Posted on 05/12/2010 8:47:16 AM PDT by curiosity
The origin of modern myths and legends is a side interest of mine, the birther myths among them.
Now I understand why Obama being born in Kenya made it into your belief system, despite it being physically impluasible (requiring around 5 days and five flights, most on propeller planes) and financially impossible (it would have cost about a year of her parents' combined salaries) for Stanley Ann & Obama Sr. to travel there for her to give birth. After all, Obama's Father was from Kenya, so if you are going to make up a myth about Obama being born abroad, what better place than Kenya?
Implausibilty, and even impossiblilty doesn't deter the making of myths if there is a strong emotional reason to believe them, as in this case.
What I don't understand is, of all possible places in Kenya, why make Mombassa the birthplace in your myth? If you look at the map of Kenya, it's on the other end of the country from Obama Sr.'s village, 762 miles away, which would make it a minimum 2 day train ride. Probably longer, since Kenyan trains were very fast in 1961.
I suppose you could argue that there were no hospitals in Obama's village, so they had to travel to a major city. But Nairobi was closer, and more modern.
So why Mombassa? Not only is it completely implausible; I don't see the emotional appeal. Why Mombasssa rather than his father's village? Or why Mombassa rather than Nairobi?
Help me out here, birthers. Why do you reserve this special place for Mombassa in your belief system?
This is laughable...because Mombasa didn't have an International Airport -- it's a total non sequitur they could NOT have traveled to Nairobi to fly out.
So to be clear: some official in Kenya, who's probably never even met Obama or any of his family members, says offhand that Obama was born in Kenya, and that's a credible source on Obama's birthplace?
Yes, lets be clear Ms. Politijab - you should acknowledge the crushing evidence that Obama very well is likely born in Kenya. They are not all off-hand quotes that Obama is from Kenya...from all the many sources. So when is Obama going to "repatriate himself" back to Kenya?
I mean, I'm sure he's a swell and upstanding guy, but what reason is there to think that he knows the secret truth about Obama's birthplace?
OH, he knows along with the rest of the high government Kenyan officials that Obama was born in Kenya.
Isn't it time you started educating yourself?
Not that I mind but finding all these links assumes that you take the time to study them.
For one thing he settled a docker worker's strike there in 1955.
So your theory of “Why Mombasa?” is:
- Barack Sr. was close with Tom Mboya;
- Tom Mboya mediated a strike in Mombasa in 1955;
- Therefore, Barack Sr. made an undocumented trip to Kenya in 1961 to see Tom Mboya, then met Mboya in Mombasa rather than Nairobi, and his wife gave birth to his son while there.
How is this not just wild speculation?
Didn’t the doctor on the Kenyan birth certificate turn out to be Barak Sr.’s neighbor later on or something like that??
I always felt that the Mombasa story had some credibility because it was so unlikely. A fake story about Obama being born in Kenya would certainly be made up to be in Barak Sr.’s village or in Nairobi or some nearby city with a modern hospital. Also, Mombasa would be a convenient seaport for anyone traveling by ship. It was reported that Susan Blake had received a postcard from SAD that was sent from a ship.
Thanks
How did these people get to the US? Ship or Plane?
posts 7324 and 7332
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2040486/posts?q=1&;page=7324
I never said it wasn't.
The question was Why would Obama's mother go to Mombasa?
and it was framed in such a way that we were asked to speculate on why she went there and how she got there.
We weren't asked to prove she was ever there but rather why she would have gone there in the first place.
I have proved that it was possible for her to travel there, that it was a place where she would have been comfortable, and that her husband's patron would have been there as well.
State schools aren't expensive.
Furthermore how was Obama Sr.s education financed all over the world living in grass huts???
As I mentioned earlier, his education and travel was financed by various foundations and grants made available to African students in the late 1950's and early 1960's.
Airfares went down after airline deregulation in 1979-1980. As to education, Obama Jr. was a member of a favored minority group from a low income household. It's not hard to get financial aid for college if you're in that demographic.
I'm sorry; I assumed you were attempting to justify the actual city of Mombasa, rather than Kenya as a whole. Y'know, the topic of the thread. Do you have any original, pre-Berg justification for suspecting the city of Mombasa?
Yes, lets be clear Ms. Politijab - you should acknowledge the crushing evidence that Obama very well is likely born in Kenya. They are not all off-hand quotes that Obama is from Kenya...from all the many sources.
And by "crushing evidence" you mean several foreign news reports about an American politician, some statements by people Obama's never met, and a handful of comments and idioms by family members that you interpret to be confessions? That "crushing evidence"?
OH, he knows along with the rest of the high government Kenyan officials that Obama was born in Kenya.
Of course. It's a huge secret here in the US, but the entire government of Kenya knows it? Obama's sworn everyone in the US to silence, but he took the trouble to tell the Kenyan government? And I'm sure the reason why they aren't speaking up is because they're all in on the conspiracy too?
I defy you to find a single instance in which she claimed her husband was born in Mombasa.
For a single mother?? Or do you presume SAD's alleged husband was paying for SAD to attend the University of Washington??
http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-18560_162-2455502-5.html
"Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr., center, is shown wearing floral leis on his graduation day at the University of Hawaii in the early 1960s."
And you believe that to be true because??????
"Possible to travel there" and "would have been comfortable" describe practically the entire industrialized first world. So that does nothing to justify Mombasa in particular.
Mboya's presence in Mombasa could conceivably be spun into a justification, but you haven't shown that he WOULD have been there; you've only shown that he COULD have been. (While you've simultaneously pointed out Mboya's widespread travels, which could conceivably justify any number of possible locations.) Showing that he lived there would be one thing, but only showing that he'd been in the city six years earlier is virtually meaningless.
Hmmm.
CBS News, in publishing the original photo, says that it’s a photo of Barack Sr’s graduation.
But random unknown person on the internet republishes CBS’s photo and claims it’s a photo of Barack Sr’s arrival by ship in Hawaii.
My oh my, who to trust...I mean, one’s a primary source from a national news agency, and the other is a random person making up stuff on the internet. It’s like trying to decide whether to trust a respected fact-checking organization or a convicted forger/amateur cryptozoologist.
“Obama’s father, Barack Obama Sr., center, is shown wearing floral leis on his graduation day at the University of Hawaii in the early 1960s.”
Ah yes graduation day at night with a suitcase and only one graduate wearing leis, sailors in uniform..absent Ann and his baby Obie...photo taken in dark unlit area...May 1964 afternoon? yeah that’s the ticket. And you question us as to speculation?
I proved it was plausible, and that was all I needed to do.
That was all we were asked to do.
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