Schiller Institute Webcast Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche

The Dignity of Man Is in Our Hands—
A Cognitive Leap into the Future!

The following is an edited transcript of the May 15, 2024, weekly Schiller Institute dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and leader of the Schiller Institute. The video is available here.

Harley Schlanger: Hello, and welcome to our weekly dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche. She is the founder and chairwoman of the Schiller Institute. Today is Wednesday, May 15, 2024. I’m Harley Schlanger and I’ll be your host. You can send your questions and comments via email to questions@schillerinstitute.org or post them to the chat page.

Helga, there are many developments on the trans-Atlantic/NATO war front that we’ll be discussing today, but I’d like to begin with your thoughts on the meeting that will start tomorrow, when President Putin of Russia goes to China to visit his counterpart, President Xi Jinping of China. It appears that you were right when you reported about two weeks ago, that you didn’t think the efforts of Blinken and others to disrupt the relationship between Russia and China would work, and that the attempt to break the alliance would fail. What are your expectations for this meeting that starts tomorrow?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I think it will be another major step in actually building the relationship between China and Russia more deeply, because Putin is going there on a state visit, and he is taking with him several members of his rebuilt cabinet: the new Defense Minister; and also former Defense Minister Shoigu will be there; and also Lavrov; and a business delegation. So, I expect the preparation will be discussed for the upcoming BRICS summit later in October, because Russia has the chairmanship this year. And as Foreign Minister Lavrov said recently, the role of Russia in the BRICS is to expand the relations among the new countries. Interestingly, he named Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and also Saudi Arabia, whose membership had to this point been unclear. He said they will discuss the nomination and acceptance of new members, although he has not yet named which ones will be considered.

I think, therefore, that this meeting will be a steppingstone, because even the Western media, like The Economist, are full of stories that the old order is dying; it is disintegrating. And obviously, the emergence of the BRICS as a viable, new institution is actually open for everybody. If the Western and U.S. leadership would not be so in love with themselves—so arrogant—they would take the offer of both Xi Jinping and Putin, who recently said that he is still absolutely open for dialogue with the West. However, it must be on an equal footing and eye-to-eye; not in an arrogant way, with the West looking down on Russia. If the West were smart, they would just say, “Look, there is a new reality emerging. It is in our best self-interest to cooperate.” But I don’t expect this in the short term. Maybe they need a few more shocks to realize that their system is not functioning.

This meeting will be very, very important. And since we are going into a half-year of tectonic, dramatic changes, where the world by the end of this half-year will not look at all as it is looking now—What I mean by that is we are seeing the massive march forward by Russia on the Ukrainian battlefield; there is panic in Kyiv. Even CNN reported that the losses of the Ukrainian military, especially in the last days, were incredible. I think Russian troops have advanced 100 km in three days. Several experts, such as Larry Johnson, say it’s virtually over. NATO cannot even realistically move troops into Ukraine. Johnson said that NATO troops, if they could even make it to Ukraine, would be shot on the spot, as the Russians have warned. There would be no logistical backup for them. He said, look at the situation: Russia is producing three times as many artillery pieces as the United States and Europe together. Russia is building in one month as many tanks as Europe and the United States together are building in one year.

It is very obvious that the military war has been won by the Russians, and there are also Chinese comments on the appointment of the new Defense Minister of Russia Andrey Belousov; that he is the mind behind the incredible Russian economic successes—despite, and in response to, sanctions from the West. Germany is collapsing; Russia is moving upward. Russia is now the fifth largest economy in the world. The appointment of this economics specialist, who has an excellent reputation, means that Russia is preparing itself, if need be, to be in the Ukrainian military situation for a long time: That’s the Chinese view of the matter, expressed in Global Times.

I think the Ukraine military conflict will probably end soon. We have the worsening financial crisis in the West growing, which is being discussed more and more in the media. We will have the BRICS summit in October: All of this will happen before the U.S. election. The strategic landscape will change extremely dramatically. Most people in the West have not even woken up to the fact that these changes are taking place. So, I’m absolutely sure that, given it was announced that Xi Jinping and Putin will discuss the entire scope of strategic issues—I think all of these things will be on their discussion agenda. And I expect some significant statement to come out afterwards.

Schlanger: Helga, we have a question from the United Kingdom. He writes: “There’s speculation in the Western media about the shakeup in Russia—the so-called shakeup of the defense team. What do you think is going on?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, in part, I touched upon it already in what I said; that from everything we know, this new Russian Defense Minister is an excellent dirigistic-oriented economist. He helped get the Russian economy to withstand the bombardment of sanctions, and is working to integrate the military part of the economy with the civilian part of the economy, such that the civilian economy can prosper, while Russia’s military capabilities are simultaneously enhanced. And I think, in a certain sense, the sanctions—there’s even one view that the sanctions have actually helped Russia, because they forced it to decolonize by getting rid of dependencies of Western influence. And I think that includes changes to the financial sector, even if there are still remnants of the old ways of doing things as they were introduced in the immediate post-Soviet period by Yeltsin. But that is being cleaned out as well.

