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<p>Wow, I have never seen as much ignorance as I’ve seen on the parents cafe of this forum… i can assure you most of us do not wake up with a suicidal frenzy, but rather the hope that MAYBE THE people who choose to generalize willingly and remain ignorant intentionally do not ACTUALLY exist… but this place just makes those dreams dissipate into thin air.</p>
<p>hoping we ignorant parents don’t exist is a fine dream as long as it remains wishful thinking,…actually in your paragraph you have replaced suicidal frenzy with homicidal frenzy in an elimination fantasy, at least on the ‘plane’ of wishful thinking,…</p>
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<p>Unless Linda Chavez is lying, and I doubt it because her column is based on Obama’s book, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, and her assertions could be easily fact-checked, he spent the majority of his childhood being raised by his maternal grandparents in Hawaii. In fact, according to Chavez, he barely references his mother, atheist or not, in this book. When you read this column, you will see that his upbringing was much more complicated and potentially disfunctional than most people are aware.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/Column.aspx?ContentGuid=a74935fb-393d-4a81-9295-a86709d81846[/url]”>http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/Column.aspx?ContentGuid=a74935fb-393d-4a81-9295-a86709d81846</a></p>
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So I guess you weren’t darn sure, mini. The fact that Obama was raised by his grandparents was pretty well covered in all the Obamania.</p>
<p>The Chavez article is quite thought provoking. I was unaware that his mom had sent him back to America while choosing to keep his half-sister with her. How painful for a young boy that must have been!</p>
<p>“Great, all of which does nothing to address my questions about how he would be viewed in Muslim countries.”</p>
<p>TourGuide, it addresses YOUR post containing lies about his background, and YOUR refusal to either retract the post as a mistake or defend it as justified, which we were talking about on page 2, before you changed the subject.</p>
<p>I really don’t see how we can begin to discuss how he will be viewed in Muslim countries before we first separate fact from fiction, and you appear to be unwilling to do so. Until we get past that point, there’s nothing else to talk about with you.</p>
<p>To resume the conversation with users of the forum who are basing their assumptions on data rather than imagination, I agree with those who have suggested that militant extremists in the Muslim world, like militant extremists elsewhere, view the world as black and white: you are with them, or you are against them. Moderate Muslims, atheists, Christians, Jews…they all oppose the imposition of Sharia law on a billion people, and thus they all are enemies to the Islamist movement. So I doubt that fine theological distinctions between President Enemy #1 and President Enemy #2 will play any role in their attitude or strategy toward the United States.</p>
<p>If I may humbly suggest,
the manner in which B. H. Obama will be viewed within the religio-political dynamic of Islamic countries will be much mitigated by his skin color. A big plus there.</p>
<p>The more interesting question to me is how this will play out in B. H. Obama’s own initiatives and policies when confronting, as president, the realities of Muslims both in America and around the world.</p>
<p>The ability to parse out the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.</p>
<p>I find the umbrage over any implication that B. H. Obama has a background that involves Islam, bigoted, revealing and shameful.</p>
<p>I do, however, think Obama’s unique situation worth contemplating.
