On Sunday, December 9th, 2018, the Schiller Boston Community Chorus hosted a classical music concert at Christ Church in Quincy, MA, which featured music from Russia, China, the United States, Europe and more. The intention of this concert was to bring together the cultures that are involved in, or should be involved in, the Belt and Road Initiative, and to demonstrate the universality of beauty and the principle of Classical composition.
Ana Maria Ugarte and Brian Landry.
The musical program was a beautiful mix of pieces and was introduced by Director of the Boston Schiller Community Chorus, Jen Pearl, who spoke of the urgent need for a Classical Renaissance, challenging people to think big, referencing the Chang e-4 launch (China’s latest mission to land a rover on the far side of the Moon).
The concert was opened by operatic tenor Brian Landry, who drew people in with Messiah’s “Comfort ye” and “Every Valley.” The program included Brian and his wife, contralto, Ana Maria Ugarte, performing the duet “Gesu Bambino”and solos including “Deep River,” “Oh Holy Night,” and “Ave Maria”. The chorus and New Paradigm octet performed several Spirituals, Schumann’s Bankelsanger Willie, and Dem Dunkeln Schoss der heilge Erde, by Brahms. Other soloists included Michelle Erin Fuchs from the Schiller NYC Chorus performing a hauntingly beautiful rendition of “I wonder as I wander,” the Appalachian spiritual by John Jacob Niles and two beautiful Russian folk songs. Also a performance by a Jinghu player and a special treat, a Chinese soprano who performed two beautiful Chinese songs in her very light and high trained bel canto voice.
Among the 65 or so attendees were old friends, new friends just met at various Tree Lighting ceremonies and Christmas markets, members and leaders of the church congregations and networks with whom we have collaborated in various Chinese organizations, who expressed interest in our work on the New Silk Road and their strong wish for Americans to get on board with this optimistic and future oriented perspective. One attendee, upon realizing that some of the chorus member’s young children were able to sit through the entire concert and enjoy it, offered to bring their grandchildren to the next concert.
Donna Liao sings Chinese folk songs with bel canto technique.
The mother of one of our members said our concert was much better and more high quality than a recent professional group she saw perform Faure’s Requiem (which she hated). One very new chorus member brought five family members. The Chinese Jinghu player expressed disbelieve in how in-tune our chorus was, and how difficult it is for the opera group he performs with to stay in tune. One woman in the audience said “you all are a real asset to this community.” A Chinese father, who generally supports Xi Jinping, but also has been a bit skeptical, brought his young daughter to the concert and was moved by how passionately some of our chorus members conveyed the ideas of the music. He has been at a few events, read up on the Schiller Institute, and after the concert expressed renewed optimism saying the Belt and Road Initiative is having a very positive effect on the world.
Dr. Qingen Ke playing the Jinghu.
A number of people were curious about the New Silk Road and one woman collected extra concert programs to send to her son in South Carolina, who’s a minister. A group of three old friends who worked with the LaRouche movement in the 1990s and resurfaced for this event, expressed what many in the audience and chorus was sensing, that in these difficult times events like these are essential to uplift the minds and spirits of our people.
The reverberations are still coming in from this concert. Our chorus here is committed to grow and spread the rays of great classical ideas throughout our community. The potential for growth is massive, as there is a real hunger for profundity out there and a desire to connect our very diverse population, with a large Asian component, through that creative potential which is universally human.
For more information about the Boston Schiller Institute Chorus, contact schillerbostonchorus@gmail.com.
On November 21 Sputnik published a full and strategically “meaty” interview with Harley Schlanger (representing the Schiller Institute as the U.S. Vice Chairman). Headlined “U.S. Must End `Divide and Conquer’ Mindset for Mankind’s Benefit,” the immediate subject of the interview was the U.S. National Defense Strategy Commission report issued on Nov. 13, which declares Russia and China to be aggressive adversaries and “authoritarian competitors.” Schlanger noted the difference between President Donald Trump’s advocacy of peaceful cooperation with Russia and China, and this “outlook of unhinged neo-conservatives and their commitment to geopolitical confrontation, as a means of defending an imperial policy which has failed, and is collapsing in the face of a global rejection of this policy.”
When the G-20 meeting opens in Buenos Aires on November 30, will Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fantasia for Piano, Orchestra and Chorus, Op. 80, be the piece chosen for the opening ceremony? It would be well recommended. That piece was the center of the Schiller Institute’s Friedrich Schiller Birthday Celebration Concert, held in New York City on Sunday, November 18.
The Fantasia, Beethoven’s earlier study for what he would later compose as the Ninth Symphony, also referred to as the “Choral” Symphony, would prompt a far different, far more productive political deliberation at that upcoming conference—involving Presidents Putin, Trump and Xi Jinping, among others—than was sadly witnessed at the Nov. 11 Paris Summit. In Paris, despite the gravity and importance of the occasion—the commemoration of the end of World War I, a conflict resulting in 40 million deaths and casualties, followed by another 50 million deaths in the ensuing Great Flu Epidemic of 1918-1920—the pre-pubescent snit of the erstwhile host, President Emmanuel “Micron” Macron, prevented any war-avoidance discussions from taking place.
Dennis Speed, speaking on behalf of the Schiller Institute at the beginning of the Schiller Birthday Celebration Concert, began:
Ludwig van Beethoven once made the statement: “If people understood my music better, there would be no war.” Confucius is sometimes quoted to the same effect. He stated, “When music and courtesy are better understood and appreciated, there will be no war.” One week ago today, an opportunity to commit humanity to a new vision of a world without war was lost. The gathering last week in Paris, on the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, bringing together 60 heads of state, failed to focus humanity on the common aims of mankind, as it might have. Friedrich Schiller’s famous comment regarding the French Revolution, that a great moment has found a little people, need not have been applicable to that occasion. [And] It need not be applicable to this moment, or any future moment in time. Man, as Schiller tells us, is greater than his destiny.
Speed also referred to a passage in The Federalist, No. 1, written by Alexander Hamilton. After the American Revolution successfully challenged and beat the British Empire, Hamilton wrote, in The Federalist, No. 1:
It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.
The New York Concert
Many comments received from the more than 400-person audience and the 160-strong orchestra and chorus indicate that the process of dialogue about the nature and function of great ideas in a time of crisis, conveyed through great drama and music, has taken a significant step forward among those continuously involved in this enterprise in recent months.
While political partisanship has made serious discussion in New York City very difficult, the highly diverse audience that assembled at St. Bartholomew’s Church to hear African-American Spirituals, Johannes Brahms’ “Dem dunkeln Schoss,” and the Beethoven Mass in C Major, op. 86 and Choral Fantasia, op. 80, were able collectively to listen to the results—as composed by Beethoven—of a 70-year dialogue involving J.S. Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, about the nature and future of not only music, but the nature and future of mankind. It was this “musical masters in dialogue” principle, including Schiller as part of that dialogue, that was presented as the model for what might be recommended, if not replicated as the standard of discourse required in this most divisive time in our nation.
One observation, communicated by an audience member the following day, usefully characterized, not merely the recent concerts performed by the Schiller Institute New York City Chorus, but the three-year long succession of such performances given, more than fifteen in all, throughout the city:
One aspect of … something which has now become characteristic of these NY concerts … is, presenting in a manner that catches the audience off-guard. From the [June 2017 Schiller Chorus performance at the Foundation for the Revival of Classical Culture-sponsored] Carnegie Hall concert, begun with a singer singing her way slowly across the stage, to last night’s provocative opening presentation followed by the quiet entrance of the pianist who simply began playing, a variety of such surprises, sometimes leaving the audience wondering whether or not it should applaud, and rather preferring not to, have been well employed.
