September 12, 2023

"[Cornel West's] presence in the 2024 race gives voters an exceptional choice for truth and justice beyond the corrupt and corrosive duopoly."

"Democracy means choice, it means options for voters, not coronations and vote-shaming. It is long past time to practice democracy rather than just pay it lip service."

54 comments:

rehajm said...

I don’t know what this means. Is he the new BLM, ‘hired’ to stop the slide of the Dems AA vote- to garner enough of the Obama votes so they can steal the rest? What does his pledge of fealty to Joe Biden at the end look like?

BUMBLE BEE said...

Look, Squirrel!

Sebastian said...

"It is long past time to practice democracy rather than just pay it lip service."

Like, full-on socialism by edict?

Anyway, what's not to like for a lefty in the Biden regime? We've got open orders, massive deficits, green giveaways, Israel hatred, Iran kowtowing, transmania, tech censorship, regulatory clampdowns, debt cancellations--what more do they want? Sure, the Bidens themselves are a little icky, but that makes them all the more pliable.

ga6 said...

Has he settled his tax problems yet? Perhaps this announced political campaign and its attendant fund raising is just a method of money raising to pay off his debts (aka the Asa method of wealth building).

Owen said...

He should do well with the racists and Marxists.

Aggie said...

For some reason, the 1950's theme music to the old 'Superman' television series started running through my head.

Robert Cook said...

"He should do well with the racists and Marxists."

I think the racists are already locked in for Trump. There aren't too many Marxists around, so they won't give him much of a jump in the polls.

William said...

I've seen him on tv a few times. He looked remarkably unkempt. His tie was askew and his hair was growing out in every which direction. His speech was impassioned, but I couldn't make out what he was driving at. Maybe Kamala can debate him. It might make her look good.

AlbertAnonymous said...

The Rent is too damn high!

Kai Akker said...

---There aren't too many Marxists around, so they won't give him much of a jump in the polls.

A dwindling congregation, Father Cook? But you keep the faith, thank the Lenin.

wendybar said...

"I think the racists are already locked in for Trump. "

Al Sharpton is your guy, not ours.

Gunner said...

Will he do better than the libertarian guy who helped Trump in 2016?

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Cook - the opposite is true.

Way more Marxists exist today that actual racists.

Michael said...

I contribute to his campaign. Wish he campaigned harder to peal off the black vote.

Wince said...

"There aren't too many Marxists around, so they won't give him much of a jump in the polls."

Self-identifying Marxists, perhaps. Many voters in this category are so ignorant, gullible, ahistorical and trend-conscious they don't even know that's actually the ideology they've been sold for a very high price at university.

Totally Innocent Hand Gesture said...

With regard to third parties, there are two types of American presidential elections —,some are like 1968 and 1992 where third-party candidates capture a significant share of the vote in the range 10-20 percent and then other elections where third-party candidates get a small 1-2% share but tip a critical swing state one way or the other. The first type feature structural shifts in politics while the second has a random walk flavor like stock markets.

In 1968, George Wallace's third party candidacy got 13.5 percent in the end and Richard Nixon barely nudged out Humbert Humphrey to win. Notable is that Humphrey was surging at the end as he separated himself from Lyndon Johnson's disastrous Vietnam war policies in the public mind and many feel he would have won if the election had gone on another week or so. The key dynamic here was that in the closing weeks traditional working class Democrats attracted to Wallace's racist populism made new calculations and went back to Humphrey. Other than the war, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations had the most prosperous economy since the Second World War. This could be Biden's strength in September-October 2024–his record gets compared to that of the challengers. Americans are not going to vote to overturn the fabled kitchen table where they do family budgets.

