War of Ideas against Islam Chapter # 10 Obama's actual religion: The Hawaii Years If it is true that Barack Hussein Obama is a follower of Subud this would go far toward explaining: (1) His many pro-Islam views, yet why he sometimes grossly misunderstands Muhammad's religion, (2) Why many people consider him to be a Muslim despite his denials, (3) Why he can claim to be a Christian, (4) Why his social values are often anti-Christian in form and substance, and (5) Why he has been as ecumenical as he has been, expressing favorable views of Hinduism and Buddhism at various points despite the fact that his opinions are often anti-Hindu and anti-Buddhist. All of this makes no sense unless something other is going on besides the fact that Obama sometimes seems to be a Muslim and sometimes professes Christian faith. It all makes perfect sense, however, if his actual religion, even if it isn't formal or official, is Subud or, anyway, his version of Pak Subuh's Indonesian religion. Now we can see why Obama regards Muhammad as similar to Jesus, why "gentle Muhammad, meek and mild" is taken seriously rather than what it is, a warped caricature approximately 180 degrees from the historical facts, why Obama is basically disinterested in the Bible and shows no signs of having read it beyond a few holiday stories, why he cannot fathom Biblical morality and regards it as essentially obsolete or even meaningless, and why he has always shown great capacity to misunderstand every fundamental teaching of Islam -to the point of denying the realities of Shariah law. Yet at the same time one thing about the Koran he does get, its virulent anti-Semitism, aka Judeophobia. About Obama's inability to understand Islam on its own terms see Amir Taheri's article in the February 20, 2015 edition of the New York Post, "Obama’s elementary errors on Islam." This includes but goes far beyond his repeatedly denying that the Islamic State or Al-Qaeda or Boko Haram, et. al., are in the least Islamic and, instead are economically disadvantaged criminals who only use religion as a cover for their grievances. Yet these groups loudly proclaim that they are Muslim in character and deed, and often refer to core texts of Islam from the Koran or the Hadith to justify their actions. But has Obama actually read the Koran, either? Probably not. After all, in the context of Subud it is not the writings of a religion that matter but the interpretation of a religion as expressed by Pak Subuh. By definition, within the context of Subud, Islam is like Unitarianism or the United Church of Christ, and really is semi-pacifist, really is humane, and really is all about inclusiveness that lines up perfectly with the values espoused by the 'enlightened' Left. All of which is pure hokum but who knows better? Certainly not 90+% of journalists, certainly not 90% of political figures, certainly not Democratic Party voters who regard it as a sort of badge of honor to be as uninformed about religion as it is possible to get. --- That is, Obama could make any claims about Islam he felt like making without fear of contradiction. It helped, of course, that the interpretation of Islam promulgated by George W. Bush wasn't much better, if it was better in any sense at all, and multitudes were eager to rid themselves of a country bumpkin, a degree from Yale notwithstanding, someone who was an embarrassment to listen to every time he spoke. Obama, in any case, was not a scholar of religion, any religion; on that subject he did not know what he was talking about. But he wasn't a scholar at all for any subject. Which is hardly surprising for someone whose record at Harvard is still sealed, something many people associate with affirmative action admission to a quality university where most "people of color" fail to accomplish anything much and drop out. Which is hardly my opinion alone. For every Stephen Carter who distinguishes himself because of affirmative action, there are at least 3 or 4 who don't make the cut; at elite schools the rates are abysmal. For an "optimistic" assessment of the problem see Lauren Camera's article in US News & World Report for March 23, 2016. Black graduation rates, lower than that for whites or Asians to begin with, are getting even worse. Not everywhere, but most places. Citing a then recent study by a DC-based think tank, Education Trust, the article noted that: "The report found that among 232 four-year, public schools [colleges] that improved overall graduation rates from 2003 to 2013, more than half of them, or 53 percent, saw gaps between black and white students either stay the same or increase, resulting in a growing gap between the numbers of black and white students who graduate." Clearly, black culture by-and-large is not supportive of academic achievement. Sometimes this is true even when the home does encourage excellence in education. In which case choice of friends, choice of black role models, etc., simply are not good choices if intelligence is the objective In any event, Obama's much ballyhooed intellectual prowess is a view that cannot be taken seriously. To refer to the obvious, Obama was editor of the Harvard Law Review; as such it was anticipated that he would write articles for the publication and, in the process, make a name