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Schiller Institute Event in New York: Seize the Opportunity—
End America's Blindness, Restore Its Vision

November 2014

The New York-New Jersey chapter of the Schiller Institute convened 175 people for a conference entitled, "Seize the Opportunity--End America's Blindness, Restore Its Vision", on November 22 at New York City's All Souls Church on 80th Street and Lexington Avenue. The conference was dedicated to President John F. Kennedy and the victims and families of 9/11.

The program began with the Schiller Institute Chorus performing "Dona Nobis Pacem", followed by "The Star-Spangled Banner". Institute representative Dennis Speed then welcomed the audience. After pointing out that "it was shortly after this time of day, 51 years ago, that the United States was told that President John Kennedy was dead", Speed went on to say:

"But in a larger sense, we are not brought together by those terrible events. In a larger sense, those events were the violent reactions to the vision of the world that Kennedy advanced, a vision that was hated by the perpetrators of those events.

"Every time a Chinese astronaut teaches a class to 60 million children from space, every time an Indian space orbiter greets an American orbiter over Mars, every time Russian cosmonauts at the International Space Station set a new record for time spent walking in space, every time a European Space Agency vehicle tackles a comet ten years and millions of miles away, John Kennedy smiles...

"Today, the truth is that China, Russia, India and other nations are proposing to the United States that the Alliance For Progress that Kennedy actually proposed, which now has its highest expression in the lunar mining program of China, and is called the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) policy, is a new birth of government of, by, and for the people. That will never become US policy unless one section of the American citizenry organizes the rest of America to dare to know the truth, so that the truth can set us free from our present dark American nightmare."

This was followed by a performance of the Inroit and Kyrie sections of the Mozart Requiem. Terry Strada, National Co-Chair of 9/11 Families United For Justice Against Terrorism was in the front of the church; several people attending had also lost relatives or friends in the attacks, and referred to that later in the proceedings. The acoustics of the church sanctuary served the chorus well, and several contacts spoke of how much they appreciated the Mozart being performed. One participant pointed out that "the immortal mind of Mozart was reaching out across centuries to speak on behalf of Kennedy and the victims of 9/11, and more importantly to us, the living, still fighting for the future of all of mankind."

Jeff Steinberg, senior editor of Executive Intelligence Review, spoke on "The Erinyes Principle: The BRICS Nations Revive JFK's New Frontier". This presentation inverted the usual well-intentioned but defeatist reminiscences of Kennedy. After referring to his own personal experience, and that of many of the audience members, of the sense of deep loss from November 22, 1963 until today--"frozen in time and frozen in shock"-- Steinberg drew the experiential parallel to 9/11. "In both cases, there has been a betrayal of the American people; they have been deprived of the truth. But we must reflect on Kennedy's 1000 days", that is, the accomplishments and unfinished battles for the good of that administration.

Kennedy matured from the time of the October, 1962 "Twelve Days" Cuban Missile Crisis. The President vowed ,"We can never again allow the world to be this close to catastrophe again". He then worked to establish the framework to end the Cold War, especially as stated in the American University speech of June, 1963.

Kennedy wanted to return to the Quincy Adams foreign policy of sovereign nation-states organized jointly as a "community of principle". On the eve of the assassination, he put forth the executive orders to withdraw troops from Vietnam. He was constantly in a war with Wall Street. His optimistic vision of the world defined a choice for the youth of the nation between the Peace Corps and the Apollo space program.

From the traumas of the assassinations of the 1960's we went into collective mass insanity, Steinberg continued. America outsourced the industrial base that had won the Second World War, the greatest concentration of human economic production capacity ever, and degraded its workforce to its present "post-industrial" condition.  Now, however, there is again hope: the Trans-Atlantic nations' IMF system has run its course, and we have the emergence of the BRICS(Brazil/Russia/India/China/South Africa) Alliance, of the revival of the outlook and policies that were characteristic of the US during the Kennedy period.

