HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: This is a moment where the whole world is in such a turmoil, there is the rift between Europe and the United States, Mr. President Trump’s tariff policy, you don’t know what it will be in the morning, the same in the evening. Many other crises, the Middle East crisis, the Ukraine was mentioned, so I think, you know, I think I would hope that the more thoughtful people, especially also in the German top industry, that they realized that with China they have a partner which have a steady, which has a steady foreign policy, which has a harmonious approach to the development of all nations and with all nations. And that, you know, there is this historical connection between Germany and China, which goes back to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and I think it is important to evoke the better traditions of our relations.

And then there is this new model where, you know, China is no longer a market for German exports or, you know, a production base for production of low-quality industrial goods, but I think China has developed, now, a new model of cooperation whereby Germany has fallen behind in the auto sector. And China is now offering joint ventures, joint R&D, like the Volkswagen Group China Technology Corporation in Hefei in Anhui province, where Germany can relearn the most advanced developments of China in smart thriving in, you know, in all the new technologies of EV electric vehicles, and that way they can develop joint markets in the Global South and elsewhere.

Zepp-LaRouche gave an example of what she called “a new model of cooperation,” in which at the Volkswagen China Technology Company, based in Hefei, China, German and Chinese engineers cooperated to share technologies and develop new e-vehicle models. “China has made incredible progress not only in the car industry but also there with smart driving, with new technologies,” she said. “Rather than using that advantage and driving the German economy more into crisis, China has reached out and offered that Germany could learn from these new breakthroughs, and that way [is] the absolute perfect application of the Chinese method of conflict resolution: Rather than going for confrontation, China always tends to find a higher level where the conflict is resolved. The Global Security, Global Development, Global Civilizational, and especially the Global Governance Initiative, which I think shows the same kind of harmonious development which gives a way out for everybody, and I think that model is really so crucial in a very difficult world today.”

On the issue of finding shared values between the two nations, the Schiller Institute leader referenced the deep cultural and philosophical traditions in both nations, and posited that if the two nations joined hands—as was once proposed by Gottfried Leibniz—they could completely transform the world situation with respect to development: “[I]f the second and third largest economies [China and Germany—ed.] work together, they have unlimited potential. They can do joint ventures to help in the development of the Global South; they can work with the Global Majority. And I think that if that relationship now inspires a new era, I see limitless potentials. I have been very critical of the situation for a long time, but now for the first time, I think that there is a changed environment, where an opportunity can be taken and a miracle—I mean, Germany and China are the two countries that had economic miracles: Germany in the post-War period, China has made the most unprecedented miracle in world history ever, and if these two countries combine their experience, I really think there is a great future ahead.”

Wednesday, Feb 25  2026, 11am ET/5pm CET

Humanity is facing what is likely the gravest crisis in its history, yet the caliber of leadership in the “free world” is at an all-time low. While the United States hovers at the edge of another idiotic and destructive war in Southwest Asia, the degeneracy of the “Epstein class” is now on display for all the world to see. Their depravity of conduct is now on display from the bedroom, to the board room, to the war room—and it shouldn’t be surprising that those being exposed have sat at some of the highest positions responsible for shaping the West’s failed policies. 

One question remains: Amidst this cacophony of insanity gripping the world, can reason be rediscovered within the United States and Europe? 

Feb. 20, 2026 (EIRNS)—The 142nd consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition on Friday,Feb. 20 posed the extreme contrast between the degeneracy of the world into sexual perversion, war fighting and economic looting, and, on the other hand, the purpose of the IPC and the Schiller Institute: lifting humanity into a higher vision of mankind, based on the creative power of man and the placing of humanity itself as the focus of human thought. The extreme danger of President Trump unleashing a war on Iran, and the almost certain expansion of such a war throughout the region or even globally, was a focus of much of the discussion, as well as the impact of the Epstein Class phenomena, expanded with the arrest of the former Prince Andrew, threatening the welcome demise of the British Royal System.