for himself in legal philosophy. Moreover, it was part of the responsibilities of an editor of the Review to become a law clerk for a distinguished serving judge. However, Obama did not as much as contribute even one signed article to the scholarly periodical. Which, it is all-too-clear in hindsight, he was unable to do because he was an incompetent as a writer. Hence the well established fact that the book that made him famous, Dreams from My Father, was ghost written, as were each of the subsequent books that list him as the author. Dreams, by the way, was partly or largely the creation of Bill Ayers using a box of assorted and disconnected notes supplied by Barack but otherwise entirely composed using a literary style that was beyond anything Obama was capable of. For the full story of this topic, see Jack Cashill's article in the October 9, 2008 issue of American Thinker, entitled "Who Wrote Dreams From My Father?" Basically, as little as anyone knows of Obama's authenticated writings which have been published before 2017, of which there are very few, some poor quality poems from his teen years, some miscellany into his twenties, nothing thereafter, his writing is awkward, features elementary grammatical errors, and is objectively lackluster. Obama's literary reputation is a fraud, in other words.
---- All of which goes far toward explaining oddities like Obama's generalizations concerning Islam that almost all happen to be factually incorrect. As Amir Taheri said about Obama and the grossly misleading interpretation of Islam he promoted, all of this is "painfully naïve." It was also painfully ideological and the ideology that prompted Obama to say what he did about Islam is the Subud religion. And it still is. What is the evidence? The best way to proceed is chronologically. Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. This is not in doubt and I have never said anything else. Birth announcements in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and the Honolulu Advertiser should not leave any room for doubt. The whole "birther" kerfluffle has been a waste of everyone's time from the outset; it has been believed in by people who don't know how to think critically and who are susceptible to conspiracy theories. The best spin to put on the birthers is that they were motivated by a sense of desperation, sensing that an Obama presidency would turn out badly. They got that part of things right. The Wikipedia article about the young Barack informs us that baby Obama was delivered at the Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital, a facility that was later renamed as the Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women and Children. The infant Obama only stayed in Hawaii for about 1- 1/2 years until his mother took him to Seattle. The Honolulu sojourn lasted from September 1961 to January of 1963. After that period Ann Dunham enrolled at the University of Washington. Obama, Sr., Barack Hussein's father, departed in 1962 to enroll at Harvard, never to be seen again except for one short visit About the years Ann Dunham spent in Seattle, it should be pointed out that she had been a schoolgirl during here teens there, living with her parents. Now and then the family attended East Shore Unitarian Church located on Mercer Island . Barack was told stories about that church which remained with him into adult life. One story that was memorable concerned Christmas at some point in the late 1950s. The Unitarian church devised a very unusual way to celebrate the holiday. Apparently there was a special program for children; what this was all about were dramatizations of the birth stories of Jesus, Buddha, and Confucius. To say the least this was hardly an orthodox approach to the subject of Christmas. Even the story -Barack had not even been born yet- was memorable and worth re-telling, years later. Young Barack wasn't the only child of Ann Dunham to recount his mother's religious preferences. Maya Soetoro-Ng, born in 1970, has talked about memories she had of her mother making sure the children were exposed to the sacred texts of various religions. In Maya's words, her mother "basically gave us all the good books—the Bible, the Hindu Upanishads and the Buddhist scripture, the Tao Te Ching—and wanted us to recognize that everyone has something beautiful to contribute." Barack said something similar, which was reported in Unitarian Universalist World Magazine for October 8, 2012, in a Thandeka story entitled "Obama's religious roots." This was of interest to Unitarians because not only had Barack's mother attended a Unitarian church in her youth, she still did so as an adult and, not only that, as a child so did Obama, Quotes from the Audacity of Hope make this clear. Said Barack Hussein about his mother: She “might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites.” Yet these experiences, said Obama, “required no sustained commitment on my part..." As the magazine article continued: "Nor was there any requirement for personal reflection when he read the Bible, the Qur’an, the Bhagavad Gita, Greek, Norse, and African mythology, or any of the other religious texts that sat side by side on a bookshelf in his home. He studied religions for the sake of a well-rounded education." . As