In 1992, Ross Perot's third party candidacy took votes from George H. W. Bush and allowed Clinton a 6 percent margin over the hapless Bush and the Democrats won. Clinton wisely stressed the weak economy and obliterated the 85 percent approval ratings that Bush had the previous year for winning the Gulf War. Perot had run an economic populist campaign against profligate federal spending and deficits that garnered an eye-popping 19 percent of the vote. Could an economic profligacy campaign work next year? Possibly, but who would articulate it? Perot had credibility on the issue (his chart presentation was a masterclass in this). Today's Republican House is threatening every major spending program. In short, the Republicans are touching every third rail in the federal budget, highlighting their fanaticism rather than their prudence. If the Democrats challenge Republican House members broadly, a Democratic landslide in the House could help carry Biden past some close spots in swing states. Marginal third party candidates like West and others will be lost in the storm.

The No Labels group is headed by Joe Lieberman, one of the establishment's more maladroit politicians.

Prediction: voters coalesce around Biden in the fall of 2024 while a minority of malcontents fracture and spread votes across Trump, who is rapidly becoming a third-party-like candidate rather than a major institutional party candidate, and other third party candidates.

Oh yes, Wallace and Nixon succeeded. The Trump Republican party today is a thoroughly Confederate party, racist and populist and centered in the left behind regions of a more cosmopolitan US.

gadfly said...

For God's sake, the Green Party, aka Cornel West, will likely garner about one-tenth of one percent of the duopoly-generated votes. Weird RFK Jr. will get more votes from his nutcase followers.

cassandra lite said...

Naming Peter Daou as campaign manager gives us yet another reason to laugh at West's campaign. From Kerry to Hillary to Bernie, he's been an endless source of partisan mirth lacking insight or utility, which is ironically interesting given the hardships and terrors of his teen years in Lebanon, forced to join a Christian militia.

Humperdink said...

R. Cook said: "I think the racists are already locked in for Trump."

Correct if I am wrong Mr. Cook, but I presume you are white. If that's the case, you are a racist to your core. No getting around it as us Caucasians have been reminded many times. Welcome aboard the Trump train!

Dude1394 said...

Sooooo...cornel west is allowed to win the nomination ( cough, cough ) but RFK cannot because of the way the democrats have rigged their OWN elections.

Iman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Yancey Ward said...

West will only be allowed on the ballot in the states where his presence won't hurt Biden. Democrats didn't make the mistake in 2020 that they made in 2016 in allowing Jill Stein on the ballots in some of the surprise states Trump won in 2016. Democrat judges and election officials will make sure that West doesn't qualify for the ballot in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, etc.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Self-identifying Marxists, perhaps. Many voters in this category are so ignorant, gullible, ahistorical and trend-conscious they don't even know that's actually the ideology they've been sold for a very high price at university.

There it is. "Critical theory" is marxist, NOW as the article Althouse posted makes clear was deliberately marxist, and the whole transmania push by schools is the classical marxist dream of destroying the nuclear family again revealed in the Friedan article or comments. Following the lineage of "critical theory" begets every critical studies department of every university, Chicano Studies, Black Studies, Women Studies and of course is the foundation for critical race theory which underpins everything this current administration is doing in "integrating indigenous theory" into medicine and natural resources. Look at every cabinet pick that Biden's handlers selected for this admin. Every single one an incompetent boob who mimics the critical theory gobbledegook at evry opportunity.

And like every marxist dream from Lennon's "Imagine" to Mao's Cultural Revolution the dream is to replace what works with a supposed better future that will work better, which in reality is always a nightmare where the eggs are broken (like your new dishwasher or EV) but we never get the omelet. Part of their shtick is to pose as bewildered as Cook does, to pretend their are no real marxists just as real communism "has never been tried." Marx was a miserable human who imagined a better world but never achieved results in his own miserable life. And his curse was to infect so many with the false religion of human perfection.

Joe Biden is their idea of perfection. Inflation is their idea of economics. Hatred and division fed by envy is their only asset. Drink from that cup at your peril.

Joe Smith said...

"The Rent is too damn high!"

"Kill my landlord..."

Robert Cook said...

