damage and created many casualties. The Biden administration has sent aid to Turkey, has reached out to them, has aid workers going there. However, the United States State Department chose this time of death and suffering to make a very antagonistic statement towards the people of Syria. There was a fellow Ned Price, a spokesman for the State Department, who said, “I will make the point that it will be quite ironic if not counterproductive for us to reach out to a government that has brutalized its people over the course of a dozen years now. Gassing and slaughtering them, being responsible for much of the suffering they’ve endured.”
I have got to tell you, I have never seen such barbaric response to a tragedy where you literally have people in Aleppo city, Syria who are looking up at piles of concrete, their lives are coming to an end, they’re freezing in the cold. They’re there without food, without water, and they’re dying. Meanwhile, the State Department takes that opportunity to re-emphasize the fact that we are bitter because we could not impose our will on the Syrian people. It was in 2020 that the United States imposed the Syria sanctions out of anger at the fact that Syria had driven back the ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorists that the United States had supported, and was trying to overwhelm the government with. So, now the State Department looks at this as an opportunity to simply ratchet up the regime of starvation and freezing that we have imposed on Syria through the cruel Caesar sanctions.
I’m quite disgusted by the actions of the United States State Department. It is really unbecoming of any civilized nation that they would choose this moment to take out their vengeance on the poor suffering people of Syria. Thank you.
Ray McGovern: Thank you, Dennis. I’m very happy to be with you. The title of my little talk here, “Know Where You Stand, and Stand There,” comes from a commencement address by my friend and tutor and mentor, Father Dan Berrigan. Actually, it doesn’t come from that commencement address, it is the sum and total of that commencement address. He was asked by a very prestigious university to come and give the commencement address; this was about four decades ago. He came, and he stood up there, and he said those words—“Know where you stand, and stand there.” And then he very politely left and sat down with the audience. That’s all you really need to know, folks. You need to know where you stand, and stand there.
Now, sometimes we’re a little worried. Nonviolence is good, but sometimes when we put ourselves in other people’s faces and they react with a very great anger, we too are tempted to get angry. Not only at their reaction, but at the whole concept of the widespread injustice throughout the world. So, I would just encourage us all to remember that anger is a virtue. None other than Thomas Aquinas said so. He said, “Anger is a virtue, but you have to have just so much of it.” He warned against too much anger—iracundia—always being ticked off, that was the Latin word. But he also warned about “unreasoned patience”—that’s the best we could do from the Latin. He said “Unreasoned patience sows the seeds of vice, nourishes negligence, and encourages good people to tolerate bad people, or the bad things that people do. I don’t really think there are bad people.”
So, what we need to do here is figure out how to act; how to act nonviolently and with just the right dosage of the virtue of anger. I’m not the greatest representative of what is now called by José Vega and others “interventions.” Interventions in the same sense of the word, people are pretty crazy in Washington. But I’ll give you some personal examples of how I tried to stand up and do what Dan Berrigan suggested.
First slide, please. This is a photo of me standing up, turning my back to Hillary Clinton, who you can see off my left shoulder. She was talking about repression in Iran, and suffice it to say, there was great repression exercised on me simply for standing up, not saying a word, nonviolently again but angry. I was beat up pretty badly, but I didn’t even have to stay in jail that night. I got to go home. I had to go to the hospital first, and interestingly enough, the doctor said, “Now, you were beaten up. You have to report this to the authorities.” I said, “To State Department security? They did it!”
Second slide, please. Here I wasn’t so lucky; I did have to spend the night in jail. But that’s OK; good things happen in jail. You get to feel what other people feel being all closed up and unfree. What are the lessons here? Well, this particular photo was taken after I stood up and intervened, so to speak, with the Senate Intelligence Committee before they approved the nomination of torturer-in-chief Gina Haspel to be the new CIA director five or six years ago. What encouraged me to do that? Just the obscenity of the whole thing. Hello! So, what do you do in situations like that? Well, number one, you kind of, as you can see, you blend in with the indigenous to get in. You put your best wedding suit on, which I had. Number two, you stay away from known interveners—Code Pink, for example. You let them sit over in a corner; you go separately. Number three, you hope that one of those Code Pinkers has a camera—and indeed, one did. Therefore, this picture, after they had taken me out of the hearing room. And what I have as number four here, I was just thinking today. People have been asking me, “What’s this green band you have on there, Ray?” Let me read it to you. “Rachel Corrie, April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003.” Suffice it to say that if 23-year old Rachel Corrie can stand up to Israeli bulldozers about to demolish yet another Palestinian home, and then, that Israeli bulldozer being instructed to back up over Rachel to make sure that her back was broken. Three days before the attack on Iraq, so it would not make the headlines. Well, if Rachel Corrie can do that, McGovern, you can do that, too. At least you’re not going to get run over, yet at least, by an Israeli bulldozer.
