April 18, 2008

LAROUCHE TO PRO-PLHINO COMMITTEE

Stop the British/WWF Vampires Before They Suck Your Blood!

Editor’s Note: This presentation and dialogue first appeared in EIR, Vol. 35, No. 18, May 2, 2008, pp. 38-51.

Lyndon LaRouche, visiting Monterrey, Nuevo León, held a two-hour meeting April 18, 2008 with a delegation of the Pro-PLHINO Committee (the PLHINO, or Northwest Hydraulic Plan, would build dams, tunnels, and canals to bring abundant water from the central Pacific Coast, northwestward to Sonora and other arid regions). The delegation consisted of Antonio Váldez Villanueva, secretary general of the CTM trade union confederation in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora; Vicente Solís, advisor to the state executive board of the CTM of Sonora; and LaRouche associates Alberto Vizcarra and Jesús María Martínez.

Here is the transcript of LaRouche’s opening remarks, followed by a discussion, in which the questions have been translated from Spanish.

Well, as you may know, there’s been a sudden change in the world situation on food. The recent developments have shown that there is a catastrophic food shortage, such that many governments which have foolishly supported the World Trade Organization, are now determined to break with the WTO. Which means, that in all those areas where food production has been reduced, the increase in food production in all countries is being promoted. This means a big fight with the WTO. It means a big fight against London, and against a British agent by the name of Al Gore, and the World Wildlife Fund. It’s called “Wildlife Fund” because it’s not civilized. They have bats! Like bloodsucking bats, vampires! DRA-CU-LA! And they want to suck the blood of Sonora.

All right. Now, you have in Mexico, another situation, in this problem: You have several million Mexicans, who are working inside the United States—or have ceased to work inside the United States. A significant number of these have origins in Sonora.

Since the wives of farmers in Mexico are not farmers, we have lost a lot of agriculture in that region, because of this emigration to the United States. Now, the United States is going to push some of these people back to Mexico. The only place in Mexico, where very quickly, we could restore agriculture, as has been emphasized recently, is the PLHINO project. And people in the state know exactly how this would work. One river brought under control would change the character of the situation. And the return of former farmers from Mexico, back into their homes in this area, would mean that with reasonable measures, we could restore the food production in that area. And that would be a significant improvement in the situation in Mexico. Even though it would be marginal, it would change the direction.

Also, it means a change in philosophy, away from the philosophy of pessimism, which now controls the Mexican government. And submission to the British occupation of the Sonora! That’s what it is! Bats—vampire bats, sucking the blood of the citizens of Sonora? They suck the blood of the people. Dra-cu-la!

So, in any case, it means a real fight.

Mobilize for a Fight!

Now, the other side of this: This all occurs in a general economic breakdown crisis. Every part of the world is affected. This, if it’s not corrected, will be the end of civilization, very soon. And the food crisis internationally is typical of this. So therefore, we are talking about a real fight, in which the situation in Sonora is only typical of one opportunity.

You have governments which have now put on protectionist measures. For example, India. China will be doing that, other countries will be doing that. Because what has happened is, two things that are problematic. First of all, the WTO and other British imperial forces, have insisted that there be no storage of food. There must be free trade, there must be immediate and complete export and import. No storage, no reserves. And to create dependency of every country on the world market for its food. Global food slavery, combined with global starvation.

Some countries have indicated their desire to eliminate the WTO and these agreements. It means a fight, with Monsanto for example, which has this grain policy which is parasitical. But, there’s going to be many countries, and it’s going to be a global fight. So we have to look at it that way. It’s going to be a fight here. Because, you have the World Wildlife Fund, which is sitting on top of Mexico—which means its water. They’re determined not to have that water developed!

And the bat is very important: Dracula is coming to suck the blood of your children. And you have the face of the Prince Philip, who said he wanted to be a disease to eliminate people. And so far, he has succeeded in becoming a disease.

So, the point is, you know, this issue for Sonora and that region is immediate. Because of the food shortage in Mexico, and because of the immigration problem. It’s a social crisis for Mexico, and a very dangerous one. If you dump a couple of million people back into Mexico from the United States, you’re going to have a crisis.

And that overlaps the petroleum business: We’re back to equal petroleum. We’re back to Cárdenas and Roosevelt.

So, we’ve got a fight! And you know me, I fight. I always fight; you have to fight! If you get killed, okay, you fought. You fight, that’s what you live for, a fight. Everybody dies, so you live to fight. And for the future, to defend the future.

Of course, typical politicians like to cover their past, rather than think about the future. They’re afraid the number of their mistresses may leak out as information. They’re also more embarrassed by the number of mistresses who’ve dumped them!

Anyway, so that’s our situation.

Our Strategic Situation Today

Now, there’s some things you should consider on the world situation, which most people in Mexico obviously don’t know, because they’re totally misinformed. Because, what’s happened is—the United States is not the “great empire.” Since 1763, the British have been the big empire. For certain periods of time, the United States was truly independent. For example, with Lincoln’s victory against the British, and in restoring the independence of Mexico from occupation. Then, the development of the power of the United States which frightened the British, and the influence of the success of the United States after Lincoln in Europe, in China, and elsewhere.

But since Nixon, the United States has not been an independent power. It became a tool of Britain: This came under Nixon, with the repeal of the Bretton Woods system, and, the orchestrated oil price crisis of the ’70s. The oil price crisis transferred the power over the world’s energy supplies to the Amsterdam oil spot market. So, when you had the breakdown of the U.S. Bretton Woods system, the United States no longer controlled its own currency; and with the oil crisis of the 1970s, the British took over, so the real value of the dollar was denominated in oil, spot market oil.

