Schiller Institute Weekly Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Hit the Howling War Pigs with Polyphony

The following is an edited transcript of the November 13, 2024, weekly Schiller Institute dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and leader of the Schiller Institute. Embedded links have been added. The video is available here.

Harley Schlanger: Hello and welcome to our weekly dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and leader of the Schiller Institute. This is Wednesday, November 13, 2024. I’m Harley Schlanger and I’ll be your host today. You can send your questions and comments by email to questions@schillerinstitute.org.

I want to announce at the beginning that the Schiller Institute is sponsoring a crucial conference on Dec. 7-8 under the title, “In the Spirit of Schiller and Beethoven: All Men Become Brethren.” You’ll find the link to register for it at the Schiller Institute homepage. I’m sure we’ll be discussing this today as we take up the question of what can be done to be sure we can move humanity out of the danger it’s in, with two wars going on and planning for more wars, which we’ll be discussing in the course of our dialogue.

Helga, it’s been a week since the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President. I’m reasonably certain that the establishment is still somewhat shocked and is launching plans to maintain their control. But there have been many reverberations resulting from the vote. I’ve received several emails expressing pessimism about the incoming administration, so let’s start with that. What is your recommendation to the President-elect? What should his immediate priorities be?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Obviously, with the selection of his Cabinet and, otherwise, leaders of the institutions, this does give room for certain concern, because the world stage has changed dramatically since Trump left the White House four years ago. And now, the existence of a Global Majority in the form of the BRICS is a new strategic reality, which no President of the United States, nor head of government of any country can ignore. There was just over Oct. 22-24 the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, where 22 countries are now members of the BRICS, or ready to become members by the beginning of the year; and about 30 more countries have expressed interest to join that group. Already in Kazan, this represented 4.7 billion people, meaning 57% of the world population. And if you look at the countries involved, it’s China and India, and between these two population-rich countries, it’s already 3 billion people; then you have many emerging countries like Brazil, Indonesia, and also many others, and the growth rates especially in that part of the world.

So, for the United States not to have a positive relationship to that group of countries, which have stated explicitly that they’re not a bloc, they’re not trying to compete with NATO, they’re not trying to exclude countries—the offer by Chinese President Xi Jinping to former U.S. President Barack Obama of some years ago, that the United States should align with China, that offer still exists. The BRICS is open to even NATO members. So, given the fact that the U.S. has a new Presidency— And I’m sure that Trump has drawn his own conclusion of what happened in his first term in office, Russiagate and who was behind it; he has made several announcements that he would open the [President John F.] Kennedy assassination files, and he could also open many other files for that matter! So, he could start with a completely clean slate, and he could really try to make good on his promise to end the wars, to for sure not begin new ones.

And even beyond that, the crucial question is, can he convince the countries of the so-called “collective West,” that is, the United States and West European nations, to cooperate with the BRICS countries in the development of the Global South? This is the challenge of our time, because the beautiful thing is that the countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America, are in a full swing to overcome not only colonialism, but also neocolonialism, which persisted after they reached so-called “independence.” And now, all of these countries no longer want to be just raw material exporters, but they want to keep the raw materials for reprocessing, to develop the value chain in their own countries and become full-set economies, and increase the living standards, so that poverty and underdevelopment are eradicated. And that is, naturally, the only way to prevent millions of people from trying to flee because of poverty and hardship; and that way you can solve the migrant question.

So, for Trump, once he is in office, rather than trying to build a wall [along the U.S.-Mexico border], which I’m terribly afraid he will do, but even if he starts building this wall, which is really a mistaken policy altogether, if he would instead reach out and say we help— President Joe Biden is now going to Lima, Peru, where there is the APEC meeting. Xi Jinping will be there, and Biden will go with 600 military personnel, which is a show of force, I would think; but they want to build the bi-oceanic railway, which would connect the oceans and be a tremendous infrastructure development for all of Latin America, because it would have all kinds of beneficial side effects.

