Well played, United States of America.
Cheer up, Mitt. You are still worth around $200 million.
Now for another four years of Chicken Little-esque hysteria from the Right wing about socialism, birth certificates, and what it means to be a real American.
It's started already. On Twitter, Donald Trump called for a revolution. Sounds like he might be a socialist. The perversely fascinating WorldNetDaily will continue speculating about Obama being the Antichrist, and this election being the end of America as we know it. And no, that is not me exaggerating.
It was interesting to catch snippets of Fox News as they covered the unfolding election result, and gradually faced the truth. Presenters like Megyn Kelly tried very hard to pretend that they were journalists rather than Republican cheerleaders, but you could tell they were shattered.
One of the talking points you will hear frequently from the Right is an echo of the "47%" theme; that those who voted for Obama are voting in their own interests, because the President was offering handouts to everyone. Rush Limbaugh, for example, said "It's hard to defeat Santa Claus."
To say that is actually an insult, and is ass-backwards. The progressive side of politics, in the US and elsewhere, is full of educated wealthy and middle-class people who vote for moderate and Left-leaning candidates because they think it is best for the country. There are lots of rich people who will never have to seriously worry about needing affordable health care for themselves, yet think it important for poor people to have access to it. There are lots of people who will never want or need an abortion, yet believe it important for others to have access to it if necessary. Right-wing millionaire media personalities like Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh become angry at the prospect that Obama would raise taxes on the highest earners; yet left-wing millionaire media personalities like Bill Maher or Jon Stewart don't seem to care if they have to pay higher tax. Why would Maher or Stewart be so stupid as to vote against their own economic best interests?
It's called empathy, and it's a concept the Right still struggle to understand.
Showing posts with label obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label obama. Show all posts
Wednesday, 7 November 2012
Monday, 5 November 2012
Why the US should re-elect Barack Obama
When Americans go to the polls this week, the choice they have is relatively uninspiring. One one hand they have an incumbent who once inspired a great many people to dream of hope and change, yet ultimately has been compromised by the ugly reality of politics and has fallen short of the faith placed in him. On the other hand is a man who very few would honestly describe as inspiring, aside from perhaps in regard to his penchant for making money.
Obama as POTUS has managed to disappoint many, but that is largely due to the huge expectations held for him as a young, charismatic leader who was also the first African-American to hold the highest office in the land. Thus he will struggle to inspire the same level of enthusiasm as in 2008. But while the real President Obama was never likely to compare to quasi-mythical Candidate Obama, he's not running against Candidate Obama of 2008. He is running against Mitt Romney, and at the end of the day it comes down to a straight choice between which of the two candidates is better. For me it's no contest.
Romney is a mystery; he has changed his position so frequently on issues that no one really knows who he is. Deep down I actually think he's a moderate Republican whose views on social and moral issues are not nearly as regressive as the base of his party. Yet he has seemingly adopted their positions in order to get to where he is now. In truth, the biggest reason not to vote for Romney is not the man himself, but the party he belongs to, which is dominated by flat-earthers whose views on gender, sexuality, poverty and race have yet to make it out of the 19th century.
As for Romney himself, his primary credentials are economic; he is super-wealthy and many think that this means he can apply this businesslike approach to money-making to the nation's economy. This is fine if you have a blind faith in the trickle-down economic model in which the best way of helping the poor is to make the rich even richer in the hope that they will deign to throw a few crumbs to the undeserving masses. The Republican position is to reinstate the vulture capitalism that fuelled the meltdown of 2008, just this time do it with even less checks and balances.
Romney is an extremely wealthy man who wants to govern for the extremely wealthy. His infamous "47%" comments make that clear. Obama, on the other hand, is a wealthy man whose primary achievement in office is to guarantee available health care to the least wealthy in the country. ObamaCare is far from perfect, but it is something, which is the opposite of what Republicans have offered in this area, ie. nothing.
Explore what conservatives have to say about the President, and you will come across a number of reasons why they don't like him, and even hate him with a passion. Some of them are legitimate, but many are not. In truth, a huge proportion of the animosity directed at Obama says less about the man himself, and more about the Fox News-led propaganda wing of the Right to play on the fear, ignorance and xenophobia of the American public.
It's completely legitimate to disagree with things like his handling of the economy, or his stance on gay marriage, or on health care, if you are philosophically opposed to those things. The problem is that many of the arguments against Obama are based not on facts but instead are more about "feel" - as in, that he doesn't seem like a "true" American, or a "true" Christian, and so on. Gotta hand it to the right-wing strategists that play upon this sentiment - they know what they are doing.
We've seen, in the last couple of days, Paul Ryan talking about Obama threatening "Judeo-Christian values." We've recently seen John Sununu claiming that Colin Powell only supports Obama because of their shared skin colour. We've seen Michelle Bachman and friends whipping up fear of Muslims inflitrating the White House. We've seen Donald Trump persisting with the birth certificate nonsense. And yet it is Obama who is frequently charged with dividing America, on Fox News, the station where pundits regularly refer to the poor as "the moocher class".
Plenty of Left-leaning voters have been disappointed by the President's compromising on health care, and his use of drones in Pakistan. Some will be sufficiently disillusioned to not turn out to vote. The result would merely be a President Romney who would attempt to overturn the steps forward made in health care, and whose dealings abroad will only be more hawkish.
A common complaint is that under Obama, other countries see the US as weak. That says a lot about how people conceptualise strength. In truth, the US has long been seen as an arrogant bully, a perception taken to its limits by George W Bush. Obama has done a lot to regain respect from the rest of the world. But Romney has already shown with his limited attempts at dabbling in international affairs that he will undo all that good work very quickly.
Obama is not the messiah, that has been made clear over the past four years. But he's not "the worst President ever" as many Fox News talking heads would have you believe, either. He's been a reasonably good President doing a reasonable job at rescuing the country from a dire situation created by a Republican administration. A Republican Party that hasn't learned from the mistakes of the past, and thus is doomed to repeat them. So why would anyone want to vote for them?
Obama as POTUS has managed to disappoint many, but that is largely due to the huge expectations held for him as a young, charismatic leader who was also the first African-American to hold the highest office in the land. Thus he will struggle to inspire the same level of enthusiasm as in 2008. But while the real President Obama was never likely to compare to quasi-mythical Candidate Obama, he's not running against Candidate Obama of 2008. He is running against Mitt Romney, and at the end of the day it comes down to a straight choice between which of the two candidates is better. For me it's no contest.
Romney is a mystery; he has changed his position so frequently on issues that no one really knows who he is. Deep down I actually think he's a moderate Republican whose views on social and moral issues are not nearly as regressive as the base of his party. Yet he has seemingly adopted their positions in order to get to where he is now. In truth, the biggest reason not to vote for Romney is not the man himself, but the party he belongs to, which is dominated by flat-earthers whose views on gender, sexuality, poverty and race have yet to make it out of the 19th century.
As for Romney himself, his primary credentials are economic; he is super-wealthy and many think that this means he can apply this businesslike approach to money-making to the nation's economy. This is fine if you have a blind faith in the trickle-down economic model in which the best way of helping the poor is to make the rich even richer in the hope that they will deign to throw a few crumbs to the undeserving masses. The Republican position is to reinstate the vulture capitalism that fuelled the meltdown of 2008, just this time do it with even less checks and balances.
Romney is an extremely wealthy man who wants to govern for the extremely wealthy. His infamous "47%" comments make that clear. Obama, on the other hand, is a wealthy man whose primary achievement in office is to guarantee available health care to the least wealthy in the country. ObamaCare is far from perfect, but it is something, which is the opposite of what Republicans have offered in this area, ie. nothing.
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| This picture speaks volumes. |
It's completely legitimate to disagree with things like his handling of the economy, or his stance on gay marriage, or on health care, if you are philosophically opposed to those things. The problem is that many of the arguments against Obama are based not on facts but instead are more about "feel" - as in, that he doesn't seem like a "true" American, or a "true" Christian, and so on. Gotta hand it to the right-wing strategists that play upon this sentiment - they know what they are doing.
We've seen, in the last couple of days, Paul Ryan talking about Obama threatening "Judeo-Christian values." We've recently seen John Sununu claiming that Colin Powell only supports Obama because of their shared skin colour. We've seen Michelle Bachman and friends whipping up fear of Muslims inflitrating the White House. We've seen Donald Trump persisting with the birth certificate nonsense. And yet it is Obama who is frequently charged with dividing America, on Fox News, the station where pundits regularly refer to the poor as "the moocher class".
Plenty of Left-leaning voters have been disappointed by the President's compromising on health care, and his use of drones in Pakistan. Some will be sufficiently disillusioned to not turn out to vote. The result would merely be a President Romney who would attempt to overturn the steps forward made in health care, and whose dealings abroad will only be more hawkish.
A common complaint is that under Obama, other countries see the US as weak. That says a lot about how people conceptualise strength. In truth, the US has long been seen as an arrogant bully, a perception taken to its limits by George W Bush. Obama has done a lot to regain respect from the rest of the world. But Romney has already shown with his limited attempts at dabbling in international affairs that he will undo all that good work very quickly.
Obama is not the messiah, that has been made clear over the past four years. But he's not "the worst President ever" as many Fox News talking heads would have you believe, either. He's been a reasonably good President doing a reasonable job at rescuing the country from a dire situation created by a Republican administration. A Republican Party that hasn't learned from the mistakes of the past, and thus is doomed to repeat them. So why would anyone want to vote for them?
Sunday, 4 November 2012
What Americans think about what the rest of us think about the American election
If the President of the United States is the leader of the free world, then why don't the rest of us in the free world get to vote for him? As it is, recent winners of Presidential elections have only gathered around 60 million votes, meaning that one-fifth of the US (so just over half of those that are allowed to vote, registered to vote and can be bothered to vote) gets to determine who leads the rest of us.
Of course, if us rest-of-the-worlders did get to vote, we'd vote pretty solidly Democratic. According to this article in the Washington Post, most of the world prefers Barack Obama to Mitt Romney, and it's not even close.
The only country in the survey that prefers Romney is Pakistan, which sort of makes sense given that forces under Obama's command are currently using drones to pepper the Pakistani countryside.
So why do non-USians have such a high preference for Obama, far greater than Americans themselves? A few reasons.
It's fair to say that a lot of the disillusionment within the US towards their President is due to the economy, and those of us outside the country aren't particularly affected by that.
Obama is also following on from George W Bush, who started two unpopular wars which many other countries are embroiled in, and is widely regarded as a buffoonish sort of character. It's not a hard act to follow. But Obama is the anti-Bush, and the antithesis of the stereotypical ignorant American. He has lived abroad, has a clear fluency with other cultures, and is obviously intelligent and thoughtful.