And then we had traitors: The Nixon Administration was a bunch of traitors. The Ford Administration was the same thing. The Carter Administration was traitors—Carter was not a traitor, he just didn’t know what he was doing. But the Trilateral Commission knew what it was doing—and they were traitors. The United States economy was destroyed by these people, and has continued to be destroyed ever since. And the key thing was the 68ers; the crazy 68ers, internationally, were the key force in destroying the world economy: They’re now the government! Look at the U.S. government, the elected officials, senior elected officials, Senators, they’re mostly 68ers. In Europe, the governments—68ers. They’re no longer normal human beings, they’re 68ers! And, look: They hate farmers, they hate industrialists, they hate science, they hate progress. They want mistresses, yes. But they don’t believe in progress any more. They believe in destroying industry. In the United States, there’s no net increase in infrastructure, since 1968. And in most of the rest of the world, infrastructure’s been destroyed, agriculture’s been destroyed, industry’s been destroyed, education has been destroyed. So we have been ruined! We’re now at the limit. We have to turn around.

And what has happened is, the food crisis is now. A mass-based impetus for a change. Just look at the increase in the price of food—there is already hyperinflation in food prices. We have more and more people who are put into the starvation class, as the result of the shortage of food and the price of food. What’s needed is an international movement for food. And especially based in regions such as Sonora! Which is a region in which it is highly practical to say, we could get, within a year, a beginning of a change of direction. The sovereignty of Mexico depends upon sovereignty in its food, and it’s an example for every other country. And the PLHINO is the best example, because it’s the one that could be done the quickest, with the greatest effect; with people being thrown back into that region from the United States.

We have to avoid a social crisis. And we have to think about how we do it, because it’s also a technological question, of course, in agriculture, what to grow, where, how!

And, I’ve got to explain, also, the biggest financial crisis in world history. Which means governments have to put the financial system into bankruptcy. It’s been done before. You put the system into bankruptcy. The government puts everything into bankruptcy, keeps things functioning under government supervision, gets things back to normal, and then corrects the currency. Go back to a Bretton Woods system, of stable international currencies. And start investing, long-term investment: infrastructure, food, production, education—development of the mind. That’s what we have to do.

Dialogue with LaRouche

Q: What you were mentioning, Lyn, about the WWF, in fact, we have information that the front of the attack on the Northwest region of Mexico, and especially on the PLHINO issue, where we understand you’re going to get the greatest intensity of opposition to this, is precisely from the WWF.

LaRouche: They made a mistake. Dracula! They made a mistake; the bat, the vampire bat! Dracula! Dracula comes to suck the blood of Mexico, the blood of Sonora. . . .

Q: They’re called the chupacabras, these are the “bloodsuckers.” They suck the blood of sheep and so on.

LaRouche: Yeah, yeah! They suck the blood wherever the skin is exposed. People and so forth. They also transmit diseases, by sucking the blood, from mouth to mouth. And the vampires are back, they’re back in Sonora. The vampires are coming! Dracula is here! Dracula has come to suck your children’s blood!

I mean, these guys have really set themselves up with this one!

Defense of National Sovereignty

Q: I’ve read a lot about you and of your works. I’m honored to be able to talk to you directly. Two questions about what you were just discussing: The Mexican Federal government is saying that the Mexican economy is protected, it has armor against the crisis in the United States, and I would like to know your view on this, on that point.

LaRouche: It has none. It doesn’t exist.

Q: And related to that, what is the effect that you foresee, of this crisis on Mexico?

LaRouche: Well, we have to stop the crisis. This is a place where we have to win.

Now, you have to look at the global situation, because Mexico has limited power, as you know, against the international forces—as President José López Portillo could tell you, if he were alive today. In 1982, when Brazil and Argentina abandoned Mexico, in September, then Mexico was faced with defeat. And we had the best opportunity then, in Mexico, in terms of the generation which was then in power. Think of all the people we know, who were López Portillo’s allies in defending Mexico in August and September. You had powerful forces, who represented the petroleum workers, represented other interests. And since that time—boom, boom, boom! Every part’s been destroyed! So Mexico is weak compared to then, internally. The industries have been destroyed. The industries even here are being bankrupted! This is a bloodsucking operation.

So therefore, in this case, we have to think about the international situation. Now, on the 25th of July last year, I gave a webcast internationally, in which I announced the fact that we were now going into a great depression, worldwide. Three days later, we went into it.

In the meantime, I had talked with some leading banking circles and so forth. We knew each other. And I said, “Here’s what I’m proposing.” We decided it would work. It will work.

Now, since that time, everything has been done, to try to prevent that from being done. However, the present international financial system is disintegrating. We have already entered into hyperinflation. Look at food prices, other prices: the rate of increase. We’re now in worldwide hyperinflation.

Q: Food, oil—

LaRouche: And in all basic necessities—rice, grains, basic foodstuffs. To the point that nations are now shutting down their borders, to retain their food supplies. And there’s an attack on the WTO policy, from countries which had earlier submitted. There is an anti-environmentalist movement coming out of this, like the WWF.

Now, each month, the crisis becomes worse—like 1923 Germany, the famous hyperinflation. What you have, is you have countries which are trying to pretend that this is not happening. Major financial centers are trying to pretend that this is not happening. But they’re all bankrupt! There is no bottom to this collapse. You simply are going to have to wipe out a tremendous amount of financial claims.

Now, the three measures I proposed were these: First of all, the speculation had been supported by expanding mortgages. Now the prices of houses went fantastic. And people had mortgages which they could never pay. It was pushed and pushed! But the function of these mortgages, not only in the United States, but also in Europe and elsewhere, was to feed this financial speculation. So this is not a housing crisis, though there’s a housing crisis included. This is the breakdown of the international banking and financial system: This system will not survive! It is disintegrating.

Now, the danger, therefore, is, from London and other places, the tendency is toward fascism, the way fascism was unleashed in Europe in the 1920s. It happened recently with the [European Union] meeting in Portugal, in terms of the European agreement on a strategic alliance, which is called the Lisbon Treaty organization. Under this treaty, if countries do not resist, there will no sovereign nations, west of the border of Russia and Belarus: none on the continent of Europe. The parliaments will have no power. Governments will have no power to make policy. An international supra-government will sit on top of the whole operation. This will be controlled from London. It also will combine NATO with this new organization.

