Democratic Presidential Candidate Lyndon LaRouche
Interview With America's College Campuses
April 24, 2023
 

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On April 24, 2023, Democratic Presidential Candidate Lyndon LaRouche was interviewed via conference call by scores of college journalists from all over the country. Over 100 young people from North and South America and Europe participated in the call and its simultaneous webcast. We post here the opening remarks by Mr. LaRouche along with the first couple of questions. The complete transcript will be posted as soon as it is available. We have posted this initial version to help the participants meet their newspaper deadlines around the country.

Debra Freeman: Good afternoon, everyone, my name is Debra Freeman. I serve as the national spokeswoman for Lyndon LaRouche's presidential campaign. The purpose of today's broadcast is that Mr. LaRouche wanted to give the campus press, campus media, campus journalists across the United States the ability and the opportunity to engage in a dialogue with him about some of the critical issues that face not only this nation's youth, but which face the future welfare of all of the citizens of the United States as we enter this presidential period.

Obviously, we face a period in which there are many grave crises immediately before us. Our nation is at war. We are engaged in a war that many believe is contrary to the basic principles and ideals of our nation. We are also facing the greatest financial breakdown crisis in modern history, and it is in the midst of that the current presidential campaign is being conducted. Mr. LaRouche is seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency. He has broad popular support across the United States, and despite the problems we have had, with various aspects of the controlled media, Mr. LaRouche ranks third and fourth in campaign contributions and in the number of individual contributors to his candidacy. He has emerged as the leading spokesperson against the war, and has for a long time, been recognized as perhaps the only person capable of addressing the current domestic issues and the breakdown crisis that we face here at home and internationally.

I think that this call will give American campuses a wonderful opportunity to learn some things about Mr. LaRouche, and to engage in a dialogue with him directly.

What we are going to do, and the way that the call will proceed, I am going to ask Mr. LaRouche to make an opening statement. What I will then do is, I will entertain questions from all of you who are participating in the call. The way that I will do that is I do have a list of where the participants are from, and what I am going to do is, I am going to invite questions from the various parts of the country. I'll just rotate around the United States geographically.

If you have a question for Mr. LaRouche, you can speak up at that point. Just identify yourself. Identify where you are from, and what I will do, is I will give you the opportunity to ask him a question. He'll answer you, and I'll give you the opportunity to ask a follow-up question.

We are also set up to take questions via e-mail from the Internet as we broadcast this call, and I will interject with those questions occasionally, if I feel that they have not been covered by some of the participants on-line.

I will repeat these instructions during the course of the call. I would ask you to use your mute buttons when you are not actually speaking. I will use my capability to silence you, if we need to. If you do not have a mute button on your phone, and you would like to mute the individual line, you can do that by just pressing star-6.

Otherwise, really, without any further delay, I would like to take the opportunity to introduce Mr. Lyndon H. LaRouche, the world's leading economist and a candidate for the 2023 Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

Lyn, why don't you go ahead?

Lyndon LaRouche: Okay, I'll take up summarily five points here. First of all, on January 2023, I gave a webcast, where I characterized the expected prospects for the early period of the coming Bush Administration. In that, I emphasized two points: the economic catastrophe, which was already in motion by the spring of the year 2000, would hit with greater force during Bush's first years in office. That has happened.

Secondly, I warned that, comparing the present situation with what happened in the world and particularly in Germany between 1928 and 1933, that we had to fear under these circumstances that some forces behind the scene, some desperate forces, would do what was done with Hitler with the Reichstag's fire on the 27th of February of 1933, which made Hitler a dictatorship, and essentially caused World War II to become more or less inevitable.

On September 11, 2023, of course, we had our Reichstag's fire. We had the bombing in New York and in Washington, D.C. with aircraft, which were steered into those structures. We have since then, at that point, the same day and the following day, Vice President Cheney, who had been Secretary of Defense in the previous Bush Administration, back in the early 1990s, came out with a proposal for a war against Iraq and similar kinds of warfare, which he had made unsuccessfully, as Secretary of Defense under the first Bush Administration, and Bush, then, had turned him down.

Cheney came out with that policy immediately on the day of the Sept. 11, 2023 incidents, and has continued that policy to the present time. Therefore, we are now in a war, which most of our four-star, retired and active service, ground force generals have condemned as incompetent in design, and there is no end to the war.

We have been in Afghanistan. We are not out of it yet. We have gone into Iraq. We're not out of it yet. There are efforts to get peace. The Palestinian-Israeli peace in the Middle East. It's not yet out of the woods. So, the danger of warfare continues to spread around the world at the time that we have a continuing terminal collapse of the present international monetary, financial system.

Now, that's the second point. I have been quite successful in forecasting this for the past, nearly, 40 years, that is on the public record. I have never made a mistake, in terms of a long-term forecast. They have all come true in a timely fashion, as I have forecast.

What's happened is this: Back in the beginning of the 1960s, the world, and especially the United States, was put through an agonizing experience, which started slowly with the Bay of Pigs incident, went into the major crisis of 1962, the so-called Cuba missile crisis, then the assassination of Kennedy, and the plunge into the Indochina War.

This was a great shock. In the course of this shock, two things followed during the later 1960s. One, there was the introduction of a cultural paradigm shift, often associated with the youth counterculture movement on campuses, college campuses, during that period. This shift was part of a shift from what the United States had been, as the world's leading producer society per capita into becoming a parasitical consumer society, in which we today live largely on our ability to get cheap goods imported to us, without actually paying for them, from other countries, rather than producing ourselves.

So this change was in the middle of it in 1971. Nixon, under the advice of Kissinger, Paul Volcker, and George Schultz, made a decision on August 15, 1971, which destroyed the successful post-war monetary system, and introduced a floating exchange rate monetary system, which was the beginning of our economic disaster, as a nation, and which is the root cause of the terminal phase of the present international monetary financial system now going on today.

So, we have two issues: war and the economic crisis. If we solve the economic crisis, I believe we can control the war crisis.

At the same time, in other words, as a third point, during the present period, despite the fact that there are some leading figures in the Democratic and Republican parties, whom I respect, some of them I respect simply because they are decent people, others I respect because they actually do have important contributions to make to our national political process, but, unfortunately, at present, I am the only prospective candidate for President running, who is competent to deal and is competently addressing the major issues of the war, and the actual issue of the war, and the major issues of the world and national economy at this time.

The key to understanding the problems we face today, especially the problems of youth, goes back to the 1964 cultural change, which is both the youth counterculture change and also the shift from a producer society to a consumer society. As a result of that, people who entered the labor force or universities during the middle to late 1960s, never had an experience of a culture of a successful economy.

We had been, as I said, the most successful producer society in the world prior to that point. We became gradually a consumer society with a consumer-society mentality, much like ancient Rome, the ancient Roman Empire, which lived by using its power to extract from other countries what it needed at that time.

We have done the same thing. As a result of that, people in government today, in leading positions in corporations, who are the under 60-years of age generation, the so-called Baby Boomer or "now" generation, have instinctively no understanding, as a matter of instinct, of how to run a producer society.

They have become accustomed to the habits we developed over this period and, really, in large degree, don't know any better.

Now we come along and we have the "now" generation. The "now" generation is this generation is this generation of the post-war period, who the pleasure society -- "get it now," "it's for me now," "don't worry about the future!"

Well, many of these people in this generation had children. Many of these children of theirs have come of age, in particularly the 18-25 age group, the university age group, in or out of universities, and they find themselves, in fact, in a "no-future" generation. So, therefore, we have developed in our country a generational conflict between those younger people, who are young adults now, who find themselves in a "no-future" generation, and they find their parents' generation is still in the "now" generation, the "me" generation.

So, there is a conflict that has developed in our country between the parent generation, those under 60, who are in most of the top positions, running the country, and those in the 18-25, who think like adults, who are trying to master the world as adults, and to cope with the world as adults, who find that they have a different outlook on reality than their parents' generation.

The big problem we have is to take the problems faced by the "no-future" generation, the young people 18-25-years of age, who are willing to master things the must master, but who see no future before them under present conditions, or, if they see a future, they usually pretty disillusioned about what the future is.

