Live Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Your Voice Must Be Heard Now!

The full video of this webcast is available here. The following is an edited transcript of the live dialogue. Subheads and hyperlinks have been added.

Harley Schlanger: Hello and welcome to our weekly dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and chairwoman of the Schiller Institute. Today is Wednesday, January 31, 2024. I’m Harley Schlanger and I’ll be your host. You can email your questions or comments to questions@schillerinstitute.org.

As we’re meeting now, the UN Security Council is about to go into session, to take up a motion filed by Algeria calling for the UN Security Council to stop the actions of the Benjamin Netanyahu regime in Israel, which are at the center of the South African case brought before the International Court of Justice, under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

There was a powerful statement by Rev. Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, Palestine, which called the International Court of Justice (ICJ) statement a “turning point.” He said, “Gaza is indeed right now the moral compass of the world.... You are either justifying the genocide or really standing with humanity and solidarity with the oppressed.”

Accountability in International Relations

Now, the first two questions I have for you relate to the Jan. 26 ICJ ruling. The first is: “Do you see this ruling as a chance to reestablish the principle of accountability in international relations?” And the second: “Doesn’t this put enormous pressure on the U.S., the UK, and Germany to drop their support for Netanyahu and Israel?”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: We will see, over the course of today, the answer to these two questions, because if you remember, the provisional ruling of The Hague court says that there is plausible cause for genocide, and that, however, all relevant forces have to do everything to prevent this genocide from occurring. The limelight is on the U.S., because the U.S. has been the main supplier of weapons and money; the UK, which has been in the forefront of promoting the present policies; and Germany, which, in an attack of insanity decided to completely twist its guilt because of the Holocaust, to now turn a blind eye to what’s going on in Gaza, which is an unbelievable inversion of reality.

By the end of the day, we will see if these three nations are capable of learning anything. If these governments are not able to do that, it will be to the detriment of the entire populations of these countries.

Apart from the immediate destiny of the people who are in this incredible situation in Gaza, whose lives are dependent on the outcome of what happens today, there is something much larger at stake: And that is that, it is almost amazing that the arrogance of power of the previously unquestioned unipolar world order, which was based on a dramatic form of Euro-centrism—to say the least, and which applies to the U.S., as well; and being a European culture, one can say the Euro-centrist world outlook also dominated the United States, and that’s the mildest thing one can say—that that is blinding people from recognizing what the effect is of this whole situation on the rest of the world. I’m absolutely certain that the action by South Africa, and now the intervention by the government of Algeria, is being watched by everybody, in Africa, in Latin America, in Asia, and naturally in many European countries as well.

So, there is another very interesting article posted Jan. 25 by Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs, RIIA) think tank in London, where they basically say that it’s not just the Gaza situation which is being decided, but it is the fate of the rules-based order, and that is what I have been thinking the whole time: That if the moral failure, right now, of these three countries, in particular, persists, then it may be the final nail in the coffin of that order.

So, I think we are definitely at a branching point. Many people are mobilizing in the United States. There was a very interesting program with former CIA analysts Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern of the VIPS, (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity), interviewed by Judge Napolitano, in which Johnson made the observation that in maybe all these protest rallies which have been going on in many American cities, universities, and so forth, increasingly President Biden has been greeted by protesters with the nickname “Genocide Joe”; that this has an effect and that he has a very thin skin and can’t take it any longer.

I think everything is going to be decided by whether the United States and the British and Germany shape up. If they basically agree to the Algerian motion, that will be one geometry. But I think if they stick to their line, we will see a very rapid acceleration of the disintegration of that rules-based order.

Israel Defies ICJ Provisional Measures

Schlanger: Helga, we have two questions from London on this very topic. The first: “Since the war in Gaza is continuing, with another 200-some deaths yesterday, isn’t this a sign of a rejection by Israel of the provisional rulings from the International Court?” The second questioner refers to the rally that took place in Jerusalem of the settlers’ movement, which was addressed by members of the Israeli government, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, and others, supporting the building of new settlements in Gaza—“Doesn’t that also violate the ruling of the ICJ?”

Zepp-LaRouche: There is one additional fact, and that is that the news came earlier today that Israel has started to flood the tunnels in Gaza. Now, if that is confirmed, and that is what it looks like, that this is happening, it is an absolute escalation and a doubling down on the genocidal tendency, because that was a big debate ahead of time that if you flood the tunnels you are doing it with seawater, which means you are ruining the soil, you are ruining the possibility to recreate Gaza in any shape or form for people to live in.

So, this doesn’t look very good, and I can only hope that these other three governments show some sign of recognition, that it is the larger issue of the international order which is being decided.

