Bernie Sanders & Cornel West: The radical alliance that could change everything
As the democratic socialist from Vermont tries to do the impossible, the firebrand academic could help
Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign is already enjoying success that few could have predicted. Bernie is a big deal. Well, OK, if you’re a white progressive he’s a big deal. Otherwise, you may have no idea who he is, according to reporting this morning in the New York Times. The Times‘ Patrick Healy and Jonathan Martin write that “black voters have shown little interest in [Sanders]” and that “[e]ven his own campaign advisers acknowledge that Mr. Sanders is virtually unknown to many African-Americans, an enormously important Democratic constituency.”
But as his presidential campaign gains altitude and attention,
Sanders may be on the way to securing the most difficult black progressive endorsement there is: the blessing of Professor Cornel West, one of America’s leading public intellectuals. Celebrity is rare in American academe, but the eccentric West (along with MIT’s Noam Chomsky) is something of a superstar scholar. He’s our Slavoj Žižek, but with far better hair and a sense of fashion.
Speaking with Grit TV’s Laura Flanders in early June, the black academic icon was asked by the host if he will be supporting the increasingly popular candidate for president.
“I
love brother Bernie,” West replied. “He tells the truth about Wall Street. He really does.”
But West, who feels burned and spurned by President Obama, his team, and the Democratic Party generally, then turned immediately to the specter of Hillary Clinton. Sanders, though an independent socialist in the Senate, is running for the Democratic Party ticket, and West worried aloud about submission to the party hegemon, Secretary Clinton.
“I’m not a Hillary Clinton fan at all,” he said resolutely. “So if he uses his power to hand it over to her I’ll be deeply upset.”
West, ever-critical and stubbornly conscientious, was an early skeptic of then-Senator Obama’s campaign in 2007-08, only to sign on to the Obama team and do 65 events for the candidate after a conversation between the two convinced West of Obama’s progressive bona fides. Similarly, West has withheld a ringing and thorough endorsement of Sanders, citing Sanders’ positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
more here:
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/24/bernie_sanders_cornel_west_the_radical_alliance_that_could_change_everything/
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