A short note on Cornel West
So here we have Cornel West, on the advice of Jill Stein, hiring Peter Daou as a campaign manager. Here's Sabrina Salvati breaking it down:
Here's the larger context as a reality check: the only way Cornel West's campaign amounts to anything is if it is, as West so proudly proclaims, a "moment in a movement." No, it isn't to get those Federal funds for the Green Party. The Green Party will itself be of no consequence unless it is a "moment in a movement." Even if you are critical of Cornel West, you will still need a movement if you are to matter.
So, in short, there has to be a movement. There must be a COLLECTIVE effort, preferably a horizontalist one and not one not led by fools of which Nick Brana was one such, to replace the Democratic Party with something else. (You might think of the Green Party as something else, but the Green Party is in all likelihood still as wedded to the Democratic Party as it was in 2004 when it ran David Cobb for President against the advice of a great multitude of people who wanted it to run Ralph Nader.) Remember Jane Hamsher and the Veal Pen? (First article) (Second article) Well, Hamsher was trying to show that most of your favorite "nonpartisan" organizations were tied in with the Democratic Party. Your opportunity, then, is to organize revolts within these organizations away from the Democratic Party.
The stupidity of the Democratic Party has never been more evident, not in all of fifty years of neoliberal rule. When the shadow government gets to plant a conviction on Donald Trump, the remaining Republicans will get to battle it out to decide who gets to be President. I do not think the Democrats have another chance for the White House next November. They are wasting far too much time with a President too senile to run for re-election, and it's quite likely they will waste further time with Kamala Harris before settling on Gavin Newsom, after which time the Republicans will be far more organized than they are now and half of America will still not know who Gavin Newsom is. What counts as power with these people, you see, is solidarity among the sold-out, accompanied by occasional offhand accusations of racism and sexism. Or maybe they will just go all the way with Joe while hiding him from the public. The time to move on from Biden was yesterday, and yet we see no movement.
The Democrats will be running on epically stupid foreign policies. Maybe there are people in the ruling elites who believe that picking fights with Russia and China right now is a good idea, but I doubt it, and in actuality the attempt to resuscitate first-term Reagan foreign policy in the year 2022 smells of money promised to someone, maybe Hunter Biden's Burisma buddies. All of the discussion about a "transition to a multipolar world" misses the point that what we will be seeing is a transition to a BRICS world, specifically a world run through the Russia-China alliance with the aid of oil producers Saudi Arabia and UAE. Meanwhile the Democrats tell everyone "we love losing a war in Ukraine, and if you are against us you're a Putin puppet even though nobody really does more to strengthen Putin than we do." (Oh, and their favorite tool against inflation? Making it impossible to buy a home on credit, while inflation promises further origin in increased oil prices.) And they've ruined Europe, which is of course why, when Team Biden wants to downplay inflation, they compare US inflation to inflation in Europe. Of such stuff are the delusions of losers made.
Team Biden shows with its every move that it can't be trusted. It's quite clear that -- for them -- the world is a means to their own private ends. Thus Yves Smith's question "Has the West Closed All its Project Ukraine Exits?" Having declared that the goal of their proxy war is the destruction of Russia, and having observed that their chosen "means" in fact strengthens Russia, each of Team Biden's moves appears as further falsehood cloaked in deceit. Such a conclusion extends to the recently hinted-at Team Biden proposal of a conflict freeze. Of course Team Biden has no interest in peace. This lack of interest underlies John Mearsheimer's pessimism about ending the conflict and Yves Smith's conclusion that "the way to an end game is regime change. And the weak regimes are all in the West."
This untrustworthiness includes this year's turn to the right in "Biden" policy, perhaps further evidence that Joe is not really in charge. I would moreover expect impeachment proceedings to flow out of all this.
Domestic policy for Team Biden will be singing the praises of the Inflation Reduction Act while class warfare drags the working class backward. There might be something there, but there isn't enough of it to keep the pundits from claiming that the public doesn't understand how good things are under Biden. "It's the public's fault." This is another Team Biden "winning" strategy.
Most of what counts as "the Republicans" are worse than Team Biden, clearing that very low bar, especially, you know, "Nikki Haley." But this inferiority will be of no consequence given that it is Team Biden that will be on display throughout next year until we hear otherwise from the people pulling the strings.
Peter Daou might help with the Green Party break from the Democrats. After all, he was one of Hillary's attack dogs, so he knows enough about them to hate them pretty ferociously. At any rate, it's easy to predict that eventually Cornel West and his team will figure out how properly to describe the Democrats as a cluster. Most anyone who isn't a Democrat has a learning curve. The only thing missing? It's the mass-movement strength necessary to make Cornel West into a figure for the history books. Without it, he's just another individual telling America "I told you so" amidst the Democratic Party juggernaut. ADVICE: don't focus upon Peter Daou. Focus upon the very high requirement which must be met if Cornel West's presidential bid is to amount to anything.
