Helga Zepp LaRouche, the Founder and Chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, will inaugurate a weekly English-language webcast, to spread what she calls the “New Silk Road Spirit” to the world. Mrs. LaRouche is one of the most prominent intellectual authors of the concept “The New Silk Road becomes the World Landbridge”. Since Chinese President Xi Jinping put the New Silk Road, the Belt and Road Initiative, as it is now called on the agenda four years ago, it is lifting tens of millions out of poverty, and puts an alternative to the dangerous idea of geopolitical division of the world. Known internationally as “the Silk Road Lady,” Mrs. LaRouche is often featured in the Chinese press for analysis on the BRI, and the global strategic situation.
In Helga Zepp LaRouche’s year-end webcast, she opened by reviewing the most significant developments of the last weeks, and what these mean for the year ahead. She highlighted the positive potential for the deepening of cooperative relations among Presidents Trump, Putin and Xi:
1. The promise of the Trump-Putin relationship can be advanced by Trump’s participation in events commemorating the 75th anniversary of the victory over fascism. Also of importance will be talks on arms limitations, as Russia now can deploy the Avangard hypersonic missile system, making existing U.S. counter strategies obsolete;
2. Improved relationship with China, beginning with Phase I trade agreement. This is targeted by the geopoliticians, who see the rise of China as a threat, with the Economist presenting the British war plan in their last issue.
She also spoke of the dirty tricks being run by Democrats on impeachment, which risk the party’s future; and of the Sword of Damocles dangling over the financial system, which requires the implementation of LaRouche’s Four Laws to avoid a crash.
In conclusion, she spoke of how these dangers and opportunities bring us to recognize the absolutely unique contributions of Lyndon LaRouche, especially his scientific contributions which refuted the imperial neo-Malthusianism which is pushed by today’s fascist geopoliticians. His “There Are No Limits to Growth” is essential reading for those serious about overcoming the anti-human green policies pushed by financial figures such as Carney and Lagarde.
TRANSCRIPT
HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hello, I’m Harley Schlanger from the Schiller Institute: Welcome to our webcast with our founder and President Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Today is Dec. 31, 2019, the last day of the decade, and what would hopefully be the beginning of a new year, with a bright future for mankind. But that’s still questionable. As we’ll be discussing today, there’s a great opportunity, but the dangers that continue with the geopolitical doctrines that are popping up everywhere.
So, let’s start with the situation with Russia, Helga, because there were what you described as “baby steps” taken with the most recent Trump-Putin discussion. Where do you see this going?
HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think that people at the beginning of the year, which will be tomorrow, always start with deeper thoughts than usual: Where should this year go? What should be accomplished? What are the dangers? And I think President Xi Jinping, in his New Year’s speech of today, actually, said that the coming year will be a milestone year. And I would even take it a step further: I say, that everything will depend on what will happen with the impeachment process in the United States, which is around the Russia and China question of the relations between the United States and these two countries; will the crash happen? Can we make a reform in time? And by the end of this year, I think a lot of strategic decisions will have been made which will determine if the world is on a way of a big confrontation and possible war, or if we can use this coming year to put the world into order and establish a completely new set of international relations.
Now, it is very clear that the three presidents, Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping, are working in their own way to establish a good relation among these three countries, and I think this is actually the most important strategic question, because once you have an accord among these three countries, I think every other problem in the world can be tackled — not solved immediately, and it’s not overcoming all difficulties, but you have the precondition that you can solve the strategic questions.
Since you mentioned the first “baby step,” or one of the baby steps, I think it’s quite important that Trump and Putin had another very useful telephone call, where Putin thanked Trump for having provided information which helped to not have a terrorist attack over the New Year period in St. Petersburg; two Russian nationals were arrested as a result of it, and the head of the FSB, the Russian secret service, reported that there has been in the recent period an intensification of collaboration among these security forces. So this is very, very positive.
Also, I would think that, reflecting a direct intervention by Putin with tacit approval of Trump, the fact that the situation in Ukraine is easing up a little bit: There was a prisoner exchange between the Kiev government and the Donbas region. There was a treaty between Russia and Ukraine that for five years, there will be the delivery of natural gas through Ukraine to Europe, so these are baby steps which are going in the right direction.
