American voters feel “impotent and hopeless” as they approach an election where the main choices are a “neo-fascist Pied Piper” (Donald Trump) or “the war criminals of the Democratic Party”, argues independent presidential candidate Cornel West.
West, one of the United States’s pre-eminent philosophers and justice activists, tells host Steve Clemons that President Joe Biden is enabling Israeli genocide and that Israel cannot be secure if “precious Jewish security and safety is predicated on the domination of precious Palestinians”.
West argues that recent talk of a two-state solution is “subterfuge – a refusal to deal with the 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank”.
man running to become war criminal accurately describes office
He said in this that he's running to dismantle the empire and make the US a nation amongst nations. I don't know what that looks like though.
Probably looks like he's making a book to sell. No way a third party with no ground game can do anything functional, especially electorally
That's about the only thing he could achieve with it. There are plenty of options out there for a third party and none of them are running someone with as prestigious a background as he has. Him not being attached to any is a red flag but I don't know if that's his red flag or theirs.
Ronald Reagan was a freedom fighter in terms of supporting our Jewish bros & sis in the Soviet Union & opposing vicious forms of communism.
https://twitter.com/CornelWest/status/23848928873021440
More recently: https://www.wsj.com/articles/desantiss-revolutionary-defense-of-the-classics-florida-western-canon-galileo-caesar-great-books-275268d9
To say nothing of his involvement with the PatSoc/LaRouchite "People's Party" where he first launched his campaign, and AFAIK never disavowed. People really need to know how much this dude sucks, so we can collectively stop wasting our time on these "compatible leftist" grifters.
Huh, a black liberation guy taking the side of Reagan against the panthers. Sounds like I'm still voting for PSL or my dog depending on how I feel that day.
West worked closely with and admired the BPP. He literally wrote the forward to the BPP book.
I know that, but the BPP were open Marxist-Leninists in that era. They're the serious face of American communism after the recuperation of the unions, and they were specifically communists in the communities I most associate Reagan with destroying. I don't know how he can reconcile being an anticommunist and associating himself with people who understood that the only means of liberation is communism. If someone asks me what I want as a communist it's just the 10 point programme and if they ask me how I want to achieve it it's just their organising strategies at their most radical.
I don't know how he can reconcile being an anticommunist and associating himself with people who understood that the only means of liberation is communism
In West's case its money and prestige.
Love to get money and prestige by getting fired for protesting apartheid and getting arrested, publicly condemning Larry summer and Obama, and going into the hugely lucrative business of liberation theology in the USA
What a weird grift... wouldn't it be easier to just go full
I also don't know what the fuck that tweet is talking about, but I'd kindly suggest that someone who studied Marxist ethics under Richard Rorty and has consistently critiqued capitalism from a Marxist perspective has a bit more nuance that a single tweet from 13 years ago. It doesn't excuse it, obviously, but I'm sure he's laid out his thoughts more about communism elsewhere in his writings or speeches.
But it's not just one tweet, it's a very concerning pattern of behavior; the other two examples I gave were much worse than the tweet, and much more recent than 13 years ago.
I did a cursory google to see what he had to say about Marxism himself, and found this:
SR: There’s been a revival of Marxism: for example, commentators have noted that since 2008, sales of Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto have risen. You describe yourself as a ‘non-Marxist socialist’. Can you elaborate?
CW: I think that a Marxist analysis is indispensable for any understanding, not just in the modern world but for our historical situation. I think in the end it’s inadequate but it is indispensable because how do you talk about oligarchy, plutocracy, monopolies, oligopolies, asymmetrical relations of power at the workplace between bosses and workers, the imperial tentacles, profit maximizing and so forth. That’s not Adam Smith. That’s not John Maynard Keynes. That’s Karl Marx.
It’s inadequate in the end because of the cultural issues. You have to deal with death, you have to deal with dread, despair, and disappointment. You have to deal with anxiety, insecurity, fears and so forth. And Marx just didn’t go in that direction. And people say, ‘well, you can go with Freud’. Yeah Freud got some interesting things to say, no doubt about that. But it’s indispensable and, in the end, inadequate. But it’s a beautiful thing to see the revival of a Marxist analysis. I think Marx was the great secular prophet of 19th century Europe. And that makes a difference.
Cultural issues and their solutions are not mutually exclusive from Marxism, that's literally a fundamental part of base and superstructure. That's not to say Marxist analysis of culture doesn't have room to be further studied and expanded upon, but to say "Marx just didn't go in that direction" feels like he just doesn't actually understand Marxism. Kwame Ture explains it best, I think, when he describes scientific socialism not belonging to any one person, including Marx and Engels. West, however, seems to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater when he accepts the material harm caused by capitalism, but rejects/ignores the superstructure it both influences and is influenced by. And that misunderstanding/ignorance/whatever seems to have led to him saying and doing weird, Western chauvinist shit like cozying up with LaRouchites and giving praise to fascist ghouls like Reagan and Desantis for things they most certainly do not even deserve critical support for.
Open to hearing more if he's articulated it better elsewhere, but he just strikes me as more of a "compatible leftist" type; one who can talk at length about how harmful capitalism is, but always stops just short of identifying actual material, revolutionary actions that need to be taken to overcome the forces of capitalism. And most concerning, he's demonstrably been susceptible to red-brown/patsoc association.
Again, with respect, I'd suggest that a Google search and explication from that isn't enough here. West is a black liberation theologian who married Marxist analysis to black American experience, particularly spirituality. He's not Gramsci. He is first an foremost a Christian theologian focused on ethics over and above being a communist, a clear fundamental contradiction. He understands this and embraces it. You can read more about his foundational thought in Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity. You really need to understand the black church to understand West.
