The Ballad of Tulsi and Hillary
By: Pam Ho
Tags: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard

Contrary to popular belief the American government doesn’t always allow free speech. For example in the past the government has prosecuted people for speech they didn’t want the public to be influenced by due to special circumstances, like wartime. But that was in the past. Today governments and the ruling elites threaten social media owners and other online outlets to act as censors for them or pay the price through fines and stiffer regulations. For example governments that demand censorship or face fines. Or when censorship is not legally allowed then stricter regulations and huge fines for all manner of things other than censorship are used to make a point. Governments and ruling elites also use propaganda to control speech. That can be done directly or indirectly through their influence over others. The goal is to intimidate or to punish speakers. To coerce people into submission by using fear of what will happen if they don’t submit.

Hillary Clinton recently said that Republicans are working with the Russians “who play a big role” in their election manipulation schemes to lie about Democrat candidates by using “the dark web” to “convince blacks not to vote.” She also said “they are grooming” Tulsi who is a “Russian asset” to run as a 3rd party candidate to split the vote to help Trump’s re-election.

The swift backlash against Hillary must have left her and the Neocon-Neoliberal establishment in the Clinton camp feeling shocked. Many in the media were acting surprised that Hillary would say something so ridiculous even though they were promoting the same types of smears right up to that day.

That reaction wasn’t what Hillary expected. That wasn’t what anyone expected, was it? Wasn’t it just a few days earlier when it was perfectly acceptable for media personalities and politicians to try to discredit Tulsi as a “Putin Pawn” or some type of phony progressive? Articles, news segments, talk shows, blogs, vlogs, and everything in-between was piling on Tulsi for being a pawn of Russia, or a phony progressive, or an extremist of one sort or another. That message which was being shouted for months on end off the rooftops of the Neocon-Neoliberal media landscape and by their aspiring wannabes in alt-media must have made Hillary feel confident and untouchable if she said the same. After all, all she did was pile on the ever-growing chorus of establishment sycophants in their spreading of propaganda about a collectively disliked political opponent.

What changed to cause such a massive backlash to Hillary saying the same? It was so massive that the very news sources that had been pushing the same propaganda against Tulsi were now going on air and distancing themselves from Hillary! What was going on? What happened?

Hillary said Republicans were working with the Russians using “the dark web” to “convince blacks not to vote.”

What does that tell us besides revealing that she doesn’t know that “The Dark Web” refers to criminal websites only accessible through TOR or other secret methods?

Well, she let the cat out of the bag didn’t she? The focus of Democratic party messaging is based on getting people who don’t usually vote, out to vote. That means focusing their messaging on young people, Black people, and Hispanic people — who are traditionally the least likely demographics to turn out to vote. But especially their messaging was focused towards Black people because they see young people and Hispanic people as less likely to change, and because they feel they have an ace up their sleeve with Black people.

So, Democratic propaganda is focused on getting out the Black vote. Which is why it is entirely focused on criticizing Trump and the GOP as racist white supremacists. And because Tulsi is the only Democrat candidate who doesn’t use racial demagoguery, and is also not controlled by the DNC and their donor class, Hillary Clinton thought it clever to be more honest then she was supposed to be.

Tulsi was not helping the Democrats to paint all Republicans as racist white supremacists, her message is explicitly against the demonization of people with different political views. That of course makes the Democrats angry with her. So, Hillary said that the “Republican plan” with “the Russians,” is to “convince Black people not to vote,” and that they are “grooming” aka supporting Tulsi. In other words: the Republican/Russian plan is all about racist white supremacy — and they support Tulsi with the implication that Tulsi will do their racist bidding. This was meant to threaten Tulsi, to get her to react by insisting that she too was against the Republicans because they are racist white supremacists.

But Tulsi is not the type of person to give up her ethics because of the lies and threats of the establishment.

