Dr. Cornel West Speaks on Obama Peace Prize Win
Dr. Cornel West, who is set to appear on the Tavis Smiley Show, explained what it means to be the Commander in Chief of the world’s largest military force and a Nobel Peace Prize recipient. According to Dr. West:
It’s gonna be hard to be a war president with a peace prize. Gonna be difficult. Very, very difficult. And so I think he knows that and we as fellow citizens have to, um, as brother Tavis would say in his wonderful book Accountability, keep him accountable and loving and self critical, not self-righteous way. I think it’s very difficult for any head of an empire to be under the pressure of peace. ‘Cause you’re head of the largest military in the world, you got over a thousand military installments on the globe, you got ships in every sea. It’s very difficult. And I think following brother Martin King, we know that peace is not the absence of conflict, peace is the presence of justice. So They go hand in hand. Thank god for Hebrew scripture, Amos is no joke. Connected.
So now the whole world is watching, saying, what are the ways in which as president, you will be a promoter of justice here at home for poor people, for working people. So jobs can’t be an afterthought to your economic policy. But you all get my point. It becomes a challenge now, you see. It’s going to be difficult to have a peace prize and not investigate folk who have been torturing people, you see. It’s going to be difficult having that moral authority in office and the tension that goes along with that, you see.
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