EXTRAORDINARY SCHILLER INSTITUTE CONFERENCE

Escalation by War Party Makes Summit More Imperative Than Ever

This is the edited transcript of excerpts from the Schiller Institute’s September 10, 2020 dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Harley Schlanger. The full video of the webcast is available.

Harley Schlanger: Welcome to our weekly dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Today is September 10, 2020. During the weekend of September 5-6, the Schiller Institute held an extraordinary conference, addressing the question of the need for a summit, for a full exposure of the coup against President Trump, and the need for a change in paradigm. Helga, give us a quick summary of your impression of the conference, its aftermath, and the reverberations from it.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: It was quite remarkable. We were able to present, in four sessions, all the major strategic issues, and solutions. This is extraordinarily important, as there are many people discussing the problems, but we offered a genuine approach to actually solve the strategic crisis.

The first panel was devoted to the strategic situation, where several of the speakers highlighted the very clear, increasing war danger. Then, we had the remarkable speech by former Virginia State Senator, Col. Richard Black (USA ret.), who clearly spoke for a faction of U.S. military, discussing the danger of a military coup inside the United States. And I think that was a real shocker for everybody. We had two members of the VIPS, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Bill Binney and Kirk Wiebe, who presented not only that there was no basis for Russiagate, but also—which was equally amazing—that they had the technology in the NSA that could have prevented 9/11.

So if you take this whole package, the increased danger of World War III, the danger of a military coup in the United States, and the clear effort to establish a global surveillance with that technology that these whistleblowers are clearly fighting against, I think the first panel is a must-see for anybody who wants to have a real understanding of what are the crucial issues for our time. The high rank of the speakers also underlines the importance that is given to the Schiller Institute as a forum for such a dialogue: We had the director of the Russian International Affairs Council, Andrey Kortunov; we had several very important American speakers, Dr. Edward Lozansky, Martin Sieff, Jim Jatras—these are all people known to be experts in U.S.-Russian relations. I could only urge you to watch this.

We had a beautiful science panel, where we again had extremely high-ranking and exciting scientists: Dr. Bernard Bigot, who is the director of ITER, which is the largest fusion energy infrastructure project in the world, involving 35 cooperating nations. This is a model for how international cooperation could actually function. We had very, very good presentations from South Africa, from Russia, so this was really a delight. These scientists had total fun in having this kind of international dialogue.

Then we had a really impressive economic panel on the World Land-Bridge, which had the director of the CPEC, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and many speakers discussing our program for the World Land-Bridge in many aspects. We had a very important sub-section pertaining to the need to build a world health system, by training young people in the United States and Europe and developing countries, to learn how to fight not only this pandemic but also future ones.

There was also a big section on the farm crisis, relating to world hunger. Then we had a very beautiful concluding panel on classical culture, “Building Trust in International Relations: The Role of Classical Culture and Combating World Famine.” Jacques Cheminade, a former presidential candidate of France, gave the keynote. We had a very good speech on Beethoven by Fred Haight; and then it concluded with an archived concert from 2018, with the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus’s performance of Beethoven’s Mass in C. It provided a very elevating example of why we put so much emphasis on classical art.

Russia and China Are Now Being
Blamed for Everything

I’m quite satisfied with the conference. I think we have received a lot of very important responses to it internationally. The whole aim of this conference was to get the P5 summit, and this looks very, very difficult, because what you see right now includes the blatant anti-China campaign, where China is being blamed for everything from the pandemic to the economic difficulties, and the Navalny affair that is being blamed on Putin. All of these things, apart from their own immediate intention, also has the purpose to poison the atmosphere so that such a summit cannot take place. Or that if it were to take place, it would only be a continuation of the blame-game, where the Chinese are being blamed, the Russians are being blamed, and so the atmosphere is being poisoned in this way.

Nevertheless, I still insist that a summit of the most important countries is still the only way to escape the immediate dangers that are escalating by the day. So I would urge you all to watch this conference. There is also a 30-minute, short version of the first panel on the Schiller Institute website. Please look at that.

There will also be shorter videos of the other panels. Pursue in depth what may arouse your interest, because this is really important ammunition to intervene in the present strategic situation.

Schlanger: Helga, when you talk about the ongoing anti-Russia and anti-China campaign, this is not just “talking points,” this has consequences. I understand that it was decided that President Putin will not even be coming to New York, when it had been thought that he would come to New York and have a summit with Mr. Trump. What’s the latest on that?

Zepp-LaRouche: From everything I know, that was the intention of Putin, to use the UN General Assembly setting to have the summit. But as I said, if you accuse China of being responsible for the pandemic, for the economic hardships following it, for everything under the Sun—if you have that in the air—the likelihood that it is then possible to have a summit is approaching zero. The same thing goes if you blame Putin, which some people do, including Pompeo, of having been behind the attempt to murder Navalny. You know, these are campaigns that were designed to ruin the summit: I think that is very clear.

