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Lyndon LaRouche was interviewed for an hour on Oct. 28 on the program "The Right Stuff" on Georgetownradio.com, a student radio station at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C.

Host: Hey! What's up! How ya doin'! Happy freakin' Friday. This is the right stuff with Mr. Right, with guest host Alexander Bozmoski. I have on the air, on hold right now, Mr. Lyndon LaRouche. Mr. LaRouche....

Okay, Mr. LaRouche, I just wanted to give you the opportunity, now that we have the technical difficulties settled, to just tell us what your plan is, or give an open monologue on whatever you would like to do, and then we'll go from there.

LAROUCHE: Okay! Well, today is the day which should be remembered, Oct. 28th—not the 31st yet, not the time of the Hallowe'en Massacre, but something proximate to it—it should go down in history as "the day that the frogs began to be marched." And Frog #1 is I. Lewis Libby, otherwise known as Scooter Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Cheney. And as you know, at this hour, there is a press conference being given by the Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald, who probably will also announce that Libby has officially submitted his resignation, at least, that's what I heard from the news media in the short time before now. And this is not the end of it. This is simply the first shot in the case.

The important things mentioned, so far, by the prosecutor's office have been that Cheney's name, of course, has been mentioned, in defining the five-count criminal indictment. But also the name of the office of Bolton, the present UN Ambassador, whose office, in a way I understand, is named as having been the official leak source, for leaking into the system to be leaked outside the system, of the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert CIA agent.

Now, the issue here is not simply the issue of uncovering a covert agent. That's a violation of law. It's a violation of the Federal criminal law. There are other violations of law in the five-point indictment. But, behind this, is something much bigger: The point is, here, is that what happened, was the operation against Joe Wilson by virtue of going after his wife in this way, was to attempt to intimidate the Central Intelligence Agency itself. Because the Central Intelligence Agency had retained Joe Wilson, a former Ambassador—actually still is technically an ambassador of the United States—had been sent to Niger and other places where he had served as an ambassador, to check out the allegation that Niger, which is a source of uranium yellowcake, had shipped some yellowcake to Iraq, to Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Q: Now, I just want to interrupt you for a second here. From what I'm gathering, are you suggesting that the Vice President of the United States is somehow involved in revealing Valerie Plame's identity?

LAROUCHE: Well, he's involved in the operation which did reveal her identity, and he was involved in promoting it and covering it up. So, he is in trouble.

Q: Do you think ultimately, he will face consequences and be forced to resign?

LAROUCHE: Face consequences, yeah. He already has faced consequences: His credibility is down to about 2% level right now. Today, the resignation of Libby, his chief of staff, and his involvement—. Remember, what's involved here is not just this particular event. What's involved is a use of fraud, the concoction of a complete fraud, the so-called Niger yellowcake fraud or similar yellowcake frauds, to induce the Senate of the United States, to approve a declaration of war which has gotten us into a war, which is about as unpopular as a war can get with our people.

Q: Mr. LaRouche, my name is Alex Bozmoski, I'd like to interrupt you for another second, and first say "hello" and welcome you to the show. And secondly, to point out, that to our listeners, that the five-point indictment that you're speaking of is going to be, that Scooter Libby will be indicted on perjury charges—

Q: [regular host] Obstruction of justice—

AB: I just wanted to clear up that the Niger yellowcake incident has nothing to do with the actual indictment today—

LAROUCHE: It has everything to do with. It has everything to do with it. This is a part of a process, which is an ongoing process, and which will say that the United States was induced to go to war, through an act of fraud. And that this action, by Libby et al. was an action—

AB: So, Mr. LaRouche, you're implying that if we didn't have Italian forged documents that said that enriched uranium yellowcake in Niger was transported to Iraq, that we would not be in Iraq right now?

LAROUCHE: Absolutely. That's the case. Every leading member of the Senate, especially on the Democratic side and others, who were induced to vote for going to war, did so on the basis of Cheney's personally lying—because he knew this—personally lying to members of the Senate, to induce them, as Democrats and others, to vote for the proposal to go to war. That's what happened.

Q: Now, there was something very interesting in some of the correspondence I've had with your office. In one of the e-mails that I got, I think your staffer mentioned that Judith Miller was a government agent. Can you elaborate on that? Or? How is Judith Miller a government agent?

LAROUCHE: Yeah. Well, what you have, often, is, you have people who are government agents, of various kinds of agencies, who are inserted in positions in the press. She was inserted—she has a long career. This is not new to her, she's been a spook for a some time. But she was inserted into the New York Times. And she was not too popular with her fellow reporters at the New York Times. But, she was inserted there, and some of the actions she took, as in this case, were of that nature. They were of an intell—this is a dirty intelligence operation. It's big. It's gigantic. This is much bigger than Watergate.

Q: Okay. Real quick question: What is the ultimate goal for Vice President Cheney in this, that provoked him to enter into this fraud?

Q:[other host] And furthermore, why does President Bush share none of the blame, with you? Why does it all go to Vice President Cheney? I find that interesting.

LAROUCHE: Oh, Bush! Bush, I think Bush has his own kind of blame. I don't think Bush is— [interrupted]

Q: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I read in your website, that Bush is a mental incompetent, so that's why the blame would shift over to Cheney.

LAROUCHE: Well, there are two reasons. There are two reasons here. First of all, we're serious. This is not playing a game, here. This is the government of the United States. We're in a world in serious crisis, a serious economic crisis, and other kinds of crises, and you don't play games with the government of the United States. Particularly, you don't play, you know, like football field games.

So therefore, the intention of many of us is, and has been, as I've made very clear, is to have Cheney out immediately. But we have to maintain the continuity and functioning of government: that's what we're really concerned about. Right now, the government is not functioning. It's not functioning, in the case of the Katrina thing; it's not functioning in a lot of other ways. So therefore, we're not going to do something silly. Get Cheney out. Get a new Vice President in, and begin to get the Federal government to function, where the present President is less under the influence of what Cheney represents.

