Treaty of Westphalia:
The Way Out of World War III

This presentation was given by French former Presidential candidate Jacques Cheminade, to the LaRouche Organization’s “Manhattan Project” Dialogue March 12, 2022. The host is Dennis Speed of The LaRouche Organization.

Dennis Speed: We’re now going to hear from Jacques Cheminade of the Solidarité et Progrès organization of France. I just want to say a couple of things which Jacques doesn’t know I was going to say, because we are honored and excited to have Jacques. I’ve wanted to have Jacques on for a while here. Because Jacques doesn’t just represent the LaRouche Organization in France. That’s correct, but it’s far more than that. Jacques has been a Presidential candidate in France on a couple of occasions. He has represented Lyndon LaRouche around the world, and therefore, he represents him in France.

Jacques Cheminade: So, let me start with something quoting Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman. She said, “Maybe the entire world, all countries on all continents should come to their senses and ask themselves, instead of watching CNN nonsense or reading fake news in the Washington Post, are they ready for yet another adventure?” I think this is something to keep in mind for us all before listening to what I have to say.

Now, after many rather insane declarations and having declined the U.S.’ questionable offer, Volodymyr Zelenskyy says, according to various sources, “I have realized that to join NATO is impossible for Ukraine. It amounts to declaring World War III. I have realized that it is impossible to reclaim Crimea. I have realized that the status of the Donbas states should be negotiated.” This is what the Minsk Agreement should have led him to do, and that he was not able or did not want to do.

The Russian authorities, on their side, have confirmed through a declaration of their Foreign Affairs Minister that their aim includes neither the occupation of Ukraine, nor the destruction of its state, or to bring down its present government. President Putin has just said that some progress in negotiations is now possible. Negotiations are taking place this weekend in Turkey. Now the question is, how this is going to stand, despite all the pressure put by the neo-Nazis and the ultra-nationalists in Ukraine and the war mongers of NATO that have recruited them? Even if it stands, if it stands as it is, with hope that we have that it could stand, the question of the destructive and suicidal sanctions remains within the ugly actions of our societies.

Therefore, it could be eventually a positive step that a ceasefire and neutrality statute for Ukraine is decided. But it does not solve at all the overall issue of the economic and social collapse of the system of the Western oligarchy. A system of the City of London, Wall Street, and their world collaborators. It does not solve what has to be solved, because this system leads the world towards war and economic destruction sooner than most of us expect.

The preconditions of war are met here and now; therefore, the only solution, the alternative to war and economic collapse is our Schiller Institute goal for an international conference to establish a new security as was said before and development architecture for all nations. Nothing else could work, because the solution is above the axioms of our present order, in the spirit of the Peace of Westphalia. That’s the change that is needed. The Peace of Westphalia of 1648; the principle of mutual development among nations to secure peace.

Economic Insanity

There is first a matter in what we are facing of economic insanity become suicidal. In France, this has been exposed by French President Macron and the Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. It is clear, said Le Drian, that the worst is ahead of us. And Le Drian stressed when Putin declared a mobilization of the Russian strategic forces, that Putin should remember that we also have nuclear weapons.

Speaking of insanity, not only economic insanity, but insanity of the overall policy. If you look at it humanly, the first victims are now the Ukrainian people, the Russian people, and then Western Europe, and then all of the world. Western Europe not only because of its sanctions, it is going to be deprived of oil and gas. The Russian exports covering, as of today, 30% and 40% respectively of European needs. But also, deprived from titanium, vanadium, lithium, aluminum, that are needed for all modern industries—for automobile sector, the atomic sector, the airplanes, etc. Much worse, as announced by the Russian authorities, the whole chain of food production is going to be broken. It could not work within the present system of sanctions. Russia and Ukraine are the first world producers [exporters—ed.] of wheat and corn, and the markets in the Maghreb and in Egypt are going to be shut down therefore, from these productions, leading to famine riots and thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of victims of death. Is that what our authorities are seeking for?

