Inspiring Humanity To Survive the Greatest Crisis in World History

The Schiller Institute Conference of September 10–11 was held in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Lyndon LaRouche’s birth. The following are reports on the four panels, two of which were opened by performances of classical music. Each panel concluded with a lively discussion period.

by Mike Billington

[Print version of this article]

PANEL 1
How to Inspire Humanity
To Survive the Greatest Crisis in World History

Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s Keynote address and the other presentations on Panel 1 are carried in full in this issue of EIR. Zepp-LaRouche debunked the narrative of the “democracies” of the West against the “nefarious dictatorships” of Russia and China—in reality, the situation is “mirror-inverted.” She discussed the fraud of a “democracy” with no free speech, no public debate, and death lists for dissidents—what she called a “digitalized gestapo.” She went on to discuss the legacy of her late husband, Lyndon LaRouche: the secret of LaRouche’s success is an unparalleled knowledge of Renaissance ideas in the Platonic tradition.

Our enemy, the oligarchical class, she said, needs to eliminate creativity and genius in order to defend its unilateral power over the world, blocking the emergence of sovereign nations cooperating on peace through development, such as the Belt and Road Initiative working through the BRICS nations. She asserted that “the United States and Europe are collapsing because they “prefer Malthus over LaRouche.”

Former Vice-Premier of Czechoslovakia Jozef Mikloško bemoaned the failure of Europe to benefit from the collapse of communism, noting the irony that at a moment that was pregnant with the promise of greater freedom, LaRouche was railroaded into prison. “He was a hard fighter, but full of fun and tenderness,” said Mikloško, who met him for the first time in prison in Rochester, Minnesota.

Prof. Ding Yifan, Deputy Director, Research Institute of World Development, China Development Research Center, recalled how Lyn introduced him to physical economy and the need for “anti-entropic factors.” He described how today’s financial sector has an entropic policy. LaRouche taught him that synarchists induce financial crises, which they exploit, but that this will also bring about their own demise. The financial crisis is coming home to roost. LaRouche, who taught that infrastructural development lays the foundation for healthy development, may be considered the precursor of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Prof. Georgy Toloraya, Deputy Chairman of the Board, Russian National Committee on BRICS Research Dept., reported that Russia had been eager to join the West-led new world order following the collapse of the Soviet Union, as an equal partner, but was denied that opportunity. Today, Russia is not fighting in Ukraine to gain territory or resources—it has enough. This war is an existential struggle. The “West” is not fighting for democracy, but dominance—robbing the whole world for its own benefit.

Ray McGovern, former Senior Analyst, U.S. Central intelligence Agency (CIA) and a Founding Member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), delivered a simple message: we can survive this crisis, which is similar to the one we survived in the 1930s, which erupted in Germany. The moral is: “never give up.”

Dr. Clifford Kiracofe, former Senior Staff Member, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and current President of the Washington Institute for Peace and Development, recalled the history of his association with Lyndon and Helga LaRouche as a stimulating intellectual atmosphere, amidst kind hospitality.

He stated that the United Nations must be strengthened and put back at the core of the international system. He asserted that the Feb. 4 Joint Statement of Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin marked a new stage in the development of international relations, mentioning in this context “multipolar” organizations such as BRICS, SCO, ASEAN. Has Washington become a rogue state?

Nancy Pelosi’s “escapade” in Taiwan occurred in the context of the U.S. proxy war against Russia. She sought to recruit Asian nations to the anti-China policy, but “no one was biting.” Similarly, Anthony Blinken was rebuffed in his anti-Chinese tour of Africa. The U.S. has made three grave and irreversible mistakes: the Vietnam war; post-Cold War hegemonism; and the Afghan war. The U.S. restarted the Cold War—their rationale was: “If a unipolar world can’t happen, we’ll bring back the bipolar world.” A multi-polar world without the West’s “rules-based order” will not be allowed.

