Barack Obama, Islam, and Rumor-Mongering
Adam Yoshida writes about the "problems" with Barack Obama:
I think that someone whose name is one letter removed from “Osama” and whose farther was a Moslem will obviously be starting with some serious disadvantages. And, while I’m at it, I’ll also ad that there are (unconfirmed) rumours that Obama himself is secretly a Muslim. Now, I don’t believe them but, if Obama ever runs for President, I won’t mind spreading them.
Yes, read that again just to be sure that you read it right: Adam Yoshida dislikes Barak Obama so much that he is willing to spread rumors about his being a Muslim regardless of whether there are confirmed at all. The truth of them would appear to be completely irrelevant — all that matters is whether they serve Yoshida's political agenda.
Yoshida is considered by some to be little more than a crank, but he has been published by Insight Magazine so he can't be dismissed as completely unrepresentative of conservatism. Is it a "conservative value" to try and use a person's alleged adherence to Islam to harm him politically?
It's interesting that Adam Yoshida would write about how Barak Obama is such a lousy politician and would make a lousy candidate for president. After all, if such criticisms are true then it hardly seems necessary to spread unconfirmed rumors in order to harm him. If he's really so bad then either he won't win future elections or, if he does, his bad service will only end up hurting Democrats in the long run.
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To answer your doubt.. he would lie to control the most powerful country in the world!!
The noticable feature of the insurgents and Al-Queda leaders is that they were atheists who use the muslims in the name of religion.
With Obama you have the ingredients; Muslim name, family heritage, mother who essentially is atheist and finally a family associated with foreign governments.
I can follow McCain, Clinton, Edwards and the like due to their long heritage being American, not 1st generation American.
He (Obama) is not what we need. The leaders of foreign Muslim countries would see his being a Pres. or VP as verification and give political righteousness to their radicalisms.
True service to our nation would be that he serve the people of his state and not represent the American people in the world arena. Is he capable? Who knows, but politically it would devistate our beliefs and heritage. Its not a popularity contest, its whether or not he represents the American people as a whole. He does not represent our nation, he is a new kid on the block who just moved in from a foreign country with his Muslim/poss. “atheist” family.
Yes the ones who want power will LIE “I am a devout Christian” as Obama has said cannot be taken as truth. I learned my faith from my parents and grand-parents..everyone does.
The statement that he “can say I never read all of the Koran” well that literally scares this soldier more.. that means he has not educated himself in the family religion.. he is open to radicalisms.
A true devout Muslim cannot kill..I know I have met them in Iraq.. they were the farmers and merchants forced to attack our positions when their families were being held hostage by the atheist, Muslim wanna-be power hungry insurgents.
You are who your family is, you are the man your parents raised. Maybe Obama will raise some good kids who will raise good kids who will rise to the occasion to be president or vice-president.
That’s a serious accusation. Can you support it?
Prove it.
Why dos that matter?
Why?
Why?
How and why?
That’s because he hasn’t been elected. If he is elected, though, he does represent the nation.
He was born in Hawaii.
Prove it.
Who are you, that you make so many accusations and claims without supporting them?
“A true devout Muslim cannot kill..”
Pass. That’s the “No true Scotsman” fallacy. While it may be true that some Iraqis are coerced into fighting, not all of them are. And the idea that folks in AQ are actually atheist is laughable.
i’ve found believers to be more adept at lying than atheists because atheists, i believe, have more integrity.
Barack Hussein Obama was a Muslim for almost 25 years and is a master at shaping his own mythology.
In Obama’s famous 2004 DNC Convention speech, he said “”My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father — my grandfather — was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.”
In fact, Obama’s grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama was a prominent and wealthy farmer from Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya. He was part of the British colonial system, owned a large ranch and was one of the first Muslim converts in his village. His son, Barack (changed from Baraka, an Arabic word meaning blessed) Hussein Obama Sr. was a child of privilege, not privation. He was an outstanding student, not a herdsman.
Like other children of privilege, Obama’s father was a person with access to the highest levels of government in Kenya and as a result of those connections was able to come to America to study in 1958 at the age of twenty-three.
His scholarship to Hawaii was organized by a former Kenyan cabinet minister, the late Tom Mboya, who was earmarked as Jomo Kenyatta’s successor. Kenyatta, president of the Kenya African Union and the country’s leading nationalist leader, was charged with managing the Mau Mau terrorist society in Kenya and sentenced to seven years hard labor along with five others.
