Author: Alicia

The new British covert propaganda bureau, producing the “narrative” for international media as well as working as the permanent press office of the Syrian rebels, has been exposed in a series of articles by a Guardian investigative team.

In an article entitled “Inside RICU, the Shadowy Propaganda Unit Inspired by the Cold War,” Ian Cobain, Alice Ross, Rob Evans and Mona Mahmood in the Guardian of May 2 expose the new covert propaganda bureau modeled on the Cold War era Information Research Department (IRD), which was a covert operation to run economic and political warfare against European nations.

The new bureau is called Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) and is under the Home Office. It was established in 2007 and has a budget of £17 million. The official aim of RICU is to produce anti-ISIS propaganda, but in reality it works as a manipulative, derivative scheme for orienting western opinion in the direction of British interests.

Much of RICU’s work is outsourced to Breakthrough Media Network Ltd. Breakthrough produces and disseminates covert propaganda either directly or through companies it has set up for the purpose. One of such companies is Horizon PR, set up last year in a joint enterprise with M&C Saatchi, “to support the public relations of civil society groups, voluntary organizations and NGOs who want to drive positive social change,” a Saatchi spokesman said.

The Guardian interviewed former Breakthrough employees who said that they were not aware they were working for the British government. When they realized, they quit.

“RICU was modeled on the Information Research Department (IRD), a propaganda unit established in 1948 by the Attlee government. The IRD’s exploits included hoodwinking journalists and academics and targeting trade unionists, before it was shut down in 1977,” the Guardian wrote.

IRD hired hundreds of journalists and opinion-makers in targeted countries and used them as vehicles for serving British interests, including plans for overthrowing governments and eliminating political figures. The IRD role in Italy has been broadly documented by author Giovanni Fasanella in two books, both reviewed by EIR: The British Coup and Italy as a Colony.

Fasanella commented on the RICU revelations in his blog:

“Where does the necessary information work on the danger of ISIS end, and where, instead, begins the covert work of manipulating public opinion and destabilizing foreign states and governments functional to British interests?”

In a second article May 3, the Guardian authors exposed another element of the British covert propaganda bureau, consisting in an operation to run a “Free Syrian Army Press Office” directly from 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister’s office. “Through its Conflict and Stability Fund the government is spending £2.4 million on private contractors working from Istanbul to deliver ‘strategic communications and media operations support to the Syrian moderate armed opposition’ (MAO). The contract is part of a broader propaganda effort focused on Syria, with other elements intended to promote ‘the moderate values of the revolution’ and help mold a Syrian sense of national identity that will reject both the Assad regime and ISIS.”

One of the contractors, Regester Larkin, set up a company called Innovative Communications & Strategies, or InCoStrat. Both RL and InCoStrat “emphasized the close supervision of the work by the British government.”

“Much of the material produced under these contracts is day-to-day wartime propaganda, aimed at Syrian civilian and military audiences.” The Guardian questioned the British ministry of Defense, which said the UK government supports only “moderate” groups, but “The contracting document seen by the Guardian lists several ‘mid-level units’ as examples of groups considered to be part of the ‘moderate armed opposition.’ These include Harakat al-Hazm, which received military assistance from the U.S., and Jaish al-Islam, a group reportedly set up with Saudi backing.”

Vladimir Putin is defeating Obama and the rapidly emerging Nazi International which Obama is leading on behalf of the British Empire. Putin is winning because he is creative. Americans can only participate in this drive for victory by regaining the ability to reject “public opinion” and “practicality” in favor of creative thinking, which has been driven out our population’s minds by 70 years of FBI terror, brain-destroying drugs and popular music, green psychosis against science, and London’s control of Washington through Wall Street.        

On the military front, Putin not only intervened in Syria to demonstrate that terrorism can be defeated by cutting off its support from Obama’s friends in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but also demonstrated the purpose of military victory, through the profound weapon of J.S. Bach, performed in the same Palmyra ruins where ISIS beheaded its opponents.        

In Asia, Putin, together with Xi Jinping, has refused to accept the new “blocs” of pro- and anti-China countries which Obama is frantically trying to create, including in his planned May 21-28 trip to Vietnam and Japan. Instead, Putin will host all the ASEAN leaders in Sochi this week under the theme “Towards Strategic Partnership for the Sake of the Common Good.”        

