How To Constitute a New Mexico
The LaRouche Youth Movement in Mexico on Jan. 18 released this pamphlet, "Preamble for Our Constitution; A New Politics Begins."
This pamphlet by the LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM) is a critical flank in the battle over whether Mexico's government shall answer to its people, or to the financiers. That battle exploded after international financiers refused to permit a recount of the fraud-ridden July 2006 Presidential election results, and is taking on mass proportions again, with the outbreak of the national crisis over the soaring costs of Mexico's basic food item, tortillas.
The pamphlet contains two documents: the first, written by the LYM in Mexico City, puts forward a proposed Preamble, should Mexicans decide to modify the existing Constitution, as is proposed, followed by a statement elaborating upon the principles expressed in the Preamble. As the editorial to the pamphlet explains, their document "sets forth the importance of defending the national institutions, which are the only ones that could confront the devastation caused by the effects of the global financial crisis."
"We in the LaRouche Youth Movement have taken up the responsibility of contributing this conceptual basis for that fight, to bring about the rebirth of our republic, and protect the most important thing which our nation has: `the creative potential of our people,' " they state.
Accompanying that statement, is Lyndon LaRouche's Nov. 26, 2006 document on the international political earthquake set off by the outcome of the Nov. 7 U.S. elections, "Johannes Kepler and the Democratic Challenge: The New Politics." LaRouche's article was translated by a LYM team in Argentina and Mexico. LaRouche's "New Politics" is a crucial complement to the Preamble, the LYM explains, "since we understand that any national change would be incompetent, if we do not have a clear idea of the world of which we are a part."
Combined, these are the conceptions which the millions of Mexicans fighting for their nation's future require, for their fight to succeed.
EIR publishes here the Preamble document, translated by Natalie Lovegren of the LYM, and Gretchen Small.
Preamble to the Political Constitution Of the United Mexican States
We, the people of Mexico, representatives of this Republic and of the human race, declare before the judgment of past, present and future history, that we continue the fight of our forefathers, whose reason, will, and blood gave us peace, and restored our dignity with the establishment of our Fatherland as a free and sovereign nation.
We declare that the highest purpose of the free and sovereign nation of Mexico is the development of the creative potential of each and all of her citizens, and that the perfection of the State is the inseparable result of the realization of this potential in the individuals who comprise it. The increase of our population and the betterment of its conditions of life shall be the measure of economic success, and the undeniable proof that our people are advancing in their understanding of the lawful purpose of humanity's existence, which is the creative contribution to perfecting the universe and the transcendence of human beings. We derive the entire foundation and legitimacy of this Law from these principles, which Law shall have legitimacy insofar as it flows from the Natural Law which the Creator instilled in human intelligence.
For this reason, we, the Mexican people, calling upon generations past, present, and future as our witnesses, in light of the foregoing, shall give the name of Law only to that which in no way violates those sacred principles, and we shall eradicate now and forever whatsoever tyranny be illegally introduced into the body of these laws. Likewise, we affirm that we shall only recognize as legitimate that government which issues from this understanding, and which shares and cherishes the principles which have given rise to these statements; and that a government so legitimized is above any financial or other interests which violate the principles we have herein expressed. For example, usurious economic models represented by independent central banks, which use parliamentary systems to denigrate the human condition, violate the constitutional principles here consecrated. Whereas the establishment of a National Bank which issues sovereign credit to promote the General Welfare, promotes these principles.
Let it be so fulfilled by us and by our posterity, whose tranquility, dignity, and happiness is the foundation of our struggle. It is for us and our posterity to ensure the permanence of these sacred principles that constitute our greatness.
Mexico: Constitutional Republic or Oligarchical Parliamentary System?
Within the ongoing collapse of the international financial-economic system due to 30 years of speculative activity, it's not all bad news. The "New Politics" has begun, with a new Democratic majority in the Congress of the United States, defeating those lovers of fascism, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. The American physical economist Lyndon LaRouche and our youth movement, the LYM, particularly in the U.S., played a decisive role in this blow to fascism.
This marks an opportunity not only for the United States, but for the entirety of civilization, to be able to reverse the policies of globalization and free trade that have destroyed our nations. We can dismantle the policies adopted by the Baby-Boomer generation, who returned to the liberal economic policies of the British System, and today, seek to turn back the historical battles waged to establish sovereign nation-states, and revert to that imitation of the Venetian imperial system known today as the system of parliamentary government, controlled by "independent" central banks of the international financial oligarchy.
