General

Mike Billington of Executive Intelligence Review interviews U.S. Col. Richard Black on the tremendous danger of nuclear war.

Watch the February 4 Schiller Institute conference

Ray McGovern: Thank you, Dennis. I’m very happy to be with you. The title of my little talk here, “Know Where You Stand, and Stand There,” comes from a commencement address by my friend and tutor and mentor, Father Dan Berrigan. Actually, it doesn’t come from that commencement address, it is the sum and total of that commencement address. He was asked by a very prestigious university to come and give the commencement address; this was about four decades ago. He came, and he stood up there, and he said those words—“Know where you stand, and stand there.” And then he very politely left and sat down with the audience. That’s all you really need to know, folks. You need to know where you stand, and stand there.

Now, sometimes we’re a little worried. Nonviolence is good, but sometimes when we put ourselves in other people’s faces and they react with a very great anger, we too are tempted to get angry. Not only at their reaction, but at the whole concept of the widespread injustice throughout the world. So, I would just encourage us all to remember that anger is a virtue. None other than Thomas Aquinas said so. He said, “Anger is a virtue, but you have to have just so much of it.” He warned against too much anger—iracundia—always being ticked off, that was the Latin word. But he also warned about “unreasoned patience”—that’s the best we could do from the Latin. He said “Unreasoned patience sows the seeds of vice, nourishes negligence, and encourages good people to tolerate bad people, or the bad things that people do. I don’t really think there are bad people.”

So, what we need to do here is figure out how to act; how to act nonviolently and with just the right dosage of the virtue of anger. I’m not the greatest representative of what is now called by José Vega and others “interventions.” Interventions in the same sense of the word, people are pretty crazy in Washington. But I’ll give you some personal examples of how I tried to stand up and do what Dan Berrigan suggested.

First slide, please. This is a photo of me standing up, turning my back to Hillary Clinton, who you can see off my left shoulder. She was talking about repression in Iran, and suffice it to say, there was great repression exercised on me simply for standing up, not saying a word, nonviolently again but angry. I was beat up pretty badly, but I didn’t even have to stay in jail that night. I got to go home. I had to go to the hospital first, and interestingly enough, the doctor said, “Now, you were beaten up. You have to report this to the authorities.” I said, “To State Department security? They did it!”

Second slide, please. Here I wasn’t so lucky; I did have to spend the night in jail. But that’s OK; good things happen in jail. You get to feel what other people feel being all closed up and unfree. What are the lessons here? Well, this particular photo was taken after I stood up and intervened, so to speak, with the Senate Intelligence Committee before they approved the nomination of torturer-in-chief Gina Haspel to be the new CIA director five or six years ago. What encouraged me to do that? Just the obscenity of the whole thing. Hello! So, what do you do in situations like that? Well, number one, you kind of, as you can see, you blend in with the indigenous to get in. You put your best wedding suit on, which I had. Number two, you stay away from known interveners—Code Pink, for example. You let them sit over in a corner; you go separately. Number three, you hope that one of those Code Pinkers has a camera—and indeed, one did. Therefore, this picture, after they had taken me out of the hearing room. And what I have as number four here, I was just thinking today. People have been asking me, “What’s this green band you have on there, Ray?” Let me read it to you. “Rachel Corrie, April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003.” Suffice it to say that if 23-year old Rachel Corrie can stand up to Israeli bulldozers about to demolish yet another Palestinian home, and then, that Israeli bulldozer being instructed to back up over Rachel to make sure that her back was broken. Three days before the attack on Iraq, so it would not make the headlines. Well, if Rachel Corrie can do that, McGovern, you can do that, too. At least you’re not going to get run over, yet at least, by an Israeli bulldozer.

We Catholics call this a sacramental; something that reminds you of a grace-giving event, or a grace-giving thing, or a grace-giving person like Rachel Corrie. Her dad gave me this bracelet three months after she was killed.

I want to also suggest that those of you who are interested in some action, go to all the think tank presentations as José Vega has started to do. Here’s one that I’d like to show you. There’s a little clip of an event at John Podesta’s and Hillary Clinton’s old think tank. I went to all those things as long as I lived in Washington. Sometimes I got to ask questions, if they were never welcome. This time, they didn’t recognize me, they didn’t let me ask a question. But I hung around; you might say “Nevertheless, I persisted.” So, I went up to Adam Schiff, then-head of the House Intelligence Committee, and asked him about Russian hacking, which now has been conclusively disproven. Could we show this two-minute clip? If you fall asleep, you’ll miss the whole thing.

