Cornel West is running for president to dismantle the US empire | The Bottom Line

hi I'm Steve Clements and I have a question is there any room in U.S politics for a candidate who's running against both the Republican and the Democratic parties and wants to stand up for the working class let's get to the bottom line [Music] it's hard to imagine a presidential candidate in the United States who's not impressed with any of the major political parties who wants to stand up for racial equality and the working class and once this sort of unplugged the military-industrial complex but that's exactly what my guest today is doing he is Dr Cornell West one of America's most prominent Scholars and activists the author of more than a dozen books who's taught at some of the top universities in the United States including Yale Princeton and Harvard and he's a professor of philosophy at Union Theological Seminary in New York Dr West it's such a pleasure to have you on the show again and let me just start out you have launched a a bid to seek the nomination as the Green Party candidate for president of the United States running in 2024. I'm going to start out people are worried about the impact you have I want to know why you're running what do you want to bring to this race into the national conversation well I appreciate you having me my dear brother but no I've tried to be true to my calling which is a quest for truth the condition of Truth is to allow suffering to speak and The Quest For Justice and Justice is what love looks like in public and so the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr Rabbi Abraham Joshua heschel Edward Zaid and Dorothy Day and Fannie Lou Hamer all of these are win at my back as I spill over into the Electoral political system you see the American Empires and very deep internal Decay and external Decline and for me I want to put the focus on those friends for no one called The Wretched of the Earth the precious poor people precious working people here and abroad no matter what color no matter what gender no matter what sexual orientation no matter what religious identity so it's a question of raising my voice and showing the ways in which big money and corporate wealth has completely dominated both parties and neither party can speak to the plight and the predicament of poor and working people here and abroad the militarism abroad on the one hand and the internal grotesque wealth inequality within the American Empire you know when when uh President Biden ran against uh Donald Trump and won the presidency black Americans delivered that win for him uh it's just absolutely clear that that black Americans uh who who basically lag uh in wealth they are victims of mass incarceration in American society you have lots of problems that have been been anchoring you know the story of black Americans but they delivered Joe Biden to the presidency do you believe they should be satisfied with Joe Biden's performance oh not at all one the poverty is increasing he did cut child poverty in half during the pandemic but the law expired and the child poverty went right back up again so it showed there's no deep commitment to trying to reduce child poverty I'm calling for the abolition of poverty I'm calling for living wages I'm calling for strong defensive Trade union movements I'm calling for decarbonizing the air and most importantly I'm calling for what Biden has very much fought for he fights for the expansion of the military budget and the expansion of militaristic policies abroad I'm calling for the demilitarizing of U.S foreign policy demilitarizing of U.S Imperial policy so we have a major major clash and I've got to convince not just black Americans I've got to convince my favorite Americans across the board that militarizing abroad is leading toward possible nuclear exchange militarizing abroad is taking away valuable resources that should be invested in health care in hot decent housing quality education and in creasing the quality of the relations in the countries we the violence the polarization the gangsterization of American culture the very sad thing to witness my brother and that has much to do with the lack of serious leadership in the White House be it the Republican Party tied toward Neo fashion exemplified by Trump or Biden Tied by very much mediocre milk toast neoliberalism exemplified by Biden you know Dr West I've I think I've read um all of your speeches uh in the last few years and I was frankly kind of surprised to see your willingness to run for the nomination of the green party and to run for president because it's kind of a comment that you're playing by the rules of the system that you're going to run for office within the boundaries of how electoral politics is done you're running against the Republican party and the Democratic Party but I always thought you as someone who's basically saying this system is rigged and it's rigged against uh the people you're trying to represent I'd love to understand that tension because it's an interesting comment that of all people running in this way you're running in the system sort of against the system yeah that's a wonderful point though and in all honesty I surprised myself in all honesty I'm surprised my magnificent wife and I hit the Madame West why because I've always viewed myself as part of a prophetic tradition that brings critique to bear on unjust status quoes and tries to empower poor and working people wherever they are