In this context, a discussion has arisen in Mexico about a Constituent Assembly whose purpose would be to promulgate a new Constitution, following the recent Presidential elections in which a fraud was imposed against our Republic. There, our institutions failed. A quasi-revolutionary situation was created, where millions of people took to the streets to demand a profound change. However, the vast majority had no idea of the kind of change they wanted.
To know how to respond to this situation—whether or not we should change our Constitution, and especially which direction to head in if we are going to change it, as well as what principles should govern that change—it is first necessary to determine the cause of the crisis, the cause of the failure of the current institutions, where the corruption arises from viewing human beings as animals and subjecting them to conditions coherent with that view.
Ah! But if you think that this is a particular problem of government and its institutions—you are mistaken. This has been a cultural form adopted by every layer of the society—and yes, that includes you.
Thus, it is not coincidental that similar debates are now taking place across Ibero-America. For example, in Bolivia, a Constituent Assembly has been convened to write a new constitution. In Ecuador, the incoming President, Rafael Correa, intends to do the same, as the current legislative branch of that country is a bastion of the national and international financial oligarchy which has been destroying the country for decades.
It is for these reasons that we decided to write this document, which seeks to clarify the intention behind the controversy between the parliamentary system and the Presidential system. In writing a Preamble to our Constitution, we want to safeguard those principles which constitute a society's welfare and which also reflect its process of perfection.
The Sovereign Nation-State and the American System
The fundamental axiomatic difference between those representative and Federal republican constitutions—based upon the 1789 Federal Constitution of the United States, which the majority of the Ibero-American countries adopted after their independence—and European parliamentary systems, is the difference between Truth and conformism, or the cult of popular opinion. The difference between these systems does not lie in technical appraisals of the systems per se, but rather in the historical and philosophical antecedents from which each was born, in response to two completely antithetical views of the nature of human beings: the commitment to the human search for Truth, or the attempt to make reality conform to some generalized form of popular opinion.
The origins of the parliamentary system are not found within the framework of humanity's struggle to establish democratic systems; rather, it was born out of the attempts of the British aristocratic oligarchy to increasingly put their interests above those of the monarchy. The current defenders of that system will contend, whether out of ingenuousness or malice, that as a result of the changes which the system has undergone, its original elitism has been removed, and it is now managed "democratically." But beyond their forms, the intrinsic superiority of the republican Presidential system is that it arose as an intellectual movement based upon the model of the laws of Solon of Athens and the work of Plato: a true sovereign republic, in which the people would not have an external leader ruling over the nation or themselves, and in which the government's legitimacy would be based solely upon the commitment to efficiently promote the General Welfare of all the population, and of its posterity. This was a project conceived in Europe, principally out of the ideas expressed by Nicholas of Cusa in his 15th-Century work, Concordantia Catholica, which gave rise to the first constitutional monarchies in history, those of Louis XI of France and Henry VII of England.
A second step in the progress towards the nation-state, was the 1648 signing of the Treaty of Westphalia, which put an end to the religious wars which were ravaging Europe, introducing the "benefit of the other" as a principle of international cooperation.
The third phase in this development of a republic, was the emergence of the American System of Political Economy based on the principles of physical economy developed by G.W. Leibniz in 1671-1718, principles reflected in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to its Federal Constitution of 1789. The realization of this first republican Presidential system in humanity's history, was followed with great enthusiasm in a Europe which sought to introduce reforms reflecting the same principles. However, the morally degraded influence of the ideologues of the French Revolution, instigated and financed by the British oligarchy, ruined this perspective, giving birth instead to a reign of terror and bestiality. The real author of the 1789 French Revolution was the banker and later Prime Minister of England, Lord Shelburne, who, through his agents Philippe Egalité and Jacques Necker, organized, from London, the storming of the Bastille, to eradicate the American Revolution's influence, which was reflected in the proposed Constitution drafted in 1789 by French patriots Bailly and Lafayette, which was founded upon American principles. Later, Shelburne's London-trained agents, Danton and Marat, began the Jacobin Terror which led to the first modern fascist dictatorship, that of Napoleon Bonaparte.
This struggle for a republic reflects a long fight, from the time of Solon, between the effort to construct a nation-state of citizens, and the opposing forms of imperialism, guided by an oligarchic view in which peoples are owned by their masters as subjects, as virtual human cattle, as in the case of the Roman imperial model, the medieval feudal system, and today's so-called "globalization." It has historically been the financial oligarchy which has warred against the development of republics, since it is not willing to allow the existence of a government which puts the authority of the State over the oligarchy's interests. These same forces were, and are, the only ones who historically have benefitted from the intrinsically corrupt parliamentary system.