What you’re seeing already is movement toward war against Russia, China, and other countries. New threats of genocide against African countries, from London. And you can imagine similar things aimed for South and Central America. That’s what you’re seeing here, around the Pemex [Mexico’s national oil company—ed.] question: to break the institutions in Mexico, which represent their independence. That’s the attack on the PLHINO, from the World Wildlife Fund—which is the British royal family, Prince Philip. This old pig. (He’s an old fascist pig, actually! No mystery about it, it’s open.) So therefore, we’re in this kind of situation, in which there is no solution, under the present system.

But! So therefore, I have these three measures.

First: I’ve designed legislation for Federal government adoption. We will probably have 100 localities which will have voted for that in the United States, very soon. We already have more than 80; we will soon have 100. And under this, the Federal government will put all citizens and normal banks, under protection of the Federal government, bankruptcy protection. Not the speculative banks, but the normal banks, that make the loans, that function in the communities and so forth. The main thing is to keep the structure in every locality stable. So, use national law to create stability, protection. People will not be thrown out of their houses, banks will not be shut down, and we can get credit, then, into these communities to keep them running. That’s legislation I designed—

Q: Would this protection be done through the Federal Reserve System?

LaRouche: No. The Federal Reserve System is bankrupt. The Federal Reserve System will be put into bankruptcy, and the Federal government under the Constitution, under Constitutional law, will run the bankruptcy. And the Federal Reserve System will exist, but it will exist as a bankrupt institution, under Federal government direction.

Number two: We will eliminate the present lending system. There is not going to be any credit. For example, in Mexico, you have no more credit, here. The industries in Mexico have no sources of credit. The big financiers, many of them are going to be wiped out, including the international financiers, because the whole system is going.

So therefore, what you need, is, then to go back to what López Portillo planned, with the Bank of Mexico, and use the Constitution of Mexico to reconstitute the Bank of Mexico, as an emergency measure. Now then, the government can now create credit, to ensure stability of the economy of the country, and this applies to all nations. They’re all in the same situation.

There is no nation in the world which does not have a similar situation: Some different from others, but they’re all essentially the same. It’s a worldwide problem.

All right, so the state now has to issue credit. Now, actually, you can not issue credit for normal production at a higher rate than 1-2%. Take, for example, we’ve got to create new farmers: What are you going to do? The state’s going to have to provide credit, for institutions which will now assist farmers in going back into business. Then the water project on the rivers, the PLHINO, will have to be financed, for example. Now therefore, you need 1-2% government-charged interest, because the borrower can afford to pay 1-2%. They can not afford 5-6%. Normal people can’t afford that. They’re not some big industry. And government projects, like infrastructure projects, are 25-, 50-year investments: You can’t have high interest on those!

So, you have to begin to build the economy. So my view, my proposal, is government-protected credit, 1-2%; get the banks operating on the basis of 1-2% credit. In other words, the Federal government will support the banks, by making available credit, for approved purposes, at 1-2%. That way, you’re putting credit through the local banks, to keep them in business. And you’re using them in order to stabilize normal life in communities. And for investor investments.

For other things—let the interest rate go whttt! Because we have to dry it out anyway. The world debt is purely fictitious. It can never be paid. But we have to maintain the structure of society, a normal structure: normal agriculture, normal industry, normal government. All the things that are normal and essential. And you have to build up the local entrepreneur, the small entrepreneur, especially. Because, that’s where you get the growth coming, by reversing poverty, into productivity: Take the hopelessly poor, and make them productive, even if they’re not very productive. Employ the unemployed. Create small industries that are useful. Eliminate, reduce the number of people who are very poor, especially hopeless poverty. We must shrink hopeless poverty—which is one of the characteristics of northern Mexico, today.

So, we have a 1-2% protected loan process. No more bailout for big financiers. Everybody has to go in at this protected rate.

Then, we have to stabilize the international monetary-financial system, to function like the Bretton Woods system. So my proposal, this is my third proposal, is that the United States, under an improved choice of President—and that’s easy to make an improvement; I mean, a cocaine addict as President is not a good idea!

Q: Who might that better President be?

LaRouche: Hillary’s the only [one] we’ve got. She’s not perfect. But she is, on the economic issues. She’s the only one that is.

So, but go to Russia, China, and India—all right—the Asian countries, because Russia’s a Eurasian country; China, 1.4 billion people; India, 1.1 billion people. Then you have countries like Japan and so forth in the same area. If these countries agree with the United States, to sponsor the creation of a new international monetary system, like Bretton Woods, but different—different because it will have to be de facto credit created by treaty agreement—the United States could go back to the U.S. credit system immediately. China, India, and Russia do not have such a system. But countries can make agreements through long-term treaties. So the long-term treaties are used for creating credit in international trade and investment.

For example, China and India require major investment in infrastructure. That requirement can be filled by the assistance of countries such as European countries, which can mobilize their assistance, through long-term credit, to assist these countries in developing their infrastructure, and new industries. It will take two generations, but we’re talking about 50 years. Some investments will be hundred-year investments, like water projects are 100-year investments, major water projects.

For example, the PLHINO, the water project, that’s a 100-year investment, just to manage that water. You have to be able to do it by the government at 1-2% interest, to those who’re going to do it. But you put a lot of people to work! It’s practical. So, we do that in Eurasia.

Now, we agree. Therefore, we go back to a Bretton Woods system by adopting a fixed-exchange-rate system. Because you can not generate international credit, at 1-2%, without a fixed-exchange-rate system.

So, those are the three points. [Box: Mexico’s PLHINO Project]

Now, the situation for my proposals improves daily, because the desperation is increasing. The governments have no solution to this. So more and more people are coming around—okay! The situation becomes worse and worse, and goes on and on—so you get more supporters. Like this food crisis: Suddenly countries that supported the WTO—“NO!!! We must have food!!”