There is a perception that Americans view the rest of us as somehow beneath them, since the US is obviously the pinnacle in human civilization in some Americans' minds. Bush's behaviour in office certainly gave credence to this perception, but Obama has managed to garner back some of that lost goodwill.
But what is most interesting to me from the Washingon Post article is the comments section, because I'm fascinated by the views of the masses. Now I certainly do not think that what a few people say in the comments sections of newspapers represent the entirety of that country's opinion, by any means. But they can tell you a lot.
That last one makes a fair point about Israel not being listed, but then is possibly implying that Obama's watery liberalism is akin to Hitler's National Socialism.)
Of course, if us rest-of-the-worlders did get to vote, we'd vote pretty solidly Democratic. According to this article in the Washington Post, most of the world prefers Barack Obama to Mitt Romney, and it's not even close.
So why do non-USians have such a high preference for Obama, far greater than Americans themselves? A few reasons.
It's fair to say that a lot of the disillusionment within the US towards their President is due to the economy, and those of us outside the country aren't particularly affected by that.
Obama is also following on from George W Bush, who started two unpopular wars which many other countries are embroiled in, and is widely regarded as a buffoonish sort of character. It's not a hard act to follow. But Obama is the anti-Bush, and the antithesis of the stereotypical ignorant American. He has lived abroad, has a clear fluency with other cultures, and is obviously intelligent and thoughtful.
There is a perception that Americans view the rest of us as somehow beneath them, since the US is obviously the pinnacle in human civilization in some Americans' minds. Bush's behaviour in office certainly gave credence to this perception, but Obama has managed to garner back some of that lost goodwill.
But what is most interesting to me from the Washingon Post article is the comments section, because I'm fascinated by the views of the masses. Now I certainly do not think that what a few people say in the comments sections of newspapers represent the entirety of that country's opinion, by any means. But they can tell you a lot.
That last one makes a fair point about Israel not being listed, but then is possibly implying that Obama's watery liberalism is akin to Hitler's National Socialism.)
Friday, 5 October 2012
Scandal as black man has a black accent
In the latest shocking evidence of something or other that right-wing pundits have dug up, Barack Obama has been captured on film in 2007, addressing a black audience and playing up certain "black"characteristics in his voice. And this is important because... I'm not sure exactly.
| The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Oh the Spew-Hannity | ||||
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Is Obama's accent really that different when talking to the black audience? I don't really think so, but in any case, it's something I don't find particularly unusual. It's called code-switching, and its something that a lot of people do unconsciously. Particularly bicultural people, or those who navigate between different cultures.
For my own part, I speak differently when I'm around people who don't speak English very well. Every time I go to Malaysia, I have a vaguely Malaysian accent after being there about 2 days. I call people "mate" when around working class white Australians, but use "man" when around younger or more ethnic peoples. And having just been intensively watching repeats of The Wire, more and more bits and pieces of ebonics are creeping into my speech. And all this is pretty much unconscious. It just happens, because like many other people I tend to attune to whoever I'm around. So I'm not at all surprised that somone like Obama does it.
Excellent article on this by John McWhorter at The New Republic.
Excellent article on this by John McWhorter at The New Republic.
Tuesday, 11 September 2012
Blacks overwhelming vote for Obama; are they racist?
A new NBC/WSJ poll has determined that 94% of African-Americans support Barack Obama, compared to 0% who support Mitt Romney.
Romney is white, and blacks don't like him. Obama is black, and blacks like him. Do the math - blacks are racist, and finally we have the proof.
You can hear this sort of claim from some on the Right all the time, but is it true?
Simply, no. I mean, black Americans are probably about as racist as any other kind of American, but their support for Obama isn't proof of anything much. More important than Obama's race is that he is a Democrat, and blacks overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. Below is from CNN's analysis of the 2004 election in which the incumbent George W Bush defeated Democratic challenger John Kerry.
Blacks voted overwhelmingly for Kerry too, and he's white. They probably would have voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton had she defeated Obama leading up to the 2008 election. As a matter of fact, blacks have voted overwhelmingly for white candidates in every election until 2008. Which is mighty tolerant of them.
Of course, Obama does have a higher level of black support than most previous white Democratic candidates, but it's a matter of degree. Republicans have trouble admitting it, but the reason blacks don't vote for them is because they are the de facto white people's party. The Republicans suck so bad at seeming racially enlightened that they make the Dems look like saints, which they're not.
A more interesting question would be: would blacks vote overwhelmingly for a black Republican candidate?
Well it hasn't happened yet since until Obama neither party had nominated a black candidate for President. Some have tried, yet the campaigns of Alan Keyes and Herman Cain stirred little enthusiasm amongst the black community. Had either of them somehow won the Republican nomination, we could perhaps expect a slight increase in the black vote for Republicans, but little more. Primarily because neither of them was ever a strong candidate.
Hypothetically, Colin Powell would have been an interesting choice. He was often talked about as a nominee, and in 1995 held a press conference to announce he did not intend to run. Against a white Democratic candidate, Powell would potentially have snared a sizable chunk of the black vote. Against Gore in 2000 he could have even got a majority. But Powell is a moderate. Compare him to Mitt Romney. The current Republican nominee seems to epitomise one of his party's central philosophies; that the rich and powerful are that way because they deserve it, and the downtrodden are that way because they just don't work hard enough. Don't expect that to sit well with a community who know full well that life is not a level playing field.
Romney is white, and blacks don't like him. Obama is black, and blacks like him. Do the math - blacks are racist, and finally we have the proof.
You can hear this sort of claim from some on the Right all the time, but is it true?
Simply, no. I mean, black Americans are probably about as racist as any other kind of American, but their support for Obama isn't proof of anything much. More important than Obama's race is that he is a Democrat, and blacks overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. Below is from CNN's analysis of the 2004 election in which the incumbent George W Bush defeated Democratic challenger John Kerry.
Blacks voted overwhelmingly for Kerry too, and he's white. They probably would have voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton had she defeated Obama leading up to the 2008 election. As a matter of fact, blacks have voted overwhelmingly for white candidates in every election until 2008. Which is mighty tolerant of them.
Of course, Obama does have a higher level of black support than most previous white Democratic candidates, but it's a matter of degree. Republicans have trouble admitting it, but the reason blacks don't vote for them is because they are the de facto white people's party. The Republicans suck so bad at seeming racially enlightened that they make the Dems look like saints, which they're not.
A more interesting question would be: would blacks vote overwhelmingly for a black Republican candidate?
Well it hasn't happened yet since until Obama neither party had nominated a black candidate for President. Some have tried, yet the campaigns of Alan Keyes and Herman Cain stirred little enthusiasm amongst the black community. Had either of them somehow won the Republican nomination, we could perhaps expect a slight increase in the black vote for Republicans, but little more. Primarily because neither of them was ever a strong candidate.
Hypothetically, Colin Powell would have been an interesting choice. He was often talked about as a nominee, and in 1995 held a press conference to announce he did not intend to run. Against a white Democratic candidate, Powell would potentially have snared a sizable chunk of the black vote. Against Gore in 2000 he could have even got a majority. But Powell is a moderate. Compare him to Mitt Romney. The current Republican nominee seems to epitomise one of his party's central philosophies; that the rich and powerful are that way because they deserve it, and the downtrodden are that way because they just don't work hard enough. Don't expect that to sit well with a community who know full well that life is not a level playing field.
Sunday, 12 August 2012
Obama's gay marriage, fake father and other wingnut fantasies
Ever seen those ads for Dos Equis beer which feature a character they call "The Most Interesting Man in the World"?
Well clearly they've got it wrong, because no one as lived a life as extraordinary as Barack Obama. Or at least that is if you believe right-wing conspiracy theorists.
So far we've seen Obama the Communist, Obama the Black Radical, Obama the Secret Muslim, Obama the Atheist, Obama the Kenyan, Obama the Indonesian, Obama the Black Radical, Obama the Guy Who Is Just Like Adolph Hitler, and even Obama the Antichrist.
Now in a flash of inspiration, someone has come up with a concept that neatly combines the right-wing's two favourite destroyers of the fabric of society (gay marriage and Islam) into one nice package: Obama was secretly married in college - to a man! And to a Pakistani man at that!
What makes Obama the most interesting man in the world is not just that he is able to simultaneously be all of these things - a gay Muslim who is really an atheist yet claims to be a Christian - but that no one who he ever met in all that time seems to be willing to verify any of these details. Which, if you really want to get into conspiratorial mode, is probably because he had everyone who knew his secrets killed execution-style by the Illuminati Hit Squad.
The genius behind this story is the Tea Party's professional conspiracy theorist in chief, Jerome Corsi. You may remember Corsi for his role in smearing 2004 Presidential hopeful John Kerry's decorated record as a soldier in Vietnam, and his role in the Birther movement. His logic states that Obama must have been married because he was photographed wearing a ring on his left hand where one normally wears a wedding ring. And Corsi decides it was probably a gay marriage because... well, in this photo he is seated almost touching another guy, his Pakistani college room-mate Sohale Siddiqui. And sitting close to another guy is, as we all know, a clear sign that one is hungry for cock.
To be honest, if BO experimented in college, I personally don't give a shit. A lot of people do that sort of thing; that's what college is for. If he is indeed on the "down-low" as they say, he'll have something in common to chat about with half the congressmen in the Republican party. But anyway, BO looks like he might be the "top" in that relationship, and we all know it's not gay if you're the pitcher.
Speaking of pitching, Corsi is pitching a couple of other conspiracy theories at the moment over at WorldNetDaily.
Firstly, Corsi is touting "absolute proof" that Obama was both an Indonesian citizen and a Muslim, based on a document at the Indonesian school where he was enrolled as a young child. Whether or not the document is real is probably immaterial; anyone who knows Indonesia knows that it's standards of record-keeping are hardly rigorous in their accuracy. As conservatives are constantly telling us, bureaucracies are inefficient, and Indonesia's more than most. What seems likely is that it was assumed Obama was an Indonesian because that's what his stepfather Lolo Soetoro was. Religion-wise, it should be noted that it is effectively illegal to NOT have a religion in Indonesia. Belief in God is one of the tenets of Pancasila, the national ideology, and while no one cares if someone doesn't actually practice the religion, not claiming a religion would draw suspicions of Communism. Thus it makes sense that Soetoro would list his stepson's religion as Islam, since that made as much sense as any other alternative at the time.