Readings from Friedrich Schiller’s works, recited by actor Dikran Tulaine, were interspersed with the musical selections throughout. The program began with Schiller, followed by Bach, then two Spirituals—each separated by the words of Schiller and William Shakespeare, then Brahms’ “Dem dunkeln Schoss der Heil’gen Erde,” and the Choral Fantasia, also preceded by a reading from Schiller. Following the intermission, the entire Beethoven Mass in C Major, prefaced by Schiller, was performed. As always, the Schiller Institute performed at the Verdi tuning of C=256 cycles, the proper tuning for Classical composition, sometimes erroneously characterized as “lower” tuning.
Remembering Maestro Morss
Importantly, the concert was dedicated to the memory of Maestro Anthony Morss, who had worked with the Schiller institute for thirty years, before his death in August of this year. Morss, who had served as the Music Director for the New York State Opera Company, the Verismo Opera, the Eastern Opera Theater of New York, the Lubo Opera Company of New Jersey and other companies, was one of the earliest proponents of returning to the Verdi tuning. In 1990 he conducted a concert performance of the Beethoven opera Fidelio at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, which definitively proved that the modern opera orchestra could accommodate the proper tuning.
Morss spoke at many Schiller Institute events, and in the 1990s was a vocal defender of the then-incarcerated Lyndon LaRouche, whose writings, particularly LaRouche’s musical writings, Morss closely read. Maestro Morss’ weekly presence at the Schiller Institute choral rehearsals was an essential component of giving the chorus the confidence that an amateur grouping could aspire to, and achieve, the highest standards of musical performance. Conductor John Sigerson’s tribute to Morss at the concert is presented below.
The performance of the Choral Fantasia was a first for the Schiller Institute in the United States. While associates of LaRouche had performed the piece in Detroit in December of 1979, a return to presentation of the piece, one of the best possible introductions to the Ninth Symphony, had only recently become possible. Beethoven himself conducted the piece in its premiere on December 22, 1808, at a fundraising concert that he had organized for himself. Other pieces first performed at the same concert were the Fourth Piano Concerto, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, and sections of the Mass in C Major. Beethoven saved the Fantasia for the concert’s end and improvised the entire piano opening to the piece on the spot. Its final words, “Only when Love and Power are wed / Does Man deserve God’s favor” resonated deeply with the audience, both then, and now.
Several attendees, in messages sent to the Schiller Institute the day after the concert, remarked on the “pin-drop quiet” concentration in the audience throughout the entire first part of the concert. One person commented:
Piano soloist MyHoa Steger during Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia.
The highlights in the music were [the Spiritual,] “Anyhow,” and the Choral Fantasia … [Pianist My-Hoa Steger] “aced” it. The difference in the orchestra was clear. You could turn off the sound, and just watch them, and tell it was a great performance … The Bach [played by pianist Yuting Zhou] was very well done. The prelude contains the chromatic scale used in the 3-year-later Musical Offering. The fugue features the diminished 7th leap of the same King’s theme. The fugue subject is similar to Handel’s “And with his Stripes” and “Kyrie” from Mozart’s Requiem…
And this short message gives another window into the effect of the performance:
Even though we had to slip out between acts (my daughter and I came straight to the concert from a film shoot that ran long, and we very much needed to feed her!)—we all felt so uplifted by both the beautiful music and the uncanny timeliness of Schiller’s poetry.
It was also so moving to witness a volunteer chorus—to think that so much talent lies in so many people in this town, who one likely passes by on the street, in the subway, etc. without knowing. ….. It was astonishing…. last evening’s beautiful show has shifted my perception in ways I am still very much processing.
Bringing Schiller to Americans
Those that have followed the evolution of the Schiller Institute New York City Chorus since it was founded (following the death by strangulation of New Yorker Eric Garner in 2014), or have been part of the chorus’ growth from its first December 20, 2014 performance of excerpts of G.W.F. Handel’s Messiah, know that there are hundreds of people, almost all of them non-professionals, who have been involved in the subsequent performances. Some of the coordinators of the chorus, however, remarked that there seemed to be a greater depth of seriousness in the group than before.
In part, this may have been due to an insistence, beginning five weeks before the concert, that choral members must get to know the up-to-then unstudied Schiller. So, readings of Schiller’s poetry and a few of his prose pieces were organized. Additionally, some of New York’s many cultural organizations became excited to know that a Schiller celebration was occurring, and that the idea of promoting the generalized reading of Classical literature as a way of rejuvenating competent language-usage in general, was being advanced. The idea that an enthusiastic, voluntary return to literacy could be promoted through a fifteen-hundred-person citywide chorus, captured their imagination.
This approach seemed to provoke particularly “deep thinking” on the question of aesthetical education from younger persons in attendance.
One young student wrote:
[ 1 ] ( Zhi Hui) refers to “wisdom” in Chinese. But the two characters each have different meanings. [ 2 ] is intelligence, while [ 3 ] means wise. It’s easy to get [ 4 ]. Everybody at my school has it. But not everyone has [ 5 ]. It’s like a seed buried in one’s heart since we are born, and needs to be inspired and discovered, as we grow up. We call it [ 6 ] (Hui Gen). [ 7 ] means root, but it’s also reasonable to interpret it as seed, because they each have roots deep in each person’s mind, and they sprout when they feel like it. Some people have [ 8 ], some do not; some [ 9 ] can bloom, some do not.
Actually, the word [ 10 ] is a Buddhist word, but it has been adopted into Chinese language and has become an important part of us. To better interpret this word, one can read a small story about the difference between people with it and those without it. The story is in the “Succession of Sixth Patriarch.”
This thinking is reminiscent of considerations concerning the differences between thought and language, and the power of the ironic juxtaposition of thought to text, of notes to music, and the higher unity of poetry and music that was required for Beethoven, or any composer, to usefully add anything to the poetry of Schiller. Brahms’ “Dem dunkeln Schoss” uses eight lines taken from Schiller’s “Song of the Bell,” but in an apparently completely different way than they are used in the broader context of that poem, in order to commemorate the death of his great friend, Robert Schumann. In this way, Brahms demonstrates that, while no poem is ever able to actually be translated into another language, no great poem is ever limited to a single meaning.
It is also possible to take a section of a poem, find the music contained within it, and voice that music in the service of purposes not anticipated by the poet, but yet in full accordance with the substance of the Idea for which the poem’s words are but a shadow-echo.
The conceptual resonance of the chorus was notable in the complete Beethoven Mass in C Major, a piece infrequently performed, which is, however, an essential work for understanding his spiritual development. One listener remarked:
From a purely musical point of view I found the performance to be astounding. There are simply no words to describe the feelings that I had regarding Beethoven’s music. The interpretation was flawless, although a bit on the scholarly and spiritual/religious side. The last most likely being influenced by the spirituality of Schiller’s work.
Indeed.
As has happened before in the Schiller Institute Chorus performances of this piece, the last section, the Agnus Dei’s “Dona nobis pacem” brought together all that had been presented through the entirety of the program. Soloists Indira Mahajan, Linda Childs, Everett Suttle, and Costas Tsourakis received many compliments from the audience, many of whom have seen them perform at other of the Schiller concerts, or in other musical programs around the city.
Schiller Institute Chorus Directors Diane Sare and John Sigerson, post concert.
The conductors, John Sigerson and Diane Sare, have succeeded in creating a core ensemble of 70-80 singers, all of whom are increasingly clear that the mission of the chorus is to destroy the idea of “entertainment” as the primary focus of art. It is the re-creation of the intent of the composer, as conveyed through the medium of Chorus, which is the mission of the chorus. Re-creation of great ideas, whether in scientific or in artistic experiment, not entertainment, is the cultural backbone, the heartbeat, of social change in our time. Their participation in these artistic experiments qualifies the members of the chorus to “lift ev’ry voice” of deliberation on all things, including the immediate direction of this country as a force for good in history, to the world-historical stage, rather than petty gossip.
