Fireside Chat -- From the Mountaintop: How Must Humanity Act in a Time of Crisis

Fireside Chat

Join us tonight at 9pmET/6pmPT for the discussion. Want to ask a question directly? Join the Zoom here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83226412240

The ongoing attempt by British intelligence and neocon war criminals around Donald Trump to pit him in a war with Iran, following U.S. airstrikes on Yemen, is leading to the downfall of his Presidency, and will perhaps trigger a new world war. It’s clear with scandals like “Signalgate,” that the main targets within Trump’s Administration are those that can supply with him real, reliable intelligence. This includes Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, Kash Patel as FBI Director, and John Ratcliffe as CIA Director.

Trump himself has been escalating the rhetoric against Iran. But more so than just the rhetoric, a half-dozen B-2 stealth bombers have been deployed to the U.S.-U.K. military base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Has Trump really been convinced by British and Israeli intelligence that a decapitation strike against Iran will succeed? As filmmaker Oliver Stone asks on his X account, “What the hell is going on? Trump has turned into Biden? Mercilessly, relentlessly bombing Yemen and aggressively seeking a new war with Iran…"

On April 1, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryavkov intervened in a statement warning against such an American strike on Iran: "Threats are indeed heard, ultimatums are heard.... The consequences of this, especially if the strikes are on nuclear infrastructure, could be catastrophic for the entire region." Ryabkov offered Russia's help to deescalate the crisis: "While there is still time and the 'train has not left the station,' we need to redouble our efforts to try to reach an agreement on a reasonable basis. Russia is ready to offer its good services to Washington, Tehran, and everyone who is interested in this," he said.

The basis for a new security and development architecture emerging will be upon collaboration between the United States, Russia, China and others. To defuse conflicts emanating from several different theaters—in Ukraine, Southwest Asia or Taiwan—the new administration would do well to avoid the traps laid out by the British and work with these nations.

Bringing this new security and development architecture to shape does not rely just on what Trump does, but on what we do in the next days and weeks. The upcoming two-day Schiller Institute/ICLC Conference, “A Beautiful Vision for Humanity in Times of Great Turbulence!” May 24-25 will elucidate what we must all do now, and why.

The title of the conference itself describes the task before us. “Dream no small dreams, for they have no power to move the hearts of men, “the poet Wolfgang von Goethe said. 57 years ago tonight, April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King, already warned  of his impending assassination, drank the cup of Gethsemane speaking at a church in Memphis, Tennessee to 2000 sanitation workers, said , “Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy." Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.”

We should see ourselves today as MLK, Jr. saw his relationship to the world, as an inspired private citizen, whose mission was to prove what the poet Friedrich Schiller said in his poem “Hope,” “We are born for that which is better.”