A reference to the Epstein mentality coming from British radicalism was pointed to by reference to Jeremy Bentham, whose defense of pederasty and his defense of usury demonstrated that both of these are based on the same mentality—a degrading of humanity to less than human. This is, indeed, the reality of the Epstein Class, which is not only a cult of sexual perversity, but also a central portion of the global speculative perversion which is bringing down the productive economy of the Western world. Dennis Speed noted that the connection between sexual exploitation and financial speculation and looting are both representative of the “predatory mindset.”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche sent in a video which addressed both the danger of war in Iran and the implications of the exposure of the Epstein perversions. She noted the insanity of Marco Rubio, whose speech at the Munich Conference not only compared Beethoven to the Rolling Stones, but also praised the 500 years of colonialism as the great gift of Western Civilization to the history of mankind!

Steven Starr, the director of the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program, as well as a senior scientist at the Physicians for Social Responsibility, provided a powerful, if frightening, picture of the scope of the pending war with Iran. He began by playing a short video from Scott Ritter describing the massive U.S. military deployment now gathered in the region of Iran. Starr then described the Iranian missile capacity as very advanced, capable of doing massive damage if it is deployed, in response to a U.S. and/or Israeli attack. He noted that Alastair Crooke, the former MI6 officer, had pointed to the fact that China has supplied Iran with a radar system which can identify stealth warplanes, undermining the idea that the U.S. stealth fighter jets could easily take out Iran’s missile defenses. Iran has hundreds of missiles, buried in underground, fortified caves, and missile silos spread all over the country, as well as hypersonic missiles. He also pointed to the Russia-China-Iran security agreement of January 2026. If Iran responds by deploying its missiles against Israel and U.S. military bases, the destruction would be substantial. He noted that the Israeli population is largely concentrated in three major cities, showing a map of such a city showing the impact of a barrage of missiles, literally hitting the entire population. The danger then becomes: Would Israel then decide to deploy its nuclear weapons? He also noted that Iran could potentially take out one of the American aircraft carriers, with 5,000 Americans onboard. Would the U.S. then deploy a nuclear weapon? These are frightening questions, but real possibilities.

Eduardo Gabriel Fernández of Argentina, a graduate of the Advanced Course in National Defense and a member of the Gen. Jorge Edgar Leal Argentine Sovereignty Monitoring Center, described the ongoing destruction of his country under the current President Javier Milei. This is a “planned and deliberate” destruction, he said, destroying the policies implemented by former President Juan Perón (he added that Perón and Lyndon LaRouche were similar thinkers and leaders, although at different times). He said that since the time of the pandemic, production in the country has declined by 60%, with 20,000 businesses closed. Food shortages are severe, with beef output declining by more than half, while bread costs have risen drastically. Extreme poverty has risen to nearly 10%, with a serious problem of malnourishment. Under Milei, the Epstein mentality has taken over from Tavistock, with shock therapy applied. He said this was not the first crisis to hit Argentina, noting earlier dictatorships and the Malvinas War from the U.K. The only solution is a return to sovereignty. He pointed to the Schiller Institute as a guiding force.

Dennis Small, EIR Director for Ibero-America, said that the Argentine crisis is relative to the entire world. It was once, under Perón and also under the two Kirchner presidencies, was a major industrial power, which has been destroyed by the Milei government under the direction of Wall Street. The Jan. 3 U.S. invasion of Venezuela, which EIR declared had marked a global phase change, has been proven to be exactly that, with the adoption of Malthusian genocide. We are now seeing this with the U.S. manipulated coup against Peruvian President José Jerí for the “crime” of cooperating with China in building the Chancay Port and planning a trans-oceanic railroad, and also in the forced “dollarization” of South American countries.

Jose Vega, a member of the Schiller Institute now running for Congress in the Bronx, New York, showed a video he has produced addressing the danger of Israel’s nuclear weapons capacity and the subservience of his election opponent, Rep. Ritchie Torres, to the Zionist Lobby in the U.S. On the threat of war against Iran, he asked: “Where is the Congress?”

Steven Starr was asked about the state of mind impacting the decisions to go to war. He replied that the problem is “hubris.” The U.S. belief that they are the only superpower (the unipolar world), and Israel’s belief that they are the only nuclear power in the region, both lead to the sin of hubris, that they can commit genocide in Gaza and wage war on Iran without resistance.

