Schiller Institute Weekly Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Reason, Not Weapons—
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The following is an edited transcript of the August 14, 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. She is the founder and leader of the Schiller Institute. Today is Wednesday, August 14, 2024. I’m Harley Schlanger and I’ll be your host. You can send your questions and comments to questions@schillerinstitute.org or post them to the chat page.

Helga, our title today is “Reason, not Weapons” and it takes us directly to the question of how to apply reason to change the dangerous direction that’s been chosen by Western governments on numerous fronts. We have a series of questions that came in on the invasion of Ukrainian forces into the Kursk region of Russia. There are reports that there were mercenaries from Poland, the United Kingdom and France, and this has prompted a number of analysts to say that this has crossed a red line. You described this attack, and the Ukraine drone attack on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, as “a new phase in Western plans for the destruction of Russia.”

So here are some of the questions for you: “Do you think these attacks are a sign of the desperation of Ukraine, the U.S. and NATO? Do you think that they’re designed to create a better bargaining position for Zelensky at future negotiations? Or do you think it’s a declaration of all-out war on Russia?”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I’m worried that it may be the latter, because what we have seen is really, step-by-step, an escalation. And the idea that— I can only quote certain top analysts, who have made the point that, while the Russians are clearly moving ahead massively in the Donbass region, the Ukrainian troops are losing—according to reports—1,000 people a day, who are killed or wounded. And these troops are very badly trained, some of them only a few days, and then they’re being sent to the battlefield, in a terrible situation. But then, this brigade which attacked the Kursk Region, supposedly, is an excellently trained brigade on the level of NATO weapons, NATO training and, obviously, they have been able to make progress, limited progress, but progress, nevertheless. So, I think the underlying motive is still escalation to draw Russia into a general war, because I cannot see any logic: If you wanted to have a settlement, you could have had that in March 2022. So, I think when the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the situation is such that there are no longer any circuit breakers, I think this is much more to the point, because it seems to go on and on. And I think we are quickly reaching the point of no return.

I think we are in a very, very dangerous escalation, in the two war fronts around Ukraine, but also Southwest Asia. And that’s why we have been making a real effort to try to get a different level into the whole debate, with a discussion of a new security and development architecture, with the idea of trying to get some other voice in the picture, because right now I think we are headed for a complete catastrophe.

Schlanger: We should call on people to participate in the International Peace Coalition,which had an extraordinarily successful call last week, in terms of participants and the power of the presentations. So that’s every Friday, and people should join that and become a part of that.

You mentioned the Southwest Asia situation: We have a question from someone who identifies herself as a Palestinian, who’s a grandmother of many children who still live in Gaza. And she says, “Is there any chance the hostage release and ceasefire talks in Doha will succeed? Why would anyone expect Netanyahu to suddenly accept a ceasefire and a Palestinian state? Is there anyone who has any leverage that can change the situation inside Israel?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, clearly, the only force which could have the leverage is the United States and the Biden administration. However, if you look at what they’re doing, not only are they continuously supplying Israel with weapons— They just concluded another deal which will not go into effect right away, because these are weapons systems—all kinds of fighter jets and other vehicles which clearly take years for production—but it’s a deal for $20 billion that the State Department just concluded with Israel, which, even if it doesn’t affect the situation immediately, it sends a horrible signal! The opposite would be needed: basically, that the United States says, “stop now, have a ceasefire and agree to all the other demands,” but that I don’t see coming.

What you see instead is a continuous buildup of U.S. weapons systems in the region: U.S. aircraft carriers, U.S. submarines, all kinds of fleets accompanying these formations. So, I think that from the side of the United States, they clearly sent out the signal—what U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had said from the very beginning—that if Israel is attacked, the United States will stand firmly by the side of Israel which, given the unbelievable reception Netanyahu got in the United States in the Congress—with 58 standing ovations—he can only read as a signal to completely go ahead.

I think that the present situation seems to be very, very stuck. I think the only sign of hope is that Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, was just in Moscow; I think he still is in Moscow. He met with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday. There, it was agreed that Palestinians will be in a special role, participating in the BRICS summit in Kazan [Russia] in October, and that there will be a forum created on the sidelines of the BRICS, for all nations to participate; to discuss and express their views on the situation in Gaza.

Now, that is, in a certain sense, a parallel event to what the resolution of Chandra Muzaffar, the head of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) from Malaysia is promoting; that is, the “Uniting for Peace” resolution—UN General Assembly Resolution 377A (V)—which provides that if the UN Security Council is stuck on a certain issue, because of the veto of one member, or some other reasons, then there is the provision that the entire issue can go to the UN General Assembly. And I think many peace organizations, including the International Peace Coalition, are supporting this idea. I think such an extraordinary step may be the last resort: that you bring the entire issue to the UN General Assembly, so that the eyes of the world will be directed towards it, and it cannot be covered up by whatever media control.