but what has happened in the last couple of years is that we haven't had voices on the inside that have in any way tried to speak to poor and working people so I decided to do what become head of the American Empire in order to dismantle the American Empire and Empower poor and working people around the world in my candidacy my brother it's just a moment in a larger Global movement increasing voices from around the world every corner of the globe falling for policies that would accent their dignity and so in that sense it's quite continuous with my own prophetic sensibility it's just that you're right now I'm going inside in order to dismantle to ensure that those resources available there can be made much more available to poor and working people how do you feel your messages being heard you know I remember you know 20 years ago I worked closely and professionally with Dr Chalmers Johnson Chalmers wrote the book called Blow back the costs and consequences of American Empire it became the toughest to get book after uh the Iraq War our invasion of Iraq occurred and he made similar arguments and and he was a powerful white scholar from UC Berkeley who had moved to UC San Diego commenting that the tensions about American militarism and American Military engagement were going to chew up our uh the fabric of society internally and I'm interested in in your own observations about that and and how you get from where we are today to the kind of world where you think there's going to be much more Justice and Equity because it seems to me if you're right it's going to be a horribly messy process well one it's already messy in terms of the deaths it could be on the West Bank where you've got so many precious Palestinians being crushed by barbaric Israeli Defense Forces and yet at the same time you've got peasants in Brazil at the same time you've got workers in Uganda at the same time you've got dollars in India or Muslims in China who are not being treated right and it's just a matter of trying to not hate anybody but to hate Injustice Thomas Johnson was a great truth teller he was cutting radically Against the Grain he was cutting radically against those Scholars who were coming up with rationalization of American Imperial power so he became a prophetic figure very much like sirach Mills and W.B Du Bois or Tony Morrison trying to tell the truth but it's already messy it's already ugly it's already violent the question is how do we come to terms with that messiness that violence in such a way that we can accent the best in each and every one of us I recently listened recently to a interview you did with the Black Agenda Report which I found very very interesting and Illuminating and one of the other surprises for me in that was your uh enthusiasm frankly for wanting to go into Trump country uh and your thought that there will be a lot of trumpists that are now kind of engaged with President Trump who may find your message very compelling tell us more well one of course one out of ten of the supporters of Donald Trump actually supported my very dear brother Bernie Sanders you know I supported Bernie Sanders twice 2016-2020 and he had the same critique of Wall Street that I had he didn't have the same critique of the Pentagon that I have but he's very Progressive and it means then that those who support Trump you know they're not stereotypes they're human beings who are deeply wounded deeply pushed against the wall economically but they choose to follow a neo-fascist by Piper rather than understand their condition in such a way that it creates a class solidarity across race and across regions so I'm going straight into Trump country and try to convince them that their major political foes actually are the one percent Echoes of the Occupy Movement and you know of course three individuals in the United States have wealth equivalent to the bottom 50 percent of Americans that's 160 million in the top one percent have wealth equivalent to the bottom ninety percent so 60 of Americans are struggling every day to survive and yet it's the richest nation in the history of the world and yet it's got military expenditures that are more than the next 10 countries come by and it's got 800 military units all around the world for its Empire and there's no way that that poor and working people can be empowered given this kind of arrangement of an Empire so that's where the real effort needs to be the truth telling on the one hand the organizing on the other and then trying to do it in the spirit of love this and this is the challenge you know what I mean that's the real challenge how do you talk about Israeli Palestinian situation without trashing viewers brothers and sisters I have no time for any anti-jewish hatred I only have time for affirming Palestinian dignity and affirming Jewish security but Jewish security does not go hand in hand with an Israeli occupation that will never be Jewish security with an Israeli occupational domination of Palestinians how do we engage in this in such a way that we get Beyond hatred and revenge but put love and put Justice and most importantly put the suffering of the least of these as you know I'm a revolutionary Christian so the 25th chapter of Matthew means much to me what you do to the least of these the poor the oppressed the subjugated you do unto me I take that very seriously in terms of a calling but you also have the first woman of color essentially in the White House's Vice President of the