On the Eve: The Promise of Peace in a Era of Self-Destruction
The world either now stands at the threshold of a new era, or on the precipice of doom. These next days, proponents of Christianity, Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox, are admonished by their faith to not merely celebrate, but to think. They are called upon to not merely reflect, but to “recollect,” to return to the narrow path of the mission for which Chirist was “born to die to rise again.” Traditionally, it is said that then, over two thousand years ago, the world lay “in sin and error pining,” longing for a solution that had been unattainable generation after generation, until the birth and then mission of Christ. Then, Jesus posed a “new dispensation” for humanity, a way for mankind to free itself from the unbroken cycle of self-destruction: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Now, in our time, that despised mission of peace, that narrow path, is the only certain way out of thermonuclear destruction. No hedonistic/felicific calculus of advantage will work, precisely because it’s based on cheating, as the confession of Angela Merkel so luridly and arrogantly declared to the world. In the lower world, which is now our world, there is no way out, no pragmatic solution that will suffice.
How do you, in the present crisis, “carve a stone of hope out of a mountain of despair?” The London Economist’s unhappiness about the peace initiatives of the Papacy is a welcome sign that we are on the right path. They say, “it is clear that Francis’s efforts to position himself as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine have failed. The pope is an outsider in a clash between two mostly Orthodox countries. He has also repeatedly antagonized both Ukrainians and Russians with his statements and omissions.” Helga Zepp-LaRouche and the Schiller Institute’s intent to re-introduce Nicholas of Cusa’s Coincidence of Opposites method of diplomacy to an unthinking world is the actual content of her “Ten Principles for a New Security and Development Architecture.”
The neo-con (i.e., “Trotskyist” permanent revolution/permanent war-mongering) London Economist can’t handle the idea: It’s not “mediation between,” but above, and in the interest of, all nations. It’s not “Russia and Ukraine,” but as Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin put it, “Why, then, not work together to bring about a new, great European Conference?” He then went further: He spoke about a more fluid diplomacy that has now taken shape, attentive to the contributions of the peace movements—"one cannot squander that yearning for peace that dwells in the hearts of so many young people.” The presence of Agape as a thought-object in a dialogue among nations, for example, as that dialogue was recently conducted and resolved by the apology of the Pope to Russia, requires a level of deliberation that flies above the realm of “spiritual wickedness in high places,” otherwise known as British geopolitics.
Vladimir Putin’s sober evaluation of the failure of his and Russia’s attempts to engage “the West” was expressed in remarks he made this past Wednesday. “For our part, we have always or nearly always pursued a completely different approach and had different goals: we have always wanted to be part of the so-called civilized world. After the Soviet Union’s dissolution, which we ourselves allowed to take place, we thought for some reason that we would become part of that so-called civilized world any day. But it turned out that nobody wanted this to happen, despite our efforts and attempts, and this concerns my efforts as well, because I made these attempts too. We tried to become closer, to become part of that world. But to no avail.” (http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70159 )
That does not mean that Putin, Russia, China or other nations, all of which are being continually targeted by oligarchical “principalities and powers,” would not instantaneously and positively respond, were the policy-outlook that Lyndon LaRouche’s 40-year dialogue with Russian intelligentsia exemplified, including his 1984 “Draft Memorandum of Agreement between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.” on precisely the strategic questions regarding a just peace among nations, ever adopted by any visible faction of the American government. (https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1991/eirv18n02-19910111/eirv18n02-19910111_026-the_larouche_doctrine_draft_memo-lar.pdf )
Our mission is to change the relationship among nations, from that of “the will to power,” as in geopolitics—"Britain has no friends or enemies, only interests"—to that of “the will to truth"—"a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.”
Those last words, taken from the 1961 Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy, hint how a stone of hope might be hewn out of a mountain of despair, even now, together with Russia, China and others. Consider the October 4, 1965 address of Pope Paul VI to the United Nations—the first time a Pope had ever spoken to that body. “Here our message reaches its culmination…. never again one against the other, never, never again! Was not this the very end for which the United Nations came into existence: to be against war and for peace? Listen to the clear words of a great man who is no longer with us, John Kennedy, who proclaimed four years ago: ‘Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.’ … It is enough to recall that the blood of millions, countless unheard-of sufferings, useless massacres and frightening ruins have sanctioned the agreement that unites you with an oath that ought to change the future history of the world: never again war, never again war! It is peace, peace, that has to guide the destiny of the nations of all mankind!” (https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/speeches/1965/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19651004_united-nations.html )
Russia clearly remembers, perhaps even better than the United States, how much the confrontation of October 1962 changed the world. From that point, JFK acted to save the lives of perhaps the entire human race, which might at any moment be annihilated either through hubris or miscalculation. He resolved that there must be an instantaneous change in the short- and long-term relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. His American University speech in June 1963, with its call for a joint U.S./U.S.S.R. space mission, followed by his United Nations speech in September, two months before his assassination, show us now how different the world can be made in less than a year. The recent new questions raised about Kennedy’s assassination as a result of the recent simultaneous release and continued suppression of documents; Kennedy’s stepping back from the brink of catastrophe in collaboration with rational forces in the Soviet Union; and his working relationship with Pope John XXIII, can provoke a re-examination of the method by which policy has been made in the United States since November 22,1963. Such discussion and re-investigation may even become the basis for catalyzing what Cardinal Parolin referred to as a movement among youth for peace.
Imagine an America, imagine a world, freed from the mental chains of a false history that to this day shackles the minds of hundreds of millions. Our insistence on the truth, including about the “World War Three in pieces” that the world is presently being seduced into, is the passion that can make the Zepp-LaRouche Ten Principles, and the peace through development that they provide, a reality, despite the naysayers. To do this, it has been suggested that we must be “as wise as serpents, and as gentle as doves.” One more recommendation: as a veteran of the Birmingham and Selma movement for civil rights has said, “the difference between a protest, and a movement, is when people begin to sing their own songs.” “Dona Nobis Pacem” is the first of those songs, a song by and for the whole world, with more to follow.
We wish you a joyous and hopeful Christmas!
