Discussion Session

This is the edited transcript of the Panel 1 Discussion Session, of the Schiller Institute’s Sept. 10-11, 2022 Conference, “How To Inspire Humanity To Survive the Greatest Crisis in World History.”

Dennis Speed (moderator): Before we go to questions and discussion, I’ll just ask Helga: Is there a particular response that you have to what you’ve heard so far?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I think that the point which was made by Cliff just now, I can only confirm that the mood of the world has changed dramatically, and what was also coming through in some of the other messages read. The time where the United States and the British, based on the special relationship between the Anglo-Americans, can dictate the rest of the world and they all will follow; that has clearly ended. That may be the case for some people who have the identity of underlings like the present German government, which is an unbelievable example of sheepish submissiveness which Ray was addressing. It’s almost that they are photocopies. Whatever Blinken says, Baerbock says; it’s an amazing phenomenon. But that is not the case. Jozef was talking about how the European Union is not unified; that is absolutely the case. I think come the big storm of the coming weeks, you will see that the EU will have enormous problems to stay together. It’s definitely the case for the majority of the developing countries. Cliff was referring to it. First of all, the BRICS will have new members—Argentina has applied; other countries like Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria. There are many countries that are absolutely refusing to be drawn into the geopolitical confrontation and do not want to take sides, and do not want to be part of this divide and conquer game.

I do share the optimism of Ray. I also deeply believe that we can come through this period, if we mobilize. It’s not going to be historical materialism, and it’s not going to be dialectical materialism. In other words, it’s not coming by itself, but it does require the active intervention of many people of good will to listen to what Cliff was saying. That we hope still that in the United States and in Europe there are enough people who recognize that the age of confrontation should be over, because what Dr. Toloraya was saying that the danger of an accidental war is so big that if people would be rational, they would have sleepless nights over just that possibility. And in the last year, there were many incidents where it was only the ability of pilots to fly very well and escape risky situations why things did not go out of control. I have said many times if world peace depends on the ability of a pilot to fly his plane well, we are in tough shape.

So, it’s not a self-evident of this period. I think what everybody should really reflect upon is on the one side we are looking at the potential extinction of civilization. That is a thought which is really unbelievably real. On the other side, the majority of the world, and I really mean in terms of numbers, the majority of human beings living on the planet today want to end imperialism, colonialism. They have a new self-confidence. Many of the Asians are completely different in terms of their outlook than the so-called Westerners, because they think the Asia Century is coming; it’s already beginning. They are very optimistic in terms of the potential of the future, and they are very proud in terms of having revived their 5000-year-old history. They are very optimistic.

The thing which bothers me is that I would really regret to see that Europe becomes a side-lined fossil relic of a civilization which didn’t make it. In the worst case, Asia will rise and countries like Germany will be only visible in a museum in Mali or some other place as an example of a civilization which went under. I would hate that, because I think Germany and Europe have produced so many great cultural goods. But right now, we are on the wrong way, and I think the memory of my late husband is exactly the way to shake up the world. It is really true, that the countries that follow—and this was the message we heard from this prominent Russian—the countries that are applying the economic principles of my late husband are doing well, and those that are following Malthus are in a complete collapse. So that is the issue in my view which we have to get a solution to.

Speed: Do you, Dr. Kiracofe, have any response or any reflections on anything you’ve heard so far today?

Dr. Clifford Kiracofe: I agree with my colleagues, and I like what Ray said about we’re not going to give up. None of us should give up and we should encourage others to press ahead. Don’t forget, after World War I, we had the League of Nations; after World War II we had the United Nations. There was an international effort to make things better: I think we should revitalize the United Nations. I think the new Bandung spirit that Helga mentioned, particularly in the Global South, this new Bandung spirit is very important, in a situation where Washington is continuing to push its unipolar policy and its belligerent and bellicose policies, as we’ve seen in its proxy war with Ukraine. So, in the interest of world peace, we certainly can’t give up.

And in addition to that, we need cooperation. Just as this conference is showing, our Russian colleague, our Chinese colleague, colleagues from around the world have mutual concerns, and are working together to support what the Chinese have called a vision of a community with a shared future.

So, I think this is for me, the main comment I would make is that we need to strive and not give up on promoting a vision of a shared future, and that would mean recognizing or helping to support and strengthen the United Nations at the center of the international system, and to strengthen international law, so that we can achieve justice and fairness in the international system. So that would be my first comment.

Speed: The first question is going to be given by the moderator, in this case. This is a particular thing that I’d like to have you discuss, because it’s rare that we have three people that can all discuss this sort of question. And it’s the following: I posed, in something I wrote in preparation for this conference, that the Schiller Institute and its interlocutors must act as the Nemesis of the presently prevailing civilizational direction of the trans-Atlantic world, in other words its dissolution. And that Nemesis is a different thing—it’s not street justice, it’s not retribution, merely—it’s a higher idea. And it’s the notion, in part, I was contending, of a higher law which is outside of the so-called “rule of law” of tyrants, and they can never really can quite see how that these forces of their Nemesis are able to sort of forecast what they do, how they think, why what they are doing is destined to fail. And those forces characterized by the kind of folly and hubris that we’re seeing in the trans-Atlantic world are confronted by something that’s greater, and it’s not just, as I say, retribution.

And I wanted to ask you to all discuss this idea, whether you agree or disagree with what I said. I want to start with you, Helga, and then go to Ray and Cliff, because I believe that if we can give people a discussion of some of these Classical ideas, that’s probably going to be a very useful way for them to think about how we’re approaching the whole issue of foreign policy. So, Helga?

Zepp-LaRouche: I just remember when the Iraq War of 2003 started, we had a Schiller conference, and I started my speech by saying: Do these fools not know there is such a thing as Nemesis? That you cannot start a war based on lies and think you can get away with it? And some more things like that. And the reason was already clear that the war was based on complete lies, that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, that he had not backed up al-Qaeda—as a matter of fact, Saddam Hussein was famous for having put in jail a lot of such people.

In any case, what is this Nemesis? It is a higher power. In the European philosophy it was called “natural law.” In other cultures, it’s called cosmic power, Mandate of Heaven—I mean, there are many different terms—but in many cultures, you have such an idea that there is a higher lawfulness, and even if not every little sin is being punished, but you cannot violate this higher order over a long time, without it will come back and haunt you with a vengeance. And one of the reasons why the Schiller Institute is called “Schiller Institute” is because of, naturally, Friedrich Schiller and his outlook. And our cultural magazine in Germany is called Ibykus.