An even more interesting theory being promoted by Corsi at WND is that Obama's real father was not Barack Obama Snr, but was instead their family friend Frank Marshall Davis, who was a mentor to the young Obama. This is delicious for the WND audience since Davis was a member of the Communist Party and thus must have been a bad person. Joel Gilbert, director of the "documentary" entertaining this theory, Dreams of My Real Father, wasted 2 years of his life studying photos to support this theory.
But there's another obvious explanation. Can you guess the detail Gilbert has missed?
Genetically, Obama Jnr and Davis almost certainly do share something: European DNA. Virtually all African-Americans who are descended from slaves have some white European ancestry. On average, 20% of African-American DNA comes from white ancestors. You can be a black American, whose parents are both black, yet be more than 50% European genetically.
Frank Marshall Davis has some level of white DNA, probably in the average range for his ethnicity. Barack Obama II is 50% white. Barack Obama Snr is an ethnic Luo with no apparent white ancestry. Which is why, shockingly, he looks so much darker and more African than his son.
Obama doesn't look much like his mother either, come to think of it. He's sort of... blacker-looking. Maybe she's not his real mother either?
The article also shows pictures of Davis' children, Lynn and Mark, for comparison. He also married a white woman, so his children have that mixed appearance. They do vaguely resemble Obama, particularly if you think black people tend to look alike. But they also look considerably "whiter" than Obama, particularly when it comes to their hair, which appears far less sub-Saharan African in form than Obama's. This is as you would expect, since Davis is presumably "whiter" than Obama Snr.
As a person of mixed race myself, I also don't look all that similar to either of my parents, and it's not uncommon either.
Of course, if you pay attention you may notice that all these conspiracy theories contradict each other. I mean, Obama can't be both a foreign Kenyan AND have a father who is an American communist. And he's probably not both an atheist AND a secret Islamic jihadist. But as any good mudslinger knows, if you fling enough mud, eventually some of it will stick. And given that around a quarter of all Americans think Obama IS a Muslim and a foreigner, Corsi and friends have a sizable audience to pitch their wingnut wet dreams to.
See also:
If Obama is a Muslim, maybe I am too...
Obama's birth certificate, and the racist impulses behind Birtherism
The Muslim-ness of Obama's family, and what it has to do with his presidency
Well clearly they've got it wrong, because no one as lived a life as extraordinary as Barack Obama. Or at least that is if you believe right-wing conspiracy theorists.
So far we've seen Obama the Communist, Obama the Black Radical, Obama the Secret Muslim, Obama the Atheist, Obama the Kenyan, Obama the Indonesian, Obama the Black Radical, Obama the Guy Who Is Just Like Adolph Hitler, and even Obama the Antichrist.
Now in a flash of inspiration, someone has come up with a concept that neatly combines the right-wing's two favourite destroyers of the fabric of society (gay marriage and Islam) into one nice package: Obama was secretly married in college - to a man! And to a Pakistani man at that!
What makes Obama the most interesting man in the world is not just that he is able to simultaneously be all of these things - a gay Muslim who is really an atheist yet claims to be a Christian - but that no one who he ever met in all that time seems to be willing to verify any of these details. Which, if you really want to get into conspiratorial mode, is probably because he had everyone who knew his secrets killed execution-style by the Illuminati Hit Squad.
The genius behind this story is the Tea Party's professional conspiracy theorist in chief, Jerome Corsi. You may remember Corsi for his role in smearing 2004 Presidential hopeful John Kerry's decorated record as a soldier in Vietnam, and his role in the Birther movement. His logic states that Obama must have been married because he was photographed wearing a ring on his left hand where one normally wears a wedding ring. And Corsi decides it was probably a gay marriage because... well, in this photo he is seated almost touching another guy, his Pakistani college room-mate Sohale Siddiqui. And sitting close to another guy is, as we all know, a clear sign that one is hungry for cock.
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| These two are like, totally gay for each other. |
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| These two are just good friends. |
To be honest, if BO experimented in college, I personally don't give a shit. A lot of people do that sort of thing; that's what college is for. If he is indeed on the "down-low" as they say, he'll have something in common to chat about with half the congressmen in the Republican party. But anyway, BO looks like he might be the "top" in that relationship, and we all know it's not gay if you're the pitcher.
Speaking of pitching, Corsi is pitching a couple of other conspiracy theories at the moment over at WorldNetDaily.
Firstly, Corsi is touting "absolute proof" that Obama was both an Indonesian citizen and a Muslim, based on a document at the Indonesian school where he was enrolled as a young child. Whether or not the document is real is probably immaterial; anyone who knows Indonesia knows that it's standards of record-keeping are hardly rigorous in their accuracy. As conservatives are constantly telling us, bureaucracies are inefficient, and Indonesia's more than most. What seems likely is that it was assumed Obama was an Indonesian because that's what his stepfather Lolo Soetoro was. Religion-wise, it should be noted that it is effectively illegal to NOT have a religion in Indonesia. Belief in God is one of the tenets of Pancasila, the national ideology, and while no one cares if someone doesn't actually practice the religion, not claiming a religion would draw suspicions of Communism. Thus it makes sense that Soetoro would list his stepson's religion as Islam, since that made as much sense as any other alternative at the time.
An even more interesting theory being promoted by Corsi at WND is that Obama's real father was not Barack Obama Snr, but was instead their family friend Frank Marshall Davis, who was a mentor to the young Obama. This is delicious for the WND audience since Davis was a member of the Communist Party and thus must have been a bad person. Joel Gilbert, director of the "documentary" entertaining this theory, Dreams of My Real Father, wasted 2 years of his life studying photos to support this theory.
“I decided to investigate Frank Marshall Davis. His close physical resemblance to Obama was shocking, while Obama little resembled the Kenyan Obama,” Gilbert told WND. “How could this be?”Here is a comparison of the President with his Kenyan father and the man Gilbert alleges is his real father. You can initially see where Gilbert might have got this idea from; there are some ways in which Obama looks more like Davis than Obama Snr.
But there's another obvious explanation. Can you guess the detail Gilbert has missed?
Genetically, Obama Jnr and Davis almost certainly do share something: European DNA. Virtually all African-Americans who are descended from slaves have some white European ancestry. On average, 20% of African-American DNA comes from white ancestors. You can be a black American, whose parents are both black, yet be more than 50% European genetically.
Frank Marshall Davis has some level of white DNA, probably in the average range for his ethnicity. Barack Obama II is 50% white. Barack Obama Snr is an ethnic Luo with no apparent white ancestry. Which is why, shockingly, he looks so much darker and more African than his son.
Obama doesn't look much like his mother either, come to think of it. He's sort of... blacker-looking. Maybe she's not his real mother either?
The article also shows pictures of Davis' children, Lynn and Mark, for comparison. He also married a white woman, so his children have that mixed appearance. They do vaguely resemble Obama, particularly if you think black people tend to look alike. But they also look considerably "whiter" than Obama, particularly when it comes to their hair, which appears far less sub-Saharan African in form than Obama's. This is as you would expect, since Davis is presumably "whiter" than Obama Snr.
As a person of mixed race myself, I also don't look all that similar to either of my parents, and it's not uncommon either.
Of course, if you pay attention you may notice that all these conspiracy theories contradict each other. I mean, Obama can't be both a foreign Kenyan AND have a father who is an American communist. And he's probably not both an atheist AND a secret Islamic jihadist. But as any good mudslinger knows, if you fling enough mud, eventually some of it will stick. And given that around a quarter of all Americans think Obama IS a Muslim and a foreigner, Corsi and friends have a sizable audience to pitch their wingnut wet dreams to.
See also:
If Obama is a Muslim, maybe I am too...
Obama's birth certificate, and the racist impulses behind Birtherism
The Muslim-ness of Obama's family, and what it has to do with his presidency
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
Obama eating dog meat as a child: proof of his unspeakable evil?
The latest reason Barack Obama is a terrible human being is that when he was a child growing up in Indonesia, he ate dog meat.
Well, it's not really news; that's an excerpt from Dreams from my Father, which was first published in 1995 and has sold a bundle. So millions of people have read this paragraph before and never cared before. However conservative website The Daily Caller decided to make it into news recently. It's essentially a response to the stories of Mitt Romney driving around with a dog atop his car back in the 80s.
Now, to their credit, most conservatives don't seem to be treating this as a serious issue. Rather, it's a light-hearted way to mock the President. And fair enough, it's good fodder for some gags. Like when Republican strategist tweeted about this picture of Obama with his dog Bo (left): "In hindsight, a chilling photo." I'll pay that one.
Yet amazingly some on the right think this is actually a story, a microcosm of everything that is wrong with the liberal left. Here are some excerpts from a ridiculously deluded post from The American Thinker:
Yes, people actually believe that something someone a 50 year-old man ate when he was around 8 years old, living in another country, has some kind of relevance to anything at all.
Regarding Romney putting his dog on top of his car, that's also a non-issue to me. I'm no expert in canine welfare, but I can think of plenty of other reasons to dislike Mitt than something he did back in the 80s which may or may not have been an inappropriate way to treat a beloved family pet.
But Obama-eats-dog is even less of an issue. With Romney, if it can be proven that his treatment of Seamus the Irish setter was indeed cruel (and I'm not sure that it was), then that at least it might say something about his character, since he was a grown-ass man at the time. What Obama ate when he was a kid has nothing to do with anything. It's not like he personally tortured and killed the dog before consuming it. A relative gave him some meat to eat, and he ate it. As you would expect of any well-raised child.
The American Thinker article even attacks Obama for not mentioning dog-eating every time he talks about animal welfare, and not being openly horrified when he does so. This is a really odd way to look at things. Is someone who campaigns for better treatment of cattle, yet who eats beef, a hypocrite? No.
It's a decidedly Western perspective that views dogs as being some kind of sacred beast that must be treated with reverence, in contrast to the millions of cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens that are raised in horrific conditions yet nobody gives a shit about.
Don't get me wrong, I don't support the eating of dog meat. I've had my own personal run-in with the stuff which had a major effect on me. But a dog is an animal, no more and no less than a cow or a pig. What separates one from the other is a purely arbitrary classification. I might be cuter and smarter than the guy next door, but that doesn't make my life worth any more.
And eating dog meat is a fairly common practice in much of Eastern Asia and elsewhere; in many cases, in regions where meat is a scarce commodity. (Ironically, it occurs only rarely in Indonesia, as it is considered haram in Islam.) I would hazard a guess that Obama recognizes that while the eating of dog meat might be unpleasant in concept, it is just a reality of the world. Putting Americo-centric judgements on the practice serves no great purpose in this context.
