In Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, the momentum of protests against the war economy continues and threatens to even bring down governments. In Spain, the forced eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal, and her death just two weeks later, has brought the issue of affordable housing to the forefront of people’s minds, with hundreds of thousands turning out in 50 cities across that country to protest in solidarity with Abascal. In France, student protests are rocking the country as youth demand better working and education conditions. The postwar neoliberal system has reached a breaking point: it can no longer meet the needs of its own citizens and simultaneously continue to pour resources into the military-financial complex that wages wars abroad. That contradiction can be seen in the remarks delivered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. On the surface, one might see it for what it purports to be—a speech defending the achievements of Western civilization. But, taking inspiration from the lying priests of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, who played a role in the assassination of Socrates and destruction of Greek society 2500 years ago, the speech actually proposes Western civilization’s destruction. It is a defense of Roman-style imperial warfare, couched as a defense of “Western civilization,” and delivered by the warmongers of the Epstein class who have accelerated its destruction. It celebrates the kidnapping of President Maduro from Venezuela, an illegal war of aggression against Iran, and the provision of military support to Israel amid its ongoing genocide in Gaza. Rubio says, “The thumos, as the ancient Greeks called it – the fire of passion, strength, courage, pride – is the heart of great civilization. And without it? Without it, nations lose their will to fight, the will to strive, the will to survive. Today, too much of the West has forgotten this quality. Over time, we in the West came to feel ashamed of the very things that made us exceptional… The word “nationalism” became a dirty word. And so we tore down our monuments; we condemned our own history. And in too many places, we taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit. In the process, we opened our borders and outsourced our industry, and allowed our militaries to wither and to decay.” In the perverted minds of neocons such as Marco Rubio, it was the pursuit of war, bloodshed and terror which produced the beautiful works of Ancient Greece and the Renaissance. On the contrary, take the view of Pope Leo XIV and others in the Vatican, who are intervening in the world to supplant the doctrine of imperialism and geopolitics with a new paradigm which disarms and creates a disarming peace through economic development. Prof. Luigi Franco Pizzolato, writing in L’Osservatore Romano, challenges the doctrine of “just war” falsely attributed to St. Augustine. Pizzolato summarizes Augustine’s view in his work the City of God, where Augustine observes that “throughout the history of the world…just war is a condition that, strictly speaking, does not exist, because in the real world, even a just war is both an effect and a cause of sin and serves to disguise it. For more than a thousand years, the Roman state expanded its dominion precisely by invoking the principle of ‘just war.’” Rather than waging wars abroad for the purpose of expanding the dominion of a failed, collapsing neoliberal order, the U.S. and other nations of Europe can chart a new course with China and the BRICS nations, in line with the view of the American Founding Fathers—who inherited the philosophy of Plato, and the Renaissance—to challenge the notion of empire, and bring about development to emerging republics in the world. That was the view of Lyndon LaRouche, and is the view today of his wife Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Will we chart a better course today?