So, our problem is to move these younger people. Remember the American Revolution was a youth movement, of this generation, to get the younger generation to move politically, in order to bring their parents' generation back into the world of reality by inspiring them to rejoin the human race in terms of building a future for their children and grandchildren.

That is the big political problem. That is the problem that the political parties are not addressing. You look at this in political party meetings. In a sense, the party meetings are a joke. You don't see youth in the party meetings. The youth who are organizing with me are often the dominant factor in these meetings among youth because there a are no other youth! Or no significant amounts of youth.

So, therefore, you see this generational conflict of the party organizations, which are controlled by the people of the under-60 adult generation, who are trying to hold on to the power they have, who are unwilling to face the reality of the world, which they have contributed to making, and the younger generation, which is turned off from this because they sense that they are excluded, that they have been relegated to the status of the "no-future" generation.

My concern -- political concern -- is to motivate people in the 18-25 generation to get their parents' generation back into the human race, in that sense.

Now, there are solutions to the problems we have today. The present world financial, monetary system cannot be saved. You cannot save the IMF in its present form. The banking systems of most nations are bankrupt. China is, in a sense, an exception, but the U.S. banking system: the major banks are bankrupt. The major European banks are bankrupt. The total amount of debt outstanding could never be paid on present terms, but it is possible for governments to intervene, jointly, to return the world to the kind of measures that Franklin Roosevelt took back in the 1930s, and to create, again, based on the lessons of that experience, a new monetary system, a fixed-exchange rate monetary system, using the lessons of the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, to build a system of reconstruction, which will get us out of the mess, and which will build a basis for economic cooperation around the planet under which we can survive.

Presently in Europe and Asia today, you have a in Western Europe, you have a group of nations around Russia, as well as Germany and France, and other nations around them, who will tend to agree with them, who are moving in a certain direction toward cooperation, toward solutions.

You have on the other side, in North Asia, in South Asia, in Southeast Asia, you have a movement among peoples looking for cooperation for economic development. You have a movement from Europe, Western Europe, into Asia for long-term cooperation in long-term projects of 25-year, 50-year projects, which can work, and which are the basis for the growth of the world economy.

We can do similar things in the Americas, between North and South America. If we restore Europe and Eurasia to growth, we can solve the suffering of the peoples of Africa.

There is hope. There are possibilities. In this process, we have to look at the United States in a very special way. The United States was a unique creation. It was not created by people only here. It was created by people in Europe, in part, who supported the independence of our country, who supported the formation of our Constitution, and they did so from Europe because they knew at that time in Europe, they could not develop true republics under the present conditions of that time there.

So, therefore, they supported us. They contributed their ideas and their assistance to our independence. We became, as a nation, sort of a unique phenomenon in the history of this planet, and despite the division within us, and despite the mistakes we have made, we are still a unique nation on this planet.

We are not to be an empire, but we have the ability, which is embedded within us, within our history, to make a contribution to bringing other nations together to realize on a planetary scale, the kind of purpose for which we were created, to be a catalyst, to create a community of sovereign nation-states, of people cooperating around the planet in different nations to a common purpose.

The function of the President of the United States today, in my view, is to be a person who understands that, who understands the problems, the messes we have gotten into, who reaches out to other nations, who is respected by other nations, who can bring other nations to meetings with us, so that we, our government and other governments can make the decisions that have to be made now to give us a new monetary system, a new financial system for the world and also a program of general economic recovery.

If we succeed in building around an idea of a general economic recovery of the world, that idea itself becomes an overriding interest, that overriding interest can be the basis for securing peace on this planet.

I believe we can secure peace on this planet. There may be cases in which we would still require the assistance of methods of strategic military and related defense. That could happen, but, in general, the policy of government today should never be war!

 We may have to fight a war, if it is imposed upon us, but our policy should never be war. Our policy should be cooperation for peace with the means to secure that peace, to defend it if it were necessary.

Thank you.

Freeman: Lyn, thank you very much. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, you are listening to a live webcast of a dialogue between Democratic Presidential Candidate Lyndon LaRouche and participants from college campuses across the United States. We are about to open for questions, what I am going to do is I will take questions sequentially from the various areas of the United States. I will ask you to identify yourself, to ask your question, Mr. LaRouche will answer your question. I will give you the opportunity to ask a follow-up question, and then we will move on to another geographic area. I'm sure that everyone will have the opportunity to ask all of their questions.

For those of you who are participating via telephone, I'm going to ask you when you are not actually speaking, to please keep your mute button engaged, or to do it by pressing star-6. You can then regain your ability to speak on-line by hitting star-6 once again.

I think we will take the first question from a mid-Atlantic state, on the East Coast, does anyone from one of the mid-Atlantic states have a question for Mr. LaRouche? I'll ask you to simply identify yourself by name and by campus, or by location, and then you can go ahead and ask your questions. So, from the mid-Atlantic region of the United States?

 [Begin caller questions]

Question: This is David Manz here with the LaRouche Youth Movement in Baltimore.

Freeman: Okay, David, go ahead.

David: Alright, Mr. LaRouche, I wanted to ask you a question, regarding this conception of a youth movement because, I mean, this is something that hasn't been seen in this country since Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign, and it is something that has really not been seen since the 1960s, a campaign actually run by youth, who are going out and actually recruiting people around a presidential candidate's conception of what this republic should be, so, I was wondering what were your thoughts on the Youth Movement, and why you are running a campaign of this sort.

LaRouche: Well, of course, I've done some special things on the Youth Movement. I've been working at this for, actually, about 4 years. It started with a process on the West Coast. I knew this was needed, but it took time to get a cadre together to set a pattern around which other people could respond and organize.

It is a subject in itself, which I have written about. My view is that when you have a situation where the "now" generation has cut itself off from a sense of primary concern for what they are doing today for the benefit of their children and grandchildren's generations that there is a break in what used to be called "traditional morality," or intergenerational morality, and, therefore, youth today are face with a special kind of problem -- that their parents' generation really is not committed to the future in the way in which previous generations in the United States were because of this cultural change called the "cultural paradigm shift," and, therefore, youth today can organize quite effectively, and we have proved that, experimentally, shall we say, in the field, but it requires a concentration on truth as opposed to tradition, that today you cannot organize youth around so-called "appealing to tradition."

They may respect tradition, but they don't have any confidence in it. They will have confidence in themselves if they themselves have the sense that they know some truth, have a sense of what truth is, and they will struggle to find the truth about any matter they confront. My view is that young people of the, particularly of university age, or who should be in universities, if we had good ones -- there may be a few surviving around there -- that they have a concern for truthfulness. They don't care about tradition, about what people think about them, and so forth, because they know it doesn't mean much any more.

What they want to know is: "Who am I?" And, if they have a sense that they understand truth, that truth is understandable, it can be shared, they can get more of it, or they can do that, we find, with our work, that this functions. We have the fastest growing youth movement in the United States, which has been based on my insistence on that principle.

I am a very permissive guy in many ways, but not on the question of truth. But, when it comes to youth, let them go. Let it rip! As long as we stick to the idea that there is a standard of truth, and I think that the idea of pursuing a standard of truth, as opposed to a standard of opinion, or acceptable or unacceptable opinion, is the key to rebuilding the morals of this country.

I think that the older generation, those between 50-60, so forth, today, that that generation will be inspired to find that the generation of their children, or their children's generation, is moving in that way, and I think that the older people from the so-called "Baby boomer" generation, the "now" generation, will often come back to life inspired by the fact that their youth, or the youth generation, is going ahead someplace around truth.

Freeman: Lyn, thank you. David, do you have a follow-up question?

David: Not for the moment.

Freeman: Okay, I'm now going to move to the West Coast of the United States. I'll take a question from California, if we have one.

Question: Hello? I'm from California. I'm actually from a group here at UCLA, and I had a question regarding Mr. LaRouche's thoughts on the Palestine-Israel quagmire. That's it.

LaRouche: I've been at this business for a long time. In 1975, in particular, I went to Iraq and, at the same time, dealt with people in various Arab countries and Israel on this question. At that point, I had a lot of sympathy and cooperation from leading circles in the Labour Party in Israel, and others. We thought we could possibly move for an economic approach to a fraternity among peoples in the Middle East, not just Israel and the Palestinians, but a fraternity, and develop ideas of cooperation, which would bring about peace.

