i've after accounting you're watching going underground the team and i will be back with a brand new season starting september the 5th but until then we'll be showing you some of your favorite shows of this past star studded season stay safe. a very special edition and 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 your out here no indeed indeed but 1st i just want to salute you. the mention you force. the. thoughts

when you heard about what happened in the middle east in beirut where normally you often spoken about war crimes this it's open to question what happened but what if what if you thought about those terrible images well let me look once again you trigger but just. placed in the middle east people not really wanting to tell the truth about the reasons of power and are in the middle east and we're going to find out you know who's responsible but i just i just. i'm of the opinion that. we've got to be bring honest and candid about the rule of the u.s. and. it should never cool ordination of the israeli defense forces any 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 you sit mon go because. we're all of course now we've got a military units round we're russia and china have 30. 30 we've got 4800 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 the militarism at home and abroad the unbelievable a materialist i'm a spiritual decay indium cards 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 quite had trying to trash his coalition i could see bowling for biden in a swing state but i can never get divorced an architect of the largest mass incarceration system in the modern world that will target poor people disproportionate black it 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 made an occupation not mumbling words. from anybody for the most part in the republican party yes there's some except bernie sanders and racan do except barbara leak but for the most part not a moment were so i love. and i may in fact be at i had a choice between a neil liberal disaster or the o. s. task i would go to the older will disaster that will bite me we need

a little disaster his milk is mediocre he has a new liberal centrist and he tied to wall street he's tied to pentagon he's tied to militarism and he was very much responsible for 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 killed and barrio so that. we're what we're at on president moment run we really aren't we really want to pivot. lomas and in the history of the species a species itself could go under given to a logical catastrophe or nuclear catastrophe we were distilling 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 good for us lads built from underground all the sick man i'm a spiteful manama pleasant man out got liver disease america is

a sick impact it's a spiteful impact it's a most unpleasant empire we've got another wonderful 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 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 the hedges of many about climate change but he's the one who say

intervention has been wrong that foreign policy has been wrong and he even argues that mass incarceration is a is a biden policy is an obama policy. for no president trump has facilitated even more intensely vicious treatment of the precious palestinians 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 of the vicious treatment of our precious brothers sisters in yemen mediated through saudi arabia mediated through the elites on account will beat an accountable. prince a monarch and princes and so forth so that when he talks about is he a critique of the united states in the middle east he's lying again yeah the state

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 when he's talking about with the united states should never have intervened no this is always already is offering those armies could not. this is really me and saudi arabia without us support without imperial support and when we invite we invite israeli ambassador we have ideas or any ambassador london on the program but at netanyahu would certainly refute any charge of violence except in self defense and britain which played $550.00 palestinians behaviors in a one month period 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 could be a trip in italy i'll be at mo d. be it was a narrow in brazil be it the hungry or see the gangster is a shot of the world moving toward real fascist rule and that's where our must be

and of course truckers 'd 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 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 mr bitch a should 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 will matter what color no matter what national identity we've gotta be internationalist cross the border with blessed be with my roma brothers this is yesterday and my ballot both those as of yesterday off not going to do it only go that apollo out but we have to have international solidarity in the name of will morality 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 any white supremacy any form of promise supremacy in any form of patriarchy if i see that ideology or one of domination 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 even more than a virtue being an action being part of people's movement in order to push back the forces of evil whatever form those forces take. yeah 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 know where you're writing of course those is good politics have to be called into question it's psychic insight into 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. it 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 weaken free so when you look for an alternative the choice is between on the one hand the other but we had a ruling class and they were fastening it really exists on the truck acted as if he was populist but it's very clear he tied to big money he tied to big military it will scapegoat the most vulnerable in terms of mexicans or muslims or red indians

black folk and gays and live in a trance and he is able to connect with enough of the white working class 65 percent white men both at the drop 52 percent white women who have a truck 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 class method we have been in the white. part of serious struggle against white supremacy but they 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 republic going all the way back to. 360 some b. c. he had it in sight 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 own no question reproduces their own domination we see this all around the world fascism very good will still lead to the same thing it looked at the same thing frankel did the same thing these are new england the fascism with similar kind of checks well in terms of trying to ensure the misleading every day because they are meeting orders are deeply suffering but they rather scapegoat the most vulnerable the terms oh the degraded. black. and arabs and muslims and immigrants and mexicans rather than confront the most powerful professor cornell west i'll just stop you there more

from cornell west off of this break. but the pandemic no certainly no borders and a slide into another tease. the summer we don't observe the we don't look like. feasting. just you know coming crisis like. we can do better we should be doing better. everyone is contributing each in our own way but we also know that this crisis is not go on forever the challenges create the response has been much so many good people are helping us. it makes us feel very proud that we're in it together.

