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Dialogue of Cultures


Schiller Institute/ICLC 
Bad Schwalbach Conference

LaRouche Youth Movement:
‘A Second American Revolution’


March 21-23, 2003

Conference Declaration

Contact The Schiller Institute

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Go to Part II




Youth Panel



The Schiller Institute and Internatinal Caucus of Labor Committees (ICLC) met at Bad Schwalbach, Germany, on March 21-23, for a conference on "How To Reconstruct a Bankrupt World." Representatives attended from 45 nations, including 120 LaRouche Youth Movement activists from across Europe, and from the United States. What follows is a transcript of the panel given by youth organizers on March 23; plus two speeches on education, delivered at the panel on financial reform earlier on the same day. Some of the discussion has been translated from German. For transcripts of the other conference panels, see EIR, April 4, 11, and 18.

The Historic Mission of Joan of Arc

Erin Regan: The time to build a new worldwide Renaissance—it's here!

Now, the fact that all of us are gathered up here together at the same time, is very promising. Because if you asked us what time it was, most of us probably couldn't tell you, because we don't wear watches! One of the many flaws our generation has, is the problem of not wearing watches. It is a big characteristic we had to deal with in many offices throughout the United States. One example is that our NC [National Committee member] in Los Angeles had to go to the store and had to buy about 15 watches for all of us, so that we would be in on time.

So I would like to say that I agree wholeheartedly with the comment that [ICLC Executive Committee member] Will Wertz made the other day, that I've never been more proud to be an American, and I've never been more proud to be a human being. This weekend has demonstrated that justice must prevail, that Lyndon LaRouche's campaign will not take shape just in the streets and institutions in America, but all over the world. Joan of Arc was handed the helmet in Schiller's play as a metaphor of the historic mission that she must will, and the courage that she must accept. Lyndon LaRouche has handed us all that same helmet. It is dedicated to create a revolution to change the spirit of all of mankind.

How do we, in a sense, get out of the failure of the present moment? How do we move the world beyond the current dark hour? What would be the basis of a new Renaissance? That is what was in the minds and in the hearts of all the great republican thinkers for thousands of years, and this is what did come to blossom in the American Revolution. We are calling now and forever, for this tradition to become a reality in every part of the world. And this is what Lyndon LaRouche's movement represents. And we are gathered here at this panel, representatives of the future of what the universe must look like and what shape society must take.

Once again, the fear of Lyn [Lyndon LaRouche] and his ideas has the oligarchy quaking in their seats. They are terrified. And I think they are consulting with those little green men beneath the floorboards that Lyn refers to. And the biggest question ringing in their ears is: How does Lyndon LaRouche get all of these young people? Why can't we recruit the youth? Where did they come from?

Unfortunately, where we came from is why they are not recruiting us. Now, "What's wrong with where we came from?" some of you might ask. We are the Baby Boomers' kids, "Generation X," the "lost generation" or, as we all know, the "no-future generation." Any way you say it, it is not very uplifting. I am sure when our parents were young, they did not envision this as their legacy, but when they were challenged, they did very little in the face of corruption. Now LaRouche says that we have the potential to become the new Renaissance generation. And we were never told by anybody but Lyn, that we should do something good for humanity, that humanity needs us, and that we would be a part of humanity forever. What we were told instead was never to stand out: "Be part of the crowd!"...

We were always told, "Don't get political!" "Join the Army!" But then our parents said, "Preferably in a time when there is not a war." As you see on this man's T-shirt [indicating a transparency being shown], the new fashion is: "Be scared."

Lyn often refers to the "patchwork family" that we come from. I can tell you from personal experience, being in this organization for four years, that the amount of divorces, the divorce rate that you have in the United States in particular, is extremely high. In Los Angeles, almost everybody has been a part of the counterculture, where the most planning you have is the plan for the next "rave" that you go to. Not making a meeting in time or going to school. Most people are dropping out of school. Right now is the dark age. This culture might not be feeding Christians to the lions, probably because they taste like John Ashcroft....

But this culture is crumbling. And the missing principle was Lyn. The people that haven't met Lyn yet will be introduced to him, when we take over the United States and every country in the world. I would like to introduce to you and give you a visual idea of the LaRouche Youth Movement. We are inviting you—not checking your ID—and we want everybody to join this movement, because we need you, and you need us. Thank you.


Performance by Jessica Tremblay (soprano), Matthew Ogden (bassoon), and Megan Beets (flute) of the aria from J.S. Bach's St. John's Passion, "Ich folge dir gleichfalls...."


[Megan Beets reads the beginning of Friedrich Schiller's play, The Virgin of Orleans.]

Scene I

THIBUAT:Yes, beloved neighbors! To this day are we
Still Frenchmen, still free citizens and masters
O' th' ancient soil, the which our fathers plowed;
Who knows, who over us commands tomorrow!
For everywhere the Englishman doth let
His victory-laden banner fly, his steeds
Are trampling on the blooming fields of France.
Paris hath him as victor now received,
And with the ancient crown of Dagobert
Adorns the offspring of a foreign stem.
The grandchild of our King must wander round
In flight and dispossessed through his own realm,
And 'gainst him fights i' th' army of the foe
His closest cousin and foremost peer,
Yes, his own raven-mother it commands.
Around burn hamlets, cities. Nearer still
And nearer rolls the smoke of devastation
Into these valleys, which still rest in peace.
—Thus, beloved neighbors, I've resolved by God,
Because today it's still within my power,
To have the daughters cared for; for the woman
I'th' throes of warfare needeth a protector,
And true love helps to lessen every burden.
(To the first shepherd)
—Come, Etienne! My Margot do you court.
The acres come together neighborly,
The hearts are in agreement—that endows
A happy marriage!
(to the second)
Claude Marie! You're silent, And my Louison casts her eyes to th' ground?
Shall I divide two hearts, that found themselves,
Since you no treasures have to offer me?
Who now hath treasures? House and barns are both
The spoils of nearest enemy or fire—
The faithful breast o'th' upright man alone
Is a firm shelter in these stormy times.
LOUISON: My father!
CLAUDE MARIE: My Louison!
LOUISON (embracing JOHANNA): Beloved Sister!
THIBAUT: I give to each one thirty acres land
And stall and farmhouse and a herd—For God
Hath blessed me, and so doth he bless you too!
MARGOT (embracing JOHANNA): Delight our father. Follow our example!
Let us this day conclude three happy bonds.
THIBAUT: Go! Make the plans. Tomorrow is the wedding;
I want all in the town to join the feast.
(The two couples exit wound arm in arm.)