Ever since 2016 when Tulsi Gabbard criticized the DNC leadership over their handling of the primary debates and stepped down from her position in the DNC leadership to champion Bernie Sanders, the Neocon/Neoliberal establishment which controls the DNC had been looking for ways to discredit her — best case scenario they could smear her into being removed from politics altogether. So when Tulsi went to Syria in Jan 2017 to investigate the war and attitudes of the people to American intervention, whom the American media and politicians had assured us were all angry and hateful of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad — they saw their chance.

In the video interviews she brought back we saw Syrians from their various religious communities begging America not to support the jihadi terrorist organizations whom the US was supplying with weapons and training to overthrow their secular society to install a theocratic totalitarian caliphate. The foreign policy establishment under Obama headed up by Hillary Clinton hated that she had shown the world the truth of Syria. America was helping fundamentalist jihadi theocrats overthrow the secular Syrian government and secular society to set up a theocracy. Why? Many people say the real reason is to prevent Iran from having an ally in such a strategic place in the Middle East. Other people say American banking elites were the bad guys. Taking over Syrian oil and gas fields are another reason people say inspired many to come on board the regime change express — Turkey, France, UK, Germany, and Qatar to name a few. Wikileaks and Edward Snowden had revealed that Saudi princes had been leading the “civil war” with weapons, planning, and fighters from the start, for oil and gas pipelines. Also in 2003 a gas exploration team from Norway had determined that off the coast of Syria there are undiscovered gas fields, believed to be the largest in the world. That had been kept secret till 2013. Since 2012 a coalition of countries had been working on ways to divide the spoils of the gas. They would become leading sponsors of overthrowing Assad.

After Tulsi’s visit to see firsthand the truth of the Syrian people, the establishment’s professional political propagandists saw a chance to discredit Tulsi whom they now hated for helping the world see the truth of the Syrian war. ISIS had a history of over 50 poison gas attacks, so it was easy to simply blame a few of those on the Syrian government or even make them up. Also in 2014 legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh came out with a piece on Obama’s aborted “Red Line” response to a gas attack in 2013. Hersh uncovered the reason Obama didn’t go ahead with attacking Syria. He showed that there was a lot of concrete evidence that the attack was conjured up by the Turks working with Al Nusra jihadists so they could blame it on Syria — and thereby force Obama to attack Syria for them. As intelligence people said at the time “It made no sense” for the Syrian government to use chemical warfare since they were winning the war and knew it would invite reprisals from the US — which they certainly did not need. But the media ignored all that as did many politicians so Tulsi could be blamed for “meeting a monster who gassed his own people.”

Members of ISIS at first were commonly ex-members of the Sunni Iraqi police or military under Saddam Hussein who hated the new Iraqi Shia government. They had become radicalized by the most extreme Jihadi-Salafist fundamentalist preachers in the Arab world. They were more extreme than Al-Qaeda whom they share Jihadi-Salafist religious teachings with.

ISIS though took on a more antagonistic attitude towards other Muslims than Al-Qaeda which led to conflict between them over Takfir, which means a Muslim calling people apostates or inauthentic Muslims, aka kafir — and therefore subject to punishment or death. ISIS leaders were very antagonistic to Shia Muslims whom Sunnis typically see as idolaters and kafirs. Also after their first group of leaders were killed, the people who took over and made ISIS into a big deal were former officers of Iraqi military and intelligence services, and police, who hated the new reality of living under the new Shia led government of Iraq. Al-Qaeda was more focused on fighting the political power structures for their future caliphate and disagreed with the extremist ISIS preachers who obsessively focused their hatred on the Shia. What to speak of how ISIS views non-Muslims whom they see as their divine right to enslave (Yazidis). They planned to create a fundamentalist extremist caliphate for Jihadi Salafist Sunnis out of Iraq and Syria, aka The Islamic State — and to kill or enslave Shia, Alawites, Yazidis, Christians, and anyone else who objected to converting to their vision of Islam.