MCGOVERN: My name is Ray McGovern. I served in CIA under seven Presidents and nine directors.

ADAM SCHIFF: Thank you very much.

MCGOVERN: We have a little alumni group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. We’ve been following this issue very closely. One of our members is the former technical director of NSA. I’m interested in, one week ago, when the President said this—I don’t want to misquote him—“The conclusions of the Intelligence Committee with respect to Russian hacking were not conclusive regarding WikiLeaks.” In other words, there’s a big gap between alleged Russian hacking and WikiLeaks. The Intelligence Committee does not know how or if that information—to the degree it exists—got to WikiLeaks. Now, you assert as flat fact that Russia did this. Do you know more than Obama?

SCHIFF: Well, I would never claim to know more than Obama. I think he’s a brilliant man.

MCGOVERN: That’s a very serious question.

SCHIFF: It’s a serious question. I have every confidence in the intelligence of Russian hacking of both the DNC as well as John Podesta.

MCGOVERN: James Clapper is a convicted—

SCHIFF: Do you want to hear the answer? I will, and while I can’t go into the classified information, I have every confidence that the Russians have used WikiLeaks. Whether Julian Assange was a known participant, or as the Russians describe a useful idiot, that we will hopefully find out. But, I don’t have any question in the conclusions of the Intelligence Committee.

MCGOVERN: You have every confidence, but no evidence, is that right?

SCHIFF: No, I can’t share the evidence with you.

MCGOVERN: That’s bogus. [end video]

MCGOVERN [live]: Well, I have to concede now after all these years, that Schiff said one thing that was true. That was that he couldn’t share that information with me, because it didn’t exist.

What’s the lesson here? I just want to encourage everyone—go; go to these meetings; go to these think tanks, and nevertheless persist. I didn’t know the camera was still on. I didn’t know that C-Span still had audio. But I did it, and I’m glad because that was captured.

Now, what else? I’m going to read in conclusion, a poem written by my mentor, Dan Berrigan, a quote from whom we started this little talk. It’s called, “Some.” I don’t want to spoil it for you; it’s not very long, but I do want to have a photo up as backdrop. Could we have that slide #4 please.

SOME

Some stood up once and sat down.

Some walked a mile and walked away.

Some stood up twice and sat down

I’ve had it, they said.

Some walked two miles and walked away

It’s too much, they cried.

Some stood and stood and stood.

They were taken for dummies

They were taken for fools

They were taken for being taken in.

Some walked and walked and walked.

They walked the earth

They walked the waters

They walked the air.

Why do you stand?

they were asked, and

Why do you walk?

Because of the children, they said, and

Because of the heart, and

Because of the bread.

Because

the cause

is the heart’s beat

and the children born

and the risen bread.

[photo] You’re looking at a little boy, two years old, the age of our youngest of ten grandchildren. He was trying to escape the oppression, the war in Syria. He was of Kurdish origin, the stepchildren of all wars. And suffice it to say, he drowned with his big brother and his mother, trying to get to Greece. Alan Kurdi is his name. “Because of the children,” they said. So, nevertheless, we must persist, because of the children. And we must look for moral leadership; but absent moral leadership, we’re it. There’s no other but us. We can appeal—for example, I have appealed to Pope Francis, and that’s appeared on the largest religious network run by Catholics. You can see it on my website—raymcgovern.com. But we can’t wait; we can’t wait for a voice from the Vatican. We have to do what we can ourselves. That’s why I applaud and I welcome the chance to be on every Schiller conference to which I am invited. I applaud all of us, and particularly Helga, for exercising moral leadership at this critical point in time. Thanks very much for your attention.

Watch the February 4 Schiller Institute conference

Helga Zepp-LaRouche:

Hello. Let me greet you wherever you may be around the globe. If the so-called “ordinary citizen” would know how close we are to thermonuclear war, and with that the annihilation of mankind and therefore everything what we lived for and who we love, there would be 8 billion people in the streets demanding an immediate end to the madness of those oligarchical interests, who are driving the human species towards extinction.