So, I think the situation in Russia looks quite stable. I think its society, by being attacked by the West in the way it has been for several years—not only militarily in Ukraine but also the entire demonization of Russia and the sanctions regime, and all of this—I think it has led to a change inside Russia whereby, let’s say, getting rid of Western influences in terms of post-modern culture and various other influences that have been rejected, this has helped Russia to go back to more of its traditional culture, to traditional poetry, and to traditional values. I think Russia is doing in a Russian way exactly what China did, when China was rising—they did not adopt a Western model, but went back to Chinese values. Some people may lament that, but from the standpoint of universal history, it’s probably the best thing which could happen: that each culture reactivates its own best tradition.

And the only people that are not doing this are the West: We are not celebrating the 200th anniversary of the premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which would have uplifted us a lot if we would have done it. It was done here and there by Barenboim and some others, but I think the West should do the same thing! We should revive our best traditions. And then we could live in a peaceful cooperation instead of this geopolitical insanity which is gripping the minds of the Western establishments right now.

Schlanger: I have a question from a journalist from Lebanon, who writes: “With all the back and forth over Biden’s decision to pause some weapons shipments to Israel, the weapons pipelines still remain open, even as Netanyahu flaunts his noncompliance with Biden’s red line regarding Rafah.” He asks, “Do you think Biden will back off from a further confrontation with Netanyahu? And what could he do?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think whatever Biden does is not Biden. Obviously, he is not always fully there. I think it’s much more the entire apparatus of what Ray McGovern calls the MICIMATT—the military-industrial complex, plus think thanks, intelligence, media, academia, and so forth—that is behind the policy. And this policy will continue unless the protests, which have spread throughout more than 100 American universities, as well as into Europe—there are many universities in Italy, France, even in Germany, where the protests are spreading. I think that this student movement—which is not just about the issue of Gaza, the issue which gets people extremely upset, but it is a slow recognition that the entire narrative of the Western model is a narrative: It’s not the truth. I think there is an awakening among the young people of America, and hopefully also in Europe, where you can see signs of this as well. And this will be a factor that Biden has to watch, because the student vote contributed to his election victory in 2020, to a very significant extent. And if these voters turn away from Biden, he will probably lose the election. So that’s a big factor in the situation.

I think the policy toward Netanyahu—what he could do is to go with the Oasis Plan. We have presented a very, very reasonable and feasible proposal for how to get peace in Southwest Asia on a permanent basis. The Oasis Plan is the idea to green the desert, to produce large quantities of fresh water, and with the help of peaceful nuclear energy, desalination, building canals, building new rivers, irrigating agriculture, and reforestation of the desert. Actually, if you have a vision of what Southwest Asia could look [like] in 30 years—like Germany, in terms of the density of infrastructure, having an integrated infrastructure system, and building new cities. There are major development corridors already in various degrees of being built, all parts of the Belt and Road Initiative. It could become, really, an international project. And the United States and Europe, they should stop playing geopolitical games—imitating the Great Game of the British Empire—and start to actually cooperate in really building up the region as a way of overcoming tension by joint economic development.

We represent this program. You can go on our website and look at our April 13 conference—we had a very excellent conference. We had a follow-up conference in Copenhagen on May 8. The Oasis Plan idea is circulating right now among governments, among many important institutions, and it is something which could be put on the agenda. It would immediately change the dynamic—because once you give a perspective of hope for the future, that becomes the basis for a peaceful settlement in the region. So that is the challenge.

Schlanger: Now, you mentioned the student protests and what’s coming out of that. There is a contact from Canada, who wrote in and said, “While I’m excited to see student protests in the United States against Israel’s attacks on the civilian population of Palestine and U.S. support for Israel—I worry that these youth are susceptible to being used, like the Black Lives Matter movement, to polarize further the U.S. What are your thoughts on how this can be a positive movement?”

Zepp-LaRouche: The United States is already polarized. If you talk to some people who are Democrats about Trump and vice versa—you are already talking to two completely different worldviews, and there is no middle ground between them. Don’t be afraid of polarization. I mean, from an historical standpoint, I think the United States—which started off as a republic, which started off as “the beacon of hope and temple of liberty” for every republican-minded person around the globe—that tradition was continued by Presidents like John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln. You had a recurrence of that with Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. The problem is that the United States has lost its way. It has deviated from the idea of being a republic. And because of evil shenanigans, it has adopted the British Empire model as the way to run the world as a unipolar world order, based on the “special relationship” between the Anglo-Americans. And that order is not functioning.

