Question: Hi Lyn. Last weekend, the Mexican Senate here yielded to pressure from the US Embassy and from certain Fox cabinet members to prevent a moratorium on the Free Trade Agreements. Yesterday, in Helga's presentation, she went through the Lautenbach Plan and outlined the urgency of the scientific starting points for the economy, which, you have laid out, needs to inform and serve as the basis to develop this, to be able to offer an alternative to free trade and slave work here in Mexico. One of the problems we have is that the industrial leadership, and also the agricultural sector here in Mexico, are completely duped by the story that economic wealth is based on trade. I'd like to ask you for your opinion or recommendations on how to deal with these guys, to drive home an argument such as you make, because we are constantly running into a huge impasse on this, in spite of the fact that there are those who understand the destruction underway, but do not, however, understand the solution. Thanks.

LaRouche: Well, what you do is you have to be ruthless-gentle, kindly, but ruthless. And you have to know how to be kindly but ruthless. If you evoke rage sometimes, you probably have succeeded, because you may have evoked rage not because you've said something cruel, nasty or unfair, or sought to abuse somebody, but because you've confronted them with a fact that they are determined not to have to face.

Now, the essential thing that the people who supported this motion will have to face, is that it will never work. It will be a disaster. And we hope that the nation will outlive that disaster. That's the issue.

You see, they know, in a sense, that they're committing a fraud. But they say, ‘We need public opinion. We do not wish to be deserted by our friends and neighbors and fellows in business. We don't want to be rejected. We want to be loved.' And so they have problems. They do not wish to face the truth. They're not convinced that they know what they're doing. They're convinced that they should try to convince themselves that what they've done is true. They've submitted to pressure. A typical macho-you may know a macho or two, someplace-faced with that kind of problem, where he's asked to cringe and crawl before a force he does not know how to resist, will compensate and say, "Well, yes, I did what they wanted me to, but I think they were right!" Does he think they were right? What he thinks is, if he can cause himself to believe that he acted because he honestly believed they might be right, rather than recognizing the fact that he crawled before a fear of their power, or of the opinion they represent, that's the problem.

So, when someone says ‘I don't agree with' you in a case like that, don't assume that they're sincere. You will find that if you press them on a thing like that, the reaction will be that they suddenly become very angry. If you make an argument that shows them they were wrong, which proves that the argument they accepted was wrong, they're going to become angry with you, because you have attacked their dignity. They were trying to save their dignity by pretending that they had not been cowards. You're telling them that what they did made no sense, that there was no excuse for what they did, means that they capitulated ignorantly. For that, they will probably hate you. But don't worry about it, just duck. Because that's the way you'll win.

And the way most people fail is, when faced with that kind of proposition, that kind of problem, out of fear of offending the people they're addressing, they will crawl. And once they crawl, how do we tell them that what they did is wrong? They know it's wrong. That's why there was resistance in the first place. They knew it was wrong. But they also knew that they thought it was prudent in the short term to capitulate to that pressure, rather than to have terrible penalties imposed on them by an angry United States. And they said, "Well, it's for our own good. You're wrong. This will be good. Trade is good. We don't want to be embargoed by the United States."

So, it's a typical act of cowardice. But you simply tell the truth, and you're going to face some anger from them for telling the truth. But don't be upset by that. In the end, they'll respect you for that. The authority you will get will come because you did tell the truth. So, just tell the truth. And tell them you're telling the truth. I do it all the time. It gets me in a lot of trouble. I feel good about it.

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