-I am sad to see his so-called friends run from it.</p>
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<p>If I may enter this discussion… I am aware that this is the Parent’s Cafe, but I do have a little to say on this matter as I’ve lived a good deal of my life in the Arabian Gulf and interacted with a number of people in the “Muslim Countries”.</p>
<p>Essentially what I have to say is this, the vast majority of people will judge, form an opinion of him, assuming he gets elected, based upon his policies and the effect that they have upon each of their lives (for better or worse, the US affects most of us throughout the world in some manner or the other). His religion, his name, his father’s religion and ancestry might make more people curious about him or be noted in newspapers and general discussions at the start, but eventually it’ll be the decisions he makes that’ll influence the opinion most people have about him.</p>
<p>I can’t speak of course for extremists not having known many in my life and not being particularly fundamentalist in my own views. :)</p>
<p>You know, I can’t really understand why people need be classified by their religion; while for many it is a paramount guiding force in their lives, for just as many if not more, it is one part of their character, whose influence need not be overstated or underestimated but just one part of a larger psyche.</p>
<p>One of my closest and yet most knowledgeable friends is a Muslim. I don’t particularly see his faith as the agent that determines his views, it’s more his intellect and character.</p>
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<p>Were I an atheist, I would not want B. H. Obama’s mother to be my poster child for atheist motherhood, or motherhood in general. And although we presume all mothers to love their sons–or, at least those who chose not to abort them in timely fashion–it seems to me that this particular godless-mother, so to speak (if mini is to be believed–now, there’s a thought), passed on the old fashioned and traditional approach to motherhood in favor of…well, something else. </p>
<p>Perhaps she is a progressive.</p>
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<p>There are a few factual errors in the column by Chavez. There are many references to Obama’s mother in his book, I’m not sure why she thinks that he barely refers to her. One reference to his mother’s faith is on page 50 where he says:</p>
<p>“My mother’s confidence in needlepoint virtues depended on a faith I didn’t possess, a faith that she would refuse to describe as religious; that, in fact, her experience told her was sacrilegious: a faith that rational, thoughtful people could shape their own destiny. In a land where fatalism remained a necessary tool for enduring hardship, where ultimate truths were kept separate from day to day realities, she was a lonely witness for secular humanism, a soldier for New Deal, Peace corps, position-paper liberalism.”</p>
<p>This is from a description of her loneliness while living in Indonesia. There are many others.</p>
<p>Contrary to what Chavez writes, Obama’s mother died several years ago. He did not live “briefly in Indonesia” with his mother. He was there for four years before her concerns for his safety and his education influenced her decision for him to return to Hawaii to continue his schooling and to live with his grandparents, until she and his sister could return, which happened a few months later. He lived with his mother and sister, in close proximity to his grandparents, but to say that a majority of his childhood was spent being raised by his grandparents is inaccurate.</p>
<p>His family life as a child was unconventional, there’s no doubt about that and, as with all of us, it obviously shaped the human being that he is today. Chavez is disingenuous when she complains that Obama seems unconcerned with the breakdown of family life. She obviously knows, if she indeed read the book, that he spent years working in the Altgeld projects in Chicago in attempts to build community and assist with the hundreds of families who were broken and suffering financial, educational, and employment difficulties. </p>
<p>The book is a fascinating look into the man. I highly recommend reading the book itself and not depending on short reviews to convey the information contained therein.</p>
<p>DPX–you’ve lost me there. Please point toward the “bigoted” posts on this thread. Thanks!!!</p>
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<p>I have noticed that Obama’s life is the sort that can be spun many, many ways depending on one’s agenda. I read one article that cast his mother in the light of martyr because she sent Obama to live with his grandparents so he could attend a good school. Who knows?</p>
<p>Sorry, but I’m not able to take your word as the definitive one quite yet, alwaysamom.</p>
<p>As for:</p>
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<p>I hope the good people of cc keep that in mind when it comes time to vent Giuliani (Catholic) and Romney (Mormon). Somehow I think we’ll find fewer people here taking umbrage at the mention of religion when that time comes.</p>
<p>Nothing like casting aspersions when no one’s said anything of the kind about either one of them.</p>
<p>Here’s a bit on Obama from a WSJ Peggy Noonan column, where she complains about pompous politicians:
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This week comes the previously careful Sen. Barack Obama, flapping his wings in Time magazine and explaining that he’s a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better. “In Lincoln’s rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat–in all this he reminded me not just of my own struggles.”</p>