Q: Sir, my question remained, why is Dick Cheney entering into this—

Q: [other host] Yeah, I mean, Bush was the one, you know, who convinced us to go to war.

LAROUCHE: Cheney wanted this war—remember, go back to 1990, to Bush 41, the father of the present President. At that time, Cheney was chief of staff—or, head of the Department of Defense: At that time, he was one of the leaders within that Administration who was reluctant at accepting President Bush's decision not to actually occupy Iraq. And the reasons were all given by all the people; that's well known, it's well documented. All right, he maintained that position. The day he came into office as Vice President, in 2001, he was for that, on that day. From that day on, he wants this war, because he belongs to a faction which is associated with what's called the neoconservatives, who believe that permanent warfare and permanent regime change, like the Roman Empire's military policy, should be the policy of the United States.

The military, the professional military, except those who are spoon-benders or the like, have been opposed to this. So, there's been a conflict about getting into this kind of unnecessary war, for the purpose of using war as a way of orchestrating world politics, rather than an instrument of defense of our vital interests.

Q: But I don't understand what their motive would be.

LAROUCHE: The motive is the spoon-bender motive. The motive is the neoconservative motive [host keeps trying to interrupt]

Q: To just be at war—

LAROUCHE: It's their policy. They've had it all over the place. My view is: Such people should never have been allowed in government! This is comparable to Adolf Hitler kind of stuff. This sort of thing should never be allowed to get into a powerful position in our government.

AB: So, you're calling Dick Cheney, right on the air, Adolf Hitler? Essentially.

LAROUCHE: No. I'm saying he belongs to the same genre of problem.

Q: Wonderful. Another question. I recall in reading one of your transcripts, and forgive me, I forget which one it was, the LaRouchePAC, Political Action Committee, has taken credit for the anti-neoconservative consensus reached between the moderate Republicans and the Democrats in Congress. Do you take credit for any sort of consensus between the two of these groups?

LAROUCHE: There is a very significant role by me personally, and by people associated with me, in this. There's been a big fight. But this went on, this started in the beginning—well, actually it started toward the end of 2000, after the election. And it began to roll up quickly with the Bush Administration, in the beginning of January of 2001, because the economic situation was such and such. And we knew the composition of some of these guys, like Cheney and company, in the new Administration, and we knew the direction these fellows were going to take: They're called neoconservatives. Their ideas are well known, they're documented, there's no secret about it. They're well known internationally. No secret whatsoever. This is their policy: They wanted the war. We got into a war we never should have gotten into. The thing is now a deteriorating mess. And there is no bottom under the continuation of the present policy, with this war. There's no end to it.

So, we're now determined to get out. If the war had not been a failure, as it is, a terrible failure, then you would not have the heat and pressure, now, that led to the indictment of Libby. And the indictment of Libby is just the beginning of a process.

AB: I just want to remind our listeners real quick, that the reason—because some of you might be confused out there—the reason why me and Anthony aren't jumping in right away and trying to debate the policy issues of neoconservatism and what's going on in Iraq, is that we believe that, because the LaRouche campaign has had such a presence on our Georgetown campus over the past couple weeks, that it is in the benefit of the students to first hear exactly what Mr. LaRouche is talking about, and then, as we progress we'll start to—to try and enter the debate a little more.

Q: And we always do like to present different sides of the issue. And again, I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank you again, for coming on, Mr. LaRouche.

I do have to ask you, though: I read in another one of your recent bulletins, that you heavily criticized the government response to Katrina. Hurricane Katrina, and—can you elaborate on that for our listeners?

LAROUCHE: Oh sure. We had what was known to be a Level 5 hurricane coming up the Coast, and likely after visiting Florida, likely to come to the Gulf area in the area of New Orleans. The last time we really dealt with that area, was Betsy. That was back under the Administration of President Johnson. President Johnson was on the scene there, at the time, about two days after Betsy hit, and immediately organized a program, as well as relief efforts. The program was never carried out.

The New Orleans area was, at that time, had been built up with levees and so forth, to a defense capability against the Level 3 storm. And now a Level 5 was coming in. The program, which President Johnson had pushed at the time, has never been implemented. The condition of the area, around New Orleans and around the bay area has deteriorated greatly, ecologically and otherwise, over the intervening period. It has gone down economically, it's an area of gambling casinos and things like that—not much development—and impoverishment increasing.

So, we knew this thing was happening. We knew it on Aug. 2, that we had to prepare for the certainty of something hitting the Gulf, and probably New Orleans. We knew that the New Orleans area only had a Level 3 defense capability for resistance. Therefore, on Aug. 2, with all these agencies reporting on this, we should have gone to action for all the precautionary actions of the type that some people are trying to deal with in Florida now. So, we should have done that: We did nothing.

Q: And you don't—you personally don't think this government did everything it could, that this government cares about its citizens—you don't think that this government did everything it could, to help those people in New Orleans? To bring them aid?

LAROUCHE: Absolutely nothing. They may have done some things after the Senate got on the case, and Senate action occurred, to try to get some relief in there. And after the Senator from Louisiana was pressing, and others; then, after the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate had begun to move on this, then at that point, Cheney and Bush came into the picture and made some proposals. But, most of the—-

Q: Okay, right. I actually agree, we could have done a lot better in the Gulf. I would like to remind you though, sir, that the probability cone for hurricanes two days in advance is very wide. We've seen hundreds of Class 3, 4, and 5 hurricanes that are passing near the Gulf, that have a probability cone hitting New Orleans, they just never happened. We've known for a long time, that if we had the Disaster One—and Katrina certainly was not the Disaster One, all the levees did not break, Lake Pontchartrain did not drain completely into the city, and there were sections of the city that escaped water. So it was not the disaster that we—that geologists, and geomethologists [sic], and climatologists have been predicting for a very long time—

LAROUCHE: No. That's right.