Karel Vereycken, a member of the Schiller Institute from France and an artist, discussed the dehumanizing taking place across the Western world and the need to “re-humanize.” The Renaissance was driven by governments holding competitions, spurring people to create music, poems, and architectural proposals, and we should do the same—with conferences which solicit original works of art, music, poetry and so forth. He noted that his wife, Christine Bierre, had visited China’s Xinjiang Province shortly after a series of terrorist attacks had taken place, and that the Chinese approach was to provide educational facilities for those drawn into such radical circles, in which they were given lessons in music and painting as a means for uplifting their outlook on life. He warned against the revival of eugenics and genetical engineering by the circles around Epstein, reflecting the eugenics of the Nazis.

Vereycken also read a petition titled “For an Immediate Reactivation of the UN Charter in Support of Multilateralism,” which had been prepared by citizens of France and Belgium to call on Americans to “Say No To War,” and call for a reform of the United Nations, such that each country would have an equal voice, while also providing the right to security and development for all nations.

A listener in Peru asked the question, “What real alternatives exist to the crisis facing civilization today?” Dennis Small asked in his reply: “What do you mean by ‘real’?” If you mean “practical,” then perhaps the answer is no, there is no alternative, and civilization is doomed. The question is, how do you change the population’s axioms of thinking, to break the influence of British radical liberalism, of Bentham, Locke, and Hume? This is the role of Nicholas of Cusa’s “coincidence of opposites,” the existence of a higher plane from which solutions to contradictions exist. It has happened before, he noted, pointing to the Renaissance, the role Lyndon LaRouche played throughout his life, and which the March 2 conference being prepared by the Schiller Institute today will address.

Michael Billington, EIR

The world strategic situation is defined by the various efforts to revitalize imperialism on the one hand, and on the other this dying system’s conflict with the efforts of the Global South to establish a new, more just world system. This was the assessment of Helga Zepp-LaRouche during a discussion with associates on Feb. 16 following the dramatic developments of the past few days.

Characteristic of the efforts to revitalize a naked imperialism were the remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who bemoaned the post-war contraction of “the great Western empires” during his speech at the Munich Security Conference. Rubio laid out the cynical worldview that is increasingly coming to dominate the Trump administration: “In a perfect world, all of these problems and more would be solved by diplomats and strongly worded resolutions. But we do not live in a perfect world, and we cannot continue to allow those who blatantly and openly threaten our citizens and endanger our global stability to shield themselves behind abstractions of international law which they themselves routinely violate.” You see, men are creatures that only understand brute force, Rubio asserts.

Of course, Rubio’s remarks were also a not-so-veiled threat against Europe, whom Rubio addressed by saying, “America is charting the path for a new century of prosperity, and … we want to do it together with you.” But rather than condemning Rubio’s assertion that Western hegemonism must again dominate the world, he instead received a standing ovation by his European counterparts! Not only did European leaders trip over themselves in making ever-greater rearmament commitments for the alleged coming war with Russia, but a new discussion has broken out over the expansion of nuclear weapons across the continent. Polish President Karol Nawrocki has become the most recent one to announce this, when he said during a Feb. 15 interview: “I’m a great supporter of Poland joining the nuclear project…. This path, with respect to all international regulations, is the path we should follow.” Nawrocki’s comments followed similar statements by Latvia, Finland, Sweden, and Germany.

At the same time, there was enormous disarray in Munich. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz explicitly said there is a rift between Europe and the United States, and that the rules-based order “no longer exists.” He also pounded the war drums against Russia, saying that defending Europe’s freedom will require everyone to “make sacrifices.” Similarly, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that hard power is “the currency of the age,” and therefore, “we must be ready to fight.”

In the backdrop of all this, however, is the continued rollout of the Epstein files. These files do not only incriminate the individuals who have been exposed—which itself remains only a small fraction of the actual number who were involved—but are an indictment of the entire imperial order which has tolerated this kind of thinking, as with Rubio’s barbaric outlook. This point was made powerfully in a Feb. 13 op-ed by U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. After criticizing Prime Minister Starmer’s “shameful, appalling” decision to appoint Epstein-friend Peter Mandelson, Corbyn takes the scandal to a much higher level: All the other politicians lined up to replace Starmer “are likely to carry forward the abject political legacy he leaves behind. That includes the failure to redress the obscene levels of inequality in our society; the disgraceful attacks on the disabled; the disgusting anti-migrant hatred…; and the ongoing military cooperation with Israel as it violates the sham ceasefire and continues its genocide against the Palestinian people.” As EIR has repeatedly insisted, it’s not Epstein that was the problem, but rather the entire system of which Epstein was merely a symptom.