White House Policies Distance the Global South

Schlanger: The next question, continuing on that: “Is there any indication that the White House is aware that its policies are worsening the relationship between the United States and the Global South, and that this is hastening the decisions that are being made toward possibly breaking with the dollar and with the Western financial system?”

Zepp-LaRouche: I have not seen such a sign at all. As a matter of fact, I was talking to an acquaintance the other day, and we were wondering, that it is so unbelievably amazing that the establishments of not only the United States but also of Europe, while everything that is happening right now, the mass protests of the farmers, the upheaval of populations around the world from Argentina to Europe to the U.S.-Mexico border—you can attribute all of these things to failed policies of the West. De-dollarization is a reaction to the sanctions and to the confiscation of Russian assets, Afghanistan’s assets, and other countries’ belongings. So, if there will be a new currency created, it will be in reaction to something the United States and possibly Europe did, because Europeans are also now considering confiscating some of the Russian money which is in European banks, which even the European Central Bank is warning against.

Despite the fact that all of these developments are sort of blowbacks from Western-American-European policies, the Establishments seem to be completely incapable of reflecting that they may be failing, and that they may have to change policies. No! The opposite seems to be the case: They’re hardening their position, they’re somehow thinking that to do more of the same will lead to a different result, which already Albert Einstein said was very stupid. Because if you fail one time, you should not try to do the same thing, hoping you would get a different result.

I think the ideologies of most of these people is so thick, that Reason does not penetrate their minds, and therefore, I find it quite interesting that this one article appears in Chatham House, because that is obviously one of the centers of this policy.

NATO and EU Persevere in War Drive

Schlanger: At the same time, there are other people at Chatham House, the Atlantic Council, and others, that are insisting that after the Ramstein meeting of last week, the Europeans have to continue the arms flow into Ukraine; they’re continuing to talk about the “threat” from Russia, the Steadfast Defender 2024 exercise is about to be launched; so it appears that the governments in Europe are not getting the message.

Zepp-LaRouche: No. Tomorrow there will be a meeting of the European Union, to discuss the need to put through a €50 billion package for more weapons to Ukraine. Given the fact that both Hungary and Slovakia have basically said that they absolutely oppose that, the EU is now contemplating severe measures of punishment against Hungary. There are reports that they even plan to announce, in a big, spectacular way, cutting all support, all EU money for Hungary that they are entitled to, and that that will create a huge drop in the currency, and huge job loss, and that way, basically putting the fear of God into all the other countries that may ever want to deviate from the EU policies.

Now, if that happens, it’s a predictable development that the cohesion of the European Union, which is already not really there, will further disintegrate. I mean, if you are treating your own member-states, in this case, Hungary, like a pariah, and like a country to be punished with the most severe economic warfare, you’re planting the seed of destruction into the very EU structure. So, let’s see what they do.

EU Blackmails Hungary, U.S. Stiffs Germany on LNG

Schlanger: Speaking about Hungary, Munashe, a regular viewer, wrote in: “What are the ultimate consequences of the EU move to blackmail Hungary?” And also, “What about the actions of the Biden administration to limit liquefied natural gas (LNG) deliveries to Europe?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Eventually the people will wake up to what is happening. Look at the situation: The article by Seymour Hersh about the hypothesis for who was responsible for the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, despite all efforts to come up with some cover stories, in my view and the view of many other people, those efforts did not work. People still believe the Seymour Hersh story that it was the U.S. government that did the sabotage, with the strategic, geopolitical aim to drive a wedge between the Russia and Germany for good. That is the real story.

And subsequently, when the gas from Russia was cut, in part because the EU wanted to cut it, it was not Russia that cut the remaining gas deliveries, the resulting energy crisis in Germany, a tripling of the energy prices is bankrupting many middle-level firms, small and medium enterprises, restaurants, craftsmen, and high energy-dependent industries, like paper, aluminum, and others.

So, the impact on Germany is catastrophic. Germany right now is the only country in the EU which is experiencing a major economic collapse, and naturally it’s dragging down the other European countries because of the importance of the German economy within the EU.

So, Europe is really suffering and paying a very high price. And the protests by the farmers, which are escalating—now craftsmen are joining, truck drivers are joining; the farm protests are spreading throughout all of Europe, Italy, Spain, France, Holland, and the German protests are becoming more determined—all of this is a result of this sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.

And now, Biden says, “Oh, I just discovered that LNG is bad for the climate!” I mean, this is really putting salt into the wound. He is now threatening to cut deliveries to Germany. They—we Germans, basically—paid to build very expensive, new terminals on Rügen and other islands on the Baltic Sea coast. It’s all very ecologically damaging; a lot of biodiversity was negatively affected. Where were the Greens to defend the fish and other organisms from these terminals and their construction? This shows what complete phonies they are! And now, Biden turns around and says, “Oh, sorry! There was this climate issue, I forgot about.”

