and what is the moment where the president says -- when i tried to write each one even with the participants knowledge but introduced that as it comes along soon off to create tension but we could reconstruct what happened but you get my point. a lot of the stuff you don't know if it is happening. it don't take a giant reaction because if you take a little

step, you might know or tomorrow than you do today. it's waiting for a better option to come along because in every circumstance especially with obama, all of his options were bad. he used a similar word for how bad they were and that is argument for caution in incremental steps. really it is a preferred word of crisis management. it's the principle science of taking incremental steps because that way you don't go so far that you can't start that over again. so that's how i saw them cope in the lack of the situational awareness.

>> just to comment on that part of it depends on what tools you have in the toolkit. over the years it is boot on the ground. that's the question. there has been a change about how decision-making has changed since the abolition of the draft. we used to think twice and everybody points back to walk them through some of these things because he was cautious

as well. it is cautious. the quarantine allowed them to back away. they would stand out for all of these years.

they seemed to have a worldview to get it better than anybody else. >> i am a fan of transco croft i know i am. i enjoyed talking to him. i'm a very knowledgeable guy. they asked her a question that i hadn't thought of before.

please buy the book. i read it and it's worth it. thank you for coming. [applause] we will see you next time. >> booktv continues with afterwards, cornell west explores martin luther king junior radical political thinking from the civil rights leader that the author argues has been diminished and

sanitized they speak with. >> doctor west it is a delight to have you here on the show. i'm grateful myself for being invited to have annotation and interview you about this volume on doctor king. what inspires you. >> i just want to begin by saluting you and one of the great institutions of the american empire.

the unit that produced me it's one of the great moments in the tradition of the grand people in the face of terror and trauma and stigma. >> they classified and everybody has a smile on their face. when you try to organize poor people with such power to train

the movement he's un-american and a trainer to the country. they've even ethiopia and the new justices and just like in private without stokely carmichael is the kind of historical amnesia.

the 55% of african-americans did not support doctor king on vietnam and it's the part that caught me off guard. it's america rot across-the-board. there is a struggle. it is a struggle over where to go. >> i know the difference between white and black. it's been absolutely. >> and big money and all of the assets to power and i want to determine what i say.

it's what we need in this present moment we have a lot of people for example. they talk about speaking truth to power but they don't want to speak truth to the present hour. it is aggressive and prophetic.

so first of all define the radical king in terms of the text itself is the radical king head and in plain sight in the word and the wisdom to pull up or pull out a fugue passage is a text from the more well-known. it's been beyond description in the state capital. this is before the king holiday.

i just want them to talk sociology and more house in 1928. but also, talk to because thomas greatest man from princeton in 1911 turned down new york in order to pass harlem became a socialist.

brothers and sisters committed to the freedom of everybody including black people. they are legendary and iconic for good reasons, but this is a part of who i am. >> host: you either let it to the story but in 1952, they are dating but not yet married. it's a little bit more detail. the passage here indicates a.

i'm going to read what he says i'm not a conventional minister i believe in the social gospel and it's not enough to say my father was a thoroughgoing catholic and ignoring people's needs is wrong on so much more in my economic. economic. and that capitalism has outlived its take the masses to get luxury to the classes. >> they are laying it out already which goes back to the jim crow south he already has

this legacy assigned with him, but you know what i love and would set him apart from the leaders his radical love. she becomes a mainstream black educational and in the leadership. it's the pacifism pushing on the

critique of the empire and this is also coming back to the bigger argument that you make. annually in the run-up to the king holiday, you get a lot of the riverside speech and the antiwar upon doctor came but it is -- it denied the truth of his own story which is not that he got swept up in the forces of history into montgomery bus boycott and he fell out on the other end by his side and it's giving him counsel on how to fight the good fight and that it was just about civil rights and a seat at the table and it was just about the need to be first-class citizens that he already came with a kind of economic blueprint so by the time you get to the vietnam war

and he sees the legislative action and movement, he's already been committed to the fundamental revolutionary change, the kind of change that you had so many others shift this country. it's right at the center. but bringing in the legacy and marketing came -- martin luther king and also the intellectually curious came born in atlanta and a daddy king and of course that is his brother and christine.