During the discussion period, Helga Zepp-LaRouche stated poignantly, “I would really regret to see Europe become a relic of a civilization that didn’t make it. … The countries who are applying the economic principles of my late husband are doing well whereas those who follow Malthus are in complete collapse.”

Moderator Dennis Speed introduced a very interesting discussion among the panel participants on the subject of Nemesis. Helga Zepp-LaRouche observed that there is a higher power, variously referred to as natural law, the mandate of heaven, etc. “You cannot violate the higher order without that it comes back and haunts you with a vengeance.” She then developed the example of Friedrich Schiller’s poem, “The Cranes of Ibykus.” Cliff Kiracofe pointed out that the Nemesis concept is paired with Hubris, or arrogance; it is the antidote to Hubris. The Greek word “Dike” represents justice and fairness; the Feb. 4 Joint Statement of Presidents Xi and Putin reflects this. Ray McGovern added: “Nice to have Nemesis on our side!” He continued that Hubris is encapsulated by the notion that the U.S. and its territories are “exceptional.” This is what Blinken and Jake Sullivan learned in their Ivy League schools. We don’t want people to cave in like the Social Democrats did to Hitler. He provided a short “operations report” on how the Boy Scouts of America had invited George W. Bush, who cannot travel abroad for fear of arrest, to address them in Raleigh, North Carolina. Ray, who lives nearby, is preparing a welcoming committee with the hope it will deter his visit.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche said that our opponents are trying to preemptively criminalize protests for the upcoming hot autumn. She reminded the viewers of the lesson of East Germany: when there are 10 people in the street, they can be arrested, but not when there are millions. This “hot autumn” can be avoided only by negotiating with Russia and China. There is still time to use the G-20 meeting in Indonesia in November to put a new policy on the table. The new name for peace has to be development.

Ray McGovern responded that whereas Russia and China appeal to the principles of the UN, the U.S. and its friends prefer the arbitrary “rules-based order.” The Russia-China entente is a deal-breaker. The UN today is sadly dominated by the U.S., which is why the IAEA team cannot even say the obvious, that Ukraine is shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

Cliff Kiracofe provided a useful review of how the British dominate U.S. foreign policy, reminding that the CFR was created as an offshoot of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), and that the U.S. media are owned by the establishment which the CFR represents. Every last U.S. Senator voted for a resolution to declare Russia a terrorist state. If Diane Sare gets elected, he said, it would break that foolish unanimity.

Ray McGovern presented his “Noah Principle”: no more awards for predicting rain, only awards for building arks.

Cliff Kiracofe made an important point, that we are not dealing with “neo-Nazis” in the government apparatus in Ukraine, but rather, actual Nazis, in an unbroken line of continuity from the collaborators with the Hitler regime. He also mentioned Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, whose grandfather edited a pro-Nazi newspaper during the Nazi occupation.

In the concluding remarks, Kiracofe mentioned Dostoevsky’s novel The Possessed, about a village taken over by demons and demonic ideas. It’s an appropriate metaphor for the minds of the Western elites, who are possessed by demonic ideas. McGovern also lauded The Possessed, and added that in The Brothers Karamazov, the Grand Inquisitor is also an appropriate metaphor for what is going on now. Helga Zepp-LaRouche reminded the viewers that “left” and “right” are simply constructs which the enemy uses to divide and conquer. The Schiller Institute is not affected by partisan bias, because we are talking about principles. Lyndon LaRouche has been slandered more than Xi and Putin together, which means a lot. Please take seriously the ideas of LaRouche, they open up a whole new universe, and you will enjoy it.

PANEL 2
Defend the Right to Deliberate!
Speak Out Against Blacklists and the Suppression of the Search for Truth

Moderated by Schiller Institute spokesman Harley Schlanger, who himself is on the evil Ukrainian Myrotvorets kill list, this panel was devoted to exposing how Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council and its subsidiary Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD), with massive funding and support from the United States, EU and NATO, are being used to silence and even murder those who express views contrary to the Western “narrative” regarding the war in Ukraine. The first 31 people of the 72 on the CDC list are members or friends of the Schiller Institute, who have spoken at Schiller Institute conferences promoting peace through dialogue and economic development.

