We're back! Today, renowned philosopher, political activist, and civil rights leader Dr. Cornel West launches his 2024 presidential campaign! Dr. West vows to fight for universal healthcare, dismantlie the surveillance state, end mass incarceration, and ensure that money no longer influences our political system.Support Dr. Cornel West's Campaign: https://www.cornelwest24.com/ For a bit more from us join our Stay Free Community here: https://russellbrand.locals.com/Come to my festival COMMUNITY - https://www.russellbrand.com/community-2023/NEW MERCH! https://stuff.russellbrand.com/
We're back with you live on Rumble and on YouTube.
We're live across the world.
There's nowhere you can be on this planet where you cannot access this content if you want to, and why wouldn't you?
Why don't you join us as a member of our locals community, like SensitiveHearts25 sending... Actually, she's not sending me love.
They're sending love to one another, Gareth, my on-screen assistant.
Oh.
You look better than ever.
Thank you so much.
You're wearing a lemon top.
That's right.
You look like you're getting younger and more efficient.
That's exactly what's happening.
Unlike the dear and forever tumbling President of the United States who requires naught but love and support, if you ask me, but perhaps more urgently, replacement by an intellectual giant.
We've had RFK on the show talking about his candidacy and the vision for America that he'd like to bring to the world.
Today we have Cornel West, Dr Cornel West, joining us for an exclusive announcement.
We love Cornel West.
He's one of the most Credible, radical, philosophical voices in American politics who's able to effortlessly infuse emotion, vision, spirit, and pragmatism.
I'm very excited they've joined us.
I'm just feeding a dog under the table.
That is not a euphemism.
Not a euphemism.
That is not a euphemism.
Just feeding a dog under the table.
Imagine if it was a euphemism.
What a disgusting euphemism.
And I had to just go along with it.
This is the thing that he does when he puts porridge in his underpants.
Oatmeal in his briefs.
Yeah.
I suppose is what you'd say.
Yeah, there's my dog just to legitimize that.
We're talking about a new bill that's being passed to remove any potential limitations to expenditure in the Ukraine.
We're talking about that not because we don't support the efforts, the humanitarian effort to help Ukrainian people, but because we're a little bit worried that all that money ends up in the hands of the military-industrial complex on a basis of Research!
We're going to be going exclusively on Rumble.
If you're watching us on YouTube right now, God we love you and we welcome you, but you know that the WHO regulate the content that you watch there, or at least are able to offer sensory advice.
YouTube take their guidance and establish their guidelines based on the WHO's principles.
So we've got a few things to talk about.
Google renewing their partnership with the WHO and new research that Reveals what the impact of certain medications are on transmission.
Whether or not the medications were beneficial or... Actually worse!
Worse!
Actually worse, Gareth!
If.
The big if.
I'm just saying if that.
You're saying if.
It's been a while.
Allegedly!
We've had a week off, so just let us warm back into what we're doing for a living.
Do I look like I've got a bit of a tan?
You do?
Yeah, sorry, I didn't mention your glorious tan.
I mean, you're looking so well.
We've got a fantastic week coming back.
We've got brilliant guests over the course of the week.
We're coming back with a bang.
We've improved the sound.
Let us know in the chat and the comments if you think the sound's better.
We've got them FBI whistleblowers.
We'll be able to hear their whistles so beautifully in here, even the upper notes.
Who else we got?
Tulsi Gabbard's coming on.
Elon!
I forgot to ring Elon, you know, like that night.
I think it's probably a good idea.
He is coming on.
Leave him at home for a night.
I'm gonna get back there.
Because Elon, he done Ron DeSantis the day like, we had a date in the diary, I swear to you, I'm not lying about Elon, let us know if you believe me, right?
We had Elon locked down, but then he done... DeSantis.
Who's gonna be the...
Well, potential.
President of America.
And then tonight he's doing... RFK.
In a bit.
Do you want me to finish all the sentences?
Right.
I can do a few of them.
Listen, do you know that one in eight men have the absolute nerve to take a prophylactic to a funeral?
What kind of pervert turns up at a funeral, potentially of a loved one, with a condom?
Well, I read this in two ways, and one is not a nice way.
One was with a condom.
One was, did you take a necrophiliac?
I did.
Unfortunately, I did.
Yes.
Thank you so much.
We shouldn't be talking about necrophilia.
I'm pretty sure the WHO... They won't like that one bit.
Although, ironically, you cannot convey disease to someone in that condition.
And if you do, it matters not a jot.