For conservatives, the dog-eating anecdote serves to boost one of the long-running avenues of attack on the President: that he is really a foreigner who is radically different from "real" Americans and doesn't understand them. Ironically, they are going to put their faith in Mitt Romney, a man who is far more out of touch with the average American than Obama ever was.
“With Lolo, I learned how to eat small green chill peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy). Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths. He explained that a man took on the powers of whatever he ate: One day soon, he promised, he would bring home a piece of tiger meat for us to share.”
Well, it's not really news; that's an excerpt from Dreams from my Father, which was first published in 1995 and has sold a bundle. So millions of people have read this paragraph before and never cared before. However conservative website The Daily Caller decided to make it into news recently. It's essentially a response to the stories of Mitt Romney driving around with a dog atop his car back in the 80s.
Yet amazingly some on the right think this is actually a story, a microcosm of everything that is wrong with the liberal left. Here are some excerpts from a ridiculously deluded post from The American Thinker:
Condemning the transportation of a dog in a pet crate on a car roof while supporting a President with a history of eating dog is indicative of the imperious elitism the left often promotes.
Yes, people actually believe that something someone a 50 year-old man ate when he was around 8 years old, living in another country, has some kind of relevance to anything at all.
Dog jokes aside, if the President were truly concerned about dogs' well-being, he would still to this day be sickened at the thought of the lunch his stepfather Lolo served him 40+ years ago. Therefore, when signing the Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act, Obama could have redeemed himself by citing his personal exposure to animal cruelty as a child in Indonesia. The fact that Obama never mentioned eating dog meat is an illustration of how liberals excuse their own past offenses and feel justified standing up for contradictory arguments, even if that defense is accomplished by merely failing to expose past wrongdoing.
Think about it. Who else, knowing full well that at some point in his life he dined on Rover for lunch, would allow his campaign to express disapproval for the sin of letting a dog ride in a crate on the top of a car? Who, other than liberals, would dare to condemn the treatment of a family pet being taken on vacation, however the dog arrived there, after the candidate they support nonchalantly described snake meat as a little tougher than a mutt burger? In the end, if one tries to comprehend the rationale behind supporting a dog-eater while protesting cruelty to animals, the only justification can be that America's polymathic president is excused because his life experience includes a sincere reverence for an ancient animist tradition.
Regarding Romney putting his dog on top of his car, that's also a non-issue to me. I'm no expert in canine welfare, but I can think of plenty of other reasons to dislike Mitt than something he did back in the 80s which may or may not have been an inappropriate way to treat a beloved family pet.
But Obama-eats-dog is even less of an issue. With Romney, if it can be proven that his treatment of Seamus the Irish setter was indeed cruel (and I'm not sure that it was), then that at least it might say something about his character, since he was a grown-ass man at the time. What Obama ate when he was a kid has nothing to do with anything. It's not like he personally tortured and killed the dog before consuming it. A relative gave him some meat to eat, and he ate it. As you would expect of any well-raised child.
The American Thinker article even attacks Obama for not mentioning dog-eating every time he talks about animal welfare, and not being openly horrified when he does so. This is a really odd way to look at things. Is someone who campaigns for better treatment of cattle, yet who eats beef, a hypocrite? No.
It's a decidedly Western perspective that views dogs as being some kind of sacred beast that must be treated with reverence, in contrast to the millions of cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens that are raised in horrific conditions yet nobody gives a shit about.
Don't get me wrong, I don't support the eating of dog meat. I've had my own personal run-in with the stuff which had a major effect on me. But a dog is an animal, no more and no less than a cow or a pig. What separates one from the other is a purely arbitrary classification. I might be cuter and smarter than the guy next door, but that doesn't make my life worth any more.
And eating dog meat is a fairly common practice in much of Eastern Asia and elsewhere; in many cases, in regions where meat is a scarce commodity. (Ironically, it occurs only rarely in Indonesia, as it is considered haram in Islam.) I would hazard a guess that Obama recognizes that while the eating of dog meat might be unpleasant in concept, it is just a reality of the world. Putting Americo-centric judgements on the practice serves no great purpose in this context.
For conservatives, the dog-eating anecdote serves to boost one of the long-running avenues of attack on the President: that he is really a foreigner who is radically different from "real" Americans and doesn't understand them. Ironically, they are going to put their faith in Mitt Romney, a man who is far more out of touch with the average American than Obama ever was.
Saturday, 21 May 2011
Does Obama’s brownness have any impact on Islamic radicalism?
Question: Does having a brown man in the White House do anything to shift hardline Islamists' hatred towards America?
Check my post on this over at Brown Pundits.
Check my post on this over at Brown Pundits.
Sunday, 1 May 2011
Obama's birth certificate, and the racist impulses behind Birtherism
This week President Obama released his long-form birth certificate, that proves that he was born in Hawaii. Not Kenya, not anywhere else.
So, thankfully, that will be the end of the "Birther" movement, and the deluded conspiracy theories that naturally flow out of it.
No? Oh.
The discussion amongst the birther crowd has simply shifted from: "He doesn't have an American birth certificate," to: "His birth certificate is fake".
Anyone seriously thought showing everyone the document would alleviate the constant speculation surrounding his birthplace, should perhaps reflect on the fact that Obama already satisfied the legal requirements for the Presidency over 2 years ago when he ran for the job, and that he has also previously released the short-form certificate. Neither have prevented a substantial proportion of Americans believing he was born elsewhere.
An example is the recent claim by former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo, that Obama deliberately withheld the certificate in order to make Republicans look foolish. A claim that, while it sounds outlandish, at least comes with it some acknowledgement that the birther crowd and the Republicans who associate themselves with it have indeed looked foolish.
The latest person to put the Obama birth issue in the headlines has been Donald Trump, who looks like he is going to try running for President, and is thus competing with Sarah Palin for the honour of "candidate whose Presidency would be most likely to convince the world that Americans are all morons".
The Donald has been beating the birther drum for a while now, claiming that the document was missing. Now that it's most definitely not missing, he's shifted focus to the President's academic records, claiming that Obama was apparently a terrible student in college, yet somehow got accepted into Columbia and Harvard Universities. Trump doesn't say who his source about Obama the bad student is, and it's not clear why it is suddenly relevant that Obama needs to release his academic records.
...unless of course you are someone who fervently wants to believe that there was a massive conspiracy to elect a Kenyan Muslim Socialist Nazi President.
One of the questions that has arisen is whether or not the whole birther issue is driven by racism. The Left will say yes, the Right will say no and complain about the Left's eagerness to play the race card.
Well, the Left is spot-on; right-wing figures keep the issue of his birthplace alive precisely to scare the public and capitalise on the lucrative xenophobic vote.This doesn't mean Trump must be racist against "the blacks" as he calls them, but he's definitely relying on racist attitudes to fuel his road to candidacy.
It must be stressed that the deep well of racism the Republicans are trying to tap into is not the obvious variety. It's the entrenched racism that people often don't know is there, or at least don't acknowledge is there. It's not the kind of racism that says, "I won't vote for Obama because he's a nigger." Rather, it's the sort of racism that says, "I won't vote for Obama because there's something about him I just don't like." (That certain something they don't like is that he's black and seems foreign, of course.)
Even Trump's latest academic angle seems like a racial dog-whistle. The veiled implication is that Obama (who is black, by the way) did not deserve to get into Ivy League schools. So despite him being voted by his peers as President of the Harvard Law Review and graduating magna cum laude, Trump says that something is fishy about that. Of course, George W Bush got into the Ivy League, but he was a rich white man. The implication is that as a black man who was not wealthy, Obama did not really belong in that esteemed strata of society, and must have only got there through affirmative action.
The political genius of this kind of attack is that it is not OVERTLY racist. Indeed, the same has been true of many of the right-wing talking points about the President - he's got a anti-colonialist mindset, he's a socialist, he's a Muslim, he's a Muslim sympathiser, his middle name is Hussein, he has a problem with white people, he wasn't born in America.
Those who keep these myths floating around are doing so in order to prey on conservative America's suspicions about the brown guy with the foreign-sounding name. Yet the racism behind these fears is hidden enough that those who have them don't see themselves as being racist. So when anyone on the Left points out that racism is at play, they are accused of "playing the race card". The general perception on the Right is that the Left play the race card as a way of silencing any debate they don't want, shaming right-wing opponents with the label of racist. Thus Obama is seen to be using this tactic to maintain his hold on power.
That's the brilliance of using thinly-veiled xenophobia as a political strategy, and why so many political parties around the world love using it. So many vehement Obama-haters spout arguments which are based in racism, without seeing it as racism. So when someone on the Left brings up racism, it's as if they brought it up out of the blue.
Try this analogy:
A: "Tell me, what foods do you really dislike?"
B: "A few things: I dislike lasagna, I dislike fondue, also quesadillas, pizza and saganaki.
A: "Well, it sounds like you have a problem with cheese."
B: "What? Who said anything about cheese? I have no problem with cheese, you brought it up. Why are you so fixated on cheese, anyway?"
If you oppose Obama, credit to you if you are opposing him strictly on his policies and character. Because I know that there are plenty of you out there. But there's not as many of you as you might think.
UPDATE:
Seen this video? Obama has digs at Trump and the birthers at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Obama got jokes.
So, thankfully, that will be the end of the "Birther" movement, and the deluded conspiracy theories that naturally flow out of it.
No? Oh.
The discussion amongst the birther crowd has simply shifted from: "He doesn't have an American birth certificate," to: "His birth certificate is fake".
Anyone seriously thought showing everyone the document would alleviate the constant speculation surrounding his birthplace, should perhaps reflect on the fact that Obama already satisfied the legal requirements for the Presidency over 2 years ago when he ran for the job, and that he has also previously released the short-form certificate. Neither have prevented a substantial proportion of Americans believing he was born elsewhere.
An example is the recent claim by former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo, that Obama deliberately withheld the certificate in order to make Republicans look foolish. A claim that, while it sounds outlandish, at least comes with it some acknowledgement that the birther crowd and the Republicans who associate themselves with it have indeed looked foolish.
The latest person to put the Obama birth issue in the headlines has been Donald Trump, who looks like he is going to try running for President, and is thus competing with Sarah Palin for the honour of "candidate whose Presidency would be most likely to convince the world that Americans are all morons".
The Donald has been beating the birther drum for a while now, claiming that the document was missing. Now that it's most definitely not missing, he's shifted focus to the President's academic records, claiming that Obama was apparently a terrible student in college, yet somehow got accepted into Columbia and Harvard Universities. Trump doesn't say who his source about Obama the bad student is, and it's not clear why it is suddenly relevant that Obama needs to release his academic records.