Now we have had many frustrations over the years. Many meddlers of various kinds, and fascists, and what not, who have intervened in that. We have now come to another cross-point in this process. The Secretary of State of the United States is apparently playing a useful role again. His impulses earlier on, I thought, were useful. The work of Gen. Zinni, the retired Marine Corps General, I thought was useful. It failed.

Clinton, I thought, failed in one sense at Camp David, but I think his other efforts came very close to success. We have had efforts in that direction by Carter, and so forth, earlier.

So, I think the time has come again, where the very horror of what the prospects might be for the Middle East, once again revived in the United States and elsewhere, an effort we must finally find a peaceful solution to this conflict, not only for the sake of the Palestinians and Israelis, but we must find it for the entire Middle East is being inflamed by the spread of this conflict throughout the entire Middle East.

My view, of course, is that the key to this is water. How can you have people living at peace together, if the Israelis have gone to various aquifers -- the Jordan, the Litani, the Golan Heights, and so forth, in desperate search of water for their population, when there is not enough water left for the people of the area as a whole.

So, therefore, the development of water resources in water management for that reason is one example of the things that must be done because if people cannot live, they may tend to fight, and water is a symbol of life. Water, energy, food, opportunities for expression in a useful way are necessary. These are being denied in the Middle East, and, therefore, I think the United States, as a power, as an influential power, with support from Europe, which recognizes this problem, and from others, that we must make one more big effort yet again to get the peace in the Middle East, for which I have been working, personally, in an active way, since 1975.

Freeman: Do you have a follow-up question? Los Angeles? Okay, if there is no follow-up question from Los Angeles, then we are going to move to the south. If anyone in the south has a question from Mr. LaRouche, we'll take it now.

Question: Charlie [surname unclear] Tuscaloosa, AL:

Freeman: Okay, what's your question

Charlie: I wanted to know Mr. LaRouche's take on Sept. 11, the causes, and effects thereof?

LaRouche: There are some things I know, and some things I don't know. I'm fairly good at intelligence work because I have been at it for a long time, partly, in my own defense. What happened on Sept. 11 was planned coup by somebody against the United States' system. The purpose of the coup was obvious. The purpose of the coup was to bring into play what Cheney represents in terms of his policies and his friends' policies now.

Who did it, I don't know. I know it had to be a very high-level capability. It was not a slop-job done by a bunch of ambitious Arabs or someone. That was not the case. Somebody who was really sophisticated, with tremendous resources for planning an operation like this over a year to a year and a half, or more, did the job.

It was something I expected. Not what happened, but I expected something. I expected a Reichstag's fire type of phenomenon to occur in the immediate period, following the inauguration of Pres. George W. Bush, and it happened. What happened as a result, happened.

Now I have talked to many people of relevance inside our institutions on this question. I can say we do not have an answer now as to who exactly did it. Most of the explanations don't make any sense from the standpoint of technicalities of how operations are run, but there is no question about what the result was. The result was to embark the United States on the kind of policies, which Dick Cheney had pushed, exactly, as Secretary of Defense back in 1991-92, and which he is pushing today.

Those policies were dead until Sept. 11. Cheney revived them with others on Sept. 11 and Sept. 12, and we have been going in that direction every since, especially since the President was convinced in the beginning of 2023 with his crazy "Axis of Evil" address in his State of the Union message to go with this kind of policy. This is a menace. It must stop.

There are other ways to go at this problem. What the President has done so far as policy, is wrong.

We're in Afghanistan. Are we every going to get out? The situation in Afghanistan is worse today than it was when the U.S. troops went in. The situation in Iraq is worse today, from a strategic standpoint, than it was before the U.S. troops went in. The plan of operations coming out of Rumsfeld was incompetent. The ground force generals, the 4-star people with the boots on the ground, knew this was wrong.

They did the job they were ordered to do, but we have a mess on our hands with incalculable ramifications. We don't know where it is going to go, and where it is going to go next. This is wrong!

We have a tendency in the United States toward dictatorship, typified by the proposals of John Ashcroft, the Crisco kid. Our country is being destroyed, as former President Clinton has emphasized aspects of this. Senator Ted Kennedy has emphasized aspects of this, as others have emphasized this. Our country is being destroyed and undermined from within by the way we are responding to Dick Cheney's crazy formula. We have to deal with the problem. I'm determined to deal with it. As President, I will find out what was behind Sept. 11. I'll get to the bottom of it, as I think every other honest President of the United States would do. We'll get to it, but the policy we are following is wrong, and the identification of the alleged perpetrators is stupid.

Freeman: Lyn, thank you very much. Do you have a follow-up question from Tuscaloosa?

Charlie: Yes, I do, I wanted to ask about what evidence, besides your suspicion, that something was going to happen points against Arab terrorism that day?

LaRouche: Well, I didn't not that day, there was no indication that that act of terrorism was going to occur that day. What we had is, we had a problem we were concerned about. We had in Northern Virginia and the Washington, D.C. area a planned deployment like the Genoa, Italy deployment, much more serious than that, which was a major security threat for Washington, D.C. in the latter part of September, before Sept. 11. That is, this was known in August, and so forth. I was working on the investigation, but as to what happened in New York and in Washington, with the attack of the planes on Sept. 11, I think that no one except an inside perpetrator knew that was going to happen that day because if somebody else had known it, I don't think it would have happened.

This was a highly sophisticated operation. It could not be run by a bunch of Arabs out of the Middle East. It couldn't have been done. There is a lot of sophistication in this, so it was pre-planned and the only proof we have of what was behind it is the result.

Now on the question of the danger of this kind of thing, I went very specifically by in-depth knowledge of exactly how Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, actually, in February of 1933. He was appointed, of course, on January 30, 1933, but the Reichstag's fire of February 27, 1933 resulted in the Hitler decrees of February 28th, which established the Hitler dictatorship, which made World War II more or less inevitable.

Now the conditions for that were in 1928-1933 development in Germany, in particular, in which it was obvious that the solution for Germany's economic crisis of that time, which was most acute among other nations, was that either they would go to the policies of fellow named Dr. Wilhelm Lautenbach, who was a very influential economic official associated with the Friedrich List Institute in 1931, who had come up with a policy very much like Franklin Roosevelt's recovery policy for the United States, or what later was Franklin Roosevelt's policy.

The issue was would Germany follow the Lautenbach plan to deal with this economic crisis, which would mean breaking the power, essentially, of a group of London and New York bankers, or would Germany avoid that at the point that Hitler's movement was about to be crushed. Remember, Hitler's movement was backed from London by Montagu Norman, the former head of the Bank of England with support from certain fellows in New York.

So, therefore, my analysis of this process, that this gang of Anglo-American financial agencies, with their German and other accomplices, moved to put Hitler into power in 1933 in order to prevent Germany from doing what Roosevelt did, beginning his March 1933 inauguration. So, therefore, on January 28, they ousted the former government of Germany, the administrative government. Two days later, they put Hitler in power, but he was still considered a joke then, but on the 27th of February, they pulled the Reichstag's fire, which was then used under the Carl Schmitt law, the Notverordnung, to make Hitler a dictator and then World War II was inevitable.

My analysis was that we were in, as the Bush election was occurring, the year 2000 Presidential election, we were in a situation like that, that the economic crisis was going to bring us to the point where a Franklin Roosevelt-type solution was the only way out of this building economic crisis. That someone who didn't want that to happen, the Franklin Roosevelt solution, from behind the scenes, one of the guys who didn't want it to happen, would do the obvious thing: Make a coup. Stage an incident, and use the incident to go to foreign wars or other kinds of adventures, and establish, step by step, a dictatorship in the United States, and that is exactly what happened and that is what I forecast.

Freeman: Thank you, Lyn. Okay, we will take a question now from the Midwest. Is there a question for Mr. LaRouche from somewhere in the Midwest?

Ann Alreid, Ohio University: Hi, Mr. LaRouche, this is Ann Alreid from Ohio State University student newspaper. I want to thank you for asking the Lantern to participate with you today. I wanted to ask you, the election coming up in 2004 will your 6th time that you have sought the Presidency. Why do you think you will be more successful this time than in the past?