But I think the really big question which is coming up in April and May is the 75th anniversary of the defeat of Nazism; and there, you have naturally, the big event, the 75th anniversary celebration on May 9 in Moscow, to which Putin repeatedly invited President Trump, and Trump basically expressed great interest to go there, even if details have not been decided. But there is also on April 25, the meeting at the Elbe, and this has a very big emotional importance for the Russians, because this was the first time at the end of World War II, where the U.S. and the Soviet soldiers met at the Elbe, and this was a very difficult moment, but a moment which turned into great joy, and it has an enormous significance: Because simple soldiers were embracing each other and made a solemn commitment at the Elbe that they would put all their efforts in trying all they could that something so horrible as Nazism and the Second World War would never ever happen again. And they invoked the “Spirit of the Elbe,” to say that this is something where all nations of the world — not just the United States and Russia — but all nations of the world should really think that from now on, all conflicts must be solved peacefully.
There will be a big celebration for two days [April 24-25] in Torgau, and also there, Putin has invited Trump to attend. And I think that given the fact that this is really a way of improving the relationship between Russia and the United States, on the highest level, namely, with a solemn commitment to never have war again, that we actually really want to support this idea for Trump to go to both these events — and all other leaders and people of good will. Because 75 years after World War II, it is time to return to this idea of “Never Again!” to never again have Nazism, to never again have conflict resolution through war. And since Trump is committed to ending the endless wars, and, obviously, not have a big war with the Russians — I mean, he has said that the disarmament discussion around nuclear weapons is the most important strategic question number one; I think the Russians recently have proposed to even include their new, hypersonic missile, the Avangard, which has been now made operational, to include that in the New START discussions, which I think is very, very important. Because the development of these hypersonic missiles is really upsetting the applecart of the effort to have a global missile defense system which includes the illusion of fighting and winning a limited nuclear war, which is completely upset by this Avangard missile, because it does not follow a ballistic trajectory and therefore it totally tips off the missile defense system. And the Russians now offering to include that Avangard in the New START Treaty negotiations, I think is an absolutely important signal and signal for hope.
I think that the U.S.-Russia relationship is coming center stage in this coming period in April-May, and I would appeal to all people of good will to agree and stop this Russophobia, stop this demonization of Russia, and understand that the improvement in the relationship between these two largest nuclear powers is the absolute first precondition to maintaining world peace.
SCHLANGER: The other key relationship you talked about is that between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping of China. It appears as though there will be a meeting in January to finalize the phase one of the trade deal. There are a lot of important things coming out of China — I know that one of the things President Xi spoke about in his New Year’s address was the importance of lifting 10 million more people out of poverty during 2019. Helga, how important is it that this trade deal go ahead. And it’s clear that this is really a sticking point with the geopoliticians that are doing everything they can to stop the Trump-Xi relationship, just as they have to stop the Trump-Putin relationship.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Obviously, that is the big problem for the geopoliticians, because the rise of China is regarded by them as a threat to their geopolitical control of the world; while Xi Jinping again offered in his New Year speech that the Belt and Road Initiative is open for all countries — and that includes, obviously, the United States. So I would really urge people to read this speech by Xi Jinping themselves, because it’s a very impressive review of the accomplishments of China in the year 2019. I cannot even go through all the aspects: you know, the beefing up of the various economic development zones, the Beijing-Hebei-Tianjin triangular which is a complete overhauling and modernization of the Beijing area. then the area of Guangdong-Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Zuhai-Macao-Hong Kong — that region is, despite the troubles in the Hong Kong, actually the motor of the world economy. This is the most advanced technologies anywhere in the world, and the powerhouse of the Belt and Road Initiative. And various other development zones. And he made also a pledge that in 2020, China will fulfill its promise to alleviate poverty in all rural areas and eliminate the last pockets of poverty in China. And given the fact that there are, I think, only 7 million poor people left in China, this is an incredible perspective, and there’s no reason not to believe it, because they have already lifted 850 million people out of poverty in the last decades.
This was a very important speech, and people who are subject to the anti-China propaganda, as well as the anti-Russia propaganda, should read that speech of Xi Jinping, and just think about it, and think what it means for not only China, but for the world as a whole, that China is taking such a constructive role.
