Panel 4 Discussion

This is the edited transcript of the Discussion Session immediately following Panel 4, “Classical Culture and the Dialogue of Civilizations,” of the Schiller Institute’s June 18–19 Conference, “There Can Be No Peace Without the Bankruptcy Reorganization of the Dying Trans-Atlantic Financial System.” Participating in the discussion were Dennis Speed (moderator), Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Mike Robinson, Jacques Cheminade, Dr. Zaher Wahab, Diane Sare, and Prof. Felipe Maruf Quintas. Dr. George Koo was unable to participate in the discussion. Subheads have been added.

Comments on Panel Presentations

Dennis Speed: We’re now going to bring up panelists onscreen and also some additional people for discussion. Helga, do you have any response to anything that’s been said so far?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I must say I was very moved by what Professor Wahab and also what Dr. Professor Koo were saying, and if you compare the seriousness of the entire tone of the conference today and yesterday, both in terms of worry where this all may go, in terms of nuclear war, but also the destructive power which has ravaged the world, such as in Afghanistan; and also Dr. Professor Koo is worried that something similar to Ukraine is on the horizon—something which could happen in Taiwan. I hope a lot of people will help us to share these incredibly important words, because humanity has never been so in danger for many reasons.

Mike Robinson, what you said at the end of your presentation on “The Dehumanizing Metasphere,” is equally shocking in a different way. And actually, I’d like to ask you a question. I came across a study a little while ago, which was a joint study between the British Defense Ministry and the German Bundeswehr. The study talks about similar things, like augmenting soldiers with artificial intelligence, and you are not even allowed to quote from the study if you don’t have the permission of the authors. Do you see any interface between what you were saying, and such military applications—what is implied in this study?

Mike Robinson: Yes, I believe that is exactly right. There has always been a military aspect to this. But the ideology itself—some people call it a philosophy, some people call it a religion—originated with Julian Huxley. Klaus Schwab [founder and CEO of the World Economic Forum] is absolutely onboard with it. He was talking about the future leading to the fusion of our physical, digital, and biological identities. But of course, concerning the augmentation side of it: there absolutely is a military side to this, not only in the augmentation of soldiers themselves to not feel pain or not feel fear, but also of course, the use of artificial intelligence to actually control and drive weapons on the battlefield.

So I think you’re absolutely right to highlight that document. It’s a fascinating document. That’s all I can say about that at the moment. But probably we should provide a link to the document for people to read. [It is titled, “Human Augmentation—The Dawn of a New Paradigm; A Strategic Implications Project,” May 2021.]

Jacques Cheminade: Ultimately, what Mike Robinson said doesn’t surprise me. We have many signs of this developing, particularly in the military field. In France, for example, they have guys from a team of science fiction writers writing about the wars of the future, with swarms of robots and “improved” fighters and so on, and long-distance ways of annihilating populations, including with mini neutron bombs. So, you have all that.

This makes me think of how it is all the more urgent, that the Four Laws of Lyndon LaRouche be implemented. Because, as opposed to all that, Lyndon LaRouche worked on establishing laws and principles congruent with the laws of the development of the universe, with the laws of the universe. This means the creative power of humanity. We should organize the populations, particularly youth, with these creative powers as something in scientific discoveries and art.

And I think that the question of aesthetics is so important, because it brings the shadows of the future for the worst or for the best. We have to fight to give this sense of the best all the time, so that people have a sense that there is in this world an institute, a Schiller Institute, and men and women who have to work together more and more to prevent this from happening, and have a sense that with the technologies of the future, we have the capacity, instead, to create one of the best worlds that ever existed. And what’s absolutely inhuman and horrible, is to see how these technologies are controlled by people who use them to destroy human beings and to create an occupation of our minds.

This is, I think, the point why art and science are so important: Because it brings ways to make this occupation of the mind impossible, because you are committed to something which is much beyond it—you are committed to what is human in you. And from that standpoint the Four Laws of Lyndon LaRouche embodied this best of us, and that is why we should absolutely have the New Bretton Woods at this moment. If not, we would have a world with not only people playing chicken games, but now they have become chickens without heads, or, probably, they will have mechanistic computer heads, and they would kill each other at random.

Metasphere and Metaphor

Speed: There’s a sort of a war going on between what you can call the metasphere and the science of metaphor, something we have used a lot in music. Diane, since you are the founder of the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus, maybe you can speak to that now.

Diane Sare: There are many things that these presentations brought to mind, not the least of which is the urgency of people being involved in Classical music performance, at least, if not composition. Because, I was reflecting on why do people get interested in these horrible things, mutilating their bodies, mutilating other human beings, having some degraded conception of man which makes you think you’re superior or inferior to someone else based on any external feature. Clearly, it’s because there’s a distance from the human mind, from human creativity.

One of the most powerful things about learning to perform—whether it’s singing, or playing an instrument—a piece by a great Classical composer, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Schubert, Schumann, others, or the Spirituals, as George Shirley was saying at the beginning of this panel, is that, of necessity, to really work on this, then you have to develop in your own mind a conception of perfection, which is unattainable. That is, none of us is able to execute perfectly a conception which is in our mind, or as we believe it should be done, but when you’re working on this very hard, you can tell when you’re closer or farther.

Everyone knows the difference between hearing a good performance of something, or a bad performance, one that puts you to sleep—the difference between something conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler versus Herbert von Karajan, or something like that. There’s a certain quality of engagement. This is very important because it helps us to create an identity which is truly human, something that’s eternal and universal.

I was also caused to think about the debate over [composer] Arnold Schönberg, which caused me to finally leave the conservatory where I was a student. He was also a writer, and he wrote all kinds of papers and essays and articles on why he did what he did in music. But his thesis was that—he didn’t deny that there were universal laws, but he said that there are universal principles, there is a universe, the human mind is part of the universe—and then, here’s the trick: Therefore, anything that the mind can conceive of, is part of a universal principle.

That is not true, provably not true. Because, also the mind can conceive of two entirely opposite conceptions. But if that’s your starting point—and it also negates the significance of having free will, because then what does it matter if anything you can think of, there’s no right or wrong, up or down, good or evil, and there’s no way of measuring it.

What happened in my case, is that I wrote to my composition professor, that Schönberg’s stating this had led me to conclude that his work, his so-called compositions were, indeed, not music, and that unless my professor could prove that I was wrong, I was going to be leaving. And, unfortunately, he gave me an A− for some reason, and didn’t even try and defend what he was teaching.