LaRouche: Well, two things. First of all, I was always right, first, before running as a Democrat, I ran as the Labor Party candidate against Carter, not because I was particularly concerned about Carter, but because I was concerned about what was behind Zbigniew Brzezinski's crowd, and I knew what their plans were, and, therefore, I thought we had to do something to prevent that, so I went on the record against that.

In 1980, I went as a Democrat with the invitation of a number of democrats in the Midwest and so forth, as a Democratic candidate, and my concern was to prevent the return of Brzezinski or anything like him with the kind of policies Brzezinski, and especially, Paul Volcker had represented under Carter. Not because of Carter, but because of this problem.

I warned of the danger of this. I was right. We tried to deal with the Reagan Administration, with whom I had somewhat friendly relations, at least with President Reagan and some of his immediate circles, during the immediate period in the first term. I was right. We pulled off the proposal, which I designed, for what became known as the SDI, which was a proposal of cooperation with the Soviet Union and other countries, to try to eliminate the threat of this nuclear threat, with the idea that this was a new way to approach this problem of U.S.-Soviet relations.

Reagan was convinced; he tried. Other people opposed. We were right. Reagan was right. I was right. He was terrible on economics--but on that, he was right.

The same thing in 1984: I knew it was a disaster! Not that Mondale was that important, but what Mondale represented at that point, was a disaster! I knew that what was represented in the Democratic Party, and in the Republican Party, in 1988, would be a disaster--and I was specific on this. So, each of these times, I have been specific, and I have been right. That is, the historical record is: The issues I raised as the dangers to be addressed, and the measures to be taken, have been right.

Now, the thing has come full swing. We have now come to the end of the 1971-2003 international financial-monetary system. And, the challenge now, is that the American people are going to survive, they're going to go my way--which is, shall we say, an up-to-date version of what Franklin Roosevelt did in 1933. And therefore, the American people deserve one more chance.

Follow up Question: Mr. LaRouche, you said the United States has one more chance; you're saying that if you are not successful at receiving the Democratic Presidential nomination, you will not run again in 2008. And, also I wanted to ask you, specifically, what will separate you in issues from the other candidates?

LaRouche: Okay, well, I think everything sort of separates me from the other candidates, especially competence. The key issue, of course, is the United States underwent a cultural paradigm-shift in the 1980s: We went from being the world's leading producer society, to being the world's most predatory consumer society. This was accompanied by a change in the world outlook, of our youth, who had been terrified by the impact of successive events, like the missile crisis, the assassination of Kennedy, and, of course, things like the assassination of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. So this had produced an effect on the population: We went in the wrong direction.

In 1971, we went with the Nixon proposed change in the monetary system. It was wrong! But, people adapted, step by step, to these changes. These changes have been wrong. But these changes have been popular opinion.

Now, my runs have not been exactly unsuccessful. There were estimates, in the middle of the 1980s, I was running about 25% of the vote. I won an election in Illinois, for example--or my friends did, very significantly. We won other elections. We had a large movement, hundreds of thousands of people were involved in a movement supporting my candidacy. So, much of the work that was done, in that period, was an effort to prevent the success, or to stop and abort the success of my candidacy. So, I have nothing to apologize for. I was right, as I indicated, that in each of these campaigns, what I defined as the issue, was the issue.

And, what I did with Reagan, on the SDI, which was my proposal, which his circles agreed I should try--and I did! And he adopted it. It was right. Other people opposed it; they were wrong! Andropov was wrong. If Andropov had accepted the proposal of Reagan, even for discussion, we might have saved a lot of problems, but, that happened.

So, now we've come to the point, the entire financial system is coming apart. Nothing can be done to save it, in its present form. I've been right on this. Those who've the other side, are wrong. What I see, in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party today, despite many people whom I respect, as persons--and useful persons--nonetheless, lack the competence to take this thing head-on. I'm the only one, who's a candidate, who does.

The point is, what I know is this: Either my leadership--it's not just a question of my candidacy; it's my leadership as a candidate--either my leadership is successful in this period, or I don't think there's going to be much of the United States for anybody to vote in come 2008.

Freeman: Lyn, thank you. Okay, the next question. We can take a question from the Northeastern portion of the United States. Do we have a question for Mr. LaRouche from the Northeast?

Question: Yes, University of Connecticut. This is Adam Leach [ph] from the University of Connecticut. I was just wondering, what he thinks is the biggest problem with the college-age students of today?

LaRouche: I don't look at them as a problem. I think of them as having problems, which I hope I would contribute to helping them solve.

The problem is, we've gone, in the United States, in educational policy--oh, there are a few exceptions always around; there're a few good spots still left, here and there; a few good professors, a few good departments, here and there. That's true. Some of them are friends of mine, so I'm not knocking them! They're useful people. But, the general tendency is, we've moved to a system of education, since about 1963-64, in which, more and more, students are being rehearsed, in correct answers to multiple-choice questionnaires, which will scored by a computer. This is sometimes called "education"; I don't think it's worth anything. I think that that tendency has spread into the universities, what we find. But, my view of universities is, it's a good place to stage a fight--that is, a fight over the question of truth, not just a fight over opinion. Fights over opinion tend to be rather silly these days, for the most part.

But, we have the basic problem is, the student on campus, in the 18 to 25 group--that is, the age group which is doing it baccalaureate work, and going on to a professional degree, a doctoral degree, and so forth--that generation is being thrown into the waste basket, by the circumstances developing in the world today. My view is, that this generation, as many generations of the same age-interval, in past periods of world history have done, can become a leading factor, in exciting the older generation, their parents' generation, to come back to the human race, to come back to good causes, and get this world moving again. That's my view.

And, my view is, that I, as a figure--also as a candidate--must make a contribution to that effect. The only way we're going to save the United States, and save the world in general, is by getting this generation to get its confidence back, and to inspire its parents' generation, to begin to think about a truthful solution for the problems we face. And get rid of this idea, of rehearsing people to pass multiple-choice computer-scored questionnaires, and call it "education."

Freeman: Do we have a followup question from the University of Connecticut.

Follow up Question: Yes. You said earlier, that there's a problem with the universities. I was just wondering if you could clear that up? The universities in the United States, anyway?

LaRouche: For example, let's take the case of one phenomenon. You have this guy, this fascist (he's now dead; died in 1973), Leo Strauss, who was a fascist of Jewish pedigree, but fascist nonetheless; educated by Martin Heidegger, the Nazi; who left Germany, came to the United States, and became part of a movement, which is the Chickenhawk group--the war group, controlling much of the Bush Administration, today: Bolton, or Wurmser, in the State Department; Paul Wolfowitz, Feith, in the Defense Department; the group around Lewis Libby in the office of Vice President Cheney. This group of fanatics, typifies the corruption, which has spread throughout the universities.

My view, is that university education should go back toward a Classical emphasis, in education: in science, in Classical arts, in studying history, and so forth. Much of this has been lost. We don't have that any more.

What I get, from people of that generation, is their frustration, that they're not getting that kind of education any more from universities. And, what I have working with me, are people who, by my standards, are extremely talented people, extremely bright people, who should typify the leaders of the future. These are the "comers," for the next generation--and there are more of them out there! And, my concern is, how do we reach these guys? Whether they're in the universities, or out, I don't care which. If they're doing what they should be doing, in that age group--18 to 25--and developing as the future leaders of the nation, I'm satisfied. I merely want to make sure it happens.

Freeman: We'll take a question now, from one of the Middle Atlantic states....

Question: Yeah, this is Dan Galindo [ph], with the Cornell Daily Sun. Mr. LaRouche, I want ask you: The Republican Rick Santorum recently came under fire for his comments on homosexuality, and I was wondering what you thought about his comments. And, then also, what your specific policies would be?

LaRouche: I don't have a specific policy about homosexuality. I think there are problem involved there. I've had a lot of friends in the past, who've been homosexuals, or were, or are, and so forth. I understand the problem, as they present it to me. I have concerns about human beings. I'm not concerned about sexuality. If you want to talk about aberrations, there are plenty of them around, and this should not be an issue. A human being is a human being and should be treated as that, and that should not be a political issue.

Freeman: Do you have a follow up question?

Follow up Question: Yeah, why would some people argue, for example, denying people that are gay the right to marriage, is denying them the right to be human. Is that something you would agree with? Or, I guess [inaud] what your specific policies are, toward these things?

