{"id":26886,"date":"2023-06-09T13:44:35","date_gmt":"2023-06-09T20:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=26886"},"modified":"2023-06-09T13:47:53","modified_gmt":"2023-06-09T20:47:53","slug":"cornel-west-on-third-party-presidential-run-the-roots-of-his-political-activism-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/06\/09\/cornel-west-on-third-party-presidential-run-the-roots-of-his-political-activism-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Cornel West on Third-Party Presidential Run, the Roots of His Political Activism &amp; More"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"260\" height=\"260\" src=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/dr-cornel-west.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-26889\" srcset=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/dr-cornel-west.jpg 260w, https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/dr-cornel-west-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>JUNE 07, 2023  (DemocracyNow.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">GUESTS<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/appearances\/cornel_west\">Cornel West<\/a>philosopher, author, critic, actor, civil rights activist and Dietrich Bonhoeffer professor of philosophy and Christian practice at Union Theological Seminary.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Part 2 of our conversation with Cornel West, who announced Monday he is running for president as a candidate with the People\u2019s Party, challenging both the Democratic and Republican parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Transcript<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;This is&nbsp;<em>Democracy Now!<\/em>, democracynow.org,&nbsp;<em>The War and Peace Report<\/em>. I\u2019m Amy Goodman, as we continue with Part 2 of our interview with the public intellectual, civil rights activist Cornel West, who is now a presidential candidate. Yes, he just announced Monday he\u2019s running for president as a candidate with the People\u2019s Party, challenging both the Democratic and Republican parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;We\u2019re not talking about hating anybody. We\u2019re talking about loving. We\u2019re talking about affirming. We\u2019re talking about empowering those who have been pushed to the margins. Because neither political party wants to tell the truth about Wall Street, about Ukraine, about the Pentagon, about Big Tech.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;Professor Cornel West teaches philosophy and Christian practice at Union Theological Seminary. He\u2019s the author of numerous books, including&nbsp;<em>Race Matters<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Black Prophetic Fire<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Professor West, thank you so much for staying with us for Part 2 of this conversation. In&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2023\/6\/7\/cornel_west_2024\">Part 1<\/a>, we talked about the war in Ukraine. We talked about racial justice here at home. We talked about the People\u2019s Party. Here, we want to start by you giving us a bit of a bio, your life story \u2014 where you were born, where you grew up, how you became a leading theologian in this country, and now has decided to run for president. Start with where you were born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;Oh, I was born on the chocolate side of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the same hospital as the Wilson brothers of The Gap Band. You know, that \u201cGap\u201d stands for Greenwood, Archer and Pine, which is Black Wall Street, which was viciously attacked and burned down by white supremacists in 1921. My grandfather was pastor, Metropolitan Baptist Church. It\u2019s the largest Black Baptist church today in the northeast chocolate side of Tulsa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I then moved to Topeka, Kansas, where my brother was part of&nbsp;<em>Brown v. Board of Education<\/em>, with Linda, my sister, born there. And then we moved to Sacramento, California. And that\u2019s where I was really shaped and molded. I was shaped and molded in my beloved Sacramento, California, again on the chocolate side of Glen Elder, deeply shaped by both Shiloh Baptist Church and the Black Panther Party. And the deaths of Bobby Hutton and Fred Hampton are something that I carry with me to this very, very day, in terms of their heroic struggles and them being shot down by the state-sponsored police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then I went on to the same place you graduated from, my dear sister, Harvard, many years before you. But there at Harvard, had a great time with Stanley Cavell and Robert Nozick and Hilary Putnam and John Rawls and Preston Williams and Martin Kilson and so many others. Then went to Princeton with the great Sheldon Wolin as thesis adviser, but also Richard Rorty and Walter Kaufmann and Thomas Nagel and Thomas Scanlon and so many other wonderful teachers. And I\u2019ve been teaching now for almost 50 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I was part of the breakfast