Schiller Institute Weekly Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Will Humanity Pass the Test of Morality?

The following is an edited transcript of the September 17, 2025, weekly Schiller Institute dialogue with Schiller Institute founder and leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Subheads have been added. The video is available here.

Harley Schlanger: Welcome to today’s weekly webcast with Schiller Institute founder and leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche. This is Wednesday, September 17, 2025; I’m Harley Schlanger and I’ll be your host.

Helga, the title of today’s dialogue is, “Will Humanity Pass the Test of Morality?” This question was often posed by your late husband Lyndon LaRouche, asking the question, do people who speak of the loss of morality in society at large, have the courage to act when human civilization is at stake? This is especially relevant now, when the UN General Assembly will be meeting tomorrow to discuss putting an end to the genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinians, to come up with some ideas for how to deal with that? A UN Commission of Inquiry released a report yesterday which concluded that Israel is committing genocide. What can people do to make sure the United Nations member states act to uphold morality and international law?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: There are many organizations, both from Israeli background, but also Palestinian background, humanitarian organizations, the Schiller Institute, the International Peace Coalition, and many others, that are presently insisting that, given the fact that the UN Security Council has not acted—and it is their responsibility to act on something which has been established as moving towards genocide for a very long time, by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court—that the decision-making be transferred to the UN General Assembly. There is a provision for that, which is called “Uniting for Peace.” It’s UN [General Assembly] Resolution 377, which basically says that if, for whatever reason, the UN Security Council is blocked, power of decision-making can go over to the UN General Assembly by a vote of two-thirds; a two-thirds majority.

It is not clear if a two-thirds majority would come about, but it is not to be excluded either, given the fact that the whole world is in an uproar. You had the combined meeting of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which I think is somewhere around 70 countries already right there, and they decided on a whole bunch of measures, in which the most obvious one is an immediate ceasefire, the immediate opening of all gates for humanitarian aid, but also more drastic measures, like sanctions against Israel, like the expulsion of Israel from the United Nations for the time of the ongoing crime. I think such a decision must be made, and nations of the world are called upon to intervene—because it’s sometimes almost impossible to still find words to describe what’s going on. You have for a number of days, the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] assault on Gaza City, which is one million people; the bombing of high-rise buildings. You see the photos on the internet and TV, with high-rise buildings crumbling, burying entire families and people underneath the rubble. And then people are told to leave, but there’s no place to go! There are one million people in Gaza City! The horror is just unbelievable, and there must be an urgent stop to this, because we are sitting on a complete powder-keg in the Middle East.

Türkiye and others are basically saying, it’s not just what’s going on in Gaza and the West Bank, but they claim that Israel has expansionist intentions for the entire region; that they want part of Türkiye. Türkiye is getting rambunctious about this. Israel is planning a new strike, possibly against Iran. A couple of weeks ago, the nuclear weapons expert Ted Postol warned that we have two undeclared nuclear powers in the Middle East [Israel and Iran], which could trigger a global catastrophe.

Israel, the New Sparta

So, immediate action is more than urgent, because a long-term and short-term effect of all of this is that Israel is making so many enemies, that it is almost impossible it will ever be able to find an exit strategy. [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, appropriately, warned the population, saying they have to be prepared for a long period of isolation, that Israel has to become like Sparta and Athens together, meaning basically autarky. And Egyptian President [Abdel Fattah] el-Sisi talked for the first time about Israel as “the enemy.”

These are all extremely worrisome signs, and therefore, what people should do is, you should call your elected officials, or call the embassies of the countries of the Middle East, but also other countries, and tell them that they must act. Because this UN General Assembly is probably the last opportunity to avoid a complete catastrophe. I should not say this, because it is already a complete catastrophe, but to avoid that this conflict should explode into something which could become a global Armageddon.

Schlanger: You referenced Netanyahu talking about Israel as isolated, and therefore having to go it alone, and choosing Sparta as a model. I brought that up on the “Daily Update” today, and someone wrote to me and said: “Perhaps someone in Israel should read Schiller’s ‘Legislation of Lycurgus and Solon’, so they can see what Netanyahu is actually planning to do to the population there.”

Now, we have a lot to cover. One week ago, on Sept. 10, a leading Republican activist, Charlie Kirk, of Turning Point USA, was killed while speaking at a college in Utah. EIR has described this as part of the “strategy of tension.” So, I received an email from a contact in Columbus, Ohio, who said: “What do you mean by ‘strategy of tension’?”