It is the aesthetical education of the population and its Presidential process that is the indispensable mission which the Schiller Institute has taken another important step forward in performing. That is not the pursuit of entertainment, but, rather, the pursuit of Happiness, as the Founders would have understood that principle.
A Schiller Institute version of the concert is under production and will be available soon. Other coverage of the concert can be found here.
The Schiller Boston Chorus hosted a centennial celebration concert honoring master musician and teacher, Sylvia Olden Lee. We also marked the birthdays of patriots President’s John F. Kennedy (100th) and John Quincy Adams (250th) in this concert of African-American Spirituals, Verdi, Mozart, solo, ensemble, choral music and more held on October 15th in Dorchester, Mass, at the St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. Thank you to the Boston Neighborhood Network for filming the concert. All performances were at the Verdi tuning of C=256.
The program included selections from Life of Christ by Roland Hayes, Robert Schumann’s entire Dichterliebe and operatic arias performed by local artists, Brian and Ana Landry and Christina DeVaughn among others.
Bob Baker, Virginia; Schiller Institute agriculture co-coordinator Joe Maxwell, Missouri; former Missouri Lt. Governor, co-founder of Family Farm Action Alliance Tyler Dupy, Kansas; Executive Director of the Kansas Cattlemen’s Association Frank Endres; California, member of the National Farmers Organization for 63 years Bill Bullard; Montana, CEO R-CALF USA Jim Benham, Indiana; State Pres. of Indiana Farmers Union, 20 Yr. National Board member, National Farmers Union Mike Callicrate, Kansas; Colorado, Bd of Directors of Organization for Competitive Markets, Owner Ranch Foods Direct
The Schiller Institute is organizing a Day of Action, Wednesday, January 15, to intensify support for the Institute’s January 7 “Call for Presidents Trump, Putin, and Xi To Convene an Emergency Summit to Address the Danger of War.” Activists on five continents will mobilize citizens, government officials, diplomats and institutions, in support of the call, which was authored by Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche.
January 15, which is the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is the day of rallies and activity at appropriate locations, and on social media, websites, and all means of outreach. The Schiller Institute encourages all to commemorate the ideas and life’s work of Dr. King, by organizing for peace through economic development, as in the Call for the Emergency Summit.
The central international event will be at the United Nations in New York City, from 12 noon to 3 pm, Wednesday, January 15. Follow us on Facebook for on-the-ground reports from organizers throughout the world. To participate in New York, please contact: Lynne Speed, in New York, at (201) 562-9890.
Moderated by the Schiller Institute’s Dennis Speed, the speakers included Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Bill Binney (former NSA technical director), Kirk Wiebe (former NSA senior intelligence analyst), and Michael Billington (EIR). Held at the Thalia Theater on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the dynamic between the speakers and the capacity audience of about 160, exemplified the historic moment. A typical New York audience, it consisted of Democrats, independents, Republicans, 9/11 truth seekers, Assange WikiLeaks networks, foreign press, etc. A third of the audience had never attended a LaRouche movement event before, and were brought through various networks as well as a week of daily distributions on the Upper West Side.
Transcripts below
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of the Schiller Institute, delivered the following remarks by pre-recorded audio, to the February 29, 2020 Schiller Institute event, “Rescuing the Republic from the Surveillance State.”
Hello! I’m Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and I’m the founder of the Schiller Institute. I am very happy to speak to you in this extremely important moment of history. The world is heading for what easily could become the worst crisis since the end of World War II. Unless we have a change in direction, there is very clearly the danger that the whole strategic situation could get completely out of control. What makes it so difficult, is that there are many interactive elements to this crisis.
Now, let me start with a very worrisome aspect. Despite the fact that President Trump clearly has the intention to improve relations with Russia and China, there are also very different tones coming out of some other parts of the U.S. administration. Recently, U.S. Secretary of Defense Esper was participating personally in a war game which was based on a scenario of a “limited nuclear war” between the United States and Russia in Europe, which included the use of so-called “low-yield nuclear weapons.”
Now recently the United States did deploy exactly such low-yield warheads on submarine-launched ballistic missiles on the Trident submarines, and that deployment of such “low-yield nuclear weapons” is very dangerously lowering the threshold of nuclear war.
This week there was a hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee where U.S. Air Force Gen. Tod D. Wolters, who is also the commander of the U.S. European Command and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe — the so-called SACEUR — was asked by Senator Deb Fischer, “What are your views about adopting a so-called ‘no first use’ policy. Do you believe that this would strengthen deterrence?” General Walters said, “Senator, I’m a fan of flexible first-use policy.” Now, this is Dr. Strangelove in the position of the Supreme Commander of the U.S. forces in Europe. And this is occurring as the Defender 2020 NATO military exercise, which is the largest maneuver since the end of the Cold War, is moving tens of thousands of U.S. troops and others — like the Bundeswehr — to the Russian border for several months of maneuvers.
In light of all of this, the spread of the coronavirus, which, according to top health officials, is only a step away from a pandemic, naturally shows that we are on the verge of an uncontrollable situation. In Europe already, most international events and conferences have been cancelled, and the Lombardy region of Italy is now under quarantine; it has been named the Wuhan of Europe. People are being told by the media, by the TV, by the papers, to get food reserves for several weeks. Already now, the spread of the coronavirus has had a significant impact on the real economy.
In China, which has, according to the head of the WHO, set a new standard in the fight against such epidemics, because they put up the defense of life as the first priority and did outstanding measures to contain the spread of the virus. Nevertheless, their GDP in the first quarter will probably go down to 0% as distinct from the expected 6% [growth].
Now, China probably has the best chance to recover, but for the so-called West, it looks much more grim, because the international supply chains have been interrupted, and will be interrupted much more. This is now that the effects of so-called globalization are striking back. Globalization has led to an outsourcing of production into cheap labor markets such as the food production, which is now no longer under the sovereign control of countries, but under the control of international cartels. We no longer have food security in most countries.
The coronavirus, if it becomes a pandemic, or even if it spreads to more countries, is, in all likelihood, becoming the trigger for the financial meltdown. This is not the cause, but the trigger, because this financial system is already at the absolute limit. Since September of last year, the Federal Reserve has been pumping unbelievable amounts of money into the system in the form of the so-called repo loans. The other central banks — the ECB [European Central Bank], the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, and others — have pushed money into the system through quantitative easing, negative interest rates, and this is just absolutely now reaching an end point, an absolute boundary condition.
There is a way out.
On January 3rd, after the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani, and there was for about two days the danger of a very dangerous strategic confrontation, I issued à proposal for an immediate summit between the Presidents of the United States, Russia, and China, to introduce a new level of cooperation to overcome the danger of geopolitical confrontation. Now, in the meantime, President Putin has made a similar proposal that the governments of the five permanent UN Security Council countries should have such a summit. China and France have already accepted. And today, TASS reports, quoting a high-level U.S. official, that the United States would be very interested to have such a meeting on the level of the UN Security Council governments for a new arms control agreement.
Now, I think what we have to do is, we have to push the agenda of such a summit to occur immediately. Because I think any delay, given the dangers of the military situation and the dangers of the pandemic, the dangers of the financial system, any postponement is really not very meaningful. This summit must adopt what Lyndon LaRouche has proposed with his Four Laws: a global Glass-Steagall banking separation; the introduction of a national bank in every country; fixed exchange rates among these different nations, and clearly defined infrastructure and development plans which then can become, as a totality, a New Bretton Woods system; and then have an international crash program for reaching a new level in the productivity of the world economy by focusing on a crash program on fusion power, on optical biophysics and other life sciences, and international space cooperation.