And therefore, the choice between food and the WTO: People say, “We don’t want to eat WTO, we want food!” “We don’t want to eat bats! We don’t want to have bats eat us!” Bats don’t taste too good. They’re not very nourishing.

Q: Something even worse than a Dracula bat—Prince Philip.

LaRouche: He is one! He’s a modern Dracula.

‘The Question for Us Is Jobs’

Q: We came really, very interested to hear you, to listen to the boss, and what you’re saying is really surprising. What I’d like to say to you, is that we represent the largest working trade union organization in the country, the CTM, the Mexican Workers Confederation. It has about 5 million workers as members. And obviously, the reason I came, is I come from the Federation of Workers of the State of Sonora, which has about 200,000.

My deepest concern is generating jobs, generating employment. And I took some interesting notes. We agree pretty clearly that the PLHINO would generate many, many jobs. That’s why we as an organization are part of the Pro-PLHINO Committee, strongly supporting that this project be actually carried out. In fact, Feb. 24-25, we were at the national meeting of the CTM in Mexico City, and one of the points of agreement, and that the National Committee adopted, which we discussed at the national meeting, was the CTM’s support for this project. This was unanimously approved, by all the federations from all the states of Mexico.

So, concretely, I would ask you, what other possibilities exist—what else could be done to generate employment? Because this is the issue that most concerns us.

LaRouche: First of all, you’re dealing with, as you know—with the organization you have, you obviously have a good estimation in every part of the country, of the qualifications of available labor. And therefore, you obviously work in that institution with a lot of smaller entrepreneurs. You also have an insight into their capabilities. So, if we were to make a list of kinds of employment, both for present members who are seeking employment, and for the influx of people returning from the United States—now, many of them were employed in construction jobs, some in agriculture. In most cases, the skills are not good, but there’s familiarity with the kind of work. So under direction with the cadre, they can be developed.

So for projects like the building of the water project, for the PLHINO, it would not be difficult to make a list; and the Mexican government already has long-term plan designs for these projects. So you start with those plans which exist from the Federal government. Mexico always made plans. Look at the most recent, and look at some of the older ones.

Now, take these projects, the water project, water management, number one. Everything depends on the water management. Now, you need power. So you go through the list of things you need, and you find the kinds of expanded industries, which fit the market you’re creating, and also fit the skills of the people available. Which means what you probably are already doing, you set up programs of training of people. You take your inventory of people who need jobs, or need improved jobs. And make sure we have programs to qualify them, to select and qualify them.

So, around the water project, we could build up a long-term element of stability in the construction.

Then you can go to the secondary things. These are long-term capital projects—water projects are long-term capital projects. Power up the things. Then, agricultural assistance programs, centers. You need agricultural assistance in every locality. Seeds, everything—advice, all these things. So that’s in secondary things.

Then you have all the other facilities that are needed, education and so forth. So you make an inventory. And you make a plan! And you’re talking about, you know, 25, 50, 100 years, of maintenance of this, essentially.

But it means, we have to think also about the education of the population, and you work on 25-year cycles, to make each generation better qualified than the previous generation. And the school systems are extremely important: The upgrading of the quality of the education system. Because you have two things: We used to have education of children, and adult education. A person wants a job, but they have no real skills. So they have schools to assist them in getting it.

Q: Technical schools.

LaRouche: Yes, yes.

Q: So plan the labor market 25 years forward.

LaRouche: Exactly. Because now, you’re talking about investment. What’re you creating? What kind of a monster are you creating for 25 years from now?

Build Domestic Productive Capacity

Q: In Sonora, there was a plan, which gives priority basically to foreign investment—auto industry, aerospace, agriculture, livestock, mining, things like that, some of the basic centers. But the priority is not domestic national investment, but rather foreign investment.

LaRouche: See, the problem is, you take this city, Monterrey. Back in 1982, what was Monterrey? What were the industries? What are the industries, if you come into Monterrey now? They’re foreign industries! There you had a steel industry built up in the state. What happened to it? It started with grain, it went to beer, it went to beer cans, it went to steel mills. I mean, the economic development involves not only the development of industries, but the development of people. And just as these industries formerly were developed here, industries that have disappeared, which are replaced by actually foreign industries—across the border!

So therefore, it’s extremely important to have a deeply rooted productive capability in Mexico. Not imported industries. Imported industries should generally be key industries. Use an industry to bring a skill that is necessary into the country, and it should be a skill which is beneficial to the internal economy of the country. Foreign exports are all right, but if you don’t develop the internal economy, it doesn’t work. Because it’s the development of the productive powers of labor, which is the long-term interest of the country. And what we need in Mexico, as in other countries, is you need a science-driver program for technology. Because you want to raise the standard of living. To do that, you have to increase the technological skill level. So you want to import progress in productivity. Not of some firms, but of the population.

The normal thing in healthy times, you know, the whole community is improved! Not just some people. It’s not coming down here from a foreign country to get some cheap labor. It’s to build the country! That’s the whole purpose of the nation-state, is to develop the people in it. To use their culture, to improve their culture, to develop their culture. To develop their sense of personal identity within the nation. And that was the change that was made after 1982, in the wrong direction. Everything was destroyed. And you have a few foreign interests.

The same thing is happening in the United States. They shut down the domestic U.S. auto industry. We still have an auto industry—but it’s an imported one from Japan. You see the same thing in Mexico.

So that’s our problem, is to think things through from a national patriotic standpoint.

A Question of Developing Leadership

Q: I would like to hear the views of the jefe [boss]—

LaRouche: Just an old man, not a boss!

