Lyndon LaRouche Interviewed on KCCL Sacramento, CA
August 25, 2023

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Host: ... There are a lot of people out there in politics, and who knows, what their impact really is. Sometimes we look at a guy like Gary Coleman, and we think, "Why?" Or Joe Blow, you know, down in Stockton, who wants to run for governor.

Shannon: Or Mary Carey.

Host: Or, on a national scale, when you get a political figure, like a gentleman named Lyndon LaRouche, who is on the phone with us right now.  Good morning, Mr. LaRouche.

LaRouche: Good morning.

Host: Thank you for being on with us. You've been in politics for quite some time. Are you--?

LaRouche: More than politics. Politics is part of my function.

Host: Well, I've heard different kinds of descriptions about you, both good and bad, from different sides of the political fence, and your name is sort of been in the news, not really in the news, but it's out there. People have heard it before. "Hey, I've heard that guy's name before. Who is that guy? What's he about?" Who is Lyndon LaRouche?

LaRouche: Well, I'm frankly the most successful economic forecaster, long-range economic forecaster, in the past several decades, among other things. I'm an economist by qualifications, and I've been involved in politics, including, for example, I had--even though I'm a Democrat--I had a spate of work with President Reagan, through the National Security Council, in which I proposed, and he adopted, and pushed, what became known as the SDI. And then, we got put out of the picture, and other people changed its character. So, I've been notable, internationally, in many countries.

Host: What about as a political figure, though? I mean, who is Lyndon LaRouche to the voter? You've run for President several times, and it's one of those, you know, like 17 lines down there, you are in some party that nobody pays attention to, because you know how people vote. But, who is Lyndon LaRouche?

LaRouche: Well, I'm the only candidate presently, who represents consistently, the view that we must resume the standpoint of the FDR Presidency, for dealing with what I've foreseen as an onrushing, and now presently here, world depression, a world financial crisis. And we must go back to the mentality of the Roosevelt Administration as a point of reference.

Host: What is that mentality, though? How does it apply to policy, and what have you, today?

LaRouche: Well, let's take right now, in the state of California. Take the question of deregulation. Deregulation was a piece of fascistic insanity, which has destroyed the economy of our nation, and has reduced the lower 80% of our citizens to virtual penury, or worse. We have conditions that didn't exist before, in recent history, even during the last depression, which are now oppressing more and more of our citizens. This is a time we've got to clean the act up, we've got something worse than the legacy of the Coolidge-Hoover Administration...

Host: Are you saying, though, that you'd want more regulation, more government intervention, in--?

LaRouche: Well, government intervention. Government responsibility.

Shannon: Who do you propose to be responsible in government? I'm hearing kind of a tap-dance. I haven't heard anything straight, except for, I see that there are problems.

LaRouche: Yes. Well, the point is, first of all, get -- regulation, as it was put into effect under Roosevelt should never have been taken down. There were some features of the Roosevelt program which were specific to that particular emergency.

Shannon: What were those features? Just briefly. Is there something...?

LaRouche: Well, the NRA, for example, was a feature which was temporary, was a stop-gap measure. There were various stop-gap measures. But essentially--

Host: Let's do it like this. Let's take a really dramatic example, somebody like Enron, because it isn't just about regulation; it's also about applying those regulations. What would you do with a company like Enron?

LaRouche: Put it in jail. It should never have existed.

Host: Why do you think that hasn't been done?

LaRouche: Because there is big money, including Cheney and Company, and the Bush Administration. Well, look, Enron was the biggest contributor to the Bush, W. Bush, campaign. Cheney is tied into that.

Host: So, basically, what you're saying is, not only does business need to be spanked, but maybe politicians?

LaRouche: Well, no. I think actually there should be a public exposure of what the issues are, and the vote should be taken in the Congress, but after an exposure of what the issues are. The fact is, that the truth about deregulation has not been publicized, so therefore, people don't know what it is.

Look, for example: Most of the people in California who are responsible, voted for deregulation, not realizing -- everyone, without exception who is relevant to the point -- voted for the thing. It's the thing that cut the throat of the California economy! But the citizens didn't know what they were voting for, but they thought it was the right thing. They made a mistake.

Host: Well, they were manipulated into voting for something that they thought they knew they were voting for.

LaRouche: Yeah, well, they didn't understand it. The propaganda effects just swamped them. Reality was never discussed. And now...

SHANNON, Host: How is that, when is that going to stop? That's the question.

