Good for him. (If, according to the story, perhaps a little late.)
Story here:
Countdown to hysterics and bloviating in the right-wing media…
His speech to the Muslim group was horrible too. He struggled so mightily to even just get his first two sentences out at the beginning - it was painful to watch. I saw Trump’s interview with Chris Wallace, and while every single thing he said was bullshit, I am forced to agree with his assessment of Biden as being confused, tired, and weak. MAYBE it was just an off day, but he did not bring his A game to that speech. At all.
He also just handed a soundbite to the opposition on a silver platter by saying “I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith.” I have to assume what he meant is teaching about the faith in an objective, historical context, obviously - but at a time when the right wing is obsessed with the idea of “religion” (Christianity) being “taken out of schools”, this is going to be spun as Biden saying that children should be indoctrinated into the Islamic religion in schools. It’s asinine, it’s completely absurd, and it is going to catch like wildfire.
Talk about all religions, Christian, Islam, Buddhist, Hinduism, Sikh, Judaism, etc. I do have a wee bit of problem when schools go over backwards to not ‘offend’ Muslim students. But go the other way when it’s a Christian on. Just sayin.
This would be a very good thing. There is a tremendous amount of misinformation out there, much of which is generally accepted without question by much of the population.
By “go the other way”, you mean that the schools go over backwards to offend Christian students? I’ve not seen this. I have seen schools occasionally not give everything and anything to the Christians who demand it, which often the Christians decry as persecution, but I’ve not actually seen what it is that you are talking about.
Biden is also dead wrong when he claims that “we all come from the same roots” with religion. That is true only of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - and even then, the “roots” don’t mean the religions are alike in practice. Buddhism and Hinduism are nothing like Islam and Christianity. The animist religious still practiced today by Native Americans are nothing like Islam and Christianity. And I really don’t know what in the hell Biden was on about his “avocation” and “the great confessional faiths”, or how that relates to Muslims.
There’s nothing objectionable per se about reaching out to Muslim voters. This was just typical Biden being Biden.
Well, that may be. But it’s also the case that most Americans are utterly ignorant about Orthodox Christianity and the fact that most of the territories referred to as “the Middle East” that are today Islamic, were once Orthodox Christian and that the Orthodox Christians were and still are suffering under the Islamic conquest. How many people educated in American schools have the faintest idea of who the Copts are; that they have their own Pope, named Tawadros II; or that they are relentlessly persecuted in Egypt? How many of them know the faintest thing about the Syriac Rite or the Melkite Catholic Church?
I often hear that the concept of colonialism and imperialism needs to be stressed in historical education. This is a prime example of it.
But he was talking to a Muslim audience, he was not talking to all religions. He was taking to one that came from the same root as Christianity.
I don’t see how you take it that he is talking about all religions there.
True, but that’s not what he said either.
If there’s nothing objectionable, wouldn’t it just be typical person being person?
I mean, that’s all you really had to say there…
Lotta people suffered under a lotta people’s rules.
Could well be argued that during the Caliphate was one of the most religiously tolerant times of the history of the Abrahamic religions.
Probably very few. Not sure what your point is. How many Americans can tell you what the Shay rebellion was about? How many can name 5 of the SCOTUS’s? How many could tell you who the Catholic Pope is right now?
I’m actually not sure what it is that you are thinking needs to be stressed here. What is this “This” of which you speak?
Here’s a youtube of the speech
I disagree with your characterization of the beginning of the speech and of Biden in general. (I do think they need to rethink the lighting choices in the room because it looks like he’s squinting. But young, hearty, healthy people squint when you shine light in their eyes - so that doesn’t say much.)
Yeah, I looked up the speech to watch and have no idea what Lamoral is saying about the beginning. He was fine, didn’t seem “diminished” or “confused” or whatever. Wasn’t struggling at all that I could see.
What I meant, sorry, is that I’ve seen some schools give spaces for prayer times for the Muslim student , where as Christians are not allowed to have the same consideration. Like I said I think the public schools should give an understanding and conversation of all religions.
Do you have a cite for that?
So, are you saying that because the Muslim religion requires multiple prayers per day, and the school gives the students the freedom to follow these requirements, but Christian religion does not have a similar requirement they are treated differently?
When I was in school, every morning, there were kids gathered around the flag pole joined in Christian prayer.
I am sure that if mainstream Christian denominations required multiple prayers per day, our school day would be scheduled around them, just as it is currently scheduled around Christian holidays and Holy Days.
If we were really bending over backwards to accommodate the Muslim religion, then we would not have school on Fridays.
Our school week is at least partially scheduled around Christian denominations. It doesn’t include Sundays. While these days that probably has more to do with the American weekend, I expect Christian church services were the original reason for not holding school on Sundays.
You could at least quote him properly:
“we all come from the same root here, in terms of our fundamental basic beliefs.”
Agreed, my point was that @eenerms was implying that Muslims get something the Christian kids don’t get, when the actuality is that the Muslims only stand out when they “get to” pray because of the pervasiveness of the Christian culture they live in.
As I said:
Yeah I don’t understand this attack either. There is such a desire to characterize Biden as mentally diminished that there is jumping on nothingness. And it just creates a very low bar for Biden to jump over. Which he constantly does. So… thanks?
I don’t think Biden IS actually mentally diminished in any way, I think he just has a really hard time with speaking. I understand that he had to overcome a stutter and that’s an admirable achievement - and look, I’m resigned to the fact that he’s our nominee - but God, I wish he could talk like Pete Buttigieg.
No, just
You wish this for yourself, or you wish this because you think that others wish it for themselves?
Buttigieg was tied for my top pick pre-primary. I’d love it if somehow he managed to win the nomination in some weird way.
But I do not compare him to Biden, as they are no longer running against eachother.
I think that most others probably DO wish it for themselves. Outside of a few radical socialists who were Bernie-or-Bust people and described Pete as an “empty suit”, I’ve pretty much universally heard his speaking style described in superlative terms.
He had two things against him: young/inexperienced, and gay. So yes, if Biden, who is very experienced and very not-gay, could speak like Buttigieg, I believe he’d be a much stronger candidate than either of them individually. But of course, barring some kind of hybridization process, like the Trill in Star Trek:Deep Space 9, they will sadly remain individual beings.