While Obama sees Japan as the necessary military partner for confronting and defeating China, President Shinzo Abe has rejected every effort by Obama to turn Japan against Russia. Sources have confirmed to EIR that Abe’s May 6 meeting with Putin in Sochi opened up vast joint development cooperation in the Russian Far East, and set in motion a path to a solution to the territorial issues left over from World War II. The potential for similar expanding Japanese cooperation with China is building, much to Obama’s horror. In fact, the killer President may find himself running into a brick wall in Asia, as the world increasingly sees a paradigm of common interests and harmony presented by the BRICS as both desirable and necessary, to counter the mad military confrontation and economic disintegration policy coming from London and Washington.        

The LaRouche movement’s effort to recruit Americans to sanity, centered in the Manhattan Project, is presenting the population with a solution, based on exposing the truth about the terrorists who killed 3000 people on 9/11, on reviving America’s classical musical tradition centered in New York as a political weapon against degeneracy, as in Palmyra, and on the Manhattan citizenry leading the nation towards cooperation with Russia and China, to create the required global Renaissance. It is Obama’s criminal madness which stands in the way, and the effort of the corrupt media to divert attention onto the clown show called an election, rather than on the urgent task of removing the obstacle now, before he can push the button.        

The renewed surge of slanders against LaRouche in the mainstream (as in “sewer”) press reflects the recognition that Obama is taking a sever blow, internationally. LaRouche’s work with leading Russian and Chinese officials and intellectuals, in the strategic exposure of the British/Saudi terror nexus, and in fostering the New Silk Road development paradigm for mankind, poses the means for Americans to escape the deadly grip of pessimism and mediocrity, to become again the Americans who fought for freedom through creativity for all mankind.

I’m ready to help, sign me up

The battle to release the 9/11 evidence Bush and Obama have suppressed, and begin a new, full investigation of the Saudi Arabia’s murderous role in the 911
attacks, escalated to new levels with another interview with Adm. John Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy and member of the 9/11 Commission, aired by CNN on May 12. While Lehman had been interviewed for the blockbuster “60 Minutes” program on releasing the 28 pages in April, and also in the Guardian on May 12th, he went broke new ground with CNN in several areas.

First, Lehman gave specifics about the role of Saudi officials. He “told CNN Thursday that the classified 28 pages of a congressional investigatory report into the attacks contains evidence that as many as six Saudi officials supported al-Qaeda in the run-up to the attacks.

“Those individuals, he said, worked for the Saudi Embassy in the U.S., Saudi charities and the Saudi government-funded King Fahd Mosque in California.”

Second, he said the Saudi involvement was never fully probed. “Lehman charged that evidence of Saudi involvement was never sufficiently investigated by U.S. authorities and that a new investigation should now be ‘vigorously pursued.”’

Third, Lehman said there were “hard” ties of the Saudi officials to the hijackers. “Lehman said the individuals had hard ties to the government—and hard ties to the hijackers, with one driving the hijackers from San Diego to Phoenix when they failed out of their first flight school.”

CNN ran the story on Lehman’s comments throughout the day on May 12, along with statements from an interview with another 9/11 Commission member, former federal prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste, who backed up Lehman’s statements about the investigation of the Saudis being incomplete.

“Our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia,” Lehman said, CNN reported, quoting his statement to the Guardian.

More members of Congress are signing on daily to the Walter Jones-Stephen Lynch bill to release this last, 28-page, secret chapter of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11.

Washington has been rocked by the rising series of demands for these 28 pages, and rising ferment in New York City in particular, for true justice for the thousands of victims and their families. It is now clear some leading Members of Congress who are neither activists for, nor signers on the Jones-Lynch bill, have pressured Obama about his and Bush’s suppression. It appears Obama has promised them to release the pages—a promise he intends to break, as he broke those to the families of the victims.

This shows the pressure which the LaRouche “Manhattan Project” has put Obama under. That now has to escalate. What we want from Obama, to accomplish that justice, is to remove him from—NOW.

The battle to release the 9/11 evidence Bush and Obama have suppressed, and begin a new, full investigation of the Saudi Arabia’s murderous role in the 911
attacks, escalated to new levels with another interview with Adm. John Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy and member of the 9/11 Commission, aired by CNN on May 12. While Lehman had been interviewed for the blockbuster “60 Minutes” program on releasing the 28 pages in April, and also in the Guardian on May 12th, he went broke new ground with CNN in several areas.