We're going to be looking at the mainstream media's attitude to Joe Biden taking the tumble.
I don't take any pleasure from the elderly tumbling.
Do you?
No, no.
No, I don't.
I really don't.
You mustn't.
You mustn't.
Think of your Nan, your Grandad.
No, I wouldn't like that.
Taking a tumble.
No, awful.
I wouldn't like that at all.
You don't like it?
No, it's just I guess my Nan and Grandad are not and never have been the President of the United States.
Do you expect me to believe that?
Do you expect me?
You've not got one grandparent as the Commander-in-Chief.
Let's have a look.
Do we need to see it happening?
We've seen it happen loads of times.
I want to see like the mainstream media Yeah, this is kind of that.
They're offering up reasons why it might have happened.
Barry John Fox says you look tanned.
That's over on Locals.
Press the red button on your screen.
You can join us on Locals right now.
Let's have a look at the mainstream media talking about Joe Biden taking the tumble.
I feel, if I was there, I'd have shot out of that audience and I'd have helped him right up, like the Good Samaritan out of the Bible.
What good are those cadets if they're not going to help the President up?
They should be on their feet.
That's the kind of thing.
Man down!
They're not alert enough.
They're just breezy.
Come out of college, haven't they?
Yeah, they're high as kites.
Not cadet school.
No.
Well, remember, I used to be in the Marines that day.
Well, of course, yeah.
We were very much, don't ask, don't tell.
Right.
No wacky do backy.
You'd put the time in.
You'd put the time in by then.
Yeah, by then I'd learned the culture.
All right, let's have a look at Joe Biden's tumble in the mainstream mitigation.
The president had been standing for about two hours handing out diplomas to all.
It's done really well.
Standing for two hours.
What do you expect?
That's almost nearly all of Godfather.
It's just around the scene where Sonny's getting shot.
Spoiler alert.
When Sonny goes to the toll booth.
Around that bit, Joe Biden's like, enough's enough.
I'm going over.
Santino should never have been Don anyway!
He's a hothead!
Right, you're absolutely right.
Won't listen to Robert Duvall!
You're mixing narratives here a little bit.
900 or so graduates there.
At the end of the remarks, President Biden fell as you see.
Oh, he took a real tumble, I don't like that.
It's weird that she said 900 or so graduates, like that makes a difference.
I guess maybe, I think the fact is he apparently shook all of their hands and they go to great lengths to tell us that he did that as well.
Before you judge Joe Biden, President of the United States, who refuses to vote, sorry, debate Marianne Williamson or RFK, won't have a debate with him.
It's a blunt refusal.
The Democrat Party want him.
Remember when it was Bernie Sanders?
Didn't want him.
Bernie Sanders, who our man Dr. Cornel West supported.
Now I know a lot of you are Bernie Sanders.
You think he's a bit of a globalist and you don't trust him.
But we were interested in Bernie Sanders' willingness to regulate corporations.
We don't think it matters left or right anymore.
Discard those old taxonomies, those old categories.
Who is interested in representing the people against institutional power?
And the revolving door between, say, Washington and Wall Street and big tech and... You know what's going on, guys.
You don't need me to tell you.
And I think Dr. Cornel West cares about people and bringing people together.
That's why we're excited to talk to him about his... Have we even announced what the secret is yet?
No, we haven't.
We haven't done that.
Big old secret.
It's a big secret.
We don't want to tell you.
Let us know in the chat if you think you know what the secret is.
And remember, you can join us on Locals by pressing that red button.
Stay free with Russell Brand.
See it first on Rumble.
All right, joining me now is Dr. Cornel West, philosopher, political activist, civil rights leader and free thinker.
Thank you for joining us, Dr. Cornel West.
It's a pleasure to have you with us.
My brother, you know, I want to salute you, your brilliance, the fact that you are such a genuine force for good and have the courage to be yourself.
But I want to salute Brother Garth.
Garth got it going on.
He's wonderful.
And Brother James.
And Brother James, you all make a magnificent team.
And there's no doubt that when I decided to make my announcement and talked it over with my beloved wife, Anahita, I said, if I have a choice, I want to say it on a show that I watch regularly, religiously.
Why?
Because you're a truth teller and you are a justice seeker, my brother.
Dr Cornel West, thank you very much for that flattery and praise, although in the case of Gareth and James, it was misjudged and misdirected.
They are both borderline psychopaths.
Dr Cornel West, you have a very important announcement.
We are honoured that you've chosen our platform to make this announcement.
Please, tell us why you are here talking to us today.