Q: So. You can't say, that two days, three days before, we should have done something drastically different than we have in the last two or three days before similar hurricanes over the past 30 years.

LAROUCHE: No. You're absolutely wrong. Absolutely wrong: Every agency, responsible agency involved in this area—apart from those which were culpable and did nothing—but every responsible agency and forecasting agency, said, "It's coming." The idea of preventing it and saying, "It's not coming," is so high, that you don't do that. When you get anything like this, which threatens a probable hit, and this was a very highly probable hit, every forecasting agency would disagree with you. The knowledge of a very highly probably Level 5 hit at the New Orleans area was there, it was well known, since Aug. 2.

Q: It's been there 300 years, sir. The same probability has been for—

LAROUCHE: It's wrong. No, you're wrong.

Q: It's absolutely not wrong.

LAROUCHE: I mean, it's unscientific. It's just not scientifically there. I mean, you get somebody who thinks in statistical forecasts, that's not science. The scientific agencies which are responsible, and have been responsible for forecasting probability, and which have generally been very accurate within the range of what they forecast were the ones that all said, this is something that has to be faced. And there was no preparation to face it! This was an act which was impeachable—

Q: I won't argue with you any more. I'll just ask you for a single clarification question: You think that we knew, before Katrina hit, that New Orleans was going to be swamped with a Level 5 hurricane, that day?

LaRouche: That we knew it was going to hit in that period of time.

Q: Okay. So—. That's fine, we can progress, then.

LAROUCHE: You need two weeks to 30 days to deal with that.

Q: [other host, trying to interrupt] And, well, I just want—but this is a fundamental question here, and I just want to ask this: Do you believe—because what I'm hearing here, is that you believe that this government is sending us into pointless wars, just for—I guess for leisure? You believe that this government knows that horrible storms are going to hit, and they don't do anything to help their citizens? Do you believe that this government is evil?

LAROUCHE: I don't know what you mean by evil. I think there are people in government who are evil. I don't think the government is evil. I think the government is largely stupid and incompetent. And there are many people in the government itself, which we would like to have changed. We would like to have a competent government. I think we could get one in a fairly short time. I just hope we do: because we really need one, right now. But what we've got right now, is, in the Executive branch, under President George Bush, and under the overreaching influence of Dick Cheney, and some other people, we've got a real mess.

This government is incompetent. It's indifferent to people, its philosophy stinks. It is not consistent with our Constitutional intention. And we have many people in the legislature, in the various parts of the Executive branch who are honest, capable people, and would function properly if they had a President who was functional, and they didn't have a Vice President who is less than functional.

Q: Well, let's talk about the less-than-functional Vice President just for a second, and then I'd like to move on. I think Anthony and I want to move on to your economic forecasting, and especially the hyperinflationatory [sic] imminent crash. But before that, let's talk about Dick Cheney just for a little while. Because most of your magazine titles and brochure covers seem to have pictures of either Cheney's head in a mushroom cloud—

Q: Children of Satan—

Q: Something to the effect of linking Cheney to Satan or a spawn of Satan. And that's certainly more vicious rhetoric than is present in other forms of media. So it would be wonderful for our audience if you could substantiate that. Or,—

LAROUCHE: Sure! It's substantial. We've documented it, in the documents themselves. The evidence is there. The facts accord with the evidence stated.

Q: [nearly inaud] So what?

LAROUCHE: What has been forecast has been happening. I think that the quality of veracity, of these publications is not doubted much internationally, or around Washington, D.C., around the Congress.

Q: What's not doubted? The veracity of Dick Cheney being a child of Satan?

LAROUCHE: I think that's generally understood what that means, exactly as I described it. Exactly. I don't just use words: I'm a scientist. When I use a term, I qualify what I mean by it, and my qualification of that terminology, the way I've gone into depth on this, I think is probably very high grade, in terms of veracity.

Q: I—I apol—. You're a scientist. I apol—I, um.

Q: We apologize for not telling our audience. That's actually our lack of foresight. We forgot to introduce your credentials. But, because I don't really know them, you're welcome to share them with the audience.

LAROUCHE: Well, I happen to be the most successful long-range economic forecaster in the past 30 years.

Q: And you're a scientist.

LAROUCHE: When everybody else is wrong on this one. When the opposition has been wrong. So, I think my—the issue of 1971, some of the issues of the middle of the 1970s; my role in, for example, the SDI. One of the things I'm most unpopular for, is, I sold the idea of SDI to President Reagan and his circle, and we worked on it, and I became very unpopular because of that. But that's part of it. I was also the organizer of the Fusion Energy Foundation, which was for a period of time, one of the leading scientific foundations in the United States. I'm involved in this internationally, so there's no question about these credentials. People can find them very easily, if they looked up the website: all the information of relevance is there.

Q: All righty. Alex, did you want to move on, maybe—

Q: No, I want—I want to stick with Dick Cheney, just for a little bit longer, because that's your major push right now. Am I correct? Your major push right now is to get Dick Cheney out of office? That's what all the people—

LAROUCHE: No! Dick Cheney's going to be out of office. That's already settled. What is not settled, is how we fix the mess that we have to fix, in the process of his leaving office.

Q: I don't think that anyone that's listening right now, that's, say, a Georgetown University student not involved—well, actually, none of them are involved in your campaign—so a Georgetown University student, believe that Dick Cheney will imminently be thrust from office. So—. To allow you the opportunity to establish that claim a little more clearly, I would like you to go into how Dick Cheney is involved in—like in Dick Cheney's neoconservative plot to take our country to war, endlessly, and eventually to provoke a nuclear war with Iran (which is what I gather from your last press release), I would really love the opportunity to hear you—hear you—.

LAROUCHE: I don't need to defend any of that. It's all in the public domain. It's known in the Congress. People in the Congress, and the Senate and so forth are discussing these matters. This is not some far-out wild speculation—

Q: So, when do you think Dick Cheney's going to be thrust from office, and how?

