Schiller Institute Webcast Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche

At This Moment of Danger,
the People Must Be the Peacemakers

The following is an edited transcript of the June 5, 2024, weekly Schiller Institute dialogue with Schiller Institute founder and leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Embedded links have been added. The video is available here.

Harley Schlanger: Hello and welcome to our weekly dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute founder and leader. Today is Wednesday, June 5, 2024. I’m Harley Schlanger and I’ll be your host. You can send us your questions and comments by email to questions@schillerinstitute.org or post them on the chat page in YouTube.

Helga, as the provocations by NATO against Russia escalate, there are many in the Global South who are asking, and I’ve been receiving emails about this—they’re asking, “Where is the pushback against these provocations from the West? Where are the diplomats? Where are the voices in the West to counter those committed to escalating this confrontation?”

Well, there was a sharp warning sounded by Scott Ritter due to an extraordinary event a few days ago: He was prevented from flying to Russia to participate in the conference of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) and also from going to some meetings to promote peace between Russia and the United States. Here’s what Ritter said after being removed from the plane and having his passport seized. He was talking about the threat from NATO, and he said, “The Ukrainians are complaining that the United States will only allow them to use the HIMARS, which have a limited range, compared to the ATACMS, complaining that they won’t be allowed to use the ATACMS to strike Russia yet. But just so everybody in your audience understands, we are one ATACMS launch away from everybody dying.” And he repeated it, “We are one ATACMS launch away from everybody dying. The Russians aren’t playing games here.” I’d like to know, to start with, what are your thoughts on what happened with Ritter, lifting his passport, and more importantly, your thoughts on his comments on the war danger?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I agree with those commentators who say that this will very likely lead to a boomerang for those who did it, because it absolutely draws international attention to what Ritter is saying, why did he want to go to St. Petersburg to attend the Economic Forum? And what is the State Department afraid of, what he may say? And I think it will just underline the importance of his statements.

Now, the idea that we are one ATACMS away from Armageddon, it better sink into the consciousness of the people, because I think this is absolutely the case: If you look at what is happening, you had on May 22—people should remember that day, because that was in my view the day when a very important red line—maybe the essential red line—was crossed already, namely that a Ukrainian drone attacked the radar early-warning system for the strategic systems of Russia in Armavir on May 22, destroyed or damaged severely the radar installation; and one [attack] in Orsk on May 26 was repelled.

But these radar systems are early-warning systems which have nothing to do with the Ukraine war as such, and to blind the early warning system of a nuclear power is hinting in the direction—and nobody can deny the conclusion that it is, especially if it is not one drone, but three drones—that it is the preparation for a nuclear attack on Russia.

Now, even trying to appear this way, or even if it was not meant to appear this way, is playing with fire, with risk of the extinction of human civilization. And I think as of that date, we have entered a new domain. In the meantime, it’s slowly getting out. We put it out practically one day afterwards, on May 27, by putting out a Red Alert, which was picked up by various journalists. And a few days later, we had a video conference, on May 31, with top nuclear experts, such as Ted Postol and others, which we circulated widely as well. So now it’s getting into the alternative media, but it still does not find any adequate attention in the mainstream media, which is outrageous! I mean, here we are sitting on the absolute verge of a possible extinction of civilization, because that would be the result if it comes to this nuclear war. And the mass media are continuing with their war hype and warmongering.

So this on top of the response when [Russian President Vladimir] Putin reacted for the first time, with deciding on the maneuver of the tactical nuclear weapons, explicitly in answer to the provocations of [French President Emmanuel] Macron saying he wants to send NATO troops to Ukraine, [British Foreign Secretary David] Cameron saying it’s OK if the Ukrainians use British cruise missiles to attack inside Russia, and the idea of putting F-16s into Ukraine, which are dual-use and therefore nuclear capable. So, when Putin said he held these maneuvers in reaction to these provocations, what did the West do? They doubled-down: They all the more announced the same thing. [U.S. Secretary of State Antony] Blinken reiterated that the Ukrainians can use all American weapons, except the ATACMS, and now that is what is happening: You have massive attacks on Belgorod, which is very close to the Ukrainian border on the Russian side. And so far they have only used the HIMARS missiles, but therefore, I can only say, the judgment of Scott Ritter to say, once they start to use the ATACMS missiles, which are much longer-range and could actually reach deeply into Russian territory, or, if German Chancellor Scholz capitulates again—which he just did—and allows the Taurus cruise missiles to be deployed, this could lead to the absolute destruction even of Moscow, the Kremlin, and it would mean, guaranteed, World War III.

