Question: My name is Abraham. My question is somewhat more concrete: What is the role of Mexican youth in the world, and the transformation of the world?

LaRouche: Mexico probably has the most important position of any nation below the U.S. border. The reasons are largely historical. For example, Mexico had to fight against the worst from Europe, more than anyone else. I mean, in more recent times, other things have happened to other countries, but Mexico faced the brunt of it, with the attempt to prevent, initially from Spain, the independence of the emerging nations of the Americas, especially those below the U.S. border. So, this history of Mexico and its proximity to the United States, has put Mexico in a very special position among all the states of the Americas. Mexico has an implicit constitution, in addition to the formal Constitution, which is extremely relevant.

Mexico also has within it, because of the influence from the Nazis, and from Napoleon III's occupation of Mexico, has a history of fight within Mexico against Synarchism, or what is called Synarchism in this century, this past century. So, Mexico is in the forefront: Mexico has faced both the attack by the synarchists from the left, and the attack by the synarchists from the right.

For example, Soustelle. Take the case of Jacques Soustelle, a perfect example. Jacques Soustelle was an agent, specifically, of a group of influences from France, based around the association of Schlumberger, Mallet, de Neuflize. This is typified in the Western Hemisphere by the case of Jean de Menil, based out of Houston, Texas, who was the husband of the Madame Schlumberger, who was very important in this area. And these three people, Paul Rivet--the teacher of Soustelle operating in Peru; de Menil out of Houston; Schlumberger operating in Caracas; and Soustelle operating in Mexico City, actually represented the left, the so-called pro-Marxist left in Peru, in Mexico, and so forth. They became the core of the left wing of the Synarchist network, throughout the Caribbean region and below.

You're being hit now from that. This takes the form of the indigenist movement against the Mexican Republic. That's your "left,” and things like that. Then the "right,” the pseudo-Catholics of the right, who are the enemies of the present Pope--which is a crazy position for a Catholic to have, but they have that--who are essentially in the tradition of William Buckley, Sr., who is a key figure in orchestrating both sides in the Cristeros War of the 1920s. So Mexico has faced--in the form of Woodrow Wilson's policy in the period of the First World War--Mexico has faced the brunt of the troubles in the United States and from the United States, more than any other nation.

Mexico is also a powerful nation, implicitly. It's been much destroyed since 1982, when Mexico was a much more powerful nation, when Lopéz Portillo was still President. And you look back to Lopéz Portillos' address to the United Nations in October of 1982, you see the voice, the spirit, of the actual Mexico and its leading role in the hemisphere, is clearly displayed.

In more recent times, Mexico has come upon poorer times, with poorer influence and much foreign oppression, particularly with the transformation of the Bank of Mexico into an instrument of foreign power, and of the worst kind of foreign power. So therefore, that's crucial.

Look, for example: When Lopéz Portillo was fighting, and I was involved in that, as some of you know, with a discussion with him and with other people throughout the hemisphere, in fighting around the issue of the Malvinas War and the things that went with it; when he initially made his resistance to the raid on Mexico's finances in 1982, he had the initial backing both from the junta of Argentina, and the President of Brazil, both of whom, under U.S. pressure, backed off from supporting Lopéz Portillo.

So, the President of Mexico was isolated, politically, in the hemisphere, but nonetheless, he went to New York, to the United Nations, and delivered this historic address, which every patriotic Mexican should read again today. This historic address shows the true Mexico, the essence of Mexico, the essence of Mexico's brave leadership within the hemisphere. And it shows also the importance of Mexico, relative to the efforts of Brazil and Argentina today. Mexico is still number one in the hemisphere in this particular fight.

Therefore, being youth in Mexico, in particular, you actually carry a legacy, even from people you do not personally know, that the intellectual youth of Mexico, when organized in a patriotic venture, not only on behalf of Mexico itself but on behalf of the hemisphere, on behalf of justice on the planet, represent a powerful force, albeit only an intellectual force--but it's that kind of intellectual force that makes the greatest revolutions in human history.

Leadership, Not Sancho Panza

Question: I would like to ask what would be the sublime state which a young person should have as a concept to face the challenge in front of us, and not to be like Sancho Panza in Don Quixote, as you say? And I would like to hear your opinions about this.

LaRouche: Very good. I like the question, because it goes to the essence of the matter. It's something which I address in part in this paper on the  "Visualization of the Complex Domain.”