...unless of course you are someone who fervently wants to believe that there was a massive conspiracy to elect a Kenyan Muslim Socialist Nazi President.
One of the questions that has arisen is whether or not the whole birther issue is driven by racism. The Left will say yes, the Right will say no and complain about the Left's eagerness to play the race card.
Well, the Left is spot-on; right-wing figures keep the issue of his birthplace alive precisely to scare the public and capitalise on the lucrative xenophobic vote.This doesn't mean Trump must be racist against "the blacks" as he calls them, but he's definitely relying on racist attitudes to fuel his road to candidacy.
It must be stressed that the deep well of racism the Republicans are trying to tap into is not the obvious variety. It's the entrenched racism that people often don't know is there, or at least don't acknowledge is there. It's not the kind of racism that says, "I won't vote for Obama because he's a nigger." Rather, it's the sort of racism that says, "I won't vote for Obama because there's something about him I just don't like." (That certain something they don't like is that he's black and seems foreign, of course.)
Even Trump's latest academic angle seems like a racial dog-whistle. The veiled implication is that Obama (who is black, by the way) did not deserve to get into Ivy League schools. So despite him being voted by his peers as President of the Harvard Law Review and graduating magna cum laude, Trump says that something is fishy about that. Of course, George W Bush got into the Ivy League, but he was a rich white man. The implication is that as a black man who was not wealthy, Obama did not really belong in that esteemed strata of society, and must have only got there through affirmative action.
The political genius of this kind of attack is that it is not OVERTLY racist. Indeed, the same has been true of many of the right-wing talking points about the President - he's got a anti-colonialist mindset, he's a socialist, he's a Muslim, he's a Muslim sympathiser, his middle name is Hussein, he has a problem with white people, he wasn't born in America.
Those who keep these myths floating around are doing so in order to prey on conservative America's suspicions about the brown guy with the foreign-sounding name. Yet the racism behind these fears is hidden enough that those who have them don't see themselves as being racist. So when anyone on the Left points out that racism is at play, they are accused of "playing the race card". The general perception on the Right is that the Left play the race card as a way of silencing any debate they don't want, shaming right-wing opponents with the label of racist. Thus Obama is seen to be using this tactic to maintain his hold on power.
That's the brilliance of using thinly-veiled xenophobia as a political strategy, and why so many political parties around the world love using it. So many vehement Obama-haters spout arguments which are based in racism, without seeing it as racism. So when someone on the Left brings up racism, it's as if they brought it up out of the blue.
Try this analogy:
A: "Tell me, what foods do you really dislike?"
B: "A few things: I dislike lasagna, I dislike fondue, also quesadillas, pizza and saganaki.
A: "Well, it sounds like you have a problem with cheese."
B: "What? Who said anything about cheese? I have no problem with cheese, you brought it up. Why are you so fixated on cheese, anyway?"
If you oppose Obama, credit to you if you are opposing him strictly on his policies and character. Because I know that there are plenty of you out there. But there's not as many of you as you might think.
UPDATE:
Seen this video? Obama has digs at Trump and the birthers at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Obama got jokes.
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Monday, 13 December 2010
The "Muslim Obama" Saga, part 137
Another example about how certain types of humour don't seem to translate so well across cultures.
The sad thing is that, as you would expect, there will be many in America for whom articles like Borowitz's are not satire, but further proof that they are being governed by an evil swarthy Manchurian Candidate. If you're not familiar with it, the equation is as follows:
Barack Hussein Obama = Arabic middle name + lived in Indonesia + some Muslim relatives + black + doesn't obviously hate Muslims = Muslim = hates America = Terrorist
Saudi media fall for Obama Muslim joke (AFP)Borowitz's original piece that caused the confusion is here, and it's well worth a read; it perfectly captures both the current disallusionment on the left with Obama's capitulation to Republicans, as well as the stupidity that underlies the Obama-is-a-Muslim controversy. Borowitz is a funny-ass dude and one of the few people I follow on Twitter, that is on those rare occasions when I bother to glance at Twitter.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — When a US satirist joked that President Barack Obama will admit to Congress that he is Muslim in his latest compromise with Republicans, Saudi media took it seriously.
On Friday the online version of Al-Hayat newspaper and the prominent news website Sabq.org both reported straightforwardly humourist Andy Borowitz's column that began:
"In his latest effort to find common ground with Republicans in Congress, President Barack Obama said today that he was willing to agree that he is a Muslim.
"In agreeing that he is a Muslim, Mr. Obama is sending a clear signal that he is trying to find consensus," Borowitz said in the column posted on the Huffington Post and The Borowitz Report websites this week.
Both Al-Hayat, one of the Middle East's most influential newspapers, and Sabq, believed to be controlled by the Saudi interior ministry, apparently missed the joke.
"Obama doesn't mind coming out as a Muslim if that will satisfy the Republicans," the Al-Hayat headline said.
"Obama: 'I'm ready to announce that I am a Muslim,'" led Sabq.
Both repeated Borowitz's "quote" of Obama saying:" My place of birth has been, and will always be, negotiable."
"White House sources indicated today that the president might be willing to meet the GOP (Grand Old Party -- the Republicans) halfway on his birthplace and say that he was born in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean," Borowitz joked.
Despite Obama repeatedly saying he is Christian, because his native-Kenyan father was born a Muslim, and because his middle name is Hussein, many Muslims and even some US Republicans suspect he is secretly Muslim.
The sad thing is that, as you would expect, there will be many in America for whom articles like Borowitz's are not satire, but further proof that they are being governed by an evil swarthy Manchurian Candidate. If you're not familiar with it, the equation is as follows:
Barack Hussein Obama = Arabic middle name + lived in Indonesia + some Muslim relatives + black + doesn't obviously hate Muslims = Muslim = hates America = Terrorist
Monday, 15 November 2010
Obama in Indonesia
Barack Obama visited Indonesia this week, returning for the first time to the country where he spent several years of his early childhood. He spent only 23 hours on the ground, but clearly made a positive impression in a nation in which he is very popular.
He gave an address at the University of Indonesia, in which he talked of his childhood in Jakarta, praised Indonesia's burgeoning democracy and affirmed the commonalities between the two countries. You can watch some of it below; the full 30 minute speech is easy enough to find if you want it.
He got a reception worthy of a rockstar, with rapturous applause particularly with his reminiscences of a young life in the Jakarta suburb of Menteng, buying satay and bakso (meatball soup) from street vendors. And his few phrases in Bahasa Indonesia went down a treat as well. His pronunciation is not perfect but it's pretty good. Check out the 2:35 mark - while speaking of his stepfather Lolo Soetoro, he actually rolls the R perfectly as an Indonesian would (a lot of non-Indonesians struggle with this).
It is this ability to connect with non-Western cultures that makes him extremely popular around the world, yet conversely it inspires only suspicion for a significant portion of American voters back home. That an American President can pronounce foreign names properly and attempt reach out to Muslim countries which could potentially be US enemies should be a great asset; yet it only provides further ammunition for those who insist on believing Obama to be a Muslim socialist Manchurian candidate.
Of course the President's trip was not all smiles and pats on the back.
Approximately 20,000 people, primarily from fundamentalist groups such as Hizbut Tahrir, gathered to protest Obama's presence in Indonesia, decrying the USA's unquestioning support of Israel and accusing him of oppressing Muslims.
For those Americans who think that Obama is hell-bent on introducing sharia law into the US, take note. Indonesia's Islamists obviously didn't get the "he's a Muslim" memo.
There was some other controversy as well, this time related to a handshake. Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring is known for his stringent Muslim beliefs, and has previously expressed his belief that men and women should not have any physical contact unless they are married or related. Tifatul was seen enthusiastically shaking the hand of Michelle Obama, but then later tweeted that he didn't want to; her hand was extended towards him and he reluctantly shook it to be polite. What a sacrifice for him to make!
You'd think Tifatul would have learned to stay off Twitter after the controversy that followed his extremely poor joke about gays and AIDS. But no. His tweet was picked up by international media and caused a minor stir. This is a little embarassing for Indonesia; most Indonesians have no problem at all with handshaking between the sexes, and thus would not wish to see themselves associated with narrow minds such as the Information Minister. But it also was no doubt met with glee from the anti-Obama brigade in the US who are keen to point out a diplomatic faux pas from a member of the first family. Of course, no blame can objectively be levelled at either of the Obamas. Sembiring was one of a number of people standing in line, and all the others happily shook hands with Michelle Obama. How was she to know that one among that group is an ultra-conservative who thinks a handshake is somehow sinful?
Sembiring, I think, does actually know that whatever one's beliefs, sometimes you have to compromise on them for the sake of politeness. This is something that most people understand instinctively, whatever their religion. But rather than admit this, he attempted to portray himself as remaining spiritually pure and thus implied that Michelle Obama virtually forced her sinful handshake upon him.
Malaysian-Indonesian blogger Unspun, who has a pretty good handle on these things, puts it rather nicely.
The Colbert Report had an amusing take on it as well.
The US public pays almost no attention to Indonesia as it is, and when they do it's for this? Some people like Tifatul Sembiring need to realise that they represent more than just their own petty little agendas.
He gave an address at the University of Indonesia, in which he talked of his childhood in Jakarta, praised Indonesia's burgeoning democracy and affirmed the commonalities between the two countries. You can watch some of it below; the full 30 minute speech is easy enough to find if you want it.
He got a reception worthy of a rockstar, with rapturous applause particularly with his reminiscences of a young life in the Jakarta suburb of Menteng, buying satay and bakso (meatball soup) from street vendors. And his few phrases in Bahasa Indonesia went down a treat as well. His pronunciation is not perfect but it's pretty good. Check out the 2:35 mark - while speaking of his stepfather Lolo Soetoro, he actually rolls the R perfectly as an Indonesian would (a lot of non-Indonesians struggle with this).
It is this ability to connect with non-Western cultures that makes him extremely popular around the world, yet conversely it inspires only suspicion for a significant portion of American voters back home. That an American President can pronounce foreign names properly and attempt reach out to Muslim countries which could potentially be US enemies should be a great asset; yet it only provides further ammunition for those who insist on believing Obama to be a Muslim socialist Manchurian candidate.
Of course the President's trip was not all smiles and pats on the back.
For those Americans who think that Obama is hell-bent on introducing sharia law into the US, take note. Indonesia's Islamists obviously didn't get the "he's a Muslim" memo.
