As you are reading this, protests are sweeping the trans-Atlantic at a speed that is threatening to bring down what were once considered to be leading nations and governments. In Spain, protests have erupted over an economy that has kept affordable housing out of reach for many, culminating in the recent eviction and death of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal. In Germany, there is a growing resentment toward the policies of militarization, a threatened draft, and economic hardship, which have led to thousands of students in the streets, and record-breaking defeats for the ruling party coalition at the voting booth. And in France, protests have rocked the country as students and youth demand better working and education conditions amidst an increasingly bleak future. There are now reports that the student protests are spreading to other countries, including Belgium, Italy, and Austria, as are the parallel protests of farmers.
While apparently caused by different issues, these are each an expression of a common phenomenon—that of the breakdown of the post-John F. Kennedy neoliberal world system, and the growing recognition that that majority of citizens in the West have been left to rot on the garbage heap as today’s military-industrial-financial-technological-complex works to establish a new world dictatorship. U.S. President Donald Trump’s arrogant assertion that these protests are merely the result of “Islam” and “uncontrolled immigration” only add fuel to the fire—all while his administration embraces the policies of unfettered AI control over a record-breaking military budget and his Secretary of “War” calls for the creation of an “Autonomous Warfare Command.”
As Lyndon LaRouche often emphasized, mass-strike movements like these cannot be comprehended as isolated local events, but only as expressions of a singular, global process. In remarks made to diplomats in 2011, LaRouche described what was at that time a similar eruption of a mass-strike as a reflection of two crises: financial and intellectual. Financial because of the growing control over Western economies by an engorged elite, causing devastation for a growing majority of its citizens; intellectual because all of the so-called experts still insist that the Western liberal model is working flawlessly and you are crazy if you don’t recognize it! Meanwhile, growing sums of money are spent on military adventures around the world in the name of securing peace and prosperity—though neither are ever delivered.
In both cases, the gulf between dogma and reality is widening, and something was bound to break sooner or later. The question remains whether the leadership will emerge to point the way out.
This week, international crude oil prices have again begun to rise, as shipping in the Strait of Hormuz continues to be squeezed. Reuters reported that at least twelve shipping vessels were struck in the region between Sep. 28 and Oct. 5—the highest number since the beginning of the war. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio preached that “the Strait of Hormuz is open” while on a tour to Greece. Reports continue to circulate the administration is considering a resumption of strikes on Iran after the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
As many of their populations are revolting at home, representatives from every member of the NATO Military Council descended on Kiev on Oct. 6 to pledge even more support for the sacrificial nation. Adm. Cavo Dragone, chairman of the Committee, said: “We are here in full strength, sending a clear message: the bond between NATO and Ukraine is strong and unbreakable.” And in the Americas, the Pentagon is transferring a number of MQ-9 Reaper drones to Colombia and Ecuador for “surveillance” and “precision strikes” against alleged drug cartels, as the administration ramps up its neocolonial control over the region.
In her Oct. 6 statement, “Hegseth’s ‘Autonomous Warfare Command’ Is An Epstein-Class Rip-Off,” LaRouche independent candidate for President Diane Sare pointed directly at this degeneracy as the disease leading mankind to the brink of extinction, and asked: “Has it occurred to you that the Epstein class of murderous billionaires is deploying our nation into war against exactly the large nuclear superpowers who must be our partners in finally liberating mankind from the genocidal colonial era?”
Rather than working to oppose other leading nations such as Russia, China, and the BRICS, “we must chart a new course, much more in keeping with the tradition of our founders who intended to defeat the evil legacy of the British Empire,” Sare writes. She echoed the call by Lyndon LaRouche to form a Four Powers Agreement among the United States, Russia, China, and India, “as the necessary prerequisite to a total reorganization of the bankrupt transatlantic financial system. We should not be trying to bail out a hyperinflated bubble of derivatives obligations by sucking the life-blood out of the real economy and the human race.” She declared that American System economic methods, such as the reinstatement of the Glass–Steagall Act and the replacement of the Federal Reserve with a National Bank, are necessary measures in order to “prevent large debt burdens from stifling the growth of the physical economy upon which we all depend.” And “partnering with China’s Belt and Road Initiative would ensure a speedy railroad to recovery.”
This Friday, be sure to tune into the 175th weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition for a crucial meeting on creating the leadership needed to resolve today’s global crisis.
