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.
July 10—On July 7, in Manhattan, a conference titled, “Food for Peace & Thought—China-U.S. Agricultural Cooperation,” brought together an audience of some two hundred people, to hear twelve presentations on agriculture and economic science, with a focus on supporting collaboration between China and the United States, for a “win-win” drive internationally, to once and for all end poverty and hunger anywhere in the world, and lift up life for all peoples. Participants included a powerful delegation of agriculture experts from China, diplomats from the United Nations missions community, a contingent from the U.S. Midwest Farmbelt, infrastructure experts, and a very diverse audience from Metropolitan New York and surrounding states.
The co-sponsors of the day-long event were the Schiller Institute, the China Energy Fund Committee, and The Foundation for the Revival of Classical Culture. The speakers on the two panels: “China-U.S. Agricultural Cooperation,” and “Ending Poverty and Starting International Scientific Collaboration,” are listed in a box accompanying this article. Videos (Panel 1, Panel 2) of the two-panel conference are now posted on the Schiller Institute site. Transcripts and reports on the proceedings are in preparation.
The 12 speakers of the Food for Peace & Thought conference.
The occurrence of the event is highly significant because it comes in the context of an extreme emergency need for food right now in Yemen, Syria, and parts of Africa, emergencies which are being created by the geopolitics and monetarism of the expiring neo-colonialist British policy. But at the same time, we have the ever-growing benefits of the economic development impact of the Belt-and-Road Initiative, whose first world summit was in May in Beijing. Additionally, there are specific, positive potentials in the commitment to developing enhanced cooperation between the world’s two largest food producers—China and the United States—as shown when their leaders, Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, met in Florida in April.
These potentials were explicitly referenced in the presentation by Wei Zhenglin, the Agriculture Attache of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. In terms of U.S. relations, Wei pointed out that U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue was just in Shanghai and Beijing a week ago, celebrating the new U.S. beef shipments to China, which have come about during the “100-day” period of new China-U.S. economic relations, mandated at the Xi-Trump Mar-a-Lago April meeting. In contrast, Wei reported frankly that in the recent past, U.S.-China relations were strained. Chinese agriculture technological exchange groups were treated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as simply tourists.
The tenor of the July 7 Food for Peace conference was entirely different. The welcome to the event was given by DeWayne Hopkins, former Mayor of Muscatine, Iowa (2012-2015), on the Mississippi River. Hopkins pointed out that he comes from the heartland of the Farmbelt, where he had personally welcomed Xi Jinping, then China’s Vice-President, in 2012, for Xi’s return visit to Muscatine, where Xi had first stayed in 1985 while on an agriculture tour. Since then, there have developed many Muscatine connections to China. Iowa’s former governor, Terry Branstad, is now the U.S. Ambassador to China, and is a personal friend of Xi. Hopkins called for everyone all over the world to treat each other in the spirit of “neighbors.”
In keeping with this spirit, Classical musical selections opened both conference panels. The first piece was a string duo, “Music in the Air,” featuring the Chinese erhu and ’cello, playing “Chrysanthemums Terrace” and “Kang Ding Love Story.” The second panel was opened by the Schiller Institute Chorus, presenting the spiritual, “Deep River,” and the Civil War song, “Rally ’Round the Flag, Boys.”
Feifei Yang playing the erhu.
The intent of the Food for Peace conference especially included fostering people-to-people contact among the high-level Chinese guests and U.S. farmers, as well as Americans generally. On July 8, some twenty-five Chinese agriculture specialists were joined by nine U.S. farm representatives, to visit a dairy farm in the Hudson River Valley. En route on their bus, the farmers and Chinese guests conferred on actual farming conditions in China and North America, finding much to their surprise on both sides.
Following the dairy farm visit, the entourage, joined by others from the July 7 audience and friends, met at Hyde Park to tour the home (and farm), library and grave-site of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor. Gathering at the Henry Wallace Center, named for FDR’s two-term Agriculture Secretary and Vice President, the group received a briefing from Bob Baker, one of the July 7 speakers and Farmbelt liaison for the Schiller Institute, on Henry Wallace (and his father and grandfather before him), and their contributions to American System agriculture and science.
U.S. farm delegations came from South Dakota (four people), Minnesota (two), and two from Iowa. There were messages of greeting from James Benham, State President of the Indiana Farmers Union, and Tyler Dupy, Executive Director of the Kansas Cattlemen’s Association.
Timing of the Conference: ‘Agenda 2030’
The timing of the July 7-8 Food for Peace activities was also highly significant. Many of the Chinese speakers and participants at that forum are part of China’s delegation to a special U.N. event July 10-19, “High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development,” which theme is, “Eradicating Poverty and Promoting Prosperity in a Changing World.” There will be many NGO side-sessions. The last two days of the forum will have ministerial-level participation and will issue a declaration. The forum will be chaired by the ambassadors to the UN from Austria and Jamaica. Some fifty nations have submitted papers in advance.
Ho C. P., Patrick, Deputy Chairman and Secretary General of the China Energy Fund Committee.
On July 6 at the United Nations, many of the same Chinese agriculture speakers who would address the Food for Peace July 7 conference, also spoke at the NGO event, “Agriculture for Sustainable Development,” which was co-sponsored by the China Energy Fund Committee, the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), and the Shenzhen Dasheng Agriculture Group. Its theme was to address the fact there are about 795 million people undernourished worldwide.
“Eradicating hunger” is “Number 2” of the current round of “Sustainable Development Goals,” intended to succeed by 2030. The “Number 2” goal calls on the international community to “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030.”
In 2015, the UN General Assembly launched this effort, calling it the “Agenda 2030” project. The other sixteen goals on the list include safe water, sufficient power, health care and so on. Needless to say, past rounds of U.N. development goals came and went unfulfilled, because, until now, no alternative emerged to successfully displace the collapsing monetarist system, which system—the neo-colonialist City of London/Wall Street system of “free” (rigged) trade, speculation, and looting, caused the impoverishment in the first place. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has changed all that.
China has intervened in UN institutions for this BRI positive-growth perspective in critical ways over the past eighteen months. To begin with, China was the first nation to issue a blueprint to the United Nations, after the 2015 General Assembly vote for the 2030 Project, to outline how poverty can truly be eradicated worldwide: The BRI is key. In March, 2016, the Belt and Road perspective was associated with the U.N. World Food Program. In September 2016, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was struck between China and the U.N. Development Program, endorsing the BRI. The MOU was drafted by China’s National Development and Reform Commission, which implemented China’s anti-poverty success: raising 700 million Chinese out of poverty over the past thirty years. The UN General Assembly voted to combat poverty through backing for the BRI, in an action taken earlier this year.
This rapidly-spreading BRI impact for development is the realization of the inspiration and efforts going back decades, by Lyndon LaRouche and Helga Zepp-LaRouche.
Many conference speakers, while talking about crops, seeds, livestock, farming practices, and food, referred specifically to the Belt and Road Initiative, or to the LaRouches’ work. Prof. Carl Pray of Rutgers University, for example, addressed the great potential in crop genetics achievements that he sees possible through new collaboration between the U.S. and China, which he called “agriculture along the New Silk Road.”
It is not possible here, to summarize each of the twelve panelists’ presentations, but we highlight three areas of concepts:
1) economic science,
2) the success of China in agriculture and rural development, and
3) proposals and advisories.
Potential Relative Population Density
The idea that there are insurmountable limits to resources for expanding agriculture and food, and that population must be suppressed, was roundly denounced. Dr. Patrick Ho C.P., Deputy Chairman and Secretary General of the China Energy Fund Committee, led off his presentation by denouncing Malthus in particular, and also denouncing the 20th century version of this bunk, in the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth book. Ho went on to describe aspects of expanding agriculture to meet a growing population.
Benjamin Deniston, Researcher, 21st Century Science & Technology magazine, led off his remarks by presenting Lyndon LaRouche’s refutation of “Limits to Growth,” in terms of the ability of the human species to exert creativity and intervene to deliberately create “new” natural resources, and thereby constantly increase the potential relative population density of humankind. One example of this kind of intervention, is to understand and expand usable water resources. Deniston gave a short update on the progress in inducing rainfall through ionization methods, and explained the significance of understanding the phenomenon of “atmospheric rivers,” of potentially tapping into these water vapor configurations of Earth.
Bob Baker, a founding member of the 1988 Schiller Institute Food for Peace Initiative, gave an illustrated presentation (video), for crop farming, of LaRouche’s breakthrough concept of “energy flux density”—the metric for measuring economic progress in terms of increasingly powerful and concentrated applications of energy. Baker pointed to increased energy flux density as shown historically in successive advances in technology for three farm field crop functions: tillage, planting, and harvesting.
China Provides ‘Universal Lessons’
Most significant to everyone at the conference, was the outstanding fact of China’s advancement of agriculture over the past forty years, and the lifting of 700 million people out of poverty at the same time. Many Chinese experts presented exciting aspects of this. The implications of the process for what can and must be done in Africa, in reconstruction in Southwest Asia, in the Mediterranean Basin and in all points of need, were dramatically clear for all to see. A summary of the story of China’s great success, in this short report is the presentation given by Mei Fangquan, both at the July 6 United Nations event and on July 7 at the Food for Peace conference. He has been engaged in scientific research at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), focusing on grain and food security and China’s agricultural development strategy.
The steadily increasing amount of grain going for livestock feed, 1980 to the present, in China.
Mei’s presentation was titled, “Universal Lessons from China’s Advancement in Agriculture.” Mei outlined three major structural phase-changes in China over the past several decades.
