Why ppl think Obama = "communist": boils down to religious circumstance... ?

[nobunnyclue]

I was listening to an Eastern European lady call in to a college radio show this morning. She was very much pro-Romney, but not like the Jaguar driving, upturned nose, married-a-trophy-husband blond housewives who will curse out Obama like he was the second coming of the devil, but probably couldn't even find china or Iran on a map... This caller seemed like a reasonable, informed person who hasn't been tuned in to Fox news every waking minute, so I wondered why does she think Obama is a communist?

And then it hit me, you have a contingent of folks who have connected Obama with communism from their experience in Eastern Europe because of an era where religion, particularly Catholicism, was regarded as "an enemy of the state" there by the communists. These Catholics look at the recent tensions between the government and the church, mainly due to the Church's brashness in attempting to operate outside the law, but all the same it is conflict between church and state. Meanwhile, in the ethnic neighborhoods, Churches are being shut down - not because the government is shutting them down but because they aren't profitable anymore. But it's happening on Obama's watch so they blame him and liken him to the Communists, not because they think he has turned the US into a socialist economy, but because of the failure of their religion to thrive.

So here's my idea: Obama needs reach out to this contingent of "pro church" voters with adds that emphasis his own spirituality AS WELL AS his support for freedom of religion. Denounce the religious persecution that people have in the back of their mind. Set this up against the mission of the LDS to convert the world into Mormonism. I think it would play well.

[NoOneMan]

1. Yeah, he really needs to turn up the religious pandering

Im tired Im being able to tell the difference between these parties in this area.

[ladjf]

2. Religious practices, IMO, are the major facilitators of the mass media propaganda. I mean by

that, the thinking style that is taught to religious followers, trains them to believe media propaganda without question, but to be very skeptical of whoever the media tells them to not trust.

[tarheelsunc]

3. It's a good idea, but then FUX with News would start playing Rev. Wright tapes again

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

4. You mean, the same churches that before the Soviets used to gladly send Jewish

citizens to concentration camps? That's what happened in many former Soviet countries prior to the Soviets. People like to forget how despised Jews were in Poland (and still are), Lithuania, Estonia, and Russia itself.

Many churches were complicit during WWII. The Catholic church certainly wasn't up in arms against Hitler. Though they didn't like Mussolini much (due to the 1929 Lateran Treaty that established the Vatican), they didn't exactly say no when Italy enacted racial purity laws. The Eastern Orthodox church wasn't that into religious freedom either.

So, while the Soviets certainly did consider the churches enemies of the state, perhaps that lady needs to be reminded that having churches does not necessarily equal justice or peace or democracy.

[begin_within]

5. They have been instructed to call Obama a communist, by Fox/Limbaugh, etc.

And yet they can't say what "communist" means...

The second woman interviewed here:

[Jennicut]

6. Most of these idiots have no idea what Capitalism, socialism, communism and fascism really are.

I am surprised they passed 10th grade history class. And honestly, religion needs to get the hell (literally) out of politics.
I consider myself a liberal Christian but in no way do my views need to be forced on someone else.

[NoOneMan]

7. They are different spins on the idea of endlessly building things we don't need

They dictate how friendly our extinction process should be

[ncav53]

8. These people clearly don't know what communsim means if they think Obama is one

Communists believe in a classless, moneyless, stateless society. Obama is more of a liberal capitalist.