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"The Andy Thomas Show" was to air on Monday on eight stations statewide, to approximately 150,000 listeners. A rough transcript follows: Announcer: ... The Andy Thomas Radio Network is proud to present America's Radio Show. And now, here's Andy Thomas, live, from Columbia, South Carolina. Welcome in America, welcome in the Carolina. Andy Thomas, along with Michele Harris, et. al.... Lyndon LaRouche, certainly a man who's in the news frequently, in terms of running for President. I think it's his eighth try, at the White House, you might say. He's an 80-year-old economist, and he's raised a lot of money, from what I hear, $3.7 million dollars, over the past few years, whether it's through small donations, maybe through the internet, lots of different sources, but he is hoping to be included in a Presidential debate which is going to be getting under way this Saturday, in South Carolina [sic], but I'm being told that that's apparently not in the works, that they're not going to let him in. Let's get the latest, let's go to the man himself, Lyndon LaRouche. Mr. LaRouche, thank you for being on the program. Good afternoon to you. LaRouche: Good to be with you. Announcer: Bona fide Democrat, or not? Some Democrats even here in South Carolina, are saying that you are not, for instance, not registered to vote. Can you counter that? LaRouche: Well, I am a {bona fide} Democrat, no question about it. As a matter of fact, I'm leading the pack. I've got about $5 million now, so far, raised, according to FEC filings. I'm number two in terms of popular support, in terms of popular contributions to my campaign. That is, less than $1,000, less than $200, you know, that sort of thing. So, we're doing fairly well. The problem is that the major news media, which is tied to people financially who are my enemies, for a long time, aren't too happy with me. But the major news media no longer has the power it used to have, relatively speaking, and we're out on the streets, which very few other candidates are. Announcer: And I gather you're doing very well in the fundraising area. LaRouche: Well, not very well. We're doing honestly with a popular-- we have no big pockets. Others have larger pockets to draw upon. We have only small pockets. But, a change has happened in California, with the election of Schwarzenegger there. The Democratic National Committee sort of lost it, and most of the candidates. I was alone there, fighting, as a national candidate, against the recall. We did turn things around a bit. If another candidate, or two candidates, or Bill Clinton, had come in to support what I was doing, we'd have beaten Schwarzenegger. We'd have beaten the recall. So, that has produced a crisis. Now you have a situation in the Senate, where two Senators, Senator Kennedy and Byrd, have upset the applecart, not in any violent way, but they've come forward, and say, "We are no longer taking orders from the DNC." So, changes are going to occur very rapidly. I'll be a doing a webcast {internationally}, on the 22nd, and that will have an effect--a lot of people are watching to see what I'm going to do. But, it's fun. I'm in there. My time has come. Announcer (female): Mr. LaRouche, I have to ask some questions, and I'm going to get right to the point, here. You know, you say a lot of things, you use a lot of words like conspiracy, this is their attempt from a corrupt system, to get you out. You know, it rings similarly to Abbie Hoffman, and that of an agitator. I have to ask you, why, if you have done such important things for our economy--and I don't know if a lot of our listeners are aware of your political and your professional history--but you have created things such as an economic forecasting system which has been one of the most accurate economic forecasting systems in history. I would like to know how somebody so well-advanced in that field, and certainly somebody who has a proven track record, could be so disliked by our government. LaRouche: Because I'm a danger to a lot of people in our government. We've undergone a change. When I got into politics, actually seriously in the 1960s, because I saw what was happening, with the Missile Crisis, the Kennedy assassination, the Indo-China war. So I decided I had to get into politics, because we were headed in a bad direction. Over the period of time, I've been quite successful. I use language and use approaches in politics, which are not popular with people who are, shall we say, with the new trend. I'm with the Roosevelt trend, and I think the time has come, as in 1932-33, the present system has failed, we're in an economic disaster, people are going to look now for economic alternatives. They're no longer going to believe in the kind of things that they've believed up to now. Announcer: How do you feel about being excluded from all of the televised Presidential debates, with the Democratic Party? LaRouche: That shows that the party--because of my support and base of support in history--that shows you that the people who have been dominating the DNC, are politically bankrupt. When you have a candidate who is actually first, or