If YOU have issues with Cornel West-well, what are they?

[JonLP24]

16. He cites the former editor's slams on Race Matters twice

And Larry Summers too? Brings up the side projects but mentions his lack of books or their ideas but "Leon Wieseltier famously derided West’s work as “almost completely worthless” in these pages 20 years ago."

Wieseltier served on the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and was a prominent advocate of the Iraq War. "I am in no sense a neoconservative, as many of my neoconservative adversaries will attest," Wieseltier wrote in a May 2007 letter to Judge Reggie Walton, seeking leniency for his friend Scooter Libby.[5] WTF?

I keep continuing to find issues. The main thing is the MHP slammed began slamming him first when she was hired by MSNBC. Not sure about Al Sharpton but he was defending Obama too, same thing with Eric Dyson. He gets a job with MSNBC and not only does he start defending Obama he writes this hit piece defending his MSNBC colleagues. The "liar & fraud" may have been something related to issues where she left Princeton for Tulane but I'm not digging into that. Even some of her controversial statements which I agree with (similarities to Guantanamo inmates & American slaves) where made in the context of defending Obama. Her criticisms of him were "thin criticisms of Obama" when they are from thin.

I notice searching for the source -- "I love Brother Mike Dyson, but we're living in a society where everybody is up for sale," West said. "Everything is up for sale. And he and Brother Sharpton and Sister Melissa and others, they have sold their souls for a mess of Obama pottage. And we invite them back to the black prophetic tradition after Obama leaves. But at the moment, they want insider access, and they want to tell those kind of lies. They want to turn their back to poor and working people. And it's a sad thing to see them as apologists for the Obama administration in that way, given the kind of critical background that all of them have had at some point."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/cornel-west-msnbc-black-hosts-sharpton-harris-perry-obama_n_2121549.html

There is something very specific in that. Michael Eric Dyson says "Obama is not Moses, he is Pharaoh." not that I care who is a prophet or isn't but it indicates how far he takes the religion aspect of it given is PhD in religion but even on religion he comes across as condescending, disinginous, and selective.

So much ink is spilled on prophet all of it in the end to discredit him as a prophet so therefore we shouldn't listen to him and first thing he mentions he isn't an ordained minister, what he is leaving out that Michael Eric Dyson is an ordained minister.

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West’s lack of understanding of the prophetic tradition is perhaps most evident in his criticism of Sharpton and Jackson. He berates them for their appetite for access to power, their desire for insider status. Even if we concede for the moment that this is true, it isn’t a failure of their prophecy but of West’s ability to distinguish between kinds of prophets. In his 1995 book, The Preacher King, Duke Divinity School Professor Richard Lischer noted that in ancient Israel, the central prophet moved within the power structure, reminding the people of their covenant with God and also consulting kings on military matters and issues of national significance. Peripheral prophets were outsiders who embraced the poor, criticized the monarchy, and opposed war.

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I love how he concedes for the moment that this is true but too long to detail how it is disingenious. The irony with that statement is wouldn't Jesus be the "peripheral prophet" while whoever the central prophets were got things done were accountable, etc? Then he spins it with MLK that he developed or grew into this views when he always had these views or did so especially during those times. I'm not familiar with the pressures being an ordained minister comes with but I don't see how being compromised by an institution doesn't mean you can't be & obviously with the Larry Summers situation & now he is taking him down basically in the sense he counts more but it also comes with slams of the people he is supposedly defending. MLK waited to come out against Vietnam war basically he didn't want to jeopardize the Civil Rights Act which he said he wouldn't accept a "watered down version" & so many other things. His non-violent views were entirely logical in the sense that if there were violence at a protest the media would obsess over it rather than the reasons for the protests which was exactly what happened with the Memphis Sanitation Workers dispute. FBI agent provocatuers infiltrated, had a pipeline to the local media, committed violent acts which the media later obsessed over them. As you may know MLK was assassinated the same night on the day he spoke at a Memphis Sanitation Workers rally.

I don't know what his argument exactly is with that but it can be read that MLK lost his effectiveness when he became the "peripheral prophet" but it is clearly known he sat on these views but as soon as he aired them they were hit pieces written that appear remarkably similar but if they weren't effectively or weren't speaking the truth you wouldn't be seeing these hit pieces. What is unique is coming from someone who was very much the same way in rhetoric but when he brings up personal issues he leaves out an awful lot of information especially from the sources he cites. He cities a source, but he leaves out what the source also says selective picking and choosing in a case to justify his fall & the hypocrisy of it all. It is one thing to say Cornell West was a little harsh but I can't say he is wrong, this is something else "A hit piece wrapped in scholarly language" which is how I view it. I'm familiar with history of religion on some level so I'm aware of some of what he alludes too but he is more religious scholar than a scholar in the areas Cornell West is. He compares him to Socrates, Michael Eric Dyson would be like Plato but instead a Plato slamming the hell out of Socrates could you imagine the political pressures at the time? According to Plato (who wrote the book on Socrates) he was executed for "corrupting young minds". The obsession with what counts as a prophet or the variations is a simplistic justification when West's argument is they're kissing Obama's ass for the insider access when what views are being expressed.

As far as the prophet nonsense it explains Cornell West's reply which some slam him for not caring more about his proteges for slamming him based on lies. The red bold, there is a reason for that but there is no doubt Michael Eric Dyson can write. He cites his autobiography slamming him for name dropping of rappers which is a side project of his considering there are a lot of "Raptivists" which Eric Dyson wrote books on himself, especially Tupac and also giving him credit for a political satire which I never seen but from what I read is brilliant. That is like the best he has from an autobiography no less but uses it as his career is down the tubes even though Democracy Matters was a hit of the book he both praises & cities the conservative former editor's criticisms of the books. Bizarre.