the article in UU World magazine added: "The story of Barack Obama’s childhood Unitarian Universalism appears to be a tale about religious sampling, little more." Nor was there any evidence of the young Barack's attendance beyond a few Sundays. Still, something "took." About this there can be no real question. The point to make now is that the significance of these experiences seem to be misunderstood by just about everybody. For conservative Christians here is evidence that Obama was corrupted by false religions in his youth. For 'liberal' Christians here is proof that Obama is one of them. For secular reporters here is evidence that Obama is broad minded; however, no-one can take all that spiritual mumbo-jumbo seriously even if it is a good idea to be patronizing to superstitious people who vote Democratic. Speaking personally, what all these stories tell me is that the young Obama was educated to the value not only of "religious tolerance," but to seeing value in the religious traditions of people of many faiths. Far from being a liability, this kind of education is necessary for any American alive in the modern world. But it does not make Obama a standard issue Christian liberal. And, unlike the views of irreligious journalists, this is anything but condescension to befuddled religious fringe types. It is all about seeing the world in new ways for the emerging new social reality that has begun throughout America and many other countries. My problem with these things is the lack of selectivity involved, an unwillingness to make critical judgement between faiths, and acceptance of whatever exists for no reason except that it exists. But many things exist that we would all be better off if they did not exist. Satanism belongs on this kind of list, along with Scientology, cults like Peoples Temple and Aum Shinri Kyo, and, most of all, Islam. You can have a garden filled with beautiful plants of many kinds but it cannot stay that way if you allow noxious weeds to take root. All of this is important in the present context because Subud has a basically uncritically tolerant view of the religions of the world. It is also important in another sense although one that will only be mentioned in passing here, namely, the fact that Unitarians in those years, and it is also true today, were clearly politically Leftist. The article admits that their church in suburban Seattle had the nickname: "The Little Red Church on the Hill.” Which is a phenomenon some readers may be familiar with from their own experiences. For example, a Disciples of Christ church in Eugene is known locally as the "Cathedral of Marx and Lenin," Rev. Dan Bryant, presiding commissar. It may not be quite that bad, but this is the general idea. . Obama did attend the Unitarian church in Hawaii often enough that when he returned to the islands for a visit in December of 2008, then as president-elect, he visited again. The occasion was a memorial service for Madelyn Dunham, his recently deceased grandmother -who was a member- and Barack recalled the building and its rooms. Remember that for four years Barack Hussein's grandparents took care of him when he attended high school from 1975 until 1979, while his mother lived in Indonesia and made a career for herself. . There is no question of the grandparents' views. Stanley Dunham, the grandfather, had once said about the Unitarian approach, “It’s like you get five religions in one.” His wife, Madelyn, who retained something of her more conventional Christian faith, replied, saying: “For Christ’s sake, Stanley, religion is not supposed to be like buying breakfast cereal.” What should also be noted however, is that Buddhism is a major religion in Hawaii. Most Buddhists, then as now, were Japanese-Americans. Obama would have grown up in an environment shared by multiple faiths.religions for many years. Until the influx white Americans There also were significant numbers of Taoists and Confucians, some Hindus, some Jews, various groups who followed one or another native Hawaiian religion (usually mixed with Christianity), and an assortment of new religions such as Theosophy, which had its start in the islands in 1890. This included the Baha'i Faith, which was first introduced to Hawaii in 1901. In other words, whatever might be said about Seattle or anywhere else in the mainland United States, it made a lot of sense to have a "unitarian" attitude toward religion in Hawaii. And that attitude took concrete form in at least a few religions, like Theosophy and the Baha's Faith, where a variety of religions are all regarded as "true" and "good. It also was found in Subud. Ann Dunham, with her son, returned to Honolulu and in January 1963, where she resumed her undergraduate education at the University of Hawaii. In January 1964, Dunham filed for divorce from Barack's father; this was not contested. Barack Obama, Sr., later graduated from Harvard University with a degree in economics and in 1965 returned to Kenya. Now Lolo Soetoro entered the scene. He was a surveyor from Indonesia who had come to Honolulu in September 1962 on an East-West Center grant to study at the University of Hawaii. He earned a master's degree in geography in June 1964. In 1963, Ann Dunham met _Soetoro_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolo_Soetoro) in 