We Catholics call this a sacramental; something that reminds you of a grace-giving event, or a grace-giving thing, or a grace-giving person like Rachel Corrie. Her dad gave me this bracelet three months after she was killed.
I want to also suggest that those of you who are interested in some action, go to all the think tank presentations as José Vega has started to do. Here’s one that I’d like to show you. There’s a little clip of an event at John Podesta’s and Hillary Clinton’s old think tank. I went to all those things as long as I lived in Washington. Sometimes I got to ask questions, if they were never welcome. This time, they didn’t recognize me, they didn’t let me ask a question. But I hung around; you might say “Nevertheless, I persisted.” So, I went up to Adam Schiff, then-head of the House Intelligence Committee, and asked him about Russian hacking, which now has been conclusively disproven. Could we show this two-minute clip? If you fall asleep, you’ll miss the whole thing.
MCGOVERN: My name is Ray McGovern. I served in CIA under seven Presidents and nine directors.
ADAM SCHIFF: Thank you very much.
MCGOVERN: We have a little alumni group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. We’ve been following this issue very closely. One of our members is the former technical director of NSA. I’m interested in, one week ago, when the President said this—I don’t want to misquote him—“The conclusions of the Intelligence Committee with respect to Russian hacking were not conclusive regarding WikiLeaks.” In other words, there’s a big gap between alleged Russian hacking and WikiLeaks. The Intelligence Committee does not know how or if that information—to the degree it exists—got to WikiLeaks. Now, you assert as flat fact that Russia did this. Do you know more than Obama?
SCHIFF: Well, I would never claim to know more than Obama. I think he’s a brilliant man.
MCGOVERN: That’s a very serious question.
SCHIFF: It’s a serious question. I have every confidence in the intelligence of Russian hacking of both the DNC as well as John Podesta.
MCGOVERN: James Clapper is a convicted—
SCHIFF: Do you want to hear the answer? I will, and while I can’t go into the classified information, I have every confidence that the Russians have used WikiLeaks. Whether Julian Assange was a known participant, or as the Russians describe a useful idiot, that we will hopefully find out. But, I don’t have any question in the conclusions of the Intelligence Committee.
MCGOVERN: You have every confidence, but no evidence, is that right?
SCHIFF: No, I can’t share the evidence with you.
MCGOVERN: That’s bogus. [end video]
MCGOVERN [live]: Well, I have to concede now after all these years, that Schiff said one thing that was true. That was that he couldn’t share that information with me, because it didn’t exist.
What’s the lesson here? I just want to encourage everyone—go; go to these meetings; go to these think tanks, and nevertheless persist. I didn’t know the camera was still on. I didn’t know that C-Span still had audio. But I did it, and I’m glad because that was captured.
Now, what else? I’m going to read in conclusion, a poem written by my mentor, Dan Berrigan, a quote from whom we started this little talk. It’s called, “Some.” I don’t want to spoil it for you; it’s not very long, but I do want to have a photo up as backdrop. Could we have that slide #4 please.
SOME
Some stood up once and sat down.
Some walked a mile and walked away.
Some stood up twice and sat down
I’ve had it, they said.
Some walked two miles and walked away
It’s too much, they cried.
Some stood and stood and stood.
They were taken for dummies
They were taken for fools
They were taken for being taken in.
Some walked and walked and walked.
They walked the earth
They walked the waters
They walked the air.
Why do you stand?
they were asked, and
Why do you walk?
Because of the children, they said, and
Because of the heart, and
Because of the bread.
Because
the cause
is the heart’s beat
and the children born
and the risen bread.
[photo] You’re looking at a little boy, two years old, the age of our youngest of ten grandchildren. He was trying to escape the oppression, the war in Syria. He was of Kurdish origin, the stepchildren of all wars. And suffice it to say, he drowned with his big brother and his mother, trying to get to Greece. Alan Kurdi is his name. “Because of the children,” they said. So, nevertheless, we must persist, because of the children. And we must look for moral leadership; but absent moral leadership, we’re it. There’s no other but us. We can appeal—for example, I have appealed to Pope Francis, and that’s appeared on the largest religious network run by Catholics. You can see it on my website—raymcgovern.com. But we can’t wait; we can’t wait for a voice from the Vatican. We have to do what we can ourselves. That’s why I applaud and I welcome the chance to be on every Schiller conference to which I am invited. I applaud all of us, and particularly Helga, for exercising moral leadership at this critical point in time. Thanks very much for your attention.