Zepp-LaRouche: That is actually a method, how governments, especially oligarchical governments, use terrorism, assassinations, destabilizations, large-scale instigated demonstrations—all kinds of such measures—essentially to divert attention from what is the real issue. And right now, the situation is so out of control internationally, because you have— If you look beyond all of the confetti, of what seems to be happening on a daily basis, the real issue right now is that there are forces in the so-called “West” who are completely freaked out about the fact that they are suffering a self-inflicted crisis, caused by the rise of China, caused by the fact that the Global Majority, meaning the countries of the Global South, the BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and many other organizations, like ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations], the Eurasian Economic Union, and CELAC [Community of Latin American and Caribbean States]—many of these organizations are moving very clearly in the direction of building a new system.

I’m saying “self-inflicted,” because [the Global Majority nations] are not doing that as an anti-Western move, not anti-American, not anti-European, but they’re doing it in self-defense. Because they don’t want to be bullied around any longer. They want to have access to credit conditions like everybody else; they don’t want to be deprived of economic development. They’re moving towards the creation of a new economic system, based on the sovereignty of all nations, based on respect for the different social systems, according to their respective traditions. So this is all going on.

There are some people who have married their self-interest to the quick profit of Wall Street, of the City of London, of Silicon Valley, and similar finance places, that think if they don’t control the conditions of money-lending or of trade, that they will lose their privileges. And naturally, the military-industrial complex on both sides of the Atlantic has a big part in it.

Reign of Tumult and Chaos

So, they are regarding this rise of the countries of the Global South as a mortal enemy, and the strategy of tension in that context is being deployed, in many countries, in order to prevent an orderly realignment of the countries of the Global South, and especially for them, to prevent the United States from aligning with such a formation.

And they got completely worried (“worried” is a too mild expression), they got completely freaked out after [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump met with [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin in Alaska [on Aug. 15] and found positive words for Putin, rolled out the red carpet, and was riding in a car with him, having a private conversation. They want to make sure that, rather, chaos and tumult reigns, rather than the United States finding a way of normalizing relations with Russia—what Trump has promised many times. And now he wants to meet with [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] on the telephone on Friday. I think there are centers that are completely freaked out about any positive alignment of President Trump with these forces. That’s, for sure, one dimension of what’s going on.

Schlanger: There’s one other question on the Kirk assassination. A contact writes: “I don’t believe what police or officials say about these things, but all I see is people blaming each other. They’re talking about violence, even a civil war. Do you think something like that is possible? And who would benefit from something like that?”

Zepp-LaRouche: This assassination of Charlie Kirk, who was close to [U.S. Vice President] J.D. Vance, who was a leading person in the MAGA [Make America Great Again] student movement—obviously this is a very, very serious affair. Unfortunately, President Trump immediately blamed the Democrats, he blamed the left, and in that way, inadvertently or not, he contributed to the polarization in the country. You see a similar polarization even in Europe. This morning, there was a debate in the Bundestag [lower house of the German parliament], where the leader of the opposition, Alice Weidel [AfD, Alternative for Germany] criticized Chancellor [Friedrich] Merz because he didn’t even mention this.

In any case, this murder is being used to increase the tension, according to the strategy of tension modus operandi. It is extremely important that people recognize that this is going on, and that they don’t fall for it, but stick to the idea of having a rational discussion with people who have a different political outlook, and keep to the idea that conflict-resolution can only occur through dialogue, diplomacy, talking to the other side, and not by giving in to this polarization—because this is a serious danger.

We are sitting on a powder keg, internationally! If there is not a rise to reason, and more people who basically have a sense of where society should go [don’t] come to the fore, then we are in mortal danger of a civilizational collapse. It’s not inevitable, but the danger is clearly there, and therefore people of reason are called upon to act and intervene—because every individual can do a lot in their immediate environment to establish a level of reason, when the emotions are flying high.

Schlanger: You mentioned that President Trump will be speaking by phone with President Xi of China. Of course, Xi has just had a successful series of events to pull together the Global South. And the question that comes in from someone who writes as an advocate of the BRICS, is: “What are the likely topics that Xi and Trump will cover? And do you think that Xi will discuss with Trump his misconception about the BRICS policy being anti-U.S. and anti-dollar?”