program of the Black Panther Party when I was in college. I was part of the prison program when I was in college. I\u2019ve been blessed to teach in prisons for almost 47 years now with my dear Brother Chris Hedges, who\u2019s one of the great progressive public intellectuals in his own right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I just figure at this point, you know: How does one attempt to bear witness, on the one hand, and try to create a breakthrough, on the other, in the face of this corporate duopoly, and yet, at the same time, try to generate and exemplify some hope? You know, we\u2019re living in very, very \u2014 as Wendy Brown says in her wonderful book,&nbsp;<em>Nihilistic Times<\/em>, we live in nihilistic times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;Cornel West \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;Very much so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;What made you decide, or was it your father, following in his footsteps,&nbsp;but to become a theologian? I mean, you clearly have been a social justice activist all of your life, but to channel that through theology?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, I would say that I\u2019ve been suspicious of theology, because I don\u2019t think that the Christian faith or any religious faith can be rendered logically consistent or rationally coherent. And that\u2019s the aim of theology. So I\u2019ve got a kind of a anti-theological faith. I think Kierkegaard and Pascal are the people who deeply shaped me. And you make a leap of faith that has little to do with rationale, and then it goes far, far, far beyond the evidence, far beyond the evidence. The great Rabbi Heschel, again, who I often invoke, talks about this in God\u2019s search for man, so that, in that sense, I\u2019m certainly a part of the \u2014 what I\u2019d call a revolutionary or prophetic Christian tradition. But I would never call myself a theologian. I think that it\u2019s really \u2014 it\u2019s an existential choice, rather than a logically consistent choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;You\u2019ve often been described as a public intellectual, to say the least, especially in the context of American anti-intellectualism. Does it inform why you want to run for president and how you will reach out to people around the country?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;Oh, there\u2019s no doubt, that, for me. You know, the legacy of Socrates, \u201cAn unexamined life is not worth living,\u201d mustering the courage to think critically for yourself. I think we live in a culture that is just so polarized and gangsterized that we have echoes for \u2014 echoes flowing out of silos. We have people who don\u2019t think critically for themselves, but just follow some group, you know, on TV or on the internet, and so forth, who does too much of the thinking for them. And so, I think that, for me, the calling of the intellectual is to think for yourself, be serious in your quest for truth and beauty and goodness, and land where you land, which is to say, be unique and singular, be \u2014 have the courage to be yourself, whereas Emerson would say, trust yourself, even as you know that self is dynamic and changing over time and space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And you\u2019re right, America is one of the most anti-intellectual cultures in the history of the modern world. We\u2019re obsessed with markets. We\u2019re obsessed with business. Americans love intelligence that generates profits, but they don\u2019t appreciate intellect that evaluates the context under which the profits are made and the ways in which that greed can generate unbelievable social misery in terms of how the workplace is structured, in terms of how society as a whole is structured, with patriarchy and white supremacy and xenophobia and transphobia, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it\u2019s also a matter of joy, though, Sister Amy, that I find great joy in being tied to the life of the mind and the world of ideas. But I don\u2019t stop there. I think, in the end, I\u2019m with Brother Martin King. A committed life is the most thing to live by \u2014 to leave behind. And that committed life has to do with courageous engagement, taking a risk, cutting against the grain and bearing any cost. You can get character \u2014 you can have character assassination come at you, literal assassination. You have to be willing to bear that cost, even as you find joy in struggling for freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;You know, you\u2019re the Dietrich Bonhoeffer professor at Union Theological Seminary. You also teach Bonhoeffer\u2019s teachings, who is a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident. Why is he so important to you? What does he have to teach what we face today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;He\u2019s one of the great prophetic figures. He\u2019s one of the great freedom fighters in the midst of a Jew-hating Germany. He used to start off his seminary classes saying, \u201cWe have no right to sing Gregorian chants if we do not hear the cries of our fellow Jews being viciously attacked.