I think you can drive it to the point of maximum exhaustion. But I think the whole point of exhaustion has been reached and the consequences of all of these policies are in disarray. And there is even no more talk about friendship—forget it, not even partners in the Alliance. Naturally, this is very problematic, because this is not a structural policy, this is just chaos and creating havoc.

Reactions to European Farmer Protests

Schlanger: We have a question from Vienna, also about the protests in Europe: “With the farm protests spreading in Europe and now to southern Europe as well, can this force elected officials to change against the EU green policies? Or are they so ideologically committed to it that they’ll act in a way that will bankrupt the farm sector, and destroy the food supply of Europe?”

Zepp-LaRouche: I think something else is going on. Just today or yesterday, there was the publication of a so-called fire alarm letter to the government, signed by 50 large corporations, insisting that the government has to implement the Green Deal much more rapidly. And they refer to the socially explosive ferment of the farmers—they don’t mention the farmers, but it’s clear that that’s what they refer to—by attempting to put pressure on the governments to go faster for the Green Deal, to ram it through, to eliminate bureaucratic impediments that prevent it. So, this is an obvious attempt by the climate lobby, and by the speculators who profit from the Green Deal, who are reacting to the pressure coming from the streets, from the farmers.

But there, again, there is another story brewing. I think we mentioned it last week, but let me reiterate because, in the meantime, the story which comes together is that, according to reports by several alternative blogs, the German internal secret service, the Verfassungsschutz, already knew about the scheduled meeting in Potsdam for Nov. 25, in early November, and that they bugged the conference room by putting a bug into the clock, taping the entire proceedings. At this meeting, were supposedly some AfD (Alternative for Germany) members, and “identity politicians” from Austria, who were talking about sending migrants back to their home countries. Apparently, the word “deportation” was never mentioned at that meeting, but then the media later said what was discussed at this meeting was a “large-scale deportation,” made up by the media as I said.

Comparing what Chancellor Olaf Scholz said one day before, with what Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on the same day, making an offensive to bring back these migrants big-time, it’s identical. There was no different discussion at this Potsdam meeting, than what the Chancellor and Interior Minister themselves said. OK, so that much for the facts.

Then, the CORRECTIV collection of so-called investigative journalists kept this story in the can, on the shelf, not publishing it. On Jan. 8, there was a huge tractor demonstration, where more than 100,000 tractors blocked many of the major highways and the cities. The farmer protests continued for a full week, culminating in a big demonstration in Berlin.

Two days later, on Jan. 10, however, this ominous CORRECTIV story was all of a sudden leaked to the media, and not only that: The mainstream media every day published exactly the time and the location of the demonstrations against the so-called “rightwing.” Now, I have never seen such an effort to detract from real social ferment—that is, the farmers, truckers, and others, but especially the farmers! You know, these are honest people, these are moral people! This is the backbone of morality in society.

If you have ever talked to farmers, you know that the normal farmer is a moral person; they are extremely industrious, they have a lot of work, they’re very competent. They each have the equivalent of a medium-size enterprise; they have to organize everything, including seed, harvest, processing, selling, management, accounting, just as in any medium-size firm. And they’re extremely devoted to producing food for the people! They find their moral identity in doing something good for society.

And they see themselves being threatened by the Green policies: the set-aside policy, the “30-by-30,” and “farm-to-fork,” and all the policies which restrict them from farming parts of their land. And when they don’t get the prices they need to cover costs, so many of them say that they’re about to go bankrupt. They can already see the big cartels just sitting on the fence, waiting for these small and medium farms to go bankrupt so they can gobble them up and put them in their cartel structure.

The existence of family farms is absolutely threatened, and that’s what the protests are all about. So, this is a legitimate thing, because these farmers correctly make the point that what they are doing is producing food for the entire population, and therefore, serving the common good. What seems to be happening? The government is deploying, with secret service meetings, a phony demonstration to divert the ferment from that. Now, if that is not a scandal, I don’t know what is!

LaRouche Proposal for Debt Reorganization

Schlanger: It obviously is a scandal, and we have to do some scandal-mongering, because that’s the way the governments are acting: At the same time, they’re censoring and then they’re trying to build an opposition.

I have two more questions for you Helga: One from Thomas, a regular: “What if the Non-Aligned Movement nations would dump their debt to the IMF? Wouldn’t this be the best way to bring down the neo-colonial, imperial system?” This is partly a reference to what your late husband Lyndon LaRouche proposed in the early ’80s with the “debt bomb”— that the debtors can trigger a reaction by refusing to pay the debt. So, Thomas wants to know if that’s something that the Non-Aligned Movement nations could do today?

