Love him or hate him, you don’t know him

Love him or hate him, you don’t know him
By: Hope Hodge
9/8/2012 07:21 AM

Love him or hate him, you don’t know him.

It’s a bold tagline for a film investigating a man whose family dog is a household name and whose junk food jags and basketball injuries lead the news cycle.

But conservative author and debater Dinesh D’Souza’s documentary film “2016: Obama’s America” makes good on its claim with a tightly crafted thesis about the world and philosophies our 44th commander in chief was born into and the radical ways these early influences, quite logically, shaped his thinking. If you don’t learn anything from watching the film, ask for your money back.

The movie is based on D’Souza’s 2010 New York Times bestseller “The Roots of Obama’s Rage,” which, along with the accompanying precis version published in Forbes, managed to inspire quite a bit of rage all its own. Critics called the analyses “absurd,” “lacking in truth and fact,” and “shameful,” to cite some of the more even-handed reviews. But then, as D’Souza points out, such critics have been unwilling to conduct their own investigations of the facts. ).(Disclosure: “The Roots of Obama’s Rage” and D’Souza’s newly released follow-up “Obama’s America” are both published by Regnery, which like Human Events, is owned by Eagle Publishing)

But though D’Souza’s proposition — that President Barack Obama’s actions and philosophies are greatly informed by the passionate anti-colonialism of his Kenyan father — is so far out of mainstream thought it has to seem radical, his presentation of his findings through the medium of film gives him an edge that may not have been as accessible to him in his book or in magazine articles.

Like Obama, D’Souza is a non-white American who spent formative years outside the U.S. (D’Souza grew up in India, while Obama divided his school years between Indonesia and Hawaii). And D’Souza too has close relatives who espouse anti-colonial sentiments he describes in the film as “anti-British and slightly anti-white” — understandable for Indians who grew up with various forms of race restriction in their own country until gaining independence from the British in 1947. By frontloading his own story in the film, D’Souza makes it hard for liberals to dismiss his investigation as a racially motivated hit born of conservative xenophobia.

Why are Obama’s anti-colonial influences relevant to his leadership of the U.S.? D’Souza explains in Forbes:

“Anticolonialists hold that even when countries secure political independence they remain economically dependent on their former captors … Obviously the solution is to resist and overthrow the oppressors. This was the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. and many in his generation, including many of my own relatives in India.” From this, he explains further in the film and on paper, comes the seed of Obama Jr.’s insistence on the wealthy paying “their fair share,” his support for anti-establishment movements such as Occupy Wall Street, and his refusal to espouse a philosophy of American exceptionalism at home or abroad.

D’Souza is our soft-spoken and bespectacled tour guide as we retrace Obama’s footsteps to Hawaii, Indonesia, and Kenya, our travels often interspersed with voiceovers from Obama himself as he reads from his 1995 memoir “Dreams From My Father.” We meet the president’s half-brother George Obama, who, D’Souza implies, remains in poverty in Kenya while his sibling runs the free world because the two differed so wildly on politics and their views on colonial influence.

Even more compelling is a discussion of the radicals D’Souza calls Obama’s “founding fathers” — the communist writer and poet Frank Marshall Davis, collectivist Harvard professor Roberto Unger, and of course the terror-connected Bill Ayers and anti-America invective-spewing Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The fact that the media has not even attempted to explore Obama’s connection to some of these men may be the film’s most resounding crack at the culture of willful ignorance that elected Obama, and the most difficult piece of evidence for critics of D’Souza’s work to shrug off.

The documentary is well-shot and edited, but straightforward, without excessive reliance on dramatic graphics or mood music: this is a story meant to be accessible to Republicans, Democrats, and perhaps most particularly undecided voters.

And the timing couldn’t be better. With a 1,091-theater release at the heart of political convention season, the film is already the top-grossing conservative documentary ever made and sixth on the list of best-received political docs, according to AP reports.

The runaway success of the film was an industry surprise, but its overall achievement might be better measured by the staying power of a final, haunting question: “which dream will we carry into 2016? The American dream, or Obama’s dream?”

