The very same day that the impeachment trial against President Donald Trump was started in the U.S. Senate, EIR and the Schiller Institute gave a 2.5-hour background briefing in Berlin, featuring Harley Schlanger and former NSA Technical Director Bill Binney, the latter by video.
The participants from various nations and institutional backgrounds heard an extensive briefing by Schlanger about the strategic implications and history of the impeachment battle in the U.S. and the all-encompassing need to establish cooperation among the U.S., Russia, and China in the present strategic escalation, as Helga Zepp-LaRouche called for on January 7.
Schlanger described the British Empire’s role in bringing about regime change wars, the Blair doctrine of maintaining the failing “rules-based world order” of geopolitics and the bankrupt financial system of globalization. He contrasted those failures to the newly emerging paradigm of economic and political cooperation. It became clear to the participants that all of this was set up to end Trump’s explicit intention to stop the regime change wars and re-establish good relations with Russia — the nightmare for the Empire. Therefore, the impeachment question is of strategic importance for the whole world.
In the extended discussion period, questions included: Why is the British Empire still so important in all of this? If Trump is so peace-loving, why does he surround himself with war-hawks? Why did Gen. Michael Flynn not realize that he was under surveillance? What would happen if the Senate votes to convict Trump? How can the confrontation between Iran and the U.S. be stopped, and what role is this going to play in the U.S. elections? What was the role of then French President Sarkozy in eliminating Qaddafi?
The overall response by the participants demonstrated a growing demand to understand the full strategic picture, its historical dynamics, and above all the solution.
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Chairwoman of the Schiller Institute
The first thing one can say about the performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio at the Darmstadt Theater, in a production of Paul-Georg Dittrich with a musical adaptation of the finale by Annette Schlünz, is: It’s god-awful! It couldn’t be worse. God-awful from a musical, artistic, philosophical and human standpoint. Of the long series of stupid, crude, repetitive Regietheater [fn1] performances, that have been staged for over half a century(!)—limited at first to theater, but then also inflicted on the opera—this performance was the absolute low point.
In the summer of 1966, when Hans Neuenfels—then a 25-year-old dramatist at the Trier Theater—had a leaflet distributed to promote the “First Happening in Rheinland-Palatinate,” in which he even asked, “Why don’t you rape little girls?” he was expressing the convictions of the 1968 movement, as we have known it since at least Daniel Cohn-Bendit. Since then—for 53 years now!—various nudes, rock bands, schizophrenics, or actors in Nazi costumes have been copulating on stage, and have succeeded in distorting beyond recognition the plays and compositions of Classical poets and composers. This is definitely not originality.
A scene from the Darmstadt performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio.
The Fidelio staging in Darmstadt presents a multimedia mixture of aesthetic vulgarity, Brechtian alienation effects, and the intrusion during the first part’s musical scenes of a screen filling the entire stage, on which photos and film clips are projected. They are supposed to illustrate the historical background of eight productions from 1805 until today. The overall impression is chaotic, and you begin to feel sorry for the singers who have to sing against this storm of clips, and for the heroine Leonore, who has to run around the stage the whole time like a headless chicken.
But the real monstrosity comes in the second part, when the Finale, the opera’s magnificent hymn to freedom, is literally chopped up in martial manner by the insertion of compositions in the New Music style of Annette Schlünz. In the program notes, Schlünz describes her insertions:
Annette Schlünz
Little by little, a “chorus of hails” emerged, which becomes silent in part, or in which only individual voices or words remain. Sometimes I radicalize Beethoven’s instrumentation to reinforce his ideas or I repeat individual bars and then suddenly stop. I very much wanted to weave in external sounds and to color the music in some places. The trumpet fanfare, which is heard from the balcony of the State Theater before the performance begins, is something I take up and expand. It’s the signal that summons to a departure: Some instruments and musicians that drop out of the sound of the orchestra become, so to speak, rebellious, and bring in something new. The F major ensemble piece—a fantastic piece with a sacredness and coherence that I would never dare to approach—I leave untouched like a gem. The subsequent interlude with my music, in which different sounds, including the voices of eight vocalists, are sent throughout the room, completely breaks up Beethoven’s world of sound.
From the standpoint of the maltreated spectator, the noise that Schlünz inserted, during which the singers and instrumentalists trumpeted their deafening rubbish from the middle of the audience and from all sides, has nothing to do with music: It clearly crosses the line to bodily harm.
Just how emotionally damaged Schlünz is, becomes clear in the next sentences:
When listening, I often imagined that I was sitting at the controls of a mixer console and turned up the speed. And then I would just assume that Beethoven, when he composed, almost intended to go too far and fast. It’s really exulting! It reminds me of children who go crazy with excitement because they don’t know how to keep their emotions under control.
If there is anything crazy here, it is the pitiful state shown by Schlünz, in her emotional impotence to understand the sublime nature of the victory of the love between Leonore and Florestan. Moreover, she obviously cannot stand such greatness; her idea of wanting to speed up the music by adjusting a mixer console, represents the same uncontrollable freak-out that led the murderers of Ibykus [fn2] to betray themselves after the choir of the Erinyes had called forth the higher power of poetry in the theater of Corinth. Small, base minds cannot stand great ideas nor sublime feelings.
The magnificent Finale of Fidelio, in which Beethoven celebrates the defeat of tyranny through the courage of conjugal love is an expression of the noblest humanity, where love, courage and the desire for freedom are expressed in music. In Leonore’s preceding aria, she sings: “I shall not waver, I am strengthened by my duty of marital love.” Beethoven chose as subject for the opera the idealization, in Schiller’s sense, of a historical event, namely the liberation of the hero of the American Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette, the French Republican, by his wife Adrienne. This reflects Beethoven’s own republican sentiments, which included at that time of feudal structures and Napoleonic campaigns, both personal courage and the desire for freedom.
Portrayal of Leonora in the Darmstadt performance of Fidelio.
Such deeply human feelings, however, are no longer accessible to the disturbed emotionality of the representatives of the Frankfurt School and the liberal Zeitgeist. Stage director Paul-Georg Dittrich states most tellingly in his interview in the program notes, that the Finale seems to him “like a celebration where you don’t even know what is actually being celebrated.” While Dittrich and Schlünz may not know it, that in no way gives them the right to destroy ordinary people’s access to it by deconstructing Beethoven’s composition.
But precisely that was the intention from the very beginning of the diverse currents that formed the tradition in which Dittrich, Schlünz and the entire production in Darmstadt stand, in an amalgam of Theodor Adorno, the Eisler-Brecht School, and the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF).
In a noteworthy touch of truthful reporting, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported on November 12, 2017, in an article titled, “The CIA and Culture: How to Steal the Big Words,” about the exhibition organized on the 50th anniversary of a scandal that erupted in 1967, when it was reported that the entire gigantic operation of the Congress for Cultural Freedom was a CIA-funded operation as part of the Cold War effort. The FAZ added an admission about the whole thing that was tantamount to sensational for that daily:
The worrying point is that the secret service did not simply promote sinister reaction [i.e. the right wing], but it helped achieve the breakthrough of that same left-wing liberalism that still forms the mainstream standard of Western intellectuals.
The Fidelio production in Darmstadt is, so to speak, the terminal moraine of this process. It began with the change in U.S. post-war politics. After Roosevelt’s untimely death, under whose leadership the United States was allied with the Soviet Union in the fight against fascism in the Second World War, the intellectually much smaller Harry Truman quickly came under Churchill’s influence. The latter, in his notorious Fulton, Missouri speech on March 5, 1946, ushered in the Cold War. Thus the forerunners of those elements in the U.S. security apparatus, which Eisenhower later warned were the military-industrial complex and which are often called the “deep state” for short today, gained the upper hand. The Cold War thus proclaimed—demanded—that the deep emotions linking Americans and Russians together through the war experience, culminating in the meeting of the armies on the Elbe River in Torgau, be replaced by an anti-Russian sentiment. A new image of the enemy had to be built up and the population’s entire axiomatics of thought had to be changed accordingly. For the United States, this meant changing the basic beliefs that had contributed to the support for Roosevelt’s policies. For Europe, and especially Germany, the roots of European humanist culture, which constituted its cultural identity despite twelve years of a reign of terror, had to be destroyed and replaced by a construct—the deconstruction of Classical culture.