Steinberg reviewed the July and post-July world physical-economic upshift with the BRICS policies, and then juxtaposed this to the insane provocations occurring in the same time period against Russia and other nations, most notably the Ukraine confrontation. Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche's initiatives from 1996, to extend her and Lyndon LaRouche's November 1989 Eurasian Land-Bridge policy to Asia as a whole, was concretized in a  June '96 conference in China, with the adoption of the Silk Road policy, and the subsequent creation of institutions such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The BRICS process is a further realization of this process. "We now have the opportunity to turn the clock back to the American system. We now have a better framework to realize the ideals and potential of the US than at any point since 1963."

Steinberg concluded by discussing the new EIR report, "The New Silk Road Becomes The World Land-Bridge". "This report is a blueprint for man's advancement for the next 50-100 years. It's multi-generational plan for mankind to live up to its potential". He spoke about a visit he had made to Japan 14 months ago. "When we, in our discussions with ourJapanese co-thinkers, said, 'the world needs this',  they said to us: "if you had come to us 20 years ago we would have been able to tell you to whom to go to speak. The machinery of government would have moved immediately. None of that now exists." They told us that they had to rely on us to make this happen. Last year, when that discussion occurred, none of the recent developments had occurred. We knew that that direction was necessary. This report was born before these events." That ability to forecast the future, a ability that economic forecaster LaRouche has called "the only truly human way of thinking" is what distinguishes EIR's approach from all others.

To deepen the audience's acquaintance with the idea of "the Erinyes Principle", the Friedrich Schiller poem, "Die Kranische des Ibykus"/"The Cranes of Ibykus" followed, recited in (pre-recorded) German by Karsten Werner and projected in an English translation, line by line, to the assembly. The audience concentration was here most notable, as well as the differentiation in voicing in the recitation itself; there was no motion in the room for the ten minutes of poem-song. Prior to its being played, Speed reported observations on the poem prepared by Helga Zepp-LaRouche of  "Nemesis and Schiller’s ‘Cranes of Ibykus’":

"I think the way Schiller treats Nemesis, and he studied it in actually all the great tragedians of Classical Greece, is as the idea that, if you put guilt on yourself, you invite a higher lawfulness to strike you down. You cannot violate the order of creation without that happening. Sooner or later — it’s not like an instantaneous response, but sooner or later, it comes. Civilizations which have violated the order of creation over longer periods of time, bring  doom upon themselves. Which is why, if we don’t correct the present situation, the idea of mankind shrinking to half a billion people, is an imminent, visible possibility one can see on the horizon. Why? Because we are violating the laws of the universe, in the present political order. Schiller worked on this again and again, but I think the most beautiful, coherent, powerful way is his poem  “The Cranes of Ibykus.” Here, basically, he has the murder of the poet Ibykus. The cranes fly over, and Ibykus says,  “If there is no one else to avenge my murder, I call upon you cranes to be my vengeance.”

Returning to Helga's remarks at the end of the recitation, Speed cited the following:
"In the letters between Goethe and Schiller, Schiller actually says that the murderers do not reveal themselves because they feel guilty, since they are such evil killers that they don’t feel guilt. They don’t have this conscience. They reveal themselves because of the earlier appearance of the Erinyes, because something totally sublime, something totally “eerie,” has been established. And, therefore, they lose control and give the secret away. And they are immediately seized and thrown before a tribunal, and are tried." The audience was admonished that they had to play the same role as the Erinyes with respect to matters of justice and matters of policy-making, such as the United States' involvement in the BRICS process.

