cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Wed 20 Dec, 2006 05:37 pm
nimh, This one.
Bush, Kerry hit each other on domestic issues
Battleground states ahead after candidates' final debate
Thursday, October 14, 2004 Posted: 8:31 AM EDT (1231 GMT)


Sen. John Kerry and President Bush greet the audience before the start of the debate.
Image:


TEMPE, Arizona (CNN) -- President Bush and Democratic rival Sen. John Kerry met on Wednesday for their final debate, clashing on issues ranging from the economy to jobs, taxes and same-sex marriage.

Some said Kerry won this debate, but it's my personal opinion he lost.
0 Replies
 
okie
 
  1  
Wed 20 Dec, 2006 10:34 pm
blatham wrote:
..... We ought to note that Okie forwarded this same vector a couple of weeks past. One would like to know where he bumped into the idea.


I bumped into the idea in my own mind, blatham, after watching the last few years of politics. This is not rocket science. The Clintons have practiced this to a fine tuned science their entire political careers. Good grief, blatham, where have you been? These are not honest people you are dealing with here. They are politically ruthless, and they know what they want, and they will go for it in any way they think they can obtain it, and get by with it, and anyone opposing them should just be aware of it.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 04:05 am
okie

I did consider that possibility.


Sorry soz...but...

Quote:
Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always A Muslim
By Debbie Schlussel

Many months ago, readers began asking me whether Barack Obama is Muslim. Since he identifies as a Christian, I said, "no," and responded that he was not raised by his Kenyan father.

But, then, I decided to look further into Obama's background. His full name--as by now you have probably heard--is Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Hussein is a Muslim name, which comes from the name of Ali's son--Hussein Ibn Ali. And Obama is named after his late Kenyan father, the late Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., apparently a Muslim.

And while Obama may not identify as a Muslim, that's not how the Arab and Muslim Streets see it. In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he's a Christian, but they do not.


Then, there are the other items in his background. As best-selling author Scott Turow wrote in Salon, Obama went to a Muslim school for two years in Indonesia. His mother, Anna, married an Indonesian man (likely another Muslim, as Indonesia is Muslim-dominated and has the largest Islamic population in the world).

And Obama has a "born-again" affinity for the nation of his Muslim father, Kenya, and his Kenyan sister. (Although Kenya is largely Christian, it has a fast-growing Muslim population that has engaged in a good deal of religious violence and riots against Christians. And Kenyan courts will apply Sharia law, when the participants are Muslim.) Wrote Turow:

Obama's father died in a traffic accident in Nairobi in 1982, but while Obama was working in Chicago, he met his Kenyan sister, Auma, a linguist educated in Germany who was visiting the United States. When she returned to Kenya in 1986 to teach for a year at the University of Nairobi, Obama finally made the trip to his father's homeland he had long promised himself. There, he managed to fully embrace a heritage and a family he'd never fully known and come to terms with his father, whom he'd long regarded as an august foreign prince, but now realized was a human being burdened by his own illusions and vulnerabilities.
So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?

Is that even the man we'd want to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency, if Hillary Clinton offers him the Vice Presidential candidacy on her ticket (which he certainly wouldn't turn down)?

NO WAY, JOSE . . . Or, is that, HUSSEIN?
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2006/12/barack_hussein.html
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 04:06 am
Foxfyre wrote:
I would also like to see Nimh post any verification for his assertion that "we all know" that the GOP will not be the first to clean up its act--presumably the Democrats are more likely?

Well, if even you place the expectation to halt the attack-mode form of politics squarely on Obama's shoulders - without, apparently, even the hope that, if "one of them has to start it", that could actually be the Republicans, too ...

I agree completely with what Snood has observed about what you're doing here. Positioning yourself neatly so that Obama will have 'failed' if he doesnt single-handedly end dirty politics, while your Republican candidates are spared even the expectation. Neat trick, but no cigar.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 04:11 am
from Ha'aretz
Quote:
There are Israelis who see possibilities in Obama: The two presidents who invested the greatest effort to bringing peace to Israel and its neighbors were nearly as foreign to the mainstream as he is - Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, who were both anonymous governors of less important states, and no one could have guessed the Israeli conundrum would fascinate them. Whoever prefers this sort of president may have hope for the next generation. Sometimes, it actually works out.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/803790.html
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 04:13 am
I read about that Debbie Schlussel article.. it must be about the lowliest and most far-fetched line of attack thinkable at this point.

I 'like' this particularly breathtakingly far-fetched attempt to link Obama with Muslim violence:

Quote:
And Obama has a "born-again" affinity for the nation of his Muslim father, Kenya, and his Kenyan sister. (Although Kenya is largely Christian, it has a fast-growing Muslim population that has engaged in a good deal of religious violence and riots against Christians.