And we are absolutely sitting on that powder keg; therefore, one ATACMS away from Armageddon is exactly where we are. And we have to really get the population mobilized, because it is unbelievable, according to the judgment, for example, of Harald Kujat, who is the former Inspector General of the Bundeswehr (2000-2002), and former Chairman of the Military Committee of NATO (2002-2005), and he said that the situation in his view is more dangerous than during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is absolutely the case.

But where is the alarm in the population? Where is the diplomacy approach, which existed between Kennedy and Khrushchev at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis? We are in the absolutely most dangerous situation ever, and the response by the population is absolutely inadequate. But that is the result of politicians and the mass media not speaking the truth.

Schlanger: We have some questions that have come in that are quite interesting. For example, from a subscriber to the Executive Intelligence Review from the northwest of the United States, she writes: “I just read the report in EIR on the Ukraine Center To Combat [sic] Disinformation and that it is compiling a hit list, with funding and backup by NATO and the United States.” She writes, “Is there anyone in Congress opposing this? Everyone should visit their Congressman and demand that this should be shut down.” And she recommended that people should write to us and subscribe to EIR to get that report. What can you tell us about that, Helga?

EIR’s Dossier on Ukrainian Hit Lists

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes. EIR compiled a dossier about these lists—the CCD [Center for Countering Disinformation] list, the Molfar list, the Myrotvorets list—these are all lists which target people who supposedly are siding with Russia. That as such is an insult: I, myself, and many other people on that list, have their own mind. They don’t need to be puppets of Russia to come to the conclusion about what happened in the last 30-plus years before the Ukrainian war broke out. It’s an insult to our intelligence.

But we compiled this [dossier], and we put it in the context of the assassination attempt against the Slovakian Prime Minister, Robert Fico, who was on that list. In the meantime, the dossier has been published in Italian, French, Spanish, and German; it has been posted on various websites, including as a podcast in Germany. It is circulating rather widely, at least in the alternative media. But the fact that Scott Ritter is on that list, and Ray McGovern, for that matter, and several other people; the fact that Ritter did point to this in several of the interviews he gave after he was denied access to his trip to Istanbul, from where he was supposed to then be going to St. Petersburg, I think he has put it on the table very frankly, that it is a complete scandal that the State Department is financing all of this!

So, I think this is really something to be picked up, not only by Congress, but I think by any elected official in the United States, on the state level, city level, as well as Members of Parliament in Europe and elsewhere; they can also be in Africa—anyplace. You know, at a point where we are fighting for the legitimacy of the entire system, at a point when the U.S. Congress or the U.S. House of Representatives, with a majority vote to sanction the ICC, and the International Court of Justice as well, this is making a travesty of the idea that something like international law still exists, and, therefore, I think it is the right of every elected official, no matter where in the world they are, to demand an investigation and stopping of this scandalous thing!

Schlanger: One example of what people can do is to follow the model of Jose Vega, who is now on the ballot as a Congressional candidate in the 15th Congressional District in New York, in the Bronx; and Diane Sare, his colleague, who is now on the ballot as candidate for U.S. Senate in New York. They have gone to numerous events and confronted the politicians who refuse to discuss seriously the ending of these wars: either the war in Ukraine, or the Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

If people have questions or comments, send them to us at questions@schillerinstitute.org, and Helga still has time to take some questions today.