The essence of leadership of civilization, depends upon a long legacy, which in European civilization, runs notably from Plato, Plato's Dialogues. It became a social-political movement, in effect, through the influence of Christianity, such as the Apostles John and Paul, most notably. So, this conception of Plato's, of Platonic politics and science, and so forth, became integral to the role of Christianity, with the immediate apostles of Christ, such as John and Paul. Since that time, the struggle throughout European civilization, as it became globally extended, in particular, was for this conception of man, the special nature of man which is typified first by Christ, and a conception of man which spilled back into Judaism, through people like Philo of Alexandria, whose attacks on Aristotle are typical of this. And spilled, in a very significant way, also into Islam.

For example, in the case of the history of Spain, the Andalusian movement among Christians, Moors, and Jews in Spain, was one of the great positive cultural forces in the emergence of Europe, especially from the time of, say, Frederick II Hohenstaufen in Italy, in the 13th Century on. So, this was a great movement, but it's an expression of the role of Christianity, within an extended Hellenistic civilization, in creating what became the motion of a globally extended European civilization, both in respect to Christians, as well as Jews, and also Muslims. The Andalusian case is an example of this great fusion, which was a keystone for the development in the 15th Century, of the great Renaissance in modern civilization.

Now, the crucial thing here is this. Do we conceive man as an animal, as Thomas Huxley or Frederick Engels does? Engels says man is nothing but a beast, and the beastly behavior of some Marxists corresponds to Engels' stupid opinion on this subject. Or do we consider man as having a quality which is absent in the animals? A quality which is sublime, a quality which is divine.

The evidence for the latter, is that mankind is capable of making discoveries of universal physical principles, that is, discovering principles which are not visible to the senses, but which we can not only prove to exist as controlling the universe, but we can also willfully act on this knowledge of these principles, to change the universe. No other living creature can do that. Therefore, man, the individual, is both a creature of the flesh, as an animal is, but he's also a creature of something else, which is called spiritual: the power of discovery, of universal physical principles, typified by science, and typified by great examples of Classical artistic composition. This is it.

Now, therefore, how would you view your role in life? What makes a leader as opposed to somebody who is less than a leader, or less than a qualified leader? The qualified leader, like Jeanne d'Arc, is able to see their individual life as a talent, as a

 period of mortality which is given to them. Their concern is not what they get out of directly, in a sensory sense, out of that life--what they eat, what they wear, what they feel, their sexual experiences, and so forth--but what's important, is what their life means for humanity.

Mortal life is a brief gift, a talent. How do you spend a talent, for the future of all humanity, and the past as well? People who, like Jeanne d'Arc, are able to consider their life an expendable talent, to be spent for some great cause which makes their existence necessary in the scheme of eternity, these people are the source of leadership. They're the source of leadership in science, in creative art, and in politics.

There are other people who will see that, and say, "Yes, I guess you're right, I guess I should be like that, but gee, I don't feel like that. I have to worry about my community, my neighborhood, my family,” this or that. They can't come up to the standard of Christianity, as Christ posed it to his people, who said, "What do I do? What do I do?” You have to give up everything, that is, your attachment to all kinds of mortal gratifications. Make them purely secondary, incidental, in order to focus on that thing which gives your life eternal meaning. What you are contributing to mankind, how you are honoring the contributions, and preserving the contributions of the past, and passing these on, improved, to the future. Such people, with such conceptions, are leaders. Those who can see this, can be influenced by it but can not actually commit themselves to that kind of position, personally, are lesser leaders. They are useful, but lesser leaders.

Unfortunately, in the history of mankind, there are very few people, so far, who can make that kind of decision, as typified by the case of Jeanne d'Arc. Because remember, it was her sacrifice, her willing, conscious sacrifice, which made possible the emergence of the first modern nation-state, that of Louis XI in France. The first state in which the general welfare of the population as a whole, was the primary obligation and raison d'être for the existence of the state.

This idea, of course, is already in Plato. It's in the mouth of Socrates in the Republic, the concept of agapè, the general welfare--the posterity of mankind and its general welfare. It's a law of society. But Jeanne d'Arc made possible that kind of state by her sacrifice. She was crucial in it. She also inspired the great reform of a shattered papacy, and helped its reorganization and restoration during the course of the 15th Century.

So, what we need, primarily, are people who can become such leaders. Not that I'm recommending immolation, or torture by the Inquisition, which many had to do, as she did, but the point is, we need those kind of people who can make that kind of personal decision, to commit themselves to the cause of humanity, to the cause of their nation within humanity, above all else. We also need people who have, shall we say, less character, less strongly-developed character, weaklings who compromise between the sense of being an animal and being a true human being.

Thus, the role of the Youth Movement is to produce from itself as large a ration as possible of true leaders. That's why I focus on this Gauss 1799 paper, because it poses--and I detail this in my paper on "Visualizing the Complex Domain”--it poses the question, the question inside you, of what is a true leader. How can I know that I'm a true leader? How do I know that I have within me, the capacity to provide the kind of leadership that society requires of me? And that does it, and that's the way I approach this.