LAROUCHE: He is being—well: Don't look at this mechanistically, especially when you're dealing with human beings, don't try to apply the rules of pool ball games to human beings. And in human beings, there always is will; human systems are not mechanistic, they're dynamic—just as biological systems are dynamic, they're not mechanistic. And therefore, you can not work on the basis of a statistical forecast of an event occurring at a specific time. You can define a line, a boundary condition which will define the way a process will go.

Q: [interrupting inaud] in 2008, we're going to have a new President and Vice President. You know! I mean—

LAROUCHE: We're going to have a new—we almost certainly will have a new Vice President. As a matter of fact, I think John McCain wants the job. But, the President—this is going to be a trickier thing to deal with, as I said. We are not reckless. I'm not reckless. I'm not going to tamper with this government. I'm going to make sure we have a continuity of a functioning government.

Q: So, you're running for President, again?

LAROUCHE: I'm going to—I'm concerned that we have a functioning continuity of our Federal Executive branch! Right now, our problem is, the Executive branch is not functional! We need a functional branch.

Q: So, this is—we've heard this before. I need you to understand that our listeners do not read your press releases, so please explain to them how Dick Cheney is trying to provoke a nuclear war with Iran.

LAROUCHE: He said so! He gave the order to STRATCOM, to prepare for a nuclear order. We just had the Congress vote it down! The Congress just voted down the use of bunker-buster weapons. He was planning to use bunker-buster weapons in Iran, against targets.

Q: When was this proposed by Dick Cheney to STRATCOM?

LAROUCHE: This has been coming out over the month of late July and August.

Q: Okay. I'm trying to figure out what report you're referring to.

LAROUCHE: It was all over the place. I mean, what you're saying is, that Georgetown students don't get any news at all! And they don't hear anything that's going on in the world—even the Washington Post, I think, has indicated some of this material, from time to time. So, I don't see how anybody living in the Washington area has not picked this up!

Q: I'll tell you what Georgetown students do know: Georgetown students do know that the strategic integrated operating plan of STRATCOM and the United States Pentagon, has plans for nuclear engagements with every major country in the world, in which there is a substantial conflict that could escalate.

LAROUCHE: That's true.

Q: So, to say that we have plans to go to nuclear war with Iran, is not to make any point. Because we have nuclear plans to go to war with everybody. And you know what? That is a good thing, in my estimation, because, if we are faced with some sort of—situation—where we need to draw on STRATCOM to give us a plan for how to deal with something, we have it already internalized.

LAROUCHE: Well. In this case, Cheney was giving the order: Be prepared for action. And Iran is targetted—everybody in the world has known it. I don't know if people on Georgetown weren't informed of this. But this has been debated in the United Nations; it's been debated in every country in the world. And if somehow—you know. I don't believe what you're saying about Georgetown students. I think they do know a little more than you give them credit for!

Q: Well, Georgetown students certainly do know a lot. We know that Joe Wilson has zero credibility. We know that—

LAROUCHE: Oh! You sound like neocons now.

Q: We are, sir.

Q: We're proud neocons.

LAROUCHE: [laughing] Okay! It's all clear.

Q: Well, this is "The Right Stuff," but we do like to get these different viewpoints out here. But, we know that Joe Wilson has no credibility—

LAROUCHE: What do you mean, he has no credibility? He's got a tremendous amount of credibility!

You know what happened? You got to think about this, about your career, because neoconism is about to go out of fashion. Now, of course, the neocon ideology, is a lackey ideology, as it was defined for example by Leo Strauss, Prof. Leo Strauss, who in a sense created this lackey idea, based on the Thrasymachus model.

Q: Sir, we're not —I mean, I would rather not debate the nuances of the neoconservatism, because—[Lyn laughs] well, because, despite what you say, it's actually a very nuanced philosophy, and it does span a large degree of different public policy options. And—

Q: And it's more than just—

LAROUCHE: It does, yes. Right.

Q: And it's more than just using firepower for fun. It's about keeping people safe, and it's about doing it responsibly, and about working with the rest of the world to make it safe.

LAROUCHE: No, the problem here—it's kind of interesting here, in the neocons, because the essential issue here, is—

Q: First, can you just describe neocon in terms of someone I can understand. Are you talking like a democratic realist, like a Charles Krauthammer type of neoconservative? Or—

LAROUCHE: No, no. All these kinds of things, I don't pay much attention to these personal distinctions, because I'm dealing with a process I understand here. And if you want to explain it, I can do it.

Q: No worries. We'll work in your paradigm.

Q: Well—you ready for economics, Alex?

Q: Yeah, I guess we could make the switch.

LAROUCHE: I think this neocon thing goes very closely to economics.

Q: Well, make the connection for us, and then it'll make it easy for us.

LAROUCHE: Well, first of all, the United States is based on the principle, which is called in ancient Greek, agape. It's a term associated with Plato's Republic; it's the principle of 1 Corinthians 13. It is the idea of the Common Good, of the General Welfare: It is the central and highest principle of the U.S. Federal Constitution, which says the purpose of the nation is to promote the General Welfare of existing and future generations—of all them. That's our policy.

Now, you have a contrary policy, which is the Anglo-Dutch Liberal policy, of which the neoconservative economic philosophy is a variety; which bases itself on people like Bernard Mandeville, John Locke, in English, Quesnay, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, and so forth.

Q: Say that again, sir? Jeremy Bentham is a precursor to neoconservatism?

LAROUCHE: Absolutely. Have you read him?

Q: Yeah, absolutely! I've read most of the authors you're listing, and it seems like a really interesting paradigm that you're trying to build for neoconservatism. And I do think that some of the authors, perhaps, warrant some credit for the movement that has taken so much, so much steam over the past couple decades. But I really want you to just make the connection right now, to economics. And if we're going with Jeremy Bentham here, I'm really having a tough time seeing the connection.

