[Peace-discuss] "Tulsi Gabbard has done the unpardonable: criticized US global hegemony" (MONDOWEISS)

[Robert Naiman]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: John V. Whitbeck <jvwhitbeck at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Aug 5, 2019 at 4:29 PM
Subject: "Tulsi Gabbard has done the unpardonable: criticized US global
hegemony" (MONDOWEISS)
To: <whitbeck-blog at googlegroups.com>




TO: Distinguished Recipients
FM: John Whitbeck

Transmitted below is a brief MONDOWEISS posting regarding a "full spread
hit piece" against Tulsi Gabbard published by the *New York Time**s*.

That the *Times* would go to the trouble of trying to discredit a "minor"
candidate flirting with a meager 2% support in the polls is an effective if
back-handed compliment to Tulsi and her message and campaign consciously
focused on opposition to the mad pursuit of full-spectrum global domination
and the hugely expensive, destructive and seemingly never-ending wars of
choice which it has produced.

It suggests that perpetual war advocates are seriously worried that even 2%
support might be enough to qualify Tulsi for the next round of Democratic
Party presidential debates and permit her eloquent voice for sanity, while
highly unlikely to win her the nomination, to receive greater exposure and
traction.

Words matter -- and have always been used and abused to shape public
opinion. The word "isolationist" has had a profoundly negative resonance in
the United States since World War II. Accordingly, those who are
financially and/or professionally invested in perpetual war and are
petrified at the slim threat of a world at peace, who might be
appropriately labeled the "Industrial Fear and Hate Promoting and Profiting
Complex", tend to label any American opposed to the pursuit of
full-spectrum global dominance by military means an "isolationist", as if
there were no non-violent and non-kinetic way to interact with the world
and as the *Times* has chosen to characterize Tulsi and her message.

NOTE: While, disappointingly, Tulsi voted in favor of the recent House of
Representatives resolution condemning the BDS movement for justice in
Palestine, she has now become the 15th House member to co-sponsor H. Res.
496, the resolution introduced by Ilhan Omar affirming that Americans have
the right to boycott foreign countries to advance the cause of human rights
(https://mondoweiss.net/2019/08/gabbard-condemn-cosponsor/).









*MONDOWEISS *

https://mondoweiss.net/2019/08/unpardonable-criticized-hegemony/
<https://mondoweiss.net/2019/08/unpardonable-criticized-hegemony/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=unpardonable-criticized-hegemony&utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=dbc46176a6-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b86bace129-dbc46176a6->


*Tulsi Gabbard has done the unpardonable: criticized US global hegemony*


David Bromwich


August 3, 2019



The Times full spread hit piece on Tulsi Gabbard is a new low, even for the
Times. It is yellow journalism half disguised as human interest, with a few
random points of political information.

Headline: “Unorthodox Campaign Shows Isolationism May Have a Hold.”

Opening sentence: “Tulsi Gabbard is running for president of a country that
she believes has wrought horror on the world.”

Their initial strategy was simply to starve her out – no coverage, no
candidacy. Now, because she’s still in and lately told a truth that
weakened the Times' choice Kamala Harris, they are giving her the Bernie
2016 treatment: i.e. this candidate is outlandish, absurd, unaccountably
heartless (her sister fell off a horse while the story was being written
and her reaction was lacking in warmth), mystical (she spoke at a solar
panel dedication event), a tool of the wicked (she points out that Syria
never went to war against the US) – and possibly a Russian agent.

Among Times readers, fewer than one in 50 is likely to be a supporter of
Gabbard, but turning off voters is the secondary purpose of such an
article. The primary purpose is to shape attitudes at CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC,
ABC, NPR, the Washington Post, and the Times sister publication The New
Yorker. Legitimize flat-out condescension and contempt in the influential
outlets and you keep her numbers down, since people won’t hear her voice at
all.

A war veteran, an experienced and respected lawmaker, and a woman of color,
but she commits the unpardonable error of criticizing worldwide US hegemony
and so they follow the corporate reflex: make her a laughingstock.

Postscript. Gabbard stands up to an MSNBC hack who tries to overwhelm her
with pro-war talking points. MSNBC is part of the perpetual war machine, as
is the Times; they backed the Iraq war, and they’ll do the same for the
next war, whether it’s in North Africa, east Asia, or Ukraine.
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