Living On The Edge Of Reality
This story takes a look at the inevitable racial overtones to the race and the upcoming West Virgina and Kentucky primaries.
Neil Gillies, an Obama supporter who runs a local environmental nonprofit group, glumly recounted the gibes that his wife, a schoolteacher, hears regularly from her students. “They’re convinced [Obama] is a Muslim, a terrorist, a guy who’s coming to take away their guns,” Gillies said. “It’s just sad.”
The LAT talked to a farmer, who voted for Bush but regrets it, but who appears more than a little reluctant to vote for the presumptive Democratic nominee. “Obama,” the farmer said, “just doesn’t sound right for an American president.” The president of the West Virginia Coon Hunters Assn. told the Times he rejects Obama “because of, you know, who he is.”
We need to let these people go about their merry way. If one is convinced that Obama is a Muslim yet still had a Christian pastor for the last 20 years. Celebrated all the rites and customs of a Christian....well, these people are not rational. They have every right to free speech as the rest of us but I don't need to care. They don't pass the threshold for reasoned debate in my book. The cognitive dissonance allowed by these types is truly a rainbow of convenience and lazy thought.
I wrote some time ago that they were going to connect him to terrorists, or more properly, those they consider terrorists. They have already linked him to University Professor William Ayres(just shows you how the liberals are poisoning the minds of our youth!) and now Hamas.
Hamas is Sunni, Hezbollah is Shite. Al Queda is Sunni, Iran is Shite. Saudi Arabia is primarily Sunni and Iraq is primarily Shite. This is the religious war that is going on. We have no stake here. I have no interest in being a Muslim nor a desire to advance or destroy their religion nor any of its sects. This is not our fight.
Hamas has gained status and respect in the Muslim world. They have done this by providing services and help for their people. They are likely rightly hated by many but they are a lifeline to others. These are things we need to understand to win the war on terra. They hate us because they see us as vastly overbearing, enforcing our will on them. They see giant outside corporations(could be French or German or Russian or US) coming in and profiting from resources that are suppose to be the wealth of the people of the country. These are their real complaints of the people in the middle east.
On the positive side there is this story out of the Yemen Times. It talks about the illegal immigrants going from Yemen to Saudi Arabia for jobs etc. They compare it to the US-Mexico situation. See apparently the Saudis just shoot you. They speak glowingly of the burdens we face and the grace with which we face them. Can we be at peace with these people or do we just have to kill them all? By getting back to the roots of what made the US admired and acting like a leader for good I think we can make progress. If we decide that certain people that represent large populations can not be talked to and will remain enemies until they buckle to our aut-thor-it-tie then we reinforce everything they hate.
Let your knee jerk when you hear Hamas or Al Queda. As a great unknown person said-"When your only tool is a hammer everything looks like a nail."
You may think they want to "take us over" . Even if they truly thought this it would be comical. They could NEVER get US citizens to accept their lifestyle anymore than they are accepting ours. They can't kill us all.
Do we need to be aware of threats and danger to our citizens? Absolutely, I just think that our current policy is not only not producing dividends, it is taking us backward.
So live in fear of the terraist if you want but I am ready to fix the problem. You are about to be left behind.
posted by Ron at 4:33 PM
7 Comments:
"Obama is a muslim"! Obama is a follower of Reverend Wright, in fact, he's been a member of that church for 20 years! Well???? What is it? Is he a crazy Muslim or a crazy Christian? Proof positive that when you're out to Swiftboat someone, logic has no seat on the boat.
One must understand the meaning of the term "Swiftboating" before one uses it.
Ron,
You cover a lot of ground in this piece. I'll try to be succinct.
Just as I agree with the sentiments regarding racism and Islam, one must accept that indeed there are those who support Obama because he's black. (Of course he's only half black. I wouldn't vote for either half ever, for reasons totally unrelated to his color.) This AmericanThinker piece touches on the same issue. It speaks to the leftwing outrage over the mere mention of his tenuous ties to Islam, but also shows why some folks have such concerns. They aren't all goofy.
Anyway, his politics are trouble enough, but his associations are indeed cause for concern. Nobody on this side of the fence has linked him to Ayres. He did that himself. Ayres is a proud domestic terrorist and if not for technicalities, would likely still be in prison for his activities with the Weathermen. Barry was pleased to make his aquaintance. The two of them made generous donations to another with ties to Islamic terrorists. None of this is made up stuff, but proven fact. Between that and his 20 year association with the race-baiting Jeremiah Wright, Barry's either a total idiot or an opportunist of the worst kind. Neither is my idea of a good presidential choice.
We are also well aware of the differences between the various Middle Eastern countries and sects. We are also aware that if there is anything that can unite them at the drop of a hat, it is the hatred they all share of Israel. Many of them aren't particularly fond of us either and the reasons you and others on the left like to list don't have much meaning for them.