First, as of 1984, the nation of China had achieved the condition of a reliable food supply, with a surplus of grains. This allowed the consideration of a shift in some of the grain capacity, for certain chosen purposes. For example, some land area could be switched to cotton production. Plus, the decision could be made to use more of the grain output for livestock. This was done.
China’s agriculture went from a situation in 1980, in which eight percent of the grain capacity went for feed grain for livestock, to the situation in 2010, in which 38% of total grain is feed grain for livestock. The goal by 2030, is for 50% of grain capacity to be livestock feed grain.
This shift is reflected in the improvement of the quality of food consumption. For example, the kilograms in the average diet per year, from 1995 to 2020, went down for grain foods, from 232 to 173, while they went up for meat, eggs, fish, dairy, and fruit.
The steady improvement in the Chinese diet, to include more animal protein, fish, and fruit, 1995 to the present.
Now, in addition to this process of dietary improvement, Mei said that a new process of ecological improvement is underway, in which agriculture is maintained and adjusted, while at the same time there is re-forestation, land restoration, and related upgrades. For example, a report was given on a national project to use salt-tolerant oats, not only to get a better oats crop, but for the beneficial effect it has over time to reduce salination in the soil.
This became one of the topics of exchange during the ’bus dialogue,’ when Minnesota farmer Andrew Olson asked about “where the salt went” from the oats effect, and Dr. Ren Changzhong, Director of the National Oat Improvement Center (and editor of China Oat and China Buckwheat), gave a fascinating reply, ranging from which variety of oats is effective, to how many years the cultivation has to go on to benefit the soil.
MERCI: Reconstruction for MENA
Dr. Ho introduced a special proposal—called “MERCI”—in his presentations on July 6 at the U.N., and at the Food for Peace conference. It stands for the “Middle East Reconstruction Initiative.” He spoke of the need for reconstruction all across MENA (the Middle East North Africa), and that we should make agriculture the initiating goal.
Ho stated, “The MENA region, an essential pivot connecting the East and West economic circle of the Belt and Road Initiative, is an important link in China’s BRI. In particular, many countries in this region are, or used to be, major agriculture countries, such as Israel, Iraq and Egypt.” He said, “The purpose of MERCI is to identify ways to integrate the reconstruction of the Middle East into the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, to discuss the role of the international community, multi-lateral development banks and the private sector in the reconstruction effort, and to draw attention to the need to reach political and economic solutions to the region’s challenges. The agricultural sector is a most pertinent starting point to advance this initiative.”
On Friday, June 30, 2017, at the Bruno Walter Auditorium of the New York Library for the Performing Arts, near Lincoln Center, a historic gathering of great musicians and associates of Sylvia Olden Lee, from different generations, backgrounds and accomplishment took place to discuss “The Aesthetic Education of Humanity Through Music.” The symposium was the second event of a two day “Tribute to Sylvia Olden Lee, Master Musician and Teacher,” sponsored by the Foundation for the Revival of Classical Culture, the Schiller Institute and the Harlem Opera Theater.
The Tribute commenced at Carnegie Hall on the evening of June 29 with a Classical concert of African-American Spirituals, (performed with both solo and choral singers) and works of Giuseppe Verdi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, and Gaetano Donizetti. The audience of 2,100 was deeply moved by the quality of agapēbrought forth by the soloists, by the speeches of those close to the immortal Sylvia Olden Lee, as well as the beauty of the choral performances. Rarely does a “community chorus” reach the stage of Carnegie Hall, let alone receive standing ovations, but the Sylvia Olden Lee Centennial Choir, comprised of four Schiller Institute New York Choruses (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and New Jersey), the Boston and Northern Virginia Schiller Institute Choruses, and the Convent Avenue Baptist Church Chancel Choir, sung with proper voice-placement at the “Verdi tuning” (A=432 Hz) and was inspired, sensing that Mrs. Lee was indeed present there.
The following day’s Symposium, on the theme “Calling All Teachers and Other Lovers of Wisdom: The Aesthetic Education of Humanity through Music,” was moderated by Dennis Speed of the Schiller Institute. The first session opened with remarks from Lynn Yen, Executive Director of the Foundation for the Revival of Classical Culture, after which selected members of the Sylvia Lee Centennial Chorus sang Hall Johnson’s arrangement of “I’ll Never Turn Back No More,” directed by Diane Sare, with soloists Frank Mathis, baritone and Michelle Fuchs, soprano. Soprano Gudrun Bühler followed with Desdemona’s aria from Verdi’s Otello, accompanied by Richard Alston on the piano. Music Director Sigersonshowed the audience the two pianos on the stage, one tuned to the Verdi A=432 Hz, and the other tuned to A=441 Hz. The audience of musicians, educators, and students would also get to hear singers on each piano, comparing the different tunings. He then introduced the videos to the gathering.
Before introducing Carmela Altamura, founder of the Altamura Center for the Performing Arts and the Altamura-Caruso competition, Sigerson showed a 1988 Schiller Institute video from Casa Verdi in Milan, with baritone Piero Cappuccilli demonstrating the superiority of the Verdi Tuning. Maestra Altamuraspoke of her work, and then coached three of her students, tenor Mauricio Trejo, soprano Jennifer Adams, and baritone Gustavo Ahualli on aspects of singing correctly, and creating bel canto tone. The difference between the higher tuning and the proper tuning was especially evident in the soprano’s high notes in Oscar’s aria “Saper vorreste” from Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera. However, in the baritone’s example, which he sang first at the 440 Hz and then at 432 Hz tuning, it was the tone color and the warmer, rounder quality that was audible, as well as the proper register shift.
After a brief intermission, tenor Reginald Bouknightand pianist Richard Alston presented the first song of Beethoven’s song cycle, “An die ferne Geliebte.” Maestro Tony Morss spoke on the history of musical tuning and the Schiller Institute’s tuning initiative, followed by a dialogue with Simon Estes. They were joined after that in a panel discussion by Elvira Green, Osceola Davis, Gregory Hopkins, Eve Lee (Sylvia Olden Lee’s daughter), and William Wray, which not only covered the amazing influence and impact that Sylvia Olden Lee had on each of them and their circumstances, but the necessity to continue that mission, for the future.
Introduction: Dennis Speed
Prelude: Lyn Yen and the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus
Gudrun Buhler: The Aesthetical Education of Humanity Through Music
John Sigerson: The Schiller Institute Campaign to Restore the Verdi Tuning
Carmela Altamura: The Art of Bel Canto singing
Mauricio Trejo (tenor): The Aesthetical Education of Humanity Through Music
Jennifer Adams (soprano): The Aesthetical Education of Humanity Through Music
Gustavo Ahualli (baritone): The Aesthetical Education of Humanity Through Music
Reginald Bouknight: Auf dem Hügel sitz ich spähend
Anthony Morss: Saving Grace, Saving Voices
A Discussion with Simon Estes: The Aesthetical Education of Humanity Through Music
With their case for impeachment falling apart, the British-American coup plotters deploying against President Trump and the American electorate predictably turned to the New York Times to preview John Bolton’s “memoirs”, to try to pump some life into their efforts for a regime change in the U.S. In her weekly webcast, Helga Zepp LaRouche said this is a sign of desperation, as their case has been effectively refuted by Trump’s legal team, and a significant segment of the population is enraged at the unconstitutional assault on the institution of the Presidency, and the increasing difficulty they are having to cover the cost of basic necessities.
The biggest danger the imperial forces behind the coup face has been Trump’s commitment to establish better relations with Russia and China. Not surprisingly, Bolton, one of those virulently opposed to this shift in U.S. strategic policy, is now being embraced by the same Democrats who in the past denounced him as a dishonest war-hawk. This latest eruption on behalf of the war party occurs as the President has put forward his Middle East peace plan, which LaRouche described as a potential first step toward an expanded negotiation process—one which must include the Palestinians, as well as the Russians.
With social chaos world-wide, and the war danger still real, she called on viewers to become active in the battle to defeat the geopoliticians with a great power summit, which can assure security and economic cooperation. A major aspect of this activity must be to revive the role of classical culture as a means of uplifting people.
TRANSCRIPT
HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hello, I’m Harley Schlanger from the Schiller Institute with our founder and President Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Today is January 29th, 2020. And as most of you are well aware, we are in the midst of this crazy impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate. There have been some significant developments in the last hours, the last couple of days, including the resurfacing of John Bolton, courtesy of the lying New York Times. Helga, what do you make of this situation, where it’s headed now?
HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think the emergence of Bolton, while naturally its designed to put the nail in the coffin for the impeachment of Trump, is also a sign of desperation. Because they could not prove the case, there is no criminal act which they could attribute to President Trump. But Bolton who obviously was guided to write this book — it’s supposed to come out and spill the beans about what Trump supposedly did in the phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine. Now, this is obviously an act of desperation on the side of the Democrats, because, if you remember, they used to attack Bolton as a liar, as a completely untrustworthy fellow, but now they are relying on him as the key witness.
Where this will go it’s too early to say. It’s Wednesday. Friday is the vote. If the Senate will allow more witnesses, in which case it would open up not only the potential to have Bolton testify, but the Trump team could bring into the Senate hearing all the other crucial people — Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, the so-called “whistleblower,” and many others. Adam Schiff, for example, they could bring out the entire British involvement in the coup attempt against Trump from the very beginning, the Christopher Steele dossier, the FISA Court, all of these things which were mentioned in the Horowitz report. So it could become a big mud fight. And if the Democrats succeed in getting Bolton as a witness, then maybe you have to have the whole truth out. That was the view of President Trump in the beginning. He said, let’s have a big discussion. Later he changed it and said it may be bad for the country to drag this out indefinitely. But if it comes down to that, then maybe the whole truth has to come out.
McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, said he doesn’t have the vote to block the witnesses. This is today, we have to see how this goes until Friday. But I think it is very clear that this is not functioning with the American people. We have picked up an increasing mood of the American population, that they really are enraged. And if you need one proof, yesterday, Trump appeared at a rally in south New Jersey, and there were 175,000 people registered to go to this rally. Naturally not so many could, but that shows you there is a tremendous ferment, and south New Jersey, that is where the so-called “deplorables” live, this is a poor working-class area and obviously this is where Trump is resonating very big in the population.
So, I think we are probably in the end stage of this coup attempt, despite the fact that the Democrats have stated their intention to keep dragging this on. Maxine Waters, for example, said they will continue this impeachment throughout the election campaign; but I think the Democrats are playing a very risky game, because the population is really sick and tired of this whole story.
I think it is becoming very clear this is a coup. There is another very interesting blog piece by Pat Lang, who says that in his former capacity as a person working for the CIA or the military in the dark field of covert operations, he recognizes that there was a continuous political campaign against Trump from day one, and if one operation doesn’t function, they pull up another one: This was Russiagate, then Ukrainegate, now the impeachment, and the Bolton thing being the latest such operation. So it is really a battle where the role of what some people mistakenly call the “deep state” — it really should be better called the Anglo-American British Empire intelligence apparatus — the role of these forces is becoming very, very open. And I think that that may change the character of politics not only in the United States, but internationally, for good.
SCHLANGER: You mentioned that the case was not proven by the Democratic managers. In fact, I think Trump’s attorneys did a very good job of countering it. One of the most significant was the testimony of Alan Dershowitz, who made the point this was not just against Trump; it’s against the Constitution, it’s against the American Presidential system. I think that was quite significant, don’t you?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, Dershowitz is not a Trump supporter, he is a Democrat, and he had been very critical of Trump in the past. But he argued very strongly on the question that what is at stake here is the American Constitution: That this is a blatant attempt by the Democrats to turn the U.S., as a republic based on the Constitution, into a British Parliamentary system, that this goes completely against the will of the framers of the Constitution. He takes apart these arguments by the Democrats very efficiently. For example, this ominous notion, which they all of a sudden treated as if this would be the final proof of Trump’s crime, that in the discussion with Ukraine that he pursued a quid pro quo. Now Dershowitz says, so what about it? Even if everything Bolton is saying would be true, this does not constitute a crime, because a quid pro quo is what every head of state uses in any negotiation with any other state, so it is nothing special; it is what normal negotiations among states are. And I think these kinds of arguments which demystify the ghosts which are being created artificially, like this ominous quid pro quo, that he takes it down and takes it apart as a constitutional lawyer, I think is very, very useful. Because there is a lot of confetti spread around and thrown around to have a voice arguing for constitutional matters is extremely useful.
SCHLANGER: I think one of the things that came out from Dershowitz and others is this argument that a policy disagreement is not the basis for impeachment. And Helga, from the beginning we have been emphasizing that you have to look beyond the so-called facts of the case, because the facts of the case don’t exist. But what does exist is this coup, and we see this again in terms of the re-emergence of Bolton who has been opposed to what President Trump was trying to do in working with Russia.
How do you explain this to the American people? I think this is something that has not been fully explained fully enough by the President’s team, but I think we’ve done the job. How would you explain it?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, Trump — who obviously is not a simple person, he has many sides to him; he does use a language which antagonizes a lot of people — and therefore it is actually very important to note the fact that, despite the fact of all these things which one can argue “is this the style I like, is it not the style I like” — the point is the biggest mortal danger to the existence of the British Empire is the demonstrated willingness by Trump to seek a better relationship with Russia and China. And that has to be understood, because that is the most important. He has made clear that, given the opportunity, he is absolutely easy with Putin; this was demonstrated especially in the Helsinki summit, despite all influences around him to the contrary. He does want to have a positive relationship with China. He still calls Xi Jinping his “good friend.” He praises the great culture of China. And from the standpoint of the British Empire this is the end of them, because once they lose the ability to manipulate the great powers in a geopolitical manner, one against the other, then they will absolutely vanish. And given the potential which we have helped to create in terms of having a summit of these major powers, they are really in a panic.
So, I think it is important for the people who support Trump, especially in the United States, people should really think through, the world is in a terrible condition. We are sitting on a powder keg of a potential blowout; there are many problems we can address as we continue to talk. And there is no way how to solve these problems, unless you have a new level of politics which overcomes geopolitics, and that requires that at least the three Presidents of the United States, Russia and China work together and work out solutions for the world’s problems. If that does not occur there are incredible dangers.
So, the people who are anti-Russian but pro-Trump, or people who are pro-Trump and anti-China, they should really rethink their prejudices. Because a lot of what people think they know or what their dear opinion is, is the result of psychological warfare coming from the mainstream media and other operations. And the fact that Trump wants to have a positive relation with Russia for the sake of world peace, positive relations with China, is the most important factor of the strategic situation and it really explains almost every other aspect of the strategic situation.
SCHLANGER: We see this very clearly in the reaction of Adam Schiff, with trying to use Bolton as the key witness. Schiff, in his presentation as a Democratic manager, constantly stressed, we’re at war with Russia. And he lied about this, he made the whole case again, the Mueller case on Russia;, and it showed that this is a pro-war faction in the Democratic Party that’s opposing Trump.
In this context you mentioned the British Empire, the geopolitics: We’ve now seen at least the beginnings of the so-called “deal of the century,” of a peace plan for the Middle East. From what you’ve seen so far, what’s your analysis of this?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I mean we knew this was in the makings, it shows the handwritings of Jared Kushner. It is a first step and I think if you look at the international reactions, which I will mention in a second, it shows it has at least the potential to start a negotiation process. If you look at the proposal itself, naturally it was proposed between Trump and Netanyahu, who faces criminal trial back at home, so he was probably very happy to have that occasion. And it gives Israel practically everything they would possibly ask for: It reaffirms Jerusalem as the unified capital of Israel; it says the settlements are okay in the West Bank; the Golan Heights, the Syrian territory, belongs to Israel, so it has all of these things. It gives security guarantees to Israel fully.
The interesting thing is, that it does talk for the first time about the U.S. promoting a Palestinian state. Now the Palestinian Authority was not involved in the discussion, so they even rejected this plan before it was published, because they said all the decisions made before, point in the direction that it does not represent any Palestinian interest. President Abbas called for an emergency summit of the Arab League, which will take place on the Feb. 1. Naturally, the proposed Palestinian state, from a territorial standpoint, is extremely meager. It basically cuts out a lot of the interesting parts. To make it viable, will be very difficult. The proposed money over a certain period of time of $50 billion is not a hell of a lot.
So I think the reactions to it — I would like to mention a couple of them — first of all, Netanyahu will immediately leave Washington and go to Moscow to discuss with Putin. Various Russian spokesmen, Lavrov, Peskov, Kosachev, the head of the International Relations Committee of the Federation Council, they all said they would study it, we will look at it intensively; and negotiations have to be based on the involvement of the so-called “quartet” — the quartet meaning the United Nations, the EU, Russia, and the U.S. In any case it’s an international approach and even the EU foreign representative, Josep Borell, said it has to be based on respect for all the UN resolutions concerning Israel-Palestine, and the representative of the UN General Secretary said, it has to be in respect of all UN resolutions, including the one that Israel has to go back to its pre-1967 borders. So that naturally is not what’s here proposed, but that is the reaction from international forces.
I think it’s useful to start a negotiation process provided that the Palestinians agree to that, which they have not so far. But I want to say very clearly, that it is good to give security guarantees for Israel. That is absolutely crucial. But I think there is not going to be a peace in the region, in Southwest Asia, if you don’t give security interests to all relevant parties, and that includes emphatically Iran. If people go back in history and look at which peace treaties functioned and which didn’t, you have the Peace of Westphalia which explicitly formulated the principle that for the sake of peace, you have to take into account the interest of every other, and that’s why the Peace of Westphalia was such a groundbreaking work and led to the whole development of international law; as compared, in total contrast to the Versailles Treaty, which going against all historical evidence, presumed Germany was the only guilty party for World War I, all the reparations had to be paid by Germany, and that laid the ground for the developments which then led to the Great Depression of 1929 and naturally the emergence of the Nazis, and it led to World War II. If you don’t have a peace which takes into account the interest of every party, it cannot function.
And most importantly, you have to look at the region as a whole. You have to look at Afghanistan—a mess; Iraq—pretty bad; Syria—totally destroyed from the senseless war; Yemen. You can even go into North Africa: Libya. Look at the result of what President Trump clearly wants to end, namely, these endless wars. Therefore, if you want to reconstruct this area and have a durable peace, what you need is an economic development for the entire Southwest Asian region, and that can only happen if all the great powers work together. I think the immediate perspective is given, because the Chinese have offered to Afghanistan, to Iraq, to Syria, to extend the New Silk Road. Also the Arabs have many interests of cooperation along the Silk Road with China. That is the only way how you can have the hope to calm down this region. And rather than trying to continue geopolitical games, I think all the great powers—Russia, China, India, the United States, European countries—they should all join hands and reconstruct this area, and then you can have the hope for peace.