But it just strikes me that this is really crucial for how we get on this slippery slope to complete depravity.

Speed: Dr. Wahab, you’d like to say something?

Dr. Zaher Wahab: Greetings from Portland, Oregon! Again, my thanks to the Schiller Institute for keeping this dialogue going. I was born and raised in a village in Afghanistan, but now I live in Portland, Oregon, the United States, essentially because U.S. Western imperialism has made my country unlivable, and this is on the other side of the globe.

What we have been hearing for the last two days, and in other, similar conversations and dialogues if you will, are excellent examples of the new dialogue, that is to say, this shows the emergence of a new kind of thinking, speaking, culture, and if you will, a new paradigm.

I’d like to point out that in my life, I’ve spent some time in South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and other places, so I have seen the ugly, savage legacy of Western colonialism and imperialism. We have to know that actually, you can go anywhere in the world, talk to peasants, common folks, workers and so forth, and you would hear such conversation in a form, though it may not be very sophisticated, but many, many people all over the planet have come to understand what this world is all about, and what this old, decaying, dying, and predatory paradigm has been about, and how it’s decomposing. So, we have to keep that dialogue we have supported and keep it going.

We must understand that the era of American exceptionalism, American imperialism, American supremacy, American dominance, American bombers, American drones, is shortly coming to an end. The United States and other dominant superpowers must get used to the fact that the world is waking up and resisting; it would no longer put up with the unitary, unipolar world. The United States has to understand this and accept it.

The problems of the world, whether they’re problems in my own town here, or in the villages of Afghanistan—epidemics, climate, inequities, underdevelopment, suppression, etc.—these problems are beyond the capacity of one country, even if it’s a country like the United States. Global problems now need global cooperation, collaboration, efforts, and resources: We must all unite and tackle these problems everywhere, collectively, because, again, one country simply cannot do it.

We do need a new architecture. We need a new language, we need a new culture, we need new designs, we need new institutions, we need new organizations for economic development, for peace, for democracy, for justice, for decency, and for moving forward. In particular, I urge the world, I urge the United States ruling class to solve, immediately, the desperate problems of Afghanistan to rescue Afghanistan, because it was the United States and its so-called “allies” that destroyed Afghanistan. The United States and its allies are morally responsible to help rebuild Afghanistan, and to bring peace, justice, democracy, prosperity, autonomy, independence, sovereignty, to a devastated country. The United States is on trial. In fact, humanity is in many cases on trial. History will judge us.

So, we need a new paradigm, we need a new culture, we need new institutions, and everybody better must listen to it, and adopt these, and actively promote them. Thank you!

Operation Ibn Sina

Speed: Dr. Wahab, you’ve already partially addressed the area of this question, but this is a question that was directed to you and to Helga. It was this:

“Dr. Wahab, I appreciate your emphasizing the importance of a new dialogue of cultures and civilizations, to reverse the current doomed trajectory of a unipolar order. The Schiller Institute has emphasized the historical importance of Ibn Sina in transforming Afghanistan and making it the center of a new world health system. Helga named the initiative ‘Operation Ibn Sina’ to capture both the proud tradition of Afghanistan as the pearl of the nations of the world. Could you speak to the importance of Ibn Sina in establishing a new dialogue of cultures?”

Dr. Wahab: I would defer to Miss Helga first, and then I would add a few notes, please.

Zepp-LaRouche: Obviously, what you say about the condition of Afghanistan is more than true. This country has been subjected to more than 40 years of war, and when NATO left in August last year, they cut the budget by 80%, by stopping the money from the donor countries. This was done, all of a sudden, on top of the destruction from the previous war, and one could see very clearly that the 20 years of the NATO war were not used to build up anything! There was no economy! There is no health system!

Given the fact that we still have the pandemic, and famine on top of it, I said, why don’t we start with building a health system, because of the coronavirus pandemic. And given the fact that the father of Ibn Sina was born in Balkh, which is near Maher Al Sharif, in the north of Afghanistan, and Ibn Sina himself (Avicenna as he’s called in the West) was born in Afshana in Uzbekistan—why not name the effort to rescue Afghanistan after him? He was one of the great doctors of all of universal history; he’s on an equal level with Galen or Hippocrates, and he contributed a Canon of Medicine which was the standard textbook in medical science, even in Europe until the 17th or 18th century.

But he was also a great philosopher. He developed conceptions which are still extremely important for modern science. For example, he discussed the proof of the immortality of the human soul, which I can only encourage all our viewers to watch, because to think about the immortality of the soul is a very important question for the identity of human beings. If you think you are just an accidental CO₂ footprint who disappears after you’re dead, then that has tremendous implications for your morality, and Ibn Sina developed a beautiful image for the immortality of the soul. And he also had such ideas about the eternity of the universe.

Now, this is a very deep, fundamental question: Was the universe created? Did it occur with a Big Bang, or was there anything before? Now, if you start thinking about it, it’s really one of the most profound questions. The James Webb Space Telescope hopefully will give us some answers about the structure, what happened before the so-called “Big Bang” happened, which is questionable that it did, indeed, occur in this way.

That is why I thought you need a figure who represents the pride and the absolute best intellectual tradition of Afghanistan, to give a people who have gone through so much hardship for 40 years, and so many centuries before, but especially the last 40 years, you need to have a vision of a golden future. That region of the world was once called Bactria, and the “Land of a Thousand Cities.” And there are now even new archeological findings which pertain to that golden period when there was a very rich, developed Bronze Age culture. Artifacts are being found which was must be preserved.

You need an inspiration. This is why the Schiller Institute is named for Friedrich Schiller. I created the Schiller Institute 38 years ago, with the idea that we need a just, new world economic order and a new Renaissance of classical culture, and a new paradigm. Nothing has changed in our approach.

Then I was thinking about how I would name such an effort, and I came up with the image of Friedrich Schiller, because he has the most beautiful image of man, the beautiful soul, the limitless perfectibility of creative reason. And in any case, that is why Ibn Sina is an absolutely inspiring idea to have a better future for Afghanistan. That idea is becoming more and more popular among many exile Afghans who really have a desire to rebuild their country. So, I just want to say we are not giving up on Operation Ibn Sina. To the contrary, we are totally determined that that approach becomes the beginning of a much better future for Afghanistan.

