Things from the campaign trail keep getting uglier. Here is what went down at a rally in Davenport, Iowa TODAY:
At a McCain event, as the crowd waited for McCain himself to arrive, Pastor Arnold Conrad of the Grace Evangelical Free Church of Davenport, Iowa, gave an invocation that included the following: “I would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god–whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah–that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons. And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their God is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and Election Day.” [Link]
First of all, even the hate speech itself demonstrates gross ignorance. For goodness sake, if you are going to be a bigot at least have the courtesy to be a bigot that makes sense. “Hindu” and “Buddha” aren’t gods. Millions of people don’t worship “Hindu.” Furthermore, all three of the Abrahamic religions worship the same God, Muslims just call him Allah. Geez, can anyone just sign up to be a pastor? This was the invocation that started off the rally before McCain even arrived. I guess they wanted to get the crowd in the mood.
Update: Video is now up (thanks to commenter “baplog”)
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Here was the McCain campaign’s official response:
McCain Iowa spokeswoman Wendy Rieman: “While we understand the important role that faith plays in informing the votes of Iowans, questions about the religious background of the candidates serve to distract from the real questions in this race about Barack Obama’s judgment, policies and readiness to lead as commander in chief.” [link]
Yes, we wouldn’t want to distract from real issues. Right.
Where is there really to go from there?
ABC News’ Imtiyaz Delawala, traveling with Palin, reports that a Palin supporter in Johnstown, Pa., today was holding a Curious George monkey doll on which he’d put an Obama sticker. [Link]
If I was Delawala I’d ask for a bodyguard while reporting. All of this is increasingly troubling. After the attacks on September 11th there was a backlash that included violence against anyone perceived to be a Muslim. Should we be worrying about the same thing if Obama should win?
Update: Frank Rich of the NYTimes breaks it down.
Manju:
My inner 8-year-old is filled with glee at the linguistic finesse on display here.
Nayagan,
Just to clarify – I was not seconding the whole comment. I’m re-reading this thing and realized it come off that way. I didn’t even read the original comment, rather I read your response and I quoted the statement from there and the specific sentence, minus the other stuff which you and Abhi had called out.
keeping them real, why are you confused? SM is comprised of individuals, not an Ideological Party. SM has India in common, but that’s a wide net. There are countless species of fish in it, but generally those who comment on SM are well educated and inclined to be classist. There is often much gnashing of teeth in angst-filled threads, dissecting perceived racist statements, but there’s always at least one commenter who reminds the more toffee nosed among us that we love us some white trash jokes. Possums, my investigative committee has revealed that whites, both trashy and toffee nosed, have been known to engage in black, brown and yellow jokes. Will we then hold court and find out whose jokes are the racistiest? As soon as the film crew and reporters go, the McCain crowd will exchange knowing looks and go on doing what floats their boats. I’ll bet they keep those damn stuffed monkey’s. WTF cares? Chimpy Bush, the current POTUS, never got bent out of shape about his nickname.
Mr. Obama has a natural fan base here because: he’s a Harvard graduate, impresses many with his oratory, seems sophisitcated and intellectual, is partly non-xtian, lived in Indonesia and other foreign parts, is brown of color and of complex racial origins, though I just read that his classmates in Hawaii saw him as more or less white. That’s a stretch, but I think I know what they mean. They also thought he was a whiner, which is not a stretch.
At the risk of provoking verbal fisticuffs with his fan club, there are some valid issues posed by non-supporters of Obama, which the DNP has not addressed. They’ll continue to be ignored and come out in various unauthorized biographies starting about now. Every candidate gets that honor. The press, refusing to engage in systemic racism, dismisses any criticism as smears. Could this be a conspiracy? Nah. It’s the market, stupid. Time for Mr. Change. Hmmm-when did this happen most recently? Oh yes, 1992. The boy from Hope, AK. Bill the porn star.
Somebody has already opined that Mccain was chosen because he would not be popular–actually he’s turned out to be more popular than they thought he’d be and he’s got his opponents discombobulated, even me. Plan was, this unpopularity would allow the Democratic candidate–a media creation for the most part–to win, ala Jimmy Carter, ultimately leaving people so appalled by the results that we get stuck with 12 years of Republicans.
Since no viable 3rd party candidate is on offer, yours truly will sit this one out. I’d like to get all misty eyed over Barry, but somehow he doesn’t do it for me. His policies are not so much different from McCain as you might think, just his style is different. Bailout anyone? Each man, woman and child are now paying a couple thousand dollars to keep Wall st. bankers in the style to which they are accustomed. Both McCain and Obama totally ignored the millions of people who contacted Congress in protest. Even if I knew nothing else, that told me all I need to know. Foreign policy? If his handlers wanted to nuke Pahk-ish-stahn, he’d go along with it. He’ll have no choice; but at least he’ll pronounce it properly.