Zepp-LaRouche: I think the term “debt bomb” was invented by the oligarchy, because my husband never talked about a debt bomb. Because what he proposed—and that’s part of what he did together with Mexican President José López Portillo in 1982—was a proposal to have an orderly reorganization of the bankrupt banking system and the out-of-proportion debt on the side of the Latin American countries. Now, the financial media and Wall Street people called it a “debt bomb.” López Portillo actually followed the advice of my husband on Sept. 1, 1982, by imposing capital controls, and started to create a National Bank. If at that time Argentina and Brazil would have acted in solidarity with him, the problem would have been solved. Unfortunately, they did not, and Argentina had to pay the price with the Malvinas War afterwards.

But if this would have succeeded, and there would have been an orderly reconstruction, a reorganization of the debt by turning short-term debts at high interest rates, into long-term debt with low interest rates, and turning that, in turn, into credit for investment in productive areas, we would not be in the crisis we are in today.

So rather than calling it a “debt bomb,” it was actually an effort to save the banking system, which the greedy speculators on Wall Street and elsewhere rejected. And that’s why we are in a crisis today.

The Complex and Unpredictable U.S. Political Landscape

Schlanger: Thank you for that clarification. I have two final questions for you, which relate to the crazy political situation in the United States. The first one is, “Do you think this is the year in which the so-called two-party system,” which is being exposed as being essentially one party, “can be broken in the United States?”

And then we have from Redwood, Minnesota County Commissioner Bob Van Hee: “What about a Trump and Kennedy independent ticket? Do you have any thoughts on that?”

Zepp-LaRouche: I find the situation in the United States very unpredictable. There are so many different tendencies working against each other, and they’re all unworkable. Look at what happens in Texas with the border and the conflict between Governor Greg Abbott and the federal government. There are many international media that are already speculating about the coming civil war in the United States; there are people talking about secession of Texas from the republic; I mean, this is really extremely worrisome, and obviously the two-party system is non-existent.

I don’t know if the influence of Steven Bannon on Trump will prevail. If it does, then that raises a lot of questions about what would happen if Trump would win the election.

There are many forces, independent candidates, like the very important U.S. Senate campaign of Diane Sare, in New York. She now has a co-candidate, José Vega, who is running for Congress. There are many other independent candidates, who all oppose this—so I don’t know if that is strong enough because the popularity of Biden is very low. I cannot even imagine how they can think to have a victory under the present circumstances.

It is a very difficult question, because there is clearly no presidential candidate who would give a vision how to go back in the United States to a foreign policy of John Quincy Adams, or Abraham Lincoln, or President Grant, or FDR, or John F. Kennedy.

Now, concerning Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Trump, I don’t know if that would help much in the situation. Going back to the first question we discussed in this program: the position of the United States in the case of the ICJ ruling [for provisional measures to prevent genocide], and what will happen at the UN Security Council today [on that ruling]. In both cases, Trump and Kennedy, are heavily, heavily leaning toward the Israeli position.

And that puts the second question that we started with on the table: Can the United States respond to the outcry coming from the Global Majority who demand an end to colonialism, who demand justice to be reintroduced, and the answer to that will decide what will happen to the up-to-now “rules-based order.” And the more it becomes clear to the whole world that these “rules” are, first of all, nonexistent, they can be banned on any occasion. Nobody knows who made them.

I mean, we are really at a breaking point, so between now and the election is a long, long, long time, with many dangers and many changes that will occur; and obviously, the fact that President Biden, when he was asked if he had already made up his mind what would be the U.S. response to the killing of these three U.S. Army people in Southwest Asia, he said, that he had made up his mind, but that he wouldn’t say what it is. Now, that is a worrisome idea, because if there is a plan to somehow involve a major strike against Iran, we could be in an absolutely escalating danger of global war in no time, and one can only hope that President Biden doesn’t think that.

Get Active with the Schiller Institute!

Schlanger: I think we’ll be watching very closely what comes from the UN Security Council today: But it’s not enough just to watch, people should be going to the LaRouche Organization website, to stay updated. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. And Helga, any final words for today?

Zepp-LaRouche: I can only appeal to you, get active with us! The world is a very, very dangerous place, but if we can get enough people in the United States and Europe to understand that they don’t need to be in opposition to the Global South! If people in the United States and Europe would say, “Let’s cooperate with the Global Majority of the world population,” it would be very easy to find a way out. The policies of my late husband are the absolute vehicle to do that. I have asked for a long time for an international security and development architecture, in the tradition of the Peace of Westphalia, a global economic development plan. We have many programs, such as The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge, a book EIR published in 2014 which is a blueprint for how to get the world economy really on a safe course. We have plans for how to solve the problem, but we need your support, so don’t sit on the fence, get active, and help.

Schlanger: We look forward to our discussion again next week, and in the meantime, people should take your advice, and get active.

Zepp-LaRouche: Till next week.