If the United States would say, “we are not trying to fight that, but we are cooperating. Likewise, we want to cooperate in the development of Africa, and in other Asian countries,” I think that Europe would do likewise. And rather than having this horror show of thousands and thousands of people crossing the Sahara to then drown in the Mediterranean or being pushed back by Frontex, which is the border guard for the European Union, and which has already turned the Mediterranean into a watery graveyard—we should take a different approach. Join hands with the BRICS, and say: We will build together infrastructure, ports, railways, fast trains, desalination of ocean water, reconquer the desert, the Sahel zone, the Sahara—both of which are expanding significantly every year. And that way you can build industrial parks, you can build beautiful landscapes by reforesting areas where there is now desert, or to have agriculture where there is now wasteland, like in Sudan—and many other such projects, such as Transaqua, which would refill Lake Chad, and give water and electricity to 12 low-rain countries. All of these projects are so big, that it would really be necessary for all countries that have industrial capacities, to join hands to develop them.

And if Trump would do that, it would be—as I have already said, in his first term—he could become one of the great Presidents of the United States. If he goes in the other way, in the realm of confrontation, and having America be great again at the expense of the rise of China or other countries, I see the world will unfortunately go in a terrible direction. But it’s fresh! It’s a tabula rasa, so to speak—not entirely—but he could really set the tone in a promising way.

So, let’s hope that that can be understood by as many people as possible. That’s why we are conducting the Dec. 7-8 conference of the Schiller Institute, and I can already promise we will have a fantastic group of speakers. And this is a conference everybody should register for and be tuned into.

Schlanger: Now, in the context of your answer, we have reported that Col. (ret.) Douglas Macgregor, who served at the end of the first term of Donald Trump in the Defense Department, spoke of the “failure of sanctions, bullying and threatening other nations,” obviously criticizing the policies of Madeleine Albright, [U.S. Secretary of State Antony] Blinken and Biden. And he said, “We must pull out a clean sheet of paper and start from scratch.” Now, again, there’s skepticism from people that Trump would do this, but then, there’s the other side. A question came in: “If the U.S. were to do this, do you think this would be accepted by the nations which have been the victims and targets of ‘sanctions, bullying and threats’?”

Zepp-LaRouche: On the latter part of the question, I would emphatically say, “Yes,” because the spirit which was there in Kazan, but also at the other recent conferences—there was just the Nov. 10-11 Russia-Africa Partnership Forum; there was the Valdai Discussion Club Forum over Nov. 4-7 [both in Sochi]—and in all of these conferences, people quoted the Spirit of Bandung [1955 Asia-Africa Conference in Indonesia], the spirit of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence [1954 Sino-India Agreement], and that spirit is not revanchist! It’s, basically, ready to respect the sovereignty of all, but also have no interference into the internal affairs of the other, to accept the different social system of the other, and to generally work for each other’s common good. That is the opposite of revanchism, and, therefore, I’m quite optimistic that if the United States, and Europe for that matter, would make such a strong signal, that the old regime of wars and interventions and sanctions and weaponization of currency, and killing your leaders, would stop—[most nations would rejoice].

Tucker Carlson on Nov. 11 just said something very interesting. He said, if people were aware of how much the world is hanging in the abyss of nuclear extinction of mankind, they would be absolutely horrified. And he also called for a change in the policy. He said, look, we—meaning the United States—went into these other countries, and killed their leaders, Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi, and we tried with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—and one could make a longer list if one goes back in history. So, if that would stop, there is a justified hope that Trump will stop this, because I don’t think that’s his intention. So, if that would become official American policy, the whole world would be so joyful—and that bridge to a new paradigm is actually there!