Now, those of you who are familiar with Schiller, even if you’re not German, may know his poem “Cranes of Ibykus,” which is one of the most powerful poems I know of. It’s the story of a poet, Ibykus, who is killed: He is on his way to the poet’s competition, and since there is no one to help him, he says, “you cranes, who are flying over my being murdered, you should be my vengeance.” When all the poets are then meeting, and they are gathering in a big theater, the Erinyes come. The Erinyes are the goddesses of revenge, and Schiller makes something poetically absolutely incredible, because he changes the rhythm, and has the Erinyes walk in the center of the theater, and the language becomes so powerful, because the Erinyes evoke this higher power. And at one point the poem goes “als ob die Gottheit nahe wär” (“As if the divine were present.”)

And then the cranes fly over the theater, and the two murderers, who are among the people sitting in the audience, they say, “Sieh da! Sieh da, Timotheus,/die Kraniche des Ibykus!” [“See there! See there, Timotheus,/Behold the cranes of Ibycus!”] And then, the people, who are all mourning the murder of the poet Ibykus, they say, “what’s with this name of the person who was just murdered? This must come from the murderers!” And so they put them in front of a tribunal.

And Schiller, in the letters about the poem, I think it’s an exchange with Goethe, says: Why do the murderers reveal themselves? Surely not because they have a bad conscience, because murderers don’t have a conscience; they’re just lowlifes and do what they do. But the presence of the divine, which was called for by the Erinyes walking in the theater, established some higher power, and they could not control it.

This was not prepared and I’m not doing justice to this incredible poem: I can only ask people who want to know about the Nemesis to look at this poem, and have it read out loud, and you will see. Maybe we should put a version of it on the website, so people can actually see: This is how Nemesis works. There is a higher power which intervenes, and criminal behavior of a human being has no power to avoid it.

This has been a big subject in Greek tragedy, where it has played a role all the time. But I think the concept of Nemesis—it doesn’t matter how you call it, whether “higher power,” or “divine power,” “natural law”—it does exist, and it is part of the built-in features of our universe, for the same reasons why Leibniz’s conception of “best of all possible worlds” is also an innate feature of our universe: that a great evil always tends to bring forth a bigger, very higher power of goodness.

So, there are many secrets about these matters, which I think are very relevant to the outcome of the present history.

Speed: Cliff, let’s go to you, and then we’ll go back to Ray.

Dr. Kiracofe: I’ll pick up from what Helga was saying and, of course, the memory of Schiller and that particular poem—I might still have my grandmother’s copy of Schiller at the house here, in four volumes, in the old-fashion German script.

The concept of Nemesis of course, comes to us paired with the ancient Greek concept of Hubris or arrogance, overbearingness. And Nemesis occurs as the antidote or result of this overreaching Hubris. I would just make a short comment that in ancient Greek Classical thought, we have the concept of Dike [δίκη] in Greek. [pron. dīkee] Dike represents the general concept of justice and fairness. Basically, Dike is justice and fairness; it’s a bit of a higher principle, say, than Nemesis that Helga was alluding to. What Nemesis wants to remind us of, is we don’t want to overreach in Hubris, because that’s undermining the general moral, ethical values of justice and fairness.

And I would just say that, if we look at the Feb. 4th joint statement between President Xi and President Putin, we see, there, as well as in various BRICS communiqués and documents and other documents of various platforms, the very ideal of pushing toward a world with justice and fairness among nations.

And so, in brief, I just would like us to think about continuing what Helga was saying, this concept of Nemesis, and then that higher level of Dike, or justice and fairness between nations.

Ray McGovern: Well, I’m refreshed to be reminded of my six years of Classical education. It’s nice to have Nemesis on your side! You don’t have to have read all of Euripides, or Sophocles or Aeschylus to realize that this was the downfall of all those tragic heroes! Hubris, Hubris brought Nemesis. Now, what’s Nemesis? Well, what’s Hubris?

Hubris is encapsulated by the notion that the United States, and by extension, the United States’ territories like Great Britain and other places, are “exceptional.” This is what Tony Blinken and what’s-his-name? Jake Sullivan learned in their Ivy League schools: We are exceptional. Now, that cuts right across the grain of what the clip from Lyndon LaRouche said, in the beginning! If all men and all nations are created equal, how can it be that a nation can consider itself and want others to consider it, “exceptional”? Well, that’s the reality, here! And that, my friends, is the Hubris.

Now, I have so much enjoyed this conversation, and many others that we have been having under this banner of Friedrich Schiller, and I’m reminded in passing, that Beethoven stole from Friedrich Schiller, “Alle Menschen werden Brüder”! [All men are becoming brothers and sisters]. That’s important. That’s what we have to head to.

Now, underneath this discussion, I’m reminded of a fellow that I read a lot about. His name was Lenin. Lenin wrote one book, saying, Что делать? (What Is To Be Done?). That’s where I am: What is to be done?

Well, the first thing to be done is what we’re doing right now. The next thing is to spread that around, to all the people we know in whatever way that we can. But then, we have to act. Now, what’re we going to do? Well, there’s no great need for a grandiose plan right now. We can all act in our own peculiar circumstances. Back in the 1930s, that was possible early on, for Germans to do. What happened to the Social Democrats? Well, they caved into Hitler. So, we don’t want people to cave in.

Now, I’m just going to give you one example of what we’re trying to do here, in Raleigh, North Carolina: The Boy Scouts of America have invited George W. Bush to give an address to the Boy Scouts, here in Raleigh, actually, a wider gathering, next Wednesday, Sept. 14th. Now, George W. Bush cannot travel abroad, for fear of being arrested, under the principle of universal jurisdiction. He had to cancel a trip to Geneva in 2011, for precisely that reason: He was to be arrested on the tarmac! So, why should he be able to come to Raleigh, North Carolina to “inspire” our Boy Scouts?

Well, you know what? He may not come, when the Secret Service learns about, how shall I say this?—about our welcoming committee. This man, this man, a self-confessed—some of you probably know that just four weeks ago, in a major speech in Dallas, he was decrying, “I decry the fact that one man, one man can decide on an unprovoked, brutal invasion of Iraq!—uh, uh, I mean, Ukraine! (Iraq, too.)” That’s a quote, folks.

What’d the people do? They laughed. Those Texan people—laughed.

Now, this man is a war criminal by international standards. He should be held to account. All I’ll say, without divulging too much, is that we are going to remind people about that. Maybe he’ll cancel out: That will be all for the better. That way we’ll protect our Boy Scouts here, in this area, from being subjected to the charges that, well, one prominent Greek was accused of—and that was two charges. Socrates was his name, of course, making the worst cause appear the better, and corrupting the youth.

