News / Brèves
Classical Revolution / Révolution classique
Back to previous selection / Retour à la sélection précédente

Countdown in August

Printable version / Version imprimable

by My-Hoa Steger -A musician and organizer for the LaRouche Political Action Committee in San Franscisco, California.

EIRNS—Were we to act upon the future—to act upon the inherent essence and principle of mankind to grow, develop, and progress,—we could embark upon a new era of a global and galactic renaissance. Were we to continue to disregard this natural principle of man, which qualitatively distinguishes us from the animal species, we will be faced, as we are now, with the threat of a self-inflicted extinction.

As we approach the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs on civilian populations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6, 1945 and August 9, 1945, respectively, we must unify mankind’s intent to say never again.

The death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, was a grim turning point in our history. Harry S Truman turned our country away from what FDR had set into motion, and instead launched the era of thermonuclear war. Only under the greatest presidencies since that time, for instance under John F. Kennedy’s leadership, were we committed to averting the danger of thermonuclear war.

Today, the future of our species depends on those few who have the courage to confront the reality which stares them dead in the eye. With abundant fact and proof available, from Obama’s insistence on building up our nuclear arsenal in Europe, to the resurrection of Right Sector Nazi brigades along Russia’s border, we need no more information to verify that, indeed, the future of mankind is in immediate jeopardy.

The CCF: A Project of Bestialization

During Truman’s Presidency, a treasonous institution was formed out of West Germany in 1950—the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF). The enemy of mankind knows that the conscious power of the human species to transform itself, is the greatest threat to any empire. The Congress for Cultural Freedom was a direct effort to eradicate the knowable and expressible spark of passion in man, which, when acted upon, has the effect of an increase of the potential of our species. The CCF’s mission was to pervert science and culture, to mass-brainwash a population into denying their humanity, and, instead, embracing their bestiality and pessimism.

Two leaders of the CCF’s sordid mission were Lord Bertrand Russell and Theodor Adorno. Lord Bertrand Russell was one of the honorary chairmen of the CCF, and was essentially the author of the doctrine of world government through the terror of nuclear weapons. He wrote in his 1951 The Impact of Science on Society:

I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology. ... Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called ‘education.’ Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part.

... It may be hoped that in time, anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young, and is provided by the State with money and equipment. The subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship.

... The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity.

But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise, and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make ce children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray. Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.

To complement Russell’s insane ideology, Theodor Adorno would express his perverted philosophy of music:

What radical music perceives is the untransfigured suffering of man. ... The seismographic registration of traumatic shock becomes, at the same time, the technical structural law of music. It forbids continuity and development. Musical language is polarized according to its extreme: towards gestures of shock resembling bodily convulsions on the one hand, and on the other towards a crystalline standstill of a human being whom anxiety causes to freeze in her tracks...

Modern music sees absolute oblivion as its goal. It is the surviving message of despair from the shipwrecked. It is not that schizophrenia is directly expressed therein; but the music imprints upon itself an attitude similar to that of the mentally ill. The individual brings about his own disintegration. ... He imagines the fulfillment of the promise through magic, but nonetheless within the realm of immediate actuality. ... Its concern is to dominate schizophrenic traits through the aesthetic consciousness. In so doing, it would hope to vindicate insanity as true health.

Who Will Drink the Cup?

To return to the opening point, mankind is faced with the threat of extinction through thermonuclear annihilation. Knowing what we know about the absolute consequences of such actions, should propel us into motion, to say never again. Who are we to take up this mission? Are we merely fleeting organisms of flesh that are born, then die, only to vanish into the dust of the past? It is absolutely imperative that we take up the unified historical mission of those such as Joan of Arc, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Washington, and Lyndon LaRouche, in order to avert the ultimate danger facing mankind.

The weight and magnitude of our present day’s choice reminds this author of an excerpt of Mr. LaRouche’s writing, written in March 1988, essentially on the eve of entering prison, after having been targeted by the likes of George Bush, Sr. and Henry Kissinger, and marked for political and personal assassination:

Up to a critical point in our lives, we plod our craft and pursue our moral commitments honestly to the limit of our knowledge and strength of will to do so. In that respect, we are all ordinary.

Then, one day, to some among us ordinary folk, there comes an experience which we must fairly liken to the New Testament’s account of Christ in Gethsemane. It is not enough to propose, to foster, to support those causes we know to be good. A silent voice speaks to us: If there is no one else to lead, you must do so. We protest: “Who am I, and what my poor means to undertake such a mission? Can there not be leaders which I can support, and so fulfil the responsibility in a manner consistent with my pitiable means?”

Then, in a moment permeated with a special quality of terror, we know that we drink from that cup. What do most ordinary folk, of the sort we were a moment earlier, know of such terror? To know such terror, one must first love mankind, and love truth. One must see mankind as doomed to some horrible consequence, unless a great change is made. The terror is the perception that this necessary change will not occur, unless one oneself acts appropriately to bring it about against all odds. As one drinks from that cup, there is a transformation in the nature of one’s will, and a congruent transformation in one’s state of knowledge.

‘Es Ist Vollbrach

Our culture is the expression of our inner soul. It is the fundamental concept which drives and shapes our strategic thought and policies. This is why many of the discussions between Mr. LaRouche and our extended organization have repeatedly emphasized the musical principle of placement. Not of the note, but placement of the tone—of the mind. For much of its history, mankind has suffered under the tyranny of mathematical deduction, of literal interpretation and description, rather than having access to subtle insights into true beauty.

Es Ist Vollbracht

Es ist vollbracht!
O Trost vor die gekränkten Seelen!
Die Trauernacht
Läßt nun die letzte Stunde zählen.
Der Held aus Juda siegt mit Macht
Und schließt den Kampf.
Es ist vollbracht!
It is accomplished!

O comfort for the ailing soul!
The night of sorrow
Now measures out its last hour.
The hero out of Judah conquers with might
And concludes the battle.
It is accomplished!

A performance of this aria by a soloist from the Tölzer Knabenchor can be seen here

In confronting today’s horrors, most people want quick solutions, quick fixes, like a heroine addict—answer the question and get it over with; shoot me up and let me forget about reality! If we are to be victorious in this war of the Divine Good over Satanic Evil, we must have the courage to delve deeper, and act upon the principles of the human spirit.

To provide our readers with an example of such a bold spirit, we look to J.S. Bach, and the subject matter he takes up in composing the story of the St. John Passion. Representative of the inherent intention of mankind to look forward, into the future, is Bach’s “Es ist vollbracht” alto aria from that composition.

The question of placement is not in the mere sung notes of the composition. The music does not come from the aggregation of notes in a literal sequence, dictated from history by the composer. What dictates to us the placement of tone? What is it inside us, that dictates the unfolding of a profound idea? What are we subject to in the hands of these great minds of the past? We are subject to just what they are subject to—a passion for mankind, past, present, and future. An accountability to hold these works as sacred and spiritual, and to submit ourselves to the mission to ensure that future generations have access, and are given the opportunity, to transcend these beautiful, universal ideas.

Thermonuclear war would surely end that mission of mankind, once and for all.Let us take with us Bach’s image of the Passion of Christ, as told in the Gospel of John in this special moment of ambiguity, where the future remains to be shaped, to be created. Nothing is inevitable and nothing is predetermined. The beautiful and good can, and must, prevail.