Well, you know, my dear brother, that I have been fighting for truth and justice for 55 years, beginning when I was 15 years old there in the chocolate side of Sacramento, Shiloh Baptist Church, and working with the Black Panther Party.
Never joined the party.
Was deeply, deeply committed to their fundamental concern for poor and working people.
And now, 55 years later, I've decided to continue that fight for truth and justice by running for the president of the USA on the People's Party.
To ensure that we can reintroduce to America the best of itself, and the best of America is Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, it's Edward Zaid, it's Grace Lee Boggs, it's Chief Joseph, It's Louisa Moreno.
All of these different peoples of different colors and genders and sexual orientations of James Bond and Audre Lorde doing what?
Telling America the truth about itself and the condition of truth is always to allow the suffering of precious, poor, and priceless working people to be And yes, you're right, it is about love, because justice is what love looks like in public.
But by love, what we're talking about is looking at the world through the lens of those Frantz Fanon called the wretched of the earth, of poor and working people, not just in America, in the American empire, and this very fragile democratic experiment in the midst of that empire, but around the world.
That was another reason why I wanted to be on your show.
I wanted to be international.
I wanted to be Concerned about human beings no matter where they are, no matter what color, no matter what gender, no matter what sexual orientation, no matter what national identity.
And that's why we're calling for a paradigm shift, brother.
We need a spiritual awakening and a moral reckoning in the face of institutionalized greed.
That greed can be in Wall Street, it can be in Silicon Valley, it can be in the Pentagon.
Greed at the top, especially.
And I believe, of course, we've got greed inside of all of us.
But I'm talking about institutionalized greed with predatory capitalist tendencies that tend to suck everything up for money and for profit.
And then we've got the neo-fascism escalating, especially in the Republican Party.
And what is that?
That's institutionalized hatred.
It plays on the fear of people.
And see, Trump speaks to a number of white brothers and sisters who are catching hell, who are, in fact, in deep trouble.
Who deserve an attention in terms of having their basic needs met.
That's precisely why I want Medicare for all.
That's precisely why I want free education.
That's precisely why I want access to living wages.
That's precisely why I want to make sure people have access to quality housing.
And so the question is, you cannot defeat neofascism by milquetoast neoliberalism.
There's no way you can do it.
You got to get at the roots of it.
You got to bring vision and passion to convince person, not people, not to follow neo-fascist pied pipers, but actually let them know that there are persons on the so-called left, which is simply say persons of integrity, honesty, and decency, looking at the world through the lens of poor and working people.
That's really what it is.
So I don't want to get into the labels.
I'm talking about the substance.
I'm talking about those who really have a deep care and concern about suffering people, no matter where they are.
And in that way, you cut against a lot of the truncated public conversation.
You get a realignment of not just perceptions, but of people.
People finding themselves in coalitions they had not planned on being there with.
That's crucial.
That's exactly what we need.
And what's at stake, my brother?
You know better than I. You talk about it every day.
The destruction of the species.
The destruction of democracy, not just in the American empire, everywhere.
And most importantly, it's the destruction of our capacity to love, though, brother.
See, that's a spiritual emptiness.
So I run as a jazz man of politics.
Because jazz is about three elements.
It's about the blues, and the blues is about catastrophe.
Catastrophe lyrically expressed.
Catastrophe genuinely engaged.
Catastrophe transfigured by compassion and community.
I come from a blues people, the catastrophe of slavery, of Jim Crow, of Jane Crow, of mass incarceration, of being taught to hate ourselves, and yet here comes Ma Rainey, here come Bessie Smith, here come Muddy Waters.
What are they doing?
They're telling the truth!
You're telling the truth about America.
We're not talking about America's race problems or class problems or gender problems or sexual orientational problems.
No, we're talking about catastrophes visited on indigenous peoples, visited on black peoples, visited on women.
You're talking about U.S.
foreign policy.
It could be in Iran.
1953.
It could be in Guatemala in 1953.
It could be in Panama.
It could be in Iraq.
It could be in Afghanistan.
Those are not problems.
Those are catastrophes visited upon precious human beings in every life in Iran, in Tel Aviv, In West Bank, in Gaza, in Afghanistan, in Lithuania, in Ethiopia, each precious life there has the same value as a life in London or a life in California.
That's the best of America.
That's what Martin King was talking about.
That's what I am running on.
That's the tradition that runs through my veins.
That's the tradition that runs through my heart, mind, and soul.
And that's what I'm trying to present.