The only people who would not be in the streets, would be people who have committed themselves to evil. Boris Johnson and his likes would not be in the streets.

The aim of this conference and many similar activities is to create a world movement of world citizens, who, faced with the biggest crisis in the history of the human species, work together all over the world in order to establish a new paradigm of cooperation instead of confrontation, a new paradigm in international relations, that allows for the life and happiness of every human being on the planet.

We must end the war through negotiations immediately, which is why we are organizing worldwide support for the initiative of Pope Francis to offer the venue of the Vatican for negotiations without preconditions. Fortunately, President Lula of Brazil is now forming a peace club of nations of the Global South, who all support the idea of ending the war through diplomacy, and who have clearly refused to be pulled into the geopolitical confrontation between the U.S. and Russia and China. The role of the Pope as the representation of man’s nature as being in the image of God and therefore above politics, is the ecumenical rallying point, which should be strengthened by this peace club, which should be joined by all nations and all organizations, as well as individuals.

The present crisis is not about Ukraine, it is about the attempt to reconquer control over a unipolar world at a moment, when that possibility has irrevocably gone. And it is about the control of the narrative of who is the instigator of this war of aggression; and naturally the Western mainstream media want us to believe that it is Russia who is the sole culprit in this “unprovoked war of aggression” and that everybody who claims that this war has a prehistory dating back at least to 1991, is automatically labelled as a “Putin-agent.” Every person who is not a moron and has lived consciously through the last three-plus decades, must reject this as an insult to his or her intelligence.

Just for refreshing our memories: It should be clear, that whoever is preparing and conducting a war of aggression, especially a potentially nuclear one, commits a Nürnberg crime. Despite the promises not to expand NATO to the East, it was done once it was realized that Putin did not intend to continue the shameful sell-out of Russian interests by Yeltsin. And despite such warnings as that of William Burns from the 1st of February 2008, marked “confidential,” in his capacity as U.S. ambassador in Moscow, that NATO-enlargement would be regarded as a threat by Russia, that it would perceive that as encirclement and fear unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences—the “Drang nach Osten” (the “Drive to the East”), continued.

How hypocritical can politicians in the West be to deny knowledge of the involvement of Victoria Nuland in the 2014 Maidan coup, and her oh-so-ladylike words, “F— the EU” concerning the decision that puppet “Yats” [Arseniy Yatsenyuk] should replace the legitimately elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych!

And should the German BND, the German external secret service, really have been so sloppy as to misplace the records about the activities of the Stezkos, convinced admirers of Stepan Bandera, and their Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations and their support through the Gehlen Organization in Munich, the traces of which one finds, once one looks into the Maidan coup? To blame Putin as the aggressor when the West could have prevented the war by enforcing the Minsk Agreement, and then Merkel and Hollande come out and say: “Sorry, we never intended that, we just wanted to win some time to prepare the Ukrainian soldiers for the upcoming war”—which was obviously already regarded as inevitable already in 2014? Merkel and Hollande deserve a place in the Guinness book of records for winning the prize in the destruction of trust in international relations!

Putin had presented his concerns for the security of Russia already to the Munich Security Conference in 2007 and then dramatically on December 17, 2021 to the U.S. and NATO, demanding security guarantees for the core interests of Russia, which were conveniently ignored.

And into what category of behavior falls Boris Johnson intervention in Kiev in March 2022, when there was a readiness to seek a negotiated solution on both sides? Peace-loving or provoking?

The Swiss retired colonel and intelligence expert Jacques Baud just said on February 1 on Sud Radio that the real shift in the Russian strategy occurred last June, when they abandoned the option of negotiations, after they realized that the Anglo-Americans and their allies would not allow the Ukrainians to negotiate peace. Now practically most experts agree, that because of Russia’s perception, that the aim of the West is to “ruin Russia” (Baerbock) “eradicate Russia from the map, to cut it in different entities, for which regime change would be a self-evident precondition, that Russia aims to completely grind the Ukrainian Army. Give Boris Johnson the Nobel Peace Prize for that!