the movement helps make the movement and i think that's important because especially for young people and i think especially for this generation who i love so deeply. >> there are so many ways and the only generation team like figure, but all of these folks with deep inspiration with the elimination from martin king and that they recognize that part of the tradition and isolated individuals. we are who we are.

he's already bringing this critique of capitalism. it was an analysis that puts poor people and working people at the center. they can get and use. it's in the public sector of the nationstate and the crucial role of the family. >> host: one of the things that you emphasized you called him a revolutionary christian and christian bluesman commanded

is obvious that he is a minister to us all but in some ways it can get lost and it seems to me part of what you assert here is that it was critical to the radicalism, talk a little bit about that. you only sell out when you are experiencing the spiritual blackout. when you reach the conclusion is about only that is available in the time of space and i'm going to get as much as i can. and the kingdom of god has become. it's become a commercial. no. the community has become an advertisement.

martha comes along and says love and behold, i am a jazz man, improvisational using any web and i can anyway then i can to empower these poor and working people beginning on the side of town. because you love white brothers and sisters. that's a beautiful thing that shows a spiritual maturity. he went to jail because he loved black folk. he's in a wagon, talk about four and a half hours in the dark on his way to prison and when he gets out and says he can hardly walk and all he can say is this is the cross we must bear for the freedom of the people, that is spiritual. you know he's never going to sell out. >> it is a deep connection to the life that jesus actually did

lead, which we can say he meant it in the diagnosis of the world is that these people are truly the least of these not just in america but globally. >> guest: i'm glad you mentioned jesus because he was such a jesus loving free black man the way that malcolm was a free jewish man and the way that's toni morrison is a free black women woman routine in her particular brand of catholicism and literary genius. there is a connection between having their roots deep into being in the world but not of the world. and nor can have everything to do with it, just like myself.

>> host: lets let's connect to the connection between christianity because that may not be obvious to everybody there. what do you mean? you talked about the improvisation that i think you mean something more than just improvisation. you talk about catastrophes that martin luther king anticipated it recognized. so how did he help him do they help him deal with catastrophe? >> guest: i think that we had to begin with ralph waldo emerson who said that it is a personal chronicle of an individual catastrophe lyrically express. >> every force that you can

depend on. smile smile but betsy smith and the whole tradition is there meaning that we've talked to the world something about love even though we've been hated and despised like cotton roaches into something like justice even though she's been he's been treated so unjustly and unfairly he looks catastrophe in the face, we are a clear express is. he speaks about it courageously and is willing to die for that love.

from the face of american terrorism and being hated by so many people, he responds like bb king with a smile and style landmarks in the past that constitute grand and truth telling and witness bearing for the poor and the working people even though he's not against and recognizes that it's difficult not to fall into how did the johnson brothers put it fall in love with the intoxicated existence. >> you get intoxicated with the world and that it has to offer

rather than telling the truth. >> host: it is this definition you say he taught and lived his life by the radical love and ego which is our brand and passion into the world and the immediacy in order for the sacrificial self to emerge because it is radical. was it in the sermons or the house that governed itself or was it the sheer capacity to be courageous in the midst of chaos. that is a profound course because it is hard to know exactly how anybody is able to muster the courage and service.