Comments
We shall see.
He apparently posted this on twitter:
OUR IRONCLAD COMMITMENT:
✅ Cornel West will be on the ballot next November.
✅ There will be no dropping out and endorsing a Democrat.
✅ We are here to oppose the system, not to reinforce it.
https://twitter.com/peterdaou/status/1701672247562309862
"Ironclad". These are the dems we're talking about, after all... Time to start the pool on who commits suicide by shooting themselves in the back of the head (twice) first, I guess.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
That's a lot
of ink spilled castigating Ds and Biden to an audience that needs no persuasion on those points. As for Daou, he's a very dubious pick (compare and contrast with RFK Jr's excellent choice of Dennis Kucinich), but for me he's only one item in my criticism of CW and his campaign.
Jimmy Dore has already gone over some of West's problems:
1) West's politically unsound messaging is narrow, DNC-friendly in an important way, and not geared to build a broad coalition of support. As with his constantly referring to Trump as a "fascist" while Biden gets softer treatment. This sort of talk will obviously not get West many R backers nor R-inclined Indies, while at the same time he makes the argument for Ds in the general that there is a valid case for lesser of two evils voting.
2) West's interview w Jimmy showed Cornel's thin-skinnedness, as he got defensive and overheated several times when challenged. CW doesn't seem sufficiently self-confident enough to handle anything other than softball interviews. Maybe this is why he was so reluctant for so long to accept Dore's invitation to talk made months before, and why Cornel allowed only for a 45 minute interview. (Jimmy: "He started the interview with one foot already out the door.") Jimmy has a large, broad-spectrum audience. West should have accepted fairly quickly then gone about prepping on the main issues he should expect Jimmy to cover (Ukraine, Covid, messaging).
3) Cornel is a half-mile wide and a half-inch deep on some key issues. Covid and the vaccines for instance. He showed a seeming lack of caring, or understanding of the gov't-imposed hardships we all lived through for several yrs. He also has not retracted his glowing statements of support for Fauci -- "a man of integrity". As Jimmy said, Cornel seems "incurious" at times. Well put.
4) Cornel is showing for everyone but his deeply devoted backers how much of a political neophyte he is. He has a steep learning curve ahead of him, and so far the prospects do not look promising that he will make the considerable effort needed to improve and begin to "build a movement" let alone be a serious factor in the general.
5) Cornel's constant reference to "white supremacy" is not going to build a movement. In fact it will turn off many voters who could be gettable.
6) (moi) He and his backers need to ease off calling him "Dr" Cornel West. Yes, technically he can, but a self-confident person wouldn't. This goes for "Dr" Jill Biden too. Save it for the medical doctors to use that honorific. It's pretentious for non-medical doctors to use it.
7) (moi) Other sign of pretentiousness, affectation or undue self-regard: the wearing of that black scarf thing around his neck. Ok for professional opera singers, looks ridiculous on a pol.
Very good interview by Niko House interviewing Jimmy on his Cornel chat:
Feh.
1. Yeah, messaging. That's how the Democrats self-criticize when the working class points out how severely their policies suck. There's plenty of time to fix messaging.
2. The personality trait you don't want at this point is self-enclosed hubris, not "thin-skinnedness." While the Republicans promote wingnuttery as normal, sometimes involving hubris, Team Biden multiplies the sort of individual you can't talk to. All you can do with Team Biden is shut up and (hopefully not) vote for their senile placeholder Joe Biden. The "fascism" thing is a distraction and West would benefit from dropping it. Whereas with Donald Trump "fascism" is a voiced, image-making thing that Trump does that (inadequately) masks Trump's physical identity as a lazy narcissist, Team Biden are neoconservatives representing kleptocrats, which is why West has a hard time identifying them as "fascists." Hitler, you may recall, didn't work for Thyssen or Krupp but rather for the greater glory of his dream of exterminating all Jews and turning eastern Europe into a second, third, and fourth Germany. As for Blinken, Nuland, Sullivan, and Lloyd "Raytheon" Austin, they view Ukraine as an investment opportunity, a chance to encode US dollars and hand them to military corporations, in much the same sense that W.'s buds with Blackwater imagined Iraq as such a thing.
3. A future President has to deal with the future, not with the past. The pandemic is over.
4. This is the most serious issue you've brought up. It's still a bit early to tell. So when is RFK Jr. going to give up on the Democrats and their mascot Jaime "Biden is our nominee" Harrison?