While in the U.S. there are opposing views, if there should be a long war in Ukraine being beefed up with evermore weapons to wear down Russia to the point of collapse, and then have a war with China in 2025 over Taiwan—which could become a world war, as a recent memo of General Mike Minihan suggests; or that a long war in Ukraine would be detrimental to U.S. interest, as discussed in a new study of the Rand Corporation, because a protracted war would absorb key resources such as manpower and money from other more important tasks, such as the coming showdown with China.

While more reality-oriented military, such as U.S. Chief of Staff General Mark Milley and former General Inspector of the Bundeswehr General Harald Kujat strongly argue for the Ukraine war to be ended through negotiations, because the Ukrainian army would have accomplished anything they could have, the real war mongers reveal themselves who have been the driving force behind the scene all along. The Conservative MP and U.K. Defense Committee Chair [Tobias Ellwood], is calling for a direct war between NATO and Russia: “We need to face Russia directly, rather than leaving Ukraine to do all the work.” Former British Shadow Defense Minister Sir Gerald Howarth, also advertises that NATO must get “boots on the ground,” because “Ukraine must win the war.”

And then there are all these legions of mentally disturbed journalists, who bombard the population around the clock: “See, there are no red lines for the Russians, they did not use nuclear weapons after we send howitzers, not after we send armored personnel carriers, not after we send Leopards and Abrams tanks, so now let’s give the Ukrainians fighter jets—F16s. Yeah, and it is completely OK for them to retake Crimea, which after all is still Ukrainian territory [despite the referendum by the population there, that they voted to be part of Russia]. And who cares about Kosovo?”

It is obvious that Ukraine can’t win this war, and that a continuation only means the horrible dying and suffering of the Ukrainian people. We must realize, that we are still in a situation more dangerous than at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and a global nuclear war could happen in the short term if there is an attempt to attack Crimea; or by accident. And even if that were to be avoided, as long as “Global NATO,” now closely allied with the EU, is trying to ruin Russia and contain the rise of China—if needed, by military means.

Why would the rise of China have to be contained? What other crime has China committed than to lift 850 million of its citizens out of poverty and offer other countries of the Global South a development model through the BRI [Belt and Road Initiative]? Since the BRI started to become effective in overcoming underdevelopment in these countries, the security doctrines of the West started to identify Russia and China as “rivals” and “opponents.” What has the subsequent policy of accusations, sanctions, and exclusions accomplished? As Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said in his recent annual press conference: “Anything goes. Once revered mechanisms and institutions that were created by the U.S.-led West have been discarded. Free market, fair competition, free enterprise, the unviability of property, and the presumption of innocence; in a word, everything the Western globalization model relied on collapsed overnight. Sanctions have been imposed on Russia and other objectionable countries that do not comply with these tenets and mechanisms. Clearly, sanctions can be imposed on any country which, in one way or another, refuses to mindlessly follow American orders.”

It is obvious however, that the effort to set the “rules-based order”—of which it is completely dubious how these rules are set—against the so-called “autocracies” and “dictatorships,” has generated a devastating blowback to the West. It is not the Russian economy which is collapsing as a result of the sanctions; it is the European and especially the German economy which is threatened with deindustrialization. Rather than being drawn into the geopolitical war on the side of the “democracies,” the vast majority of the Global South, the BRICS+—for which 17 nations have applied for membership—have refused to condemn Russia. And Brazil and Argentina refused to sell ammunition to Germany for the Leopard tanks. And rather than succeeding in splitting China from Russia in its strategic partnership, the spokeswoman of the [Chinese] Foreign Ministry Mao Ning declared on January 30th in a reaction to the decision to send more heavy tanks to Ukraine: “The United States is the main initiator and driving force of the Ukrainian crisis. It continuously supplies heavy and offensive weapons to Ukraine, prolonging the crisis and making it more intense. The U.S. should stop sending weapons there and making profits from the war.”

The result of weaponizing the dollar by confiscating foreign assets in dollar denominations, such as $300 billion from Russia, $9 billion from Afghanistan, is the speeding up of a de-dollarization of international trade and rapid moves to set up an independent international currency. The countries of the BRICS+, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union, and others are involved in setting up a new international currency based not only on gold, but also on oil, gas, and other hard commodities; a proposal which was issued by Lyndon LaRouche in 2000. Since the economic engine of the world economy has shifted long since to Asia, and the BRICS—even without the “plus”—already have a higher GDP than the G7, the “Golden Ruble 3.0” and the new currency will carry the momentum of future economic development.

