General updates

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 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

Zepp-LaRouche Keynoted ‘International Think Tank Forum for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road 2024’ in Guangzhou

December 13, 2024by madeleine in China, China SI activity, General, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Video, New Silk Road / BRI updates

On Nov. 22, Helga Zepp-LaRouche delivered a keynote address to the “International Think Tank Forum for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road 2024” in Guangzhou, China, organized among others by the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies, which is based in Guangzhou. Her 10-minute speech described the leading role that China is playing in the world economy and as a leader in advanced technology, and how some in the West see this as a reason to have confrontation against China. Instead, she appealed to the G20 nations and others to work together to solve the migrant crisis, not by building walls, but by launching massive economic development in the Global South. She ended by saying that it was even more crucial now, given the recent escalation in the war in Ukraine, which threatens nuclear war.

The Institute is connected to the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GDUFS), and is an advisor to the Guangdong Provincial Government.

On Nov. 23, Helga Zepp-LaRouche was appointed Special Advisor to the Guangdong Institute of International Strategies. In connection with her appointment, she spoke for one-hour about Lyndon LaRouche’s ideas at the Institute’s Yunshan Academic Salon, followed by a Q&A discussion. An audio file of her speech about Lyndon LaRouche at the Yunshan Academic Salon is available on the Schiller Institute in Denmark website, along with an audio file of the introduction to her address by Prof. Li Xing. He recently became the leading academic at the Guangdong Institute. He is also a professor at Denmark’s Aalborg University Department of Politics and Society. Prof. Li Xing addressed the Schiller Institute in Denmark’s May 25, 2022 online conference on the need for the new security and development architecture.

In September 2024, a delegation from the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies travelled to Denmark and participated in a seminar with the Schiller Institute in Denmark in order to learn more about each other and to discuss cooperation.

Here is an article in Executive Intelligence Review about the trip:

Maritime Silk Road Conference in Guangzhou: Advancing ‘New Quality Productive Forces’

Geopolitical Spectacles Cause Lethal Blindness — IPC #69

September 29, 2024by Mary Jane Freeman in General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, International Peace Coalition, World war danger updates

by EIR staff

Sept. 27—More than a thousand scientists, academics, medical professionals and activists from around the world joined forces today for the 69th weekly online meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC). The opening presentations were broadcast live on YouTube, and several other platforms, and are available here.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute and initiator of the IPC, began her remarks by citing the most obvious danger as stemming from the Sept. 25 announcement by Russian President Vladimir Putin of the revision of Russia’s nuclear weapons doctrine. That policy change was in direct response to the escalating open threats from the U.S. and NATO to give Ukraine permission to begin bombing Russian cities with Western guided weapons. She pointed to the brawl behind the scenes in Washington, with restraint being urged by military leaders in the Pentagon, which appears to have temporarily persuaded President Biden to not sign on to the “target list” of Russian cities to be bombed—which British Prime Minister Keir Starmer brought to the White House on Sept. 13—and also restrained any similar deal with Ukraine’s acting President Volodymyr Zelensky when he met Biden in the White House on Sept. 26. This dangerous escalation toward open confrontation with the world’s largest nuclear power by the politically unstable U.S. and European nations is now joined by the escalation of Israel’s effort to spread the genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank into Lebanon, trying to draw Iran into the conflict.

China Is Not a Threat

Zepp-LaRouche excoriated the geopolitical madness of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, who, speaking to the U.S. House of Representatives, called China the greatest threat to the U.S. ever, not only militarily but also technologically and through its relations with the Global South. “This is a lie, which must not be allowed to stand,” she said. China is not an aggressive country and doesn’t have imperial ambitions. It has developed its economy and its people and is now doing the same across the Global South, with the intention of ending the legacy of colonialism through building infrastructure, education, health, industry and agriculture—and is succeeding. She reported that she had just returned from the “International Peace Day” celebration in Shandong, China, and contrasted that to her first visit to China in 1971, marking the astonishing transformation of the nation from extreme poverty to rapid development.

“If the West would say ‘We cooperate, we stop the fight for supremacy. We agree that the world is a multi-polar world and we move from confrontation to cooperation,’ all these conflicts would virtually evaporate overnight. Because if the large powers—the United States and China and by the same token, Russia—would enter such a mode of cooperation, all regional conflicts would be immediately extremely manageable. So, the way out is very clear. And I can only say the International Peace Coalition is mobilizing to educate people that there is a way out. The threat is enormous; it is breathtaking. But the way out of this situation would be relatively easy.”