Scene II

THIBAUT: Jeanette, thy sisters now are getting married,
I see them happy, they delight my age;
But thou, my youngest, giv'st me grief and pain.
RAIMOND: What bothers you? Why do you scold your daughter?
THIBAUT: Here this brave youth, with whom no other can
Compare in all the town, the striking one,
He hath to thee his inclination turned
And sues for thee, already the third autumn,
With quiet wish, with heartfelt energy;
But thou dost him reject, reserved and cold,
Yet otherwise another of the shepherds
May win away from thee a kindly smile.—
I see thee in thy youthful fullness shine,
Thy spring is here, it is the time of hope,
Unfolded is the flower of thy body;
Yet e'er in vain I tarry, that the flower
Of tender love shall break from out its bud
And joyful ripen to the golden fruit!
O that doth please me nevermore and points
To grievous error in the ways of nature!
The heart doth please me not, that stern and cold
Locks up itself i'th' very years of feeling.
RAIMOND: Enough now, Father Arc! Let her alone!
The love of my most excellent Johanna
Is but a noble, tender heaven's fruit,
And quietly by steps the costly ripens!
Now she still loves to dwell upon the mountains,
And from the free and open heath she fears
To climb down here beneath the lowly roof
Of men, where none but narrow sorrows dwell.
Oft see I her from this deep vale with still
Astonishment, when she on lofty mead
I'th' middle of her herd stands towering,
With noble body, and her earnest look
Sends down upon the little lands o'th' earth.
Then seems to me she points to something higher,
And oft methinks, she stems from other times.
THIBAUT: That is just it, which is not pleasing to me!
She flees her sister's joyous company,
The desert mountains she seeks out, deserts
Her nightly bed before the call o'th' cock,
And on the hour of terror, when the man
So gladly joins with men in confidence
She sneaks, just like the bird with hermit traits
Off to the grayish gloomy spirit realm
Of night, treads home upon the crossroads, and
Holds secret dialogue with mountain air.
Wherefore selects she always this location
And drives her herd directly hitherward?
I see her pondering entire hours
Sit underneath the yonder Druid tree,
From which all happy creatures run away.
For monstrous is it here: an evil being
Hath had its habitat beneath this tree
Already since the old, gray heathen times.
The eldest in the village tell themselves
About this tree such dreadful, shocking tales:
Miraculous sounds of most peculiar voices
One often hears from out its gloomy branches.
E'en I myself, when once i'th' later twilight
The way was leading me near to this tree
Have seen a ghostly woman sitting here.
She slowly stretched from out the wide-spread pleats
Of her attire, a barren hand to me,
As if she were to beckon; but I hied
On by, commmended unto God my soul.
RAIMOND: (pointing to the holy image in the chapel)
The blessed nearness of this gracious image,
That here bestrews the Heaven's peace around it,
Not Satan's work, doth guide your daughter here.
THIBAUT: O no! no! Not in vain it shows itself
To me in dreams and anxious countenances.
On three occasions have I her beheld
To sit at Rheims upon our Monarch's throne,
A sparkling diadem of seven stars
Upon her head, the scepter in the hand,
From which three pure white lilies did spring forth,
And I, her father, both her sisters too
And all the princes, counts, archbishops and
The King himself did bow in front of her.
How comes to me such luster in my cottage?
O that doth indicate a deep event!
Symbolically this warning dream presents
To me the futile strivings of her heart.
She is ashamed of her own lowliness—
Since God bejeweled her body with rich beauty,
With high and wondrous presents her did bless
Above all shepherd-maidens of this vale,
So feeds she sinful arrogance i'th' heart.
'Tis arrogance, whereby the angels fell,
Whereby the spirit of Hell takes hold of man.
RAIMOND: Who nurses a more modest, virtuous mind
Than your own pious daughter? Is't she not,
Who serves her older sisters joyfully?
She is most highly gifted of them all,
And yet you see her as a lowly maid
Perform the hardest tasks in still obedience
And through her very hands so wonderful
The herds and crops as well do thrive for you;
Around whatever she creates pours forth
An inconceivable effusive bliss.
THIBAUT: Indeed! An inconceivable bliss—O'er me
Comes a peculiar horror at this blessing!
—No more thereof. I'm mum. I'll say no more;
Shall I accuse my very own dear child?
I can do nought but warn her, pray for her!
Yet I must give a warning! Flee this tree,
Do not remain alone and dig not roots
At midnight, do not there prepare a potion
And write not any symbols in the sand!
'Tis easy to tear ope the realm of spirits,
They lie in waiting 'neath a scanty cover,
And hearing quietly they storm up here.
Do not remain alone, for in the desert
Came Satan's angel to the Lord of Heaven.

