General

The Old System is Dying – An Historic Opportunity for Humanity

January 14, 2025by tobi in General, Helga Video, Helga Webcast, Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Live Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, January 15, 11am EDT/5pm CET. Send your questions to questions@schillerinstitute.org

In a discussion with staff and activists of the international LaRouche movement on January 13, Helga Zepp-LaRouche described the “historic opportunity to intervene” as follows:

Now, this year, 2025, is without any doubt, the end of the old system, it is the end of the idea of the unipolar world, the end of the neoliberal system trying to impose hegemony over the rest of the world, but it is really the opportunity to implement what Lyn has been advocating for the better part of half of the last century. And while there is still the danger that things could go really wrong, either immediately in the period before Trump gets into the White House, because there are several crisis spots still hot, but also, if we do not eliminate the geopolitical design that there is a legitimate interest of one nation, or groups of nations, against another nation or other groups of nations, that confrontation could come at any point a little bit later on. So we, as a priority, have to proceed in everything we are doing that we have to get a change in the axioms of the West, that they have to stop geopolitical thinking, and that we have to shift the direction of the nations of the collective West into one of cooperation with the countries of the Global South, in the building of a new and more just system.

So, we have to intervene, and we have to do it by recognizing that European nations, and the United States as well, have been suffocated for the last—in the case of Europe it’s been longer, but in the United States for the last 50 years, with axioms which are completely alien to the true identity of our nations. Therefore, we have to really start in earnest a project to identify, first of all, very clearly what are the best traditions of Europe, European nations, and the United States. Because if we don’t do that, there is no basis for the Europeans and the Americans to join with the countries of the Global South…

The situation with Trump coming in, looking at both the potentials and the shortcomings, it seems that Trump is considering, actively, an early meeting with Putin, and even Scholz in an interview yesterday welcomed that, but naturally he made his usual remarks that the sovereignty of Ukraine should be respected. But nevertheless, Peskov declared that Putin is open for such a meeting with other heads of state, including Trump. There are no conditions necessary for it, so I think this will probably go ahead fairly soon.

But with Trump coming in on Jan. 20, that leaves about four weeks to the German election campaign, in which Merz will have to see if the idea they presented in Ramstein, trying to compensate for everything which will be lost by Trump on Ukraine and other issues, if that can be held up. There is a push, very much, that this “war-ready” bullshit is still in the air, but it will create an opening, because the situation is very much in flux. …

I think we have a very dramatic situation, full of suspense; it is full of potential. It doesn’t mean that the dangers have been eliminated, but the vision of where the world could go is absolutely clearly there, but it will require an extraordinary effort of our organization internationally to bring that about, and bring this objective into the discussion. Because that particular idea, especially in terms of reviving the Classical culture, as Lyn always said, a society which does not know principles of Classical composition, has no chance to survive. Lyn was always extremely emphatic on that, and that is something only we can bring in, because I have never heard any of the present crop of politicians speak in any meaningful way about ideas of Classical composition and statecraft, the way we have unearthed that treasure.

So, I think we are in an incredibly optimistic situation, if we do what we have to do.

Live Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, January 15, 11am EDT/5pm CET. Send your questions to questions@schillerinstitute.org

Make Humanity Truly Human Again

January 11, 2025by tobi in General, International Peace Coalition

Report International Peace Coalition #84

Jan. 10, 2025 (EIRNS)—Today’s 84th weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) was again a powerful expression of leaders from around the world joining forces to bring peace to a world on the brink of global war. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, opened by noting the suspense in the air as the world awaits the Jan. 20 inauguration of Donald Trump, with no certainty about what direction his administration will take. The outgoing Biden Administration continues to push for war policies, with Defense Secretary Gen. Lloyd Austin again lying that if Ukraine is lost, the Russians (and other “autocrats”) will make other “land grabs.” The horror in Palestine continues and is expanding to the West Bank, which even the Israeli newspaper Haaretz admits is genocidal and can be called a “pogrom.”

Zepp-LaRouche named several of the people that Kash Patel (Trump’s pick to be FBI chief) listed in his book as targets for investigation in any effort to clean out the “Deep State.” To stop the wars, she said, we must stop the cause of the wars, which is the disintegration of the Western financial system, and do this in cooperation with the BRICS, to “help make humanity human again.”

