In the heat of an election year, with the two presidential candidates running in a closely contested race, there’s a lot to consider for Americans who want to make an informed decision on which candidate to vote for.
There’s a lot at stake in this election, a clear choice between Republican Mitt Romney wanting to the return to the Constitution of the United States as opposed to a more socialistic approach, and incumbent Barack Obama, especially in view of the current economic climate, and the direction we are to go in the future. Media pundits everywhere are spinning information in a variety of ways, depending on their persuasion, and talking points are elbowed into conversations on political talk shows on cable news networks almost around the clock. Where is the good old fact reporting practice anymore? I feel at times that we are told, or in the best case scenario suggested and analyzed as to what to THINK because we simply do not have the time to watch TV 24/7. Therefore, we are suggested by analytical “decoding†as to what decision to make!. Well, no wonder! In this rat race for mere survival and complete exhaustion we are busier with what to put on the table for dinner than how to interpret the latest tricks in politics!
In the midst of all this frantic politicking, a documentary film on Barack Obama, called 2016: Obama’s America, with the subtitle Love him, Hate Him, You Don’t Know Him by Dinesh D’Souza has been making the rounds both as a limited release in theaters and through on-demand video. D’Souza narrates the documentary, and begins describing his own life by drawing SOME parallel between his own experiences as an Indian-American immigrating to the United States, as a college student at Dartmouth College, moving on to become an editor at the conservative magazine Policy Review and then working for the Reagan administration, with that of the life events of Barack Obama.
As he gets into the narrative about Obama, D’Souza points out the similarities between his life in India and Barack Obama’s days growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia (and states that Obama’s birth was noted in a Hawaiian newspaper.) Young Barack Obama was raised by his mother, Ann Dunham, and stepfather Lolo Soetoro, after his father, Barack Obama Sr. returned to Kenya.
D’Souza interviews a psychologist who discusses the detrimental effect an absentee father can have on his children, concluding that children who are abandoned often have a need to prove themselves and sometimes become overachievers or exhibiting too much drive for power! (No wonder Obama appeared just recently during one of his campaign battles wearing his desired title “Commander in Chief†literally on his sleeve: printed on his jacket! I wonder if we all needed that information, or he thought we hear this expression for the first time! What was the reason for drawing attention to his title that all president have had? Another returning phrase that I believe is just taking up airtime: “ when I am President of the United States of America!†I doubt that there is anyone on Earth who does not know that the United States is the United States of America from an English-speaking 4 year President! But let’s give the ego what the ego needs. I am not judging, I am just noticing…)
D’Souza then travels to Kenya and interviews Obama’s half-brother, George Obama, who lives a pretty minimal third world existence, overtly wondering why the President has done nothing to help him.
Continuing with the biographical narrative, as Obama’s parents’ relationship became strained (Obama’s mother and father Barack Obama Sr. divorced in 1964), Obama is sent to Hawaii to live with his grandparents and meets Frank Marshall Davis, who is described at a prominent radical and card-carrying Communist. Obama goes on to study at Columbia, where the film claims he is influenced by anti-colonialist professors and activists. His philosophical development and social views are highlighted in a visit to Kenya after the death of his father in a car accident when the young Obama was 21.
The film incorporates spoken words from Obama’s audio book, Dreams from My Father. Here emphasis is put on the word “from,†implying a direct connection from father to son in terms of the former’s radical politics being in the genes DESPITE that they hardly spent time together as father and son!
D’Souza then describes Obama’s father, Barack Obama, Sr. and his anti-colonialist views of the British Empire. This, according to D’Souza, explains why Obama supposedly rejects American exceptionalism and why he is attempting to “reshape America.” D’Souza explains this need to change the country as being due to the conflict between Obama’s Americanism and Africanism. He says Obama’s anti-colonial philosophy is something derived from his father, using the phrase “embracing his father’s failed third world collectivism.â€
The film then profiles a number of what it calls the “founding fathers” from Obama’s past, including Frank Marshall Davis, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Edward Said, and Roberto Unger. These are men who had radical political agendas, some of whom Obama knew and others were professors he studied with in college. D’Souza implies that each of these men had a powerful influence in shaping Obama’s political philosophy that has been a truly lasting and engraved imprint on him.
D’Souza goes on to argue that President Obama’s anti-colonialism creates an agenda of wanting to significantly reduce U.S. influence in the world, while increasing the influence of nations that he believes have suffered, or been held back economically due to U.S. and Western domination. An example of Obama’s anti-colonialism is his resistance to allowing an oil pipeline to be built in the United States, which would create jobs but also increase the profits of oil companies, while encouraging oil production in previously colonized countries like Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. D’Souza also states that Obama wants to severely reduce America’s stockpile of nuclear weapons, bringing the number down to the levels of other countries. He also lists a surprising number of choices that Obama made as President, which does not make any sense from the American stand point of view, and is in direct conflict of the best interest of this country and its people. (The film is actually very enjoyable to watch, as the factual accuracy is engaging and despite a documentary in genre, it feels like a movie where the viewer, directly influenced by all of President Obama choices, is just glued to the screen.)
To support his position on Obama, D’Souza interviews Shelby Steele, Paul Vitz, Alice Dewey, Paul Kengor, Willy Kauai, George Obama, Philip Ochieng, Joseph Ojiru, Daniel Pipes, David Walker and half-sister Sarah Obama (off-screen). In the end the film tries to tie a lot of information together from interviews and Obama’s background to establish that Obama has antipathy for America and the wealthy, and is in favor of humbling this country and stripping wealth from the rich. The film provides some analysis of the current debt situation in the U.S., describing the country as accumulating debt at a record rate, and, if trends continue, will have $20 trillion in debt by 2016. This, to me confirms that the fact that Obama has never worked in the private sector, and has not the first experience as to the real world of enterprise, he, based on his position and nothing else, can make decisions by SIMPLY JUST borrowing money, which, again, in his position he can! The rest of us making America CANNOT! But, would a business owner, who is driven by his/her talent and the every day creativity to thrive have the luxury of just “getting money as needed,†or the incentive, which drives the American spirit is what makes this country and should be at work here? Take away that incentive and pride in achievement, badmouth success, and the ambition is gone!
In closing, D’Souza warns that, although we really didn’t know Barack Obama in 2008, we do now, although I would say the cloud has not completely vanished. But, he says, if Obama is elected to a second term the ramifications will be far reaching. “The future is in your hands,” D’Souza says. All of this and other facts in the film, are supported by Jessica Yellin, a winning journalist, who walks us though in a CNN “Obama Reveled†documentary/ reporting style of brief of the dire consequences that people has ALREADY demonstrated during Obama’s term. She is not talking about the future, but rather reveals “The Man, The President.â€
D’Souza’s film is a side that provides dense information on Barak Obama and a presumed presidential agenda, while suggesting other ideas that are harder to prove, but comes from D’ Souza’s whose life is very similar to that of Obama’s in terms of origin and certain human elements. Thus he is landing more credibility to the truth of it all, as opposed to mere criticism, let’s say: – from the rich! We can’t know with absolute certainty that President Obama has an anti-colonial world philosophy and intends to diminish America, but that is what D’Souza is implying here, and very cleverly supports it with plain facts that puzzled even the White House.
