Yeah, he says he's not a Muslim but he really is!
<http://gawker.com/389976/old-white-people-know-the-truth-about-barack-obama>
.................
It's very tempting to follow Gawker's lead and have merciless fun with the 'Obama is Muslim' people in our midst (and btw, nice little swerve they perform - substituting anti-Muslim prejudice for anti-black, if only for benefit of the cameras).
But instead of that, let's read something our own Michael Yates wrote in 2007:
The drive from Denver to Santa Fe seemed interminable, but the beauty of the New Mexican landscape, from the Raton Pass just across the border with Colorado to the open cattle country after that—helped make up for the long distance. You know you are in a Latin land as you hit more and more Spanish language radio stations. As we approached the state's capitol city, we listened to the Art Bell show. Art Bell is all over the radio dial, especially late and night and has attracted a huge audience, most of whom are obsessed with space aliens, alien abductions, "shadow" people, conspiracies of all kinds, and all other "para" phenomena.
Most leftists have never heard of Art Bell, but they should know him (and all the other large-audience talk show hosts) because the many callers give important insights into what all too many people in the United States think is important. This is a land tailor-made for conspiracy theories and strange beliefs. These serve as a a substitute for thinking clearly, yet give their adherents the feeling that they have an inside track on things. Karen and I have concluded that we live in a nation of "bar talk;" everyone is an expert on everything, like the guy who won't shut up on the barstool next to yours.
There is no respect for real learning or an appreciation of the effort it takes to understand things. No doubt diehard fundamentalist religious beliefs function in a similar manner. As substitutes for thinking. I know from my many years of teaching undergraduates that the typical U.S. college graduate must certainly be the least knowledgeable in the world. The right-wingers rail against all the left-wingers on campus, but they have little to worry about. In the United States thoughtlessness rules, and bar talk is king. And in the meantime, the rich keep getting rich, with wealth that would have put john D. Rockefeller to shame. They flaunt their riches like the robber barons of yore. We met a man at my book talk in Santa Fe (at Garcia Street Books, where we drew a good crowd, thanks to the good pr done by owner Ed Borins—a real gentleman—and Monthly Review intern Scott Borchert) from Johnstown. He knew all the old streets, bars, and names I knew so well from my thirty-two years at the college there. He had been a teacher, but he eventually got into financial planning. He and a friend generously took us to dinner, and he told us some interesting things about money. He travels to Washington DC each year and stays in a hotel there.
[...]
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2007/2007-July/013401.html>
The US seems to be a rich target for propaganda efforts -- well, reactionary propaganda efforts.
.d.
-- "I'm sorry, I can't hear you! I'm wearing a towel!"
H.J. Simpson
...................... http://monroelab.net/blog/