I had of course heard about Dinesh D'Souza's (and Newt Gingrich's) pathetic arguments about Obama's anti-colonial socialism he picked up from his almost entirely unknown father, but I get very busy close to the elections and don't have time for reading fiction. However, I was lucky enough to see an op-ed length version of D'Souza's argument in the WaPo yesterday, and I enjoyed the read. I think Dinesh D'Souza may be the single funniest political writer I have ever read. While his arguments are too absurd to spend much time on, I do have to stop for a moment to write a little bit about his basic theme, because the entertainment value is just too good.
Anyone following politics closely knows the basic argument D'Souza makes: that Obama is just a chip off the old third world socialist dad block. He cites dramatic, compelling evidence like the fact Obama's first book, written in his 20s, was entitled Dreams FROM (!) My Father, not dreams of my father. Alrighty then. But clearly D'Souza's most compelling argument, the one he features and focuses on in his op-ed, is that because Obama is in favor of a system of progressive taxation, and calls for some measure of corporate accountability, that must mean he shares the Third World socialism of his father.
Now I don't want to be condescending, Dinesh, but I suspect that the reason you don't get the absurdity of this argument is that you have never studied a lick of American history. After all, you were, as you pointed out in your op-ed, raised in India, so maybe it isn't surprising you wouldn't have studied American history growing up. But let me just ask: did Tom Paine have a third world socialist father because he argued against big corporations having too much power and argued for a system of progressive taxation? How about Thomas Jefferson? Or Andrew Jackson? Or Abe Lincoln? Or William Jennings Bryan? Or Teddy Roosevelt? Or Woodrow Wilson? Or FDR? Or Harry Truman? Or the Kennedy brothers? Or Martin Luther King, Jr? Or the thousands of other politicians, writers, and activists who throughout American history have loudly and proudly advocated the same things Obama is advocating for today: reining in the power of big corporations and a system of taxation that follows the common sense principle that those who can afford to pay more should. These ideas are not from Africa; they are not socialist; they are not remotely foreign. They are as rooted in American history, traditions, and values as any set of political ideas out there. Conservatives who try to paint scary pictures of Obama's views as foreign and non-American contort and twist their arguments into such loony territory that they make funny caricatures of themselves.
I'll close on this personal note. As a white kid from Nebraska, raised by Republican and Christian parents whose families have been in America for over a century, I grew into my views about reining in the power of big corporations and progressive taxation not because I was reading Karl Marx but because I was reading about those American heroes from our history, and even more importantly because I was reading my Bible. I read that the rich should sell their possessions and give them to the poor. I read that I would be judged by God on how I treated the poor and the suffering. I read the Old Testament prophets railing about societies being destroyed because the wealthy were doing nothing for widows and orphans and the poor. Now, I know that Jesus and the prophets came from a third world colony of a powerful empire far away from America, but I don't actually think those ideas and values are very foreign to American ideas and values today. D'Souza's scare mongering is as funny as political writing gets, because it is based on nothing but right-wing fantasies about ideas that are as all-American as you can get.
Cross-posted at OpenLeft.com, where you can read all of my writing.
Michael Shaw: Reading the Pictures: D'Souza's Rage as a Cover
Caryl Rivers: Arsenal of Democracy or Fantasy Island?
Christopher Brauchli: The New Newt
Naturally they are treated as low class people in India by the majority and they get no respect.
So now he is acting out the revenge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa_Inquisition
The Goa Inquisition was the office of the Inquisition acting in the Indian state of Goa and the rest of the Portuguese empire in Asia. It was established in 1560, briefly suppressed from 1774–1778, and finally abolished in 1812.[1]
The Inquisition was established to punish relapsed New Christians – Jews and Muslims who converted to Catholicism, as well as their descendants – who were now suspected of practicing their ancestral religion in secret. In Goa, the Inquisition also turned its attention to Indian converts from Hinduism or Islam who were thought to have returned to their original ways. In addition, the Inquisition prosecuted non-converts who broke prohibitions against the observance of Hindu or Muslim rites or interfered with Portuguese attempts to convert non-Christians to Catholicism.[2] While its ostensible aim was to preserve the Catholic faith, the Inquisition was used against Indian Catholics and Hindus as an instrument of social control, as well as a method of confiscating victims' property and enriching the Inquisitors.[3]
Most of the Goa Inquisition's records were destroyed after its abolition in 1812, and it is thus impossible to know the exact number of the Inquisition's victims. Based on the records that survive, H. P. Salomon and I. S. D. Sassoon state that between the Inquisition's beginning in 1561 and its temporary abolition in 1774, some 16,202 persons were brought to trial by the Inquisition.
Ghandi was anti-colonialist, so were George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, so were Kenyans
Does he and Gingrich have a problem with Ghandi, Washington, or Jefferson, or just Kenyans?
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The Portuguese colonial administration enacted anti-Hindu laws with the expressed intent to "humiliate Hindus" and encourage conversions to Christianity. Laws were passed banning Christians from keeping Hindus in their employ, and the public worship of Hindus was deemed unlawful[11]. Hindus were forced to assemble periodically in churches to listen to preaching or to refutation of their religion.[12] The viceroy ordered that Hindu pandits and physicians be disallowed from entering the capital city on horseback or palanquins, the violation of which entailed a fine. Successive violations resulted in imprisonment, Christian palaquin-bearers were forbidden from carrying Hindus as passengers. Christian agricultural laborers were forbidden to work in the lands owned by Hindus and Hindus forbidden to employ Christian laborers.[13] The Inquisition guaranteed "protection" to Hindus who converted to Christianity. Thus, they initiated a new wave of baptisms to Hindus who were motivated by social coercion into converting[14].