We don’t want that to happen here in Raleigh, and so, why do I cite that? I cite that because it’s going to happen in three or four days. We’re going to make sure that we do our part to educate the people here in North Carolina, as to what kind of unabashed evil deeds this person is responsible for, torture being among them. And there have to be many opportunities to point out not only the idiocy of people like Baerbock in Germany, but the proven cooperation in many of these crimes, on the part of many of the leaders in Europe.

I’ll just close with one little example: There’s a fellow named Anders Fogh Rasmussen. He was a big Danish personage, and he was made secretary general of NATO. He’s on a committee to vet misinformation in the United States now. What did he say three days before the war on Iraq? He said: “We know there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It’s not that we think they’re in Iraq; we know they’re in Iraq!” Now, why’d he say that? Because the U.S. told him to say that. And we have a lot of puppets in Europe right now, who say things because the U.S. told ’em to say it. So there have to be a lot of Anders Fogh Rasmussens roaming around Europe and elsewhere, where you can pin them down and say, “now why did you say, ‘we know there are WMD (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq’?” There weren’t any, of course, and we knew that full well.

This by way of saying this action, it seems to me, needs to be local, at least at first. Each of us has their own specific circumstances, in which to operate. We here in Raleigh will not be missing, when it turns out that action is needed. Что делать? “What was to be done?” We know what’s to be done on Wednesday! Thank you very much!

Speed: OK! Whether you prefer Chernyshevsky or Lenin, What is to be done? is certainly the question.

Now, we have a question for the whole panel from New York:

“How realistic is it to switch course now, to a new paradigm, where countries can dialogue and start on an equal footing? Every day it seems that there’s only a development that makes things worse: Take Liz Truss, for example, coming in, and saying that Britain should be ready to use first-strike nuclear attacks. People are going to freeze to death and go into bankruptcy from paying their energy bills. How can we ensure we’re in the right place, when the inevitable revolt against these murderous policies happens, to best direct the direction of where things should go?”

Zepp-LaRouche: I think that the next several weeks and months will be the most tumultuous in our lifetimes. There are many people who are too late, and have done too little, but nevertheless, many people in Germany, who predict that the policies of this so-called Economic Minister [Robert Habeck], he has no inkling! Can you imagine, he was on a talk show with a woman called [Sandra] Maishberger, and she said, “Are you not aware there will be a wave of insolvencies, following the increased gas prices and energy prices?” And then he started to stutter, and said, “Well, yeah, maybe. Some of these bakeries and some of these florists they may close for a while, and they can open up later on.” And he was talking like that, but it has caused a storm. The bakers’ association said, “What are you talking about? When we have to close down, we still have to pay rent, we have to pay wages, and we’ll go bankrupt! We’ll be insolvent! What’re you talking about?!”

What you see right now is such a degree of incompetence of the policies of people in the leadership of the European Union bureaucracy, or this so-called “street-light coalition” in Germany. They know this will be a hot autumn; they’re trying to preemptively criminalize the protests, by saying they will be taken over by Putin and by extremists, and so forth.” But, I remember, how it went with the G.D.R., when the G.D.R. went bankrupt, or the economic policy was coming to an end.

When you have 10 people in the street, you can arrest them. But when you have millions of people in the street, there’s nothing you can do, because there’s so many people in the streets, who have brothers and sisters in the army or the police force. So, I hope it doesn’t come to that, because that comes with a lot of risks and it would go with a lot of insolvencies, and unemployment and so forth. But I think the spectrum that it would come to that, that people will not agree to only take clean themselves with a washcloth instead of a shower, to freeze, to only heat one room at a time, to have blankets and pullovers, instead of heating—I mean, these people are absolutely insane in what they propose!

There would be a very easy way to avoid all of that: Stop the confrontation. Get into a negotiation with Russia, about Ukraine. Get a peace settlement, and then the gas can flow again, you can open up Nord Stream 1 and 2; then, even more important, we will have the G20: Indonesia was pressured a lot to not invite Putin to come. Indonesia said, “we are not going to disinvite Putin, because the whole G20 would lose its meaning, because it’s supposed to bring together the 20 most powerful nations of the world, so they are inviting Putin. Putin is probably going; probably also Xi Jinping. They’re meeting in any case, now, at the SCO meeting. And then you will have a situation where you will have the Western countries, and the representatives of the BRICS, the SCO, all in one conference, the G20. And if there is any reason among the people in the United States, who are in high positions, and also in Europe, there is still time to use that G20 meeting to put a real, new policy on the table.

There is a collapse of the financial system: We have started to organize signatures to our call for an Ad-Hoc Committee for a New Bretton Woods, for people who support the idea that what Nixon did was a mistake to abandon the old Bretton Woods system. We need to have a New Bretton Woods system now, which obviously must not have the injustices of the old one, because Bretton Woods was never realized in the way Franklin D. Roosevelt had intended it, because he died; and Truman and Churchill never fulfilled his promise to overcome the underdevelopment of the developing countries, which was the most important feature of what Roosevelt had intended. So this time we have to have a new credit system, we have to reorganize the old bankrupt one; it’s hopelessly overinflated. It will go into a hyperinflationary collapse or a sudden collapse, and a new system has to be agreed upon: And the new name for peace has to be development, which is why we have demanded a new security and development architecture, which must put all of these things in one package and put it on the agenda.

And the G20 meeting, which takes place in November, would be the ideal place to have such a policy reform. And if that would occur, I’ve said it many times—nobody hates the Americans, but they hate the imperial policy, which is really the copy of the British Empire and the fact that we have now “King Charles”—can you imagine that?—and Liz Truss, and possibly the next NATO secretary general with this lady from Canada, I mean, that would be quite a trio. But let’s hope that somehow that policy is not going to be the dominant one.

But I can only say, we could escalate our efforts for a New Bretton Woods reorganization; and hopefully, at the G20 or some other venue, that is being put on the table. There are solutions, but people have to fight for them, and they have to have the courage to do so.

Speed: We have a question that is in that regard, from Melvin in France:

“Shouldn’t we push the world’s politicians to set up educational systems linked to the UN, in order to bring together researchers from around the world, without getting into geopolitical games? Shouldn’t we also allow the UN to open the doors to all citizens for meetings, to work on projects according to the Challenges in the world?”

Dr. Kiracofe: That’s an interesting question, and of course, we have UNESCO at the UN, and there’s various UN bodies and sponsored bodies, etc. The essence to the question, of course, is the international cooperation with respect to intellectual work, research, scientific, technical, or peace research, for example. So, yes, I think that’s a very interesting and positive question.