The Evil of the Congress for Cultural Freedom
The instrument that was created for this purpose was the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), a gigantic psychological warfare operation launched by secret service circles around Allen Dulles under the direction of Frank Wisner, then head of the Office for Political Coordination of the State Department. The CCF was later moved to the covert operations department. The operation officially lasted from 1950 to 1967, when the New York Times published on April 27 the news that the CCF was a CIA operation. That revelation became the biggest cultural scandal of the 20th century. The CCF operated in 35 countries and published 20 magazines, and the CIA controlled virtually every art exhibition and cultural event. At that time, there was virtually no writer, musician, painter, critic, or journalist in Europe who was not in some way connected to this project—some knowingly, some with no inkling.
The first Congress for Cultural Freedom convention, Berlin, 1950.
The orientation of these cultural projects was essentially the same as that of the Frankfurt School, which was exiled to the United States during the National Socialist period and whose individual representatives were in the pay of the American secret services, such as Herbert Marcuse. In any case, the views of the Frankfurt School fit perfectly into the CCF’s program. Theodor Adorno, for example, defended the absurd and ignorant view that Friedrich Schiller’s idealism led directly to National Socialism, because he took a radical point of view. Therefore, Adorno claimed, beauty must be eradicated from art. In his essay “Cultural Criticism and Society,” written in 1949, his misanthropic view culminated in the much-quoted phrase: “To write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric.”
Here again, there was nothing new about the Fidelio performance in Darmstadt. In the program notes, George Steiner expresses the exactly the same opinion:
Is it possible that classical humanism itself contains a radical failure in its tendency towards abstraction and aesthetic judgment? Can it be that mass murder and that indifference to the atrocities that abetted Nazism are not enemies or negations of civilization, but rather their hideous but natural accomplice?
What is expressed here in very clear terms is the psychological warfare carried out by the CIA-steered CCF, which was intended to eradicate the roots of the humanist identity of the German population, in favor of an Anglo-American cultural value scale.
To restate the point concisely: There can be no greater contrast than that between the sublime image of man presented in humanism and Classical art, and the barbaric image of man of the National Socialists. The Classical image of man sees man as being good in principle, as the only creature endowed with reason, who is able, through aesthetic education, to develop the potential within himself to a harmonious whole, to a beautiful character, as Wilhelm von Humboldt expressed it. Classical works of art in poetry, the visual arts, and music celebrate this beautiful humanity, and inspire in turn the creative powers of the readers, viewers, and listeners.
In contrast, the National Socialists’ image of man, with its blood-and-soil ideology, is based on a racist, chauvinistic, and Social Darwinist conception of the superiority of the “Aryan” race. To claim that because both the classics and National Socialism occurred in Germany, there is an inner connection between these diametrically opposed ideas, is just as absurd as to assert that the United States Constitution directly gave rise to the interventionist wars of the Bush and Obama Administrations, or that Joan of Arc’s convictions were the basis for French colonial policy. That claim actually came from the CIA’s devil’s kitchen, which included such recipes as “necessary lies” and “staunch denial” since at least the time of the CCF. In the recent period, the world has again been treated to an ample taste of them in the ongoing coup against President Trump by British intelligence in cooperation with the “deep state.”
The question of how it was possible to go from the ideal of the German classics to the abyss of Nazi rule, is one of the most important questions there is. To answer it, one has to consider the entire history of ideas from the Romantics’ attack on the classics, and the dissolution of the classic form it began to spawn, to the beginning of cultural pessimism, which set in with the Conservative Revolution in response to the ideas of 1789 and the political restoration under the Congress of Vienna, down to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, the youth movement prior to World War I, and finally to World War I and its consequences.
Inducing Cultural Pessimism
Inducing cultural pessimism was also the goal of various music projects of the CCF. In 1952, it held a month-long music festival in Paris titled: “Masterpieces of the 20th Century,” during which over 100 symphonies, concerts, operas, and ballets of more than seventy 20th-century composers were performed. The Boston Symphony, which was to play a leading role in other CCF projects, opened the festival with a more-than-strange performance of Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps (Rite of Spring). Other pieces were performed from the atonalists Arnold Schoenberg (one of Adorno’s teachers) and Alban Berg, as well as Paul Hindemith, Claude Debussy, and Benjamin Britten, to name but a few. Further conferences for the propagation of atonal and twelve-tone music followed in Prato and Rome, which were exclusively devoted to avant-garde music. At all of these well-funded events, it was taken for granted that everyone would pretend to enjoy ugly music.
Theodor Adorno
The Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music, which were also supported by the American military government and the CCF, performed Schoenberg, Anton Webern, and Béla Bartók. Lecturers such as Adorno, Olivier Messiaen, and John Cage gave lectures on their music theory. In an official assessment of these courses, Ralph Burns, head of the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS) Cultural Affairs Branch’s “Review of Activities,” wrote:
It was generally conceded that much of this music was worthless and had better been left unplayed. The over-emphasis on twelve-tone music was regretted. One critic described the concerts as the “triumph of Dilettantism.”
The issue here is not about stopping anyone from composing or listening to atonal or twelve-tone music, or other forms of avant-garde music. To each his own taste. The point is, that the idea of the equality of all tones of the tempered chromatic scale massively reduces the much higher degrees of freedom flowing from the polyphonic harmonic and countrapuntal composition, as it was developed from Bach to Hadyn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms. It eliminates the ambiguity of the notes and the relationships between the keys, and the possibility of enharmonic confusion: Motivführung is a form of composition that, out of a single musical idea, develops further themes, movements, and ultimately the entire composition. This technique of composition, as elaborated and rigorously demonstrated in various master classes by Norbert Brainin, the first violinist of the Amadeus Quartet, was developed into greater complexity and perfection from Haydn’s “Russian” quartets Op. 33, to Mozart’s “Haydn” quartets, and then to Beethoven’s late quartets.
Given the heights that Classical composition had achieved with Beethoven, so-called modern music, if it throws these principles out the window—and there are undoubtedly good modern compositions—represents a decline comparable to reducing an anti-entropically developing universe of two trillion galaxies known so far, to a flat earth.
Classical Music Ennobles
Virtually all truly creative people, from Confucius to Albert Einstein, recognized and used the effects of good or Classical music to foster their own creative abilities and the aesthetic ennoblement of the population. Confucius rightly observed that the state of a country can be seen in the quality of its music. Immersion in the works of great Classical composers opens the deepest access to the creative faculties of the human soul and spirit. Where else, other than in Classical music, can one strengthen and deepen the passion needed to look beyond one’s own concerns and to address the great objects of humanity? Or where can one educate the sensibility needed to fulfill Schiller’s demand, as stated in his speech on universal history:
A noble longing must glow within us to add from our own resources our contribution to the rich legacy of truth, morality and freedom, which we have received from former ages, and must deliver richly increased to the ages to come; and to fasten to this imperishable chain, which winds through all the generations of men, our own fleeting existence.
It is precisely this emotionality of love, as expressed in the Finale of Fidelio, love for one’s spouse, love for humanity, and the idea of freedom in necessity, the idea of fulfilling one’s duty with passion, and thereby becoming free, that Schiller defines as the qualities of his ideal of the beautiful soul and of genius. It is the quintessence of the entire aesthetic method of the classics and of Friedrich Schiller in particular: “It is through beauty that one achieves freedom.”
This notion of freedom is what all the proponents of Regietheater, disharmonious music, and postmodern deconstruction attack, because it goes against their liberal concept of “freedoms,” rather than freedom.
Therefore, they dip unrestrainedly into the mothballed box of Brechtian alienation effects: interruptions, film clips, banners, cameras pointed to the audience, etc., so as to “shock” the viewers out of their habits of hearing and thinking. What came out of that in Darmstadt was a mixture of “Clockwork Orange” (recall the violence-ridden atrocity from Stanley Kubrick, accompanied by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony), and the intellectual depth of pop star Helene Fischer. When Helene Fischer, in a red latex outfit and with orgiastic movements, belts out her song “Tell Me, Do You Feel That?” to an enthralled audience, it’s about as subtle as when the question, “Does it move you?” lights up the stage in large neon letters during the entire Finale of Fidelio. Obviously, the director Dittrich thinks the intellectually challenged audience needs to be awakened with a two-by-four. On top of that came the previously mentioned bombardment of deafening noise from the instrumentalists and chorus members scattered throughout the opera house.
The audience expressed its thanks for the din with a tormented mini-applause. If the goal of the staging was to summon the audience to political action in the present or to open contemporary music to a “broader audience” (Dittrich), one has to say in both cases: Mission failed. The well-known (to German speakers) “Hurz” skit by Hape Kerkeling describes quite aptly the reaction of most viewers, who have apparently grown accustomed for much too long to the outrageous demands of Regietheater and to the CCF’s cultural war, which is still ongoing.