First, Lehman gave specifics about the role of Saudi officials. He “told CNN Thursday that the classified 28 pages of a congressional investigatory report into the attacks contains evidence that as many as six Saudi officials supported al-Qaeda in the run-up to the attacks.

“Those individuals, he said, worked for the Saudi Embassy in the U.S., Saudi charities and the Saudi government-funded King Fahd Mosque in California.”

Second, he said the Saudi involvement was never fully probed. “Lehman charged that evidence of Saudi involvement was never sufficiently investigated by U.S. authorities and that a new investigation should now be ‘vigorously pursued.”’

Third, Lehman said there were “hard” ties of the Saudi officials to the hijackers. “Lehman said the individuals had hard ties to the government—and hard ties to the hijackers, with one driving the hijackers from San Diego to Phoenix when they failed out of their first flight school.”

CNN ran the story on Lehman’s comments throughout the day on May 12, along with statements from an interview with another 9/11 Commission member, former federal prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste, who backed up Lehman’s statements about the investigation of the Saudis being incomplete.

“Our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia,” Lehman said, CNN reported, quoting his statement to the Guardian.

More members of Congress are signing on daily to the Walter Jones-Stephen Lynch bill to release this last, 28-page, secret chapter of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11.

Washington has been rocked by the rising series of demands for these 28 pages, and rising ferment in New York City in particular, for true justice for the thousands of victims and their families. It is now clear some leading Members of Congress who are neither activists for, nor signers on the Jones-Lynch bill, have pressured Obama about his and Bush’s suppression. It appears Obama has promised them to release the pages—a promise he intends to break, as he broke those to the families of the victims.

This shows the pressure which the LaRouche “Manhattan Project” has put Obama under. That now has to escalate. What we want from Obama, to accomplish that justice, is to remove him from—NOW.

by Tony Papert

Our historians are monumentally incompetent.  Things do not happen.  Rather, they are made to happen.

But made how?  By tricks?  By schemes? By the kind of “knowledge” produced by ambition?  By calculation?

On May 10, a few of us were privileged beyond all measure to partake in a unique, and indeed an epochal historic encounter with the 93-year old Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., on a hilltop in Virginia.  The influence, and along with it the memory of his presentation there, will long outlive the lives of everyone who was present.  And yet, even so, LaRouche stated that it was only the first of a series; where this will go in the immediate future can hardly be imagined.

This is a man who has profoundly changed the history of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries,— with completely deliberate intention, but by using nothing but his own highly-controversial methods.  He has changed the history of these decades using his mind alone, without weapons or budgets.  Or whatever weapons or budgets he may have had at any time, he obtained using his unique methods, while he was “understood by very few, and supported by no one,” to quote Einstein on Johannes Kepler.

How is this possible?  Common sense and practicality reject it completely,— yet it has happened.  Not only that, but it is happening now.  And not only that, but it was visibly happening on May 10,— for those who were able to see it.

Neither a transcript nor an audio recording could capture anything of the eye-to-eye communication of May 10.  That you can only reproduce for yourself, inside yourself.

But we can begin to get at it by stating what it is not. Common-sense thinking separates out goals, methods, ideas and motivations, as four distinct things,— four types.  But for LaRouche and for the other heirs of Plato, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, they are not separate at all: they are all just different views or images of precisely one and the same quality, somewhat as when you view one diamond (and through it the world), through various of its different facets.  The only and the true source of the power to change history,— the only source of history,— is the bottomless spring of this one single “quality,” which was at the center of LaRouche’s presentation of May 10.

He began it by saying that he was devoting the remainder of his life to rescuing human creativity.  He went on to say that he was in process of making improvements in the organization; that the organization must rise to a higher standard.  History hangs in the balance.

“Being practical is the worst thing you can do. It’s the ability to create a new future, to create a development of a future that you had never known before or since,— and that’s your obligation.  Don’t be practical; don’t say, ‘I’m being practical.’  Don’t use the word practical in any form of language; don’t use it.  It’s worse than a waste of time.  You have to think about — do you want all babies to be born with the same characteristics from the date of birth to the end; do you want that?  Are you content to seek that?  Well, then you’re not human; and that is a common characteristic of the average citizen of the United States.  They have no comprehension of what the meaning of humanity is; they want to be practical….

