pacino wrote:So what's the big deal about the New Yorker mag cover? Looked pretty good to me? Seems like it worked, getting people to think about how stupid it is to believe that crap about the Obamas and also to think about the New Yorker.

more the latter...

jerseyhoya wrote:

22 percent believe President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance.
30 percent believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
23 percent believe they've been in the presence of a ghost.
18 percent believe the sun revolves around the Earth.

Things Americans Believe

I know Democrats who would say that the first one is true and dismiss the second one as silly. While I don't know any Republicans personally who believe the opposite, I'm sure there are many. When it's your conspiracy theory it's not far-fetched at all.

lethal wrote:Also, I thought it was just the Arab Muslims that people were afraid of, not the large percentage of African American Muslims in the US. I mean, who thinks Muhammed Ali or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are terrorists?

You must be young. When the Nation of Islam took root in the 60's with Malcolm X and Elijah Mohammed, they were practically thought of as terrorists. Ali was unpopular with a lot of people following his conversion. It was easier for Kareem, but he lost fans too. The first thing anyone knows is a Muslim name and that's enough for them.

Laexile wrote:

lethal wrote:Also, I thought it was just the Arab Muslims that people were afraid of, not the large percentage of African American Muslims in the US. I mean, who thinks Muhammed Ali or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are terrorists?

You must be young. When the Nation of Islam took root in the 60's with Malcolm X and Elijah Mohammed, they were practically thought of as terrorists. Ali was unpopular with a lot of people following his conversion. It was easier for Kareem, but he lost fans too. The first thing anyone knows is a Muslim name and that's enough for them.

1) I meant present day, post 9/11 (2001) concerns.

2) Neither you nor I lived through the 60s. Regardless of my age (or your age), we do not have firsthand knowlege of the Nation of Islam of the 60s. I can read (and probably have read) the same historical reports of the activities of the Nation of Islam from the 60s that you read or have read. None of that is a reflection of my age or your age.

3) Young is a relative term. Judging by your online bios, you would be considered young in the context of your argument as well as you would've been in your infancy in the 60s.

I believe the neo cons are really unreconstructed Trotskyists, and so-called neo-con policies are actually designed to foment a global communist revolution. They're also deeply influenced by the work of Gramsci.

TenuredVulture wrote:I believe the neo cons are really unreconstructed Trotskyists, and so-called neo-con policies are actually designed to foment a global communist revolution. They're also deeply influenced by the work of Gramsci.

Speaking of conspiracy theories

But yeah, neo-cons are Trotskyites without the idealism. And, of course, their daddies were Trotskyites with the idealism, or at least a lot of them started that way.

Laexile wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

22 percent believe President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance.
30 percent believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
23 percent believe they've been in the presence of a ghost.
18 percent believe the sun revolves around the Earth.

Things Americans Believe

I know Democrats who would say that the first one is true and dismiss the second one as silly. While I don't know any Republicans personally who believe the opposite, I'm sure there are many. When it's your conspiracy theory it's not far-fetched at all.

lethal wrote:Also, I thought it was just the Arab Muslims that people were afraid of, not the large percentage of African American Muslims in the US. I mean, who thinks Muhammed Ali or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are terrorists?

You must be young. When the Nation of Islam took root in the 60's with Malcolm X and Elijah Mohammed, they were practically thought of as terrorists. Ali was unpopular with a lot of people following his conversion. It was easier for Kareem, but he lost fans too. The first thing anyone knows is a Muslim name and that's enough for them.

So if this data is correct 35% of Dems believe Bush knew. I wonder if they think he more than knew, but was part of it? Eitehr way, I don't think 35% can be called a few fringe whackos.

pacino wrote:So what's the big deal about the New Yorker mag cover? Looked pretty good to me? Seems like it worked, getting people to think about how stupid it is to believe that crap about the Obamas and also to think about the New Yorker.

Looked pretty good to me too. I'm disappointed in the official tsk-tsking of the Obama camp. Either ignoring it or recognizing that the point being made was favorable to them would have gone over better (with me, anyway). I don't think they're dim enough to not get the joke, so the labeling of it as "offensive" (to whom, exactly?) comes across as a patronizing worry about what "other" people might think, and patronizing is not the side of the fence they want to fall on. Although it was probably an attempt to just fall in with common wisdom that just "knows" when Don Imus is being racist, or Kerry is slagging soldiers or Hillary is counting on an assassin's bullet, whatever the actual import of the words.

He probably has to have a problem with it in order to keep up appearances, even if it's a "tsk tsk" and not an "OH THE HORROR" reaction (they'll save that for when some right wing mag stupidly does something similar). Depending on how ugly the election gets it's probably bad strategy to let something like this go, and there's probably some portion of his base that is offended (i.e. the easily offended constituancy).