The View from Europe

Biden will be visiting Germany on Oct. 12. Zepp-LaRouche will address the dangerous implications of this visit frontally in a German-based Zoom conference to be held on Oct. 2. Featured guests will include Jack Matlock, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991, Dr. Theodore Postol, professor emeritus of Science, Technology and International Security at MIT, as well as German and French experts. The primary focus of the conference will be on the crisis now erupting in Germany: “Should it come to war, Germany will be the prime target for attack, and if nuclear weapons are used, nothing will be left of Germany: no industry, no cities, no infrastructure—and no people. Is that in Germany’s interest?” states the invitation to the conference.

Zepp-LaRouche concluded her opening remarks by stressing that “we need to mobilize to really take to the streets; get large numbers of people to the streets to protest this. And more fundamentally, to work internationally to get the new security and development architecture on the agenda. That is what we should be discussing here.”

Prof. Glenn Diesen, a well-known Norwegian strategic analyst, detailed Putin’s new nuclear doctrine, including the declaration that an attack by a non-nuclear state, supported by a nuclear state, would be treated as a joint attack, with an appropriate response—and that an attack on Belarus would be treated in the same way. This is clearly a Russian response to the 2022 policy conference in the U.S. which concluded that a nuclear assault on Russia would provoke a nuclear response, so better to strike Russia’s ally Belarus.

Steven Starr, an expert on nuclear weapons, warned that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fear of nuclear weapons has been lost in the U.S., and the danger of nuclear war is no longer taught in U.S. schools. He showed a video of the explosion from the Russian “Tsar Bomb,” the most powerful thermonuclear weapon ever created, and a video depicting all-out nuclear war between Russia and NATO, leading rapidly—in only 72 minutes total—to the killing of 85 million people. This would be followed by a “nuclear winter,” caused by soot from the explosions filling the stratosphere, blocking sunlight, and resulting in a prolonged global cooling effect that would kill most life on Earth. “Nuclear winter” has been called a “false theory” by some, but in reality is an existential issue for mankind. His presentation is here.

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a California trauma surgeon and fellow of the American College of Surgeons, who travelled with Dr. Mark Perlmutter to Gaza this Spring, reported that in addition to the mass death by starvation, that health and sanitation facilities have been virtually eliminated, that there is only one toilet for every 4,000 people, four liters of water per person (15 liters is considered the minimum for emergency situations), concluding that if this U.S. sponsored genocide were not stopped, the world is in grave danger.

Dr. Jorge Rachid, a medical doctor from Buenos Aires, Argentina, announced the founding of the Argentine/Latin American chapter of the IPC, whose founding members include the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Adolfo Perez Esquivel. Dr. Rachid told the gathering that he will be going with a team of Argentine doctors to Gaza. He concluded by naming Gen. Laura Richardson, the Commander of U.S. Southern Command, as personally responsible for the effort to break all ties of South American nations with Russia and China, on behalf of BlackRock and other hedge funds.

The discussion section of the meeting began with Jose Vega describing the effort by his New York congressional campaign team to distribute a report on Gaza, from doctors Perlmutter and Sidhwa, to delegates attending the UN General Assembly, only to have UN security guards engage in blatant censorship by confiscating the report from delegates!

Jacques Cheminade, the head of the LaRouche-associated Solidarité et Progrès party in France, reported on the Sant’Egidio peace forum of 3,000 people in Paris, with representatives of various religions from around the world, which received a message from Pope Francis. Cheminade read a statement on the breakdown of the global financial system driving the wars, which the chair, a former French Ambassador to the Vatican, attempted, unsuccessfully, to stop. He and his associates distributed over 1,000 leaflets to the participants.

A Spaniard reported that there would be demonstrations in 50 Spanish cities on Sept. 28 in defense of Palestine, with supporting strikes by several trade unions, calling for ending diplomatic relations and arms shipments to Israel. The Spanish government recognizes Palestine, but has failed to take actions against Israel. Another person from Spain reported that on Oct. 2, the International Day of Non-Violence, the World March for Peace and Non-Violence will start in San José, Costa Rica.

Rallies for peace will escalate on Sept. 28, with a Humanity for Peace rally in Stockholm, Sweden—with statements of solidarity from several Americans including former CIA analyst Ray McGovern and Col. (ret.) Douglas Macgregror—in parallel with the Rage Against the War Machine rally being held in Washington, D.C. That same day, the Peace and Freedom Rally will be held in Kingston, NY featuring Scott Ritter, and other prominent speakers. There will also be major peace demonstrations across Germany on October 1.