\u201d And as you know, he was part of the group to try to kill Hitler. He tried to assassinate Hitler. He was not a pacifist like Desmond Tutu or Martin King. I\u2019m not a pacifist, either. I pursue all nonviolent and peaceful alternatives, but I\u2019m not a pacifist. In the end, there are certain conditions under which a just war can be justified. And Bonhoeffer, at the age of 39, was executed just a few days before the liberation of Nazi Germany, with the Soviet Union and the American soldiers in alliance together. It\u2019s always important to remember that. So, Bonhoeffer is \u2014&nbsp;he means a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And Bonhoeffer also discovered his sense of engagement very much in the context of the Black church, the Abyssinian Baptist Church. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., who was the father of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., was pastor, and Bonhoeffer was a student right there at Union Theological Seminary, where I\u2019m blessed to teach, and became a teacher, would preach in the Black church. He was the only vanilla brother, the only white brother, in that church the whole year he was there. And he loved it. And in his underground seminary, he would always sing Negro spirituals. He was a classical pianist, like Edward Said. And so he also played some wonderful Schubert and Brahms and Beethoven. But he\u2019d always have those seminarians struggling against a gangster, not just Hitler, but the gangster ideology of Nazism. He would have them listening to the Negro spirituals. So, there\u2019s a wonderful connection between Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Black tradition, the Black prophetic tradition, of which I\u2019m just a very, very small part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;You know, you just mentioned Heschel, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and I have heard you speak for decades, and you often invoke him, the Polish American rabbi. I\u2019m wondering if you can talk \u2014&nbsp;take us on a trajectory, from Heschel, Bonhoeffer \u2014 you talk about the influence of the late professor Edward Said, and how you see the Israel-Palestine conflict, because if you were to win the presidency, it\u2019s certainly one of the issues you would have to take on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;Oh, very, very much so. You know, I can see the great Heschel going to his class after he heard of the vicious attack on \u2014 then called Arabs, but Palestinians, by Irgun, which is a Jewish terrorist group. And he walked in class. He had tears coming down from his eyes. And he said, \u201cI cannot lecture, I cannot teach, because of this\u201d \u2014 this is not his language, but it was really a crime against humanity, this kind of criminal activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, to say that in Jewish Theological Seminary, in the name of Jewish values, of Hasid, of love, loving kindness, and steadfast love to the orphan and widow and the fatherless and the motherless \u2014&nbsp;and I know, you know, you\u2019ve had a magnificent grandfather who was a Orthodox rabbi, that very, very rich tradition that talks about the centrality of subjugated enslaved peoples who make a covenant with a higher power that says, \u201cJustice, justice, thou shall pursue. Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.\u201d You see, that\u2019s Hebrew scripture. And the great book on&nbsp;<em>The Prophets<\/em>&nbsp;that Heschel wrote, which is his dissertation, University of Berlin, written just before his own family, he himself, tried to get out. Most of his family did not get out. He didn\u2019t get to the States until March of 1940 \u2014 that he carries this with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And when he is invited to the White House and writes his telegram to&nbsp;JFK, what does he say? He says that racism is a form of Satanism. He says, \u201cWe should cancel \u2014&nbsp;we forfeit our right to worship, if we do not treat our fellow citizens who are Negros with dignity.\u201d You see, this is a Jewish brother who has a hatred of white supremacy. So you could imagine, you know, the kind of xenophobia that is too often at work in right-wing and centrist circles, and oftentimes even progressive circles, in Israel. He would radically call that into question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, he was a Zionist. And I\u2019m not a Zionist, but he was a Zionist. And so, I don\u2019t have a full agreement with even the great Heschel in this regard. But he was a Zionist who, like Martin Buber and like Judah Magnes and others, believed in coexistence and believed in mutual humanistic interaction between Jews and Palestinians or Arabs or Muslims and so forth. And that has not been the case, really, beginning in 1948. And, of course, Said, very secular himself, a Palestinian brother, that he has a kind of secular humanism that overlaps with Heschel\u2019s, a great Jewish humanism, because they both are looking at the world through the lens of those who suffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;You