So you have a Christian man fondly visiting a largely Christian country, and yet somehow this proves the man is not fit for the Presidency.

With this kind of thing I can never figure out whther the author actually believes what (s)he writes or not - and which would be worse.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 04:46 am
nimh

This is a lady I haven't bumped into before, or don't recall it. I'm going to do a bit of research on her because this piece, as in the bit you noted, is pretty slick - in a thoroughly disgusting way (does anyone mind my use of that adjective here?)

Note also the last line, the structure of which permits her to put "Hussein" in caps...plus tosses in a bit of the nasty brown people from Mexico and further south.

Then there's the bit on how Nigerian (and other Muslims) believe Obama is a Muslim which is apparently a bad thing in itself but which might also mean that it therefore becomes real, or demonstrates a reality to which Obama isn't yet himself aware. In any case, that seems to unite Obama and Muslims in a spiritual bond of some sort.

And again, in the paragraph you point to, there's the insult to those who might be deeply invested in the "born again" phrase (clearly a part of her target audience) through using it in the context of the Muslim faith..."born again Muslim" isn't designed to land happily on those folks' ears.

The url...I'm not technically savvy so don't know if it (ending in barack_hussein) is merely a consequence of automatic abbreviation of if it was selected.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 05:06 am
No surprise that she comes up out of the Young Republican machinery. Doesn't like Muslims much. Stupid she isn't. Just another over the edge type.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Schlussel
0 Replies
 
Phoenix32890
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 05:21 am
Wow....that Debbie Schlussel IS a piece of work. But in politics there are people who will trot out the tiniest of red herrings in order to put doubts in people's minds.

So this is how I see it. Apparently Islam is a patrilineal society, the line of descent going through the father. If so, even if Obama became the Bishop of Canterbury, (I know that is an absurd example, but I am making a point.) he would still be considered a Muslim by those of the Islamic tradition. Calling Obama a Muslim, does not make him a Muslim, no matter what the Islamic honchos believe.

As far as going to Kenya, and meeting his family, what is wrong with that? Most every one wants to know where they came from, their "roots", so to speak. That does not mean that Obama plans to become a Kenyan. He is American, through and through, whose family happens to come from Kenya.

If I were to criticize Obama, it would be over some political point with which I disagreed. What Schlussel did was to pick at the sores of the most disgusting sorts of prejudices that people might have towards blacks, Muslims, and Africans. That is the dirtiest kind of pool in an arena, politics, that is known for dirty pool. Shame on her! The sad thing is, that some people just might fall for her rhetoric.
0 Replies
 
snood
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 05:30 am
In a country where the Ann Coulters of the world can hold great sway, there is no "might" involved. The lowdown attack based on the bigotted insinuation of empathy with terrorists will have legs for some.
0 Replies
 
kelticwizard
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 05:33 am
Of course the Republicans are going to emphasize Obama's Hussein middle name in an effort to smear him. Smear is what they do. Everybody's hated Saddam Hussein since the early nineties and since 9/11 Americans as a whole are not too crazy about Arabs-think the Republicans are going to pass that one up?

A middle name of Hussein is the Republican equivalent of a nice easy one down the middle of the plate-how could they NOT swing at it?

If there was no such thing already as a Debbie Schlussel, the GOP would have invented her.

Expect the Republicans to get maximum mileage out of the Hussein nickname, and to repeat it as often as it holds promise for them.
0 Replies
 
snood
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 05:38 am
No doubt about it. And also expect the apologists for the right at A2K to try to make protestations about the disgusting smear attempt seem like oversensitivity, or lack of a "sense of humor".
0 Replies
 
Phoenix32890
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 05:41 am
Quote:
Expect the Republicans to get maximum mileage out of the Hussein nickname, and to repeat it as often as it holds promise for them.


kelticwizard- On the contrary. I think that if the name is bandied about long enough and often enough, it will lose its "aha" appeal. The first time that one hears the name, there is curiosity, and possibly some concern about it. The second time, there may be a lifted eyebrow. After hearing it over again, it will become just a name.
0 Replies
 
snood
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 06:06 am
Phoenix32890 wrote:
Quote:
Expect the Republicans to get maximum mileage out of the Hussein nickname, and to repeat it as often as it holds promise for them.


kelticwizard- On the contrary. I think that if the name is bandied about long enough and often enough, it will lose its "aha" appeal. The first time that one hears the name, there is curiosity, and possibly some concern about it. The second time, there may be a lifted eyebrow. After hearing it over again, it will become just a name.