So, I think the extension of the New Silk Road from China via Iran, Iraq; into Turkey, Syria; into Egypt, all the way to Africa, developing Africa in the same way. Then, through Turkey, extend the New Silk Road to Europe, to the Balkans; to connect via the Central Asian corridors — If you have a total peace plan like that, I think it can be really the basis for peace.
And I would hope now, this is now a first step. It needs to have more steps. But I think it’s a negotiation basis, and people should take a positive attitude, and then, hopefully, it can lead to the result of a real peace in the region.
SCHLANGER: As we’re discussing these things, there’s been something that has just emerged as a strategic concern in the last days, really last weeks: the spread of the coronavirus out of China. President Trump, in a comment a couple days ago, praised the Chinese for the way they’re handing it. The anti-China lobby is going crazy against China. What’s your assessment of where we stand in dealing with this virus?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, one of the leading Chinese scientists, who is charge of managing this crisis, said that he thinks the peak of the epidemic may be in ten days from now. That would be a very good news. China has done a very big job, by putting about 60 million people into quarantine. In major cities, people are being told to stay home. They have a letter out for the elderly, that they should especially not leave their apartment, because they are more at risk than other people. I think it is an incredible job. There was just a meeting between President Xi Jinping and the leadership of the WHO, the World Health Organization. They praised China, by saying they did an absolute fantastic job, by also giving a standard of how to deal with such a crisis. From an objective standpoint, there is no question that China is handling this extremely well, building three hospitals of more than 1,000 beds in a week — I don’t know what other country could do that at this point.
As you mentioned, there are also some really degenerated minds, who have absolutely no respect for human life. One is the unspeakable Danish newspaper Jyllands-Post with its cartoon, which showed the Chinese flag with the stars in the flag being replaced by the coronavirus. China protested very strongly, and basically said that this is a complete contempt for human decency, and should not be regarded as a cartoon. I think our colleagues from the Schiller Institute in Denmark also put out a similar statement, absolutely condemning the degenerate mindset coming from such “cartoons.”
Other than that, if this Chinese scientist is correct, then hopefully this could be resolved very soon. Naturally, doomsday-sayers, who say the economic impact could be a trigger for the world financial collapse. I don’t think that is more than a cover story, for the fact that this financial system is bankrupt as it is.
SCHLANGER: These very same central bankers and financiers, who have bankrupted the financial system, are circulating this new report from the Bank for International Settlements, talking about the “Green Swan.” They are now saying that the scapegoat for the crash will be man-made climate change. Obviously, this is another aspect of the cover-up, isn’t it?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yeah. The “Black Swan” is a synonym for the big financial crash, for the “everything bubble” to collapse, which we are very close to. So, to blame the climate crisis for such an event is ridiculous. The effort to impose green financing, and in that way destroy the basis for industrial economy is a danger to the financial system, if it needed another one, other than the one caused by the insane bailouts and quantitative easing policies.
So, I think this is an absolute lie. I think we are entering a period, where not only a crash is hanging on the horizon, but the effects of this financial policy are causing the entire society, in many countries, to disintegrate. I only want to mention two situations: One, I think now eight weeks of strikes in France; this is not reported at all, but I know about it from our French colleagues. These demonstrations and strikes are becoming more violent all the time. That is the result of the government policy, because the French police have the policy of throwing out sort of a net, isolate different groupings, and basically drive them into violent reactions.
This doesn’t only come from antifa and Black Bloc, but it comes from the Yellow Vests. For example, you have lawyers who are so absolutely furious about the attack on them, that they have thrown down their robes by the hundreds. Tax accountants who throwing their tax codes on the floor. This is really getting out of proportion. And the government of Macron is making absolutely no concession, but keeps absolutely with the line of BlackRock, which is really what this pension reform is driven by.
You have a similar situation now in Germany, where the German farmers, who are now basically fighting for their existence, they have now changed their tactic. They do flash-mobs at political meetings: All of a sudden, you have 250 tractors showing up; they block the warehouse deliveries from the large food chains. They say they are now being destroyed, between a rock and a hard place, because the food chains lower the prices for their products way below the parity price — you can forget, not even the producer’s price. And then you have the European Union legislations which make it impossible for these farmers to continue to farm.
So, we are looking at a real social explosion, not only in places like Chile and Lebanon and Algeria, but also, increasingly, in the European countries. I can only see this continuing, because if people like [European Commission President Ursula] von der Leyen implement their green legislation, thereby raising the prices for everything—electricity, transport, food—then this social ferment will just explode, because many people are already at the end of their means.
I think this is going to require our intervention, globally, to impose what we have proposed many times, the full package of LaRouche: the Four Laws, Glass-Steagall, national bank, New Bretton Woods, crash program for fusion and space cooperation to increase the productivity of society, and cooperate with the New Silk Road. That is the solution, but we need more people to help us in this mobilization. So, go to the links provided at the end of this webcast. Subscribe to our Alerts and other publications. Sign our petitions and mobilize together with us. I think that’s the only answer you can give.
SCHLANGER: There’s another aspect to this situation, which you’ve addressed many, many times: which is, the social explosion, the social ferment, and social disintegration are occurring at the same time as there’s a cultural collapse, which is engineered by the same British Empire, destroying the image of man. You’ve just written an article on this; you are quite prolific on this. What do people need to know about how we reverse this cultural collapse?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I launched a campaign which I called an “Open Letter to the Lovers of Classical music.” I deliberately do not address this letter only to people in Germany, but I really want to address it to everybody who thinks that Classical music is important for the mental health and creativity of people.
We will put the link of this Open Letter below, so please download it, read it, circulate it, comment on it, because I want to generate a debate. There was this unbelievable assault, where some so-called modern composer dared to change the finale of Fidelio in a performance in Darmstadt. What came out was absolutely horrible ugliness. So, please read my letter and circulate it.
But it points to something which I think is really of a general nature. If you look at what is happening in the United States, you have the drug epidemic, you have the school shootings; you have a lot of violence as a potential breaking out very quickly. In Germany, you now have churches being robbed. People are stealing the sacral instruments for the church service, pictures from the walls. You have attacks on first responders, on the police — I mean, this getting very, very ugly. I think what all of these symptoms—which I could tell you a long, long, long list of, but you probably all know it—all of these are symptoms of a decaying, collapsing society, like the end of the Roman Empire, or some other cultural collapses.
This very dangerous and this is why I take this attack on Classical music as extremely important to be countered. Because if you look at Europe, Europe is in terrible condition right now; political unity doesn’t exist. We just found that the German government already in 2018, at a conference in Berlin on Africa, deliberately countered the proposal which was adopted in 2018 in Abuja, Nigeria, by the governments of the Lake Chad region demanding implementation of the Transaqua project, which we have discussed many times on this show; and Germany gave only Greenie arguments, basically perpetuating the colonial world-outlook toward Africa, condoning the disgusting policy of the EU against the refugees from Africa and Southwest Asia, which is really a murderous policy. The Pope called these camps for refugees “concentration camps,” which I think is absolutely on the mark.
So, if you look at all of these things, the only positive thing which Europe still has — other than its potential to be an industrial powerhouse, if we change our ways; but that is not in the cards right now, if you look at the EU—so the only thing which we is our great Classical tradition: The Italian Renaissance, which indirectly President Trump referred to in his speech in Davos, by pointing to the Cupola of the Florence Duomo, by mentioning the beautiful Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, by referring to the European cathedrals. That ennobled view of man, including the German Classical period, the German, Italian, and other Classical music in general, these are the most precious heritages of Europe which we could contribute to the shaping of a New Paradigm in the world.
And if you have, right now, as a continuation of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) operation, the ongoing destruction of Classical music, with disgusting Regietheater; you can’t go into a German theater any more, since quite a while, without people copulating on the stage, being naked, doing absolutely obscene things. András Schiff, the great pianist, wrote an article recently, where he said that in New York people are talking about this kind of theater as “Eurotrash.” What this unspeakable so-called composer did in this re-write of the finale of Fidelio is nothing but Eurotrash; and that is a mild expression for what was presented there.
We have to defend Classical Culture. We have to go back to the idea that we need beauty in art. I fully agree with Friedrich Schiller, who in a letter exchange with his friend Christian Körner, said that art which is not beautiful, is no art, it’s trash (those are my words, not those of Schiller).
So, I would really ask all of you who have any sense that we cannot allow the continuation of this destruction of great culture to go on, that you should join with us, and that we really create a Renaissance movement as a counter to that. This is completely in the spirit of my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche. His spirit is alive, especially as all of his prognoses in respect to the financial system, the strategic situation, become more obvious; there is a growing recognition of the increasing intellectual role of the work of my late husband. I want to encourage to always include the demand for his exoneration, because people have to have unmediated access to his works, because it is that, what great minds have written, what great composers have composed, which gives us the inner strength to get out of this crisis of humanity. So, help us in really making this Renaissance movement.
SCHLANGER: We also have the benefit that this year is the 250th anniversary celebrating the birth of Beethoven. Your husband gave us the marching orders: “Think Like Beethoven!” which is the way out of this
So, Helga, thank you for joining us today, and we’ll see you again next week.
Stop the Political Terror, Defend the Right to Life of Leaders of a Ukrainian Opposition Party!