So, all people of goodwill should really try to join forces right now, if you have a club or association of some other group in which you take part, just bring in these perspectives. And really, we are in a revolutionary period, insofar that if you listen to what a lot of so-called social media, alternative YouTube channels, Rumble channels, all kinds of channels, what people are saying, there is really a new quality of recognition of what the problem has been, and expressed disagreement that this should continue. I mean, it’s still the case that the NATO-led governments are in control in most of Europe, but underneath, there is a revolt going on, where the Trump voters clearly do not want to continue that policy. So, if Trump would make a step in that direction, a real-world revolution could happen. Will they do it? Well, I pray.

Creating a New Polyphonic World

Schlanger: You’re listening to Helga Zepp-LaRouche, leader of the Schiller Institute, and someone who’s been fighting for this change for many, many years.

Now, the other question that’s come from several regulars, is for your assessment of the response from Russia and the BRICS, and there are several references to the speech given by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Valdai Club, in which he presented the idea of “polyphony” as the more complex concept to describe what some people call “multipolarity.” And the question from several people is, “What do you think Putin means by this?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Putin is an extremely educated person who knows the principles of Classical composition, and that is what it refers to, meaning—and he says it, actually, in his speech explicitly—that rather than having a unipolar world, where you have a soloist who is singing all the time and suppresses all the other voices of the potential chorus, because he wants to have only his voice listened to (I’m now elaborating a little bit), he says, we should have a sort of symphony, a polyphonic composition, where all the voices are being heard, and all the different musical themes are working together in a polyphonic composition which is a one.

That’s a very beautiful image of how nations could relate to each other because, like in a composition, you have a small theme, then you have a larger ongoing theme, and these different themes are being interwoven, sometimes in a double fugal composition, sometimes in some other ways; but from these different musical ideas and subjects, all notes have a place, and in a thorough-composition, there is not one note too many, but each note plays a crucial role. And that is a beautiful metaphor for the difference of nations. Obviously, you have big nations, you have small nations, you have something like Liechtenstein, and you have Russia—one is very tiny, the other one is 11 time zones. You have countries that have a lot of people like China and India, then you have small countries with just a few million or even less. You have countries that have lots of raw materials, and you have countries that have almost none. You have different degrees of development. But all of these countries, if they participate in a joint, common good of development, each of them can unfold all the potential which is embedded in them.

So, it’s like a symphony, where, when you have a Classical polyphonic composition, it is harmonic, it sounds beautiful to the ear, it elevates the soul, and it corresponds to the highest image of man—man in the image of the Creator, or man as a creative being—and that is a very beautiful image for how we get out of this crisis. Because I believe, for at least 40 years now—actually much longer—but 40 years ago, when I founded the Schiller Institute, I named it the Schiller Institute, because Friedrich Schiller is the German poet who had the idea that each human being has a potential to become a genius, and through the aesthetic education, you can not only develop your mind and unleash all your intellectual potentialities, but you can also educate your emotions, that you can start to feel more noble. Can you imagine that, that you’re not a greedy beast running through the trough to get the most loot, but that you can actually take all your emotions—all of them—and educate them so that they feel more on the level of reason through aesthetic education. And I believe in that sense that man is perfectible, and that man is good by nature, and if you proceed to build such a new system of nations along these lines, we are on the verge of a new Renaissance, which would be more beautiful than all renaissances we have had in the past.

Schlanger: It seems as though Putin is a co-thinker of yours on this whole question of the fundamental principles that you drafted. And people should go to the Schiller Institute website and read your Ten Principles for a New International Security and Development Architecture, where, essentially, this discussion at the Valdai Club reminded me of the discussion that you’ve initiated around it.

You mentioned earlier, there is still scrambling, let’s say, among the EU and NATO countries, to try to respond to the fear that if Trump does pull away from the war in Ukraine, what’s going to happen? Who’s going to take up the slack? There was a conference that took place over Nov. 7-8 in Budapest, sponsored by Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán; EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and others sent obligatory congratulations to Trump, but there’s still a mobilization to continue the war. Meetings have been set up by the Polish government and the British, to prepare for that. What can you tell us about the overall reaction in Europe, and do they really think that they could carry out a war against Russia?