Retired Swiss Lt. Col. Ralph Bosshard said that Trump is entering office in a “difficult atmosphere” which is not of his making. He said that the 2003 deal with Iran to stop their nuclear weapons program (which did not exist, as everyone knew) was agreed to by Tehran because they knew that otherwise they would be attacked. Now we have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is committing genocide and threatening war on Iran, being cheered in the U.S. Congress and by the Biden Administration. To prevent a global war with Russia, Russian interests must be addressed. Europe is collapsing in part because Biden used the weakness of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline, undermining all of Europe’s energy security. Trump must address the de-dollarization and determine which other policies must be addressed first. Time will be short, for he will soon not be able to blame Biden for the crises. The first few months will tell.

Dr. Glenn Diesen, a political scientist from Denmark, said he was optimistic that Trump will act to resolve the crisis with Russia, but that the “liberal democracy” paradigm has failed. The “international aristocracy” has constructed a “club of democracies,” but such a unipolar policy requires hegemony, which can only be implemented through force. As a result, now the so-called “democracies” are supporting genocide; they have overthrown the Assad government in Syria through force; they are supporting ISIS; and they have overturned the democratic election in Romania. They refuse to acknowledge any security interests other than their own. Multipolarity is not up for question, he said, it is a reality. The unipolar world was based on many wars with weak countries, but were nonetheless a disaster for the West. Imagine what will happen in a war against a superpower. The economies and the people of the West are exhausted, and have given up on diplomacy. Governments are falling left and right. Trump has acknowledged that the expansion of NATO was a mistake, which is at least a step toward peace.

Dr. Mimi Syed of the Doctors Against Genocide spoke as a physician and as a mother, describing the horror she witnessed during her trips to Gaza—“atrocities which should never be witnessed by anyone.” This is counter to the ideas upon which the U.S. was created, she said. She described several such horror situations, including that of an 8-year-old boy in a “safe zone” whose face was blown off by a bomb, who was wearing a t-shirt with “Captain America” on it—an ugly irony. She said America was financing these war crimes, and we must rise together to demand a ceasefire and humanitarian aid for the Palestinians.

Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the former Surgeon General of the U.S., addressed the meeting, praising the Schiller Institute and the IPC, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche in particular, for waging this fight. We are failing to prepare the next generation, she said, by allowing the destruction of children, who need health, education and hope. The horror which we all see is “making us all sick.” She pledged her support in any way she could to stop the genocide. “Everybody can do something,” she stated.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche noted that Dr. Elders had played a critical role during the COVID pandemic in working with her to create the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, based on the concept of Nicholas of Cusa in the 15th Century—the notion that if humanity is put first, then all apparent opposites can be brought together. She also agreed with Lt. Col. Bosshard on Trump’s shortness of time to act, noting that the U.S. has now lost all credibility worldwide, and has lost the right to address human rights, as a “dying civilization.” The U.S. can and must return to its own best traditions. “Our own humanity is at issue” if we don’t stop the atrocities underway.

Dr. Rodolfo Ondarza, a Mexican neurosurgeon and a former Representative in the Mexico City Legislative Assembly, read an excerpt from a public letter he wrote in support of the Doctors Against Genocide, praising the morality and bravery of Dr. Hassan Abu Safiya and other Palestinian medical workers incarcerated by Israel. He demanded their freedom, and an end to the genocide.

In the discussion period, people addressed the failure of the United Nations, the need for more exposure of the IPC, and the lack of adequate health systems around the world. The ongoing lobbying in the U.S. Congress by the Doctors Against Genocide, with help from Schiller Institute members and retired U.S. military officers, was discussed. Schiller Institute organizer Joe Jennings described the rally he and fellow activists held at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, the largest medical center in the world with fifty thousand health workers, with leaflets and signs to stop the genocide. There was a discussion of the Peace of Westphalia which resolved the religious wars in Europe in 1648 based on respect for the “interests of the other,” and how the Versailles Treaty after WWI, which ignored Germany’s interests, created the conditions for WWII. The end of the Cold War, in which the interests of the Soviet Union were ignored in favor of the expansion of NATO, led to the current extreme danger of global nuclear war.

In closing statements, Lt. Col. Bosshard noted that he had been in Ukraine before the military operations began, and that it was clear that Russia would defend the Russian speaking population. For the Kiev government to declare the use of the Russian language illegal was insane. The belief in Western superiority has only encouraged Western leaders to “bark louder,” he said. The West must learn to respect other cultures.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche addressed the pandemic question by noting that Lyndon H. LaRouche in 1971 created a taskforce on the impact of the “conditionalities” of the IMF, which forced nations to pay their debts even at the expense of the needs of the population. Lowering the living standards in this way, he showed, was the cause of pandemics of old and new diseases, and the related collapse of populations.