LaRouche: I think it's a counterproductive issue, actually. The idea of marriage is the idea of propagation of children. It's an institution. Not necessarily that everyone who's married should propagate children. But the marriage represents that kind of relationship. It's sort of the unification Genesis 1: man and woman made equally in the image of the Creator, with certain responsibilities. And that, to me, is the concept of marriage.

I think that these issues should not be issues. They may be issues, all right; but they should not be issues of national policy. They tend to be divisive issues, distractive issues. They tend to become single issues, and, as I think many people would understand, I've had my belly-full of single issues. I think that single-issueism has been one of the greatest forces of destruction of the political process in our country. I think the fewer single issues we have, the better.

My view is that we have to treat man as man, as something different from an animal; that every person has the right, to become what man can become, what a human being can become. And the function of the government is to give protection to that kind of process, and to meddle as little as possible in other affairs.

Freeman: We will now take a question, if there is one, from the Southeastern portion of the United States. Do we have a question from the Southeast? Okay, then I'm going to move back to the West Coast. Do we have any questions for Mr. LaRouche, from the West Coast?

Question: Yeah, this is Nicole from Los Angeles, at the LaRouche Youth Movement there? I have a question on Franklin Delano Roosevelt: I want to know your personal experience with the last Great Depression? I also want to know how you plan on reviving FDR's tradition in the Democratic Party today?

LaRouche: Franklin Roosevelt, you know, was a great-grandson of a collaborator of Alexander Hamilton. And Franklin Roosevelt represented, consciously, the tradition of the American Revolution, and the Hamiltonian tradition.

After going through the experience, of an adult poliomyelitis attack, he used the occasion of his illness, his impairment, for bringing himself "up to speed" so to speak, on his own heritage, which is a subject which he'd already addressed in his Harvard graduating processes--a paper he'd produced at that point. So, he came in as Governor of New York State, as prepared to cope with the Great Depression, which we were experiencing already, then. From the standpoint of the American tradition, the American System of political-economy. And he did.

He moved in. And, one has to look at the failures of Hoover. Hoover was not an incompetent or stupid man. But Hoover would have very bad policies; he was on the wrong side. Hoover was more on the side of recovery ideas, like those of Bruening and von Papen in Germany, the right-wing types, there. And, Hoover actually tried to sabotage, to a large degree--even though he made a number of good institutional suggestions--to sabotage the prospects of Roosevelt doing anything, to get the U.S. out of the Depression.

Roosevelt came in, with his pre-announced New Deal--came in with a series of preliminary measures, which were emergency measures, like the bank holiday, to save the United States from chaos. Roosevelt proceeded to revive the United States, out of the Great Depression, which had been caused by his predecessors, Coolidge and Hoover, most specifically; took the United States into a war, which was already inevitable in 1933-34. The British and others had created this war. And the United States had to deal with it, they had to deal with the Hitler phenomenon. Roosevelt prepared, beginning 1936, he prepared the United States for the economic and military capability, for intervening, to deal with what the Hitler threat represented. He did! He succeeded.

We came out of the war, as the most powerful nation on this planet, almost the only powerful nation on this planet; as a very powerful nation, economically, with greater productivity per capita than any period before in our history--with great promise. And, it was ruined! Truman ruined it! Eisenhower salvaged some of the good features of the Roosevelt Administration, by bringing us back to relative sanity, from the insanity which had run rampant during the Truman years. But he wasn't a perfect man.

Then, we faced a great crisis: Kennedy, who might have revived the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt, was killed. President Johnson, who did some good things, in terms of civil rights, was terrified. And, backed down, and submitted to the Vietnam War.

And, we've had almost nothing, since that time. Reagan had a good side. Reagan's good side, as I knew it personally, from my work with people in his administration, and from a brief meeting I had with him personally. He was a man of my generation--ten years older, but my generation--who, on the good side, remembered the Franklin Roosevelt years. That was the good side. But had been brainwashed by GE and others into this crazy free-trade stuff, and that was the bad side! That killed his accomplishments in the end. But, he had this good side: He kept sticking to this idea, we should not be out there, killing people in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and ourselves. We should find a better solution to this threat of nuclear weapons. That was a good side.

Then, you had poor George Bush, #1. That was a mess!

But then, you had Clinton: Clinton was probably the--Clinton had a good deal of Roosevelt in him, as I'd known Clinton, known his work. He had a good deal of that in him. He wasn't the same. He wasn't really a Franklin Roosevelt man. But, he's a man who does understand principle. I've often been disappointed by his failure to carry it out, but he does have a deep understanding of principle, and he's one of the most intelligent Presidents we've had in the post-war period, despite the nasty things said about him by Newt Gingrich and people like that.

So, that's the situation. So, today I am--not by inheritance, exactly, but because of the course of history--I am in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt. Not that I copy him; I'm not his copier. But, he represents a preceding President, who maintained the torch of continuity of the American System, and therefore, I have deep respect for him, and his memory, on that account.

Freeman: Nicole, do you have a follow up question?

Follow up Question: Yes, actually, I also want to know: How do you plan on taking back the Democratic Party from the mafia which has hijacked it? And also, what took place in the population during FDR's leadership, which mobilized to put him the leadership at that time?

LaRouche: I couldn't hear her.

Freeman: She asked you, first, what do you plan to do to take back the Democratic Party, from the mafia which is currently controlling it? And, she also asked, what was the transformation in the population under the leadership of FDR?

LaRouche: Ah! Well, the American people loved FDR, in the best way. That was my experience, increasingly over the course of the 1930s and 1940s.

The organized-crime element in the Democratic Party: There's a very interesting process going on in the United States right now. There's massive opposition to present trends, from within both the Republican Party and Democratic Party. In the Democratic Party, the support for the war, comes largely from a group who are actually fascists; that is, people who share the views--who are are organized-crime linked, and who share the views expressed by Joe Lieberman, for example. On the Republican side, you have people like McCain--who's somewhat different than Bush, different entity--but in the Bush Administration around Cheney and so forth, around Rumsfeld, you have real, genuine fascist tendency.

Now, there's an opposition in both parties, which is rather peculiar, to this nonsense. You have Republicans who have rallied around opposition to the Bush tax-cut legislation and some other odds and ends of that type. You have people in the Democratic Party, who may be good or not so good, who also are responding to the tax-cut issue, the economic issue, as the way to go, in opposition to the White House now.

What I see in the United States, is, there's a tendency for a regrouping of the political party organizations of the United States, comparable to what happened with the emergence of the American Whigs. Remember, that the Federalist Party had destroyed itself, under John Adams, because Adams was fooled by some problems and didn't handle them effectively (and there were other problems at the time). That the Administrations of Jefferson and of Madison, were absolute disasters! As a result of that, the political parties, going into 1812, were disasters! And, out of this emerged the American Whig Party, which is sort of my personal tradition, actually. And out of the Whig Party, emerged, eventually, the Republican Party, as the alternative to a pro-slavery, rather reactionary, Democratic Party.

So, we have the Lincoln tradition. Then, in the process, you have the New York Republicans, who were a real problem, who were as bad as the worst Democrats. And out of that, you got the Teddy Roosevelt-Wilson combination, and the Coolidge thing, and so forth.

So, American politics is like that. We have a very good Constitution. We've never had a coup d'etat, in our history--the most stable government in world history. (Because the British Empire's a different proposition.) But, it's the most stable government in world history: We have all kinds of changes, and the change comes in terms of reorganizing and regrouping of political party formations.

I think we're at a point, now, in which the political party formations, will, in a lawful way, undergo a transformation, in which you will have a regrouping of political parties. For example: In the political process now, the upper 20% of the family-income brackets dominate politics, under the so-called "middle policy," or "Third Way policy." Whereas, the lower 80% of family-income brackets in the United States are totally unrepresented, in any meaningful sense, in terms of policy or formation in the United States.  We're now going into a deep depression. Senior citizens are being killed, by health care policies--systematically! As a way of making money for speculators. The poor are being abused, beyond belief! The lower 10 and 20% of the family-income brackets in the United States, are suffering beyond belief.