Finally, a quote is in order from Alma Deutscher, who really can compose: “If the world is so ugly, why should we make it even uglier with ugly music?”
Before the example of Annette Schlünz is followed and other compositions of classical music are “raped,” in the spirit of Hans Neuenfels, this review should serve to launch a debate in the year of Beethoven on how to defend the classics against such assaults.
Celebrate This Year of Beethoven!
This Year of Beethoven, which will feature performances of many of the master’s compositions not only in Germany, but around the world, offers a wonderful opportunity for us to recall our better cultural tradition in Germany, to resist the moral decline of the past decades, and to find within ourselves, by consciously listening to Beethoven’s music, the inner strength to have our own creativity come alive.
The world is now in the midst of an epochal change, in which the era dominated by the Atlantic countries is clearly coming to an end, and the focus of development is shifting to Asia, where there are many nations and peoples who are very proud of their civilizations, and nourish their classical culture. Some of these civilizations are more than 5,000 years old. If Europe has anything to contribute to shaping in a humanistic spirit the new paradigm emerging in the world, then it is our lofty culture of the Renaissance and the Classics.
Many scientists, artists, and people appreciative of Germany all over the world have been wondering for some time now what is wrong with the Germans, that they have distanced themselves so much from being a people of poets and thinkers. If we let the Year of Beethoven be so ruined, then Germany will likely be written off for good as a cultured nation.
More discussion of this subject is needed and welcome.
hz.zepp@schiller-institut.de
[fn1] Regietheater, or “Directors Theater,” is a mode of performance of Classical drama and opera, whereby the director arbitrarily imposes modern (and usually degenerate) costumes and staging upon the production, thereby ripping the work out of its true historical context and ironies, and degrading the audience, the performers, and the composer himself.
[fn2]See Friedrich Schiller’s poem, “Die Kraniche des Ibykus” (“The Cranes of Ibycus”). Full text available here.
The Schiller Institute is organizing a Day of Action, Wednesday, January 15, to intensify support for the Institute’s January 7 “Call for Presidents Trump, Putin, and Xi To Convene an Emergency Summit to Address the Danger of War.” Activists on five continents will mobilize citizens, government officials, diplomats and institutions, in support of the call, which was authored by Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche.
January 15, which is the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is the day of rallies and activity at appropriate locations, and on social media, websites, and all means of outreach. The Schiller Institute encourages all to commemorate the ideas and life’s work of Dr. King, by organizing for peace through economic development, as in the Call for the Emergency Summit.
The central international event will be at the United Nations in New York City, from 12 noon to 3 pm, Wednesday, January 15. Follow us on Facebook for on-the-ground reports from organizers throughout the world. To participate in New York, please contact: Lynne Speed, in New York, at (201) 562-9890.
If the world is to escape a spiral of retaliations and counter-retaliations in the wake of the the killing of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units Deputy Commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis , the Presidents of the United States, Russia and China must convene an emergency summit to address the current crisis in Southwest Asia and the solutions to that crisis.
Seventy-five years ago, the United States, Russia and China were joined together in the global fight which defeated fascism, and today, these Presidents must act in concert to save the peace.
“It is clear, that among the three presidents, President Trump—who promised to end the endless wars and has already taken several steps in that direction—and Presidents Putin and Xi, there is the intention and the capability to outflank the maneuvers of the war-mongers and to establish a higher level of cooperation. That potential is the reason that the coup—Russiagate and now the Impeachment—are orchestrated against Trump. It is now the time for those three outstanding leaders to fulfill the potential that historical providence has bestowed upon them.”
The Crisis
Every world war and major war of the past century has been triggered by the British Empire’s geopolitical policy of permanent warfare, throwing nations against each other to maintain their power as a global elite.
Nowhere have the effects of that evil imperial policy of pitting nations, peoples, religions and factions against each other been more evident than in the Mideast, where that policy was codified by the Sykes-Picot Treaty established by the British and French imperial powers after World War I.
Understanding that history, Lyndon LaRouche, in a speech delivered 15 years ago, provided the framework in which to understand and act on today’s crisis.
“And when you look at the possibilities for this region, like Southwest Asia, the only chance will come, not from inside Southwest Asia. We will do, and must do, what we can, for that area, to try to stop the bloodshed, the agony, to prevent the war. But we will not succeed, until we change the history, change the world in which this region is contained.”
The Solution
Therefore, we call on President Trump to meet with Presidents Putin and Xi to not only address the immediate danger of war in Southwest Asia, but to do so with permanent effect by creating a New Paradigm for the world—to change the world, as LaRouche said.
Such a paradigm must be based on the principles of the Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War in Europe. Warring nations broke the cycle of retribution and revenge and acted for the “advantage of the other.”
Such a paradigm must end geopolitics and imperialism, and establish a new financial and strategic architecture for the world, based on defense of the sovereignty and cultural integrity of all nations.
The U.S., China, Russia and other nations such as India, must act to establish a joint plan for the economic development of the entire region, informed by policies put forward by Lyndon LaRouche and Helga Zepp-LaRouche over the decades, and now given life by China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Such a policy will realize LaRouche’s vision: “There is a solution, a solution in principle. And the solution is: End this blasted imperialist system! And understand that we, as a people, must develop our spiritual culture; that is, the creative powers of mankind, to carry further the development of mankind.”
On Wednesday, January 1, 2020, the Virginia Schiller Institute Community Chorus and friends, hosted their largest ever New Year’s Concert featuring timeless choral pieces from Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Verdi, and Dvorak.
Our concerts are becoming a growing institution in the area, not just for audience members, but for local musicians who like performing with us. A talented violinist, who is a regular on the “classical music scene” in DC/Northern Virginia, remarked that he always appreciates the openness of our audiences, seeing “normal” people genuinely appreciating the beauty of the pieces, as opposed to the “professional audiences” he so often performs for, who are more concerned with “being seen” at such events, than letting the music move them.
The audience was full and diverse. Choral directors from churches across the area came to hear the concert, political contacts of the Schiller Institute attended, including an Ambassador and his family from a Southeast Asian country, music students, and others who ventured out to find something different than watch football on New Year’s Day!
The program of the event is below. Audience members were given the text and translations for each of the pieces to follow along.
Beethoven, Die Ehre Gottes aus der Natur Haydn, Die Himmel Erzälen, from The Creation Brahms, Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen, from German Requiem Bach, Quia Respexit, Omnes generationes Handel, Ombra mai fu, tenor, Reginald Bouknight Puccini, Recondita armonia, from Tosca, tenor, Reginald Bouknight Mozart, In uomini, in soldati, from Così fan tutte, mezzo, Pamela Butler Beethoven, Harp String Quartet, op. 74 (1809), I. Poco adagio – Allegro
Intermission
Mendelssohn, Neujarhslied Beethoven, Serenade, op. 25 (1796), VI. Adagio – Allegro vivace e disinvolta Kreisler, Praeludium and Allegro (1905) Mozart, Laudate Pueri, from Solemn Vespers Verdi, Va Pensiero, from Nabucco Dvorak/Fisher, Goin’ Home Hall Johnson, Lord, I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired Handel, Worth is the Lamb, Amen, from The Messiah Joy to the World, Everyone sing!
The fact that these were seemingly “ordinary” people from the community performing these masterful pieces in a local church was not lost on the audience. In fact, it seemed to enrich the event for people, many who then asked themselves, “well, maybe I could sing?”
The other remarkable part of the this and other concerts the Schiller Institute hosts, was articulated best by our director, Mike Billington in remarks he made on a LaRouchePAC Fireside Chat broadcast,
“It was a concert of Beethoven, Brahms, and other great Classical choruses, with some wonderful professionals, who volunteer their time to come and play with us, because they love to work with us because of our commitment to the idea of the aesthetic education of the population. The fact that this many people from all walks of life showed up in Leesburg, Virginia to watch a Schiller Institute Community Chorus concert, I think in itself reflects the transformation that’s taken place in the United States; and the potential of the LaRouche message — the slanders and the attacks that characterized the treatment of LaRouche over these years, including his incarceration, is no longer believed.”
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute
Immediate Emergency Summit Among Presidents of US, Russia and China to Save World Peace and Define Cooperation Among the Countries Who defeated Fascism 75 Years Ago!
With the assassination on Jan. 3 of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, Commander of the Revolutionary Guards Quds Brigade and a national hero in Iran, as well as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces of Iraq, through a drone attack near the Baghdad International Airport, the world is confronted with the danger of an escalation of retaliations and counter-retaliations, which could not only lead to a war in the entire southwest Asian region, but beyond.
