Just rememberd that I left out a key moment: when the White Whispering Neoliberal went to Flint and pretended to drink water to tell the 60 percent Black population of Flint, Michigan that their poisoned water was ok!
I think it's actually far too moderate a piece --- we need a revolutionary movement and not just social movements to make our masters be nicer --- but the reflections on the obsession with voting as the definition of one's politics and the limits of candidate-cented election insanity are excellent.
An open letter to We, the People: Well, there it is my fellow Americans, the straight skinny from a rare writer who does not speak with a forked tongue, a beautiful analysis of how Obama failed all Americans by failing Black America with his disingenuous neoliberal approach to governance and his own personal moral failure as president to uphold the oath he swore to protect the Constitution.
And so it is now a part of the historical record how another illegitimate president in a long line of these straw men took the nation farther down the neoliberal road to ruin. Looking at the current crop of fascist GOP actors vying for the presidency and the usual array of crooks in the power structure of the party of "inauthentic opposition" it's clear that the only hope for real democracy is a grassroots revolution led by Cornel West. Otherwise, only three choices remain: 1. Stick a needle in your eyeball and scream, an option recently depicted in a great Mr. Fish satire. 2. Cast a cynical vote for a full blown fascist thug who would probably run the country from a prison cell like a mobster. 3. Elect the status quo candidate Joe "nothing will ever fundamentally change" Biden and his legions of neoliberal kleptocrats.
The future is up to you, my brethren. We can all continue to "eat shit and die" as the corporate power elites wish for us, or we can rise up and vote to live. As Mark Twain said, "You pays your money and you takes your choice."
I love brother West but to the notion that "the only hope for real democracy is a grassroots revolution led by Cornel West" I must say No, no, a thousand times no. The WSWS recently put up a critique of his eclecticism (and more) that is sadly all too on point (I have issues with the WSWS , espcially on race, but they are far from dumb and have been very decent on the fascism issue and more). And I have to ask what exactly is "real democracy" and how do understand that notion in the context of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" that Marx properly knew will be required to cancel the class rule that is cloaked by bourgeois "democracy"? Why the attachment to the masters' ballot box, what Avakian quite rightly calls "the bourgeois electoral bullshit (BEB)? Why so focused on voting under the ridiculous American system, with its preposterous Electoral Colllege and so much more that I have been writing about. Don't you want a people's socialist movement and revolution?
Well, at least let's have brother West sitting on the eco-socialist movement council of wise citizens. And I meant a broader revolution than via the duopoly or ranked multi-party system. A comprehensive "revolution of consciousness" is really the ticket without the cloak of bourgeois democracy. This is a big topic and my rant was way too small. Truth be told I have a lot to learn, but let me say I'm firmly on the "transforming energy's side" as it's defined in terms of the ecological view, the missing piece from politics as usual. Thanks for the feedback.
Biden's IRA does help get us toward meeting our pledge to greener energy transformation. His foreign policies in the Middle East, in Africa, in South America, our aggressive posturing in the Pacific and the mess in the Ukraine that was avoidable (think Minsk agreement) is santanic; is sociopathic. What to do!
Did I vote for Obama? No, but I am amazed at how much this essay exposes how much I fell for the hype. In the southern states, it was my experience that first you had to deal with and condemn the open vile white nationalist racism of “mainstream” people, who now have become Republifascists. Then you could analyze more thoroughly how neo-liberalism ushers in the neo-fascists.
I love brother West but why the reflexive turn to electoral politics, as if there are any solutions through the US electoral system? Such a minor and marginal action that takes two minutes once every four years to vote for a Barry Commoner or a Ralph Nader or a Cornel West. The seductive power of "bourgeois electoral bullshit" (the BEB, as RCP leader Bob Avakian calls it) never ceases to amaze me.
Just rememberd that I left out a key moment: when the White Whispering Neoliberal went to Flint and pretended to drink water to tell the 60 percent Black population of Flint, Michigan that their poisoned water was ok!