Zepp-LaRouche: I’m almost 100% certain that he will do that. Obviously, they will discuss the tariffs. President Trump has made clear in the past that when there is direct communication with a leader like Xi Jinping, he can snap back into a reasonable approach on the matter. Because obviously, the tariffs between the two economies are hurting both sides, and potentially could trigger a collapse internationally, if these punitive tariffs continue to really weaken the world economy.

But I’m pretty sure that President Xi will also bring up something else, because the Global Majority, which is now aligned with China, with India, with Brazil, with Russia, they have had for the last several years—actually, two to three years—the discussion and implementation of three global initiatives of President Xi Jinping: the Global Security, Global Development, and Global Civilizational Initiatives. These are all part of a framework of diplomacy; how to put the whole international system of governance on a harmonious basis, based essentially on the UN Charter, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. And just in the last several weeks, around the time of the big military parade [in Beijing, China] on the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, President Xi proposed a fourth initiative, called the Global Governance Initiative [GGI].

This is a document of the utmost importance. I read the whole thing, and it is a very elaborate, concrete proposal, on how to improve international relations, to create an international framework for a new system of governance, based on sovereignty and equality; that small countries have as much of a voice as big countries; that no conflict can be decided upon over the head of any country—many, many such things. And when I read this, I said: “Oh! This exactly fits with what the Schiller Institute has been calling for, for the last more than three years, namely, a new global security and development architecture, which I always insisted must take into account the interest of every single country on the planet, or it does not work.

This GGI actually can be taken as a complementary set of ideas, also fitting my Ten Principles, which I wrote for how such a security and development architecture could look like. If you take these three documents together—our proposal for the global security and development architecture, the Ten Principles; and then, the very concrete and elaborate proposal by President Xi Jinping for a new Global Governance Initiative—this is actually a very concrete blueprint for the establishment of what President Xi Jinping always calls the “Shared Community for the Future of Mankind,” which is a beautiful idea. It is the idea that we have reached, in the history of mankind, a point where we must start to move to think of the “one humanity” first, before we think about any national interest, or regional interest, or group interest. Because only if we make this jump, which is an evolutionary jump, where you start to really give up on the idea of geopolitics and the idea of chauvinism, and the idea that you have a legitimate right you can enforce, even by force, on other countries—that idea has to go!

All you have to do is look at the chaos in the world! Look at the chaos in the Middle East, look at the chaos inside the United States, look at the chaos in Europe which is not any better off, and you can see that a continuation of the present bullying policies will only lead to a global catastrophe.

The Axioms of Our Thinking Must Change

I have said the whole time, that it means we have to change the axioms of our thinking. And that change, just to give you a pedagogical example for how to imagine such a change, just think how people were thinking in the Middle Ages, in the 14th Century, for example. You had the Black Death, you had superstition, you had the Aristotelian idea that anything has to be based on the contradiction that “A is not B.” You had the Scholastics, who were debating how many angels can sit on the head of a pin, and superstition, and witchcraft, and all these crazy ideas.

Then came the beautiful Italian Renaissance, which was a Renaissance of the ancient Greek philosophy of Platonism. The Greek delegation who participated in the Council of Florence, they brought with them the entire works of Plato which had been forgotten in Europe because of the Roman Empire and the decline of the Greek model; Plato had been basically forgotten for about 1,300 or even 1,700 years. And there was a Renaissance, because there was a translation of the entire works of Plato; you had the writings of Nikolaus of Cusa; you had a revival of the humanist traditions of Dante, of Petrarca; incredible breakthroughs in architecture and painting. And what happened in that 15th Century, which is called the “Golden Renaissance of Italy”—everything, every assumption, every axiom of thinking changed: about what is an individual? What is the role of the universe? What is the relation between the individual and the laws of the universe? What is the role of science and technology in the improvement of the living standard of the population? You had an increase in urban life.

If you compare the 14th Century and the 15th Century, in Italy especially, but also in other parts of Europe, it was like a completely new way of thinking. And I’m using that as an example to show that if we, today, can mobilize our intellectual and moral resources to say that if we continue with this geopolitical confrontation, the idea that you always need an enemy to make progress—that’s a rotten idea! We should get rid of it, and we should move to the idea that once you start to think about the interests of the one humanity first, and then align whatever specific interest you have as a nation or as a group with that one humanity, you can solve all the problems, if it is based on the development of all.