I would just say that: You know, it’s never too late. You can always have diplomacy, even during a war. As a matter of fact, there was a diplomatic process going on between Russia and Ukraine, until the U.S. and Boris Johnson halted it. But, we can remain optimistic, that there’s always a possibility for a diplomatic process to take place. And in the current global situation, as Helga noted, you have this new spirit of Bandung in the Global South, which of course is encouraged by China and Russia, and the BRICS countries, as well as other formats, such as the ASEAN countries.

I think the bottom-line answer to the question, is that there are many intellectuals and researchers around the world that would love to cooperate and are in the process of cooperation, just as this conference is an international conference. So, yes. We need to reinforce international cooperation and think about this concept that the Chinese put forward, of a shared future, a community with a shared future, which is, of course, what the spirit of the League of Nations was all about, and that’s what the spirit of the United Nations is all about: We’re an international community with a shared future!

And I’ll just refer back to the point I made about Greek philosophy side, this concept of Dike [δίκη], the concept of justice and fairness in relations between countries, in international relations. And so, those are the sort of principles that we can cooperate on, and think together about: whether someone is an historian, or a sociologist or a lawyer, or just an individual citizen. So, I would say, promotion of international intellectual cooperation in strengthening the United Nations, reforming the United Nations, as a matter of fact, it’s a very important task. Thank you.

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes. I think this idea is very good, and we should explore it, because technological apartheid is stupid. It’s only a push by people who are worried that they have lost their creativity, because if you are sure that you will always come up with new inventions, and discoveries, you are happy to be giving away the old ones. The idea to contain Russia from having access to advanced technologies, which is what the White House said on Jan. 25 of this year. It does not work! I mean, look at Russia: they are making breakouts all the time. The sanctions didn’t function, they have now higher income from oil and gas, than before. The idea to decouple from China, and to prevent China from having access to certain advanced technologies doesn’t work either. China is on the far side of the Moon—it’s just not working.

I think that we should go back to the ideas of Nikolaus of Cusa, who, already in the 15th century, said that every time a discovery is made, it should be made available to everybody internationally. Because it’s so precious that one should not try to prevent development by denying others to have access to this.

So what would happen, if you had science cities all over the place? Where countries from the developing sector, students, could learn technology? We could overcome underdevelopment so quickly—and I think, it’s just an idea, if you think about the James Webb Telescope, and sometimes you have to lift your eyes away from the planet Earth, to discover that we are not Earthlings: We have a situation where already, the Hubble Telescope discovered that there are 2 trillion galaxies! And we have to explore them. We have to develop new propulsion so that we can have interstellar travel. We are a species of the universe, and not just of the planet Earth.

So if you think about the vastness of the problems, and that we as a human species, eventually have to develop alternatives to the Earth, because eventually, in less than 2 billion years our Earth will not be so good, because of the developments on the Sun. That may be too much for the next politician to think away; all he thinks about are the next four years. But the philosophers among us, should think about the character and identity of mankind in the universe. And then we have the right way of thinking.

McGovern: I think what needs to be recalled, is that there are structures in being, approved by almost all the world, for dealing with these problems—first and foremost, the United Nations. So, when Russia and China appeal for observance to the principles of the United Nations, they are exposing what has become of U.S. policy, creating something newly invented, called the “rules-based international order.” I Googled it, and I can’t find any description of this. And it appears that the “rules-based” really depends on who makes the rules, and that means the United States makes the rules.

You know, parenthetically, the emphasis on the new entente between Russia and China is a deal-breaker. It’s a tectonic shift. It’s been lost sight of, but the U.S. is no longer one prong on this equilateral triangle. The U.S. is at the short end of things.

So, this is really important: If Russia and China are calling for the UN and other internationally agreed documents to regulate foreign behavior abroad, now, what’s the problem? Well, the problem is, this “rules-based” international order, aside from the UN, well, that allows you to attack people like Iraq, which the UN Secretary General condemned, as illegal. It allows you to go into Libya, after deceiving two of the members of the Security Council; I name them, Russia and China, into thinking this’ll just be an “air sort of thing, just to deny Libya from doing bad things.” This “rules-based” international order requires just forgetting about the UN!

Now, the last thing I’ll say is, worse still, the U.S. controls the UN. Now, this has been seen in this business about Iran, which intelligence still says is not working on a nuclear weapon! You wouldn’t know that from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA. Worse, still: Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, who’s shelling Zaporizhzhia? Well, you’d have to believe that the Russians are shelling themselves, to believe it was the Russians, and yet—the UN, the IAEA, cannot say, even under fire from across the river! They can’t say that it’s the Ukrainians firing, in a very dangerous way against Zaporizhzhia!

This is similar to what happened in Syria: We know from really good studies done by Ted Postol and others, that these so-called chemical attacks by Bashar Assad forces never happened. They were staged by White Helmets and others: We know that, and we know that the UN inspectors found that to be the truth, and they were overruled by people put in by the U.S., and said, “No, no,” and reversed their whole conclusion.

What I’m saying here, is that China and Russia are still being principled adherents to the UN, including Article 51 and so forth. Putin, just yesterday, stressed that when put under existential threat, as Russia believed it to be before Feb. 24th and Ukraine, then the principles of defense can kick in. OK? I won’t try to be a lawyer on that: The important thing for me about Ukraine is that it was not “unprovoked.” But what I’m saying here, is Putin laid out this argument, just yesterday. It wasn’t in the U.S. or any other Western media. But they’re adhering to the UN; the UN is dominated by the West, in person by the United States. So they realize that when people come to Zaporizhzhia and can’t identify where the shells are coming from, well, the UN is still being manipulated. So, their education legacies, sure, let them go ahead. UNESCO tried to improve the situation, but if the U.S. controls UNESCO, don’t expect miracles, don’t expect much progress. There has to be other ways, besides the UN to do these things.

Speed: From Bernie, who is I believe from England:

“In response to Dr. Kiracofe, it is imperative (if you will excuse such an imperious term) that the U.S.A. be respectfully persuaded of the wisdom of taking its place as an equal partner within the new order of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). This can be expedited by having the likes of Geoff Young or Diane Sare elected to positions in the Congress and Senate by means of which they could assemble a course of sanity within the U.S. administration.

“As an independent citizen of the United Kingdom—but I will emphasize, not as a subject of His Majesty King Charles III—I would like to ask the panel of distinguished speakers, but specifically you, Dr. Kiracofe, what strategies could be employed to persuade the British government to abandon its reckless foreign policy toward Russia and China?”

There’s a simple question.

Dr. Kiracofe: Well, first of all, in the United States, we do need to remember that, not shockingly, but 100 Senators voted on a bill a few weeks ago, to condemn Russia as a so-called “terrorist-sponsoring state.” That’s 100 Senators; not 99, not 98, not 95—some were—no! It was unanimous. So that shows you the mood of Congress, or at least the Senate. And the result would be similar in the House. If Diane Sare could be elected, that would be one voice that could rise in opposition and others in the House, of course, in those elections.

