the obama must protect its own existence as. protesters storm several government buildings in beirut calling for justice and accountability after tuesday's devastating explosion security forces used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse huge crowds gathered in the center of the lebanese capital. the country's prime minister says it corruption was to blame for the tragedy and calls for early election. rescue teams from all over the world continue to search for survivors amid the ruins of the beirut port area. to find out more about those stories over on our website r.t. dot com i'll be back again with more headlines about an hour's time in the meantime though here on our to international it is going underground if you're watching in

the u.k. or ireland though it's splitting stay with us. i'm ashleigh returns and you're watching another lockdown edition of going underground a very special edition we're joined by one of the great philosophers of our time professor cornell west he joins me now from princeton in new jersey cornell thanks so much for coming on last time i spoke to earlier in the week there was a hurricane shades of climate change then we had the catastrophe in beirut i mean what what 1st of all you. know 1st i just was. there. always thoughts when you heard about what happened in the middle east in beirut where normally. you've often spoken about war crimes this

it's open to question what happened but what if what if you thought about the terrible images well a meaningless leak once again you trigger but just suffering place in the middle east people not really wanting to tell the truth about the reasons of power and empire in the middle east and we're going to find out i hope you know who's responsible but i just i just. am of the opinion that. we've got to be bring honest and candid about the role of the us and. it should not be who are nation of the israeli defense forces and the u.s. army but we shall see we shall see it's also of course important week because it's the 75th anniversary of the united states nuclear attack on hiroshima i've got to say angela davis on this show endorsed endorsed joe biden in november no i'm

chomsky is endorsed joe biden do you think that joe biden will save us from another nuclear conflagration as we commemorate the dead of hiroshima were you do my duty to the world at the ju-ju just did my own government because. we're all of course now we've got it military units round we're russia and china have 30. 30 we've got $4800.00 military units in the whole world including the united states are they more important to legacy is one in which we have to take very seriously the relation between the poverty and all that militarism at home and abroad the unbelievable a materialist i'm a spiritual decay in the empire that we're talking about and then of course the white supremacy not just the black beat but indigenous people brown people arabs muslims jews per iranians and so forth so that just and loudest as angela i am why it had to have trashed his coalition so i could see bowling for

biden in a swing state but i could never get divorced an architect of the largest mass incarceration system in the modern world that will target poor people disproportionate black and brown poor people or was or bragged about being part of the architecture of the invasion occupation are iraqis over after me and precious iraqis feel on it it us and major not the patient not mumbling word. from anybody for the most part in the republican party this isn't except bernie sanders and rock on you except barbara leak but for the most part not a moment were so i love. and i may have fact if the f.b.i. had a choice between a neil liberal disaster or a leo asked to ask i would go to the older will disaster 'd that will bite me it was the neo liberal disaster his milk is mediocre he is

a new liberal centrist and he tied to wall street each time the pentagon is tied to militarism and he with great mage responsible war is jewish and all races prison system that was still coming to terms with in the killing fields on the killing fields of american get chills and bar yells so that. we're what we're at on president moment run we really aren't we what are the people. lomas in the history of the species to species itself could go under given the ecological catastrophe or nuclear catastrophe we were just billing levels of wealth inequality that are out of control that rediff runny muck and then the levels of corrupt shun me i think for example oh the great dust is kids were built from underground all the sick man i'm a spiteful man i'm a pleasant man out got a liver disease america's a sick impact is a spiteful impact it's a most unpleasant and dark number one what human being on the inside we've got some

movement on the inside we've got a magnificent courageous and visionary citizen on the inside but we are losing. we are losing we're resisting but we're still losing the greed the hatred wall street pentagon is they are in control of the empire and they are taking off and the sad thing is that rest of the world has to deal with some of the ugly consequences and effects but i'm not i'm not despair i'm not paralyzed but despair but i'm very honest and candid about the dark of course your president donald trump would be the 1st to say that iraq was a mistake he would have said only the other day that one of the united states as great as mistakes was to be in the middle east he may not share your a ideas or that he had his a mini about climate change but he's the one who's saying intervention has been wrong that foreign policy has been wrong and he even argues that mass incarceration