To the American people as the presidential candidate for the People's Party, my brother.
Blues on the one hand, swing is the second element.
You have a different conception of time, so you don't feel closed in, bound to a two-party system.
We know the two-party system in America is a major obstacle for the empowerment of poor and working people.
Both parties are in the back pocket of Wall Street, in the back pocket of the Pentagon, in the back pocket of big money.
So you need a different conception of time.
Well, here comes Duke Ellington.
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.
You got a different conception of temporality that opens up possibilities, opens up new potentialities.
So you thought that court was closed, but here comes Monk.
He got a new note.
He got a new way of doing it.
Here comes Mary Lou Williams.
And we haven't even got the John Coltrane love supreme yet.
Blues on the one hand, swing on the other, and then improvisation.
And this is what I love about you and your show, my brother.
You are improvisational.
You're flexible.
You're fluid.
You're protein.
You don't get locked in the dogma.
You don't get locked in the ossified, petrified ways of looking at the world.
You got to be new.
You got to be novel.
You got to be open.
You listen to others.
You can't be a jazz musician.
You can't be a blues woman unless you learn how to listen to others.
Jazz is the highest level of democracy in symbolic expression.
What is the anthem of my black people?
Lift every voice.
It's not lift every echo, no.
What we have for the most part of public discourse in America?
Echoes of silos.
Echoes of silos.
Expressions of very polarized spaces where no one wants to listen and lift their own voices, think critically for themselves in such a way that you can improvise.
Improvisation is not Simply an artistic skill.
It's a species of phronesis, what the Greeks call practical wisdom.
You have to be able to judge, to get your timing right.
So you tell the truth about catastrophe on the one hand, you authorize a different future in light of a different conception of time in the present, and then you improvise.
And you improvise based on what?
Because you love something bigger than yourself.
Oh, what a great people I come from.
Yes, indeed.
And it's not a function of skin pigmentation, because there's a whole lot of black gangsters and black thugs.
I got a lot of gangster and thug in me.
But it's people who choose to be creative, people who choose dignity, people who choose defiance, people who are willing to live and die for something bigger than them.
And that's very much what we're talking about.
And that's why we're going to run this campaign in such a way.
It's going to be so unique and singular and different and distinctive from what America is used to.
They better get ready.
That is a beautiful, incredible and inspiring soliloquy.
How I enjoyed the litany of great heroes that you shared with us and precisely this spirit is the spirit that we need to have unleashed on ossifying American politics right now.
Why I feel that your voice is so important Is because many of the radical critiques that are attacking institutional corruption at this time appear at least to be coming from conventionally regarded as right-wing places, right-wing spaces.
I believe deeply in unity and revolution and a need for a different type of discourse and for
new ideas to be introduced into a very restrictive and suffocated political space.
I recognize too that you can't achieve anything with hate.
Love needs to be reintroduced into the conversation around American politics and American
power. Indeed, the period of American isolationism and American imperialism must be brought to an
end.
That America needs to come to the world with open arms and an open heart if we're to ever change this current economic dynamic that appears to be predicated on perpetual war.
It's one of the things we're reporting on today.
One of the things we're repeatedly, continually reporting on.
The use of humanitarianism to underwrite yet more exploitation and ongoing war.
And I feel that even the timbre of your speech, the references of jazz, of which Gareth will be most grateful, for he himself is a jazz musician, a French horn player, and a blue note slayer.
He'll be overjoyed to hear that kind of rhetoric.
I want to ask you, Doctor, you've been Although I can't begin to contemplate the amount of prejudice you must have endured to get to where you are as a much admired and decorated philosophical figure teaching at some of the most respected institutions in the world.
I recognize that must have been a very difficult journey.
Latterly, though, you are held in high esteem by the establishment.
I'm speaking, for example, of the fact that you speak on that sort of high-profile mentorship course, you know, that online place.
You're kind of adored and a darling of the legacy media.
How do you feel that even beginning to have these kind of conversations attacking institutional power, which have oddly now are issues that have migrated to the right, how do you think it's going to affect your standing?
And how do you think you're going to make a significant impact in a political and media landscape that is locked up in financial interest and is most intransigent and unwilling to allow genuinely radical voices into the space?
You saw what happened to Bernie.
I know you campaigned for Bernie.
And this is much more radical than that.
So what kind of attacks do you anticipate?
Oh, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised at a variety of different kinds of attacks and assaults coming at one, but I'm not preoccupied with those attacks and assaults at all.