ISIS along with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and tens of thousands of foreign fighters who had streamed into Iraq and Syria to help create various competing versions of a new caliphate out of the planned destruction of Syrian society were the main members of the Syrian opposition. They were being funded and directed by Turkey, Qatar, Saudis, the EU, and America for their own purposes. All those Jihadi groups fighting to overthrow Syria along with ISIS and Al Qaeda were labeled as “Assad’s own people whom Assad was gassing.” Whom Tulsi met, and therefore “legitimized,” simply because Tulsi wanted to find out the truth of the situation first hand, instead of relying on the government who had recently lied the US into the Iraq and Libya wars.

They had already tried to smear Tulsi earlier when Tulsi didn’t go along with President Obama’s claim about ISIS. When ISIS first started and began to grow and cause a lot of destruction, Obama made ISIS out to look like a street gang intent on plunder. He claimed they were not Islamic. Tulsi disagreed and said it was a religious-based movement, that to combat ISIS and groups like them, their ideology needs to be confronted to show that Islam doesn’t promote what they promote since they claim that Islam ONLY promotes what they promote. Tens of thousands of foreign fighters were streaming into Iraq and Syria to join ISIS, they were not motivated by plunder according to studies. It was shown most were middle to upper class with religious motivations. Just like the 9–11 hijackers also came from well off Saudi families. They all had in common a desire to take part in the creation of a Caliphate, a religious empire, a successor to the previous Caliphate.

Tulsi’s words didn’t sit well with Democrat leadership who wanted all Democrats to fall in line and not be critical of anything Obama said or did. Also Obama was funding Al Qaeda linked jihadists who promote and follow the same basic ideology as ISIS. Timber Sycamore is the code name given to the operation to arm and train fighters to overthrow the Syrian government. So the result was that Tulsi’s truthful view was misstated by Obama and the compliant media who smeared Tulsi as Islamophobic.

The media pretended that Tulsi was “blaming Islam for terrorism” because she told the truth, and that contradicted Obama. ISIS was trying to hijack Islam to enforce their minority version on as much of the Muslim world as they could through propaganda, intimidation, murder, torture, rape, and enslavement. Their preachers created a huge propaganda network to reach the Muslims of the world teaching that their particular interpretation of Islam was the only authentic one. They taught that any Muslim who didn’t accept their version of Islam with their leader as the head of the worldwide Muslim community were sinners, apostates, and subject to the wrath of God.

But Obama and the compliant media machine supporting him was having none of it. His message was that ISIS wasn’t about Islam, that it was a fraud, all about plunder. Tulsi was supposedly “blaming Islam for terrorism.” In truth, all she said was that to defeat ISIS and the other Al-Qaeda affiliated Jihadi-Salafist groups, we had to understand that they are motivated by fundamentalist teachings and that they recruit through their religious doctrine — and therefore an effort should be made to defeat their doctrine. That was what mainstream Muslim leaders were also saying. I guess they were Islamophobic too?

So when Tulsi went to Syria in January 2017, the professional propagandists working for the Neocon-Neoliberal establishment saw another chance to smear Tulsi to force her out of politics. She had become a bigger and bigger problem for them over the years with her unceasing criticism of regime-change wars. So they decided to invent new criteria for politicians meeting with foreign leaders. Previously numerous politicians had met with Assad and with many other disreputable or unpopular leaders around the world, due to the accepted ideology that it was a necessary function of American diplomacy. Now all of a sudden it was a great sin! Tulsi had done something evil! Their job was to try and convince everyone that Tulsi did something unique and even illegal to “meet a dictator.”

And especially they claimed it “legitimized Assad” who was now “our” enemy because Iran and Russia were on Syria’s side. In politics rational self-interest was no longer to determine state diplomatic policy, now it was all about team sports. Russia and Iran are official enemies for some reason or other of the US government — and therefore any nation on friendly terms with Russia or Iran can be treated as an enemy of the US government — if they want to control that nation for some reason. For example, sanctions are being levied on EU nations who are involved with the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to the EU and with Iranian oil. The US is openly telling them to purchase American oil and gas because they will sanction any person or business that is involved with Russian or Iranian oil and gas.