Dr. Wahab: If I may add, Ibn Sina was just a symbol of the country, a way of life and civilization, if you will. As you know, Afghanistan was the center of Islamic civilization during the 10th and 11th centuries, not just for the region of South Asia, but throughout the world. You have all heard the names of Ibn Sina, and then later Ibn Khaldun of another part of the world, and Maulana Rumi Balkhi—thinkers, philosophers, playwrights and so forth. You all have heard about Ghaznavid Dynasty, again during the 10th–11th centuries, which spread civilization; in fact, major religions throughout that part of the world.

In my own memory, I remember as a child Afghanistan being not only self-sufficient economically. It was highly developed, with kind people. It was very self-sufficient. There was no poverty, no degradation, and no beggars, very little crime. It even exported grain and foodstuffs to neighboring countries. And yet today, you all know that the United Nations and its specialized agencies—the World Health Organization, the UNHCR, the FAO, the Human Rights Organization, etc.—they have all labeled Afghanistan as the worst crisis in Earth’s history! Can you imagine?

Again, this is due, as pointed out by Miss Helga, during the active intervention, manipulation and subversion by the United States and Western allies over the last 20 years—over the last 40 years! We all know that Afghanistan had very little, or nothing to do with 9/11. And yet, the United States attacked, invaded, occupied, and savaged Afghanistan for 20 years, and then it left suddenly. The United States intervened just out of the blue, and it left suddenly, without repairing the country for continuity, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, autonomy, and so forth.

So, a major historical crime and incidentally, committed again by the very people who lecture people about peace, justice, democracy, human rights, etc. The world knows that all of these are half-lies, that the United States and the Western world itself has problems, in justice, democracy, freedom, autonomy, and so forth. The United States and its allies must fulfill their historical, moral responsibility toward not just Afghanistan, which it destroyed, but also the many, many other countries it has destroyed throughout the planet. Thank you.

Merging Human with Machine

Speed: This question is from Fred Haight, directed to Mike Robinson:

“Despite the horrifying images in research I did on computers generating music, that pretended to sound like Bach, it became clear that no computer could ever become a Bach, and a large part of the operation is trying to turn Bach into a computer, going back to the days of ‘Switched-On Bach’.”

He’s referring to a particular recording that was released in 1967, by Walter Carlos, who later became Wendy Carlos.

“This seems similar. You cannot brainwash machines into thinking they are human. Ironically, they know better. You can, however, brainwash people into thinking they are machines, and acting thus.”

That’s the comment, and it was directed at you, Mike. So, if you want to say something now, go first; and then, maybe Diane may have something on the musical side.

Mike Robinson: Yes, that is the danger of course. The last comment I made in my presentation, on the legal aspect, is the idea that in the metaverse, in the virtual world, you have the same problems and require the same laws. Because what that is effectively doing is trying to teach people that your avatar in the virtual world has equivalence to you as a human being in the real, physical world. It’s very much about convincing people to be machines, and the idea of merging with the machine, is very much a part of this philosophy.

There’s lots of money being spent on this, but it’s probably many decades before anybody gets close to this vision of the future they have, or even if they can actually achieve anything, which I’m extremely skeptical about. But in the meantime, it is having this extremely detrimental effect on people’s ideas of themselves, of what humanity is all about. It’s all about sensory overstimulation; it’s not about creativity. The danger is that people are drawn into this, and of course, the younger people already are.

Jacques was talking about the first-person shooter games and how immersive they are. Well, this virtual reality, as immature as the technology is at the moment, is 100 times more immersive. It’s just about, as I say, sensory stimulation, and of course it removes and educates the idea of creativity out of the minds of people, so it’s effectively stealing people’s minds. It’s extremely dangerous. It needs to be opposed, I feel, because there is so much more that is beautiful in the real world, and so much more to discover in the real world. We don’t need this type of culture that’s being imposed.

Speed: Diane, do you have anything to add?

Sare: My mind is thinking of so many things on this question. One aspect of musical performance, gets at the question of Schiller’s conception of educating your emotions, which is really educating your identity, so that to do something good becomes natural and what you want to do. You see this in great music.

I had a conversation once with Lyndon LaRouche about reading Shakespeare. The people we were reading together with, read everything in a kind of monotonous way. It was very hard to get the nuances of what was actually going on in the play, and as in any great drama, there are always many things going on simultaneously, there are many layers and directions it could go. And he said: Well, why don’t you start by taking the great operatic settings of the play you are reading—the operas of Verdi or Mozart, whoever has set them, Macbeth comes to mind, or in a play by Schiller, Joan of Arc—so that the people working on the drama can begin to get a sense of the emotional quality that is necessary to understand this. I think that is something really unique.

To use another example of a horrible modern composer, I think the name was [Milton Byron] Babbitt, who generated so-called “computer music.” Every pitch had to have a different dynamic, and changed so fast, that they say, the human performer could never perform this music, which is why it’s much better done on a computer. Again, the arbitrariness, and the lack of any human emotion, and I don’t mean emotional state, but an emotion which educates your identity to take the action that is necessary when confronted with a certain problem that needs your action.

Speed: Jacques, I figure you might also have some things to say on this. There’s also a question that came in which is in your direction. It’s from Omar:

“I thank you for this excellent meeting and sharing. I followed the speeches and discussions with great interest. The very varied themes involving not only the international financial system, as the title implied, but also what projects our existence and its meanings as human beings. From my position as an educator in the engineering sector, and in particular, finance, automation, and computer science, I’ve always wondered about the place that human values should take, in Sufiism and meditation, so as not to make our engineers monsters and predators. What do you think? Again, I thank you very much for the quality of the speakers and presentations.”

Cheminade: Take a French pianist, or an American pianist today: They start playing the notes, they start playing the script, and what’s left, what’s left out, is the mind of the composer. Bach is not there. Beethoven is not there. It starts like that. If you have Classical culture reduced to this transmission of a “one-tap technology,” then the young people, the adolescents, the teenagers, would be attracted through sense-perception and through more and more intense sense-perceptions. And then you will have a loss of the quality of understanding a human mind, And this is what is happening in our society.

You can put it in another way, where the whole youth, and not only the youth, is immersed into images of a virtual world. It’s all the videogames, and it’s all what Mike mentioned, and also pornography. Pornography is about 50% of what happens on the internet. It’s a destruction of the human mind; it’s an intention. So if we express the reverse intention through the access of all the Classical culture, then it would be our weapon to change the direction of things.

And I think it’s also true for the New Bretton Woods. The New Bretton Woods should not be something established as a given thing. It should be something to be composed, and to be played according to the mind of the composer, in that sense, Lyndon LaRouche and what he thought. And in that way, you have a sense when you accomplish certain things in the world of economics, that it’s directly related to music and to poetry. In doing that, you can uplift the level, or give a sense that there is something which is not only mechanistic in this universe, you can give this sense to the people that you are involved in the training or the teaching.