Realistically, in the United States, the political establishment—or, let’s just say the ruling circles, the ruling class, the ruling circles had a hammer lock on foreign policy, which is given to congress persons—through various means, the policy line originating up in New York, at the Council on Foreign Relations, and then making its way through the various think tanks and universities, and then kind of ending up in Congress. So, what we’re confronting is a very powerful, a more powerful than ever, frankly, because there’s very little dissent in Congress. How much dissent is there on the Ukraine situation? A few voices. But just a handful, although that’s a very good start.

The political problem in the United States, is that the establishment, the ruling circles are very powerful, and they’re reinforced by the media, which are not really independent. The media are an adjunct to the political establishment. We don’t really have an independent—true we have a free press, but who owns it? And who do the owners hire? And those who are hired have to stick, within certain bounds, and are encumbered by taboos, or else they lose their job as a journalist. And I myself belong to the national journalism associations.

So, in terms of the United States, the political situation is very difficult, but it’s good that people like Diane and others are speaking out and campaigning, and they need to continue, just like Ray said, “Don’t give up.”

As far as the United Kingdom goes, you know, the phrase, “British brains and American brawn,” when it comes to wars and foreign policies is an apt phrase. We can recall that the key center of foreign policy thought, which is the Royal Institute for International Affairs, nicknamed Chatham House, is the font of U.K. foreign policy thinking, backed up by such right-wing neoconservative groups as the Henry Jackson Society and there’s another policy group there; and we need to recall that the American Council on Foreign Relations in New York; that is, the establishment’s foreign policymaker, the New York Council on Foreign Relations was created as an offshoot of the British Chatham House, the British RIIA. So the British intellectuals and foreign policy people and influential folks going back to the old Roundtable group and the Rhodes group and the Rothschild sponsorships, and all of that stuff in England, permeates the U.S. establishment, via the Council on Foreign Relations. And of course, the British Fabian Society started to penetrate American ruling circles in the late 19th century, late 1890s/early 1900s.

So, there’s a very strong British influence over American foreign policy, almost as if Washington has been recolonized, mentally, when it comes to foreign policy. So, the British have their own establishment, and have their own issues, to try to create some alternative voices. And of course, we can see how Mr. Corbyn got smashed by these so-called “left” in the Labour Party. Well, now, how can a leading member of the Labour Party, who has independent views on foreign policy, to challenge the British establishment, he just got smashed, by his own party! What’s going on there?

In answer to your excellent question, we need, on both sides of the pond, so to speak, to push forward, and support independent voices, such as occur in England, and occur in the United States; and try to help them get elected to the respective parliamentary bodies, or Congress. That’s it.

Speed: There are two questions, both from France.

First is: “Why are the United States and France probably still complicit in, and directly or indirectly supporting wars, in Sub-Saharan Africa?”

The second is: “Recently the United Kingdom signed an agreement with Rwanda for the transfer of Rwandan refugees to Rwandan territory. However, everyone knows that Rwanda does not have the necessary surface area to accommodate all the refugees from the United Kingdom, and for some and others, this approach is the materialization of the Balkanization of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, because livable space being nonexistent in Rwanda, the latter will continue to see its aggression on the D.R. Congo accentuated, in other words, Rwanda would send these people there, ostensibly. How do the various speakers interpret and judge this agreement, on the transfer of refugees?”

Zepp-LaRouche: I think it’s a complete expression that racism is alive and kicking.

I mean, this idea is so absolutely immoral, and based on really colonialist thinking, and I think it’s really all I want to say to that. Because Macron, for example, makes very nice speeches, but when you look at the actual deeds which follow, there’s a huge discrepancy. I think the entire EU policy toward Africa is one of racism, and imperialism, Malthusianism. What they say, all these proposals by the former head of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, to give the African countries a certain amount of money per year, if they promise not to develop. The whole idea of “sustainable development”: No infrastructure, no big projects. They want to maintain the underdevelopment, and they can run around in Africa as much as they want to. The Africans have come to their own conclusions a long time ago, who is their friend, and who is their would-be colonialist master.

I think this is rapidly changing: I think the Africans have come to the conclusion that China and Russia are their friends, and that the Europeans and the Americans are not.

McGovern: I would just like to add to that, broadening it out a little bit: We talked about justice before. And we know from very sad experience, for centuries, the injustice of racism, colonialism, and keeping people poor. Now, we talked a good bit about the ancient Greeks, but I come from a Christian Hebrew tradition, Hebrew going back about the same time as the Greeks. And the Hebrew word for justice—Aramaic, earlier—was tsedek. Its denotation. Not its connotation. The denotation of tsedek was “showing mercy to the poor.” Whoa! Justice. Unbiased, yes. Prejudiced to the core, in favor of those pushed to the side, those not allowed to develop.

Now, in America, we have this blindfolded lady, with scales, and she’s not allowed to see, because she doesn’t want to show bias or prejudice; suffice it to say, that the Biblical notion of justice is biased, and prejudiced to the core, in favor of the poor. Now, most of the poor are people of color. Most Westerners consider Russia just about people of color, as well.

Well, with the new setup, and I call it bipolar, not multipolar, we have the lily-white West arrayed against the rest of the world: China, India, South Africa, Argentina, Iran, Pakistan—and Russia. So, this is the tectonic shift, this is what has been brought by Ukraine.

What happens to all these people? Well, it doesn’t appear that King Charles is really interested in fixing things, or that he even could, if he wanted to. So that’s why it’s up to us in our individual countries, to do what we can, to bring some sense to people. It shouldn’t have to be far leftists, like Sahra Wagenknecht [Bundestag member, die Linke] in Germany, to say, “This is ridiculous! We’re going to freeze so that the Ukrainians can sell 70% of our arms on the black market? Give us a break!”

I still think, at the risk of saying this for many years, I still think the Europeans will come to their senses. Maybe it takes 10 blankets to come to your senses, but I still think that there’s going to be an uproar in Europe. I hope it’s a peaceful one, like Helga said. But it’s going to be big. And we need to be prepared for it, by educating our own populaces, as to what’s really at stake here. And for those who come from the Hebrew-Christian tradition—and I would add, the Muslim tradition, as well; the Prophet was just as strong on the business of justice—we have to give, what we Catholics call a real preference for the poor. That means, in our decisions, we need to not necessarily be so unbiased, as to not realize that there are people disadvantaged in this world, and not to make it still worse for them.