If being a pure Marxist and/or Communist is your minimum, then West isn't the candidate to back. Simple as. But that standard sure as shit wasn't the same for Bernie or others in American electoral politics. It's not applied to Jeremiah Wright when he preaches when folks gobble up those paragraphs.
As far as that article and his political campaigns are concerned, West strives to emphasize every person's humanity and value and to reach out to everyone, regardless of their beliefs, to educate and create solidarity where it can exist. That's why he addresses folks as "dear brother/sister/sibling." Did you read that desantis article you linked? It was a lukewarm take about how the classics were revolutionary and can spur new revolutionary thought, and we should still read them. Like college professor intro class takes. It's an attempt to reach out to people who like classics, that's literally all.
West made awful decisions about how we was going to run for president. I don't know why. I'd guess he got a bunch of conflicting statements and chose poorly each time. I am glad he abandoned the People's Party after 2 days, and I'm bummed he abandoned the Green Party. He has Stein and Nader's approval and backing, the latter of whom said he has a perfect platform with no aberrations. His campaign has been absolute dog shit, but he has as good a platform as anyone running today. But again, if being a Marxist is your minimum, he's not the guy for you. That's fine.
If you want to read more, there's an article summarizing his Marxist thoughts here which has links to his works. If you were a fan of Michael Brooks, he discusses Marx on TMBS a few years back (I haven't seen it, I'm more familiar with Wests academic work)
I wish West didn't do the party hopping at the beginning of his campaign. He's the only candidate outside of PSL who isn't a demonic zionist freak. It'd be nice to vote for whatever kind of movement he's attached to through its party infrastructure. Joining and leaving two tickets in rapid succession makes me unsure if the problem is with those parties being to the right of him or him being to the right of them on some issue. A purely independent run like this sets nothing up beyond him and Bernie just made clear to the entire left that we sure as hell can't attach ourselves to individuals as if they're the centre of gravity for the movement.
He's the only candidate outside of PSL who isn't a demonic zionist freak.
Green party has Jill Stein who has been very critical of Israel.
Speaking at Palestine rally in DC
Just search Stein and Palestine.
Green Party on Israel / Palestine
One secular state with equal rights and a Palestinian right to return.
West was persuing the Green candidacy but he didn't want to be part of party infrastructure. So IMO West is splitting the left's vote and only serves to suppress the Green Party. A novelty campaign. Respect West, but he should have stuck with the Greens IMO.
I know this site goes hard for PSL, but PSL has a ballot access issue on a presidential ticket. It's far more localized. I don't know why people abandoned the Greens or pretend they don't exist. They aren't the German Green party.
She's just the standard green to me which represents the same pitfalls as every other green party, even if the international ones look down on the US greens. PSL represents the same environmentalist goals and its red-green footing is hostile to the liberalism I reject in the greens. If she can attract your support but bombs every election with her current politics, her unwillingness to just be Eco-Mao instead makes me sceptical of whatever is holding her back from the meaningful version of her politics.
Same goes for West. PSL already has the broad points of his campaign but with party infrastructure that backs it. I think whatever radicalism all three of them represent stands to go furthest in PSL.
I'm actually kind of glad the fascist mono-party won't allow
thirdsecond parties in their debates. We need to have some debates between West, Stein, and de la Cruz. Let's figure out which of them can really put some meaningful ideas behind the lines like "dismantle the empire" he uses here.I only post this video because it's the first time I've heard a democrat-adjacent person directly call Genocide Joe a war criminal. It was surreal when the largest protest I've seen at my pretty conservative agricultural university was 100+ students chanting that they charge Biden with genocide. Seeing that level of rhetoric trickle up to more and more direct confrontations with power is an interesting trend. I think that's also where the only value of having someone like West/Stein/de la Cruz in a debate with Biden would be, the kind of niche that Mike Gravel had. I want Biden to have to squirm under direct accusations of genocide and explain them for a few hours. Not because I think it would change the minds of a single Blue MAGA demon, but because the stress of it might give him a stroke. The last time he had to debate someone his eye exploded and I think there's a real moment for anti-imperialist praxis if someone pushes him too far without him being able to escape.
A debate between the three of them which also doesn't include crank candidates like RFK Jr/Phillips/Williamson would be interesting to show a clear distinction between socialism and liberalism. If someone's a judas goat it should be exposed well before they're elected and wearing an Israeli flag like a cape on the roof of their office.
HA! Well, sure: I'd love to see Biden be confronted as well. At any and every opportunity. I hope people keep doing that in his campaign speeches and everywhere he goes, at least from the audience and surrounding environment if they can't get closer. But I honestly don't think it's ever going to be allowed on the controlled debate stage where these fascists mumble amongst themselves about how much cruelty they can put into the murder of black and brown people, and it's ensured that that is the limit of the "debate". Hope I'm wrong, of course. But the Democrats have already made it clear they're not having primary debates, and they've already ensured that Biden is running unopposed in several states. So I don't think there's likely to be much hope that someone's going to explode his eyeball (or even better, his black, rotten heart) from behind one of the official podiums.
It's weird because they used to debate the third party candidates, but I think the org that ran the debates in those days got them taken away for being too reasonable and nonpartisan.
The League of Women Voters ran the presidential debates up until sometime in the 1980s, I believe. My understanding is that the major reason they got kicked out and the Democrats and Republicans formed their own "bipartisan" corporation to run them is that the LoWV refused to exclude "third parties" and refused to accept the huge list of conditions the liberals wanted to agree on, such as all the stuff that they'd agree would never be brought up on stage (you know, the monumental pile of political ideas and ideology that "both parties" agree on).
