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Gigantic Demonstrations of Farmers & Allies Kicked Off Week of Action in Germany; U.S. Farm Leaders Send Full Support: “Let the Tractors Roll! Restore the Economy!”

January 10, 2024by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Agriculture, Economic development updates, Freedom of Press & Speech, General updates

Jan. 9, 2023—Yesterday in Germany tens of thousands of farmers and fellow demonstrators, with thousands of tractors and trucks, hit the streets in all 16 states, as day one in a week of action. This was an historic, breakthrough show of numbers and moral force. Joining with farmers were railroad workers, truckers, workers of all trades, businessmen, and more, all demanding an end to the government policies shutting down food production, hiking fuel and electricity prices, and gutting the economy.

Huge tractorcades and downtown rallies took place in scores of major cities Jan. 8 including Munich, Stuttgart, Dresden, Mainz and others, as well as at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, where the Jan. 8-15 action week will culminate in a mega-event on Monday. In Mainz, for example, there was a tractor and truck convoy 20 km long. Speakers at the rally included the state chairman of the farm group LsV (Country Creates Connection)—co-organizer of the national protest, the president of the Farmers and Winegrowers Association, the president of the German Hotel and Restaurant Association, and many others.

All demonstrations were extraordinarily well organized and disciplined, with full collaboration among farmers, truckers, police and the community. For example, the tractorcades left a lane open for through-transit of medical and other emergency vehicles.

This powerful show of force by farmers and the whole population demands the government commit to a full program to restore the economy. The government itself is on the line. One indicative banner stated, “They Don’t See; They Don’t Harvest; Yet They Think They Know Better” (against the government’s restrictions on farming, as well as fuel prices and tax hikes.)

Farmers, truckers and others elsewhere in Europe are following the German break-out closely, with farmers joining in from the Netherlands, Poland and Hungary.

A message of support to the German farmers was sent from the United States and circulated to many tractorcades on Day One. As of Jan. 9, 22 farm leaders from 14 states have signed onto the joint statement, first issued Jan. 6:

Let the Tractors Roll!

We U.S. farmers and ranchers send our support and admiration to German farmers and their co-demonstrators—truck drivers, railroad workers and all in the food chain—who are holding the Jan. 8-15 Week of Action in Germany. You have the guts and courage to defend the right to produce food, and demand a productive economy for all citizens. You are an inspiration and example to all farmers throughout the world, to activate and fight.

The German farmer rallies with thousands of tractors so far this Winter, from Berlin to Stuttgart, have put you on the front lines defending all humanity. The planned Jan. 15 Berlin mass rally is a world-important event. We have seen tens of thousands of farmers in Europe hit the streets in recent years because of the emergency; now is the breaking point.

Farmers all over the world are facing manipulation by the agro-financial-complex, of commodity conglomerates, controlled by London, Wall Street, Chicago, Amsterdam and other commodity financial centers. It is destroying family farming, reducing food production, driving up food prices, and perpetuating hunger. This globalist mechanism creates conditions for depopulation.

The German government is knowingly ruining family farm food production by hiking the diesel price, banning certain agro-inputs, taxing farm machinery, and other moves.

Farmers the world over are now standing up to this. We commit our support to defeat these enemies of humanity in 2024. We can work together to bring about development and peace for all, and total food security.

Let the tractors roll! We are alongside you in the cabs and on the streets!

Signators, as of Jan. 9: 

Robert “Bob” Baker, Leesburg, Virginia – Former Grain and Livestock Producer; Director of Schiller Institute Agricultural Commission

Jon Baker, Harper, Iowa – Cattle and Grain Farmer; Agricultural Bank Vice President and Loan Officer; Vice President of the Iowa Stockgrowers Assoc.