The Potential for a Military Coup in the U.S.

Schlanger: There has been a coup underway from even before the time of Trump’s election. What Colonel Black went through is the role that the military, the ex-military people, are now playing as part of an escalation, of the next phase of this—people like Jim Mattis, Colin Powell. What’s the ultimate importance of bringing the military into this coup operation?

Zepp-LaRouche: I think it is exactly to end the Trump presidency, one way or another. The speech by Colonel Black clearly reflects discussion in the U.S. military among people who are upset with this. Then you have the opposite view that was expressed by these other two Colonels [John Nagl and Paul Yingling] in an article in Defense One only a few weeks ago on August 11, calling on the military leadership to get Trump out of the White House if he refuses to leave after he loses the election.

This was rejected by the Pentagon, but it is still being discussed. And the last time it came up was yesterday: Bob Woodward’s book Rage has a lot of similar material.

It’s a book that came out in time for the election campaign, for the sole purpose of fueling the smear campaigns against Trump. And there is one snippet in there, where James Mattis is being quoted,—who, as people may remember, was the Secretary of Defense who left in 2018 because he opposed Trump’s idea to pull U.S. troops out of Syria. He is one of those people who are for the endless wars and the interventionist wars. So he is quoted in this book, where he supposedly said, “There may come a time when we have to take collective action against Trump.” It’s somewhat ominous what that would mean, but in the context of the present discussion, it is clearly moving in this direction.

This is quite serious. Look at all the discussion around the U.S. election and the violence in the streets, which is continuing. Hillary Clinton keeps saying that Biden should under no circumstances concede the election. There is the mess with the ballots, with possible vote fraud. Some weeks ago, a hundred so-called experts ran a war game of different scenarios of what could happen in the U.S. election. The only scenario that would not end in a complete catastrophe and turmoil and civil war, would be a landslide for Biden.

Obviously, the game plan is to create conditions where you have a constitutional crisis, a possible military coup, and that is why we have been emphasizing so much, that you need to change the dynamic before: because once you get into this election being contested,—even the unbelievable possibility of the military playing a role—I think that that is an incredible point of danger. So I’m really calling on everybody to help to change the agenda ahead of time. We have to address this geopolitical confrontation before; it must be stopped before, because otherwise, out of such a situation you could have even a war developing. This is a very dangerous situation.

Schlanger: It’s clear now that the lines are being drawn between what Trump is saying that the American people want, which is an end to these wars, and certain people in the military who are willing to carry out a coup to keep these wars going. I think that’s really the issue that would be addressed at a summit or could be resolved at a summit.

Zepp-LaRouche: For all the people who are so upset about Trump, you know,—do you want to have war, or do you want to have peace? What Trump said in this Labor Day speech—he attacked the military-industrial complex. He said, I’m not talking about the soldiers, I’m talking about the Pentagon and those people who like to throw bombs and build planes and basically make a lot of money in continuously doing so. This has caused a huge freak out. Trump re-tweeted several times afterwards the famous remarks by President Eisenhower, which he made at the end of his term, where he warned of the “military-industry complex,” and saying that this is something that had to be extremely closely watched. Today, with the technological developments, the cyber capabilities and all of this, the military-industrial complex has quite evolved since the time of Eisenhower.

People should rethink this question. Trump is probably the only chance to keep world peace! If you look at the kinds of people who are now speaking in support of the Biden campaign, they want to go right back to where we were with Bush and Obama, global dominance of the United States, interventionist wars. This is really what is at stake. So it’s really a question of war and peace, and people should rethink their prejudices.

The Conference Presented Solutions

Schlanger: The Schiller Institute conference did present solutions. I think what’s urgent is for people to go to the Schiller Institute website and spend the time, whatever time it takes, to watch these four panels. Some of them you’ll want to watch a couple of times, but make this an organizing effort, not for something after the November elections, but something that you start doing right now.

Helga, is there anything you want to add?

Zepp-LaRouche: I think you should also have a daily encounter with Beethoven: It is still the Beethoven year. The power of sublime classical culture is what we need at this moment. We are in a challenging situation in which we need to keep our minds elevated. Become a member of the Schiller Institute and help us to build a classical renaissance. Ultimately that is the only way how we can prevent mankind from repeatedly being confronted with such incredibly dangerous moments. We all have to have an image of man like that of Beethoven or Schiller. Then we will have something that will allow mankind to overcome this.

Schlanger: Thanks for joining us, and Helga, we’ll see you next week.

Zepp-LaRouche: Till next week.