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/obama-drinks-filtered-city-water-in-flint-to-show-its-safe My God, what a shithead.
I notice an exaggerated focus on the two minute voting moment in defining one's politics. Please, please, everyone read this by the late Howard Zinn: https://www.howardzinn.org/collection/election-madness/
I think it's actually far too moderate a piece --- we need a revolutionary movement and not just social movements to make our masters be nicer --- but the reflections on the obsession with voting as the definition of one's politics and the limits of candidate-cented election insanity are excellent.
An open letter to We, the People: Well, there it is my fellow Americans, the straight skinny from a rare writer who does not speak with a forked tongue, a beautiful analysis of how Obama failed all Americans by failing Black America with his disingenuous neoliberal approach to governance and his own personal moral failure as president to uphold the oath he swore to protect the Constitution.
And so it is now a part of the historical record how another illegitimate president in a long line of these straw men took the nation farther down the neoliberal road to ruin. Looking at the current crop of fascist GOP actors vying for the presidency and the usual array of crooks in the power structure of the party of "inauthentic opposition" it's clear that the only hope for real democracy is a grassroots revolution led by Cornel West. Otherwise, only three choices remain: 1. Stick a needle in your eyeball and scream, an option recently depicted in a great Mr. Fish satire. 2. Cast a cynical vote for a full blown fascist thug who would probably run the country from a prison cell like a mobster. 3. Elect the status quo candidate Joe "nothing will ever fundamentally change" Biden and his legions of neoliberal kleptocrats.
The future is up to you, my brethren. We can all continue to "eat shit and die" as the corporate power elites wish for us, or we can rise up and vote to live. As Mark Twain said, "You pays your money and you takes your choice."
Sincerely Yours,
Don Quixote
I love brother West but to the notion that "the only hope for real democracy is a grassroots revolution led by Cornel West" I must say No, no, a thousand times no. The WSWS recently put up a critique of his eclecticism (and more) that is sadly all too on point (I have issues with the WSWS , espcially on race, but they are far from dumb and have been very decent on the fascism issue and more). And I have to ask what exactly is "real democracy" and how do understand that notion in the context of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" that Marx properly knew will be required to cancel the class rule that is cloaked by bourgeois "democracy"? Why the attachment to the masters' ballot box, what Avakian quite rightly calls "the bourgeois electoral bullshit (BEB)? Why so focused on voting under the ridiculous American system, with its preposterous Electoral Colllege and so much more that I have been writing about. Don't you want a people's socialist movement and revolution?
Well, at least let's have brother West sitting on the eco-socialist movement council of wise citizens. And I meant a broader revolution than via the duopoly or ranked multi-party system. A comprehensive "revolution of consciousness" is really the ticket without the cloak of bourgeois democracy. This is a big topic and my rant was way too small. Truth be told I have a lot to learn, but let me say I'm firmly on the "transforming energy's side" as it's defined in terms of the ecological view, the missing piece from politics as usual. Thanks for the feedback.
Biden's IRA does help get us toward meeting our pledge to greener energy transformation. His foreign policies in the Middle East, in Africa, in South America, our aggressive posturing in the Pacific and the mess in the Ukraine that was avoidable (think Minsk agreement) is santanic; is sociopathic. What to do!
Did I vote for Obama? No, but I am amazed at how much this essay exposes how much I fell for the hype. In the southern states, it was my experience that first you had to deal with and condemn the open vile white nationalist racism of “mainstream” people, who now have become Republifascists. Then you could analyze more thoroughly how neo-liberalism ushers in the neo-fascists.
West it is than....so far
I love brother West but why the reflexive turn to electoral politics, as if there are any solutions through the US electoral system? Such a minor and marginal action that takes two minutes once every four years to vote for a Barry Commoner or a Ralph Nader or a Cornel West. The seductive power of "bourgeois electoral bullshit" (the BEB, as RCP leader Bob Avakian calls it) never ceases to amaze me.