Harley Schlanger Update

Helga Zepp-LaRouche's description that we are "sitting on a powder keg" regarding relations between the U.S. and Russia was confirmed following the conclusion of talks Wednesday. A Russian spokesman said there is no "unifying, positive agenda" between Russia and NATO, as the West is choosing a Cold War containment strategy. A sudden outbreak of war is increasingly possible, as long as relations are defined by the imperatives of imperial geopolitics, i.e., divide the world into competing blocs, with the unipolar power of the U.S./NATO dictating terms. One flank, where cooperation is possible, is collaboration to rebuild Afghanistan. Join us, Jan. 17, at 11 AM EST, for our online seminar "To Stop the Murder in Afghanistan" (register here: https://schillerinstitute.nationbuilder.com/20220117-conference).

Has there been any progress in the ongoing talks between U.S. and Russian reps? The best that can be said is that it's good they are talking, but statements issued by them show that the Russians have not received the agreement they are seeking, as the U.S. continues to insist it will not accept Russian "red lines" on NATO expansion and arms to Ukraine. Meanwhile, the attempt at a "Color Revolution" coup in Kazakhstan has been thwarted by decisive action by the CSTO allies of the nation. "Russia will not allow a 'Color Revolution'", Putin stated yesterday, after revealing that "Maidan technologies" -- a reference to the methods used in the 2014 coup in Ukraine -- had been employed in Kazakhstan.

The talks between U.S. and Russian officials yesterday in Geneva reached no positive outcome. This should not be a surprise, as U.S. spokesman Ned Price announced that the U.S. "had not intended to reach any agreement with Russia." Will this attitude persist as the U.S. approaches further talks? With the Trans-Atlantic nations facing a deepening economic crisis, warnings of a "sharp correction" in hyper-inflated stock markets, the continuing disruption caused by the pandemic, starvation threatening 22 million in Afghanistan, and electricity blackouts in Germany, this is the time to move towards cooperation between sovereign nation states, rather than geopolitical confrontation to defend bankrupt corporate cartels.

Now is the perfect time for the people living in the Trans-Atlantic nations to come to their senses, and throw out the ideological insanity embodied in neoliberal, and neo-conservative policies. The security dialogues with Russia this week provide an opportunity to move away from geopolitical confrontation with Russia; hyperinflation, supply-chain breakdowns, and unsustainable debt expose the fallacy of radical free market/free trade policies; and winter has shown why the Green New Deal must be dumped. So let's get to work, and organize a new paradigm, based on the body of work done by statesman and economist Lyndon LaRouche.

by: Harley SchlangerJan. 8 -- Beginning on January 10, there will be three meetings which will include Russian and American representatives, in which the possibility exists that the tensions which have increased over Ukraine during the second half of 2021 will be addressed, resulting in a de-escalation. These meetings follow direct discussion in two video conferences in December between Presidents Putin and Biden, in which the most urgent issue addressed was the danger of war between Russia and Ukraine. U.S. intelligence claims to have evidence, based on Russian troop movements along the border, that they are preparing to invade Ukraine, as early as the end of January. President Putin dismissed this claim, raising instead his concerns over the possibility that Ukraine would be granted membership in NATO, a prospect he denounced as an unacceptable provocation, which would be the crossing of a "red line." While Biden insists that an offer of NATO membership is not imminent, the Russians have pointed to ongoing NATO-U.S. military exercises in Ukraine, and the provision of increasingly sophisticated weapons to Ukraine, as a threat to Russia's security. Putin has submitted drafts of two legally-binding treaties -- one for the U.S., one for NATO -- which would prevent further eastward expansion of NATO, would prohibit the delivery of new weapon systems to the Ukrainian military, and would pressure Ukraine to abide by the Minsk agreement which it signed to allow for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in the Donbas. He has been raising the need for security guarantees repeatedly, as the anti-Russian rhetoric and NATO military deployments have escalated. For example, he said in a speech delivered to the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi on October 21, that Ukraine does not even have to be given formal NATO membership to pose a strategic threat to Russia. "Formal membership in NATO ultimately may not happen, but the military development of the territory is already underway. And this really poses a threat to the Russian Federation....Tomorrow, rockets could appear near Kharkov, what are we going to do about it? It's not us placing our missiles there, it's them shoving theirs under our nose." He continued, referring to the February 1990 promise made to Soviet President Gorbachev by U.S. officials, on behalf of NATO, that no eastward expansion of NATO would occur after the reunification of Germany: "Everyone from all sides said that after the unification, in no circumstance would NATO infrastructure move toward the east. Russia should have been able to at least rely on that. That's what they said, there were public statements. But in practice? They lied...and then they expanded it once, and then they expanded it again." Putin elaborated his view of the threat to Russian security in a December 21 report to the Defense Ministry Board: "What they (the United States) are doing on the territory of Ukraine now -- or trying to do and going to do -- this is not thousands of kilometers away from our national border. This is at the doorstep of our home. They must understand that we simply have nowhere to retreat further....Do they think we don't see these threats? Or do they think that we are so weak-willed to simply look blankly at the threats posed to Russia?" Putin stressed that placing weapons with nuclear devices in Ukraine puts them within 5 minutes of Moscow! He continued, "As I have already noted, in the event of the continuation of the obviously aggressive line of our Western colleagues, we will take adequate retaliatory military-technical measures, and react toughly to unfriendly steps. And, I want to emphasize, we have every right to do so, we have every right to take actions designed to ensure the security and sovereignty of Russia....We are extremely concerned about the deployment of elements of the U.S. global missile defense system near Russia." In case the urgency and intensity of Putin's message were missed by the Trans-Atlantic powers, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated the non-negotiable nature of Putin's demand for the adoption of these treaties. Russia is preparing, he said, "to firmly and effectively pursue the agenda of defending our interests and refusing to make concessions that would be unilateral...."