Scene III

RAIMOND: Still! Here comes Bertrand back from out the city.
See, what he bears!
BERTRAND: You gaze at me, you are
Astonished by the implement so strange
Here in my hand.
THIBAUT: Indeed we are. Announce,
How came you by the helmet, why bring you
That evil symbol to this peaceful region?
(JOHANNA, who in both preceding scenes
stood aside in silence and without taking any
interest, grows attentive and steps nearer.)
BERTRAND: Scarce I myself can say, just how the thing
Hath fallen in my hand, I had bought up
Some iron implements at Vaucouleurs;
A mighty crowd I found there in the market,
For fleeing people had just then arrived
From Orleans with evil war reports.
In uproar crowded all the town together,
And as I make my way through all the bustle,
There steps a brown Bohemian woman toward me
With helm in hand, looks sharply in my eyes
And speaks: "Comrade, you're looking for a helm,
I know, you're seeking one. So here! Take this!
For but a trifling it is yours to buy."
"Go to the mercenaries," tell I her,
"I am a farmer, do not need the helmet."
But she did not let up and stated further:
"No man is able to assert, if he
Not need the helm. A steel roof o'er one's head
Is worth more now than is a house of stone."
So drove she me through all the lanes, on me
The helmet urging, which I did not want.
I saw the helm, that was so bright and fair
And worthy of the head of any knight,
And as I doubting weighed it in my hand,
Reflecting on the strangeness of th'adventure,
Then was the woman quickly from my sight,
The stream of people had her swept away,
And in my hands the helmet still remained.
JOHANNA: (quickly and eagerly grasping after it)
Give me the helm!
BERTRAND: What doth it you avail?
That is no jewel for a virgin's head.
JOHANNA: <(seizes the helmet from him)>
Mine is the helm and it belongs to me.
THIBAUT: What's happ'ning to the maid?
RAIMOND: Grant her the wish!
This warlike jewel doth befit her well,
For in her breast is locked a manly heart.
Reflect, how she o'ercame the tiger wolf,
The fiercely savage beast, that did our herds
So devastate, the dread of every herdsman.
She all alone, the lion-hearted virgin,
Fought with the wolf and wringed the lamb from him,
That he already bore in bloody throat.
Whatever valiant head this helmet covers
It can adorn none that's more worthy!
THIBAUT <(to BERTRAND)>: Speak!
What new calamity of war's occurred?
What tidings brought those fugitives?
BERTRAND: God help
The King and with this land commiserate!
We have been beaten in two mighty battles,
The enemy stands in the midst of France,
Abandoned are all lands up to the Loire—
Now hath he brought together his whole might,
Wherewith he doth beleaguer Orleans.
THIBAUT: May God protect the King!
BERTRAND: Immeasurable
Artillery is brought up from all sides,
And as the dark'ning squadrons of the bees
Swarm round the basket in the summer days,
As from the blackened air the locust clouds
Descend and cloak the fields for miles on end
In an incalculable teaming swarm,
So hath a cloud of war from many nations
Poured forth upon the fields of Orleans,
And from the unintelligible mix
Of tongues, the camp in dull confusion roars.
For even mighty Burgundy, the land's
Authority, hath brought up all its men,
Those from Liege and those from Luxemburg,
Those from Hainaut, and from the land Namur,
And those who live in fortunate Brabant,
The opulent Ghentians, who in silk and velvet
Strut proudly, those from Zeeland, whose clean city
Arises from the waters of the sea,
And the herd-milking Hollanders, and those
From Utrecht, yes from outermost West Friesland,
Who look toward the ice-pole—they follow all
The power-wielding Burgundy's command
To arms and wish to conquer Orleans.
THIBAUT: O the unholy pitiful disunion,
That turns the arms of France against the French!
BERTRAND: Her too, the aged Queen, proud Isabeau,
The princess of Bavaria, one sees,
In steel bedecked go riding through the camp,
With poison prickled words to instigate
To rage all of the nations 'gainst her son,
Whom she had borne in her maternal womb!
THIBAUT: A curse upon her! And may God one day
Destroy her as he did proud Jezebel!
BERTRAND: The terrible Earl Salisbury, the wall-
Destroyer, leads the forces of the siege,
With him the lion's brother Lionel
And Talbot, who with homicidal sword
Mows down entire nations in the battles.
In brazen spirit they have sworn an oath,
To consecrate all virgins to disgrace
And, who hath borne the sword, to th'sword to sacrifice.
Four lofty watch towers have they constructed,
To tower o'er the town; above spies out
Earl Salisbury with murder-eager look
And counts the speedy wand'rers on the lanes.
Full many thousand balls of hundredweight
Are slung into the city, churches lie
Below in ruin and the royal tower
Of Notre Dame bows its exalted head.
They have as well dug powder passages,
And thus above a hellish kingdom stands
The anxious city, waiting every hour,
As it becomes inflamed with thunderclap.
(JOHANNA listens with tense attention
and puts the helmet on.)
THIBAUT: However where were then the valiant swords
Saintrailles, LaHire and France's parapet,
The hero-minded Bastard, that the foe,
All powerful, so tearing forward pressed?
Where is the King himself, and looks he idly on
The kingdom's need and downfall of its cities?
BERTRAND: At Chinon now the King doth hold his court,
In need of men, he can not hold the field.
What use the leader's pluck, the hero's arm,
When pallid fear doth paralyze the army?
A terror, as if sent down here by God,
Hath even seized the bosom of the bravest.
In vain the prince's summons doth resound.
Just as the sheep uneasy crowd together,
Whene'er the howling of the wolves is heard,
So seeks the Frank, forgetting his old fame,
Alone the safety of the citadel.
A single knight alone, do I hear tell,
Hath brought a feeble troop of men together
And goes unto the King with sixteen ensigns.
JOHANNA (quickly): Who is the knight?
BERTRAND: He's Baudricour. Yet scarce
Can he deceive the foe's intelligence,
Who follows with two armies on his heels.
JOHANNA: Where halts the knight? Inform me, if you know.
BERTRAND: He stands but scarcely one day's trip away
From Vaucouleurs.
THIBAUT (to JOHANNA): What troubles thee? Thou ask'st
Of matters, Maiden, which befit thee not.
BERTRAND: Since now the foe's so mighty and no help
Is longer hoped for from the King, they have
At Vaucouleurs adopted with one mind
A resolution, to give up to Burgundy.
So we shall bear no foreign yoke and stay
With th'ancient royal stock—indeed perhaps
Shall we return once more to our old crown,
If Burgundy once reconciles with France.
JOHANNA (with inspiration):
Nought of agreements! Nought of giving up!
The savior nears, he arms himself for combat.
At Orleans shall the fortune of the foe be wrecked,
His measure's full, for harvest is he ripe.
The virgin with her sickle shall arrive
And shall mow down the products of his pride;
Down from the heaven she shall tear his fame,
Which he hath hung up high upon the stars.
Despond not! Do not flee! For ere the rye
Turns yellow, ere the lunar disc is full,
No English steed will longer drink from waves
Of the magnificently streaming Loire.
BERTRAND: Ah! Miracles no longer do occur!
JOHANNA: Yes, miracles still happen!—A white dove
Will fly and will attack with eagle's boldness
These vultures, who the fatherland tear up.
It will beat down this proud Burgundian,
Who hath betrayed the realm, and then this Talbot,
The heaven-storming hundred-handed one,
And Salisbury, the raper of the temples,
And also all these brazen island dwellers
Just like a herd of lambs she'll chase before her.
The Lord will be with her, the God of battles.
His trembling creature will he then elect,
And through a tender virgin he will choose
To glorify himself, for he's Almighty!
THIBAUT: What spirit taketh o'er the wench?
RAIMOND: It is
The helm, that so inspires her martially.
Look at your daughter now! Her eyes do flash,
And glowing fire flashes in her cheeks.
JOHANNA: This realm shall fall? This land of such renown,
The fairest, that th'eternal sun doth see
Throughout its course, the paradise of lands,
That God loves as the apple of his eye,
Shall bear the fetters of a foreign people?
—Here ran the heathen's might aground. Here was
At first the cross, the form of mercy raised,
Here rest the ashes of the holy Louis,
From out of here Jerusalem was conquered.
BERTRAND <(astonished)>:
Just listen to her talk! Whence did she draw
This lofty revelation?—Father Arc,
To you gave God a daughter wonderful!
JOHANNA: No more shall we have monarchs of our own,
Nor shall we have a master native born—
The king, who never dies, shall vanish from
The world—he who protects the holy plough,
Who the flock protects and fruitful makes the earth,
Who the bonded serf leads to his liberty,
Who the cities joyfully puts round his throne,
Who standeth by the feeble and the evil scares,
Who of envy nought doth know—for he's the greatest—
Who a man is and an angel of compassion
Upon this earth so hostile.—For the throne
Of monarchs, which with gold doth shimmer, is
The lodging of th' abandoned ones—here stand
Both might and heartfelt charity—here quakes
The guilty one, with trust the righteous one comes near
And jesteth with the lions round the throne!
The foreign monarch, who comes from abroad,
Whose father's holy bones do not repose
In this ancestral land, can he it love?
He who was never young among our youth,
Unto whose heart our words will never ring,
Can he a father be to his offspring?
THIBAUT: God fend for France and for its King! We are
A peaceful country folk, who know not how
To wield the sword nor romp on martial steed.—
Obeying quietly let us await,
Whom victory will give us as a king.
Success in battle is but God's decree,
And he's our master who the holy chrism
Receiveth and puts on the crown at Rheims.
—Come to the labor! Come! And think each one
But on the one that's next! And let the grand,
The princes of the earth draw lots for land;
The devastation we can calmly spy,
For firm in storm the soil we till doth lie.
In flames our villages may burn to th' ground,
The horses' steps may trample down the rye—
But the new spring will bring our crops thereby,
And quickly do our fragile huts rebound.