Zepp-LaRouche: I must say that there is right now, quite independent of whatever Trump would do or not do, a real concerted effort by this NATO Atlanticist crowd [to keep the war going], starting with a new article in Foreign Affairs magazine of the Council on Foreign Relations, and an equivalent article in the DGAP, the German Council on Foreign Relations, in Berlin, which likewise put out a report. And the argument goes sort of like this: that the coming war between China and the United States is inevitable, therefore, the United States will reorient toward the Pacific, and therefore Europe should compensate for U.S. troops leaving Europe. Europe should also militarize, to build up more military capacity, to have more production of ammunition to be used in the future war with China—and this is just completely insane! And there are certain politicians who are voicing that.

The last one was German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who—can you imagine that?—he was asked, what about if Trump wants to end the Ukraine war: “Yes, I fear that danger exists, and I hope it doesn’t materialize.” Can you imagine that? He “fears” that peace could break out! That shows you how upside down these people are in their thinking. And naturally, one should be careful, that this is not an easy job, because I think Trump will be inclined to put the burden of the course for Ukraine on the Europeans. This will cause bad blood, for sure. So, I’m not saying we are in paradise, right away; I was just talking about the potential, that people should see where we could go.

But there is right now a renewed push—the Polish chief of staff just said that Poland wants to take the lead, given the fact that the government of Germany has fallen, and there will be a confidence vote on Dec. 16, and then a new vote probably on Feb. 23. So, there is the highest instability in Germany. France is also in a very unstable position. And therefore, there is an effort to create a new axis between the Biden administration, as long as it is still there, with the British government, Poland, the Baltic countries, the new EU Commission Foreign Affairs Representative Kaja Kallas—she is a hawk! She’s the former Prime Minister from the tiny country of Estonia, with just a few million people, but she wants to take on Russia—no problem! It’s a major nuclear weapons power, but little country Estonia, she wants to take on an atomic superpower, the largest in the world! I don’t know what these people eat for breakfast; it must be some strange cereal which has steroids in it.

Joking aside, this is very stupid, and very dangerous. And the idea of the coming war with China is just the worst kind of thing to say, because nobody would survive such a war. And if you look at the military alliance between Russia and China, which was again consolidated by the visit of former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who is now Secretary of the Russian Security Council, in China—He met with Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and they, basically, said the relationship between Russia and China is the best ever, and it will be expanded and improved in all fields. Then there is a new military alliance between Russia and North Korea, and also the military alliance between Russia and Iran. So, if you take on any one of these countries, you take them all on! And then you have World War III, and that’s it!

So, people should really start rethinking this idea of the “coming war with China,” because it’s a terrible, monster idea.

Options for Germany’s Future

Schlanger: Among the other developments, and you just mentioned this, was the collapse of the German government—and the new elections have been set for Feb. 23; they had been set for next September, and then there was talk about holding them in March, but there’s a push to get them as quickly as possible, to get a change in the government. And lurking in the background is opposition leader Friedrich Merz, from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The question came in: “Give us your sense of what’s in motion politically in Germany. And is there anyone stepping forward with solutions to the problems in the German economy? And will people tolerate Merz, who’s more of a hawk than the Greens?”

Zepp-LaRouche: The situation is not an easy one, because the government fell over the question of Ukraine, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz demanded more billions for weapons to Ukraine, and he demanded from the Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) that he should loosen the debt brake, which has been voted into the Grundgesetz, the German Basic Law, or Constitution. So, Scholz was willing to lift this unholy “debt brake,” which doesn’t make sense at all, in order to finance the war in Ukraine. But he refused, in the past, to do likewise for investments in infrastructure and industrial investments within Germany, which would be so urgent, given that the German economy is in free fall as a result of the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia, which provided cheap energy. And Germany is just in a terrible situation! We will go into a horrible Fall and Winter. The impact of many firms either going bankrupt or going abroad for better investments, that impact will be felt even more in the next months over Winter and beyond.