Moreover, financially the sanctions and counter-sanctions are going to collapse the Western system. Hence, the whole world system has a shock wave; a shock wave that has also started. Russian banks being excluded from the SWIFT interbank payment system and bank assets from the Russian Central Bank being frozen, all contracts related to exports of Russian energy and rare metals are going to collapse. The chain of derivatives insurance—each derivative being bought and sold on the markets in a wild way—all this is going to implode. If one financial product on the chain defaults, the whole chain goes with it in a sort of chain of defaults. But this time, hitting real products associated to the derivatives and at a world scale.

Russia, on its side, and logically, has decided to take over all Western firms that are banned [from] activities in Russia. To sum it up, the collapse of the real economy is going to be associated to the collapse in the financial economy to the prejudice of us all. Some in the United States, the scions of Wall Street and the City of London, are also to be hit. Overall, it’s the dollar system itself that is going to be hit, and may collapse sooner than expected, because, having frozen the Russian financial assets as they did with the Afghan financial assets—they did the same thing to the Russia and to Afghanistan—the American authorities are destroying the confidence of those who invest in Treasury bonds.

If we look at it, if you invest in dollar bonds today, not only will you get negative interest rates—you get a formal interest rate of 1.98% to 2% in interest rates from 10-year bonds, with an inflation of at least 7%; so, you lose at least 5%—but, on top of that, your assets can be arbitrarily frozen, and you are submitted to an extraterritorial justice; American tribunals for all. All are therefore saying, we invest in your money, we lose money in doing it, you impose your laws upon us, and you seize our property whenever you like.

Enough is enough; we can’t go on like that. One thing is therefore clear. The sanctions associated to the Russian counter-sanctions can only lead to a collapse of the whole chain of values, both financial and physical. Is your egotism so incompetent to shoot itself both in the foot and on its brains? The only answer of rational people on both sides of the Atlantic and mainly of the Pacific, is that it is like your egotism has become like these insects who try to throw away their shape and pass into another form. This is the Great Reset; this is the global Green New Deal. The illusion is that they can leave the caterpillar and become a butterfly, or better said, a killer insect flying forward, flying forward. Hence, the ideology of what they are planning for Europe.

The European Sovereign Is NATO

Three American, British, and Australian authors state it quite clearly—Antony Beevor, Christopher Clark, and Timothy Snyder. Timothy Snyder is the one, the Anglo-American agent, that had slandered Lyndon LaRouche and denounced our publication of Glazyev’s book Genocide: Russia and the New World Order, on the [1990s—ed.] genocide of Russia as a neo-Nazi operation. So, that’s clear in defining Timothy Snyder.

These three gentlemen have the following to say [all quotes as heard]: “First, listen carefully to the September 2017 Macron major speech at the French Sorbonne calling for a sovereign Europe with a common budget, doctrine, intervention force, and European defense.” This is the right direction, they say. Of course, a sovereign Europe cannot exist because there is not a European people; only the sovereignty of nations could exist. But let’s see what they understand a sovereign Europe has to be. Let’s listen to Beevor speaking: “The idea of a European army in itself is ridiculous. After what has happened in Ukraine, I think that NATO has a bright future despite all those who thought that it was outdated.” And Christopher Clark stressed, “Europe’s only chance to be reborn is through a close cooperation with NATO. Then, such a European unity, the umbrella that it shall learn how to deploy to protect itself, has to include Russia once it has gotten rid of Putin.” This is Timothy Snyder: “It is very commendable and remarkable that Europe has decided so rapidly to impose sanctions on the aggressor,” meaning Russia. “Of course, the Europeans are going to pay a dear price for the sanctions, more than the Americans. But ultimately, it is going to be for their benefit. In such conditions within NATO, the European Union has to offer its membership to Ukraine now because it is the main way to stop this war.”