LaRouche: Ah, that's the point. Well, right now, I think it's about to stop. I think this freak-show that we have, called a recall election in California, is an unpredictable political bomb, coming in the wake, in particular, of what happened to the Northeastern North America, with 50 million people without power. The fact that comes out, is deregulation, which is hitting California, is also hitting the entire nation. There's no way that the coverup by Cheney, and others, of the problem of deregulation, what it means--the coverup of Enron, the coverup of the Williams case, and so forth--that these things can no longer be hidden.

You will find that Schwarzenegger's particular popularity will probably drop precipitously, if things level out.

Host: ... to be elected, were he to be elected, you're saying.

LaRouche: If he were elected, I would say, we have a Hitler-type problem, because this guy is very bad news. Right now, he's a joke, he's a freak show.

Host: Who's good news here in California that's running on the recall ballot?

LaRouche: I wouldn't go with any of it. I think the whole recall ballot itself was a piece of insanity -- it's an obvious piece of insanity, run by the Republican Party.

Host: Are you saying then, you'd be status quo, and you'd keep Davis in office?

LaRouche: Absolutely. He may not be the perfect man, but what I see as the alternative, it's death for California.

Host: Okay, but isn't he also guilty of being, let me use a big word and say, obfuscatious. In other words, kind of distorting the truth a little bit, to get himself elected.

LaRouche: Well, I don't know, because he bought a lot of things--. Remember, he voted for deregulation, which I understand he's admitted was a big mistake. He voted when everybody else voted for it. So, I think the entire California political scene has to re-examine itself, on some of those problems.

Host: Isn't that the reason we have a recall?

LaRouche: But they're not; they haven't got anything out there that's worth recalling.

Host: But that might also be because nobody wants to be involved in public office, because they get scrutinized to the hilt, and nobody wants the invasion of privacy. All they want to is serve...

LaRouche: I don't think about that. I think that's unimportant.

Host: Maybe not you, but I'm thinking there's quite a few people who probably just don't want to be intruded upon, in their private life.  [spoken over]

LaRouche: That's how you can get dictatorships, by indifferentism toward the issues of the time.

Shannon: Okay, but don't you think--here's my theory: It's a constituent part, it's our duty as voters, to research who we're voting for. It's our duty as voters to research the things that we are voting on. You're talking about all these coverups and everything. I'm just curious. How would you handle the coverup? How is it that you're the special guy that knows what's going on, underneath the coverup, if you're not involved in it together, to begin with? And this is a really, really broad question, and I know that I'm blanketing you underneath that, but you're talking about how we don't know about the coverup, and we don't know about this, and I think it's a voter's responsibility to find out.

Yeah, so if the voter hasn't found out everything, is it because {we} haven't done our research? Or--

LaRouche: Absolutely.

Shannon: --that you're privy to something that we aren't?

LaRouche: No, I think it's two things. First of all, it's ideological, that people bought into--over the period of the past 40 years, since the beginning of the Vietnam War, the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, the depressing effects of the missile crisis in '62. We have people who are now in leading positions in government, and in business, who are, say, in their 50s and 60s, who come from a generation which, as adolescents, were impacted by these frightening developments -- the Missile Crisis, the Kennedy assassination, the launching of the Indochina War -- and they have gone into becoming a "pleasure" society, or "please-me" society, and have tried to escape.

Shannon: So, you have to make accommodations for that, correct? My question here is, I mean, I understand the past is the foundation for the future; but to live in the past, and continually look upon the past, and wish that you could get it back, is not a realistic point of view.

LaRouche: Oh, that's wrong. People say you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. I say, I can. Anybody who's intelligent could.

Host: Are you saying, you, Lyndon LaRouche, can put the toothpaste back in the tube?

LaRouche: Absolutely, no problem.

Host: Is that why you're running for President?

LaRouche: Absolutely.

Host: Over and over again. You've run for many, many years. How come your message's not getting through?

LaRouche: Well, the point is, shall we say, the popular opinion has not gone that way. They're sticking to the kinds of ideology, which allowed them to vote for, support, or tolerate the things that are now destroying us. We've now come to the end of the road.

Host: Are you looking to seek nomination for a party? Are you going to be on the ballot in 2004?

LaRouche: Yeah, I'm a Democrat. I'm registered as filing for the Democratic nomination.

Host: All right, well, keep that if you hear his name. Lyndon LaRouche, if he's out there, and you like what he has to say, you can look him online. It's easy to search for.

Shannon: You said, look it up online. Well, you should check everybody out.

Host: Mr. LaRouche, I'm out of time, I have to go, but thank you so much for being with us.

LaRouche: Have fun.

Host: We're trying.

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