dorothy day wrote one when she said he was someone who really did die every day. but he is reborn every day by like taking a shower is like a baptism. just like we have the political prison right now and so many others but all of them bear witness and the entire comes

down on them, martin understood. but any human being that wants to reach a level of honesty and decency as a long-distance runner you have to kill something in yourself, fear. your obsession with the status that says that somehow it is all about you rather than you being a product and affirming self-confidence and self-respect they are so hungry and so thirsty for this process and learning how to die killing that fear standing in the face of the police and the black color rather than ferguson. they stand in with courage and

of course the question is how do we challenge that indignation. 20 years ago. >> host: do you find that this journey helps you to better understand the people from 20 years ago where you were writing race matters from today? >> guest: i think so. this is mine most important because this is more at the core of who i am and what i'm about and dedicating it to my brother clifton west who was the most kinglike person that i know and there are so many folks on the ground. part of the problem is when to

look upon television thought to many. but if you look on the ground they are giving magnificent work day in and day out and they say they must die dalia. tell that fear and envy in order to somehow be liberated. the kingdom in view are fundamentally ensuring that people live a life of decency.

50 cold and not one mumbled word by the politician the white house, congress, government. i don't care about the politicians. at the present bbs in new york and he keeps that moral and spiritual center. >> host: i want to talk about the history because as a historian i was taken by some of the injury that articulate a powerful sense of the importance of history and that doctor king himself not only as a product of that consciousness and deep commitment to learning but he

saw the mistakes of historical literacy in the need to know and understand and be able to criticize the president and to imagine the future as absolutely essential, not just optional. i'm going to share the view to remind you of the listeners. it's on the supports activists and the eventual ex- patriot who moves at the end of his life to the essentially pronounced is incapable of transformation. here he is getting tribute that in his own work he had identified the keystone in the arch of oppression was in the midst of inferiority and that

history had to lie. which very well would have been part of his educational learning even though he was only 10-years-old when it was published. but they write about the theft and the consequences to leave the history is to lose one's self understanding and with it the root of pride. when the history had been distorted, american history have been distorted. it is a fascinating challenge to

the listeners of the attribute because we know right now that history is under attack all over the country including the example in colorado back in september they took to the streets against the jefferson county clerk of school board because the school board decided that they no longer wanted to allow students to be exposed to history and i am going to quote history must promote citizenship patriotism and the essential benefit of the free-market system must show respect for authority and individual rights. it's been santa claus. the children can't learn

mexican-american history in the state of arizona because it is considered anti-american. it's fascinated by doctor king. it is teaching in that way. but i'm so glad you mentioned this because for me this is one of the great moments in the history of the american culture when you have the greatest intellectual in america that is martin king reflecting on the greatest intellectual, w. e. b. du boise and it isn't that widely known we have to keep in mind that many of his friends told him not to go because the last thing you want is to go and reflect so what does martin do kiss my so and so.

i will give a tribute to the great w. e. b. du boise. i am who i am in part because he loves me. he loves the truth and justice. he was like the great james bond they almost had to leave the church to promote the gospel. we know history is something of the present, past and present intertwine in a dimension of the future always is the object of the vision mediated in our understanding of the past and our actions. that is a great speech he gave

and thank god he had the courage to give it over. >> host: he closed his speech with a refrain. so it is to find dissatisfaction and then the refrain, do not let us be satisfied, let us be dissatisfied until every man can have food and freedom and human dignity for his spirit. >> guest: you can see how that in and of itself is a message in the age of obama when you have intellectuals that become obama apologists and are no longer dissatisfied enough to acknowledge wall street crimes in the obama administration not one right away.

dropping bombs on people, where is the dissatisfaction margin is talking about? >> host: i have to take one fine detail. i do think the attorney general's office prosecuted one directly tied to the operation i think it was a kind of mid-level person. it's just so sad that we have a criminal justice system. every 28 hours shot by a policeman or security guard or vigilante to keep the order every 28 hours.

black president black attorney general, homeland secretary, not one prosecutor. you figure. we have to march his hands up not one federal critique of the government that has the capacity to the investigation. that is a good thing. but the police. something is free. what are we teaching that we end up with black faces in high places and still have a system that is an abysmal failure in terms of delivering justice that doesn't mean they don't need correction but they need love and respect into production.