James Benham, Versailles, Indiana – Former State President of the Indiana Farmers Union; National Board Member of the National Farmers Union

Bill Bullard, Billings, Montana – Chief Executive Officer, R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America)

Mike Callicrate, Colorado Springs, Colorado – Cattleman; President and Founder, Ranch Foods Direct

Angel Cushing, Allen, Kansas – Goat Farmer; Independent Farm Activist against the Green New Deal / 30×30 land grab

Frank Endres, Corning, California – Wheat and Cattle Rancher; National Board Member of National Farmers Organization (NFO) and of R-CALF USA

Dr. Taylor Haynes, Laramie, Wyoming – Rancher;  President, and on Board of Directors, Organization for Competitive Markets

Angela Huffman, Wharton, Ohio – Sheep Farmer; President of Farm Action

Tracy Hunt, Newcastle, Wyoming – Cattle Rancher; Farm Leader, Attorney (Retired)

Wilbur Kehrli, Manchester, Iowa – Cattle, Pigs and Grain Farmer Retired; Board of Directors of American Blue Cattle Association

Bill Kluck, Mud Butte, South Dakota – Sheep and Cattle Rancher; Chairman of Sheep Committee, R-CALF USA; Board of Directors of South Dakota Stockgrowers Assoc.

Vaughn Meyer, Reva, South Dakota – Cattle Rancher; Former President of the South Dakota Stockgrowers Assoc.; Former President of the Organization for Competitive Markets

Eric Nelson, Moville, Iowa – Farm/Feeder and Rancher; Vice President – R-CALF USA Director, Region VII (Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin)

Andrew Olson, Windom, Minnesota – Grain Producer; Farm Leader & Chairman of the Minnesota Schiller Institute Agricultural Commission 

Mike Schultz, Brewster, Kansas – Rancher and Farmer; Vice-President of Organization for Competitive Markets

Matthew Steele, Manhattan, Kansas – Executive Director of the Kansas Cattlemen’s Association

Herman Steffen, Detour, Maryland – Beef Cattle and Grain Farmer; Farm Leader

Mike Weaver, Franklin, West Virginia – Board of Directors, & former President of Contract Poultry Growers Assoc. of the Virginias

Charles White, Fowlerville, Michigan – Dairy and Grain Farmer; Farm Leader

Tork Whisler and Sawyer Whisler, Washington, Iowa – Grain and Pork Producers; Farm Leaders; Founders of Barn Talk (on YouTube)

Ron Wieczorek, Mitchell, South Dakota – Rancher and Farm Leader; Former Candidate for U.S. Congress; Chairman of South Dakota Schiller Institute Agricultural Commission

PRESS RELEASE: International Peace Coalition Holds Sixth Meeting

July 19, 2023by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Freedom of Press & Speech, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, International Peace Coalition, Music updates tagged

July 14—The International Peace Coalition (IPC), initiated by Helga Zepp- LaRouche, held its sixth weekly Zoom meeting today, chaired by the Schiller Institute’s Anastasia Battle, with 38 guests from 15 countries and peace organizations, in addition to members of the Schiller Institute.

At their fifth meeting, in an impassioned presentation, Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), had described he just concluded July 4–5 conference sponsored by JUST and the Save Humanity and the Planet (SHAPE) centered in Malaysia, titled “Asia-Pacific NATO: Fanning the Flames of War.” The target was AUKUS, the Australia-U.K.-U.S. security pact whose purpose, Dr. Muzaffar said, is to “contain China.” Most Asians oppose this pact, but the political leaders want to “assure the domination of Asia by the British and the U.S.,” and undermine any peace movement. The meeting was quite successful, with speakers from Australia, China, Malaysia, the U.S China and South Korea, with several new organizations participating in the event. JUST and SHAPE will get the news on the IPC to their mailing lists. Dr. Muzaffar thanked Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche and the Schiller Institute for building the IPC, which he said he “hopes will grow and flourish, as it is key to our future.” [Read IPC#5 Press Release Here]

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder and leader of the Schiller Institute, opened the sixth meeting by noting two globally important events in the week since the IPC’s fifth meeting on July 7: the two-day international conference of the Schiller Institute in Strasbourg, France on July 8-9; and the NATO Summit of July 11-12 in Vilnius (referred to as the “villainous Vilnius Summit” by one speaker at the IPC meeting). While the NATO Summit was a war cry for more escalation of the surrogate NATO war against Russia centered in Ukraine, the Schiller Institute conference provided ideas and discussion on the urgency of substituting cooperation for confrontation, preventing the current rush to an outbreak of global nuclear war, and bringing the world’s nations together in a paradigm of development.