Change Course Now! Scott Ritter and Helga Zepp-LaRouche in Dialogue

January 7, 2025by tobi in General, Helga Video, Helga Webcast

Live dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Scott Ritter

January 8, 2025, 12.30 pm EDT/6:30 p.m. (CET)

“Change Course Now – We Need a New Paradigm!”

On January 8, 2025, Helga Zepp-LaRouche will hold a dialogue on the current political situation with former UN weapons inspector and anti-war activist Scott Ritter.

Ritter is known internationally for his opposition to the neocon foreign policy and military policy in the United States and Europe. He served as an intelligence officer in the Marine Corps. He later served as a weapons inspector with the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq (UNSCOM mission) from 1991 to 1998. In this context, he emerged as a harsh critic of the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, which was used to justify the 2003 war against Iraq.

Scott Ritter is an author, a member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), and a frequent commentator on international podcasts. His latest book, Disarmament in an Era of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union, details his experience working with the Soviet Union to reduce the threat of nuclear war. He has spoken at conferences of the international Schiller Institute, including a high-level press conference on the acute danger of nuclear war in Washington in June 2024.

Discuss the implementation of the New Paradigm for peace and genuine economic development with Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Send your questions to questions@schillerinstitute.org or post them in the chat.

Schiller Institute: It Is Past Time for the Genocide to Stop!

January 6, 2025by tobi in General

With urgency, the Schiller Institute adds its voice to those of dozens of organizations and thousands of individuals worldwide in support of the demand by Doctors Against Genocide (DAG) that the ongoing genocide being perpetrated in Gaza must stop immediately.

“The deliberate bombing of hospitals, the targeting of healthcare workers, and the systematic destruction of medical services must be stopped. Not another child should suffer, starve, be amputated, or lose their life due to this ongoing genocide,” the DAG’s recent urgent appeal states. “We are sick from genocide,” they state.

These doctors and healthcare workers represent the best humanist tradition of the Hippocratic Oath, which by extension prescribes for all moral persons who would help heal the human condition that we must “do no harm or injustice”—but also suggests that we must actively do the Good. While most of the world stands by and watches in horror as another genocide unfolds before our very eyes; while the NATO governments lead us to the very brink of thermonuclear war; those who are standing up and raising their voice against these Nuremburg crimes are keeping the spark of everyone’s humanity alive—and that is a force which, if strengthened and educated, can spread and do incalculable Good in the world.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of the Schiller Institute, on Jan. 3 called for all organizations and individuals to join forces to stop the ongoing genocide, in remarks to the 83rd weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition, which she initiated:

“I think that is why we absolutely have to move this, but not stop there: Because think about Sudan, think about Yemen, think about Haiti. There is genocide, and it’s part of this system, which is why we need to have a new security and development architecture which puts a completely new system on the table. I think 2025 is the year when we either will manage to do that, or we will see that the world may be blown up. So, this is a very strong motivation to move with everything we can.”

The Schiller Institute offers Zepp-LaRouche’s “Ten Principles of a New International Security and Development Architecture” as a discussion document to further and deepen that process.

International Peace Coalition 83: Professionals Must Lead the Fight Against Genocide

January 4, 2025by madeleine in General, International Peace Coalition

Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened today’s 83rd consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) forecasting the unraveling of the present global order in 2025, leading either to world war or a new paradigm. She cautioned that President-elect Trump’s “America First” agenda does not solve the problem, because it could lead to other nations following suit, creating more conflict. We need a completely new paradigm putting the “one humanity” first.

Reviewing the current zones of conflict, Zepp-LaRouche warned that even if the West sends more weapons, Ukraine cannot win in their war against Russia. They are running out of soldiers. Ukrainians are acutely aware that they have been used as pawns in a proxy war.

In Southwest Asia, Axios reports that National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan discussed Iran’s nuclear program with President Biden, including the possibility of the U.S. launching a military attack on Iran. Zepp-LaRouche recommended the video by Indian historian and journalist Vijay Prashad, “The Genocide in Gaza EXPOSED the West’s Moral Collapse.” She concluded with the importance of 2025 as a Jubilee Year, an opportunity to usher in a New Paradigm. Affirming that the West must stop the confrontation against the Global South (which has become the Global Majority), she read out the nine nations that became BRICS partner nations as of Jan. 1.

Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and co-founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), spoke about the Biblical massacre of the innocents by King Herod. No longer can any country, he said, least of all America, claim to be the “exceptional country,” after 500,000 children were killed by sanctions in Iraq, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright proclaimed that it was “worth it.” We must not only “do no harm,” we must also do the Good, he insisted, reading a poem by British author Michael Rosen, “Don’t Mention the Children,” written after Israel had banned a radio broadcast that named killed Gazan children.

Dr. Nidal Jboor, co-founder of Doctors Against Genocide, stated that “a mass slaughter of children has been happening in the past 15 months.” The Western powers’ complicity in genocide will have long-term ramifications that we will all have to live with. Israel claims to be fighting a “war,” but in war you fight armies, not schools, hospitals and clinics. Jboor described how Kamal Adwan Hospital was burned. Patients fled to an abandoned hospital with no services. The hospital’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, was abducted and tortured. The Israeli regime says it cannot locate him. The American Medical Association and other U.S. medical institutions have been silent. “We are calling them out,” Jboor said. “More than 20,000 children have been slaughtered by Israel.”

Dr. Mimi Syed, an emergency medical doctor, born and trained in the U.S., just returned from Gaza where she worked in emergency care for horrifically wounded children. She did not encounter any military operations or combatants in hospitals there. She described “scenes of chaos and despair … an excruciating reality.”

Fernando Garzón, leader of the Ecuadorian-Palestinian Union, discussed the significance of Pope Francis having announced a Jubilee Year and how the international financial institutions are responsible not only for the debt, but also for the conflicts such as Gaza. Ecuador successfully repudiated a large part of its public debt in 2008 under President Rafael Correa, after completing a detailed study which proved that the debt was “odious and illegitimate,” resulting in Correa’s political persecution. The “conditionalities” policy of the IMF and World Bank created a shameful situation where “external debt became eternal debt.” Garzón was a vice-minister in the Ecuadorian government when it issued its historic debt study. Ecuador is a small country, but provided a very big lesson for the world today.

Discussion and Initiatives

Dr. Karameh Hawash-Kuemmerle, co-founder of Doctors Against Genocide, said that people are feeling sick from the genocide, not because we are fragile, but because it is an unnatural thing. “What is happening in Gaza is something beyond what we can imagine,” she said. We are disoriented and depressed, suffering from chronic fatigue, sleep disorders, and many other symptoms, because we are witnesses to genocide. We should honor doctors who fight for human life, not “doctors who say that if you speak of genocide you will be fired.” In response to a question, she replied, “The treatment for sickness from genocide is organizing to end the genocide.”

Josephine Guilbeau, a 17-year U.S. Army veteran with four children, who served as an all-source intelligence analyst and is currently associate director of communications for the Eisenhower Media Network, recently intervened, in full uniform, before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. “As an American, I am going to acknowledge the painful truth,” that the U.S. has been complicit in the genocide in Gaza, and “I am committed to holding my government accountable.” Another group, Taxpayers Against Genocide, launched a legal action against Congress, accusing it of helping arm the Israeli military in violation of “international and federal law that prohibits complicity in genocide.” Guilbeau added that we need universities to create platforms to accept students facing expulsion due to their public opposition to genocide.

Zepp-LaRouche lamented that although there was a commitment in her native Germany 80 years ago, that “Never Again” would genocide be tolerated, now Germans face arrest and jail for even talking about the ongoing genocide in Gaza. “I pledge that we will use these heartbreaking stories to mobilize opposition to this genocide.”

IPC co-moderator Dennis Speed said that many people are “conveniently forgetting Aaron Bushnell,” an active-duty U.S. serviceman who self-immolated in protest against U.S. complicity in the genocide. Bushnell said: “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

John Steinbach, co-founder of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Committee, said the official death toll in Gaza of 46,000 counts only those people who have been identified. A conservative estimate as of six months ago, by British medical publication The Lancet, gives the actual death toll of 186,000. It is a mistake to see Israel as “influencing the U.S. government”: Israel, led by the followers of Meir Kahane, is carrying out the policies of the U.S. government.

Dr. James Cobey, a renowned orthopedic surgeon who served in Gaza many times, had led the campaign 30 years ago to ban landmines, gaining support from the American Medical Association, said we need to get the AMA to oppose the present genocide.