LAROUCHE: Well, the neoconservatives, generally the center of this is the American Enterprise Institute, today. Now, I'm talking about the American Enterprise Institute which is—

Q: Mr. Novak.

LAROUCHE: Essentially a branch of the Mont Pelerin Society, and what I'm describing is the economic philosophy behind the Mont Pelerin Society, which is the followers of Bernard Mandeville; and of people like Mandeville. And this is the idea that society can be run on the basis of an interest, defined by such things as property rights, as opposed to human rights; that this kind of conception is the basis from which the neoconservatives—among other people—work as a group. As opposed to what I represent, which is the American Constitutional tradition, the tradition of the idea that the Common Good, or the General Welfare, is the highest form of law, and that property is inferior in its claims, when it conflicts with human rights.

Q: I'm sorry to cut you off. We're getting a lot of calls from our listeners saying, or requesting that you talk a little louder. We've got you up as loud as you can go. So, just kind of—

LAROUCHE: Uh-huh.

Q: There we go. Much better.

Q: Okay, now. I think there's a fundamental question here that you raise. You're attacking property rights here, one of the fundamental rights of us as Americans, the right to know that we have a right to own land, that we have a right to a place that we call home, and there's an increasing assault on these rights. And I don't know how you can associate yourself with that movement.

LAROUCHE: Well, this is the movement, of course, of Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt—

Q: Do you believe in private property, sir?

LAROUCHE: What do you mean by private property?

Q: Property owned by private citizens and not subject to government interference.

LAROUCHE: I do not believe that private property is a self-evident right. I believe it is a right provided by society. It is not a right which is independent, but is inferior to and subsumed by society. In other words, if we, in society, decide that the general interest, the General Welfare is served by promoting private property as one of the options working in society, that's it. Therefore, it is—private property is not a primary right, it is a derivative right.

Q: [overtalking] Well, you're living in a heavily guarded mansion in Virginia—

LAROUCHE: [continuing] It is not a right under natural law. It is a right under positive law.

Q: Well, sir, you live in a heavily guarded mansion in Virginia. Does the government have a right, or does some outside force have a right—

LAROUCHE: I never had a heavily guarded mansion!

Q: Well, does the government have a right to take your property away from you? To take everything—?

Q: [interrupting] If it's in the welfare of the other citizens?

Q: Yes.

LAROUCHE: No, no. the government has no right to take anything, except by due process. Due process is a procedure provided for under our law, as a part of positive law.

Q: All right—this is going nowhere. You said in the beginning of the broadcast, "an impending economic crisis, among other crises." Choose your crisis, let's talk about it. I really enjoy—

LAROUCHE: You can't divide them, they're all together. We're on the verge of a general—not an economic crisis—we already had a crash. We have a crash ongoing now.

Q: You're talking, a complete shutdown of the economic system.

LAROUCHE: Well, nobody's going to shut down the economic system. That's the simplistic Wall Street kind of thinking. Think of it in terms of real economy, physical economy.

Q: Those were your exact words that are in your webcast, right now, sir. You said, that a hyperinflationatory [sic]—

LAROUCHE: Yeah, exactly. It's in process. It exists. It's not a hyperinflationary phase. This is typified by the rising prices—

Q: [interrupting] And this was [overtalk] by Richard Nixon in 1971, when he took us off the gold standard?

LAROUCHE: What?

Q: That's what I got from your website.

LAROUCHE: He didn't take us off the gold standard. We never had the gold standard at that time. We had a gold-reserve standard. That's not a gold standard.

Q: The gold-reserve standard. This is what sparked this movement, right?

LAROUCHE: What? What sparked it, was my understanding, back from as far back as the 1950s, when I made my first public forecast, then, when I forecast that we were on the verge of the worst recession in the post-war period, beginning in the early part of 1957. It happened.

Q: I just want to get at something here: As I was walking home from accounting class, a couple of weeks ago, when I first talked with one of your supporters, I mentioned the fact that I was a business school student to one of them. And one of your representatives told me that the stuff I'm learning in accounting class and finance class is "just theories." It's not actually real. Do you agree with that statement or were they misguided?

LAROUCHE: Well, I wouldn't use the term "theory." Theory's a very serious thing. I would say it's a concoction, it's a scheme. That what is taught—for example, let's take the paradigm of this: the paradigm of the so-called Business School Syndrome, came from the Wharton School in Pennsylvania and from Harvard Business School up in Boston. This was the immediate post-war period development. And from that, there has been a business-school philosophy, which actually does accord, as economics, with the kind of mentality you run into with neocons. It's what's generally taught as neocon philosophy. Again, it's the Mandeville/Mont Pelerin Society ideology. I think it stinks. It's stupid.

I'm for industry. I'm an agro-industrial economist. I defend our system, the American System, as we developed it in our country. Roosevelt is an example, Franklin Roosevelt, who took us from the Depression, which Coolidge and Hoover gave us, and made us the most powerful economy the world had ever seen, under depression conditions; it's typical of the way I think.

Q: Right.

LAROUCHE: And we have done very well, even in the post-war period with all our problems, we did very well, up until the middle of the 1960s. And despite all the problems, all the mistakes that were made, in net effect, year after year, the U.S. economy was in net effect improving; people were getting wealthier in physical terms; health care was improving, etc., etc., education was improving.

Q: Until when? [barely audible]

LAROUCHE: After that, coming out of the period of the Indo-China War—

Q: After what? After what?

LAROUCHE: We went the other direction. We have been in a physical decline.

Now, what happens now, the worst example of this, of course, is the Enron syndrome. The worst example of business school teaching is Enron. Which is what made the first Bush Administration—and that was stealing!

You have people who think that property rights, as in the case of, say, Delphi, or the case of General Motors; or some of these other cases, that will come up, that people will take large pensions, in exit pensions, knowing they're going into bankruptcy, and deprive their employees of their pension funds!