“The organization has to bring itself up to a higher level of standard of performance and the nature of goals; what mankind is supposed to effect.  And in general in the organization, people cover over defects which should not be tolerated; it spoils the market.  Look, you have to realize how dangerous this is; this will be the summer months.  And what have you got to deal with for those summer months?  What skills do you have? What insight do you have?  How are you going to make it work?  Do you realize what’s going on in the world now?  What the war is; the great war?  China and Russia against the Nazis of the world? Because most of our representatives are part of the Nazis of the world; in the United States, the leaders of the United States are mostly assholes of the world, or something less dignified.  And that’s what our problem is with our organization.  We accept a standard of achievement which is beyond anything that will realize a truly necessary benefit for mankind.   We do not have an approach presently as an organization, the kind of approach which is necessary to make successful progress under these kinds of conditions.  We do have available to us, if we think properly, we do have the ability to scratch into the things that we have to consider if we’re going to be successful in defeating this problem.

“You have to realize, we’re on the edge of a virtual extinction of humanity in terms of the United States, in terms of Mexico; Mexico is really rotten as Hell.  And we have no sight that there’ll be any improvement.  Mexico once had a great mission; but then, the great mission was destroyed by the Wall Street crowd.  So, there’s no more of that.  You find that the nations of South America, you find a degeneration of those economies which I had lived through in terms of experience over long years.  Mankind has not yet become a successful creature; because we don’t understand what the challenge of being a creature of that type means.

“I could say many things about that, but that’s what bothers me; it bothers me that people are inured in the kinds of ideas that really don’t mean much of anything.  And what I’m doing is spending most of what is left of my life to try to save the cause of creativity; and it’s a tough war to fight, because people don’t believe in the kind of warfare that is necessary to succeed.”

LaRouche responded to a report on the recent Russian-Chinese joint maneuvers for anti-missile defense. “But the key thing lies not in the personnel as such. It lies in the development of the personnel and development of the character of their behavior and their mission-orientation. And that is the factor which wins the war!  In other words, this is not a matter of a number of people who are fighting the war, not the ones who have gained this or gained that; that is not the issue.  The issue is, can the human species produce from within its own ranks, a body of people who will meet the challenge of defeating the kind of evil we have to face now.

“So the thing, when people say, ‘well, he’s going to win this war.  He’s going to win this war.  He’s going to win that war. He’s going to win that war.  He’s going to win that war! … He’s gonna lose that war.’  That’s what the game is, and they’re all playing that game!  They don’t have the ability to win, because they have not been given the capability to win, inside themselves.  And that’s what the recent experience of Putin has been, since he started the thing in saving people. And since he started that, he has worked on a continuous drive of going to win the global war.  And it’s not to win the war in the sense of killing people, that was not the way he functioned in his recent activities.  None!  It’s the development of the individual within the nation, that is the key to power.  The ability to create something better than mankind has known and experienced beforehand.

“So trying to win that and win that and win this and win this, it’s all nonsense, it’s for children, it’s for masturbators….

“The problem is the population in general is educated to become stupid; they think it’s glory, but it’s only stupidity. Because they think, ‘I’m so big now.  Look, I’m so big now!  I’m so successful now.  I have achieved this, now.  I’m going to achieve this.  I’m getting a higher job now!’ That’s the silliness, the sickness, which permeates most of our organization.  It lurks there, always, and all you have to do is scratch a little bit, and it will come out.  I could give you a long list, but I’m not going to do that to you.  I’m not going to rub the shame into you; you’re ashamed of yourselves, let you do it by yourselves!”

But these words are only the palest shadows of what was being communicated.

by Tony Papert

Our historians are monumentally incompetent.  Things do not happen.  Rather, they are made to happen.

But made how?  By tricks?  By schemes? By the kind of “knowledge” produced by ambition?  By calculation?

On May 10, a few of us were privileged beyond all measure to partake in a unique, and indeed an epochal historic encounter with the 93-year old Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., on a hilltop in Virginia.  The influence, and along with it the memory of his presentation there, will long outlive the lives of everyone who was present.  And yet, even so, LaRouche stated that it was only the first of a series; where this will go in the immediate future can hardly be imagined.