Former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson, in a recent article in Foreign Affairs, puts his finger on the biggest vulnerability of the present U.S. policy of decoupling and confrontation towards China. Pointing to his own cooperation with China in the 2008 crisis—China at that time was a huge holder of corporate banking and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities—to avoid contagion and a complete meltdown. Such cooperation today is unthinkable, and in that light of the much stronger position of China. China has tripled the size of its economy since 2008, and has vast economic cooperation with 150 countries with the BRI; many of which have shifted their orientation—such as Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and many countries of the Global South.

So, what will be the outcome of the present crisis, when the Anglo-Americans and NATO want Ukraine to win on the battlefield, which can only be “accomplished” by risking nuclear war with Russia? When Russia for now has given up the hope for a diplomatic solution? It is becoming clearer and clearer, that it is the de facto bankruptcy of the neoliberal financial system that is the driving force behind the desire to escalate the war. If it comes to a new, this time even deeper crisis like 2008, why on earth should the countries who are being attacked, and who have an alternative, cooperate with the West on saving their system?

In light of the expected major offensive by Russia bringing into play its vastly superior troop strength, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in Ramstein on January 20th, that he sees only a short window of opportunity to turn the tide in Ukraine—’til the spring. The acute danger is that the undeniable efforts to pump everything into Ukraine now—more tanks, fighter jets, missiles, etc.—could cross the borderline to Armageddon.

Therefore, it is super urgent that all people of good will around the world support the initiative of Pope Francis and that a group of countries, such as the Peace Club of President Lula and others, are putting the need for a new international security and development architecture on the international agenda, before it is too late. The Ten Principles on which such an architecture should be based—which I presented at a conference in November—have received significant international attention and can be a starting point for the discussion.

Interestingly, the most controversial has turned out to be Principle Number 10, which says:

“Tenth: The basic assumption for the New Paradigm is, that man is fundamentally good and capable to infinitely perfect the creativity of his mind and the beauty of his soul and being the most advanced geological force in the universe, which proves that the lawfulness of the mind and that of the physical universe are in correspondence and cohesion; and that all evil is the result of a lack of development, and therefore can be overcome.”

Many people challenged the idea of an image of man where he or she is fundamentally good and all evil is due to a lack of development. It is urgent to take this interjection up, because it goes to the essence of our ability to solve the crisis or not. I think philosophers and theologians of Christianity, Confucianism, Islam, or Hinduism, and other great religions and philosophies and great Classical art will agree about the essential goodness of man and his obligation for self-perfection, life-long learning, and development of agapē.

On the other hand, it is only the various forms of oligarchism, that insist on the intrinsic evil in man, such as Malthus, imperialism, colonialism, racism, or fascism, which agree on the concept of man as “beast man.” And then there are various forms of liberalism, such as existentialism, or “l’art pour l’art,” which explicitly reject the need for self-improvement, and preach instead the mantra of “Everything goes,” which obviously has resulted in the present decadent collapse of the Western system. Or just read Joseph de Maistre’s Letter to a Russian nobleman, where he describes how man is by nature evil, and therefore needs to be controlled by an oligarchical dictatorship of a nobility which has God-given privileges which oblige them to rule over the ordinary evil people; the model of oligarchy.

The idea that man is by nature evil or should live as his wicked impulses dictate, is an ideology which is deployed by the oligarchy—or should we say the devil—as a tool to control people and prevent them realizing their true nature as creative beings in the image of the Creator.

In Chinese culture one finds the essentially same idea. These are some basic Chinese virtues and values: “As Heaven maintains vigor through movements, a gentleman should strive for self-perfection”; “A just cause should be pursued for the common good”; “Govern the country with virtue and educate the people with culture”; “A gentleman takes righteousness as his character”; “A man who is benevolent loves all.”

I believe that we have to unite as world citizens, devoted to the common good of the one humanity, realizing that a tender love to humanity in order to overcome this existential crisis of our species is what is required, and rid the world of oligarchism once and for all. Thank you.

