Sare Announces National Campaign for Peace

This is an edited transcript of an interview conducted Nov. 24, 2023 by Stewart Battle. Subheads and embedded links have been added.

Stewart Battle: Hello, everyone! This is Stewart Battle with Executive Intelligence Review and the Schiller Institute. With me is Diane Sare, who is running as an independent in the State of New York for U.S. Senate. She’s running against the incumbent, Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand. I think we’ll have a very fun discussion, given some of the breakthroughs that Diane has made, given the very bold steps that she’s taking, not just on domestic politics, but globally, and therefore represents a kind of a flagship for moral character and policy in terms of what the U.S. could and should be doing right now. Mrs. Sare has been a long-time activist with Lyndon LaRouche. She has run for public office on a number of prior occasions. She’s also a renowned musician.

Diane, your campaign released a statement Nov. 21 calling for a national campaign for peace on Earth. Now, obviously, this is beyond what most candidates running for U.S. Senate talk about. Please tell us a little bit about what this entails, what you and your campaign are doing, and your orientation as far as a national campaign for peace.

Some Background

Diane Sare: Sure. To give some background into my thinking on this, I should say how I came to run for office in the first place, which was in 2012—actually December of 2010. Lyndon LaRouche had decided that he should not run again for President, given his age. He used to say, “There’s no guarantees after you’re over 90.” I think he was thinking that were he to be elected, he would definitely be a two term President. So he asked a number of his younger associates to run, which they did in 2010 and then they slightly expanded the slate in 2012.

There were six of us from all different parts across the country: Myself, then in New Jersey, Rachel Brown in Massachusetts, others in Michigan, Texas, Washington State, and California. LaRouche made it clear that we were not going to campaign on local issues. The country needed a functioning presidency. We were going to run as a federal slate that would shape Presidential policy, as Lyndon LaRouche had always done throughout his life.

I have to say, I don’t think there’s anyone alive who has a better understanding than Lyndon LaRouche did of the principles of the American Revolution, the Constitution, the founding of our republic, why it was founded. He was a quintessential American in the best sense of the word. And he understood the power of a presidential system in a republic. He also understood, although he didn’t say it necessarily in this way all the time, the power of the citizenry in a republic, which is why he was so concerned in the 1960s about the cultural paradigm shift then taking place and how destructive that would be, which proved to be the case.

So it was in the 2012 election cycle when Barack Obama was President, LaRouche was calling for his impeachment—he put the Hitler mustache on Obama because of his health care plan, which was a plan to not provide care. It was really a bailout for the insurance companies, and it incorporated the idea of the “useless eaters,” the Tiergarten Vier program under Hitler. Imagine running as a Democrat for Congress calling for the impeachment of Barack Obama and carrying posters with a Hitler mustache on him!

It was quite an exciting campaign. People would begin screaming when I walked into Democratic Party events. It was during this campaign that I began to work through some of the issues and challenges of being a candidate and not doing it in the typical way, which is chasing after votes, trying to be “popular,” but instead to be a standard bearer for true principles.

As to the statement that you mentioned: I’ve been thinking about, and I think many people are rightfully anguished about the horror that is unfolding in Gaza; that a real live genocide is ongoing there. We’ve just managed to get right now a temporary ceasefire. It shouldn’t be temporary. It should be the end of this war. Helga Zepp-LaRouche is calling for a peace conference.

Instead, here we are with the United States backing, aiding and abetting the slaughter of Palestinian children, supposedly in retaliation for events of Oct. 7. But retaliating doesn’t make you safer and it doesn’t address the causes. One of the factors in the ceasefire, besides the fact that the majority of the world is horrified by this, including the particularly important role being played by China, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, is also that the people of Israel, particularly the family members of the hostages taken by Hamas, are saying, “What are we doing? How did Bibi Netanyahu allow this to occur? Doesn’t Israel have the best intelligence?” There are a lot of unanswered questions.

Where is the opposition in the United States? Where is the voice of the presidency? Well, Joe Biden is frankly senile, very vicious, and is supporting the mass murder—he was making excuses for the bombing and raiding of Al-Shifa hospital. So where is the opposition? Donald Trump? Well, President Trump, who people knew was sort of an anti-war candidate, did various things around North Korea. Where does he stand on this? All-in support for Israel; no questions. Don’t say a word about the genocide. Where is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.? Some people had hopes that he was going to revive the tradition of his uncle, the assassinated President, John F. Kennedy, or his father, also assassinated, who would have become President. But, somehow, on Southwest Asia, he has nothing to say.