The Epstein scandal is the death knell of the Western liberal system, Zepp-LaRouche noted further, “because it has revealed the utmost immorality of what’s behind colonialism and what’s behind interventionist wars—imperial wars of all sorts. And I think that is not going to go away. It is a symptom of a dying empire, and whatever the agony will be, how long it will stretch on, I do not think it can be reversed.”

Therefore, the fight for a new paradigm and a cultural renaissance has never been more important than it is today. “Because the real war is the war of culture and the image of man. Is man a beast? … Or is it the noble idea, of the human species as the only species gifted with creative reason, and capable of making beautiful compositions in classical music, building cathedrals, and writing poems? And that is the real battle of this whole thing…. That is the most important answer we have to give to that, because otherwise people will just sink in despair and disgust, and then there will be no hope for humanity.”

The upcoming EIR Roundtable Conference on March 2, “Epstein and the Bottomless Depravity of the ‘Elites’ —Urgent Need for a Cultural Renaissance!,” will be crucial in this regard. Register today and organize up a storm for it.

Feb. 14, 2026 (EIRNS)—The 141st weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition on Friday, Feb. 13 again brought together hundreds of people from dozens of countries to strategize on ending the depravity of the on-rushing strategic and economic breakdown, and to build a movement of world citizens to create a new architecture of strategic and economic development for all nations. Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened the conference with an overview of the crisis spots currently driving the world to war, noting that the Epstein perversity demonstrates the “mindset” of genocide in Gaza, the multiple wars, and the financial bubble.

Harley Schlanger presented the third part of his profile of the Epstein class of perversity, as it is now threatening to bring down the British institutions which run the British Empire. He emphasized that this must serve as the necessary awakening for world citizens to end imperialism and the treatment of human beings as cattle.

Professor Cliff Kiracofe addressed the role of the British Empire, long a target of the LaRouche movement, as now being exposed as the force at the center of the global crisis.

Luiz Erthal, the editor-in-chief of the Brazilian newspaper Toda Palavra, discussed the role of Brazil and the BRICS in the current process of the Trump Administration’s effort to take control of Ibero-America, and to stop Russian and Chinese development projects in the region.

Further discussion addressed the extreme danger of Cuba being given the “Gaza treatment”; of the history of Franklin Roosevelt’s collaboration with Brazil and others in South America in great development projects; and the de-humanism of the British Imperial mentality of Adam Smith, John Locke and David Hume.

Questions from around the world brought up the necessity to end the imperial policy driving the Trump Administration and the European oligarchs to new wars in the Americas, the Middle East and Asia. Everyone was encouraged to attend the upcoming Schiller Institute meeting of a Roundtable of World Citizens on March 2.

Date: March 2, 2026

Panel 1: 8 a.m. (U.S. EST); 2 p.m. (Europe CET); 9 p.m. (China CST), Institutional speakers

1) Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Germany), founder, Schiller Institute; editor-in-chief, EIR

2) Zhang Weiwei (China), Professor of International Relations, and Director of China Institute, Fudan University, Shanghai

3) Beatriz Bissio (Brazil), Associate Professor, Post-Graduate Program of Comparative History, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

4) Namit Verma (India), author and security analyst

5) B.R. Deepak (India), Professor and former Director, Center of Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

6) Kwame Amuah (South Africa), security expert, techno-entrepreneur, former Senior Advisor on Nuclear Affairs for South African government

7) Ding Yifan (China), Professor, Institute of Global Governance and Development, Renmin University, Beijing.

And others.