Even with no foreclosure looming, one might feel depressed. But no. During this campaign, I got religion. I’d been atheist but now I see the light. The media is god. It giveth and it taketh away. It tooketh away from HC because she was more of the same and gaveth to BO because he sure was different. This god will continue to giveth to Obama as long as Obama obeys it.
Maybe they should be investigating these guys instead:
93 · Abhi said
Hmmm, that seems a little contentious and I did not intend to insult you.
The fact is, however, it comes to mind that there are some fundamental foundational differences regarding God in these religions. Much more difference than between Catholics and Protestants, contrary to what one poster suggested.
Christianity: For the Christians, God has visited earth in the form of Jesus Christ, a human who is also God incarnate. Neither of the other two believe this. Jesus Christ is at the heart of Christianity.
Islam: The Islamic God was delivered in part through the prophecy of Muhammed, a figure that neither of the other religions acknowledge. The other part came from local beliefs such as Hubal the moon deity (giving Islam the Kabah, the crescent), which does not figure in the other two.
Judaism: Abraham is the patriarch of the Torah and to suggest the other two regard him as a prophet in similar regard is to undermine his statue. After all he entered the covenant with Yahweh for his people.
The Bahai, the Samaritanis, Noahchide Faith, Rastafarianism, Mormonism, and others are all Abrahamic, but it would be too simplistic to say they all worship the same God.
Let’s get few things out of the way. In the history of our republic, there are four major events – the Revolution, the Civil War, the New Deal, and then the Civil Rights movement. The ideals espoused – however sincerely – were still pathbreaking simply because they were espoused at all = imagine no torture, freedom of speech and assembly, etc…But it was not to be and it took the Civil War to abolish slavery, but the battle wasn’t ended, what about the bigger battle to ensure a more opportunity when the land had populated so much that you could not simply pack up and move away, so we had the robber barons, and the the Crash of 1929, and then came the next major event – the New Deal. But still America did not mean the same thing for all people and so after great struggle, this time peacefully, came the Civil Rights movement. So from 1932 to 1980, for almost 1/2 a century, the structures that the Dems and FDR built created the America we live in today and the Civil Rights movement too ensured that the state became equitable – but then reaction set in – and having lost the intllectual battle, the reactionaries decided to counter progress with asymmetrry and so we had a B-grade cue-card reader with no claims to intellect. Naturally the progress-stoppers felt great – notice how raptorous they wax over some of the most cliched and jejune tripe that was belted out back in the day. Of course in the meanwhile Tricky Dick came and went and his supporters realised that intellect was not enough. So in 1980 we embarked on a faux Deal – big Deal! Claiming to have an answer for everything we saw some particularly harebrained schemes in economics, society, and foreign relations. All of them lie in tatters today. As we try to pick up the pieces we have today learnt that when great profound and noble ideas fall prey to glitter, we get something that looks like a movement, but is actually a racket.
Gee-whiz, somebody read a book by Bruce Ackerman. . . .
You forgot the WWI,II, and the cold war in particular, since that–anti-communism- had an important, often bipartisn, ideological framework (MAD, containment,etc), as well as led to very important international alliances (nato) that still hold today. Its foriegn policy, to be sure, but it certainly changed the fabric of america domestically.
i don’t know what you’d call the ecomomic liberlisation begun under reagan, but since it was more or less embraced by the likes of clinton (welfare reform, nafta, repeal of glass-steagel) and, more importantly, led to globalization and thus to the dominant international econmic ideology (neo-liberalism, if you will) of our time, one that faces its first crises, i don’t think it can be ignored.
i’m necessarly arguing these events were good (as i think you are), though i think they are, but they were certainly as important in crafting the nature of our republic as the ones you mentioned. I would add the slave trade but that’s probably covered under the civil war (and not good).
too often, these rednecks have been derided as incapable of complex thought, and of accommodating or reconciling two opposing ideas in their head. thankfully, the age of obama has conclusively disproved this notion about the rednecks. they are able to think of him as an arab and a muslim, as well as a black and a christian with an angry racist preacher intent on bringing destruction to america.
102 · GujuDude said
I was asking you an honest question–as in on online forums, this piecemeal engagement approach is standard (and not possible IRL). Expected an answer which didn’t already go over things that I know. Nice smack-down, however, which I will note the next time I consider asking for advice.
Bruce Ackerman? Who is that?
