2016: Obama's America

[the ghoul]

I decided to post this here because it is really more a reflection on the state of American politics than being movie related.

Having already decided that I am not going to vote for Romney or Obama, but still not being able to take my eyes off this trainwreck we call election 2012, curiosity got the best of me and I went and saw the movie 2016 last night. As someone who does not like the Republicans or the Democrats, here is my take.

The argument made in this film was very weak. Dinesh D'Souza really needs to take some lessons from Michael Moore on how to make a good documentary. For the first 3/4 of this film I was bored beyond belief as they tried to psychoanalyze Obama's relationship with his father. I don't put a lot of stock in psychobabble, and we all know you can find a shrink who will say anything if you look hard enough or pay enough. They do it in court cases all the time. I felt like walking out, but I kept thinking surely they must have a smoking gun here from the way the Republicans have been talking about this movie. So I waited for it. It never came.

They did finally start talking facts, but 99% of it was the same old Jeremiah Wright/Bill Ayers kind of stuff I already knew about. When they talked about the deficit they even had to admit that Bush and Obama were BOTH responsible for the problem, and to top everything off the main point of the film was that Obama is bad because he is anti-colonialist!!! Really?? How many people in the 21st century actually support colonialism? If you asked Romney or even Bush if they supported the taking over of other countries to get their land and natural resources, what do you think they would say? They would say no because it would be political suicide not to, yet the Republicans support this movie?

This is just more ridiculous crap. When will it ever end?

[ulthar]

The argument made in this film was very weak. Dinesh D'Souza really needs to take some lessons from Michael Moore on how to make a good documentary.

This is a joke, right?

I know D'Souza's written work.  He wrote a book in the late 1980's or so called "Illiberal Education" that is a must-read for anyone hoping to understand how multiculturism and political correctness affects higher education.  I remember thinking at the time being impressed that the book had more items in the citation listing than it had actual pages.

I've also seen him interviewed on TV.

I have not seen 2016, but a friend has and said he found it very informative...not slanted Dem/Rep or left/right, just info.  That sounded consistent to D'Souza's style to me.

[indianasmith]

I will say this much: SOMEONE must be impressed with this film.
It opened on 700 screens, shot to 1000 the next week, then to 2000 the next.
It actually finished in the top ten films nationwide last week in terms of gross box office receipts.
I haven't seen it and doubt I will go to the theaters to do so . . . . but I have never heard of a political documentary making it this big, this quick.
Even our little local theater in Greenville, TX is playing it!

I figure they will release it on video right before the election, I may watch it then.

As far as D'Souza goes, I read his book WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT CHRISTIANITY several years back and was deeply impressed with it.

[the ghoul]

This is a joke, right?

Absolutely not.  I tell it as I see it.

As far as D'Sousa's books are concerned, I can't say because I have not read them.  All I can say is I was very unimpressed by the film.

[ulthar]

This is a joke, right?

Absolutely not.  I tell it as I see it.

As far as D'Sousa's books are concerned, I can't say because I have not read them.  All I can say is I was very unimpressed by the film.

That's fine if you did not like the fine...I don't care about that.  But saying that serious academic researcher/publisher needs to learn something from MICHAEL MOORE is laughable.

Sorry.

[Allhallowsday]

This is a joke, right?

Absolutely not.  I tell it as I see it.
As far as D'Sousa's books are concerned, I can't say because I have not read them.  All I can say is I was very unimpressed by the film.

That's fine if you did not like the fine...I don't care about that.  But saying that serious academic researcher/publisher needs to learn something from MICHAEL MOORE is laughable.
Sorry.

"That's fine if you did not like the fine..."       Was 'e stopped on the highway?
MICHAEL MOORE has made some interesting films, whatever they may be.  I've not been bored by the few I've seen. 

[the ghoul]

This is a joke, right?

Absolutely not.  I tell it as I see it.

As far as D'Sousa's books are concerned, I can't say because I have not read them.  All I can say is I was very unimpressed by the film.

That's fine if you did not like the fine...I don't care about that.  But saying that serious academic researcher/publisher needs to learn something from MICHAEL MOORE is laughable.

Sorry.

No don't be sorry.  I enjoy hearing what others think.  I have seen Michael Moore's films, and although I disagree with his support of the Republicrats every bit as much as I disagree with D'Sousa's, I have to say that I have never seen Michael Moore waste over half a film trying to prove what a politician is going to do to the country through a lame psychoanalysis of a father/son relationship and conjecture based on said analysis.  And the whole thing about Obama's "anti-colonialism" just strikes me as ridiculous.  I bet Romney is not in favor of colonialism either.  Using that logic, doesn't that make him dangerous too?   Are you in favor of colonialism?

[indianasmith]

An interesting question.  I think you could make a cogent argument that in terms of overall quality of life for their citizens, some nations were better off under colonial rule than they have been under native rule since colonialism ended.  When a culture demonstrates an absolute incapacity for responsible self government (a la Haiti and Somalia), who is to say they wouldn't be better off under a nation like, say, Great Britain that has a long track record of effective governance?  At any rate, that is a purely academic debate.

I think that, from what I have heard in interviews, it is not so much the anti-colonialism but the direction it has taken the President in his political philosophy: that America is too big, too arrogant, and too powerful and needs to be "downsized" in order to make the world a safer place.  IF that is indeed the President's philosophy, I would find it disagreeable in the extreme.  But again, I am postulating from interviews and reviews I have heard and read, since I have not yet seen the film.