This insanity to intimidate or eliminate the master of the Kremlin. There was a program on the French public TV channel LCI where the killing of Putin was discussed…. So, we are at this point, where the assassination of a foreign head of state is discussed publicly before a French audience. So, “the master of the Kremlin” as they call him, has first to submit. Then, we could loot Russia, and second, to proceed with China. This is a policy.

Again, I stress, it is not the United States, it is not France, or any other nation, as a nation. It is MICIMATT, the military-financial-industrial-media academic complex ruling over them, and that’s our enemy.

If Ukraine Enters NATO

Let’s now see what is going to happen if Ukraine is admitted by the European Union. At this point, most of the leaders of the European Union themselves understand that it is very dangerous. What will happen? Nuclear war, or destruction of all Europe, and then of the rest of the world. Why? I made a declaration on this issue. Were Ukraine to be admitted as member of the European Union, it would amount to introduce in it officially, and not like today indirectly, to introduce in it the NATO armies. To introduce in Ukraine the NATO armies. Indeed, the European Union is linked to NATO by Title IV, Articles 21 and 42 of the European Union Treaty itself. Among the 27 members of the European Union, 21 belong to the NATO integrated command, and which France joined in 2008 under President Sarkozy while de Gaulle had left it. Since 2002, the relations between the European Union and NATO have become closer and closer.

The joint statement issued July 10, 2018 by the President of the European Council, the President of the EU Commission, and the Secretary General of NATO, says, “We agree to reinforce the cooperation between the European Union and NATO, its quality, its extent, and its intensity.” Even more precisely, the signers induced the European Union members which do not belong to NATO to participate as much as possible to NATO’s initiatives. So, it means all the members of the European Union should be under the umbrella and control of NATO.

Russia, despite the pledges of NATO members at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and after also the pledges were made after, observed the extension of NATO closer to its borders; Ukraine being transformed more and more since the 2014 Maidan coup, into a de facto NATO bastion, a NATO base for operations against Russia. Ukraine joining the European Union, as proposed by the EU in 2008, would mean NATO officially deployed there, which is an absolute red line for Russia, and rightly so…. What happened before de facto, is threatened to be confirmed institutionally. When Zelenskyy went to the Munich Security Conference February 18-19 this year, and declared the right for Ukraine to have nuclear weapons, that was too much. Because the Budapest Agreement of 1998, which recognized the independence of Ukraine, stated that, as a condition of its acceptance by Russia, Ukraine renounced to deploy or process nuclear weapons on its territory.

So, as such, at this point, given all I said, certain elements of peace could be agreed upon in Ukraine. Neutrality statutes for the country—now even French President Macron and his ally Chevènement agree with it, while otherwise condemning Putin. But they agree that the neutrality of Ukraine is necessary. Recognition of Crimea’s referendum to join Russia, and guarantee of Ukraine’s borders by all European parts with the definition, of course, of the statutes of the Donbas, of the oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk.

But this is not a solution; it could not be a solution. It may be a temporary diplomatic arrangement, if feasible, but the challenge of peace in Ukraine and the whole world is not met. The situation in Ukraine is only an element, if tragic, in particular for us Europeans. The situation in Ukraine is only an element of what’s happening in the whole world—Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Libya, the famine in Somalia today—It is a whole system which is both exploding and imploding. The change of system is the only possible answer.

Our Schiller Institute call is therefore the alternative, the only solution to get out of our global tragedy. It is either a somnambular walk towards war and economic destruction, or a change to our actions, a change of the world’s thinking, based on the Four Laws of Lyndon LaRouche as a lead, as it is said in the Schiller Institute call.

The Original Peace of Westphalia

Let me say something about two things to conclude, which I think stress the decisiveness of the issue. First the spirit of the Peace of Westphalia: Probably a few words should be talked about it, what it was exactly. And then, Martin Luther King’s political sermon at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama on Nov. 17, 1957. Both convey the right emotions to mobilize our energies, to mobilize ourselves.

