2016: Obama's America

2016: Obama's America is a 2012 documentary film by conservative author and commentator Dinesh D'Souza.


 * Produced by Gerald R. Molen. Written and directed by Dinesh D'Souza and John Sullivan. Based on D'Souza's book The Roots of Obama's Rage'' (2010).

Dinesh D'Souza

 * We are all shaped by our pasts. And we carry elements of the past into the future. But nothing can threaten the future quite as much as the debts of the past.


 * When I was a kid, I would sit on the floor of my house in Mumbai and I would read about the great nations, the great empires. The Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire... they all came and they all went. But I always thought there was one exception to that rule, and that's the United States of America, which is a different kind of empire, if it's an empire at all. It's an empire of ideals.


 * Obama himself gives us a big clue in the title of his autobiography. Notice it says "Dreams from My Father", not "Dreams of My Father".


 * [Obama] resolves not to be like his father, but to take his dream. Where the father failed, he will succeed. In doing so, perhaps he can become worthy of his father's love, the love he never got.


 * [Obama] is then chosen as the fulfillment of the Civil Rights Movement. This insecure kid who grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, whose life is shaped by his father's ghost, and whose ideology could not be more directly remote from what Americans believe or care about, is now the President of the United States.


 * Only through the dreams of Obama's father can we understand the actions of the son.


 * The world could be a pretty scary place in 2016... Israel brought to its knees, the Muslim world united. But America would still be a rich country. How does Obama change that? How does he restore the world before colonialism? Actually, there is a way, and it's a beautiful way. I call it "debt as a weapon of mass destruction."


 * The first time, we did not know what change would look like. Now we do. The first time, we did not know Barack Obama. Now we do. Which dream will we carry into 2016? The American dream or Obama's dream? The future is not in my hands. It's not even in Obama's hands. The future is in your hands.

Dialogue

 * D'Souza: But you've heard the statements and views of President Obama on television. And you knew Barack Obama Sr.
 * Ojiro: I knew him, very well.
 * D'Souza: Were their ideas different or similar?
 * Ojiro: Ah! There I can tell you that their ideas seemed to be like... [holds his finger in the air]
 * D'Souza: Like one.
 * Ojiro: The same.