This is a man who has profoundly changed the history of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries,— with completely deliberate intention, but by using nothing but his own highly-controversial methods.  He has changed the history of these decades using his mind alone, without weapons or budgets.  Or whatever weapons or budgets he may have had at any time, he obtained using his unique methods, while he was “understood by very few, and supported by no one,” to quote Einstein on Johannes Kepler.

How is this possible?  Common sense and practicality reject it completely,— yet it has happened.  Not only that, but it is happening now.  And not only that, but it was visibly happening on May 10,— for those who were able to see it.

Neither a transcript nor an audio recording could capture anything of the eye-to-eye communication of May 10.  That you can only reproduce for yourself, inside yourself.

But we can begin to get at it by stating what it is not. Common-sense thinking separates out goals, methods, ideas and motivations, as four distinct things,— four types.  But for LaRouche and for the other heirs of Plato, such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, they are not separate at all: they are all just different views or images of precisely one and the same quality, somewhat as when you view one diamond (and through it the world), through various of its different facets.  The only and the true source of the power to change history,— the only source of history,— is the bottomless spring of this one single “quality,” which was at the center of LaRouche’s presentation of May 10.

He began it by saying that he was devoting the remainder of his life to rescuing human creativity.  He went on to say that he was in process of making improvements in the organization; that the organization must rise to a higher standard.  History hangs in the balance.

“Being practical is the worst thing you can do. It’s the ability to create a new future, to create a development of a future that you had never known before or since,— and that’s your obligation.  Don’t be practical; don’t say, ‘I’m being practical.’  Don’t use the word practical in any form of language; don’t use it.  It’s worse than a waste of time.  You have to think about — do you want all babies to be born with the same characteristics from the date of birth to the end; do you want that?  Are you content to seek that?  Well, then you’re not human; and that is a common characteristic of the average citizen of the United States.  They have no comprehension of what the meaning of humanity is; they want to be practical….

“The organization has to bring itself up to a higher level of standard of performance and the nature of goals; what mankind is supposed to effect.  And in general in the organization, people cover over defects which should not be tolerated; it spoils the market.  Look, you have to realize how dangerous this is; this will be the summer months.  And what have you got to deal with for those summer months?  What skills do you have? What insight do you have?  How are you going to make it work?  Do you realize what’s going on in the world now?  What the war is; the great war?  China and Russia against the Nazis of the world? Because most of our representatives are part of the Nazis of the world; in the United States, the leaders of the United States are mostly assholes of the world, or something less dignified.  And that’s what our problem is with our organization.  We accept a standard of achievement which is beyond anything that will realize a truly necessary benefit for mankind.   We do not have an approach presently as an organization, the kind of approach which is necessary to make successful progress under these kinds of conditions.  We do have available to us, if we think properly, we do have the ability to scratch into the things that we have to consider if we’re going to be successful in defeating this problem.

“You have to realize, we’re on the edge of a virtual extinction of humanity in terms of the United States, in terms of Mexico; Mexico is really rotten as Hell.  And we have no sight that there’ll be any improvement.  Mexico once had a great mission; but then, the great mission was destroyed by the Wall Street crowd.  So, there’s no more of that.  You find that the nations of South America, you find a degeneration of those economies which I had lived through in terms of experience over long years.  Mankind has not yet become a successful creature; because we don’t understand what the challenge of being a creature of that type means.

“I could say many things about that, but that’s what bothers me; it bothers me that people are inured in the kinds of ideas that really don’t mean much of anything.  And what I’m doing is spending most of what is left of my life to try to save the cause of creativity; and it’s a tough war to fight, because people don’t believe in the kind of warfare that is necessary to succeed.”

LaRouche responded to a report on the recent Russian-Chinese joint maneuvers for anti-missile defense. “But the key thing lies not in the personnel as such. It lies in the development of the personnel and development of the character of their behavior and their mission-orientation. And that is the factor which wins the war!  In other words, this is not a matter of a number of people who are fighting the war, not the ones who have gained this or gained that; that is not the issue.  The issue is, can the human species produce from within its own ranks, a body of people who will meet the challenge of defeating the kind of evil we have to face now.

“So the thing, when people say, ‘well, he’s going to win this war.  He’s going to win this war.  He’s going to win that war. He’s going to win that war.  He’s going to win that war! … He’s gonna lose that war.’  That’s what the game is, and they’re all playing that game!  They don’t have the ability to win, because they have not been given the capability to win, inside themselves.  And that’s what the recent experience of Putin has been, since he started the thing in saving people. And since he started that, he has worked on a continuous drive of going to win the global war.  And it’s not to win the war in the sense of killing people, that was not the way he functioned in his recent activities.  None!  It’s the development of the individual within the nation, that is the key to power.  The ability to create something better than mankind has known and experienced beforehand.

