Former Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb is the advancement manager for the Wiyot Tribe Community Land Trust, the co-coordinator of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network, and one of the promoters of the upcoming Decolonizing Economics Summit.
His lifelong commitment to social and environmental justice has made him a respected figure within the progressive movement. His legacy continues to inspire a new generation of activists and political leaders. He joins Lee on the stream today.
Lee Camp and Cobb’s friendship goes back to Occupy Wall Street. “I still talk about you as the Occupy stand-up comedian,” says Cobb.
In this hour-long interview, they discuss wide-ranging topics, including radical politics, community organizing, sustainable development, climate change, racial justice, the protests in France, indigenous sovereignty, and building power to confront the ruling class.
Cobb grew up in poverty in Texas with his parents and five siblings, living in a small house without indoor plumbing. Despite the challenges, he excelled in school, earning a scholarship to attend the University of Houston, where he earned a psychology degree in 1986.
“My hatred of capitalism is lived experience. It’s earned, right?” says Cobb about his reasons for becoming an organizer. He continues, “I know what it’s like to carry a five-gallon bucket of my family’s excrement at the end of the day as a chore, as an eight-year-old boy, right? Now, I had to learn a hatred of white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy and settler-colonialism.”
After college, Cobb moved to Washington, D.C., to work as a national organizer for the Green Party. He became involved in grassroots activism, working on environmental protection, racial justice, and workers’ rights. In 1993, he graduated from the University of Houston Law Center and began practicing as a criminal defense attorney.
Cobb remains active in the Green Party almost two decades after his 2004 presidential campaign for the marginalized left-wing party. He campaigned on ending the war in Iraq, protecting civil liberties, and promoting sustainable energy policies.
He says, “I’m proud. I am still a registered Green. … but I really am in a different spot now, Lee, because what I really want to underscore is I still believe that there is a role for electoral politics, but I am not an electoral fetishist, right?”
Following his presidential bid, Cobb continued to work as an attorney and activist. He has been involved in numerous legal cases related to voting rights, including the landmark case of Bush v. Gore in 2000. He has also been an advocate for the movement to abolish corporate personhood and for the creation of a national Green New Deal.
Learn more about Cobb’s ideas and work by attending, online or in-person, the Decolonizing Economics Summit from April 20-22, 2023. On the topic, Cobb says, “Decolonizing our minds is about challenging the assumptions that we’re steeped in, right? Challenging the assumption that happiness will be brought to you by things and that the accumulation of things. Decolonizing our minds means really confronting the reality of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy.”
Watch the full interview above.
Lee Camp is an American stand-up comedian, writer, actor and activist. Camp is the host of Behind The Headlines’ new series: The Most Censored News With Lee Camp. He is a former comedy writer for the Onion and the Huffington Post and has been a touring stand-up comic for 20 years.
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