That’s a mental exercise, but it’s not just academic, because the Global South is already moving in that direction. They want to get rid of being the victims of colonialism, and therefore, they have found a new way of cooperating in a harmonious way. And I would even think that the influence of China is very big, but not in the way some of the Western geopoliticians are trying to tell you. It is the influence of Confucius. Confucius, who is, for sure, the greatest philosopher of China, had this idea of a harmonious development, which is the same idea that you have in Leibniz. You have it in Nikolaus of Cusa, who had the idea that harmony in the macrocosm can only exist if you have a development of all microcosms. And I think that that is sort of the epochal, ontological shift, the jump we have to make in our thinking.

Schlanger: We have what I guess is a diplomatic meeting. Trump is now in London, hosted by [the United Kingdom’s] King Charles III. We have from the chat room, from someone dreaming of a better day, asking: “What do you think the royal family and Trump are talking about? But let me bring up a specific question on that: Do you think Trump will bring up the role of the United Kingdom intelligence services in setting up Russiagate? And also the role of [UK Prime Minister Keir] Starmer in the E3 [France, Germany and the UK], which seems to be defying Trump’s desire for peace in Ukraine?”

Is it possible—and this is a question from one of our contacts in London—“Is it possible this visit is about reaffirming the special relationship?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, obviously! I’m not optimistic about what will come out of this meeting, because, I think Starmer invited President Trump to this trip, with the clear intention to lure President Trump into this “special relationship,” by papering over the British role in Russiagate; the British role in the E3 effort to sabotage the peace in Ukraine. And I’m not so optimistic that President Trump is inoculated against such efforts. I always hope for the better, but he said that he’s so proud that he’s the only head of state who has been invited twice to such a state visit.

He expressed at various occasions that he is a friend of Prince Charles—King Charles now. How can you be a friend of King Charles? I mean—[laughter] it’s completely unimaginable, such an idea. Then, also, Trump is quoted already saying that Windsor Castle is much better than Buckingham Palace. These are all the pomp of an outdated British monarchy! The British monarchy is outdated, at the latest since the American Revolution, and I hope President Trump remembers that! That the American war against Great Britain was the War of Independence, and the creation of the American republic.

The Racism of Monarchies

I’m not so hopeful that he can avoid being cornered and lured into, really, this operatic world of the 18th Century, or some museum of the 18th Century. What do you need monarchies for, in the modern times? The idea of monarchy is based on a racial inequality, by the assumption that there are some people who have not red blood, but blue blood, and that they are something better! If you want to know why I’m so upset about monarchies, read the Letters of Joseph de Maistre to a Russian Prince. This is a very famous piece of literature, where he describes in great detail why monarchs and high nobility are so much superior to the ordinary folk. And it’s the same—it’s really terrible! I can only hope that somehow, President Trump manages to get out of there without losing his mind completely to this pomp.

So, I’m really concerned. I don’t think this is for any good thing. If they want to have big business—there are already headlines that big AI firms are planning to invest bigtime in Great Britain. I think they’re trying to use all their tricks to reinforce this special relationship; that’s what the name of the game is.

Schlanger: And one of the areas where the British are very keen on getting more cooperation, is on cybersecurity, on surveillance, and, of course, that fits in with the whole question of the strategy of tension.

Now, to conclude: It wouldn’t be a Zepp-LaRouche webcast without a few questions on Germany, and I can tell you, Helga, Americans are very interested in your thoughts on this.

The first question comes from someone who actually is an American, who read that the former head of the Munich Security Conference, Christof Heusgen, warned that Germany could be found complicit in genocide, if weapons supplied by Germany to Israel are used to kill. And he asks: “Is this a sign that there are some in Germany who are rethinking their support for Ukraine and Israel?”

Zepp-LaRouche: This is very important, because Mr. Heusgen is not exactly a peacenik. He was the advisor of [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel at the time when she was declaring that the security of Israel is the raison d’être for Germany—which, as people may recall, is when Germany went into this unlimited support for Israel, no matter what its government was doing. This same person, Heusgen—who in all likelihood is the architect of that notion that the security of Israel is the raison d’être for Germany—given the fact that the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court [ICC] already much more than a year ago, found the likelihood that Israel is committing genocide—which in the meantime has been reasserted by a UN commission of inquiry as being absolutely 100% certain—is now warning that if Merz sticks to his policy of inviting Netanyahu to Germany, despite the fact that there is an arrest warrant for him by the ICC—a UN Court—that Germany could be accused juridically of aiding and abetting genocide.