Closely tied to the CCD is the Myrotvorets Center, run by Ukrainian Nazis, which maintains an online database that can only be characterized as a kill list with the personal information of thousands of people including journalists, children, celebrities, politicians, and others. Helga Zepp-LaRouche herself, chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, is on the kill list. Many people on the list have been brutally murdered with their Myrotvorets profile picture subsequently updated with a large red slash through their portrait reading “liquidated.”

Schlanger noted that truth is often the first casualty of war. Well before Russia’s special military operation, the Russian government had been seeking security guarantees from the West. These efforts were sabotaged by NATO. Once the military operation began, with the West arming and financing Ukraine, U.S. Defense Secretary Austin stated that the intention of the West was to use the war to weaken Russia. People opposed to the war are put on the CCD and/or the Myrotvorets kill list. Schlanger described the extraordinary Executive Intelligence Review press conference held on Wednesday, September 7 exposing Myrotvorets and CCD (see report in this issue of EIR). He also made it clear that the intention of the Schiller Institute is to shut Myrotvorets and the CCD down.

The panel’s keynote speaker was LaRouche independent candidate for the U.S. Senate from New York State Diane Sare, who titled her presentation “The Best of All Possible Worlds.” She began by describing how British-style divide-and-conquer methods are used by the ruling elites to turn people targeted for subjugation or elimination against each other. She pointed to Biden’s recent speech in which he asserted that 74 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 were “enemies of the state.” People are programmed not to talk to others who have a different opinion on some “issue.” However, can civilization survive, if people are unwilling to examine their own axioms of thought and determine if what they believe is truthful?

Sare made the point that the American people have brought the current disastrous policies that have led to the current state of economic misery down on their own heads. She noted that Lyndon LaRouche had prophetically warned of the economic collapse and threat of fascism, but at the same time proposed solutions that would reverse the crisis. The “Anglo-Dutch liberal cabal,” seeing LaRouche as a threat to their power because of his ideas, tried to kill him, shut down his publications which had hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and ran a massive smear campaign to defame him, and ultimately put him in prison. The majority of Americans accepted the lies and as a result allowed their own minds to be imprisoned.

The growing horrors of war, mass starvation and hyperinflation threatening the lives of billions is a direct result of people going along with the policies of our degenerated government. However, today, importantly, President Putin of Russia and President Xi of China are collaborating to create a new economic order based on human dignity, development, and scientific progress. The more the U.S. tries to isolate this new economic order, the more it isolates itself. The purpose of the “kill list” is to silence people through fear, by labeling those who stand for truth as “information terrorists” or “political extremists” or “insurrectionists.”

The reason the Russian soldiers have such high morale, and the young people of Iraq and Yemen are so optimistic, she said, is because they have hope for a better future. The reason Americans are so pessimistic is because we are on the wrong side of history and have abandoned the principles which at one time inspired the whole world. Sare expressed that her greatest fear is not that the “sadistic genocidal perverts” will be successful in their schemes of global dictatorship, because they won’t be, but that when their system collapses, will we be sane enough to work with Russia and China, or will we go into a new dark age from which civilization never recovers? This is why the censorship must be ended, and in the year of his centenary LaRouche must be exonerated.

The next speaker was Gretchen Small of Executive Intelligence Review, one of the leaders of a special investigative task force recently producing two crucial reports, the first, “Kiev’s ‘Info Terrorist’ List: ‘Global NATO’ Issues Hit on Advocates of Peace;” and the second, “Ukraine’s Deathlist Database: myrotvorets.center.” Her presentation was primarily a synopsis of the two reports, which we highly recommend be read in full. Small made the point that the CCD was formed in April of 2021 well before the Russian “special military operation,” and is a proxy used by the U.S., EU, and NATO to target people internationally as “information terrorists,” who dare to deviate from the Western “narrative.” If people conducting a dialogue on peace are targeted as “information terrorists,” as in the case of the friends of the Schiller Institute, this goes way beyond George Orwell’s novel 1984.