Zepp-LaRouche pointed to the newly-announced decision by President Joe Biden to deploy cluster bombs to Ukraine—altogether 300 million bomblets—a madness that will cause thousands of deaths of innocents, as has already been demonstrated by the death and maiming of children and other civilians in Cambodia and Vietnam from the landmines and cluster bombs deployed during the Indochina war of the 1960-70s—deaths and injuries continuing even today. There is international opposition to this genocidal act, including from within the United States, but Biden is going ahead regardless.

The ugly irony of this move, Zepp-LaRouche added, is that Biden has admitted that even though he once opposed the use of cluster bombs as a war crime, now the U.S. and its NATO allies are running out of ammunition to continue the bloodletting in Ukraine, and therefore will use the cluster bombs to keep the war going. She pointed to the decision to deploy F-16s to Ukraine as yet another insane act, noting that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia will have no way to know if the nuclear-weapon capable F-16s are armed with nuclear weapons or not, and must therefore treat them as being nuclear armed.

Zepp-LaRouche also pointed to the NATO Summit’s embrace of a policy to expand the domain of NATO to the Asia-Pacific region, targeting China with the same war-policy as deployed against Russia in Europe.

As to Ukraine, she reported the intention presented at the NATO Summit to turn the country into a military production center, with the West’s major military-industrial companies setting up production facilities in Ukraine for a “forever war.” In the process, there was no discussion by any NATO participants of a peace plan, or even for negotiations for peace. At the rate of destruction of the Ukraine economy and the death of thousands of young men in the bloody cauldron of war, there will be no way for the country to rebuild even if the war can be stopped.

The lesson, Zepp-LaRouche concluded, is that the International Peace Coalition must grow and create a massive public outcry against the madness. The plan for international demonstrations on Aug. 6, the 78th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima by U.S. President Harry Truman, must be the basis for expanding this effort.

Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst and a co-founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), gave a situation report on the war in Ukraine, asserting that while Biden is declaring that Ukraine is winning, even that Putin has “already lost” the war, that simply demonstrates that Biden is living in an “alternative reality,” since it is abundantly clear that the opposite is the case. The much-heralded “counter-offensive” by the Zelenskyy government forces has been a colossal failure, with the mass destruction of tanks and other military equipment, as well as yet more thousands of lives sacrificed.

Col. Richard H. Black, a retired Marine officer and former Army Joint Advocate General (JAG) lawyer who headed the Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon before retiring from the military and serving in Virginia’s House of Delegates and Senate, reviewed the failure of Kiev’s “counteroffensive,” suggesting that the idea of a perpetual war of attrition is a losing proposition for Ukraine, and that they may not be able to sustain the current pace even through the end of August.

Regarding the cluster bombs, Col. Black remarked that the world agreed to ban mustard gas and other chemical weapons as war crimes, and for the U.S. to simply declare that cluster bombs are to be accepted because “Ukraine needs them” does not change the fact that their use is a war crime. Are we to declare later that nuclear weapons will stop being illegal if “Ukraine needs them,” he asked? We are heading for nuclear war, he warned, and there is far too little resistance to it in the U.S., so this Coalition must grow.

Joseph Boyd-Barrett, a professor (emeritus) at California State University and an expert on the uses of propaganda, gave further evidence of the falsification in the mainstream media about the war in Ukraine. Ukraine and its Western backers in NATO have already essentially lost the war, as their munitions are running out and the NATO countries are not able to sustain the supply, while Russia “can produce multiples” of the munitions produced by the combined NATO backers of Kiev. He also estimates that the supply of weapons to Ukraine will run out by the end of August.

The problem remains that the Ukraine government, and its backers in NATO, don’t care that the country and the population are being destroyed by the war policy, and refuse to negotiate. Zelenskyy was elected on a pledge to bring peace, but now it must be said that the Kiev regime’s policy is to see their own population murdered by continuing a war which cannot be won. The Democratic Party in power in Washington appears to believe that the only way to win the next general election in November 2024 is to keep the war going through next year.

Juan Carrero, a peace activist from Spain, said that the Western elites are suffering from dementia, as they repeat without any evidence that Russia will lose the war. He said that he had lived in Hiroshima for a year and a half, and saw the effects of the destruction, calling for the Aug. 6 demonstrations worldwide to be a turning point to stop the madness.