Panel 2: 11 a.m. (U.S. EST); 5 p.m. (Europe CET); 12 a.m. (China CST), Representatives of think tanks and universities

1) Donald Ramotar (Guyana), former President of Guyana

2) Richard Falk (U.S.), Professor Emeritus, International Law, Princeton University; former UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 (2008-2014)

3) María de los Ángeles Huerta (Mexico), former Mexican Congresswoman

4) Fernando Garzón (Ecuador), architect, urban planner; leader, Ecuadorean-Palestinian Union

5) David Monyae (South Africa), Director, Center for China-Africa Studies, University of Johannesburg

6) Ralph Bosshard (Switzerland), Lt. Col. (ret.), former military advisor to OSCE Secretary General

7) Ali Rastbeen (France), President, Académie Géopolitique de Paris: “Towards an international architecture: strategic challenges and regional recompositions.”

8) Diane Sare (U.S.), independent candidate for U.S. President; founder, Schiller Institute New York City Chorus

And others.

On January 12, 2026 EIR magazine sponsored an emergency international roundtable dialogue to address the total strategic crisis, where international law had been declared “not necessary” by President Donald Trump. What has swept to the surface in the few weeks since that meeting, has opened up an even deeper abyss facing Mankind.

Even the preliminary results of the investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein scandal reveal a moral sordidness which makes Sodom and Gomorrah look pale by comparison. What is coming to the surface are the satanic axioms on which many of the present-day policies are based, from Gaza to the application of unilateral sanctions against countries in order to make life for the populations so unbearable that they rise up against their governments. For years, the knowledge about these moral cesspools existed, but nobody in the so-called “rules-based-order” remembered any rule obliging the legal authorities to investigate the crimes of this murderous self-service store, where the “unscrupulous take what they want,” as German President Steinmeier recently aptly put it.

With the New START Treaty ending on February 5, the last arms control agreement has been buried, leaving the world military situation with a dangerous lack of transparency and giving way to a new arms race, which threatens to proliferate various old and new weapons of mass destruction, and cause enormous devastation of physical economic capacity in favor of a gigantic re-militarization of many economies of the world. While the present stockpiles of nuclear weapons already have the potential to destroy all human life on the planet several times over, the new dimensions of warfare, such as space weapons, cyber warfare, the application of AI in warfighting, etc., are creating a horrifying dystopian perspective of the future, in which the only end result seems to be one of the annihilation of mankind.

And this is where the significance of the Epstein scandal comes in. How can one expect these establishments, who either participated in or remained silent and inactive vis-a-vis these satanic perversions, to all of a sudden put a screeching halt to the murderous lust of the military industrial complex and the unscrupulous speculators, who have no inhibitions about making money off of the war machine, which is killing innocent people as so-called negligible collateral damage, wherever it is ravaging?

Various regional conflicts, such as the war in Ukraine; the looming danger of a new war against Iran; the crisis around Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, and Colombia; as well as the tensions in the Indo-Pacific and in parts of Asia, all have the potential of spiraling into a larger conflict involving the great powers and even a global nuclear war.

Out of the January 12 emergency meeting came a joint declaration and the commitment by the panelists to reach out to institutions and individuals in as many countries as possible, in order to create both an initiative to reestablish international law by creating a new global security and development architecture, which must take into account the interest of every single nation on earth, as well as initiating an international movement of world citizens who commit themselves to put the One Humanity first.

The absolute pit of human depravity of the Epstein affair is a wakeup call for the entire human species. We must absolutely reverse course and reject this bestial behavior and all the cultural influences which allowed it to become a reality over the recent decades. We have to turn to the best cultural traditions of all nations and civilizations, to the highest expressions of all of universal history, and revive them in an active dialogue of cultures, in order to initiate the most beautiful renaissance of classical culture. Only in this way can we uphold a noble image of Man as being the only species gifted with creative reason.

An international Zoom conference will be held March 2 to address these topics: the creation of a new security and development architecture; the creation of an international movement of world citizens; and the creation of a new cultural renaissance. The two-panel conference will include the participation of distinguished representatives from institutions from all over the world, as well as experts, scholars, scientists and artists.

Become an active organizer for this event. Circulate this invitation among all of your friends and colleagues, and reach out to everybody who must be part of this effort.

