Feb. 20—The 142nd consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) on Friday, Feb. 20 posed the extreme contrast between, on one hand, 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 U.S. President Donald 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.
The mentality of a Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted pederast and “successful financier,” which is based on British philosophical radicalism, was demonstrated by reference to Jeremy Bentham, whose defenses of pederasty and usury demonstrate that these are both reflections of a degraded view of humanity; that humans are no different than animals. 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 economies of the Western world. The Schiller Institute’s 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 with Iran and the implications of the exposure of the Epstein perversions. She noted the insanity of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose speech at the Munich Security 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!
The Reality of War with Iran
Steven Starr, former 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 former UN weapons inspector and U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer 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, a renowned UK strategic analyst and former British Intelligence (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 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 depicting how the impact of a barrage of missiles would literally affect 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 personnel 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.)
According to Fernández, industrial capacity is operating at 60% of what it was before the Covid-19 pandemic, with thousands of businesses closed and hundreds of thousands of jobs lost. Food shortages are severe, with serious declines in beef production, while bread costs have risen drastically, causing a dire crisis of malnourishment. Extreme poverty has risen to nearly 10%. Under Milei, the Epstein mentality has taken over, resulting in brutal shock therapy being ruthlessly imposed on the Argentine people. Fernández characterized this as “Malthusian economic genocide against the very essence of humanity.” This is not the first crisis to hit Argentina, he said, noting earlier dictatorships and the Malvinas War from the UK. The only solution is a return to sovereignty. He pointed to the Schiller Institute as a guiding force.
A Global Phase Change
Dennis Small, EIR Editor for Ibero-America, said that the Argentine crisis is emblematic of crises throughout the entire world. Argentina was once, under Perón and also under the two Kirchner Presidencies, 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 Ibero-American countries.
Jose Vega, a member of the Schiller Institute now running for U.S. 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 it is the only superpower (the unipolar world), and Israel’s status as the only nuclear-weapons 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 dehumanization 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 genetic engineering by the circles around Epstein, which reflects 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.