Now, this is a moment of extraordinary danger, and we could lose human civilization. But if enough forces around the world join in our mobilization to bring this New Paradigm about, it could also be the beginning of a completely new epoch. There has been one man who proposed and prognosed all of these developments as early as August 1971. That is my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, who, when Nixon basically abandoned the fixed exchange rate system, and decoupled the dollar from the gold standard, Lyndon LaRouche said, if this tendency is continued, it will lead either to the danger of a new fascism and depression, or a just, new world economic order will be implemented.
Now, he also worked out the solutions for what can be done, which we have published and will continue to publish much, much more.
Therefore, I think that the exoneration of Lyndon LaRouche, who was innocently put in jail by the same apparatus which was involved in Russiagate and the impeachment effort against President Trump, his exoneration will be key for the implementation of this program I just mentioned. To get mankind out of the present danger and into a new era, I think is absolutely linked to the exoneration of Lyndon LaRouche.
Therefore, I am appealing to all of you to join the fight for the exoneration of Lyndon LaRouche, and the implementation of his ideas. This is the very best thing you can do to secure the future.
DENNIS SPEED: Who is on this stage? And what has happened to the people on this stage? What happened to Lyndon LaRouche? What happened to you?
People like to talk about something they call the “deep state.” We don’t mind that, but we know that it is neither a state, nor is it deep. [laughter] We know, those of us that have been involved, from those early days of the ’70s in some cases, and later in other cases. That you’re talking about an imperial force, and it’s an imperial force that terrifies a lot of people, but it mainly terrifies them, because they refuse to submit themselves to rigorous thought in the service of bold action. That’s all the problem is.
The problem does not involve secret police and funny microchips, and weird drugs, and subliminal messages, and all those other things. It involves the inability to look into oneself, and admit that the actions taken by people like Martin Luther King, or the actions taken by people like Malcolm X, or the actions taken by JFK, are only characteristic of the actions that all of us must take, in the context of what we have been confronted with, ever since the 1960s, particularly coming out of the United States. It doesn’t originate in the United States, but it will only be resolved if people in the United States decide to act.
We’re starting today with someone who’s well known to most, and he and his associate who is with him, Kirk Wiebe, have been fighting for 20 years, to tell a story — they told the story; they told the story 20 years ago — but they’ve been fighting for 20 years to get other people to stand up. It’s important to say that there is a faction of the American military and military intelligence, which is patriotic. It’s a faction that intended to defend the United States, and it’s a faction that also intended to make certain kinds of engineering and technical, and even scientific breakthroughs, on behalf of utilizing technology for positive purposes.
William Binney, a former intelligence official at the National Security Agency for over a 30-year period, attempted to do that, and was prevented at a critical moment, prior to September 11th of 2001, from doing his job. The United States paid for that. And you can’t walk away from that crime.
But talking about that from the standpoint of whether the planes were real, or how the buildings came down, or all these other things, doesn’t cut it. You have to confront something else: You have to confront what’s happening to you, right now, apart from your partisan beliefs, your political affiliations, you have to confront the fact that something is happening to all of us, and it’s your responsibility to listen to the people that can tell you what that is, in such a fashion that you can then take the responsibility that many of us, all, want to take!
Bill has spoken to several audiences, including to one here, three years ago, at Symphony Space, and we’re happy to have him here with us today. So, without further need to say anything, I’d like you to join me in welcoming William Binney, NSA whistleblower. [Applause]
WILLIAM BINNEY: Thank you. As Dennis said, the government we had opted for bulk acquisition for two basic reasons, I think. One was set up by Dick Cheney, and he wanted to know everything about all his potential adversaries, politically or otherwise. So, that meant he had to have information about everybody. So, the bulk acquisition satisfied his need in that respect. But in the other respect, in the bureaucracies of the government, bureaucrats tend to like to get bigger and bigger budgets and bigger and bigger organizations, so that meant more and more money, and more and more influence. In order to do that, if you opt for this bulk acquisition on everybody so that you can satisfy Cheney’s needs, it also requires the Congress to give you much more money so you can build your bureaucracy. And those are, I think, the basic motivations to do this.
But they had known also from the very beginning that there was another solution that would actually do productive things, because when you took the bulk acquisition, that meant you couldn’t see the threats coming; there was just too much data. That’s why they haven’t been able to prevent any of the terrorist attacks that have occurred anywhere in the world. Because everybody has adopted this policy, and they can’t see the threats coming. This is documented internally in NSA records produced by Edward Snowden and also by MI5 and MI6 records, and some in GCHQ. They are saying, their analysts are telling them that there is too much data; you’ve buried us, you’ve overloaded us. We can’t see the threat coming.
Just for that reason alone, they shouldn’t be doing it, but the real point is, the solution existed all along, and we were developing that in the Thin Thread program. That basically had three tenets: one was a deductive approach; one an abductive approach; and one was an inductive approach. For the deductive approach, we simply looked at social organizations that stayed within one degree of the known bad guys, and used that data to pull out information, and only that information, from the data flow that we were looking at. We were looking at a number of terabytes a minute or so at the time, and we wanted to up that to about 20 terabytes a minute. That was our approach. That was the deductive side. So, that was the human behavior property that showed probable cause. If you’re contacting a terrorist, then you need to be looked at; that’s easy to justify in a warrant.
In the inductive approach, we used simply you’re looking at sites that are advocating pedophilia or sites that advocate terrorism or violence against the West, or bomb-making, or things like that. You could try to watch people who visit those sites so you can see their frequency of visit, and say that they are probably getting radicalized, or in the process of radicalization. Or, you have people who have cell phones in the mountains of Afghanistan, or satellite phones in the mountains of Afghanistan, or the jungles of Peru. And you say, they’re dope traffickers, or they’re terror potentials. And you look at those kinds of things. That’s kind of the inductive approach.
So far, those two approaches would have caught every terrorist attack in the world before, during, and after 9/11; every one. But did we do that? No, because that’s a focused, disciplined, professional attack on the data and against bad behavior by people indicating potential threats. The abduct approach is a little bit more abstract; it says you look a geographical distributions. If you have a network at one degree that is distributed in countries that are involved in terrorist advocation or something like that, you need to look at them to see if they’re terrorists or in any way affiliated with a terrorist attack or organization. Once you look at them, if they’re not, then you take them out, and you simply say they’re out. The rest data you simply let go right by.
Now what that does is, it gives everybody in the world privacy. And it respects the Constitutional and privacy rights of everybody in this country and every country in the world. Plus, it creates an extremely rich environment for analysts to succeed at preventing threats and potential adversarial attacks. That’s the whole point of why we did the Thin Thread program to begin with, because even back then our analysts were buried with data.
So the end result today is, we have a situation where — the key point here is NSA databasing of information. Because our country is the only country in the world that afford all the data storage that can store all the information they’re collecting. They’re collecting multiple petabytes a day. My estimate of the Utah storage facility alone was based on Cisco routers being put into it, and what they were estimating was 966 exabytes of data going into that data center a year by 2015. So, I figure they had to have at least five years of storage capacity, which meant five zettabytes, which is much less than a yottabyte, but still, it’s quite a bit. After that, we get a bunch of bytes, and a lot of bytes, and all that kind of stuff. So, it hadn’t been named above a yottabyte.