Zepp-LaRouche Endorses and Calls for International support for UNGA Resolution 377 ‘Uniting for Peace’

August 5, 2024by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, International Peace Coalition, Malaysia, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), World war danger updates

Download PDF

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar Letter to UN Leaders Insists, UNGA Must Act To Stop Gaza Genocide

July 29, 2024 (EIRNS)—Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute founder and initiator of the International Peace Coalition, declares her endorsement of Dr. Chandra Muzaffar’s initiative and calls for international support for it.

Dr. Muzaffar, the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), has posted his letter to the heads of all member states of the United Nations calling for taking emergency action to stop the continuing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied territories. It is worth reporting at length:

“I am writing on behalf of an international NGO committed to human dignity and social justice based in Malaysia. Like many other citizens groups, the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) is deeply concerned about the continuing catastrophe in Gaza and Palestine. In spite of numerous calls made by people everywhere to Israel to implement an immediate ceasefire and to facilitate the unhindered flow of essentials—water, electricity, food, fuel and medicines—to Gaza, the Israeli government is impervious to any suggestion that it should end immediately the wanton massacre of civilians, especially children and women who constitute the majority of those killed, and ensure that famine does not claim any more lives in that narrow, congested strip of land.

“Since it does not seem to be possible to restrain the Israeli government, we are now hoping that the UN General Assembly and Resolution 377 can be harnessed to curb Israel. The UNGA as you know can be asked to act if the UN Security Council has failed to overcome a prolonged conflict. A special session of the GA can be convened and it can take a vote on the catastrophe in Gaza and Palestine in general.

“It is our hope and the hope of many other citizens groups all over the world, especially the NGO World Beyond War, the initiator of this global campaign, that your government will give wholehearted support to the proposal to adopt [Resolution] 377, or the ‘Uniting for Peace’ Resolution. It will give a pivotal role to the UNGA in bringing to an end the genocide in Gaza. Uniting for Peace can not only impose an embargo upon the flow of arms to both Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian resistance group. It can also disarm both parties to the conflict and send a huge number of unarmed peacekeepers to Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. They will ensure that there is no armed clash in all parts of Palestine and even in Israel until a conference of all parties involved directly or indirectly in the conflict reach an agreement on restoring the full rights of the Palestinians, establishing a state where there is equality for all its citizens regardless of religion or ethnicity and the right of return of all Palestinian refugees is recognised and implemented.

“JUST is confident given your commitment to peace that you will bring [Resolution] 377 to fruition in the coming session of the GA and help the land of the three faiths to enjoy tranquility and harmony once again.”

In solidarity, Dr Chandra Muzaffar, President, International Movement for a Just World”

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 377 (V), adopted November 3, 1950, empowers the General Assembly to override the United Nations Security Council—in this case, specifically the United States—under conditions that the world deems immediate action to be essential, in order to preserve the international peace and security of the world. The United Nations website, regarding Emergency Special Sessions, says that Resolution 377 “resolves that if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or active aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with the view to making appropriate recommendations to members for collective measures, including, in the case of a breach of the peace or active aggression, the use of armed force if necessary, to maintain or restore, international peace and security.”

A Council of Reason, Not a Council of War!

August 26, 2024by Mary Jane Freeman in General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, International Peace Coalition, Russia, World war danger updates

Aug. 25, 2024 (EIRNS)—This emergency statement is issued by the International Peace Coalition.

Whatever the Doomsday Clock may now say—at last check, it was 90 seconds to midnight—the truth is, that we have now “crossed the red line” to World War Three. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, and convener of the International Peace Coalition, has said that “the next six months may be the most dangerous in all human history.” In fact, we don’t immediately come to our senses, history—if there is any—may well record that Thermonuclear World War Three started, and the Doomsday Clock stopped, on August 6, 2024, the day that “Ukraine launched a surprise attack on Russia.”

But it was NATO—not Ukraine—that invaded Russia, under the guise of the “Ukrainian Kursk offensive.” NATO personnel from Great Britain, France, Poland, the United States, etc., are in this “up to their eyeballs.” More media, like the New York Times, have recently reported that this “surprise” attack was devised at least a year ago, with the full knowledge of British and American intelligence. This means that the United States and the nations of NATO are no longer at the doorstep of war with Russia, but have opened the door—and in that war, thermonuclear weapons can, in fact, be used. This means that we, you, must act in the next few days to prevent that from happening, even if you don’t think you know how.

Russian Akhmat Special Forces Commander Major General Apti Alaudinov stated from the battlefield that the invasion of Kursk “was prepared directly under the American leadership. These forces invaded the territory of the Kursk region…. The initial task was to take control of the nuclear power plant, as well as the Kursk and possibly Belgorod regions. We have quite credible information about these intentions. After this, they intended to put Russia to the negotiation table with ultimatum conditions.”