To President of Ukraine P. Poroshenko
Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yu. Lutsenko
Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine V. Hrytsak
Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine A. Avakov
Human Rights Ombudsmen of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine V. Lutkovska
Chairman of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine Committee on Human Rights, National Minorities and Ethnic Relations H. Nemyria
Representative office of the OSCE in Ukraine
Representative office of the European Union in Ukraine
Embassy of the United States of America in Ukraine
Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Ukraine
Embassy of France in Ukraine
Embassy of Italy in Ukraine
Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Ukraine
Embassy of the Russian Federation in Ukraine
Embassy of the Republic of Belarus in Ukraine
Embassy of Israel in Ukraine
Stop the Political Terror, Defend the Right to Life of Leaders of a Ukrainian Opposition Party!
Open Letter from Chairman of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine Natalia Vitrenko
2 November 2016
I am compelled to ask you to defend the political rights of members of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU), which have been grossly violated, and to seek a halt to actions impeding the lawful activity of our party.
On 28 October 2016 at 16:30, a group of unknown persons, among whom were fighters of the Azov Battalion under the direction of A.E. Shatilin, forcibly seized the premises located at 3/7 Podgornaya/Tatarskaya St., Kyiv, which legally belong to Siver Ukraina LLC. These property rights were established by decision #18/519 of the Kyiv Commercial Court, dated 22 July 2003, and have not been revoked by any party up through the present time.
Since 2005 the PSPU has rented a part of the premises at the aforementioned address from Siver Ukraina LLC on the basis of a lease contract. In full compliance with the law and the lease contract, the PSPU makes the required payments. The contractual relations between the PSPU and Siver Ukraina LLC have not been revoked by any party.
The PSPU kept its party documents, including the originals of the Charter and Program of the PSPU, proceedings of its congresses, plenary sessions of its Central Committee, and sessions of the Presidium of its Central Committee, as well as the party archives, emblems and literature, in these rented premises. The party papers included the registration documents of the local, district and regional party organizations; the personal data of the local and central party leadership; originals and copies of numerous court rulings made during the 20 years in which the PSPU has been active; a large quantity of photo and video material from throughout the years in which the party has existed; computer and duplicating equipment; cameras and video recorders; household appliances; and personal property belonging to me, the chairman of the PSPU and a People’s Deputy of Ukraine in two convocations, to V. Marchenko, deputy chairman of the PSPU and a People’s Deputy of Ukraine in three convocations, and to several other party members. In addition, the rented premises housed our unique historical, legal, economic, political, sociological and statistics library; records related to meetings with citizens on personal issues; my scientific and analytical working papers (as a professional economist, a doctor of economics); and papers belonging to the editor-in-chief of the PSPU newspaper Dosvitni ogni, which are needed by V. Marchenko for his work as a journalist.
I note that neither the SBU [Security Service of Ukraine] nor the MVD [Internal Affairs Ministry] has made any claims of crimes against myself or V. Marchenko and has not initiated proceedings on such matters.
In the absence of a court decision authorizing eviction from the premises and in the absence of any officer of a court, what occurred on Friday, 28 October 2016 was a forcible seizure of the entire premises owned by Siver Ukraina LLC, including the premises rented by the PSPU. That is, there took place in addition an illegal seizure of the property, documents, equipment, literature and emblems of the PSPU.
A.E. Shatilin stated on Saturday, 29 October 2016 that the SBU had conducted a search in the Siver Ukrainia LLC premises, including the PSPU premises, and had removed two busloads of property, documents, literature, computer equipment, and so forth, which were essentially stolen from us. No warrants for the search and seizure of documents or party and personal property have been presented either to the owner of the premises, Siver Ukraina LLC, or to me as chairman of the PSPU.
I emphasize that on Friday, 28 October 2016, when the forcible seizure of our premises was carried out, I personally demanded of police officers and of investigator D. Soroka that they ensure the security and safe-keeping of our party property, documents, literature and equipment, as well as the personal possessions of the PSPU’s leaders and members. That is, to prevent outside parties from entering the premises rented by us. My demand was ignored, and the law enforcement agencies did not defend our rights.
On Monday, 31 October 2016, I personally, V. Marchenko, and representatives of other renters were barred from entering our places of work. We were compelled again to summon the police from the Shevchenko District of Kyiv, who recorded this instance of violation of the law.
I believe that the illegal seizure of the Siver Ukraina LLC premises and the entry into the premises leased by the PSPU were committed for the purpose of impeding the political activity of the PSPU, an opposition party, and of fishing for spurious grounds on which to ban our party, launch criminal prosecutions of myself and V. Marchenko as leaders of the party, and intimidate members of the PSPU and of society as a whole.
This political action is aimed at suppressing the freedom of speech and the freedom of thought and beliefs, and at legalizing dictatorial forms of combating the opposition. The harassment of the PSPU and the unlawful inaction of Ukrainian law enforcement agencies are particularly distinguished by the circumstances not only that the PSPU on reasonable ground criticizes the government’s socioeconomic and foreign policy, but also that our party takes an anti-fascist position and openly, providing evidence and invoking the norms and principles of international law, publicizes the collaboration of members of the OUN-UPA [Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and Ukrainian Insurgent Army] with Nazi Germany and exposes their crimes during the occupation of Ukraine by Hitler’s forces.
The inaction of the law enforcement agencies and the free hand allowed to the Azov fighters portend, in addition to a political crackdown on the PSPU, the threat of physical elimination of myself, V. Marchenko, and core PSPU activists.
Please give your urgent attention to this appeal, and defend the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine against discrimination and unlawful infringements on the part of agencies of state power and of radical guerrillas; I ask you, as well, to ensure the right of the citizens of Ukraine to take part in the lawful activity of the PSPU on the basis of the Constitution of Ukraine, the Law of Ukraine “On Political Parties of Ukraine,” and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. I ask you to ensure the personal security of myself, V. Marchenko and members of the PSPU.
On November 9th, Schiller Institute activists and supporters in Houston, Texas came together to celebrate Friedrich Schiller’s 260th Birthday. In what has become an annual tradition in Houston, the afternoon of music, poetry and drama welcomed many participants, and was again held at Houston’s beautiful and cozy French language and cultural center.
This year some 60 people joined in our celebration, including those who were brought by friends or family. The number of new guests was striking, and many expressing their happiness at finding something that lifted them above the ugliness of everyday events.
In preparation, there had been a discussion as to how we could make this year’s celebration a means, providing our friends and activists with the tools they need, to also help elevate others above the ugliness and banality of the culture we are otherwise surrounded by. As a result, our Schillerfest was organized as a thoroughly composed afternoon of music, poetry and drama (not to mention good food), with this idea in mind. Among the highlights were classical poems in Russian, German, and Chinese presented by native speakers, who have become active with the Schiller Institute.
The afternoon began with an introduction by Houston Schiller Institute representative Brian Lantz, noting the triple anniversary of the 260th birthday of Friedrich Schiller, the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the 35th anniversary of the founding of the Schiller Institute. Schiller himself had embarked upon a vigorous organizing campaign, to provide an aesthetic education of his fellow men and women, recruiting allies and collaborators, a process that continues today. His writings – such as “On the Aesthetic Education of Man” and “Theatre as a Moral Institution” reached around the globe, as did his plays, poems and histories. They were taken to heart by Pushkins’s circles in Russia, the circles of Keats and Shelly in England, and influencing education reform in China from the beginning of the 20th century down to today. Fredrick Douglas, the great American abolitionist, former slave, orator, author, diplomat and friend of Abraham Lincoln, writing in his newspaper, North Star, named Schiller “the poet of freedom,” and “one of us.” It was then Beethoven’s 9th symphony, set to Schiller’s poem “Ode to Joy” that was performed in Berlin, in celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago. So the world has indeed been moved, shaped and made better by a poet, through “mere words.” So we are reminded that we are not animals, wedded to sense perception. We communicate instead in terms of discovered great ideas and principles which we apply willfully and freely to transform the world.
Houston Schiller Institute Community Chorus.
The Houston Schiller Chorus opened the music program with two four-part choral pieces by Haydn, and a chorale by Bach. This was followed by a very moving aria from Verdi’s setting of Schiller’s “Don Carlo” by our maestro Dorceal Duckens. Dan Leach then introduced a program of poetic works, provoking all to understand—as Shelly and Lyndon LaRouche developed—that what is poetic is not always in verse. This section began with excerpts from Shelley’s ‘A Defense of Poetry”. This was followed by “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,” Schiller’s “Columbus” in English and German, and “Tree of Fate” by Pushkin in Russian. The first half of the program was closed by the Schiller/Schubert piece “Dithyrambe” and two spirituals, Burleigh’s setting of “Deep River” and “Every Time I Feel the Spirit,” performed by the chorus.
Dorceal Duckens, left, and Dan Leach, right.
After a short intermission, the entire audience reassembled. Everyone indeed stayed to the end of the full program which was about four hours in total. The second half of the program was opened with Schubert’s “Staendchen.” Then were presented two contrasting scenes from Schiller’s dramas. The first scene was the meeting between Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart from the play “Mary Stuart.” In this scene, neither of the main protagonists is able to overcome their own pride and rage and the future of England which could have been secured is lost. The second scene is from “William Tell,” where Gertrude Stauffacher organizes her husband Walter to put freedom before material possessions and to stand up to dictatorship. Both scenes were fully staged, with costumes and memorized dialogue.
Scenes from Schiller’s dramas.