The senior Obama married Shirley Ann (Anna) Dunham of Wichita, Kansas, who was an anthropology student and only eighteen years old. Anna was a self-professed atheist and Obama Jr. was born on August 4th, 1961, in Honolulu.
Two years later, the senior Obama divorced Dunham according to Sharia law and returned to Kenya the same year that Kenyatta took control as the first prime minister of a self-governing Kenya (June 1963). He became an economist and a powerful member of Kenyatta’s government which was one of the most corrupt regimes in Africa. The Mau Mau was finally banned by the Kenyan government in August 2003 (one year before Obama’s DNC speech).
Was Obama lying when he said, “My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation,” in his famous speech? His father abandoned him to return to the secret shame of Kenyatta’s history of rape, murder and arson.”
Obama’s father died in a driving accident in 1982, leaving three wives, six sons and a daughter.
Obama’s mother remarried. Again, she chose another Muslim, Lolo Soetoro, an oil company manager, who took Dunham and Obama to Indonesia, the most densely populated Islamic country in the world. Soetoro educated his stepson as a good Muslim by enrolling him in one of Jakarta’s Wahabbi schools. Wahabbism is the radical teaching that created the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad on the industrialized world.
When his mother divorced her second Muslim husband, Dunham sent Obama to live with his maternal grandmother in Honolulu. The teenager lived with his grandparents and attended the Punahou School, the school of Hawaii’s royalty. Dunham remained in Indonesia.
In his book, “Dreams from My Father,” Obama wrote of his mother, “She was a lonely witness for secular humanism, a soldier for New Deal, Peace Corps, position paper liberalism.” In his book, “The Audacity of Hope,” (pp 202-203), Obama wrote that she was “always too rational and too stubborn to accept anything she couldn’t see, feel, touch or count.” She was the quintessential secular humanist, he told Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter and Daren Briscoe.
Julia Suryakusuma, the author of Sex, Power and Nation, says that Ann was one of her closest friends from 1981 until her death of ovarian cancer in 1995. Suryakusuma, wrote in the Jakarta Post, “Ann was an anthropologist. Her doctorate research was on cottage industries in Java and she had a deep love for this country.” In a later paragraph, she writes, “I think she would also see Berry (Dunham’s nickname for Obama) as a great inspiration for Indonesia, her (Dunham) adopted home.”
Obama then studied for two years at Occidental College in California before transferring to Columbia College, the undergraduate division of Columbia University, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations and graduated in 1983. Obama then worked for Business International from January 1984 to January 1985. After that he worked as a community organizer at a Chicago housing project. It was during his time spent there that Obama joined the Trinity United Church of Christ (UCC). Oprah Winfrey and Howard Dean are also members of the UCC and on October 29, 2006, Dallas’s Cathedral of Hope, known as the “world’s largest gay church,” was accepted into the UCC.
Trinity is very anti-Israel and supports divestment. It is also unique among UCC churches nationwide in its black value system which requires commitment to the black community and family, adherence to the “black work ethic” and disavowal of the pursuit of “middleclassness.” It also states members must make a pledge to gift the black community with members’ learned skills and personal resources. They also must pledge allegiance to “all black leadership who espouse and embrace the black value system.”
Note: To appreciate the racism of the Black Value System, read its 12 precepts and covenantal statements (link above) , substituting the word white for black. Additionally, item 8, “Disavowal of the Pursuit of ‘Middleclassness’” is kind of an interesting concept.
The question needs to be asked, was Obama’s conversion faith-based or political expediency? In either case, Muslims view Obama as first a Muslim and as an apostate Muslim, he faces the death penalty in nearly the entire Islamic world.
There is no dispute among either ancient or modern Muslim scholars that under Islamic law, a murtadd, “one who turns his back on Islam,” an apostate, must be put to death. Irtidad, apostasy, is committing treason against God, and traitors deserve to be killed. At a minimum, other Muslims would shun him if not kill him and his mother. The fact they are eagerly welcomed by the Muslim community begs the question, is he their ‘Manchurian’ candidate?
At a minimum, Obama should be asked if he will support the efforts of Christian missionaries in Islamic countries to peacefully convert Muslims to Christianity.