So therefore, the time has come, at which the political party system of the United States must, again, be regrouped. Now, that doesn't say, that the Democrats and Republicans are going to form one party--that is, the good guys in both parties. But, it does mean there's going to be a regroupment, if the United States survives. There will be a regroupment of the political process. The gangsters who had my guts, in the Democratic Party, will be out of politics, essentially. And you will have a positive factor in what is the Republican Party today; a positive factor in the Democratic Party today. I see it there already. And, a bringing back, into the political process, of many of the citizens from the lower-income family groups, who have been kept out politics, effectively, in this period of time.

The lack of participation of youth, in Democratic Party and Republican politics, in an active, significant way, as a youth interest, is typical of the fact that the political party system, now, is rotten, ready for regrouping: because we need a political party system.

And so therefore, I think that the question of how am I going to deal with this Democratic Party leadership, and so forth, is now that. FDR and the FDR Democratic Party was a revolutionary change, inside the Democratic Party. And, I see myself, again, in the tradition of FDR, that I'm trying  to regroup the forces, inside the Democratic Party, as FDR represented the regrouping of the Democratic Party forces in his time.

Freeman: Ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to a live broadcast of a dialogue between Democratic Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, and journalists and leaders from America's college campuses.

The next question that we take, will be from someone from the Southwest. Does anyone in the Southwest have a question for Mr. LaRouche?

Question: Hi, this Aaron. I have a question Mr. LaRouche: There was a speech given at the American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday, by Newt Gingrich, in which he denounced both the peace talks with Syria and the move, coming from leaders including yourself, to stabilize the Israeli-Palestine conflict, using the road-map policy. Conversely, he supported the efforts of those named in your recently published Children of Satan pamphlet. I wanted your comments on that.

LaRouche: This is the most stupid, but understandable mistake that the friends of Newt Gingrich ever made. This is like the re-birth of the un-dead.

Gingrich is a very dangerous person. He's a fascist of the worst type. His famous speech in January of 1995, is typical: He made himself a Jacobin revolutionary--he's a real fascist; nasty fellow. He has a long history of being very closely associated, and swapping spit with, "Bugsy" Rumsfeld, the current Secretary of Defense, and he's a stooge for that. He's being deployed, presently, to try to become (the idiot!), to become the Secretary of State to replace Colin Powell; that's what this crazy speech he made was all about. He's saying, "I should be the new Robespierre, who chops the head off Colin Powell, and goes out and does what Donny Rumsfeld, "Bugsy" Rumsfeld, wants me to do for him." They're very close--swapping spit.

Now, this clown, and the people behind him--their greatest virtue is, they are stupid. I mean, we have two guys who I played a key role in destroying, politically, in the United States, in their careers at the time. One was Oliver North. And, my friends and I, we really wrecked Oliver North's efforts to become a Senator from Virginia. And he's never come back, since, to any significance. Newt Gingrich we worked to destroy. I considered him a #1 enemy of Bill Clinton, and did everything I could to try to destroy Newt Gingrich. And finally, with Newt Gingrich's own help--because he's also a fool and an idiot--was destroyed, and out of the key position at the time, that the impeachment proceedings were dumped against Clinton. And, they were dumped against Clinton, not because of Monika Lewinsky, but because they wanted a pretext to get him out of there, because they didn't like what he thought about economic reform, or monetary reform.

So, at this point, the idiots, who are backing Newt Gingrich--including Newt Gingrich himself--are bringing up an issue, which were better forgotten, if they had been wiser. The one thing these guys should never have done, if they wanted to slide something through--never again, drag that idiot, Newt Gingrich out, and display him in public! That is one thing, that is going to cause mass-to-mass, and coast-to-coast vomiting, across the United States, and around the world. And it's going to be very interesting, to see how the friends of "Bugsy" Rumsfeld dig their way out of this Gingrich flap that they've created.

Freeman: Aaron, do you have a follow-up question?

Follow up Question: Yeah. I had mentioned counter-coup that you're running against this group that has, kind of, kidnapped the Presidency. I wonder if you could elaborate some on that?

LaRouche: Well, look, you've got a mess in the United States, in terms of our institutions. We have the so-called "party institutions," which is largely related to the Congress, and also other state legislatures, but the Congress is the center of it. Then, you have the Executive branch. And the Executive branch has people who are permanently part of it--they're permanent government employees, or they're outside of it, but closely related to that, around the institutions.

Then you have the Presidency itself, the inside of the Presidency. Well, at the top, the Presidency, right now, doesn't function. It's a mess. I mean, George Bush should not have been afflicted with the responsibility of becoming President. He's sort of a short-circuit trying to find a fuse, eh? He really shouldn't be President. He's actually a victim: He's sort of like the Trilby, for Svengali Cheney, which is terrible. I don't have any bad wishes toward the President, but, the man is a fool. And perhaps some members of his own family would agree with me on that one.

So, you've got a situation of that type.

The problem now, is: How do we function under these circumstances? You find that, in the government, there are people who are in the permanent institutions, or closely associated with them, who have an understanding of what some of the problems are--the military problem, for example. I think the professional military, with their--shall we say--"boots on the ground" people, had a good understanding of what the problem is: the stupidity of the military policy of Rumsfeld and Co. They understand that--and they're right. Complete insanity. Dangerous insanity.

Other people, from the diplomats, understand the insanity of Bolton and Wurmser, and people like that, who've infested the State Department; similar types.

But, the problem is, the party system isn't working. That's where the problem lies. So therefore, we're in a situation, where, with the forces which are patriotic forces--in the best sense of patriotic--are trying to save the United States. We're discussing things. We, in a sense, because I'm part of it--we're discussing these things. We're discussing these problems. We're doing our research. We're looking at our precedents. We're looking at possible cooperation from Europe and elsewhere, on dealing with mutual problems.  So, we're seeking a solution. I think we can get one.

But, the problem is, at present, is that political party leaderships do not function. The Republican side is crippled by the fact that the incumbent President is not really "all there," in understanding these problems. And, especially his economic policy, is clinically insane. On the other side, the Democratic Party is crippled by the Democratic Leadership Council, which is largely a bunch of organized-crime-connected fascists--really clear; I mean, that's what it is! And, they're pro-war, as the Lieberman case illustrates that.

So, the Democratic Party isn't functioning. The Republican Party isn't functioning, except they're throwing up, now, some degree of opposition to the erroneous policies of the leadership.

So that's where we stand. I'm in the middle of it. And I'm optimistic. I don't have any guaranteed, simple solutions. I'm just optimistic, and I'm optimistic because I'm disposed to continue fighting!

Freeman: Lyn, thank you.

Do we have a question for Mr. LaRouche from the Northwest?

Question: I have a question. This is Gabby from Philadelphia.

Mr. LaRouche, you've been rallying countries throughout the world around the idea of an economic cooperation for the Eurasian Land-Bridge. So, my question is: What role does the Eurasian Land-Bridge play in reviving the American political system of economy?

LaRouche: Well, fine. What you have now, is typified by a rather organic development. That is, this stuff was not exactly planned, even if there plans in this direction, and thinking in this direction. What you have now, around the St. Petersburg meeting, an intensified cooperation among Russia, France, Germany, and other countries, who were drawn into that orbit; at the same time, you have Western Europe and Russia combined, are oriented toward long-term cooperation with parts of Asia, through Russia, to China, India, Southeast Asia, North Asia, and so forth.

So, what is happening, organically, out of very simple kinds of response to reality, are new measures of cooperation, of growing cooperation, along these lines of Eurasian cooperation. You see, Turkey does not want to be involved in crazy wars in the Middle East. They want to have an economic orientation toward cooperation with Europe. Turkey would like to be part of the European Union, or something equivalent--to have an economic partnership with Europe. The United Kingdom--Britain, and so forth: They do not want to be separated from Europe. They want to have cooperation with continental Europe, in order to participate in this Eurasian global cooperation. That is a very specific, central part of the world situation, today.

If I were President right now, you would see things that people would consider a miracle, happen instantly. Because, these countries, in Europe and Asia--with me, as President of the United States, and saying, "Let's have a meeting; let's deal with this problem"?--that meeting would occur quickly! And, there would be many difficulties and problems, as there always are, in a meeting of that type, but we would come very soon, to a basic agreement on cooperation, which would get this world moving out of the present world depression, in the direction of the old Bretton Woods reforms. And that would work.