The Pentagon issued a statement, accompanying President Trump’s signing of the attack order, that Soleimani “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.” The statement claims that General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the death of hundreds of Americans and wounding of thousands more, and that the strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.
As the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, pointed out, it was the UN Security Council’s purview to make a legal assessment of attacks on countries’ embassies, and that Washington had not requested an extraordinary UN Security Council meeting on the issue. Obviously the Pentagon did not see a need to do that, since the 2001 AUMF makes it legal for the US military to attack any armed group deemed to be a terrorist threat. The official designation as “terrorist” of the IRGC in April 2019 by the US State Department—a move which was strongly supported by then National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo—made it “legal” for the US Armed Forces to attack individuals associated with the IRGC under any circumstances that may occur. At that point Col. Pat Lang wrote in his blog:
“The neocon nitwits (Pompeo, Bolton, Hannah, etc.) may think that Iran’s reaction to this declaration of war will be submission to their will, but IMO [in my opinion] that is very unlikely. IMO it is more likely that the IRGC will absorb the new reality and will prepare for war with the US.”
Unfortunately, with the assassination of Soleimani, Col. Lang’s warning that the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation could lead to a war with Iran has come closer to coming true. So, while Bolton is out of the administration, his confrontational policies have created a very dangerous heritage—a set up for war—for Trump. And, no surprise, Bolton said in a twitter posting this morning: “Congratulations to all involved in eliminating Qassem Soleimani. Long in the making, this was a decisive blow against Iran’s malign Quds Force activities worldwide. Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran.”
As would be expected, Iran’s Supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, promised “harsh revenge,” and large crowds assembled in various Iranian cities screaming death threats to Trump and expressing their hatred for Americans. Whatever the views of other forces in the West and in southwest Asia are of Soleimani, it is a fact that he has probably done more than anyone to contribute to the defeat of ISIS, Daesh, al Nusra, al Qaida etc., and represents a national hero in the eyes of the Iranians. As is also to be expected, various Iranian proxies in the region have immediately promised revenge actions, while the Iraqi Government has announced it will introduce legislation in the Iraqi parliament on Jan. 4 to end the legal basis for the American military presence in Iraq.
Given the extreme complexity of the history of southwest Asia in terms of ethnic and religious strife, the century-old manipulations by (primarily) the British Empire with the Great Game against Russia, and with the entanglement in this region of all the world’s nuclear powers, there is no question but that this present escalation has the potential of getting completely out of control, no matter what the forces involved in the coup against President Trump may think. If there is anything one can learn from military history, it is the recognition that wars almost never go as planned. If people would have known how World War I and II evolved, they would not have started them. Before any further escalation between the US, Iran and their proxies occurs, all peace loving people in the world should support an immediate summit among the Presidents of the US, Russia and China, now, in the spirit of the Meeting at the Elbe.
It is clear, that among the three presidents, President Trump—who promised to end the endless wars and has already taken several steps in that direction—and Presidents Putin and Xi, there is the intention and the capability to outflank the maneuvers of the war-mongers and to establish a higher level of cooperation. That potential is the reason that the coup—Russiagate and now the Impeachment—is being orchestrated against Trump. It is now the time for those three outstanding leaders to fulfill the potential that historical providence has bestowed upon them.
In 1999, Lyndon LaRouche warned in a national television broadcast “Storm Over Asia” that the western-backed jihadist mercenary forces unleashed in the 1970s, were created as part of a global strategy to undermine the major powers of China, India and Russia. These mercenary wars, if not stopped, LaRouche warned, would leave these major powers no other option but to defend themselves against these mercenaries and their sponsors, potentially leading to a World War III scenario.
Over twenty years old, this keystone presentation by Mr. LaRouche is still fundamental for understanding the present geopolitical dynamics shaping the planet today.
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.
Mike Billington is a long-time associate of Mr. LaRouche. This excerpt from a recent discussion provides the history of British sponsorship or terror in Southwest Asia.
Larry C. Johnson is a former analyst at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
Below is an excerpt from the latest memo from the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of former military and intelligence officers founded by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern. The letter excerpted below is posted on Consortium News.
VIPS MEMO: Doubling Down Into Yet Another ‘March of Folly,’ This Time on Iran
January 3, 2020
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Doubling Down Into Another “March of Folly”?
“The drone assassination in Iraq of Iranian Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani evokes memory of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in June 1914, which led to World War I. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quick to warn of “severe revenge.” That Iran will retaliate at a time and place of its choosing is a near certainty. And escalation into World War III is no longer just a remote possibility, particularly given the multitude of vulnerable targets offered by our large military footprint in the region and in nearby waters.
“What your advisers may have avoided telling you is that Iran has not been isolated. Quite the contrary. One short week ago, for example, Iran launched its first joint naval exercises with Russia and China in the Gulf of Oman, in an unprecedented challenge to the U.S. in the region.”
In Helga Zepp LaRouche’s year-end webcast, she opened by reviewing the most significant developments of the last weeks, and what these mean for the year ahead. She highlighted the positive potential for the deepening of cooperative relations among Presidents Trump, Putin and Xi:
1. The promise of the Trump-Putin relationship can be advanced by Trump’s participation in events commemorating the 75th anniversary of the victory over fascism. Also of importance will be talks on arms limitations, as Russia now can deploy the Avangard hypersonic missile system, making existing U.S. counter strategies obsolete;
2. Improved relationship with China, beginning with Phase I trade agreement. This is targeted by the geopoliticians, who see the rise of China as a threat, with the Economist presenting the British war plan in their last issue.
She also spoke of the dirty tricks being run by Democrats on impeachment, which risk the party’s future; and of the Sword of Damocles dangling over the financial system, which requires the implementation of LaRouche’s Four Laws to avoid a crash.
In conclusion, she spoke of how these dangers and opportunities bring us to recognize the absolutely unique contributions of Lyndon LaRouche, especially his scientific contributions which refuted the imperial neo-Malthusianism which is pushed by today’s fascist geopoliticians. His “There Are No Limits to Growth” is essential reading for those serious about overcoming the anti-human green policies pushed by financial figures such as Carney and Lagarde.
TRANSCRIPT
HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hello, I’m Harley Schlanger from the Schiller Institute: Welcome to our webcast with our founder and President Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Today is Dec. 31, 2019, the last day of the decade, and what would hopefully be the beginning of a new year, with a bright future for mankind. But that’s still questionable. As we’ll be discussing today, there’s a great opportunity, but the dangers that continue with the geopolitical doctrines that are popping up everywhere.
So, let’s start with the situation with Russia, Helga, because there were what you described as “baby steps” taken with the most recent Trump-Putin discussion. Where do you see this going?
HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think that people at the beginning of the year, which will be tomorrow, always start with deeper thoughts than usual: Where should this year go? What should be accomplished? What are the dangers? And I think President Xi Jinping, in his New Year’s speech of today, actually, said that the coming year will be a milestone year. And I would even take it a step further: I say, that everything will depend on what will happen with the impeachment process in the United States, which is around the Russia and China question of the relations between the United States and these two countries; will the crash happen? Can we make a reform in time? And by the end of this year, I think a lot of strategic decisions will have been made which will determine if the world is on a way of a big confrontation and possible war, or if we can use this coming year to put the world into order and establish a completely new set of international relations.
Now, it is very clear that the three presidents, Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping, are working in their own way to establish a good relation among these three countries, and I think this is actually the most important strategic question, because once you have an accord among these three countries, I think every other problem in the world can be tackled — not solved immediately, and it’s not overcoming all difficulties, but you have the precondition that you can solve the strategic questions.
Since you mentioned the first “baby step,” or one of the baby steps, I think it’s quite important that Trump and Putin had another very useful telephone call, where Putin thanked Trump for having provided information which helped to not have a terrorist attack over the New Year period in St. Petersburg; two Russian nationals were arrested as a result of it, and the head of the FSB, the Russian secret service, reported that there has been in the recent period an intensification of collaboration among these security forces. So this is very, very positive.
Also, I would think that, reflecting a direct intervention by Putin with tacit approval of Trump, the fact that the situation in Ukraine is easing up a little bit: There was a prisoner exchange between the Kiev government and the Donbas region. There was a treaty between Russia and Ukraine that for five years, there will be the delivery of natural gas through Ukraine to Europe, so these are baby steps which are going in the right direction.