Commander Alaudinov then issued a direct appeal to the people of America and Europe: “You probably do not see or hear that your leadership is doing all it can to launch a nuclear war … as you’ve been trying with all means to make Russia cross the red line and start protecting itself using all these nuclear weapons. I don’t think this is something you really want. If you don’t want this to happen, speak out! Go to the streets and stop your government!”

Then, ominously, he concluded: “In any case, if you want Russia to lose the war, you have to understand: the Russian nuclear state will not lose the war. After all, why do we need the world if there is no Russia? That’s why I’m saying: you either wake up and go to the streets to stop your government, or you all (will) appear … in the Third World War zone. This is the issue of the nearest future!”

There are sane voices from the United States and elsewhere that have spoken out about the ugly truth about this war. Former Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich (also an Independent candidate for Congress in 2024), responding to Joe Biden’s crazed remarks at the Democratic Convention, has said that “NATO is an anachronism that should have been disbanded years ago. It has outlived its usefulness. NATO has no purpose, other than as an arms bazaar. And NATO’s purpose right now, is to keep growing to rattle the sabers with Russia.” Diane Sare, LaRouche Independent New York candidate for United States Senate, has campaigned for years to shut down NATO. Both Presidential candidates Kennedy and Trump have called for an immediate end to the Ukraine conflict.

This, however, is not enough—far from it. The people have to be heard and seen. Demonstrations and rallies, yes—but also interventions at public meetings, banners on highways and other public displays, petitions and letters are needed. Hundreds of public officials, clergy, doctors, etc. must make statements and call for no more funding of the war; denunciation of NATO’s war with Russia; admission of the truth of the Nord Stream bombing; and negotiations for a new security and development architecture worldwide. Out of these actions can come a Council of Reason that can move the world away from the precipice of self-destruction.

There is still time to act, but this is no time to run, to flinch, or to “choke.” All of human civilization that has been, and will be, may hinge on what we—what you—choose to do in these next hours, days and weeks.

International Peace Coalition Meeting: The War for Humanity Must Be Won Now!

March 23, 2024by Mary Jane Freeman in General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, International Peace Coalition, World war danger updates

Most people are not thinking that there can be any change, or that they can be part of a change—of changing the entire order of the world. Most people think they’re too small; this is not their job. But we should think as world citizens, because if the world is in disorder, each of us has the right to think of how to make the world better. — Helga Zepp-LaRouche

By Kevin Gribbroek

March 22, 2024 (EIRNS)—The 42nd meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) was convened today with well over 200 participants from 25 different countries. In response to the dire warnings by most of the guest speakers that the danger of world war is intensifying, there was a marked upshift in the number of people participating in a very lively dialogue session, brainstorming on how to “win the war for Humanity.”

A common thread throughout the meeting was the growing psychosis of Western leaders. Exemplary of this psychosis is French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently doubled down on his “incomprehensibly crazy” threats to send French troops into Ukraine, risking thermonuclear war with Russia.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute and initiator of the IPC, began the proceedings by providing a very unsettling picture of the current strategic situation. She warned that not only do we have an increased danger of war between NATO, and Russia and China, but also the humanitarian crises in Haiti, Gaza, Sudan and other areas are causing the unnecessary deaths of massive numbers of people: “To say that humanity finds itself in an extraordinary crisis is a very mild way of describing it.” Discussing the current thinking of Western leaders, she said: “It’s as if madness, sheer insanity has gripped the minds of many leaders in the West”; that they want to go for confrontation against Russia. As a result, “Inch by inch we are moving towards World War III.”

Zepp-LaRouche emphasized the necessity for an intensified mobilization which can succeed, because the majority of people throughout the world do not want war. She informed people of the new IPC statement, “Our Outcry Must Not Come Too Late,”, which she encouraged people to get out everywhere to counter the brainwashing by the mainstream media, which only make known the voice of warmongers. She ended by stressing the critical need for a Westphalian solution based on a new paradigm of cooperation for economic development, which includes the interests of every nation on the planet.

Col. Richard Black (ret.), former head of the U.S. Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon and former Virginia State Senator, presented his assessment of the current war danger: At the IPC meeting of March 15, he had expressed his suspicion that Macron’s threat of sending French troops into Ukraine was a “carefully orchestrated trial balloon” by NATO designed to see if people in the West would accept a great world war against Russia. Black now believes that this suspicion is “gelling” into reality. He characterized the current situation as a “wag the dog” scenario: With the tremendous unpopularity of Western leaders such as President Biden, war would be used as a way to save their political futures. The revelation that the U.S., France, U.K. and Poland already have troops in Ukraine, as if it’s no big deal, is also part of the operation to condition people into accepting an escalation against Russia—an escalation that could lead to thermonuclear war.