The world is ready for it! The way in which that's moving, is not simple. We've made proposals, like the Land-Bridge proposals, other specific proposals: These things are all in the background; they're influencing the thinking of people. But they're not going on their own. People are not just rallying around a New Bretton Woods idea, or a Eurasian Land-Bridge idea. But, these ideas in the background, are influencing the way that governments and others are thinking about, exploring approaches, to cooperation. And they're understanding, that we have an economic crisis, that we have to solve it--it's there. And therefore, all you need, right now, if I were President of the United States--I guarantee you, we could have a positive result, in terms of relations with these countries. We could also, very easily, with my good relations with many people, and good reputation in South and Central America, we could deal with that. And, if we could deal with that, I would be very happy, because we would have the power, to intervene in Africa, to stop the genocide there.

Freeman: Gabby, do you have a follow up question? You can ask anything you want, go ahead.

Other Caller: Could you identify yourself? What student group you're from?

Freeman: She's from Pennsylvania, she said. Go ahead.

Other Caller: But what organization?

Freeman: She's from the LaRouche Youth Movement. She's reporting for the Youth Movement. I think she said that. We seem to be having connection problems. Gabby, please go ahead.

Follow up Question: I was going to ask: What role does the economic crisis play as a driving force behind the war. Because, you have said, Mr. LaRouche, the issue at hand was never really Iraq. [inaud] So, I was wondering what your view on that was?

Freeman: Were you able to hear her, Lyn?

LaRouche: Barely.

Freeman: She asked you what role the economic crisis played in driving this war against Iraq, because you had said, that Iraq was never the issue.

LaRouche: Yeah right. It was not. There's no Iraq War. The Iraq War was always intended simply as a detonator to get a general war going--the Clash of Civilizations war--going against Islamic peoples, in general. That was the purpose, all along. There was not a motive. There was not an incident. There was not an issue, which caused the war. What caused the war, was the intention, to set up a world system, based on picking a fight with  Islam. And from the beginning, from 1991, when Cheney first was pushing this against the former Bush Administration, while he was in it, the issue was to get the war started. So, there was not a simple economic issue for the war.

The economic issue is indirect, as I indicated earlier, in comparison to Germany with the Reichstag Fire: Because the economic crisis is insoluble, in its present form--that is, the present international monetary-financial system can not be saved; there's no way to save it. So, you've come to a point, where the system, which certain people control, can not be saved. The economy can be saved. The nations can be saved. But, that system can't be saved. It has to be wiped out, reorganized, put through bankruptcy reorganization; put into receivership. They don't want to go into receivership. Therefore, they say, "We'll set up a dictatorship. We'll be the dictator, and you won't be able to do anything about it."

So, to do that, they got this idea of this war: It's called the so-called "End of History" philosophy of people like Alexandre Kojeve and Leo Strauss, and their followers, who are largely in the the U.S. government today. These idiots, these maniacs have this policy: "We are not going to let a reform of the international financial system occur." How? "We're going to prevent any reform, by establishing total, world dictatorship, Nazi-style. World empire, Nazi-style. And that's what the motive is.

So, there is an economic relationship--that is, the economic crisis produces a situation, where these idiots say, "Rather than accept a reform of a failed economic system, we will established a world dictatorship, fascist-style. And you guys, who want to reform the system, won't be able to do a thing about it, because we'll kill you!" And, it's that simple.

Freeman: I think that what we can do now, is, I'm just going to open it up. People can identify where they're from and ask their question. If anyone has a question for Mr. LaRouche.

Question: Yes. My name is Ken. I'm from Emporia State University, the Emporia State Bulletin: My question is in regards to some of the financial crisis that a lot of the public education systems are going through, right now. Do you have any ideas to help alleviate some of that pressure from schools, because many of the cuts from state funding are going directly into education? So, do you have any solution for this?

LaRouche: Yeah. Actually, it should be a national policy on this question. I don't think there are simple solutions; I think there is a generic solution. That is, look--first of all, we've come to a period in world history, in which the level of education development of the population of a modern society, requires that, with the 18 to 25 generation, now be eligible for universal education, as opposed to being some kind of gibberish for a few, or selected few, of the total population. We need a well-educated population from 25 years of age on down.

Therefore, the public educational systems, have to be looked at as a national infrastructure resource. For example, take the case of what we used to have before 1973: the Hill-Burton legislation in medical care, where, we had a policy, that we would have annual targets for standards of care in every county of the United States; so any person, in any county, would have access to certain kinds of hospital and related care, which we looked at as the parameter, the determinant, of overall medical, and also sanitation.

We have to have a Hill-Burton for education. We now have to say, as a matter of policy, that the age of up to 25, which is the higher education level, is a right of every citizen, just the same way that Hill-Burton tried to realize the right to health care, of every citizen. And therefore, we're going to have to say, "We're going to have to spend the money to do it." The way we're going to approach that--spend the money--is, we have to raise it. That means, we have to revive the economy, go back to being a producer society again, and generate the wealth which permits us to do that.

In the meantime, we're going to have to fight for education. We're going to have to fight, heel and toe, rearguard, all the way through it. For example, with the youth movement organization: At the same time that it's a political movement, it's a fight for education. My view is, that based on a principle of scientific truth, as it applies to standards of scientific and Classical education, that every person between 18 and 25, has a right to an education, which gives that part of world history, world knowledge, makes it available to them, so they can participate, as that kind of people--for the benefit of society. And, in the meantime, as a practical measure, as a political movement, around my candidacy and other things, that the fight to secure that kind of education--both in the right to have the facilities for such education, and the right to have it delivered to those facilities--is something we're fighting for.

My view is, by fighting for it, even sometimes by rearguard methods, which your question seems to point toward--even by fighting for it by rearguard methods, we are fighting to build, positively, the policies for the future. And, even though we have frustrations at present, by fighting through frustrations, we will create the movement and the understanding to bring into being the kind of policies, which will guarantee that protection for everyone.

But, the basic point is--my view is: If we look at the world today; we look at technologies; we look at the requirements of humanity, to meet physical and other problems of life, we now have to have a policy--especially in developed countries, but spreading into less-developed countries--in which the idea of a general higher education is a right of every part of the population. We have to begin to deliver on that right. We have to at least take the undergraduate level of higher education, and start with there. But make sure we are, more and more, expanding this kind of thing, so that everyone between 18 and 25 has a sense, that they have a right, to develop their abilities in this direction. And, in the meantime, the practical thing to do, is not just to come up with a master plan--yes, we should have master plans; we should have a Hill-Burton equivalent for education--but, in the meantime, the thing is, to organize to fight for it.

Freeman: Do you have a follow up question?

Follow up Question: Yes. From what I gather from that, you want almost a nationalized post-secondary educational system? Is that correct?

LaRouche: Not exactly. I would say "national guarantee." But, remember how Hill-Burton worked: Hill-Burton worked on the basis of a process, in which you would have public institutions, you would have voluntary hospitals, you would have private hospitals--all cooperating, with clinics and so forth. They would an annual meeting, which would involve the state, the municipality, the Federal government, all meeting; and they would get together, and they would say, "Well,  we need so many beds in this community, of a certain quality, and certain facility. How are we going to provide this? Well, we get a certain amount of money from health insurance plans. We get a certain amount of money by private contributions and so forth. So, we have to work out a budget, which will provide the number of beds, and similar kinds of things in that community for the coming year. And, we will go out, as the Federal government, the state government, the local government, and other institutions; private institutions will volunteer: And we will raise the money to create the facilities to provide this."

My view is, the same thing should be done for education. We should take the private institutions, and so forth--keep them in place. We should supplement that with public institutions, which we subsidize. And in general, just make sure that the provision of an adequate assortment of educational facilities is made available to the population. We don't care whether they're one or the other. But, we should work together as institutions, as Hill-Burton people worked together--as in New York City, prior to 1975. It's a good example, or prior to the 1973 HMO bill--it's a good example of a city--which is not perfect, but had a very good health care system. If somebody dropped in the street, some citizen would say, "Call a cop!" The police would come. The person would be taken to the nearest facility available to deal with that, and somebody would worry a day or two later about who was going to pay the bill. And, that's the kind of system we want for education.

Freeman: Lyn, thank you. [station identification]

Lyn, we've gotten a question via e-mail, from the UCLA campus. UCLA asks: "Mr. LaRouche, do you think, to a certain extent, that the Chickenhawks feel boxed in, and that beyond just freaking out publicly, that they might resort to nuclear war against allied nations?"