Anytime you embark on a fallible pursuit of truth and justice, you focus on what you can do, how you can cultivate your own gifts and work with others in community in order to be a force for good.
That you're always going to be misunderstood, misconstrued.
You're always going to be attacked.
There'll be character assassination, may even be a literal assassination.
You just don't know.
You're willing to take that risk.
You're willing to bear witness.
It's not so much about what's coming at you.
It's how you respond to what is coming at you.
And most importantly, you recognize, at least for me, you see, as a black man in America for 70 years now, That I've been on borrowed time for a good while.
I probably should have been dead a long time ago in terms of the vicious kind of attacks I've had to deal with.
So that for me, it's a matter of being true to myself, being true to my calling, and not being surprised by evil or paralyzed by despair.
And at the same time, I'll never allow anybody to drag me so low that I will hate them.
And completely foreclose their possibilities.
Everyone can change.
Everyone can be transformed.
Everyone can choose to go another way.
Everyone can be better than they are.
They choose to be gangsters, they choose to be gangsters.
If they were gangsters and choose to overcome gangster activity in terms of egoism and narcissism and cruelty and manipulation and subjugation of others, they can change.
And that's a beautiful thing about we human beings.
We're so wretched On the one hand, and yet we're wonderful on the other, that we can change.
And so, the future's open-ended, my brother.
You just don't know.
You don't know.
You know, the whole planet might go under.
America could easily go neo-fascist in the next few years.
We'll be fighting against it.
So, you can't foretell the future in that way, but you have to be committed to your call, and you have to attempt to live a life of integrity.
And integrity is not about popularity.
And anytime you challenge establishment or status quo, you're going to get strong backlash.
Dr. Cornel West, here at least, you're receiving a great deal of love over on Locals.
Press the red button, you can join us on Locals.
People are very excited by your announcement.
What a beautiful man says it's being, and lots of people are excited to just hear this kind of language and these kind of ideas being introduced to the political space.
What are the key pledges, doctor, that you'll be running under?
In fact, we have them to put on the screen now, but if you could talk us through them in some detail, it would be helpful.
Well, one, I am a thoroughgoing abolitionist when it comes to poverty and homelessness.
In fact, I told my beloved wife that when I win, and I intend to win, my attitude is I don't want to even go into the White House until every fellow citizen has a house.
She said, oh, that might not be too practical.
Well, that's the spirit that I proceed.
That is the attitude that I have.
That office is simply a vehicle to pursue truth and justice that begins with abolishing, completely eliminating poverty and homelessness.
It has to do with a commitment to a strong support of trade unions.
So that living wages becomes a reality for every worker, no matter what color, no matter what gender, no matter what sexual orientation, no matter what region.
It has to do with access to health care, Medicare for all, the very thing that my dear brother Bernie Sanders made so much of, and rightly so.
It has to do with a tremendous indictment of the greed of the 1% at the top in ways in which we can get some accountability.
I love your talk, Brother Russell, about decentralization.
I think you're absolutely right that the state has become captured by corporate power.
And I know my dear brother RF Kennedy talks about that, Junior, and he's right as well.
We resonate with the ways in which the state has been captured by corporate wealth.
But the question becomes, how do you empower everyday people and working people in such a way that it doesn't reproduce centralization that tends to reproduce domination?
And here we need to bring together some of the best minds.
I'm not in any way suggesting that I have definitive answers.
As a jazz man in politics, I know, just like Mary Lou Williams or Duke Ellington or Count Basie, I need a band.
I got to have a variety of different voices and they come in all colors.
They come in all genders.
They come from all nations in a certain sense, because it's an international conversation that we're having.
I'm calling for end of mass incarceration.
Very important.
It is part of the legacy or part of the afterlife of slavery in the United States.
I've taught in prison for 41 years.
And my dear brother, who I love so much, Chris Hedges.
My God, that brother, he wrote a piece this morning that was just extraordinary.
We've been working together now for many, many, many decades.
We taught in prisons together, and he talks about that as well.
But I carry with me my experiences, and so I'll never forget the brothers and sisters who I met on the reservations.
I'll never forget those in the mass incarceration.
I'll never forget those in the hood.
I'll never forget those fighting for the attempt to mistreat our new immigrants, my brown brothers and sisters.
We had to march against Obama even to get DACA way back then.
Well, that's still part and parcel of one's commitment.
And the same is true around the world.
My brothers and sisters in Chile, the others, 9-11.
We'll never forget that toppling.
Of those precious democratic possibilities there.
Foreign policy, domestic policy intertwine.