Q: I have a responsibility in one important part of Sonora, which is in Ciudad Obregón. I’m the general secretary of the CTM in Ciudad Obregón. And three years ago, when I got to that post, the first thing I began to work on was to get things in order internally. And then I began to work on the issue of respect for trade union autonomy and internal democracy, where the workers themselves designate, by secret ballot, and complying with labor authorities, to elect each and every one of the leaders of every trade union. We have a universe of 76 organizations, and we have a little bit more than 18,000 workers who are members.

What I’m getting at is the following: Starting three years ago, we launched a model of worker-business relations, based essentially on negotiation, effective communication with entrepreneurs and small businessmen, with whom we have collective bargaining. And we’ve worked hard at this, to try to achieve greater productivity, both in the businesses and among the workers. And on this basis of this model of worker-management relations, an equilibrium, both for the workers and for the company, to not reduce the salaries or the other benefits of the workers. In the last two years, we’ve had over 200 bargaining reviews, and we’ve avoided cause to strike—we’ve avoided that completely. The negotiations have occurred around a negotiating table, with the workers and with the management, trying to find and achieving very good results.

And this has allowed us to create labor peace and tranquility. I should note that for the first time, next week, the CTM invited 108 businessmen to a meeting for a luncheon of all of the trade union leaders, to establish closer relations between management and workers.

So, I would like to know what your view is, because I feel this is the route, this is the way to bring about better things. Of course, your views are very important to me, because maybe you’ll be able to give me some feedback, which will be useful for me to continue to grow.

LaRouche: Well, what I emphasize, and I do it internally in the organization in the United States, is, I promote a scientific development, a serious scientific development. These are largely young people between the ages of 25 and 35, who are selected for this program, because they have a scientific background. So we give them the kind of education, through their own participation, which they could not get in a university today.

And thus, we’ve created a cadre of leadership. For example, the universities generally in the world today are a mess. It’s not really serious thinking. Because, in the former time, you had technological progress which was very much science-driven. And advanced technologies involved the people from the country, in their competence in mastering these technologies, and not accepting external formulas, given instructions.

So the ability to make a scientific discovery, and training people, is essential psychologically, as well as practically.

Then, you use the people in such programs as a key catalyst in dealing with many problems in the community, because you have your own competence, your own community. Because innovation is so important in this. And what we face, in Mexico in particular: Since 1982, in Mexico, we have lost the dynamic of scientific and technological progress, as intrinsic to Mexico! You’re using up the people of Mexico! Like toilet paper! Not developing them! Throwing them across the border! Turning whole sections of Mexico into drug gangs, which control this traffic of people across the border. Which is a threat to the security of the country, and a threat to the security of every operation. These gangsters are predators, and prevent development. And they steal everything they can steal. They discourage people, ruin people.

So, the development of an intellectual leadership, based on people—because we have a society which has gone away from technological progress; we buy technology, we don’t use it. It’s not ours. And therefore, the most important thing, is to promote this kind of development within the population, and using institutions like schools and so forth, and various kinds of projects, as the opportunities to promote this kind of approach.

Because, you know—people are not animals. But the present organization of nations does not recognize that distinction. The human being is not an animal, especially not a bat! A human being thinks always in terms of immortality, which no animal does. Take the typical Mexican in former times: that’s what they work for! For the future of their children and grandchildren. So it’s a sense of immortality, which is important. Without this sense of immortality, that their life means something for coming generations, and as they grow older, they become happy in seeing this happen. And you do that by concentrating on the development of the mind, which is not reading the instructions from a piece of paper on how to operate a machine.

For example, in industry, also in agriculture, the most important factor in productivity is the ingenuity of the people on the job, because they’re reaching for it. They grab it. They make investments of their time and effort. “I’m going to study this, I’m going to know how to do this!” They have a strong sense of identity. The problem we have in this society, since 1982, is a loss of a sense of identity, a loss of a sense of a nation with an identity. So therefore, what we do, which is not happening in any university in the United States: We produce a better quality of scientists than in any university. These are largely people with some scientific training from before, largely between the ages of 25 and 35.

So promoting this kind of development in a community stimulates the population, and anyone who’s running a small firm is always thinking about technological improvement. How do they do that? With conversation, in the community, discussion of ideas. Somebody has a good idea, they have an improvement. And what we’ve lost is this sense of improvement. “We’re going to make a better product next year, or a better crop next year, than we had last year.” And therefore, discussion of ideas in this way, is the most important. It gives you a strong person, who thinks about what his life means for two generations to come.

And in the old days, it used to be the grandparents thinking of their grandchildren, the farmer in particular. The farmer always thought in terms of grandchildren. They have a piece of land, they think about how that’s going to be improved. You plant a tree. How long is it going to take a tree or a bush or grapes or something, to develop? You’re developing things. The same thing in industry, just like happened here in Monterrey in former times. They started as farmers, grain farmers. They need beer. They need beer cans. They need a steel industry, and they had technological progress. And it was because you had a fairly decent education, promoted by the leaders of the community. And that’s the key thing, this intellectual intangible.

Q: So we’re talking about a productive chain?

LaRouche: Yes.

What Role for the Trade Unions?

Q: A final comment I’d like to make. In this restructuring which we’ve achieved in building the federation, people have come—youth, leadership of the trade unions, educated, they have degrees, people supported them, they were backed to be able to lead the trade unions, and we are committed since last year to provide training, especially training of the youth. These are youth who have come into leadership in the trade unions, precisely moving in the direction of what you were just talking about. And this is producing good results, because we’ve been able to innovate certain social programs, certain economic programs, where we’re looking not just at the workers, but at the families of the workers. And I’m commenting about this because I think it is important, just as a point to take note of.

Connected to that, a question. In this whole world phenomenon, what do you think the role should be of the trade unions? I understand some of the ideas; for example, the role in public policy of infrastructure, all of this we’ve been talking about, these workers who train, skilled workers who are able to innovate and develop. This implies that trade unions would be involved heavily with the issue of education, training. These are things I understand from what you’ve said. But, if we were to analyze, let’s say, this global strategy that you’re proposing to solve the existing problem, what is the role the trade unions should play, not only on a macro general level, but also in specific regions, such as for example, Sonora, or in the city of Ciudad Obregón?