The final part of the program then began with a trio singing Beethoven’s beautiful canon setting of the final words of Schiller’s Maid of Orleans—”Kurz ist der Schmerz; ewig is die Freude”. This was followed by a very moving reading of Beethoven’s “Heiligstadt Testament,” followed by Shakespeare’s Sonnet 66. A Chinese activist then read a poem from the Tang dynasty period of China with the beautiful Chinese characters projected behind her and a classical Chinese instrument playing in the background. The poetry program was completed by a poem by Dan Leach, “Song of the Crab Nebula” with a beautiful image of the Crab Nebula projected behind on the screen.
Throughout, members of the audience were being provoked to recall what they actually already knew: the power of metaphor and of the beautiful. As when experiences and stories are recalled from our childhood, or when we remind ourselves of beautiful parables from the Bible or drawn from secular writings. Or when we recount a few profound lines from the Gettysburg Address of Abraham Lincoln. (Even his name has become a metaphor of sublime.) Or even a snippet of a profound speech by Martin Luther King. These metaphors are the means by which we touch one another, prompting recognition of a higher, unseen principles in a powerful way. Consider the words, “One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.” These ‘mere words’ echoed around the world, and inspire Mankind today!
The beautiful afternoon program was closed by the Houston Schiller Chorus performance of three spirituals, conducted by Maestro Dorceal Duckins. Those spirituals were “Soon Ah Will Be done,” “Give Me Jesus,” and a song which Helga Zepp-LaRouche suggested several years ago for the Belt and Road Initiative, “Get on Board.” That spiritual has become the virtual theme song of the Houston Schiller Institute chorus.
Indeed, as Friedrich Schiller advocated, the individual is awakened to truth through beauty. All the participants in the Houston event experienced that in a some fresh way, as the beauty, metaphors and ironies of great artists were brought to life. As Schiller said of his plays, the intent is that the audience leave the theater better, uplifted persons, and so with poetry and song. So it was with the Houston Schillerfest. So encouraged, these awakening capacities may become subject to the will, to ennoble, and thereby for the exercise of true freedom.
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.
“The Belt and Road Initiative is the most important strategic initiative on the planet… It not only brings economic prosperity to all participating countries, but also serves as a true basis for a peace order for the 21st century.”
It is crucial that the General Assembly of the United Nations now convening in New York, build on the progress that the G20 Summit has achieved under China’s leadership. The course has been set toward a new financial architecture, and the chance is greater than ever that all nations can participate in the building of the New Silk Road on the basis of win-win cooperation, and that the productivity of the world economy will rise on the basis of innovation, while poverty and the consequences of war are overcome. The main problem, however, is that the West continues to cling to the status quo of a uni-polar world and the neo-liberal financial system, although both of those objectives have long been unachievable. The rise of Asia signifies that one nation cannot set the rules, but that solutions must be found through dialogue and negotiation. The neo-liberal system is in the throes of an existential crisis.
The first twin of globalization—the policy of regime-change and alleged humanitarian interventions—has cost the lives of millions of people, brought untold suffering to millions more, destroyed entire regions, created the breeding grounds for the spread of terrorism, and set off huge waves of refugees. The wars against Iraq and Afghanistan alone, according to the study of Professor Neta Crawford of Brown University, have cost five trillion dollars—and for what result?
The second twin of globalization—the system of maximum profit for the TBTF banks, which are supposedly “too big to be allowed to fail”—has led to an unbearable gap between rich and poor. And if certain banks have to pay the full sum of their fines for criminal methods, they must declare bankruptcy because their capital base is insufficient. Hence, a new meltdown threatens, with even more catastrophic consequences than the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, now that central bank instruments are exhausted and no longer effective.
In that context, two reports released in Great Britain offer an extraordinary opportunity to re-assess and correct the current policy. After the Chilcot Report, which laid the blame on Tony Blair for the illegal Iraq war which was built on lies, a commission of the British Parliament has levelled no less scathing charges against former Prime Minister David Cameron for the war in Libya, which was carried out on “erroneous assumptions” and led to“political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of Gaddafi regime weapons across the region and the growth of ISIL in North Africa.”
On the role of the United States, the report states that“The United States was instrumental in extending the terms of Resolution 1973 beyond the imposition of a no-fly zone to include the authorisation of ‘all necessary measures’ to protect civilians. In practice, this led to the imposition of a ‘no-drive zone’ and the assumed authority to attack the entire Libyan Government command and communications network.”
That same overall review of the current policy should, of course, include the implications of the 28 pages of the official Joint Congressional Inquiry Report, which deals with the circumstances of the attacks of September 11, 2001, as well as the JASTA bill, which necessitate a completely new investigation.
In light of the horrendous suffering this failed policy has caused: the millions of dead and injured; the traumatized children and soldiers (including in the nations waging war); the destruction of cities, villages, infrastructure and irreplaceable cultural wealth; it is not only appropriate, but a moral obligation for the countries that took part in these wars in the different “coalitions of the willing,” to examine the political process in their parliaments and to fully participate in the reconstruction of the regions that have been devastated. This will not bring the dead back to life, but the admission of guilt and a genuine change of policy towards development would give the people living there today hope for a future.
The status quo cannot be maintained. As a result of both twins of globalization, there has been an enormous loss of trust among the population in the trans-Atlantic world. Right-wing populist and right-extremist parties are massively gaining strength; the conditions of the 1930s threaten to reappear in a new form; the European Union is crumbling; and the refugee crisis will not be solved by securing the external EU borders, but only relocated and removed from the news. The U.S. economy is collapsing, while the society is more than ever torn and overtaken by violence. Either this process will lead to an escalation of the confrontation with Russia and China, and to the extermination of mankind in a great war, or the leading politicians in the West will have the moral integrity to correct the errors of the past.
The Solution
To come back to the positive proposition in the beginning of this appeal, the course has been set toward a way out of this crisis of civilization since the G20 summit. Not only has China presented a new level of cooperation based not on geopolitics, but rather on a policy in the mutual interest of all, it has also pledged to industrialize Africa and other low-income countries, an approach that could both solve the refugee crisis and eliminate the terrorist environment. Clearly, the extension of the New Silk Road to the Middle East and Africa both requires and will bring about growth rates of 7 to 10%.
And just as promptly, the Club of Rome stepped in with a new report under the cynical title in the German translation of “One Percent Is Enough,” which would lead in consequence to population reduction, a fascist policy for which the Club of Rome is infamous. The UN recently stressed that Africa needs a growth rate of at least 7-8%. When one of the authors of the Club of Rome report, the Norwegian Jorgen Randers, comes out with the absurd statement, “My daughter is the most dangerous animal in the world,” because she consumes 30 times more energy than a girl in a developing country, it serves to show on what image of man the Club of Rome bases its argument, i.e. on a bestial one.
But man, in contrast to all other creatures, is able to use his creative potential to continually discover new insights into the laws of the universe; this is called scientific progress. The unlimited process of perfecting the human mind has a correspondence in the laws of the physical universe, which develops to ever higher energy-flux densities. We are not in a closed system on the Earth—as the Club of Rome and similar organizations claim—rather, our planet is an integral part of the Solar System, the galaxy and the universe, about which space research is discovering more and more. This research yields many advantages for Earth itself, and it is therefore fantastic that China announced at the G20 summit, that it would share with developing countries the most advanced research results for their space and lunar exploration projects.
Mankind has arrived at a crossroads. If we continue to walk the well-trodden paths with a policy of “more of the same,” the world threatens to come apart. If, on the contrary, we can agree on the common aims of mankind—an economic and financial order that serves the well-being of all mankind, and which makes possible a decent life for every person on this Earth; the securing of raw materials and energy through higher technologies such as thermonuclear fusion; the exploration of space to safeguard our planet and a renaissance of classical cultures—then we will be able to usher in a new, better era in the history of our species.
The General Assembly of the United Nations is the fitting place, where the new paradigm of our one mankind, based on that which comes before all the differences among nations, must be established and celebrated.
May 12, 2017 (EIRNS)–On Victory over Fascism Day, May 9, Neo-Nazi “National Corps” (former Azov Battalion unit) staged a new attack on Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) leaders Dr. Natalia Vitrenko and Vladimir Marchenko. Early that morning, as the USA, Canada and European countries had celebrated V-E Day (May 8), the 72nd anniversary of the Nazi surrender in World War II, and the countries formerly in the Soviet Union prepared for their customary marking of the occasion as Victory Day, May 9, these leading anti-fascists in Ukraine, both of them former members of Parliament, heard their doorbells ring and threatening voices outside in the hallways. Gangs from the neo-Nazi “National Corps Party,” formerly a unit of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion under the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, were attempting to break down the doors of their apartments. During a five-hour stand-off, police refused to remove the attackers forcibly. The neo-Nazis declared that their purpose was to prevent Vitrenko and her PSPU from holding Victory Day rallies or taking part in the Immortal Regiment march, in which people in Kiev, as in cities throughout the world, were set to honor family members who died fighting fascism, or survived as veterans of the war.
Vitrenko is famous not only for her now nearly quarter-century-long battle against the destruction of Ukraine through the imposition of neoliberal monetarist economic policies, but also for warning for two decades of an insurgent fascist movement in Ukraine, marching under Nazi-derived banners and those of Ukrainian 20th-century fascist Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Even after her warnings came true, when the neo-Nazis provided shock troops in the U.S.- and EU-backed coup of February 2014 that overthrew the elected President of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovych, Vitrenko has continued to fight to expose them and their backing from the West.
In October of last year, in the latest of a long series of dirty tricks, the PSPU’s national headquarters and all the party’s records of 20 years were seized on the pretext of a commercial dispute, then turned over to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which continues to gestate a case against Vitrenko on trumped-up charges of “separatism.”