"And like every marxist dream from Lennon's 'Imagine'...."

Idiocy.

No one wonder you guys see Marxists everywhere. It seems to be anything and everything you don't like.

Big Mike said...

I’ve wondered when black voters were going to punish Democrats for taking them for granted. Is 2024 the year and Cornel West the leader of the movement? My political instincts say that 2024 is the right time but West isn’t going to turn out to be the right person. So maybe 2028.

who-knew said...

A choice beyond the 'corrupt duopoly' would be welcome but Cornel West as a choice for "truth and justice" is a bridge too far. And what happened to 'the American way'

Ampersand said...

RCook at 1103, " [Marxism] seems to be anything and everything you don't like"

Fair point. Many are imprecise in distinguishing among the forms of unrealistic and/or coercive collectivism that they see as threats. Marxism as a word is becoming a metonym for all forms of leftist, fascist and anarchist ideology.

Indeed, I doubt that there are actually Marxists who still believe that the endpoint of the dialectic processes will be a true dictatorship of the proletariat. The karlmarxists these days are working on karlmarxism 3.0, focused on gini coefficients and the replacement of class with race. I wish them the worst possible luck with that.

gahrie said...

No one wonder you guys see Marxists everywhere. It seems to be anything and everything you don't like.

As someone who claims he has never read Das Kapital, who are you to define what Marxism is or isn't?

MadTownGuy said...

Robert Cook said...

["And like every marxist dream from Lennon's 'Imagine'...."]

"Idiocy.

No one wonder you guys see Marxists everywhere. It seems to be anything and everything you don't like.
"

"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky

Imagine all the people
Livin' for today
Ah

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too

Imagine all the people
Livin' life in peace
You

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one"

No Marxism there? Really?

Your "idiocy" comment is without factual support.

Saint Croix said...

Back in the USSR has way dumber lyrics

Lennon was kind of a dummy on the subject of Karl Marx and Jesus Christ.

He got in trouble for saying "the Beatles are bigger than Jesus!"

God would get his revenge in 1967 when the Monkees made more money than the Beatles. Dude! You asked for it, hairless ape.

Imagine is a twofer of suck because the music is as bad as the song. At least Back in the USSR is catchy as shit. (The Beatles were trying to mock the Beach Boys but they only succeeded in writing idiotic lyrics that live in infamy).

Apparently the Monkees out-earned the Beatles and the Stones combined. So God mocked Mick for that Lucifer song, ha. No respect, you fucking demon!

Monkees rule

Iman said...

So, Cook… it appears you’ve been played, filleted and slayed.

Well done, sir!

Saint Croix said...

I don't know about you

but I'm pulling for the hot lady in this one

it's really kinda unfair!

charis said...

He plans to put an end to the Pentagon, the police, and petroleum use, while prioritizing poor people and the planet.

Saint Croix said...

Cornel West is far more Christian (I think?) than he used to be.

Man's been going to church!

and his Joe Rogan interview is really good. About B.B. King!

Saint Croix said...

Racism Isn't Just About White Supremacy

Narr said...

West has always struck me as utterly, painfully, sincere in his woolly Christian spirituality.

Which is only one reason not to take him seriously about politics.

Robert Cook said...

"No Marxism there? Really?"

Nope. You can project marxism on it if you choose to be so literal and reductionist, but you can't say Lennon meant it that way.

Rather, it a wistful "imagining" of how much more peaceful and harmonious the world could be if we could look beyond the narrow viewpoints and manifold differences that create friction and division among people, in favor of the many commonalities that we share. It is not a program for action, but a lament for a peace and harmony among people that never will be realized.

Narr said...

Lennon and Imagine make a nice counterpoint to Lenin and, say, What Is To Be Done? The difference between a much older sentimental socialism that long predates Marx and Engels, and the Scientific Socialists of yore.

In OTL, the latter eat the former for lunch.


Saint Croix said...