The adverse effects of the inquisition were tempered somewhat by the fact that Hindus were able to escape Portuguese hegemony by migrating to other parts of the subcontinent[15] including to Muslim territory.[16]
In 1599 under Aleixo de Menezes the Synod of Diamper converted the Syriac Saint Thomas Christians (of the Eastern faith) to the Roman Catholic Church under the excuse that they allegedly practiced Nestorian heresy. The synod enforced severe restrictions on their faith and the practice of using Syriac/Aramaic. They were first made politically insignificant and their Metropolitanate status was discontinued by blocking bishops from the East. There were assassination attempts against Archdeacon George so as to subjugate the entire Church under Rome. Even the common prayer book was not spared. Every known item of literature was burnt and any priest professing independence was imprisoned. Some altars were pulled down to make way for altars conforming to Catholic criteria. The St. Thomas Christians resentful over these acts later swore the Coonan Cross Oath, severing relations with the Catholic Church, and later came to be known as Jacobites
In addition, non-Portuguese Christian missionaries who were in competition with the inquisition were often persecuted, even though they were outside of the inquisition's sphere of influence. When the local clergy became jealous of a French priest operating in Madras, they lured him to Goa, then had him arrested and sent to the inquisition. He was saved when the Hindu King of Carnatica (Karnataka) interceded on his behalf, laid siege to St. Thome and demanded the release of the priest.[
“ Goa est malheureusement célèbre par son inquisition , également contraire à l'humanité et au commerce. Les moines portugais firent accroire que le peuple adorait le diable , et ce sont eux qui l'ont servi. (Goa is sadly famous for its inquisition, equally contrary to humanity and commerce. The Portuguese monks made us believe that the people worshiped the devil, and it is they who have served him) â€
Satire on satire is the Wall Mart of literary "achievement"
"Now I don't want to be condescending, Dinesh, but....."
Three fingers always point back, "sad" to say.
There are always 3 fingers that point pack when one points with the index finger.
Sometimes guns point pack if one "points" with the middle finger.
I have no real opinion on the matter, personally.
The pathetic appeal to emotion by mentioning historical figures also does nothing to counter D'Souza's hypothesis. I seriously doubt some of the historical figures could have imagined the system we have now.
There's a reason there are so many independents and conservatives are completely done with our current leadership and the progressive movement. It's amazing how so many people who work hard to understand jihadist' motivations have no idea what motivates their fellow citizens.
Pot, look at yourself in the mirror. You truly have no idea what motivates liberals or progressives and you willfully close your ears to anything that disproves your viewpoint . . .
D'Souza is a bigot and racist and doesn't have a clue about liberals or progressives and continually attributes behaviors, etc. that have no bearing in reality.
The human suffering in Africa and the Mididle east are a direct result of colonialism. Same can be said for the rise of Communism in China and Southeast Asia. Latin America is still trying to recovering from colonialism. Someone should remind D'Souza that colonialism led to the anihilation and enslavement of millions of indigenous peoples and left poverty, disease and hunger which has yet to be eliminated
And I guess D'Souza (great scholar) forgets the thousands of Americans who lost their lives fighting that great colonial power in 1776 and whose sacrifices are enshrined in our constitution...they too were anti-colonialists.
And lest not forget one of the greatest humanitarian and most famous anti-colonialist of the 20th century....Ghandi who not only freed India (D'Souza's ancestral homeland) but also inspired the American civil rights movement.
If Obama is an anti-colonialist, he should consider it at an honor
The Republican Party has one ongoing theme and that's to allow the richest and most powerful Americans to control U.S. Policies from economics to religion.
But for the past 40 years this has been the rule not the exception. The Republican party today represents those powerful interests and they do it in the open, while the Democrats do it behind closed doors. But both have contributed.
It's all bigotry, of course. These pretenders of the wing nut base, are 99.9% white bread and never once rose up when Bush/Cheney did their dastardly deeds, including killing our kids in Iraq for Oil. Or when these SAME REPUBLICANS on the ballot, today, goose stepped right beside Bush and any of his wrong headed decisions that lost 8 million jobs and crashed the economy after looting it.
These people care nothing about the 98% of us, just the BIGs of any Corporation or Industry who keep their coffers filled. They like to pretend they are religious followers of Jesus, when he was always for the poor in their Bible. They care nothing for the poor. It is just another lie, compounded by their other lies.
It all boils down to they can't stand to see a black man occupying their "White"House. They can't stand that he got elected and they all preach against Social Security and Medicare which helps the elderly.
They are insidious and thanks to the "Villian-Aires who started them and continue to buy this election, they will be incontrol of the anarchists and revolutionaires who are stock piling guns and bullets.
"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 Obama's grandmother:
"I look at him and I see all the same things -- he has taken everything from his father . . . this son is realizing everything the father wanted."
Mr. Lux, I'm sure you know Barack Obama far more than his grandmother could ever dream of knowing him, but you seem to have "forgotten" to include those quotes in your piece.
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This what rep baggers have become they are mere caricatures anymore . It is simply amazing to me that these people are not embarrassed of their representatives and themselves for supporting them . They simply have no shame . NONE !