Jacques Cheminade, leader of the LaRouche-affiliated Solidarité et Progrès political party in France, began by asserting that the primary cause of Macron’s increasing insanity is the economy: France is on the edge of a collapse. The danger is that France will be downgraded by the international ratings agencies, such as Moody’s, before the European elections. Psychologically, Macron believes he can escape the pressure of the financial crisis—and his plunging approval ratings—by becoming the “King of Europe” with his hysterical flight forward for war against Russia. The hope is that a number of high-ranking retired French military officers, who had endorsed the Solidarité et Progrès declaration to abolish NATO, are reacting against Macron’s insanity. Although a good development, Cheminade stressed that unless this resistance is international, it will lead nowhere. He closed by remarking that the IPC “must be the international leadership of sanity in the world” and that we must “raise our sense of who we are to the level of responsibility that is demanded at this moment of history.”

Brad Wolf, a lawyer, former prosecutor and full-time peace activist, spoke next on his work as one of the founders and primary leaders of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. The purpose of the Tribunal is to hold U.S. military contractors accountable for knowingly producing weapons used for killing innocent civilians. The principal targets are Boeing, RTX (Raytheon), Lockheed Martin and General Atomics, a major producer of drones. He highlighted the “revolving door” collusion between these corporations and government officials, such as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who sat on the board of directors of Raytheon. By exposing these crimes to the public, the goal is to motivate people to take action.

Well-known peace activist and radio talk show host Garland Nixon stated his belief that, given the gravity of the situation and the irrationality of the ruling elites, we must build and broaden a “rational movement to overwhelm these elites.” What is driving this madness? As Dennis Small of the Schiller Institute had made sharply clear, “This is a lawful consequence of the entire trans-Atlantic financial system being in end-phase. And that’s what we’re witnessing.” He followed up by reporting on a glimmer of rationality in a March 19 Newsweek article listing 13 U.S. cities which would be wiped out by nuclear weapons if war broke out with Russia.

To demonstrate that it is not some abstract possibility, Zepp-LaRouche reported on a chilling development: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced today that Russia now sees itself in a state of war with the West. Prof. Steven Starr, nuclear weapons expert from the University of Missouri, pointed out that for the first time since the beginning of the Cold War, there have been attacks deep within Russian territory using NATO weaponry. He believes NATO troops openly entering the war in Ukraine is the final red line which will trigger war against Russia.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche delivered her closing remarks by stating her belief that the reality of the worsening strategic crisis will increasingly dawn on people, and that we must take advantage of this by getting the new IPC statement, “Our Outcry Must Not Come Too Late,” out everywhere. Then, expanding on Dennis Small’s statement that the war insanity is being driven by the financial collapse, she said that the other factor is the economic rise of the Global South—which increasingly is allied with the BRICS. As long as the “Wolfowitz Doctrine” remains in effect—the idea that the U.S. must maintain its unipolar hegemony—this will be a cause of perpetual war. She concluded by saying: “If the present world order leads to world war, with what can we replace it to create a durable peace for all of humanity to get us out of this danger? And I think a new security and development architecture is the only thing which addresses the underlying, fundamental problems.”

Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Paris and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO & ICESCO signs Schiller Institute petition

March 1, 2024by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Afghanistan, Cultural renaissance updates, Culture, France, France SI activity, General, General updates, Our initiatives (petitions, etc)

On Thursday February 29, 2024, in Paris, HE Mr Mohammad Homayoon Azizi, Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Paris and UNESCO (on the right in the photo), added his signature to the Schiller Institute’s petition calling on the governments of the Western world to extend and strengthen cooperation in order to protect and preserve Afghanistan’s cultural heritage. H.E. Azizi added that he sincerely hopes that the 46th Session of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, to be held in July this year in New Delhi, India, will contribute to strengthening relations in this field with his country. On the left, Karel Vereycken, representative of the Schiller Institute, warmly thanking the ambassador for his commitment.

Read and sign the petition here.

International Peace Coalition Meeting

February 10, 2024by Mary Jane Freeman in General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, International Peace Coalition, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Palestine, Russia, World war danger updates

A Transformation of the Moral Universe is Required

Feb. 9—This week’s online meeting of the International Peace Coalition began with moderator Anastasia Battle observing that the Coalition has now met for 36 consecutive weeks without interruption. She announced that a major focus of the Coalition’s activity will be to build a mass mobilization to restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which has been the target of undocumented allegations by the Likud regime in Israel and its neocon supporters in the US, UK and elsewhere.

