Polar opposites, both Wrong!

        A recent article in The Guardian, is entitled "Pity the sad legacy of  Barack Obama." I was a bit puzzled by this from the Guardian until I read the byline: Dr. Cornel West. Dr. West is one of two black men with the surname West who reside at the poles of the political spectrum, Cornel being a Democratic Socialist and the other the un -court martialed murderer, Allen West, a radical Republican.

        A reading of the piece reveals all the things we've heard time after time from Dr. West - that being that Obama didn't, all by himself, initiate a full scale social revolution in America. He criticizes Obama's support of the police in those instances where they were randomly victimized by assassins. He bemoans the identification of bottle throwing looters as thugs, when in fact that's what their actions at the time showed them to be. He complains that drone strikes in Syria sometimes hit civilians, a tragic and lamentable occurrence, but hardly specifically or even generally the President's fault either. Finally, he apparently believes that President Obama is solely to blame for not just single handedly instituting single payer National Health Care. Even making that claim aloud shows just how out of touch Cornel West is with the scope of the issue and how laws are made.

        On the other hand he whines that "we" whomever in the hell that was, begged him (Obama) to bail out Main Street, but he bailed out Wall Street. I'm not sure what bailing out Main Street would look like, but I have to feel that extending unemployment benefits in the face of harsh criticism from Paul Ryan et al, from 26 weeks to 99 weeks was a part of such a bailout. It is also worth remembering that the TARP had already been signed into law by Bush 43.

        Cornel West even makes a hero of Chelsea Manning,  who is being relatively well treated considering her near treasonous activities regarding willful compromise of material which he (then, now "she")  had sworn to protect. It is not necessary to agree with the scope of Government's actions regarding domestic surveillance (I don't) or attempts to gut ISIS (I do) to analyze the activities of the Mannings and Snowdens as criminal (I do).   West complains about  Anwar al-Awlaki's "extrajudicial murder by drone" because he had never had a trial or indictment for his acknowledged terrorist activities, or  his incitement of others to kill Americans.  It begs pointing out that Moammar Kaddafi had neither when Reagan ordered the bombing of his home, killing not him, but several of his family.

        Perhaps most amazing about all this is that on the other end of the spectrum, Black pundits  such as Allen West, Michelle Malkin, and Dr. Thomas Sowell  (as well as a slew of racists masquerading as Congressmen) were slamming the President's same actions for exactly the opposite reason. It seems a brother just can't catch a break, huh?

        Lost in all this is the apparent shared belief of both lunatic fringes  that somehow this President was capable of doing all the things Cornell West loves (and the others hate)  with a Congress who swore to obstruct his every action from the day of his inauguration.  Dr. Cornel West says, "Poor people and working people have not been the focus of the Obama administration. That for me is not just a disappointment but a kind of betrayal." Dr. Sowell, on the other hand seems to feel that only Republicans can fix  the same problems.

         It's confusing, that is,  until you process that neither Dr. Sowell or Dr. West has ever actually worked  outside academia since garnering their doctorates.  Dr. Sowell has just announced his retirement from being an op-ed writer for various conservative media outlets and Dr. West has been teaching somewhere almost continuously since he left Harvard 15 years ago after a well reported "disagreement" with that University, which has apparently just recently agreed to take him back. Neither has ever earned a paycheck outside of the university setting (oops, my bad, West did have brief  cameo appearances in both Matrix movies, sorry).  

         Meanwhile, Dr. West apparently believes that a snap of the POTUS' fingers can institute Socialism nationwide while Dr. Sowell believes the opposite, that POTUS has tried to do just that, another ludicrous suggestion..  The lack of true understanding of our problems demonstrated by these two polar opposites, at least in what they write for popular consumption, is staggering. 

       Many of our most pressing social issues can only be solved from the ground up. An institutionalized  sense of "why try" as seen in many inner city situations is crippling. Conversely, the idea , seemingly too widely pervasive in some courtrooms, that rich White boys deserve a break for the same crimes for which a poor person of color  goes away, amplifies that sense of frustration.  Our body of laws is sufficient to properly govern, encourage and protect the body politic and its children, but only if applies fairly and consistently without regard to race or social stature.  Toleration of racism in any form and from any source is deleterious to this end, and is a bit evident in not only the president elect's choices, but in the writings of both Drs. West and Sowell.