know, we\u2019ve been talking about theology. You were born in Oklahoma. I wanted to get your response to the decision this week, Oklahoma officials approving an application by the state\u2019s Catholic Archdiocese to establish the first publicly funded religious charter school in the United States. It was a 3-to-2 vote by the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, coming over the objections of Oklahoma\u2019s Republican attorney general, who said it clearly violates the state\u2019s Constitution. Catholic Church officials in Oklahoma are hoping that any legal fight will end up at the Supreme Court, whose conservative 6-to-3 majority was \u2014 recently overturned decades of precedent on the separation of church and state. You teach in a seminary. Talk about the importance of the separation of church and state, what\u2019s happening in Oklahoma, and then take it right to, because you\u2019re running for president, what this Supreme Court means and what it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, well, the separation of church and state, or synagogue and state, let\u2019s say, in Israel, or the mosque and state, if you see the vicious fascist treatments of our Iranian young brothers and sisters by Iranian mullahs and so on \u2014 there\u2019s got to be a strong separation of state from any religious institution. It\u2019s a lethal combination when it takes place. And so, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any constitutional grounds in my own native state for this kind of policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, I do want to defend, of course, religious liberty. That\u2019s very, very important, in terms of Catholic schools that are private and Catholic churches that are private, and so forth. And that\u2019s true for Muslims. That\u2019s true for Buddhists. That\u2019s true for Jews and synagogues and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I do think that the spiritual decay that\u2019s setting in, in terms of distrust of one another, the paranoia of one another, the attempt to move back within one\u2019s own very narrow context and then try to gain access to public resources to fund it, all of these are signs of massive breakdown of public trust and massive breakdown of a healthy public life. And as any leader, a president and so forth, you\u2019ve always got to talk about the centrality of a public life where anyone can enter irregardless of religious or nonreligious dispositions, different sexual orientations, certainly different colors, genders, regional identities and so on. And we\u2019ve seen the erosion of that. And again, you know, I hate to use the word too often, but the neofascism is a consequence of the erosion of these kind of very, very fragile walls of separation between these different spheres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;Dr. West, I wanted to ask you about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who, like you, is running for president. You talk about fascism. You\u2019ve called him a fascist and a threat to democracy. DeSantis has faced numerous protests for banning AP Black studies classes in Florida schools and Florida\u2019s Education Department, because he said the course lacks, quote, \u201ceducational value.\u201d You recently co-wrote a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/desantiss-revolutionary-defense-of-the-classics-florida-western-canon-galileo-caesar-great-books-275268d9\">piece<\/a>&nbsp;in&nbsp;<em>The Wall Street Journal<\/em>&nbsp;headlined \u201cDeSantis\u2019s Revolutionary Defense of the Classics.\u201d You wrote, quote, \u201cMr. DeSantis\u2019s support of classic education has universal merit that transcends partisanship. Education based on values, logic and discipline isn\u2019t Republican\u2014it\u2019s timeless.\u201d Explain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, I mean, one is that I\u2019ve worked with my dear Brother Jeremy Tate trying to not just promote classical education, but to have an exam of classical works. And by \u201cclassical,\u201d I\u2019m talking as much about Toni Morrison and Dante as I am Virginia Woolf and Dostoevsky. And I\u2019m very much one deeply invested in trying to ensure that people do, in fact, have access to, you know, Rumi or any \u2014 Buddha or any great towering figure who\u2019s wrestling with what it means to be human and dealing with death and dogma and domination. And so, I have probably about a 2% agreement with DeSantis, because he was the first one to actually allow that exam to be put in schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, of course, part of his larger schema is not just right-wing, it\u2019s not just xenophobic, but it\u2019s not committed to any kind of value of truth, which the classical tradition itself, at its best, always promotes, you see. So, you can see the deep contradictions here. You know, he talks about Socrates being wonderful, and yet he\u2019s promoting censorship. He would have been part of the group that would have voted to put Socrates to death. And yet he\u2019s got this 2% that I agree with in terms of his promotion of classical education. So