Philly the Kid wrote:

Laexile wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

22 percent believe President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance.
30 percent believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
23 percent believe they've been in the presence of a ghost.
18 percent believe the sun revolves around the Earth.

Things Americans Believe

I know Democrats who would say that the first one is true and dismiss the second one as silly. While I don't know any Republicans personally who believe the opposite, I'm sure there are many. When it's your conspiracy theory it's not far-fetched at all.

lethal wrote:Also, I thought it was just the Arab Muslims that people were afraid of, not the large percentage of African American Muslims in the US. I mean, who thinks Muhammed Ali or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are terrorists?

You must be young. When the Nation of Islam took root in the 60's with Malcolm X and Elijah Mohammed, they were practically thought of as terrorists. Ali was unpopular with a lot of people following his conversion. It was easier for Kareem, but he lost fans too. The first thing anyone knows is a Muslim name and that's enough for them.

So if this data is correct 35% of Dems believe Bush knew. I wonder if they think he more than knew, but was part of it? Eitehr way, I don't think 35% can be called a few fringe whackos.

Yes they can.

They are a few fringe wackos.

See, that was easy.

Fannie, Freddie and You

Pretty good Krugman column today.

lethal wrote:

Laexile wrote:

lethal wrote:Also, I thought it was just the Arab Muslims that people were afraid of, not the large percentage of African American Muslims in the US. I mean, who thinks Muhammed Ali or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are terrorists?

You must be young. When the Nation of Islam took root in the 60's with Malcolm X and Elijah Mohammed, they were practically thought of as terrorists. Ali was unpopular with a lot of people following his conversion. It was easier for Kareem, but he lost fans too. The first thing anyone knows is a Muslim name and that's enough for them.

1) I meant present day, post 9/11 (2001) concerns.

2) Neither you nor I lived through the 60s. Regardless of my age (or your age), we do not have firsthand knowlege of the Nation of Islam of the 60s. I can read (and probably have read) the same historical reports of the activities of the Nation of Islam from the 60s that you read or have read. None of that is a reflection of my age or your age.

3) Young is a relative term. Judging by your online bios, you would be considered young in the context of your argument as well as you would've been in your infancy in the 60s.

While I didn't live through the 60s, I was alive in the late 60s. The people who had animosity toward Ali had it when I was a boy. I got the idea, even if I didn't understand it.

Muslim=terrorist or the equivalent has been there since the 1960s. If you told someone who automatically jumped to that conclusion based on that little information that Kareem was a Muslim they'd distrust Kareem. There was a period in the 70s into the 90s when I, and I assume you, were growing up when Kareem and Mohammed as Muslims was disregarded. I don't think it was accepted, just deemed unimportant. That's most likely changed since 9/11. I'd bet that if you asked people if they liked Kareem and then asked them if they still liked Kareem knowing he was a Muslim the number of people saying yes would go down.

For some people it isn't about 9/11 or al quaeda, it's that Muslims aren't Christians. And they don't understand or trust non-Christians. I believe that it's far easier for a Black, a woman, or a Hispanic to be elected President than it is a non-Christian.

jerseyhoya wrote:
Yes they can.

They are a few fringe wackos.

See, that was easy.

Not to get all Clintonian about it, but I think there is a question about what "know" means in this poll, about which I'd also feel more confident if I had a little more information on how it was conducted.

There are people who felt that Bush "knew" about the 9/11 attacks in their specifics and let them (or led them to) occur for his own nefarious or misguided ends.

A few fringe wackos would be an apt term for these.

There are also people who believe that evidence of the 9/11 attacks was brought to the President's attention but was overlooked , undervalued, misrepresented or misconstrued. Someone believing this could also assert that that Bush "knew" of the attacks before they happened. I would characterize these people as overly-politicized or too eager to assign blame, but not necessarily as wackos, especially since it is clear that there was some evidence out there that was overlooked. Laying this at the president's feet may be a bit of a far stretch, but it not surprising that people responding to an opinion poll and who self-describe themselves as Democrats would seek to give an answer that would portray Bush in a bad light (someone else will have to venture a guess as to what those 15% of Republicans were thinking.)

I think if the question were broken down as whether people believed Bush had 1. participated in the 9/11 attacks, b. had full knowledge of the 9/11 attacks or c. had evidence of the 9/11 attacks before they happened, the results wouldn't necessarily restore our faith in Americans' acuity, but would paint a different picture.

I'm with Hoya, though. If you believe Bush had full awareness and gave the okay for the 9/11 attacks, you're a fringe wacko, whatever your numbers.

Laexile wrote:While I didn't live through the 60s, I was alive in the late 60s. The people who had animosity toward Ali had it when I was a boy. I got the idea, even if I didn't understand it.