There was some other controversy as well, this time related to a handshake. Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring is known for his stringent Muslim beliefs, and has previously expressed his belief that men and women should not have any physical contact unless they are married or related. Tifatul was seen enthusiastically shaking the hand of Michelle Obama, but then later tweeted that he didn't want to; her hand was extended towards him and he reluctantly shook it to be polite. What a sacrifice for him to make!
You'd think Tifatul would have learned to stay off Twitter after the controversy that followed his extremely poor joke about gays and AIDS. But no. His tweet was picked up by international media and caused a minor stir. This is a little embarassing for Indonesia; most Indonesians have no problem at all with handshaking between the sexes, and thus would not wish to see themselves associated with narrow minds such as the Information Minister. But it also was no doubt met with glee from the anti-Obama brigade in the US who are keen to point out a diplomatic faux pas from a member of the first family. Of course, no blame can objectively be levelled at either of the Obamas. Sembiring was one of a number of people standing in line, and all the others happily shook hands with Michelle Obama. How was she to know that one among that group is an ultra-conservative who thinks a handshake is somehow sinful?
Sembiring, I think, does actually know that whatever one's beliefs, sometimes you have to compromise on them for the sake of politeness. This is something that most people understand instinctively, whatever their religion. But rather than admit this, he attempted to portray himself as remaining spiritually pure and thus implied that Michelle Obama virtually forced her sinful handshake upon him.
Malaysian-Indonesian blogger Unspun, who has a pretty good handle on these things, puts it rather nicely.
Well, what do you expect? As that sage of the human condition, Forrest Gump, would have put it: “Stupid is as stupid does.” When you put a Fool in the greeting lineup for a state guest the Fool will always act the Fool. The question that needs to be asked is what tomfoolery has prevented the President from firing Tif the Fool long ago, so that he would not grow up to be a national embarrassment as he has today.
In one fell stroke, he’s stolen the thunder from Obama and SBY, at least for the Twitterati of Indonesia.
The Colbert Report had an amusing take on it as well.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Michelle Obama's Embarrassing Handshake | ||||
| ||||
The US public pays almost no attention to Indonesia as it is, and when they do it's for this? Some people like Tifatul Sembiring need to realise that they represent more than just their own petty little agendas.
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
"The back of the bus"? FOX News suddenly becomes all racially sensitive.
If you want to know why Barack Obama and his Democrats copped a pasting in these Congressional elections, you can look at a number of factors, but primarily, it's all about the success the right-wing media have had at portraying him in a negative light at every chance they get. Got to hand it to FOX News and Rush Limbaugh and the like: they do what they do well, even if it is morally wrong, evil and poisonous for America and the world.
If you want to see a perfect example of this, look no further...
Yes, that was FOX attempting to take the moral high ground on a racial issue. Oh hang on, do Republicans count as a race, now?
More likely, the implication they are trying to get you to see is that Obama is black, and "real Americans" (read: Republican voters) are white, and therefore blacks are in charge now and whites are now second-class citizens.
Of course, Obama was not talking about a bus, he was talking about a car. And the metaphor is about the Republicans being like reckless teenagers who don't deserve the keys to the car. Right-wing attempts to paint it as a racial remark are frankly pathetic; except of course, they will be effective. The reason media and politicians try to stoke fears and divisions so often is because it almost always results in success.
Do FOX's talking heads REALLY believe Obama's comment was racial? Either they are severely paranoid and deluded, or they are a bunch of ultra-cynical, scheming pieces of sh!t.
My money's on both those things, actually.
The Daily Show had a pretty good take on it as you'd expect.
If you want to see a perfect example of this, look no further...
Yes, that was FOX attempting to take the moral high ground on a racial issue. Oh hang on, do Republicans count as a race, now?
More likely, the implication they are trying to get you to see is that Obama is black, and "real Americans" (read: Republican voters) are white, and therefore blacks are in charge now and whites are now second-class citizens.
Of course, Obama was not talking about a bus, he was talking about a car. And the metaphor is about the Republicans being like reckless teenagers who don't deserve the keys to the car. Right-wing attempts to paint it as a racial remark are frankly pathetic; except of course, they will be effective. The reason media and politicians try to stoke fears and divisions so often is because it almost always results in success.
Do FOX's talking heads REALLY believe Obama's comment was racial? Either they are severely paranoid and deluded, or they are a bunch of ultra-cynical, scheming pieces of sh!t.
My money's on both those things, actually.
The Daily Show had a pretty good take on it as you'd expect.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Indecision 2010 - Republicans Can Go to the Back of the Car | ||||
| ||||
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Sarah Palin plays the "Hussein" card again
Here's a quick quiz for you:
What is the middle name of Ronald Reagan?
What is the middle name of Sarah Palin?
What is the middle name of John McCain?
If you don't know all of those, don't feel bad. Most people don't. The correct answers, in order, are Wilson, Louise and Sidney. What about this one:
What is the middle name of Barack Obama?
If you guessed "Hussein", that's because everybody knows it. Primarily because he has frequently been referred to by his political opponents as "Barack Hussein Obama".
Now here's another question for you. How often to Democratic politicians refer to "Sarah Louise Palin", or "John Sidney McCain"?
They don't, to any real extent, because no one thinks their middle names are relevant, or that the mention of their middle names enhances the political debate at all.
Why then, do Republicans and their Tea Partier friends love to constantly mention the name "Hussein"?
An example from Sarah Palin this week:
She says: "Funny … that we are learning more about Christine O'Donnell and her college years, her teenage years, and her financial dealings than anybody even bothered to ask about Barack Hussein Obama as a candidate and now as our president."
(You'll notice that she didn't mention Christine O'Donnell's middle name in that sentence either.)
Is it because there is some other Barack Obama running around, and we need to use the middle name to avoid confusing between Barack Hussein Obama, the President, and Barack Nigel Obama, the electrician?
Of course not.
Make no mistake, it is plain as day why Palin and her ilk make use of that name. It is to emphasise the Muslim-ness and foreign-ness of the President, to encourage Americans to associate him with the evil Iraqi dictator that the US has just overthrown. And while being Muslim, or at least being seen as a Muslim, should not be a slur, in the current US political climate it is effectively a slur, and a particularly potent one.
Of course, Palin's defenders can easily rebut, "well, it IS his name, what is wrong with saying it?"
Which is of course, the same "nudge nudge, wink wink" game that the Right have been playing ever since Obama first emerged as a Presidential candidate. They have perfected the art of dog-whistling at the American public by continually depicting him as The Other in various ways, without saying outright that they are threatened by his ethnicity. (In addition to all those numerous Tea Partiers and others who just can't hold it in and have dispensed with any subtlety in how they decry Obama's alleged foreignness.)
This is the game the Republicans are playing, because it's pretty much all they've got. They'll struggle to effectively attack him on economic policy because, having themselves presided over its downfall, they don't have much credibility left right now in that area. No folks, it's going to be all about Obama's credentials as a "real American", for the next couple of years at least. And the scary thing is that it may lead to the election in 2012 of someone who many consider to be a PROPER "real American"- Sarah Palin herself.
Be very, very f*cking afraid.
What is the middle name of Ronald Reagan?
What is the middle name of Sarah Palin?
What is the middle name of John McCain?
If you don't know all of those, don't feel bad. Most people don't. The correct answers, in order, are Wilson, Louise and Sidney. What about this one:
What is the middle name of Barack Obama?
If you guessed "Hussein", that's because everybody knows it. Primarily because he has frequently been referred to by his political opponents as "Barack Hussein Obama".
Now here's another question for you. How often to Democratic politicians refer to "Sarah Louise Palin", or "John Sidney McCain"?
They don't, to any real extent, because no one thinks their middle names are relevant, or that the mention of their middle names enhances the political debate at all.
Why then, do Republicans and their Tea Partier friends love to constantly mention the name "Hussein"?
An example from Sarah Palin this week:
She says: "Funny … that we are learning more about Christine O'Donnell and her college years, her teenage years, and her financial dealings than anybody even bothered to ask about Barack Hussein Obama as a candidate and now as our president."
(You'll notice that she didn't mention Christine O'Donnell's middle name in that sentence either.)
Is it because there is some other Barack Obama running around, and we need to use the middle name to avoid confusing between Barack Hussein Obama, the President, and Barack Nigel Obama, the electrician?
Of course not.
Make no mistake, it is plain as day why Palin and her ilk make use of that name. It is to emphasise the Muslim-ness and foreign-ness of the President, to encourage Americans to associate him with the evil Iraqi dictator that the US has just overthrown. And while being Muslim, or at least being seen as a Muslim, should not be a slur, in the current US political climate it is effectively a slur, and a particularly potent one.
Of course, Palin's defenders can easily rebut, "well, it IS his name, what is wrong with saying it?"
Which is of course, the same "nudge nudge, wink wink" game that the Right have been playing ever since Obama first emerged as a Presidential candidate. They have perfected the art of dog-whistling at the American public by continually depicting him as The Other in various ways, without saying outright that they are threatened by his ethnicity. (In addition to all those numerous Tea Partiers and others who just can't hold it in and have dispensed with any subtlety in how they decry Obama's alleged foreignness.)
This is the game the Republicans are playing, because it's pretty much all they've got. They'll struggle to effectively attack him on economic policy because, having themselves presided over its downfall, they don't have much credibility left right now in that area. No folks, it's going to be all about Obama's credentials as a "real American", for the next couple of years at least. And the scary thing is that it may lead to the election in 2012 of someone who many consider to be a PROPER "real American"- Sarah Palin herself.
Be very, very f*cking afraid.
Monday, 6 September 2010
If Obama is a Muslim, maybe I am too...
A lot of things really bug me about the continued speculation in the US about Barack Obama being a secret Muslim. But most of all, it is the extent to which so many people seem incapable of thinking outside their rigidly-defined little box.
Here are just a few reasons why 1 in 5 Americans think he's really a sneaky Islamist.
The phrase I see again and again on blogs and articles promoting this idea, is "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck."
Thus all those reasons above might seem convincing to some people. But then again, most of them can just be attributed to Obama being a man with an unconventional life story, and a broad range of interests and experiences. And if we pursue the "quacks like a duck" analogy, then surely Obama walks and quacks more like a Christian duck than a Muslim one. Attending church for 2 decades, raising one's daughters as Christian and anouncing one's devotion to Jesus Christ to the entire world seem far more convincing evidence than any of the reasons listed above.
The small-minded approach to this issue rankles with me particularly because I relate to Obama on a number of things. Being bi-cultural. Having an anthropologist mother. Growing up amongst different cultures. Having a fairly global outlook on things.
