How Tulsi Gabbard went from rising star to pariah — and then presidential candidate
Tulsi Gabbard had so much promise. Now her presidential bid feels quixotic. Here’s what happened — and why it matters.
By Zack Beauchamp Jan 16, 2019, 5:30am EST
[www.vox.com]
The reporter did include this information. We need more attention to the Butler boarding school in Baguio, where sect children were shipped while their parents slaved for Butler.
and
The article concludes:
Corboy -- what if Tulsi does not have authentic convictions?
WHAT IF TULSI IS MERELY A PUPPET FOR CHRIS BUTLER- THE MAN WHO SAYS HE IS GOD?
Tulsi Gabbard had so much promise. Now her presidential bid feels quixotic. Here’s what happened — and why it matters.
By Zack Beauchamp Jan 16, 2019, 5:30am EST
[www.vox.com]
The reporter did include this information. We need more attention to the Butler boarding school in Baguio, where sect children were shipped while their parents slaved for Butler.
Quote
For Tulsi Gabbard, politics is a family business. Her mother, Carol Gabbard, was on Hawaii’s State Board of Education; her father, Mike Gabbard, was a political activist and Honolulu City Council member, best known in Hawaii for being one of the state’s leading opponents of LGBTQ equality. He founded an organization called Stop Promoting Homosexuality that advocated not only against marriage equality, but the very idea of tolerance for homosexuality itself.
“Homosexuality is not normal, not healthy, morally and scripturally wrong,” he said in a 1992 interview, in which he also blamed the spread of AIDS on the repeal of sodomy laws.
[www.honolulumagazine.com]
Mike Gabbard’s opposition to gay rights (as well as abortion) seemed to stem from his religious background. Born in Samoa, he is both Catholic and a member of an obscure offshoot of the Hare Krishna sect called the Science of Identity Foundation. The group’s leader, a self-described guru named Chris Butler, has condemned homosexuality, once arguing that it led to “an increasing number of American women [keeping] dogs for sexual purposes.’”
chrome-extension://cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm/document-blocked.html?details=eyJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL2dvLnNraW1yZXNvdXJjZXMuY29tLz94cz0xJnVybD1odHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRnd3dy5uZXd5b3JrZXIuY29tJTJGbWFnYXppbmUlMkYyMDE3JTJGMTElMkYwNiUyRndoYXQtZG9lcy10dWxzaS1nYWJiYXJkLWJlbGlldmUmeGd1aWQ9ODVVVFVGazJSekFhJmlkPTY2OTYwWDE1MTY1ODgmY2hlY2tzdW09ZmM1ZDZlYTcxMjZiYjhlNmE3YWY1NmE3MDQ5OTc1ZTc4Nzk0NmM0ZTYyNWFjOWNlZWYwODNhODUxM2JiMDRkYSIsImhuIjoiZ28uc2tpbXJlc291cmNlcy5jb20iLCJkbiI6InNraW1yZXNvdXJjZXMuY29tIiwiZmMiOiJbMCw2MixcInNraW1yZXNvdXJjZXMuY29tXCJdIiwiZnMiOiJ8fHNraW1yZXNvdXJjZXMuY29tXiJ9
Tulsi Gabbard grew up in Butler’s movement, which has faced allegations of cult-like practices.
[www.huffingtonpost.com]
She told the New Yorker’s Kelefa Sanneh that he shaped her Hindu identity, speaking of her “gratitude to him for the gift of this wonderful spiritual practice that he has given to me.”
[www.newyorker.com]
Her early political career reflected both Butler’s views and her father’s. She worked for her father’s organization, which supported the use of “conversion therapy” to try to turn kids straight.
[amp.cnn.com]
She once blasted “homosexual activists” for trying to “force their values down the throats of the children in our schools.” During her successful run for the Hawaii Legislature in 2002, when she was just 21 years old, she vowed to pass a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage.
and
Quote
Just two weeks ago, the Intercept, a left-aligned anti-war outlet, published a deeply reported expose on Gabbard’s ties to Hindu nationalists.
[theintercept.com]
Gabbard has long supported Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an anti-Islam right-winger who had previously been barred from entering the US due to being personally implicated in deadly anti-Muslim riots.
[www.washingtonpost.com]
In turn, American Hindu supporters of Modi had become some of Gabbard’s biggest donors — including some disturbingly Islamophobic groups.
“Hindu-Americans have supported Gabbard since the start of her political career, and that support has increased substantially since Modi’s election, much of it coming from Hindu nationalists,” Soumya Shankar writes in the Intercept’s piece. “Dozens of Gabbard’s donors have either expressed strong sympathy with or have ties to the Sangh Parivar — a network of religious, political, paramilitary, and student groups that subscribe to the Hindu supremacist, exclusionary ideology known as Hindutva.”
These attacks in the left press underscore how divisive a figure she is even among the party’s insurgent wing. It’s hard to see why a faction that was troubled by Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy record would be open to someone who had engaged in borderline Islamophobic rhetoric about “radical Islam,” called for escalations in the war on terrorism, and backed anti-Islam populists and dictators abroad.
The article concludes:
Quote
So while backing Sanders in 2016 was smart politics on Gabbard’s part, given her declining support in the mainstream it simply wasn’t enough to overcome the hole she dug herself. Nobody made Gabbard cozy up to Assad or attack Obama for not saying “radical Islam;” she wasn’t forced to entertain the idea of bringing back torture or fundraising from hardline Hindu nationalists. These moves clearly weren’t politically clever, and they seem to have cost her allies around the party.
There’s only one clear explanation: Gabbard’s most controversial positions represent her authentic convictions.
Corboy -- what if Tulsi does not have authentic convictions?
WHAT IF TULSI IS MERELY A PUPPET FOR CHRIS BUTLER- THE MAN WHO SAYS HE IS GOD?