Jason Ross both of 21St Century Science and Technology Magazine and the LaRouche Basement Team then spoke, on "Space, Science and Humanity: the BRICS perspective"  Ross began: While we are fighting evil, we have to live for the good, as expressed, for example, in the Apollo project. As we see with Curiosity, with Chang'e and the Lunar Rover, with the Indian Mars orbital mission, with the Chinese satellite to the moon and back, and with the Rosetta mission, this is the science of the good." Ross then went into Russian scientist Vladimir  Vernadsky's idea of going beyond biological evolution to the effect of the noosphere on the planet as a whole, "the Promethean idea". Taking up the non-linear upward transformations in energy flux-density, as the key difference between man and beast--the capacity to discover, invent and deploy ever-more efficient forms of fire--Jason reviewed the history from the Bronze Age, through the age of physical chemistry, and the nuclear/thermonuclear age. Since 1963, Ross pointed out the power curve in America has not gone up since Kennedy.


Notably, Ross pointed out the "Kennedy like" overture made by President Xi Jinping of China to President Barack Obama, inviting the United States to join the BRICS nations in their "Apollo project" of building a new economic platform, not only throughout the planet, but "in space" as well:

"The Pacific Ocean is broad enough to accommodate the development of both China and the United States, and our two countries to work together to contribute to security in Asia. These are mutually complementary efforts instead of mutually exclusive ones...  

I also introduced to President Obama China's initiatives of establishing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund. Underdeveloped infrastructure is the main bottleneck obstructing the economic development in Asia. China has initiated the AIIB in order to offer support and facility to regional infrastructure development.

These proposals and initiatives are open and inclusive in Asia; they are not exclusive. We welcome the active participation of the United States and other relevant countries so that together we can promote and share prosperity and peace in Asia Pacific.

China is ready to work with the United States to make efforts in a number of priority areas and putting into effect such principles as non-confrontation, non-conflict, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation. And with unwavering spirit and unremitting efforts, we will promote new progress in building a new type model of major-country relations between the two countries, so as to bring greater benefits to our two peoples and two countries."

This presentation allowed the participants to now locate the higher significance of the moral downshift in thinking in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, and its physical effect on the universe as a whole. It also made very clear the connection between the capacity of mankind to discover the truth and its willful creation of a human identity. Human identity is not a biologically determined fact, but a noetically determined process of discovery. And thinking is a geological phenomenon, the most significant physical capacity for change in the entire world and by implication, the entire known universe.

Terry Strada, National Co-Chair of 9/11 Families United For Justice Against Terrorism was greeted by the audience with a standing ovation. Though a few in the audience had heard her speak previously, the impact of her presentation was perhaps the greatest of any heard at the meeting. Several people in the audience had either been at or near the WTC site on September 11, 2001; others had lost loved ones in the catastrophe. In the question and answer period, Strada extended her appearance to take the several questions that were as much requests to help her in her quest to secure the 28 pages as they were attempts to clarify some point of concern or confusion about the post 9/11 response of government and private organizations and individuals.

Strada's presentation was preceded by a video prepared for release at the meeting called "Declassify the 28 Pages: Support House Resolution 428". The first speaker on the video (which includes Congressmen Walter Jones of North Carolina, Stephen Lynch and Thomass Massie as well as former Senator Bob Graham), is Congressman Jones: "I have joined Stephen Lynch and Thomas Massie. Stephen Lynch is a Congressman from Massachusetts, and Congressman Massie from Kentucky and myself have joined in a letter to President Obama. 'We write today to urge you to declassify the 28 redacted pages of the Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Activities Before and after the terrorist attack.."

Ray McGovern, a hero to many because of his having been focibly ejected from a recent meeting at the 92nd St. Y featuring David Petraeus, not thoroughly documented not only the case for the release of the 28 pages, but urged people present to "put your bodies on the line" to challenge the secret government/surveillance apparatus.

McGovern began: "At one time, I was a young person. And when I heard in my senior year in college, John Kennedy in his inaugural address invite those of us who had something to offer, not to ask what the country could do for us, but what we could do for the country, like many other people my age, we were really inspired, and you know, there are still some of us left down there in Washington....

I had just entered the Central Intelligence Agency after being an army infantry and intelligence officer. I was there just seven months before President Kennedy was killed. So the poignant strains of the Mozart Requiem meant a lot to me today..."