LaRouche: Yeah, there's no question of that. If you go back to 1991: From the beginning, the group around Cheney, the Chickenhawks have been committed to preventive war--that is, war with no provocation or no immediate danger--preventive war, and to the use of nuclear weapons, and to the promotion of "mini-nukes," so-called, for this purpose against nations which have no nuclear weapons capability. So, the intent now, is, from the Cheney crowd, is that.

They are committed to preventive war, in any place they "feel" like attacking. They want the war. They want the killing. The same way the Roman legions in the Roman Empire, you went out on the borders to seek people to kill! The way the Roman legions committed genocide against Germans, for example, simply because they were there. This targetting of Islamic populations is simply that.

So, these people are determined to use, what they call "terror." It's a policy which was developed by Bertrand Russell and H.G. Wells. You look at the old film--the script was written, the scenario was drafted by H.G. Wells--"Things to Come." This war: The idea was to use forms of war which are terrible, and Bertrand Russell was the person who pushed to have nuclear weapons used as a weapon of terror, to bring about world government. To use this terror, to bring about world government--which means world empire.

These people are determined to create a world empire, through nuclear and related terror. They will use nuclear weapons. They have stated they intend to use it. They will seek war, where there is no provocation that justifies war, simply because they "feel" that they must do that, to prevent somebody from coming up in the future, and being an opposition. Or, because somebody is displeasing them--like France--who knows? They might even make an attack on France. It's not impossible. I don't think it's likely in the immediate future, but their mentality, the mentality shown by these guys, is, they would love--like Richard Perle--would love to put nuclear weapons down the throat of Jacques Chirac, the President of France. It's that kind of mentality; it's a Hitler-like mentality.

And, they will use nuclear weapons. It is not merely a matter of speculation: It's specified in that policy. It's been there since 1991.

Freeman: Do we have any further questions?

Question: Mr. LaRouche, you're talking about world policies. What about internal American policies? What are your reactions to [inaud].

Freeman: Do you want to identify where you're from?

Question: My name's Scott Lawson [ph], and I'm with Indiana Purdue-Fort Wayne newspaper.

LaRouche: Well, yeah, sure! We've got a lot of problems. First of all, we've destroyed ourselves as a nation, internally. You're coming from an area where there used to be a lot of industry. What about it now?

We used to have a population, which was vigorous. We're producing--soon, you can get from my website, which is being produced at my request--a comparison of what it costs for education, health care, and so forth, as a percentile of income of family households. And, if you look at some of these figures, which we're putting out, as part of our statistical studies of this sort of thing: You see what's happened to the U.S. population. You see our productivity had collapsed. We are no longer able to produce the standard of living, on the average, that we used to have. Yeah, some people think they're super-rich, but--most of them are not.

So, we have a domestic problem. My view is, that we have to mobilize the United States, in a way resembling what FDR did: We have to take certain projects--largely large infrastructure projects: water projects; transportation projects; power generation and distribution projects; things which normally fall into the public area, or the public utility area. We've got to put credit into those areas, or investments, which are actually involve 25-year-cycle type investments. We have to rebuild the U.S. economy.

We have to use these public investments, in the public sector or the public utilities sector, to drive the expansion of employment in industries, which will benefit from the stimulus provided by these public ventures. We need a new railway system or the equivalent for the United States, for example; that sort of thing.

So therefore, we have to have a policy, of retooling the United States, to go away from being a consumer society, which is what it's become over the period since 1964 (especially '71), back into becoming a producer society, in which the production of wealth, including in local communities--. Take one example of this: Let's take deregulation, under Brzezinski's direction, during the Carter Administration. Now, we used to have a system of regulated transportation costs, in trucking, and rail, and so forth. And, the idea was, that we would ensure that a fellow in some small community--say in Michigan or some other part of the United States--would be able to set up a business, to employ people in that community with the same access, and the same efficiency of access, to transportation of goods in and out of that community, as in some major center, like Cleveland, Ohio, or Chicago, or someplace else. What we did, by deregulation: We took the whole trucking industry. We shut down all the warehousing operations. We took the trucking industry, and rail and so forth, and we jammed them all into a few centers; and we starved to death "Middle America." We starved to death the smaller communities in the United States. By starving them, we deprived them of the means to support, with their local tax revenues, their own local institutions--schools, hospital facilities, and so forth. We lowered the income level, in the average community, in these communities, which no longer had equitable access to mass transportation, for freight, and things of that sort.

So, we have to rebuild the United States, internally, back into the kind of producer society, of which we used to be mightily proud, back in the 1950s and early 1960s. The direction we've gone in, in going to a consumer society, to a post-industrial society, is a terrible mistake, and we have correct the mistake.

That's the gist. My view is, that the role the United States should play, internationally, as a key catalyst for bringing together a community of sovereign nation-states, in cooperation around the world, in major projects--that we have to use that role we play, and should play, in order to develop our internal economy, our communities, back into, what we wish they would have become back in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Freeman: Do you have a follow up question?

Follow up Question: Just more specifically, about the Patriot Act itself, does that surprise him, that it was passed by Congress, and that's what we're dealing with right now?

LaRouche: No, I'm not surprised at all! Actually, I was pleased, of course, but I was not surprised. The "Crisco Kid" is not my hero. It doesn't make any sense.

I've had occasion to deal a lot with security questions of the United States, and so forth--terrorism and that sort of thing. Not only in the United States, but other countries where I've been involved in investigations in dealing with the problems of terrorism and so forth. And the key line of defense, for the security of the United States, is local law-enforcement; good quality, local law enforcement. My ideal in law enforcement starts with the cop on the beat, which we used to have. We sort of discontinued that institution. The policeman, who's professional and who has a feeling for the community, who realizes that something strange is happening in his community, and, it may not be wrong, but it's strange, therefore he looks at it. Then he, and his local police department--and other agencies, district attorney and so forth--are in touch with law enforcement agencies at the state and Federal level. An example is on questions like drugs, or other kinds of specialized areas. And therefore, you have, automatically, with the cross-cooperation with these legitimate law enforcement structure agencies, and certain intelligence capabilities--departments like the State Department and so forth, which are involved--we have the ability to do an assessment on what the threat potential is, in an area.

For example, we had this thing in Northern Virginia, I referred in a broadcast: We had a bunch of people, who moved, because law enforcement was stripped down, in Northern Virginia--drug gangs operating out of the Washington, D.C. area moved into Northern Virginia. And when you have drug gangs moving into an area, you're going to have every possible kind of crime. If you want to run terrorist acts, in a community, in any part of the world, find yourself a good drug-running organization. And what they represent will be something you can tap into, as a cover for running some kind of terrorist act.

So therefore, the direction we have to go, is not high-falutin' dream-world fantasies--George Orwell types of fantasies; what we need is basic law enforcement, and basic, top-to-bottom cooperation among Federal and state and local law enforcement agencies. That's our first line of defense. Then, your more sophisticated counter-terrorist investigations, can plug into that. And say, go into a community, "We think we have a problem here." And that kind of exchange, to my knowledge, from dealing with actual situations of drug-trafficking and terrorism in various part of the world, that works! We used to have it.

The problem is, we stripped down what we used to have, and we concentrated money in this crazy idea of this super-agency--this sort of Gestapo kind of thing--as opposed to strengthening the basic capabilities, which we have, and we know how to use. So, coming in, with a high-falutin' super-agency is not a solution. Stick to strengthening things which we have, which are institutional, with real professionals--things we know work.

Freeman: [station id] We have time for another question.

Engineering: Debbie, this is engineering in Leesburg. I think there was half a sentence clipped off of that last question, and it appeared in the response that Lyn's first sentence was saying that he was pleased by the support in Congress for the Patriot Act.

LaRouche: No. I was pleased for the lack of support for the Patriot Act in the Congress--by the lack of support.

Freeman: Okay. Do we have another question? Well, with just a few minutes left to the broadcast, I'm going to ask Mr. LaRouche, if he would like to make any closing comments.

LaRouche: Well, it's been fun. And, it's not conclusive, because this is an ongoing process, and it's useful. And I hope that others found it as useful, as I think it might have been.

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