But I think the really big question which is coming up in April and May is the 75th anniversary of the defeat of Nazism; and there, you have naturally, the big event, the 75th anniversary celebration on May 9 in Moscow, to which Putin repeatedly invited President Trump, and Trump basically expressed great interest to go there, even if details have not been decided. But there is also on April 25, the meeting at the Elbe, and this has a very big emotional importance for the Russians, because this was the first time at the end of World War II, where the U.S. and the Soviet soldiers met at the Elbe, and this was a very difficult moment, but a moment which turned into great joy, and it has an enormous significance: Because simple soldiers were embracing each other and made a solemn commitment at the Elbe that they would put all their efforts in trying all they could that something so horrible as Nazism and the Second World War would never ever happen again. And they invoked the “Spirit of the Elbe,” to say that this is something where all nations of the world — not just the United States and Russia — but all nations of the world should really think that from now on, all conflicts must be solved peacefully.
There will be a big celebration for two days [April 24-25] in Torgau, and also there, Putin has invited Trump to attend. And I think that given the fact that this is really a way of improving the relationship between Russia and the United States, on the highest level, namely, with a solemn commitment to never have war again, that we actually really want to support this idea for Trump to go to both these events — and all other leaders and people of good will. Because 75 years after World War II, it is time to return to this idea of “Never Again!” to never again have Nazism, to never again have conflict resolution through war. And since Trump is committed to ending the endless wars, and, obviously, not have a big war with the Russians — I mean, he has said that the disarmament discussion around nuclear weapons is the most important strategic question number one; I think the Russians recently have proposed to even include their new, hypersonic missile, the Avangard, which has been now made operational, to include that in the New START discussions, which I think is very, very important. Because the development of these hypersonic missiles is really upsetting the applecart of the effort to have a global missile defense system which includes the illusion of fighting and winning a limited nuclear war, which is completely upset by this Avangard missile, because it does not follow a ballistic trajectory and therefore it totally tips off the missile defense system. And the Russians now offering to include that Avangard in the New START Treaty negotiations, I think is an absolutely important signal and signal for hope.
I think that the U.S.-Russia relationship is coming center stage in this coming period in April-May, and I would appeal to all people of good will to agree and stop this Russophobia, stop this demonization of Russia, and understand that the improvement in the relationship between these two largest nuclear powers is the absolute first precondition to maintaining world peace.
SCHLANGER: The other key relationship you talked about is that between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping of China. It appears as though there will be a meeting in January to finalize the phase one of the trade deal. There are a lot of important things coming out of China — I know that one of the things President Xi spoke about in his New Year’s address was the importance of lifting 10 million more people out of poverty during 2019. Helga, how important is it that this trade deal go ahead. And it’s clear that this is really a sticking point with the geopoliticians that are doing everything they can to stop the Trump-Xi relationship, just as they have to stop the Trump-Putin relationship.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Obviously, that is the big problem for the geopoliticians, because the rise of China is regarded by them as a threat to their geopolitical control of the world; while Xi Jinping again offered in his New Year speech that the Belt and Road Initiative is open for all countries — and that includes, obviously, the United States. So I would really urge people to read this speech by Xi Jinping themselves, because it’s a very impressive review of the accomplishments of China in the year 2019. I cannot even go through all the aspects: you know, the beefing up of the various economic development zones, the Beijing-Hebei-Tianjin triangular which is a complete overhauling and modernization of the Beijing area. then the area of Guangdong-Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Zuhai-Macao-Hong Kong — that region is, despite the troubles in the Hong Kong, actually the motor of the world economy. This is the most advanced technologies anywhere in the world, and the powerhouse of the Belt and Road Initiative. And various other development zones. And he made also a pledge that in 2020, China will fulfill its promise to alleviate poverty in all rural areas and eliminate the last pockets of poverty in China. And given the fact that there are, I think, only 7 million poor people left in China, this is an incredible perspective, and there’s no reason not to believe it, because they have already lifted 850 million people out of poverty in the last decades.
This was a very important speech, and people who are subject to the anti-China propaganda, as well as the anti-Russia propaganda, should read that speech of Xi Jinping, and just think about it, and think what it means for not only China, but for the world as a whole, that China is taking such a constructive role.
Now, obviously, this is a thorn in the side of the British Empire, which has shown its face in Hong Kong in the most clear way, because British colonialist powers still think that Hong Kong should belong to them. And there was an article, actually only a couple of days ago, in the London Economist, which I also would encourage people to read, because sometimes you have to read crucial pieces to understand — and this is sort of a war game plan for what the British want to do in respect to Trump and China in the coming year. They say: Well, on the one side, nobody can really say that Trump is not a hawk, because, after all, in the 2016 campaign, he was very anti-China, he imposed tariffs, he imposed sanctions in the context of Huawei, but, really, he does not blame China for the trade deficit; he actually says that the Chinese leaders were smart to use loopholes, and so forth, and this would create a gap between him and his own officials, who obviously do have a much more hawkish attitude against China than Trump.
But then they say, gleefully, well, you know, events in the coming year will drive Trump into a cold war confrontation with China, because when the Hong Kong riots continue, eventually the mainland troops will have to “crack skulls” (and they use this martial language), then the Republicans in the U.S. Congress will side with the Democrats to impose sanctions on Chinese officials and taking away the special status of Hong Kong in terms of trade relations; then the human rights campaign against Xinjiang will escalate; then you will have a Tibet succession fight because the Dalai Lama is already 85 and that is coming close; the crisis with Taiwan will escalate, and also in the South China Sea. And they say, when the financial crisis will get worse, all of these conflicts will actually escalate and that will force Trump to really go into a confrontation with China.
So that is their game plan. And I just remembered, in 2007-2008, when we had the big financial crisis, there were several articles in the British press, and I’m planning to review those, where they said that, OK, it’s impossible to have regime change against the communist government in Beijing, but, if there is a global financial crisis again, then all these separatist tendencies, in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, all of that can be escalated, and then the mainland government will lose control and we can replace them.
So that is their intention. I think this is an evil, geopolitical design. I don’t think it will function, but one is better off to recognize what is the intention of these forces — . and The Economist is a pretty authoritative publication for the City of London, with or without Boris Johnson. I don’t think the Brexit, which will happen at the end of January, will change that attitude much.
I don’t think it’s a realistic thing, because if you look at China, they’re doing an incredible job, their growth rates are, despite all the efforts thrown against them, still in excellent shape, and one can only wish that the end result of this would be that Trump overcomes his opposition inside the United States and can actually take up the offer of Xi Jinping to cooperate with the Belt and Road Initiative, because that would be the one thing which really would solve most problems in the world.
SCHLANGER: I would say your review of the U.S.-Russia relationship and the U.S.-China relationship is a perfect backdrop to actually understand what’s going on with the impeachment fight in the United States, that this, as we’ve always said, has nothing to do with the so-called issues that were raised in the Mueller report, the Russiagate story, the Ukrainegate story, but has to do with these broader geopolitical issues.
And now, we see the absurdity of Pelosi, arguing that they had to rush the impeachment through the House, because every day Trump stays in office is a grave threat to national security; and then, once they get the Articles of Impeachment, withholding it from the Senate trial!
Helga, what’s your sense of where we’re headed with this impeachment fight as we go into January, with the possibility that there will be a trial in the Senate, some time during this next month?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I wish I could give a definite answer on that, but, normally you would say, Nancy Pelosi has no case, she has no proof that Trump pressured the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky; she knows that she has no proof and that’s probably the reason that she has said that she doesn’t bring the case immediately to the Senate.
Now, however, knowing how these things work, one can only assume that they want to use this time to line up some dirty tricks, like getting certain Republican senators to withdraw support from Trump. There are two operations which have surfaced: One is an operation by William Kristol, who has formed a PAC; they want to do advertisement in the so-called “weak” Republican districts, these are cases where it’s known that they’re not so pro-Trump; they want to have advertisements and try to convince them to abandon the support for Trump. Then you have, naturally, the terrible William Weld, who is a counter Presidential candidate in the Republican Party: He also has said that he’s working on Republican senators.
But it’s not clear. I don’t think this will work, because these Republican senators are also aware, if they turn out to be traitors against Trump, where the public sentiment is still very high in large support for Trump that they could risk their own political careers if they’re not successive. So it’s an iffy game.
I think what Pelosi is doing, she is risking to ruin the Democratic Party; I think it’s very clear that these people are absolutely no friends of the U.S. Constitution. This was pointed out by the constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who basically said that Pelosi’s maneuvering, to only go to the Senate vote when she thinks she has a majority, that that as such is already unconstitutional.