Date: March 2, 2026
Panel 1: 8 a.m. (U.S. EST); 2 p.m. (Europe CET); 9 p.m. (China CST), Institutional speakers
Panel 2: 11 a.m. (U.S. EST); 5 p.m. (Europe CET); 12 a.m. (China CST), Representatives of think tanks and universities

Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Germany), Schiller Institute founder and EIR Editor-in-Chief, will interview Ray McGovern (US), former Senior Analyst, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a Founding Member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) on the Epstein scandal to discuss whether it means that man is evil.

Wednesday, Feb 11 2026, 11am ET/5pm CET

The specter of Jeffery Epstein’s files is now stalking the highest echelons of the Western establishment, lurking, waiting to terminate the imagined honor of its next victim. The British establishment may be temporarily taking the lead, with the second member of Prime Minister Starmer’s government having resigned in just 48 hours. All the while, new efforts are being made in the U.S. Congress to un-redact the names on the existing 3-plus million files released, as well as to release the remaining millions of documents.

In discussion with associates today, Helga Zepp-LaRouche described the situation as “pre-revolutionary”—not only in the U.S. and Europe, but across the whole world. The Epstein revelations are only “the tip of the iceberg,” she said, because they actually are pointing to the “unbelievable moral decay and corruption of the Western system, especially the Western elites.” This will tend to have the effect of breaking people out of their fearful paralysis which has dominated over the recent period, thrusting them to confront the ugly realities that lay under the proverbial floorboards.

Zepp-LaRouche likened the process to “an avalanche which is not going to be stopped, because it has now reached its own dynamic of completely ripping down the entire system.” The question is how the remaining, hopefully thoughtful, members of society will respond to this pre-revolutionary situation, and whether we will muster the courage to not only replace the disgraced leaders, but also their Satanic worldview and policy framework as well.

Lyndon LaRouche, whose political assassination was repeatedly attempted by the types of creatures now highlighted among Epstein’s friends, provided a useful perspective on this during remarks to a gathering of youth in 2004:

“Now this comes to the question of how do you assess your life? Do you assess your life as bookends, and you exist only between the bookends? And therefore you have to make a pleasant reading between the bookends? Each page must be pleasure and comfort and satisfaction?…

“Or, knowing that this is the nature of man, that you are born and die, are going to die sooner or later, is it how you spend your life and to what effect for humanity that counts? All of the effective people in history were people who did that. They made that choice. They had a conception of birth and death as sort of the bookends of mortality. But they also saw in themselves something which is more than mortality. The ability to discover truth, to discover principles of the universe, to introduce these to humanity. To pass them on to humanity to be used by present or by future generations for the benefit of mankind, in the sense that you live in creating the future of mankind. You live by bringing forth from the past. You correct the injustices of the past. Truth was fought for in the past by civilizations that were crushed, by people that were crushed. When you do something to bring justice to the dead, even thousands of years later, you are doing something that makes your life important. Because you’re not only bringing justice to them, you’re preserving and putting into perspective the importance of what they did for tomorrow.”

Feb. 6, 2026 (EIRNS)—The 140th consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) on Friday, Feb. 6, took up the question of the latest revelations from the files on the Jeffrey Epstein case, and elevated the discussion to consider how to improve the moral character of humanity as part of the IPC mission to efficiently end the danger of war.

Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche led off by noting that the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty, New START, had expired on the previous day, and it is unclear whether any agreement will replace it. There is a big U.S. Naval armada assembling in the Persian Gulf region, which could presage a strike on Iran and create “unforeseeable consequences.” There is also an “impending Damocles sword” of a general collapse of the financial system. The IPC response includes renewed efforts to re-establish international law, based on the UN Charter, but what is absolutely required is the new global governance system embodied in the Ten Principles put forward by Zepp-LaRouche.

She went on to describe the new environment created by the recent release of additional Epstein files, which she compared to the “Clean Hands” operation in Italy, which was used by the security services to “totally blow up” an existing corrupt system and replace it with an updated version of the same thing. What is actually needed is nothing short of a new Renaissance, and perhaps her proposed global security and development architecture should be updated to include a cultural renewal.

Diane Sare, U.S. independent LaRouche presidential candidate, began by citing the Sept. 2, 1945 remarks by General Douglas MacArthur aboard the USS Missouri after receiving the surrender of Japan, who said that the moral character of humanity must catch up with our incredible advances in science, lest we destroy ourselves with nuclear weapons. She has made three policy proposals:

1.) The United States must declare a doctrine of “no first use” of nuclear weapons, and require that every nuclear-armed nation, including emphatically Israel, must also so declare.