So, I think the situation is not hopeful. I think Hamas already said they will not participate in the meeting on Aug. 15th in Qatar or Egypt, and I think that therefore, this idea of going to the UN General Assembly may be the only way to move this forward.

Schlanger: You’re listening to Helga Zepp-LaRouche from the Schiller Institute.

Someone did ask a question about the UN Resolution 377 motion, so you answered that. But here’s a question going back to Ukraine from Deborah Jennings, who says: “Does Helga have any idea of who will be selected to replace Zelensky?”

Zepp-LaRouche: I don’t know, but there was yesterday a report from the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service that they claim that the United States, and the West in general, have decided to remove President Zelensky and replace him with Arsen Avakov, who was Interior Minister of Ukraine from 2014 to 2021. And if that would be the case, we would have to really look at it very carefully, because he is reported—this is all from this Russian source, so I think that needs to be, obviously, counter-checked—but he seems to be one of the founders of the Azov Battalion; he clearly has links to the Myrotvorets list, and in general, he seems to be in the vicinity of the Victoria Nuland networks, which include the present U.S. Ambassador to Kyiv. So, I think if that turns out to be true, it does not forebode anything good.

Schlanger: Here’s a question from a contact in Germany, who sent in the following: “With the obsessive coverage of the Olympics, we are hearing little about the political crisis in France.” And she writes: “Does Macron intend to run things without a Prime Minister? Are you expecting France to remain calm, or is there a possibility of a blowup there?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think the fact that there are now reports that foreign mercenaries from several countries, including France, reportedly are already in Ukraine, would confirm what Macron had mentioned some months ago: namely, that French and other NATO troops would be sent into Ukraine. Given this, it’s very hard to say when Russia’s final red line is crossed. The problem is that the West, every time Russia is not reacting, may become completely manic and say, “See! See! There are no red lines. Putin is just bluffing.” But I think this is just incredibly stupid, because I would give it a different interpretation: namely, that Putin shows an enormous patience, because the Russians are aware, like everybody in the West who is reasonable, that an escalation can only lead to tragedy! But it’s almost like an obsession with the West to keep escalating, keep escalating. And it’s not just France which will blow up, I’m sure, because there is nothing in the French situation which gives hope for stability.

The same situation, obviously, is in Germany, where this past Monday [Aug. 12], the presidium of the Social Democracy decided to fully back German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and the decision to install American medium-range, possibly long-range missiles in Germany. As Scholz had said when he came back from the NATO summit, the United States made the decision to put these long-range missiles into Germany, and that was a good decision. So, Scholz admitted that it was not Germany which made the decision, but it was the United States! Where is German sovereignty? Germany has become the laughingstock of the whole world; that they don’t have a government of their own, but they have somebody who is reducing Germany to a vassal state—the 51st state of the United States—run by some kind of a governor of the United States. It is abysmal!

And I can only say, we must do everything possible to tell the people, that if you install American missiles, with the idea that then they should be, after a certain production period, replaced by European-produced missiles, this brings us back to the situation as it was in the beginning of the 1980s, when you had the Pershing II and SS-20 missile crisis, with the NATO double standard, which reduced the warning time for a potential launch of nuclear weapons to 4-5 minutes! At that time, you had millions of people in the streets, because they were aware that if there were the slightest mistake, the one side would have on their radar screen something which looked like a missile from the other side, and they would have to launch their entire arsenal, because the time was just too short to allow for a mistake.

Now, at that time, these large, large mass demonstrations in the streets contributed to resolving the situation with the INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty; in the meantime, that INF Treaty and many other treaties have been cancelled—this was by President Trump—and now, basically, by the beginning of 2026, even the New START agreement will expire. And then you will have absolutely no more arms negotiation treaties between NATO and Russia. Therefore, I think anybody— What we have found in the organizing, is that the young people are completely oblivious and indifferent, and they have no idea. They say, “NATO is OK.” They don’t know! They have not thought it through. We found on the other hand, that this is not the case with the elderly in Germany, people who either experienced World War II, or grew up in the postwar period, when the memory of the bombings and the destruction of world war were still very fresh in the minds of people. So, we have to somehow succeed in making clear to people what is the effect of these decisions, because I think we have never been so close to the danger of a new war—this time with nuclear weapons—and if it ever comes to that, it would be the end of civilization.

So, I can only say that I think this decision by the SPD Presidium is suicidal. I cannot imagine that the SPD base will support that. There are already important people from the leadership, such as Rolf Mützenich, Ralf Stegner, Norbert Walter-Borjans, former SPD chairman, who are opposing it. But I think the SPD will get the bill for this decision in the upcoming state elections in September.

