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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nigel bates who wrote (38154)	10/15/2008 1:18:26 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 149317

'Muslim' shouldn't be a slur Both McCain and Obama should condemn implicit attacks on Muslims and Arabs. By Constance L. Rice October 15, 2008 Excuse me, but when did the words "Muslim" and "Arab" become acceptable epithets? I'm not a Muslim, and perhaps I was slow to see this coming. Four months ago, I blithely advised a group at a local mosque not to obsess over the anti-Muslim undertones of the presidential campaign. At that point, Barack Obama was defending his Christian bona fides against "accusations" of "being a Muslim" (as if it had suddenly become a Class-D felony), but was doing so without condemning the implicit slurs against Islam, Muslims and Arabs. In a "don't worry, be happy" tone, I breezily noted that although the stoking of racial fear and xenophobia was a cherished tradition of American politics, I really didn't think that this time around the candidates would permit the wholesale slander of Islam or Muslims. Apparently, I was wrong. The undertones have become screaming overtones. And it is past time to object. If it wasn't clear before, it became crystal clear last week in the aftermath of Republican rallies. Fomenting fear to shore up drooping support, Republicans sadly used heated demagoguery about "palling around with terrorists," about "Barack Hussein Obama" and about how Obama doesn't "see America like you and I," words that mixed subliminally to conflate "terror" with "Muslim" and to whip crowds into xenophobic anger. After his enraged supporters were recorded uttering death threats and racial slurs, McCain was forced on several occasions to try to tamp down the anger in the audience and to defend his opponent. That was a good step one -- until McCain blew it. A woman stood up in the audience and said that she just couldn't trust Obama because, as she put it, >b>"he's an Arab." McCain shook his head, took the microphone and said: "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues." So, what is he saying? Arabs aren't decent family men? They can't be citizens? The fact is, neither McCain nor Obama -- who continues to combat absurd attacks on his Americanness -- has been willing to speak out against the implicit slurs against Arabs and Islam. Is it really too difficult for Obama to respond: "For the hundredth time, I am a Christian, and if you are suggesting that there is something wrong with Islam or being a Muslim, you are wrong"? Would it be so hard for McCain to say: "There is no room in my campaign or in America for religious or ethnic intolerance -- that's what we're fighting against"? Maybe I missed the denunciations amid all the hoopla over field-dressing moose, but it looks like the next ice age will arrive before the NAACP, the National Conference of Christians and Jews or the Anti-Defamation League loudly objects to the implicit defamation of Muslims and Arabs that has seeped into this presidential campaign. Women rightly protested gender bias during Hillary Clinton's run, but we failed to strongly challenge the earlier bias against Mormons during Mitt Romney's bid, and we are currently failing to refute the anti-Muslim bias embedded in the assaults on Obama. It is a failure we need to correct now. Constance L. Rice is a civil rights attorney in Los Angeles.

To: nigel bates who wrote (38154)	10/15/2008 2:51:58 PM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

If you are talking about voting fraud, can you give me a single example of a prosecution for voting fraud in either of the last two presidential elections ? In total, from 2002-2005, there were 25 cases of voter fraud and one case of registration fraud. That's over the entire US, in three years. I don't know how many, if any, of those were in the 2004 presidential election. In an interview with Salon, Lori Minnite, a professor of political science at Barnard College who investigated allegations of widespread voter fraud, explained, "From 2002 to 2005 only one person was found guilty of registration fraud. Twenty people were found guilty of voting while ineligible and five people were found guilty of voting more than once. That's 26 criminal voters -- voters who vote twice, impersonate other people, vote without being a resident ... I posted more details earlier at Message 25070605 Basically it isn't a problem of any note at all.