Dr. Kiracofe: I can just be very brief. I’ve been through Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia; and I’ve been through a lot of North Africa: Egypt, Morocco, and Niger. I’ve seen a number of countries on the African continent, and I agree with Helga. The focus on Africa should be one of economic development and lifting people out of poverty. And the creation of infrastructure projects, and naturally, the improvement and development of agriculture, so people can feed themselves, and education and health, hospitals and so on. So, there’s a lot of very positive things that can be done on the African continent, whether in North Africa, or Sub-Saharan Africa, or Central. And we in the United States should certainly be involved, in a constructive way, constructive engagement. But, the mode of our involvement right now is an attempt to push China and Russia out of Africa. Well, now, that’s not possible: As Helga pointed out, countries in the Global South have long memories; and they know who their friends are and who their friends aren’t. And former European colonialist powers aren’t necessarily the friends of Africa; nor is the United States, unfortunately, as things have developed, here.

So, it’s inevitable, and it’s ongoing now, that China and Russia will have more and more influence in Africa through economic development projects, as well as education and health, and other types of cooperation, with African countries. This is nothing new for Russia, or for China. It goes back many decades; so it’s a very natural expression of Russian and Chinese foreign policy. And, of course, there are strategies and global strategies.

In one sense, I’m not optimistic about the U.S. role in Africa, which is negative. But I am optimistic about the concrete results of Chinese economic development projects; cooperation with Russia; and I believe the Japanese will become involved in projects in Africa, and of course, India can also become active in various development projects, and educational projects.

So, overall, with respect to Africa, I’m an optimist, and I think African countries are increasingly aware of the necessity to protect their sovereignty and their independent development. Thank you.

Speed: OK, thank you. We have two more remarks:

“Helga raised the issue of any dissent from the official narrative being labelled as ‘disinformation,’ or just totally suppressed. This assault on rational debate, includes the targetting of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and others. I would even say it includes President Biden’s recent speech demonizing his opposition.”

And someone else then adds:

“All reasonable people would agree with the perspective being laid out here. That underscores the desperation of the global elites to suppress any deliberation. Could you address the Center for Countering Disinformation hitlist, and the wave of assassinations and attempts in this context?”

Since everybody that’s presently here speaking is on that list, it would seem that’s a question for the panel as a whole. Why don’t I take you, first, Ray?

McGovern: Well, let me just go back to a German word that Helga used: “Gleichschaltung.” It means to compress everything into one worldview, or one narrative. [laughs] That’s what we’re up against, folks! The media are controlled by people profiteering on the wars; the media are controlled by corporations, and academia fits right in with all this. So, how do we cut this Gordian knot? Well, I think, I daresay, that we’re intelligent and imaginative enough, to figure out how to do it. Now, we’ve been wringing our hands and moaning and groaning, and exposing, to our credit, what’s going on. We have to do something about it.

I like to use an analogy here: It’s called the “Noah Principle,” and it’s very simple. Here it is: No more awards for predicting rain. Awards only for building arks. OK? Got it?

So, what we need to do is build a huge ark for all of us, together. But we also need to do little arks, like the one we’re actually building, as I speak, in Raleigh, North Carolina, for reasons I mentioned before. Arks are what’s going to save us; and what’s not going to save us, I daresay, is wringing our hands and saying, “Oh! isn’t it awful!” It is awful! And it’s a tough nut to crack. But there’s hope, and we do break through on occasion; and I would point out in this connection, that when John McCain, right after the coup in Kiev—and for those who don’t know about the coup in Kiev, please read up on it! The most blatant coup in history, appropriately described, because it was advertised on YouTube two and a half weeks before! If you don’t know about that, then you don’t realize how things have been suppressed, and how the media were allowed to do this.

Now, this small example is one thing. McCain wrote this op-ed, and he said: The seizure of Crimea, the annexation of Crimea was unprovoked.

So: Here it was, July 2014. I wrote a little note to the editor and said, “Look, it wasn’t ‘unprovoked.’ I can prove it, and you guys—you, the Washington Post—say that history starts on the 23rd of February, 2014. You talk about Putin convening a secret meeting of his advisors on 23rd of February 2014, as soon as he got back from Sochi, and deciding to capture Crimea! And you never mentioned what happened the day before: The coup in Kiev.

“Please: Readers of the Washington Post, realize that there isn’t one scintilla of evidence that it ever entered into Putin’s head, to annex Crimea, before what happened the previous day! Not one scintilla.”

And they published that! And I was shocked; it was early February. I think the censors must have taken time off to go sip martinis in the Hamptons of Long Island. But it got through.

Now, why do I mention that? Well, because that’s the first time the Ukrainians came after me! They came after me big time. But that doesn’t really matter: It’s almost a badge of courage. So, to see myself on the same list—oddly, the first 30 or so people, having been people who participated in this kind of conference under the Schiller auspices. Seeing myself on that list was actually a badge of courage. And at the same time, if I were younger and people like Scott Ritter, I would be much more concerned, because these people are crazy: There’s nothing to prevent Ukrainian extreme right nationalists, pro-Nazis, if you will, from doing one or the other of us in: It’s already happened.

So, that’s all I have to say about that, and the famous list.

Dr. Kiracofe: Just a few comments. Number 1, I’m a political scientist, and so my job is to do objective analysis of international affairs. I’ve been doing this since grad school, since the early 1970s, so it’s about 50 years. I’ve written a number of articles, and as a writer, it’s my way of fighting the situation that we’re in, being a journalist; and I’ve written a number of articles, for China Focus, for Global Times, for Beijing Review, for several publications in China, where I’m much freer to write than I am in the United States, given the media situation here in the United States. And my first piece on Ukraine was in February of 2014, and it was just a typical, cold analysis by myself, and I made the point that the future situation in Ukraine had only three possibilities:

One was a just internal settlement, which would allow a degree of autonomy in the eastern and southern Russian cultural areas; and that could be achieved through federalization, rather than a unitary state: The creation of a federal state, through a constitution and constitutional processes. So, number 1, then, the option was to give autonomy to the agreed Russian culture zones, Donbass, etc.

Number 2, I said that failing that, there’d be a civil war. Well. We’ve noticed that, haven’t we?

And number 3, I said the future in such case would be partition of Ukraine, which is to say, the old area, Novorossiya area, which is the Donbass, and the east and the south, all the way out through Odessa to Transnistria; that area was given by Lenin to the so-called “fake Ukraine” state, in 1922. And the partition of Ukraine, as far as I can see, depending on how the war goes, that Novorossiya zone, will be annexed—well, not really annexed—it will be absorbed into Russia, when the peoples of the region vote in their respective plebiscites.

