Politics are dirty and Aloha is not a concept that generally comes up during political campaigns but maybe it should be. Politics are supposed to be about what is best for the people and for the planet that we call home but somehow it has become toxic, divisive, and ugly. Aloha, on the other hand, has to do with honesty, respect, love, and basically means that we all share the same breath of life. Though politics and Aloha seem to be opposites, both have to do with our commonality as humans and the way we choose to walk into the future.

Tulsi Gabbard is a political anomaly and there is much heated debate about if she actually lives up to these cultural principles or not. In these discussions there are a few things that are almost always omitted. I think it is important that everyone consider them first before making any conclusions about who she is.

Money Talks

We all know that money shapes society. We might hate our job but we aren’t gonna defy our boss or we will risk getting fired and risk the income that sustains us. Same is true for writers, news personalities, and journalists who often have a boss with a specific editorial directive. Many of us have seen instances where famous personalities went against the grain and lost their job as a result.

Truth is the First Casualty of War

Phil Donahue had a successful television career until he questioned the evidence and WMD narrative that led to the Iraq War. Though Donahue was correct and everyone else was wrong, he was fired and those who misled the public mostly kept their jobs. This is one of many examples that people who work in the media can consider as a warning when it comes to opposing the editorial directives of their boss.

Tulsi Gabbard Officially Kicks off her Campaign for President February 2, 2019

Journalistic Freedom and Politics

As an independent writer I am not getting paid to write this article, so I don’t have to worry about any consequences from a boss. My consequences come from my readers which means that I am accountable to them for what I write. My payment comes from having my voice heard on issues that are important to myself and all of us. I am writing in the spirit of Aloha because I understand the magnitude of the crossroads that we stand at right now in our country and the world.

Conflicts of Interest

It is a clear conflict of interest for a media company to have financial incentives to tell biased stories, or to lie by omission, in order to please their owners. The same is true for politicians who often have more allegiance to their donors than to their constituents. This is why we consistently see legislation that favors corporations and the wealthy over the needs of the people in America.

What Does this Have to do with Tulsi Gabbard?

Tulsi Gabbard is a rare primary candidate who is not taking corporate PAC money to fund her campaign. This means that all her funding must come from the people. By contrast, Kamala Harris’ largest donor is Warner Media Group, the parent company that owns CNN.

CNN literally has a financial interest of portraying Kamala Harris in a favorable way because they invested in her campaign, while also having a financial incentive to de-emphasize the legitimacy of her political opponents. Kamala and Tulsi are both worthy contenders yet one has the backing of a very large media company that influences opinion, conducts primary polls, and hosts the debates while the other one does not. A corporation like CNN has a legal fiduciary duty to maximize profits for shareholders first and foremost. This is a conflict of interest that has become normalized and is rarely discussed in mainstream society.

The Difference Between a Smear and an Honest Assessment

Campaigns are often run with smears because negativity and moral outrage garner clicks, advertising revenue, and sensational headlines. This is why fake news and clickbait played such a major role in the 2016 presidential election. I wrote a piece specifically about media literacy which I highly recommend. Bottom-line is that it is very important to understand who is paying for our candidates campaigns, and who is paying the journalists who cover the campaign and the candidates.

As constituents we need to know about the policy history of our candidates in order to make solid judgments about who to vote for. Sadly, smears and hidden interests often shape the discourse, and voters are often ill-informed or misinformed about the actual policy stances of candidates. Media outlets that focus on personalities, platitudes, and smears instead of policy should be viewed with suspicion. This is called media discernment.

Targeting Tulsi

Tulsi is an obvious target for numerous reason. First she does not answer to corporate donors. Second, she strongly and openly opposes endless military interventions while weapons manufacturers are very powerful lobbyists. Third, she bucked her own party in 2016, resigning her seat as DNC co-chair to endorse Bernie Sanders. She even received a threatening email from for doing so.

We were very disappointed to hear that you would resign your position with the DNC so you could endorse Bernie Sanders… You have called both myself and Michael Kives before about helping your campaign raise money, we no longer trust your judgement so will not be raising money for your campaign. -Email from Darnell Strom & Michael Kives (Clinton, DNC Financial Bundlers and Operatives)

Punishment in the form of withholding funds by wealthy DNC donors and financial bundlers is another unspoken aspect of our unethical pay-to-play politics. Money talks, and it has a huge influence on the way our government and media is run. The only way to shift this is to have an informed public.

Another example is a recent smear letter sent by the Daily Kos to their entire list regarding Tulsi Gabbard. The Daily Kos email has been thoroughly debunked here, meanwhile other popular smears about her have been debunked here, here, and here. Yet what percentage of the people who hear the initial smears actually get a chance to understand them in a larger context? How many people research the source of the smears, or who funds them?

Moulitsas (Founder of Daily Kos) has often faced criticisms of pay-to-play blogging, in which he allegedly writes blog posts in support of candidates for office after they have paid him or his business partners substantial sums of money. -Influence Watch, cited in Wall Street Journal

Living Aloha

I have a lot of respect for the teachings of Hawaiian Culture. So much so that I wrote an article entitled The World Needs Aloha. When you live on an isolated island chain in the middle of the Pacific ocean, concepts like sustainability and being a good neighbor are second nature. Our planet itself is like an island of life in a vast ocean of stars. If we do not learn to respect our environment and live in peace then we are sure to destroy ourselves.

I feel that having the concept of Aloha be part of our election cycle is perhaps even more important than Tulsi Gabbard herself. Let her record and her character speak for itself, and don’t be so quick to buy into the smears and corporate media spin. Stay focused on policies and learn to respect those whose opinions you may disagree with. Remember that we need candidates who represent what is good for the people and the planet first, not corporate interests.

Though the temptation to be emotionally reactive and to fight dirty is always there, and I fall into it sometimes too, let’s see what politics looks like when we approach it with Aloha and mutual respect. We all share the same breath of life, we share the same waters, we share the same planet. May the best candidate win!

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