This blog post is a reply for a critique of an interview with Dr. Cornel West a subscriber asked me to do. The original interview is found here:

Re: Dr. Cornel West: “Obama becoming puppet of Wall St Oligarchs”

In the request section that used to be on the channel, someone asked me for a critique of the video from Russia Today where Dr. Cornel West said that Obama was becoming a puppet of the Wall St. Oligarchs. So as requested I’ll give my opinion on it.

This is why I see Dr. West as tremendously naive. As an intellectual, as a guest at the world Left forum, as an activist, he is tremendously naive. At the beginning of his talk during the segment he articulates that he was big supporter of Obama. This is where he proves his naivete, he honestly believed in “Change”. The only people who really thought there was going to be change, were people who genuinely believe that America is a democracy. What he has is a non-materialist viewpoint of the political area, particularly on the federal level. He has not paid enough attention to all the developments in society as they relate to qualitative change.

Each Democrat has expressed has expressed how they will bring about change every time they are elected. John F. Kennedy spoke about some kind of “universal love” that captured the hearts and minds of many voters particularly the young people. However, apart from his idealistic view point, what we got in material conditions was the Bay of Pigs Invasion. What we got was a new type of interference in Latin America. This abstraction from the words of idealism from the politicians, and the real material reality that appears as a result of real actions taken by politicians, is nothing new. This is a repeated pattern of behaviour. Experience tells us that if they keep doing the opposite of what they say (which is why you elect them), than it is you who is insane for continuing to vote for them.

Ironically his line of thinking is not too far from that of the Tea Party people. His assumption was that “as soon as a Democrat or a Black man is elected president, all the abuses by the Republicans end”. This is based on the false notion that the Democrats change anything. Which as we’ve seen from the previous example of Kennedy, that is simply not true. This is the same flawed ideological position held by the Tea Party advocates: “as soon as a Democrat or a Black man is elected President, America has turned into a fascist and socialist state.” Here we see the same false notion as before. An assumption that things have automatically changed since a different party has been elected. They share a connected, fraudulent belief that there is a difference between these two parties.

His naivete is in his belief that there ever has been a difference between Democrats and Republicans. They have both almost always served the interest of the banking class of wealthy citizens. Any assumption that this has automatically changed with the election of Black man is tremendously naive. This also does explain why his position on Cuba is still a position held by the bourgeoisie.