Ibero-America in the Dialogue of Nations

Speed: Diane, you have a question you wanted to pose?

Sare: First, I want to thank Professor Quintas for being with us, and I’m struck by how the Americas should really be seen as a whole development corridor, but I think it’s been policy in the United States to not ever think about what happens in the southern part of the hemisphere.

My question for you is: Given that you yourself are relatively young, and are teaching, I imagine, younger people, what thoughts do you have on the culture? If it’s similarly bad in Brazil? If it’s different? I thought you might have some thoughts that are not obvious to others of us.

Prof. Felipe Maruf Quintas: [via interpreter] My greetings to everybody! It’s important to say that we are living in a change of an era, and a process of decolonization. If it’s true that it began after the Second World War, it’s maturing to the point where there’s not just one single center of power, internationally, so it’s natural that the American continent, and most specifically South America, the part that’s historically being underdeveloped and not industrialized of the American continent, it’s important that that part of the world has more of a protagonist role in that dialogue of civilizations.

Latin America is considered by Samuel Huntington as a different civilization from the Anglo-Saxon United States and Canada. And I agree with Samuel Huntington on that, because Latin America has various historical characteristics, cultural characteristics, which are in fact different, and which make it possible to have a different perspective of the world, and allow for a different perspective of politics, of economics, of society, of culture, of absolutely everything.

So I believe that Latin America can and should have a greater role in dialogue with North America, but Latin America needs development. It must push its own process of industrial, scientific, technical, humanistic development; its cultural development. Latin America has a large number of traditions which should not be brushed aside by modernization. Modernization can come in Latin America without pushing aside traditional culture and identity—the cultural identity which is shared in many aspects between Brazil and Spanish-speaking America.

We in South America have cultural influences from Africa, cultural influences from American Indians, which provide a different perspective, a different approach to civilization, but that civilization will not be identical to other civilizations, and they should not be in a shock or confrontation with other civilizations. So I truly disagree with Samuel Huntington on that: We don’t need a clash of civilizations. Different civilizations can live together and dialogue, and this has to be a dialogue of civilizations. It is much better for all of us.

I would say that dialogue between Latin America (Ibero America) and the other civilizations is greatly important for everyone involved. But for that, we have to have continental integration in South America. The physical economy has to be the general expression of that dialogue of civilizations.

There’s no reason to have rivalry—economically or geopolitically. There is no need for any reason to have imperialism. Imperialism, as is being shown over these recent times, is bad, even for the imperialist countries themselves! What we need is to have integration of Latin America. We must have integration in terms of the physical economy. South America’s integration necessarily means integrating Brazil, because a large part of the South American heartland is Brazilian.

Brazil has borders in the interior of the continent of South America, and the integration of South America can make it a pole of economic and technical development, and also provoke its culture. It’s provoked its own prospectus, its traditions, its heritage, and that’s very important for the United States as well, because the United States also has a large number of different populations, who come from Latin America. The Latin American element is a component part of the United States’ identity, today, under the current circumstances.

The dialogue of civilizations can occur in the entire American continent. There is not one single America, there are, fundamentally, two Americas, and Brazil and the United States, the two largest independent countries in the continent, can dialogue between them, but that dialogue has to be conducted under conditions of equivalent development of the two economies, and for that reason Brazil has to develop. If Brazil would not develop—and Latin America will not develop without a strong state, without a national mission. A national development project will stimulate the physical economic capabilities, will improve the physical economy, based on a kind of planning on a long-term basis.

To the degree that Latin America develops its culture, its heritage, its identity will be promoted on an international scale and level, and Latin America can play a role of natural leadership, with Brazil’s natural leadership. I’m not saying Brazil is going to be an imperialist country; its own Constitution and history is not imperialist, because in Brazil, there’s a real mixture. We don’t have in Brazil the kind of multiculturalism which exists in other countries, because here, the cultural differences are not resolved by multiculturalism but by assimilation. So Brazil has a cultural capability of assimilation both because of the Portuguese side, from the Amerindian side, which is very open to such an idea of integration with other cultures.

Brazil, because it is such a large country, because of its economic importance, because of its population, has a natural leadership of Latin America, of South America. South America needs Brazil in order to achieve integration, to be able to develop, and to dialogue with other civilizations, with the Anglo-Saxon Americans, or the North Atlantic, or Africa, or the Far East, with Russia, with India, and with all of the civilizations.

I see a very positive perspective for the future, despite all of the problems of transhumanism and all the rest. But all of this is a desperate effort by the North Atlantic elites to have control of society, in a period when the results of decolonization are already being seen. The economic center of the world is no longer the North Atlantic. Other civilizations are now showing a modernization of their own, a modernization according to their own canons and rules.

Latin America has everything available for that, and in addition, for Latin America to participate in this dialogue, not as a periphery of other civilizations, but as an authentic civilization, requires the development of its physical economy, and freeing itself from the speculative interests, the financial interests, and to have its own vast resources in a collective project of industrialization, of technology. It can then provide a material basis in support of that great Ibero American culture, which we do have, and which we should conserve and perfect as well.

And for that purpose, development is the required prerequisite, and the national sovereignty of these countries is necessary for social cohesion as well as the maintenance of a cultural density and their own mission and purpose in the world, and [to] not follow simply in the footsteps of other civilizations. This is a condition for Brazil, for Latin America, to integrate economically, culturally, and to establish its own national project and purpose, to construct its own national destiny, in partnership with all the other civilizations. Thank you very much.

Dr. Wahab: Just a word. I think the recent OAS meeting [Summit of the Americas] in Los Angeles was very, very significant, where the American President did not invite three of the Latin American countries, and then subsequently four or five other countries boycotted the meeting. In other words, the Monroe Doctrine is alive, but not so well. I should say that the United States does this all the time. In all the international fora, it invites or disinvites, as it pleases; it uses its abusive power; it says, “we can discuss this, we cannot discuss that.” But this is again, another example of the American arrogance.

