A Fifth Of All Americans Believe Obama Is A Muslim

[poliphilo]

50 years ago the sort of people who instinctively hate Barack Obama would have called him a commie. Now the enemy de jour is Islam, so he must be a Muslim. Apparently a fifth of all Americans believe this. He's brown, his middle name is Hussein, he doesn't namecheck Jesus as his personal Lord and Saviour every other sentence so he must be one of them. QED.

And somehow they're missing the obvious fact about him, that's he's the sort of pragmatic political person to whom any kind of ideology is beside the point. He's complex, he spends his life dealing with complex problems- and he knows the simplicities of the Bible and the Koran won't get him very far in framing solutions. If you could get him on the sofa in a moment of absolute candour he would probably tell you that he has far too much on his plate to give much thought to religion.

But ideological people- I was one once so I know- find it very hard to believe that their enemies aren't as ideological as they are .Life is a game of chess and we've chosen white, so that guy over there must be black, right?  Tell them the game isn't being played on a board, but in many dimensions, and they blink back in confusion.

It could be that the great struggle going on in the world today isn't a struggle between ideologies- left right, east West, Christian Muslim-  but between the ideologues- those who live in a dualistic world of right and wrong- and those who see life as full of complexity and ambiguity. It's a war between crazy conviction on the one hand and clearsightedness on the other. I'd like to say clearsightedness will eventually triumph, as- over the very long term- in spite of many setbacks-  it always has-  but I find I simply don't have the confidence.

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I think your general point is absolutely right - we have the ideologues with us always. But that such a specific and easily-disprovable belief has gained such wide currency is still a depressing reflection on the level of political discourse (to give it as polite a name as I can) in the States at the moment.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I think you've nailed it right there.

[dadi.livejournal.com]

I used to think that the war was between people who had developed their own system of morality and spirituality which they are always ready to adapt to change, and those who are able only to adopt ready made ideologies and defend them as written-in-stone certainties. Nowadays, I simply think it is a battle between a dual and a holistic worldview...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"The best lack all conviction and the worst are full
Of passionate intensity."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Both pitfalls might be avoided if people would only stop and think....

[upasaka.livejournal.com]

The sad thing is that most of the Obama-haters I know think he is Muslim and a commie... and a Nazi...

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Obama's enemies will apply any label that will win over any faction. They not only push on the "birther" issue and the Muslim allegation, but they also alternate between calling him a communist and a fascist without a clue that these are opposing ideologies. They will stop at nothing, incuding sabotaging good legislation in order to make Obama's policies look like failures. Unfortunately, they are succeeding, as they did in a kinder and gentler way with Jimmy Carter, and as they did with laws proposed by John Kennedy (tax cut, and Medicare, as specifics).
United we stand, divided we fall. It is not the Obamas who are dividing America. I fear for our country.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

That's one way of looking at it. Another is that a lot of ordinary Americans can't figure out who (or what) he is, and saying that he's a Muslim or not born here is one way of expressing that sense that he's Not One Of Us.

As I think you know, I was creeped out by the first chapter of his book, The Audacity of Hope, when I read it in spring 2008. (It was disturbing enough that I had to put the book face-down so I wouldn't see his picture.) I haven't seen anything to reassure me since then. I am sure he's an American citizen, and I doubt he has any deeply held convictions, religious or otherwise. I think he's been interviewing for his next job (U.N. Poobah) ever since the election.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Kinda hard to pin down, ain't he!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He seems to have persuaded the Israelis and the Palestinians to get back into talks. Now there's a policy success.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It seemed a lot clearer what he stood for when he was running for office than it does now. He's the most elusive President you've had in a good long while.

I thought he was bright, but putting a date on the withdrawal from Afghanistan was the stupidest thing. As a liberal I'm disappointed at his failure to carry through on his promises to do liberal things- like shutting down the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

It's not just Americans who are puzzled.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

The only truly honest thing he said during the campaign was that he was a blank slate onto which people could project their hopes and dreams.

Trouble is, no one believed him when he said he was a blank slate. Everyone was so caught up in the sparklies of Hope and Change.

My one consolation is that in a few years he'll be working at the U.N. and largely out of our hair.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

a communist or a fascist or heaven help us, a "liberal"

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

I expect all these things seem do-able before the American equivalent of Sir Humphrey gets to you and says "that would be very courageous, Mr President".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I gather, from things I've read, that an American president has less power to get things done than a British prime minister.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But will his successor do any better?

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Actually, things may get better here in a hurry after November. Annoying as our president is to me, it's really the Congress that has been making big economic mischief since 2006, and we're about to vote some of those bums out in November.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I wholeheartedly agree with you on this one:-(

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." (Bertrand Russell)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And no sooner has one generation of fools shuffled off stage than along comes the next.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

A fifth of all Americans also can't find Nevada on a map of the United States. And we're currently the foremost nuclear power on planet Earth.

Sweet dreams!

[red-girl-42.livejournal.com]

I was going to say something like this. I hear "communist" thrown around with respect to Obama far more than I hear about him being a Muslim, actually.

[red-girl-42.livejournal.com]

Oh, and today on a forum I saw someone talking about "Obamunism." Cute.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose Americans are any stupider on average than any other group of people, but the size of the arsenal has always been a little worrying.

Mind you- look at Pakistan- another nuclear state- and largely incapable of dealing with the natural disaster that has just hit its people.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Actually, I am convinced that Americans tend to be considerably more stupid than any other group of nationals. Try debating with a so-called conservative and this is immediately apparent.

One problem is that Americans tend to pride themselves on their knowledge of the world, yet their knowledge of the world is filtered through a highly-partisan and privately controlled press -- and done so with fiendish transparency. The manifold sins of the Republican party, and the crimes they commited under the Cheney-Bush junta, have simply disappeared. Now, there is only Obama and the serious debate over whether the Democrats really are destroying the country and what's to be done about it.

No such debate was allowed in the mainstream press during the Cheney-Bush junta. The debate then was whether we had failed the noble ideals and proposals articulated by our Dear Leader after the attacks in 2001. In the end, Bush himself was condemned as having failed his own agenda.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think we get particularly annoyed at the stupidity of Americans because we expect so much of you. A nation founded in enlightenment ideas- with so much energy and idealism- really ought to do better.

[happydog.livejournal.com]

"half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
Rip down all hate I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull, I dreamed
We'll meet on ledges soon said I
Proud 'neath heated brow
Ah but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now"

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Good old Bob!

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Precisely and you should be annoyed.

It helps to remember that men like Thomas Jefferson were an aberration. They left behind no successors, either cultural or intellectual, and during the American Civil War the last hope or hint of a functional aristocracy in this country was destroyed. And without a functional aristocracy, a civlized society in any meaningful sense of the word is pretty much impossible.

The US, despite all its pretentions, is a nation of ignorant peasants. It was populated by the dregs of the British Isles and it shows. Always bear this in mind and you'll find it much easier to laugh at our imbecilities.