Presidential candidate and economist Lyndon LaRouche broadcasted his controversial views live over the Internet Thursday afternoon to college students across the country.
LaRouche, a Democrat who plans on running in his sixth presidential election in 2004, expressed his far-left political views and addressed policy on topics such as the war in Iraq, the economy, terrorism, college funding and the Middle-Eastern crisis.
LaRouche made his disdain for the Bush administration crystal clear from the onset.
"The top of the presidency right now doesn't function," LaRouche said. "George Bush should not have been afflicted with the responsibility of becoming president. He's sort of a short circuit without a fuse."
LaRouche's main point of contention with the Bush administration involves the war in Iraq.
"The intent now is, from the Cheney crowd, is that they are committed to preventive war in any place they feel like attacking," he said. "They want the war. They want the killing."
According to LaRouche, the war in Iraq is a false pretense under which the "Cheney crowd" attempted to create a dictatorship in the United States and expand U.S influence abroad.
"What caused the war was the intention to set up a world system based on picking a fight," he said.
The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were a part of the Bush plan for control, LaRouche said.
"What happened on September 11 was a planned coup against the United States," he said. "I think that no one except an inside perpetrator knew ... this is a highly sophisticated operation."
"It couldn't have been done by a bunch of Arabs in the Middle East," he added.
LaRouche also discussed his economic plan for America if he were elected president. He said if America can "solve the economic crisis, we can solve the war."
"We're now going into a deep depression," he said. "Senior citizens are now being killed by health care policies, systematically, as a way of making money. The poor are being abused beyond belief ... suffering beyond belief."
According to LaRouche, his leadership is essential during what he calls a current economic downslide, at a time when the nation has become a "parasitical consumer society."
"(The other candidates) lack the confidence to take this thing on," LaRouche said. "Either my leadership is successful in this or I don't think there will be much left of the United States for anyone to vote in."
After stating that his economic policies would be based on the former President Franklin Roosevelt's, LaRouche avoided directly answering a follow-up question that asked for specifics by simply summarizing the history of Roosevelt's policy.
He did, however, respond with a relatively specific answer when asked about the funding for higher education.
"Education up to the age of 25 ... is a right of the citizens," LaRouche said. "We should take the private institutions and so forth, keep them in place; we should support that with public institutions which we subsidize."
LaRouche also spoke briefly on the Israel-Palestine crisis.
"We must finally find a peaceful solution to this conflict," he said. "The key to this is water."
"Water, energy, food, opportunity for expression in useful ways" are all things that LaRouche said the Middle East lacks and would aid in the peace process.
"We must make one more big effort to get ... this peace in the Middle East," he said.
When asked about his policy on homosexuals being allowed to marry, LaRouche again became vague.
"I don't have a specific policy with homosexuality," LaRouche said. "I have a concern about human beings, I don't have a concern about homosexuality."
"I think (gay marriage is) a counter-productive topic actually, the idea of marriage is to propagate," he added. "I think that these issues should not be issues. They tend to be single issues ... I have my belly full of single issues."