There is, thus, an absolute and essential difference between the old European parliamentary system, and the American System, which emerged out of Europe, but out of an anti-oligarchic "New Europe."
Therefore, rather than agreeing to an historical devolution towards the parliamentary systems of Old Europe, we citizens of the Americas have the obligation to help liberate Europe from the systems of the European oligarchy itself.
Truth vs. Consensus
A true National Constitution derives its authority from its statements of intention, from the necessity that human law be congruent with the principles of Natural Law, as the reflection of the Law of the Creator in every human intelligence.
When we speak of Natural Law, we are not talking about some supposed divine order which man cannot know, but must blindly obey. Rather, these principles must be congruent with universal physical principles, knowable to the mind of each and every individual. That is, a true republic is based entirely upon the search for truth. How can you conceive of justice, liberty, peace, law, the prosperity of a people, without Truth? In the words of Lyndon LaRouche: "The ability to think and the commitment to an efficent conception of truth, are interdependent concepts. If you are not committed to truth, then you cannot really think."
The successful continuation of civilization or society depends upon the transmission of knowledge of universal physical principles from one person to another, and from one generation to the next, such that each individual may accomplish his or her immortal mission in building an ever-more perfect future for society.
This is the principle of agape—or love for humanity—which represents the highest order of moral law, the principle of Natural Law, as conceived of by the German philosopher whose work was the intellectual inspiration for the American Revolution, G.W. Leibniz: "Spirits are of all substances the most capable of perfection. . . . It is through this that he humanizes himself . . . and enters into social relations with us, and this consideration is so dear to him, that the happy and prosperous condition of his empire which consists in the greatest possibility happiness of his inhabitants, becomes supreme among his laws."
While Leibniz posits "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" as the three fundamental rights of man, the British philosopher John Locke is content to call life, liberty, and property "natural law." This trio—life, liberty and property—was the philosophical foundation of the Constitution of the slave-holding Confederate states which Lincoln defeated in the United States, and not of the American Revolution, which was based on the ideas of Leibniz.
Like Locke, the Frenchman J.J. Rousseau denied the existence of natural law, in saying, "this right does not come from nature and must therefore be founded on conventions . . . we must conclude that conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men."
This point is key to understanding clearly the fundamental difference between the American Presidential system and the European system, which is based on the depraved conceptions of J.J. Rousseau and John Locke. The latter has been credited, fraudulently, with having influenced the ideas of the American Revolution, whose Constitution the Mexican people and other nations have adopted as the model for their own.
The alternative to Truth is so-called "popular opinion," in which scientific proof is replaced by belief in the opinion of some group in society. What kind of society would pass a law, if the interests of some group so demanded, declaring that, from here on out, men would give birth to babies, even if this law had the support of the masses?
This type of thinking, taken to the extreme, is sophistry, where there isn't even a concept of Truth. You can say: "Okay, well, everyone thinks this, so the majority must be right." Therefore, based on that premise, "when the majority has spoken, the minority must bow down and accept that Truth is found in the will of that majority." This is the opinion of Rousseau. Nevertheless, history's voice is more powerful than his. The way once-powerful cultures have collapsed, is through decadence, in which the promotion of collective opinion is used as a substitute for Truth. The expression: "You can't go against popular opinion!" is usually the death knell of entire civilizations.
This argument of cultural relativism and Aristotelianism—"Truth doesn't exist; only the sensory perceptions of individuals and their opinions do"—has always been the oligarchy's preferred philosophy. Because when there is only a kaleidoscope of diverging opinions, a higher authority is always required, which is imposed by the oligarchy to control society. At times this is explicit—as in the case of Hobbes's Leviathan—and at times it is implicit, in such mechanisms as the supposedly autonomous Central Bank, which in reality is the mechanism used by the oligarchy to control society and the economy.
The Difference Between the Presidential and Parliamentary Systems
To understand this ontological difference in its historical context, it is necessary to turn again to the conception of the human being as a creative individual, and not an advanced version of what an ape would be (although the current U.S. President, George W. Bush, would fulfill all the requirements for the latter). To separate this unique creative quality of humanity from the discussion of systems of government which should be adopted for the continuous development of the population, would be as absurd as discussing how to improve living conditions in a cemetery.
