The First Week of September
by Mr. X
Sept. 1—Should U.S. President Donald Trump journey to Beijing, on the occasion of China’s September 3, eightieth anniversary commemoration of the worldwide Victory Against Fascism? Many, including Schiller Institute Founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche, have called for him to do so. It is fitting and proper to do so, in that the September 3 ceremony, as stated by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, “also symbolizes the unity and determination of the two countries to defend the outcome of the victory in World War II.”
American President Franklin Roosevelt’s idea of the world that must emerge from the ashes of the Second World War became, through the force of his intervention, the dominant policy-outlook in the world in 1945. FDR proposed in late 1941 a template for post-war world security, a council for which Russia and China were permanent members. They were to be two (in addition to Great Britain and the United States) of what FDR would call the “Four Policemen,” a phrase he coined in 1942, for a first approximation of what would ultimately become the United Nations Security Council.
FDR would not have allowed the United States to be the sole dissenting voice in the recent UN Security Council vote, pertaining to Gaza. The United States refused to endorse the statement, “The Use of Starvation as a Weapon of War Is Clearly Prohibited Under International Humanitarian Law. Famine in Gaza Must Be Stopped Immediately.” The forced starvation violates two of FDR’s Four Freedoms: Freedom From Want, and Freedom From Fear, and he would have never allowed the United States to do that.
In the next days, a combination of meetings, starting with the August 31-September 1 Shanghai Cooperation Organization, followed by Beijing September 3, and then by the Vladivostok Eastern Economic Forum September 3-6, represent an extraordinary opportunity for a dialogue of civilizations. Seventy nations will attend the Vladivostok meeting alone. These are nations that are already assembled, prepared, and positioned to discuss, in general outline form, a new security and development architecture, including with the Presidency of the United States. Many projects are already underway among these nations. A post-August 15 overture from the White House, of the “Good Neighbor” form that FDR projected so well on the world stage, would be an anomalous, unexpected, welcome shift, especially away from the tariff wars.
As with the meeting that Trump held with President Vladimir Putin Aug. 15, there are things of great moment, and that will determine the fate of the human race that can only be handled through face-to-face deliberations of what might be called a “dialectical nature.” “Dialectical” refers here to what Plato expressed as the method of the Socratic pursuit of truth, portrayed in each of his famous dialogues, and not what German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel spoke about, as “the dialectical method,” a term bandied about today by Frankfurt School escapees like Palantir’s Alex Karp, or the neo-Marxists. It is a process of dialogue that forces a change of axioms through a “coincidence of opposites.” In this way, we are able to arrive at a higher idea, giving us the capacity, as individuals, or a society, not only “to see ourselves as others see us,” but to see the seed-crystal of the future in the present and to thereby act, including with our “opposites,” in such a way as to make that future a reality.
As an example, take the morally horrific situation regarding Gaza, with its now-undeniable forced starvation of scores of thousands of children. There is, nonetheless, something transformative happening, unexpected by the criminal perpetrators, presently erupting in Israel itself. There, since Sunday, Aug. 24, there have been two large street demonstrations. The one that occurred Sunday reportedly had 500,000 people. The one on Tuesday, Aug. 26, had about 300,000. (More than 500,000 gathered last night and today to call for an end to the war and not the occupation of Gaza and the slaughter of the hostages and Palestinians alike.)
The population of Israel is approximately 10 million people. Compared to the United States’ 340 million people, an American demonstration, to be the same proportionate size as that which just occurred in Israel last Sunday, would require 17.5 million people. An appeal was made, not to Netanyahu, but to President Donald Trump, to put an end to the killing.
The population in both Gaza and in Israel are in upheaval. People, there and elsewhere, because they are human, sense that a higher conception of humanity is required, or Israel will cease to exist—not because it is bombed out of existence, but also because it becomes morally unfit to sustain itself. Our Ten Principles for a New International Security and Development Architecture contains that higher conception of humanity that must be the starting point for the end of war. Nations of the world are conveying in Beijing to reaffirm the resolve to uphold what FDR and their predecessors achieved 80 years ago, in founding the United Nations. Will the President of the United States miss the opportunity of the next seven days, or seize it?