The bombs that are dropped in various parts of the world land in white, poor communities in Appalachia.
They land in Harlem.
They land in East Los Angeles, which is brown.
They land in Little Korea.
They land on In any poor and working class community, all that money for guns, where's the money for butter?
Where's the money for social programs?
That's the kind of calling for a fundamental transformation of priorities, given the warped priorities in which we live.
Same would be true in education.
We're calling for the cancellation.
The kind of things, again, Brother Bernie talked about now we're following through in a much more substantive way.
And because we're free of the corruption of the neofascist Republican Party and the neoliberal Democratic Party, we're able to fundamentally speak the truth.
It's like being a jazz man.
You don't have to play in the military band no more.
Go on to Birdland.
Go on to the Apollo.
Blow your horn.
Sing your song, Sarah.
Sing your song, Billie Holiday.
You don't have to fit into the narrowness.
Of a mainstream that tells you you've got to somehow contain yourself.
That's what it is to be a part of the People's Party.
That's what it is to be a part of the people's movement.
That's why we are going to not just constitute a major challenge and threat to the status quo.
We want to give concrete, fleshified hope in action to people who are losing hope.
The people who are feeling helpless, people feeling as if there's no way out of this corporate duopoly.
And I think in the end, it's still very much about style and the smile, though, man.
We're going to preserve our style no matter what.
And we're going to have a smile because we're coming together.
Solidarity is about sustaining that kind of strong spine where you straighten your back up.
And you speak what's on your mind and you fight for poor and working people wherever they are.
Dr. Cornel West, I feel that it's possible to detect in the political conversation over the last 20 years and perhaps even beyond that an appetite for real change.
Indeed, that's perhaps the word that defined Obama's campaign and eventual election.
In the disdain that became apparent through Trump's candidature and eventual election for institutional corruption and perhaps best embodied in the easy maxim, drain the swamp, which we've already brought up today.
The kind of despair that I feel people are beginning to feel around the presidency of Joe Biden.
So many of the pledges made during his candidacy reneged on now and the sense that in his atrophy and visible decay he somehow is the perfect avatar for a system in decline, an unwillingness for a fragile, aging career
politician to wield power well or yield it when necessary. To hear your vivacity, your
passion, your intensity, your integrity and easy wisdom, I think is exciting for a lot of people. I
feel for a long time there's been a real appetite and need for significant change.
The figures that I've just listed all in their way representing it.
You worked with Bernie Sanders, who I know a lot of people feel was sold out having voted along with militaristic policies since the election of Biden.
And perhaps Bernie would have been better off remaining an independent.
Do you feel that with the media operating in the way that it does, you will be given the sufficient opportunity to convey these points and indeed to build the band and make the alliances necessary for an undertaking like this?
For if institutional or centralist politics means anything at all, it is the ability for these systems to represent the needs of those who most need it And to regard as important the individuality and freedom of people from across the cultural spectrum of America.
People that have traditional perspectives around their religion and the way they want to organise their individual societies.
People that have very progressive views.
All of these voices have to be heard.
And indeed, for those kind of policies to be implemented, it seems, as you've just alluded to, that decentralisation would have to be a significant part of it.
Are you willing to be the voice and carriage of an ideology that to a degree would be dismantling many of the corrupt deep state institutions that have bought America low, to break down some of the relationships between corporate interests and the democratic institutions that have meant that it's almost impossible for the voice of ordinary people to be heard?
It seems like, like you said in your answer earlier, these are the kind of ideas and words that get people killed and that require, I think, a great deal of support.
Well, one, I mean, the good news is that we have shows like your own.
We got Sister Amy Goodman.
Yeah, we got Sister Sabby.
You got Sister Brianna.
You got Brother Tavish, you got Brother Roland, you got a whole, you got a network of people that are trying to allow certain voices to have impact without being completely devoured by the corporate media.
And the corporate media now is experiencing a level of legitimation crises, very much like the Republican Party's establishment that went under as neofascist Trump moved in, and the establishment of the Democratic Party that we almost pulled off with Brother Bernie.
We almost pulled it off.
And then they all came together, the call from Obama, Pete drops out.
Amy drops out.
Next thing you know, they say anybody but Bernie.
Why?
Those corporate interests were being challenged.
Why?
Those militaristic policies were being at least examined.
I mean, I wish Bernie was even more radical when it comes to militarism.
That's all right.
He's always my brother.
I can disagree with him and still acknowledge that I have my own calling and I go my own way.
He played a very historic role.
It just didn't go far enough.