(All except the maiden exit.)


And it is actually from this valley, that Friedrich Schiller has his Johanna go; and she chooses to leave this valley and to go to these burning cities, and she chooses, as a young shepherdess, to become a warrior for the fate of her country. So the question is at that point: What is the king doing? What is this disposessed king doing?

The first encounter we have with Friedrich Schiller's King Charles, he is sitting in his court, surrounded by jugglers and troubadours, and he has just received the news that his field commander of his army has just quit. And that his soldiers, his mercenaries, are about to disperse because they have not been paid, and the whole treasury is empty. So it is a pretty desperate situation.

Again, the messenger comes in and he receives the news that the Duke of Burgundy, who was referred to as his closest cousin, his foremost peer, who was fighting on the side of the English, has actually refused King Charles's offer to reconcile.

So here come three councilman of the city of Orleans. They come and fall on their knees at the foot of the King, and they beg him at the last moment to come in. To send his army in and to not let this jewel of France fall, to give them his protection. And in complete despair what Charles said to them is: "God shelter you, I can do no more." And he prepares to withdraw across the river and completely give up.

Now, it is at this point that we actually receive news that the French forces have prevailed at Orleans and it's a virgin that led them. This is something worth mentioning, to perhaps encourage you to take up Schiller's challenge in the development of this play: That in a moment of death, at the end of this play, the last line that Johanna gives to us as a challenge is: "Kurz ist der Schmerz, ewig ist die Freude," "Brief is the pain, the joy shall be eternal."


Tina Rank: Moreover, the question is now, why have Joan, and Schiller—as he represents Joan—why have these two, over generations, won their battle again and again? And how can I assert that? The first time I had that play, The Virgin of Orleans, in my hands, I thoroughly devoured it! I come from eastern Germany. We had a revolution in 1989. Our parents fought—but for what? What does one fight for, when he has no route, and no destination? And what still remains from it? We have embraced a system in which this generation—without prospects—is floating in a certain hopelessness. It's not only like that just in eastern Germany, but really in the whole world. We have to face the question, what is there for our generation? Should we be stupefied, because of the intentions of our parents, and because of this counterculture? We'll leave this an open question for now.

