As the transatlantic region slumbers through the dog days of August, the world is careening closer to a thermonuclear explosion that only a few seem to be cognizant of.  One of those is German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who gave an interview to Bild am Sonntag, warning that the situation in Ukraine is “explosive,” and that, unless talks begin immediately, there is a danger of “a new military escalation spiral.” Steinmeier’s warning comes as Victoria Nuland’s neo-Nazis have been escalating their efforts to get a full-scale war going with Russia.  Meanwhile, war tensions are escalating against China as the U.S. and Japan are increasing naval operations in the South China Sea, while China and Russia will be conducting joint naval exercises in the Sea of Japan next week.

Anyone who is awake can see that this volatile mix is the tinder that could spark a global thermonuclear war which could exterminate all mankind.  But, one must be more than merely awake to stop it.  That requires rejecting all “practical” thinking, and finding in oneself the moral qualities to inspire the highest moral principles in others.  Hence, the importance of LaRouche’s Manhattan-based choral project.  That project is centered in Manhattan, and its impact is radiating throughout the world, generating the inspiration so necessary to pull mankind back from the brink.  LaRouche exclaimed to his associates on Sunday, concerning the process underway in Manhattan, “It worked! It just plain worked! I think this whole thing in Manhattan is really working very effectively.  I think everything is ready to go to a greatly expanded increase, centered on Manhattan, but not limited to Manhattan.  The Manhattan success is actually bestirring other parts of the nation.”

As LaRouche told the Saturday meeting in Manhattan, in answer to the question, “What does music have to do with stopping nuclear war, or politics, or what? Why are you doing this?”—

“No, the point is, what we do is we create forces in society which are determined by the powers of mankind’s creative forces. And what you’re trying to do, always, is you’re trying to create something which is needed, or you think is needed, and you decide that you have to step outside ordinary practice, in order to solve the problem you’ve just confronted.

“That’s the basis of this whole thing. Mankind has to become wiser, and it has to be a process of development. Now everything I do is based on this kind of idea of the process of development; I’ve spent most of my life on that. And I’ve found that most of the errors that occur are usually caused by ignorance. And ignorance is often caused by a refusal to investigate options which are actually creative in their effect.

“Often what happens, the practical man, so-called, is often the source of his own self-destruction. He says, ‘I’m practical. I’m practical.’ Now, in mathematics, and in science in general, that’s tragic. People who are practical are intrinsically tragic, because they limit themselves to what they think is practical, whereas progress is always based on getting beyond being practical by making discoveries of principle, or discovering principles which had existed before, but you hadn’t understood them.

“Progress is the increase of the creative powers, of the individual mind, and of society. Practical people, therefore, tend to be stupid people, not because they’re inherently stupid, but they refuse to look to higher levels of challenges for success, for mankind: success for mankind. Which means it’s another. It’s not something you own, it’s not something that’s contained with inside you. It’s something which if you adapt to it, and understand it, makes mankind more powerful in his own domain.”