On May 4, 2017, Vitrenko addressed an Appeal to world leaders “to review the situation around the gross violation of the rights of citizens of Ukraine to freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of expression of their views and convictions, freedom of association in political parties and public organizations, and freedom of assembly for the peaceful conduct of actions, rallies and demonstrations.” Addressing U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, as well as President Petro Poroshenko and other Ukrainian government officials, Vitrenko cited recent threats against her, by name, made in the Ukrainian media by individuals linked with the National Corps and affiliated neo-Nazi groups like Right Sector. She concluded, “It is my deep conviction, that if the world community fails to condemn these processes in Ukraine and to force the President of Ukraine and its law enforcement agencies to carry out their obligations to defend the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Ukraine and to put a stop to the activity of the right-wing radicals, then a Nazi state will be formed in the center of Europe in the near future, and this will give rise to a Third World War.”
In a communication today to friends abroad, Vitrenko voiced hope that Western leaders could be organized to pressure the Ukrainian government to put a stop to the attacks on the PSPU by the Azov Battalion and its political spin-offs like the National Corps party. She noted, especially, that the U.S. Congress has officially recognized that Azov is “neo-Nazi.” Dr. Vitrenko situated the attacks on her party within an evaluation of the political situation in Ukraine, where one current scenario is for a military coup to be staged by Internal Affairs Minister Avakov and allies of his who have also been sponsors of the neo-Nazi gangs.
The following PSPU statements on the latest developments are provided in English below:
* May 4, Appeal by Vitrenko to Merkel, Putin, Trump, and Poroshenko;
* May 9, “Unchained Nazis commit acts of terror against Vitrenko and Marchenko on May 9,” statement by Natalia Vitrenko to President Poroshenko and other Ukrainian officials, issued after the attack;
* May 10, “Natalia Vitrenko says physical reprisals against her and Vladimir Marchenko were planned for May 9” (introduction to video statement, includes photos);
* May 10, “Political terror: Azov neo-Nazis continue persecution of PSPU,” article by PSPU political commentator Victor Silenko, detailing the escalation against Vitrenko throughout 2016-2017.
Appeal by Vitrenko to Merkel, Putin, Trump, and Poroshenko
May 4, 2017
To the Federal Chancellor of Germany A. Merkel
President of the Russian Federation V. Putin
President of the USA D. Trump
President of Ukraine P. Poroshenko
Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yu. Lutsenko
Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine V. Hrytsak
Human Rights Ombudsman of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine V. Lutkovska
Dear heads of state and authorized representatives of the Ukrainian government,
As the leader of a Ukrainian opposition party, People’s Deputy of Ukraine of the 2nd and 3rd Convocations, and candidate for the Presidency of Ukraine in 1999 and 2004, I am compelled to appeal to you to review the situation around the gross violation of the rights of citizens of Ukraine to freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of expression of their views and convictions, freedom of association in political parties and public organizations, and freedom of assembly for the peaceful conduct of actions, rallies and demonstrations.
These rights and freedoms are not only norms of the Constitution Of Ukraine (articles 34, 36, 39), but are also international obligations of Ukraine in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights and the Pact on Civil and Political Rights, both of which have been ratified by our country.
The present appeal is motivated by the publicly displayed lawlessness of the Ukrainian neo-Nazis, who are threatening Ukrainian citizens, including me personally, with reprisals in connection with the upcoming Victory Day, marking the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War.
The law enforcement agencies are not only failing to stop the aggressive attacks by representatives of right-wing radical political forces, but are themselves taking an active part in intimidating the citizens of Ukraine, for whom May 9 is not only a national holiday, but a day of remembrance and respect for the heroism of our glorious fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, who gave their lives to defeat Hitler’s Nazism, liberated our land, and in a coalition with other countries freed the entire world from fascism.
I cite just three examples of the threats and intimidation, disseminated in the Ukrainian media:
1. Right Sector Press Secretary Artyom Skoropadsky stated in a commentary for Obozrevatel: “Provocations, of course, are a possibility. The Kremlin likes to exploit such events, dedicated to so-called shared aspects of history. As for our participation, of course we won’t be tearing St. George’s Ribbons off old men, even if they come here. That’s their business. But if any scum like
[Communist Party leader] Symonenko or Vitrenko comes crawling out, people who opening support Moscow, then we’ll act, shall we say, using our methods,” commented Skoropadsky. (Source: http://amdn.news/budiem-dieistvovat-nashimi-mietodami-pravyi-siektor-planiruiet-aktsii-na-9-maia)
2. Ukrainian nationalists are planning to impede the holding of the Immortal Regiment action in Kiev on May 9, says Mykola Kokhanivsky, leader of the OUN [Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists] Volunteer Movement, a nationalist organization.
“On May 9 the communists and their supporters in Kiev will once again stage this march, which originated in Moscow and is called the Immortal Regiment… We will not permit the red hydra to infiltrate Kiev!”
3. These Ukrainians are prepared not only to continue the blood-letting, but they are also publicly warning about their right to kill and to punish. On the TV channel 112 Ukraine Ilya Kiva, adviser to [Minister of Internal Affairs] Avakov and grandson of a Hero of the Soviet Union, stated: “We can no longer expect certain people to return to normalcy and reality. But they are our citizens, and we must be able to co-exist with them. I am talking about people who love to shout mindlessly, ‘peace, labor, May,’ … but we have enough experience, enough in numbers and forces, and, most important, we have a rudder that will smash and crush any open moves by these lovers of ‘the Russian world.’ There will be fewer of them, and we shall make them afraid. All these lovers of the ‘Russian world” and this post-Soviet plague, first they’ll experience fear, and along with that will be born love of Ukraine and the Ukrainian nation.” (Source: http://odnarodyna.org/content/pervomayskiy-opyt-svidomitam-malo-krovi)
The media, abetted by Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies (or in cahoots with them), is without question conducting informational and political terror, making Ukrainian citizens who have beliefs different from those of the neo-Nazis into targets for physical reprisals.
Sticking loathsome labels on me and people like me, humiliating us by vulgarizing our sincere convictions and values as orders from Moscow—these are the methods used to prepare the public for harassment and physical reprisals against us.
I think that the world community knows about the [2014] tragedies of May 2 in Odessa and May 9 in Mariupol, and about many other things during these past three years in Ukraine, testifying to the Ukrainian neo-Nazis’ lawlessness and unrestrained actions, which they do with impunity. And the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, which are obligated to defend the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Ukraine, do nothing.
It is my deep conviction, that if the world community fails to condemn these processes in Ukraine and to force the President of Ukraine and its law enforcement agencies to carry out their obligations to defend the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Ukraine and to put a stop to the activity of the right-wing radicals, then a Nazi state will be formed in the center of Europe in the near future, and this will give rise to a Third World War.
Chairman of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) Natalia Vitrenko
Statement by Dr. Natalia Vitrenko after the May 9 attacks
To the President of Ukraine P. Poroshenko
Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yu. Lutsenko
Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine V. Hrytsak
Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine O. Avakov
Human Rights Ombudsmen of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine V. Lutkovska
Unchained Nazis Commit Acts of Terror Against Vitrenko and Marchenko on May 9
I have addressed you repeatedly, stating that the inaction of Ukrainian law enforcement agencies with regard to Ukrainian Nazis has created the conditions for them to carry out political harassment, vigilantism, and murder against journalists, political figures, and citizens of Ukraine, whose political views and values do not coincide with their Nazi ideology. There are countless examples, from the May 2, 2014 tragedy in Odessa to the murders of O. Buzyna, O. Kalashnikov, P. Sheremet, et al. The Ukrainian regime’s proclamations of the European values of freedom of speech, freedom for opposition activity, freedom of expression, and political pluralism, in reality have turned out to be empty words and false promises to cover up the monstrous reality, that the Ukrainian Nazis are out of control and are going unpunished, while law enforcement agencies do nothing to defend the rights and freedoms of Ukrainian citizens, including opposition politicians, under the Constitution and under [international] Conventions.
On May 4, 2017, on the eve of the celebration of the Great Victory [in World War II], I personally wrote to you, demanding that you defend our rights and freedoms, and indeed our lives, from physical reprisals by the Nazis, whose threats had come out in the media, as I indicated in my Appeal. Despite my Appeal, once again the law enforcement agencies took no action. As a result, at 7:30 a.m. on May 9 my apartment doorbell began to ring, and demands to open the door were made by a group of people representing the “National Corps.” They demanded that I refrain from taking part in the day’s mass rallies and that I stop supporting the Russian world. The doorbell-ringing and threats by the Nazis were continuous. I called the police, who arrived after one hour and determined that offensive graffiti had been painted on the door of my apartment and that the Nazis were continuing to blockade it.
At 8:00 a.m. on the same day a group of 15 armed men attacked my deputy, People’s Deputy of Ukraine of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Convocations Vladimir Marchenko. First they blocked the driveway of the building where Marchenko lives with his family, and then they physically pushed aside the concierge, broke into the building, and went upstairs to Marchenko’s apartment. They began to ring the doorbell and demanded the door be opened, and then cut off the lights and started smashing the door and trying to break the lock. They spray-painted the door with some kind of poisonous paint, the smell from which (or from some kind of gas) got into the apartment. At that time, in addition to Vladimir Romanovich (Marchenko), his wife and daughter, also his two minor grandchildren were in the apartment, and were naturally terrified.