Q: Sir, I don't—. I apologize for it, but you keep kind of making a trail into detailed points, and I really want our listeners to get a gauge of your overall grand economic idea. And, let me, summing it for them up in my words—and correct me when I'm wrong—you seek a return to the Bretton Woods system; you seek a pull-out of any form of globalization, or inter-country innovation in trade; you want free trade to be blocked by tariffs; and you see that agro-industrial economy should be elevated in precedence above our international trade economy.

LAROUCHE: Well, I think globalization is a form of imperialism. It's the end of the nation-state. I'm for the nation-state. I'm for this Constitutional form of government—

Q: And since the period of globalization has started, and every single aggregate statistical indicator of quality of life rising with the globalization of developing and non-developing—

LAROUCHE: That's a —I don't know where you got that from. That's an absolute fraud. It corresponds to no reality, in this planet. None.

Q: World GDP. Developing-country GDP.

LAROUCHE: Oh, forget GDP! GDP is not wealth—

Q: Sorry, we'll use another indicator. World revenue—

LAROUCHE: No, no. Take the indication. Let's take: Physical indicators. Now, take a map of the United States—

Q: Okay. Poverty rates. The developing-country poverty rate. Second World country poverty rate, and First World country poverty rate, are all decreasing in aggregate—

LAROUCHE: Not true!

Q: Yes. Absolutely true. Absolutely true.

LAROUCHE: Absolutely not true. It's a completely false statement on your part.

Q: [other host] Sir—I just have to say that globalization, free-market economies are bringing more things to more people in more places. It's helping to reduce poverty—and, you know—[Lyn laughs]

LAROUCHE: You actually believe that?!

Q: I for one—[overtalk] technology of the past!

LAROUCHE: I mean, do you believe that?

Q: No, I believe that your economic philosophy's a little arcane, sir. It seems like it's very—it's pre-modernization. It's pre-the era of technology. It's the pre-knowledge revolution [Lyn laughing throughout]

You laugh, and I ask you, to substantiate this.

LAROUCHE: I mean, I don't know where you're getting your facts from!

Q: Sir—let's move on—let's move on a little bit here, sir. [laughs] Okay: Over the years, how many times have you run for President?

Q: Eight.

LAROUCHE: Yeah, sure.

Q: Okay, do you plan to run again in the future?

LAROUCHE: I haven't made any plans to that effect in this time. I've tried to—

Q: Would you like to announce on this show?

LAROUCHE: No! No, I don't plan to do that. I'm—shall we say, a part of the Democratic Party.

Q: Does the Democratic Party accept you as one of their kin?

LAROUCHE: Well, some of the leading people in the Congress and elsewhere do—yes.

Q: And, here, for about maybe four minutes, I have a live, real breathing Democrat in the room, and I'll let you have a conversation with him. [Lyn laughs] So, just one second.

Q: Let me, as we make the transition, I want to remind the listeners, that Mr. LaRouche garnered a substantial 22% of the vote in the Democratic primary in Arkansas, which is the largest of all the states, actually did won delegates, but the Democratic Party declined the delegates to Mr. LaRouche, because, and I think I'm quoting, "he wasn't a real Democrat." Now I won't make a normative claim on whether that's true or not, but I will pass it on to Joe, to perhaps discuss the topic a little more thoroughly.

Joe: Thank you, Alex. Hello, Lyndon, can you hear me?

Hello, I'd like to introduce myself briefly. My name is Joe McReynolds [ph], I'm a member of the College Democrats here, and I did end up supporting Howard Dean in the 2004 primary. So I think it can be fairly said that you wouldn't necessarily describe me as a reactionary Democrat. I'm relatively open to new perspectives for the party.

And, I've heard some of your supporters say in the past, that the reason the Democratic Party is not listening to you, is because your ideas are dangerous to them. Do you agree with that?

LAROUCHE: No. Not dangerous to the party. By no means. Never happened.

Q: Why do you think it is, that the Democratic Party is so hostile to you and your ideas?

LAROUCHE: The Democratic Party is not hostile. There are some bankers who are very hostile to me. And they frightened some of my friends in the Democratic Party. But, if you look at what we're doing, especially, I played a key part as a supporter in the Kerry campaign, in September and October of the past year.

Q: You played a key part in the Kerry campaign?

LAROUCHE: Sure!

Alex: [in the background] He also worked for Ronald Reagan.

LAROUCHE: I worked with Jim Carville.

Q: The Democratic Party, the base is, they're willing to support a wide range of people, but it's been pretty clear from election results that the Democratic Party's base has not been willing to support ex-Communists. And, you would agree that your membership in the revolutionary tendency, and other similar groups over the past years, would you say it's fair to describe you as an ex-Communist?

LAROUCHE: No.

Q: Would you say it's fair to describe you as an ex-Trotskyist?

LAROUCHE: A what?

Q: An ex-Trotskyist?

LAROUCHE: Well, I was associated with the Trotskyists, a couple of times, when I was fighting McCarthy, I associated with them, because I was fighting Joe McCarthy. Back in the times, when that was really nasty stuff.

Anthony: I just want to interject, Joe McCarthy, a real American patriot (I'm kidding!).

LAROUCHE: He was a skunk!

Joe: I would have to disagree with Anthony on that one!

LAROUCHE: [laughs] You're not going to get any Democrats to go with that!

Joe: Seriously. Would you say that it's possible that, not just a few bankers, but really a lot of the Democratic leadership and the base, have concluded that some of the more radical things you say—for instance, I—some of the plans you talk about, rejecting the last 40 years of economic shared wisdom between both parties, building a bridge between California and Asia, I've heard was a plan of yours—or perhaps it was Hawaii and Asia?

LAROUCHE: No, no. You've got everything mixed up.

What has happened, I've opposed a lot of the policies the party has adopted since the middle, or particularly the end of the 1960s; or the beginning of the 1970s: These changes, which were a change to a post-industrial society, I said, were a mistake. A fatal mistake. And they have been a fatal mistake.