>> host: there is a speech that he gave us about a blueprint. you talk about how people are essentially moving towards the university of integration but at the same time doctor king elsewhere is talking about integrating so that tension in the blueprint focuses on self worth where he talks about being a street sweeper and if you are the one that i have an angels will rejoice over and if you cannot be a pine tree on the mountain, this is the kind of speech that can be decontextualized for personal

responsibility. >> guest: that's the context by curtis delivered in the context of the character position. so we are back to the hallmark commercial so if you can't be a pine tree on the top of a mountain be a scrub in the valley. you don't even have to have high demand if you're going to be a street sweeper just sweep the streets. in the absence of the sustained focus in the way that the radical king presents it is that we completely divorced the critique of integration as a burning out. so as we understand it today it is a blueprint for several.

it was never to talk about the race or gender but it does not matter. but thinking about success it passes on to other lessons like the hard-working ambitious networking but if you think about that and the blueprint key that you get out of context that but is the perfect synergy to the politics of personal responsibility and right underneath of the infrastructure that upholds the last 60 years of criminalization, not about racism in america anymore not about the systemic critique. it's about individuals who are

making bad decisions. so if you live in ferguson is the fact that it would be criminal because no person of good character no person walking into these issues but shoes but live in ferguson in the first place you do so when darren wilson says it is a high crime area he's saying that by definition these are not people whose rights they are bound to respect. it's another way in which the supremacy is cast and reinvented and in the criminalizing people and if there is humanity and intelligence and imagination is not acknowledged at that level of disrespect and that is a part but in martin's case he links

the excellence and recognizes he knows some street sweeper's that far out measure the well-to-do folks driven by the proclivity of the spiritual blackout, mortal constipation that have a sense of what is right because of the greed getting in the way. they didn't believe in a material goods and the nobel prize of course. but he was full of that kind of commitment but at least we can aspire that we live in the age where to be successful where the

commandment thou shalt love and not get caught up the notion of integrity, think of the leaders these days when you see integrity, who comes to mind? we won't go into the name on television. so you say to yourself what has happened we are not talking about perfection. when i see you i see an institution with a level of respect that you earn it day in and day out, they're with me we are talking about here is a brother that's like james baldwin said i want to be an honest man.

i want to be a person of integrity. your wife come your kids, all of them we see a brother with integrity that is also a part in the mind if we can't keep integrity, honesty, decency of life over by any means or the mendacity fighting and concealing then we end up the best kind of culture that produces. it's the sentimental folk to give good speeches but no fundamental commitment to action. the crocodile tears and orientation what you're doing now and the white poor, too.

the ecological catastrophe, imperial catastrophe, military as -- militarism the economic catastrophe and the last six years as 90% of the income growth. we have had three since we got here come the first on his way to the auction. it too too much death too early too much poverty chronic. we have black folks that love themselves and respect themselves eliminated poverty and there are too many early deaths. some are inescapable that we could fight a sound. if we get all three we would

have so many in the waves and emotions into the whispers and that is a level of excellence. >> host: remind the viewers of what you meant in that speech. this is a kind of way to think about the time that we live in a. where they go together it intersects in this moment to by james carney the director of the fbi and the new final on myself. >> that as a compliment.

he gave a speech on february 12 before the law enforcement community of the fbi, and i think that's what surprised many people and certainly surprised the press and others that analyzed the speech was he mentioned doctor king and they opened up on the approval after the march on washington speech in 1963. they said to keep the approval, the order in the approval as a reminder of the sordid history of the fbi as a way of remembering mistakes that the fbi has made in the past and to hold up the team as an example of a real american hero was victimized by its own government. now, what is fascinating about