First, the Treaty of Westphalia and the Schiller petition, the benefit of the other, the issue that Lyndon LaRouche put on mankind’s agenda. The original Peace of Westphalia was not just a diplomatic treaty. It translated into concrete acts, a change in the way of thinking, a rejection of actions leading to a state of war. Let’s go through it, to be more specific: Article I states that “Each party shall endeavor to procure the benefit, honor and advantage of the other.” And Article II outlines “There shall be on the one side and the other a perpetual oblivion, amnesty or pardon of all that has been committed since the beginning of these troubles, in what place, of what manner soever the austerities have been practiced, in such a manner that nobody under any pretext whatsoever shall practice any acts of hostility, entertain any enmity, or cause any trouble to each other.” The “advantage of the other” demands what they call “the eternal oblivion” of what was done to each other, the evil done to each other.

Then—which I think is even more interesting—the Treaty takes up many particular demands, as settling territorial claims, and concentrates on addressing the financial ruin which all were descending into; and it says that insolvent and illegitimate debt and financial claims should be sorted out and settled, mostly by debt annulment, or negotiated for rescheduling. Article 37 stresses:

Contracts, Exchanges, Transactions, Obligations, Treaties, made by Constraint or Threats, and extorted illegally from States or Subjects shall be so annull’d and abolish’d, that no more Enquiry shall be made after them.

And Article 40 concludes:

The Sums of Money, which during the War have been exacted bona fide, and with a good intent, by way of Contributions, to prevent greater Evils by the Contributors, are not comprehended herein.

So, you have de facto, as the basis for this peace, what I would call a well-organized, civilized, bankruptcy reorganization. So, it was clear that the authors of the treaty established as the “advantage of the other”—or as it is said, the “benefit of the other”—implied oblivion of the evil caused to the other, which in turn abolition, cancellation of undue debts was mandatory.

But it was not only negative. It also implied a positive impulse to create the conditions for peace through a common development. At the highest point, it meant to create what Gottfried Leibniz called “philadelphical societies”—that was his name for that, “philadelphical societies”—of researchers, engineers, and learned men, inspiring discoveries of physical principles and their technological applications; what he called at that point, “metaphysical science, a science beyond and above the laws of established principle”; what Lyndon LaRouche called “discovery of new physical principles”; which is today, in our call, what we urge to be created, an economy based on thermonuclear fusion energy.

The French Académie des Sciences of Jean-Baptiste Colbert exemplified then this project, a project which of course was not only French, but international in its scope. Leibniz had before written a paper on the necessary social base for the system, titled, “Society and Economy.”

What I’m trying to say is that the Peace of Westphalia, like our call, was not something falling from the sky, as a “good idea,” but the result of a social process to uplift mankind, like our call.

Dr. King’s Call

Now Martin Luther King’s in Dexter Ave. Baptist Church, to further leaders toward where we should go. Let me first quote what exemplifies his intervention:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

It is today in the context of all I tried to say, to read Martin Luther King’s whole polemics to nurture action, is absolutely mandatory. Let me quote part of it, not to give you a digest or a summary which would be pretentious and impossible. But to give you a taste, to read all of it, all of what Martin said then. He said:

In the fifth chapter of the gospel as recorded by Saint Matthew, we read these very arresting words flowing from the lips of our Lord and Master: “Ye have heard that it has been said, ‘Thou shall love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.’ But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.”

Certainly, these are great words, words lifted to cosmic proportions. Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies....

Now first let us deal with this question, which is the practical question: How do you go about loving your enemies? I think the first thing is this: In order to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self....

But in spite of all of the weaknesses and evils inherent in communism, we must at the same time see the weaknesses and evils within democracy....

Isn’t it true that we have often in our democracy trampled over individuals and races with the iron feet of oppression? Isn’t it true that through our Western powers we have perpetuated colonialism and imperialism?...