In his 1995 memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” Obama admits to using marijuana and cocaine.
On “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” Obama was asked by Leno about taking drugs. Said Leno, “Remember, Senator, you are under oath. Did you inhale?” Replied Obama, “That was the point.”
Even more incriminating than the fact that Obama inhaled and admits to “maybe a little blow,” Obama is a cigarette smoker, actually, a chain smoker. That’s more than a just a little substance abuse. The question begs asking, how much of a striver can he be if he’s also a smoker? It was sort of disappointing to read a recent interview in which Mr. Obama claimed to have quit except for the occasional lapse.
Obama has become the Senate’s point man on ethics and now says he will no longer accept rides on corporate jets. This after having accepted 23 such flights, some to attend his own fundraisers, in 2005 alone.
Ethical questions also surround Obama’s shady real estate deal and relationship with indicted political fundraiser and Arab-American activist Tony Rezko. Obama bought a $1.65 million dollar mansion at a gigantic discounted price, some $300,000 less than the asking price. The same day, Rezko’s wife bought the adjoining lot, paying the full $625,000 asking price. The Rezko involvement invited a second question for Obama: did Rezko’s wife in effect subsidized Obama’s purchase of the opulent home and also provided an abutting private preserve that adds to its ambience? The lot isn’t accessible from the public street but can be reached from Obama’s property.
Pretty good for a guy earning $165,200 per and who one time he ran his credit cards up so high that the credit card company denied him access to further use of his card.
Obama has proven himself to be a nearly perfect leftist dhimmicrat. He supports homosexual marriage, racial preferences, gun control, flag-burning, socialized medicine and the absolute right to abortion, including partial-birth abortions. He is anti-war, voted against the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act, against privatizing Social Security and opposes the death penalty, three strikes laws and school vouchers.
He believes in the separation of church and state — except when he campaigns in black churches.
He loves Jimmy Carter and is the 18th most liberal member of the Senate, receiving a 100% rating from Americans for Democratic Action, NARAL Pro -Choice America, National Organization for Women, the NAACP and the National Education Association.
Some may say that this backgrounder is biased, however, perception is everything in politics and both Ted Kennedy and CNN (Cable News Network) have mistakenly referred to Obama as Osama (as in ben Laden).
I just don’t believe America will ever elect an uber-liberal, apostate Muslim and self-admitted drug user to the Office of the President of the United States.
What really scares me, though, is that I could be wrong.
Well, it would be a significant improvement over the current holder of that office.
How sad if he’s a closet Muslim and can’t even come out and say it. Does that disqualify him for office? Of course not, but it does give one to pause and contemplate the history of Islam and his intentions for our country. We must not forget that many have shed innocent blood in the name of Allah. True Christians following the one true God must always follow who God is and that is love. Barack Obama is a wonderful speaker and politician. Let’s just hope that he truly wants what’s best for our country, because whatever he espouses will probably come to fruition.
I’m really disturbed and disillusioned by most of these comments. I think that we Americans need to educate ourselves. I am a practicing muslim and am a proud American. I am a second generation American and have a right to live and thrive in this country. As a little girl, I remember proudly telling a cousin that because I was born in the US, I could one day be president. The racism, intolerance and ignorance that I see today never phased me. I’m reading article after article about how Senator Obama may be Muslim and not a single comment that says, “so what?” Unless Americans stop demonizing Muslims, how can we expect the World community to see us as a civilized, tolerant nation? Moreover, as a Muslim, I have been taught by my parents to respect all faiths. I am not alone in believing we are all children of God and we must respect/love one another.
The Islamophobia and blatantly prejudiced remarks are disturbing. A half a century ago, it was ‘the communists’ or the Japanese-Americans. Today, it’s Muslims.
A US president practising a rearward religion that aims to political control of the world is a matter of concern not only for America, but also for the whole world.
Prophet Mohammed preached XIV centuries ago that “those amongst my followers who take over Caesar’s City shall have their sins forgiven”. Fortunately, when Mohammed’s prediction came to reality one millennium later, power had shifted westwards and Constantinople had no real Caesar.
Nowadays, Caesar’s City is Washington. Is not difficult to work out what would it mean to the “righteous” followers of the Prophet if is taken from within.