I commend your excceptional powers of childhood memories then.

When I was 2, I was floating on a fishing boat on the South China Sea escaping a communist regime and a war torn nation. Later that year, I spent almost a year in a refugee camp on a beach off the coast of Malaysia. When I was 3, I was living in Philadelphia and the Phillies won the World Series. I don't remember any of that at all, as traumatic and memorable as it would be, I only know any of that through oral stories.

You have much more acute powers of recall then, so I salute you, sir.

Laexile wrote:For some people it isn't about 9/11 or al quaeda, it's that Muslims aren't Christians. And they don't understand or trust non-Christians. I believe that it's far easier for a Black, a woman, or a Hispanic to be elected President than it is a non-Christian.

Speaking as a non-Christian, I can see your perspective on this point in terms of politics. However, I also can envision a change in this attitude by the younger generation. Also, I'm not completely sure that this theory holds as true for non-Muslim non-Christians.

I know people who "know" that the Iraq War was conducted to benefit Dick Cheney's Halliburton and oil buddies. I know a lawyer who "knows" that Cheney has a secret bank account in the Caribbean where Halliburton has been funneling money. I know a few who "know" we went simply as revenge for Saddam to kill Bush's father. I know people who "know" that both the 2000 and 2004 elections were fixed by Bush and the Democrats had no chance to win. One guy told me in spring 2004 that he "knew" that Bush had a secret plan to declare martial law and cancel the election. If you try to discuss this with them, you're shut down. They believed I was naive or just being contrary to argue facts. These are educated people in California.

I'm not looking to dismiss any of the above as true. But are they all less outlandish than believing Bush knew about 9/11 before it happened?

Didn't realize you and p-t-k were boys

Kyle: I knew it! You didn't plan 9/11 and you really didn't shoot that guy!
Bush: Boys, you don't understand. People need to think we are all-powerful. That we control the world. If they know we weren't in charge of 9/11 then... we appear to control nothing.
Kyle: Well why don't you just tell people the truth?!
Bush: We do that too. And most people believe the truth. But one fourth of the population is retarded. If they wanna believe we control everything with intricate plans, why not let them?

An image from a rather amusing photo series of America's favorite political species, the Paultard. Thank you Wonkette.

Ok, enough hating for me for one night. Between Rick Reilly and conspiracy theorists, I've really worn myself out. I almost feel like I lived through an Eaton start tonight.

lethal wrote:I commend your excceptional powers of childhood memories then.

When I was 2, I was floating on a fishing boat on the South China Sea escaping a communist regime and a war torn nation. Later that year, I spent almost a year in a refugee camp on a beach off the coast of Malaysia. When I was 3, I was living in Philadelphia and the Phillies won the World Series. I don't remember any of that at all, as traumatic and memorable as it would be, I only know any of that through oral stories.

You have much more acute powers of recall then, so I salute you, sir.

Your story is certainly one to shut me up. I'm guessing that I'm a few years older than you think I am.

lethal wrote:Speaking as a non-Christian, I can see your perspective on this point in terms of politics. However, I also can envision a change in this attitude by the younger generation. Also, I'm not completely sure that this theory holds as true for non-Muslim non-Christians.

We've had 43 Presidents, only one of whom was not a Protestant. I can only think of three nominees who weren't Protestants. It wasn't easy for a Catholic to win the Presidency and I don't think it'd be easy for a Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, or Mormon to be elected. I could see a Jew having a good shot to win states in the Northeast, Florida, and the far West, but not the other states. Maybe a really popular Democrat could get 270 votes. Harry Golden famously remarked about Barry Goldwater, "I have always thought that if a Jew ever became President, he would turn out to be an Episcopalian."

Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus need not apply. At the bottom of the list is an Atheist.

Christianity is such a big issue that Barack Obama has had to repeatedly talk about his faith. John McCain gets hammered on right wing talk shows about not being Christian enough.

You may be right. When people in their 20s now are in their 70s, religion may not matter. It just always has before.

John McCain gets hammered on right wing talk shows about not being Christian enough.

Nobody talks about McCain, ever. Nobody is voting *for* McCain but you and maybe jerseyhoya, and I don't even think he's in love with the guy. This election is about one dude, Obama, and whether voters like him or not.

Laexile wrote:Your story is certainly one to shut me up. I'm guessing that I'm a few years older than you think I am.

I think you were born in 1966, so at any point in the 60s, you would have been at the most, 3 years old.

Laexile wrote:You may be right. When people in their 20s now are in their 70s, religion may not matter. It just always has before.

I'm sure that the 20 year olds in 1954 who read about Brown v Board didn't think that when they were 70, a black man would shoot into the political spotlight and 4 years after that become the Democratic nominee and early favorite in the Presidential election.