A second thing that an individual must do in seeking to love his enemy is to discover the element of good in his enemy, and every time you begin to hate that person and think of hating that person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points which will over-balance the bad points....

Oh, we talk about politics; we talk about the problems facing our atomic civilization. Grant that all men will come together and discover that as we solve the crisis and solve these problems—the international problems, the problems of atomic energy, the problems of nuclear energy, and yes, even the race problem—let us join together in a great fellowship of love and bow down at the feet of Jesus.

So of course, if you read that today, most people who were the majority would say, “Utopian, impossible!” If you think just that, having read what Lyndon LaRouche has to say, what Martin has to say, you don’t understand what is human in yourself, what is human in all of us.

So, let’s try to be human. Sign the Schiller petition. Support it. Spread it. Organize social, political, and cultural events around it. In that sense, let’s not be Hamlets, but creative rabble-rousers, creative rabble-rousers to qualify as warrior angels, which is what the world needs today.

Ah! One more thing! Lyndon LaRouche told us that Martin should have been the President of the United States. I add that our task is to make the wise ideas of Lyndon LaRouche and those of Martin, our way—our way to create a world, just and beautiful, for the general welfare and for the good of future generations. And making it beautiful, just and beautiful, and let’s keep it, as Benjamin Franklin said that the American Constitution would define the future, provided we keep it. So let’s build the future and it’s the alternative to war, disease, and economic collapse. There is no other way that we should think about what’s happening today. Thank you.

From the Questions and Discussion

Speed: Thank you very much, Jacques.

I’ll first go to a question which was from Adam; and he asked: “How can we mobilize humanistic, republican political forces in the U.S. and Western Europe, including the UK to support the petition, while bypassing the oligarchy’s mainstream media?”

Cheminade: Shortly. I would say, the point is to mobilize and convey in yourself, the right emotions, to mobilize to do the right things….

And it means to examine what you have been doing, what you have done to improve the universe where you live. It means to look at people that you have met, and what they have become. It means, to see around you how you can do better, and progress. Progress in your effect on society, and your effect on the universe where you live. And then, you are broadening and broadening, and you qualify to be a warrior on the right side, you qualify to be an angel warrior. And this is what is needed today.

And I think that what’s happening around us in this society, should give us more strength and more courage to do it. Because the way the society is collapsing is now visible for everybody: for example, a clear example of it, many of our contacts in France, military contacts for example who would say that nuclear war is impossible because nobody is crazy enough to launch a nuclear war. So now, with tactical weapons produced—they are in Russia, but also in United States—with tactical nuclear weapons and people are openly speaking about it, the taboo of nuclear war can fall apart. This is a danger for the whole of humanity, and it’s humanity doing that to itself.

So it’s humanity that is no longer human. And I think from this standpoint, and if you are serious about who we are and who you are, you have to be polemical with people, not to be afraid to shake their axioms, and to kick them in the ass, in the most, let’s say, uplifting manner.

Shall We Have Peace?

Speed: [laughs] Right. This is a question for you, Jacques, and Harley you may have something to say, also. This is from José, who is asking: “Lyndon LaRouche often referenced the complex domain as the unseen effects of the actions that we take when we organize for our ideas. But what does that mean, exactly? If we continue calling for peace, will we get peace? Is it that simple and will that work in preventing World War III?” It looks like it’s a question on the one hand about the complex domain, as well as the issue, shall we have peace?

Cheminade: Well, for me, very simple terms, it’s not looking at the world through our perceptions of what’s happening before our noses. It means to understand the chains of cause and effect, and to in your mind realize the consequences of what is done or undone, and hypothesizing all the time, what it is to be qualified as a higher form of intervention in the universe. And peace, contrary to what people think, is not to stop the war, it’s much more. Peace is to build together, peace is to change the domain in which you are acting, and it’s not easy. It’s like freedom: Freedom is not easy, it’s difficult. Because freedom, if it’s not associated to necessity, to the necessity of the universe, freedom collapses and becomes just what libertarians would call “freedom,” which is not freedom, it’s caprice, like in Goya’s paintings.

