EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR MONDAY FEBRUARY 20, 2023

A Breakthrough in American Thinking: ‘Houston, We Have a Solution!’

Feb. 19, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—This week marks a turn in world affairs, in which the people of the “captive trans-Atlantic nations” are moving to reject the march of folly toward thermonuclear destruction. Does humanity need war? Humanity not only no longer needs, but can no longer afford war. Wars have become harder to win, even as they have become easier to fight. Now, the inhumanity of war in the large, has become the daily experience of inhumanity in the small, in the mass shootings, homicides and suicides in the United States, including the shooting of a Catholic bishop in Los Angeles yesterday.

The weapon we need to wield is not that of war, or violence, but of truth, which can “knock out the brains of falsehood.” And we must wield it unceasingly. This week, the Schiller Institute has initiated a number of “experiments with truth,” a combination of symposia, publishing and street organizing, by means of which, first thousands, and then tens of thousands, are drawn into a mass educational process of the deepest possible level, in what might seem to some the most unlikely of circumstances. An example: In Washington, D.C. at the conclusion of Sunday’s “Rage Against the War Machine” rally, a conversation held between a Schiller Institute organizer and an apparent long-time opponent of LaRouche, was turned upside down through a discussion of why Gottfried Leibniz, not the early Karl Marx, was the source of the revolution in the science of physical economy that was the proper basis for advancing humanity. The “opponent” had just written a book featuring a discussion of Leibniz and his Theodicy, which the organizer, not knowing that, had brought up to him moments before. “No one has ever discussed Leibniz in this context of economy with me before.” By establishing this unrecognized significance of Leibniz, who was also the primary philosophical influence on the American Revolution, the apparent “differences” with LaRouche “going back nearly five decades,” were suddenly recontextualized.

That “coincidentia oppositorum”—“coincidence of opposites,” resolved on a higher plane—was the optimistic outlook and desire of most of the participants among the over 3,500 people that attended the Sunday rally. Its national, trans-generational and politically diverse character was unique. No one had participated in something like it before. It excited and uplifted several of the rally speakers. Its very character neutralized weak attempts at disruption, informed the content of many of the speeches, and brought a feeling of not only relief and excitement, but of “something better” which the gathering portended, as well as represented. There is a new potential reservoir of good will and solidarity among Americans, should we want it, with the rest of the world.

Festive rally banners, displayed throughout the livestream of the rally, included one featuring a world map. It proclaimed “Peace Through Development—Schiller Institute,” with illustrations of the World Land-Bridge, the North American Water And Power Alliance Project (NAWAPA), the Transaqua Project for Africa, etc. Another banner proclaimed, “Join the Chorus for Peace—Dona Nobis Pacem,” with photos of Pope Francis and Brazil’s President Lula. A third displayed the pictures of the leaders of the BRICS nations, including Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, with the caption, “Helga Zepp-LaRouche Says: To Stop WW3, USA Must Join the New Paradigm—Schiller Institute.” During the livestream, the last banner was particularly prominent behind every speaker, and all three banners were displayed throughout.

The canon “Dona Nobis Pacem,” sung by some 30 members of the 70 people in the Schiller delegation, resonated as about 700 people marched from the Lincoln Memorial to the White House. It was unexpectedly useful in dispelling at least one semi-organized attempt at disruption. As other marchers heard the canon, they remarked to others, including Schiller Institute members, “This is exactly what we need to do.” Make a joyful noise, yes, but with optimistic content, and in bel canto form. Then, it resonates, and therefore radiates the optimism without which stopping war were not thinkable, let alone possible.

The very idea of the Ten Principles of a New International Security and Development Architecture, based on the ideas of the 15th century’s Nicholas of Cusa, becoming the basis of a popular mass movement for social change, is so bold, and so right, that it can and will work. The Nord Stream terrorist bombing by Washington against Germany and Russia; the upholding of lethal “Caesar sanctions” against Syrian children and families, to the point of weaponizing the recent earthquakes against them; the callous admission by multiple mis-leaders that “we never meant to negotiate peace with Russia, even though we told both the Russians and the public the opposite”; and the deliberate depopulation of Ukraine by continued British/American support for a war they cannot win, making them a military proxy for an all-out financial war against the Belt and Road Initiative, and the new global development, health, and security architecture being embraced in South America, Africa and Asia in a resurgent “Spirit of Bandung”—all of this reveals that the present governments of all the trans-Atlantic nations, each and all, have “been tested in the balance, and found wanting.” It cries out for the new leadership that appeared as a seed-crystal at the Sunday Lincoln Memorial gathering.

This week, starting with yesterday’s Washington rally; Tuesday’s (Feb. 21) Schiller Symposium “Syrian Sanctions Must Be Lifted!”; Thursday’s (Feb. 23) “Investigate Nord Stream Revelations: Stop Nuclear World War Three!” and the Saturday Feb. 25 culminating series of worldwide rallies, including perhaps as many as 200 actions in the next days in Germany alone, taken as a whole, propose a way to change the whole banal world of present-day “activist politics.” We can say goodbye, should we choose to, to media-driven “lack of identity” politics, to left-right dead ends, to “violence is your friend” FBI-orchestrated adolescent stunts. Former Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard’s stark characterization of the reality of thermonuclear war, and the surprise presentation by Helga Zepp-LaRouche on screen at the end of nuclear weapons expert Steve Starr’s stark video presentation, both brought home the gravity of the situation, and the rigorous means to step away from Armageddon. “There is such a thing as too late,” Martin Luther King admonished America. Perhaps this week, time will begin to change, as we hasten, now, to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice.