(AMANDALA Ed. Note: Below is a previously unpublished article we received from columnist Clinton Canul Luna on July 23, 2023. Our last article received from Luna dated July 30, 2023, will appear in our issue for this Friday, August 10. Clinton passed on Tuesday, August 1, Emancipation Day. Rest In Peace, brother Clinton Canul Luna!)

Permit me, our dear readers of this column, to present to you the following update which I find to be of much interest. It was posted on The LaRouche Organization YouTube page on July 20, 2023, under the heading “To The Moon”. It is as follows:

Good morning. I’m Harley Schlanger from the LaRouche organization with your daily video update for today, July 20, 2023. 54 years ago two Americans, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, became the first human beings to set foot on the surface of the Moon. It was an event which captured the attention of the entire world. It challenged the imagination of everyone who wanted to know what’s next, what can man do more to explore the universe. The question of what is possible became a new challenge for people to take up. On September 20th 1963, John F. Kennedy had given an address at the general assembly meeting of the United Nations where he proposed for the first time that there be a joint U.S.-Soviet mission to the Moon. This was in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Part of Kennedy’s drive to end the Cold War by achieving Iraq Rushmore with the Soviet Union by challenging both Nations to work together for the betterment of humankind.

The idea of overcoming the Cold War through collaboration was quite inspirational, but that idea died two months later with President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. The reprisal which had begun after the Cuban Missile Crisis was ended, and we had nearly another three decades of great tension in the continuation of the Cold War. The Kennedy presidency had much promise with it: the idea of the New Frontier ending poverty, curing disease, exploring both the microcosm and the macrocosm for the benefit of all human beings. This is something that fired the imagination of everyone. Instead, what have we seen since that time? Trillions, tens of trillions of dollars, maybe hundreds of trillions of dollars, going to weapons to fight nearly endless wars. Millions of deaths from these wars, if not hundreds of millions from sanctions, from the effects of the war, from the economic policies which plundered the poorer nations for the benefit of wealthy billionaires who run corporate cartels. The same people today who are refusing to look for a negotiated settlement in Ukraine, the same people today who are refusing to end the international monetary fund conditionalities which deprive people all over the world of food.

Now, what we’re hearing from the Western media today and from NATO politicians is that Russia blocked the Black Sea Grain deal and that it is Russia which is responsible for world hunger, but the truth is very much different …. Instead, Biden and NATO are committed to more war, more military spending, much to the pleasure of the people who put him in office from the military-industrial complex, as well as, the military industrial complexes that exist in Western Europe which are continuing to work with NATO to sabotage the potential for a peaceful resolution of the war. The excitement that was generated by that landing on the moon 54 years ago, was something which thrilled most of the world. I remember as a child growing up in West Virginia when we crowded around the black and white television set in, what was it? May of 1961, to watch the short first flight by Alan Shepard up and down in less than 20 minutes and being excited watching him be fished out of the ocean after that flight. My classmates and I studied the planets, we studied rockets, and we were totally interested in the idea that we could become astronauts and explore space.

Well, today there’s still a potential. There’s project Artemis, but it’s vastly underfunded: about 50 billion dollars allocated for Artemis from 2021 to 2025, but there are other projects. The Indians have a moon mission, the Chinese have an aggressive plan to put astronauts on the moon; there are other countries, including African countries which are developing space programs. Why? Because by investigating the frontiers of human knowledge, we create potential in the form of discoveries of physical principles which can be applied to develop new technologies which increase the physical productive power of the human race for all people. This is where we should be headed instead of being stuck in a world of Empire and geopolitics and power blocks competing with each other. The U.S. is spending money to weaponize space as well as to fight these wars. How many billions of dollars being spent now to kill fellow human beings could be better spent on scientific collaboration.

This is the idea behind the concept of a higher peace movement which Helga Zepp-LaRouche is spearheading, that we’re bringing together organizations from all over the world that may disagree on the ultimate goals but nevertheless have a common agreement that we must stop killing, we must stop spending to kill each other for the sake of a military-industrial complex. I urge you to go to our website and look at the press releases coming out from this participation from all over the world. What’s necessary is not just VIPs but for the average people to be inspired by the idea that man can move into the heavens and can make discoveries that will benefit every person on the Earth, instead of trying to come up with new weapons and new ways of killing people and maintaining power in the hands of a few billionaires. So join us, join the Schiller Institute and I’ll see you again tomorrow …. Keep in mind the excitement from the original moon mission and let’s see if we can rekindle that kind of spirit of exploration, not just for America, but for the whole world.

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July 23, 2023
Finca Solana
Corozal Town