So, therefore, we need everybody, either to support the idea of the distinction between the man and the beast, or to go to a higher step, of embodying that quality, that sense of immortality, which is the mark of a true leader.

Knowledge vs. Sense-Perception

Question: Good morning, Mr. LaRouche. I'm going to quote a paragraph from one of your books, "How Bertrand Russell Became an Evil Man,”[1] which says, "You have to recognize that the postulates and axioms of the so-called Euclidean geometry are wrong. You have to adopt circular action instead of such Euclidian axiomatic assumptions of the point and the line. You have to understand the idea of limitless phase-space, and we have to accept the ideas of Nicholas of Cusa, Kepler, and da Vinci, of a boundary that is defined.” My question is, what do you mean by boundary, a finite boundary? Thank you.

LaRouche: This is the question of sense-perception versus knowledge. Take two discoveries. I refer to this, and the answer which I'll give you is a summary of an answer included in this paper on "Visualizing the Complex Domain.”

There are two great modern principles of modern science which separate all earlier science from modern science, that is, true modern science. This work is based on the influence centered around Nicholas of Cusa, in the 15th Century, and by the influence of two of his followers, Luca Pacioli and Leonardo da Vinci. Then you have the work of Kepler, at the close of the 16th Century and beginning of the 17th Century. So, Kepler discovered a principle of universal gravitation, a concept which did not exist in human knowledge prior to that time.

Subsequently, a follower of the work of Kepler, Fermat in France, a famous physician and mathematician, conducted an experiment which demonstrated that the universe does not function physically on the basis of a pathway of shortest distance, but rather functions on the basis of a pathway of quickest time, the so-called principle of refraction.

These two principles exemplify modern science as opposed to empiricism, the empiricism of Aristotle, or the reductionism of Aristotle, the empiricism of Paolo Sarpi, Galileo Galilei, and so forth. That's the great modern fight.

Now, the point is, a universal principle, such as gravitation, or a principle of universal least action, which is the implication of Fermat's discovery, does not exist as an object of sense-perception. You can not see it, you can not smell it, you can not touch it. Yet, we're able to demonstrate that these principles actually control the behavior of the visible universe.

So, therefore, there's something which the mind can encompass, called a universal principle, which controls the universe, as if from outside the objects of sense-perception. This ability of mankind to discover such principles--and this same ability was demonstrated by the Pythagoreans, by Plato and so forth, earlier, in their dialectical method for geometry--this method distinguishes man fundamentally from all forms of animal life. This is the so-called noetic principle, as described by Vernadsky. The ability of mankind, the mind of man, is superior to life and non-living processes in the universe, in its power and authority.

So, that's the notion of immortality.

Now this leads to the question of, not only what is man? If you say that man is only a beast of the senses, then you are degrading man to a beast. When you degrade man to a beast, as Russell does, you are committing a Satanic act of evil. All fanatical materialists, including empiricists, are evil, because they degrade man to a mere beast, by denying the existence of that which separates man from the beasts: the ability to discover and control the universal physical principles of the universe.

Now the concept of the universe, which is ancient, comes from astronomy. It comes from what the Pythagoreans called "spherics,” in which they saw the starlit night as a kind of great extended sphere, the interior surface of a great sphere, and looked at the motions of stars and planets on this sphere. And this was the idea of universe, that which encompasses the Earth, which encompasses the existence of man.

What we know by universe, we equate in modern science with those principles which are universal. Now, we know that there probably are an indefinite number of universal physical principles of the universe, of which we know only some. Hopefully, we are discovering and mastering more as it goes along. But we know that the universe is composed of nothing but these physical principles, which correspond to the universal principles, in the sense that we use "universe” to describe the stellar system, the visual stellar system. We're saying that nothing exists outside the universe, as defined by universal physical principles. In other words, you can not make a sense-perceptual determination of what a universe is. You must deal with the universe as only man can know the existence of a universe, in terms of universal physical principles.

Now, what we say is, nothing exists outside the universe, as defined by man's actual and potential knowledge of universal physical principles. That is, that there is nothing outside the universe. Secondly, there is nothing that occurred before the existence of that universe. Third, nothing will exist after the existence of that universe. This is what Einstein means mathematically, by saying that the universe is finite, but without bounds: It's boundless. There is no external casing of the universe. The universe is finite. That is, it is limited by the domain of universal physical principles, of which we know only some. We are looking for more, but that universe, so implicitly defined, is what exists, and no other universe exists.

Thus, only man--with a sense of immortality, associated with the discovery of universal physical principles and their application--only man is capable of conceiving the universe. That is why Christianity argues, in epistemology, that man is made in the image of the Creator, because man is the only created existent being which has the same qualities which are necessarily attributes of the Creator.