So what you would need, is to think through your readings, through the process of discovery of all our predecessors to discover this domain, where things are not to be taken at face value, but things have to be taken as a principle which are generated, and the combination of these generated principles is where you should more and more develop your capacity to intervene and to change the universe and to improve the others.

Is ‘Westphalia’ Just Energy Sovereignty?

Speed: Now, there’s something I wanted to bring to the attention—it’s not a question, it’s actually as a result of our petitioning campaign—one of our contacts almost took his name off, but decided to leave his name on, and it was in part because of his inability to understand an article that had come to him, written by a friend of his. The article was called “The New Great Game,”… which just came out on March 9, 2022.

And the article—which does not talk about the British Great Game; it talks about China and Russia being involved in a “Great Game” with the United States—but at one point, after denouncing Putin as a bully, etc., this passage occurs: “Putin is not alone in following the Westphalian energy model, which prioritizes national sovereignty over the demands of global capital or international institutions.” Now I happen to have a link to the article and it goes to an article published by The National Interest and that article is called, “Energy Sovereignty Will Be the Westphalian Principle of the 21st Century.” This is not a good use of Westphalian. The idea is that somehow, this is the nation as opposed, really, to the rule of law, in effect.

Cheminade: Well, publicly it’s significant that Tony Blair started the attacks against the Westphalian order in 1999 in a speech in Chicago. He said it’s the nation that’s the cause for war, and the cause for what’s happening in the world. If you look at it historically, it’s always empires and not nations. Empires rule over the others, and it’s absolutely against the principle of Westphalia, the advantage of the other. The rule of the geopolitical principle [is] to try to get the most important portion of the pie, and this is the way they think—of the existing pie. They don’t think in terms of sharing with the other, and they don’t think in terms of developing to share with the other.

That’s the first thing that I see with this attack on the “Westphalian” principle. That it’s not possible in a global environment to have the participation of the citizens, because participation of the citizens at this point can only be organized among nations, with a community of language, a community of historical references and so on.

But the true nation, as de Gaulle said, and as Lyn said repeatedly, also, is an idea. It’s not so much the territory of a people, it’s an idea, a shared idea, with a shared language. And this idea is inspiring. It’s not the roots of something, it’s the sources, and these sources inspire other nations. And then you can work with other nations toward a higher order, and this higher order may be, one day, something that would be beyond the notion of nation; but we are far from that at this point. And people who are calling for this globalization are, in fact, calling for the domination of the world empire, as you can see in the policy of NATO.

Logically, NATO should have been dissolved after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990, because NATO was organized (apparently), against the Warsaw Pact. In fact, it should have been dissolved at that point, but it wasn’t. And what they tried to do with NATO first was to bring Russia in and to dismantle Russia within NATO. And when that didn’t work, because of the Russian resistance, it was then they decided to expand NATO to the east, to threaten Russia and destroy Russia, because it could not be incorporated into their order.

So, if you think about what’s happening in reality in this complex domain, what you see is that something which is shown to us, is what the Russians are seeing today, which is the shadows on the wall of the Plato’s cave. You don’t see the light, you don’t see the Sun. So what we have to do is to help people understand, where is the light, where is the Sun; and organize them not to be blinded by the light, but to understand the power of the light and how they are part of this power provided they enter into what their mind could realize as the human parts of what we are, and not the body and the perceptions.

Westphalia: ‘Religious’ or ‘Rational’?

Speed: Jacques, we just got this one in, which is about Westphalia, again. The questioner asks: “When we look up the Peace of Westphalia, we see that religion played a large part in the discussion back then. Do you intend to use the model without the religious overtones?”