LaRouche: In the history of trade unions, you have good and bad examples of the attempt to deal with the community orientation of the trade union. One is the exclusive approach; that’s not so good. And then you have the more community-oriented approach. And then you get the idea of how do you combine the two concerns in the right way. Because the trade union generally has to be associated with the community as one objective, and the work-centered orientation, the other. Often, the attempt to solve the challenge of combining these two, does not work. It fails. It becomes too much social work, not enough concentration on progress, or too much on the job-related.

How to deal with the family, for example. You have a member of the trade union; you have the question of the family of the member of the trade union. So the trade union is naturally involved in family conditions as well as in job conditions. And therefore, it’s the kind of cultural outlook that you promote that’s crucial. And the main thing is the improvement of the intellectual development of the membership, and the families, which brings you into the community. And when you have cooperation among trade unions in their own community, then this tends to benefit a common concern, because people often go from one job to another. Hopefully, they keep the same family, not like some machos who have more mistresses than they do children!

So the intellectual and cultural development of the community, as a concern of the trade unionists, helps to elevate them in their own self-estimation. You want the trade unions to become an influential force in the community, an influential cultural force, and political force, and you promote that. And you try to promote things that will help do that. They shouldn’t stay home and beat the children. They should self-develop. They should feel that they are becoming better people, as citizens. Because what happens, the effect is that as they develop, they become more politically effective as individuals. They understand things, they’re not narrow-minded, they’re not limited to a few things. And typically, as they become more skilled, it’s easier to do, because they have insights not only into their own work, but into other kinds of things. How a dam is built, how infrastructure is built, how things could be done, the capacity for innovation. The more innovation on the job, the better.

You know, in the old days in the United States, we used to have suggestion boxes. Now, suggestion boxes had a lot of junk in them, but you also had skilled operatives, and they would get together, they would talk to each other. And some of them would come up with an idea, but they wouldn’t put it in the suggestion box. At night times and weekends, they would meet and work on this, and when they presented this idea to the suggestion box, it would actually be worked out. It was at the point of readiness for implementation. And therefore, this was a factor which, in the arming for World War II, was crucial, promoting the ingenuity for technological innovation and similar kinds of things, and was extremely important. We would build airplanes, and we would develop the airplanes—this is World War II and afterwards—faster than we were producing them. And the problem was, the engineering department would have to keep up with these changes. The result was a very high rate of increasing productivity, and technological competence. This is one of the peculiarities of the United States labor force.

You also had that in the German labor force, a high degree of capability for innovation; in northern Italy, skilled labor with a high rate of productivity. You used to have people in Mexico with the same drive, before 1982. And they were also centered in a lot of the trade unions, cultural associations, etc. And that was what was crushed: the denationalization of Mexico’s industry. That took a lot of that creativity away, and if you think back to those years, when there were Mexican products which were specifically Mexican, which reflected the technological development in the country—that’s what I think you want to get back to. That’s where national industries, national development, regional development, is crucial.

The Use of Oil Revenues

Q: I would like to come back to what appears to be López Portillo’s dilemma, which is expressed in the famous speech which he delivered to the oil workers in Mexico: What are we going to do with the profits from the oil? He said that the consciousness, the awareness that we are in a world financial system which is moving in the wrong direction, which doesn’t understand or tolerate the requirements of development of national economies—he made the decision to use those resources, the oil, to try to bring about self-sufficiency in food and energy.

I think that, given the burden of the worsening of the international situation, I think that this is a similar dilemma which we’re facing, because Mexico is bringing in incredible, extraordinary income in oil revenue, with historically, the highest rates of unemployment ever.

LaRouche: You want to look at two things. You want to look at the degeneration of Nigeria. Nigeria, which is an oil-producing country, was never allowed to develop its oil production. The oil production was privatized, and was left in the hands of foreigners. There was no Nigerian control over its oil! The revenues from the oil in Nigeria were used for corruption. Since there was no real development in Nigeria, you had fragmented communities which tended to be self-isolated, where they had the equivalent of Nigerian “caciques” [local chiefs—ed.] all over the place, who were all trying to get the revenue to eat, and nothing for development.

Now, in the case of López Portilllo, he represented—because he’d been a lawyer in this area before being a President—he had a program which was actually very sound. There were two things about his program, as I knew it, which were most interesting. Ten nuclear power plants—to use the petroleum income, as patrimony, for nuclear power. Because of the geographic situation in Mexico, the most accessible part so far was on the coast. It’s not a good, comfortable place to live, so therefore, if you do not have a high-intensity power source such as cheap nuclear power, you cannot develop the new cities which are needed. Without the development of a modern rail transport industry, how do you get by rail from the U.S. border to Mexico City? Why does Mexico City become too large? Why does the rest of the territory not develop more rationally? So therefore, the point is, the petroleum was a patrimony which could be focussed as a capital-creating patrimony.

For example, a modern rail system, from the U.S. border to Mexico City, is a test of development. But the international oil interests say “no.” They destroyed the railroads in the United States, and they prevented them from being developed in Mexico. Now, aircraft is not the most efficient way; with high-speed rail, you can move the population more cheaply and more comfortably than by going through the air, particularly with the largest volume of migration, which would be from center to center. So you have whole sections, like the Saltillo area—trucks go through there, but how much development is there, there? What would be required for development? So, you have a middle part, between the two mountains, the Sierra Madres, areas which have been left undeveloped. They can be developed. You can get water from the South to the North, not only along the coast, but across the mountains. You can bring water across the mountains into the valley between the two Sierra Madres. And you have farming, agriculture, expansion of food supply, new communities, new industries.