 National vs. Central Banking

Question: (from Argentina) My question is perhaps a little bit technical, respecting the first part of your talk. When you talk about reorganizing the IMF, and later you talk about a process of receivership--how can we implement that, this year?

LaRouche: The problem here, the difficulty arises from European sources into South America: the idea of the existence of a government coexisting with an independent central banking system. There's where the problem lies.

Now, what is an independent central banking system? Go back to about 12 centuries ago. Go back to the time that Otto III was becoming the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, in which Otto III sort of turned Venice loose from the previous war of the Ottonian Emperors. And Venice then went on to subvert, and ultimately conquer and destroy Byzantium, as in the Fourth Crusade, which was a purely criminal, swindling act organized by Venice. Venice then dominated Europe, increasingly from about 800 AD into about the late part of the 17th Century. It was an imperial-maritime-financier power. The power resided in an oligarchy, a financier oligarchy, which were the leading families of Venice, who were, in their financial aspect, called fondi, or funds.

Europe was dominated under the power of the Normans. The Norman conquest of England was actually a consolidation of a certain power which became known later as Plantagenet, or Anjou influences, and this close association of this military order, associated with the Normans in Europe, became the predatory factor which became the characteristic of a so-called feudalism, into modern times. This was pure evil,

Now, there was an effort, several efforts, including the 15th-Century Renaissance, to establish a true nation-state, based on the concept of the general welfare and so forth. We had the first such states: Louis XI's France and Henry VII's England. We know that both of them later degenerated significantly, in the course of the 16th Century, under the influence of the religious wars and similar things, orchestrated by Venice, from about 1511 to 1648. And this is what destroyed Spain. Spain was destroyed by this Venetian takeover of Spanish policy, from 1492, essentially, on. And that's what happened to Spain in the middle of the 17th Century.

So, in this process, there was an effort to create a true republic, going beyond what had been accomplished by Louis XI and by Henry VII of England, into establishing a true republic. And they selected as the target of this, in the 17th Century, selected English-speaking North America, but they selected particularly English-speaking North America around a young man with a youth movement: Benjamin Franklin. The leading minds of Europe contributed their efforts, and influence and ideas, to the development of this youth movement around Benjamin Franklin. That's a whole history in itself.

So therefore, we established in the United States, as of 1789, prior to the storming of the Bastille, we established the United States as the first true republic in modern history. The viability of the U.S. Constitutional system is based on the fact that the Constitution as a whole is based on the principles set forth in the Preamble. That is, every other part of the Constitution is subject to revision, except the Preamble. And every part of the Constitution, every law passed, every amendment, is subject to interpretation and revision according to the principles of the Preamble. Only the Preamble is, in a sense, sacred. Everything else is subject to interpretation. Every other institution. A careful interpretation, but nonetheless so.

Because of this characteristic of the U.S. Constitution, the Preamble, the United States has so far survived. The first time it was threatened seriously, was with the Confederate insurrection organized from London. The second time was actually the attack, now, from the so-called Synarchist effort to take over the United States. That's the situation.

The American Model Republic

Now, at that point, at precisely the time that the American model of a republic, was threatening to "infect” Europe with reforms--for example, the Bailly-Lafayette reform of the [French] Constitution, the constitutional reform

 under Louis XVI, the one that was aborted, and aborted chiefly by the storming of the Bastille--that this reform was aborted. So therefore, except for an effort around Charles de Gaulle and the Fifth Republic, there has never been a significant effort toward actually establishing a true republic in Europe. Instead, what has happened, is we have had so-called more or less democratic reforms of pre-existing feudal institutions, in the form of a monarchy or a Presidency modeled upon a monarchy, and a parliamentary system modeled upon a democratization of the feudal parliament.

But all through this period, these governments, reform governments, in modern history of the 18th Century, the 19th Century, and 20th Century, have been based on a veto control over government, and control of the money system, by Venetian-modelled private banking institutions of the type of the fondi. A central banking system, a so-called independent central banking system, is a parasite, a Venetian-style parasite, representing specific family interests who are looting and sucking the blood of the country which they occupy. That's the problem.

Now, what is required, therefore, is, as the U.S. Constitution prescribes--despite the Federal Reserve System, and despite the criminal thing that President Jackson did under the influence of his owner, Martin Van Buren--despite these corruptions of the U.S., the U.S. system is based on the Constitutional provision that there is no authority to issue or to regulate money on behalf of the United States, except for the U.S. government, specifically, the authority of the Executive branch of the government, with the consent of the Legislative branch, the Congress.

