Tag: Cornel West

Regime Change in the U.S.: A Taste of Our Own Medicine

 I’ve given up on the United States. It’s irreformable. It’s a failed state.

Think about it.  As things stand, the U.S. can do nothing but fight wars, close borders, impose sanctions, and fight meaningless culture wars. And even at that, despite the more than $2 billion it spends on “defense” each day, our country can’t win its forever wars. It lost in Vietnam, in Iraq, and Afghanistan. It’s in the process of losing in Ukraine. And yet, it’s planning a further foray into China.

Ukraine is the best illustration of the failed policy just mentioned. We’ve sent billions upon billions to support the war there, but the Russians are prevailing, nonetheless.

Meanwhile, our own infrastructure is in decay; millions are without healthcare, millions more are addicted to pain killers; there’s a mass shooting every day (literally); homelessness abounds, young people can’t afford college tuition; prisons are overflowing; our money-driven elections are a sham, and our government is complicit with the genocide unfolding in Gaza. At the same time, we end up blaming the poorest people in the world – the immigrants at our southern gates – for all our problems.

Yes, we need regime change.

And I’m not just talking about changing presidents or even the criminals now “serving” in the Congress.

No, I’m talking about REGIME CHANGE – a new order responsive to people like us, rather than to corporations, bankers, financiers, and Wall Street.

That means replacing all that with a system that would cut military spending by at least 75%, prioritize the issue of climate change, close foreign military bases, eliminate nuclear weapons, practice real diplomacy (which always means dialog and compromise) and derive its leadership from the working class, instead of from the bosses who control our work lives.

So, if we need regime change, why not apply to the U.S. the formula our bosses routinely use for that process — I mean the one it’s employed against the Soviet Union all during the Cold War, against Iran in 1953, Guatemala the following year, Cuba over the last 65 years, Chile in 1973, Nicaragua since 1979; Venezuela since Hugo Chavez instituted his Bolivarian Revolution. . .. The list goes on and on., but the formula’s always the same.

In every case, it’s: (1) make the life of working-class people as miserable as possible (2) by creating crisis. (I’m talking about military coups, sanctions, creation of food and fuel shortages, outright terrorism, and deprivation of human rights.) In fact, (3) make ordinary people so miserable that (4) the victims of such measures will rise and overthrow Stalin, Mossadegh, Arbenz, Castro, Allende, the Sandinistas, Maduro, etc. and (5) introduce a fascist American puppet like Resa Pahlavi or Augusto Pinochet.  

Again, that’s the strategy: immiserate ordinary people and make them overthrow America’s official (usually socialist-leaning) enemies and replace those enemies with right-wing fascist pawns.

The problem is (for the U.S.) that such gambits rarely work for long. They often end up awakening the left who then replace American puppets with leftists like Lula in Brazil.

Well, I’m thinking, why not turn the tables on the bosses and run the same gambit here at home, but this time against the bosses themselves? In our current circumstances, this might entail:

  1. Not voting in the next election.
  2. Alternatively, voting for “uncommitted,” for Cornel West, RFK, or Marianne Williamson.
  3. Thereby, allowing Donald Trump to be elected next November.
  4. He’ll of course make our lives miserable over the short term.
  5. But his policies will make clear the above-noted disfunctions of the system and awaken the currently dormant left.
  6. This may eventually spark a progressive movement for the radical systemic change I’ve been referring to.
  7. Which one way or another may eventually overthrow the corrupt system that even now immiserates our lives.

It’s worth a try. And when you think about it, what have we got to lose? As I said:

  • Our system is broken beyond repair.
  • It is incapable of addressing our real problems noted above.
  • We need something to awaken the left and force the required changes,
  • This means enduring at least four years of fascism under Donald Trump who might refuse to leave office after four years.
  • Sparking even wider discontent and rebellion.
  •  And at the very least, giving us a taste of our own medicine.

In any case, it’s what “our” government has been doing all over the world at least since the end of the Second Inter-capitalist War. There’s no way of sugar-coating the required remedy.

In Memoriam: Our Dear Friend, bell hooks (1952-2021)

Yesterday (December 15, 2021) 
The world lost a great seer. 
My wife, Peggy, and I 
Lost a dear friend
And colleague
At Berea College
Too soon.

bell hooks was brilliant.
She lit up the world
And Jackson Street
No less 
Just down from our place
There in Central Kentucky.

Countless times 
She graced our kitchen table
Over 15 years together 
Just the 3 of us
Breaking Peggy’s French bread
Or at larger gatherings 
On special occasions.

bell introduced Berea
To Cornel West
In a living room soiree
I’ll not forget
And to Laverne Cox
And Emma Watson.
bell was a celebrity too
Beyond any of them
But you'd never know it.

Always up 
For deep conversation 
About issues,
Feminism for everyone 
And liberation,
The sprite in her
Found yet more energy 
For gossip and trash talk.
She was nothing
If not great fun.