If anyone resists the decree of the government on who is or is not an official enemy, then they can become their stated enemy as well — even if not directly they can enforce that propaganda objective through their compliant media and politicians. Which they do to Tulsi. The mainstream media being an arm of the Neocon-Neoliberal establishment played their part like good little sycophants and did all they could to smear Tulsi as evil for “meeting with a dictator” and “siding with Russia.” All because the Neocon-Neoliberal establishment wanted Tulsi out of politics because she is critical of their regime-change doctrine and didn’t blindly kowtow to the Democrat party leaders, i.e., Tulsi disrespected Obama and Hillary in their eyes. They wanted her out. Even the wannabe alt-media sycophants did their part in their hopes of moving up in the media food chain to a high-paid propaganda job in the mainstream media.

Fast forward a few years and Tulsi announces her candidacy for president. On that very day, the professional propagandists had ready the first in a relentless series of smears painting Tulsi as a pawn of Russia. Making Tulsi a servant of the official enemy of the American government. And therefore the official enemy of everyone in America. And if you don’t go along with that idea, as their none too subtle psycho-logical agitprop hopes to make you believe — you are also a declared Enemy of The State.

Fast forward to now, and the same smears have been pushed more and more frequently as Tulsi has been getting herself out in the public eye more and more and especially in the debates. So what happened with the massive backlash to Hillary after doing the same thing being done for months on end by the media? One day it was alright to smear Tulsi as a Putin Pawn, and the next day it wasn’t?

Why?

One thing we need to understand is why Hillary felt it necessary to do it. One reason may have had to do with Clinton support of Kamala Harris for president. The Clintonista think tank Center for a New American Security had their people running Kamala’s campaign. After Tulsi took on Kamala in the debates it was widely accepted that Kamala’s sudden down turn in the polls was due to Tulsi. It may have been an act of revenge by Hillary to attack Tulsi. Also we need to understand why a seemingly endless supply of sycophants for the Neocon-Neoliberal establishment and their wannabes and troll farms, why have they invested more and more of their time and energy into spreading anti-Tulsi propaganda? The answer is:

They have recently realized Tulsi Gabbard is extremely popular among centrists and on the right. And while her following on the left is small compared to the others, they believe that can easily be changed. A lot of people have fallen for the smearing propaganda about what Tulsi stands for and therefore dismiss her out of hand. Many more simply don’t know much or anything about her and therefore give their support to pollsters to people like Biden simply because of name recognition as Obama’s guy. With a little bit of clarification on what Tulsi really stands for, people’s negative attitude towards Tulsi is fairly easy to change. This is why the establishment looks so intent on making sure Tulsi is not seen or heard from, except through their carefully choreographed smears. Because when people get to hear from Tulsi directly without a scheming interlocutor, the debates show that she sparks a desire in people to know more about her.

There is an even bigger reason the Neocon-Neoliberal establishment and their wannabes in alt-media have been going nuts of late in pushing Russia mania over Tulsi:

Many believe that Joe Biden is not really up to the task of running for president. More and more people are losing faith that Biden can make it till the end and beat Trump. So unless something drastically changes, that leaves us with a battle between Bernie Sanders and Liz Warren. And although some polls skew favorably for Warren over Sanders, they fear that when push comes to shove that Bernie will come out on top. And they realize that if Bernie can win the primary, then it would be very logical and smart for Bernie (or Warren or Biden) — to ask Tulsi to be VP because of her bipartisan support, which no other candidate can even come close in bringing to the table. A lot of Trump voters will switch to a ticket if Tulsi is on it. The centrists and right-wing or libertarian Trump voters may not agree with everything Tulsi stands for, but they love her anyway. You can see online how much they love her, many love her more than Trump even though Trump is more in line with their political ideology.