But the point is, NSA is the key element here, because it’s a storage facility for not just NSA, but all of the agencies of the United States government, all the Five Eyes, and the nine other countries that are participating with them in this worldwide collection of data and bulk acquisition of data on everybody on the planet. And all we would have to do is take our rules — deductive, inductive, and abductive — take those rules and run it and process the entire database that’s stored, and pull out only that which is relevant and purge the rest of it. At that point, there would be no data available for anybody in the US government or the British government or anywhere to use against their people. So it couldn’t be abused. So, that would fix the problem. That would mean that the FBI, the DEA, the DOJ, or anybody in the intelligence community, or in the Five Eyes, or any of the others, could not go into that database and find information on any one citizen, unless that citizen had probable cause, warrant-based evidence that they should be there. That’s the way to fix this whole problem and do it rather quickly. Because once you take that data out, no one has the ability to abuse it.
SPEED: Let me say that we’re going to have an extensive Q&A session, so anybody who has particular questions, you’ll be able to ask those questions. What Bill has just done is provide the solution; and that’s what we asked him to do.
We’re going to next hear from Kirk Wiebe. I don’t think a lot of people know much about Kirk, so I’ll just say the following: He and Bill, and another gentleman by the name of Ed Loomis, developed what is called the Thin Thread system, which was referred to just a minute ago by Bill. I’m going to let Kirk tell you a little bit; he has a very specific view about the relationship between intelligence and the Constitution. Kirk?
KIRK WIEBE: Hello. Thank you, Dennis, and thank you to the LaRouche organization for making this possible, and for inviting us to address these fine people before us.
A lot of people don’t realize it, but the National Security Agency — and I’m going to pick on them, because I worked there for a long time with Bill — has operated unconstitutionally for about 70% of the time it has existed on the planet. What do I mean by that? Well, the people in charge — namely, the Executive, namely the Legislative branches of government — have formed a cabal, a cartel, if you will, that has decided to mass surveil the world, stuff the information in a big database somewhere, and claim that they’re not violating your rights under the Constitution. Because they say, “Yeah, we collected it,” although they won’t overtly admit it, “But we haven’t looked at it. And if we haven’t looked at it, it hasn’t meant anything to an official in the government.”
Now, if we go back to the late 1700s, just before the outbreak of our famous Revolutionary War, King George of England, it’s documented, wanted to put a Redcoat — a British soldier — in the home of every colonial settler in the United States. And why do you think he wanted to do that? You know the answer. He wanted to know what they were thinking and doing. Let me suggest to you that, with all the electronic devices — if I asked any one of you, “How many electronic devices connected to the internet does your family have?” I know it’s more than one; probably four. What do you think, more? I agree. The point is this: Each of those is sources of information about you and those who you love the most. Every detail, every thought that’s communicated via those devices can be collected and put in a database. And when someone decides you’re important for some reason — it could be anything; somebody wants to blackmail you, somebody wants to scam you. The only difference between a good person and a bad person in government is what? What is it? Yeah, really, it’s opportunity. Do you have what we would call moral clarity? But beyond that, do you have a sense of what’s right and wrong in this nation? The founding document of which is the United States Constitution, and do you care?
Well, I would submit to you, we have in the news, events going on — namely, the attack using the weaponized sources of the intelligence community to subvert a duly elected President. If that’s not a warning, what do you think they could do to one of you? Or three of you? Or Bill and me? Or anyone else?
So, the threat is real. It has been abused, and it lies at the feet of people who are greedy for power. It didn’t start out that way; it started out nobly. But now, we’ve reached a point where people have decided they know better, they know best how to manage all of our lives. And it’s not just the NSA anymore. Google knows what you’re doing; Facebook knows what you’re doing; Instagram knows what you’re doing. It’s proliferating everywhere, and now we have the internet of things, where even your refrigerator can talk to the internet. It’s ridiculous; your whole lives are stuck in a database.
The point of it is, Bill has suggested that there’s a way to put the genie back in the box. But it’s going to be you, who makes it happen. Don’t expect some Senator, don’t expect some Congressman to do it. With the exception of CIA chief Pompeo inviting Bill to talk about the DNC data hack, no member of government has ever approached him or me, and said, “Would you come talk to a few Congressmen about what’s happened? Your ideas for fixing it.” No! Why? They like it the way it is. Your data is available to anyone in 16 agencies within the intelligence and law enforcement communities. That’s the threat, and only we can change it. Thank you.
SPEED: Thank you, Kirk. We’re going to hear now from Mike Billington, and Mike is going to tell you a bit about himself. He is, as is listed here in your program, Executive Intelligence Review Asia Editor. He’s author of a book called Reflections of an American Political Prisoner. Mike was offered — I say it and he has to say it — after two trials; one trial for which he served 2-3 years, he was offered a plea bargain, which would have meant that he would have simply time served. No time would have been additional. All he had to do was claim to be guilty of something of which he was not. A lot of his friends would have had a big problem. And Mike decided, “You know what? I don’t think I’m going to do that.” Despite the fact that his own attorney asked to be replaced, despite the fact that Mike said he would replace him, the judge in the case refused to do that; and Mike was given a 77-year sentence. He served eight years of it. Is that the price you have to pay for integrity in this country?
Now if it is, I will submit to all of you, as you listen to him, you think about whether or not that’s the kind of country you want to live in. Mike Billington.
MICHAEL BILLINGTON: Thanks, Dennis. If any of you have a sense that calling for the exoneration of Lyndon LaRouche is a pipe dream, or that Trump would never do this, I want you to put that out of your minds. And I’ll try to prove that.
This is a rare moment in history for many reasons. But one, which I will address, is that this is, in fact, the time that the exoneration of LaRouche is both possible, absolutely necessary, and will transform not just the nation, but the world, forever. And I want to try to convey that in as clear a way as I possibly can. Let’s start by looking at the fact that just last week, Donald Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of 11 people. Some of them were people who, like myself and my co-defendants, were innocent and were illegally and unjustly charged and tried and sent to prison. Others did commit crimes, but they were subjected to outrageous sentences, not just to silence them, but to terrorize other people. The fact that Trump did this, and that he also addressed quite publicly and at some length the issue of Roger Stone, and the fact that, as he said, “He will probably be exonerated one way or another,” means that this very much on Donald Trump’s mind. And I’ll mention that Roger Stone, who is someone who has quite publicly addressed Lyndon LaRouche as one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, has interviewed him, has spoken at our conferences, is very well known to the criminal network in the criminal justice system who have run the entire operation against Trump, against Roger Stone, and others. And I’ll come back to that.
One of the people released by Donald Trump was Rod Blagojevich. [shuffles papers] Somehow, I don’t have what I wanted to read to you. I will convey, in brief, some of what he said the day he came out, where he and his wife and his two daughters met outside the house. He addressed the fact, first of all, that there was no way to thank President Trump for freeing a man from a charge which he had not committed; there was no way to thank him. He said that Trump is a very firm leader, a very tough leader, but also has a huge heart. And that releasing Blagojevich was an act of kindness, which people had to recognize.
He then went on to say, to the people of Illinois who had elected him twice as Governor, he said, “I did not let you down. I would have let you down had I given into this; had I admitted guilt to something I didn’t do. If I had gone along to save myself this 14-year sentence” — of which he served 8 years. He then quoted from a Supreme Court Justice, Justice Breyer, who said that the idea that people in politics and the political world could be charged criminally for what they’re supposed to do as politicians is one of the greatest threats to America today. This is a Supreme Court Justice. And that in particular, he said, “Prosecutors armed with this potential is a grave danger to our system of government.” And Blagojevich said he learned that the hard way, as many of us did.
But I think it’s extremely important that you have people at that level directly addressing the broken criminal justice system that existed, he specifically said, since 1994 when this Crime Act was passed, which was a disaster. He described it as a racist and illegal act.