So I started to wonder: What if, in some far-fetched future, it was me running for President of the USA? (Of course this would never happen, not least because I'm not an American.) What if I were faced with the same kind of scrutiny from prejudiced ignoramuses that Obama has faced? Would they conclude that I too was a Muslim? Let's see...
So by that logic, at least 20% of Americans think I'm a Muslim. Because regardless of the true story behind all the above statements, people can spin things anyway they want, if they are so determined to believe what they want to believe.
In truth, I've been an agnostic most of my life, but more recently decided that Jesus was pretty rad and thus have been finding a gradual accommodation with Christianity.
Or is that just what I'd have you believe, while I secretly plan my jihad on the infidels?
See also...
The Muslim-ness of Obama's family, and what it has to do with his presidency
More "Obama's not an American" nonsense
Obama bows again. Conservatives are angry. Sensible people couldn't care less.
Here are just a few reasons why 1 in 5 Americans think he's really a sneaky Islamist.
- He's Muslim because he has relatives who are Muslim.
- He's Muslim because he can remember the opening lines of the Muslim call to prayer.
- He's Muslim because he was once photographed wearing a traditional Somali garment. The Somali are Muslims, so that makes him a Muslim.
- He's Muslim because he once bowed to the Saudi king. (He also once bowed to the Japanese emperor, so perhaps he follows the Japanese Shinto religion as well...)
- He's Muslim because he has an Arabic middle name.
- He's Muslim because he spent some of his early years in a predominantly Muslim country.
- He's Muslim because he has tried to cultivate good relationships with numerous Muslim countries, and has only been involved in fighting wars against two of them.
- He's Muslim because he thinks the azan (call to prayer) is one of the most beautiful sounds on earth at dusk.
The phrase I see again and again on blogs and articles promoting this idea, is "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck."
Thus all those reasons above might seem convincing to some people. But then again, most of them can just be attributed to Obama being a man with an unconventional life story, and a broad range of interests and experiences. And if we pursue the "quacks like a duck" analogy, then surely Obama walks and quacks more like a Christian duck than a Muslim one. Attending church for 2 decades, raising one's daughters as Christian and anouncing one's devotion to Jesus Christ to the entire world seem far more convincing evidence than any of the reasons listed above.
I guess its not a surprise that this kind of thinking occurs in a nation where some labelled Obama as an un-American elitist because he pronounces Pakistan the way Pakistanis do (Paa-ki-staan) rather than the typical American way (Pack-a-Stan).
The small-minded approach to this issue rankles with me particularly because I relate to Obama on a number of things. Being bi-cultural. Having an anthropologist mother. Growing up amongst different cultures. Having a fairly global outlook on things.And it thus bugs me that many traits that sane people regard as positive (Obama's cross-cultural awareness, his intellectualism, his diverse range of experiences outside America, his lack of enthusiasm for militaristic aggression) are actually seen as a negative. And that any trait that marks him out as different to the stereotypical white conservative American is taken as a sign of being a Muslim or Socialist or both.
So I started to wonder: What if, in some far-fetched future, it was me running for President of the USA? (Of course this would never happen, not least because I'm not an American.) What if I were faced with the same kind of scrutiny from prejudiced ignoramuses that Obama has faced? Would they conclude that I too was a Muslim? Let's see...
I have Muslim parents!
Although both are closer to being agnostic. My mother is Muslim because she was born as one, but practices barely any of the religion's tenets; my father converted in order to marry her (to please the in-laws), but did not actually embrace any Islamic beliefs that I know of.
I have spent a lot of time in Muslim countries!
I've been to Indonesia around 10 times and Malaysia around 6 times. Most of those times were spent with my Christian Indonesian relatives and my Hindu Malaysian girlfriend.
I did some of my schooling in a Muslim country!
Was it a madrassah? Close enough - it was a Teacher Training College in Yogyakarta where I did an intensive course in the Indonesian language. I also learned about the culture of this Muslim country, including how to make batik designs and how to play instruments of the traditional gamelan orchestra. They never taught us how to be martyrs against the infidel West; I must have been away sick that day.
I can recite some phrases in Arabic!
Let's see... Salaam alaikum... W'alaikum salaam... Allahu Akbar... Insha'Allah... Hummus bi Tahini...
I have been photographed wearing Muslim clothing!
I once marched in the Australia Day Parade, representing Melbourne's Indonesian community. Among other things, I wore a peci, the traditional cap worn by Muslim males in Southeast Asia.
I associate with Muslims!
I'm friends with about 20 of them on Facebook. Plus there's another few hundred friends on there who look a bit brown and have suspiciously foreign-sounding names, so they may as well be Muslim. Oh, and I did date a Muslim girl once. I don't know if she was very religious though; we didn't really do much talking, if you catch my meaning.
I listen to the rantings of hate-filled Islamic preachers!
Well, I own 4 albums by Ice Cube and 5 by Public Enemy. That's got to count for something.
I love the sound of the azan (Muslim call to prayer)!
Well, it's all right. I don't love it if it wakes me up in the morning though.
I have studied Islamic literature!
Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet by Karen Armstrong. A great read. It helped me come to the conclusion that I definitely had no interest in being a Muslim.
I have a Muslim-y middle name!
"Harshawardhana". Actually, its Indian (Sanskrit in origin), but who cares? Indian, Arab, Muslim, its all the same sh*t, right? Damned ragheads.
So by that logic, at least 20% of Americans think I'm a Muslim. Because regardless of the true story behind all the above statements, people can spin things anyway they want, if they are so determined to believe what they want to believe.
In truth, I've been an agnostic most of my life, but more recently decided that Jesus was pretty rad and thus have been finding a gradual accommodation with Christianity.
Or is that just what I'd have you believe, while I secretly plan my jihad on the infidels?
See also...
The Muslim-ness of Obama's family, and what it has to do with his presidency
More "Obama's not an American" nonsense
Obama bows again. Conservatives are angry. Sensible people couldn't care less.
Sunday, 22 August 2010
Now 1 in 5 Americans believe Obama is a Muslim
If you ever wonder why prejudice is such a rampant phenomenon, I can give you two reasons right off the bat. Firstly, it's because it's easier to make someone who is different the focus of all our negativities rather than focus on ourselves, or admit that the world is more complicated than we'd like to admit. And secondly, it's because prejudice seems immune to all manner of logic and common sense, and endures even when facts to the counter are clear for all to see.
Ok so let's say that the 1 in 5 figure is reasonably accurate. If we extrapolate that across the US population (subtracting young children from the equation), that's about 50 million people. That's hardly a bunch of loony extremists that don't matter. 50 million! That's about the population of England.
Even crazier is that around half of all Americans don't seem to know what religion Obama is.
Now, remember that Obama has repeatedly and publicly stated he is a Christian. He attended church for around 20 years with his family. These, obviously, are not things that Muslims tend to do.
If he was indeed a Muslim, surely someone from his high school, college or working years would have picked up on it. He has written two books about his life, yet not mentioned anything about being a Muslim. Upon swearing the oath of office, he used the Holy Bible.
So what evidence is there of his supposed Muslim-ness? Well... he has an Arabic middle name (Hussein). Of course, most Americans have Jewish names (David, Paul, John, etc), but that doesn't make them Jewish.
His father was a Muslim... but then, Barack barely knew his father, who left when his son was still very young. His stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, was Muslim... but one who rarely attended prayers, and Obama only lived with him from when he was 6 until when he was 12. Obama spent those 6 years in Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim country, where he went to school ... except Indonesia is no more a Muslim country than the USA can be said to be a Christian country, and the school Obama went to was a Catholic school.
What other "proof" is there of Obama's Muslim faith? Well, he supported the right of those guys to build the mosque near Ground Zero, right?
Well, technically he was just upholding the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to freedom of religion. Had he violated the constitution on this matter, would that make him a better President or a worse one?
Ok how about this: in an interview with the New York Times, he once described the Muslim call to prayer at sunset as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth". AND he can recall the words!
So the assumption here is that surely no Christian could objectively hear someone mellifluously singing in Arabic and think it was beautiful, could they? So basically, Obama is being judged for having the wrong taste in music. Him being able to recall the words to something he probably heard over a loudspeaker every day for 6 years as a child, is not so unusual. Unless of course if you are the kind of person who cannot fathom the idea of someone knowing a few words of another language and knowing a little about another religion that is not your own... which actually describes a lot of Americans.
Ok, what about the fact that Obama has held celebrations for Muslims at the White House for Ramadan? Oh wait, George W Bush did that too...
Or what about when he said this:
"Islam is a faith that brings comfort to people. It inspires them to lead lives based on honesty, and justice, and compassion."
Essentially, to really believe Obama is a Muslim entails having to believe in a number of other assumptions.
You have to assume that he constantly lies about his religion. He is so good at lying about it that no one has ever actually seen him doing anything Muslim-y. He has even managed to keep his Islamic faith from his wife Michelle and his daughters. Or you could choose to assume that they are all Muslims too, or they are in on the whole conspiracy.
You have to assume that Obama managed to keep this secret from all his friends from childhood, college, work and politics. Because none of those people seems to have thought he was a Muslim.
You have to assume that even as a young teenager, Obama kept this secret from his white mother and grandparents, who he lived with in Hawaii. Because his mother separated from Lolo Soetoro around this time, there was no one who might possibly give him further Islamic instruction; yet somehow, he managed to retain this faith while keeping it secret from everyone around him.
You have to assume that Obama's baptism as a Christian, his 20 years attending church, and his raising of his daughters as Christians, are all part of an elaborate ruse.
You have to assume that to even be related to Muslims, or associate with them (Obama had some Pakistani friends in college) is a sure sign that you are a bit Muslim-y. Because if you are a good Christian you wouldn't associate with such people. (You'd probably drop bombs on them instead.)
In short, to believe Obama is actually a Muslim, you need to believe that not only is he a fiendishly evil Machiavellian character who is a compulsive liar, but also that he actually IS a "Manchurian Candidate" who has been hiding his "true" faith for years and years in order to ascend the ladder of power and turn the US into a Muslim nation. Or something like that.
You need to have an over-enthusiasm for espionage novels.
Essentially, you need to be a f***ing sh*thead with absolutely no sense of perspective. You need to be deranged enough to think that YOU, who have never met Obama, probably never even been outside the US or actually met a Muslim, YOU have been smart enough to see Obama's Islamic faith and agenda for what it really is. Whereas the thousands of people who have actually met the man and spent time around him are somehow too stupid to notice.
See also:
The Muslim-ness of Obama's family, and what it has to do with his presidency
More "Obama's not American" nonsense
Obama bows again. Conservatives are angry. Sensible people couldn't care less.