that\u2019s really what I had in mind when I had that piece with Brother Jeremy Tate. We\u2019ve done a number of pieces around the country in that regard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I think he\u2019s very, very dangerous. And it\u2019s just he\u2019s dishonest. He\u2019s unprincipled. You know, he\u2019s Ivy League himself. He\u2019s been shaped by these deeper values of robust conversation. And yet he doesn\u2019t want to have robust conversation. He doesn\u2019t want to have the truth about America in regard to its barbaric slavery and its bestial lynching and Jim Crow and Jane Crow and so forth. You see, now he wants to hold off. That\u2019s part of his attack against critical race theory. Critical race theory just wants to tell the truth about the relation of the development of the United States to barbaric slavery and bestial Jim Crow and Jane Crow and lynching, and the afterlife of that. He doesn\u2019t want that. So, again, you know, as a very, very xenophobic politician, it\u2019s just sad that he would want to try to weaponize these crucial issues in such a narrow manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;You know, it\u2019s interesting that DeSantis is now critical, to say the least, of Trump, a resident in Florida, where he is governor. He was his biggest advocate for so long. And I\u2019m wondering, with you, back in 2017, being at University of Virginia for the white supremacist march that was there \u2014 you weren\u2019t there for that, but you were clearly threatened. We talked about this in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2023\/6\/7\/cornel_west_2024\">Part 1<\/a>&nbsp;of the conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;Right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;I was wondering if you can trace the trajectory from what we saw there \u2014&nbsp;and you might want to go back in time, as well \u2014&nbsp;to what President Trump led in January of 2021, the insurrection at the Capitol. And as president, if you were elected, what you would do about what we have seen, and what you feel should happen to President Trump today for what he did?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;I see a direct line from George Wallace in 1968, who ran on an explicitly white supremacist platform and got 12% of the vote at that time \u2014&nbsp;that\u2019s the year Brother Martin was killed \u2014 but straight from George Wallace to Trump. And it has everything to do with the ways in which the class issues, it completely suffocated, and the powers that be in the ruling classes at the top can continue to divide and conquer the pit, George Wallace\u2019s social base, who were mainly white workers who were catching hell. They were right-wing populists. They had critiques of Wall Street. They had critiques of the greed of corporate elites. But they turned on Black folk, as if somehow we were running things, which is ridiculous and pathological, of course, immoral and criminal. And Trump tries to do the same thing many, many, many years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But in the middle, you got a neoliberal era. And that neoliberal era was one in which poor and working people were completely pushed to the margins. The professional managerial class was in the driver\u2019s seat. And the vanguard were, of course, the oligarchs and the plutocrats on Wall Street and other places. And so, the suffering of poor and working people is an afterthought. And that is the stuff of Trump. That\u2019s this stuff of Wallace. And if we can\u2019t speak to that, then America will always have a neofascist potential, possibility, and become more and more actual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s part of the challenge. That\u2019s what I meant when I was talking about I\u2019m headed to Trump Country. I\u2019m headed to his people. I\u2019m headed to his constituency, because I think a certain light, and maybe even some love, can convince some of them to go in a left populist direction rather than a right populist direction. I mean, people say, \u201cOh, you\u2019re naive.\u201d Well, hmm, it\u2019s hard to say. We know a slice of those Trump folk voted for Bernie. Some of them even voted for Obama. That doesn\u2019t mean they might not be tinged with a certain racism and sexism and anti-Jewish and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sensibility. But it was not strong enough that they would be following wholesale somebody like Trump. But if all you have are arrogant, hypocritical neoliberals, be it Biden, be it Clinton, to be it Obama, then you\u2019re always going to have the possibility of the neofascist expression of populism on the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;Let me ask you about what Laurence Tribe said, the Harvard constitutional law professor, a place, Harvard, where you also taught, who was President Obama\u2019s mentor, responding on Twitter to your announcement, writing, quote, \u201dWTF?! Does @CornelWest really want to help the&nbsp;GOP&nbsp;nominee win \u2014&nbsp;the way Ralph Nader helped GW Bush defeat Al Gore in 2000? Ego trips can come at a heavy price, Cornel. Please stop this foolishness, before you really hurt the things you care to help.