But this is a coup, the coup is ongoing, so I can only say, be on alert. Our colleagues in the United States are trying very hard to get the various weak points to pop, like the revelations by [former NSA Technical Director] Bill Binney, that there was no Russian hack, that is still at the absolute core of the whole story of Russiagate. Then you have the Barr and Durham investigation, on top of the Horowitz Report, which already established the absolute crimes of the FBI. Now, the Durham investigation, which is a criminal investigation, is much more broad-ranged. It goes through the origins of where did the Russiagate start, who started it. It goes into the cooperation of the U.S. intelligence heads with British intelligence. However, this is going to take some time.
So we are really in a run against time, and it’s very difficult to say how this will end up. If Trump wins, and if the investigations all proceed, a lot of people could go to jail. But on the other side, I can only warn that people are complacent: Because some of the Trump supporters are too complacent because they think that Trump has so much support that everything is OK. But this is an ongoing coup! So, we need to get these revelations of Binney, of people like [former CIA analyst] Larry Johnson, who pointed very much to the origin of the whole thing with this Professor Mifsud working for British intelligence; so all of these leads have to be followed up. And I can only appeal to you to not be complacent, but become active with us.
SCHLANGER: This brings us to the other leading issue that will have to be resolved in the coming months, what you refer to as the “Sword of Damocles” hanging over all of us, which is the financial crisis, the continuing repo operations, the flooding of money, the helicopter funds, and the fact that there’s no solution within the existing establishment position. Where do we stand now with the financial crisis?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: The Fed put into the system over the Christmas/New Year period more than $500 billion, and they announced that they will inject as much money “as needed.” And obviously, Trump has an interest that nothing should happen during the election campaign. I think that the ECB President Christine Lagarde has announced that she will continue what her predecessor Mario Draghi had done, to take whatever it takes to save the euro, which means, more quantitative easing, more buying of state bonds, more injection of liquidity: But that basically means that the system is already at the absolute end, because if you continue with zero interest rates, even negative interest rates, this goes at the absolute expense of investment into the real economy; it eats up the savings of ordinary people because the inflation rate is higher than the negative or zero interest rates.
And, it basically brings the options for 2020, concerning the financial system, down to three options: One, a crash. That can happen because the whole financial system is a minefield, and while the central banks are intending to flood as much money as needed, it could actually happen that somewhere there’s a mistake, and a chain reaction indeed could happen, given the fact that the complexities of the system are such that no central banker, much less any other banker, has an overview any more. The trading in currencies in nanoseconds, and all of these things, means the whole system is a huge casino, run by supercomputers — it’s a completely out of control system.
So either there’s a crash, or, if the central banks continue this absolute massive liquidity pumping in order to avoid a crash, sooner or later, you will have inflation coming to the fore. They always say, this is not the case, because the money creation is just within the financial system and does not enter the realm of real physical goods, but that is not true, because you have bubbles already: You have the real estate bubble; you have the stock market bubble — don’t think that the value of the stocks reflects the actual worth of the firms involved. And eventually, if you keep pumping money like that, you end up in hyperinflation, and as we know from German in 1923, that would mean the complete destruction of the life savings of the normal depositors, normal people.
Then you have, on top of that, the insanity of Mark Carney, who wants to have a regime change: Take away any power of the sovereign governments and replace it with the central banks running the whole affair directly, and going into a green financing: He just give a horrible interview to BBC, which was guest edited by Greta Thuberg, where he said that he wants to have pension funds and others divest from coal and gas-related industries, going into Green finance, going into a “circular economy,” and all of that, means the social explosion which you already see around the globe, will increase. Because if you will force people, through increase of prices, to change their behavior towards “Green” behavior, you help fuel the already-existing mass strike process going on around the globe.
So I think the only third alternative for 2020, therefore, is a global Glass-Steagall, separation of the banks and ending the casino economy. And I would actually call on you, our viewers internationally, to contact us, because we plan to mobilize for this idea of a Glass-Steagall, together with the other Four Laws of Lyndon LaRouche: National banking, New Bretton Woods systems, crash programs for advanced technologies, like fusion power and cooperation in space exploration. And only if we change the economy, according to the principles of physical economy in time, can the first two operations, of either a crash with chaos, or hyperinflation, be avoided. So Glass-Steagall must be brought back onto the agenda.
SCHLANGER: What is clear from this review that you’ve just presented, as well as the options for the months ahead, is the absolute prescience of your husband Lyndon LaRouche, whom we lost in this last year, through his passing. And I think it’s critical, in looking at this, that 2020 is going to be the year of LaRouche’s ideas, if mankind is going to emerge from this crisis. And, as the person who is closest to Lyndon LaRouche, your thoughts on this would be most welcome right now, Helga.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, you have right now, an unbelievable assault on the population: This Green ideology, which is really a brown ideology in new clothes, tries to convince people that growth is evil and destroys nature, and climate and whatnot. The way how this is discussed is old neo-Malthusianism. We’ve fought this from the very beginning, when the Club of Rome escalated the old British conservation movement, which was really a continuation of the Nazi idea of treating people like animals. So when the Club of Rome published their report in 1972, the Limits to Growth, my husband repudiated that immediately with a very powerful book There Are No Limits to Growth. And I would challenge people to read that book, because it took apart the fraudulent basis on which the Club of Rome had said the world was developing until 1972, and now we have to somehow adjust, and we are in a closed system, and we have to from now on have austerity, zero growth, because the resources are limited.
What my husband developed in this book was the absolute absurdity of this idea, because “resources” are not a fixed thing: What is a resource is always determined by the scientific and technological level with which man is using these materials; whether you have a stone with which you kill your neighbor in the Stone Age, or whether you say, this is a rare earth element and I can make mobile phones and others things out of it, entirely depends on the level of technology. And especially space research makes very clear, that the resources of the Earth are not limited, but that we are in a process of basically using resources from our Solar System, our galaxy, and who knows what beyond that in the future; so what my husband basically in There Are No Limits to Growth is put this whole question on a scientific basis, and obviously, one of the fallacies of composition which these anti-growth people are committing is to make equivalent, just mindless quantitative growth with the qualitative growth whereby human creativity discovers deeper and better principles about the physical universe, and applies them in the form of science and technology.
Right now, I can only say there is an unbelievable brainwashing, where people are really driven into a frenzy about this climate question. There is no question that there are changes in the climate, but it is not discussed out and proven among scientists, what are the causes of it, because there are many factors involving the position of the Solar System within the galaxy, processes on the Sun, many factors, and the anthropogenic aspect of climate change is very, very small, and that needs to be publicly debated.
This will obviously be a big issue in the coming year, and years, and I think that many people in the United States, in Europe, in Africa, in other parts of the developing countries, remember and recognize that my husband was the intellectual counterpole to the City of London, to Wall Street pushing these oligarchical schemes; and they are coming forward. There is a renewed interest in the scientific work of my husband — we are in the process of preparing the publication of his works: And I want to invite all of you to help to spread these ideas. Now, we had in the last year, three very successful memorials for my husband: One in New York, one in Frankfurt, one in Latin America, and I would urge people to look at these — they are on our websites — and get a sense a sense of who Lyndon LaRouche is and why the ideas which he has presented absolutely must be realized in the coming year.
SCHLANGER: Well Helga, I think what’s clear is that we have to make sure that your optimism becomes the strategic outlook of all our viewers and listeners. And on behalf of all of them, I want to wish you a Happy New Year, and let’s make sure that this coming year, 2020, is the Year of LaRouche.
On December 28, 2019 the Schiller Institute participated in the third annual memorial in honor of the Alexandrov Ensemble, at the Tear Drop Memorial in Bayonne, New Jersey. In 2016, 64 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, along with 24 others, perished when their plane crashed into the Black Sea en route to Syria. What follows is a transcript of the memorial including remarks from Capt. Donald Haiber, Father John Fencik, Chief Keith Weaver, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation Mission to the United Nations Mr. Dmitry Chumakov, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic Mission Dr. Louay Falouh, Schiller Institute Founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and Co-Director of the Schiller Institute New York City Chorus, Diane Sare, and Mr. Kevin Maynor.
Transcript of ceremony:
Capt. Donald Haiber, Bayonne, N.J. Fire Department: First I want to wish everyone a belated Merry Christmas. Secondly, for those of you that have been with us for the last few years, it looks like we lucked out with some balmy weather. I know it’s been cold and snowing in the past, but today looks like a beautiful day, and it’s a nice way for a remembrance.