United States and so I'm just asking has she delivered for the communities you're talking about I mean I'm interested in your view because a lot of people point to Kamala Harris and they say that's a sign of success does it feel like a sign of success well no I mean the same thing with Obama when we had a black president he had a black president a black attorney general he had black Homeland Security but you got a black lives movement why you had militarized police departments just like you got militarized apartheid like conditions on the West Bank in Gaza that the uh a presence of a black face in a high place symbolically shows a certain breakthrough but substantially doesn't mean too much if they don't have the courage to critique the status quo that they're a part of and so Kamala Harris just reached just last year so when Biden was asked whether America was a racist Society he said no and they asked her is America racist Society she said no well she's just following her boss she's not interested in truth as I said before if you if you can't allow the suffering to speak you're not speaking truth we've got mass incarceration I thought 25 of all incarcerated people in the world in the United States most of them black and brown easily deeply white supremacists in that way an extension in many ways of the slavery of 244 years in the Western Hemisphere and Jim Crow and James Crow another 100 years so you have to be free enough to speak the truth not in the spirit of self-righteousness but in a spirit of self-critical Tenacious commitment to the overcoming The Plight and predicament of foreign working people are around the world reminds me of I had to be Wells Barnett that's my tradition it's a great tradition of a black people that says in the face of Terror we don't terrorize back we want Liberty for everybody but we will fight in the face of hatred we will still love truth and Beauty And Justice and organize in order to attempt to overcome in the face of trauma will be wounded healers rather than wounded herders that's the great tradition of struggle for black freedom in the United States in this campaign is just a small wave in that great ocean of that grand tradition my brother in your campaign launch video Dr West you you reference your concern about the destruction of American democracy love to hear more what is driving that destruction of American democracy from your view well we got neo-fascism escalating what is neo-fascism it is a rule of big military big money with political leaders who convince a relatively helpless citizenry that they should Escape go to most vulnerable indigenous peoples black people Muslims Arabs immigrants do any group that historically has been degraded and that's precisely what Trump does and you cannot have a democracy with the rule of big money with grotesque wealth inequality with hardly a public sphere which means everything is commodified ends up being militarized ends up being privatized so there's no public spaces where people can come together and engage in critical reflection it's simply gangsterized simply polarized and the result is what irony increasing hearing that's what we're seeing in the United States and that's why it's so important to keep alive the great legacies Among Us the King Jr Fannie Lou Hamer and others you know next week the Supreme Court is supposed to rule on affirmative action and I'm interested if they strike down affirmative action um do you worry about that or is that basically a small measure when it comes to the level of systemic change you're advocating yeah I mean my expectation is they certainly will but it already diluted it down the very narrow conception of diversity as no longer has anything to do with the kind of call for reparations that are needed in order to begin to deal with the Damage Done of slavery and Jim Crow and James Crow and other forms of domination so I'm my hunch is they certainly will eliminate affirmative action and we simply have to continue our struggle and try to come up with ways in which black people but not just black people the brown people not just brown people indigenous people not just indigenous people the poor people across the board have ways in which they gain access to resources and dignity so we simply have to shift the strategies that my brother the Supreme Court deeply conservative deeply right-wing for the most part as you look at the campaign that's coming ahead I'm really interested in the green party The People's Party and you know many people discount that you have any chance at all of winning but what I've been able to tell them is that your voice is going to be heard you're going to be out there critiquing but how what is your National strategy uh politically as you kind of begin this effort which you launched on June 5th as you look at the country how are you going to try and turn someone who's a skeptic of your candidacy into someone who understands what you're doing well first though you know the political discourse in America has been so narrow that most fellow citizens haven't even been exposed to the kind of vision and Analysis that I have so that it's going to be a real uh breath of fresh air I hope that they can see that somebody is concerned about taboo issues that they hardly get a chance to talk about look at the Ukrainian War there's no serious understanding of the impact of the expansion of NATO and the United States violating its promise that NATO would not move one inch toward