Speed: Perhaps there’ll be a little bit of discussion about the Monroe Doctrine. This is from Jeffrey A. Lindell, a folklorist at Indiana University. He has a very specific question for you, stemming from his reading of a book by Dr. James C. Scott, called Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States:

“My question involves the earliest period of human civilization, known as the Uruk expansion, from 4000–3100 B.C., this is the birth of the first city-states in [modern] southern Iraq. In the later texts of the Hammurabi Law codes there were six specific codes to punish absconding slaves, runaway slaves. Can you comment on any parallels between the early rise of militarism in the lower Mesopotamian region and its relationship to slavery, with that of the new globalization of the world under the stewardship of a European-style military-economic colonialism?”

Any parallels between the two? That’s what he’s asking.

Dr. Wahab: I apologize, I must decline this question. I really can’t talk about this. I don’t know much.

The Role of the BRICS Alliance

Speed: OK. That’s always one of the best answers, in all of human history to give to a question, that you don’t know what it’s about.

I now have a very particular question, which came from two different people, for Prof. Quintas, from Rozi, who is Brazilian, and from Tim Rush:

“Could you elaborate more on the role of the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—in developing a dialogue of civilizations?”

Prof Quintas: [via interpreter] The BRICS are an alliance among the leading countries of their respective civilizations. Brazil is a natural leader of Latin America, of South America. In one of the comments in the chatroom of YouTube, somebody wrote “Long Live Simón Bolívar.”

I agree that Simón Bolívar is a founding father of the Hispanic American countries, but we cannot forget, also, José Bonifácio, the founding father of Brazil, who played a strategic role in maintaining the territorial unity of a continental country like Brazil, in the middle of a continental process of independence, [in] which only Brazil was able to maintain that territorial integrity.

José Bonifácio also had an idea that was different from the Monroe Doctrine. He had a Brazilian Monroe Doctrine of an alliance with the Hispanic American countries under Brazil’s influence. Historically, Brazil didn’t have the economic means, or military means, to make that alliance work. Had it come into being, the history of the Latin American continent would have been totally different.

Long Live Simón Bolívar! Long Live José Bonifácio!

Now, as Russia is the natural leader of the Slavic Orthodox civilization, India of the Hindu; China is a state which incorporates the Confucian society and culture; and South Africa, the freedom from apartheid, the freedom from the racist colonialism of Great Britain. This can also play a decisive role for integration in the development of the African continent. Therefore, that new multipolar world, which is taking shape over these recent times, has the BRICS as the key element of an alliance, because the BRICS unites the major countries of these regions; the BRICS is already an expression of that dialogue of civilizations we’ve been discussing.

And the sphere of influence of the BRICS isn’t limited to its respective countries, that is, only Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The breadth of the BRICS extends to the countries that are part of the zones of influence of each of those component members of the BRICS.

For example, Argentina also wants to have a role in participating in the BRICS, and it’s very good that the BRICS should deepen its role of activities both in the economic area, such as the BRICS bank [the New Development Bank], which is financing infrastructure development, by financing the physical economy not only of the BRICS countries, but also of those that are part of those zones of influence of the countries that are members of BRICS. But also, what’s needed is to deepen the cultural dialogue, the exchanges on a cultural level.

For example, that students from Brazil, from Russia, from India, from China, and from South Africa, be able to visit and study in the universities of other countries, so that the BRICS does not aspire to some sort of homogeneity in the world. On the contrary, the BRICS is already the dialogue of civilizations among different civilizations. So I view it as necessary for the world to be more multipolar. To be more polycentric, it’s necessary that the BRICS countries strengthen their relationship among themselves. That doesn’t mean to take a hostile position to the North Atlantic, but it means it cannot aspire to economic, intellectual, and cultural hegemony.

If the North Atlantic maintains that imperialist approach, if the elites in the North Atlantic maintain that perspective, they will isolate themselves more and more from the new economic dynamics, the cultural dynamics which are leading toward a decentralization, toward a multipolarity, which is greater day by day. The BRICS is the expression of that, and is the condition for that process to continue as the central tendency of the 21st century, which we all hope will be more inclusive, less racist, and more open to a dialogue among the different civilizations than existed under the geopolitics of previous centuries.

Politics and Poetry

Speed: We’re getting some agitation in the chat, and I’m going to direct this to Diane. There’s a very specific question which was,

“How can you expect to change the culture in the United States, when you have stolen elections?”

Now, there’s a very particular formulation that got used here, and I guess this was directed against something that George Koo said. It says,

“How can a professor dismiss an election that has mounting evidence to prove it may have been stolen, dismiss the feeling of those who are questioning it, and then say it is the responsibility of the people of that country for the actions of their leaders?”

Many of us have very specific feelings on this matter, so, Diane, I’m going to direct this to you.

Sare: All right. Well, I’m not going to speak for Dr. Koo, because I don’t know exactly what he intended by his remarks. But I will say—and I have personal reasons to know this—there is a great questioning of the electoral process in the United States. We know that there are great efforts to keep people off the ballot, just as against African-Americans in Mississippi and other states in the South after the brief period of Reconstruction, and then you had the Jim Crow backlash reversion to a kind of very ugly domination of British ideology and Confederacy thinking. There’s also a very great reason to doubt the integrity of elections and the electoral process, as many of us experienced this first-hand working with Lyndon LaRouche.

So myself, I don’t think—it is not and should not be a punishable offense to question whether an election is legitimate, and to demand answers. That should be allowed. Clearly, it hasn’t been, and they’re trying to vilify anyone who expressed any doubts about the 2020 election. Although many people told us the 2016 election result was caused by “Russian interference and meddling,” no one seems to have a problem with that.

It is a challenge. This brings us to the poetic domain, and I think Helga may have some things to say about this, as well. Because I have the thinking, what is the lever, how do we in the United States change our policy, if the elections are rigged, if they are that controlled? Even if you don’t have outright fraud, there is an enormous amount of dark money that no one knows where it comes from, who gets it, and how it moves.

It used to be the case that you could go to a town hall meeting with your congressman, yell and scream, and the Representative would get a sense of how people viewed a certain matter, and you might even shape their response, because they had to fear they would lose their seat, or wouldn’t be re-elected. Now, that doesn’t seem to be an issue. So then, how does the average person change history?

What happened in Berlin, what happened with the reunification of Germany, and what happened in Eastern Europe, where I would say, in East Germany, people certainly didn’t have more freedom than we have in the United States; you had an enormous number of people working for the Stasi, and spying on each other, and so on. But somehow, there was a way. The economy was disintegrating, and people rose to a moment which was part of an international process, really, to completely change the government and their situation.