McGovern, who had been illegally arrested at and ejected from an October 30 event at the 92nd St. Y, suffering  a fractured shoulder injury as a result, referenced a blog by author David Swanson that had appeared that day, called "Mark Udall and the Unspeakable". Swanson wrote that "the depth of elected officials' obedience to a permanent war machine is usually a topic avoided in polite company -- usually, not always. Back in 2011, the dean of the law school at UC Berkeley, a member of Obama's transition team in 2009, said publicly that Obama had decided in 2009 to block prosecutions of Bush-era criminals in part because the CIA, NSA, and military would revolt. Ray McGovern says he has a trustworthy witness to Obama saying he would leave the crimes unpunished because, in Obama's words, "Don't you remember what happened to Martin Luther King?" Neither of those incidents has interested major media outlets in the slightest...."

In his remarks to the Manhattan conference, McGovern emphasized the essential role of the 28 pages as the means to unravel what has largely been a cover-up, not only of the true authors of 9/11, but of the why behind 9/11. He spoke about the several Saudi connections of several members of the Bush Administration, but also made it clear that Democrats were no less guilty.

"Why should we care about all of this? One needs only to think of the still-disputed findings of the commissions that investigated the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, to feel the corrosive effects on the body politic when cataclysmic events like this are shoddily investigated or their conclusions deservedly suspect." McGovern then proceeded to detail various evidence of the involvement of Saudi Arabian-based operatives in 9/11.

Actor Walter Krochmal concluded the first part of the program with a performance/reading of  "The Masque of The Red Death" by Edgar Poe, "because" as Dennis Speed observed in introducing him, "since this is an American audience, you can't repeat the idea of Nemesis too much." This was followed by a fifteen minute break, and then questions and answers.  There was a concluding video message to the commemoration/conference from Neil Gallagher, close friend of John and Robert Kennedy and fighter for justice against the J. Edgar "Hooverized" United States since the time of the JFK, MLK AND RFK assassinations.

Gallagher referred to a speech he had given in March of 1970 to the New Jersey Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"(N)ever before in our history has the group of basic concepts embodied in the first Ten Amendments to our Constitution been under such constant and concerted attack as now...Mere necessity would not be sufficient, according to our founders, in order to justify a violation of the [right of privacy] security; something more would be required: probable cause. [Emphasis original.] The steady erosion of that founding conception has proceeded apace during the latter portion of the sixties and the opening months of this new decade...In a nation as large and complex as the United States, a nation which contains so many different cultural and ethnic heritages, no single class of men can be permitted to impose the standards of their group on the remainder of American society. Yet, in a very real sense, that is exactly what is happening today.

“...My friends, I must be candid with you and reveal to you my firm belief that we are in the process of losing our form of government and our way of life as it has developed since the founding of our Republic.  We are replacing democracy with something else, with something we have rejected throughout our history.

“Perhaps an illustration of what I mean may be found in the fact that a change from democracy to totalitarianism in those European states where such a change occurred was always preceded by stripping away of the same concepts as those guaranteed by our Fourth Amendment.

“The ruination of individual privacy has always heralded the destruction of human freedom.

“Indeed, the greatest privacy invader, dossier collector and information keeper known to this century was Adolf Hitler.

“And Hitler carried forth his privacy invasion, his destruction of the human personality without the benefit of computers – though I should tell you, in all seriousness, that one of the first orders for the new IBM punch cards was placed by the government of Nazi Germany ….

“Total information about individuals means total control over those individuals. …

“There are those in the government who are trying to use the opportunities for control created by this technology precisely for that purpose.  As I stated when I began this afternoon, these men may be, and no doubt are, motivated by sincere intentions; but the effect of their actions is astounding..."

Gallagher opened and concluded his statement with offering profound thanks to Lyndon LaRouche, Ray McGovern, and the Schiller Institute for this courageous fight that you continue to wage."