Now, López Portillo was thinking in that direction, which is not just him. This was an institutional reflex of patriotism. It’s the right way to think. It’s not such a remarkable thing, in that sense. This is what you want in a President of Mexico: a lawyer who knows how to think, and who relies upon people around him who represent various kinds of competencies, a sense of national mission, and to take his term of service of six years, take this period as a mission, a leader for a mission. How is the country going to be improved by my being here? And there’s plenty of water in Mexico, but it’s not being moved where it’s needed. There’s plenty of room for Mexican citizens, but the territory’s not developed. To have people living on the coast, requires air conditioning and climate development. People have a right to that, don’t they?

So, the idea of the use of what is called a national patrimony, for the devotion to a mission of development of the nation in some way, this goes with the mentality of a good citizen. Every good citizen would like to see their grandchildren in a better society than they had. It’s natural, it’s human. We’re not monkeys, and we already have too many monkeys in government, and not enough human beings. Somebody told them there aren’t enough chimpanzees, so they said, “Okay, we’ll act like chimpanzees. I’ll get a chimpanzee wife.”

Change in the United States

Q: How can we, through the Pro-PLHINO Committee, intervene in the situation in the United States, so that the United States could in turn support the efforts for the PLHINO, and that this should become the leverage to bring about a change in the economic policy direction of Mexico as a whole?

LaRouche: There are several things involved here. First of all, we all know how the Aztecs created an empire in Mexico—the cacique system. And Mexico’s unity has always been frustrated by this legacy. The ruling tendencies over Mexico from the outside always relied on and promoted the cacique system. By dividing the country, they tend to inhibit national unity actions. My view is that this could be helped by an outside factor.

Let’s take the case of Sonora and Baja California. California is the key thing, because you have so many people, on both sides of the border, who represent the same families. Therefore, if you have development, you have a natural tendency, even though you have sovereignty of the countries, you have a natural tendency for positive influences. And therefore, you try to overcome the cacique effect, to the extent that you promote Mexico itself as a nation, not as a collection of regions. For example, high-speed rail development, nuclear power, cross-border industries in the sense of an exchange, which makes sense.

Take food production. If you have development in Mexico, you have all kinds of food production which resists the seasonal tendencies in food. A problem we have in Mexico is contamination of food supplies, diseases. Why? Because there’s a lack of sanitation. Within a generation, you could eliminate this problem. Moctezuma would no longer be known in Mexico.

No to the British Empire!

So, it’s a question of understanding what the cultural reasons are which make national sovereignty indispensable. Because it’s through the subtleties of culture that a whole people are able to participate in this development. Therefore, they must have their own language, their own culture, because their children think in terms of that culture, that heritage. But, there are nations which have a common goal, so you want people of different cultures to be able to cooperate for a common goal, which was Franklin Roosevelt’s intention. Eliminate colonies, eliminate neo-colonies, have a world of nation-states, of national cultures, because his problem was the British Empire. He hated the British Empire! Because what it does, is pit people against each other, as in Africa. The British are inhuman in Africa, absolutely inhuman. Look at what they’re doing!

And Roosevelt understood that once we got into the war, we had to eliminate the British Empire. And Truman said “no.” Truman said, I like the British. I like Churchill. So Roosevelt’s policy was never carried out. Truman accepted Churchill’s idea of maintaining the British Empire. And the United States forces were used at the end of the war, to repress those countries which Roosevelt had intended should become free. So the United States corrupted itself, from the moment that Roosevelt died.

And what’s needed is to eliminate all semblance of empire, to have nation-states develop sovereignly, on the basis of their own culture. So their children will be able to think in terms of a national culture. Otherwise, you don’t have development. You have what you have in India: Seventy percent of the population is monstrously poor, in a country which has high technology. You have a situation in China. Now, China has built a lot of industry, but the prices that China gets for its products are not enough to sustain the development of the entire population of China. China’s entire production of exports is not sufficient to maintain its own internal population. And this is true around the world. Cheap prices.

This free trade has destroyed the culture of the planet. We need a protectionist program. But the purpose of protectionism is to enable nations to be free, and to develop the entirety of their population culturally. That means prices have to cover the cost of maintaining the population, and we can do that by promoting technological progress. If we promote infrastructure and technological progress in production, we could, within a generation, meet these goals.

And Roosevelt understood this. At the end of the war, the United States had become the most powerful economy in the world. Unfortunately, most of our development had been involved in fighting the war, in supporting other countries in fighting the war, as well as ourselves. Now, Roosevelt’s intention was—and which was the way he organized the United Nations and the Bretton Woods System—that we would free all countries from colonialism, or semi-colonialism. You look at his Rio Treaty, which is an example of this for the Americas. And by taking the military industry, by now avoiding costly wars, we could convert our military production to develop the world, including northern Africa. That was not done. What was done, was that we built up a new war industry, under British direction, and we destroyed our own productive potential.

We re-colonized the world, under neo-colonialism. You have a country—we say, you’re free now, you have your own government—but we run it! The way the British did. They decolonized. They said, you’re now your own government. You pay for it, but we run it, because we control the people that are in your government. Like the case of Kenya. The British control the place. It’s a colony. It’s called an independent nation, but it’s controlled by the British.

So that’s our problem. And thus, what we fought back in 1982, with López Portillo, in terms of the Malvinas War, which we knew was a threat to the entire hemisphere, we knew that. That’s how this issue came about. These guys just came in, largely under British direction. The United States had become, intellectually, a colony of the British system, and this turn came with the assassination of President Kennedy. President Kennedy was removed, they went into the Indo-China War, the 68ers destroyed European civilization from the inside, and now we’re a junk heap. So, we can learn the lesson. Next time, we must succeed, and next time has to be now.

It’s with inspiration. It’s to get people to see themselves not as miserable creatures, but getting the ordinary person to see him or herself as they should see themselves. Look at all these poor people being shipped back and forth across the border. They’re being degraded!