“Let’s recite our favorite poems” 
She’d suggest.
Or “talk about 
Our romantic relationships,”
She’d grin
With that wicked twinkle
In her mischievous eyes.

And we’d obey.
We did!
Poems one after another.
And one night
At that kitchen table 
In darkness
Relieved by candlelight
Eight or so grave professors
Bared secrets
About just that
Our romances!
Can you imagine?
Extraordinary and memorable.
And so she was.

bell showed it 
In her books and lectures
That changed the world.
Didn’t they?
Didn't she?
They transformed
Berea College students,
And all who read and heard
Across the planet.
They changed me and Peggy.

More than anything however, 
bell hooks was a seeker
With infinite energy
For prayer and meditation
And the goddess
Understood as Pure Love
Absolutely forgiving
Creator of a world
With room for everyone
Feminist or not
..
So, rest in peace
Dear friend,
And sister
Dear teacher
And prophet.
Dear author
And speaker,
Dear fellow traveler
And seeker.
Diminutive giant of a woman,
We love you,
Dearest bell.
We are grateful
For your gifts
And most of all,
For your 
Rare goddess grace.

Forget the Democrats: Support the People’s Party

I’ve given up on the Democratic Party. For reasons that are listed below, I’ve drawn the conclusion that our country’s only hope is to support a 3rd party to contest the strangle hold the Democratic and White Party (aka the Republicans) have on a gridlocked national government.

Fact is, to this point I’ve cared more about getting Democrats elected than the Democrats themselves have. They currently control the White House, the Senate and the House, but still have allowed the White Party to rig elections (through gerrymandering and voter suppression laws) for at least the next decade. Democrats could stop this, but have decided not to.

I’ve had enough of that.

So, at this late stage of my life, I’ve decided to put my activist efforts into supporting The People’s Party. I’ve begun my campaign on its behalf by making the following proposal to a group of highly motivated seniors from New York and Connecticut whose company I’ve joined just recently.

See what you think. And if it makes sense to you, sign up for People’s Party membership and follow the suggestions below to get its candidates on the ballot where you live.

Proposal for Joining the People’s Party

GIVEN THAT:

The United States is a failed state.

Whose gridlocked political system daily shows itself incapable of the radical change demanded by rampant inequality, climate chaos and the threat of nuclear war,

Since practically speaking, it has become a single War Party state

Whose White Party and its almost indistinguishable “opposition” (the Democrats) have both been captured by Wall Street, the Military Industrial Complex, and by the health care, pharmaceutical, and fossil fuel industries – as well as by the gun lobby,

And whose corporate agendas (despite Democratic control of the presidency, House, and senate) have blocked legislation addressing issues touching the lives of ordinary people such as:

  • Medicare for all
  • $2000 stimulus checks (vs. Biden’s $1500)
  • $15 minimum wage
  • Cancellation of college debt
  • Free college tuition
  • Electoral reform
  • Passage of the PRO Act (protecting the right of workers to organize)
  • Immigration reform
  • Normalization of relations with Cuba
  • Stopping the war in Yemen
  • Etc., etc., etc.

All rendering the U.S. more fascist than democratic (i.e., a police state supporting corporate interests rather than those of “the people” while blaming national dysfunctions on the poor and powerless),   

AND GIVEN THAT:

Democrats simply ignore progressives because the latter have nowhere else to go

Despite existence of an unmistakable national hunger for profound political change

Evidenced by the fact that

  • 62% of Americans want a 3rd party (up from 57% just last September)
  • 50% of Americans now identify as “Independent” and therefore constitute a de facto 3rd party left without meaningful representation
  • With only 25% identifying as Republican and 25% as Democrat.

AND GIVEN THAT:

The members of our Men’s Group feel great urgency to leave the world a better place

By using our various skills (organizational, activist, administrative, academic, inspirational, journalistic, artistic . . ..)

And the wisdom gathered from long experience-packed lives

IT IS TIME FOR US TO:

Join thought-leaders and activists like Cornel West, Marianne Williamson, Nina Turner, Danny Glover, Mike Gravel, and Jimmy Dore

And stop voting Democrat

Instead, giving our support to the nascent People’s Party

WHOSE PROGRESSIVE, POPULIST PROGRAM INCLUDES:

Removing corporate money from politics

And a social justice agenda addressing:

  • Electoral reform (passing HR1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act)
  • Drastically reduced military spending
  • Climate change through a comprehensive Green New Deal
  • Closing the concentration camps now imprisoning asylum seekers and immigrant children
  • Medicare for all
  • Forgiving college debt
  • Free college for all
  • $15 minimum wage

Suggested Actions

  1. Work on petition drive to register the party in NY & CT (it’s already registered in Maine, California, and Colorado)
  2. Publicize in Op-eds
  3. Introduce topic in our faith communities
  4. Volunteer
  5. Donate