March 21, 2025 (EIRNS)—This week has seen two major developments: First, Presidents Trump and Putin spoke by phone, signaling a return to diplomacy, an event that any sane person should be happy about (but not Europe’s vehemently pro-war politicians). They were treated to the second major development: the decision by a lame-duck German parliament to bypass Germany’s debt brake, enabling a military buildup using procedural trickery.
Democracy in the West is becoming a hollow echo of its former self. While institutions still operate under democratic branding—elections, courts, “free” press—these are increasingly used to enforce consensus. The most important decisions are made without public input, often behind closed doors or through supranational structures (e.g., NATO, EU) that bypass national parliaments. Or, if an election goes the wrong way, it is simply overturned, as seen in Romania most notably. The outward form of democracy is preserved, but the substance has vanished. The goal? A technocratic, imperial order cloaked in democratic language.
The entire NATO-Russia conflict playing out in Ukraine was never necessary, and was hardly “unprovoked.” By addressing the root causes of the conflict—and by creating a new paradigm of international relations to supplant the old—a durable solution is possible.
But that will require a determined commitment to reason effectively, overcoming the criminalization of opposition seen so manifestly in the Russiagate and other attacks on Donald Trump, and in his own assaults on pro-Palestinian protests by using participation in them as a cause for deportation. The thousands of sanctions against Russia have failed to crush its economy, which in fact has been growing at a faster rate than those of its would-be adversaries.
What legitimacy do the governments of NATO countries currently possess? How is the German economy? What nation can be treated as moral if it supports Israel’s renewed bombardment of Gaza, part of the plan for ethnic cleansing being carried out by an increasingly dictatorial Netanyahu.
What is needed is a positive vision for these nations to throw off the shackles of seeking hegemony, and liberate themselves to pursue the common interests of mankind.
The LaRouche Oasis Plan is a case in point, a framework for peace through development.
Military production can be converted to useful ends, to produce the capital goods required for a global infrastructure renaissance.
The big question: how to get more and more people to take the side of humanity. Every individual discovery enriches all of humanity. Without progress, the people perish.