Moderator Anastasia Battle read four demands which the IPC will issue on its website https://humanityforpeace.net/
They are:

  • 1. End the supply of weapons to Ukraine.
  • 2. Begin unconditional peace talks with all parties to the war
  • 3. End the NATO alliance.
  • 4. Establish a new security architecture for all nations, ending the division of the world into warring “blocs.”

Bernie Holland, a peace activist from the U.K., asked Helga Zepp-LaRouche to discuss her concept of the “Coincidence of Opposites” which is the eighth of her Ten Principles of a NewInternational Security and Development Architecture.

Zepp-LaRouche replied with an in-depth discussion of the concept, developed by the 15th-century genius Nicholas of Cusa, who discovered the idea as a method of thought based on the truth that the “One” is superior to the “Many,” that only by recognizing that there is a common principle which unites all human beings, whatever their faith or ethnicity or nationality. This method of thinking made it possible for Cusa to bring about the unity of the Roman and Orthodox Christian religions at the ecumenical Council of Florence between 1431 and 1449, and later was the basis of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ending the Thirty Years’ War in Europe. In the current age of nuclear weapons, that principle of creative thought, based on love rather than hate, is the only basis for world peace. Other speakers reported on their organizing efforts for peace in Argentina, Chile, England, France, Germany, Holland, India, Italy, Nicaragua, Scotland, and across the U.S. All agreed to build an even larger attendance, including representatives from the Global South, for the next meeting on Friday, July 21.

Rally and Concert:
Humanity for Peace is hosting a “Global Rally for World Peace and an End to All Wars!” On Sunday, Aug. 6 from 1-4 pm at the Dag Hammerskjöld Plaza (United Nations Plaza) in New York City, 47th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue, followed by an evening concert from 6-8 pm at the Unitarian Church of All Souls, 1157 Lexington Ave. at East 80th Street, of Mozart’s Requiem, performed by a combined chorus and orchestra which will include the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus and musicians. It will be free and open to the public.

A full report on the fifth meeting of the International Peace Coalition, held on July 7, is here: https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2023/07/13/press-release-fifth-international-peace-coalition-event-reveals-growth-and-extensive-organizing/

In Attendance:

  • Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Germany), founder and leader, Schiller Institute
  • Colonel Richard Black (U.S., ret), former head of the Pentagon Criminal Law Division, former Virginia State Senator
  • Oliver Boyd-Barrett (U.S.), Professor Emeritus, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
    Alessia Ruggeri (Italy) Trade Unionist
  • Anton Winter, (Austria) Nouvelle Alliance, UZG – Initiative Zivilgesellschaft
  • Dr. Balkrishna Kurvey (India) President of the Indian Institute for Peace, Disarmament and Environmental Protection
  • Barbara Spahn (Germany)
  • Beatriz Solórzano León (Guatemala), Lawyer, Parliamentary Technician
  • Bernie Holland (UK) No2NATO
  • Fr. Robert Cushing (U.S.), Association of US Catholic Priests (AUSCP), Pax Christi GA, former priest
  • Bolívar Téllez Castellón (Nicaragua), Lawyer and university professor
  • Boubacar Sidy (USA/Guinea)
  • Christer Lundgren, (Sweden)
  • Ruben Dario Guzzetti (Argentina), Argentine Institute of Geopolitical Studies (IADEG)
  • Christine Bierre (France), Solidarity and Progress
  • Fr. Harry Bury (U.S.), Archdiocese of Saint Paul in Minneapolis, MN
  • Ingo Scharpff (Germany)
  • Jacques Cheminade (France), head of Solidarity and Progress
  • Jimmy Gerum (Germany), Lighthouse Media
  • Juan Carrero (Spain), President, S’Olivar Foundation
  • Juan Gómez (Chile)
  • Karen Ball (U.S.) Pax Christi – Texas
  • Liliana Gorini (Italy), Movisol
  • Mike Billington, (U.S.) Executive Intelligence Review Magazine
  • Muhammad Selim Akhtar (U.S.) Muslim Alliance
  • Ray McGovern (U.S.) former senior analyst, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); founding member, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
  • Rev. Dr. Terri L. Strong (U.S.), AME minister from Memphis, TN Chair of the Actions and Global Concern Committee of the Church Women United
  • Ulf Sandmark (Sweden), President Schiller Institute, Sweden
  • Wolfgang Lieberknecht (Germany)
  • David Andersson, (U.S.) Coordinator of NYC bureau for Pressenza Press Agency and hosts a talk-show, Face 2 Face, broadcast on Youtube and Facebook
  • Jurgen Wolf (Scotland), No2NATO UK, Workers Party BG
  • Jack Gilroy (U.S.), Organizer, Pax Christi, NY State/Pax Christi International; Board Member, New York Veterans for Peace
  • Sonja Van den Ende, (Netherlands/Russia) Independent Journalist, covers Russia/Ukraine conflict, for Katehon 
  • Chris Fogarty (U.S./Ireland), Irish American Leader
  • Fredrick Weiss (U.S.) Classical musician
  • Dennis Small (U.S.), Schiller Institute, Virginia
  • Dennis Speed (U.S.), Schiller Institute, New Jersey
  • Diane Sare, (U.S.) U.S. Senate Candidate, New York
  • Jose Vega, (U.S.) Interventionist, Organizer Schiller Institute
  • Anastasia Battle (U.S.) Organizer, Interventionist and Editor-in-Chief, Leonore Magazine