Panel 1 — Saturday, February 4, 10am EDT, 4pm CET

How Nuclear World War III Can Be Avoided

Moderator: Dennis Speed, The Schiller Institute 

· Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Germany), Founder, The Schiller Institute: “How to Avoid Nuclear War: The Nature of Man” 
· H. E. Donald Ramotar (Guyana), former President of Guyana: “Russia/Ukraine and its Importance for the Global South” 
· Ray McGovern (United States), former senior analyst, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); founding member, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS): ” Know Where You Stand, And Stand There!” 
· Jack Gilroy (United States), Organizer, Pax Christi, NY State/ Pax Christi International; Board Member, New York Veterans for Peace: “In Support of Pope Francis’ Initiative for Peace”
· Amb. Chas Freeman (United States), former Ambassador  to Saudi Arabia, former Deputy Chief of Mission to China: “We Must Change America to Avert War” 
· Dr. Jur. Wolfgang Bittner (Germany), Jurist, Author: “We Are in War Mode” 
· Sam Pitroda (U.S./India), Telecom and IT Innovator; “Potential for Peace in a Hyperconnected World” 
· Diane Sare (United States), candidate for U.S. Senate (New York); Nick Brana (United States), National Chair, People’s Party; Angela McArdle (United States), Chair, Libertarian National Committee: “Can Americans Put Aside Their Divisions to Stop Nuclear War?” 
· Pastor Robert Smith, Pastor, New Bethel Baptist Church, Detroit, MI, Chair, Foreign Mission Board, National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.; Rev. Kinzer Pointer, Pastor, Agape Fellowship Baptist Church, Buffalo, NY; Rev. Dr. Ernest Johnson, Professor, Southern University Law Center, Pastor, Windows of Heaven Ministry, Baton Rouge, LA  (United States): “We are Obligated to Speak and Act for Peace,” American clergy support the Pope’s initiative for “negotiations without preconditions” to prevent World War III 

Question and Answer Session 

Panel 2 — 2pm EDT, 8pm CET

The Name of Peace: A New Security and Economic Development Architecture

Moderator: Dennis Small, The Schiller Institute and Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) 

· Jacques Cheminade (France), President of Solidarité et Progrès party, former Presidential candidate: “LaRouche’s Design for the New Paradigm” 
· Celeste Sáenz de Miera (Mexico), Secretary General, Mexico Journalists Club “Reflections on Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s Ten Principles for a New Paradigm” 
· Prof. Liu Haifang (China), Associate Professor, School of International Studies, Director, Center for African Studies, Beijing University: “China and Trilateral Cooperation for International Development Assistance: Perceptions and Actions” 
· Elison Karuhanga (Uganda), Partner, Kampala Associated Advocates: “Uganda’s Oil Project and Energy Independence”
· Prof. Yoro Diallo, (Mali/China), Executive Director, Center for Francophone Studies, Director, African Museum, Institute of African Studies, Zhejiang Normal University, China: “Sino-Africa Cooperation: Building a Community of Peace and Shared Development” 
· Dr. Fred M’membe (Zambia), President of the Socialist Party of Zambia; former editor, Zambia Post; former Presidential candidate: “The Age of Colonialism Must Be Replaced by Win-Win Cooperation” 
· Shakeel Ahmad Ramay (Pakistan), CEO, Asian Institute of Eco-Civilization Research and Development: “Sustainable Peace through Inclusive Development: A Case Study of GDI and GSI” 
· Marcelo Muñoz (Spain), Founder and President Emeritus of Cátedra China think tank, “If Europe Decouples from China, It Will Sink into Poverty” 
· Julio De Vido (Argentina), former Minister of Economics and Public Works, former member of Congress: “BRICS-Plus: Bringing the Belt and Road Initiative into the Americas” 
· Pedro Augusto Pinho (Brazil), President, Association of Petrobras Engineers (AEPET): “The Collapse of the Financial System Raises the Danger of Nuclear Conflict”  
· Amb. John Lander (Australia), former Ambassador to Iran, former Deputy Chief of Mission to China, former Director, China Section, Dept. of Foreign Affairs: “Why the West Should Work with China on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as the Alternative to War.” 