Here’s something from South Africa. She writes: “I’m concerned about attacks against BRICS members by the imperial powers.” She mentions the Ukraine war against Russia, threats to go to war against China, and says, “Now we see that in the election in India, Modi was weakened, but he still has a majority. But in South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) lost its majority.” And she writes: “I don’t think this is a coincidence, but part of a U.S. regime-change apparatus. What do you think?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think we indeed see such attacks. There was the terrible result of the Argentine election campaign, which brought into office a person who is qualified, maybe, for many things, but for sure not for the office he now occupies. Then you have the massive pressure by the IMF against Egypt. You have a massive effort by the United States to pull Saudi Arabia into a new treaty with Israel, promising all kinds of economic benefits, Saudi-American cooperation, in an obvious attempt to weaken the determination of Saudi Arabia to be part of the BRICS. So then, naturally, the situation in South Africa, in which one can only hope that the forces of reason prevail in forming a new coalition in this country.

But there is no question that this is a very existential battle, because, I said already, rather than for the establishments of the Global North to reflect that all the things which are happening right now—the moving away of the vast majority of the countries of world in a global majority, to form a new system with the BRICS—rather than understanding that that is not evil intention by the countries of the Global South, but their legitimate desire to find an economic cooperation which allows their own economic development through industrialization, which they only get with China—they’re not getting it with Europe or the United States! What is happening is a blowback of the insistence of the countries of the North to continue, de facto, the system of neocolonialism.

And I have said it again and again: We have to convince the people of Western Europe and the United States that the countries of the Global South are not their enemy. What the BRICS-Plus countries are attempting to do is to straighten out the world order, which could have been straightened out, if the United States and Europe would have decided to do so. And there was a unique chance, when the Soviet Union disintegrated around the time of the German reunification, the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a period when it was eminently possible to establish a new security and development architecture. Romano Prodi, who was the head of the European Commission at the time, talked about a new security architecture from Vladivostok to Lisbon, and it was eminently possible to have gone in that direction. And that that chance was missed, that is really the original sin of why we are in the crisis right now. And we have to encourage the countries of the Global South to speak with a much louder voice: They have a right to speak about world issues, because if it comes to a world war, they will be the victims of it like everybody else. And therefore, I can only encourage the countries of the Global South to speak out more loudly, so that the people in the West, in European nations, in the United States, can actually hear what they have to say.

Overcoming Obstacles to Peace

Schlanger: We have a couple of questions that are somewhat similar. I’ll put them together for you. One is from Michael, from Switzerland, I believe, who says, “What’s clear is that you have puppet regimes of Biden, Stoltenberg, von der Leyen, Macron, Scholz, and Strack-Zimmermann, and so on, and they’re doing what they’re told to do. So, there’s obviously fear, blackmail, and acting for personal profit or just out of fanaticism.” And he says, if this were exposed—what’s behind this, the people who are doing the blackmail—then he thinks the public would awaken and move against it.

Now, similarly, we have a question from Gabriel in Mexico, who is asking about how to preempt the adversaries of the move to a new security architecture so that the Oasis Plan can be implemented. And he says, “What can be done to eliminate the influence of groups like AIPAC and similar institutions that are lobbying for the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine?”

So if you can take those two questions together: How do we expose this and get people moving on it?

Zepp-LaRouche: I think, unfortunately, there is no magic solution, but you have to organize. From my observation, in every single country in Europe I know of, there is a bubbling underground, which is reflected in the social media; it’s reflected in the alternative media of people who are speaking very, very openly. And that means the majority of people are becoming aware of what is happening. The problem is, that since they’re not represented in the mass mainstream media, you don’t get the impression that there are so many, and the only answer I have is that you have to become an organizer: Use this webcast, for example, use the videos from the Friday IPC [International Peace Coalition] meetings which we put on the Schiller Institute website now over the last few weeks and will probably keep doing it. Use other publications: Harley makes an update every weekday morning. Use all of these things and spread them. If everybody who is listening would make sure that these media products that I just named, were sent to all your contacts, all your friends, colleagues, networks, you have chat groups—you have every possible way—I think we could get a snowball system going which would be a game-changer.

I think if people would wake up about being one ATACMS away, and if you see how many times promises not to do a certain thing were broken—[German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz is the continuously capitulating person in this whole situation; nobody believes that he has any backbone at all, by now—so if we would get a real mobilization of masses of people, I think we could still turn it around.