What was it like in Joan's time? It really didn't look a lot different. The people then also had little hope, they had almost a hundred years of war between nations, a total dead-end society, where people bankrupted themselves or nursed their egos. People are born and die. Then came a girl, a woman, who said, "Something has run off the path here!" She realized that what people were doing in this dead-end society was not something to live or die for. Joan recognized this. She stepped outside the situation, with this understanding, and she fought, she fought for France. But the difference from today was, she wasn't only fighting for the security or freedom of her country; rather, she was fighting for principles. One of her missions—beyond the liberation of Orleans—was to make the true king into a real king. How are we to understand that? Friedrich Schiller put these beautiful words on her lips:

No more shall we have monarchs of our own,
Nor shall we have a master native born—
The King, who never dies, shall vanish from
The world—he who protects the holy plow,
Who the flock protects and fruitful makes the earth,
Who the bonded serf leads to his liberty,
Who the cities joyfully puts round his throne,
Who standeth by the feeble and the evil scares,
Who of envy nought doth know—for he's the greatest—
Who a man is and an angel of compassion
Upon this earth so hostile.—For the throne
Of monarchs, which with gold doth shimmer, is
The lodging of th' abandoned ones—here stand
Both might and heartfelt charity—here quakes
The guilty one, with trust the righteous one comes near
And jesteth with the lions round the throne!
The foreign monarch, who comes from abroad,
Whose Fathers' holy bones do not repose
In this ancestral land, can he it love?
He who was never young among our youth,
Unto whose heart our words will never ring,
Can he a father be to his offspring?

(The Virgin of Orleans, Prologue, Scene iii)


What Joan really meant by this, is, in principle, nothing other than what Lyn is doing today. Joan intended to give a person the strength—a king, a man, who truly approaches the matter of taking responsibility for his people, with principles; to lay the foundation stone so that man can develop himself further, can strive for that which is higher—and not have to worry himself all day about where he can get something to eat; to establish the economic and educational foundation for this.

It is a natural law, that man is born in order to strive for something higher. Joan realized, that it doesn't work any other way, and Schiller lets her say that.

The Virgin of Orleans was one of the first plays that I read, when I first became familiar with the organization. Schiller allowed me to see something—me, and I am sure, others also, who have read it—a brief moment of joy. He gave me an insight, and proved to me, that there are grounds for hope: For there is something higher! He gave me the strength, and the power, and the incentive to continue to fight. Schiller understands how to stimulate this potential of man: "Joy, joy, beautiful divine sparks" ["Freude, Freude schöne Götterfunken"], is the best example. He means, the spark which every man carries in himself. Schiller and Joan, precisely, were people who manifest that again and again—right up until today, since there are so many people here. Therefore, they have won their battle. They took these sparks, and struck and puffed on them so long, that they kindled a fire. But best, discover for yourself what Joan and Schiller wanted to say. For that purpose, we have just a little incitement for you, from the beginning, the Prologue, of Schiller's Virgin of Orleans:


[Megan Beets reads Prologue, Scene iv:

"Farewell you mountains ... all the trumpets sound."

Tina Rank recites the same passage in German.]

How Do We Find the Truth?

Jason Ross: I'm Jason from California, and I'll introduce a new theme here, which is: How do you know what to do—once you have the will?

As everybody knows, LaRouche has been hitting constantly on Gauss's 1799 report on his proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra. Now, Gauss wrote this paper for today, to stop this war. Because what he goes through is exactly what Lyn went through on Friday [in his opening speech to the conference]: How do you get out of a tragedy? How do you solve, with a truthful method, a tragedy, to get yourself out of it? The way we got into this crisis is through many years of bad thinking.

We'll go back to the Greeks, to Plato: the Meno dialogue of Socrates with the slave-boy Meno. Socrates asks the slave-boy a simple question: "You have never been trained in geometry, have you?" And the boy says, "No." And Socrates: "Okay, here is a square. I want you to double that square, to make it twice as big" (Figure 1). Has anybody an idea, what the slave-boy's first guess is? [Someone in the audience replies.]

Okay, let's double the size of this side and that side. The thing is, if you do that, you get a square that consists of four of the original squares (Figure 2). So, it is a little bit too big.

Next, he says, maybe let's just make the side one and a half as long as the first one (Figure 3). And if you do that, look what we've got here: You've got the original square on the lower left, and these two rectangles above and to the right of it. Each of those is half a square, so with the square and those two you already have doubled the area. And this "little guy" here is also there—you are too big. So you are off again.

But Socrates gives him a hint: "Look at the square. It is made up of four triangles, that the original square had two of. Great, it is twice as big. The question is, though, how long is that line, the length of the side, to make the square twice as big? Does anyone know how long that line is? I heard: 1.4, or 1.4 and something. I don't know whether that would cut it with Plato. Is anyone going to say: "The square root of 2"? Okay, but this just means: The side of a square of 2 is the square root of 2. That's not an answer, that's just another question.

Now, we take the diagonal of the square: Let's look at its length in terms of the original line that we had (Figures 4-5). How are we going to get it? It wasn't twice as big, it wasn't one and a half times as big. And the square of 2, does anyone know how big it is? Wow, it is somewhere between 1 and 2, and there is a whole infinity of numbers between those. You get one and one-half, one and one-third, one and one-fifth, one and two-fifths, one and three-eighths, there is an endless supply of numbers there. But nobody in here, with a whole infinity of numbers, can say what it is? Even though it is right there, plain as day in front of us, it's just the size of a square right there, the diagonal?