\u201d I\u2019m sure Ralph Nader would dispute what he\u2019s saying, as well. And as a colleague at Harvard, I\u2019m sure you knew Laurence Tribe well. Can you respond to him?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, I mean, I just think that it\u2019s a knee-jerk reaction of neoliberals to always want to put the blame on progressives or radicals or leftists, when they\u2019re putting out such mediocre, milquetoast candidates who are not speaking to the needs of poor and working people, which constitute the very catalyst for the Trumps. So that if he thinks that somehow I\u2019m going to be helping Trump out or pro-Trump, because all they can do is produce a Joe Biden, then that strikes me as a very, very self-serving perspective and a truncated analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it doesn\u2019t say anything about the mass incarceration, doesn\u2019t say anything about the low wages, doesn\u2019t say anything about these poor and working people of all colors not having access to healthcare because Obamacare didn\u2019t cover everybody, doesn\u2019t say anything about access to decent housing. All that is pushed out. And all you get is, \u201cOh, Jill Stein, Ralph Nader, Cornel West, these people who are critical of the two-party system, they are the fundamental causes of the Trumps and the right-wing populists and authoritarian populists and neofascists triumphing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I just think that it\u2019s a \u2014 it\u2019s unconvincing. It really is, especially for a professor of law at Harvard. I was blessed to teach with Roberto Unger at Harvard Law for almost 15 years. And it\u2019s very \u2014&nbsp;as I recall, though, Brother Tribe, he was thinking of a third party, too, though, wasn\u2019t he? Just a few years ago. The constitutional convention that he was concerned about, we need a third party. It\u2019s interesting that when left folk, left-wing folk do it, we\u2019re the cause of fascism, and when he does it, it\u2019s an interesting experiment in democracy. Hmm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2023\/6\/7\/cornel_west_2024\">Part 1<\/a>&nbsp;of our discussion, we talked about Ukraine, I want to ask you about immigration. The latest news in Texas, the Bexar County Sheriff\u2019s Office is recommending criminal charges over the migrant flights arranged by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis that carried 49 asylum seekers from Texas to Martha\u2019s Vineyard last year, the case being reviewed by the DA\u2019s Office. This comes as California Governor Gavin Newsom is threatening possible kidnapping charges after Florida arranged for two planes carrying around three dozen migrants to be flown from the U.S.-Mexico border to Sacramento. They were dumped in front of a Sacramento church in recent days. You talk about being shaped by Sacramento. It\u2019s a place that\u2019s very important to you. Can you talk about the issue of immigration and talk about Biden\u2019s policies, how different they are from Trump\u2019s policies \u2014&nbsp;if they are \u2014&nbsp;and what would President West do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, I mean, one is, I just thank god we\u2019ve got people in my beloved town of Sacramento and other places in the country who will embrace these precious immigrant brothers and sisters and treat them with dignity. I think the problem is, is that when you view human beings as pawns on some chessboard, with your own political ends and aims, then all you end up doing is reinforcing the worst in each and every one of us. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a qualitative difference at all between Republican and Democratic Party or Trump and Biden in terms of the treatment of immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I start with the historical backdrop, the fact that, of course, you know, the Texas that they\u2019re going through used to be Mexico. The California that I grew up in used to be Mexico. How did that happen? Well, there was a Mexican War, where Mexico lost half of its territory based on a outright militaristic expansion. Even Ulysses S. Grant, who himself was a general in the war, said it was a phony war, it was immoral war. That\u2019s why Thoreau, Henry David Thoreau, went to jail. That\u2019s why Ralph Waldo Emerson opposed it. So that, again, you have to put in the backdrop this imperial expansion that imposes these conditions of social misery on people. And then, when they look about and try to get out from under and try to get back to the Texas or the California, what have you, we we miss out on the larger context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I would say similar things about Honduras and Guatemala and Central American countries, where U.S. policies have just led toward unbelievable social misery, in terms of the support of the banana republics and the industries there with the lowest possible wages. And try to unionize workers, and you\u2019re viewed as communist and pushed aside and what have you. Those larger contexts need to be taken into consideration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then, you move in and say, \u201cOK, now, how do you concretely treat immigrants with respect as they make their entr\u00e9e into the United States, into the American empire?