Some of the people who are here today, we have our Office of Emergency Management Director Mr. Ferantay [ph], the chief of the department Keith Weaver; we also have the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation Mr. Dmitry Chumakov; and also, I’d like to recognize the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic, Dr. Fallouh. And also a very special thank to Mr. Kevin Maynor, who’s behind me. I also want to recognize Father Fencik: He’s been here every year with us, braving the cold. And the last person I want to thank is the Co-Director of the Schiller Institute New York Chorus Diane Sare, who, without her, none of this happens.
On behalf of the Bayonne Fire Department and the City of Bayonne, we welcome you all to today’s ceremony. Father Fencik, would you please do the invocation?
Father John Fencik: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. O Heavenly King, the Comforter, O Spirit of Truth, Who everywhere present through all things, Treasury of Blessings and Giver of Life, come into all within us, cleanse us of all stain, and save our souls, O Gracious Lord.
This is the prayer that is traditionally said at the beginning of any type of function that involves the Russian people. We pray that we who are gathered here today, in memory of those departed members of the Alexandrov Choirs, those who departed with them this life in December of 2016. We pray that God give them eternal rest in His heavenly mansion. We pray that this ceremony retains their memory, and brings them all to life everlasting. Amen.
Color Guard posts colors. Chorus presents the Russian Federation National Anthem and United States of America National Anthem.
Captain Haiber: Thank you all very much. That was beautiful. I’m going to introduce Chief Weaver who wants to say a few words as well. Professionally, he is my chief, he’s my boss, but I’m honored, personally, to say that he is my friend — Chief Weaver.
Chief Keith Weaver: Good morning to everyone in attendance today. I’m grateful for this opportunity to say a few words in honor of the lives lost on Christmas Day 2016. Today, we pause to remember and honor the tragic loss of Alexandrov Ensemble. The loss of this extremely talented group was a loss for the entire globe. I’m honored to be speaking at this fitting site, as this Tear Drop Memorial was donated to our city from our world neighbors in Russia. The gift is a reminder that although we may be separated by nationality, we are united in humanity. As brothers and sisters, we share in your grief, and also share in your hope for a brighter future for all mankind. May the lives lost on that tragic day, three years ago, rest in peace. Thank you.
Captain Haiber: Thank you, Chief. Mr. Chumakov will have a few words to say.
Dmitry Chumakov: Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends: We are very pleased to welcome all those of you who have joined us today in the memory of the Alexandrov Ensemble, and the victims of the plane crash that happened on the 26th December 2016, just a couple of days from today, three years ago. It was a legendary ensemble, media workers from Russian TV channels, and the famous philanthropist Elizaveta Glinka: They were bringing to Syria, the Christmas mood, they were bringing into a war-torn country, and it was a big tragedy and loss.
The Russian Mission is grateful to the Schiller Institute, to the Fire Department of the City of Bayonne: without you, this event would not be possible. It’s becoming a tradition. We are getting together for the third time now, and this is a great honor for us to share these human feelings and share with you the losses and compassion. This memorial event is a great example [inaudible] honor and solidarity between our countries. The Alexandrov Ensemble has been reinstated, and I just want you to know that the new performers [inaudible] we also want you to know that that humanitarian projects started by Elizaveta Glinka are implemented by her followers. And it’s also important to say that we’re still making a lot of efforts to bring peace to Syria, and to help Syria, and to help the political settlement in this country. So, it is only with political settlement that the problems can be solved.
We once again must give tribute to these brave and merciful people who are our modern-day heroes. They are symbols of patriotism and humanity are given to us today: May their souls rest in peace. And thank you very much for joining us today.
Captain Haiber: Thank you Mr. Chumakov. We are here once again to give our condolences and sympathy to the families of the Alexandrov Ensemble and to the people of Russia. Everyone here proves, I believe, that this small remembrance shows our humanity towards one another — and God knows, we could use more of that.
Once again, it’s fitting that we’re here at the Tear Drop, because the creator of this structure was the Russian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli. In the darkness after 9/11, this monument helped to bring peace and the light of hope to the many people [inaudible] here. We now wish to pay that forward, back to the Russian people and the families of the Alexandrov Ensemble.
May the serenity and hope that I feel when I am here be conveyed back to the people of Russia. Music has meaning, and this quote from Billy Joel conveys that better than anything I could ever say: “I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by, no matter where we are from, everyone loves music.” It is times like this that we are neither Americans nor Russians, nor Syrians, but we are just human beings who genuinely wish peace and happiness to one another.
Once again, I will try to convey my thoughts in Russian. I’ve been practicing and hopefully this gets it through: [Russian remark].
It is now my honor to introduce Mr. Kevin Maynor. He has sung with the Metropolitan Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and many others. Mr. Maynor was the first apprentice artist from the West to study at the Bolshoi in Moscow, where he studied and sang. He will now also share a few words with you.
Kevin Maynor: Thank you. [Sings Russian folk song “Still One Star”] I don’t think anybody can talk about the Alexandrov Ensemble, the great Russian Army Chorus, and not think of the great [inaudible] that was meant to encourage, sung by the Volga boatmen. I think of the Volga boatmen and the Volga River, which I had the pleasure of seeing in the year 2000-2001 upon my return to Russia. My first experience of 1979-1980, and the Russian people embraced me with a certain kind of love that I will never, ever forget. I love them dearly, from the bottom of my heart. There’s no bass in the world — no bass in the world — no singing bass, that does not admire the training and the beauty of the great Russian basses and the great Russian singers. I think these people and the contributions they have made to the world, regardless of the confusions and the politics that might be involved between countries, one thing for sure, music, it is true, it is the healing source. It is the language that we all speak and understand. And when we don’t understand one another, we learn to appreciate, which is the key, actually, to bringing people closer together, appreciation for one another.
I want to take the time to sing for you a spiritual, one that was sung by the great Paul Robeson, who was a great singer, one that many admire — certainly the Russian people admire. He sang this song amongst them, and I want to sing it for you all: It’s called There Is a Balm in Gilead.
God bless the Alexandrov Ensemble. God bless their mission. God bless all of you who are gathered here, today.
Captain Haiber: Thank you Mr. Maynor. I do have to say, that is probably the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. Thank you.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I extend my greetings to all of you gathered today to commemorate the lives of the 92 passengers and crew, who died when the Russian TU 154 crashed into the Black Sea on December 25th, 2016. Sixty-four singers of the Alexandrov Ensemble, plus the crew of the plane, members of the Russian military, Russian journalists and the beloved relief worker Dr. Elizaveta Glinka all perished that winter night, while flying to give Christmas comfort and cheer to soldiers who were battling to liberate Syria from the terrorist scourge of ISIS.
Each of the people on that plane was like the Good Samaritan that Schiller writes about in his Kallias essays On the Beautiful. In Schiller’s story, several people stopped by the side of the road to help the injured man, but some asked for money, some wanted recognition, and to put down others who didn’t stop; but only one person stopped, and very naturally and happily put down his own load, to carry the injured man without a second thought for himself.
In 2020, the world will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazi terror in May of 1945. At that time, people vowed, “Never Again!” And now, 75 years later, mankind again is threatened with the danger of cultural decadence and even potentially a great war. As Schiller said, it is only through aesthetic education through great classical art that the ennoblement of man can occur. It is time that mankind grew into a new paradigm where, as Shelley and Schiller proposed, the poets and artists become the natural leaders of the age.
Diane Sare: Good morning, now speaking on behalf of the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus, I would like to say that a chorus is a very special thing. It is a group of diverse individuals, who discover through the art of a great composer that their diversity becomes their strength.
Our chorus had existed for just two years when I received the news on Christmas Day 2016 of the crash of the Red Army Chorus, and it was like getting punched in the stomach. Some of us quickly enlisted the help of a Russian-American chorus member to pronounce the words to the Russian National Anthem, and we went to the Consulate and sang it outside on the sidewalk.
I learned that the NYPD Ceremonial Unit had been deeply moved by the Ensemble at the Military Bands Tattoo in Quebec City in 2011, which had happened to fall on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. A wonderful baritone, Grigory Osipov sang God Bless America, which they performed as a gift to the NYPD Ceremonial Unit, and a young boy came and presented the director, Lt. Tony Giorgio, with a single white rose. You will see Osipov’s name on the list of those who perished in that terrible crash.
The United States, Russia, and Syria have all suffered the devastating effects of terrorism, but I am optimistic that perhaps the warm weather here this year may be a sign of the warmth of the friendship that our nations and peoples may share in our musical dialogue.