Cookie, it's insane to think you can get rid of "religion" and the world would live in harmony.

Pay attention to political divides, buddy!

"If we just eliminated all right-wingers from the world, we'd all be happy!"

When I was a kid, the liberals taught me that Joe McCarthy was just as bad as Joe Stalin.

You want to give us all an opinion on that today, sunshine?

We'll wait!

hint: Stalin murdered a lot of people

(when do liberals return their shitty awards of self-congratulation?)

Ukraine? Well it's important now, in the fight against Putin. But the fight against Stalin?

What? What? The Communists just want to share the wealth!

Holomodor? Never heard of it!

Communism? Never been tried!

Saint Croix said...

And Mr. Cook,

You and other white atheists need to comment on the importance of Jesus Christ in the education of Martin Luther King Jr.

If you can't acknowledge it, don't expect any intellectual respect from Christians who see your dishonesty.

Robert Cook said...

"You and other white atheists need to comment on the importance of Jesus Christ in the education of Martin Luther King Jr."

????

What is it you expect me ("and other white atheists") to say? THE REVEREND Martin Luther King, Jr. obviously considered Jesus Christ to be a central figure in his life and thinking. There is nothing wrong with Christ's teachings. What is your point?

Robert Cook said...

"Back in the USSR has way dumber lyrics"

I'm pretty sure that was a McCartney song.

"The Beatles were trying to mock the Beach Boys but they only succeeded in writing idiotic lyrics that live in infamy."

The Beatles greatly admired the Beach Boys, and the Boys' PET SOUNDS was a direct kick in the ass to the Beatles, pushing them to come up with SGT. PEPPER'S. What makes you think they wanted to "mock" the Beach Boys.

Saint Croix said...

What is it you expect me ("and other white atheists") to say? THE REVEREND Martin Luther King, Jr. obviously considered Jesus Christ to be a central figure in his life and thinking. There is nothing wrong with Christ's teachings. What is your point?

my point is that Lennon "imagined" a world without religion

so he "imagined" a world without the Baptist church and a seminary

Jesus is the strongest rabbi the world has ever seen

so I have no patience with "liberals" who want to silence him and shut him down and make him disappear

Jesus helps people!

Saint Croix said...

it (is) a wistful "imagining" of how much more peaceful and harmonious the world could be if we could look beyond the narrow viewpoints and manifold differences that create friction and division among people, in favor of the many commonalities that we share.

it's touchy-feely goo at 6:56

secular humanism is the free-rider on the Judeo-Christian train

you've got nice vibes, but you hairless apes have no idea where those nice vibes came from

apes unite or some shit like that

what tribe are you in?

Saint Croix said...

Jesus came to divide

I think it was Holden Caulfield who said he liked Jesus better than his disciples.

Everybody likes Jesus better than his disciples! That's the point.

Ignore what Christians or Muslims or Jews or atheists or anybody says about Jesus. We're all sinners and we're going to piss you off.

My point is that Jesus is a provocative thinker who is better at moral reasoning than any rabbi we've had before or since. He is the Jewish messiah. He is the way. You want to learn how to be good? He will strengthen your mind.

Robert Cook said...

"Cookie, it's insane to think you can get rid of 'religion' and the world would live in harmony.

"Pay attention to political divides, buddy!


Jeebus! (Shaking head.) Religion has been historically (and remains) one of the greatest causes of strife and violence in the world. Take away the specificity of "religion" and just consider that the different ideas held by peoples around the world today and historically regarding the right and proper way to live and organize personal and social life are causes of great conflict between peoples. Yet, the different beliefs and creeds nothwithstanding, all humans have the same basic lives and needs and wants and fears and hopes. We're just physical animals living short lives, trying to rear our young until they can survive on their own and rear their own children.