So, Scholz was not willing to do anything about that, which already shows you that he’s a terrible Chancellor. What Lindner proposed—he refused to loosen the debt brake, but he said, “We should send the Taurus missiles instead.” Now, that would cross the red line of red lines, because, as was discovered in a leak of the conversation of these three Bundeswehr officers, the Taurus cannot be operated by the Ukrainians alone; it does require Bundeswehr technicians and intelligence data, which would mean the Taurus would be operated by German soldiers! That would mean Germany would be in the war against Russia! Are these people still in their right minds? Russia is the largest, most powerful nuclear weapons power in the world, and the German military is a joke. All you could do is have a trigger to World War III, and Germany would be destroyed for sure. So much for Lindner.

And now you have a situation where Merz, the opposition leader, is pushing to have early elections. He put on a lot of pressure to speed it up, and Scholz agreed, so there is a compromise to hold elections on Feb. 23. But this same Merz, he also wants to give Ukraine the Taurus, and combine it with an ultimatum to Russia saying, either you stop bombing Ukraine infrastructure within 24 hours, or we will allow the Ukrainians to use the Taurus missiles deep into the territory of Russia. That means World War III. That is why the election does not solve any problems—a lot of people agree that the so-called “streetlight coalition” government was the worst since World War II, but, unfortunately, if it’s just a replacement with a warhawk like Merz, combined with the Greens or FDP, both hawks, you are not getting any improvement.

So, the latest rumors are that it may end up with a Grand Coalition again, CDU/CSU plus the SPD (Social Democratic Party), in which Scholz would not be Chancellor, but probably Merz. That doesn’t solve the problem much either, because Merz is a hardcore Atlanticist, and the SPD has been very weak. So, one must say that Scholz has at least prevented the deployment of the Taurus so far. It’s not much, but it’s something important.

There is also the opposition, the AfD (Alternative for Germany), and Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW). And, naturally, the BüSo, of which I’m the planned leading candidate. But now, the problem has arisen of the short election campaign. You’re supposed to collect thousands of signatures for the state slates, and on top of it, the time when you have to deliver the signatures is six weeks before election day. That would mean that you have to get all the signatures collected at the beginning of January, which allows five weeks to collect signatures, and that is during the Christmas period when it’s very difficult to collect signatures, because people are fixated on getting presents. Then you have the period between Christmas and New Year, when many people go on vacation. So, there is now a protest from eight so-called “smaller parties,” which have sent a fire alarm letter to the government or election officials that those criteria cannot be met.

Now, that’s obvious, but there are 120 small parties, and if they exclude all of them, what about “democracy”? That becomes a blank check for the established parliamentary parties, and they make the rules such that opposition parties cannot participate. So, that will become an issue for sure. And we will try to maneuver within that as best we can, but it’s not an easy situation. But since we are in the same position as 100-plus other parties, maybe we can find some allies to bring it to the Constitutional Court. But that’s the situation where we are.

A Dialogue of Cultures

Schlanger: You’re listening to Helga Zepp-LaRouche, leader of the Schiller Institute. We will, again, be holding the International Peace Coalition call on Friday, Nov. 15, at 11:00 Eastern Time, 15:00 CET. And I want to remind people to register on the Schiller Institute website, not just for yourself, but also for your family and friends, to the Dec. 7-8 Schiller Institute Zoom conference, “In the Spirit of Schiller and Beethoven: All Men Become Brethren!”