Manju,
WW2 and the Cold War seem bigger than they are, but really aren’t as important as the currents that they floated on – the New Deal and the Civil Rights movement. What do I call the the ecomomic liberlisation begun under reagan – harebrained! Just like everything else that GOPers did. The last decent + smart GOP administration was Eisenhower’s. The last smart one was Nixon’s. It’s been downhill all the way since then.
106 · jyotsana said
I’m not going to get in a long argument about this account of history, but let me simply say that it’s a great deal more complex than giving a single story about “our” republic that pinpoints four major events/periods and you’re conflating a mythological story with an account of politics and economics and social complexity. A better (still imperfect) periodization of a grand narrative if you want to put one together might be: Up to the mid 1700s (colonizaton); mid 1700s to 1800 (political independence and development of government institutions to first transfer of power); 1800 to 1854 (states rights / slavery / sectional disputes); 1854 to 1876 (civil war and reconstruction); 1876-1914 (triump of big capital and the emergence of discontents and U.S. economic ascendancy); 1914-1949 (depression, isolationsism and emergence of U.S. as political global hegemon – with wars inclusive); and 1949 to 1980 (triumph of Cold War liberal capitalism) (1980 – 2007/8 (triumph of reaction), end of the Cold War).
As you can see, my account is both overly detailed and still incomplete, imprecise in its dates, doesn’t account for overlaps, and I have poor knowledge of colonial history, among many other things. It loses a lot of complexity that might be of interest to people who read this site: for example, in “our” republic, our grandparents and those of others from Asia were legally banned from emigrating here from @1880 to @1965. Where does the suffragist movement fit into this? Operation Weback and the Japanese internments? The Monroe Doctrine and the history of U.S. imperialism in general? How about the early 20th century progressive movement? The story of American Indians? There are many other strands that you could choose to emphasize in telling the story.
All of which is to point out that history is hard to boil down to a few parapraphs – so it should ideally be done as well as possible and with a self-conscious understanding of the purposes for which you’re buillding your narrative.
Nayagan,
Here are honest answers to your question, seems like I’m having trouble capturing the tone of your question (it sounded like something else in my mind), but if you say it was honest and straight forward, then I’m certainly remiss in my assessment-
Generally, I’ll point it out and depending on the body language (negative or positive) or the situation (work, a wedding, among friends at a bar, been invited to a place but don’t know anybody, etc) either press further or just point out why I disagree, don’t think it’s right, etc. and drive on. On occasions when I’m on the fringe of a discussion or just someone standing there and listening on the side lines, I’ll make a mental note of it and not insert myself into the discussion.
In a public/social conversation, I’ll try to avoid trending the conversation any direction, unless I’m the one that’s leading the discussion (or one of the primary participants). I said, “try”, because I’m far from perfect and have done so in the past when an issue is near/dear to me. Maybe this is one of those situations and it would be misconstrued as approval of the statement in its totality.
http://current.com/items/89393772_racist_obama_billboard_causes_outrage
I will pay good money to have that caricature on a teeshirt with a really nice desi caption (can we have a friday caption contest?)
He looks like an Indian farmer who just had a bumper crop!
114 · suede said
How about “Desis for teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs.” or “They said it was funny when the New Yorker did it.”
115 · Dr Amonymous said
I assume that this tee comes with a hat that says “Irony-free zone”?
P.S: You seriously think that this poster has exactly the same intent and motivation as the New Yorker cover? (Of course, the New Yorker cover was a seriously botched attempt at humor, but it doesn’t mean that it was malevolent.)
116 · you did? said
Irony dude. I was pointing out how seriously botched the New Yorker cover was, and why the intent is irrelevant in this context.
Totally off-topic comment which might be deleted later tonight:
In six minutes (six minutes…six minutes…Doug E. Fresh you’re on…) we will be live-blogging the debate– well, live-MICRO-blogging would be more accurate– via our Twitter.
What is Twitter?
Last time we posted about 20 updates…this time, who knows? 🙂
Congratulations to President Barack Obama.
That is all.
119 · debate summary said
..
See, I haven’t decided that’s the case yet.
i never get these debates right. i thought bush was roadkill against gore, only to wake up the next morning to realize everyone thought gore a rude putz. thought the last O-Mac debate was about even, only to lean everyone was pissed at Mac for not looking O in the eye, something I never noticed. i did notice biden tear up against palin, so it didn’t surprise me that he won, but personally i didn’t care.
so this time, i watched it like the rest of you do. on split screen tv, like they had on cnn, holy crap. Mac looks looney, blinking, sniffing and snorting, smiling and wheezing. then you look at O and he’s just calmly enjoying a valium buzz.
that’s how you win the prez, i guess. game set…