So...Tim Black interviewed Cornel West, and they went more into his disagreements with the green party in it, and I felt like this stuff was interesting enough to talk about. Honestly, up to this point, I never had a strong position on the West vs Stein debate as they both come off to me as nearly clones of each other policy wise, but yeah on a personal level, I think I like west better after hearing his side of the story here.
Basically, he left the green party in part because it was too limiting. I mean, we discussed how they made him do events and fund raising and stuff and how this wasn't his style as he was more an idea guy, but what was said here was particularly interesting. Basically, they tried to limit what he could say. I mean, West is an honest guy, he likes to tell it like he sees it, but he was crossing all sorts of lines within the party. He was also criticized specifically for speaking out about Alexi Navalny, and this is particularly interesting to me and one of the reasons I decided to do this follow up.
Alexi Navalny is the russian dude who opposed putin who was recently assassinated. I havent mentioned the issue myself as there isnt much to say about it other than "DUH!", but yeah. He decided to speak out and send condolences on it and the greens were like "you can't say that, he was an ultra nationalist" or whatever. And he was like, what do you mean i cant say that? im a christian and who are you to say i cant say something about a fellow brother fighting oppressive systems or whatever. He didnt care who he was, he just wanted to say something on it, since in his mind, it was the right thing to do. And the greens were just like, "nope, cant do that."
This would anger me too. I mean, I like saying what I say and i dont wanna be told what to do either. I say what my conscience dictates and whether you accept it or not is up to you. I respect "brother west's" candor on the matter and i want more of that in my political candidates. Not going to say id always agree, but they should have a right to say it.
Also, I wanna be blunt. I've had similar issues with the green party. Back in like 2020ish I tried to join the green party discord. First discussion in was a discussion about the great firewall in china and how they were gonna cut gamers there off from the west. My knee jerk reaction was "good", because Im going to be honest. I played a lot of PUBG around that time, and a lot of chinese players, quite frankly, cheat, and are also rude AF to western players. It's actually a common problem with gamers who come from the third world sometimes. I want to emphasize, this is not a RACIAL issue, I don't care about one's racial characteristics here, but there is a significant CULTURAL issue here. A lot of gamers from the third world tend to play fast or loose with ethics, and dont care if they cheat and ruin everyone else's experience. And a lot of people in the gaming communities affected by this have been calling for region locks to keep gamers from within the PRC from logging into western servers. And if China was gonna region lock themselves, then good riddance, problem solved.
Of course, they called me racist for saying this. Again, not a race thing, but I digress. The point is, they gave me an "official warning" and threatened to ban me from the server if I said anything like that again. And much like "brother west" here, I didn't like being told what I could and couldn't say and left the server on my own terms. The green party does have a habit of being like "well you can't say that" and people like me and west bring a "don't tell me what i can and can't say" vibe to the situation. So yeah, screw the greens and their stuffy culture.
Still, I kinda got thinking about this. What if the reason they disapproved of West talking about Navalny was because they were actually taking money from Russia? It's been suspected that the green party and Jill Stein have connections with Russia. I mean there was that RT dinner that she was eating dinner with Putin at, so maybe Russia really IS helping the greens as opposition against the democrats. After all, it's been said before that if you want to know who has power over you, ask who you are not allowed to criticize. Maybe they really are in the tank with Russia and dont wanna piss off Putin? Maybe West had to go because he was too honest? If so, good for him.
Like, here's the thing. I know I tend to downplay the argument of russian interference with US politics, but only because the dems over emphasize it themselves. Rather than admit any wrongdoing for their 2016 behavior, they'd rather scream russia russia russia, and just expect you to fall in line behind them. But let's face it, I dont like russia either. And if Russia really is helping out the greens, to the point that green candidates cant say something nice about navalny, that's kind of a problem. It's one thing if the russians just happen to like the greens in this weird "enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of way, I mean, you shouldnt give up your convictions just because you happen to share a mutual interest with unsavory people, but if they're actively backing the greens and the greens are compromised themselves, again, huge problem.
As such, if I were thinking of going third party, and i had to choose between west and stein, I would probably go with west after seeing this interview. He's definitely a man of character and Stein has questionable loyalties if my little theory here IS true (I honestly think I'm onto something). Either way, I'd still rather have Biden than both. Still I might consider adjusting some ratings to Stein/west to reflect my stances on my scorecard.
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