And what if he is...?

The news these days is chock full of American babble around the latest paranoia:  Is Obama a muslim?

This issue has been hanging around since the man was running for office.




The woman (with some of the most FUCKED UP hair I have seen in a long time) says to McCain:  "He's an Arab".  To McCain's credit, he corrects her, but the point she's trying to make stands.  She's trying to call him a Muslim.

(Note to everyone who agrees with hairdo:  the "Arab" world has 10 - 25 MILLION Christians, so get your terms right.  You're after a religious slur, not a racial one)

This has carried on as an underlying theme of the Obama presidency up to today:  After what was a disastrous decision on Obama's part to get involved in the whole "Muslim Center at 9/11" thing, now a majority of hillbilly and right-wings in the US are "sure" he's a Muslim and wants to impose Sharia on the US.

http://politics-and-world-5678.blogspot.com/2010/08/is-obama-muslim-some-gop-believe-obama.html

Where does this crap come from?  I (like so many others) thought this invented controversy died with him becoming president, but no.

His recent snafu which brought this back to the forefront is actually his own fault: the man and his advisors should have known to keep out of this Muslim Center near the World Trade Center debate.  He should have known this would be a can of gasoline on the already burning tire fire that is this stupid debate.  Since then, polls show (polls, yeah THOSE are an accurate gauge of the truth.  62% of people know that), that a majority of republicans believe Obama is a Muslim.

So I've been pondering: why all the wondering if he's a Muslim?  

Is it his name?  It's probably part of it:  tough name for an American president in post 9/11 times:  Barrack Hussein Obama.  Ouch.  Does sound pretty damned Arabic.  And do you know why?  Because it IS an Arabic name, at least in part.

Barrack = Blessings from God (Semitic)

Hussein = Good, handsome, benign (Arabic)

Obama =  Ultimately, it beens bent or crooked (Swahili)

Everybody with a copy of revelations on hand, read into his name!  There's gotta be SOMETHING about this guy in there!
http://www.zimbio.com/Obama+Religion/articles/2/Bible+Revelation+Truths

The guy's name is part Arabic, part Swahili, part Semitic. But what's in a name?  We can play the same game with the last president's name:

George = farmer  (Greek)

Walker = An early name for a fuller, a person who cleans freshly woven cloth (?) (Old English)

Bush = Dweller near a bush or thicket of bushes, also someone who dwells at the sign of a bush (a wine merchant, apparently) (Old English)

So we have a Blessed handsome bent guy, or a Greek-English farmer / wool washer / wine merchant.  Go look up your own damned name.  You're probably even stranger still.

I think the fact that his name "sounds" Muslim" is enough for most conservatives.  

Is it the whispers that he's not actually an American citizen?  There's the conspiracy theory that he wasn't a natural born citizen, that his birth certificate was somehow faked by a hospital in Hawaii.  Yeah, 49 years ago, his mom and dad thought:  "Let's meet, have a child in Hawaii and fake a birth certificate, then split up and never have contact with each other again, so our half-white, half-black child can grow up, scam the system and become president!"  Sure.  Occam's Razor would uphold that.

Do people think he's Muslim because his dad was born in Kenya?  Well at least now we're using reason.   That IS suspicious.  A man's father born outside the United States?  Why, anyone from outside the US is suspect, no matter what.  And to top it off, his father was, yes, born a Muslim, but later became an Atheist (GASP!)  A Muslim Atheist!  I bet he was a member of the Nazi party too, and a whole bunch of other things we don't like.

Or is it ultimately (and this one is gonna get the usual "NO!" from conservative whitey) that the guy is black?  I see the people at those "Tea Party" rallies.  White skin dominates the landscape.  I never once heard any old fat white ladies claiming John Kerry or Al Gore were Arabs.  Funny that. 

Why can't these people believe the guy is a Christian?  He's said it publicly like a couple dozen times:  "I'm a Christian".  How much plainer must the guy say it?  He was baptized in the Trinity United Church back in 1988!  His mother wasn't religious, and his father was an atheist. But as for Obama, he's CHRISTIAN.  Must someone make this any more plain?  Shall we have t-shirts made up?  Apparently so.  Going to a Christian church for the last 22 years isn't good enough.  Maybe a 100 years of church will do it.

So let's come down to it:  even if, somehow, someway, it turned out to be true, in some freaky friday, parallel universe gone upside down, Obama IS a Muslim.

So what?

Does it really, really, REALLY make ANY FUCKING DIFFERENCE?  He's already 1/2 way through his term as president.  I don't see any federal law stating we all have to pray towards Mecca five times a say.  He's not forcing anyone to wear burcas.  He isn't hanging around with Osama Bin Laden.  He isn't shutting down churches or crashing planes into things or setting up Sharia.  He's done nothing to even hint at such a thing in any way shape or form.  What he IS doing is his job.  He got American troops out of Iraq, he's trying to get the economy going again.  He's trying to overhaul the corrupt healthcare system.  And even if you don't agree with his policies, his decisions or his politics, you have to admit:  he's trying to do his job.  Every day, he's trying to make things right.  And it's no easy trick, given the state of things.  He's attempting to re-stabilize the country that Bush and his cronies bankrupted.  Yes, they did this.  They fucked us all.  Face facts:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/StockInvestingTrading/cost-of-the-bush-era-11-point-5-trillion.aspx

I say the problem is that many Americans (white, trashy ones, in particular) believe their country to be "at war" with Islam.  This growing band of protestant jihadists have used the tragedy at 9/11 to justify a growing xenophobia, islamophobia and ultimately, racism in the name of protecting "their way of life".  And the thought that Obama is one of them just raises their perma-suspicion of anyone foreign, anyone with liberal sensibilities and yes, anyone BLACK.

I have news for you:  we're not at war with Islam.  This isn't the 13th century.  Onward Christian Soldier is a stupid fucking song.  Most Muslims, like most Christians, and like most everyone in the world (stay with me now:  they ARE people), just want to be left alone to worship as they like and raise their families.  What they DON'T like is America dropping bombs on their houses, murdering their families, setting up military bases in their countries, propping up dictators favourable to American interests, and otherwise using the last 60 years to make lives of much of the Arab / African world downright fucking miserable.