I know this message board is about Senator Obama and how we feel about a president who has Muslim background. (I’m appalled that this is even an issue but I realize a country who isn’t even ready to put a woman in office or an African-American really has a long way to go.) However, I’d like to respond to previous comment…
Calling Islam a ‘rearward’ religion only tells me that you have a great deal to learn about the second largest faith in the World. There are a lot of lies, misconceptions and anti-Islam propaganda out there. There was plenty of this before but the backlashing that has occurred after 9-11 is severe. Sure, the crazy “fundamentalists” don’t help to dispel myths about Islam but it is one’s responsibility to educate oneself before forming a hateful opinion of an entire population of followers. The World has a short term memory of history but when history is studied in the least biased way, one would see how progressive and FORWARD Islam has been. Prophet Muhammad never preached violence and contrary to popular and baseless opinion, Islam was never spread by the sword. Moreover, those who understand Islam know that the concept of “Jihad” translates to “inner struggle” to do good and to become closer to God. Also, I have close Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist friends. I respect all faiths and as a Muslim was taught that all faiths came from the same God and and ultimately preach the same message. The arrogance I see in today’s World saddens me deeply. I see people preaching left and right about being ‘the chosen people’, insults hurled at other religions and pure hatred. Understand one another. Ask a Muslim what Islam means, not a crazed, mentally-ill and angry terrorist. Open your minds. www.Alislam.org is a website for a movement for the “Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam.” It’s a movement whose main purpose is to remind us what Islam really means and that it is in fact a progressive, peaceful and universal religion.
All religions are built upon foundations of fear and ignorance. Whenever faith eclipses reason, the “righteous” can justify all manners of brutality against their brothers and sisters. Wake up people. ALL religions are nonsensical and dangerous. There are still truths about our world that we don’t yet comprehend, but you won’t find the answers in your silly stylized rituals.
It may seem like religion is at the root of all conflict. The real source of conflict is ignorance and arrogance. It is the ‘holier than thou’ mentality that religious fundamentalists (of ANY and every faith) hold that divide people. If we studied the essence of any religion, one would find more commonalities than differences. All religions are at their core peace loving. My point is that it is not religion that corrupts man. It is man that corrupts, misconstrues, exploits and defames religion.
I have studied religions extensively, and I have not found this to be the case. Would you care to support this claim?
Please support this claim as well.
Religions are created by humans and, as such, cannot be “corrupted” by humans. Religions are only what humans make of them, good or bad.
Adam Yoshida is beyond being a crank, he’s certifiably nuts. The fact that he has been published by Insight Magazine hardly makes him someone to be taken seriously. Insight is a Moonie organ. Now that I read some of the comments here, though, Yoshida sounds almost reasonable. Quite the collection of nuts.
Hang in there Saira. This too shall pass. We’ll wake up from this bad dream soon, I hope.
There are certain fundamental commonalities between the three Abrahamic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I could write an essay on all the similarities, the most important of which is the belief in one God. If you studied religions as you say you have, you would know this. I’ll go even farther by saying that followers of non-Abrahamic faiths also followed basic principals of faith. A muslim believes that each religion on our diverse planet was brought down at a specific point in history, for a certain people and each preached the same basic message. The reason why they seem different is because of culturaldifferences and age, both of which wear away at original belief system over time.
Yes, I know that these three religions are monotheistic. The fact that three religions are monotheistic does not, however, support your claim that “there are more commonalities than differences” in the essence of “any religion” we look at. Your original claim is basically that all religions that have ever existed have more in common than they have differences; citing a single commonality among three religions doesn’t even come close to supporting your claim.
Yes, followers of a faith also have principles of faith; not every religion is based on faith, though.
A Muslim believes this about every genuine religion, not ever religion. Regardless, it doesn’t support your claim.
This assumes the truth of your claim, something you have not established.
I said monotheism was but one common thread, perhaps the most important one. The essence of religion, most religions, is believe in God, to become closer to Him, and to emulate his greatness by doing good. This is in itself enough to bring religions together toward a common goal. Set aside the historical battles, the proselytising, the arrogance and a Christian will see a Muslim pray for the very same things, a Muslim will see a Jew pray to the very same God.
I started writing about all the similarities and realized there were far too many to write here. I could spend a day writing an essay about it. Read the Qur’an, the Torah, the Bible. It’s all there. The moment we all understand our similarities and see the ‘big picture,’ we’ll start moving forward.
http://www.otago.ac.nz/chaplain/resour/DJCMCLG.pdf
I thought this was an excellent description of the basics.