IPC co-moderator Dennis Small noted that the Hippocratic Oath is not satisfied by the mere rejection of doing harm; one must actively do the good—just as repudiation of the debt is not enough. It has to be followed by issuing productive credit for real growth and ending poverty. Dr. Jboor agreed, deploring the silence of the medical community. He said his organization is trying to replicate the efforts of the student movement on campuses across the U.S.

Zepp-LaRouche concluded by saying that many Germans could claim, 80 years ago, that they did not know of the atrocities being carried out by their government. People living today, with omnipresent media coverage of the ongoing genocide, have no such excuse. “We can shame the people today, who now know and pretend not to know.”

Jubilee 2025: Our War Against “Odious Debt”

December 31, 2024by David Dobrodt in General

Dec. 31, 2024 (EIRNS)—The Schiller Institute issued the following statement calling for a true Jubilee in 2025.

On Christmas Eve 2024, Pope Francis officially launched the Jubilee Year of 2025, calling for the coming year to be a “Jubilee of Hope.” The Jubilee is traditionally associated in various religions with the time when slaves would be emancipated and debts would be forgiven.

The Pope has raised the right issue at the right time, for action not just by Catholics, but by {all} men and women of good will.

As we enter 2025, the world is beset by spreading wars which threaten to escalate to a nuclear confrontation among superpowers, which none shall survive. We are also witness to genocide in Gaza, which is killing not only hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians but our very humanity as well, as we watch seemingly incapable of stopping our governments from passivity and often complicity with crimes against humanity which we once swore would happen “Never Again.”

And we stand at the edge of the abyss of a deadly blowout of the entire trans-Atlantic financial system, with its speculative bubble of over $2 quadrillion of debts and derivatives, which are illegitimate and {odious}. It is the Western Establishment’s single-minded commitment to maintain that bankrupt system come hell or high water, which is driving Mankind toward nuclear war and spreading genocide.

That financial system must be put through bankruptcy reorganization this Jubilee year of 2025, writing off all of those portions of the $2 quadrillion speculative bubble which are illegitimate and odious. These are both moral and legal terms, with standing under international law, as the case of Ecuador proved in 2008. The world must now do what tiny Ecuador did back then.

In the Catholic church, Ordinary Jubilees occur every 25 years. The last one was announced in 2000 by Pope John Paul II. Under its broad call for justice, civil society forces in many countries, including Ecuador, began to study and question the validity of the debt that had been imposed on developing sector nations. In July 2007, the Ecuadorian government convened a Commission for the Full Audit of Public Credit (CAIC), which found, after an exhaustive 18-month study, that Ecuador’s commercial foreign debt had functioned as an illegitimate and illegal looting mechanism between 1976 and 2006, rising from $16 million in 1976, to $4.2 billion in 2006, despite the fact that there was a net transfer to the creditors of $7.1 billion in interest and principal payment over that 30-year period. Call it “Bankers’ Arithmetic”: $16 – $7,100 = $4,200.

In 2008, basing itself on that study, the government of Ecuador announced a unilateral debt moratorium and imposed a 70-80% “haircut” on its bondholders. Wall Street and the City of London yelled and screamed, but morality and legality were both on Ecuador’s side.

“Odious debt” is a legal term of art which originated in 1927 with the Russian-American jurist Alexander Nahun Sack, who based his findings on two case studies: the debt imposed on Mexico by the mid 19th century invasion and occupation of that country by the Hapsburg Emperor Maximillian, a debt which was repudiated by Mexico’s greatest President, Benito Juárez, with the aid of Abraham Lincoln; and the early 20th century case of Cuba, which achieved independence from Spain and the debt it had imposed on its island colony. Sack wrote in his Les Effets des transformations des États sur leurs dettes publiques et autres obligations financières : traité juridique et financier, Recueil Sirey, 1927:

“The reason why these odious debts cannot be left upon the State is that such debts do not fulfill one of the conditions that determine the legality of State debts, that is: State debts must be contracted and funds disbursed for the needs and in the interest of the State. Odious debts, contracted and used for purposes which, to the knowledge of the creditors, are contrary to the interests of the nation, do not obligate the latter.”

International institutions such as UNCTAD have subsequently published studies recognizing the validity of Sack’s argument, such as the July 2007 essay “The Concept of Odious Debt in Public International Law” by Prof. Robert Howse, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School.