Something interesting. Maybe we just found something that was beyond the infinite. Maybe our idea of what is possible to do is not going to cut it, to solve the problem represented?

So, let's investigate whether we can figure it out or not (Figure 6). To find out if two numbers can be looked at in terms of each other—I forget who came up with this—there is this process: See the black line onto the thick line on top, on the left and the right. It's two quantities. See if you can compare these two with each other. Take the shorter one and remove it from the longer one. And you see if you can put the longer into the short one again. Here it works. This new shorter length goes into the length on the left twice. A relationship of 2:3 or 11/2. Maybe we have to keep trying and spend our whole life, looking for the size of the side of the square (Figure 7).

You kept trying it out, getting smaller and smaller pieces. But it never quite goes away. There is something there you just don't get.

Let's say we did figure it out, we got some fraction N over D (N is the numerator on the top, D is the denominator at the bottom). So we take that fraction, make a square out of it and have an area of two. The top part square is twice the bottom part square. Numbers are even or odd, right? Let's say the top part is odd (Figure 8).

The odd part square on the top is twice something else, and if you've got twice something, it is going to be even. So you can divide it into two parts. Has anybody seen an odd number squared that became even? Does that ever happen? So we failed. Maybe the numerator is even, maybe that is the trick. And if the denominator is also even, then you can divide both of them by 2, and again and again, until you get one of them to be odd. So, let's say the denominator is odd. An even number times itself is twice an odd number times itself. The thing is, if you get rid of this 2 in front of the two odd numbers, you cut it in half, it's still even on the left. And an even number can't be an odd number. So, we really have found something that we honestly can't express with our numbers. We can find things that we can't solve by analyzing with what we already know.

So this points us in the direction of discoveries. Now, with these squares and lengths you could look at relations between them. This is where algebra came from; it came from a fellow called al-Kharizmi who was looking at squares, cubes, lengths, and asking, what is the relationship between these areas? So you could pose a question, like people are tortured with in math classes, like: x2+10x=24. Look at it in terms of a square. It's x on each side, a rectangle, 10 by x in an area of 24. They could pose a question which they couldn't answer. What if I had a negative area? x2+1 = nothing? Can you have a negative area? Can you get paid to live in an apartment with a negative floor-area? No, you can't. So, they were stuck. They ran into something they couldn't solve. And they said: I guess there are questions that shouldn't be asked, because we can't answer. Too bad.

Then mathematicians came up with something absolutely shocking (Figure 9). They said, wait, instead of saying this is something that's not real, let's say we can use it. Let's say, we have the square root of —1, let's admit that. With that we can solve tons more equations. We can do all sorts of things now. It was an incredible discovery. It worked great. But what is it? Does it have an "is"? Is it just an effect? If somebody asked you how a car works and you say, well you push the gas pedal and it goes forward, is that an answer? No, you are just telling what it does.

This is where the difference between Gauss, and Euler and Lagrange, comes in. Euler and Lagrange were perfectly contented to say, well it works, doesn't it? What more do you want? It is a discovery, sure. We can use it to solve a number of equations. But for one thing, Gauss showed that it doesn't work. And it doesn't give you a new principle to impact the Noösphere with.

It is like another great discovery in the same vein: derivatives. Let's say you are running out of money. Your financial system is collapsing. So you just invent some derivatives, you sell weather. Enron did it, and it worked great, right?

Wait a minute, no, it didn't work. If you try to fake it, the universe is going to know. If you go into your own domain in math and try to prove something that doesn't exist, the universe is going to tell you, it doesn't exist. It is going to present you with a paradox, which is good. Because it gives you something new to find out. So, when you get this feeling in your head: "I don't really get this, I don't know what is going on," that's good, be happy about it. What Gauss did in elaborating what —1 was (I'm not going into the details here, we could do that tonight or as homework), he found another, an even higher idea of number, than this one with the diagonal of the square. And, this is important for us today. He said: If you want to know the truth, you have to dump your ego that wants to say it knows everything, and find out why the universe is telling you that you are wrong.

This is what LaRouche said all science is about. That's what he said at the Lebedev Institute. He said what we call modern physical science is based on taking what people believe is the organization of the universe, and proving, it's wrong. So I want to let Jeanne d'Arc take up that theme.

Ending a Dark Age: Joan's Triumph

Elodie Viennot: Hello, my name is Elodie from France. I am going to come back to Jeanne d'Arc indeed, because she was in a situation at her time very similar to what we are faced with today—which is, the fate of civilization was threatened. France was actually doomed. Everywhere villages were being burned. You had bandits running the countryside. It was desperate. The king was not doing anything to save the nation, and the British had already invaded most of the northern part of France.

[She shows a map of the British conquest of France.] In 1429, specifically, the war has been going on for 92 years. And the French have been into a pattern of losing those battles in most of the recent decades. And it's getting very dangerous—just as today. We have a war that could punch us into the most violent dark age we have ever seen. At her time there was one city left, called Orleans, that was holding the British from spreading into [all of] France, spreading all over Europe, provoking the same type of violent dark age as the type of danger we are faced with today. So, the question, when you are faced with such a crisis, obviously, there is something wrong with the way your civilization is operating.

When Axioms Fail

So what Jeanne looked at: You have to find the failure. You have to find where we failed, that produced such a danger and such horror, which is not just about what you feel, it's about succeeding and accomplishing the change. And that's where Lyn has been talking all the time about the question of axiomatics. Because you cannot go with fixed measures in those situations. You can go into Iraq right now, if you want, but that is not going do anything. You can go and sell all your jewels; in Jeanne's time, you could have sold all your jewels and given the money to the King for him to feed the troops. That would not have changed anything, because there was an axiomatic error in the way people were thinking.