Opening remarks were made to the meeting by Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche. She said that the most breathtaking and horrible development in Gaza has been Netanyahu’s rejection of the offer by Hamas for a release of hostages, and the announcement that the IDF will attack the town of Rafah. 1.5 million Palestinians who have been forcibly displaced from other parts of Gaza have been herded into a small area in Rafah, from which there is no escape. An IDF assault on these refugees will result in dreadful carnage. Zepp-LaRouche also commented on the efforts to disable UNRWA, noting that UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called it “irreplaceable” and that if you defund it, you “condemn the people who depend on it to death.”

Even in U.S. establishment circles, she said, there is some recognition that this can’t go on forever. She mentioned an article in Foreign Affairs titled “Israel’s Self-Destruction,” which concludes by saying that Israelis must reach out to Palestinians, and to each other (because of the highly factionalized situation in Israel.)

Zepp-LaRouche reminded the participants that although the Palestinian situation is most urgent, we must keep in mind that there is a danger of escalation to global war unless we can implement a new security and development architecture like the one she proposed in November of 2022. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó recently warned of this exactly: if one more major conflict is added to the ones in Ukraine and Southwest Asia, it can mean global war. Zepp-LaRouche said that the most significant aspect of the celebrated Tucker Carlson interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has already been viewed by at least 120 million people, is that Putin and Russia have at no point closed the door to cooperation with the West.

Greetings to the attendees were offered by South Africa’s ambassador to Mexico, who was thanked by the members of the Coalition for South Africa’s important contribution to the pursuit of justice for Palestine.

Former CIA analyst and Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) cofounder Ray McGovern presented an analysis of the Tucker Carlson interview. He reminded the participants that U.S. President Eisenhower had warned that the military-industrial complex will succeed in dominating American policy if Americans are uninformed. Further, he said, one man who succeeded in making a dent in the otherwise pervasive climate of enforced ignorance was Julian Assange. Tucker Carlson has now made an additional, important contribution.

A significant aspect of the interview was Putin’s reminder that there had been an agreement in early 2022, concluded in Istanbul, to end the Ukrainian war. The U.S.and U.K. intervened to throw those signed documents into the dustbin of history. What followed was the unnecessary killing of up to a half million of the flower of Ukrainian youth.

Carlson asked Putin for his opinion on who’s in charge in Washington. Putin responded by saying that he didn’t know, but it was certainly not the president. McGovern said that Putin should necessarily be concerned about who really controls the nuclear button, and noted the contrast between Putin and Biden, pointing out that the Department of Justice has just said, in effect, that Biden can be excused for untruths because he is old and “not all there.”

The meeting heard from a number of clergy and religious activists. A Christian minister from Dearborn, Michigan was outraged that the American media say that Israel is waging war on Hamas, while in fact, it’s a war on the civilians of Palestine. People who speak the truth are labeled antisemitic, he said. A recent commentary in the Wall Street Journal, which labeled Dearborn a jihadist city, provoked an outraged response from the city’s mayor who then ordered an increase in security due to the danger of Islamophobic violence. The clergyman warned of the danger that Israel will extend the war into Lebanon and other surrounding countries, and said that Israel’s blocking of humanitarian aid should be a major issue. He concluded by saying that the killing of civilians by the IDF will cause further recruitment to Hamas, and the cycle of violence will cause yet more extremist, Netanyahu-like leaders to come to power in Israel.

Other religious leaders discussed citations from Christian, Jewish, and Islamic scripture that bear on the present strategic crisis, concluding that “a total shift in the moral universe has to happen.” They reported on recent activism and discussed plans for the future. Pax Christi has numerous actions planned for tax day against American arms manufacturers, the “merchants of death” who receive a stupendous amount of U.S. tax dollars. Activists from Mexico and New York reported on successful embassy visits, urging funding for UNRWA and support for South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice. Rallies were also held outside the embassy of nations which had cut their funding for UNRWA.

U.S. Senate candidate Diane Sare, who was actually participating remotely in the IPC meeting while attending such a rally, said that she was optimistic about the future because she sees that young people are becoming active. But, she asked, what is next? What should the world actually look like? The rotten old empire is dead; what replaces it?

