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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I hardly know what to say though I feel I should respond to this article. This kind of smear, which is perpetuated by the article rather than disproved by it, is doubly damaging.
The first victim is the American people, who may be deprived of real leadership because of these nonsense attacks. I became an Obama supporter by reading his positions and I never go anywhere near the Kool-Aid. Whether he's talking about health care, foreign relations, or taxes, Obama's views are balanced. He doesn't shape his positions according to polls or fall for the latest gimmick.
The second victim is the American Muslim. We are hard-working adults who struggle to raise our kids and pay our bills just like everyone else. What do you tell your teenage son when he realizes that the name of his religion has become a curse word? That his own name may condemn him? And this is happening in the "land of the free and the home of the brave." I'm an American who chose to be a Muslim. Will my children and I always be second-class?
I'm a Muslim though my legal name is Linda. Barack Hussein Obama is a Christian. "A rose by any other name. . ." Stop being so shallow and start getting serious about choosing a qualified leader for our country.
is because you keep printing them over and over. Every repetition reinforces the lie. Your headline just reinforced to all those 13 percent of people that he is, in fact, a Muslim. And I just did it with that sentence.
Cognitive science teaches us that the first time you hear something, it is stored in your brain as information. The second time you hear it, it is 'verified' and is then made permanent. First hearing: Obama is a Muslim. Second hearing: Obama is not a Muslim. Unfortunately, the brain is also quite selective and 'wants' to verify previously held information so when you say Obama is NOT a Muslim, the brain hears and verifies that he is.
Obama has made a huge mistake on his Fight the Smears website because he repeats the smear flat out and then goes about trying to debunk it. However he has just reinforced it yet again - and from a source that is truly 'credible'.
The only way to fight this stuff is to STOP SAYING IT AND STOP SAYING ANYTHING THAT EVEN VAGUELY SOUNDS LIKE IT.
For instance: Obama is a committed Christian and is a member of Trinity United Christian Church. Period. Do not reference being Muslim. Do not put it in a sentence anywhere near this. The people you are trying to reach will only hear the smear. Again. If you do.
Obama has served this country well by working for poor people on the South Side of Chicago.
Obama has served in the Illinois Legislature and the US Senate.
Obama says all the time that this country is the reason he has the opportunities he has, and that he is truly grateful for them, and for this country.
...and a liberal, both targets of separate but overlapping prejudices and therefore of smear campaigns.
If it wasn't "Muslim" as code for "black" it would be something else. If it wasn't "unqualified" as code for "liberal" it would be something else.
The black prejudice is far larger and more insidious, which is why the "Muslim" thing has so much traction. The liberal antipathy comes from a marginally more intelligent place, which is why it's heard slightly less often.
That's how these things are played, or have been up to the present day. If Obama is elected, it's precisely because he wins his bet that this crap no longer works. I'm hopeful but not overly confident.
Without reading the article, I have to say I know NOBODY that thinks that Barack Obama is a Muslim and really so what???? His religion should be completely separate from the WH and so why would I ever care if he was in fact a Muslim. I think denying it as he is doing is inadvertently casts a dark shadow on the Muslim religion. It would like if somebody said I was gay, I would only respond that I was not, but in such a tone that would just clear up the matter not condemn the gay community. Barack has said enough times that he is not a Muslim. Period. End of conversation. Leave it alone. I think the bigger problem he has is convincing other Christians that he is in fact a Christian himself. I have attended many Christian services and none of them sounded like the church Barack attended for 20+ years. Somebody can call themselves a Christian all day long, but there really is no proof of that because there is NOT only one example. We only have our own personal experiences and it seems each church puts their own spin on interpretation and expression.
To discount Barrack Hussein Obama is not a Muslim is tantamount to ignorance and not dealing with reality. It is a fact Obama was raised in traditional Islamic schools. You don't rid your psyche of that easily. His ties to radical Black Theology (replacement theology revisionists) is not dissimilar to Islam. Both hate Israel/Jews, and Black Theology is apostate Christianity at best.
Compare Obama's deception by saying he's "Christian" when he is Muslim is likened to the socialists who invaded the once-conservative Republican Party to change leadership to more left-of-center liberals.
Voting for Obama or McCain is a vote for destroying American sovereignty and ultimately allowing the United States of America to be "sucked" into a one-world government, once-world religion, one-world economy.
You tell your child exactly what atheists tell their children - that life isn't fair but that it is our duty as human beings to try to remedy that situation.
We do that by being fair ourselves. Fairness does not require that we back down or that we cower away from calling a spade a spade, but rather that we tell the truth as we see it.
My argument against people who claim Obama is a Muslim is not based on being anti-Islam, though I am anti all religion, but rather because it is not true.
I am just as irritated by people who claim his wife is an heiress. In the end it doesn't matter, but it is a lie and those who spread lies need to be confronted.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