Now, what happened with the city of Orleans, is, there was one hope. The British have their supplies coming: the food, the ammunitions, some more soldiers, coming to help the siege. The British have been besieging Orleans for seven months. The inhabitants of Orleans are starting to be a little bit too desperate. They are running out of ammunition, out of food, and out of people. So this is really an extremely dangerous time. The British are coming with supplies for the siege. This caravan, the French army knows what road it will take. So this is the hope. This is the hope, to break the supply line and make sure the siege will not be able to hold much longer. So they go in. The French have more soldiers than the British, they have cannon, artillery, while the British only have archers. But they lose, again and again and again. No matter how much force they have. So there is an axiomatic problem, it is pretty clear.

What happens afterwards is, Jeanne d'Arc comes in. She arrives in the city of Orleans on a white horse with a white banner saying "Jesus—Maria." That's a little bit different idea of war than what we have seen before. We have feudal lords who, besides fighting amongst each other, fought against the British by sending their subsidized cannon fodder onto the battlefield. Jeanne d'Arc comes in. She had just sent a letter to the British on her way to the city, which I am going to quote right here because you need to understand that she was not operating on any fancy idea here. She sent to the British a warning of her coming:

"Jesus, Maria! King of England and you Duke of Bedford, you call yourself regent of the Kingdom of France; you, William de la Pole, Sir Talbot, and you, Sir Thomas Skills, who call yourself lieutenant of the aforesaid Duke of Bedford; render your count to the King of Heaven. Surrender to the Maid who was sent from God, the King of Heaven, the keys to all the good cities you have taken and violated in France. She has come here from God to proclaim the blood royal. She is entirely ready to make peace if you are willing to settle accounts with her, provided that you give up France and pay for having occupied her. If you do not do so, I am commander of the armies and in whatever place I shall meet your French allies, I shall make them leave it. Whether they wish it or not. And if they will not obey, I shall have them all killed. I am sent from God, the King of Heaven, to test you out of all friends, body for body. And if they wish to obey, I shall have mercy on them. And believe firmly, that the King of Heaven will send the Maid more force than you will ever know how to achieve with all of your souls on her and on her good men-at-arms. And in the exchange of blows we shall see who has the better right from the King of Heaven."

And she has not received any answer, meaning that she is going to attack them. So before the battle starts, she gets everybody to swear that they are going to be profoundly moral, that they are not going to fight out of revenge. They are not going in and kill like monsters. They are not going in and rape the women. She also gets them to swear that they are not going to have sexual fantasies about her, because she is dealing with an army of men who are not exactly the most humanist people.

This is very important to have a moral quality to the army. Look at today. If we had a youth movement without the pedagogical work, without keeping track of Lyn's thinking all the time, forget it. People are brought up in a completely amoral society. And you cannot win any battle like that.

So Jeanne d'Arc gets them to swear all this. And she is still fighting against the people in her army. The military commanders don't want to go and fight the siege of the British. They really don't. They have even ordered the mayor of the town not to open the drawbridges, so that Jeanne d'Arc can't go out and fight. So when she goes to the mayor and he explains this to her, she draws her sword out and says, I will cut your head off, if you do not let me out. So he opens the bridge. And the old generals, the old aristocratic commanders, scramble behind to catch up with her. And she leads the charge.

The first day of battle is a hard and bloody day. She is wounded. But she goes back the next day anyway. And when she goes back, by the end of the day, she is about clear that the British are ready to be defeated. Remember, the siege has been going on for seven months. The next day, the third day of the battle, is very challenging. The British have maneuvered themselves into their most advantageous formation. They have the best archers in all of Europe. They have all their archers and longbowmen, which is another type of archers, lined up together, facing the French Army, which is armed to the teeth, ready to fight. And the British archers are hiding behind wooden poles stuck into the ground, sharpened and pointing towards the French, meaning you can't attack the British. They are going to kill the entire army, if Jeanne launches the charge. Because the sharpened poles will kill the horses, the archers will kill the men.

So what can she do? She cannot surrender. She cannot just turn away and say, "You won." No, because Europe is going to hell if she does this. So what does she do? What can she do?

If you look at the universe as a fixed world, you cannot get out of your system, "Oh, this is so horrible," and then you surrender and you give humanity what is not a big favor. She just decides to stay there and look into eyes of the British. She just stays there. Imagine, it is early in the morning. The two armies are facing each other, and the French just stay there. The British are ready for the French to attack. And they stay there. For quite some time the British look at this completely confused, completely shocked. And they are so shocked, that they end up turning around and they give the victory to Jeanne.

This is what you call an axiomatic change. This is called the Socratic method—in case you hadn't understood that Plato's dialogues in fact apply to warfare. This is called the Socratic method. You find the axiom that your failure depends on, and you take it out. That is what she did.

'Take the Responsibility!'

Then she wants the Dauphin crowned King of France, which was very important, because nine years before that the king had signed a treaty with the enemy, that any King of England would be also be King of France. He had abdicated the national sovereignty, abdicated his mission to the nation. So she gets him crowned again. As Lyn always says, she went to see the King, and said, 'You have to stop being a stupid king. You have to honor the nation. You have people on your hands. Take the responsibility!" She had to fight very hard to get him to want to be crowned. He did not want to take leadership at all.

Then she says, "We are attacking Paris." That is where the King betrayed her. He refused. He signed another treaty with the enemy. He gave the British the authorization to be able to fortify Paris. And he refused to give the army to Jeanne. She did not really understand what was going on, but she kept on. She had about 200 mercenaries with her. They went to attack this little strategic city called Compiegne where a lot of logistics, information, weapons, food, etc., were going through to the British troops in Paris, and she happened to be boxed in. She was too weak, and the others knew that she was going to do this, and she got caught as a war prisoner.

The British end up after months of negotiations, they buy her for about 10,000 golden coins. They really want her, because they think they will never win this war if she is alive.