Question and Answer Session 

Leaders from around the world are standing together to stop nuclear war. Watch this special series to find out why they are in support of Pope Francis’s initiative for peace negotiations and why you must attend this very important conference, February 4 “The Age of Reason or the Annihilation of Humanity?”

The failed visit of German Chancellor Scholz to Brazil was described by Helga Zepp-LaRouche as a prime example of how he is out of touch with the “epochal change” underway in the world. President Lula not only rejected his request to provide ammunition to Ukraine, but was at odds with him on joining the “Green Club” and the failed economic policies pushed by the EU. Instead, Lula called for a “peace club” to be formed, and identified leading nations of the Global South as the key to its success.

Scholz is not alone in his delusions. The MICIMATT in the NATO sphere is pushing for not only prolonged war with Russia, but deploying “Global NATO” to take on China. Even on this point, some networks are warning that a prolonged war with Russia is not in U.S. interests. Another important voice calling for an alternative was that of the Pope on his visit to the DRC, where he excoriated those who continue to loot Africa for raw material “wealth”, ignoring the real wealth of the continent, its people! Zepp-LaRouche said these are examples of the new paradigm which is emerging, along the lines of her call for a new strategic and development architecture. She invited the listeners to join that mobilization, by registering for and participating in the Schiller Institute conference on Saturday.

Mike Billington of Executive Intelligence Review interviews Chas Freeman, leading American China scholar

Join the Schiller Institute conference on Feb 4 to build a growing movement to stop war and create a new paradigm

Schiller Institute conference
Saturday, February 4, Two panels, 10 am-1 pm and 2 pm-5 pm EST

SCHLANGER: We have a conference coming up on Feb. 4th on the question of an “Age of Reason or Annihilation of Humanity.” How can people participate in that, and how do you see this evolving into a mass movement?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think that the conference topics will be extremely hot, and given the fact that you have this escalation, with the Leopard 2 tanks, you have the efforts to increase the Global NATO, the EU-NATO agreement, the Japan-British agreement, the so-called reciprocal cooperation agreement; the AUKUS among Australia, the U.S., and Great Britain—so you have a whole, clear sign that Global NATO is preparing for the showdown with Russia and China, and more and more people, especially in the Global South are waking up to this.

On the other side, you have the clear efforts to establish a different world economic system, and that is progressing very quickly as well. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov was just in South Africa, and South Africa will host the BRICS summit this year. So a lot is really going on, and we will discuss these things in a way which most people really do not have access to, because the mass media, unless you already know what you are looking for and you search the internet and go to the newspapers and media from different countries and you look at it from different angles, which most people neither have the time nor that they really know what to look for, because they have to be acquainted with the history of many countries and very few people have that knowledge; so we provide an overview, because we have live actors, former Presidents, former ministers, diplomats, other people who represent real life, like representatives of the clergy, the industry, the trade unions. People have started to appreciate our Schiller conferences very much from the standpoint of really getting an idea of where we stand—and building an alternative. Because we want to build, more and more people who agree that we have to discuss what should be the principles of the new order, a new paradigm, which allows the human species to survive. Because that’s what the most important discussion is.

So if you want to be part of it, then join it, register and you get live, simultaneous translation if you are a non-English speaker—in French, German, Spanish minimally. And we want to build a movement of world citizens, of people who take the cause of humanity first, and that is an idea where the receptivity is definitely growing.

The decision of the German government to submit to “massive external pressure” to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine is exemplary of the tragedy of Germany responding as an occupied country. Under heavy U.S.-British-NATO pressure, the decision announced in Berlin today is a further example of the tragic consequences when there is no commitment to serious negotiations. This is compounded by continuing moves to make NATO a global military force, to back up economic policies which are destroying nations’ abilities to provide for their citizens, by degrading their physical economies in a vain effort to bailout a collapsing system.

The Schiller Institute is convening a conference on February 4 to pull together a movement of world citizens which can stand up against the rush to oblivion. Helga emphasized that our unique role is to provide an overview, which is obscured by the censorship imposed by those who want this war to continue, regardless of the consequences for Ukraine, Russia, Germany, or any other nation. She called on viewers to join our mobilization, both to build the February 4 conference, and the demonstrations set for February 19.