It’s also irrelevant to many other religions.
This is obviously untrue about religions which are polytheistic, religions which don’t believe in your god, and religions which are atheistic.
This can only be true for religions that all believe in your god, but it’s not true so long as they have radically different conceptions of your god.
So far, you’ve only been able to provide a single similarity among three religions. I don’t believe you could provide any support for your original claim without large-scale Question Begging and other fallacies.
Besides playing devils advocate and cutting/pasting my comments, read a little of what I am saying. As far as “polytheistic” religions go, lets look at the ancient religion of Hinduism. Many devout followers recognize that Hindusism is basically monotheistic. It recognizes that there are many facets of God (misconstrued as individual deities) and many qualities but there is ultimately one supreme being (Bhagwan). For the record, many Muslims revere Krishna as an ancient prophet of God in addition to the line of prophets before and after Abraham.
You’re getting into semantics when defining religion as merely a set of beliefs and moral codes. For the purposes of my argument I am speaking of religions that worship a supreme being, a power that creates and governs the Universe.
I’m not playing “devil’s advocate,” I’m asking you to support your assertions. I have read what you are saying, and what I see is that you make lots of assertions without providing evidence to support them.
Yes, many Hindus treat it as monotheistic. Not all do, though - there are even schools of Hinduism which are atheistic. Moreover, there are plenty of followers of polytheistic faiths where such debate doesn’t exist. There are still followers of ancient Greek polytheism, for example.
I never said that religion is merely a set of beliefs and moral codes. Religions are very complex systems of beliefs, rituals, traditions, and behaviors. Indeed, it is precisely because I recognize just how complex religions are that I dispute your claim that they are all “at their core” anything at all, peace loving or otherwise. There is no single “essence” that is common to every religion that has existed, just as there is no single essence that is common to every human culture that has existed (excepting the presence of humans, naturally).
You made a claim about religions generally, not a claim about a couple of select religions. You said, for example, that it “may seem like religion is at the root of all conflict,” which is a general statement about religion. It can’t be read as a statement pertaining only to monotheistic faiths, thus implicitly allowing that polytheistic and atheistic religions are at the root of volence. You said that if we “studied the essence of any religion” we’d find more commonalities than differences — any religion, not just a few monotheistic religions. You said that all religions are peace loving, not just that a few religions are peace loving.
What it sounds like to me is that you are creating an ad hoc definition of “religion” which encompasses only a minority of religions that have ever existed. I’m sorry, but I can’t go along with that - it’s a fallacy known as the No True Scotsman fallacy. If you are going to defend your original claims, they must be defended in a manner that includes more than just a few monotheistic faiths. Alternatively, you can just withdraw your original claims and replace them with narrower claims that can be defended.
Since when does Muslim automatically equate Evil? Christians have a much longer and more “evil” history to suggest they would be wrong for leaders. But that would be generalization. The percentage of Muslims that are “terrorists” is a fraction of the total Muslim population. So what makes you think Obama is one? Prove it please, don’t make random accusations and provide actual evidence.
Muslim’s want to rule the world? Is this really something they alone want? Democratic (?) America is ruled by fear, as were the Crusades and the Cold War, the “Holy” Roman Empire, were they Muslim too? I grew up in the late 60’s and early 70’s when America was afraid of equality, free love and a war with a “communisitic” country we entered knowing France failed in it’s attempt to colonize and control it! How chauvanistic a people we are! Right is Might(? )We were the terroists to the Vietnamese, and are the invading wave of fear in the middle east are we not? It is even more frightening to me that a Liberal Democratic like Hilary Clinton is so fearful of Obama that she would be compelled to raise the question of his religious upbringing as a child and his honesty to the American people. We are the same people who did not elect Adlai Stevenson because he was divorced, we were afraid of Kennedy because he was a Roman Catholic, Barry Goldwater and McCarthy because they spoke the truth, be it from opposite ends of the spectrum. Perspectives of fear, the unkown, unable to understand, the lack of any desire to understand each other and the inability to accept others for their differances and glory in our diversity. Winston Churchill during WW2 said it so well and it is ever so timely, “We have nothing to fear but fear it self.”