That is exactly what is causing the backlash, the blowback which we see right now with the Global South: that all the policies that were promoted by this effort to keep a unipolar world after the Soviet Union had disappeared—or disintegrated—these policies just did not work. And these policies have triggered and caused all of the things we are seeing now, around the globe—both in terms of tensions and wars, but also in terms of the BRICS. Because the BRICS is in a certain sense a reaction; that significant countries do not want to be under the control of a world policeman. Xi Jinping at one point said, “If India and China speak with one voice, the world is listening,” because they represent together around 3 billion people! And the BRICS is now becoming much larger. The Global Majority, the Global South represents 88% of the world, and they don’t want to be ruled by the unipolar world.

So, I think the more quickly there is a realization that the United States should really go back to its old tradition of being a republic and accept the foreign policy conception of John Quincy Adams, the faster the world could be straightened out. And I think the students are contributing in a very important way to getting the United States back to its founding conceptions.

John Quincy Adams’ policy was for an alliance of perfectly sovereign nation-states—for the United States to be one of many; not being the only one, or the “chosen people,” or the “necessary country,” or all of these things which are really feeding a wrong self-conception. If the United States were to think of going back to being a republic—to be for the common good not only of its own people, but in cooperation with other peoples—the world could be straightened out.

Schlanger: Here’s a question that I think was meant somewhat sarcastically, referring to Netanyahu, and Biden, and everyone else who refers to these students as being “anti-Semitic.” The questioner writes: “The United Nations reports the discovery of mass graves at hospitals in Gaza, with some of the people in the graves handcuffed and buried alive. Is it anti-Semitic to condemn Israel for this?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Obviously not! Obviously, the very notion of anti-Semitism is being instrumentalized to try to keep [control of] the narrative. I was talking with some colleagues, referring to a very interesting article by Caitlin Johnstone, who is an Australian journalist. One of the articles in her blog was reprinted in Consortium News. She made a very important observation by saying, the reason why the students are being attacked as “anti-Semitic” is because it is about the control of the narrative; that the control of the narrative is the game; and the student protests threaten to upset this. And she quotes, for example, the CEO of Palantir, Alex Karp, who in a video conference is saying exactly that: that it is about the control of the narrative, and if that is broken, the United States would not be in a position ever again to fight any war. I think that is definitely something to think about, because the military-industrial complex in the United States, but also in Germany—for example, Rheinmetall: I think they quadrupled their asset value; they have a 10% increase in production—I mean, unbelievable! And the profits are gigantic, because you always have irresponsible people who want to make a profit on the deaths of others.

So, I think the notion of anti-Semitism is definitely used in this situation—because if you cannot look at what is happening, and be upset in the deepest part of your heart, you’ve lost all humanity! I would say this about Sen. Lindsey Graham; look at what he said. He said, yeah, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons was absolutely the right thing to do, and in the same way the Israelis have the right to do whatever they have to do.

I mean, is this still human? Or is this some distortion of the mind? That’s a very polite way for me to put it. But this is insane. This is absolutely beyond the beyond! [But] did I hear from any of the mass media an outcry over such a statement from Lindsey Graham? I think Lindsey Graham is probably the biggest anti-Semite, because such statements will help to lead to the destruction of Israel. He’s not doing Israel one bit of good by using such words.

Schlanger: OK, here’s a question that just came in: “Can the neoliberal banking system and neocolonial monopolism reform itself, or will it be forced to do so?”

Zepp-LaRouche: I’m not so sure that they can reform themselves. Because we campaigned for the reintroduction of the Glass-Steagall Banking Act [mandating separation of commercial and speculative banking]—repeatedly. And the last time we did an earnest campaign several years ago—around the 2008 financial crisis—you had CEOs of the top banks flying around the United States, putting pressure on state legislators, trying to absolutely convince them to not touch this—that they would have the most severe consequences if they did. So, I’m not sure.

I think the power elite, which makes their profit based on speculation and derivatives, and who have helped to accumulate this unbelievable indebtedness by having this speculative system, I don’t think they will give up and be reasonable—I can’t see it. I always give people the benefit of the doubt, knowing that all human beings are capable of finding a way to become human again, to change course. But changing these people will probably take a shock. I think that we should be prepared to go in the direction of the Four Laws of Lyndon LaRouche. I think it would be very good, if people would discuss that with their elected officials, on all levels—Congress, Senate, state legislators—because I think that the moment of shock will come more quickly than people may think. I believe we’re sitting on a complete powder keg of a system which is completely overstretched: The increase in debt cannot be paid; the outstanding derivative contracts cannot be saved. So it does require either a mobilization of the population—I know we have independent candidates like U.S. Senate candidate Diane Sare in New York, and U.S. Congressional candidate Jose Vega in the Bronx, where the Four Laws of LaRouche are in their election programs. Around the rest of the world, I know there are massive efforts to create a de-dollarized system; to have trade in national currencies; to eventually create another reserve currency. But that is not an easy process, and the transition does create a vulnerability. However, I think the idea of planning for such a reorganization is of the utmost importance.

