Posted on 07/21/2014 5:24:55 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Back in 2010, and amid some of the worst economic times of Barack Obama’s failed presidency, I lunched with an entrepreneur whose signage business was booming both domestically and globally. I asked this person how he thrived despite all the political barriers to growth, and he said “I’m way too smart for Obama, and I’ll always work around him.”
The entrepreneur’s confident response came to mind as I watched Dinesh D’Souza’s latest documentary, America: Imagine the World Without Her. D’Souza properly loves the U.S., as does this writer, but his documentaries (the other was 2016: Obama’s America, released to much fanfare in 2012) pander to the desire among some in the conservative movement to play hapless victim to the all-powerful Barack.
To believe D’Souza and others who are helping define this ascendant strain of victim conservatism, a man they deem aloof, unfocused and not terribly competent has somehow managed in six short years to transform a nation once defined by staggering individual initiative and entrepreneurial abundance into a land of indolent takers. Victimhood has a new red-state address, and Obama must be flattered to know that for being Barack, he’s sapped the vitality of the most productive people on earth. All of this would be scary if D’Souza’s documentary were at all grounded in reality.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Thank you!!!
So is the Saturday show, "Forbes on Fox". There's a couple of people I like, but each segment has six people/analysts in addition to the moderator.
IMO, it's unfair to the analysts to try and condense their thoughts to 15-30 seconds. It's also unfair to the viewer, because issues aren't discussed in depth.
Family and I saw America and I certainly think this author not only missed many of the points but he is lacking in knowledge and historical background. I was impressed with America and made a point of buying a copy of the book at Costco to show my support and get access to footnotes for many of the references in the movie.
I think this review is a little heavy handed and reveals a bit about the author of the review more than it does D’Souza who I’ve never been a big fan though I do appreciate his sentiments and love of America. I did a quick check of John Tamny and he seems solid enough though he clearly is someone who has bought into leftist dogma on gay marriage.
His trivializing of “conservative victimhood” betrays his own lack of grounding in a reality where leftists deal a heavy hand in academia, media, and are now not in small part because of misguided conservatives in the military. Tamny says that his feelings of expanded rights should not be interpreted as “positive rights” but that is exactly what he is supporting. Gay marriage was not banned in any way by DOMA nor do any of the stats constitutional “bans”. It merely bans the government getting involved in the business of gay marriage which is the opposite of what twisted thinkers that often call themselves “libertarians”(incorrectly) proclaim. They are like schizophrenics who claim to oppose centralization of government and positive rights all the while blithely supporting or accommodating through silence tyranny when it is something they personally agree with.
I got a bit off track here and while I believe that D’Souza and “conservative film makers” need to do a bit less navel gazing and make larger narratives in a Reaganesque way rather than just constantly beating a drum of negatives which go without saying since most Americans believe America is indeed broken. What they want to hear is how to fix it. They deep down want to believe in America again not simply look back as if attending a death watch their great country. Reagan even with his flaws knew how to make Americans see a brighter future and that his ability to do so was founded in articulating of longstanding truths did not inhibit this. He did not refer to the founders and founding principles as if they were dusty documents and long dead men he made them real again in the hearts and minds of the citizenry. He made the American dream feel real again and that is why he is still loved and still popular long past his death.
Is this not the premise for the movie?
Important note...Forbes Magazine sold to CHINESE. Article making more sense now....
Thanks...
What a fool! No one leaves “America” feeling like a “victim”, except maybe some fools who voted for Obama and his ilk. How does one tell the truth about how the left hates and diminishes America better than D’Souza. Bob
Rem: Tzu Sun's "Art of War"
D Souza explains how Hillary was introduced by a pastor to Saul Alinski and his Rules for Radicals. What Hillary did with that is explained and makes seeing the movie or purchasing the book, worth while.
He lost me there. The House sets the budget, then the demonrats in the Senate vote against it. What ignorance.
He's a movement, that's for sure.
BINGO!
It does not require massive vote fraud to affect an election, just well placed fraud, which is exactly what occurred in both 2008 and 2012.
That’s about right
I quit after it became apparent I’d have to slog through a whole lot more drivel to discredit this myopic and illogical piece in order to prove its falsehood
35 paragraphs
Of nothing
A MASSIVE.
Saw the movie and wished he would have nailed the anti-American people he interviewed by asking:
Hispanic “You stole out land”: What did you do with the land we let you keep? In 1847 the land on each side of the border looked exactly the same. Today, our side is a generator of wealth while your side generates crime cartels and desperate people risking their lives to get out. (Maybe I read too much into the border fence scene where a road was on our side, but their side was still unimproved, but I thought it a subtle commentary.)
Black “You enslaved us”: In what battle did the blacks overthrow the whites and gain their freedom? It was other whites who said it was wrong and spilled their blood to end it. (He touched on this with the Union casualties, but I would have shown the actual daguerreotypes and not the “clean dead” re-enactors.
American Indian “You stole our land”: “Your race was a Stone Age culture and were ripe for exploitation by ANY technologically superior race. Which race would you have preferred to come here? (I have used this statement against all the whiners of this type: “You ought to get down on your knees and thank God the Americans screwed you over. At least you can make them feel guilty. Any other race or nationality would have kept their foot on your neck and given you the obama excuse: ‘We won. Deal with it.’ “)
I thought the smallpox-Black Plague was a good comeback on the “Genocide” B/S - Remember how skitzy the govt was about bringing back the moon rocks for fear of a pandemic?
I had to laugh at my wife, who was getting pist at the anti-American slant as Denish outlined the charges in the beginning (she calmed down later :-) ). I would have liked for him to point out that what he just outlined is taught at most colleges today - by people who have never been outside of academia and thus have no real world experience.
I quit after he blamed Bush for the entire sub-prime meltdown without mentioning the Clinton admin which was the prime (no pun intended) architect of the whole disaster. I didn’t see the movie as yet (but I will), however it seems that Tamny has missed the gist of the movie from reviews I’ve read. D’Souza is implicating the bacterial growth of liberalism and leftism in the country as much as slamming Obama. How Tamny could have missed that I don’t know.
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