<p>Oh. So that’s what Lincoln’s for. Actually Lincoln’s life is a lot like Mr. Obama’s. Lincoln came from a lean-to in the backwoods. His mother died when he was 9. The Lincolns had no money, no standing. Lincoln educated himself, reading law on his own, working as a field hand, a store clerk and a raft hand on the Mississippi. He also split some rails. He entered politics, knew more defeat than victory, and went on to lead the nation through its greatest trauma, the Civil War, and past its greatest sin, slavery. </p>
<p>Barack Obama, the son of two University of Hawaii students, went to Columbia and Harvard Law after attending a private academy that taught the children of the Hawaiian royal family. He made his name in politics as an aggressive Chicago vote hustler in Bill Clinton’s first campaign for the presidency.</p>
<p>You see the similarities.</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with Barack Obama’s r</p>
<p>Here’s the rest. I can’t edit it correctly:
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There is nothing wrong with Barack Obama’s r</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with Barack Obama’s r</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006884[/url]”>http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006884</a></p>
<p>Just read it for yourself! I don’t know what I screwed up. Noonan is basically saying Obama’s background is a log cabin-free zone.</p>
<p>HH, you make me smile. If you’ll notice, I recommended that people actually READ the book. I wasn’t suggesting that anyone, let alone you, take my “word as the definitive one”. I wasn’t ‘spinning’ anything. Read the book. Then you won’t have to rely on inaccurate online reviews, such as the one by Chavez.</p>
<p>always, I didn’t read his book. The raised by grandma factoid was mentioned consistently, but of course, could be wrong. Obama himself has said at varrying times that he was not raised in a religious home, that his home had the Bible, Koran & Torah on the bookshelf, that he answered morning calls to prayer. I just don’t like how he bristles when he is asked about the Muslim roots. They may be as tenuous as my H’s Catholic roots, who was raised by a non-Catholic mom married to a non-practicing Catholic man whom she divorced. Just answer the question, Obama. Don’t run from them…Or your voting obligation, for that matter.</p>
<p>I think having Muslim roots might be a problem for a presidential candidate for obvious reasons. Romney will surely face questions about the Later Day Saints, as well. I don’t think most Americans fear a hotline running udner the ocean from the White House to the Vatican if Rudi is president, but he might be asked how his religion might affect how he governs. We’ve already seen that for Catholics, it doesn’t seem to make a bit of difference. We haven’t had many Muslim or Mormon officeholders. Does asking questions show ignorance or biggotry? I’m not convinced that it does.</p>
<p>SS, his grandparents were a very important part of his life, as is the case in many families. He and his mother lived with his grandparents prior to moving to Indonesia, and then when he (and his mom and sister a few months later) returned, until they found their own apartment. The descriptions in the book of his relationship with his grandparents were some of my favorite parts. Relationships which span generations like that have always interested me, partly due to my own relationship with my grandmother, who lived with us when I was very young.</p>
<p>I haven’t seen Obama asked in an interview about his “Muslim roots”, which, by the way, I think is overstating his situation, so I don’t know why he bristled. Perhaps it’s because there are no Muslim roots! 
I actually haven’t seen him talk about religion very much at all, yet. It’s early and I’m sure we’ll get the opportunity to learn even more about this man.</p>
<p>I agree that asking questions doesn’t necessarily indicate ignorance or bigotry. All candidates should be asked, and should expect to be asked, detailed questions about their positions, background, etc. I do think, however, that those asking the questions should make every attempt to be informed about all the candidates. Lastly, I think that the questions asked of Giuliani may come from Catholics themselves, as many of his views are in direct opposition to those of the church.</p>
<p>Garland, let me rephrase my previous post for you:
Sorry, that’s the way I framed it the first time. </p>
<p>Ironically, the only ones castigating either the evidence or implications of B. H. Obama’s multifarious background are his earnest and crooning supporters. They prefer the cuddly Obama. This thread had barely got off the ground before those who perceive themselves as Democratic care-takers/handlers were insisting that B. H. Obama had never, ever, a moments notice in Islam; no connection to Islam whatsoever (atheism forbid), with the understanding, I suppose, that this would somehow contaminate the fluffy caricature of their chap or diminish his electoral chances.</p>
<p>I, on the other hand, find such circumstances to be, in the current crisis, something that would subtly recommend him for future employment in the executive branch of government–others may honestly disagree. Still, other’s may, rationally and with precedent, chose to vote “present”.</p>
<p>Multiculturalism amongst the clouds is, by nature, different than multiculturalism on the hard ground. As above.</p>
<p>It is worth noting that the original reports are reported to be the doing of those in the H. Clinton campaign.</p>