Colonel Richard H. Black (ret.) titled his presentation “Forbid Unlawful Efforts to Silence American Citizens.” He expressed outrage that appropriations by the U.S. Congress are being used to finance a foreign entity, Ukraine’s CCD, to suppress freedom of speech here in the United States. He described how the outrage and backlash from the American people succeeded in temporarily shutting down the Department of Homeland Security’s “Disinformation Governance Board,” which was to be headed by the clownish and narcissistic Nina Jankowicz. The obvious purpose of the Board was political censorship. However, the Biden administration, with support from Congress, simply exported that function to Ukraine. The CCD has been used to target people here in the United States with sensible foreign views, including Sen. Rand Paul and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, as “information terrorists.”

Colonel Black pointed to the assassination of Journalist Darya Dugina who was blown up Aug. 20 in Moscow by a bomb placed underneath her car. He also mentioned that the individual who attempted to assassinate Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner appears to be a follower of the Nazi Azov Battalion in Ukraine.

Dr. George Koo, a business consultant who writes on U.S.-China relations, stated that he has never publicly spoken about the conflict in Ukraine being a “proxy war” against Russia, nor about the Ukrainian Nazi formations. His conclusion was that his presentations at Schiller Institute conferences advocating an end to the war through diplomacy must have been the trigger for his inclusion on the hit list. Although in one sense he was honored to be on the CCD list for his views on supporting an end to the war, he is also outraged that U.S. taxpayer money is being used in an attempt to silence his voice.

Jim Jatras, a former advisor to the Republican Senate leadership and foreign service officer, spoke on the topic of “Schiller Institute: Lighting Rod to Meet Perilous Times.” He began by stating that with the Biden administration, along with the Republican leadership, pushing global war, as well as Biden’s Labor Day speech labeling fully half of the American people as fascists and extremists, we are indeed in perilous times. U.S. support for the CCD in Ukraine is setting Americans up for violence. Jatras believes our intelligence agencies are complicit in supporting the CCD and Congress must shut this down. He expressed gratitude to Helga Zepp-LaRouche and the Schiller Institute for being the flagship and the lightning rod, fighting to make this happen.

David T. Pyne, Deputy Director of National Operations for the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security, titled his presentation “How Is Promoting a Realistic Peace Plan a War Crime?” He started by attacking President Biden for his “prime time tirade” against 74 million Americans labeling them as extremists and fascists. He also asked the question “why are efforts being made to silence voices against war?”

Pyne recounted how he warned well in advance that if Ukraine did not declare neutrality, Russia would invade. After the military operation, he published a peace plan for which he was smeared by the Ukrainians as a paid propagandist of Russia and then put on the CCD blacklist. He received a deluge of hate emails filled with profanity for the “crime” of wanting to end the war through diplomacy so reconstruction of the country could begin. He believes that the Biden administration’s policy of providing Ukraine with long-range armaments is driving us towards nuclear war.

Igor Lopatonok, film director (Ukraine on Fire and Revealing Ukraine) and close friend of Oliver Stone, titled his presentation “Shut Down the Nazi Kill List, It Is Not Just in Ukraine.” Lopatonok began by discussing the 2014 Maidan coup and its aftermath. The Myrotvorets Center was established after the coup, along with three TV stations financed by George Soros, the Embassy of the Netherlands, and other Western sources, to spread a pro-Western narrative. Nazi formations were also integrated into the Ukrainian Armed Forces and military operations were launched against the Donbas region where the majority of people were against the coup. Myrotvorets was used initially to target people in the Donbas, then anyone in Ukraine against the Nazi regime, and then the entire international community.

