The cover story of Forbes Magazine, “How Obama Thinks” by Dinesh D'Souza, is statistically misleading and full of fallacies masquerading as legitimate claims. In his article, D'Souza attempts to build an argument that casts Barack Obama as an old-school anti-colonialist who uses current policy to atone for the past. Unfortunately, during his struggle to persuade the audience, D'Souza reverts to childish slander and spins information to suit his assertion. This article exemplifies right-wing propaganda!
Dinesh D'Souza supports his premise, "He [Obama] is the last anticolonial ", with two arguments - one is based on domestic and foreign policies and the other formulated from Obama's memoir, Dreams from My Father. After closer examination it will become apparent that both of these arguments have serious flaws, greatly decreasing their credibility.
D'Souza begins with a multi-faceted argument, attacking seven of President Obama's policy positions: deep water drilling loans given to Brazil, taxes, the Ground Zero masque, the Lockerbie bomber's release, TARP repayment, health reform, and NASA.
Let us begin with the deep water drilling loan given to Brazil. According to factchecker.org, the loan was given by the unanimous vote of a bi-partisan group (3/5 Republican) appointed completely by George W. Bush. No Obama appointees. None. D'Souza proposes that this loan in conjunction with a speech given during the Deep Water Horizon oil spill, which touched on the president‘s energy plan to move America into the future (remember a democratic energy bill was currently in the senate), proves that Obama "believes that the West uses a disproportionate share of the world's energy resources, so he wants neocolonial America to have less and the former colonized countries to have more." A stretch? Maybe?
How about the TARP repayment and "decolonization" of the banks? Once again. D'Souza is not forth coming with the facts. A decolonization of the banks would mean eliminating "to big to fail institutions," the institutions that have real power over people. Yet these large institutions are the ones that have been allowed to pay back all their TARP money and regain complete independence; Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JP Chase, etc. It has been almost exclusively smaller firms that have been rejected due to a lack of capital, although AIG is still working to regain it's footing. This debunks the idea that Obama simply wants to "decolonize" the banks. If that was his goal, would he not have dealt with the banks while he had control? Why hasn't he broken up the power houses of Fanny and Freddie? Obama doesn't seem to be moving in this direction.
Lets look at another one of his arguments, taxes and the fact that they are being raised for the rich to make them pay for the bailout. Carefully consider the facts though; put aside your views on the progressive income tax for just one second. According to many, many sources (I'll site the businessinsider.com) the top 1% of Americans hold at least 34% of the total wealth in America. Other sites place the number above 40%. Combine this figure with the amount of wealth in the hands of the next 9% of Americans and the top 10% of Americans controls over 70% of the wealth in America. The Bottom 50% of people in contrast, control 2.5% of the nations wealth. Now consider D'Souza's statement, "[the fact that the bush tax cuts aren't being renewed] by itself seems odd given that the top 1% of Americans pay 40% of all federal income taxes; the next 9% of income earners pay another 30%. So the top 10% pays 70% of the taxes; the bottom 40% pays close to nothing.This does indeed seem unfair--to the rich. " Can I ask why this is unfair? They are being taxed in equal proportions to their wealth. This seems logical enough to me.
O.K. This is getting long so I will just briefly touch on the Ground Zero mosque. "Obama supports the Ground Zero mosque because to him 9/11 is the event that unleashed the American bogey and pushed us into Iraq and Afghanistan." So, this has nothing to do with the fact that constitutionally the government can't dictate where we establish places of worship. This has nothing to do with the fact that Obama is trying to carefully navigate the increasingly dangerous and radical world. A world where Muslims and Christians are scared of each other and tend to be reactionary rather then rational? On top of these questions, Obama has and continues to support the war in Afghanistan. If the "American Bogey" is in Afghanistan, why doesn't Obama use his executive powers to withdraw from the war?
Obama doesn't seem to be advancing his own policy very well at all.
The second overarching argument that D'Souza makes focuses on Obama's past. From the beginning, D'Souza loses credibility with his statement, "Here is a man who spent his formative years--the first 17 years of his life--off the American mainland, in Hawaii, Indonesia and Pakistan, with multiple subsequent journeys to Africa." A statement D’Souza later admitted was partly in error (Washington Post). Obama never went to Pakistan in the first 17 years of his life, and he spent only four years in Indonesia, age 6-10. Otherwise the young Obama claimed Hawaii as his home, which I guess is not part of normal America. Hawaii doesn't seem to be out of the "mainstream" to me, but maybe D'Souza sees it differently. D'Souza goes on to claim that Obama Sr. - a drunkard, and a wife beater - is idolized by our future president. This is simply not true. The book portrays a juvenile Obama who doesn't know his biological father, but idolizes an ideal warrior and powerful man. When he discovers the truth, he is forced to grapple with it before he finally comes to peace with the fact his father is not a superhuman. Continuing, Obama only met his father once, on a Christmas holiday, and yet he is supposed to somehow have taken on his fathers dream? He is supposed to be zealous and passionate about these dreams? He learned from his father who he never knew to "perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America's power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe's resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet." This doesn't make much sense to me.
In conclusion, I would just like to say that besides all the shoddy arguments and fallacies presented in this article, to begin with a quote from The Weekly Standard (for those of you who don't know, it is one of the most conservative magazines on the Web), and ending with an inflammatory statement like "the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son," is just pure partisanship and smearing. These statements only increase Dinesh D'Souza's lack of credibility. I respect and admire trying to find new ways of thought in relation to the current president, but please keep the slander of Washington out of it!
He deliberately withholds key information and twists the truth; hence, his article becomes nothing more then political propaganda meant to spur the right onto action. Are you going to believe it?
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