The renowned American economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche traced this same concept — the requirement that debt serve the General Welfare — to the founders of the American System of economics. In a January 2011 address, LaRouche declared:

“An honest debt to the future can only be paid through the honest creation of equivalent physical wealth in the future, which includes the development of the creative powers of every citizen, every child and every teenager.

“The debts generated by a credit system are repaid by the prolificity of future production; this was already understood by the Winthrop and Mather of the Massachusetts colony. Such debts require the government to limit their accumulation to the efficient portion of its commitment to promote production. Legally, they can only be incurred on the basis of increased creation of physical wealth and growth in the nation’s physical productivity. Any debt contracted as a result of financial speculation has no legitimacy in the eyes of a government. [emphasis added]

“This is how to describe in simple words Hamilton’s great principle, which is implicit in the intent of the preamble to our Constitution.

“Debts are good when they are designed to be good, as in the case of a credit system that rests on a commitment to increase the net creation of wealth per person and per square kilometer of a nation’s territory.”

It is that approach — which also guided the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, including its provisions for debt moratoria — which must now be applied globally this Jubilee year, to rid the world of the pestilence of usury once and for all, and with it the threat of war and genocide. That will then set the stage for organizing a New Paradigm based on a new international security and development architecture, to allow good credit to be issued for the worthy cause of global economic development.

2025: Nuclear Doom or New Paradigm with Ray McGovern and Helga Zepp-LaRouche

December 31, 2024by tobi in General, Helga Video, Helga Webcast

Join Ray McGovern and Helga Zepp-LaRouche January 1 2025, 12.30 EDT/18.30 CET in their New Years Dialogue and help usher in the Year of the New Paradigm for all Humanity. Send your questions, thoughts and reports to questions@schillerinstitute.org or ask them in the live stream.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: First, I want to wish all of you a good New Year, and especially that we can realize peace in the whole world. Therefore, I thought that I could not invite a better guest to my weekly program for the beginning of the new year than Ray McGovern, who is an important voice for peace and historical truth. Ray is, among other things, co-founder of VIPS, of Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and a long standing daily briefer for three U.S. presidents. He was a live witness to the decisions made at the end of the Cold War, and he will discuss with me the reasons for the present acute war danger and how to overcome them.

Global Medical Outcry: Livestream to Stop the Genocide in Gaza

December 28, 2024by madeleine in General

Welcome!

You are invited to join a webinar:
*Global Medical Outcry: Livestream to Stop the Genocide in Gaza.*

*DATE:* Sunday, December 29, 2024
*TIME:* 12:00 PM (Eastern Time US and Canada)

Join us on an Emergency Livestream spotlighting urgent and unfiltered
reports from our colleagues in Gaza.

This event, hosted by *Doctors Against Genocide*, brings together medical professionals, media voices, activists, and organizers to amplify Gaza’s cry for justice amidst the relentless genocide.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_L-PfeDasSOWR2BHcAwTV2A#/registration

Webcast: The Power of Humankind: The Power To Stop Nuclear War

December 25, 2024by tobi in General, Helga Video, Helga Webcast, Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche Dec 26, 11am Eastern/5pm CET in her Weekly Live dialogue and help usher in the Year of the New Paradigm for all Humanity. Send your questions, thoughts and reports to questions@schillerinstitute.org or ask them in the live stream.

In the course of human history, rare moments arise in which it is possible for a seemingly weak force to completely alter the trajectory of the world, and to conquer what had, up until that point, been an enemy so powerful that none could resist. The victory of the American Revolution against the British Empire was one such moment.

In Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The Adoration of the Magi, the most powerful figure is the tiny, vulnerable baby, Christ, sitting in the lap of a serene Mary and curiously reaching his hand toward an offered gift. Throngs of confused, curious people crowd around the child, their faces half in shadow as they cautiously approach, hopeful, perhaps, and wondering. Behind them, the storm of the collapsing Roman Empire rages and mighty figures battle out its last moments amidst already collapsed ruins.

Such a time is ours. A new world order, a light in the darkness, has begun to take shape, whose great power lies in its rejection of colonialism and insistence on the right of all nations and peoples to develop and contribute to the progress of the human family. Partnerships like that of the BRICS nations and of China’s Belt and Road Initiative now comprise the vast majority of nations on the planet and are already implementing paths for development and the end of poverty for all involved. This is the only approach that has real power—the power to create a viable future for humanity in both the long and near term.