Now, obviously, this is a thorn in the side of the British Empire, which has shown its face in Hong Kong in the most clear way, because British colonialist powers still think that Hong Kong should belong to them. And there was an article, actually only a couple of days ago, in the London Economist, which I also would encourage people to read, because sometimes you have to read crucial pieces to understand — and this is sort of a war game plan for what the British want to do in respect to Trump and China in the coming year. They say: Well, on the one side, nobody can really say that Trump is not a hawk, because, after all, in the 2016 campaign, he was very anti-China, he imposed tariffs, he imposed sanctions in the context of Huawei, but, really, he does not blame China for the trade deficit; he actually says that the Chinese leaders were smart to use loopholes, and so forth, and this would create a gap between him and his own officials, who obviously do have a much more hawkish attitude against China than Trump.
But then they say, gleefully, well, you know, events in the coming year will drive Trump into a cold war confrontation with China, because when the Hong Kong riots continue, eventually the mainland troops will have to “crack skulls” (and they use this martial language), then the Republicans in the U.S. Congress will side with the Democrats to impose sanctions on Chinese officials and taking away the special status of Hong Kong in terms of trade relations; then the human rights campaign against Xinjiang will escalate; then you will have a Tibet succession fight because the Dalai Lama is already 85 and that is coming close; the crisis with Taiwan will escalate, and also in the South China Sea. And they say, when the financial crisis will get worse, all of these conflicts will actually escalate and that will force Trump to really go into a confrontation with China.
So that is their game plan. And I just remembered, in 2007-2008, when we had the big financial crisis, there were several articles in the British press, and I’m planning to review those, where they said that, OK, it’s impossible to have regime change against the communist government in Beijing, but, if there is a global financial crisis again, then all these separatist tendencies, in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, all of that can be escalated, and then the mainland government will lose control and we can replace them.
So that is their intention. I think this is an evil, geopolitical design. I don’t think it will function, but one is better off to recognize what is the intention of these forces — . and The Economist is a pretty authoritative publication for the City of London, with or without Boris Johnson. I don’t think the Brexit, which will happen at the end of January, will change that attitude much.
I don’t think it’s a realistic thing, because if you look at China, they’re doing an incredible job, their growth rates are, despite all the efforts thrown against them, still in excellent shape, and one can only wish that the end result of this would be that Trump overcomes his opposition inside the United States and can actually take up the offer of Xi Jinping to cooperate with the Belt and Road Initiative, because that would be the one thing which really would solve most problems in the world.
SCHLANGER: I would say your review of the U.S.-Russia relationship and the U.S.-China relationship is a perfect backdrop to actually understand what’s going on with the impeachment fight in the United States, that this, as we’ve always said, has nothing to do with the so-called issues that were raised in the Mueller report, the Russiagate story, the Ukrainegate story, but has to do with these broader geopolitical issues.
And now, we see the absurdity of Pelosi, arguing that they had to rush the impeachment through the House, because every day Trump stays in office is a grave threat to national security; and then, once they get the Articles of Impeachment, withholding it from the Senate trial!
Helga, what’s your sense of where we’re headed with this impeachment fight as we go into January, with the possibility that there will be a trial in the Senate, some time during this next month?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I wish I could give a definite answer on that, but, normally you would say, Nancy Pelosi has no case, she has no proof that Trump pressured the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky; she knows that she has no proof and that’s probably the reason that she has said that she doesn’t bring the case immediately to the Senate.
Now, however, knowing how these things work, one can only assume that they want to use this time to line up some dirty tricks, like getting certain Republican senators to withdraw support from Trump. There are two operations which have surfaced: One is an operation by William Kristol, who has formed a PAC; they want to do advertisement in the so-called “weak” Republican districts, these are cases where it’s known that they’re not so pro-Trump; they want to have advertisements and try to convince them to abandon the support for Trump. Then you have, naturally, the terrible William Weld, who is a counter Presidential candidate in the Republican Party: He also has said that he’s working on Republican senators.
But it’s not clear. I don’t think this will work, because these Republican senators are also aware, if they turn out to be traitors against Trump, where the public sentiment is still very high in large support for Trump that they could risk their own political careers if they’re not successive. So it’s an iffy game.
I think what Pelosi is doing, she is risking to ruin the Democratic Party; I think it’s very clear that these people are absolutely no friends of the U.S. Constitution. This was pointed out by the constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who basically said that Pelosi’s maneuvering, to only go to the Senate vote when she thinks she has a majority, that that as such is already unconstitutional.