“So trying to win that and win that and win this and win this, it’s all nonsense, it’s for children, it’s for masturbators….

“The problem is the population in general is educated to become stupid; they think it’s glory, but it’s only stupidity. Because they think, ‘I’m so big now.  Look, I’m so big now!  I’m so successful now.  I have achieved this, now.  I’m going to achieve this.  I’m getting a higher job now!’ That’s the silliness, the sickness, which permeates most of our organization.  It lurks there, always, and all you have to do is scratch a little bit, and it will come out.  I could give you a long list, but I’m not going to do that to you.  I’m not going to rub the shame into you; you’re ashamed of yourselves, let you do it by yourselves!”

But these words are only the palest shadows of what was being communicated.

Brazil’s Senate was embroiled Wednesday in a 15-hour session of speeches and grand-standing, after which a vote was to be taken on proceeding with the impeachment against President Dilma Rousseff. It was expected that the needed simple majority would be achieved by those favoring impeachment. Dilma would then hand over power on May 12 to VP Michel Temer for the duration of the impeachment trial, which can last up to 180 days.

With Dilma out of the way, the trans-Atlantic financial vultures will descend on Brazil in droves, to both knock the “B” out of the BRICS and to use this British Empire “Clean Hands” operation to dismember the country’s relatively advanced scientific, technological, and industrial capabilities.

Earlier this week, Judge Sergio Moro—who reportedly got most of his hot “anti-corruption” leads from the NSA intercepts of top Brazilian politicians (including President Rousseff herself) and businessmen, which Edward Snowden denounced in 2013—ordered the arrest for questioning of nationalist former Finance Minister Guido Mantega, for alleged corruption extending from Petrobras into the all-important BNDES (National Economic and Social Development Bank). BNDES for decades has been the center of national directed credit for infrastructure, as well as for many of the more recent deals that are in the works with China. Wall Street and the City of London have been trying to privatize BNDES for decades.

But tellingly, Tuesday, the Defense Minister of Brazil signed an agreement for cooperation with BNDES for “technical cooperation” for developing a defense industrial base in Brazil. This is a major policy message coming from the still-powerful military-science-industry institutions of Brazil. But it will not be sufficient to stop the assault unless and until Dilma and her allies identify that what is underway is not just a coup (which they have stated), but an international bankers’ coup as part of the British Empire’s assault on all the BRICS, Russia and China included, and join the international efforts to annihilate that Empire once and for all. So far, Dilma has stuck to a strictly national narrative  in a display of typically Brazilian foolish pragmatism.

To be watched over coming days: Judge Moro is really squeezing the multi-millionaire scion of the Odebrecht family (of the huge, international construction engineering firm of the same name) who is in jail for 19 years, offering to cut his sentence in half if he turns state’s evidence against BNDES. Also to be watched: The head of the OAS, Luis Almagro, continues to raise doubts about the legality of the whole Brazilian impeachment process, most recently announcing that he will seek the legal opinion of the OAS-linked Inter-American Human Rights Court. This indicates that there is pressure coming for other countries in Ibero-America to do something about the flagrant coup d’etat underway in Brazil. As Sancho Panza famously said: When you see your neighbor being shaved, its time to wet-down your own whiskers.

Gilbert Doctorow, the European Coordinator of the American Committee for East-West Accord, develops the historic significance of the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra of St. Petersburg’s trip to Palmyra in a May 8 Consortium News article titled, “A Gift of Culture to Battered Palmyra.”

Palmyra has been considered a “twin city” of St. Petersburg for centuries. One reason is that Catherine the Great of St. Petersburg, was likened to Palmyra’s Third Century Queen Zenobia, a powerful ruler of the Palmyran Empire, who conquered Egypt and a large part of Anatolia. In the time of Pushkin, says Doctorow, Russian writers further developed the allusion, drawing upon the widely known beauty and cultural richness of Roman Palmyra.

In the 19th Century, St. Petersburg archaeologists were among the Europeans taking part in digs in Palmyra, and reporting them.

