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The Maoists In India And Open Thread
Let me recommend a very well written piece in The Caravan magazine about the "Maoists" in India: The Bloody Crossroads – The tragic fate of one village and the deadly consequences of India’s faltering struggle against the Maoist insurgency.
The issue fits the global picture in a smaller, but still quite big, area. Plutocrats stealing land rich with resources and the local people, threatened with losing their livelihood, fighting against the theft. Troops were called in and wage a bloody COIN campaign against the natives which in the end seems to fail.
Use also as open thread ..
I never saw any reason to doubt that Obama was born in Hawaii to his alleged parents..
I thought the controversy typical of US politics, quarrels over trivia designed by all the participants to solder their own group, or to distract…
The whole affair is reminiscent of small town medieval politics, where blood lines, family, favoritism, sexual relations, rumors, etc. occupy the front stage. The Trig-truther (handicapped son of Sarah Palin) hoopla is another example.
However it went so far (the Donald trumpeting and so on) that I was compelled to look it up.
1, The law.
(I also looked into the recent long form Obama birth certificate, and will post about that if there is any interest.)
For the birth of a child to one US citizen and one ‘alien’, in wedlock, outside the US and its possessions:
For birth abroad between December 24, 1952 and November 13, 1986, a period of ten years, five after the age of fourteen, is required for physical presence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions to transmit U.S. citizenship to the child.
http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_5199.html
(see also PDF at bottom for the long version)
Ann became 14 on Nov 29, 1956. She gave birth to Obama on August 4th, 1961. = Less than 5 years.
If she had left US territory, shortly before the birth, due to any circumstances whatsoever, and gave birth ‘abroad’, Obama would not have acquired US citizenship at birth. (Note: ‘citizenship’ and not ‘natural born citizen.’ 1)
By definition, young mothers married to ‘aliens’ could not claim US residence of more than 5 years between their 14th b-day and giving birth before their 19th b-day.
Hawaii became the 50th state in August, 1959. Dunham family moved to Hawaii, from the continental US, in 1960, her US residency is not in question, simply it was too short after age 14 for a birth in foreign parts to transmit citizenship.
Had she been unmarried, Obama’s place of birth would have been immaterial. (The baby then has no ‘alien’ father, no other affiliation. All I have written concerns the mother case.)
This is the reason you nowhere read ‘birthers’ or other purists claiming that the Dunham-Obama marriage was invalid, which might be argued, as O Sr., when he married Ann, was ‘married’ with two children, and not divorced. Interpreting all that, however, would depend on the reading of Kenyan law and custom, and its translation or application to US law, at the time. O Sr.’s previous marriage was not validated in the US, for sure (all his documents of which there are lots make no mention), which is why O Sr. and Ann could and did marry as soon as they realized she was pregnant.
The law quoted up top was amended in 1986, Public Law 99-653, shortening the ‘years of stay’, and it had a retroactive scope of some kind. It would take an expert attorney to unwind the matter further as it would rest on all kinds of detail and precedent, as well as the previous marriage. (See bottom of p. 17 in the PDF.)
At that point, however, had Obama been born in Kenya, according to the rules he would have been a non-US citizen for 25 years, presumably ‘Kenyan’ or ? – i.e. born in a British Crown Colony that became independent when Obama was 2-3 years old.
So, the birther hoopla does *rest on* the law, though most don’t seem to realize it themselves.
I assumed that Obama’s non-US characteristics (black but not African-American – white in his stances and education – lived his childhood+youth outside the continental US – lived in Indonesia, a Muslim country – was called Barry S. – etc.), ordinary racism, Republican Hate, were the only spur. Made to hang on the definition of a ‘natural born citizen’ about which endless arguments could be proffered.
1. It has never been determined definitively by a court whether a person who acquired U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to U.S. citizens is a natural- born citizen within the meaning of Article II of the Constitution and, therefore, eligible for the Presidency.
PDF:
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/86757.pdf
Posted by: Noirette | May 10 2011 14:16 utc | 21
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