\u201d And that is something that \u2014 you know, that\u2019s a matter of a step-by-step process of making sure that you have some connection with the leaders of the various countries where these folk are coming from. And at the same time, you let your folk know that they will not be in any way treated with less dignity than any other human being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;Reproductive rights, as a person who teaches in the seminary, it\u2019s often seen as a religious issue. those who are opposed, for example, to abortion. You have certainly taken a very different stance. Can you address those people who feel that abortion is against their religion, and yet, if we live in a country where there\u2019s a separation of church and state, what that means?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, I take very seriously the Christian notion of&nbsp;<em>imago Dei<\/em>, the fact that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, and therefore each human being has a dignity and a sanctity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Part of the problem when talking about abortion is twofold. One, I\u2019m thoroughly convinced that if men had babies, it\u2019d be a qualitatively different discourse, that in a patriarchal society, a woman\u2019s body, a woman\u2019s choice is devalued, is degraded. It has very little weight, so that the notion of a woman having control and choosing for herself as to how they will live their lives has very little gravitas in a patriarchal discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second thing is, is that I find it very, very disturbing that many \u2014 not all, but many \u2014&nbsp;of my conservative brothers and sisters, they know that the child poverty rate in the United States, roughly 21% \u2014&nbsp;it\u2019s much higher among Black and Brown. So, if they\u2019re committed to the well-being of the child, you would think they would be on the cutting edge of eliminating child poverty the way in which I\u2019m trying to eliminate poverty and child poverty. So, they\u2019re concerned about the child on the inside, and when the child is born, well, more than one out of five are living in dire poverty in the richest nation in the history of the world. That strikes me as not that concerned about&nbsp;<em>imago Dei<\/em>, not that concerned about the sanctity and dignity of children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why, then, the obsession of when the child is on the inside of a woman\u2019s body? Well, you see, that\u2019s, again, something that needs to be teased out. The contradictions need to be laid bare as to why there\u2019s this preoccupation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, I do think there is a certain moral concern among many conservative thinkers in terms of believing that a baby becomes a person at a particular moment. Some would go as far as conscious \u2014&nbsp;the moment the baby is conceived. And so there is a moral concern there. I don\u2019t want to downplay it. It\u2019s just too narrow. It\u2019s too truncated. And I think it lends itself to overwhelming contradiction that downplays women\u2019s control over their own bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;I\u2019m speaking to you from New York, which this week had the worst air quality of any city in the world as a result of the wildfires in Nova Scotia, that\u2019s polluting so much now of the air of the United States, which brings us to the issue of the climate catastrophe and what you would do about this. President Biden hails him \u2014&nbsp;calls himself an environmental president, but has moved forward on the Willow project in Alaska, on the \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2014 Mountain Valley Pipeline, caving to what some call the other President Joe, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, demanding that in order to support the debt ceiling deal, he wanted a fast track on approval of not only the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which carries, what, the fracked gas that would release greenhouse gases somewhat equivalent to between 26 and 37 coal-powered plants. What would you do about the climate catastrophe today, as we gasp for air in New York?