Says Doctorow, “It is not so surprising with that awareness in the Russian intelligentsia, that St. Petersburg conductor Valery Gergiev thought up the grand gesture, an act of great imagination.”

The concert took place little more than a month after Palmyra was liberated from the Islamic State, and just days after the archaeological sites were cleared of mines. In these circumstances, the Russian military moved Maestro Gergiev, the soloists, hundreds of national and international dignitaries, and 100 tons of telecommunications gear into the war zone.

In an extraordinary gesture, the Russians did not rush to evacuate their broadcasters and gear; they stayed to broadcast a follow-on concert featuring a Syrian orchestra and chorus that was held the next day in the same Roman amphitheater. The Russians stayed and telecast the Syrian concert to Russian viewers.

Doctorow reports that Valery Gergiev and his orchestra have performed at the front before. In 2008, he brought his orchestra to Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, just after its liberation from Georgian attackers. In Russia, he and his orchestra regularly do grueling tours of the North and Far East of Russia.

Doctorow called the Palmyra concert Russia’s most successful exercise in “soft power” in many years. The “Pray for Palmyra” Concert was dedicated to the memory of two heroes: Dr. Khaled Asaad, former Director of the Palmyra museum complex for 40 years, who was beheaded by ISIS because he refused to reveal where its treasures were hidden. The presence of the Director of the Hermitage Museum, Mikhail Piotrovsky, Doctorow says, was “a direct counterpoint” to the missing Syrian director, and his presence also symbolized the commitment of Russian art restorers to return Palmyra to its pre-war status as a center for research.

The concert was dedicated to twin heroes: on the opposite side of Dr. Asaad’s portrait, was a photograph of Russian hero Lt. Alexander Prokhorenko, who, surrounded behind ISIS lines, called for a Russian air strike on his position, giving his life to take out an enemy detachment.

The concert’s date also introduced the May 9 V-E Day celebrations in Russia, and served as “a gift to the Russian nation as well for its popular support of the military intervention in Syria.”

Gergiev is now the principal conductor of the Munich Symphony, as well as Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Orchestra.

After reviewing the “sour grapes” and outright hostile coverage of the Palmyra concert in much of the Western media, Doctorow concludes his article: “It is an unpardonable error of judgment to speak of a new Cold War as something that lies ahead, just around the corner. We are in the midst of it, and it will take enormous luck or a change of leaders for the better if we are to avoid a hot war.” 

In a speech Monday before the Economic Club of Minnesota, Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari told his audience that the current obsession with interest rates is a waste of time. The point is, he said, that central banks don’t influence or control “many of the things that really matter to the long-term well being of society.”

Kashkari prefaced his remarks by noting that in the case of the TBTF banks, he believes there must be a “serious national conversation about whether we have done enough to address large bank failures.” That, he said, is why there will be a public symposium on this issue on May 16, “to raise awareness and educate the American people.”

However, the Fed’s policy on interest rates isn’t going to solve the country’s most profound problems, Kashkari said, and the financial markets’ obsession with the Fed’s actions in the short term is of little use. More attention should be paid to declining productivity, for example. He pointed out that there has been some improvement in the labor market but very slow growth in output. Thus the average productivity of workers is growing slowly “and sometimes even falling.” This “could be a troubling sign for the future of the economy. We don’t know.”

But, Kashkari concluded, understanding what slower productivity growth means for economic growth “is essential for policymakers, investors and the public. We must remember that trend labor productivity is fundamentally outside the control of the Fed. An excessive focus on the next interest rate decision distracts us from important questions like this one.”  

The reading sessions of the Arabic translation of the EIR Special Report “The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge” have developed into national events attended by ministers, universities, poets, intellectuals, businesses, civil society organisations, and the most prominent national and international mass media outlets every week in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. All this happens while the Anglo-American-Saudi bombardment of the city and invasion of south of the country never ceased. These events are organized by The Advisory Office for Coordination with BRICS, which is headed by Fouad Al-Ghaffari. 1000 copies of the report were printed last week for distribution among institutions and individual citizens.

Dr. Abdul-Aziz Al-Muqalih, Chairman of the Yemeni Center for Strategic Studies and Research, who is also one of Yemen’s best-known poets and novelists, receives a copy of the EIR report.