That’s very interesting. That kind of change really exists in the domain of culture and poetry. Shelley talked about it; Schiller talked about it. Schiller became very important in those days when the Berlin Wall came down, and I think we in the United States have to consider the American contributions to culture, which may not be what people think of in terms of, say, in music or art, or even though these things exist, but in the question of culture, the identity of humanity is in our founding documents: Why are all human beings “created equal”? What does that mean? Why does it say, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”? What is “the General Welfare”? These are actually cultural questions, I would submit.

People are correct in expressing a certain frustration or concern about the electoral process, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot defeat a certain policy direction in this nation, by coming to it from perhaps a higher principle, a more universal principle. I would be curious to hear what Helga has to say about this.

A Culture of Ugliness, or of Beauty?

Zepp-LaRouche: It’s an interesting question. The peaceful revolution of East Germany was triggered by a couple of factors. One of them, was that the economy was failing, but more importantly, the population somehow lost the trust in the political leadership. And then, a strange, almost, on the scale of things, unimportant issue like the right to have visas and travel, became the trigger for the whole peaceful uprising.

Coming back to the earlier discussion, I think the reason why we are discussing the question of culture, is because, in the United States, you see an incredible increase of violence, of mass shootings, in schools, in malls, in churches, and always related to weapons. I know the whole debate about the right to have guns; I don’t think the Founding Fathers meant semi-automatic military weapons when they said everybody has the right to defend themselves. This has completely gone out of control.

But if people realize that these mass shootings, and the drug addiction—it’s proven statistically where drugs are legalized, the crime rate does not go down—to the contrary. If people somehow take that issue as an absolute warning sign that the American society is sick, is collapsing, that there is some horrible thing happening, and that if people would then say, OK, we will reject anything which has to do with violence—you know, you have the Martin Luther King civil rights tradition which is a very good reference point—but also the ugliness, if people start to reject anything which is ugly in culture, and say this is degrading, this is not something we should accept, we should not allow our children to have it, I think if people would unite on such an issue, that could become a peaceful way of changing society.

There are many people who say the United States may go up in civil war with the militias. I don’t think that that is the route anybody would wish to go; but if people would unite around the idea that the identity of America has to be beautiful, a “beacon of hope” again!

I don’t want to make a long sermon, but let me just mention one thing: The reason why ugliness is so devastating. Already, Plato did not want children to watch the great tragedies of the tragedians—if you have ever looked at them, they are really cruel and brutal—because, he said, the minds of the children will be damaged, by even these great tragedies, because they can’t cope with it. Now, if you think about how children today are exposed to anything. I don’t even want to start quoting, but there is nothing that children cannot access on the internet, while they’re completely unprepared to deal with it!

And that is something, Schiller, for example, wrote a very important paper which I encourage people to read, it was called “The Limit of the Use of the Law in Art,” where he very clearly said that even if you present horrible things, you cannot go out of your way to make it horrible, or to make it so demonstrative that, for example, the blood is dripping on the stage, and that you see the cut-off fingers. I saw a performance of Tosca recently where the person’s fingers were cut off, and then he was running around with a bloody stump. It was horrible!

Schiller was very emphatic against that and also Lessing, who wrote an entire essay, Laocoön, that even in the Greek sculptures where you express death agony, it’s still not ugly: The mouth is not ripped up like an abyss; it’s expressing pain, but not in an exaggerated way. This kind of aesthetical differentiation, that you have to reject ugliness. In the same way, Schiller says, if you go to a beautiful theater performance, as he discusses in the preface to The Bride of Messina, a power is evoked in the soul which remains long after the performance is over, because it improves your soul.

But on the contrary, the same thing happens also when you allow yourself to be exposed to ugliness, that ugliness remains in your mind as well, and you keep thinking about it for three days or five days, and it just tortures and ruins your soul.

My sense is, that if in the face of these mass shootings, Americans would say, “We do not want our society to go under like that, and we reject ugliness, we reject violence and excessive things of that sort,” that could be a beginning of the healing. I think Americans should start asking, what is necessary to heal society? Because it’s in big trouble.

Dr. Wahab: Regarding this issue, and even paying attention to the situation in the United States, you can clearly see that there has been a shift in the United States in culture, politics, economics, society, ideology, and so forth, since the 1980s, and the presidency of Ronald Reagan. And this shift to the right, if you will, culminated in the attempted coup d’état in the 2020 election. You can clearly see the forces of reaction, I would say, on the ascendance. They’re very important, they’re very vocal, they’re very active, they’re all over the country, and they’ve penetrated all kinds of organizations and institutions and procedures, and so forth.

To really achieve clarity on the polarization between left and right in the United States, I would suggest that you review the hearings of the Election Commission [House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol], and the work about it. It’s very, very clear as to what’s been happening in the United States, what it means, and what it portends for the future of democracy, safety, security, equity, decency, and humanity in this country, and how it erodes and undermines the more political and authoritative position of the United States in the world. This is very, very serious. I suggest you read more and watch some of the proceedings. Thank you.

Speed: Actually, there may be a different suggestion. Diane, do you have anything to say about this?

Sare: Yeah, this is a terrible clown show. The January 6 events remind me of what happened in the Maidan in Ukraine, where you had snipers fire into both sides of the crowd, in order to get everybody hysterical. There has been an enormous amount of evidence, which is not being heard, on the role of various intelligence agencies, and police and so on. I am not defending anyone who did anything violent or foolish, like believing they could storm into the U.S. Capitol building. But, this is clearly being used to create a situation where the Congress is virtually on lockdown. People cannot even go door-to-door and visit their representatives anymore. It’s been happening over time, but the direct access that Americans used to have to their elected officials in Washington D.C. is being removed.

There is controversy on so many questions—the elections, global warming, etc. We have to have faith that if people can actually hear a debate, and be presented with evidence, they may come up with different conclusions than are being pushed in the mainstream media, etc. And I will just say what I said before: There’s a reason to question these things, and I think you have to look at the result.

For example, take the attacks of September 11, 2001. Well, we were given a certain narrative about who did it, supposedly some guy, Osama bin Laden, sitting in a cave in Afghanistan was the sole organizer of planes being hijacked, thousands of people being killed, and we were going to march off to war, and everybody had their flags up and went along with this. Well, we still haven’t got to the bottom of that question.

We have a lot to take a step back on and look at the overall direction, and look at what these actions are used to do. What was 9/11 used to do? Everyone can now spy on everybody—their mother, their brother and their aunt—because it’s all in the name of national security. We marched off to invade Iraq, which had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, whatsoever, but somehow, we had to do it because it had something to do with terrorism. We destroyed that nation, as well, created al-Qaeda there. We see the situation now around the Russian military action in Ukraine: Again, everyone is being stampeded into believing a certain narrative, with the absolute maximum emotional hysteria, maximum emotion, without a space for actually stepping back and reflecting. And I think the way that these hearings are being conducted, particularly the role that the Senator from New York has been playing, is less than honest.