Lyndon LaRouche, long before that, was convicted and served 5 years of a 15-year sentence, from 1990-1995. He could have been exonerated by President Clinton; Clinton was considering it. Literally tens of thousands of leading citizens of this nation and from around the world wrote to Clinton, calling on him to pardon and exonerate Lyndon LaRouche; but he didn’t. He did make sure that LaRouche was released after the first parole potential, after five years. So, he served 5 years of that 15-year sentence. When he was released, he organized here in Virginia, a forum before a panel of very distinguished jurists and political leaders and others, testimony on the LaRouche case and on other cases of the misuse of the criminal justice system — in particular, the Fruehmenschen case, which was the official FBI doctrine that any black elected official was, by the fact that of being black, more prone to corruption and therefore legitimate to be investigated. In that hearing, I want to read some of what Lyn said himself in that testimony. He said — and this is long before the 1990s and 9/11 — this is back in the 1980s:
“We have, in my view, a system of injustice whose center is within the Department of Justice, especially the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The problem lies not with one administration or another, though one administration or another may act more positively or more negatively. You have permanent civil service employees … who are coordinators of a nest of institutions in the Criminal Division, which show up repeatedly as leading or key associates of every legal atrocity which I’ve seen.
“In my case, when the time came that somebody wanted me out of the way, they were able to rely upon that permanent injustice in the permanent bureaucracy of government, to do the job. … Always there’s that agency inside the Justice Department, which works for a contract, like a hitman, when somebody with the right credentials and passwords walks in, and says, ‘we want to get this group of people,’ or”we want to get this person.’ And until we remove, from our system of government, the rotten, permanent bureaucracy which acts like contract assassins, using the authority of the justice system to perpetrate assassination, this country is not free, nor anyone in it.” [applause]
Odin Anderson, Lyn’s lawyer, then presented a series of documents which we had obtained through Freedom of Information from the FBI, and I’ll just briefly mention, it included the idea of putting out false leaflets under the LaRouche organization’s name, going back into the 1960s and 1970s. It included Henry Kissinger’s letter to the head of the FBI saying, can’t you get this guy? He’s being very obnoxious. A letter from the Director of the FBI to some of his subordinates, saying let’s investigate him. We don’t know where his money comes from; let’s investigate him as being funded by a foreign hostile force, which then calls into being Executive Order 12333, which basically says somebody financed by a foreign hostile force, you can throw the Constitution out and do whatever you want. And others of this sort. So, this was well documented.
Then, Ramsey Clark spoke. Ramsey Clark, I’m sure most of you know, was the Attorney General of the United States under President Johnson. He became our lawyer for the appeal, when we were first convicted in the Federal case. Here’s what he said, first of all, in a letter that he wrote to Janet Reno, then the Attorney General — the same position he had held. He says:
“This case [the LaRouche case], I believe, involves a broader range of deliberate and systemic misconduct and abuse of power over a longer period of time, in an effort to destroy a political movement and leader, than any other Federal prosecution in my time or to my knowledge. A tragic miscarriage of justice.”
In the testimony of the same hearings that Mr. LaRouche spoke in, he said:
“What was a complex and pervasive utilization of law enforcement, prosecution, media, and non-governmental organizations [NGOs — those ‘no-good organizations’] focussed on destroying an enemy, this case must be number one. The purpose can only be seen as destroying more than a political movement; more than a political figure. It is those too, but it is a fertile engine of ideas and a common purpose of thinking and studying and analyzing to solve problems regardless of the impact on the status quo or on vested interests. It was the deliberate purpose to destroy that at any cost.”
So, this is what the LaRouche case was, and was recognized increasingly by many people. That’s why they had to destroy him and try to poison his name in the media, to prevent these ideas from being placed at the accessibility of the American and world populations.
Clearly, it’s exactly this same network that went after Donald Trump. I don’t think I have to explain that; it’s pretty obvious.
In terms of my own case, I think to get at that, I want to say something else about Roger Stone. You probably all watched the raid; the great raid on Roger Stone’s house. A 66-year-old man with no criminal record, attacked at 5 a.m. or something like that; with, of course, CNN standing out there. Everybody watched this horrible criminal, being put in handcuffs and dragged off.
Well, I’m very familiar with that scene. On October 6, 1986, the day of what we call the Great Panty Raid in Leesburg, armed forces from many different law enforcement agencies raided our offices, surrounded Lyndon LaRouche’s house. And when my wife got up that morning and was taking the garbage down to the end of our lane, she saw a whole slew of armed men in police cars — and CNN — ready to come in; for some reason, not coming in immediately. So, we called our neighbors, John and Renée Sigerson, who happened to live near us at that time, and said, “Why don’t you come over while we wait ’til they come in and arrest me?” So, we were sitting there watching The Marriage of Figaro on a video, when these men finally decided to come running up the road with their guns drawn and surrounded the house. They pulled me out and put me in chains and took me off, and so forth. Why? And CNN. My wife came out and said, “Get the hell off my yard, you have no right to be here.”
This is something that was going on then, and is going on now. In my case, there was something of this deep state — so-called — directly involved. A fellow named Oliver North — some of you probably remember — who was, at that time, running through the Iran-Contra operation, a scam where we were arming terrorists in Nicaragua. And the planes unloading the guns that were being shipped down to them, just as we were shipping weapons to al-Qaeda in Libya and so forth, were coming back loaded up with cocaine. We exposed that; that this was drug-running operation, and that Oliver North — the good friend of Henry Kissinger and others — was running this scam. Then we found out that Ollie North was also running around raising huge amounts of money — stealing really, huge amounts of money from people. Telling them that this was to fight communism; it was to save America, and so forth. When in fact, it was financing arms-running and drug-running. One of the people they scammed was somebody who was a major contributor to us, and with whom I was in regular contact. Oliver North told her that you had bad people, who are trying to undermine your doing good things; therefore, you should let me tap your phone, which was done. They monitored our calls. This was not just to get me, but it was to be fully on top of what exactly we were doing as an organization at that time.
So, I think that’s the reason I was hit particularly hard with the indictments. I was indicted both in the Federal case and in the Virginia state case. The “Railroad” as we called it, went forth; we were all convicted. I won’t go through the ugly details, but it’s worth reading. And I got three years in the Federal case. And then, as Dennis explained, I was told in the state case, where I was charged with crimes that could have been 90 years, that I simply had to lie, and — pffft! — I could go home.
So, that didn’t happen. And as a result, I got a 77-year sentence. Many of the people I met in prison, when I said I had a 77-year sentence, said, “how many bodies do ya got?” [laughter] So, I did not [lie to get out of prison], and I want to read something that Dennis actually read at a previous event and which really struck me, from Martin Luther King. He said, “You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid because you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized and will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you, or bomb your house, so you refuse to take that stand.
“Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you will be just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.”
And I can assure you, that my life is proof of that fact: Because I did have to spend a total of 10 years in prison. But I can honestly say, these were the best years of my life — [applause] my only problem with my fellow inmates was my trying to convince them that this was the only chance they had in life, where they didn’t have to work, they didn’t have to support a family, they should learn, they should read, they should not waste away, feeling sorry for themselves. But I was given, really, the assignment of China — I mean, 77 years, you’ve got a 5,000 years of history to study, you need 77 years to take that on. [laughter]
But it became a real passion. It was something we needed to do. My co-defendant, Will Wertz, was at the time, translating Nicholas of Cusa, who was the relatively unknown great mind of the European Renaissance era; and I was then reading Confucius and Mencius and another relatively unknown but magnificent figure called Zhu Xi during the Song dynasty in the 12th century, and saw the comparison between what I was reading of Cusa, and what I was reading of these Chinese philosophers, and was able to pull together a sense of the way in which the great Christian Renaissance of Europe, and the Confucian Renaissance, where Zhu Xi, like Cusa, was restoring the Platonic tradition and the Confucian tradition which had been lost, over the dark ages in both Europe and China. So this it was a profound chance for me to really make great discoveries, which enriched my life, and through my work, hopefully, enriched the world, and made those who put me in prison very sorry that they’d given me the opportunity, to do that.