Is it possible that these different and competing ideas of how to live--and the conflicts generated by these competing ideas--can ever be erased? No, fuck no, because humans are nothing if not literal-minded and violently fixated on their own tiny conception of "what is right." Lennon knew that. He was just expressing in song a wish that we could ignore all that separates us and embrace that which we all hold in common, (e.g., our love for our children and families and friends, etc.), in short, "Wouldn't it be nice if we could all get along in our too brief lives?" That's it! Anyone who makes more of it than that is completely missing the point.


"If we just eliminated all right-wingers from the world, we'd all be happy!'"

Uh, no. Lennon's song is wondering wouldn't it be nice if we could forget all politics?

Robert Cook said...

"my point is that Lennon 'imagined' a world without religion

"so he "imagined" a world without the Baptist church and a seminary"


And all other religions, too.

All creeds, all religions, all politics, all abstract concepts borne in human thinking that we treat as "real" and "solid" and "important" (enough to fight wars over them, etc.). All that has been created by humankind can be changed or discarded by humankind. None of it exists outside our own abstract conceptions. In the end we're just animals fighting over food and shelter in a physical world.

It's really just a simple little song, not particularly deep or novel, certainly not worthy of all the negative passion it has generated. Only people insistent on finding something to fight about could lend the song such significance.

Saint Croix said...

Religion has been historically (and remains) one of the greatest causes of strife and violence in the world.

I think what you meant to say was "socialism"

national or international

you people who think the messiah is a politician

look out

Saint Croix said...

Lennon knew that. He was just expressing in song a wish that we could ignore all that separates us and embrace that which we all hold in common, (e.g., our love for our children and families and friends, etc.), in short, "Wouldn't it be nice if we could all get along in our too brief lives?" That's it! Anyone who makes more of it than that is completely missing the point.

Mr. Cook

I don't object to your happy fantasies

or Mr. Lennon's happy fantasies

what I object to

is the belief you can achieve your happy fantasies by ignoring reality

for instance, all the people who were murdered in the USSR

that's what makes it a dumb song

and Imagine is dumb because the lyrics are straight out of Marx

and Marx was a nitwit and a horrible moralist

God is a totalitarian dictator who believes in freedom and has given us free will

you liberals can't abide this, and want to replace God with your own totalitarian dictator who will tell us all how to live

Saint Croix said...

I hate racial division and I think the U.S. census should stop doing that shit. Quit dividing the U.S. into your racial org charts! Stop the hate on the census.

What say you, Mr. Unite?

Saint Croix said...

You'd think people who read Marx would figure out that in many corporations

the employees own stock in the corporation

it's quite common!

"the workers own the means of production"

ownership!

yet you sad Marxists are too busy hating on investors who put money to work to make the world a better place.

Elon Musk invents an electic car and you hate him

Tesla workers own shares in his company and you hate them too

all you know is strife and hatred

you read Marx, but not for the economic analysis

you read Marx for the hate

Jesus has parables about planting seeds (i.e. investing in others) and watching your garden grow

venture capitalism is pure capitalism

invented in Cali, which used to be a marvelous state

now it's a Marxist crime scene

Jesus has many lessons on money

might want to learn them

in the USA, all your debts can be forgiven

I wonder where that lesson came from?

the only debts that can't be forgiven

are university debts

because governments will not forgive you

Robert Cook said...

My bad. I was under the impression you were trying to actually engage in a discussion. It took me this long to realize you're simply trolling. And this is why Lennon's song is a wish, never to be realized...because of all the trolls.

Dude1394 said...

"Blogger Big Mike said...
I’ve wondered when black voters were going to punish Democrats for taking them for granted. Is 2024 the year and Cornel West the leader of the movement? My political instincts say that 2024 is the right time but West isn’t going to turn out to be the right person. So maybe 2028.

9/12/23, 12:57 PM'

Not allowing a brotha' to be on the ballot could be a very big deal. Black people are very in tune with the man putting them in their place. They see it with cornel, rfk and trump.

The new boss is the same as the old boss.