Yet despite this, no one on this side looks to kill them all. We are aware of which ME countries stand as allies, shakey, strong or in between. We understand who needs the attitude adjustments, dipomatically or militarily. We don't look to have them "buckle to our aut-thor-it-tie" or anything like that, and you'd be hardpressed to find a serious conservative who's ever said so. The closest you'd find is Coulter speaking of invading them, killing their leaders and converting them to Christianity. Toungue-in-cheek responses don't count.
I don't understand the position that says that the radicals will never "take us over". That's not the point at all. The point is merely that a faction of the Muslim world wants to. There's enough of them to cause tons of heartache. Don't forget how few it took to murder 3000 of our citizens. These are things about which Obama has no clue.
Crap man how many of them do you think they feel we have murdered!? You just don't get it do you. You live in a fantasy world where we are represented by people who always wear the white hat around the globe and do nothing to cause tons of heartache. I'm not saying everybody else good or better than us or that we are always bad but your solutions drive me to the conclusions you say are wrong. Go about your merry way. We will have to fix this stuff without you.
If only you had any idea how to accomplish that. As to your first question, I have no doubt that there are misguided people among the Middle Eastern populations, just like there are liberals in this country. But people with sense live there as well and they are well aware of where the responsibilities for the deaths lie.
Don't get me wrong. We have not gone without making mistakes in this war, but our people are making friends and allies there now. They kill the bad guys, but at the same time, they are helping the people in a variety of ways, and many of them look up to our people. We are the good guys by and large and even some who fought against us have now come to see that as true, even while awaiting the time when we get the hell out. I've just finished reading Michael Yon's book "Moment of Truth in Iraq". You'd do well to do the same.
I have no illusions about who we are, Ron. It seems to me that you do, however. Even worse is the illusion that someone like a Barry Obamanable has clue one about what to do in the ME and how to deal with the real jerkwads of the region. Truth is, if we are so unfortunate as to have this idiot become president in November, there are two possibilities for the future of the region in question: Possibility 1) He will absolutely fuck up the progress made since the surge began. (Pardon my French) Possibility 2) He will do nothing regarding his promises to pull our people out knowing that his rhetoric was empty and his ideas without merit. There is no third possibility that has him fixing anything over there. Give up that wet dream, my friend.
I would like to know why so many Americans are so ignorant that they continue to believe that Obama is a Muslim or an Arab. His father was from Kenya. For those people who apparently failed geography, Kenya is in AFRICA!
I suggest that those who would like to understand Senator Obama's past better read his books. While it's true that Barack's father was raised Muslim he had become an atheist before he came to Hawaii as a student and married Barack's (white) mother. He left Barack and his mother when Barack was 2 years old and went back to Africa. Lolo,
Barack's step-father, practiced a kind of Islam mixed with Buddhism, Hinduism, and Animism. Barack did attend both a Muslim and a Catholic school during the four years he lived in Indonesia, but that does not mean that he is a Muslim. Islam is a religion not a race or ethnicity. His mother became an anthropologist and she exposed both Barack and his sister to a number of religions. He didn't really practice any kind of religion until he joined
Rev. Wright's church. And of course he met Black Panthers and Black Muslims while he was doing neighborhood organization work in Chicago. A lot of Blacks became Muslim during the 60s and 70s as a way to return to their roots. That doesn't make them Islamic terrorists.
I agree with a lot of what Wright has had to say. Blacks and other minorities have been treated terribly in this country. I am not one of those "America, Right or Wrong!" types that think there is nothing to be ashamed of in our history and for the record, I am white! I don't think he should have said "God damn America." Probably, he should have said "God Forgive America." And I don't believe AIDS was created to kill off Blacks. America's shame is that our government kept the AIDS epidemic quiet thinking it was a gay disease and a way to kill off all the gays-right?
I am for Barack Obama all the way. If anyone is an appeaser it is McCain who has given up all his principles to get the support of the far right lunatics and Dick Cheney.
Speaking of AIDS, I am finally reading "And the Band Played On" and am totally horrified and enraged at not only Reagan who cut the funding for the CDC just about the time the American epidemic was getting started, but the media that didn't want to report on what was seen as a "gay" disease and the NHI and the NCI that released so little in the way of research grants, etc. and gave so little help to the doctors who were actually trying to find the answers and take care of the victims. Not to mention the docs who cared more about maintaining secrecy til they got their papers on the subject published. It's just like what you hear about tenured professors and how they only care about career advancement.
Plus, I don't think this could really happen this way now that we have the Internet where the CDC would have a data base/site where doctors around the country/world could go to get info and post it. Americans would have known it was in Europe and came from Africa much much sooner and realized it was a virus. Just think of the lives that might have been saved.
Mara
Marshal, after reading this over I must say you did an awesome job of avoiding the you hate America first crap.
I hold my country accouantable firstly because it is the one I have the most influence over and secondly cuz I am truly a part of this society. I have a stake in what it represents and what it does. Other people do bad things, many worse than us. I would not be proud to be a part of those societies. I can't say that I am particularly proud of the way this one is going lately either.
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