Obama: 2016 Will Change Some Minds

The new buzz in the theater world is that "Obama: 2016" is a good film and worthy of note. It may not play well to the true believers, but college president and author Dinesh D'Souza has used this film to play off his successful book, "Roots of Obama's Rage", in which he analyzed Obama's agendas as being more post-colonialist and neo-globalist rather than run-of-the-mill communist/socialist.

The first part of the film does a comparison sketch between D'Souza and Obama. The two men were both born the same year, married the same year, and attended Ivy League schools the same year and graduated at the same time.  The most fascinating similarity, however, is that both D'Souza and Obama have a background in third world, post-colonial countries. However, that is where the similarities end. 


While Obama fought hard to be the editor of the Harvard Law Review, D'Souza was the editor of the alternative conservative newspaper at Dartmouth, called The Review. While Obama was moving into a career as a community organizer and lawyer in Chicago. D'Souza was working at the Reagan White House.Obama spent a great deal of time in Kenya (and no, he does not dispute the fact that Obama was born in Hawaii) and devoted nearly a third of the book "Dreams from my Father" to his trips there, particularly after his father Obama Sr. had passed. Obama also spent a lot of time in Indonesia, as has been well-documented and is not in dispute. The most interesting thing about his growing up there was that that appears to be the wellspring from which Obama began to understand that all capitalism was rooted in colonialism, and that colonialism is evil. This was the viewpoint supported by his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and his grandparents. It was when Ann Dunham had contentions with her then-husband, Lolo Soetero, concerning his ties to business ventures with oil companies in America that they began to have problems. It was at this point that Dunham sent her son back to Hawaii so that she could get a "good" male influence. 

Grandfather Stanley Dunham found one - Frank Marshall Davis. Davis is documented over 20 times in "Dreams" as "Frank". Frank held more influence over Barack Obama than any other person other than Sr., and was in many ways a surrogate father. Frank was also a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA and wrote for many Communist newspapers and magazines. Barack Obama Sr. also wrote for many of the same type of newspapers and magazines, even advocating at one point a 100-percent tax rate. 

It is also interesting to note - without giving too much of the movie away - that Hawaii has a movement that started in the late 60s and early 70s that wanted to abolish the annexation treaty that President William McKinley had signed in the 1800s. No doubt Obama Jr. felt that Hawaii was unfairly taken by the evil American colonists and the natives were given little to nothing in return - because that is what the prevailing underground wisdom was during his formative years.

The visits to Kenya were with family members and friends of Obama Sr. who mostly supported and encouraged his support of the Mow-Mow uprising (a communist-led revolution against the colonial British). The return of the Winston Churchill bust to the British from the White House was cloaked in resentment towards the British for putting down that revolt.

One of the more striking interviews was with one Obama family member who was none to keen on his famous half-brother's chosen path. George Obama lives in a tiny hut in Nairobi, a few hours from the village that houses the rest of the very large, extended family (Obama Sr. had several wives and children). Despite his well-documented poverty, he was well-dressed, intelligent, humble, and not resentful of his brother in the least. He even wrote a book of  his own. The book is complimentary of white people and their influence in the country of Kenya, and generally feels that colonialism only helped; it didn't detract from it at all. Naturally, this has not made George a popular family member.

Basically, the film documents the types of influences that Obama was surrounded by as a child, culminating with Obama Sr.'s tragic yet predictable death (given his habit of drinking and driving) in the early 80s. Even though Ann Dunham's marriage to Obama Sr. had been a wash, she continued to talk him up and promote him as a person that Jr. should emulate. It was this kind of guiding principle that led Obama to Kenya, that led him to Frank Davis, that led him to Bill Ayers, that led him to Valerie Jarrett. It was this influence that has led to his build-up of third world nations at the expense of the U.S. and allies, it is this influence that has led him to block offshore drilling in this country and other energy expansion while financially supporting it in others.

It is an educational, thoughtful film that makes no accusatory statements, and has no inflammatory rhetoric. It takes you on a long journey, shows you who Obama spent most of his time with, and uses his own words to paint a picture of why it is he has done what he has done. It also shows you, emboldened by an affirmation of what he has done already - what he would do given a second term. D'Souza doesn't give us much room for hope, but there certainly has been and will continue to be change. What kind of change, he leaves up to us as the audience and potential voter.

If you would like to see this film shown in other markets, please go to www.michaelberry.com and send a donation. About 50,000 dollars needs to be raised in order to get it into five markets and properly promote it. It is a movie that needs to be seen, even by the true believers.