Vladimir Marchenko had to call the police. After half an hour, one person arrived, who was absolutely incapable of dispersing the blockade, defending V. Marchenko’s family from Nazi threats and insults, or allowing freedom of movement for all the members of the family. Or did the police have no intention of doing those things?!
I demand an immediate investigation of the acts of terror committed against me and Marchenko, and criminal prosecution of both the organizers of these depredations and those who carried them out. I demand the protection of our rights and freedoms, including security. Consider this statement of mine to be an official statement to the police from me personally and from Vladimir Romanovich Marchenko.
Natalia Vitrenko, Chairman of the PSPU — May 9, 2017 11:05 a.m.
Natalia Vitrenko says physical reprisals against her and Vladimir Marchenko were planned for May 9 (introduction to VIDEO statement in Russian)
May 10, 2017
Natalia Vitrenko outside her vandalized apartment door. Graffiti (shown in part) say “There is no USSR,” “Murderer, answer for your actions,” and “Russian World, stay home!”
Natalia Vitrenko, leader of the opposition Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, believes that on May 9, 2017 the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion (reformatted as the National Corps) planned physical reprisals against her and her party deputy, Vladimir Marchenko. The circumstances of this matter are set forth in Natalia Vitrenko’s statement of May 9, 2017, “Unchained Nazis Commit Acts of Terror against Vitrenko and Marchenko on May 9.”
Natalia Vitrenko and Vladimir Marchenko believe that these actions by the neo-Nazis and the unlawful inaction of the police are violations of their constitutional rights, guaranteed by Articles 3, 8, 15, 21, 22, 23, 30, 34 and 26 of the Constitution of Ukraine and Articles 5, 8, 10 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and that the crimes committed against Vitrenko and Marchenko come under Articles 15, 115 pt. 1, 146 pt. 3, 296 pt. 2, and 346 pt. 1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, as has been set forth by N. Vitrenko and V. Marchenko in their statements to the police.
The very fact that neo-Nazis and neo-fascists are called activists in Ukraine, and that, in violation of Article 68 of the Constitution of Ukraine, they are permitted to carry out summary justice actions against their political opponents, using various types of violence, clearly demonstrates the latest outbreak of Ukrainian fascism.
Photos: damaged door of V. Marchenko’s apartment, broken lock, and board used by the neo-Nazis in attempts to break the lock and break down the door to enter the apartment. (Graffiti: “Here lives the Russian World.”)
Political terror: Azov neo-Nazis continue persecution of PSPU
May 10, 2017
On May 9, 2017 fighters from the neo-Nazi National Corps Party blockaded the apartments of Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) Chairman Natalia Vitrenko and her deputy Vladimir Marchenko, in order to prevent these anti-fascist opposition politicians from taking part in an Immortal Regiment march in the Hero City of Kiev.
The attempts to intimidate these participants in the celebration of May 9 were in vain, however: the Progressive Socialists posted on their party website congratulations to the citizens of Ukraine on Victory Day, marking the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War, thus confirming their unflagging devotion to the cause of their great and glorious ancestors, whose feats on the battlefield saved humanity from the brown plague of fascism, which now has raised its head in Ukraine under the Maidan regime.
Avakov’s “private army” project
As is well known, the National Corps Party was founded Oct. 14, 2016, based on the public organization called the Azov Civil Corps, a youth wing of the special forces Azov Battalion within the National Guard of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs.
This new political force was created by renaming the Ukrainian Patriot Party, which had already been registered by the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice and was headed by the former Azov fighter, independent member of the Supreme Rada Andriy Biletsky aka White Boss.
The party convention was held under the occult sign of the Black Sun (German Schwarze Sonne), which is one of the Azov symbols borrowed from the German Nazis and meant to denote belonging to the “higher master race.”
At the same time the newly formed party abandoned the other, better-known Azov symbol, a mirror image of the runic Wolfsangel, symbolizing capture of the enemy (which had been used in Nazi Germany, in particular by the Waffen-SS Tank Division Das Reich), in favor of a stylized trident with lightning.
Thus the National Corps replicated what the Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU) had done on Feb. 14, 2004, when, upon being renamed as the Svoboda [Freedom] Party, it likewise abandoned that symbol, finally realizing that, despite all attempts to interpret it as a monogram of the Latin letters “I” and “N,” standing for “Idea of the Nation,” the symbol was perceived by the public as nothing other than the Nazi Wolfsangel.
The ideology of this political superstructure of the Azov Regiment, often called in the media the “private army” of Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov, is “social nationalism,” based on principles of “race identity, social orientation, and a great-power concept”; this is a modern variety of Nazism.
“Disgusting neo-Nazis” even for the United States
This is why, as recently as May 3, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives officially forbid Ukraine from spending any U.S. funding on support for this particular armed unit.
The law they passed allows the Pentagon to allocate $150 million through September of this year for military aid to Ukraine, including for training, lethal defensive weapons, machinery and equipment.
But the USA also defined the purposes for which money received by Kiev is not to be spent. “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to provide arms, training, or other assistance to the Azov Battalion,” states the document.
Here it should be noted that earlier, in 2015, the U.S. House of Representatives had already passed amendments to the law on Pentagon assistance to Ukraine for fiscal 2016, banning the financing of any training programs for the Azov volunteer battalion because of its neo-Nazi character. [The restriction was stripped from the bill before its passage by the Senate and adoption. –Editor.]
“If there’s one simple lesson we can take away from U.S. involvement in conflicts overseas, it’s this: Beware of unintended consequences… Overzealous military assistance or the hyper-weaponization of conflicts can have destabilizing consequences and ultimately undercut our own national interests. I am grateful that the House of Representatives unanimously passed my amendments … to ensure that our military does not train members of the repulsive neo-Nazi Azov Battalion,” said one of the co-authors of the amendments, Rep. John Conyers, at the time.
Acts of political terror
The first act of political terror by the Azov neo-Nazis against the PSPU was the events of March 17, 2016, when young thugs from the Civil Corps unsuccessfully attempted to break up a Left Opposition rally outside the National Museum of Ukrainian History in Kiev, where there is a memorial stone with the inscription “The land of Rus came from this place”; the occasion was the 25th anniversary of the All-Union and All-Ukraine Referendums of March 17, 1991 on the preservation of the USSR.
During the attack the fascist hoodlums used tear-gas against the participants in the peaceful action, beat up elderly people, threw stones at the leader of the Progressive Socialists, and then went off to report on their “peremoga” [Ukr., “victory”]: on 112 Ukraina TV, Azov leader Nazar Kravchenko announced the “dispersal of the rally” and even fantasized on the theme that PSPU leader N. Vitrenko had “fled” the scene, whereas in reality she had not only stood firm in the face of the onrushing attackers, but had continued the rally after the neo-Nazis disgracefully fled when rally participants fought back.
The second act of political terror was the events of Oct. 28, 2016, when Azov fighters, led by a certain deputy commander of a reconnaissance and subversion group in the “Anti-Terror Operation” [ATO, the Kiev government’s war on the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which refused to accept the Feb. 2014 coup d’état –Editor]—Nikita Shatilin, raided and seized offices belonging to Siver Ukrainia LLC, which had been rented on a fully legal basis since 2003 by the PSPU and the public organizations Gift of Life, Eurasian People’s Union, and Assembly of Orthodox Women of Ukraine.
The Nazi raiders, in the best tradition of Banderite stool pigeons, then slapped together a report to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), demanding that the illegally seized premises be searched, after which special services operatives, looking for “separatist materials,” carted off two minibus-loads of office equipment, documents, and archives from these offices, without informing the owner or the renters; thus the newly minted social-nationalists had the opportunity to plant whatever they pleased, up to and including weapons and explosives, brought in from the ATO zone by the self-proclaimed “patriots.”
The third act of political terror was the events of May 9, 2017, when ultra-right radicals attempted to gain illegal entry to the apartments of PSPU Chairman N. Vitrenko and of her deputy V. Marchenko: neo-Nazis from the National Corps started ringing the doorbells of these
leaders of an anti-fascist party, demanding to be let in and threatening physical reprisals for any participation in the Immortal Regiment march in Kiev.
The police failed to carry out its (and, consequently, the state’s) functions. In violation of the law, the Constitution Of Ukraine, and the European Convention on Human Rights, the police did not arrest these fascist youth, did not remove them from the hallway, and did nothing to defend the rights and freedoms of the PSPU leaders. Natalia Vitrenko had to make three calls before the police even came. Only five hours after the start of this intimidation action did the neo-Nazis leave, after spray-painting offensive graffiti on the doors and the hallway walls of the leaders of an opposition political party, which opposes the falsification of the outcome of the Second World War—the Great Patriotic War, for our people—and the rehabilitation of Hitler’s collaborators from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and Ukrainian Insurgent Army (OUN-UPA).
All of these events are evidence that the ruling clique, which seized power with the assistance of neo-Nazi guerrillas in the Feb. 2014 coup, is persistently persecuting the PSPU—a legal political force, which conducts its activity strictly in accordance with the law—for its consistent position that it is impermissible to make heroes of “Ukrainian-German nationalists,” and which has repeatedly warned that such a policy will inevitably lead to the disintegration of Ukraine, as indeed has happened under the Maidan regime.
Therefore if there is somebody in our country who should be prosecuted for actually “anti-state activity,” it is the representatives of the ruling regime and their neo-Nazi puppets, who have jointly destroyed the Ukrainian state under fascist Banderite slogans. One can wish them only one thing: if you want to find separatists, look in the mirror—and then don’t blame the mirror for your own ugliness.
Victor Silenko
political observer,
Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) press service