Look, for example, at what happened over the weekend in Hungary: Now, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is slandered a lot by the same media, he made a passionate speech before hundreds of thousands of people, where he accused NATO of preparing a war; he pledged that Hungary will not be a part of it, and he said, this is all [George] Soros-financed, and that is clearly proven, because Soros money sits in many institutions, and has been involved in the Maidan in Ukraine, and now there is a danger that a new Maidan is being organized in Georgia. The Prime Minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, by the way, warned of the same thing, that NATO is preparing a war. The President of Bulgaria, Rumen Radev, just put out an absolutely stern warning in a press conference, saying that we are on the verge of Armageddon. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has said similar things. So, it’s not monolithic. You already have several heads of state and government of Eastern Europe who are warning of this, and they’re not being reported honestly in the Western media. If we would really pick up and say, “Why is it that all of these heads of state and government are all of a sudden saying we are close to World War III?” And that is the message we have to get out widely.

Schlanger: Helga, we have a question for you about Germany from the United Kingdom. This woman writes: “Helga, your country is in almost as big a mess as mine, the UK. We have an excuse: We suffer from having a monarchy and the City of London, but what excuse do the Germans have? Why is Germany’s government so terrible? What happened to the spirit of ’89?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think what we have seen with Germany is really a tragedy. Germany is a country that had one of the most beautiful Classical cultural periods in the history of mankind. If you look at the musical tradition from Bach and Haydn; Mozart is not exactly German, but of the German-speaking area; Beethoven, Schumann, Schubert. If you look at the poets of this period, Lessing, Schiller, Heine, you can mention Goethe, and many others, and the many scientific contributions which came from Germany. I struggled many decades ago, already, with the question, how could it be that such a beautiful country, with such incredible strength, could fall so deeply, like with the Nazi period?

And that’s a long history; I published a book called The Hitler Book, in which I looked into the influences which led up to Hitler taking power. But it didn’t stop there. If you look at the history of the postwar period, the re-education through the Allied forces, the cultural manipulation of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), you could actually say this was an early form of cognitive manipulation, which is now being discussed that that is what NATO is doing as massive PR campaigns; and the Frankfurt School. So, you had many waves of manipulation: Many of them were really foreign intelligence operations, like the CCF, for example.

But then, basically, you had this proud moment where Germany did, actually, gain its sovereignty through the peaceful revolution in 1989, and the subsequent reunification. But there, a lot of things went wrong already: It was de facto usurped by the West. You had the process where Germany did not define the reunification according to its own interests, but there was already then pressure coming from the U.S., from the British, [for Germany] to contain itself through giving up its currency, the deutschmark, for the euro system. And then, basically, there was a very conscious effort to rewrite history! I mean, talking about revanchism! In the Social Democracy [SPD], for example, without the Ostpolitik [Eastern policy] of [West Berlin Mayor 1957-66, later Chancellor] Willy Brandt and [Brandt advisor] Egon Bahr, there would have been no peaceful reunification! The idea of dialogue, even after the Soviet Union intervened in Czechoslovakia in 1968, there were negotiations between NATO and the Soviet Union, out of which came the CSCE [Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe] and the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe]!

Nowadays, you have not even an attempt to negotiate! How did they do that? They changed the SPD leadership to now have a crop of—I don’t want to be too forceful here, but they know nothing. They basically say the Ostpolitik was the problem and they turn everything upside down.

The Greens! Look at what happened to the Greens. The Greens started as an antiscientific, neo-Malthusian Green Party, but they were for peace [at that time]. They were sitting there, knitting socks in the Parliament, these kinds of things—and then, because you had somebody like Joschka Fischer as Foreign Minister, he completely changed the character by a massive manipulation which led to the first illegitimate war of NATO against Yugoslavia in 1999; and subsequently, you also have the Greens turning into their opposites.