This is not true in any other nation, generally, in the world today. There's a special case in China, but generally it's not true in any other nation. Therefore, when people talk about reforms of international institutions, they accept the silly idea that money has a value, independent of the determination of government. Now, the only institution in the world today, in modern civilization, which assumes that role, is the central banking system, as a consortium, or part of a consortium of independent central banking systems,

 which are controlled, in turn, by private financier interests, like the Federal Reserve System.

So therefore, the problem we have today is this parasite, the financier system, typified by the central banking system, now, as with the case of Hitler, moves to establish a dictatorship, to prevent the state, that is, government, from using the lawful authority of government to put a corrupt and decadent financial system back under government control. That's what the issue is. We've come to the point that the amount of debt in the world, financial debt, far exceeds any possible payment, without genocide against the human race. Therefore, this system is hopelessly bankrupt.

Therefore, the only agency which can decide is either these bankers--like Robert Mundell's friends now meeting in Siena, Italy, these bunch of fascists--or governments. The government must therefore act to save humanity, by putting the central banking systems into receivership. That is, the government takes them over.  It doesn't privatize every bank. It takes over the central banking system and takes over the ordering, the organization, and regulation of the money system and the banking systems.

Each government does it on the basis of its own sovereignty. However, since we need an international financial-monetary system, we go back to the lesson we should have learned from the immediate postwar period, with the initial form of the IMF. We need a concert of agreements, among sovereign governments, to regulate international financial and monetary relations among states, of the type that was successful, in, say, the 1950s, at least in many parts of the world. We go back to that example, and say, now we go to what is called national banking. That does not mean that the banks in a country are all nationalized, in the sense of being public property. On the contrary: It means that a central bank, a government central bank, as an auxiliary extension of control of the Treasury of that country, the Executive branch, with the consent of the Legislature, sets up rules for banking under which the financial system and the banking system in general, particularly, will operate from that point on. And that's what we have to do.

If we don't do that, good-bye, humanity. Good-bye, civilization. We've come to a point of irony and paradox in history. We must eliminate, now, the feudal power, the feudal tradition of central banking systems, of independent central banking systems, and restore a system of national banking, under which private banks within a nation, will function according to rules set by national banking, under the direction of the authority of the Executive branch, and under the provisions of law provided by Legislatures. We must, at the same time, establish a reasonable, good order, in agreements among sovereign nation-states, to create a world monetary system which can sustain long-term loans--we're talking 25 to 50 year loans--at 1-2% simple interest rate, chiefly for the purpose, immediately, of great infrastructure projects, in water management, in transportation, in power generation and distribution, in public health, in education, and so forth--that is, the public sector, these kinds of things, and use this as the driver for world economic recovery.

We're talking about a world in which 50%, approximately, of the total capital formation of nations will be in the public sector, by governments, and the public sector will be the driver on which the private sector depends for the stimulation of employment and progress. Additionally, of course, government must take responsibility for sponsoring, initiating, promoting scientific and technological progress for the benefit of the economy as a whole.

The Youth Movement in Mexico

Question: Lyn, this Carlos from the L.A. office, organizing in Mexico. We are having a growing youth movement in Mexico, and we are transforming the Mexican organization with new life. And, what we are doing, is, we are shaping the foundations for the new members that are coming in, and the old members. And, the question lies in understanding the role of the youth movement, not only in shaping Mexico's survival, but also for humanity.

What would help build the structure we need, to increase the power of the mind and our own identity, to play a role in history? And that's the question.

LaRouche: Well, the history of Mexico involves problems, which originated in Spain, chiefly. The question was, were the people of Mexico going to be treated as human, or as irrational cattle, that is, as beasts? Were the indigenous people of Mexico human or not? This overlapped a discussion of whether people of African origin, were human or not.

So, we had the great discussion, inside this whole extension of New Spain, from Spain, about the question of slavery and serfdom. Among many people, the assumption was made, as we see in the case of Cuba, for example, the large assumption was, that if you were from African extraction, you were a beast, and could be owned and used as a beast. A similar thing happened, for example, in Brazil, with the importation of African slaves into Brazil.

In Mexico, the primary problem, was the question of serfdom, in which

 those who represented feudalism, particularly Venetian-style feudalism--and the Venetians actually controlled much of Spain's destiny, actually from the beginning of 1492 on, increasingly. So, their point was to turn Mexico into their kind of a feudal system: that is, a Venetian-style feudal system, in which great landowners were created, and the Mexican population was moved into the condition of serfdom, largely serfdom.

So therefore, the problem was, culturally, is the degradation, the systemic degradation of a large part of the population of Mexico into the status of human cattle, as opposed to citizens.

