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CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, September 3, 2012

by William Hamilton, Ph.D.

Mr. Obama: Forces that mold us

Before seeing the film “2016: Obama’s America” this movie-goer figured it would be an anti-Obama film. But it turned out to be more of a “we report, you decide” type of film. Viewers are left with a great deal of documentation to sort out on their own. Coming out soon, however, is another film that may actually be anti-Obama. It is “Dreams of My Real Father.” It contends that Mr. Obama’s biological father was Frank Marshall Davis, an avowed communist who helped raise Barry Soetoro (AKA Barack Hussein Obama).

Meanwhile, it turns out that “2016: Obama’s America” is not a “birther” film. The writer and the producer are convinced that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii. So, they put the “eligibility-to-serve-issue” aside. What the screenwriter, Dinesh D’Souza, and Academy Award winning producer, Gerald R. Molen, have done is create a beautifully photographed motion picture that attempts to explain why Mr. Obama has taken the actions he has taken since his elevation to the Oval Office. And, should Mr. Obama be reelected, the film tries to predict what America will look like by the year 2016.

Eons ago, this writer attended a church camp in Quartz Mountain State Park near Altus, Oklahoma. One of the speakers was a student of Professor Reinhold Niebuhr, the theologian who wrote the famous Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Niebuhr’s disciple explained that much of what we do in life is shaped or molded by our parents and others who play important roles in our upbringing. In other words, there are certain people and forces that mold us to think and act in certain ways.

And that is what the East Indian immigrant, Dinesh D’Souza, tries to explain to movie-goers in “2016: Obama’s America.” Once you understand the persons and the forces that have molded the thinking of Barack Hussein Obama, what Mr. Obama has done with regard to foreign, military affairs, and domestic affairs becomes perfectly understandable. For those who happen to agree with what Mr. Obama has done, the film should be a big yawner; however, for those who disagree with Mr. Obama’s actions, the film raises a number of red flags.

The film asserts that Mr. Obama is not a political figure who grew up with the political philosophy of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, James Monroe, or any of our Founding Fathers. Instead, the film demonstrates that during Mr. Obama’s most impressionable and most formative years he was exposed to an entirely different set of founding fathers: Frank Marshall Davis (the outspoken communist), William Ayers (a bomb-throwing revolutionary of the 1960s), Edward Wadie Said (anti-Israel professor at Columbia), and Roberto Unger (a Marxist law professor at Harvard). Those men were in addition to his unabashedly leftist, anti-establishment mother, and his “progressive,” white grandparents.

For those who are viscerally opposed to Mr. Obama’s policies and actions, “2016: Obama’s America” may be a bit too objective and less vituperative than they would like. But for those who have not, hitherto, paid much attention to the forces that have molded the man, Barack Hussein Obama, the film should be very enlightening.

Nationally syndicated columnist, William Hamilton, was educated at the University of Oklahoma, the George Washington University, the U.S Naval War College, the University of Nebraska, and Harvard University.

©2012. William Hamilton.

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