So, what we are going to see, in my view, is a partitioned Ukraine, irrespective of what NATO and the United States would like to see. On the other hand, we could see it expanding into European-wide war, if that’s what NATO would like to see, that very well could happen, unfortunately.

With respect to the state apparatus in so-called Ukraine: The state apparatus is penetrated by Nazi philosophy. A friend of mine corrected me when I said “neo-Nazi.” She told me, “No! These are the direct descendants of the Nazis in Germany, and their servants in the Ukrainian Nazi networks, back in World War II and the early Cold War.” So, we’re not talking about “neo”-Nazis in Ukraine. We’re talking about actual, ideological Nazis, whose grandparents supported Hitler! Like that woman up in Canada, who happens to be their deputy prime minister; her grandfather was a Nazi supporter of Hitler, running a newspaper in Ukraine.

So what we’re dealing with in the Ukrainian government apparatus—and, of course, there are patriotic Ukrainians who are not Nazis, serving their government in what they believe to be a patriotic way; all right. But, what about the pro-Nazi networks, inside, the actual Nazis? And this CCD, the Center for Countering Disinformation—desinformatsia is a Russian phrase and it comes out of the Cold War, etc. We would just say “propaganda.” Or we would just say “psychological warfare” or something along those lines. The real terrorists are the CCD people, and the folks in the U.S. State Department and other U.S. government agencies, and the Pentagon, who are lying to the American people and who are lying to the world, i.e., fomenting this proxy war, and then lying about it through American propaganda, psychological warfare. And what is also, in more recent terms, it’s called “perception management,” and it’s also called “cognitive warfare.” So what this CCD apparatus and other organs inside the Ukrainian state apparatus, what they do is, they are the ones who are the information terrorists. They are the ones trying to suppress free speech, and undermine the American Constitution, and other constitutions, in Europe, for example!

In my view, we had a clear Nazi culture in Ukraine, dating back to the 1920s and ’30s, through some of their sociologists and anthropologists, when they propounded eugenics and racial anthropology, that was in line with the German Nazi philosophy. And those intellectual circles from the ‘20s and ‘30s, morphed into the World War II apparatus, behind such people as Bandera—but not just Bandera! And then, in the Cold War were utilized by Ray’s old organization, the CIA, were mobilized to support the anti-Communist crusade in Europe. The idea being, “let’s use Nazis against Communists.”

My reflection would simply be that what we’re really dealing with in the CCD is an American-supported, European-supported nexus of a late-era Nazi propaganda, directed against Western citizens—or, anyone throughout the world, actually, on that list that we’re all on. There are people from China, people from all over the world on that list. That would just be my brief comment.

But what we’re facing is, we’re facing a fascist operation, sponsored by our own government, which is a disgrace! Thanks.

Zepp-LaRouche: It’s actually really Global NATO. Because, these forces, they have set up a network of institutions in many places, all supposed to counter fake news, to counter disinformation. You know, like in the European Union, they have a thing like that. Now, I was quite shocked to see that the head of the German Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz had a big interview two weeks ago in a Sunday paper, having the total line about Russian disinformation, saying that you’re not allowed to say that the sanctions don’t function; you’re not allowed to say—there’s a whole litany of things you’re not allowed to say. And I frankly think it’s an insult to my intelligence and to the intelligence of many other people. It’s a fact! The sanctions did not function! Russia did not collapse, but they were forced to have more deals with China. They’re selling more oil and gas to India; they’re diversifying, and doing quite well at it.

I think these people have forgotten that there is such a thing as a blowback: If you try to impose a policy which goes against the fundamental interests of the people you are doing it to, they tend to move together! The big accomplishment of these “End of History” policies, what Francis Fukuyama was talking about, is that there is now a tectonic shift with the alliance of Russia and China, which would never have happened that quickly without the policy of trying to impose liberal democracy all over the world by regime change, color revolution and all of these things. So these countries have, and many with them, have drawn the conclusion, and that’s why you have the emergence of a new world economic order, which would never have happened—at least not that quickly—if there would not have been the effort to impose these policies which are fundamentally against the interests of the countries which are targetted.

So I don’t think it’s very smart. You know, it’s an insult to the intelligence of people, but it’s a stupid policy, even from the standpoint of those who are pushing it.

That’s why I think it’s very dangerous, but, for example, I think all the people who are on the list of the CCD or the Myrotvorets list, there are tens of thousands of people: They all should unite. And then, we can really counter this effort to silence people who are having just a different view. And frankly, the fact that the first 30 people on the list, they were all speakers at Schiller conferences! I mean, that should really tell you, that it’s not just the narrative about Ukraine. Because what were these conferences we had since April? These were conferences all discussing the totality and complexity of the strategic situation which includes the fact that we have a systemic collapse of the financial system, which actually is the real driver of the war danger, and that we need a dialogue of Classical cultures. We were discussing the question of how to make the world function better; how to compensate for the fact that the leaderships of many countries are just not the greatest shakes.

If you compare the leaders of today with people like Indira Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Zhou Enlai, Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle, Enrico Mattei: I mean, these are not very convincing political leaderships. They’re incompetent, and bungling, like the present economic minister and foreign minister of Germany; they’re just bungling in ways which is extremely disturbing! Naturally, driven by ideologies.

We were trying to discuss how to come up with policy suggestions, and I agree with you, Ray, that we shouldn’t whine. I always tell the speakers at our conferences, please spend maximum 10% on analysis, and 90% on solutions. Because that is what really counts. So, the concept of the big ark and the many small arks, I fully agree with.

And that reminded me of the fact that all the big terrorism of the past was always trying to knock out people who would have concepts, like Walther Rathenau after Rapallo. Within a year after Rapallo, everyone was killed who had participated in that idea, and what was Rapallo all about? It was an attempt by Rathenau to undo the absolutely insane principles of the Versailles Treaty, which left no breathing room for Germany, and that naturally led to World War II and the rise of the Nazis, by the way, by trying to have a different kind of policies in respect to the German economy and Russia. So, this option was knocked out.

Then, I could make a very long list, but a lot of the very rough terrorism, the Baader-Meinhof terrorism, or the Red Brigades in Italy in the 1970s, they knocked out, not people who were in any way Nazis or bad; they were all leaders in their respective fields! Whether it was industry, whether it was nuclear energy, whether it was banking, like Alfred Herrhausen, or Detlev Rohwedder. These were strategic murders of people who would come up with ideas of a new paradigm, or just make the world better. What was the crime of Alfred Herrhausen? He had dared to propose a debt moratorium for the developing countries because the debt was strangling development! That was not allowed! He was proposing the development of Poland, independently but very parallel to what Lyndon LaRouche had proposed, and what became the Productive Triangle.

