US Presidential candidate Cornel West on Israel Hamas war, greedy ruling class and Biden vs Trump
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Channel 4 News
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 May 2024
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
US Presidential candidate Dr Cornel West is a philosopher and prominent advocate for social and racial justice. He’s taught at some of the top universities in the US including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, but has one major plan if he becomes President: to “dismantle the American empire”.
The 71-year-old activist, who campaigned for Biden in 2020, has recently been vocal against both the Democratic and Republican’s party’s stance on Gaza, which he calls “morally bankrupt”. Though he faces very long odds in winning the race, he says he wants to appeal to a group of disillusioned voters who have given up on the American two-party system.
In this episode of Ways to Change the World, Dr Cornel West tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy why he thinks US foreign policy on Israel is enabling destruction in Gaza, how both Biden and Trump are problematic for oppressed groups, and why it’s difficult to have hope to change the world without also being in despair at the suffering we see.
Produced by Silvia Maresca
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Ways to Change the World. I'm Christian Guru Murphy and this is the |
| 0:05.2 | podcast in which we talk to extraordinary people about the big ideas in their lives and the events |
| 0:10.2 | that have helped shape them. I'm talking to you today from Tel Aviv in Israel |
| 0:14.8 | where I've been covering the news but my guest is in Edinburgh even though he is |
| 0:20.9 | a prominent American. Professor Cornell West is an academic, |
| 0:25.8 | a philosopher, a black thinker, a black leader, |
| 0:29.1 | and he is running to be president of the United States as an independent. He says the choice on offer |
| 0:36.6 | to the American people, which currently looks like Biden and Trump is no choice he wants |
| 0:41.1 | to be part of, and so he wants to offer an alternative. |
| 0:45.2 | But we begin our conversation with the Middle East which has been a big part of his campaign. |
| 0:51.2 | Professor, welcome to the podcast. |
| 0:54.6 | What do you think is wrong with America's position on Israel, Gaza, and what do you think |
| 0:59.7 | it should be? |
| 1:00.7 | Well, I just think that the American Empire is in such deep spiritual decay and moral |
| 1:08.6 | decadence that the veil has been ripped off of U.S. foreign policy as it relates to Israel. |
| 1:15.6 | We were witnessing levels of criminality and barbarity. |
| 1:20.0 | That's what genocide is. |
| 1:22.1 | It could be Germany 1930, it could be Turkey in the in the 1920s. |
| 1:27.1 | It could be Rwanda. We can go on and on. But that is what is taking place. |
| 1:31.2 | The United States is enabling this. The United States is facilitating this and the United States |
| 1:37.0 | has now become a genocide of this denier. It's denying this. It's a lie. It's trying to tell the world in fact that something is not |
| 1:45.0 | taking place that is actually taking place. And so it seems to me that any decent |
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