Filmgoers will have more than popcorn to chew on as they leave the theater.
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My Review of the movie "2016, Obama'a America."
excerpt from my Thoughts for the Day 9-5-2012.

Today Cheryl and I went to a movie we have been wanting to see - "2016, Obama's America". I have read several articles about this movie by Dinesh D'Souza and interviews of him. This movie was based on two of Dinesh's books, "Roots Of Obama's Rage" which I have read, and "Obama's America." Dinesh also refers to Barack Obama's own book, "Dreams From My Father" several times in his movie, I also read this book along with his other book "The Audacity Of Hope" back in 2008 before the elections that year. I should point out at this time after I read Barack Obama's books that I thought their was no way that this man could ever be our president.

So the movie "2016 - Obama's America" was about what America might be like in the year 2016, should Barack Obama be re-elected in the 2012 Elections. Dinesh shows the similarities between Obama and him, both born in 1961, both attended an Ivy League school (Barack attended Columbia and Harvard - Dinesh attended Dartmouth), both were married in 1992, and both grew up surrounded by anti-colonialist family members. Anti-colonialists believed that the larger nations that are (The United States) and were (England) superpowers have stolen their wealth and raw materials from many smaller, and poorer country's, we have bled them dry and that's why they are poor. Dinesh believes that Obama sees the citizens of our country as the "richest 1%" and the rest of the world as the "poorer 99%" and that we owe them economic justice, by returning their riches to them, and by making ourselves smaller economically, and militarily - thereby giving up our advantages and/or exceptionalism compared to the rest of the world. Barack Obama also believes (as mentioned in his Cairo speech) that the United States and the Muslim world have many similarities, and that we should coexist, be our allies and have shared justice. The truth is something else entirely - to the Muslims it's their way or the highway. They don't wish to share justice with us or anything else - they want us dead. Dinesh talks about in the movie how Obama took us to war against Libya, but does nothing to help the Syrian people, many who are being murdered by their current regime. He talks about how we encouraged the overthrow of a former ally in Eygpt, Hosni Mubarak allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to take control. He talks about how we did nothing to help the people's revolt of our worst enemies in the Middle East, Iran. Dinesh mentions how Obama and his administration is blocking our country from using our own oil and oil from Canada (XL Pipeline), but is giving billions to Brazil, Mexico, and Columbia to recover their oil supplies. This drastically increases the cost of our energy and makes it so we are more dependent on oil from the Middle East.

Dinesh also mentions Obama's founding fathers, and they are not Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin. They are more like Frank Marshall Davis (called Frank in his own book "Dreams From My Father"), Edward Said - a Palestinian radical at Columbia, Roberto Unger at Harvard Law School, Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. Barack was heavily influenced by these men and Dinesh explains how. He also explains how he was heavily influence by his own mother Stanley, who idolized Barack Sr. radical ways and beliefs.

In this movie Dinesh travels to India, Jakarta Indonesia, Hawaii, and the homeland of Barack's father, Barack Sr. in Kenya, Africa. He does many interesting interviews with interesting people such as Obama's brother George Obama, Obama's Grandmother, people in Kenya who knew Obama Sr. and Jr., Shelby Steele, Paul Kengor (who talks about Barack's Communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis), and Daniel Pipes who's an expert on the Middle East and Israel. The movie also provides excellent illustrations that go with what Dinesh is talking about. Dinesh isn't a Birther (he believes Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and not Kenya - despite much evidence to the contrary, but I know he wants as many people as possible to take him seriously. It's a sometimes funny (Dinesh has a sense of humor), but mostly very serious movie - very well researched.

The maker of this film is Jerry Molen, who previously made "Jurassic Park," "Minority Report" with Tom Cruise, and "Schindler's List" - the big leagues. Very well made. Dinesh is the star, but so is Barack Obama and all of the people we never hear about from our mainstream media for reasons that this movie makes obvious.
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To read another article about "2016 - Obama's America," click here.