Now, that’s a very serious argument, especially in Germany, given the history of the Holocaust; this topic of genocide and Holocaust, all of that is more emotionally charged in Germany, for the obvious reasons, than in any other place in the world. Heusgen was German ambassador to the UN. In any case, he’s very well briefed, and he has a good sense of where things are. He would not put out such a warning, if he did not see a serious reason that this might happen, and he says this would be devastating. And it obviously would.

So, I can only hope that at this present UN General Assembly, that Germany— I can only hope that Merz is listening to Heusgen; I don’t see much hope for Merz, but hopefully he listens to that warning.

Schlanger: The other question on Germany is about what’s actually going on in the EU generally, where all this talk about “democracy” is subverted by the fact that they’re ruling against the will of the people. You have in Romania, [former independent presidential candidate] Călin Georgescu was not only denied the chance to be the President [after winning in the first round of the Nov. 2024 presidential elections], but was not even allowed to run [in the next election]. [French National Rally party leader] Marine Le Pen has been excluded from the next French election. And meanwhile, you have the collapse of the French government.

But it looks as though there are still people seriously trying to ban the Alternative für Deutschland from participating in elections, even though the vote, or probably because the vote they got in North Rhine-Westphalia was three times larger than it was just a few years ago. Do you really think that the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats would join forces to try to ban a political party in Germany?

Zepp-LaRouche: It is ridiculous, because the AfD in some states, like Saxony-Anhalt, is leading in the polls, and the Greens, which has 3% of the vote, are talking about banning the AfD! Which shows you what democratic sense they have.

I think if they did that, it would really explode the country. Given the fact that people really, absolutely feel that the present government— You go from bad, I mean, Merkel was already bad! It was stagnation for 16 years of nothing moving forward in a positive way; she did a lot of bad things, like the exit from nuclear energy without an alternative, and so forth and so on. But it went downhill from there! And now, the “streetlight coalition” [SPD, CDU, Greens] was voted out, because they were completely hated. Everybody is now saying, after only three months of the new so-called “grand coalition,” which is not so grand at all, that they’re worse than the streetlight coalition.

Germans Have No Place To Go

The people in the country have, profoundly, the idea that they have no place to go! The government has something like 20% to 22% approval rating, which is nothing! It’s terrible.

So, I think the idea to ban the AfD would really explode the country. And the recent municipal elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, where the SPD was the big loser—the whole discussion was that that means their role in the grand coalition would now be diminished; they have to follow what Merz [CDU] is saying, and Merz will go for brutal cuts in the social field. If the SPD accepts their role as a junior partner in the grand coalition—meaning that the CDU/CSU will basically give direction as to where it’s going, and especially in the social field—the SPD will vanish! The Social Democracy will become a single-digit party or less, because they have already lost their traditional voters.

What we are doing with the Civil Rights Movement Solidarity [BüSo] and the Schiller Institute, is campaigning to completely change the course of Germany and basically say that the only way all of Europe can get out of this present existential crisis, is that we change direction, and join with the countries of the Global Majority. We should stop the idea that we have to somehow geopolitically balance ourselves against the other great powers: Russia, China, and the United States. That policy has failed! All of Europe is in complete disarray, and there are many commentators in the international press—in India, in China, in Russia, in Africa—who say that Europe is a lost model, that they have completely failed, and they have become marginalized and become completely unimportant; that the center of politics has already shifted to Asia. Asia is where the growth rates are. Europe is where the collapse rates are.

There are commentators in the international media saying that they think Europe will continue to collapse, until you have a generational change and the present cast of so-called leaders is replaced by a new generation. Now, that could take a long time, and you could have the destruction of Europe—which would be devastating, because Europe may have bad leadership right now, but Europe has a cultural heritage which must play an important role in any future world community! What a shame if the beautiful compositions of Bach and Beethoven, and Shakespeare and Schiller, and Dante, all of this would be lost! We really have to fight to bring back the best traditions of Europe, and hopefully, we can inspire people to take up the offer of cooperation with the Global Majority—because then, all problems could be solved, very, very easily.