Russia Americans know that if there were missiles in Canada or Mexico and Russian missiles in Canada Mexico U.S Empire would blow them into Smithereens they were never allowed we saw this in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 well that's how Empires behave there's no doubt about that now Russia we know has its own domination or oppression but it is a small Empire compared to the United States and so just to have an analysis of ceasefire stop the war stop the suffering of our pressure Ukrainian brothers and sisters but understand that NATO historically and is today a arm of U.S global hour and therefore it is in no way neutral it is in no way to be trusted in terms of telling the truth most Americans hardly even gain access to that view they will now in this campaign because I'll raise that issue over and over again same will be true in the Middle East in terms of the Palestinian situation same will be true when it comes to what's happening in Latin America Visa the U.S Imperial power and certainly that will be the case in terms of the mass incarceration the decrepit schools in decent housing unavailable health care for for black or brown or white and others in the richest Empire in the history of the world Dr west from the moment you launched your campaign the headlines about your campaign launch were Cornell West spoiler for Biden I I'm fascinated by the commentary that sort of you know tries to support the the lock that two political parties have in the U.S political system and the the immediate enmity of a third party that comes in I'd love to hear from you uh and tell those people who have that criticism and see you as a potential spoiler for Joe Biden how you view democracy a little differently I think it's fascinating to me that those was on the one hand supposed to be committed to democracy are so interested in excluding a variety of different voices especially when those voices are highly critical of unjust status quoes uh the idea that we could have a political Discord in the United States at this moment with no serious talk about destruction of the planet let alone destruction of democracy but no serious talk about the redistribution of wealth downward as opposed to where it is now going upward with no serious talk about the issues of class and how it relates to issues of race and gender let alone how it relates to Imperial foreign policy those sort of shows in fact that our political release they're not interested in democracy in any substantive way a democratic robust conversation about our status Justice and a vision for a better future not at all they've got mechanisms of censorship they've got mechanisms of exclusion and to say I'm a spoiler is to say what if Joseph Biden that he owns votes that people can't think for themselves that people can't be Socratic and reach positions that are outside of the mainstream I'm sad let me ask you finally Dr West what would day one of a Cornell West presidency look like what up to my beloved wife I said you know uh if when I win I'm not even gonna move into the White House until every one has a house that the first day is going to be one in which a paradigm shift has taken place the first day is one in which we're going to begin the demilitarizing U.S foreign policy the the full back of all the military troops in too many places is going to be one in which Wall Street and Pentagon and Silicon Valley Elites will begin to tremble because we'll cast a light on their organized breed not in the spirit of hatred it's like Jesus in the temple and I'm no Jesus but Jesus in the temple run out the money changers not because he hated the rich he hated greed in this campaign is about a hatred not a person of greed a hatred of Injustice that will be the spirit of a West Administration and I was just going to say how far Julian Assad and Snowden and moving Abu Jamal and a whole host political prisoners that's what I was going to say my brother well thank you very much Dr Cornell West thank you so much for joining us today thank you so much so what's the bottom line the voice of this American philosopher is going to become a significant part of the national conversation about America's next leader and what that leader should stand for and try to accomplish this election was already bound to be interesting but with Dr Cornell West in the race there's going to be someone with a national megaphone shaming A system that is little concern for those living in poverty who've been victims of mass incarceration no matter who the Democratic and Republican nominees for presidents are and even though I don't think Dr West has a snowball's chance in hell of winning they will have to respond to his critiques and challenges and that's going to be a win for many who have never had the chance to win and that's the bottom line foreign [Music]

Channel: Al Jazeera English

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Keywords: Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, Bottom Line, Bottom Line al jazeera, Cornel West, Cornel West is running for president to dismantle the US empire, Philosopher, The Bottom Line, The Bottom line al jazeera, US, USA, United States, United States of America, al Jazeera, al jazeera English, al jazeera live, al jazeera video, aljazeera English, aljazeera latest, aljazeera live, aljazeera live news, latest news, news headlines

Id: AGrUWCMPyIs

Length: 23min 56sec (1436 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023