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, I\u2019m telling you, you can imagine Mexico City, you can imagine New Delhi having to wrestle with that even more chronically than New York City, or where I am now, in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But one is that you just got corporate greed just running amok. The fossil fuel industry, we\u2019ve had so many battles with them, the powers that they have, their ability to just buy off politicians, their ability to solicit scholars from universities that will rationalize their greed. I mean, this is something that needs to be pointed out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I must say, I mean, as leader and president, I would be right on the cutting edge, in the vanguard, of casting a spotlight on that greed and how that greed is able to buy off so many voices, so many scholars, so many thinkers \u2014&nbsp;even, you know, as you can imagine, spills over into journalism and so on. And that means that, you know, we\u2019re up against a tremendous set of entrenched interests. But that\u2019s what fighting for justice is all about: telling the truth and fighting for justice, regardless of the cost. But we are dealing with the dire consequences. You\u2019re going to reap what you sow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;Dr. Cornel West, as we \u2014&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;And that\u2019s in part what\u2019s happening right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;As we wrap up, what does this presidential run mean? I mean, how are you planning to conduct it? Where are you going around the country? You\u2019ve just announced this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CORNEL&nbsp;WEST:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, the first thing we\u2019ve got to do is get on as many state ballots as we can \u2014&nbsp;in, you know, some states, 3,000, 4,000, 7,000 signatures. And I think we should be able to pull that off. Brother Ralph Nader was able to do it when he began in February. We\u2019re beginning now in June, and this election is not until November of next year. So, that\u2019s going to be one crucial thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I must admit that this launching has been really quite, quite amazing. We\u2019ve got almost, what, 19 million people who looked at the video. We had no idea we\u2019d have that many. Even the press coverage, I think, has been far, far more than I thought was even possible. So that\u2019s very, very good. That\u2019s good news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But then you\u2019ve got to get teams in place. You\u2019ve got to get your people on the ground, grassroots. You\u2019ve got to get your grassroots folk as part of your reflection groups to think, to engage in serious discussion. I don\u2019t come in as pied piper. I come in very much like Mary Lou Williams and Count Basie. I\u2019m just playing one instrument in the band. I\u2019m learning. I\u2019m listening. I\u2019m taking in, and I\u2019m giving out. And we\u2019re all in this together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, we\u2019re going to see how it goes, Sister Amy. We\u2019re coming out of the blocks, and we\u2019re going to run to the end. And we\u2019re going to cast some serious, serious limelight, spotlight on poor and working people. And we\u2019re going to constitute a threat to the powers that be. Democracy is about disruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:<\/strong>&nbsp;Dr. Cornel West, philosopher, author, critic, actor, civil rights activist, professor of philosophy and Christian practice at Union Theological Seminary, now presidential candidate running in the 2024 presidential race, author of numerous books, including&nbsp;<em>Race Matters<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Black Prophetic Fire<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To see&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2023\/6\/7\/cornel_west_2024\">Part 1<\/a>&nbsp;of our interview, go to democracynow.org. I\u2019m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The original content of this program is licensed under a&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/3.0\/us\/\">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License<\/a>. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Link to video:  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2023\/6\/7\/cornel_west_on_third_party_presidential?jwsource=cl\">https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2023\/6\/7\/cornel_west_on_third_party_presidential?jwsource=cl<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Link to video:  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/embed\/story\/2023\/6\/7\/cornel_west_on_third_party_presidential\">https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/embed\/story\/2023\/6\/7\/cornel_west_on_third_party_presidential<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JUNE 07, 2023 (DemocracyNow.org) GUESTS Part 2 of our conversation with Cornel West, who announced Monday he is running for president as a candidate with the People\u2019s Party, challenging both the Democratic and Republican parties. Transcript This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY&nbsp;GOODMAN:&nbsp;This&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/06\/09\/cornel-west-on-third-party-presidential-run-the-roots-of-his-political-activism-more\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[672],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26886"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26886"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26890,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26886\/revisions\/26890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}