But Germany and France will go into a period of utmost turbulence. That’s already clear.

Schlanger: The person who asked that question just sent in a follow-up note, saying, “Thank you for your answer. It confirms what we thought. We now know for sure why Scholz never demanded an explanation for the Nord Stream pipeline: Germany will not defend its sovereign security and Scholz is a puppet.” So that’s from the person who asked the question.

Let’s jump over to the United States for a second, because we have a question from a Texas Republican, who said: “In 2016, my friends and I supported Donald Trump, because he attacked the new world order and all of its wars. Now it seems as though he’s supporting Israel’s war of extermination on Gaza. He gets support from Israeli Zionists and Christian Zionists in the United States. Do you know why he would change his stance against the war, and now be on the same side as Biden?”

Zepp-LaRouche: I don’t know what Trump will do. I still have a tiny hope that once he is President, given the fact that he is known for erratic decisions, that he may decide to really end these wars. I can only say this as a hope. It’s not a conviction and not a certainty.

I think the problem with the U.S. election in general is the influence of AIPAC in deciding local elections for Congressmen, for Senators, and also presidential candidates, with enormous amounts of money. It’s just breathtaking! Fortunately, they just failed to unseat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. In any case, what that proves is that the AIPAC— One should probably look at where they get their enormous sums of money, because we’re talking about millions and millions of dollars.

What that demonstrates is that the United States is no longer a democracy; it’s a plutocracy. If what decides elections is sums of millions, and in some cases dozens of millions, then I think it’s really democracy itself which is at stake. So, I can only say, this is a period like never, ever existed in history, where I think the electoral process, even in an important election like the presidential election in the United States, is definitely reaching its limits. And the only hope is that ordinary citizens, people who normally think that they have no big role, they must become state citizens, by, in a certain sense, understanding that when the American Revolution happened, the War of Independence, preceded by the Declaration of Independence— People should re-read the text of the Declaration of Independence: That at certain times—don’t ask me now to quote it from heart, I don’t know; but I know the content very well—that the Declaration of Independence, basically, says that you should never lightheartedly bring down a government or change the order, because it implies a lot. But after you have endured a miserable condition for a very long time, you have the right and the duty to bring a change.

Now, that obligation of the Declaration of Independence is, right now, what is required. But it does mean that ordinary citizens have to become state citizens. That means they have to quickly qualify themselves to be competent on the decisions of what a President should do in terms of foreign policy, economic policy, military policy, cultural policy. I think the United States, just as the European countries, will go into a very difficult period, because this is not just a U.S. election, because we are sitting on the powder keg of the failing financial system. You saw the Black Monday, Aug. 5, last week, where especially Asian stock markets went down, and then popped up the next day. This was, basically, due to the yen carry trade, the derivative exposure—and a collapse of the markets could happen at any time. It could even happen before the U.S. election.

Then, naturally, you have the emergence of a new system, in the form of the BRICS—that is also underway before the U.S. election. And I can only repeat what I’ve said for a very long time: that the only way you will get out of this incredibly dangerous moment, with the danger of nuclear war, is to convince the political forces in the West—in the collective West, in Europe, in the United States—that we have to stop trying to treat all these other countries as enemies: Russia, China, the BRICS countries, Brazil, Indonesia, India, African countries. These are not enemies! And we should support their effort to overcome their own underdevelopment. In the case of the Global South, these countries, for the very first time, see the chance to overcome underdevelopment and poverty because of the rise of China, which is not a threat.

And I think we have to re-tool the thinking, and the average citizen has to express people-to-people relations. If they can afford it, they should travel to some of these countries, or seek a dialogue. But we have to start to stop this geopolitical confrontation, or soon it will be too late. And I’m absolutely certain—and I can only give you a personal guarantee—that if the United States, if Germany, France, Italy, would say “OK, we want to participate in the building of a new economic system together with the BRICS, on a win-win basis, on the basis of the UN Charter, on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence,” I can give you a 100% assurance the answer would be an overwhelming “Yes, we welcome you”: And that is the way out.

So please, bring this thought into the discussion. Go to town meetings of Congressmen or any other political event, and just raise that possibility. We have to get off this repetition of the Cold War on steroids, because that’s where we are right now.