Now, what's happened is, there's been a change. And the change occurred during the course of the last election campaign, the last Presidential campaign, in which, when Kerry came in as candidate, you may notice there was an important change in the actual policy of the party.

Q: Well, I understand your position on the policies. But, I'm saying, even beyond the policies. To lead a party, one has to not just have policies, but a certain personal characteristic. And I got handed one of your publications once, in a newspaper, and, as a young person—as a full disclosure, I am director of hip-hop for this radio station, and [Lyn laughs] I opened your publication, and it was [Lyn laughing heartily]—it was you, talking about why the only music in New York these days is hip-hop and music that's so bad it can only be called hip-hop, was your words. [overtalk] I still remember. And I have to admit, it was offputting to me, as a young person, and just in general, with a lot of the things you say, being so bombastic and—Howard Dean looks positively milquetoast compared to you!

LAROUCHE: Probably true!

Q: When it comes to the things you say. And, even if, on any given policy you might have some sway—I mean, obviously I would say I disagree with you on quite a few policies—but, even if any given one is a decent policy for the Democratic Party, don't you think that there's a real consensus, not just among bankers, but among others, that you might not have the capacity to lead based on your personal characteristics, not just on any policy?

LAROUCHE: No. On my personal characteristics, I'm probably the best leader the United States has. But, the problem you're getting into, which, at your age, actually, you wouldn't know this: But, we underwent a change in the United States, which was under influence of an organization called the Congress for Cultural Freedom. It was headed in the United States for some time by an enemy of mine by the name of Sidney Hook, who hated my guts for various good reasons on both sides.

But, what happened is, you had a doctrine of, a new sense of man, in which leadership was considered "bad." Now, in a healthy society, leadership is not dictatorship; leadership is leadership.

Q: Leadership is about bringing people together, to some degree. Surely you would agree that there's something in leadership about bringing people together.

LAROUCHE: No, no, no! That's consensus. Remember, what you're talking about, what you're getting into, is—you're not looking at one problem, a famous historical problem, which everyone should know if they want to study the history of European civilization: The problem of Sophistry. What destroyed Greece was the influence of Sophistry, which led Athens into the Peloponnesian War.

Q: [interrupting] You would call people like Clinton—wait, you would call people like Clinton, you'd call him a Sophist?

LAROUCHE: Consensus politics is Sophistry! It's what destroyed—

Q: [Anthony] Well, you know, I might agree with that a little bit. I got mad at Bush for the Harriet Miers nomination. So I mean [both laugh]—so, and I'm glad she was withdrawn. That's been a topic on the show, and I'm sorry we can't get to that today. But, I do want to get to your criminal conviction and imprisonment, in the '80s-early '90s. It seems like you had a little bit of a Tom DeLay/Karl Rove situation yourself.

LAROUCHE: Not at all! Not at all.

Q: Fraud charges, conspiracy charges.

LAROUCHE: It was all—very simply: In early 1980-81, I had been in a sense responsible, accidentally, for George Bush losing the Republican nomination in 1980, in New Hampshire, and Reagan winning. And during the process, I had —

Q: Can I disagree with that? You were responsible for Ronald Reagan being President?

LAROUCHE: No, not exactly. But George Bush thought I was. And he hated my guts for it.

No, I got into a fight with George Bush, because his campaign attacked me, and I attacked him. And my attack on him, ruined his chances of winning the nomination in New Hampshire, and Reagan, who had the qualifications to win the nomination, won it. There was not really an accident there. George Bush went in there with a game which was rigged in his favor. And he came out of New Hampshire, and it was no longer rigged in his favor.

But, in the process, the significance was, this relationship that happened between me and Reagan, was that this led to Reagan's adoption of what he named the SDI. Now, the SDI really caused a fight. The fact that the President put it on the air, in March 1983, and the Soviet government turned him down flat, this led to a movement—"Get rid of this guy!"—namely, me. And from late 1983 on, a campaign was done to rid the Republican Party of those associated with Reagan who had worked with me, and to rid the world of me. And this was an effort, which was joined, publicly, by the Soviet government of Gorbachov.

Gorbachov in 1986 was demanding that as a condition of good relations with the United States, that I be imprisoned. And it was part of that process. That's how it happened.

Q: Sir, do you think—and this is meant in the most polite manner—do you think that it's a little presumptuous perhaps, to—to imply that your influence on the respective governments of the United States and Russia, as great as it is, when you've commanded roughly 1% to 2% of primary votes in less than 15% of the states, is—?

LAROUCHE: What I've said is fact. It happened. I was responsible for the SDI.

Q: [overtalk] When you have a couple thousand people that are on your side—

LAROUCHE: I was responsible for the SDI. It was all over the press at the time. The Soviet government had extensive publications, said what they said. Reacted as they did. And reactions here were the same: And what I said happened, happened.

Q: Well, now—

LAROUCHE: Now, therefore, instead of going by your statistical view, why not go with the events that actually happened?

Q: Okay, now, I did read in one of your publications that you predicted the fall of the Soviet Union on Oct. 12, 1988?

Q: I actually watched that video. They included it in one of their webcasts. I didn't catch like the—but, your way of viewing statistics, I've gotten from this talk is more like saying something is going to happen, but giving no window. And I—

LAROUCHE: No, I give a lot of window. If people have a scientific method, they don't have a problem. But these things are not statistical.

History is not mechanical: Human society is not mechanical. You can not use statistical methods to predict human behavior. Human behavior is dynamic. You can forecast it, as a process; you can not predict, like a—

Q: Okay, fine. Let's go over some of your predictions. You've said that you're the most successful economic forecaster in the world. Before we go into the history of your forecasts, like the Soviet Union one, which was fine, because two years before the fall of the Soviet Union, I'm pretty sure any economist in their—

LAROUCHE: No, it was not two years before that, it was actually in 1983.