During the informal discussion, participants commented further on the Tucker Carlson/President Putin interview, saying that it shows Russia remains willing to be in a dialogue with the West. The former president of Guyana, Donald Ramotar, observed that the interview demonstrates that Putin knows he can have a military settlement, but he prefers a political, negotiated settlement. He went on to hail the government of South Africa for acting as the conscience for humanity as a whole. He said that they have ripped the mask off the face of the “genocide actors in Israel and the U.S.” He defended the Yemeni Houthis, saying their actions against Israel-related shipping constitute solidarity, not terrorism.

In her concluding remarks, Helga Zepp-LaRouche emphasized that the Rafah situation must be viewed with utmost urgency, but at the same time the entire world is changing. No one can speak of a “rules-based order” after the West has condoned what is happening in Gaza. Are we going to live by the law of the jungle, or by the universal principles in the UN charter? These ideas must guide our activism in the weeks ahead.

Christmas Message from Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Turn Swords into Plowshares!

December 21, 2023by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, World war danger updates

Christmas Message from Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute December 21, 2023

Download

No one will be able to claim, as historians said of World War I, that we sleepwalked into World War III. The war cries today are so deafening that they threaten to awaken from the dead all of the victims of previous wars, including the First and Second World Wars.

Tax money is poured into military spending of all kinds, while civilian economies collapse, infrastructure decays, and schools and hospitals are closed or fall apart. In the United States, the Pentagon’s defense budget for 2024 amounts to nearly one trillion dollars, while the entire EU budget and all national budgets in Europe are slated for militarization. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is demanding that society become “war-ready” and has asserted that we only have five to eight years before a major military confrontation with Russia. American think-tanks are working feverishly on “war games” for a major war with China, which should, in their view, take place sooner rather than later. See the article by the Council of Foreign Relations magazine, Foreign Affairs, “The Big One: Preparing for a Long War With China.”

How did we end up on this trajectory, which can only take us to a Third World War, a global nuclear war between the U.S. and NATO on the one side, and Russia and China on the other, and thus nuclear Armageddon?

President Eisenhower, at the end of his mandate, warned in 1961 against the explosion of the power of the military-industrial complex (MIC), saying:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Since then, history has unfortunately shown that Eisenhower’s advice was not followed, and that this “unwarranted influence” has spread throughout society and reduced governments to institutions doing the bidding of that MIC.

The decisive turning point occurred when the Soviet Union dissolved. Instead of establishing a new global order of peace, as Lyndon LaRouche had envisioned with his proposal for the Eurasian Land Bridge, which would have integrated the Eurasian continent economically and ensured close ties between East and West, the neocons opted for Anglo-American dominance over a unipolar world. The Wolfowitz Doctrine of 1992 stipulated that no country or group of countries would ever be allowed to surpass the U.S. in political, economic or military power.

Contrary to promises made to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the time of German reunification, that NATO would not expand an “inch” eastward, NATO did just that. There were five NATO expansions extending 1,000 km eastward toward Russia’s borders, including the installation of potentially offensive missile defense systems in that area, which all preceded the Russian special operation of February 24, 2022 in Ukraine. A new Cuban Missile Crisis at a snail’s pace, so to speak.

The U.S. and NATO countries went for political control, for the idea that all countries in the world had to adopt the Western neoliberal model, i.e. regime change, color revolutions; interventionist wars in which many millions have died; military bases built around the world; war training for their foreign allies; imperial expansion of the EU and NATO up to the point of creating a global NATO as a means to contain real and potential rivals; sanctions aimed at affecting regime change; and finally weaponization of the dollar. All this under the banner of the “rules-based order,” liberal democracy, and human rights.

China, on the other hand, went for economic development and overcoming poverty for 850 million of its own citizens, initially, and then increasingly for win-win cooperation with the nations of the Global South through the New Silk Road Initiative. Thanks to this cooperation, those nations were given the chance for the first time to free themselves from the poverty and underdevelopment dating back to the colonial era. Today, 150 countries of the Global South are working together with China on thousands of New Silk Road projects, building roads and high-speed railroads, ports, airports, development corridors, industrial parks and more.

In the past ten years since China put the Belt and Road Initiative on the agenda, unbounded cultural optimism has spread among nations of the Global South, which has long since become the Global Majority, with the idea that they will soon become fully developed nations. They are responding to the weaponization of the dollar with de-dollarization, i.e., by trading in their own currencies and eventually planning their own reserve currency, by deepening the strategic partnership between Russia and China, creating their own organizations, such as the BRICS Plus, which will include ten members as of January 1, 2024, and dozens more very soon.

Conclusion: the attempt to respond to the disintegration of the Soviet Union with the utopia of a unipolar world order, held together by military power, has been a monumental failure. It has led to an unprecedented strategic blowback.

