CapitalistMarks

Conspiracy theories fizzile under examination.

Posted on 05. Sep, 2009 by scott in Social commentary

I’ve written about this before but it deserves to be revisited.  For the original see Barack is American.  A few recent revelations just reminded me of how the media in the U.S. influences people without any effort to verify the sometimes ‘crazy’ things they promote.

This week I learned that two of my neighbors really believe that President Obama was not born in America and is not American.  Yikes, do I have to move?  Apparently they have not seen the numerous copies of his birth certificate that have been shown in various places on the web (see above) and on some responsible news channels (that seems NOT to include FOX, MSNBC or CNN).  I  wondered how anyone could believe that with all his history in government, education, and as a working lawyer.  Heck, his mother was American and that is not in question — so automatically he was born with citizenship.

But, The Economist (I think the best ‘news’ magazine around) wrote an article in their August 22 issue.  It was titled ‘Still crazy after all these years.‘  You owe it to yourself to read it.

As they say, there are ‘perils of losing one’s grip on reality.’

Obama’s detractors have gone overboard already.  ‘Birthers’ say he was not born in America.  The article debunks that with the best discussion so far (of course there is the birth certificate, but these nutzos counter with the fact that anything can be forged or edited to appear correct).

Whew!

Then there are those that say he is the anti-Christ.  Jeez  Louise (maybe that is not a good frustrating epithet to use here).  Apparently these folks (who have way too much time on their hands) claim that in the Bible Jesus is quoted as saying that ‘Satan will come down like lightning from heaven.’  Further they have found that the Hebrew words for lightning and heaven sound ‘a bit like’ Barack Obama.

This is crazy stuff and I wonder what good could come if the folk that cook  up with stuff dedicated their extra time to curing cancer or charting the course for the Fed to wind down the stimulus package.

Let me add some of my own thoughts on this.  I did the research in my Strong’s concordance of the Bible and Vine’s Hebrew and Greek dictionary.

First we should all remember that the New Testament (there are of course no quotes by Jesus in the Old Testament) was written in Greek not Hebrew.  But then I guess these ‘bored’ people forgot that or maybe they thought that since Jesus likely spoke in Aramaic that their conjecture is close enough.

Anyway, in the original Greek the works ‘lightning’ and ‘heaven’ sound nothing like suggested (roughly ‘as-trap-ay’ and ‘oo-ran-os’).  But if you did look to the Hebrew there is some similarity (‘baw-rauk’ and ’shaw-may-yin’).  Not very close, at least the suspect (?) Obama part.

Apparently in conspiracy circles being somewhat close on just one of two critical elements (still ignoring that Jesus did not speak in Hebrew) is close enough.

Well, enough of this craziness.  Ba-rack O-bam-a IS our President, he was born American, and he was born in America (The Economist points out that the day after his birth an announcement to the effect was in the Honolulu Advertiser) you can go to their archives and check for yourselves, but as for me I trust the nearly two-hundred year old Economist to get it right.

So, let’s put this nutty issue to bed and start working on health care, the public debt, trade deficits, term limits and looming tax increases (and that is just to start).  Anyone can be critical without being accurate, but it is better to be part of  ‘the loyal opposition’ and I stress the loyal part.  Our President deserves (and this President has certainly earned) our respect.

Tags: birthers, conspiracy nuts, health care, loyal opposition, obama, term limits, the anti-Christ, trade deficits