Therefore the two leading opponents of Biden are both silent, when this horrific crime continues to unfold before our eyes. That’s really why I wrote the statement—I said: We need a presidential candidate. We need a presidency. I’m not in a position right now to run for the presidency, but I can use my voice. The Senate race from New York is a very important race, and as per discussion with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, we have developed the idea of creating Friends of Diane Sare committees in every state, to make my campaign, in that sense, a presidential campaign, even though the office I happen to be running for is U.S. Senator from New York.

At the Level of the Presidency

Battle: That’s fantastic. One thing that stood out to me when I read your statement was your saying, in relation to the ongoing atrocities in Gaza, that it’s not about how to stop the slaughter, but how do we lift mankind to a new level where violence against other human beings becomes a thing of the past. Major demonstrations are occurring all over the planet, there have been a lot of calls for a cease-fire, and there’s a lot of diplomatic activity. Obviously not enough in the United States but worldwide there are a lot of nations and governments pushing for a cease-fire. But you’re saying that we actually need to create a movement that has an impact at the level of the presidency to discuss a deeper meaning of peace—a lasting peace. Can you say more about that?

Sare: Let’s take a step back and look at the cause. What’s the driver? Remember, Joe Biden tied himself to a victory against Russia in Ukraine. Why did he do that? Because it’s been the policy of the United States since the Berlin Wall came down that the United States is supposed to be the global hegemon. That’s what Donald Rumsfeld [Secretary of Defense, 1975–1977 and 2001–2006] and Dick Cheney [Vice President, 2001–2009] have said. That means no other nation can be allowed to become prosperous or influential; that their doing so would constitute a threat to U.S. hegemony. Now were we thinking like John Quincy Adams or Abraham Lincoln or John F. Kennedy or Franklin Roosevelt, however, we wouldn’t see it that way. But because we’re thinking like the British Empire, because we have lost our identity, we perceive Russia with their breakthrough technologies and hypersonic missiles, and China, with its elevating 850 million people out of poverty, we see these as existential threats to be crushed.

We are also bankrupt. The City of London sitting on—no one really knows because there’s so much offshore and unregulated money—but to be moderate, let’s say $2 quadrillion worth of derivative obligations that can never be paid. The U.S. economy, as we saw during COVID, is a shell of its former industrial self. We have three train derailments every day. Any bridge across the Mississippi could collapse at any time, totally shutting down the transport of coal and therefore electricity generation. We are just hanging by a thread. One little disaster and we’re done.

So this system is collapsing. It’s over. Lyndon LaRouche and Helga Zepp-LaRouche both warned when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, that just because communism had shown itself to be a failure, we shouldn’t presume that the British liberal free trade system is a success. When that system goes it’s going to be a much bigger collapse.

Well that system is now going. So you have a few would-be Gods of Olympus—I guess it’s like the Götterdammerung, “twilight of the gods,” famously set by that pre-Nazi composer Richard Wagner, where Zeus gets so enraged that if he can’t control the world anymore that he is happy for everything to be destroyed. That’s their approach. They will allow nothing to prosper, and seek to defeat everyone else.

Biden tied his career to a victory of Ukraine against Russia, as I said, which isn’t going to happen, isn’t happening now. Conveniently, something happened in the Middle East, so people could forget that a half a million or so people are dead in Ukraine.

Now, why is all this happening? Because a new system is emerging. Why did China choose to lift all those people out of poverty? Because they have a commitment toward the good of mankind. What did Putin do in Russia? He ended the shock therapy policies. He developed his country. He raised the standard of living. He increased the life expectancy.

And now, the partnership of these two nations with the Global South is doing what Lyndon LaRouche was calling for back in the ’70s. African nations are kicking out the French military. Nations are declaring that they are not going along with this so-called “Great Reset,” Green New Deal garbage. “We’re going to have fossil fuels, we’re going to build pipelines and high speed rail networks.”

And they’re not all ideologically locked in. The nations of the BRICS, their governments are all very different, and they’re not running around saying everyone must have the same form of government. They’re saying: “We can work together for the common good of the people of our nations.” That’s a new paradigm. That’s a new idea. That’s really why the United States was created. That’s why we defeated the British Empire. But somehow we’ve become very primitive and barbaric.

I want people to think: since the rotten old system is collapsing, could we not have a more noble conception of human relations, of relations among sovereign nation states where we have mutual respect for each other’s language groups, each other’s cultures, and a shared respect for the dignity and potential of man, for the potential of every single child born on this planet?

I think if we look at it in this way, we could look back, maybe even as soon as 50 years from now, and say: “What? Human beings used to kill each other on a battlefield? Thousands of people used to line up and just slaughter themselves for some guy sitting behind a desk somewhere? Why did they ever participate in that?”

