Cornel West: Obama Was Better Than Trump, But Still Complicit in America's “Imperial Extension”

This is such an important interview with Cornell West from 2019. It remains of vital importance that we recognize and come to terms with the truth about the legacy of Obama and with the realities of the American empire today and over the course of our entire history. Without confronting these facts, the costs of the deadly status quo — which legitimizes the violence of the military industrial complex and global militarism — will continue to spill over and impact us all, especially people of color and marginalized peoples in our country and worldwide. Connecting these dots between the violence, oppression, and dehumanization embedded in neoliberal predatory capitalism and the ideology of domination with endless wars, pervasive racism and poverty and economic injustice, lack of healthcare and jobs and essential social programs, the sixth major extinction and the climate and ecological crises, and all the many faces of heartbreaking and needless suffering in America and across the planet is utterly essential. Half the solution is first recognizing the problem. May we be courageous and care enough to embody a profound commitment to truth and to acting upon what we learn and come to recognize must, absolutely must, radically change. — Molly

"Sixty cents of every $1 of U.S. budget goes to the military-industrial complex, Trump’s $750 billion military budget. Who voted for that? Democrats as well as Republicans. That’s part of the imperial extension, that makes it difficult for us to speak to issues of healthcare, jobs with a living wage. It suffocates the domestic agenda." — Dr. Cornel West

Harvard professor Cornel West joins Democracy Now! to offer a critical analysis of this week's highly contentious Democratic presidential candidate debates. He discusses how the mixed legacy of the Obama years casts its shadow over the Democratic party, especially on the subjects of war and empire. West says establishment Democrats, along with the corporate media, have played a big part in whitewashing the Obama era, which saw the administration extend the reach of American empire by expanding the drone war in the Middle East and Africa. “The Democratic Party is in a tough situation because you have Democrats in love with their dear brother Barack Obama — and we know he is a zillion times better in many ways than Trump in the White House right now — but on the other hand, it was not a golden age,” says West. “This is part of the tightrope that needs to be walked by that part of the progressive wing [of] the Democratic Party.”


CORNEL WEST: Well, I just want to affirm what my dear Sister Dolores said about the deportation out of control. It goes beyond political parties. It was under the Obama administration, as well. We have to be very candid about that. And it’s very difficult, I think, to have a robust and candid conversation about a number of these structural issues that have to do with misery and oppression, without somehow being open to the ways in which both parties have been complicitous to not staying in contact with the rich humanity of our precious Mexican brothers and sisters—Chicanos, in my own language.

But it also relates to this larger issue of: How does the Democratic Party come to terms with Obama and his legacy? Because it’s clear that hardly anyone wants to critically examine it. So you can’t say too much about the Wall Street bailout explicitly; you can’t say too much about the drones; you can’t say too much about the wars in Libya and Somalia, and the bombs in Yemen; you can’t say too much about the very ugly Israeli occupation; you can’t say too much about the ugly Egyptian authoritarianism—though they are tied to the Obama administration. So, the Democratic Party is in a very tough situation, because you’ve got Democrats who are in love with our dear Brother Barack Obama, and we know he’s a zillion times better in many ways than the Trump in the White House right now, but, on the other hand, it wasn’t a golden age. And I think we have to be very candid about this.

And this is part of the tightrope that needs to be walked, I think, by those part of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, because you have to be able to tell the truth. You have to be committed to the suffering of poor and working people. I don’t care where they are. They could be in Tel Aviv, in Gaza. They can be in Mexico City or El Paso. They can be in Guatemala or El Paso. They can be in Guatemala or Ethiopia or Somalia, Dalits in India, Uyghurs in China, and so forth. And so, those of us who are on the outside, more social movement activists, let’s say, as opposed to insiders, we have got to be able to speak our truths and bring power and pressure to bear, even as we connect with various statesmen and politicians.

And one of the reasons why I spend the wonderful time and precious moments that I do with my dear Brother Bernie Sanders is not because I think he’s pure and pristine, but in many ways he is the last hope in terms of dealing with the planet in catastrophic mode, in dealing with the grotesque wealth inequality, in dealing with the legacies of white and male supremacy and transphobia, homophobia. How do we keep track of Jewish humanity, Palestinian humanity, Arab humanity? What kinds of politicians will speak to those issues? Very, very few. Most of them are so well adjusted to the unjust status quo, who benefit from the oligarchic and plutocratic money. And Brother Bernie is one of the last hopes. I’m not saying he’s the last hope, but he’s one of the last hopes, as our empire undergoes such decline, even as we lurch for real democratic, radical democratic awakening and regeneration.....

I think part of the problem is, is that when you talk about empire, you’ve got the pillars of the military-industrial complex, you’ve got Wall Street, but you also have corporate media. And I thank God for Democracy Now!, thank God for the two wonderful sisters that you all are, to try to say, “You know what? Corporate media is an integral part of the empire that is in denial about America being an empire, and therefore doesn’t want to keep track of the nine countries—five Middle East, four in Africa—where United States is even dropping bombs or assisting in the dropping of bombs.” Nobody wants to talk about the 128 countries of special operations, the over 586 military units of the U.S. military in all around the world, and the 4,800 that we have throughout the United States and the world. Corporate media won’t touch that with a 10-foot pole.

And so you end up with this very narrow, deodorized, truncated conversation that denies the reality of the U.S. presence in the world. And as Brother Martin Luther King used to say, those bombs that are dropped in Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, they land—indigenous peoples’ reservations. We are not a nation of immigrants; we’re a nation with immigrants, with indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans in our origin. Those bombs drop in hoods, black hoods. They drop in barrios. They drop in white working-class and white poor communities. Sixty cents of every $1 of U.S. budget goes to the military-industrial complex, Trump’s $750 billion military budget. Who voted for that? Democrats as well as Republicans. That’s part of the imperial extension, that makes it difficult for us to speak to issues of healthcare, jobs with a living wage. It suffocates the domestic agenda. And Martin Luther King Jr., our dear Sister Dolores and Cesar Chavez and others, those grand exemplars of the social movements of the past, they understood that. And I think that’s part of the challenge that we have to bring.    

Please go here for links: https://www.nationofchange.org/2019/08/02/it-wasnt-a-golden-age-cornel-west-says-democrats-have-to-reckon-with-mixed-obama-legacy/  and  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9rNFI--sWk