D'Souza's theme is to help us understand what motivates Obama, and what it means for the United States if he is re-elected. D'Souza, an Indian immigrant, sees in Obama some of the things he sees in himself, and he asks, why did we come to such completely different worldviews about the role of America in the world.
Like D'Souza, Obama was raised a foreign land - Indonesia mostly in Obama's case, India in D'Souza's. They both studied at Ivy League colleges, yet Obama became a far left ideologue and D'Souza became a Reagan conservative.
Why?
That is what the movie explores. D'Souza believes behind Obama's motivation lies his Kenyan father, a man Obama saw only a short time in his life, yet seemed to have a profound influence on him. In fact, D'Souza borrows liberally from Obama's own words in "Dreams from my Father," a book that spends 1/3 of its pages on a Kenyan experience that lasted a very short time in Obama's life. Like D'Souza, Obama's early life experiences were spent amidst great change in old colonial empires. In Indonesia, Suharto was wresting the country from remains of the Dutch then WW2 Japanese occupiers. Half a world away, Obama's father was working to seal Kenya's independence from the British. The point is, Colonialism shaped Obama father in a profound way, as it did our current president. D'Souza's central theme is that Obama is carrying out the Dreams from his father by righting the wrongs done to 3rd world nations by colonial powers, and he sees the diminution of American power as something he (Obama) owes the world. You may or may not buy that, but, a solid case can be made for it, now that we know something of Obama.
Watch the film. Better yet, get a few of your undecided friends to watch it. If their primary news source is the broadcast networks, they may have never heard many of these things. If their primary news source is CNN or MSDNC, odds are good they have been lied to about many of these things.
D'Souza clearly wants to paint a dangerous picture of the American of 2012-2016 under Obama. Like me, he finds Obama dangerous, and he wants the American people to understand this as well. So, the film has a legitimate current purpose - the prevention of a 2nd Obama term, and all that it would entail when he has "the flexibility he needs" after the 2012 election.
I find the question of motivation more of one for History. We knew much of this about Obama in 2008. It really was there for those who cared to look. The relationship with terrorist Weather Underground leaders Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn, the 20 year relationship with Black Liberation Theologist Jeremiah Wright, the history with ACORN, a legislative history in Illinois (when he wasn't voting present) that identified him as a card-carrying leftist, near Marxist. If you dared, it was there to be found.
For 2012, we know much more about Obama the executive. I don't care his motivations, and really, neither should you. Much like athletics, the presidency is a results-oriented business. The facts are the results of this administration are awful, and whether it's because he's trying to right past Colonial wrongs, is a Marxist, a standard-fare Liberal, or just plain incompetent, is really immaterial. The results are mostly awful.
Let's review a few low points:
- Passed a $1T "stimulus" bill so laden with pork that even Obama later admitted that those shovel-ready projects we were promised "weren't so shovel-ready after all."
- The same stimulus was passed with the promise that unemployment, then running at 7.5% and rising, would never hit 8% if we just passed the crap sandwich. Well, the bill was passed, and unemployment peaked over 10% and hasn't worked it's way back to 8% yet. 43months and counting over 8%
- This contributed to the new baseline budget, in which we have run $1T/year deficits ever since. Despite Obama's lack of knowledge of how much he has added to the debt, we can report it's over $6T in just 3.5 years.
- His leadership has not succesfully forced Harry Reid and Senate Democrats to pass a budget. During the entire Obama Administration, there has not been a single budget passed by Congress. In case you've forgotten, the Dems held the House and had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in Obama's first 2 years. They could have done anything, including their Constitutional duty to pass a budget, but instead, Obama spent 2 years passing...
- ObamaCare - the single largest entitlement program since Medicare. Without a single Republican vote, and using bribes and kickbacks to senators to get their votes, and using a reconciliation technique to pass it that would make Kim Jung Un proud. Full of accouting gimmicks, and chock full of stuff we couldn't possibly know about until "We pass the bill, so that you can see what's in it," this monstrosity gives control of 1/7th of the economy to the government, unelected bureaucrats, and will bust the budget eventually, if the growth of Medicare and Social Security don't beat it.
- A feckless foreign policy that saw Iranian freedom fighters ignored, yet the Muslim Brotherhood was embraced as a replacement for yes, the tyrannical Mubarak in Egpyt, but, he was our guy. Obama will not prevent the Iranians from aquiring a nuclear weapon, and he won't assist Israel to eliminate the threat. Instead, he seems openly hostile to them.
- His bowing to foreign leaders and 'lead from behind' approach has led to the death of our Libyan ambassadors and three others, in one of the few foreign policy approaches that seemed capable of bearing fruit, despite the extra Constitutional manner in which he carried it out.
And, if you watched any Michael Moore documentaries or Al Gore's, you owe it to yourself to watch one that yes, speculates, but also lays out facts for you to see for yourself. You also owe it to me to prove that you're not just an Obamabot.
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