There are 5,000 foreign journalists on the Myrotvorets kill list, many of whom have been killed. When Biden came into office, the situation escalated. Lopatonok himself has been on the kill list since 2019 and he is convinced that we must shut it down now or it will lead to a kill list here in the United States. We must call Myrotvorets what it is—Nazi.

Bradley Blankenship, a journalist who has written for RT, Xinhua, CGTN and other news agencies, believes he is the youngest person on the CCD blacklist. He grew up in northern Kentucky, the center of the opium epidemic. Earlier in his career he reported on the war in Syria and was attacked as being a paid agent of Hezbollah, and reported in Ecuador, where he was targeted by the Lenin Moreno government for exposing human rights violations. He is currently being targetted by the government of the Czech Republic, where he now resides, because he criticized tearing down the statue of a Soviet general who helped liberate Czechoslovakia from Nazi occupation. In the Czech Republic, a person can be sent to prison for expressing pro-Russian views.

Blankenship believes he was put on the CCD list because he said the Western sanctions against Russia are not working, Ukraine is a hotbed of right-wing extremism, and that Ukraine should negotiate a peace settlement. Knowing that the CCD is backed by the United States, he finds it difficult to feel any patriotism for his country.

Eva Bartlett, a Canadian journalist who has covered the war in Gaza, Syria, and the Donbas, believes she was put on the Myrotvorets kill list because she covered the shelling of civilian targets in Donbas by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Not only does this shelling continue, but the Donetsk region was recently bombarded with thousands of “petal mines” which are small explosive devices resembling children’s toys, which constitutes a war crime. She stated that Canada is infested with pro-Nazi Ukrainians, which makes her fearful that were she to return to her home country the government would do nothing to protect her. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has labeled her as a Russian propagandist.

The last speaker was Mira Terada, head of the Moscow-based Foundation to Battle Injustice. She explained the efforts of the Foundation to shut down the Myrotvorets website. The foundation has presented evidence to the UN, UN Security Council, UNICEF, and other agencies regarding the crimes of Myrotvorets. Terada spoke about the large number of children on the list as well as journalists from 38 different countries. She believes that only through a joint effort of organizations, is it possible to win the fight to shut down Myrotvorets. The Foundation is currently circulating a statement for endorsement by the international community of journalists and will soon have an online petition available on their website.

PANEL 3
Presenting the ‘LaRouche Library’—
LaRouche in Dialogue with The World’s Nations

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, a member of the Board of Directors for the LaRouche Legacy Foundation (LLF), keynoted the panel by giving an overview of LaRouche’s body of work, saying how proud and happy she was to announce the opening of the digital library of LaRouche’s works, with thousands of articles, books, pictures and videos of conferences, meetings, and presentation.

She recounted how she and Lyn visited over 40 countries over several decades; met with many heads of state, and on a variety of subjects, as well as audiences representing fishermen, scientists, farmers, musicians, and others from many other walks of life.

She also emphasized that what the oligarchs feared the most about LaRouche was not only his depth and breadth of knowledge, but that he was also able to evoke the creative power of reason in others.

An 80-minute video was shown with excerpts of presentations made by LaRouche to audiences in several nations: Peru (2/25/00), Poland (5/24/01), India (12/1/2003), a seminar on China (10/22/97), Russia (4/26/96), Brazil (6/12/02) and the United Arab Emirates (6/2/02), all of which presented a strategic overview, based in universal principles, addressing the economic and cultural concerns of each nation in a global context.

John Sigerson, the project director of the LaRouche Legacy Foundation, conducted a thorough tour of the new digital LaRouche Library partial release. He shared his computer screen, and emphasized that even with hundreds of items already on the system, this represents a small portion of what remains to be reviewed, processed, and uploaded. There are numerous tools and filters by which one can make a very granular search for particular subjects. He encouraged readers to study LaRouche like the great German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler conducted music–“between the words.” All items are available for download for personal use.