[the ghoul]

I think that, from what I have heard in interviews, it is not so much the anti-colonialism but the direction it has taken the President in his political philosophy: that America is too big, too arrogant, and too powerful and needs to be "downsized" in order to make the world a safer place.  IF that is indeed the President's philosophy, I would find it disagreeable in the extreme.  But again, I am postulating from interviews and reviews I have heard and read, since I have not yet seen the film.

Yes that "downsizing of America" philosophy was mentioned in the film within the context of the whole trying to be like his father/anti-colonialism spiel.  I think that point would have been made much more effectively by sticking to Obama's downsizing philosophy and exploring more actual examples of its implementation thus far, without bringing daddy or anti-colonialism into it (I can't believe were even talking about colonialism lol).

I agree with you that this philosophy is disagreeable in the extreme, but the film conveniently leaves out half of the story, since BOTH of the major parties have been contributing to the weakening of America for some time now.  And for that reason I would have to disagree with Ulthar's friend who feels the movie is not slanted Dem/Rep. 

[lester1/2jr]

an american defending colonialism is pretty silly for obvious reasons.

Anyway, this looks like another bad conservative movie. Not as bad as the Ayn Rand one but I'll check one of these out when one of these guys gets some more filmmaking experience under their belt.

[ER]

A little off topic, but I notice most threads here meander a bit and hey, where else in my day to day life do I get to ramble about colonial history?

I haven't seen that film, probably won't, but the topic of colonialism is interesting in a psychohistorical way. When people speak of Colonialism they're usually focusing only on the European involvement in the enterprise of circa 1750-1950, not the colonialism of ancient Sumer, China, Arabia, Egypt, Mesoamerica, etc. (In other words it's always gone on and in some form or another, even if economic, which is the predominant colonialism of our age, it always will…take a look at where your shirt was made.) We all know from a humanitarian point of view colonialism has usually been a nightmare of exploitation, theft and abuse. But from the dispassionately Darwinian perspective that says the strong using the weak is the natural order of things---the way our less guilt-burdened forebears saw it---it was the greatest thing since Lord Sandwich invented a means to have his meals and play cards at the same time.

Frankly the history of most former colonies hasn't been exactly stellar since colonialism's end, as it wasn't before colonialism's start. (Rwanda and the Horn of Africa coming to mind.) Some regions will likely never be anything more than Third World, and the entirety of that blame can't be laid on the doorsteps of those countries that in past eras exploited them. The standard college line that the Third World is economically miserable because Europeans sucked the resources dry doesn't hold water as an all purpose explanation. It also leaves out the fact that except for the cruel conduct of the Belgians in the Congo, there were invariably some social and technological benefits coming back to the native populations, particularly under the British. (Boy I hope my mom’s side of the family never reads me saying that!) In places I'd say that the only march toward modernity, education, sanitation, medicine, women’s rights, came about during those times when outsiders had control.

I know I wouldn't want to live as a colonist, but I wouldn't want to dwell under the heel of some corrupt regional warlord, either, which is the case now across a good deal of the one-time colonial world. Also a scary recent development has been Islamists from distant nations coming in and imposing theological colonialism on native populations, as we’re seeing in Sudan and elsewhere. I wish more people were critical of that, which is happening today, and were less worked up about things that came to pass generations ago.

What any investigation of colonialism might hint at is that odious as it is, colonialism may be natural to the exploitive nature of the human psyche. But…what do I know?

[ulthar]

No don't be sorry.  I enjoy hearing what others think.  I have seen Michael Moore's films, and although I disagree with his support of the Republicrats every bit as much as I disagree with D'Sousa's, I have to say that I have never seen Michael Moore waste over half a film trying to prove what a politician is going to do to the country through a lame psychoanalysis of a father/son relationship and conjecture based on said analysis.  And the whole thing about Obama's "anti-colonialism" just strikes me as ridiculous.  I bet Romney is not in favor of colonialism either.  Using that logic, doesn't that make him dangerous too?   Are you in favor of colonialism?

My point has nothing to do with ANY of that.

My point was to complain about the comparison of an activist/entertainer to a scholar of very strong repute.  D'Sousa is known for intellectual honesty and scholarly objectivity.

NOTHING about Michael Moore is intellectually honest; the very premise of his body of work is to persuade.

Like D'Sousa's film (got it right that time) or not...I do not care.  Agree with him or not, I do not care.  But give him the respect he has freaking earned in a SERIOUS career spanning over 20 years.

Michael Moore...good grief.  THIS is exactly why I refuse to discuss climate models with people with less than a PhD in a physical science field.  We've arrived at a point in our society where entertainers (and corollaries) carry the same weight in intellectual discourse as learned experts.  That does not make D'Sousa "right" (I have not seen the film, so I don't know), but he's beyond head and shoulders more qualified to offer facts and opinions on the subject than Michael Moore.

I'll take the very existence of this conversation as further evidence for my thesis ...

[trekgeezer]

Boy you guys just can't help your selves , can you.

[Criswell]

Not even from a political perspective this documentary just looks really bad and mainly is set to make baseless arguments that the target audiance of the film already agrees with in the first place.

[LilCerberus]

OT For no reason I mention the Japanese liberation of China from British Colonialism....