Amy Goodman
@DemocracyNow·3.2M subscribers·19.4K videos
Tavis Smiley & Cornel West on "The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto"
Posted
April 19, 2012
Views
41,399
Likes
420
Comments
81
Engagement
1.21%
April 19, 2012
41,399
420
81
1.21%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
20:25Now PlayingDemocracyNow.org - The latest census data shows nearly one in two Americans, or 150 million people, have fallen into poverty — or could be classified as low income. We're joined by Dr. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley, who continue their efforts to spark a national dialogue on the poverty crisis with the new book, "The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto." Smiley, an award-winning TV and radio broadcaster, says President Obama has failed to properly tackle poverty. "There seems to be a bipartisan consensus in Washington that the poor just don't matter. President Obama is a part of that," Smiley says. "I take nothing away from his push on healthcare, but jobs for every American should have been priority number one." West, a professor of religion and African American studies at Princeton University, says that after the historic U.S. struggles against monarchy, slavery and institutionalized racism, "the issue today is oligarchy. Poverty is the new slavery, oligarchs are the new kings — the new heads of this structure of domination."
The second part of this discussion will be posted online at
To watch the complete independent, weekday news hour, read the transcript and download the podcast, please visit
FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE:
Twitter: @democracynow
Subscribe on YouTube
Listen on SoundCloud
Daily Email News Digest
Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today, visit
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