1963 at the _East–West Center_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East– West_Center) ; they became a couple shortly afterwards. They were married on _Molokai_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molokai) on March 15, 1965. After two one-year extensions of his _J-1 visa_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J-1_visa) , Lolo returned to _Indonesia_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia) in 1966, Which is to say that Ann Durham had motivation to move to Indonesia at the earliest opportunity to rejoin her husband. In the meantime, with her son, she moved in with her parents. She did not depart immediately because she wanted to complete a degree in anthropology, which would not be accomplished until August of 1967. Two months after that, in October, she took Barack, then 6 years old, with her and relocated to Indonesia . At least this is the "official version" of the story. And it has much to commend it. We can identify with the personae dramatis. Many Americans have gone through similar experiences as part of their education. This narrative is plausible, makes obvious sense, and is 'economical' with the facts. We don't need to drag in nefarious plots or conspiracies. However, it does seem that the story is simply "too good to be true." All of which sets the stage for Subud. But was Ann Dunham a member while she lived in Hawaii in the sixties? Subud was established in Hawaii in 1967, the last year that Ann Dunham lived there before relocating to Indonesia. Indeed, there apparently was significant Subud growth in that time period inasmuch as the next year, 1968, the Indonesian founder of the movement, Bapak Subuh, visited Honolulu en route to America, and again on the return trip as he headed back to Jakarta. These stopovers were major events for the nascent Subud community in Hawaii. The question must be asked: Did Ann Dunham become a Subud follower in 1967 in Hawaii? When we try to answer the question the official version of the Obama story starts to fall apart. Ann Dunham's early relationship with Subud . For now the best that can be said is that it is reasonable to conclude that Dunham learned about Subud while she still lived in Honolulu. We can only speculate about how seriously she might have taken this religious philosophy at the time, although it is very clear that a few years later she definitely had become part of the cult. Her time in Hawaii, married to a black man from Indonesia, surely would have made her receptive to Subud ideas. To anyone who has seen the East-West Center, the institution is impressive, not only because it resembles a college in its own right and features examples of beautiful Oriental architecture, but because, certainly in that time period, it was welcoming to people of many faiths in an informal atmosphere. It is, as I can report first hand from experiences in the later 1970s and early 1980s, a great place to meet people. Someone who saw everything was Reynold Ruslan Feldman, a Jewish-Christian member of Subud, and a professor of English literature at the University of Hawaii. UH is literally next door to the East-West Center and essentially shares the same campus. Feldman's writings on the subject can be accessed on the Web at various sites but most relevant is the material found at Subud Boulder, in Colorado, where he also spent part of his academic career. Feldman, at any rate, spent a good deal of time at the Center and sometimes gave presentations there. His essay on the subject also is explicit to the effect that he, along with his wife Simone, founded the first Subud group in Hawaii in 1967. Apparently this took place in the Spring; by Autumn the group had 25 members. Ann Dunham knew about the East-West Center from the first year she moved to the islands, 1960, when Congress appropriated $10 million to commence work on the facility. Janny Scott, in her biography of Dunham, A Singular Woman, says that the Center became "an institution that more than any would go on, over the next twenty-five years, to influence the direction of her life." After all, Dunham studied at the East–West Center as well as the University of Hawaii. She was awarded a bachelor's degree in anthropology and eventually a master's and a PhD, also in anthropology. A website called "Subud & Javanese Mysticism" with the subtitle "Deep Politics Forum," dated August 9-10, 2012, adds the information that "Subud had a number of members at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, where Obama's mother met [both] Barack Obama's father and step-father" -obviously at different times. It is inconceivable, in other words, that Dunham did not learn about Subud the year it was being organized "under her nose," as it were. Especially since her soon-to-be next husband, Lolo Soetoro, not only was a student of geography but an NCO in the Indonesian Army. He was also familiar with the Center and had known about it almost as long as Ann had; Lolo arrived in 1962. The significance of Soetoro's military service has its own importance because the Indonesian army at that time had connections to Subud. . . . . -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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