And, then, lastly, I’ll say, there was one particularly profound experience: At one point another of my co-defendants, Paul Gallagher and I were in the same prison, and we formed a Classical chorus. So we had a chorus of people — of criminals, some fairly serious criminals, child molesters, murderers — but people who, with one exception had never participated in any kind of Classical music, were totally unfamiliar with Classical music, and had never tried to sing. But we had been trained in some bel canto methods, and we began to train them. We sang Bach, and we sang Schubert, and we sang Negro spirituals. And in particular, we sang Beethoven. Now, this is the Year of Beethoven, our theme is to “Think Like Beethoven.” Many of you may have seen Helga Zepp-LaRouche, two weeks ago, gave a forum here in New York, from Germany, on Fidelio, the great opera by Beethoven: In which the woman, Leonora, dresses as a boy, “Fidelio” to work for the warden of a prison where she believes her husband is being held illegally, and secretly, by a tyrant. And through this story, she eventually frees her husband, and this is a very powerful story, and you can imagine why Helga loves this story, with Lyn having been in prison at this time.
And I had a similar experience: My late wife, at that time, traveled the world meeting with presidents and world courts, and so forth, addressing this injustice to Lyndon LaRouche.
And one scene in this great opera is called the “Prisoners’ Chorus,” where Leonora/Fidelio succeeds in getting the warden to let the prisoners out for just a moment, to get some fresh air. And they come out, and sing this male chorus, called, “O welche Lust,” “Oh, what joy,” to breathe fresh air again. And they think about freedom, freedom, freedom — Freiheit, Freiheit. But then, they remember that they’re being watched, and they sort of skulk back into their cells.
We sang this at the prison, and that, in particular — the whole thing — but that in particular, that Beethoven principle, had a profound effect on everyone of those people. And I’ve told this story before, and I tend to choke up when I say it: But every one of them, at some point afterward, came up to me, to try to express that they had never known of this kind of beauty in the world — and, let alone, that they could participate in the creation of that kind of beauty. So, when Lyndon LaRouche launched the Manhattan Project here in New York, with the intention of creating a vast chorus that would sing both the Classical repertoire and the Negro spirituals, because there were not just popular music, or gospels, these were songs that were about the fight for freedom, and had a Classical nature, in that sense — I understood exactly what he meant: That this was the way in which we can build the necessary movement for a true Renaissance.
So the Schiller Institute’s motto has always been, the Schiller motto, that the path to truth is through beauty. And that this is an example of why building this chorus — there was a Musikabend last night, and I understand that those people who went and participated in the music, who are being recruited to our political ideas, but it’s through participating in this kind of great culture, which we’ve lost, in America, with the ugliness that now passes for “culture,” that this is the way we create the potential to reverse the decay in the collapse of the civilization that we’re living in, and actually creating the New Paradigm that Helga addressed.
So, I think this is why, if we make this possible that LaRouche is exonerated by a President Donald Trump, who wants to achieve what he says, in terms of bringing the world together around these powerful ideas of development, of science, of cooperation, and great culture, that all of these ideas of this brilliant man, these beautiful ideas, will be made available to everyone, which has been denied them for these last 40 or 50 years, which is the great crime of the persecution of Lyndon LaRouche, that these ideas were prevented from being known and uplifting the population.
So this is where we stand, and I think this is why we have this kind of a fight, to expose and destroy, whether you call it deep state or British intelligence, destroy those who have purposely set out to destroy both the culture as well as the economy and the participation of our citizens in this kind of commitment, to what, in fact, can and must be, a New Paradigm. Thank you. [applause]
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder and Chairwoman of the Schiller Institute (via live video hookup); Dr. Patrick Ho, Chairman, China Energy Fund Committee; Former Secretary for Home Affairs of the Government of Hong Kong
On Wednesday, January 1, 2020, the Virginia Schiller Institute Community Chorus and friends, hosted their largest ever New Year’s Concert featuring timeless choral pieces from Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Verdi, and Dvorak.
Our concerts are becoming a growing institution in the area, not just for audience members, but for local musicians who like performing with us. A talented violinist, who is a regular on the “classical music scene” in DC/Northern Virginia, remarked that he always appreciates the openness of our audiences, seeing “normal” people genuinely appreciating the beauty of the pieces, as opposed to the “professional audiences” he so often performs for, who are more concerned with “being seen” at such events, than letting the music move them.
The audience was full and diverse. Choral directors from churches across the area came to hear the concert, political contacts of the Schiller Institute attended, including an Ambassador and his family from a Southeast Asian country, music students, and others who ventured out to find something different than watch football on New Year’s Day!
The program of the event is below. Audience members were given the text and translations for each of the pieces to follow along.
Beethoven, Die Ehre Gottes aus der Natur Haydn, Die Himmel Erzälen, from The Creation Brahms, Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen, from German Requiem Bach, Quia Respexit, Omnes generationes Handel, Ombra mai fu, tenor, Reginald Bouknight Puccini, Recondita armonia, from Tosca, tenor, Reginald Bouknight Mozart, In uomini, in soldati, from Così fan tutte, mezzo, Pamela Butler Beethoven, Harp String Quartet, op. 74 (1809), I. Poco adagio – Allegro
Intermission
Mendelssohn, Neujarhslied Beethoven, Serenade, op. 25 (1796), VI. Adagio – Allegro vivace e disinvolta Kreisler, Praeludium and Allegro (1905) Mozart, Laudate Pueri, from Solemn Vespers Verdi, Va Pensiero, from Nabucco Dvorak/Fisher, Goin’ Home Hall Johnson, Lord, I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired Handel, Worth is the Lamb, Amen, from The Messiah Joy to the World, Everyone sing!
The fact that these were seemingly “ordinary” people from the community performing these masterful pieces in a local church was not lost on the audience. In fact, it seemed to enrich the event for people, many who then asked themselves, “well, maybe I could sing?”
The other remarkable part of the this and other concerts the Schiller Institute hosts, was articulated best by our director, Mike Billington in remarks he made on a LaRouchePAC Fireside Chat broadcast,
“It was a concert of Beethoven, Brahms, and other great Classical choruses, with some wonderful professionals, who volunteer their time to come and play with us, because they love to work with us because of our commitment to the idea of the aesthetic education of the population. The fact that this many people from all walks of life showed up in Leesburg, Virginia to watch a Schiller Institute Community Chorus concert, I think in itself reflects the transformation that’s taken place in the United States; and the potential of the LaRouche message — the slanders and the attacks that characterized the treatment of LaRouche over these years, including his incarceration, is no longer believed.”
A truly beautiful and world historic event took place Saturday at the Tear-Drop Memorial in Bayonne, New Jersey. The Schiller Institute Chorus, following their performance of the Russian National Anthem at the Russian Consulate in Manhattan last week in memory of the 92 victims of the Tu-154 crash, and especially the death of 64 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, organized a similar, broader event at the Tear-Drop Memorial, donated to America by the Russian government to honor those who died on 9/11. Attending and/or speaking at the event were representatives of the Russian Mission to the UN, the NYPD, the Bayonne Fire Department, the Bayonne American Legion, the 9-11 Families United for Justice Against Terror, and the Schiller Institute, who sang and/or spoke, in a winter storm, about the necessity of the people and governments of Russia and America to unite in honor of the deceased, while demonstrating that the common, human emotion that unites us to mourn those who have been taken from us, can and must also unite us in creating a better future for Mankind.