The alternative, which will only bring about its own (and our) destruction, is the logic of nuclear war, now codified, unabashedly, in official policy by the U.S./NATO establishment. The statement on Nov. 20 by Rear Adm. Thomas Buchanan that fighting a nuclear war—and the fantasy of coming out on top to “lead the world”—is the U.S. strategic policy betrays the tragic and fatal impotence of the old thinking.

Despite that, the ghouls of the old order are loath to let it go, and are desperate to lock the incoming Trump administration into a fait accompli of war against China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. To that end, not only has the outgoing “collective Biden” authorized Ukraine to continue to use ATACMS missiles against Russia, the latest strike occurring on Dec. 18, but on Dec. 20, an additional $571 million in military assistance for Taiwan was approved, in complete violation of the “One China” policy. Congressional Republicans are also pressuring Trump to prepare to strike Iran, perhaps alongside an emboldened Israel, to preemptively take out its nuclear facilities.

World War III, anyone?

And what of those people emerging from the shadows of the collapsed system? What power can citizens in the West wield to stop the logic of nuclear annihilation? Learn from Leonardo: Once the possibility of the new, more lawful system has been born, the old order has already collapsed, “ob sie noch so brummen” (“however much they still rumble”). [Text from J.S. Bach’s motet Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227..]

The introduction to the Schiller Institute’s new report, “Development Drive Means Billions of New Jobs, No Refugees, No War” states, “In order to overcome the danger of war for good, we need to establish a new international security and development architecture, which takes into account the interests of every single country on the planet. This should be done in the tradition of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended 150 years of religious wars in Europe, because the warring parties realized that there would be nobody left alive if the fighting continued. How much more is that true in the age of thermonuclear weapons! Let us unite for security and development, to usher in a new era for Mankind.”

This is the Christmas message to take, with uncompromising insistence, to your elected officials and others. How easy and natural it would be for the United States to join in win-win cooperation to end empire and colonialism!

The reverend Munther Isaac, Palestinian pastor, ended his Dec. 20 sermon from Bethlehem with this: “In our steadfastness—sumud, let us have eyes of faith to perceive and believe that every Herod will pass, every Caesar will fade, for Empires have an expiry date, and let us remember that it is the meek, not the powerful, who will inherit the earth. In our pain and oppression, we might feel that death has the final word, that Herod is sovereign. But through the eyes of faith, we see that God has the final word: and it is a word of life and light, not death and darkness. In Christmas, God has spoken, and the Word is Christ. Christ is born! Hallelujah! Peace on Earth, Hallelujah! May it be so today.”

International Peace Coalition: The Perilous Weeks Ahead

December 21, 2024by madeleine in General

Dec. 20, 2024 (EIRNS)—Opening today’s 81st consecutive online Friday weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC), Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche reminded participants that she warned that the period leading up to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20 could be the most dangerous period in human history—and that assessment has not changed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is looking at the prospect of an early war against Iran, to confront Trump with a fait accompli. The truth about the sudden collapse of the Assad government in Syria is emerging: The British- and American-trained fighters of the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA) had been told by U.S. Special Forces, this is your moment, get ready for the attack.

She underscored that the British and American sabotage of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in the Spring of 2022, is now confirmed by Jean-Daniel Ruch, Switzerland’s Ambassador to Türkiye at the time. In the same vein, U.S. Defense Secretary Austin told the Ukrainians that it was too early to end the war; that it must be prolonged in order to weaken Russia.

Swiss Lt. Col. Ralph Bosshard (ret.) , formerly senior planning officer for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Special Monitoring Mission (OSCE SMM) in 2014, reported that when Trump withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, Russia immediately began to work on what became the hypersonic IRBM Oreshnik. It was relatively inexpensive; it involved nothing revolutionary. They simply channeled existing efforts into making a new missile. However, to shoot down a hypersonic Oreshnik, which flies at Mach 10, one has to be close enough to intercept it in its boost phase. When it reaches its descent phase, it is moving far too fast. Even the European Parliament can’t change the laws of physics, no matter what EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen thinks. The Russians were thinking about non-nuclear strategic weapons in the 1980s, taking warnings of nuclear winter seriously, unlike USSTRATCOM Director for Plans and Policy Rear Admiral Thomas Buchanan, who explains his imagining what a winnable nuclear war looks like.

Steve Starr, former director of Missouri University’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program, discussed the recent assassination of Russian Gen.-Lt. Igor Kirillov, head of Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear Defense Troops of the Russian Armed Forces. The Anglophile media accused General Kirillov of disinformation regarding U.S. biolabs in Ukraine. He was providing factual information. The U.S. claims that these labs were for “biological threat reduction,” but pathogens produced there were not destroyed. They were purchasing long-range drones from Türkiye. Why would they need those, if not for the delivery of biological weapons? The U.S. Department of Defense has biolabs in 25 countries. They are conducting “research into biological warfare under the guise of health.”

Starr compared the Oreshnik system to ballistic missiles, which follow a parabolic trajectory through space. Hypersonic missiles, however, stay within the atmosphere. Russian hypersonic glide missiles, such as the Avangard, use magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generators to, in some way, annihilate shock waves and eliminate drag, making missiles maneuverable at hypersonic speeds. Starr concluded that no political goals are worth risking the destruction of the entire human race.

Zepp-LaRouche asked Starr to comment on the fact that Europeans are asking whether NATO war scenarios assume the destruction of Europe. Starr replied that during war games, there was a popular joke that German villages are 5 kilotons apart, adding that under present doctrines, there are incentives for launching a preemptive strike. Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons can fry all solid-state electronics, disabling all communications. Under such circumstances, it’s “use ’em or lose ’em.” Zepp-LaRouche responded, “If Europe wants to survive, should we get the hell out of NATO as soon as we can?” Starr responded, “Yes.”

Herman “Ka Mentong” Tiu Laurel, head of the Asian Century Journal in the Philippines, began with his long history of collaboration with the LaRouches. Before February of 2023, the Philippines was in good shape, enjoying productive engagement with China and the world. But the Bongbong Marcos team came in and stopped all development projects. Disputes with China, which were being addressed by dialogue, are now sparking armed clashes at sea. Laurel said, “There are still many Filipinos who do not accept the China Bully theory.”

In April 2024, the U.S. brought in missile launchers, ostensibly for an exercise. There was protest against this. The Armed Forces of the Philippines promised that they would be removed, but they are now accepted as permanent. Laurel’s organization works to counter the war drive. They have found 25 U.S. bases that are not identified as such, and need to be removed, so that the Philippines can be a sea of calm; of peace and prosperity.

Discussion

A question was asked of Starr: If a number of hypersonic Oreshniks and/or other weapons were combined, as Putin has noted, could it produce an effect similar to a nuclear explosion, but without using a nuclear weapon? Starr discussed some of the possible effects, then returned to the question of MHD, which could help develop fusion energy. But the French military said, “bombs first, energy later.”

A number of long-term activists presented reports on their organizing activity. Cloret Ferguson of the Schiller Institute described how she has been trying to broaden the network that is active with the IPC, including with an email campaign to “derail this deranged Admiral Buchanan.” Former congressional candidate Jose Vega was in the nation’s capital with former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter a couple of weeks ago, where he was told that the CIA had briefed congressional officials that Russia is not bluffing, but the corporate media has spun their reports to say the opposite. Vega is emphasizing that Congressmen should support H.R. 10218, to stop the shipment of ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. Gilles Gervais, from The LaRouche Organization in Canada, read from a letter he sent to the Canada-U.S. Intra-Parliamentary Group, telling them that the solution to border issues, tariffs and migration is to be found in the new Schiller Institute pamphlet, “Development Drive Means Billions of New Jobs, No Refugees, No War”.

In response to a participant who argued that Buchanan’s first-strike policy has been in effect for decades, Zepp-LaRouche answered that that is true, but there are differences today in the world situation. Following the end of the Cold War, it would have been easy to dissolve NATO and go for a peace order. Instead, we got NATO expansion, more than 1,000 km eastward, then the Maidan coup in 2014 and the subsequent civil war in Ukraine which killed 14,000 in the Donbas. What we face now is not simply more of the same, but rather an escalation spiral. The population of Europe is “only slowly waking up,” unlike during the 1980s when hundreds of thousands were protesting in the streets.

She concluded, “If I may add a bit of optimistic outlook at the end of this discussion,” this is the time to call your elected officials. “Much of our democracies have been turned into plutocracies,” but you may find some officials who are still human, and civilization is at risk. Trump has hinted that he “might not be the kind NATO member that Biden was,” and we must act to ensure that is the case. She encouraged the participants to read up on the Peace of Westphalia, and her proposal for Ten Principles of a New International Security and Development Architecture.

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