There was a long struggle on this issue, in Mexico, in the course of the 19th Century, in which great advances were made around, for example, the case of Benito Juárez. And, the struggle against the invading fascist--essentially--Maximilian--the Austrian-French fascist, a virtual Synarchist, before the term Synarchism was used officially, as a persecutor of Mexico. With the help of the United States, which acted to order the expulsion of the French troops from Mexico, that Maximilian was left with his Austrian volunteers, those Hapsburgs, and of course, was defeated.

So therefore, the struggle by Juárez, and the struggle against the invading forces in the aftermath of that, was crucial for the history of Mexico.

Then you come into the 20th Century, and the series of revolutions, which essentially had the impulse of civil wars, between those who were trying to enforce a latifundist state, and those of a form of modern state. The culmination of that was the so-called "religious wars” or the Cristero Wars, which were orchestrated from the outside, largely by Synarchist influences, from France and Germany. The key factor introduced by this, or peculiarly, was the Nazi Party's takeover of those circles in Mexico which formed the PAN party. But, these circles were also deployed throughout the hemisphere, as the Nazi International operations throughout the hemisphere, which is a pestilence still, to the present day.

Now, we've come to a point in time, in which the legacy of the Cristero War, especially the Synarchist aspect of it, in which you had Soustelle represented, in a sense, the left wing of the Synarchists--the same Soustelle, who went on, as a Synarchist, to try to assassinate Charles de Gaulle, later on. And you had the right wing of the Synarchists, which were the right-wing, Pope-hating variety of Catholics--typical--run by William Buckley, on behalf of the oil interests, which the United States and others owned in Mexico.

So, Mexico is still living with the scars, several generations later, of the Cristero War, as a division, which enemies of Mexico try to play upon, as a false focus of dissension, to keep Mexico from emerging in its own identity as a nation, as a nation of people who are not human cattle, but who all must be developing into the process of true, independent citizens of a republic.

Therefore, the key function, the conscious function of anyone who's functioning as a youth leader, in Mexico, must be, to be aware of this history of Mexico, within the history of the whole New Spain crisis, within the history of the Americas, and Mexico itself, up to the present time.

We must give the Mexican, the poor Mexican, the one who's in the maquiladoras, or the one just looking for employment, or the desperate young Mexican who sees no future for himself and his family, and so forth--we must give them a sense of identity and hope, that they're building a nation, which is their nation, freed of the legacy of these past conflicts and wars, to a conception of man, of the type we discussed earlier.

Now, that doesn't mean you have to get people to sign on the dotted line, to such as agreed policy. It means that you have to represent the impulse of that result. And, then you will find that the people who will support you, the people you can work with, the people you can agree with, in your discussion of policy, will accept that idea as a perspective.

We want to get this crap out of the way! The unresolved crap from the past. We want the poor Mexican, who died as a virtual slave or serf, centuries earlier: We want them, as if from the graves, to look back at the present, and say, "Finally, finally, justice was done.” Then, we can believe, if we see ourselves--if we can see the face of that long-dead Mexican, who suffered so, and see them smiling in approbation about what we're doing about the present and future of the Mexican people, today, then we know we're doing the right thing. Then we're leaders.

A `Community of Principle'

Question: (from Leesburg) The question here is, we have a gathering of four people of the Youth Movement, and we all--we organize in Spanish and English, and our question here is, what's going to be our role once you are President, in the different nations? Well, we come from Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, and Mexico--right now here, we have all these four countries, represented by the four people. What's going to be our role to make these measures reality, once you're President, in our different countries?

LaRouche: Well, look back to 1982, to the paper I wrote, which was published just before the crisis in Mexico occurred in August of that year: Operation Juárez, which lays out a general policy for the Americas, and U.S. relationship with the nations of Central and South America. Now, where there's some technical differences in the circumstances then, and now, the essence of the policy, as laid out there, in 1982, is our continued policy essentially today.

And, when you look at what I've proposed, in terms of large-scale projects internationally, and my key role in meetings with representatives of other nations, in working out the guidelines for agreements to this effect, that, obviously, my view, is that the United States, as a point of reference--the Presidency of the United States, as a point of reference, for bringing the world into order, as an order among a community of sovereign nation-states, united by principle.

Now, in practice, the economic functioning of various parts of the world is regional. That is, Europe is, in a sense, a region. Asia and Southeast Asia are a region. The area of Russia, the Koreas, and Japan is a sub-region. That is, these nations have such close interrelationships, relative to their relationship to other parts of the world, or even the larger region, that they have a special functional characteristic, and special functional requirements.

Therefore, I think about Eurasia; I think about West Asia, such as the Arab world and Turkey; I think about Africa, I think about northern Africa, which is essentially Arab Africa, and southern Africa, or Sub-Saharan Africa. I think about Central and South America as a region, with very close relations, very similar kinds of problems and close cooperation over the coming period.