He missed that moment, and that's just my own view about this thing, but he still plays a very important role.
So, I always like to begin with the good news, though, brother.
The fact that you've got all of these men and people around the world listening to your powerful voice and vision and calling for the enabling virtue, which is courage.
Because without courage, all the other virtues are empty.
In my courage, we're not talking about self-righteousness.
This is not a self-righteous campaign.
You can't be a self-righteous jazz person.
You have to be humble.
You got to learn from people.
You got to listen to other voices, listen to other arguments, no matter where they are.
The neo-fascists don't remain neo-fascists forever, just like we know a whole lot of leftists who become right-wing.
People change, and you have to be open to their change, but We don't put up for one moment with forms of xenophobia against the most vulnerable trans precious folk, gay brothers, lesbian sisters, Arabs, Muslims, Jews, Palestinians, Uyghurs in China, the Dalit in India, the Roma in Europe.
Landless peasants in Brazil, my own black folk catching so much indescribable hell in the American empire for 200 and some years up to this very moment.
Police murder.
We can go on and on and on.
Corrupt criminal justice system and so forth.
So we don't have any patience with that, but we still recognize that people can change.
And that to me is a wonderful thing.
It's like Brother Malcolm.
You know, Malcolm Little was a gangster before the Honorable Elijah Muhammad loved him.
And the next thing you know, he becomes one of the greatest voices of the 20th century, such that he even has to call into question the Honorable Elijah Muhammad himself.
He's growing, but there's still no Malcolm without Elijah.
So that sense of acknowledging we're all in process.
And that's true for empires as well, as well as people.
Doctor, I think I've got a good question for you from our chat.
You can join us on Locals by pressing the red button.
This is from Bucky's Gal, who I'm guessing would be a kind of a person that would vote
for Trump, I'm guessing.
You tell me, if you're still there, Bucky's Gal.
She says, or he says, "Doctor West, everything you're saying sounds nice in theory, but how
can we care for other nations where we can't take care of our own?"
When the government gets money from taxing the people, how do you plan to fund your endeavors without it coming out of our paychecks?
Now I think Bucky's Gal there speaks for a lot of people who have concerns that Ideas that are supportive of people that are dispossessed.
We've got an interesting statistic about inequality in American politics.
You can flash that up when you get a chance, guys.
That it somehow is going to be punitive on ordinary Americans.
I feel like that the emerging libertarian movement gets a lot of juice from these kind of arguments.
Doctor, how would you answer that question?
Well, one, I appreciate the question, because we're here for conversation and dialogue.
There is no doubt that what I'm talking about, in terms of satisfying the basic needs of the masses of folk in the country, and I'm concerned about the masses in the world, but poor and working people, requires a massive redistribution of wealth downward.
In the last 40 years, we've seen a massive redistribution of wealth upwards.
Upwards.
Working people making roughly the same wages 30 years later, but CEOs, those part of the well-to-do, moneyed elite, heading to the bank daily with millions of dollars.
See, people don't like to raise that question.
There has been a redistribution of wealth.
It's just been upward.
This is one downward.
What form does that take?
Well, first, It has to do with a serious cutback in the millions and millions of dollars tied to the military-industrial complex.
Secondly, it has to do with subsidies for corporate America.
There has been, and this is where Brother Ralph Nader is absolutely right, there's been corporate welfare.
For the last 45 years of free money, if one slice of that could have gone to poor people for education and housing, we'd have a different situation.
If one slice of that had gone to dealing with our precious homeless brothers and sisters on the block, on the corner, in our cities.
So you got, and then you got taxes.
Now, of course, taxes is a difficult thing because the well-to-do have clever lawyers.
They have tax evasions.
They've got tax shelters and so forth.
So, yes, we must have significant taxation, but it's very difficult to get at it.
Very difficult to get at it.
But believe me, you know, when we went to war in Afghanistan, how much money did we spend?
Still counting.
Trillion some.
When we went to Iraq, oh, there was no serious talk about austerity.
Not at all.
When it comes to military as a whole, look at the recent agreement in the last couple of days.
What is distinctive about the Democratic Party and the Republican Party when it comes to military expansion?
They are exactly the same.
Consensus in that regard.
Same is true in terms of our precious Palestinian brothers on the West Bank.
What does the West Bank look like from the vantage point of Democrats and Republicans?
It is exactly the same.
And to my Jewish brothers and sisters who would immediately come at me and say, oh, Brother West, you seem to be so preoccupied with the Palestinian brothers and sisters.