2.) We need a new security and economic development architecture, including a reform of the UN Security Council to reflect the growing influence of the nations of the Global South.

3.) We must join with Russia to build the Bering Strait Tunnel linking Alaska to Siberia, and take up Russia’s Oct. 2011 “Strategic Defense of Earth” proposal to jointly build a system capable of protecting the planet both from missile threats and from threats coming from outer space, such as asteroids.

Sare shared the recent TASS coverage of her presidential campaign, noting her call for a new START Treaty and her association with Lyndon LaRouche, who was widely respected in Russia. She said that people are looking for signs of intelligent life in the United States.

Starting from Scratch on Arms Control

A video presentation by Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, recounted his experience as the first U.S. weapons inspector on the ground in the Soviet Union to implement the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of Dec. 1987 and his role in the development of onsite inspections, which help to establish mutual trust. Even though the New START Treaty regulating strategic nuclear weapons only ended on Feb. 5, 2026, Ritter said that there have been no inspections related to the treaty since 2022, due to sanctions, and no data exchange since 2023. This means “we’re starting from scratch…. Nobody trusts American negotiators.” The world we live in today is one where the threat of nuclear war is greater than it was at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. “We need a leader, and I believe that leader is Diane Sare,” Ritter concluded.

Garland Nixon, veteran progressive radio and television talk show host, who had spent over 20 years in law enforcement, commented on the release of the Epstein files “through the eyes of an investigator.” He said that we should understand that this is a controlled release, designed to emphasize some things and de-emphasize others, so some level of skepticism is appropriate. He said that the revelations of Epstein’s connections to the British Crown are significant, and validate what the LaRouche movement has said for decades about the British Crown’s perfidious role in global politics.

Zepp-LaRouche, in response, asked Nixon to comment on the analogy of the released Epstein files to the “Clean Hands” operation in Italy. He suggested that the Epstein affair is different, because “once it got out of the bag, they lost control.” Sare added that the question is whether human beings are animals, and if they are not, we must find a way to use the revelations to advance our civilization. Nixon called this “a crisis of legitimacy for the ruling elite,” which shows them to be morally unqualified to lead. “How now do we take advantage of an opportunity,” he asked, to replace a rotten system with an actually better one? Zepp-LaRouche said that we must “shed off oligarchism, because this is what this is all about.”

IPC co-moderator Dennis Speed asked Nixon to comment on the role of his mentor, author and historian Paul Robeson, Jr. (1927-2014). Nixon replied by saying that we must rebuild the legacy of Robeson’s father, the noted actor, singer and activist Paul Robeson (1898-1976), in order to “bring the Black community out of this brainwashed anti-Russian” outlook that has been fostered by the Democratic Party apparatchiks.

Nixon went on to describe how Christine Maxwell, twin sister of Jeffrey Epstein’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell, cofounded in the early 1990s Magellan, one of the first internet search engines. He noted that Christine later founded Chiliad, a data analysis company based in Herndon, VA, whose software was used by the FBI to establish a counterterrorism data warehouse after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attack.

Zepp-LaRouche observed that, in the present political structure of the Anglosphere, corruption is considered mandatory, because corrupt people can be reliably controlled, and people who are not corrupt are a potential threat to the system. With the Epstein revelations, “the gutter of this whole system comes out in the open.”

A brief excerpt from a video interview with former Guyanese President Donald Ramotar, conducted on Feb. 3 by IPC co-moderator and EIR Ibero-American editor Dennis Small, was featured. Ramotar warns that world opinion has not grasped the significance of the expiration of the New START Treaty; “the consciousness is lagging behind the danger” of nuclear war.

Discussion

A peace activist from Germany returned to the question of a cultural renaissance, sharing her experience of attending an event in Berlin for the Chinese Spring Festival, in which a Chinese tenor movingly sang a Lied by Schubert. She also congratulated Nixon for his work to call attention to the importance of Paul Robeson.

In response to another question, Diane Sare described the American population’s changed response to the question of space exploration as a symptom of cultural decline, optimism supplanted by pessimism.