So therefore, my view of this part of the world, of Central and South America, is a special view of the United States relationship to the functional interrelationships, the requirements of the region there. And I think in terms of things, as I laid out in terms of Operation Juárez. I have a similar, but different view, of what the reality is, in Eurasia; and I have a kindred, but different view of the requirements of U.S. policy toward Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa.

But, essentially that's the way. My function is, now, is to use the political power, the historical position of the Presidency of the United States, as a point of reference to unite the world, or at least most of it, around the idea of creating a permanent community of respectively sovereign nation-states; sovereign nation-states, which by virtue of their proximity and other features of their situation, will have special relations, and special requirements, as a region, with respecting to neighboring nation-states.

But, nonetheless, essentially, a single world, composed of perfectly sovereign nation-states, who, together form a community of principle, of common principle among them, and have, from time to time, special requirements because of regional and other considerations. And therefore, my relationship of course, to the Western Hemisphere, to the Americas, is special: Because the relationship of the United States to the nations of the Americas, is historically special, since the beginning of our own struggle for independence and liberty, here in the United States.

The Role of Women

Question: Well, my question is, the role of the women, is characterized by three factors: oppression, subordination, and exploitation. These three translate into moral dependency, political and social subordination. Great revolutions, ruled by scientific and philosophical paradigms, have not changed the education of women. My question is: What is, for you, the concept of the identity of the female person, within a view of building, construction? Thank you.

LaRouche: Well, I think the problem, first of all, let's get concrete, not generalities, we're talking about the macho problem: machismo. Actually, the process of scientific and technological development has changed the status of women, from that, in many cases, of virtually human cattle, today.

For example, let's take the case of childbirth deaths, and other kinds of conditions that affect women, who are treated largely as chattels, in many cultures. We've gotten beyond that. The problem has been, today, is that, especially since 1964, the counter-cultural movement has produced new problems and new issues, which center upon the lack of any positive conception of the future, any sense of identity.

For example, let's take the case of the U.S. woman: Now, what's the characteristic that's faced by the typical young woman in the United States today, say of the 18 to 24-25 age group. What's the family? How many step-parents do these young people have? How many siblings and quasi-siblings do they have? What is their relationship to the family relations, of the parent and so forth? What we have is, we have a general cultural degeneration, of the institution of the family. And the ideas of the feminists, often, today, are strongly colored by, actually, the degradation which goes with this cultural transformation of the post-1964 period.

So, the essential problem--I don't believe in a feminine identity. I believe, of course--the obvious thing is the obvious: I've always believed in the essential intellectual equality of women--period. But, intellectual equality doesn't mean anything, unless you have a yardstick for what you mean by equality. Equality of what? Equality, in my view, is a sense of personal identity; it's a sense of participation in a meaningful form of society, intellectually as well as physically. And, the problem we have, I think, is not so much a discrimination against women--we can talk about machismo; I could go on with that, with what I've seen in my experience of machismo, alone, and its various forms and manifestations in various cultures: a horror-story.

For example, the case of Polish culture, as reported by Bronislaw Malinowski, about the habit of the Polish peasant to come home and beat the family and wife and children. We have that kind of problem. That is not, generally, a policy problem, a cultural policy problem, in modern society. It's a vestige of a pre-modern society, or a quasi-feudal society, or backward societies of the past.

The problem today is, no one has a good sense of identity, in this culture. And feminism is often as bad a force, in dealing with this problem, as what they complain against. I've seen a lot of it.

The basic thing is, we have to start from the idea of the intellectual--the character of the human is not physical; it is not biological. And the first thing is to get over the biological distinctions, as being determining. Therefore, laws which pertain to biology, the biological condition or distinctions of people, except where health is a problem, should, in a sense, be put to one side. That's condition number one.

In place of that, we have to place the emphasis on the intellectual identity of the individual, which is largely a sense of the immortality of the individual, by virtue of the power of reason. And, that's the only way you're going to solve what is otherwise, a set of very real and very painful problems.

The Responsibilities of Power

Question: Hello. Greetings from Diego in Argentina. Lyn, I'd like to ask you: You spoke of forcing a bankruptcy of the system. What is our role as Ibero-American youth to achieve this end? Thank you.

LaRouche: Well, you're with me! Whatever I do, belongs to you, and whatever you need, I include in my responsibilities, as a U.S. citizen, and a citizen of influence. If there's any injustice in the world, any problem that needs to be addressed in any part of the world, the United States, at least its leadership, is responsible for taking cognizance of that problem, and working with other nations to solve these problems, wherever they occur.