These are all people who were producing concepts. We should not allow that people who are on that list be reduced to simply having said the wrong thing about Ukraine. It’s a much larger issue than Ukraine. What’s really at stake is the question: Is it allowed to discuss self-government, just as the Federalist Papers did for the early American Republic? Are citizens allowed to discuss what are better ways to govern national policy, international policy? You come to the question: Are we still a democracy? Have the Western democracies and “rules-based order” become a dictatorship which suppresses free speech? That is exactly what we are seeing.

I think we have to have the courage to discuss these issues, and all people on the list unite!

Speed: Our next panel, Panel 2 of this conference, will be dealing with exactly that, “Defend the Right To Deliberate,”

We’re now going to go to concluding remarks and we have one last question from Germany. The question is actually a thesis:

“A large part of the population is captivated by nominalism, opinions, and feelings. Instead of using the five senses, reason, and the laws of logic, to recognize truths according to scholasticism, the great mass can therefore only be brought to violence by brutal tribulations, but not to reason.”

Dr. Kiracofe: Let’s use a metaphor from a Dostoevsky novel, which translates to The Possessed or you can translate it The Demons. And the Dostoevsky novel is a story about, roughly speaking, a village that gets overtaken by demons in the form of demonic ideas, ideology; particularly Dostoevsky was commenting on the nihilism as a philosophical position; the nihilism of Nechayev, for example. So, of course, as the village gets taken over by demons and demonic ideas in the minds of prominent people in the village, you get a mess.

And I think, to me that’s an appropriate metaphor for what’s going on in the West, in terms of what’s happening in the Western leadership, the so-called Western elites. They’re possessed by demons, demonic ideas, demonic ideologies; and as Helga pointed out, also by their sheer incompetence.

And so, I would just put forward that we need to be on our guard, against such demonic ideas and the sense of nihilism to advance any further around the world. And thus, I agree with Helga, that all of us on the list, but anyone in the world concerned about freedom of speech, and democracy, get together. Thank you.

McGovern: Dostoevsky’s The Possessed is golden; just as golden is his story about the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov. I suspect that has a direct analogy to what we face today in terms of this Gleichschaltung, in terms of this narrative that everyone must believe, otherwise they’re subjected to the fire, so to speak.

I applaud the Schiller Institute. I like what Helga just said about, Hey! our function here, is, while we’re still allowed to discuss these things, we discuss them. That’s big! The title of this event, “Inspiring People To Survive the Greatest Crisis in World History.” Implicit in that, of course, is the use of nuclear weapons for the first time, since they were used against Japan. Now, one would think that, since this is a crisis, unparalleled in human history, and I didn’t invent the title of this event, but I agree with it, that you would see the Council on Foreign Relations, or the Eisenhower Institute, or the Carnegie Foundation, you would see them arranging talks by people, even more distinguished than me. There’s been nothing. Zilch! The head of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, my God! He speaks drivel! Drivel and more drivel about Ukraine and whatever else you—he speaks out of the paradigm of “exceptionalism,” because, of course, he is exceptional. And to prove that he was head of Policy Planning at the State Department, at a crucial time, when everything fell off the wheels!

What am I saying here? I’m saying that something else that Helga said, however, ironic it sounds, needs to be emphasized. And that is, she talked about the prospect of a nuclear holocaust as “unbelievable real.” I see our task as making this unbelievably real possibility, into something that’s believably real, and that should be possible, if we exercise not only our imaginations and our energies, but our courage.

Lastly, I would like to go back to Dr. Martin Luther King and quote him: I think he holds the key to what we’re about here. And that is, in his famous “Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” which is famous for many other things, my favorite passage is this: “Like a boil, that can never be healed, but must be opened up, with all its pus flowing ugliness, to the natural medicines of air and light, so, too, injustice and lies must be exposed, with all the friction their exposure created, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion, before it can be cured.”

That’s our job. I thank the Schiller Institute for getting us down that road.

Zepp-LaRouche: Thank you, Cliff and Ray. And my thanks to all the others who have been participants in the Schiller conferences over the last two and a half years, when we had to go to these virtual conferences, because of the pandemic. We have a unique capability, because of the more than a half-century work of this movement, of Lyndon LaRouche, and our international movement, we have developed friends all over the world. That has resulted in the fact that we do have an international community of people who agree, either with everything we say, or at least with parts of it, and the fact that we have been able to establish that kind of discussion process really does not exist anywhere.

And I can assure you, you can look around and see if there are people who bring together people who are from the left, from the right; I think these categories don’t mean much, especially when you have a seismic change in history like now, and we always have proceeded with the approach of the “coincidence of opposites,” the idea that human reason can always find a higher level of reason which overcomes the divisions. So, we are really not affected by partisan prejudice and bias, and so forth. We are discussing principles: In art, in science, in economics. I think this is a very precious thing to do, but nevertheless, given the fact that we have been slandered more than anybody else—Ramsey Clark in the famous tribunal of 1995, said that Lyndon LaRouche was, that the law has been bent and broken in the United States more than in any other case, in the entire history of the United States. If I would write down all the slanders which have been used against us, we have long lists, where people were harassed, were called up by diplomats and told they would lose everything, if they did not stop working with us.

So, it really has been a lot. And I think Lyndon LaRouche has been slandered more than Putin and Xi Jinping together, and that means a lot; and I think I could add a couple of other so-called “dictators,” and it still would be in favor of Lyndon LaRouche, if you call that a favor.

I think it’s also high time, and that’s why I’m thanking you, that you did have the courage to appear with us on these programs, because a lot of people are harassed, or even they are “why should I get in trouble looking at that,” and that is still a big problem; and the enemy knows that and they’re trying to keep making the division, and divide and conquer, and so forth. But everything in my view, and now you can say “that’s just her view, because her late husband”: I really think the theoretical work of Lyndon LaRouche is the absolute key to save this world. And, unfortunately, one cannot even publish everything which should be published. And my words will become clearer in the near future.

But the ideas of Lyndon LaRouche pertain to the flaws of the monetary system, the flaws of methodological culture—I tried to address that in my opening remarks this morning—because this idea of the Flat Earth, a Euclidean nominalist, reductionist outlook, versus the real universe of the complex domain, of Platonic ideas: People have to study that. And that is a knowledge which is really absolutely crucial, if we want to get out of it. So tomorrow, we will have a whole panel about the LaRouche Legacy Foundation, and the library which we are opening up. So, I would just like to conclude with the fact that if you have any idea that what we are talking about makes any sense, please take the effort, and start looking seriously at some of the work of Lyndon LaRouche, and you will see that it opens up entire universes—and you will enjoy it.