The Mexican Political Swamp

Q: I really like your ideas about how we should move forward, but in Mexico there’s a political situation which I think makes it very difficult for there to be a government, or leaders, who would promote this kind of development. There’s the PAN government, which I don’t think is going in that direction. There’s the PRD, which is totally divided over their internal problems. There’s the PRI, which hasn’t really figured out which way it’s going. So, what’s your view of the Mexican political situation, to be able to promote these kinds of policies?

LaRouche: The Mexican political situation is that it’s a colony of predominantly British influence. Take a look at the Americas as a whole. Who controls Venezuela? The President of Venezuela [Hugo Chávez], what’s he saying? He says, we like the British, we don’t like the Americans. He’s a British agent! He may not understand that too well, but he is. Take the case of the narco-terrorism, which has been a factor in Mexico, which has disrupted the country, from the inside. Who runs it? The British Empire, right? So, the problem is a confrontation with an empire. Everybody says the United States is the empire. The United States is the “Mexico” for Europe, independent in appearance, controlled from the inside by London.

Let me give you an example of this: Every political campaign for President in the United States today, is run in depth from London. The Clinton campaign is saturated with British agents. You have British agents such as Felix Rohatyn and George Soros, who control the Democratic Party; both are British agents, agents of London. The same thing is true of the Republican campaign. Obama’s even worse. Obama’s a total British agent, who’s going to be dumped. He’s there only to destroy Hillary Clinton, and London created him, and they will destroy him the minute they think he’s done his job. They’re already moving to destroy him. He’s run from London, and London is going to destroy him.

And so the problem here, and the solution, is you’re now in a general collapse of the present world empire, which is actually the British Empire. If you look in Mexico, you will find the British Empire all over the place. Look under the bed, just check who are the financial interests in control, and who controls the American influences on Mexico? The British. Typified by the present President, who is a cocaine addict. What is George Bush, Jr.? His father didn’t want him to fight in Indo-China, so they kept him out of military service, while there was still a draft. They forced the Texas Air National Guard to take him. So he was not in the Federal military service, but in the military service of a state, a state police force, essentially. They didn’t want him there. He was forced upon them, for many reasons. He was known as a degenerate; he was also known as a cocaine addict. Now to make him President, there’s a story. The Texas Guard sent him out of state for one year, for detoxification of his cocaine addiction.

Now, they wanted to run him for President. The voters of the United States would never vote for a known cocaine addict, so they spread the story that he’d been AWOL—absent without leave. He was never absent without leave. The Texas Air Guard had shipped him into a neighboring state for detoxification for one year. His press personality is that of both an alcoholic and a cocaine addict, and his wife was a cocaine addict too. So obviously this man is not really the President of the United States. He’s a puppet of Cheney, who’s a puppet of George Shultz, who’s a British asset, and the British asset who put Pinochet into power in Chile.

Now, therefore, you’ve got a crisis. And in a crisis where the whole financial system is disintegrating, where there’s a state of war between the British Empire on one side, and China, India, and Russia on the other, a virtual state of war, and a potential nuclear war, into which the United States is supposed to be drawn, but, the present world financial system is disintegrating, you’re now in a situation—as you know in Sonora—of hyperinflation of food prices, which is a threat to everyone. Therefore, this system is not going to last. It’s coming to a point of vulnerability. And that’s what I’m involved in, to get rid of this thing. So, I’m not simply suggesting what I think should happen. I’m doing what I can to make it happen.

And therefore, I’m concerned that people in various countries know what some of us are doing, because we have to think of their rights, too. I have to think of their rights, I have to think of the rights of Mexico, in particular, as a nation, of the patriotic interests of Mexico. So people in Mexico should know what’s going on, and they should know what I’m doing.

Mexico’s PLHINO Project

The following is excerpted from “U.S. and Mexico: Cooperate on Great Water Projects,” by Dennis Small, EIR, Dec. 7, 2007.

Mexico has too much water … and also too little. The Southeast is virtually floating on water, and the north and center of the country are bone dry. That is an oversimplification, of course, but it makes the essential point. So the great challenge in Mexico has always been to take the water from where it is abundant, and transfer it to where it is not.

The PLHINO does just that.

The project was conceptualized in the mid-1960s, and systematized as a hydraulic plan in the early 1970s. Since that time, LaRouche and his associates in Mexico have consistently campaigned for its implementation.

At a Nov. 9, 2007 conference in the state of Sonora … a new, detailed design for the PLHINO was presented by the distinguished Mexican engineer Manuel Frías Alcaraz. In his design, approximately 75% of the runoff from five under-utilized rivers on the central Pacific Coast of Mexico would be used to feed a canal running northwestward along the Pacific Coast, with a combined flow of 220 m³/second of water (about 7 km³/year). These five rivers (San Pedro, Acaponeta, Baluarte, Presidio, and Piaxtla) would each have new dams constructed upstream, and they would be connected by a series of four tunnels (ranging in length from 21 to 33 kilometers, with 7-meter-diameter tubing), which would gradually bring the water down by gravity from 570 meters above sea level at the first dam, to 370 meters above sea level at the last one.

From the Piaxtla reservoir at 370 meters above sea level, Frías then proposes to construct a series of canals, pumping stations, and smaller dams and tunnels that would transfer the accumlated 220 m³/sec of water all the way to the Yaqui River in Sonora.

This would create an artificial river some 460 km in length, which is comparable to the 580-km-long Santiago River, the country’s seventh largest. And what nature took a million years to do, we can accomplish in a decade, Frías emphasized. The total PLHINO project is estimated to take ten years to complete, with an annual investment of about $1 billion—“monetary resources equivalent to [Mexico’s] purchase of food for only one year,” according to Frías.

The 7 km³ of transferred water, along with additional amounts gathered directly underground by the tunnel tubes, will allow for the irrigation of 330,000 hectares of new farmland in the state of Sinaloa, and another 470,000 hectares in Sonora—for a total of 800,000 hectares opened to farming by the PLHINO. [back to text]