is his abiding policy is an obama policy. for no president trump has facilitated even more intensely vicious treatment the press is our stimulus he is not just include when it's in yahoo need yahoo being the reactionary ceria leaders in awful big to the core and has no feeling what so ever for precious ousting is here trucks are like white on rice like wet on war he also facilitate the kind the bishes treatment of our precious brothers sisters in yemen mediated through saudi arabia mediated through the elites unaccountably beat unaccountable. prince monarchs and princes and so forth so that when he talks about is he got a critique of the united states in the middle east he's lying again yeah understates has blood on it and in saudi arabia and yemen has blood all it's an

intel a beat in gaza and the west bank i don't know what he's talking about he took a bow with the united states should never have intervened no this is always already is offering those armies could not. this. is really neat and saudi arabia without us support without imperial support when we invite we invite israeli ambassador we invite the is there any ambassador london on the program but at netanyahu would certainly refute any charge of violence except in self defense and britain with 550 fellows that he had been using one month. spare me we were born at night but not last night but this is exactly what a cowardly leech what on principle powell would gates to say be a troop in italy i'll be at mo d. be it was a narrow in brazil be at the hungry we're seeing the gangster is a shell of the world moving toward me oh fascist rule and that's where our must be and of course truckers are also oh that way he fastens well you mention saudi

arabia britain together with the united states applies weapons that are used on yemen britain says it has a robust. selling policy and it's not responsible for rum war crimes of any kind in yemen. sounds like another russian position that would period least don't want to take responsibility for the damage from well for their own savitri it's fascinating how the barry authorizes the devastation claim innocence that innocence itself was already a crime before we get to the concrete crimes oh barbarity too often as a result of imperial activity be it britain france be it united states be russia be it china all empires and the look of the grand inquisitor dusty heskey using that miracle and mystery and authority into magic rationalization

mystification in order to justify tyrannical acts despotic acts anti-democratic acts that subordinate those last don't call it greed a people and i'm a radical democrat or medical risk our always start with the plight and predicament of the wretched of the earth the old who are priceless and precious but those who are viewed as disposable poor and working people all around the world of matter what color no matter what national identity we've got to be internationals cross the border with blessed be with my roma brothers and sisters yesterday and my ballot both houses of yesterday off not going to do it at home because of the power but we have to have international solidarity in the name of will morality 6 and spirituality that we will not just empathise to be a solidarity with those who were against predatory capitalism we are against almost all be a trad phobia in the form of white supremacy in the form of promise supremacy in

the form of patriarchy if i eat ideology or what down the nation it loses sight of the precious humanity each and every one of us and that's just not an aspect idealism that a way of being in the world that's as a verb or even more than a virtue being an action being part of people's movements in order to push back the forces of evil whatever form those forces take. you know just to have skim characters tend to have something epiphany but the people that got trump elected apparently working class people who'd lost out because of globalization how do you see all of those different identities of politics l g b g q rights race how do they work with clus because surely to some people the reason trump could win is precisely because of the working class traditionally that base from which progressive politics is

a much nobody you're right now of course those is good politics have to be called into question is it so i can say insight into his literary genius that we're talking about but at the same time you're right that it was working class folk who were misled by truck because the working class was so devastated under the neo liberal rule of obama that did he deliver full austria he delivered. he did not the liberal working people working people were looking for alternatives are left green party you know it was part of and supported our left in america is to we can treat so when we look for an alternative the choice between on the one hand the other but we get a ruling class and they are fastening it really all the truck acted as if he was populist but it's very clear he tied big money he tied it big military it will scapegoat the most vulnerable in terms of mexicans muslims red indians black hole and gays a list minute trends and he is able to connect with enough of the white working

class 65 percent white men voted for trial 52 percent white women who are for drop so you've got a ratio art here you've got a racial trajectory just going off now we have magnificent white brothers sisters who are part of the black last minute we have been in the white. part of serious struggle against white supremacy but it got a lot of. and that causes easily misled by the straw man. and this is of course the challenge that plato saw in the republic he said show me a democracy 'd and i'll show you citizens who were shot through with on ruling passion and you bit with his ignorance that will result in the rise of a strongman to rise a tyrant a death played on the republic going all the way back to. 360 some b. c. he had an insight even though he was a great critical democracy in a democracy because he killed each he had insights how do we get to the working

class how do we get for so that they're not misled full consciousness so they're not channeling their existence in a way that reproduces their old christian reproduces their own domination we see this all around the world fascism very good listening to the same thing it looked at the same thing frankel did the same thing these are lukewarm to fascism at present but similar kind of text well in terms of trying to ensure the misleading. because they are so maybe orders are deeply suffering but they rather scapegoat the most vulnerable in terms oh the degraded. black. and arabs and muslims and immigrants and mexicans rather than confront the most powerful president wes i'll just stop you there more from cornell west off to this break.

