About Our Dr. Cornel West Interview
Enjoy some ruminations on our interview with U.S. presidential candidate Dr. Cornel West, aka tha muthahuckin' Gangsta of Love.
It’s been a little more than a week since we published our interview with renowned intellectual and U.S. presidential candidate Dr. Cornel West, and we’re humbled by the response from listeners who seemed to appreciate the discussion and topics covered. A big thank you to all of you for listening, watching, and sharing.
We’re dedicating another post to West’s interview because he made a few points that you rarely hear in mainstream political discourse. One of our biggest takeaways has to do with West’s underlying message: He wants to put a stop to U.S. imperialism.
For example, we asked West whether he’d embrace abolitionist principles in the context of mass incarceration. West responded that he wants to completely reimagine America’s punitive and discriminatory criminal justice system—and didn’t end there. He wants to abolish homelessness and poverty. He said being an abolitionist also means reversing past injustices, such as the prosecution of political prisoners, including whistleblowers Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. (Both have yet to be officially prosecuted, though it’s increasingly likely that Assange will be extradited to the United States to face trial.) He still wasn’t done—and that’s what happens when you ask Dr. Cornel West about abolition. Not only does he want to dismantle various systems of oppression, he wants to cut off the head of the snake.
“We don't need 800 military units around the world,” West told us. “We don't need U.S. troops in over 125 countries. We don't need to be the superpower…that has total domination of every part of the globe.”
“If our democracy is to survive,” he added, “the Empire must be dismantled.”
And that, according to West, includes dissolving NATO.
Abolition all around.
“There is no way that we can spend trillions, trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars on troops and wars, while our everyday lives of citizens get worse and worse and worse,” he said.
Anyone new to West’s brand of politics will likely be taken off guard. While it’s refreshing to have West in the race—especially one that’s likely to culminate in a rematch between Biden and Trump—we wonder if the American public and corporate media establishment will take him seriously, or cast off his comments as the ramblings of a fringe leftist.
West’s arguments about ending America’s imperial proclivities should be considered in the context of our recent history of military expansion and growing wealth inequality at home. Good faith debates should be aired—but West will be bringing this argument to the very gatekeepers of information and “news” that routinely serve as mouthpieces for the national security state and defense contractors. Take Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. American news organizations that barely considered the plight of Afghan people for two decades were suddenly concerned about the consequences of a U.S. withdrawal. It was as if America’s perpetual state of war was so ingrained in the fabric of the corporate media establishment, that they couldn’t conceive of anything beyond indefinite occupation.
The outcry over the withdrawal was in no way proportional to the response the media had over the “Afghan Papers”—a secret history of the war, not unlike the “Pentagon Papers,” that revealed the U.S. public had been lied to about a conflict that those prosecuting the war knew was unwinnable. The very same journalists that were suddenly providing cover for the national security establishment had been lied to, yet they were unbothered.
What West is proposing is something far more threatening to the establishment. As a candidate for the Green Party nomination, West is hoping he can tap into the very real and growing sense of discontent of many Americans who are fed up with the status quo. Given the credibility he’s earned over decades, West, unlike Green Party candidate Jill Stein before him, will have the opportunity to bring his message to millions of Americans through mainstream media outlets.
And if he does indeed earn the Green Party nomination, there’s no doubt the tenor of the interviews will change once he’s inevitably viewed as a threat to swipe votes from Biden, the presumed Democratic nominee.
If anyone is ready for what’s to come, it’s West. Actually, he welcomes it.
“We welcome the hostility of those who have been hostile to the plight of poor and working people,” West told us. “We welcome—I welcome the hostility of those who dropped bombs on innocent people with drones.”
On the topic of Afghanistan, we encourage you to check out our episode about America’s longest war.
More From Cornel West
West was incredibly gracious with his time. We sat down with him for more than an hour. For the sake of making the interview more digestible, we’ve been cutting up clips from our chat and posting shorter videos to YouTube. You can go directly to our channel and check those out.
Here are a few:
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