So they put her on trial for five months. Every day, for eight to nine hours, she is interrogated nonstop. Would you hold up? If for eight or nine hours, right now, you were taken to Guantanamo in Cuba, and you were questioned and questioned and questioned, because you are associated with Lyndon LaRouche? And they try to break you, by all psychological means they can. How would you do? Would you have the moral fitness to hold out in this fight as the meaning of your life—and that they cannot touch you, because it is a a meaning that is just not in the physical realm? They can't kill it.

She had this sense. And when they said, we are going to burn you, she got a little scared. And she signed a short paper, saying she was guilty. But she signed it with a cross. And when she was at war, any time she would want to send a fake message, she would sign it with a cross. Soon after that she withdrew from this position, called for the judges to come back, saying, "I am not signing this paper, give this back to me, rip it up. I am not signing this paper, I am not guilty of heresy, I am fighting for the God-given mission of the general welfare. I have to save this nation, I have to save the Kingdom. Give me back this paper. I am not guilty." And they burned her alive. They burned her alive, and she didn't flinch at all.

So the consequences of this were very big. Louis XI, the next King to follow after this one who had betrayed her, built the first nation-state. Without her we wouldn't be here today. Without her we wouldn't be 6 billion on the planet. Without her we wouldn't have had the American Revolution. Lots of things would not have happened. We wouldn't have had the 15th-Century Renaissance. Can you imagine the 21st Century without the 15th-Century Renaissance? We would be in a feudal system. So she fought. She gave her life for us. To be able to really create real humanity, dignified humanity. And she succeeded. One of the things that happened is, the Church was unified. Without that, you would have had the Black Plague going on, bodies lying there because no priests are going to bury the body, since the priests wouldn't know what Pope to choose.

So on all levels, there was a dark age. And she intervened and succeeded. Her death got a lot of people to think. One of the British persons who was right there when she was burnt, decided, as soon as he saw her burning and looking up at the sky and yelling "Jesus," he said: "This woman is a saint." He was in big psychological trouble for quite some time, because before he had really wanted her dead.

So this is what a real leader is. With Lyn, who tried to convey to us on Friday night, are you willing to put your life on the line? Because your life might actually never die if you accomplish those matters.

Gauss and Joan

There are some people who don't understand this, like Euler, or Lagrange, or d'Alembert, some of these mathematicians Jason was referring to. They see the world as something fixed and very boring. Lagrange actually said that he could put all of physics into mathematical analysis, just manipulating symbols. You could try as hard as you want to manipulate symbols to save France or save the world today—it won't work. But he said it anyway. And they tried to take the square root of —1 and said: "Oh, we can't really give it a physical meaning. Well, it doesn't matter, we just try to make the universe bend to the way we think, because we really want to think this way." But the biggest mistake they made, and a lot of people make when they discriminate themselves—also Euler discriminated himself. He denied that he had the power to find another hypothesis, another idea that would explain the generation of another kind of number. He denied this to himself, he refused to see the power of the human mind.

And if you don't see that, do you really want to keep people alive? So, that's the big question you should wonder about, because Gauss looked at those numbers and he showed they are not fixed things. You have 1, 0, —1, you go from 1 to —1? What is —1? Is it just a dot, a point, a thing, a counting object? I never saw just counting objects. "Oh, how nice"—what a boring world. The point is, —1 is when you make a reflection to 1. It is like a mirror. So he said: "That's a transformation process from that standpoint, if numbers are just like codewords, reflections for a real action process, then when you are looking for the square root, you are just looking at the middle point, the halfway into a process of squaring, and what's the halfway between that, from a specific distance? The one in the middle. So, your number line is right here, and there is something outside the number line."

I'm just giving you a very, very brief idea of what Gauss is talking about, and obviously we can't go through this right now. But the point is, if you think about numbers as fixed counting objects—you look at the world, as through the universe as a whole, and even at the human mind as a fixed counting object, and the people in the French Army, the people from our parents' generation, and also people of our generation, they still think that way. And you don't see the power of the human mind, and that's why we are in such a big crisis right now—at least one of the reasons.

Socratic Method

Truth is not what you see. Look at the trial against Jeanne, how she was burnt. She was sanctified in the beginning of the 20th Century, that's pretty late. How can you look at something? Look at Lyn, "conspiracy against the IRS"—did you believe it? When he was put on trial, did you believe it? Or did you make the hypothesis, that his fight was an eternal fight for the common welfare of all people? This is the question of hypothesis—you hypothesize on the intention. Kepler used this word "intention" for universal physical principals. And you should think: If the principles are not in what you can see, what about your life? Is the principle of your life in what you can see of your life? Is there a higher principle? Something akin to the question of immortality? Because those principles don't die. So if you operate on that level, maybe that's something different than saying: "I'm alive, because I'm alive, and that's what my purpose is—to have as much pleasure as I can."

The reality is higher than that. So you don't have to worry about dying, you don't have to worry about this "being not considered good," because if you know you are fighting for the good, nobody can touch you. They can't get you to flicker. To get the point about life, because that is the paradox: We die, that is the paradox of our life. I'm going to die, you are going to die, so what do we live for? ...

But before that I just want to remind you of something that Lyn said: "The sense organs of the human individual are part of the mortal human being's animal-like biological organism. Sense perception does not present our mind with direct images of the world outside our skins, but rather, as Plato and the Christian Apostle Paul (I Corinthians: 13) warn, our senses show us only shadows of that reality which has tickled the human individual biological mental sense-perceptual apparatus. So Plato compares the experience of sense perception to shadows caused by unseen real objects, as if upon the walls of a dimly firelit cave. Human beings are nonetheless capable of discovering the real, essentially unseeable, immortal universe, whose included non-substantial effects are those shadows called "sense-perceptions."

Go to Part II

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