that is that generally speaking that is the way in which we end the story, triumph over the smallness of the people of the mind and heart in the moment. and yet the director goes on to talk about the implicit bias among the law-enforcement officials not just the fbi into the country but his irish forebears who were both members of law enforcement who benefited in their whiteness despite racism in their time and he talks about the need for engaging the community on its historical understanding as well as white officers in the larger communities to come to terms with his own biases. but that's the part that perfectly mixes of doctor king that we want to remember up with the doctor king that actually lived. so here in this part of the

speech talking about the age of ferguson and obama is a four-part truth. this is the hard truth that he mentions. he says if it were so that -- the truth is that the fourth truth, we are really fixing what needs fixing the important important codification but it doesn't attach to the other truth. it's something they're willing to speak out because it is so gone from the past the president is addressing disproportionate challenges faced by young men of color. for for instance the data shows the percentages of the young men off working and nearly twice as high this initiative and others is about giving the hard work and i emphasize to grow violent resistance kids especially in the communities of color so that they never become a part of the officers with experience.

drug-resistant and violent resistance. so in this superstructure of ideas of the history of policing in the moment essentially only the president is showing leadership on talking about the real issue of the black inferiority. they talk about the arch of oppression so even for the man that i believe in his right heart is saying the right thing and recognizing the bias still articulates and retreats to this fundamental understanding that black people are broken if black people were not broken we wouldn't have this problem. >> the damage is always on black people but not on a vicious system with decrepit schools

that generate the murder of poor children, the levels of unemployment and underemployment in decent housing. it's still put on the back of these come on the least of these. every empire from the beginning of time has told those kind of lies about the precious poor working people. and it's not just black history or american history or modern history, human history. going all the way back from the very beginning having the courage to say people that don't matter what color you are, get your boot off the neck of poor people. they don't want to say a word but it's still on.

he was responsible for the first black mayor. what did he do come and not allow him to be on the same. he said okay i am doing a lot of love for the masses and these folks are scared because they don't want to be included in the mainstream establishment. don't become a part of the conspiracy as a part of the block competition and that's why we have to keep our politicians of all colors accountable. >> host: one does wonder as we get into the beginning stages of the election we are likely to have a white president again.

>> host: it will be interesting particularly if hillary clinton wins to see what they will come up with in order to not criticize the first woman president if it did happen to be hillary clinton around the issue that will no doubt be there in terms of this. i would be fascinated. >> guest: we've lost so much of our moral authority because we will not tell the truth. if we protect them by any means and of course we need to protect them in fox news and whatever, that the moral authority that happens is you end up with fewer petitions becoming more and more neoliberal financial lies high privatized and that is true for clinton or barack obama or the

congressional caucus congressional caucus or the democratic party for the most part. the republican party that is a whole different thing. but if you are going to be consistent and you bring the critique to their intellect politicians then nobody is going to listen to you. and i think the sad thing is that black america is going to go into such a deep depression when they leave the white house because it will mean them as we leave them still in place and escalating you have a nice little philanthropic program not 1 penny from the government can't program for the black brother and black sisters but they will look around and say what happened? like a computer list the truth? >> we wanted positions and lectures in the so and so. why didn't you tell the truth? spank there was some but not a

lot. they are strong on wednesday and friday so they are caught because they know deep down the tradition has produced them and we can't be true to mark command malcolm and stokely without taking a risk that is sacrificed in the popularity for telling the truth. this isn't about popularity. it's about integrity. that's what we love but again he is not the only one even though it is about martin in a way it is about people. it is about a tradition, and it is the greatest tradition and modern world when it comes to the people who have levels of href from 400 years and they dished out martin king, frannie

lou hamer curtis mayfield stevie wonder, these are love warriors of the highest and that is why i am blessed to be a small part of that tradition. i'm going down with curtis mayfield and martin. >> host: we are going to be closing shortly but the last sermon that doctor king was to deliver was titled why america may go to hell. now of course, we know brother jeremiah wright -- let's not forget in the course of this conversation that we started with a man that is not only the subject of a national