EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 30, 2023

The Calm Needed Within the Storm

Sept. 29, 2023, (EIRNS)—Hopeless would be the wrong way to describe the current situation in the world, although it certainly may appear that way to one who is dispirited. Reports over the recent days have indicated that a new banking crisis may be being ignited, now sparked by what should be the protected bastion of safety: U.S. Treasury Bonds—which have been infected by leveraged investments from hedge funds. This speculative phenomenon runs deep, as the news is only the latest development in a process that has been underway for decades, literally rotting out the economies and nations of the trans-Atlantic from underneath.

Nowhere is this more clearly portrayed than in Germany, whose economy is being rapidly dismantled—first as an effect of the long-term cancer, then combined with a radical “green” deindustrialization, and now is being finished off by the effect of anti-Russian sanctions and ensuing high energy prices. The crisis is made all the worse by the fact that there has been no genuine effort to investigate the Nord Stream attacks from one year ago, despite calls internationally to do so—an indication of the deep moral and cultural effects of submission to today’s “powers that be.”

At the same time, Western nations seem numb to the effects of their actions around the world, ignorant, for example, of the decades of pain and suffering inflicted on Afghanistan at the behest of U.S. occupation. Or similarly, to the multitude of nations across Africa that were destroyed by NATO interventions or neocolonialist economic looting—or both—whose citizens are today fleeing into European and other countries in search of some kind of future.

Is it any wonder that Russia and others have lost trust in Western countries? Not only can these countries not admit their responsibility to the crises they have caused around the world, as the Russian Foreign Minister today called out in the case of Afghanistan, but they are even numb to their own collapsing economies, and the plight of their own people. How could someone be trusted who is so blind to even their own short-term survival?

From that standpoint, the danger is extreme, and the rays of hope are slim to none. However, that would not be the full story, as human civilization is not one-dimensional in that way. Just because the trend is toward a lessening of sanity doesn’t mean that is all that is going on.

The ongoing collapse of the trans-Atlantic and the insane ratcheting up towards a world war between superpowers is causing nonlinear things to happen. Take, for example, Poland’s growing spat with Ukraine over the latter’s dumping of grain onto Poland’s markets—itself now being combined with the surfacing of a pro-Ukrainian Nazi rally in Canada’s Parliament of a mass-murderer of Poles. Or, take the case of Tunisia, who rejected the coy attempts by European nations to “manage” the hordes of migrants there so they won’t travel to Europe—and who has now sent their foreign minister on a trip to Moscow. Similarly, there are growing revolts taking place in the U.S. Congress, though it remains to be seen whether or not this will go anywhere.

The most notable development, however, is coming from Germany in the form of the Aug. 28 peace proposal written by four military and diplomatic experts. Their proposal has gone beyond mere complaining and identifying the problem, to the bold assertion that there is no other alternative than a thoroughly organized, negotiated peace—otherwise the existence of the entire world is at stake.

During the weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition on Friday, Sept. 29, Helga Zepp-LaRouche emphasized that the forces behind Ukraine and NATO are responding to Ukraine’s failing war efforts and counteroffensive by involving themselves deeper into the war directly, thereby increasing the threat of a direct NATO-Russia conflict. This is a situation that will inevitably lead to a thermonuclear war, if not derailed in some way. From this standpoint, the new proposal from Germany not only signifies a break from within the deadlock of that country, but a potentially explosive igniter for others more broadly. The proposal should therefore be circulated internationally to help break people free who are otherwise surrounded by the mainstream narrative, but who are now in an elevated state of recognition of this reality.

Reality, albeit dangerous, can and must be the friend of the true organizer in search of a pathway out of an otherwise hopeless situation.

The dynamic within the International Peace Coalition on Friday was electric, and many commitments were made to grow the process in the coming weeks. Work with the LaRouche movement to make this breakthrough now, which has never been more ripe for this kind of targeted and revolutionary intervention.

• Watch Harley’s Updates with Harley Schlanger on Monday October 2, 2023: Every weekday morning on The LaRouche Organization, Schlanger will give you the strategic briefing you need to start your day.