the world is driven by. hunters senators. who dares thinks. we dare to ask. welcome back i'm still with professor cornell west if we move up michael us is there's something wrong with the elites in your society i know you. talk about f.

scott fitzgerald before do they read the great gatsby is a great tale of you make it in this well 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've just been say yeah i'm glad you brought this stuff is true a lot because he understood because he went to princeton i'm interested right now he understood the spiritual decay in the oracle kuti of the ruling class not all but most he understood they substitute prosperity for magnanimity they have hardly any sense of moral excellence and spiritual greatness is reduced down to things and possessions then come out of and it reminds me of the greatest figure 8 for this was you know neal and the iceman cometh the greatest. ever written for the state in what did he say what does it profit a nation that gained the whole world and lose it so. it is obsessed with.

re power well status and spectacle with no moral or spiritual substance that is a moment for the american get 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 to it on the same register in terms of seeing through the emptiness and but he has so much of what american life 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 given that those yes your brothers care most of the bond hail as those who

will suffer from the incapacity. and death of marketing understood i come from an equal black. money here in the united states but dishing out so much love john coltrane's retorted martin be love it martin luther king love who are just to be one to love in the need of love we have got rich oh yes we all got to be frank he loves life the whole lives we live 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 just lose it 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 mean it is in more trouble now is abandoned 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 when we were really beginning to move in a way that we were headed toward the white house then the. it be a logical unit facilitated by obama with me we have brothers all of them came together dropped out within a few days the black neo liberal leadership that is at the money in black leadership we do money and our tix came together and lo and behold 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 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. protection cannot deliver education cannot deliver goods and services why because the in part in shambles when you have so much greedy and corruption and indifference for the suffering with no public life no public health care no public. robust public interactions and we can't even hardly have a public conversation what happens to a demographer you sleep out here 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 wonderful crystal palace it went back they keep it won't do it back since edifice. salient and does 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 it's because you got that now brown now when i met up at the glass menagerie in the crystal palace all really now behave themselves into reproducing the same kind of decadence the

same kind of decay 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 net 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 the 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 least murder wall street car 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 it could make the family look a moment 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 ford was killed there were demonstrations all around the world in fact in in love around the world there were there were demonstrations against multi-racial into intersectional but london fall is washington on on foreign policy specially on apparently your biggest enemy china but what the white house says what gives what gives the d.n.c. and they aren't see 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 who he is how to say you can imagine what the golden rule international relations looks like. russia had troops in mexico and china that 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 they're concerned about it territory after all just stuck to the domination where 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 form the decay domination all forms of dog and we have to be connected to radically democratic small d forces doto and power dissenting voices that are empowering working people that aren't exemplary movements and by exemplary what i mean is leaders of integrity who are 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 them that move. well i suppose there's one difference between beijing

must go and washington 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 already late to financial elites just 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 'd 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 preservation. reza cornell west thank you that's ever one of your favorite shows of the last season will be back for u.c. is going to come in the 5th until the regular show you don't miss me interview and join the other guy but hold off for the facebook instagram and say say.

so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy one from day shouldn't let it be an arms race move his arms off and spearing dramatic development only personally i'm going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful a very critical time time to sit down and talk. show seemed wrong rowles just don't hold. any new world belief yet to shape our disdain he comes to advocate and in games from an equal to the trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground.

join me every thursday on the alex i'm unsure when i'll be speaking to get us out of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. we are all dying here the migrants are leaving because they are left alone tonight i'm going to see some is enough for. the residents protest over the arrival of hundreds more migrants for the local mayor saying the italian island can no longer cope. europe has done nothing for lampedusa on the problem of migrants no one listens and there is a deafening silence from the european and italian institutions. also this hour president emanuel mccrone a visit to lebanon for the 2nd time in less than a month to press for political reform i met chris.