LYM Brings Reality
To League of Cities
by Natalie Lovegren,
LaRouche Youth Movement
As Lyndon LaRouche develops in "Johannes Kepler & the Democratic Challenge: The New Politics" (EIR, Dec. 8, 2006), the mass effect, which is represented as dynamics in physical science, is a physical principle. Contrary to popular opinion, creating a mass effect does not require a mass of people, nor brute force. It is not the liberal fantasy of thousands of people demanding democracy and justice, or the might of the mob, through their righteous indignation, overpowering and crushing the will of elected officials.
It is simple, strategic, scientific, and most important—fun!
But the key to creating a political effect, is that you must intend to help people into the real world.
Four members of the LaRouche Youth Movement attended the National League of Cities Annual Convention November 13-17, in New Orleans, for the purpose of escalating the national mobilization of recruiting elected officials to endorse Lyndon LaRouche's Homeowners and Bank Protection Act of 2007 (HBPA). More than 4,000 city officials: city council members, commissioners, and mayors were at the convention.
For the majority of these city officials, reality is already pressing down upon them: As they see more neglect and insanity stemming from the Federal government, cities are left to deal with desperate citizens, an impossible budget situation, and no real solutions on the local level. Holding the conference in the still-Katrina-devastated city of New Orleans provided an environment where people were faced with the severity of the national economic collapse.
Bringing in the HBPA was viewed by many as a godsend. Many elected officials signed the petition to support the HBPA, without much hesitation, saying, "We need to do something now!" Some who signed were confident in the quality of the proposal because they were familiar with LaRouche. Others were very rigorous about studying the proposal, asking plenty of questions about each point, and returning later to sign.
The fact that the massively leveraged housing bubble was created by the now hemorrhaging financial system was not a surprise to anyone. Financial breakdown and economic devastation were not taboo concepts, but familiar fears growing in the minds of these elected officials. Ironically, the subject was glaringly absent from the convention's agenda, although the currently ongoing international financial breakdown now determines every aspect of the functionality of these cities. Nor were housing foreclosures on the agenda for discussion, in any form.
Many officials approached our table, which displayed the large signs, "FREEZE FORECLOSURES!" and "Save your city from foreclosure with the HBPA!" eager to discuss LaRouche's proposal. Our organizing was effective because we were presenting people with a reality of which they already had a prescience, and guiding them to the solution for which they were already looking.
The four of us alternated between attending various discussion panels to engage individuals inside the convention, and manning the table outside, which was set up at a consistently high traffic location, where officials could come and discuss the HBPA, or sign the petition at their leisure. At the table, officials could view lists of HBPA signers from different levels of government around the country. Some, after locating on the list their trusted friends and co-workers, signed themselves up.
More than 2,000 HBPA leaflets were distributed to the conference attendees. We also distributed several hundred copies of HBPA resolutions that have been passed or introduced by various city councils nationwide, encouraging these city officials to do the same in their hometown.
On the third day of the conference, LYM member Stephanie Nelson was invited to address a meeting of the NBC-LEO (National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials), where she gave a concise address to the more than 100 members in attendance:
"Long before even the first signs of the mortgage crisis, Lyndon LaRouche warned that the growth in the housing market was a bubble, that would threaten the already collapsing banking system. We are now seeing this play out. So he has drafted legislation for Congress which would freeze foreclosures and protect the banking system. What has been done by the Congress up to this point is far from adequate; their bills so far only deal with regulating future mortgages. They have done nothing to defend the millions to be foreclosed on in the next couple of years, and worse than nothing to protect the banks. So the attendees, as individuals and bodies, should endorse LaRouche's HBPA."
Twenty NBC-LEO members then signed the petition.
Many who signed said that they had done so because they either had read through the proposal on a previous day, discussed it with others, or had already spoken with LaRouche organizers, in their home cities, prior to coming to the conference. Several, from different cities, came up to the table exclaiming to us that they know about foreclosures, because their city was the worst!
Inside the convention, one Tennessee councilwoman was inspired by a discussion with a passionate LYM member about the history of FDR's Tennessee Valley Authority, and LaRouche's ideas for redeveloping the physical economy. She brought a friend over to sign the petition the next day, explaining, "This is a good thing! I know—I asked a million questions about it!"
A discussion with a Texas commissioner about Martin Luther King provoked a couple of LYM organizers to think about the nature of passion as necessary for creating political change. What inheres in human beings that they respond to the passion of a leader like MLK? The LYM discussed addressing his commission upon their return to Texas, and the next day, his fellow commissioner came over to our table to sign the petition.
A veteran, and member of the NBC-LEO, after describing his long-term political fight for principle against the "good ol' boys" in his town, encouraged the LYM to keep up the good work. "I realized, it just takes a lot of courage. You just have to have courage to make substantial changes."
Eighty-two elected officials left the Big Easy having endorsed the HBPA—now it's up to the 435 in Congress to stop taking the easy road, and do the same.
