By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
President Barack Obama is abandoning the American people and shifting on his political stands, according to Princeton University Prof. Cornel West.
In an interview that aired on Russia Today on April 4, Dr. West says, “I think that he has aligned himself with forces that promote the abandonment of poor people and the neglect of working people,” he said. “I would characterize Obama as a charismatic version of American exceptionalism with a Keynesian neo-liberalism at home and a liberal neoconservatism abroad, which is to say he is the friendly face of the American empire abroad and internally he is a centrist now leaning to the right.”
Keynesian neo-liberalism refers to the theories of British economist John Maynard Keynes, who believed if markets were truly free to self-regulate, it would lead to cycles or recession, depression and boons. To help mitigate these effects, he recommended governments use fiscal and monetary measures.
Neoconservatives is someone who prefers big government but is presented as conservative and formerly liberal. This group advocates American foreign policy that pushes democracy in other nations.
Dr. West said President Obama is in the process of “sadly becoming a pawn of big finance and a puppet of big business.”
The president began his campaign with Democratic rhetoric, he said.
He has not counterbalanced the campaign support from high finance and support from common folk, said Dr. West.
Wall Street has been “looting billions and billions from the public funds,” and making billions of dollars on the shadowed financial system at the expense of poor and working class people.
Saying the poor are being pushed to the margins, “more and more working class persons who thought they had a secure existence recognize their plight is more and more tied to the plight of poor people and working poor people.”
This is an early shift in the perception of the American people, he said.
He said “we are experiencing a radical democratic awakening in the American Empire,” which is being impacted by what’s going on in Northern Africa, Middle East and what is happening in Madison, Wis., and Columbus, Ohio.
Dr. West was unavailable for further comment.

