Tulsi Gabbard, the Green New Deal, and the U.S. Corporate Caliphate

Tulsi Gabbard’s presidential moment happened in Jan 2017 when she met Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, in Damascus. Coupled with legislation she introduced in Dec 2016 which explicitly stipulated that the U.S. government stop arming terrorists, and which was ignored entirely, minus NPR, by the mainstream American press, Gabbard’s trip to dialogue with the leader of the Syrian Arab Republic indicates that she has the initiative, audacity, and penache to end the U.S. War of Terror. Since then, Gabbard has had to expend time and energy deflecting false accusations in the mainstream corporate press that she, as NYT columnist Bari Weiss alleges, is an Assad toadie. An active duty service member (former captain in the U.S. Army, now with the Hawaiian National Guard), Gabbard more than anyone has her finger on the pulse of the armed forces. She not only reminds us of this fact in every media appearance she makes, she receives positive coverage in media outlets devoted to the armed forces.

It is why the Establishment is terrified of her.

As of Aug 15, 2019, Gabbard has been deployed to Indonesia for routine training, which makes her a modern-day American gladiator. Unfortunately, it may end her bid for the White House in 2020 due to how the DNC goes about ‘calculating’ who among the 20 standing Democratic hopefuls will make the next round of debates in September. As of July 2019, one oddsmaker put her chances of winning the presidency at a mere 0.9% based on data culled from Democratic voters.

More than any of those candidates, save perhaps Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard possesses actual electibility — real potential to capture a landslide in the Electoral College. How? By appealing locally to the families of servicemen and women as well as employees in industries connected to the prison-military-industial complex, Gabbard could garner votes from a broad swath of working people. Speaking out for a livable minimum wage will win the rest, but her inclination to institute that by 2024 lacks vision. Furthermore, Gabbard has spoken out against unjust bail practices, which she claimed “impacts poor people in the worst kind of way” when she deliciously dashed Kamala Harris’s presidential hopes at the Democratic Debate in July 2019. Case in point, Chelsea Manning is being fined $1,000 per day — a corporate rate — for unjust incarceration due to her conviction not to incriminate Julian Assange in the U.S. government’s bogus case against the Wikileaks founder. In true presidential fashion, Gabbard has proclaimed that, as president, she would drop all charges against Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange for their brave work to expose U.S. malfseace to the world.

How does Gabbard succeed nationally?

By waging a fierce and unrelenting class war, both in the United States and abroad. Unifying the working classes, this new global mass war will have the oligarchs pissing themselves in fear. What is needed is full on insurrection in the sprawling U.S. corporate caliphate: at home, among allies, in client states and the territories (there are lots, as Daniel Immerwahr points out), and even among our sworn enemies. If Gabbard embraces full-on class war, the oligarchs, just like establishment politicians, the Pentagon, the intelligence community, and their lapdogs in the corporate press, will fear her, too. They should, and for their own good, because the future of all life on Earth depends on it.

Could Gabbard discharge such a noble duty in service to humanity? Indeed, can anyone? She’s already shown immense courage to speak truth to power as her meeting with Assad and her legislation to stop arming terrorists, which Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced to the Senate, clearly show.

If #Tulsi2020 is to become a reality, she must win as many people as possible, beginning with active and retired servicepeople. How can their instincts about the morally corrupt and ethically bankrupt projection of military might end the U.S. War of Terror? More importantly, what will these people do once they are no longer the foot soldiers of Empire at home and abroad?

The answer, of course, lies in the U.S. Green Civil Service Corps, the forthcoming government stimulus jobs program stemming from the Green New Deal. To be fair, Gabbard has criticized the vague, watered-down version of the Green New Deal the Democrats failed to rally behind after they attempted to co-opt it from the U.S. Green Party. The Green New Deal is not dead, but if it is to become an actual force, then Gabbard needs to be much more aggressive in defining it so she can make it a core plank of her candidacy and, ultimately, national policy.

So, how does she win nationally?

Gabbard’s campaign — any winning campaign, really — must reach out and energize the toiling masses because they make up the vast majority of the electorate. This is where Beyond 15 comes into play — a civil service wage above the soon-to-be federal minimum of $15/hr, which Jonathon Rosenblum describes as an all-inclusive labor movement. Beyond 15 won’t be burger flipping jobs, which some insiders believe will be automated within a decade anyway. No, they’ll be green service jobs. As meaningless jobs are phased out, the service industry will grow through Green New Deal Service Positions (GNDSP) — the public works, renovation, refabbing, and construction efforts needed to build out our long overdue renewable energy infrastructure. To date, no one, not even the United States Green Party, has proposed a Green Civil Service Corps. Why? We desperately need one.

B-b-b-but how you gunna pay for it?

Half of the Pentagon’s discretionary budget is a good start. Ditto the money saved by implementing Medicare 4 All, which Gabbard supports. This would be a terrific way to redistribute half of U.S. tax expenditures away from the parasitic, host-killing military industrial complex and the utterly wasteful, equally parasitic and host-killing for-profit health industry. As with decommissioned soldiers and skilled labor from the military-prison-industrial complex, the scads of healthcare workers who produce nothing will be allocated positions in the renewable green economy. Why? Because our collective health — indeed, the very survivial of the species — requires it. Retrained for active duty, these people will be deployed to build out our green infrastructure. This is a longterm jobs program. Building and maintaining our new energy infrastructure for the next 100+ years will require people to fill positions that will persist for generations. It will become the new norm.

B-b-b-but how you gunna pay for it?

Revoke the Bush-era tax cuts that Obama and the Democrats grandfathered in and which Trump expanded upon through his tax cut to the ultra-rich. All of that lost revenue can be funneled into the Green New Deal. Furthermore, impose a mandatory, loophole-resistant 90% corporate tax rate. An imposed 90% tax rate would bring existing corporations, and their disgusting lobbying efforts in Washington, to their knees. Recouping that lost revenue will fund the Green New Deal. Conversely, and crucially, all new corporate formations chartered to work in the green economy will be exempt. Indeed, this is how we incentivize green business formation. That’s the role government must play if we are to escape the looming global environmental catastrophe.

Will Tulsi Gabbard’s campaign accomplish this? She says she wants to. Can anyone? Not alone, no way. It is going to require a massive collectively mobilized movement across the entire political spectrum. Can Gabbard win such a large constituency? Maybe. Is it do-able in the short term?

It better be. Otherwise, we’re in trouble.