[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [New post] Tulsi Gabbard Is Driving The MSM Bat Shit Crazy

[J.B. Nicholson]

Caitlin Johnstone wrote:
> When Tulsi Gabbard announced her plans to run in the 2020 presidential
> election, I predicted that it would disrupt war propaganda narratives
> and force a much-needed conversation about US interventionism, but I
> didn't realize that it would happen so quickly, so ubiquitously, and so
> explosively. Gabbard officially began her campaign for president a mere
> three days ago, and already she's become the front line upon which the
> debate about US warmongering is happening. Even if you oppose Gabbard's
> run for the presidency, this should be self-evident to you by now.
There's some video coverage of these events:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlXhRBsOwpA -- Jimmy Dore and group talk 
about this. I suspect their piece was recorded before what Johnstone 
describes below happened.

Johnstone:
> After the show, still unable to contain herself, Hunt jumped onto
> Twitter to share the discredited NBC smear piece, writing, "Here is
> @NBCNews' excellent reporting on the Russian machine that now appears to
> be boosting Tulsi Gabbard."
> 
> Hunt then followed up with a link to an RT article which she captioned
> with an outright lie: "Here is the 'debunking' of the NBC News report
> from RT, the Russian state media. You tell me which you think is more
> credible."
> 
> I say that Hunt is lying because the RT article that she shared to
> falsely claim that the only objection to NBC's smear piece came from
> Russia explicitly names an Intercept article by American journalist
> Glenn Greenwald, upon which the RT article is based and which does
> indeed thoroughly discredit the NBC smear piece. If Hunt had read the
> article that she shared, she necessarily would have know that, so she
> was either lying about the nature of the article she shared or lying
> about knowing what was in it.
> 
> MSNBC defended @nbcnews fraudulent "report" which was based on a
> "discredited cyber security firm recently kicked off Facebook for
> unethical MEDDLING of a state election.” Shameful "journalism."
> https://t.co/YjGSKKE6oR
> 
> — Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) February 7, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJTDzoM6HxY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGDrOtpP4sU -- RT's reaction and showing 
Twitter posts of people reacting saying that RT is more trustworthy than MSNBC

This is very much like the time Lockheed Martin (which made the bomb that 
killed a bus full of Syrian schoolchildren) asked for "amazing photos of 
one of our products" for #WorldPhotoDay and the public did just that -- by 
giving them photos of what their products did to those children:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lockheed-martin-world-photo-day_us_5b78a2eee4b018b93e948af3

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-lockheed-bomb-twitter-fail-20180820-story.html

https://www.inquisitr.com/5036245/lockheed-martin-deletes-tweet-after-one-of-their-bombs-was-linked-to-attack-on-yemen-school-bus/

Lockheed Martin then deleted their tweets asking for these photos.

Johnstone:
> Military interventionism is by far the most depraved and destructive
> aspect of the US-centralized power establishment, and it is also the
> most lucrative and strategically crucial, which is why so much energy is
> poured into ensuring that the American people don't use the power of
> their numbers to force that interventionism to end. Anyone who throws a
> monkey wrench in the works of this propaganda machine is going to be
> subjected to a tremendous amount of smears, and I'm glad to see Gabbard
> fighting back against those smears. From personal experience I know that
> smear campaigns must be fought against ferociously, because the only
> alternative is to allow your detractors to control the narrative about
> you, which as far as your message goes is the same as allowing them to
> control you. It's not fun, it's not clean, but it's necessary.
This is partly why I'm concerned when I read or hear people (not Johnstone) 
describe Gabbard as being "against the wars" (as Jimmy Dore has said in the 
aforementioned clip). I'm not convinced Gabbard wants American 
interventionism to end. I'm convinced she's for minor changes to the 
mechanism by which American interventionism is carried out. Ultimately what 
Gabbard has proposed still kills lots of people extrajudicially, and mostly 
innocent citizens -- killer drones.

But what are Tulsi Gabbard's war views? Almost exactly one year ago Gabbard 
called for:

> [...] no long-term deployment, no long-term occupation to be able to get
> rid of the threat that exists and then get out and the very limited use
> of drones in those situations where our military is not able to get in 
> without creating an unacceptable level of risk, and where you can make 
> sure that you’re not causing, you know, a large amount of civilian 
> casualties.
Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/PPY1407171456.mp3
Audio: https://player.megaphone.fm/PPY1407171456?light=true
starting around 1h18m07s

Transcript: 
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/17/intercepted-podcast-white-mirror/

She's for the drone war (in "very limited" amounts, whatever that means). 
How long is "long-term"?

I'm certainly not accusing Johnstone of being pro-Gabbard. But I think it's 
worth pointing out that what Gabbard offers is indistinguishable from the 
talk you'd expect a pro-war advocate to say when trying to make war sound 
more acceptable. If those opposed to military interventionism stand up for 
what Gabbard offers here, their standards are too low. So yes, let's 
understand how the corporate media really works and do point out their lack 
of journalism. But don't be fooled: no Democrat running is anti-war.