Righteous Indignation, Love, and Running for President w/ Dr. Cornel West

Listen to this episode from Upstream on Spotify. Righteous indignation, truth, justice, and, maybe most important, love. These are some of the pillars that support the work that Dr. Cornel West, today’s guest, has been committed to throughout his entire life. Dr. West, as you may likely already know,  is a longtime political activist, philosopher, theologian, and public intellectual. He is the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary where he teaches courses in Philosophy of Religion and African American Critical Thought. He’s the former Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. Dr. West has written 20 books and has edited 13, and is best known for his classics, Race Matters and Democracy Matters. Dr. West is running for President of the United States with Vice Presidential candidate Melina Abdullah with the Justice for All Party. In this conversation, we explore what inspired Dr. West to take up the electoral path and take a stand against the corporate parties of our decaying empire—the Democrats and the Republicans. We talk about electoralism as a tool in a much larger toolkit of the left, a toolkit which includes trade union organizing, direct action, and building class consciousness. We talk about the importance of love and art in our movements as an antidote to capitalism’s totalizing, soul crushing hegemony in these dying years of the U.S. empire, and we discuss why it’s necessary to infuse our struggles here in the United States with an understanding of imperialism and the impact that the United States has on a global scale. Further resources: Cornel West 2024 Related episodes: Upstream: A Marxist Perspective on Elections with August Nimtz Upstream: The Political Economy of Jazz with Gerald Horne Upstream's Series on Electoralism Intermission music by Noname Cover art by Berwyn Mure Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at  upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.