The transcript of the event follows:
Russians and Americans Join for Wreath-Laying at Tear-Drop Memorial To Remember Those Who Died in Tu-154 Plane Crash
LIEUTENANT TONY GIORGIO (Director of the NYPD Ceremonial Unit): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Bayonne, New Jersey 9/11 Memorial, a gift from the Russian people after the tragic attacks at the World Trade Center in memory of both the February 1993 and Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
And we’re here this morning to pay homage and tribute to those Russian members that were killed on Christmas Day. Everyone please remain standing for the presentation of our colors, for the New York City Police Department Color Guard, the Bayonne Fire Department Honor Guard, and the American Legion Honor Guard; and the singing of both the Russian Federation National Anthem and the United States National Anthem, which will be performed by the Schiller Institute Chorus, directed by Diane Sare.
And now, our Anthems. … [after the National Anthems, presenting of the colors, and invocation, Lieutenant Giorgio introduced the First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, Mr. Petr Iliichev].
MR. PETR ILIICHEV: Friends and colleagues, we gather today to honor the victims of the devastating crash of the Tupolev-154 that happened two weeks ago. We come together to commemorate 92 passengers including members of world famous Alexandrov Academic Ensemble of Song and Dance; the prominent charity worker and
humanitarian worker Dr. Liza Glinka; teams of Russian TV channels [Channel One?], Zvezda, NTV; as well as the crew of the plane.
Our thoughts and prayers are going to the families of the victims. The singers, the dancers, doctors, journalists, pilots and stewards, lived their lives for a purpose, especially the performers who used to cheer up huge audiences, but today we stay silent in their memory.
Today is the Orthodox Christmas Day, and on Christmas Day in every nation, we share life, love, we exchange support; we praise each other, we treat each other as being one family. And it’s very symbolic that today we gather to grieve at the Tear-Drop of grief that is very dear to the American people for their loss of 9/11.
On behalf of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all of you present here, to all of those who organized this event. It’s helpful when you’re grieving, and you are not alone, your friends are around to offer you their compassion, their heartwarming solidarity. We value very much your sympathy and your solidarity.
It’s said that when words fail, music speaks. Arts and culture are meant to bring peace to people. So once again, I’m very grateful for Schiller Institute Chorus for what they have done, and all of you who are present here. Thank you.
LT. GIORGIO: Thank you so much, Mr. Illichev. And now, I’d like to introduce the Chairwoman of the 9-11 Families United for Justice against Terror, Mrs. Terry Strada.
MRS. TERRY STRADA: Hello and thank you for having me.
Fifteen years ago I lost my husband Tom, in the September 11th terrorist attack against our nation. Today, on behalf of everyone standing here, and the American people, I would like to offer my sincere and heartfelt condolences, for the sudden, tragic and senseless death of your beloved Alexandrov Ensemble, your loved ones, and your fellow citizens.
Rich in history and pride, the Alexandrov Ensemble bolstered the spirits of the deprived soldiers defending the Warsaw Pact and under President Vladimir Putin, continued that tradition of patriot purpose. Their performances would provide a moral balance in difficult times, and on December 25th, they were travelling to Syria to lift the spirits of the Russian army during their time away from home.
Everyone here knows your pain, how deep your sorrow goes, and the feeling that you may drown in your tears. Grief like this is both physical and heartbreaking and the road to healing is long and difficult. Allow yourself to mourn, to cry and to be sad. Remember those you loved, and lost. Remember the beautiful music they made, and how it felt in your hearts when you heard their songs and the sound of their beautiful nstruments: They were a gift from God and they are gone, too soon.
I am standing here today to tell you to tell you and to show you, you will heal, you will never forget, but you will heal, and one day the pain you are feeling, this horrible pain, will subside. You will miss them, and they will always be with you in spirit.
Tragedies like this can bring a nation today. Today, it is bringing two nations together, and I hope you find comfort in knowing we feel your pain and mourn your loss, too. Russia wanted us, the American people, to have a memorial for the fallen heroes and the citizens lost and killed on 9/11, with a tear-drop, representing that the world cried with us. Thank you for your kindness and support. Today we offer you the same.
Thank you.
LT. GIORGIO: Thank you Mrs. Strada. And now, I continue with the Training Unit of the Bayonne Fire Department, Capt. Don Haiber.
CAPT. DON HAIBER (Training Unit of the Bayonne Fire Department): On behalf of the Bayonne Fire Department, the City of Bayonne, the State of New Jersey, and the United States of America, we wish to convey our deepest condolences to the people of Russia and the families that have been affected by this terrible tragedy. The loss of the members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, a gem of Russian culture, also known as the Red Army
Chorus, will be felt worldwide.
Being hear at the Tear-Drop Memorial is fitting, since the creator of this monument was the Russian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli. In the darkness after 9/11, this monument helped to bring hope and light to the many people who visited here. It is now our turn to repay that kindness back to Russia. This small token of our sympathy, hopefully, will bring a touch of hope and light back to the Russian people.
On a personal level, I’m honored to be here today, as I was actually at the Ground Zero, working with my brother firemen for a few days. And may the peace and hope that I feel when I am here be conveyed back to your country. It is at times like this that we are neither Americans nor Russians, but we are human beings who feel loss and genuinely wish peace and happiness to one another.
Our love and prayers are with you, and peace to all. Thank you.
LT. GIORGIO: Thank you, Captain Haiber. As the Captain mentioned, one of the reasons that we are here is not only is it the 9/11 memorial, but also we are commemorating those lost on Christmas Day, in that terrible plane crash. As a representative of the New York City Police Department, we, too, performed with the Russian choir at the 10th anniversary of 9/11 that was being held in Quebec City, and it was a wonderful performance that
night. But as Mr. Iliichev said, sometimes the words fail, but the music never fails. And even though we spoke two different languages, we spoke the universal language of music which always gives us hope, comfort, and peace, and that’s all we want in this world are those three things.
I now introduce the director of the choir, Mrs. Diane Sare.
DIANE SARE: First of all, let me assure everyone, we are not a group of Russian immigrants, as was said on YouTube.
On behalf of the Schiller Institute of Mrs. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, I would like to offer our deepest condolences to Russia and the people of Russia on the great losses you have recently suffered. First, your beloved Ambassador [to Ankara] Karlov was gunned down at an art museum. Then, only a few days later, on Christmas Day was the terrible plane crash, which took the lives of 92 people: Among them was a dedicated crew, a group
of very talented young journalists, Dr. Elizeveta Glinka, whom you mentioned who was bringing food and medical aid to children in Syria, and 64 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble and the wonderful soloist, Grigory Osipov who sang {God Bless America} to the New York Police Department on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
The loss of the chorus was particularly great, because as everyone who sings in a chorus knows, the combination of our voices is greater than each of us individually, or each of us added up as parts. Each and every one of us is going to die. But we hope that mankind will be immortal. If we can each think of ourselves as unique voices in a great chorus which stands across generations and across continents, then the universe will resound with the beauty of mankind.
LT. GIORGIO: Thank you so much. And now, we’re going to ask to have the wreath presented, also with the list of passengers on that tragic flight, as the chorus performs a Christmas carol. [Schiller Institute Chorus sings {Adeste Fideles}]
Thank you so much. As we conclude today’s memorial and commemorative ceremony, again we want to thank the Schiller Institute Choir, we want to thank the City of Bayonne, New Jersey Fire Department for all they gave us here in hosting this event, and we ask those of you with the white roses to please, as you can, step forward to the Tear-Drop Memorial and place it for all those that we have lost and for the hope we have in the world as
we continue in their honor.
Thank you so much.
DIANE SARE: And, I wish to thank Lt. Tony Giorgio and the New York City Police Department Ceremonial Unit for all you have done.