Schlanger: And one of the ways to qualify as a proper citizen of our republic is to subscribe to Executive Intelligence Review. It’s a weekly online publication, which takes up these issues that we’re discussing today. In fact, the final question I have for you is from a longtime subscriber, who says he’s sending this note as the world is entering an economic period, which is being described by some as “choppy waters.” He reports, “Tomorrow is the 53rd anniversary of Nixon’s announcement that to protect the dollar, he was suspending the core of the Bretton Woods agreement.” He writes: “Your husband, the late Lyndon LaRouche, warned that Nixon’s actions were a repeat of Hjalmar Schacht’s economic policies implemented under Hitler, and should be described as ‘fascist,’ and would lead to a breakdown and war.” And he says, “Looking back at the 50-year arc of LaRouche’s forecast, I would say that his warnings were justified, and played a decisive role in the decision of members of the permanent bureaucracy of the Justice Department to persecute him. I’d like to know what you think, both about his forecast, and whether this was one of the major causes of the hostility against him from the establishment?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think they attacked my late husband at a moment when he was just the producer of ideas, when we had no political organization worth talking about. It was just a philosophical association in 1971. But, however, he absolutely, with crystal clear insight, and foresight, recognized the inherent flaw of the economic system. And when Nixon did that on Aug. 15, 1971, he was the only economist, internationally, who absolutely, on the mark, predicted that if you would continue on this line of deregulation—of replacing production with profit-maximization, of money-makes-money, of the whole exuberant system of creating more billionaires, and more billions of poor people—that this would lead to a point of new breakdown.

And it’s so funny: In the recent period, I had several discussions with high-ranking people, who, at a certain point, always would bring up, on their own, the forecasts of Lyndon LaRouche. And they said, “Look, it is incredible, now everything is turning out to be exactly as he prognosed it, and it’s too bad that he is not around to see how absolutely truthful his prognoses turned out to be. But also, that some of his solutions are now being picked up by so many countries in the Global South, to implement sound economic policies.” And I think that that is very true.

So, maybe tomorrow, on that fateful anniversary, the best our viewers can do is to read some of LaRouche’s writings. Read, for example, “On a Basket of Hard Commodities: Trade Without Currency,” which is one of the articles on the EIR website homepage, and you can click on it, and just read it, and then think, “Why is the West not just doing the same thing, working together with the countries of the Global South?” My late husband had defined “The Four New Laws to Save the U.S.A. Now! Not An Option: An Immediate Necessity”: The first one is to go for Glass-Steagall; do exactly what Franklin D. Roosevelt did with the Glass-Steagall [U.S. Banking] Act in 1933: that is you have to protect the commercial banks and you have to tell the investment banks that they have to bring their books into order on their own—without taxpayer money. And if they’re bankrupt, they should just declare bankruptcy, but not be maintained by an endless stream of printed money, because the rest of the world is no longer going to finance it. That’s part of the significance of the de-dollarization, which is going on. And then, you have to have national banks, preferably in every country. Then you have to put credit generation back under the control of a sovereign government, and put out credit lines for production; for investment in those areas of the economy which are valid: infrastructure, science, basic research and development, all kinds of industries, agriculture, high-technology areas like space, fusion.

It would be so easy to resolve this. And if the United States would make the decision to shift away from the permanent wars—and feeding these wars with the military-industrial complex—and basically say, from now on, we will invest these capacities, and credit to be generated through this reform, for the reconstruction of the United States: infrastructure, rebuilding the cities, investing in the health system, the education system—it would be so much more beneficial for the United States and the rest of the world. I can only hope that this anniversary will get thinking people, not only in the United States, but also in other parts of the world, to “think of the wise words of Lyndon LaRouche and listen to them,” as Mexican President José López Portillo had already demanded in 1998. So, now is the time to “listen to the wise words of Lyndon LaRouche.”

Schlanger: Helga, I posted this morning, on the Daily Update, an interview I found with Lyndon LaRouche from April 2003, that was done in Germany, where he talked about his decision to take on the fight against the International Monetary Fund at the point that Nixon pulled the plug. And I think your point here is that it’s time for Americans, who haven’t yet discovered LaRouche, to discover him, because I think people around the world are already realizing that this is how they wish Americans would think.

So, those are the questions I have. Do you have any closing comments?

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes: Please go to the Schiller Institute website to watch the video of the International Peace Coalition from last Friday, Aug. 9. It’s an absolutely incredible combination of speeches. Some of the best people in the United States, I would say, warned and tried to wake up the public about where we are at. Don’t miss that video. Distribute it widely.

And then, do everything you can to participate in the next IPC meeting, this coming Friday, Aug. 16, at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, because there we will have a special speaker, among several others—namely, [former USMC intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector] Scott Ritter, who, on Aug. 7, had his home raided and searched by the FBI. And I think he will talk about what that was all about. So do not miss that; this will be an extremely important event. And join the International Peace Coalition, because that is our effort to unite the peace movement before it is too late.

Schlanger: Thank you, Helga, for joining us today. And I think I speak for everyone when we thank you for your work, and we’ll see you on Friday.

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, till Friday.