2016: Obama's America by D'Souza

[mdegges]

Just saw 2016: Obama's America, a movie based on Dinesh D'Souza's book 'The Roots of Obama's Rage.' It's definitely a right-wing piece, but it was really interesting and I learned a lot about Obama's life and influences (his own father and step-brother from Kenya, Communist writer Paul Kengor, professor Roberto Unger, pastor Jeremiah Wright, Edward Said, friend Bill Ayers, etc).

More interesting though, was D'Souza's hypothesis that Obama is an anti-colonialist like his father (see 'How Obama Thinks' for a detailed explanation), and that "He simply subscribes to an ideology that thinks it would be good for America to have a diminished economy and a diminished role in the world. [Here he uses examples showing that Obama increased the national debt enormously, refused to act to stop Iran from creating nuclear weapons, reduced the military, supported Islamicism, supported Egypt's radical president, banned offshore oil drilling, increased regulations, defended global warming, etc.] In other words, Obama is all about what he perceives as global justice. And global justice to him means a redistribution of wealth and power away from America and towards the rest of the world. [For ex, D'Souza says Obama financially supported Brazil's oil drilling efforts.] That’s his ideology. He thinks it would be good for America to have a humbler role in the world. He thinks it would be good for America not to be No. 1 but to be No. 18 or No. 34 in the world. [And to have no nuclear weapons.] It’s part of his vision of global justice." [1]

In short, "the film argues that President Obama wants to reduce significantly the U.S.'s influence within the world while increasing the influence of nations that he believes have suffered or been held back economically or militarily due to U.S. and Western domination." [2] This is an interesting view that I haven't heard before, but it seems to explain some of Obama's viewpoints (on closing down gitmo, reducing our # of nuclear weapons, being hostile towards Isreal, raising debt, wondering why 'other countries can't have nuclear weapons,' trying to reduce the USA's # of nukes, etc).

Anyways, I liked it. If you've seen it or read the book, post your thoughts. I haven't heard D'Souza mentioned very much on this board, except for a few negative comments about his religious beliefs (he's christian and extremely anti-secularist). From his wiki, "In 2009, he published Life After Death: The Evidence, which attempts to use scientific and philosophical arguments to support the concept of the afterlife, and also uses theoretical physics to support the concept of God and the fine-tuned Universe and refute atheist arguments. The book earned praise from atheist Christopher Hitchens for Dinesh’s argumentative skills." That sounds.. interesting!

[Spiral Architect]

I watched Hitchens debate D’Souza at Freedom Fest one year – He demolished him. D’Souza is well informed but he still falls into the same philosophic traps in his rush to justify religion.

I’ve heard him before use his “Anti-Colonist” view. I have not seen this, simply because he is like Moore and I have little desire to pay money and time watching an extended campaign commercial unless I get a good review, but I have seen a video he did presenting this concept before. While certainly better thought out then the usual material it seemed to me at the time he was simply dancing around the fact Obama is an Egalitarian. Once you grasp that, and the fact Obama actually believes it, all of this falls into place.