What, Really, Is Creativity?

Speed: We are coming up on end of time, and we want to have everybody do summaries. But there are a lot of questions, which is probably good. This is for you, Jacques, and it comes from José:

“Some argue that there is creativity when you are making a modern song or a movie. Some people say you are being creative if you are creating virtual reality goggles. So, what exactly is meant when we say ‘creativity’? Does it mean simply to create something new, or is there something different that it means?”

Cheminade: The “principalities and powers” dominant in the world have made of the word “creativity,” exactly the opposite of what it is. Creativity is not adding something new; creativity is not in itself breaking the rules of the game. Creativity is establishing social and personal conditions where human beings act as human beings, which means that they care for the society, they care for the other, and they enter in with what the Schiller Institute and the Chinese with their One Belt, One Road work for, which is cooperation, connectivity, win-win, and a world where everybody is involved in improvement, in all sectors—from art to science to politics. And then it creates a better universe, which is in congruence with the laws of the universe itself in its development. And then we are human. We have this unique quality to be human. The rest is not creative.

Speed: From Renée Sigerson, we have this:

“The metaverse, through Peter Thiel in particular, is pouring millions of dollars into the U.S. midterm elections, which money is particularly being used to deploy high-profile entertainers in the age-group of 15–40 to lure youth into the cultural hell that Mike has already described.

“Our organizers have found that this game is really a weak flank, and that youth are quickly convinced that there is something really weird and untrustworthy about Thiel, who lies about everything in his so-called ‘philosophical ramblings.’... Thiel has the money to do this because of his sales to the military establishment. They’re really trying to seize the youth population to have them become zombies, and I don’t think young people want to lose the meaning of their lives in that insanity. I believe we can cause this Silicon Valley cultism to backfire, because ultimately, it is based on the financial system and war contracts, not any profound grasp of the nature of the human species. ‘You can’t fool all of the people all of the time’.”

Then there is a second question from B.T. from Peru:

“Transhumanism as an ideological current, could be considered as the ideological doctrine that is intended to be imposed as a single thought promoted by Davos and other power groups, because one of the main ideologues of that current is the ineffable Yuval Noah Harari, Klaus Schwab’s main adviser. Would this be part of the so-called ‘Great Reset’? And besides that, do you know if there’s a relationship between this transhumanist ideology and the international progressive movement controlled by people like George Soros?”

Robinson: Yes, this is very much part of Klaus Schwab’s narrative, his vision of [what] the fourth industrial revolution should be. And a large proportion of the money which is being spent—and it is billions of dollars—is going into projects which are— I’m not actually sure where to go with this at this point, Dennis. But, basically, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk and these guys are very much pushing the same type of narrative as the Great Reset and the main protagonists of the Great Reset. And I’m afraid I completely lost the thread of that, so I apologize!

Speed: It’s not a problem. Diane?

Sare: I was thinking about this agenda or the disorientation, actually. The way Prof. Quintas answered my question was not so much on the question of the cultural assault on younger people, but the mission of a nation, or the need for development. I definitely don’t want to say that people become susceptible of becoming insane when their standard of living is too high, or they don’t have to go out and farm and dig in the dirt and get a sense of certain physical principles.

But there is a necessity to have a commitment to moving forward, continuing the development of the creative powers of the human mind, and this is what these characters all discount. They all believe that, in a sense, they control what people think or that they can do so, which causes them to make terrible miscalculations, like the 17 intelligence agencies which deployed heavily to ensure Hillary Clinton would be elected in 2016, and were very shocked when that didn’t occur.

I was also thinking in this regard, of the necessity of development. What does it mean? Anyone who’s read Dante’s Commedia, finds in their own mind a certain laziness. Everyone wants to read the Inferno, it’s completely fascinating, who did he put in which circle of Hell? Why are they there? It’s gripping, it has all the things that draw us, the intrigue like the hot button issues on the social media. Then you get to Purgatorio, which is more challenging to work through certain problems. Then you get to Paradiso, and as many do, I know, the first time I read it—this is years ago—hopefully I’ve improved now since my initial reading, but I sort of lost interest. I thought, “Ok, we’re in Paradiso, what’s the point about flames and candles and lights?” I mean, actual experiments where you’re exploring the nature of creativity and discovery.

Perhaps the antidote to these problems is that we have to be perpetually goading ourselves to solve the problems of mankind, and not merely the physical ones, which I guess we better start with right away, since there’s so much starvation and strife on the planet—we have to solve these problems of famine, of disease, of the deficits in electricity and clean running water: These things have to be done, but that is not sufficient for a human being.

The work going on with the Hubble Space Telescope should give us a sense of how small our planet is, in the scope of the universe. But even as small as we are, we know so little about this little place where we are, and our connection to the universe. That should be seen as a very big challenge. I know that’s not a very direct answer to what was asked, but I think we have to get out of this trap.

Closing Remarks

Speed: We’ll now start to have summaries from panelists. I’ll start with Dr. Wahab.

Dr. Wahab: We all know that there’s too much pain and suffering in the world. I talk about it almost daily. We also know that humanity is facing too many problems, too big, that indeed, threaten our well-being and our survival. I appeal to the world’s leaders, and to people in general, to please—please—show some moral and political courage, and think globally; think in new terms, and do something different that would reduce human pain, suffering, and oppression, in particular, in the developing, the underdeveloped South, particularly Afghanistan. Thank you.

Robinson: I echo what Diane said, that the way to deal with, particularly the topic I was covering, is to reject it in favor of the real world, in favor of Classical culture, because that is the fight we are ultimately in. The media and ultimately the metaverse as well, are bombarding us with information to the degree that people are finding themselves in an extremely unstable mental and emotional state. It’s increasingly difficult for people to get any kind of grounding, and perhaps they need to reject that kind of overstimulation of the senses, as it were, and go back to reading some books, some poetry, and listening to some proper music.

Speed: We’re going to go to Prof. Quintas, but as I do, there’s one comment to you, Professor, from Susan Bowen:

“In the early 1990s, as part of the Dialogue of Cultures concept, the Schiller Institute chorus learned and performed a requiem mass by the African and Brazilian composer José Maurício Nunes Garcia. It is a fine composition in the tradition of Mozart. Given that universal Classical culture is critical for the development of physical economy and scientific progress, wouldn’t this be an appropriate presentation for when the Bi-Oceanic Corridor is completed?”