sun our solution starts right where we come up with solutions to all the problems they cover on the other shows right there anyway today we've got a gold to the moon edition with a special guest mark malloch on incremental. welcome back i'm still with professor cornell west if we move up michael s. is something wrong with the elites in your society i know you. talk about f. scott fitzgerald before do they read the great gatsby as a great. you make it in this world you're going to do well what is wrong with education in a country that has pretty used so many critiques that i guess echo what you just

mean say yeah i'm glad you brought us scott fitzgerald up because he understood of course he went to princeton i'm interested right now he understood the spiritual decay in the more kuti of the ruling class not all but most he understood the substitute prosperity for magnanimity they had hardly any sense of more excellence a spiritual greatness is reduced down to things and possessions then commodities and it reminds me of the greatest figure 8 for it was eugene o'neill and the iceman cometh the great is an american empire ever written for the state in what did he say what does it profit a nation that game the old world and lose it so it's on the idolatry in which it is obsessed with re power well status and spectacle with no moral or spiritual substance that is a moment for the american good it that's the home for the decline and fall of the american empire that's what eugene o'neill was talking about and eat and ask up is

general very close bit on the same register in terms of seeing through the emptiness and but cool it feels so much the american like in this obsession with the general pleasures and military power and status and the inability to at the deepest level this is shakespearean this is. the suffer from the inability to cultivate the capacity to love the love less ness. no matter how much money you have no matter what your status is if you can't learn how to receive love 2 give love that those yes your brothers jeremiah's up by hail as those who will suffer from the incapacity. and death of marketing understood i come from an equal black. 100 years in the united states but dishing out so much love john coltrane retorted martin be love it martin luther king who are just to be one to

love and to me the love we have got reach all yes we all got to be frank he loves life the whole lives with us hopefully available you are on your website i didn't even get out of here no you know the people that have listened to coltrane the people that have read these works many of them are in the d.n.c. we know from wiki leaks how they tried to destroy bernie sanders campaign in 2016 and they didn't feel they didn't feel what they were doing was anything to do with fascism they thought it was to do with stopping fascism so they say i don't understand this is right around this time because they try to tell us on this being the candidate what do you how do you characterize the d.n.c. has as of a system in your politics what i think it is in more trouble now is that we've been because their ears in fact tremendous critiques of the status and democratic party

it looked as if after the november primary that bernie sanders and all of us together minturn or others that we were going to win we were really beginning to move in a way that we were headed toward the white house and then had the. it be a logical unit facilitated by brock obama with me we have rather all of them came together dropped out within a few days the black meal liberal leadership that is edge of money in black leadership we do money and back our tickets came together and lo and vote we were pushed out we were defeated but let me say this that this step was meant knows very much like republican party establishment was undercut by a truck that young people on the street the black clad madam who they understand not just the limitations of the neo liberal leadership no matter what color but they know that it cannot deliver look at what

a pandemic right now it cannot deliver safety it cannot live protection cannot deliver education cannot deliver goods and services why because the in hard in shambles when you have so much greek and corruption and indifference for the suffering with no public life no public health care no public. robust public interactions and we can either hardly have a public conversation what happens to a demography asleep i hear it as you know and maybe you call them apologists for empire they will point to the black faces the people of color in high places they will talk about l.g.b. t.q. people in high places maybe there are even some indigenous peoples in high places in american politics the american so much life how dangerous is it that these people are installed there as a beacon to show that your view of america your view of the united states is fundamentally flawed because your country is

a tale of progress. well the good in of those is good has a wonderful mother who crystal palace went back they keep it won't do it back since edifice. salient is wonderful shy is glass menagerie well what happens when it becomes more colorful with races same class are same imperial policies same levels of poverty same levels of decrepit education same levels of unemployment and underemployment same levels up on the inability young assets to decent housing but if you've got black now brown now women at the top at the glass menagerie in the crystal palace all really now behave themselves in not reproducing the same kind of decadence the same kind of dictate but now of course we. race relations same way looking looking better you don't measure the plight of black