But this is a coup, the coup is ongoing, so I can only say, be on alert. Our colleagues in the United States are trying very hard to get the various weak points to pop, like the revelations by [former NSA Technical Director] Bill Binney, that there was no Russian hack, that is still at the absolute core of the whole story of Russiagate. Then you have the Barr and Durham investigation, on top of the Horowitz Report, which already established the absolute crimes of the FBI. Now, the Durham investigation, which is a criminal investigation, is much more broad-ranged. It goes through the origins of where did the Russiagate start, who started it. It goes into the cooperation of the U.S. intelligence heads with British intelligence. However, this is going to take some time.
So we are really in a run against time, and it’s very difficult to say how this will end up. If Trump wins, and if the investigations all proceed, a lot of people could go to jail. But on the other side, I can only warn that people are complacent: Because some of the Trump supporters are too complacent because they think that Trump has so much support that everything is OK. But this is an ongoing coup! So, we need to get these revelations of Binney, of people like [former CIA analyst] Larry Johnson, who pointed very much to the origin of the whole thing with this Professor Mifsud working for British intelligence; so all of these leads have to be followed up. And I can only appeal to you to not be complacent, but become active with us.
SCHLANGER: This brings us to the other leading issue that will have to be resolved in the coming months, what you refer to as the “Sword of Damocles” hanging over all of us, which is the financial crisis, the continuing repo operations, the flooding of money, the helicopter funds, and the fact that there’s no solution within the existing establishment position. Where do we stand now with the financial crisis?
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: The Fed put into the system over the Christmas/New Year period more than $500 billion, and they announced that they will inject as much money “as needed.” And obviously, Trump has an interest that nothing should happen during the election campaign. I think that the ECB President Christine Lagarde has announced that she will continue what her predecessor Mario Draghi had done, to take whatever it takes to save the euro, which means, more quantitative easing, more buying of state bonds, more injection of liquidity: But that basically means that the system is already at the absolute end, because if you continue with zero interest rates, even negative interest rates, this goes at the absolute expense of investment into the real economy; it eats up the savings of ordinary people because the inflation rate is higher than the negative or zero interest rates.
And, it basically brings the options for 2020, concerning the financial system, down to three options: One, a crash. That can happen because the whole financial system is a minefield, and while the central banks are intending to flood as much money as needed, it could actually happen that somewhere there’s a mistake, and a chain reaction indeed could happen, given the fact that the complexities of the system are such that no central banker, much less any other banker, has an overview any more. The trading in currencies in nanoseconds, and all of these things, means the whole system is a huge casino, run by supercomputers — it’s a completely out of control system.
So either there’s a crash, or, if the central banks continue this absolute massive liquidity pumping in order to avoid a crash, sooner or later, you will have inflation coming to the fore. They always say, this is not the case, because the money creation is just within the financial system and does not enter the realm of real physical goods, but that is not true, because you have bubbles already: You have the real estate bubble; you have the stock market bubble — don’t think that the value of the stocks reflects the actual worth of the firms involved. And eventually, if you keep pumping money like that, you end up in hyperinflation, and as we know from German in 1923, that would mean the complete destruction of the life savings of the normal depositors, normal people.
Then you have, on top of that, the insanity of Mark Carney, who wants to have a regime change: Take away any power of the sovereign governments and replace it with the central banks running the whole affair directly, and going into a green financing: He just give a horrible interview to BBC, which was guest edited by Greta Thuberg, where he said that he wants to have pension funds and others divest from coal and gas-related industries, going into Green finance, going into a “circular economy,” and all of that, means the social explosion which you already see around the globe, will increase. Because if you will force people, through increase of prices, to change their behavior towards “Green” behavior, you help fuel the already-existing mass strike process going on around the globe.
So I think the only third alternative for 2020, therefore, is a global Glass-Steagall, separation of the banks and ending the casino economy. And I would actually call on you, our viewers internationally, to contact us, because we plan to mobilize for this idea of a Glass-Steagall, together with the other Four Laws of Lyndon LaRouche: National banking, New Bretton Woods systems, crash programs for advanced technologies, like fusion power and cooperation in space exploration. And only if we change the economy, according to the principles of physical economy in time, can the first two operations, of either a crash with chaos, or hyperinflation, be avoided. So Glass-Steagall must be brought back onto the agenda.