second, in popular support, according to this contribution standard, which I've been, and you excluded the one who is the most, leading, or second-leading candidate, in terms of popular base, from the party debates, that means that the people who are running the debates, are politically bankrupt. I think that most of these fellows will drop away very rapidly. I don't think Clark can make it--there are reasons for that. Kerry might come back in, in a big way, so I think it's going to boil down right, as of now, to me, to Kerry, and to Dean. Announcer: Well, again, I keep seeing, I've been looking at a CBSnews.com article saying not only is he not a registered voter, but he has an extensive written record of racist and anti-semitic opinions--that's Don Fowler that they're quoting there, former National Democratic ... LaRouche: I know Don Fowler, he's not a very good guy, and he does lie a lot. As he did with that one. Announcer: Are you, or are you not, one more time, a registered voter in your state? LaRouche: I have been registered, but I had a little operation run against me, and was deprived of the right to vote, but otherwise I've been a registered voter. Announcer (female): So, then, I guess I would ask you, two questions. The first, it's hard to ask that question: LaRouche: Don't be afraid, ask it. Announcer (female): Do you agree with these comments, that you are racist, or that you are anti-Semitic? LaRouche: Well, there's no truth to it whatsoever. So what am I going to say about it? People who say that kind of thing, discredit themselves. Because anybody who cares to investigate the thing, rather than just reporting what some gossips spread, will find out it's false. And people who don't look it up, before speaking publicly, especially prominent figures ... Announcer (female): Okay, then I guess my second question to you would be, I'm quoting: "I'm not running to become a President, I'm running to provide some leadership." The basic fundamentality of leadership is to do things that you would ask others to do. One of those things is voting. How can you feel comfortable asking people to go out to the polls, and do something that you are not, by law, allowed ... LaRouche: Well, I went a little thing. I got a badge of honor from being framed up by our government ... Announcer: Virginia law, am I not correct? (cross talk) LaRouche: That's right, exactly. It's a little dirty trick by the Gore, Albert Gore, and his friends in the Democratic Party, didn't want me around, because I slammed Gore over the change in Clinton's policy in 1996, from fighting Newt Gangrene, to supporting him, or accommodating to him. Announcer: Something that I know you like to talk about, is that this country needs a New Deal. You started to talk about that in your conversation a few minutes ago, calling yourself a Roosevelt Democrat. When you say "a New Deal," what are you seeing we need right now, in this country? LaRouche: Well, first of all, when I say a New Deal, I mean the kind of approach, and philosophy, and types of measures, which Franklin Roosevelt took in the first 100 days he was President of the United States, to get the United States out of hell, and he sort of succeeded, and brought us into becoming the most powerful nation in the world, and the most prosperous, at the end of World War II. We are in a time when we've got to re-reverse policy. That is, between the death of Kennedy, and following the rise of the so-called Southern Strategy of Nixon and company, the policy of the United States has changed. The philosophy has changed, from a producer society, to a consumer society, depending upon the cheap labor of other parts of the world. We now are bankrupt. The United States is $2 trillion in foreign debt. We're running about a $1 trillion a year current account deficit, we've running in the same direction on a national deficit, operating deficit. So, therefore, we're at a time, with the collapse of health care, with all the other kinds of problems which are affecting {especially} the lower 80% of our family income brackets, we've got to change direction, and go back to the way we went, from the time of Roosevelt's inauguration in '33, up through the time we began to change, about 1964. Announcer: Give young people an example of one thing that would stimulate the economy, in the proper form. LaRouche: First of all, let's take health care. The day I'm inaugurated, in 2005, I would immediately reopen the D.C. General Hospital, as a full-service, public hospital, as part of a national security matter. I would also reverse the HMO law, or pass a bill to Congress, of about 5 to 7 pages, reversing the HMO law, and returning to the Hill-Burton law on the question of national health policy. This is one thing. We also need infrastructure, we need power generation and distribution. We're in a crisis. We need water management. We need restoration of our rail system. We need a lot of things of that type. Announcer: As you can tell, a five-minute interview with this guy, is never long enough. Lyndon LaRouche, we hope to have you back some time. Thank you very much. - 30 -
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