2016: A Man and his Presidency in Film Review
Who is Barack Hussein Obama?
What insight do his own words offer into his thinking?
Why has he taken certain strange actions? For one, returning the gifted bust of Winston Churchill to England. Or stifling US oil development while granting offshore opportunities to Brazil, Columbia and Mexico.
How does he think and how did his upbringing mold his thought process.
Dinesh D’Souza gives a unique perspective, raised under a similar culture, on Obama’s mindset in his book The Roots of Obama’s Rage, on which the movie 2016 is based. Produced by the Oscar-winning Gerald R. Molen, and co-written and directed by Dinesh and John Sullivan, is this compelling look into the mindset of our 44th United States President, Barack Hussein Obama.
A few weeks ago I went to a pre-screening of this film in La Jolla, CA, playing now and rolling out in additional theaters in coming weeks. This film takes Dinesh’s unique understanding of Obama’s mindset, as someone who also spent much of his childhood amongst the anti-colonialist ideology and influence. With that understanding, the film seeks to take a journey into what America will be like by 2016, should President Obama be re-elected.
Approximately an hour and a half long and categorically a documentary, you may skip to think boring, but WAIT! This film truly engages those watching and offers perspective to a complete understanding of who this man, Barack Obama is, in light of his background and actions through his young adulthood until now. Introducing relevant and much ignored facts that address the many questions surrounding the strange actions taken by our current U.S. President.
Dinesh offers his insight into Obama, “Obama’s goal is to shrink America. He wants to reduce America’s footprint in the world because he thinks we are stepping on the world.”
But do the citizens of this nation agree? Do you agree? And would you still hold the same position given greater information on Barack, the man?
Obama’s book, that is responded to by Dinesh, artfully entitled Dreams FROM My Father, points to the fact that Obama’s dreams are directly those of his absentee father before him. One needs simply to look at Obama’s own words to gain insight into his thinking, thus the film references Dreams throughout.
His father being a driving influence, there are clearly others noted in 2016 that influenced Obama’s life. As most young people, those that we allow to speak meaning into our lives, influence our thoughts and opinions as we grow into adulthood.
The film delves into Obama’s mentor as a youth, card-carrying member of the communist party, Frank Marshall Davis. A scholar and writer of a book on Frank Marshall Davis, Frank Kengor weighs in on Frank’s ideology.
Other influences discussed include Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. These men supported the ideological way of thinking that echoed that of Barack’s father.
Barack’s own grandmother, by whom he was raised for a significant portion of his childhood, states in Obama’s book that Barack is “following directly in the footprints of his father’s vision.”
Dinesh D’Souza says, “Who was Barack Obama Sr.? He was a Lou tribesman who grew up in Kenya and studied at Harvard. He was a polygamist who had, over the course of his lifetime, 4 wives and 8 children. He was also a regular drunk driver who got into numerous accidents, killing a man in one and causing his own legs to be amputated due to injury in another. In 1982 he got drunk at a bar in Nairobi and drove into a tree, killing himself.”
This only touches on the movie’s look into Obama Sr. 2016 points out the pivotal moment that Obama lost the deified vision he long held of his father when Barack Sr. died. Yet Barack would carry on the ‘dreams FROM his father’.
“Theoretically there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100 percent of income, so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed.” – Barack Hussein Obama, Sr.
“Obama has a dream, a dream from his father – that the sins of colonialism be set right, and America be downsized. America has a dream, from our founding fathers – that together we must perfect liberty, and that America must grow so that liberty grows. Which dream will we carry into 2016?” – Dinesh D’Souza
“What dream will we carry into 2016?” asks Dinesh.
Could this film bring a game-changing element to the election this November? Will it win over independents?
The answer rests with you and with me.
Dave Mustaine, lead singer of the band Megadeth said of 2016, “As an American who voted both Democrat and Republican, I am a non-partisan, or independent voter. Watching ‘Obama 2016’ reminded me of ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ when they pulled the curtain back, and all was revealed. Americans must see this film before the election.”
No matter your opinion, go see 2016. Tell your friends, family and neighbors to get to theaters and understand the man that has led our United States of America the past three and a half years. Do your homework. Then vote with courage of conviction.