SCHLANGER: What is clear from this review that you’ve just presented, as well as the options for the months ahead, is the absolute prescience of your husband Lyndon LaRouche, whom we lost in this last year, through his passing. And I think it’s critical, in looking at this, that 2020 is going to be the year of LaRouche’s ideas, if mankind is going to emerge from this crisis. And, as the person who is closest to Lyndon LaRouche, your thoughts on this would be most welcome right now, Helga.
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, you have right now, an unbelievable assault on the population: This Green ideology, which is really a brown ideology in new clothes, tries to convince people that growth is evil and destroys nature, and climate and whatnot. The way how this is discussed is old neo-Malthusianism. We’ve fought this from the very beginning, when the Club of Rome escalated the old British conservation movement, which was really a continuation of the Nazi idea of treating people like animals. So when the Club of Rome published their report in 1972, the Limits to Growth, my husband repudiated that immediately with a very powerful book There Are No Limits to Growth. And I would challenge people to read that book, because it took apart the fraudulent basis on which the Club of Rome had said the world was developing until 1972, and now we have to somehow adjust, and we are in a closed system, and we have to from now on have austerity, zero growth, because the resources are limited.
What my husband developed in this book was the absolute absurdity of this idea, because “resources” are not a fixed thing: What is a resource is always determined by the scientific and technological level with which man is using these materials; whether you have a stone with which you kill your neighbor in the Stone Age, or whether you say, this is a rare earth element and I can make mobile phones and others things out of it, entirely depends on the level of technology. And especially space research makes very clear, that the resources of the Earth are not limited, but that we are in a process of basically using resources from our Solar System, our galaxy, and who knows what beyond that in the future; so what my husband basically in There Are No Limits to Growth is put this whole question on a scientific basis, and obviously, one of the fallacies of composition which these anti-growth people are committing is to make equivalent, just mindless quantitative growth with the qualitative growth whereby human creativity discovers deeper and better principles about the physical universe, and applies them in the form of science and technology.
Right now, I can only say there is an unbelievable brainwashing, where people are really driven into a frenzy about this climate question. There is no question that there are changes in the climate, but it is not discussed out and proven among scientists, what are the causes of it, because there are many factors involving the position of the Solar System within the galaxy, processes on the Sun, many factors, and the anthropogenic aspect of climate change is very, very small, and that needs to be publicly debated.
This will obviously be a big issue in the coming year, and years, and I think that many people in the United States, in Europe, in Africa, in other parts of the developing countries, remember and recognize that my husband was the intellectual counterpole to the City of London, to Wall Street pushing these oligarchical schemes; and they are coming forward. There is a renewed interest in the scientific work of my husband — we are in the process of preparing the publication of his works: And I want to invite all of you to help to spread these ideas. Now, we had in the last year, three very successful memorials for my husband: One in New York, one in Frankfurt, one in Latin America, and I would urge people to look at these — they are on our websites — and get a sense a sense of who Lyndon LaRouche is and why the ideas which he has presented absolutely must be realized in the coming year.
SCHLANGER: Well Helga, I think what’s clear is that we have to make sure that your optimism becomes the strategic outlook of all our viewers and listeners. And on behalf of all of them, I want to wish you a Happy New Year, and let’s make sure that this coming year, 2020, is the Year of LaRouche.
The name of the German weekly magazine “Der Spiegel” actually means in English, “The Mirror.” And indeed what you see this week on the cover page of the print version of Der Spiegel—a person with a gas mask, goggles, earphones and a hoody—is the mirror image of the ugly face of the racism of its editors. The caption “Corona-virus Made in China” should actually be “The ugly face of the racist monster Spiegel.”
This piece of yellow trash journalism was so bad that the Chinese embassy in Germany issued a formal complaint on their website. The notorious Jylllands-Posten of Denmark had an equally disgusting so-called cartoon putting the corona virus on the Chinese flag. Various American so-called mainstream media use the abominable racist term “The Yellow Peril.” What all of these portrayals demonstrate is the ugly reality of an obviously deep-seated racism under a very thin varnish of “western values.”
The reality of the matter is, that the Director General of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,has praised China repeatedly for the excellent handling of the epidemic, noting that China has set a new standard of dealing with such problems. That the Chinese government had published a full genome-mapping of the new variants within days of the outbreak made it easier for scientists in other countries to start working on possible vaccines, but also that China has made significant breakthroughs in the biological sciences over the past 15-20 years. Other health officials stated that the response of the Wuhan regional government and the dissemination of information was “state of the art“ and that an extremely impressive quantity of new information contained in their daily updates had been published since December 31st/January 1st.