I hope you're right, I really do. All due respect, but I think the bigotry against muslims (and unfortunately blacks) will give this longevity. Remember, Lenny Bruce said the same thing ("just keep saying it, and it will lose its meaning") about the 'N' word.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=69029&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=130


Maybe in an experiment with a test group of mature and objective individuals, this would be true. But this slinging of whatever meaningless mud that's available at Obama is not happening in those pristine circumstances. Its happening in the seamy idea hothouse of modern American politics and modern American media.
0 Replies
 
Phoenix32890
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 06:19 am
Snood- For deeply prejudiced people, Obama's name is simply a reinforcement of the negative perception they had about the man from the beginning. I doubt that anything that he could do would change their minds. In fact, for those people, the reaction to him would be the same, even if his name were George Washington.

I am thinking about a larger group, those with minds that are flexible enough to see past the rhetoric, but who still get an uncomfortable gut feeling when they see articles like the one written by Schlussel. Those, IMO, are the people, who, over time, will "tune out" any negative reactions that they have to his name, if they hear it often enough.

There is an interesting psychological phenomenon, called "habituation", which I think will cause a lot of people to become desensitized to Obama's name, if they hear it often enough.


Quote:
In psychology, habituation is an example of non-associative learning in which there is a progressive diminution of behavioral response probability with repetition of a stimulus. It is another form of integration. An animal first responds to a sensory stimulus, but if it is neither rewarding nor harmful the animal learns to suppress its response through repeated encounters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habituation
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 08:35 am
okie wrote:
blatham wrote:
..... We ought to note that Okie forwarded this same vector a couple of weeks past. One would like to know where he bumped into the idea.


I bumped into the idea in my own mind, blatham, after watching the last few years of politics. This is not rocket science. The Clintons have practiced this to a fine tuned science their entire political careers. Good grief, blatham, where have you been? These are not honest people you are dealing with here. They are politically ruthless, and they know what they want, and they will go for it in any way they think they can obtain it, and get by with it, and anyone opposing them should just be aware of it.


It seems that the judgmental, prejudiced, self-appointed, moral superior types don't believe you (or any of us with a different point of view) are capable of cognitive thought and drawing our own conclusions, Okie, or else we would think like they do.

While any possible failing on the right is rightfully magnified and thoroughly aired with sanctimonious, righteous indignation, any criticism or exploration of negatives on their side is deemed to be racist and/or a scurilous motive to plant negative images in the minds of the people who presumably are also unable to think for themselves.

It makes it really difficult to have any kind of discussion about anything. But the phenomenon is always fascinating to watch.

I think Phoenix's observation is right on target however. It is only by putting it all out there and being willing to weigh all the pros and cons that people will be able to see the situation as it is, draw their own conclusions, and reject the garbage.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 08:55 am
Foxfyre wrote:
It seems that the judgmental, prejudiced, self-appointed, moral superior types don't believe you (or any of us with a different point of view) are capable of cognitive thought and drawing our own conclusions, Okie, or else we would think like they do.


That by you Shocked

Nevertheless, hope, you're surviving in those snow storms. :wink:

Happy holidays.
0 Replies
 
sozobe
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 08:59 am
blatham wrote:
Sorry soz...but...


No, that's what I've specifically said I'd like to see. It's the generalized "Republicans smear" "you're oversensitive" "no I'm not" "your reading comprehension sucks" stuff that I wanted to get past.

As for Schlussel's piece -- yikes.
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 09:03 am
Walter Hinteler wrote:
Foxfyre wrote:
It seems that the judgmental, prejudiced, self-appointed, moral superior types don't believe you (or any of us with a different point of view) are capable of cognitive thought and drawing our own conclusions, Okie, or else we would think like they do.


That by you Shocked

Nevertheless, hope, you're surviving in those snow storms. :wink:

Happy holidays.


Yeah I know. I snapped. (It gets really tedious to be told what I'm doing or thinking or promoting or whatever when they get it so very wrong. And apologies to you too, Soz. I would like to get past all that stuff too.)

But thanks, Walter. Yes we are surviving the snowstorms quite nicely though the roof just sprung a leak this morning a day before the first of Christmas guests arrive for the weekend. But that too shall pass.
Best wishes for a warm, happy, blessed Christmas to you and yours too.
0 Replies
 
snood
 
  1  
Thu 21 Dec, 2006 12:49 pm
Quote:
And apologies to you too, Soz.


But you directly addressed the unwarranted insult about reading comprehension toward me. Do I rate an apology, as well?
0 Replies
 
 

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