Zepp-LaRouche said that we must “aim to bring politics and economics into increasing cohesion with the laws of the universe.” When you go to a museum, you see evidence of cultures that did not make it, because they failed to do this. As Nicholas of Cusa emphasized, pleasures of the flesh do not satisfy the human spirit: “you will like the sweetness of truth better than a stuffed goose.”

In response to a participant who called for the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump, co-moderator Dennis Small insisted that “the idea of impeaching Donald Trump is insufficiently ambitious … let’s think really big,” by replacing the entire bankrupt system, rather than just focusing on the person in the White House. His view was echoed by Sare, who added that we must give people a positive vision of the future, “an actual human standard.”

A question posed by another participant sparked an extensive discussion of Friedrich Schiller’s conception of man, as opposed to that of Immanuel Kant. Zepp-LaRouche described a singer who sang well, but misbehaved in his personal life. She jokingly urged the singer to reduce the interval between songs to a minimum in order to improve his moral character, underscoring Schiller’s conception of how exposure to beauty can educate the emotions to produce the “beautiful soul.”

In conclusion, Zepp-LaRouche urged that we use “the moment of catharsis”—which we are experiencing with the Epstein event—to launch a new Renaissance. She stressed that “practical” proposals which lack the proper epistemological basis are doomed to fail.

EIR

The latest warning of the danger in allowing the New START (strategic arms reduction) Treaty to expire on Thursday, Feb. 5, with no negotiations process underway between the United States and Russia for arms control and reduction, comes from Dmitry Medvedev, who signed the treaty in 2010, when he was President of the Russian Federation. He said in an interview, published on Feb. 2 in many media, including Reuters and TASS: “I don’t want to say that this (letting the New START Treaty expire) immediately means a catastrophe and a nuclear war will begin, but it should still alarm everyone. The clocks are ticking, and they obviously have to speed up.” U.S. President Donald Trump, despite occasional references to the danger, never replied to the September 2025 proposal offered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, to continue talks past the expiration date of Feb. 5, 2026. Even at the last second, it would be welcome news if commitment to talks were announced.

On Feb. 5 in the United States, newly announced candidate for President of the United States Diane Sare will hold an online press availability to focus American and world attention on what is at stake. The event “For a New, New START” will include guest Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector and expert on arms control.

Also circulating internationally is the “Declaration of January 12: Let Us Create a Movement of World Citizens!” which warns of “a new dark age, or even a global nuclear war,” if the “so-called principle that ‘might makes right’” is allowed to stand.

What is outstanding, along with the epic danger of today’s situation, is that millions more people, and many more nations, are seeing that might does not make right.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute founder, addressed this shift, with the analogy of the two-edged sword. The lawless acts of belligerence in recent months—from the U.S. intervention in Venezuela and punishment of Cuba, to the European so-called elite, refusing to back a settlement of the Ukraine conflict—are resulting in a blow-back of opposition. People seek a New Paradigm. Zepp-LaRouche reported that the openness around “the follow-up of the Jan. 12 Emergency Roundtable is absolutely unprecedented…. The call that we need a new system of global governance which must take into account the interests of every country on the planet is becoming a whole chorus of voices. The people are absolutely ready to accept that.”

In this context, there is a surge of diplomacy to be noted, although no solutions are guaranteed. As of the time of writing of this bulletin, talks between representatives of Iran and the United States may take place in Istanbul on Friday, Feb. 6. This schedule comes from evening media reports. Talks between Ukraine and Russia, with the United States represented, are set for Abu Dhabi on Feb. 4-5. This was reported by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Feb. 2.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, slated to meet with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff in Turkiye, conferred on Feb. 1 in calls with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye. The Jordanian government issued the warning on Feb. 2 that its airspace is off limits to any potential attack on Iran.

While seeing this evil and danger, we remind ourselves that people are human and can grasp that there is a crisis, and there are solutions. Zepp-LaRouche on Feb. 2 spoke of how, today, “the dynamic is going in the direction of a different system of cooperation among nations, obviously superior to brute force, and ‘might makes right.’”

Circulate and make use of the newly-posted sign-up page on the January 12 Declaration.