To call any virus a “Chinese” virus is as silly as to say that it is someone’s fault if he catches the flu or gets sick in general. It can happen anywhere in the world and it can happen to every person on the planet. The lesson from this recent case of the reaction to the outbreak of the coronavirus is that it shows who in the international community is capable of responding to dangers that threaten all of humanity, and who is a troglodyte, and who is not.
If Europe and the US want to be credible in talking about “human rights” and “western values” then they should join hands with China and cooperate on the fight to defeat the coronavirus. The coronavirus and the fact that every year 100,000s of people get killed by the influenza shows how urgent it is to make new breakthroughs in the fundamental understanding of living processes to overcome what are today, life threatening diseases. Europe and the US should also cooperate with the most future oriented vision on the international agenda, namely the extension of the BRI into south west Asia and Africa and the international cooperation in the Space Silk Road.
For sure we should reflect on the actuality of the judgment of Gottfried Leibniz who said:
“In any case it seems that the situation of our present conditions in light of the growing moral decadence is such that it almost seems necessary that Chinese missionaries are sent to us, who could teach us the application and practices of natural theology….I therefore believe, that if a wise man would be elected not to judge about the beauty of goddesses, but about the excellence of peoples, he would give the golden apple to the Chinese.”
I think Leibniz was a lot wiser than Der Spiegel, Jyllands-Posten and New York Times.
On December 28, 2019 the Schiller Institute participated in the third annual memorial in honor of the Alexandrov Ensemble, at the Tear Drop Memorial in Bayonne, New Jersey. In 2016, 64 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, along with 24 others, perished when their plane crashed into the Black Sea en route to Syria. What follows is a transcript of the memorial including remarks from Capt. Donald Haiber, Father John Fencik, Chief Keith Weaver, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation Mission to the United Nations Mr. Dmitry Chumakov, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic Mission Dr. Louay Falouh, Schiller Institute Founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and Co-Director of the Schiller Institute New York City Chorus, Diane Sare, and Mr. Kevin Maynor.
Transcript of ceremony:
Capt. Donald Haiber, Bayonne, N.J. Fire Department: First I want to wish everyone a belated Merry Christmas. Secondly, for those of you that have been with us for the last few years, it looks like we lucked out with some balmy weather. I know it’s been cold and snowing in the past, but today looks like a beautiful day, and it’s a nice way for a remembrance.
Some of the people who are here today, we have our Office of Emergency Management Director Mr. Ferantay [ph], the chief of the department Keith Weaver; we also have the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation Mr. Dmitry Chumakov; and also, I’d like to recognize the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic, Dr. Fallouh. And also a very special thank to Mr. Kevin Maynor, who’s behind me. I also want to recognize Father Fencik: He’s been here every year with us, braving the cold. And the last person I want to thank is the Co-Director of the Schiller Institute New York Chorus Diane Sare, who, without her, none of this happens.
On behalf of the Bayonne Fire Department and the City of Bayonne, we welcome you all to today’s ceremony. Father Fencik, would you please do the invocation?
Father John Fencik: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. O Heavenly King, the Comforter, O Spirit of Truth, Who everywhere present through all things, Treasury of Blessings and Giver of Life, come into all within us, cleanse us of all stain, and save our souls, O Gracious Lord.
This is the prayer that is traditionally said at the beginning of any type of function that involves the Russian people. We pray that we who are gathered here today, in memory of those departed members of the Alexandrov Choirs, those who departed with them this life in December of 2016. We pray that God give them eternal rest in His heavenly mansion. We pray that this ceremony retains their memory, and brings them all to life everlasting. Amen.
Color Guard posts colors. Chorus presents the Russian Federation National Anthem and United States of America National Anthem.
Captain Haiber: Thank you all very much. That was beautiful. I’m going to introduce Chief Weaver who wants to say a few words as well. Professionally, he is my chief, he’s my boss, but I’m honored, personally, to say that he is my friend — Chief Weaver.
Chief Keith Weaver: Good morning to everyone in attendance today. I’m grateful for this opportunity to say a few words in honor of the lives lost on Christmas Day 2016. Today, we pause to remember and honor the tragic loss of Alexandrov Ensemble. The loss of this extremely talented group was a loss for the entire globe. I’m honored to be speaking at this fitting site, as this Tear Drop Memorial was donated to our city from our world neighbors in Russia. The gift is a reminder that although we may be separated by nationality, we are united in humanity. As brothers and sisters, we share in your grief, and also share in your hope for a brighter future for all mankind. May the lives lost on that tragic day, three years ago, rest in peace. Thank you.