You must be an anti-Semite.
Let me tell you directly.
And if there was a Palestinian occupation of Jewish brothers and sisters, I would be saying exactly the same thing in solidarity with Jewish brothers and sisters that I'm saying of a vicious Israeli occupation of Palestinians for Palestinian brothers and sisters, because A Jewish baby has exactly the same value as a Palestinian baby, and a Palestinian baby has the same value as a Jewish baby.
I learned that in Shiloh Baptist Church on the chocolate side of Sacramento, California, and I will be faithful unto death to have that kind of moral and spiritual stance.
So you can call me anti-Semitic, call me any name you want, but I'm not selling out.
Oppress people no matter what color they are, no matter where they are.
Dr. Cornel West, you're taking some incredibly important risks and explaining some really complex issues in beautiful languages.
A lot of people already asking in the chat how they can contribute to your campaign.
Go to cornellwest24.com to support Dr. West's campaign to become President of the United States of America.
And I guess you're going to need a lot of grassroots support as well as all of the independent media support that you can muster.
Right.
That's exactly right though, brother.
Very much so.
I feel like by bringing these complex issues to the forefront you do give us an opportunity to look differently at the divisive issue of race, the divisive issue of class.
It seems that we're living in a very divisive time where ordinary people, and in a sense we're all ordinary, magnificent though we may be, are We are unable to address where power is centralising and how power is operating because we are focusing instead on other vulnerable people just like us, give or take a few superficial differences, the kind of differences that ought not be points of conflict but points of mutual learning and opportunity for new unity.
Doctor, thank you so much for joining us.
We'll do everything we can to support your campaign, Spread your message to facilitate conversations between you and Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy and voices that emerge elsewhere on the political spectrum, because I think what is important is the ability for people to have intelligent conversations about the nature of power, the nature of corruption and how meaningful change will be brought about.
And I think no one has contributed more to that in recent years.
In fact, in the last 25 minutes than you.
So thank you so much, doctor.
Thank you for joining us.
Love you, love you, love you, my brother.
You stay strong, though, man.
God bless your loved ones, too, though, man.
Thank you so much.
We're here to serve.
I love you, Dr. Cornel West.
Thanks for coming on.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Hey, thanks to all of you in the chat as well for your fantastic questions and observations.
I think we're doing... Are you all right, Gareth?
How are you feeling?
I think you enjoyed the jazz bit.
I love the jazz bit.
That was a good bit for you wasn't it?
Dropping those names didn't he?
Some of them I don't know because I don't know enough about jazz.
I know the main ones.
I know the best ones.
It's lovely to have Dr. Cornel West on.
When I was listening to him what I felt was It's amazing that he's entered the conversation and he sees as the target the same people that are regularly identified on our show and our channel because Dr. Cornel West in common with Vandana Shiva cannot be written off in the way that many people would be of like, oh, you're a right-wing fascist.
You're a conspiracy theorist, you're a racist, the kind of things that are normally levelled
at people that are really interested in attacking establishment power.
Of course there's such things as racism, of course there's such things as conspiracy theorists,
but what's really important is that there are centralised, corrupt, authoritarian institutions
that we are not able to openly discuss anywhere other than on Rumble.
That's why we're grateful to you for joining us.
And I think the radical and powerful voices such as his and the names that you've mentioned in RFK recently are kind of growing in numbers and mentioning the same things over and over again.
The things that we talk about, I mean it's fascinating how much he mentioned the military-industrial complex there.
Things that across the board we're talking about and also these other people are talking about.
You know, literally we just spoke about it earlier today.
He's talking about censorship, he's talking about surveillance, he's talking about wealth transfers.
All these things that we talk about and consistently get bundled in with your, you know, conspiracy theorists and this.
And it's feeling to me much more like, as I say, the kind of voices are growing in these areas that we've been talking about for a while.
I think we're on it!
I think we're talking about the right stuff and if you look at the various censorship laws that are being passed around the world we talked about it before on the show we've done a video on it and we were talking about it earlier today then you you have to question are all No.
centralised authoritarian structures preparing to shut down this type of
discourse wherever it's coming from. If it's coming from an avowedly and
identifiably right-wing figure or a pretty plainly left-wing figure like
Cornel West, they don't want people saying "hey the deep states corrupt, it's
been totally corporatised but the bi-party system can't be relied on". I've had enough!
Okay, so we'll be back tomorrow with Sir Dickie Dawkins himself, Richard Dawkins, talking about atheism and the light of the Lord in studio, in this very studio.