We would look at such activity as some barbaric relic of the past. That’s what I mean. That’s what mankind has to actually get to. That is the identity of the founding fathers of this nation. I’m going to say that again and again in the course of my campaign, because a lot of people in the peace movement, a lot of young people especially, are very confused about the origin of our republic. It’s very important that they get straight on our history, so that we can get our nation to act again for good in the world.

A Republic, If We Can Keep It

Battle: That was actually something in the direction of what I wanted to ask you about, so let me dig into this a little bit. Because on one hand, you’re very critical of United States policy, while on the other you’re a very big defender of the United States as a nation, including the positive role the United States could play in the future.

As you say, a lot of people are really just so confused about this. They either say, “Rah-rah, we’re the best,” or “No, the United States has always been bad and always will be bad, that’s just American imperialism.” So I want to ask you about this axiom that “the United States is the indispensable nation.” Biden says this. Many people say this. As far as I can tell, this was the fundamental belief in the post-World War II world which a lot of people will allow to overwrite all international law and United Nations law, etc. and say, “well, because the U.S. is needed to protect the world from the bad guys, then all those laws don’t really matter.”

Do you have anything more that you would like to add? We’re clearly looking at the emergence of a new world and a new kind of organization of nation-states that is going to require some rethinking on the part of Americans.

Sare: I believe it was Sukarno, the first President of Indonesia (1945–1967), who said at the famous Bandung Conference in 1955 that it was the United States that had the first anti-colonial revolution. And when people spoke about “American exceptionalism,” if they were well-intended, if they understood what that meant, that’s what that referred to. Because the principles of our Declaration of Independence are not “American”—they are universal. “All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” That’s not an “American” principle. That’s a universal principle.

After a century, when people from other nations finally came to visit us, after the controversy of defeating the British Empire had subsided, we showed the world that we were not merely viable, but that we had become a mighty powerhouse of productivity. I’m referring to the 1876 American Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Not one single foreign head of state had visited our new republic until then. So the whole world was kind of waiting to see: Will this experiment work? Is it durable? Will the British take over again? And we demonstrated some staying power.

So there was an explosion after that of what is called the American System, but I would say these were universal republican (with a small “r”) principles being applied all over the world: The Trans-Siberian Railway or the Berlin–Baghdad railroad or various projects that had long been intended to be built connecting North and South America, different rail and development corridors.

That power, for example, even as recently as 1993 in the Oslo Accords, when the United States had a younger, popular, strong President, Bill Clinton. Clinton had his flaws, particularly after the impeachment, when he let his Vice President Al Gore have way too much power. But because we had a President of the United States who didn’t really like the British Empire, we had a situation where Rabin and Arafat could meet, could sign the Oslo Accords, and they could have the idea that the United States would support that peace process. That was very important.

At the moment, of course, we don’t have that. Instead, The United States has a very peculiar kind of relationship to other countries where we tell them: “We should be your ally; you’ve got to work with the U.S.” But if they work with us they get to have both of their eyeballs gouged out, receive a kick in the crotch, and are served up starvation and genocide, as in Ukraine or what we’ve done to Haiti, for another example.

But now, there is a new game in town with the BRICS; there now exists another way people can go. They now have a choice: They don’t have to stick with the U.S.

Our republic was founded against Empire. People came here because they were being persecuted in Europe. They didn’t come here because they were the upper-class nobility. They came here because they were revolutionaries and they had an idea going back to Joan of Arc, Nicholas of Cusa, which simply couldn’t be realized in Europe because it was under a kind of caste system, an oligarchical system, and they had to come to a new world to create this.

I heard today at a rally that, “Well, the Americans are just like the Israelis. They exterminated all the native people and we’re just on blood land.” No! Many of our founding fathers worked with the Native Americans. The first Thanksgiving frankly, was actually a celebration of the collaboration with the Native American population, which probably could have continued, but for the British and the Jesuits, certain operations designed to recruit these people, to create this warfare. Or Andrew Jackson, a total traitor, who ran the Trail of Tears. He shut down the second national bank, he largely exterminated the Cherokee nation. That wasn’t an American policy, that was an imperial policy.

Most people today don’t know the difference. They don’t know the kind of brawls that occurred. Benjamin Franklin was vehemently opposed to slavery. He was also our top intelligence officer. He was all over in Europe and France recruiting people including Lafayette, the Polish General Kościuszko, and the Prussian military officer von Steuben. And no one knows what he did because he couldn’t write about it!

So people today greatly underestimate the fight that was going on. I think this is really important to get out what actually happened. That’s why we’re talking about it, and that’s why I’m right now writing a pamphlet for circulation, in which the lead idea is to form a more perfect union.

Our nation wasn’t a finished thing. It was an idea based on universal principle. And it is for the people, as Ben Franklin so famously answered the woman who asked him: “a republic, if you can keep it.” It is for the people to perfect our nation, coherent with these universal principles.