Captain Haiber: Thank you, Chief. Mr. Chumakov will have a few words to say.
Dmitry Chumakov: Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends: We are very pleased to welcome all those of you who have joined us today in the memory of the Alexandrov Ensemble, and the victims of the plane crash that happened on the 26th December 2016, just a couple of days from today, three years ago. It was a legendary ensemble, media workers from Russian TV channels, and the famous philanthropist Elizaveta Glinka: They were bringing to Syria, the Christmas mood, they were bringing into a war-torn country, and it was a big tragedy and loss.
The Russian Mission is grateful to the Schiller Institute, to the Fire Department of the City of Bayonne: without you, this event would not be possible. It’s becoming a tradition. We are getting together for the third time now, and this is a great honor for us to share these human feelings and share with you the losses and compassion. This memorial event is a great example [inaudible] honor and solidarity between our countries. The Alexandrov Ensemble has been reinstated, and I just want you to know that the new performers [inaudible] we also want you to know that that humanitarian projects started by Elizaveta Glinka are implemented by her followers. And it’s also important to say that we’re still making a lot of efforts to bring peace to Syria, and to help Syria, and to help the political settlement in this country. So, it is only with political settlement that the problems can be solved.
We once again must give tribute to these brave and merciful people who are our modern-day heroes. They are symbols of patriotism and humanity are given to us today: May their souls rest in peace. And thank you very much for joining us today.
Captain Haiber: Thank you Mr. Chumakov. We are here once again to give our condolences and sympathy to the families of the Alexandrov Ensemble and to the people of Russia. Everyone here proves, I believe, that this small remembrance shows our humanity towards one another — and God knows, we could use more of that.
Once again, it’s fitting that we’re here at the Tear Drop, because the creator of this structure was the Russian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli. In the darkness after 9/11, this monument helped to bring peace and the light of hope to the many people [inaudible] here. We now wish to pay that forward, back to the Russian people and the families of the Alexandrov Ensemble.
May the serenity and hope that I feel when I am here be conveyed back to the people of Russia. Music has meaning, and this quote from Billy Joel conveys that better than anything I could ever say: “I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by, no matter where we are from, everyone loves music.” It is times like this that we are neither Americans nor Russians, nor Syrians, but we are just human beings who genuinely wish peace and happiness to one another.
Once again, I will try to convey my thoughts in Russian. I’ve been practicing and hopefully this gets it through: [Russian remark].
It is now my honor to introduce Mr. Kevin Maynor. He has sung with the Metropolitan Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and many others. Mr. Maynor was the first apprentice artist from the West to study at the Bolshoi in Moscow, where he studied and sang. He will now also share a few words with you.
Kevin Maynor: Thank you. [Sings Russian folk song “Still One Star”] I don’t think anybody can talk about the Alexandrov Ensemble, the great Russian Army Chorus, and not think of the great [inaudible] that was meant to encourage, sung by the Volga boatmen. I think of the Volga boatmen and the Volga River, which I had the pleasure of seeing in the year 2000-2001 upon my return to Russia. My first experience of 1979-1980, and the Russian people embraced me with a certain kind of love that I will never, ever forget. I love them dearly, from the bottom of my heart. There’s no bass in the world — no bass in the world — no singing bass, that does not admire the training and the beauty of the great Russian basses and the great Russian singers. I think these people and the contributions they have made to the world, regardless of the confusions and the politics that might be involved between countries, one thing for sure, music, it is true, it is the healing source. It is the language that we all speak and understand. And when we don’t understand one another, we learn to appreciate, which is the key, actually, to bringing people closer together, appreciation for one another.
I want to take the time to sing for you a spiritual, one that was sung by the great Paul Robeson, who was a great singer, one that many admire — certainly the Russian people admire. He sang this song amongst them, and I want to sing it for you all: It’s called There Is a Balm in Gilead.
God bless the Alexandrov Ensemble. God bless their mission. God bless all of you who are gathered here, today.