So you already have the SPD totally turned on their head, the Greens turned on their head. And, there is a phenomenon called “synarchism,” that’s not known in Germany; it’s outlawed there. If you try to find books about synarchism in German, you will find out there are none. But the synarchism was a tendency in France, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s, which was the idea that you have to ensure that only those politicians [are allowed to hold office] who, in a time of crisis make sure that not the interest of the common good is being followed, but the interests of the financial sector. And therefore, you have to push those people into leading positions which make sure that they vote in the right way, and they orchestrate things in the right way. And I think that that has happened in Germany to an extent—for example, the former European head of BlackRock [Friedrich Merz] is now head of the German opposition party, CDU [Christian Democratic Union], likely or possibly the Chancellor candidate if this present government comes up for a vote. So, that is exactly what has happened.

And I think the only thing that will help against that, is having enough citizens standing up and taking responsibility for the future of their country. And I think that that is beginning to happen. It’s really an incredible moment. There is a lot of confusion out there. Therefore, I can only encourage you to rally around us: Come to the Schiller Institute, work with us. We have the International Peace Coalition meeting every Friday: Become part of that, because we are trying to be truthful as to principles, not to interests.

Schlanger: We also have the June 15-16 conference, “The World on the Brink: For a New Peace of Westphalia!” and you can register for that on the Schiller Institute site.

Helga, I have two more questions, which I think are important. A questioner wrote in and said: “You have the Zelensky conference in Switzerland coming up, which is a joke. It has no chance of doing anything, because it leaves Russia out. But then, you have what looks interesting developing between China and Brazil as a peace plan. Zelensky recently attacked China for not coming to his Swiss conference. Is there a way to break the stalemate, so that there actually can be a negotiated settlement in Ukraine?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, there better be, and I would assume that given that not only do the leaders of the Global South, the BRICS countries in particular, not go to Switzerland, but that they go, many of them, to St. Petersburg—the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) just started today. It will go for altogether three days, and I think there are 17,000, or as many as 25,000, participants; 70 countries, 3,000 major firms; and a lot of people who also have diplomatic matters to accomplish are gathering and meeting in St. Petersburg. So, I would be very surprised, if we could not see a beefed-up effort of this Chinese-Brazilian initiative, because that is the one which has the real potential to bring in peace, because it does involve Ukraine and Russia. And what a joke to not invite Russia! There can be no peace without Russia! Everybody who has any knowledge of diplomacy or history agrees with that.

So, let’s hope that that initiative comes more into the forefront.

Inner Strength from Culture

Schlanger: And finally, I have a question from a regular correspondent. I think you answered his first question, about how do we get information out to our groups and family. But his next two questions are interesting: “How do we keep our sanity?” and “How do we make the cognitive leap?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, the two questions have the same answer: You have to use your mind. In a certain sense, the present world situation is so insane, I mean, how could we, the human species, risk our own existence by allowing us to be on the verge of nuclear war as we now are? The only fair characterization is that it’s complete insanity on the part of those pushing it. And I could name many factors of the environment which are equally—not equally, but also pretty insane: The whole cultural situation in the West is just obnoxious.

So, what do you do?

You have to have an inner strength, by studying Schiller, by studying Dante, Pushkin; you have to listen to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. And the more you do for your own creative development, where you really say you have to have the idea of mastering every area of human knowledge, because you always discover a new universe, a new dimension of our existence: That makes you happy, because you realize you are alive in your mind, and when you use that new knowledge to teach others and make their lives more rich, then you are also socially happy. So, I think that that is the best. If you are confronted with a great danger, to just sit there and watch it makes you depressed, especially when you are up against such incredible forces, such as what we are up against. But if you start to organize, you know, you are trying to get others to see what is endangering the human species, it makes it completely manageable.

So, I can only say: What keeps you sane, is, make sure your own mind is beautiful, and you’re working on the beauty of your soul by trying to get rid of those systems, those elements in your own system which are not so pretty, so you should get rid of those. Try to become a better human being through aesthetic education. Try to write a poem, try to make other people happy, by elevating their level of knowledge, and then it’s quite manageable to remain happy and effective.

Schlanger: Good advice. Thank you for that! And thank you for joining us today, Helga. We’ll see you again next week.

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes. And get active with us, and join the Friday, June 5 International Peace Coalition meeting!