Q: Oh, see, the video I watched—

LAROUCHE: I repeated that in 1988. And I said, it's coming now.

Q: Your current forecast, for the crash of the European and subsequently the world economy due to hyperinflation, because of "funny-money" as you call it, is going to result, in your words, or paraphrasing you, in the reduction of human population from over 6 billion to under 1 billion within the span of a generation, which you define as 25 years.

LAROUCHE: If it is allowed to happen.

Q: So, you think, that on our current free-market, current globalizing trends in the world, if we do not put a stop to it, imminently, we are subject to a decrease in human population on the order of 5 billion people.

LAROUCHE: Over a period of a generation or two, yes.

Q: A generation is 25 years, sir. That—

LAROUCHE: Or two.

Q: Or two. Well, that's not what you said in your speech, sir. Because—

LAROUCHE: Because, you always have to think in two generations. Your—

Q: By the time I have grandkids, there will be less than 1 billion people on Earth, if we continue our globalizing trend?

LAROUCHE: Yeah. I don't think we'll do it, though.

Q: So, you think it's some sort of a bubble, because population has increased exponentially alongside globalization in the past. So, we're reaching what you call a boundary condition? Is this correct?

LAROUCHE: We're past the boundary condition. We're going down.

Q: Oh, we're going down. The question is, if we're going down, what indicator do you—I understand this is a dynamic process, so [overtalk] objectifying our economy?

LAROUCHE: I don't think—if you haven't looked at any reports, but not statistics.

Q: I've looked at statistics, sir.

LAROUCHE: You have to look at the figures. You have to start with physical economy: Don't take the faked money figures. Take the physical economy. Now, take county-by-county of the United States, as we have done in many reports—

Q: [talking throughout] Physical economy. Now—no, I've seen you do this before! And this is perfect, because what you're doing, because what you say: Okay, the United States is losing manufacturing jobs. Okay, the United States is losing coal plants, because they're getting old. Wonderful! The truth is, over the globalization trends the last 50 years, we've seen 70% of the world's manufactured goods transfer from developed countries to developing countries. And this is good, because the developed countries have developed the service sector and the service sector is the primary component of our economy. And this is growing, and it's not physical. And, when you look at—

LAROUCHE: Don't believe it. That's insanity. Don't believe a word of it.

Q: [still talking] When you look at physical indicators, sir, you completely skew the economy of the United States! We're not a manufacturing economy any more!

LAROUCHE: No, you're making it ideological. You're saying that a globalization is good. Therefore, if you see more globalization—to you—that's good. To me, globalization is death: and you're seeing death. Look at the U.S. economy!

Q: I understand that, sir. I do look at the U.S. economy! I look at the revenue of the U.S. economy, and the GDP, and the income, the housing rates, the income rates. And everything is getting better over the last 20, 30, 50, 100 years!

Q: Us college students do read the news, and there was a report, that even in the midst of Katrina, even in the midst of everything, the, the economy has grown—I mean—

Q: It's at 3.7% growth, during Katrina.

LAROUCHE: You're wrong. No, it isn't. Don't believe any of it.

Q: Where do you get your information, sir?

LAROUCHE: I said, we go by physical facts. We go by county-by-county for example, in the United States.

Q: Wonderful. And you measure manufacturing plants, and coal-producing plants, and nuclear plants, and that's great.

LAROUCHE: No, no, we measure everything.

Q: And I saw your presentation, and I think that's a legitimate presentation of the composition of United States counties with regard to physical capital. But: How do you account for, or do you completely deny the existence of, intellectual capital, innovative capital, service capital, um, human capital, especially?

LAROUCHE: I'll tell you, what you would call those categories, I would generally say, they're nonexistent, they're fictional.

Q: Okay. So, when someone invents something, and sells it, but does not manufacture it themselves, they have created nothing of worth?

LAROUCHE: Well, it depends. What physical effect does it have?

Q: The physical effect is that someone, is that 300,000 people in a developing country enter a new manufacturing sector to develop whatever it is that was invented.

LAROUCHE: No, not at all.

Q: Then how come 70% of the world's manufacturing is done in developing countries that didn't invent the stuff that they're manufacturing?

LAROUCHE: Well, how come the world is in the trouble it's in? Now, look for example: India and China. India and China are the two primary examples of countries which have absorbed the export of U.S. and European production. The condition there, is, India still has 70% of the population of India is in worsening conditions—

Q: We have two seconds, sir.

Q: Yeah, two seconds.

LAROUCHE: And you have a similar problem in China.

Q: I just want to ask you, we're almost out of time, here. You would agree that over the years, you have generated a fair amount of controversy. Is that a fair statement?

LAROUCHE: I don't know if I generated it. Maybe other people generated it. There has been controversy.

Q: For example, one of your quotes that I have here, from "The Politics of Male Impotence," says, "Can we imagine anything more viciously sadistic than the black ghetto mother?" and other quotes like this—quotes against African Americans, Jews—

LAROUCHE: This is taking quotes out of context. They don't mean anything. You know that.

Q: See, but—standing alone, you would repudiate that statement?

LAROUCHE: No! I don't have to repudiate anything! You should take the whole—everything I wrote. Don't take, third-hand, or fourth-hand quotes from somebody out of context.

Q: I'm sure that the listeners at Georgetown University had a very enlightening discussion. [Lyn laughs]

Q: Yeah! We'd like to thank you. Again, if you could have your staff forward me the MP3 of this conversation, I'd appreciate that.

LAROUCHE: Why sure. We'll take care of that. Have fun.

Q: And you've been absolutely great. We've enjoyed the discussion here on "The Right Stuff," with Mr. Right. Thank you, Alex Bozmoski, Joe McReynolds for co-hosting. Thank you, Mr. LaRouche. And we looked forward to, you know, this dialogue and discussion here at Georgetown University.

Thank you very much, sir.

LAROUCHE: Have a good time.