2016: Obama’s America

    I haven’t seen this documentary yet, as of this writing, but I plan to do it over the weekend. By “over the weekend” I mean the one that, from the perspective of those reading this column, has just passed. I always write my rants during the week before publication so that Tom, the editor, has time to read them.
    I have, of course, been hearing about this film for some time. At present, it’s one of the highest grossing documentaries ever made. The fact that some conservative friends have seen it along with reading a copy of an article about it from the Investors Business Daily (IBD) Sept. 6 edition, convinced me that I really ought to watch it. When I listened to portions of Bill Clinton’s speech from the “Democratic” National Convention, the first thought that came to my mind was that it would have been more accurate for him to describe Barack Obama as a president who is cool on the outside and hates America on the inside. The documentary claims to explain why President Obama hates America.
    The documentary is based on a book written by Dinesh D’Souza. D’Souza also co-wrote the film. D’Souza is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Dartmouth College, with a BA in English. He’s been on the New York Times’ best selling authors list multiple times. The documentary’s goal is to show, to a general audience that President Obama sees the United States as having been a negative influence in the world, which would explain why he felt the need to go about apologizing for America at the beginning of his term in office. As president, he wants to significantly reduce America’s influence in the world while increasing the influence of countries that he believes the United States has harmed.
    From what I gather from the IBD article, D’Souza claims that President Obama’s father was a communist who approved of the Soviet Union and hated the West. It also claims that his father had contact with him while he was growing up and even spent a month with him while he lived in Hawaii and even spoke at his school.
    D’Souza suggests that President Obama idolized his father and picked up surrogate intellectual fathers over the years who thought in his father’s Marxist way. One of these was Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party member, with whom a young Barack Obama spent a considerable amount of time. Another was Frantz Fanon, a Marxist who called the United States “a monster.” Barack Obama never met Fanon, who died in the ‘60s, but he allegedly idolized Fanon and devoured the man’s works while in college.
    Then there’s the influence of Jeremiah Wright, whose church Barack Obama attended in Chicago, famous for saying things such as “not God Bless America. God damn America.” Wright has also praised Hamas, an Islamic terrorist organization and stood on solidarity with the communist Sandinista dictatorship of Nicaragua back in the ‘80s.
    I’ve always felt that we have been very fortunate that President Obama has proved to be a poor leader. Had he been a competent leader, this left-wing ideologue would have done much more damage, during his first two years when fellow Bolsheviks controlled both houses of Congress, than he actually did. If D’Souza, from what I’ve read so far of his thesis, is correct, then we are even more fortunate than I ever thought. The hope and change Barack Obama had in mind in 2008 included a much weaker America and economic polices that worked so well for the Soviet Union that it collapsed from its own failures 20 years ago.
    I don’t know how I’ll feel after seeing the documentary. Back in 2008 I had a few sleepless nights after election day worrying about what Barack Obama was going to do to my country. This documentary may provide me with a little more sleep deprivation in coming days.