by: Harley Schlanger Jan. 4 -- The idea proposed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche to make 2022 the "Year of LaRouche" is not an honorific request, shaped simply by a desire to see that an intellectual giant, the late Lyndon LaRouche (1922 to 2019), is given the recognition he richly deserves. It is, instead, a necessary intervention, to provide both world leaders and honorable citizens the profound, in-depth insight required to pull the world back from the danger of thermonuclear war -- which is what Mrs. LaRouche intends in making this proposal.Lyndon LaRouche had an absolutely unique knowledge of the dynamics that shape human history, which he presented as an integrated understanding of the inter-relationship between strategic relations, global financial and economic processes, scientific advance and culture. The solutions he developed to the civilizational crisis which has been unfolding and deepening since the end of World War II, and especially since the 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy, come from his "top-down approach," of the sort which few today can even appreciate, not to mention replicate. That is why the crisis today is an existential threat to human society, and requires a return to the quality of philosophical/scientific rigor which characterized the richness of his output over the last half-century. A short report cannot provide more than a glimpse into that work, However, a brief review of a statement he presented in a webcast on December 23, 2011, may inspire our readers to engage in a serious dialogue with the body of ideas which are the legacy of Lyndon LaRouche. The webcast was published under the headline, "To Stop Thermonuclear War, Bring on the World Economic Recovery." He begins by identifying the increased danger of war during the Obama presidency as coming from the "intention" of a global oligarchy, centered in the City of London and deploying Obama as their tool, "to eliminate two nations -- Russia and China." The urgency behind this is that the Trans-Atlantic world, since 2007, has faced an accelerating bankruptcy crisis. To protect the value of worthless paper in the hands of the financial institutions controlled by that oligarchy, they deployed central banks to pump unprecedented volumes of liquidity into the system, not to create a real, physical economic recovery, but to maintain the illusion of solvency. It was clear then, as it is today, that the sovereign nations of Russia and China would not submit to bailing out speculative predators, and that made them the ultimate targets. This process which he dissected then entered a new, even bigger phase, following the near-financial collapse in September 2019, with Russia and China again representing the major obstacles to a global financial dictatorship known as the Great Reset, to implement the Malthusian Green New Deal. Thus, the present provocations which are underway against Russia using Ukraine, and China using Taiwan. To shift the power away from the predatory looters of the City of London and Wall Street, which enforced the looting through the U,S. military, NATO and intelligence warfare, such as "regime change coups", he proposed an alliance of Four Powers -- Russia, China, India and the U.S. These nations possessed the potential economic might to enact the measures necessary to transition from the collapsed system into a New Paradigm. To accomplish this, he drafted his Four Economic Laws, which would begin by reaching an agreement to put the world economy through a "legitimate bankruptcy operation," centered around the 1933, Franklin Roosevelt policy of Glass Steagall banking separation. If this were done in a coordinated way today, it would wipe out the worthless debts sitting on the books of bankrupt financial institutions, which he called "gambling debts", opening the way for new credit issued by sovereign national banks, which would function as "Hamiltonian credit" institutions. Each nation would be able to generate credit into reviving the physical economy, with an emphasis on developing new platforms of infrastructure, and credit into areas at the frontiers of science, such as nuclear fusion, and space exploration. There is no other alternative to the "LaRouche Solution." Risking thermonuclear war to sustain a system which is hopelessly bankrupt is not an acceptable option.

Fearful that upcoming negotiations between the U.S. and Russia might lead to a de-escalation of the crisis in Ukraine, the City of London/Wall Street globalists are setting up a "bear trap" in Kazakhstan, in an effort to further demonize Putin and destabilize Eurasia. No shock here, to find George Soros and Tony Blair in the middle of things, another Color Revolution which, if successful, will benefit no one but the global oligarchy! The "democratic" self-proclaimed leader of the rioters is a former Energy Minister, a convicted embezzler whose party is coordinating the rampaging rioters from Kiev!

Helga Zepp-LaRouche raised the question today as to whether the rioters rampaging through the streets of cities in Kazakhstan are being deployed on behalf of a Color Revolution designed to derail the upcoming talks between officials of the U.S. and NATO with their Russian counterparts. She said she had been expecting something like this -- we don't know yet if it is, but we will investigate. A leading Russian analyst said he's hopeful that some positive changes may result from the upcoming meetings, pointing out that engaging in a dialogue is in itself some progress, especially after the hostile rhetoric of the recent years. He said the statement of the P5 members of the U.N. Security Council that "nuclear wars cannot be won, and should not be fought," is a "good first step", but must be followed by specific commitments -- such as cooperation in rebuilding Afghanistan.

There are many lies being spread by financial talking heads in the media about what is behind the inflation that is eating up your paycheck and savings. What is not being discussed is how the flow of an unprecedented volume of trillions of dollars to the biggest banks, to cover their speculative losses, is the actual driver of hyperinflation. This is a scandal! As Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup are rolling over tens of billions in overnight loans from the NY Fed -- of which they are the majority shareholders -- there has been a cut-off of credit to firms engaged in physical economic activity. This began before COVID and Green New Deal legislation. It must be ended by re-enacting Glass Steagall banking separation.

The Permanent 5 members of the UN Security Council announced their agreement that "Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought", in a statement issued on January 2. To realize this ideal, the practice of geopolitics, which underlies today's obsession with the "Rules-Based Order", and justifies the use of threats and military force to protect it, must be definitively rejected. The alternative to geopolitics is the adoption of the strategic, economic and cultural approach developed by Lyndon LaRouche, which is why Helga Zepp-LaRouche has called for 2022 to be the "Year of LaRouche."