The parliamentary system is a creation of the European oligarchy, which maintains its control through independent central banks. The parliamentary system is not only an institutional form of government, but a characteristic inherited from the monarchical culture of British imperialism, as Lyndon LaRouche put it in his Jan. 11 webcast: "We don't know if the British bow to honor the Queen, or out of some sexual preference; the British must be told to pull up their pants."[1]
The fundamental errors of the parliamentary system lie in the categorical rejection of the concept of leadership embodied in the institution of the Presidency, and in the false axiom that decisions are made on the basis of mere consensus, following the philosophy of Hitler's crown jurist, the Nazi Carl Schmitt, who says that Truth comes out of competition among opinions. This is like trying to pass a bill that Bush is intelligent, by consensus.
The continuity of a parliamentary government always hangs by a thread, because the parliament can overthrow the government any time that it decides to create a crisis, provoking political instability which keeps the government from acting in circumstances such as an economic collapse.
Only a nation-state based upon the Presidential system has the ability to intervene in the face of the current economic collapse, as the institution which can defend the population's General Welfare from the interests of the "independent central banks." The history of the United States demonstrates this, in its battle for independence from the British Empire, when it created the first national bank. Without creating such a national bank, the government does not have the sovereignty to issue national credit, but depends on the usurious loans from international bankers, whose interest is to continue subjugating people to conditions of mental slavery and submission.
One of the principal objections made by the monetary fetishists[2] against the issuance of credit by a national bank, is so-called inflation, which always take the form of a Mother's warning: "If you don't behave, the bogeyman will get you." Of course, what "behave yourself" means for nations is sacrificing their populations and reducing them to poverty due to the lack of technological development and investment in an agro-industrial economy.
The difference between inflationary and productive credit lies in understanding physical economy, which defines the true intention of productive credit not as mere monetary emission in which the "independent central bank" limits the credit to fixed amounts and eliminates the possibility of directing it to society's benefit. Productive credit issued by a national bank is not inflationary, since it is backed by investment in long-term projects which will pay for themselves through the jobs created, and not merely in payment of unproductive debts or phantom investments (such as financial speculation) which don't return anything to society. Admittedly, for the psychology of the monetary fetishist, who believes that money has a life of its own, this will be very difficult to understand.
The Fight for Our Sovereignity
Mexico has waged various fights on behalf of a republican Presidential system: the case of Benito Juárez and his supporters in the face of the imposition of an emperor; the attempt by Alvaro Obregón and Alberto J. Pani to lay the foundations of agro-industrialization, basing themselves fully upon Mexico's 1917 Constitution; and the defense of the Mexican State carried out by Gen. Lázaro Cárdenas when he expropriated the oil held by foreigners. But there was also a more recent fight which, to the shame of many Mexicans, current popular opinion characterizes as "authoritarian" or "corrupt," without knowing what actually happened.
This was the war which José López Portillo waged in collaboration with Lyndon LaRouche against the International Monetary Fund and the international banks' assault against Mexico. Mexico's and López Portillo's sin was simple: to want to industrialize the nation. As a result of the introduction of the new liberalism and the breakdown of the old Bretton Woods system, Mexico, like all the other nations, was left exposed to what López Portillo himself described in his 1982 State of the Union address:
"Financial plague is creating growing desolation across the globe. As in medieval times, it levels country after country. Rats transmit it, and it leaves in its wake, unemployment and misery, industrial bankruptcy and speculation. The remedy of the witch-doctors [i.e., Chicago Boys—ed.] is to deprive the patient of food, subjecting him to forced rest."
In the face of this imminent threat to the country, López Portillo had the courage to act rapidly in defense of the General Welfare, by suspending payment on the foreign debt in August 1982, by then imposing exchange controls, and by nationalizing the Mexican banking system in September of that same year. These ideas had been proposed in the historic document, Operation Juárez, which Lyndon LaRouche had written for the nations of Ibero-America in August 1982.
If you think that these measures were mistaken, think about the following comment of López Portillo himself: "We misbehaved with the international institutions, and we were punished; they accused us of being populists, etc. Other governments were well-behaved, and the result was the same. That is what is most dramatic."
The rapidity, audacity, and courage with which López Portillo acted, wielding his Presidential powers, is what the international financiers really fear. That is why they are out to eradicate, at whatever cost, Mexico's ability to so act again, in the face of a similar threat, such as we currently face.
Our commitment is to ensure that they do not succeed, and to instead give the Nation conceptual tools to constitute the new Mexico around its universal mission.
[1] See Jan. 11, 2007 webcast.
[2] A monetary fetishist is someone who prefers to save his money more than the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of individuals.