I think this is so important for Americans to understand—to take responsibility for the republic, to love the idea that our nation could be something good, that would inspire people in other nations to gain their freedom, not because we’re going to go and impose, and overthrow “dictators,” and things like that. But because we create the conditions where more and more people on the planet can finally be free.

Have Faith in Humanity, Tell the Truth, and They Will Listen

Battle: There’s so much to talk about that maybe we can take it up at another time. I’m sure people who follow your campaign will be able to get some of this in depth. It’s so very crucial to discover a lot of the history that has been prevented from being known about the gems and the beautiful contributions within American history. So thank you for that.

You’ve run for office many times. I know you’ve run for Congress multiple times. I know you ran for Governor. Now you’re on your second senatorial campaign. What do you say to people who tell you, “You can’t change anything,” or “They have too much power, they’ll never let you win”? This attitude is certainly an epidemic, in a way.

Sare: Everywhere I go I meet people who tell me, “I’ve been trying to talk to blah, blah, and they won’t listen to me. They don’t listen to me.” And so I say: Well, you can’t make anyone listen to you. We can’t make people listen to us. All you can do is tell the truth. The advantage we have is that reality is going to come crashing down on their heads. And then, if we have done our job, they will remember what we’ve said.

Of course, I intend to do everything possible to make my voice heard. But as is obvious and as you are well aware, there is a massive censorship campaign going on. I heard a student from Columbia University speaking today about his group, the Students for Justice in Palestine and also the Jewish Voice for Peace, who said that Columbia University has just suspended those two organizations for the remainder of the fall term, citing their “anti-Semitism.”

If Columbia University is so concerned about anti-Semitism, they should fire Hillary Clinton, get her out of there. She is one of the biggest Nazi supporters I can think of. She supports genocide all over the world. In an interview, she gloated over the death of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, and the Americans who died in the horrible mess in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. She was responsible for that. If Columbia University is concerned about its reputation, they should get rid of Hillary Clinton.

I think we have to have faith. Gottfried Leibniz once said that we’re living in the best of all possible worlds. That doesn’t mean that you just sit there—and he called it “lazy reason” where you say: “I’m just going to wait until God does something for me.” And he pointed out that no one really believes that if they see a treasure sticking up out of the ground, that they will just sit back and say, “Well, I’m just going to wait until God uncovers that.” You go there and you dig it up!

So God gave us free will to do the good. However we don’t necessarily know when our efforts will be enough or where they will bear fruit. And that’s where the question of faith comes in—that we have to have faith that Leibniz is right. That the universe has been created in the best possible way, and that therefore the good will resonate.

Now, I do also have to bring up an unfortunate example: the Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah, where you had two horribly degenerate cities that presented a challenge for Abraham to find enough good people, and it failed—the cities were destroyed.

That’s where we sit today with this danger of thermonuclear war. It isn’t the case that we can sit back and the good will prevail. The good may not prevail. We have a very dangerous situation right now because so many people with a lot of power, namely the people in the U.S. Pentagon and State Department and intelligence agencies, and the British intelligence agencies and elsewhere—they could make a major miscalculation and we could have an accident that wipes us all off the Earth. That’s why more and more people have to mobilize and be more vocal.

So we each have to do everything we possibly can. And we also have to have faith that at a certain moment, things may give way.

Happily, the good thing about evil people and rotten, arrogant people is that they are not creative. They tend to do the same things over and over again and they make big mistakes because they presume that they have more power than they do, as Hillary Clinton did in the 2016 election, which she lost. She still doesn’t understand that she lost it because nobody can stand her. She was a horrible candidate, but she thought she had 17 intelligence agencies deployed to steal the election for her, and it didn’t work.

So therefore, people should not lose faith. Don’t look in the mainstream press for validation of your work. Don’t count the views you may rack up on YouTube and Facebook and Twitter. They may indicate some things, but those platforms are very controlled, as we know. So don’t measure by those standards, measure by truthfulness. Try and be as truthful as you can and fight for a policy which makes it possible for the maximum number of people to live on this Earth with the highest standard of living possible.

Battle: That’s very good advice. It’s very coherent with Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s call for a discussion of her Ten Principles of a New Security and Development Architecture. The final point in that call is the insistence that mankind is good, that human beings are good, which I think is very coherent with what you’re pointing out about faith, faith in mankind’s ability to grasp truth and reason.

Thank you very much, Diane, for your time. Please tell us your website so that people can get in touch with your campaign.

Sare: My website is SareforSenate.com. I’m also on Facebook, X, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Rumble, and Telegram (barely).

Battle: Thank you, again, for this interview. We will be following your campaign.