In a February 1996 Schiller Institute conference in Reston, Virginia, in a speech called “If You Passed Economics 101, You Are Probably a Member of an Endangered Species,” economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche described the cultural principle that underlies the system of conferences, and congresses assembled by the Institute: “The subject, the actual subject ... is the subject of history as tragedy; because we are living in a real tragedy. When a person says to me, ‘Why don’t you give answers in byte- sized doses, like the other politicians? Why don’t you take a poll and find out what the people want to hear, and state your proposition in terms of the prejudices which they already have, as the polls tell you?’ my answer would be: ‘I’m not a fool’....