Cheminade: Well, there is religion, there is spirituality and there is theology. Theology is extremely interesting, because it doesn’t mean that you believe in things that are not rational. It means that you investigate what defines rationality, and what is intellectively defined rationality. In that sense, to study the works of Nicholas of Cusa is key, because, he says, you see that it’s not by playing with the letters of the alphabet that you learn how to read. You have a certain idea that is going to be reflected in the way you see a unity of the universe and you consider how this unity can be conveyed to yourself and to others. And then, you start to speak and to read.

And this is very interesting, if you investigate prehistory, and how people started to think and to read, probably through the paintings on the cave walls. And what they painted as elements of communication with the others, in, I would say, theological terms, as associated with beauty, to express a sense of beauty.

So, there is nothing irrational in that. It’s research of unity that should be submitted to reason, and each of the steps when you progress. In that sense, the religious background is to see or to accept to be challenged on the consequences of your beliefs. And then, you see, what as a human being you are doing, and whether your principles are really inspiring you, or if there is something else on your mind. And I think from this standpoint, religion is one thing; what is the theology and inspiration of religions is another one at a higher level.

And this higher level, which Cusa defined as the “Peace of Religions” is when together you look at what can be done which exemplifies the best of each, and what you put together. In that sense, Judaism and Christianity have inspired the best of all possible worlds in European societies. It’s when they were betrayed that you had the hatred of each other. The principle of love of others—what Martin Luther King, going through Plato, explains as eros, philia, and agapē; agapē being the higher order, where you love the creative aspect of the other, which is not something that is artificial, like or not like. It’s a principle in the universe expressed through the behavior of the human being.

So then if you look from the higher point, you can make judgments that have a value. And these higher points, Leibniz defines it in science: He says there is a mechanical science which is the science of immediate causes; and there is the metaphysical science, which is the science of higher causes. It’s not metaphysics as people usually think of it; it’s physics beyond the existing physics, beyond the principle of mathematics, as Riemann said.

This metaphysics is a science where, if you want to understand the universe, you should put yourself—and he said it abruptly—in the position of God, which is the position of higher responsibility. But he says, these people often make mistakes, and it should not be for everybody: It should be for long work, long work of learning, long work of understanding, and confronting yourself with the best that has been written before you. And then, you can be in that position, feeling that in the human universe, you can never reach absolute principles. What you reach is principles that are the best of all in the universe at some point; and what you understand and what you see is conjunctural, because if you would understand everything, you would really be God, and then, it’s absolutely impossible from the standpoint of what you could understand about what is the unity in the universe and what it represents.

Fascism or Republics

Speed: Jacques, this is from Erica, and it’s about fascism. “Is it simply a political policy, an economic policy, a cultural policy, or all of those? And then, what about the racial component? People call one another by this term often in politics and it becomes hard to understand its meaning. I seem to remember that Jacques once did a presentation about how Napoleon was the first fascist, so I’d just like to have an idea about to think about what is meant, and especially as how that applies to the circumstances of today.”

Cheminade: Fascism, as Mussolini, or Nazism, as Hitler developed it, is an impotent and destructive reaction, a murderous reaction to the murderous system of the financial oligarchy; and in that sense the root of fascism—which produced fascism as an opposition, but which itself is the mother of fascism—is these Roman Empire people who escaped to Venice, then people from Venice went to Amsterdam and Rotterdam; and certain banks in Germany; then they went to London, and London tried to infect New York and the United States. Against that oligarchical system, the people who created the United States wanted to create something republican as the way they thought, where all and every human being had its word to say. And this was created as a republic.

Concluding Statement

Cheminade: My father always shocked me, … when I was going to do some things: He said, “Have fun. Have fun.” And this shocked me. I said, “How could I have fun when I have to perform this task? And this task has to be difficult and it’s in effect the understanding of the Bible, that the human sweat is what defines human labor.”

True human labor is when you create. And when you create, you have tremendous fun, because you don’t respect what should not be respected, but you respect, and you are humble toward the good things that have been created before you, and inspire you not to repeat them, but to do better and to be inspired by the way they proceeded. And then you are something and you feel happy.