Gretchen Small, the President of the LLF, announced that Volume II of LaRouche’s collected works would soon be ready for publication. This volume will focus on the cultural contributions of LaRouche. She emphasized that culture—music, poetry, the arts—is not simply “entertainment,” but rather, the study of Classical culture is actually essential for scientific breakthroughs.

The dialogue period began with a question on how LaRouche’s ideas have already been applied in the world. Helga Zepp-LaRouche described the role of Mexican President José López Portillo, who called on LaRouche to advise on how to escape the debt crisis Mexico was facing, leading to LaRouche writing a proposal he called “Operation Juarez,” which guided López Portillo’s policies. López Portillo later called for the world to “listen to the wise words of Lyndon LaRouche.” She described a similar close relationship with India’s Indira Gandhi, and reported on a message she had received from the leading Russian economist Sergei Glazyev honoring LaRouche on his 100th birthday, saying that, had LaRouche’s ideas been followed in the U.S., the world would not now be in such a severe crisis.

The LaRouche Youth Movement was encouraged to work on gathering LaRouche’s writings in foreign languages, and translating more, for future inclusion in the LaRouche Library. The participants agreed that this would be an excellent mission for the LaRouche youth movement.

PANEL 4
The Art of Optimism:
Using the Classical Principle To Change the World

Dennis Speed keynoted the closing panel with a reading of a 1696 statement by American colonial leader Cotton Mather, saying, “We grow little … We dwindle away to nothing.” He then played a video of die-hard colonial Lord Bertrand Russell giving an interview in 1952 on the occasion of his 80th birthday pining over the dying British Empire and describing Asia as characterized by “pessimism.”

Speed then returned to the late 17th and early 18th century to explain how the great mathematician, physicist, physical economist, philosopher, and political leader Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz had become the leader of a group of “patriots,” meaning dissenters from English Royalty, from Ireland, Scotland and elsewhere. He was in a position where he could have served as Prime Minister under Queen Anne, but on the death of Anne in 1714, the Hanoverian George Ludwig succeeded as King George I and cut all ties to Leibniz.

Nonetheless, Leibniz continued his development of a science of physical economy that ultimately was implemented in the new United States. He was a total opponent of John Locke, who had been groomed by the Dutch monarchs of Britain, William and Mary, and is, to this day, falsely believed by many Americans to be the brains behind the Declaration of Independence. The leading item they seized upon was Locke’s concept of “Life, Liberty, and Property,” a phrase used in colonial constitutions and later in the constitution of the Confederacy. The signers, however, chose Leibniz’s idea, “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” with the understanding that “happiness” is not mere pleasure, but a continuing and improving condition that characterizes mankind’s improvement.

Megan Dobrodt, a Member of the Board of the LLF, followed with a presentation on “harmony,” based on Kepler’s discovery of the harmonics of the solar system and its relation to the well-tempered musical scale. She explained how Kepler was able to demonstrate that planets had elliptical, not circular orbits, by measuring their angular motion. She explained that there was actually no mathematical operation that could be used to define the orbits in a linear way, but only marginal differences which expressed their harmony only in the solar system as a whole. It happens that the “math” of the orbits is the same as the math of musical scales, and that the orbital harmonics require the same “tempering” as the musical scale.

Jacques Cheminade, the President of the French Solidarité et Progrès political party, provided a thought-provoking discussion of “optimism” starting with reference to Lazare Carnot’s poem, “Ode to Enthusiasm.” He described enthusiasm as the most advanced form of optimism, and pointed to NATO, Liz Truss, Volodymyr Zelensky, President Joe Biden, and Emmanuel Macron as excellent cases of “pessimism.”

Anastasia Battle, Editor in Chief of Leonore magazine, closed the presentations by asking the listeners to think carefully about what they had heard and what they think must be done to aid them in developing their happiness and abilities.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche joined the panel for a closing discussion, asserting that her goal is to ensure that humanity is the immortal species. She pointed to the rising of the developing sector and other nations to end colonialism (slavery) forever, a new Spirit of Bandung, a non-aligned movement, and the commitment to achieve this with Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent methods.