International Peace Coalition 99

Justice Is Not Revenge—Nonviolent Direct Action Is What We Need

April 25—The 99th consecutive meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) took place today, a process which has engaged people from over 50 countries. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the initiator of the IPC, was not available for today’s meeting, so the event was opened with presentations by Schiller Institute leaders Dennis Speed and Dennis Small, joined by former U.S. Congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, former CIA official Ray McGovern, and Pax Christi leader Father Harry Bury.

The passing of Pope Francis and the transitions taking place, in the Church and in global political relationships, was a recurring theme of the presentations and discussion. Dennis Speed quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said: “The fact that the Pope passed away during the Easter period—I don’t know how it is among Catholics, but in Orthodox tradition, there is a belief that if the Lord calls a person to himself on the Easter holy days, it is a special sign that the person has not lived his life in vain, he has done a lot, did much good.” Various people have criticisms of some of Pope Francis’s ideas and policies, but he was certainly an outspoken advocate for peace. The issue is not just Pope Francis as an individual, but the question of the Papacy. Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth), calling on every individual to contribute to world peace, is exemplary.

Speed noted that not only are United States–Russia negotiations moving forward, but talks with Iran are also proceeding, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi calling on the U.S. to participate in the development of Iran’s peaceful nuclear power program, a policy launched as part of President Dwight Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program.

Danger of a New ‘Reichstag Fire’

Dennis Small noted that the first meeting of the IPC, 99 weeks ago, followed a public letter to Pope Francis by leading members of the IPC in support of his call for an international conference on ending the wars. Now, the effort for ending the Ukraine war has stalled due to open resistance from European leaders and Ukraine’s acting president Volodymyr Zelensky, but the more substantive issue of restoring relations between the world’s two greatest nuclear powers, the U.S. and Russia, is progressing. Small warned that we must watch out for a September 11, 2001 type “Reichstag Fire” incident by those who are enraged over the dialogue between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin and willing to blow it up. Small’s second point addressed the furor over U.S. President Trump’s tariff policy, noting that a letter by more than 100 economists (including two Nobel Prize–winning economists and former Congressman Phil Gramm), was not wrong in its criticisms of the tariff policy, but totally wrong in blaming the current global crisis on the tariffs. The tariffs, he said, are only a possible spark which could ignite the “bomb” of the massive debt bubble—including the two quadrillion dollars in derivatives debt—and bring down the Western financial system. Gramm, he noted, was the lead author of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which took down the Glass-Steagall Banking Act of 1933, separating commercial and investment banking, and is therefore responsible for the massive debt bubble today. Former President Bill Clinton signed the bill, primarily because he was being “Lewinskied” at that time. Small proposed that the bill be renamed the “Gramm-Leach-Bliley-Lewinsky” Act!

The next speaker, former Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), gave his greetings to the IPC, expressing his full support for the effort to build a movement for peace and justice. He said the political system in the U.S. was fully bought, as is the media, causing a “numbness” in the population to the horrors being carried out around the world. The kind of mass street action which helped to stop the Vietnam War is desperately needed today, he said, but a general change in “consciousness” in the population is also required.

It Is Up to Us

Ray McGovern, a friend of Kucinich, thanked the “three Dennises” who had spoken, and issued a complaint, as a Catholic, about Pope Francis for making “pious statements” against the war on Gaza, and questioning the charge of genocide. In his view, Francis had not done enough, just as Pope Pius XII had not done enough during World War II to stop the Nazis. The result, he said, is that we must recognize that “it is up to us.” He referenced the words of Cain in Genesis 4:9 asking, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and Rabbi Abraham Heschel’s statement that we are not all guilty of the evil in the world, but we are all responsible. He quoted Isaiah, who was challenged when he went naked in the world: “I stripped my clothing, but you have stripped your justice and shalom.”

McGovern closed by saying we must keep a sense of humor and “have fun.” He asked for everyone to wish him luck and give prayers for him as he travels to Russia with renowned film producer Oliver Stone to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the victory over fascism in World War II.

Father Harry Bury, a lifelong activist for peace, who is a leader of Pax Christi, praised Helga Zepp-LaRouche for her principle that “Man is fundamentally Good,” and said that Pope Francis also believed that. Justice is not revenge, he said, but violence breeds revenge. The Oasis Plan of the Schiller Institute is the necessary response to the injustice in Palestine, he asserted. He related that he visited a prison in Brazil, where he was told that the recidivism rate was only 7%, whereas internationally the rate was over 80%. Why, he asked, and was told by Brazilian officials that they treat the prisoners with respect, providing music and education rather than excessive punishment.

Dennis Speed informed the meeting that Father Bury had supported conscientious objectors during the Vietnam War, had chained himself to the fence at the U.S. embassy in Saigon, and had served as a “human shield” in Gaza against the Israeli military slaughter.

Carolina Domínguez, a leader of the LaRouche movement in Mexico, described the campaign in Mexico and across Ibero America to recruit youth to the movement, emphasizing that they need to be educated to understand the necessary economic policies, and that they must learn that a certain tension is required to get people to understand the urgency of nonviolent direct action. She said they use Martin Luther King’s book, Why We Can’t Wait, as a guide.

The ‘Golden Rule’ Is Universal

Tamer Mansour, an Egyptian who has recently written several articles on the life and economic thinking of Lyndon LaRouche, pointed to the Suez Crisis of 1956 as a demonstration that, even at the peak of the Cold War, the U.S. and the USSR could work together, as they countered the evil of the UK, France and Israel’s seizure of the Suez Canal after Egypt had nationalized it. He pointed to the “Golden Rule,” in its Christian form as well as its Islamic form, as a universal guiding principle for relations among all nations.

Dennis Small thanked him for his study and writing about LaRouche, which is particularly important, he said, since he (Small) and others had been persecuted and imprisoned for their cooperation with LaRouche by people who had never read a word LaRouche had said! Mansour added that when a country is repeatedly denounced as “evil,” you will get the expected result, adding that Egypt, Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan are all ancient nations which can contribute to a dialogue of cultures.

Discussion

A supporter who has attended multiple IPC meetings and has often expressed his opposition to nuclear power, said he has now met with several Schiller Institute members and that “I am capable of change.”

A proposal for a book for children on history was proposed, which Dennis Speed supported, suggesting a project with a team of people to prepare questions to be addressed for such a project. Another project proposed was to address the difficulty of getting people to consider issues of war which they don’t want to think about. The idea was proposed to create CCC camps (based on President Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps) to engage youth, prisoners, and others in constructive work and to provide them with education.

A question was asked about the propriety of “having fun” while horrible killing is taking place. Dennis Small addressed the role of humor and creativity, noting that Sholem Aleichem, a Jewish author, used humor to address the oppression of Jews, and that LaRouche always insisted that a sense of humor was necessary to solve serious problems. British geopolitics, he said, could be considered to have the slogan, “don’t have fun.”