Not, in the sense of an empire, but in the sense of concern. If we have great power--the very fact that you have great power--for example: If you're the wealthiest man in the community, the very fact that you have wealth, imposes certain responsibilities on you, to use that wealth in ways which are beneficial to the community. If we, as the United States, have great power, it is incumbent upon us to use that power, when that power is needed, to help some other part of the world, that doesn't have the kind of power needed to deal with it.

It is my responsibility, as a candidate to become the President of the United States, under our Constitution, to take cognizance of this--not merely after I'm the President, after I've become a President, but now--in forming the policies around which I campaign, the policies for which I struggle from day to day, now. I take those into account. You are with me; we're in a dialogue, together, about these kinds of problems. You are helping me to understand these problems, as they affect the countries you're immediately involved with. I, in turn, must respond, from my vantage point, as to what I have to say, about the possible remedies for the kind of problems or opportunities you report.

 Repeal NAFTA!

Question: Hello, I'm a Polytechnical Institute student in Mexico. I have a question for Lyndon LaRouche. What would the approach be for NAFTA, in North America?

LaRouche: For NAFTA? I intend to get rid of it. The short of it: It is totally insane and unjust. First of all, look, I'm in the United States. I've got some major projects in northern Mexico; let me be concrete: Let's take the area between the two Sierra Madres in northern Mexico, an area I visited in Saltillo recently. I saw, obviously, tremendous need there.

Now, this area needs to participate in large-scale water projects. And we have two aspects of that. We have the Mexico side of the water development for Mexico, as such; and there are various of these projects, and we've discussed that, and that is on our agenda. We have also, the northern side of this, which comes from the Arctic, down through the so-called Great American Desert, into northern Mexico. So therefore, we do need an integrated approach--to water, power, transportation management, in this entire region--from the South of Mexico, which is water rich, to the North, which is water poor; the Great American Desert, which is water poor, and then the richness of the water supplies coming from other sources. We have to manage this.

However, we're managing this, essentially, among three sovereign states: Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Now, what are we going to do with this water, this development? We're going to promote industries. We're going to promote industries, particularly in northern Mexico. Let's take this area between the two Sierra Madres in the relatively dessicated area. We're going to support industries--not maquiladoras, the way they've done now, but industries, which are able to provide a sufficiently high income, through protectionist measures, supplied partly from the United States--protectionist measures for Mexico, in order to enable Mexicans to create capital formation

 and improvement, to employ Mexicans, who can support their families from their incomes, either as investors in these small firms, or larger firms, or as employees in these industries.

So therefore, we need a protectionist system, which is based on the mutual benefits to the United States and Mexico.

Let's take a case, take this case of the water, which is of a river which is called the Rio Grande from Texas. Now, the Mexicans have been raising food, at below cost, really, for U.S. consumption: providing cheap food for Americans, who are not willing to pay, apparently, for their own food, and want cheap food from Mexico. We have drawn off water, from the Rio Grande into northern Mexico, to help supply this food growing. As a result, Mexico is supplying food to the United States, cheaply, at a price which is based on this flow of water, from the Rio Grande, to the cheap labor of agriculture in northern Mexico. Now, these idiots in Texas, want the water, from the food they and others have eaten! It's insane: This is NAFTA. This is NAFTA.

My view is: Repeal NAFTA! Go to a protectionist policy, under which governments agree, on protectionist measures--tariff and trade measures--which have the included purpose of promoting targetted growth of industries, in areas of both countries. And, one of the areas I'd be looking at, as President, is this area between the two Sierra Madres in northern Mexico.

We need a rail project through there, all the way to Mexico City, because we have to have the integration of Mexico, which means you have to have an efficient rail connection from Mexico City, north. Otherwise, you don't have an integrated country.

We need a water project, all-Mexico water project, as part of the water management for there. But, we also have to think about what are the businesses, the farms and businesses, which are going to supply the income for the Mexican population in that area, of northern Mexico.

Therefore, if there are projects for specific industries, as well as specific kinds of infrastructure projects, required for that area in northern Mexico, therefore, the United States should agree, with Mexico, on the basis of discussion, of what the tariff and trade agreement should be.

You have people in the United States, who are complaining about the Mexicans who are going into the United States to take cheap-labor jobs. Well, maybe the solution is, two things: Pay the Mexicans in the United States a decent income, instead of cheap labor; and also, provide the alternative job possibility, at decent wages, in northern Mexico. These two things.

So therefore, the two nations have the obligation to come to some kind of a system of agreements, or a rotating system of agreements, under which we ensure that investments, which are made on both sides of the border, to benefit the people on both sides of the border, that these investments are protected, by protectionist measures of tariff and trade agreements.

1. Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., "How Bertrand Russell Became an Evil Man,” Fidelio, Fall 1994.

- 30 -