Helga, we have a few more questions. Our friend Diana from Canada says: “Helga, you’re correct, we need a global revolution or Renaissance, not a global reset.” And a friend from Africa on that point says, there’s clearly a rebellion against identity politics and geopolitics. But he asks, “How do you move the thinking from simply rebellion to a positive conception of man that would enable a Renaissance to take place, whose idea is that all humans are potentially creative? How do you inspire people to go to that higher level?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, we have been talking about that for 40 years or more, namely, that you need a new world economic order, but that will only function if you combine it with a Renaissance of Classical music and Classical culture, not just of the European tradition, but of all traditions. Because if you look, you will see in every civilization, in every nation, you had high points and low points, which art reflects, and expresses accordingly. For example, the Classical period in Germany, which produced the music from J.S. Bach through Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms. This is a period in which, when you listen to the compositions, they are so absolutely uplifting! Likewise, you have Verdi, in Italy, and other composers elsewhere. You have a lot of Classical compositions in China, in India, in other countries. And for the representatives of the different cultures, it is very difficult to understand it: If you grow up with it, it sounds beautiful and pleasant to the ear, but if you are new to it, you have to discover it. And that’s why we have been emphasizing the Dialogue of Civilizations, because I’m absolutely certain that our title for the conference “In the Spirit of Schiller and Beethoven: All Men Become Brethren!”—brethren, obviously, meaning men and women—that can only happen when people become beautiful souls and geniuses—at least with the inclination in that direction.

That means you have to have a self-conception of your own development. You have to sit down any day, or once a year and think, what do you want to do with your life? Do you want to be a mediocre consumer, stuffing your face with food, and die with a gravestone that says, “This person ate 1,000 pieces of bread with caviar, and consumed 90,000 porterhouse steaks”? I’m using it as a metaphor for consumerism.

Or do you want to bring out the best in what you, as a person born with gifts, could make in terms of your life and contribution? In terms of composition of music, writing great poetry, painting beautiful paintings, drawings, writing beautiful essays, educating your fellow citizens or children, become a teacher, a scientist, a discoverer? There are so many areas where you can develop what is in you, and most people don’t do that!

And what we are seeing right now is, indeed, an upheaval around the world. And the good thing about human beings is that once they see hope and once they see an option, they are motivated to go in that direction and fulfill it. It’s only when cultural pessimism rules, and they think there’s nothing one can do anyway, then people become small and even nasty, and potentially even fascist. That is an important subject, but there is a correlation between cultural pessimism and accepting fascism.

So, therefore, because there are so many forces in motion, the Global South countries do express that spirit—at least I have heard a lot of people from the Global South in the recent month in particular [who express that spirit]. So, we must push forward this idea, and that’s the purpose of our Schiller conference, on Dec. 7-8. I know we are being listened to more and more, and this is very important, because we are still a factory of ideas which can inspire a lot of other people and movements, so that everybody can bring in the best they have as a potential.

Schlanger: Helga, thank you for your continuing optimism and your fight for truth and beauty. Can you give us a little sense of what you expect will come from the International Peace Coalition Zoom call meeting on Friday, Nov. 15?

Zepp-LaRouche: I know we have several speakers from Israel who are horrified about what Israel is doing right now, and who are fighting for the rights of the Palestinians. So, that is an important issue, because the genocide is continuing, and the UN is permanently warning that the hunger crisis in Gaza is worsening by the day. Even German radio this morning, which has been silent for months and months, had a report saying the amount of food that children in Gaza are getting is becoming less and less and less, by the day, and that they are slowly dying—and that is the intention! So, that going on with innocent children, who cannot be accused of anything, I think that is the big moral warning that we are losing our moral fitness to survive.

So, we will have several speakers about that topic and, naturally, we will for sure comment on the strategic implication of the outcome of the U.S. election, and what the German crisis forebodes. So, please come and join us, because the International Peace Coalition is an integral part of our effort to unify all people of goodwill in the world to fight for a solution before it is too late. So, join us on Friday.

Schlanger: Helga, thanks for joining us today, and I look forward to seeing you on Friday, Nov. 15.

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, till Friday.