A new national survey by the Pew Research Center finds that nearly one-in-five Americans (18%) now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009. Only about one-third of adults (34%) say Obama is a Christian, down sharply from 48% in 2009. Fully 43% say they do not know what Obama’s religion is. The survey was completed in early August, before Obama’s recent comments about the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the former World Trade Center.(Original article here.)
The view that Obama is a Muslim is more widespread among his political opponents than among his backers. Roughly a third of conservative Republicans (34%) say Obama is a Muslim, as do 30% of those who disapprove of Obama’s job performance. But even among many of his supporters and allies, less than half now say Obama is a Christian. Among Democrats, for instance, 46% say Obama is a Christian, down from 55% in March 2009.
The belief that Obama is a Muslim has increased most sharply among Republicans (up 14 points since 2009), especially conservative Republicans (up 16 points). But the number of independents who say Obama is a Muslim has also increased significantly (up eight points). There has been little change in the number of Democrats who say Obama is a Muslim, but fewer Democrats today say he is a Christian (down nine points since 2009).
When asked how they learned about Obama’s religion in an open-ended question, 60% of those who say Obama is a Muslim cite the media. Among specific media sources, television (at 16%) is mentioned most frequently. About one-in-ten (11%) of those who say Obama is a Muslim say they learned of this through Obama’s own words and behavior.
Beliefs about Obama’s religion are closely linked to political judgments about him. Those who say he is a Muslim overwhelmingly disapprove of his job performance, while a majority of those who think he is a Christian approve of the job Obama is doing. Those who are unsure about Obama’s religion are about evenly divided in their views of his performance.
Ok so let's say that the 1 in 5 figure is reasonably accurate. If we extrapolate that across the US population (subtracting young children from the equation), that's about 50 million people. That's hardly a bunch of loony extremists that don't matter. 50 million! That's about the population of England.
Even crazier is that around half of all Americans don't seem to know what religion Obama is.
Now, remember that Obama has repeatedly and publicly stated he is a Christian. He attended church for around 20 years with his family. These, obviously, are not things that Muslims tend to do.
If he was indeed a Muslim, surely someone from his high school, college or working years would have picked up on it. He has written two books about his life, yet not mentioned anything about being a Muslim. Upon swearing the oath of office, he used the Holy Bible.
So what evidence is there of his supposed Muslim-ness? Well... he has an Arabic middle name (Hussein). Of course, most Americans have Jewish names (David, Paul, John, etc), but that doesn't make them Jewish.
His father was a Muslim... but then, Barack barely knew his father, who left when his son was still very young. His stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, was Muslim... but one who rarely attended prayers, and Obama only lived with him from when he was 6 until when he was 12. Obama spent those 6 years in Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim country, where he went to school ... except Indonesia is no more a Muslim country than the USA can be said to be a Christian country, and the school Obama went to was a Catholic school.
What other "proof" is there of Obama's Muslim faith? Well, he supported the right of those guys to build the mosque near Ground Zero, right?
Well, technically he was just upholding the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to freedom of religion. Had he violated the constitution on this matter, would that make him a better President or a worse one?
Ok how about this: in an interview with the New York Times, he once described the Muslim call to prayer at sunset as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth". AND he can recall the words!
So the assumption here is that surely no Christian could objectively hear someone mellifluously singing in Arabic and think it was beautiful, could they? So basically, Obama is being judged for having the wrong taste in music. Him being able to recall the words to something he probably heard over a loudspeaker every day for 6 years as a child, is not so unusual. Unless of course if you are the kind of person who cannot fathom the idea of someone knowing a few words of another language and knowing a little about another religion that is not your own... which actually describes a lot of Americans.
Ok, what about the fact that Obama has held celebrations for Muslims at the White House for Ramadan? Oh wait, George W Bush did that too...
Or what about when he said this:
"Islam is a faith that brings comfort to people. It inspires them to lead lives based on honesty, and justice, and compassion." Oh no wait, that wasn't Obama, that was George W Bush as well, on October 11, 2002.
George W Bush is one of the men dressed in Arabic robes in this picture. Remember him, the one with ties to the Saudi royal family? Maybe he's a Muslim too - there's certainly enough evidence to prove it, should you wish to believe that. Of course, no one is suggest this, because Bush's skin is not brown (brown skin is another tell-tale sign of being suspiciously Islamic).
Now, I can perfectly understand if people think Obama is not a good President, for whatever reason. That is the nature of politics, some people will not like you or what you stand for. But to believe he is a Muslim is something else entirely.
Essentially, to really believe Obama is a Muslim entails having to believe in a number of other assumptions.
You have to assume that he constantly lies about his religion. He is so good at lying about it that no one has ever actually seen him doing anything Muslim-y. He has even managed to keep his Islamic faith from his wife Michelle and his daughters. Or you could choose to assume that they are all Muslims too, or they are in on the whole conspiracy.
You have to assume that Obama managed to keep this secret from all his friends from childhood, college, work and politics. Because none of those people seems to have thought he was a Muslim.
You have to assume that even as a young teenager, Obama kept this secret from his white mother and grandparents, who he lived with in Hawaii. Because his mother separated from Lolo Soetoro around this time, there was no one who might possibly give him further Islamic instruction; yet somehow, he managed to retain this faith while keeping it secret from everyone around him.
You have to assume that Obama's baptism as a Christian, his 20 years attending church, and his raising of his daughters as Christians, are all part of an elaborate ruse.
You have to assume that to even be related to Muslims, or associate with them (Obama had some Pakistani friends in college) is a sure sign that you are a bit Muslim-y. Because if you are a good Christian you wouldn't associate with such people. (You'd probably drop bombs on them instead.)
In short, to believe Obama is actually a Muslim, you need to believe that not only is he a fiendishly evil Machiavellian character who is a compulsive liar, but also that he actually IS a "Manchurian Candidate" who has been hiding his "true" faith for years and years in order to ascend the ladder of power and turn the US into a Muslim nation. Or something like that.
You need to have an over-enthusiasm for espionage novels.
Essentially, you need to be a f***ing sh*thead with absolutely no sense of perspective. You need to be deranged enough to think that YOU, who have never met Obama, probably never even been outside the US or actually met a Muslim, YOU have been smart enough to see Obama's Islamic faith and agenda for what it really is. Whereas the thousands of people who have actually met the man and spent time around him are somehow too stupid to notice.
See also:
The Muslim-ness of Obama's family, and what it has to do with his presidency
More "Obama's not American" nonsense
Obama bows again. Conservatives are angry. Sensible people couldn't care less.
Sunday, 23 May 2010
The Muslim-ness of Obama's family, and what it has to do with his presidency
If Obama is some secret Muslim Manchurian candidate intending to help Islamize the world, clearly no one told one group of Muslim militants in Indonesia who, it was revealed this week, planned to assassinate him during his visit to the country.
Clearly they did not share the views of the 1 in 10 Americans who apparently believe their leader is a Muslim.
He's not. But it's worth asking - if he was one, would it make him a bad president? I think it's clear that if he admitted to being a Muslim, he wouldn't have gained the presidency. Many would still have voted for him, but enough people would have been scared off by the thought. It's enough that he is black; black AND Muslim would have been a bridge too far. But whether you like or dislike Obama, what he stands for and the decisions he has made, would he have done anything differently if he were a Muslim? While Obama is religious (Christian) he seems not to be especially zealous in his faith, or at least can separate doctrine from secular realities. So were he a Muslim, most likely his religiosity would be of a similar degree. Thus it would be unlikely that a theoretically Muslim Barack Obama would be any different a president than the real, Christian one.
Then there are those who, while not exactly thinking Obama is a Muslim, see his family background (which contains some Muslims) as being proof enough that he cannot really be trusted to be a good American.
This is from an article by conservative blogger David Goldman last month on what he sees as the Obama administration's reluctance to get tough on Muslim states:
I’ve been screaming about this for more than two years: Obama is the loyal son of a left-wing anthropologist mother who sought to expiate her white guilt by going to bed with Muslim Third World men. He is a Third World anthropologist studying us, learning our culture and our customs the better to neutralize what he considers to be a malignant American influence in world affairs.
If that was just one idiot ranting on a blog, it wouldn't matter; unfortunately, Goldman's viewpoint is a common one amongst the anti-Obama brigade.
So how many f***ed up things can a seemingly intelligent person squeeze into one sentence?
Firstly, I'm not sure what Obama's mother's sex life has to do with his ability to be President; or more specifically his approach to the War on Terror. Secondly, Goldman reduces her (Ann Dunham's) two marriages to "going to bed with". Now I'm no expert, but I'm figuring that there was a little more to those relationships than just sex.
Thirdly - "Muslim Third World men"!?!? If a white American falls in love with a brown person from a country that is not as awesome as the US, then clearly there is something wrong with her. Why would she hook up with not one but TWO dark foreign people, when she had so many superior white men to choose from at home? It must be white liberal guilt, because there could be no other reason for it; it's not as if brown people could be attractive or anything.
The highlighting of the Muslim-ness of Obama's father and stepfather is telling, not just because of it's irrelevance, but because it shows how little many white folks on the Right actually know about the world outside their borders. Barack Obama Senior was nominally a Muslim - he had no choice in the matter since he was born to a Muslim father - but was in no way devout, and was generally acknowledged to have adopted an atheist outlook as a young man.
Lolo Soetoro, Obama Junior's Indonesian stepfather, was from all descriptions typically Javanese in his approach to religion. It is true that Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation in the world, and the Javanese (it's largest ethnic group) are almost all Muslims. But Islam as generally practiced in Java is a world away from Middle Eastern Islam; it has many features of pre-Islamic traditions (Hindu, Buddhist and animist) and a huge percentage do not actively follow Muslim daily practices. Soetoro was also described as something of a drinker, who only sometimes went to the mosque; not the picture of a devout Muslim.
To the wingnut who can only see things in a simple way, Obama is a Muslim because his father and stepfather were Muslim, and he spent part of his childhood in a predominantly Muslim country. Of course, he spent vastly more of his life in a predominantly Christian country - the US. And while in Indonesia, he spent 3 years at a Catholic school and 1 year at a public school. So if you ever hear anyone claim that the young Obama went to a madrassa (fundamentalist Islamic boarding school), you'll know instantly that they don't know sh*t.
Whatever one's thoughts about Islam, one thing must always remembered: Muslims are not a monolith. All Muslims are not the same, and being a Muslim does not mean someone is dangerous. And being related to Muslims certainly does not mean someone is dangerous either.
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