And I think it’s a tremendous opportunity, and if we are happy in seizing the opportunity and turning it into the good.

Speed: Thank you, Jacques….

I want to thank everybody for participating in the discussion today. And I want to invite people to take a look at our petition, “To Convoke an International Conference To Establish a New Security and Development Architecture for All Nations.” So, please add your name, and become involved with us in this campaign.

As we close, I want to say a few things to people about why we’re here, and what we’ve been discussing, which is the way out of World War III. Yes, we are already in World War III, that’s true. We stumbled into that, in a world in which, for example, the French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire had said, and then retracted remarks, stating that, we would even be prepared to drop a financial nuclear weapon on Russia. And when that kind of insane talk begins to happen, people who not particularly in their lives thought of themselves as leaders, despair.

We don’t have that approach.

There’s a question: Are we going to live in the rule of law, with the age of the rule of law, or the age of the rule of reason? Lyndon LaRouche believed in the idea of the American Revolution, which is that a group of people, men and women, could assign themselves the role that they held it to be the case that “All men are created equal, are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” That that was a principle, and that that—not nobility, not titles, not money, not prestige, not degrees—qualified them, insofar as they would be true to that principle, to lead a society in a circumstance of desperation, of anxiety, and of the breakdown of reason. And we’re in that situation today….

But it does take perseverance and endurance to stick to those ideas of humanity, and to speak out on behalf of humanity. And I think a lot of us are going to be tested on that, in the upcoming days, certainly against the force of popular opinion.

There’s an example I’d like to cite, mainly because it came up this week: That 115 years ago, a ship sank in the South Atlantic, in Antarctica actually, called the Endurance. It was a mission to try to cross the South Pole and this mission was done by Earnest Shackleton, who had taken a crew of 27 people. He was an Anglo-Irish explorer.

And he got down there, and he went down in December of 1914, which was the Summer down there, and began sailing. But they got caught in an icepack by February, and for a period of about eight months, were completely stranded in the ice. And at that point, their ship, Endurance, was crushed in the ice. It began to list to one side, and it began to sink in the ice. And it was such a tragic scene, that literally the penguins came out and amassed some distance from the ship and began to do a sort of dirge for the collapse of the ship. The ship went under, and the men had only lifeboats. And they had to figure out, since they were on a floating icepack at the end of the South Pole where navigation is completely different thing, how they were going to survive.

From October of 1915 through August of 1916, they were out there, and there were various things that happened. What’s important is that Shackleton was forced to change his idea of mission, at the point that that ship went under, and he decided that no matter what would happen, he would get all of those men back alive. And despite the fact that they were living out in weather which was 20-30° below zero, despite the fact of all the other dangers, despite the problem of food, etc., he managed—and this a story you should just take a look at—to get all of those people, all 27 crew members got back alive on Sept. 3rd, I think it was, 1916, they arrived in Chile….

That is the way that we have to think about our task. The clarity with which you heard Lyndon LaRouche talk about the character of what a human being is, and why human beings are beautiful; and the clarity of the commitment to the human race, that is expressed not only in his ideas, but in what we’re saying in this petition, is that which we have to remember in this apparent dark hour of humanity, threatening, out of its own arrogance, or hubris, or pique, or recklessness, to destroy itself and many other species. We are not only better than that, humanity is beautiful! But! That idea has to be caused to prevail and it has to be upheld. It has to endure.

And it is this idea of being committed to the principles of the American Revolution, the principles that you heard expressed around the Treaty of Westphalia, that is our intent in our petition campaign, that is the discussion we want to have with people, not particulars on this political tactic and that political program; because it is in this, that we can find the mutual humanity in all, and thereby arrive at a solution higher than anything presently being proposed by any political force.

On behalf of The LaRouche Organization we want to thank everybody for being with us here today, and please start to work with us to get that petition circulated, signed, discussed, and implemented through a conference that establishes a new security and development architecture.