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
The effects of the pandemic
permanently changed this country. Just as an example, we lost 40% or more of all small businesses in the country. They will never return. The economic impact is forever. The probability of entering the WHO Treaty will remove our governmental autonomy, and true believers in the pandemic response protocols have no issue with that treaty. If he has no complaints about our government actions on the last pandemic, it indicates he won't have any reluctance to repeat it the next time, and we have been assured there will be a next time.
If West, or anyone else says Biden is the lesser of the two evils, then any justification for that is a de facto endorsement of Biden. He shouldn't have made that statement.
I do not hang around with murderers, especially the ones that brag about their kills. Peter Daou has bragged about his participation in the massacre of innocent Palestinians. If it didn't bother Clinton, then I guess West is ok with it.
edit: mispellings
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
The idea behind this diary --
was that a prodigious effort might tear an opening in American politics not visible now. Should I give up, because Peter Daou is on Cornel West's team?
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
Where do you see
a prodigious effort?
Advocate, donate, go all in.
It will give you something to do.
I applaud you for your care and concern for the country. I am sincere.
Brother West has blown it for me. I have zero interest in his campaign. I am sincere.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Union organizing, strikes, that kind of thing
Stuff like RBN and FNB too. I'm sure that there's plenty of stuff going on that we don't hear about because journalism is dead.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
1. Yes there is
plenty of time for Cornel, and it looks like he will need it.
2. Being thin-skinned is not advised in nearly all aspects of life, and particularly in such a high-visibility role as candidate for president. It's only one of several or a number of undesirable qualities voters prefer not to see in people running for the highest office. West's fascism charge against Trump -- which you concede needs to be dropped -- is not merely a "distraction" but has been voiced so frequently by Cornel that it's probably by now indelibly integrated into his campaign. He now owns it. Disagree about why CW missed the loud notes of fascism with Biden and the Ds. Cornel seems to have been too busy admiring Dr Fauci and too incurious to have noticed how so many of our fundamental freedoms were taken away or threatened by Fauci et al. As for the rest on Biden and Ds, you're preaching to the choir here, including me.
3. (concur w/OTC comments). The pandemic is over only for the time being. When it's politically more convenient (i.e. not until after Nov '24), and yet another new variant comes along, perhaps one with a little more bite, then if they feel so inclined and don't feel public pressure, TPTB will not hesitate to unleash another round of freedom-squelching measures not too dissimilar to last time. We know RFK Jr will be on the front lines fighting such decrees (assuming he doesn't get elected). Will Cornel be a passive, incurious bystander again?
4. Once again, PATIENCE!!&%@!! The DNC is scheduled to meet tomorrow to make official whatever mischievous anti-RFK measures they have in mind. Unless they have something else up their sleeve for tomorrow to make it even more restrictive for Kennedy?? I won't give here my suspicions lest the DNC get ideas ... Remember also, RFK is a lawyer with much litigation under his belt. You wait until the other side has fully committed (when the case has "ripened" for the courts to be able to legally hear it) before taking your major step. This also prevents the other side from being able to weasel out of charges of rigging by saying nothing has been decided yet.
Well...
the point of laying out all of what you call "preaching to the choir" was that any serious attempt to, say, do anything in politics (outside of, say, turning America into a theocracy in the style laid out in Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale") will have to present a credible alternative to the Democratic Party. This is a far more difficult task than anyone wants to admit, but it appears that the forthcoming election cycle might provide an opportunity to make it happen. This appears so because of the special decrepitude of the Democratic Party this time around, a decrepitude not apparent in Dem performance in any previous election cycle. But who knows, we might have to wait until 2028 for some serious breaches to occur.
As for the pandemic, I don't expect a recurrence, because the viruses attain dominance in order of increasing contagion. A virus that is fatal to large populations but is as transmissible as the most recent omicron subvariant will be a virus the medical experts won't be able to do a lot about. So I'm not expecting that.
If RFK Jr. expects to continue a campaign outside of the Democratic Party (and I think the futility of his trying to gain the Dems' nomination is self-evident), he will need a ballot access strategy. This isn't something that can be whipped up in a hurry, as Ralph Nader discovered in 2004.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
In an imagined world, in another universe
I would love to see RFK run as an independent and have ballot access.
He would blow away the competition, and maybe enact positive change.
But the system is rigged, as Bernie showed us very plainly. That is not
how the American political process works. Yeah, Nader and Kucinich
are pretty much the same type of volleys against a wall of process,
manipulation and control by an unyielding establishment. We are not
given meaningful choices. I hope you are right about the dems choking
on their vote theft schemes.
Thanks for the Sabrina Salvati video.
I like the way that she offered her take on the Cornel West situation with regards to Peter Daou and the third party progress. She showed no mercy on the faux progressives.