Therefore, the most crucial question is: Can we in the West, the U.S. and European nations, correct our political course in time, and choose cooperation with the Global South instead of confrontation? China and Russia have repeatedly emphasized that the Belt and Road Initiative and the BRICS countries are open to cooperation with the West!

The main difficulty lies in the fact that much of the economic capacities in the United States, and a growing share of those in Europe, have been taken over by the MIC, and are so closely entwined with the big investment firms and asset management companies of Wall Street and the City of London, that a better term is the military-industrial-financial complex (MIFC). (See this package of material on the MIFC.)

Technically speaking, it would be relatively easy to re-tool these capacities for civilian purposes, and rather than producing bombers, fighter jets, and missiles, to produce modern high-speed rail systems, inherently safe nuclear reactors of the 4^th generation, and nuclear fusion reactors, as well as space stations for international space travel. In other words, all the industrial capacity currently used for the destruction of actual physical value—what else are weapons systems good for?—could serve the production of useful goods that promote the common good. Instead of tanks and ammunition, they could produce schools and hospitals, and help our nations to have prosperous economies once again!

Russian economist Sergei Glazyev put it in a nutshell in a message on the occasion of what would have been Lyndon LaRouche’s 100th birthday, which he unfortunately did not live to see. LaRouche not only forecast with farsightedness the crisis of the neoliberal system, but also proposed solutions to overcome this crisis. The countries that rejected his solutions are in crisis today, while those that implemented his ideas are prospering, Glazyev stated:

“In practically all the major countries in the world that today are developing successfully—above all India, and China—there are partisans of LaRouche. They have used his thoughts and ideas, for creating their economic miracles. It is the principles of Physical Economy championed by LaRouche, that today underlie the Chinese economic miracle and are there in the foundations of India’s economic development policy. The supporters of LaRouche in those countries exert a fruitful, very positive, and constructive influence on economic policy-shaping in these leading nations of the new world economic paradigm.”

It’s not yet too late. We need to replace the war cries for ever “more weapons” with a return to diplomacy and the idea that we can—and must—resolve all conflicts through negotiation, if we are to avoid ending up in global nuclear war and a nuclear winter, which would wipe out all memory of humanity’s existence.

Instead of the greed of the speculators of the MIFC, Wall Street, and the City of London, whose high rates of profit rely on taxpayer money pouring into new wars, we must defend the existential interest of the population: The interests of farmers, small and medium-sized businesses, train drivers, bakers, etc.

Swords to plowshares!

We are many, they are few!

For cooperation with the nations of the Global South!

Afghanistan: Mes Aynak Copper Mine Will Open, But Buddhist Archeological Site Will be Fully Preserved

November 15, 2023by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Afghanistan, Cultural renaissance updates, Culture, General, General updates, History

On November 10, in Kabul, an eminent Afghan archaeologist gave us some excellent news, disavowing what we read in the mainstream press in the West.

Having been involved for a decade in the excavations at Mes Aynak, where an archaeological site on the surface is complicating the opening of a huge copper mine, this expert knows what he’s talking about and today he is pleased to be able to announce that the dossier has reached an extremely favorable conclusion.

The richness of its subsoil makes Mes Aynak (literally “little mine”), 35 km south of Kabul, the second largest copper deposit in the world. At a time when China and the other BRICS countries need this precious metal for their industrial development, exploitation of the mine could provide a substantial windfall that Afghanistan, a country devastated by 40 years of war and looting, urgently needs to finance its reconstruction.

In 2008, an initial contract was signed between the Afghan government and the Chinese state-owned company Metallurgical Corp of China (MCC). However, following security incidents, the project was suspended.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, archaeologists, who suspected the site’s archaeological wealth, were able to excavate the site and uncover a vast Buddhist complex (3rd-7th century), already considered a major Buddhist site. The site includes monasteries, stupas (temples), fortresses, administrative buildings, dwellings, sculptures and frescoes.

It’s true that the 2008 contract envisaged conserving only a small part of the site and transforming the rest into an open-pit mine.

However, according to our interlocutor, who attended the latest discussions between all the various parties involved in the project at the end of October, things have changed radically: the Chinese company MCC now agrees to mine the whole site, not just a small part, exclusively by the use of underground mining methods. As a result, not a small part but all of the historic remains on the surface will be preserved.

Whereas in 2001, the world was shocked by the destruction of the two giant Buddhas in the Bamiyan Valley, this happy agreement marks a real turning point. Both Afghanistan and China take their responsibility in the defense of the cultural heritage of mankind, while confirming their commitment to bring prosperity to all through economic and industrial development.

In Kabul, Karel Vereycken

Page 1 of 10412 3 »...Last

Recent posts