Bernie is seen as bad enough for the establishment but someone they can handle through hamstringing him in congress, but Tulsi is seen as way too much. The Neocons are freaking out that their plans for hegemony over the Middle East will end if Tulsi influences an administration. They are still following Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski’s foreign policy, laid out in The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997). The idea is that the imperative of American foreign policy is for the US to dominate over Central Asia and the Middle East to prevent Russia, China, and Iran from turning that most strategic part of the world into their spheres of influence.

Even though Brzezinski whom Obama claimed as a personal mentor, updated his views a few years ago saying it was time to reconcile with Russia, China, and Iran, the foreign policy establishment rejected his new direction and are still intent on following his old views — which were never meant to be a permanent state of affairs. Kissinger and others though do want a change towards Brzezinski’s vision of American foreign policy. But the politicians and government bureaucrats are dominated by wealthy people who corrupt government for either their profit, or who are ideologically driven with motivations and purposes (neocons, exceptionalists, religious fanatics, etc.) at the expense of a realist strategic foreign policy for the good of America and the world.

For example, powerful people are greasing the wheels of government and media who want to destroy Putin at the expense of a rational strategic foreign policy relationship with Russia. After Putin was elected and ended Americans as the “power behind the throne” of the post-USSR government, coinciding with Putin taking power away from the “oligarchs” who were partnered with Americans in exploiting Russia’s natural resources — that made him a lot of powerful enemies who used their power to create the “New Cold War.” It all comes down to Putin’s “interference” with both American business and foreign policy interests. Very wealthy and powerful people, and not just Americans, are using their influence to corrupt politicians and media to direct American foreign policy to their liking. The American government is a business. It is pay to play. Which is why there are currently thousands of American soldiers in Saudi Arabia and Syria guarding the oil. It is why America aided the coup in Ukraine, and why America tried to overthrow Assad, and why they want to overthrow Iran and various Latin American and African governments. Each case has behind it corruption. Wealthy powerful people with plans to exploit a country gain control over American foreign policy through corrupt politicians and a corrupt political bureaucracy — which is notorious for its revolving door policy with government contractors, corporations and banks. People come into or out of the political bureaucracy with various agendas to serve the interests of their business partners and benefactors. What is best for the common good in American governing policies is generally not a factor. As has been noted by a famous Princeton study, America is an oligarchy.

And so we come to Hillary. Some leaders in the Neocon-Neoliberal establishment, we can be certain of, are pushing Hillary to enter the race. The recent increase of “Tulsi is a Putin Pawn” propaganda was not receiving any pushback from mainstream media or politicians — until along comes Hillary pushing the same “Tulsi=Russian asset” propaganda. So why did they freak out over Hillary doing the very same thing that many others were doing every day?

The Neocon-Neoliberal establishment is not a monolith or a hierarchy following commands like the military. Sometimes they seem like that because they do have common enemies. For example, Tulsi and Bernie are seen as enemies to the entire establishment. Tulsi and Bernie are perceived as wanting to seriously interfere with establishment plans for foreign policy (worries neocons) and predatory capitalism (worries neoliberals). While the Clintons and their camp are certainly a powerful denomination within the establishment, many other groups do not want Hillary running for president, or even to show her face. They have thrown their support behind Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, and the rest — while the neocon Clintonistas had thrown their entire effort behind Kamala Harris. They don’t fear Bernie and Tulsi winning as much as the neocons behind the Clintonistas fear them. They want Hillary to butt out of the race because they see her as bad mojo for their favored candidate. And for the Democrat party in general.

Besides the presidential election, there are many congressional and state seats up for grabs. A lot of establishment Democrats do not want Hillary in the minds of voters, they don’t want her associated with their preferred candidates up and down the ballot. Neither do the candidates themselves. That is why Hillary got so much backlash from the mainstream media, alt-media wannabes and various politicians, pundits, and various establishment people and groups. They don’t support Tulsi — but they wish Hillary would stay out of it. They have other smears about Tulsi they like to spread around.