Tag: Cornel West

This morning while starting to write this post, I happened to notice the following news headline on my iPhone:

AOC pushes ‘democratic socialist’ foreign policy: More ‘decolonization,’ less ‘exploitation’

AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) goes on to say in the article that the U.S. needs to “ramp up its climate efforts” and leave behind its legacy of imperialism, colonialism, exploitation, & ‘security state.’ She emphatically declares that “TRADE POLICY IS CLIMATE POLICY.”

Unless I’m missing the point here, AOC wants the U.S. to abandon its imperialistic approach to foreign policy and at the same time, dictate how sovereign nations should conform to ‘climate benchmarks’ imposed on them through their trade agreements with the U.S.

Sounds contradictory but this is exactly how the new communists want to expand their revolution globally by using the United States as a role model for the rest of the world. But in order for that to happen in a moral and material way, the “system,” meaning our society, must be totally transformed, not reformed, from a capitalist society into a communist society.

Lately, many of the commentators and contributors on Fox News opinion/news shows on the Web, particularly Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson, have been at a loss to explain why the 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates are endorsing such extreme policies. Many have stated that the current Democratic Party is unrecognizable from the party of JFK, Clinton, and even BHO. In reality, the Democratic Party has become the New Socialist Democratic Party. Many blame the influence of AOC and the other members of The Squad but I believe these new mainstream democrats are a product of the ideology espoused by radicals from the 1960s and are being influenced today by the New Communism and its architect, Bob Avakian.

So, who the heck is Bob Avakian? I never heard of him until recently when I stumbled upon the REVCOM.US (REVolutionary COMmunist?) website. What particularly struck me on the site was the introduction to a writing by Avakian, “Hope For Humanity On A Scientific Basis Breaking with Individualism, Parasitism and American Chauvinism.” It was enough to get me interested, so I clicked around and found a video of a dialog between Cornel West and Bob Avakian that took place in 2014 at the Riverside Church in NYC. I was familiar with Cornel West from his somewhat infrequent appearances on both Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity episodes on Fox News. Needless to say, Avakian’s 2-hour screed was laced with total and complete hatred for God, the United States, and Israel.

BREAKING NEWS: Vladimir Putin successful in changing the minds of thousands of voters and caucus goers in the early democratic primaries to vote against Joe Biden in an unprecedented bid to solidify Donald Trump’s re-election chances in 2020.

Does that headline sound outrageous? Not really, since this is the news ticker that CNN and MSDNC are dying to run. Let’s face it, if Putin, did in fact, attempt to influence our elections in Donald Trump’s favor then Russia would be America’s best friend.

Ever wonder where Antifa got its inspiration from? Well, my guess is that it was from Avakian and from the extreme content headlines on the REVCOM.us website. Many headlines on their website declare that America is Fascist and is ruled by a Fascist Regime. In the Avakian article, “Fascists and Communists: Completely Opposed and Worlds Apart,” Avakian provides his version of what fascism means through what he calls the “5 Stops.” I’ll take his “5 Stops” all of which are don’ts and give my interpretation of what Avakian is really saying in the form of do’s:

STOP #1: Release all incarcerated people of color, particularly black and brown people, restrain the police from stopping and interrogating any person of color, and avoid prosecution of same.

STOP #2: Prevent all biological males, particularly Caucasian Christian males, from holding any position of authority.

STOP #3: Downsize the military with the ultimate goal of eliminating the service branches altogether.

STOP #4: Eliminate all immigration enforcement agencies and open the borders to anyone and everyone.

STOP #5: Discontinue all forms of human activity that produces CO₂ with the ultimate goal of eliminating human activity altogether.

In order to support my aforementioned conclusions, I’ve gleaned the following notes from viewing the film, REVOLUTION AND RELIGION: The Fight for Emancipation and the Role of Religion; A Dialogue Between CORNEL WEST & BOB AVAKIAN.

• Morality is a human creation
• Bible supports slavery
• God is a bloodthirsty tyrant
• The “system” i.e., capitalism, is the problem
• Israel conducts genocide against the Palestinians
• There is no such thing as immigrants
• No need for police or the military
• Reality is evolution, creation is a myth
• Evolution is science
• Science can put an end to suffering
• Police are murderers
• Majority of the world are suffering
• Thomas Jefferson was not moral
• The United States is an empire
• The CIA is an organization of mass murderers
• Communism is an international movement
• America doesn’t come first
• Capitalism is the cause of climate change
• People in the streets can bring about change (mob rule?)

The above points are just a sampling of Avakian’s 2-hour rant from the Riverside Church in NYC. Bob Avakian was billed as a Revolutionary Communist and Cornel West as a Revolutionary Christian. After Avakian spoke he introduced Cornel West and both men embraced in a show of solidarity.

During Dr. West’s time at the podium, he recognized Harry Belafonte in the audience who he introduced as a freedom fighter with 60 years of participation in the struggle. Of course, most people would accredit Harry Belafonte as being “One of the most successful Jamaican-American pop stars in history,” being “dubbed the ‘King of Calypso’ for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s.” I guess he did all right for himself considering all the exploitation and oppression he had to overcome.

Dr. West’s 30-minute discourse was nothing like Avakian’s 2-hour rant, it was very academic and high-minded while staying within the democratic socialist framework of course. Even so, Dr. West regurgitated much of Avakian’s rhetoric on capitalism, the police, internationalism, oppression, exploitation, and so on and so forth. Even though both men agreed on many economic, social, and political issues, they seemed to disagree strongly on religion and theology. Dr. West is a revolutionary Christian and Avakian is an atheist. Dr. West believes Christians can “work together” with the leaders of the New Communism in order to achieve emancipation for the oppressed in America and the rest of the world.

Dr. West appeared as a guest on The Sean Hannity Show February 20th along with Dan Bongino and Geraldo Rivera. Hannity almost immediately fired out the accusation that Bernie Sanders is “pro-soviet” and a “Bolshevik” but Dr. West defended Bernie by saying that he is “like me,” implying Bernie is a democratic socialist not a “Soviet communist.”

Nevertheless, many are accusing Bernie Sanders of being a communist and if Bernie gets the Democratic nomination, he is going to be in the fight of his political life when he is forced to go up against President Trump. And now, as in 2016, the Democratic establishment is working against Bernie’s nomination because you know it’s getting worrisome when James Carville, a prominent Democratic Party consultant, makes comments like, “I’m a political hack! At least I’m not a communist.”