people all women are brown people by how their elite are doing you know the play in terms of what the prisons look like what did neighborhoods look like what their employment actually is what levels of health care they have but that's precisely the attempt of america to shift serious talk about the plight of poor folk to the. mobility of the t.v. and that has to be radically called into question that is happening on the street right now in the u.s. in pop. but but in the streets i mean what is different about these uprisings since what's in los angeles in $165.00 and before and after now we're seeing images of tear gas or federal troops in there no national guard it has to be sent. to your link of how black lives matter is a movement can in any way respond to what's going on if there are well if

certain numbers of people are being shot dead in the streets or killed by security forces of the united states that alone frightened to go and demonstrate. well i mean with the public lynching of brother floyd jr you certainly are going to have waves of resistance the beautiful thing is that you have the whole colas coming together and making the connection between not just police power and police murder but between police power lease murder wall street power wall street crimes and pentagon power and pentagon crimes once you make those connections and connect to them are you can't make them up the mix may develop a could make the family look rabbi abraham joshua ash ash able to make. the greatest intellectual alone with no chomsky and been making for most of his intellectual life will once every day people begin to make those connections then we're on to something those can actually be make more now than they were before and yet every wave of resistance every wave of critique has its own distinctive staff

and there is a certain kind of cycling is true the sixty's we had you know more people die it wasn't very much more black folk out we will more people die less people dying here but now there's a city and settle and some president that's a good son after george floyd was killed there were demonstrations all around the world in fact in our around the world there were there were demonstrations again multi-racial into intersectional but london fall is washington on on foreign policy specially on apparently your biggest enemy china but for the white house says what gives good gives the d.n.c. and they are in c. the confidence of china as you said surrounded by bases of the united states won't retaliate militarily to what it sees as provocations by nato in washington. yeah i mean it's hard to say to me it's hard to say you can imagine what the golden

rule international aisha's looks like. 2 russia had troops in mexico and canada you know it would last about 30 seconds so when you have american troops around who are russians yet to be very honest you know impound their empires and their concern about their people are concerned about it territory after all just stuck to the domination when you can imagine what a one standard looks like in the same would be true with china when you when you when you begin to be provocative. then they're going to have different kind of responses i don't know what response will be as the as the acts of provocation intensify it's hard to say but i mean right now we've got these 3 empires in a we're china russia usa all 3 zones formed to decay domination all forms of dog and we have to be connected to radically democratic small d.

forces doto empowering dissenting voices that are empowering working people that are in power exemplary movements and by example what i mean is leaders of integrity will willing to tell the truth and will more than likely have to give their lives because those who are committed to the struggle for the wretched of the earth are on the road to crucifixion that's the way the world is but their blood our blood fertilizes the next wave of resistance and critique that's what we learn from the black move. well i suppose there's one difference between beijing most here in washington and that's the beijing in what moscow claim to comprehend the dangers of climate change whereas washington doesn't believe it would isabella what is the power of k. street while being on the things you've been talking about and on perhaps the most

fixes tensional crisis we have fossil fuel effective climate change. or i mean k. street in general generates legalized 2 bribery a normal last corruption within the halls of congress so the brick house that is supposed to be done house of the people caters much more to the donor than the benefactors than it does the suffering people themselves that's precisely why so many american citizens look at the system and the state and see it cannot reform itself because the money is all well me has been colonized by the lobbyists who are tied up with the least to financial elites. so that it makes it very difficult for those of us in the streets to feel as if we can actually have the kind of impact that we like but we do it because it's right because it's more and because it's just and so when it comes to ecological catastrophe in which the whole species

the planet itself and you still have the greed short term thinking the up session with profit you can begin to see just how bouckaert predatory capitalism is for the species and in regard to our very presence. reza cornell west thank you that's it for this walk down that issue of going on the ground will be back on monday facing . so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy on sunday shouldn't let it be an arms race based on often spearing dramatic development only personally i'm going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful very critical time time to sit down and talk.

ah no team no crowd. no shots no. actual news belt. well it's true no 1st. points your thirst for action. in august 1 9452 atomic bombs were dropped on the japanese cities of hiroshima and

nagasaki and. to this day opinion remains divided as to the real reason behind america's decision to use nuclear weapons but with no possible military justification for dropping a bomb i have no question that there were those in the u.s. military who pursued the next was the snow here in the planning in october of 1945 had chosen 20 targets in russia in the 70 years since the bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki countless books and films have off the many justification for and arguments against dropping the avons however declassified documents give weight to the arguments that the bombs were dropped not so it's a military necessity to intimidate the soviet union.