On May 10, the 8th session was held to read Part 3 of the Report, “China: Silk Road to Development and Peace”, and was attended and addressed by acting Minister of Communications Mr. Muslih Muhsin Al-Azir. The meeting was also attended by the Chairman of the Yemeni Center for Strategic Studies and Research, Dr. Abdul-Aziz Al-Muqalih, who is also one of the best-known Yemeni poets and novelists, and another prominent poet, Al-Gharbi Amran. Copies of the freshly printed report were presented as gifts to some of the prominent guests. A large banner, featuring the report’s cover page, the map of the WLB from the back cover, and a portrait of President Xi Jinping adorned the background banner of the meeting.

The meeting was also addressed (through video) by Hussein Askary, co-author of the EIR report and translator of the Arabic version, who explained the Chinese role in the New Silk Road, which according to Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Chairwoman of the Schiller Institute and New Silk Road Lady, is “history’s greatest peace and development project”.

EIR’s Hussein Askary addressing the May 10th event via video.

Askary explained the history of the joint Schiller Institute/Chinese efforts to promote and build this project since at least 1996. He also explained the three main pillars of the Confucius-based Chinese philosophy behind the New Silk Road: Love, Harmony, and mutual benefits. And that these are diametrically opposite to the current, destructive and inhuman Anglo-American system.

Acting Minister Al-Azir lauded the historical ties between Yemen and China that extend from the pre-Islamic period (pre-6th century AD), and the Chinese support for the people of Yemen since in the republican revolution of September 26, 1962, and for supporting all aspects of development which every individual Yemeni citizen felt their impact on their lives, especially the Sanaa-Hudaida highway. Al-Azir also stressed the importance of enhancing the good relations with the People’s Republic of China, and praised the role played by the Advisory Board for Coordination with BRICS for improving Yemen’s relations with the friendly nations, such as China.

Chairman of the Advisory Office for Coordination with the BRICS in Yemen, Fouad Al-Ghaffari, addressing the event

On May 9, the Advisory Office had held a joint event in the University of Sanaa and its affiliated center for strategic research to sign a protocol of cooperation on the New Silk Road report and other research related to it.

Previous reading sessions dealt with the physical economic ideas of Lyndon LaRouche included in Part 2, “Metrics of Progress”. Following the discussion of the importance of nuclear power, the Deputy Minister of Electricity and Energy, Dr. Hareth Al-Amri stated that the Yemeni government should revive its nuclear power program which was abandoned in the 1990s.

Media coverage of these events has been constant, and the interest in the New Silk Road and connection Yemen to both the Economic Belt of the New Silk Road and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road has been awakened massively in the country, both through the understanding of the importance of these ideas and visions for the reconstruction of Yemen after the ongoing devastating war, in which Saudi warplanes, powered by American and British weapons focused on destroying the basic infrastructure and whatever industries that existed in order to force the people to kneel in front of the might of the Anglo-Empire. But that did not happen. These activities have also become a source of hope for the people of Yemen who are paying a heavy price for this satanic geopolitical war. At the moment negotiations are under way in Kuwait between the Sanaa-based national forces, and the Saudi-backed government-in-exile under the auspices of the United Nations. The Russian-Chinese efforts to put an end to the war in Syria, and rebuild the country, are also felt in Kuwait. The different parties are being pressured from all sides to end the fighting and restore the political process which was progressing well, before the Saudis sabotaged it in March-April 2015.

Minister of Communications with Fouad Al-Ghaffari and BRICS-Yemen group.

Whatever the outcome of these negotiations, and whichever government is eventually established, it will have to take into consideration that the ideas embedded in the EIR Special Report, and the visions the Yemenis are creating from their reading of these ideas, will have to be the real basis for rebuilding the country and bringing peace and development to its current and future generations. China and Russia have to contribute to these vision with the their support and leverage, because the fate of Yemen will have a great impact on the way the New Silk Road Peace project will take.

Join us for the last in a series of six presentations on the life and work of the great scientist and economist Gottfried Leibniz, who was a key inspiration to the early Lyndon LaRouche. Today, the topic is the New World, and Leibniz’s legacy in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and his opposition to the terrible ideas of such as John Locke, whose thoughts still pollute American thinking today. Full series playlist.

Additional references:
• Graham Lowry, How the Nation Was Won
• Phil Valenti, “The Anti-Newtonian Roots of the American Revolution” (pdf)
• David Shavin, “Leibniz to Franklin ‘On Happiness’”