Anger? How about righteous indignation?

[geiger]

I recently had a very depressing conversation with my mother, who had just read Obama Nation by the Kenyan man who just got deported for trying to incite violence against the leadership in his own county. This is the same cynical opportunist that wrote "Unfit for Command," about John Kerry when the book in reality should have been about George Bush, as it looks like it is turning out to be.

Anyways,I understand the psychology about how people read and believe stuff that re-inforces other stuff that they already come to believe as truth, but nevertheless....

Here is what the publisher offers on amazon.com as a summary (Threshold Publishers is G.O.P. strategist Mary Matalin's conservative-minded imprint of Simon & Schuster's Pocket Books division, also reportedly in the running for publishing Karl Rove's memoirs): The book is characterized to "document:"

Obama's extensive connections with Islam and radical politics, from his father and step-father's Islamic backgrounds, to his Communist and socialist mentors in Hawaii and Chicago, to his long-term and close associations with former Weather Underground heroes William Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn....
...-Barack and Michelle's 20-year-long religious affiliation with the black-liberation theology of former Trinity United Church of Christ Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose sermons have always been steeped in a rage first expressed by Franz Fanon , Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X....
...-Obama's continuing connections with Kenya, the homeland of his father, through his support for the candidacy of Raila Odinga, the radical socialist presidential contender....
...-Obama's involvement in the slum-landlord empire of the Chicago political fixer Tony Rezko, who helped to bankroll Obama's initial campaigns and to purchase of Barack and Michelle's dream-home property.
-the background and techniques of the Obama campaign's cult of personality, including the derivation of the words "hope" and change"
-Obama's far-left domestic policy, his controversial votes on abortion, his history of opposition to the Second Amendment, his determination to raise capital-gains taxes, his impractical plan to achieve universal health care, and his radical plan to tax Americans to fund a global-poverty-reduction program
-Obama's nave, anti-war, anti-nuclear foreign-policy, predicated on the reduction of the military, the eradication of nuclear weapons and an overconfidence in the power of his personality, as if belief in change alone could somehow transform international politics, achieve nuclear-weapons disarmament and withdrawal from Iraq without adverse consequences, for us, for the Iraqis or for Israel.

Not exactly an "unbiased" scholarly work as it is marketed (now, hopefully you don't have to go buy the book), but I just have one question. Even if a person is a racist, like my mother is unfortunately, how do you expect an intelligent man to turn his back on his whole upbringing, ethnicity and roots. How can you expect him not to draw on his experiences to shape his belief systems? How could you not think he loves this country with every fiber of his being, with all the opportunities he has been afforded, coming from nowhere. How would you not expect his wife to be the proudest she has ever been in her life, to see the man she loves most overcome prejudice, cynicism and corruption, to be in the position that he is today.

Now that I think of it, I guess I have a second question. James Madison, one of our founding fathers and authors of The Constitution, once wrote something to the effect that the plurality of religions and religious beliefs would keep our democracy viable. Since when did the religion of Islam get scratched off the list? Even if you want to accept the premise that the present leaders of this country have entered into an illegal occupation of a country to fight extremists, that's what they are, they are extremists, who do not represent the majority of the faith.

The vile that spews from the mouths of the radical idealogues and their rabid followers about this decent and honest man (now even McCain has had to acknowlege this) is not befitting the principles and values that we are supposed to hold dear as a democracy. Or as loving Christians, for that matter.

[Berry Cool]

1. Racism isn't logical. Never has been, never will be.

It's driven by fear, not logic--fear that someone who isn't like you might get or is getting something you want and can't get.

And Islam got scratched off the list of plurality of religious beliefs that some Americans can tolerate on 9/11--again, driven by FEAR, not logic.

You might ask your mother: If this book is so truthful, how come the author couldn't even get Bernardine Dohrn's first name right?

Sadly, she sounds like a person who learned her racism at a very young age from people SHE could not believe could possibly be wrong because of how much she had come to respect them. Lucky thing you broke the cycle.

I don't think it's possible to break an illogical thing like racism with logic. It's actually more effective to fight emotion with emotion. Barack and Michelle coming over to her house for an evening and talking with her and showing her what they're really like would probably be more effective than 100 of your logical arguments. Since I doubt that's going to happen, though, you might want to try to get her to watch that half-hour he's buying on TV. At least try to get her to watch. She may be tempted to dismiss it as propaganda, but you never know--some little piece of it may reach out and grab her and make her think: "Hmm. Really?" And maybe, just maybe, it'll put a chink in that armor of racism and maybe that hole can be made to grow until she breaks free of it completely.

[geiger]

3. I agree with everything you are saying. I just had to get it off my chest.

By the way, I recently read a book that I can't remember the name of, that addressed the emotional issue, that I think the Obama campaign is trying to tackle.

[Democrats_win]

2. Ridiculous book sounds like one of those anti-Da Vinci Code books.

I started to read one of those anti-Da Vinci Code books and all it contained was accusations rather than facts. I wanted to yell, "Where's the beef?" The author thinks that just because he's saying it, the reader should accept it. I suppose sheep will accept it but it's really easy to be a sponge rather than a filter for such books.

The list you provided contains words like "affiliation" and "connection." It's funny because Republicans often use phrases like "freedom of association" when it comes to gay rights and not giving them equal employment opportunities. Republicans always want it both ways. They want to control everything. Look where that's got us.

[geiger]

4. righto. she's been enthralled with all the DaVinci crap, as obscene

and outrageous as it is....

[barack the house]

5. Most that read the book most likely weren't overly keen to vote Obama to begin >

with. The thing is the book is pretty much debunked every day as the truth rises to the surface.

[Berry Cool]

6. Yes, people who read a book like that are looking more for confirmation of their own prejudices

than for actual factual information.

[geiger]

9. I hate the title of the book. It is meant to conjure images of the anti-Christ and the "end days"

I know this. From having grown up in a fundamentalist, authoritarian household.

[crazy_vanilla]

7. Corsi is not Kenyan

He traveled to Kenya to dig up dirt and stir trouble, but was deported for lack of working visa.

I hate him for all the misinformation and lies he has thrown out there with his "books".:spank:

I will not read his current or any of his books, it will be a waste of my time.

[geiger]

8. I think he is Kenyan actually, and I heard on NPR about the political thing over there,

but that is not the point of this post.

He is a bad guy who has written an evil book.