Father Fencik: The Church teaches us that as long as we keep a person’s memory alive, they are still with us. It is traditional at the end of any memorial service that the hymn Eternal Memory is sung, and the Russian hymn. So we will conclude this memorial service with the prayer for the departed and the singing of the memorial hymn.
O God of spirits and all flesh, who has conquered Satan and vanquished death, and granted life to your world, Lord give rest to the souls of your faithfully departed servants. in a peaceful, serene place, from which all pain and sorrow and sighing are absent. As the good and gracious God Who loves mankind, forgive all transgressions committed by them in word or in thought, voluntarily as a human frailty. There is no man living who does not sin. You alone are without sin. Your truth is truth for eternity, your word alone reality. For you are the Resurrection, the Life and the Repose for your departed servants, Oh Christ, our God. We rend You glory together, Eternal Father, holy gracious and life-creating Spirit, always now and ever, and forever. Amen.
In blessed repose grant eternal rest, Oh Lord, to the souls of Your departed servants. Make eternal their memories, Vechnaya pamyat! [Eternal memory!]
A new report released Nov. 22 by EIR exposes the fact that the same people running the attempted coup against President Donald Trump, both the Russiagate hoax and the phony impeachment hearings, are behind the anti-China hysteria in the U.S., and for the same reason: to sabotage President Trump’s absolute commitment to be friends with both China and Russia in order to end the British Imperial effort to provoke a military confrontation between the US and Russia and China.
The Executive Intelligence Review’s 24-page pamphlet, “End the McCarthyite Witch Hunt Against China and President Trump,” includes an introduction by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, President of the Schiller Institute, who is known in China as the “Silk Road Lady.” Zepp-LaRouche reviews the phenomenal development within China since the “reform and opening up” under Deng Xiaoping, which is now close to reaching the goal of fully eliminating poverty in China. She demonstrates that President Xi Jinping’s New Silk Road, the Belt and Road Initiative, is a new paradigm for cooperation of all nations on Earth, extending China’s historic internal transformation into an infrastructure-based policy to finally bring real development to the formerly colonized nations of the world.
The pamphlet exposes the vile, racist campaign, lead by FBI Director Christopher Wray, to accuse every Chinese person working or studying in the United States —and even leading American scientists of Chinese descent—as potential spies who must be investigated. Universities and scientific institutions have been ordered to spy on their Chinese and Chinese-American employees or face losing federal funding for their programs. The project has driven leading cancer and Parkinson’s disease researchers out of their jobs, while terrorizing people of Chinese descent across America.
Another chapter exposes the perverse Falun Gong cult as a front for the war hawks in the “Committee on the Present Danger—China,” led by Stephen Bannon, to induce Trump supporters to swallow the McCarthyite lie that China is out to take over the world and impose anti-American communist dictatorships worldwide. Another chapter documents the transformation taking place cross Africa and South and Central America through the Belt and Road Initiative, where, for the first time in history, the formerly colonized nations have a reason to be hopeful that they can escape from poverty, as China has, through vast infrastructure projects—precisely the infrastructure denied them by the IMF-dictated “appropriate technologies” myth. America, too, would benefit greatly if President Trump can establish collaboration with China to help rebuild the rotting infrastructure in the United States.
The pamphlet also demonstrates that U.S. relations with China over the past century and more have always been in direct confrontation with British colonialism, as Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant fought to use American System methods of infrastructure building to counter the British opium trade and colonial looting of Asia. China’s Republican Founding Father Sun Yat Sen was a proud sponsor of the Hamiltonian “American System” against British colonialism, and China’s President Xi Jinping today is driving exactly such a policy to build modern industrial nations based on sovereignty and development. That fight for the American System over British imperial policies continues today, and will be advanced by President Trump’s efforts to resolve the trade issues and establish friendly relations with Beijing.
This intervention by the LaRouche movement comes at a moment of great danger, with the western financial system beginning to unravel, and British and American geopoliticians trying to provoke military confrontations with China and Russia. Nearly the entire U.S. Congress and all the mainstream media are lying that Xi Jinping is a vicious dictator, oppressing his people, denying their right to practice religion, and using the Belt and Road as an imperial trick to take over the world. The fact that many, perhaps a majority, of the American and European populations accept this “big lie,” is an existential danger to the future of civilization. A war with China, and/or Russia, would mean the end of civilization as we know it.
The pamphlet quotes a presentation by the late statesman and economist Lyndon LaRouche, from a speech in 1997, while the former Soviet Union was being dismembered by western bankers and carpetbaggers. Even then, Mr. LaRouche insisted on the urgent and special role of the US-China relationship. He said:
“There are only two nations which are respectable left on this planet. That is, nations of respectable power. That is the United States, particularly the United States, not as represented by the Congress, but by the President. It is the identity of the United States, which is a political power, not some concatenation of its parts. The United States is represented today only by its President, as a political institution. The Congress does not represent the United States; they’re not quite sure who they do represent, these days, since they haven’t visited their voters recently….
“Now, there’s only one other power on this planet, which can be so insolent as that, toward other powers, and that’s the [peoples] Republic of China. Now, China is engaged, presently, in a great infrastructure-building project, in which my wife and others have had an ongoing engagement over some years. There’s a great reform in China, which is a troubled reform. They’re trying to solve a problem; that doesn’t mean there is no problem. But they’re trying to solve it. Therefore, if the United States, the President of the United States, and China, participate in fostering that project, sometimes called the Silk Road Project, sometimes the Land-Bridge Project—if that project of developing development corridors, across Eurasia, into Africa, into North America, is extended, that project is enough work, to put this whole planet, into an economic revival.”
It is a moment of tremendous potential for a new paradigm for human progress. The LaRouche program calls for the great powers—China, Russia, India and the United States—to establish a New Bretton Woods system for universal human development. This is now within reach. The defense of President Trump against the ongoing attempted coup, together with America joining in the spirit of the New Silk Road, are both urgent and feasible—and the alternative is unthinkable.
China’s English language international media organization, CGTN (China Global Television Network), founded on Dec. 4 the “CGTN Think Tank” as part of the third annual Global Media Summit, with over 300 people attending from the world’s political, business, media and technology circles. The new think tank will have “cooperative relationships with 50 renowned think tanks worldwide, with goals to offer insights on world development and promote communication among different cultures,” according to a statement from the network. Here is a short video of the launching ceremony.
Among the founding members at the event was Helga Zepp-LaRouche, as the “Founder and President of the Schiller Institute.” Other prominent members include the heads of associations dedicated to a dialogue of civilization, Chambers of Commerce, and other similar institutions.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche addressed the first panel at the event, focusing on the rapidly unraveling Western financial system and the urgency of a new Bretton Woods conference to establish a new system coherent with the spirit of the New Silk Road. She stressed the necessity for the United States and Europe to cooperate with the Belt and Road Initiative in the industrialization of Africa and in the reconstruction of Southwest Asia. Extending the BRI into a global World Land-bridge conception, she explained, would also lay the basis for replacing NATO. “Not only is NATO ‘braindead’, but it is obsolete, because it does no longer express the self-interest of its member countries. Now, once we have a global Belt & Road Initiative cooperation, we can also create a new international security architecture. And while people may think that this is a Utopian conception, it is the only way out an existential crisis for all of humanity.”
She also was interviewed by the English-language China Radio International (see below).
Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche reported how upset her Chinese interlocutors are, about deteriorating relations between the U.S. and China, and the vile attacks on China from the United States, fearing that relations are not likely to be restored for a long time. Although they are aware of the impeachment drive against Donald Trump, most have no sense of the coup being carried out. Nor are they generally aware of the severity of the financial crisis and the looming crash, she added. Therefore, she focused on those issues in her interview with CRI.
China Radio International Interviews Helga Zepp-LaRouche
The interview, recorded for the hour-long “World Today” program China Radio International/China Plus on Dec. 5, features Schiller Institute president and founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche for 12 minutes. She makes the point that the main problem in present U.S.-Chinese relations is the neo-cons in both U.S. party leaderships; that President Donald Trump is under extreme pressure by the attempt to overthrow his presidency and therefore is not quite acting towards China the way he would like.
Trump wants good relations with Russia and China, Zepp-LaRouche told the program. Once this cabal is defeated, she said, U.S. relations with China will improve. The Chinese model of economic development, particularly the elimination of poverty, is building a new paradigm which is the constructive alternative to the doomed Western system, and China is actually doing what the United States did in the period after the American Revolution. In Xinjiang, China has a positive approach that the Western media have taken no notice of; and in Hong Kong, the British role is the key factor, HZL stressed.