Schlanger: I have a few more questions for you, Helga. I’m going to put two together: Someone wrote in about the demonstrations going on in the nation of Georgia right now, which is a former Soviet republic, and it looks very suspicious. The person writes, “It looks like a new Maidan-style regime change coup operation under way. Can we expect more of these things.”

And I just got a note that there was an assassination attempt against the Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico, who was shot five times. His condition is not known, but the person writes, “This looks like the kind of operation that would be a destabilization. Any thoughts?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, the motives of the terrorist who shot Fico five times are not yet known. Fortunately, he seems to be not in fatal condition, and he’s being treated in the hospital right now. We have seen so-called “lone assassins” before and they were almost never lone assassins. But I think there will be a very serious investigation and we have to wait for what happens.

We are in a period of incredible danger, because I expect that the next several months will mean a complete change in the strategic situation. And obviously the kind of wetworks and Maidan efforts—it’s going in this direction in Georgia, because the Georgian government wants to pass legislation which requires foreign financed NGOs to publicly disclose the sources of their funding. We saw this in Ukraine. As Victoria Nuland had bragged, the State Department had spent at least $5 billion on these NGOs. And now there is an obvious effort to rewrite the history; that it was a “democratic” change in government in Ukraine—which it was not. There was the Orange Revolution in 2004. At that time the issues were very clear and we covered it all on the spot. You cannot convince us to rewrite history when we were witnessing and reporting it on the scene as it occurred.

So, everybody should be extremely aware and on guard, because, as I said, I expect the world to look completely different by the end of this year.

Schlanger: We have another question that just came in. Theo writes: “It seems to me that the lawfare and legal persecution of President Trump by the Biden administration is similar to the state attack on Lyndon LaRouche. Is this so?” And then he asks, “How can we hold the history of this persecution up so the state will not be free to do this in the future to contrarian leaders?”

Zepp-LaRouche: I would not say that the situation is quite comparable, because my husband did not do any of the things he was accused of. I don’t know the validity of the accusations against Trump. What is clear is that whatever the substance of it, it is being used out of proportion. I don’t know if Mr. Trump had something going with Ms. Daniels, and I don’t even want to know. But that is not exactly comparable to what Lyndon LaRouche was accused of, which was a complete travesty. Ramsey Clark, who was the former U.S. Attorney General in the Johnson administration, and was LaRouche’s appeals attorney, he said the case against my husband was the biggest bending of justice, biggest travesty of justice in the history of the United States.

Now, given the fact that this was done to a President, namely President Trump, I would say it is indeed on a similar level, and the methods used are the same. I can only say that if President Trump had had the courage to open all the documents on Russiagate—which he could have done when he was still President—this problem could have been eliminated. I think that was definitely a big problem. And he could have also exonerated my husband, at the end of his presidency, when he was exonerating several other people. He would have done himself a great favor in doing so.

So, I can only say I have mixed feelings about this thing. Even so, it is the same apparatus, and it is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in terms of the Nazis: First they came for the Gypsies, then they came for the Social Democrats, then they came for the Jews; and when they came for me, there was nobody left to defend me—I think that message definitely applies to this situation.

Schlanger: I have one final question for you, Helga, from Bob, who says: “I’ve learned a lot from listening to you, but here’s a question for you. Is there a military-industrial complex, or so-called Deep State players in China and Russia, who work with Western globalists?”

Zepp-LaRouche: No. I think this is one of those fake stories being circulated to confuse people. I mean, obviously you have sometimes an agent here or there, and they are being discovered and kicked out. But I think China is a highly centralized country which is one of the reasons for its efficiency. I think in Russia—I would say, after the death of Prigozhin, and the death of Navalny—there is no significant opposition. I think the country has moved in a different direction: They’re turning towards Asia, to the disadvantage of the West. This is the West’s own doing—really stupid. But Russia is equally becoming quite coherent, and I totally exclude the possibility of any connection to the military-industrial complex.

I mean, there were efforts to divide Russia from China. Blinken tried his best to accomplish that when he was in China. There were other developments, where the Russians were told to disengage from China, and they would have all kinds of advantages if they would do that. They flatly refused. So, I would definitely say, “No,” to your question.

Schlanger: I hope that clarifies it for all the people who fall prey to this kind of disinformation. Helga, that’s all we have time for today. Thank you for joining us, and I hope to see you again next week.

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes. And please, help us distribute the Oasis Plan videos to all relevant people: people in the Middle East, legislators, and elected officials everywhere where you are. Let’s try to build a constituency for a new security and development architecture, in the tradition of the Peace of Westphalia, which takes into account the interest of every single country on the planet. And then we can overcome this war danger and establish a peace order.