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In reply to the discussion: If YOU have issues with Cornel West-well, what are they? [View all]JonLP24
(29,322 posts)He said "long before his intellectual" splits which he can't deny, there is no wavering there which cannot be said of Dyson who did make it personal by comparing Obama to Pharoah & certainly makes it personal here or the MSNBC colleagues but West's claims is they evolved into cheerleaders. I don't know former issues with MHP & Princeton but I may not go there, they were certainly slamming him constantly bringing up he is jealous. Always with the jealously but I don't buy it.
This is the source Eric Dyson cites & it is an intellectual argument
No one grasps this tragic descent better than West, who did 65 campaign events for Obama, believed in the potential for change and was encouraged by the populist rhetoric of the Obama campaign. He now nurses, like many others who placed their faith in Obama, the anguish of the deceived, manipulated and betrayed. He bitterly describes Obama as a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. And now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it.
When you look at a society you look at it through the lens of the least of these, the weak and the vulnerable; you are committed to loving them first, not exclusively, but first, and therefore giving them priority, says West, the Class of 1943 University Professor of African American Studies and Religion at Princeton University. And even at this moment, when the empire is in deep decline, the culture is in deep decay, the political system is broken, where nearly everyone is up for sale, you say all I have is the subversive memory of those who came before, personal integrity, trying to live a decent life, and a willingness to live and die for the love of folk who are catching hell. This means civil disobedience, going to jail, supporting progressive forums of social unrest if they in fact awaken the conscience, whatever conscience is left, of the nation. And thats where I find myself now.
I have to take some responsibility, he admits of his support for Obama as we sit in his book-lined office. I could have been reading into it more than was there.
West says the betrayal occurred on two levels.
There is the personal level, he says. I used to call my dear brother [Obama] every two weeks. I said a prayer on the phone for him, especially before a debate. And I never got a call back. And when I ran into him in the state Capitol in South Carolina when I was down there campaigning for him he was very kind. The first thing he told me was, Brother West, I feel so bad. I havent called you back. You been calling me so much. You been giving me so much love, so much support and what have you. And I said, I know youre busy. But then a month and half later I would run into other people on the campaign and hes calling them all the time. I said, wow, this is kind of strange. He doesnt have time, even two seconds, to say thank you or Im glad youre pulling for me and praying for me, but hes calling these other people. I said, this is very interesting. And then as it turns out with the inauguration I couldnt get a ticket with my mother and my brother. I said this is very strange. We drive into the hotel and the guy who picks up my bags from the hotel has a ticket to the inauguration. My mom says, Thats something that this dear brother can get a ticket and you cant get one, honey, all the work you did for him from Iowa. Beginning in Iowa to Ohio. We had to watch the thing in the hotel.
<snip>
Obama and Wests last personal contact took place a year ago at a gathering of the Urban League when, he says, Obama cussed me out. Obama, after his address, which promoted his administrations championing of charter schools, approached West, who was seated in the front row.
He makes a bee line to me right after the talk, in front of everybody, West says. He just lets me have it. He says, You ought to be ashamed of yourself, saying Im not a progressive. Is that the best you can do? Who do you think you are? I smiled. I shook his hand. And a sister hollered in the back, You cant talk to professor West. Thats Dr. Cornel West. Who do you think you are? You can go to jail talking to the president like that. You got to watch yourself. I wanted to slap him on the side of his head.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/the_obama_deception_why_cornel_west_went_ballistic_20110516
So the personal side of the betrayal was one of two arguments in 3 pages but the inauguration tickets wasn't the only part of it but it is odd Eric Dyson cites that page for the jealously stuff but cites Alter's book "Obama's enemies" for the Obama confrontation but like I said not the only story
This was maybe Americas last chance to fight back against the greed of the Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats, to generate some serious discussion about public interest and common good that sustains any democratic experiment, West laments. We are squeezing out all of the democratic juices we have. The escalation of the class war against the poor and the working class is intense. More and more working people are beaten down. They are world-weary. They are into self-medication. They are turning on each other. They are scapegoating the most vulnerable rather than confronting the most powerful. It is a profoundly human response to panic and catastrophe. I thought Barack Obama could have provided some way out. But he lacks backbone.