EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR FRIDAY JUNE 2, 2023
Avoiding Armageddon and a Dark Age
June 1, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—Before us looms the threat of the outbreak of a profound escalation of the NATO-Russia conflict, a trajectory that would lead to nuclear warfare and possible complete human extinction. Somewhat more distant on the horizon is what could be called the “Green Death”—the destruction of productive capabilities, including, prominently, agriculture, in the name of protecting the planet for a future humanity (of less than 1 billion people). These twin challenges demand an affirmation of the beautiful truth of the human identity—of the potential, across cultures and time, to contribute a new discovery, a new act of courage, of enduring value, to the future. A new paradigm based on the true nature of the human individual, is required—nothing less will work!
“Today we are faced with a strategic situation far more dangerous than that at the height of the Cuban missile crisis,” writes Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her Appeal to the (Next) President of the United States.
“The world is in danger of splitting into two blocs, a NATO-U.S.-U.K. bloc, and a Russia-China-‘Global South’ bloc. This represents the acute danger of a new world war, which would be nuclear, and would therefore mean the annihilation of the human species.”
That split is seen in the contrast between the world of sanctions, anti-industrial policy, militarism, and financialization of the Anglo-American world, and the flourishing of such new institutions and initiatives as the Belt and Road Initiative and the BRICS process. The BRICS foreign ministers met on June 1, and the BRICS-Plus is meeting on June 2, with 15 other countries invited, including 8 African nations.
As NATO pushes for war, a growing chorus of voices, from Brazil to Senegal, from China to South Africa, from the Vatican to Denmark, just to name a few, demands peace and the opportunity for a future on this planet.
President John F. Kennedy’s June 10, 1963 speech at American University sounded the call for an end to Cold War confrontation, and for the sort of affirmative peace embodied in the mission launched by that President of sending human beings to the surface of the Moon. That space mission, enormous in its scope, captured the imagination of the world, and brought enormous economic and technical benefits, estimated as being more than an order of magnitude greater than the “cost.”
What is the cost today of forbidding NASA-China cooperation on manned spaceflight? What is the cost of shutting down avenues for scientific, technological, and economic cooperation in advanced fields, through the sanctions and export bans of the Anglo-American imperium? What is the incurred cost of failing to invest in nuclear power—both the fission plants possible today and research into the fusion of the future? What is the cost of holding back development for “green” reasons?
And what would be the cost of an end to human civilization?
Are we living in a tragedy, hurtling towards an ineluctable future? Or will we take charge of the next chapter of human history?
“Our problems are man-made,” President Kennedy told his audience on June 10, 1963. “Therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable—and we believe they can do it again.”