**Affiliations for identification purposes only

Mexico’s Journalists Club Honors Schiller Institute With “Freedom of Expression” Award

December 8, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Freedom of Press & Speech, General updates, Media coverage of our activity, Mexico, World war danger updates

Dec. 7, 2022 (EIRNS)–The national Journalists Club of Mexico today announced the results of its 70th National and International Journalism Contest, issuing their awards to the Mexican and international journalists, media and institutions chosen by a 20-person independent jury for their work in over 20 areas of journalism and freedom of speech. The annual contest has become an institution in the country, with increasing international attention. Julian Assange, for example, was issued an award for “Freedom of Expression” in 2019.

Today, the Schiller Institute received the Club’s award for “|`Fostering freedom of expression from the academic realm’, for its contributions to historical and geopolitical analysis for understanding global changes, from a multi-disciplinary standpoint of critical thinking, warning of the consequences of the violence and imbalances which affect the concert of nations and world peace,” the master of ceremonies explained. This was one of only five international awards conferred by the Journalists Club. Another 30 or so awards were presented to national journalists in different areas.

The awards ceremony, held in the association’s historic headquarters in Mexico City, is quite an occasion, and was attended by the President of Mexico’s Press Spokesman, Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, and diplomats from various countries, as well as many journalists and media and their families and friends. Ramírez Cuevas was greeted by an ovation when announced, and he gave President López Obrador’s greetings for the occasion.

After the Schiller Institute’s award was announced, a short video-recorded message of greetings and appreciation from Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche was played (with Spanish subtitles), as the Institute’s representative in Mexico, EIR correspondent Gerardo Castilleja, accepted the award on her behalf. Zepp-LaRouche explained that she could not attend personally to accept the award because she was number one on the Ukrainian hit list, expressed her great appreciation for the honor bestowed, and spoke of the international leadership role Mexico is playing, and can play in rallying the world against nuclear war and for peace.

The tone for the spirited meeting was set by the Club’s Secretary General, Celeste Sáenz, in her opening speech, in which she issued an impassioned call to build the fight against the grave threats to freedom of speech afoot in the world. There is war ongoing against truthful journalism, organized by the great media and neoliberal international powers, she charged. Independent journalists who refuse to surrender to their demands are excluded, but have begun setting up their own outlets (several of which were given awards later).

This is “a real war … with real victims.” Journalists are being killed, some caught in the crossfire of the conflicts in the world — but some deliberately assassinated, as in the case of Ukraine, she said. Journalists and academics are being put on a blacklist “by the Ukrainian government and Western intelligence and spy agencies who seek to assassinate” them. When the selected targets are assassinated, their photos on the list are then crossed off, she specified. “This is disgraceful. After the Second World War, we thought that we would not see this again.”

She cited the terrorist assassination of Russia’s Darya Dugina last August 20 as exemplary of this policy, and slammed the policy of censorship carried out in the name of “freedom of speech,” as seen in the “centers for countering disinformation” which impose that policy.

The Club then gave a posthumous award to Dugina, which Russia’s Ambassador to Mexico, Viktor Koronelli, received in the name of her father, Alexander Dugin. A brief video message from Dugin was then presented.