Captain Haiber: Thank you Mr. Maynor. I do have to say, that is probably the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. Thank you.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I extend my greetings to all of you gathered today to commemorate the lives of the 92 passengers and crew, who died when the Russian TU 154 crashed into the Black Sea on December 25th, 2016. Sixty-four singers of the Alexandrov Ensemble, plus the crew of the plane, members of the Russian military, Russian journalists and the beloved relief worker Dr. Elizaveta Glinka all perished that winter night, while flying to give Christmas comfort and cheer to soldiers who were battling to liberate Syria from the terrorist scourge of ISIS.
Each of the people on that plane was like the Good Samaritan that Schiller writes about in his Kallias essays On the Beautiful. In Schiller’s story, several people stopped by the side of the road to help the injured man, but some asked for money, some wanted recognition, and to put down others who didn’t stop; but only one person stopped, and very naturally and happily put down his own load, to carry the injured man without a second thought for himself.
In 2020, the world will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazi terror in May of 1945. At that time, people vowed, “Never Again!” And now, 75 years later, mankind again is threatened with the danger of cultural decadence and even potentially a great war. As Schiller said, it is only through aesthetic education through great classical art that the ennoblement of man can occur. It is time that mankind grew into a new paradigm where, as Shelley and Schiller proposed, the poets and artists become the natural leaders of the age.
Diane Sare: Good morning, now speaking on behalf of the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus, I would like to say that a chorus is a very special thing. It is a group of diverse individuals, who discover through the art of a great composer that their diversity becomes their strength.
Our chorus had existed for just two years when I received the news on Christmas Day 2016 of the crash of the Red Army Chorus, and it was like getting punched in the stomach. Some of us quickly enlisted the help of a Russian-American chorus member to pronounce the words to the Russian National Anthem, and we went to the Consulate and sang it outside on the sidewalk.
I learned that the NYPD Ceremonial Unit had been deeply moved by the Ensemble at the Military Bands Tattoo in Quebec City in 2011, which had happened to fall on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. A wonderful baritone, Grigory Osipov sang God Bless America, which they performed as a gift to the NYPD Ceremonial Unit, and a young boy came and presented the director, Lt. Tony Giorgio, with a single white rose. You will see Osipov’s name on the list of those who perished in that terrible crash.
The United States, Russia, and Syria have all suffered the devastating effects of terrorism, but I am optimistic that perhaps the warm weather here this year may be a sign of the warmth of the friendship that our nations and peoples may share in our musical dialogue.
Father Fencik: The Church teaches us that as long as we keep a person’s memory alive, they are still with us. It is traditional at the end of any memorial service that the hymn Eternal Memory is sung, and the Russian hymn. So we will conclude this memorial service with the prayer for the departed and the singing of the memorial hymn.
O God of spirits and all flesh, who has conquered Satan and vanquished death, and granted life to your world, Lord give rest to the souls of your faithfully departed servants. in a peaceful, serene place, from which all pain and sorrow and sighing are absent. As the good and gracious God Who loves mankind, forgive all transgressions committed by them in word or in thought, voluntarily as a human frailty. There is no man living who does not sin. You alone are without sin. Your truth is truth for eternity, your word alone reality. For you are the Resurrection, the Life and the Repose for your departed servants, Oh Christ, our God. We rend You glory together, Eternal Father, holy gracious and life-creating Spirit, always now and ever, and forever. Amen.
In blessed repose grant eternal rest, Oh Lord, to the souls of Your departed servants. Make eternal their memories, Vechnaya pamyat! [Eternal memory!]
Professor Zhang Weiwei (张维为), founder of the Centre for China Development Model Research (中国发展模式研究中心主任) at the renowned Fudan University (复旦大学) in Shanghai, is perhaps uniquely capable of familiarizing the Western public with the reasons for the success of the Chinese economic model and international Belt and Road Initiative.
After completing his studies in Shanghai, Zhang Weiwei worked as a translator for Deng Xiaoping and other members of the Chinese leadership. He received his Ph.D in International Relations from the University of Geneva`s School of Diplomacy and International Relations. He was also visiting fellow at Oxford University and senior research fellow at the Centre for Asian Studies, University of Geneva.
As an author Prof. Zhang’s 2012 book “The China Wave: Rise of a Civilizational State” (available in English on amazon.com) has risen to the status of an international bestseller and has become one of the standard works on China’s global economic and diplomatic policies
The Schiller-Institute feels privileged to present to you a scholar and author of such acclaim.
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.