Prof. Quintas: [via interpreter] I’m quite certain that that’s an excellent suggestion! There’s a whole channel of Classical culture that Brazilians have produced and can be taken advantage of. Unfortunately, it’s somewhat forgotten in recent times, but I do think that the wave of irrationality that exists in Brazil—and not just in Brazil, but in the whole Western world, including in the periphery of the Western world—is simply a last expression of the financial domination which was established, not only in the realm of finances and economics, but also in the domain of culture.

That culture, that culture of extreme individuality which denies the social context of surrounding individuals, and also the higher moral values of people, when they lose all cultural references that are positive references, and they limit themselves only to their own most base sentiments and feelings—all of that, was the strategy of financial domination, which is being eliminated at this point; and [against] which other civilizations are expressing their power, expressing their perspectives, expressing their cultures, and placing those on the front stage of the world.

The world is not ending, the world is just beginning. The world that is ending is the world of imperialism of the North Atlantic. The world that is beginning is totally different, and it will bring new perspectives about man, about life, about civilization, about the world, and I believe that we need, now more than ever, to have that kind of a dialogue of civilizations, and that each civilization needs to hold forward that which is best of its civilization, the highest level of expressions of its culture, so that all of humanity can unite around the highest values of each culture, not of a single one perspective, but all countries and all perspectives which are shared in dialogue through them, with them, and reference each of them in their most noble expression, their most human expression, and not limit themselves only to humanity, but also to look at that which is divine in individuals.

Therefore, I would like to thank the Schiller Institute for the invitation. I would like to thank each and all of the other panelists, on this panel and the other panels, for the extremely high level of the presentations. I must say, the Schiller Institute is carrying out a very important role for creating a higher-level world, a multipolar world, a better world, a more Classical world, a superior level of thinking, in which the material welfare and the elevation of the spiritual level can walk hand-in-hand in all countries. Thank you.

Sare: First, I’d like to thank Helga Zepp-LaRouche for convening this conference, and the Schiller Institute. I think it’s very important and timely. Also, I would like to again second the proposal for an emphasis on a New Bretton Woods conference, which we can define for people, and perhaps should even include a dialogue of cultures aspect, along with the economic.

And thirdly, I want to let people know that there will be a Dialogue for Peace concert one week from today at 5 p.m. New York time, of the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus. We don’t have time in the program to include all the cultures that should be included, but it will feature some parts of the Bach Mass in B Minor and music in Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, and other languages, as well as African-American Spirituals. I invite everybody to visit the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus website (https://www.sinycchorus.com/) to get tickets. It will be performed live in New York, but also will be online, so people can listen from anywhere in the world.

Cheminade: What do we have? We have mass shootings in the United States, but not only in the United States. We have these gun wars in Sweden. We have in France, almost every week, two or three knife assaults, we have drug wars, etc. So, we have this kind of, I would say, spread of anti-authoritarian extremism and craziness. But at the same time, what’s happening in the world? What do we have? In the present conditions, the Ukrainian army is about to lose a war. But Macron, the French President, the Romanian President, the German President, and the Italian President went to Kiev to see Zelensky, and to fully support him!

Much worse, at the same time, a NATO conference is taking place, the new NATO Summit, in Madrid June 28-30, just after the G7. What is [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg saying about what they plan? Civicly stronger deterrence and defense, a culture of war, a kind of proto-Nietzschean counterculture of war: “Sustain support for Ukraine, and other partners at risk, and I am pleased that President Zelensky will participate in our meetings.” That’s an offense for Russia; it’s a crazy initiative—insane.

Then, we will also decide on a new NATO Strategic Concept, setting out our position on Russia, on emerging challenges, and, for the first time, on China. This means a “Global NATO.” It also means that the European Union is going to be transformed into a military form of organization under NATO. Most EU countries are NATO members: 24 of the 28.

This is the situation. It’s an emerging situation, because we are on the brink of war. And the only thing that makes me hopeful and happy is that at the BRICS meeting just before the NATO meeting, Argentina and Indonesia will be coming. There will other countries in addition to the founding members of the BRICS. To have Argentina and Brazil together is very good news.

Then, what also makes me hopeful and happy is what we have done today. Thank you very much to everybody, and thank you very much, Helga, for having organized this, which is key in the present situation. What makes me even more happy and hopeful is what we are doing together, and what we are going to do together in the future. Thank you, again.

Zepp-LaRouche: We are in rapidly changing times. Any person in their right mind would reject a military European Union, because that would just be another geopolitical, imperial monster. But it’s interesting that the former President of Russia, [Dmitry] Medvedev, just said that he thinks the EU will fall apart before Ukraine can join. So that’s some hope there!

But, fun aside, I want to reiterate the intention that in the next days we will issue this call for a New Bretton Woods, and all the other things we discussed. We are heading toward the perfect storm. I am absolutely convinced that before the year is out, that things will have dramatically changed, and that is the moment when you can inject ideas. And if these ideas correspond to the interests of the mass of the people, they have a very good chance to be implemented.

I would ask all of you who are listening—all the panelists, and all people who are watching, or will watch this program—to just join us. We need, right now, a large number of activists in all countries, who will help us to put this New Bretton Woods initiative on the table in such a way that it will change history. Join the Schiller Institute, work with us. If you have any questions, don’t sit on the fence. This is not a moment to sit on the fence of history: This is the time to choose sides, and I can assure you, the Schiller Institute is absolutely the right place to be.

Speed: Yes, that’s absolutely true. We also want to make sure to call attention, for people who have been asking, to the LaRouche Legacy Foundation and its Lyndon LaRouche Collected Works, Vol. I. Several more volumes are in preparation.

Dr. Zaher Wahab, Prof. Felipe Quintas, Diane Sare, Mike Robinson, Jacques Cheminade, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I want to thank you all for being with us, here today. We want to thank everyone who has stayed with us for the two days of our conference.

I think everybody is clear about what kind of assignments they’ve been given and what kind of world these assignments have to be carried out in. We’ve had some great examples of culture and beauty, including the dialogue we’ve just engaged in. And now what we have to do is take that dialogue out, if you will, to the streets of the world, and cause people to fight on behalf of beauty, and that way, to reach true, real human freedom.

Thank you all for participating for these past two days, and we will see you again.