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Who you calling ‘anti-colonial'?
The "anti-colonial' epithet
Dan Rottenberg
In The Roots of Obama's Rage, the conservative polemicist Dinesh D'Souza postulated that, deep down, Barack Obama is an angry man whose alleged hatred of America stems from the political passions of his anti-colonial Kenyan father.
Unlike BSR's Robert Zaller, who recently consumed several gallons' worth of Ethernet to critique D'Souza's anti-Obama film, 2016: Obama's World, I contend that life is too short to take Dinesh D'Souza seriously. I mean, the dude went to Dartmouth, for goodness sake. They're snowed in until about July 15th up there. If you don't believe cabin fever can unhinge your mind, see The Shining.
Leave aside for the moment the fact that Obama's father abandoned his wife and son when Obama was two, and Obama saw him only once after that, when he was ten. Leave aside also the fact that D'Souza may be the only man in the world who finds Obama angry. If Obama is angry, what does that make the remaining 7 billion of us? Apoplectic?
Gingrich, too
Most curious, though, is D'Souza's suggestion that Obama must be anti-American because his father was anti-colonial. Newt Gingrich said something similar: "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension," he asked rhetorically in 2010, "that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior."
I know, I know— we shouldn't take Gingrich seriously either, especially since Gingrich said he drew his idea from an article written by, you guessed it, Dinesh D'Souza. But this question— whether Obama is or isn't anti-colonial— overlooks what is to me the more intriguing question:
Since when did anti-colonialism become anti-American?
McKinley's war, and Wilson's
Resistance to colonialism— the notion that one country should rule and exploit another— is what created America in the first place. It's why William McKinley went to war to liberate Cuba in 1898 and Woodrow Wilson went to war to democratize Europe in 1917. (Never mind the results; I'm discussing motives here.) It's why the U.S. pressured France, Britain and the Netherlands to dismantle their foreign empires after World War II, and why we granted independence to the Philippines.
D'Souza himself is a native of India. Is he suggesting that India would be better off under the British?
"There has never been, there isn't now and there never will be, any race of people on earth fit to serve as masters over their fellow men," an angry anti-colonialist told the White House press corps in 1941.
OK, OK— the angry anti-colonialist who said that was Franklin D. Roosevelt. But as D'Souza would no doubt tell you if you asked him, FDR had an anti-American agenda too.♦
To read a response, click here.
Unlike BSR's Robert Zaller, who recently consumed several gallons' worth of Ethernet to critique D'Souza's anti-Obama film, 2016: Obama's World, I contend that life is too short to take Dinesh D'Souza seriously. I mean, the dude went to Dartmouth, for goodness sake. They're snowed in until about July 15th up there. If you don't believe cabin fever can unhinge your mind, see The Shining.
Leave aside for the moment the fact that Obama's father abandoned his wife and son when Obama was two, and Obama saw him only once after that, when he was ten. Leave aside also the fact that D'Souza may be the only man in the world who finds Obama angry. If Obama is angry, what does that make the remaining 7 billion of us? Apoplectic?
Gingrich, too
Most curious, though, is D'Souza's suggestion that Obama must be anti-American because his father was anti-colonial. Newt Gingrich said something similar: "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension," he asked rhetorically in 2010, "that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior."
I know, I know— we shouldn't take Gingrich seriously either, especially since Gingrich said he drew his idea from an article written by, you guessed it, Dinesh D'Souza. But this question— whether Obama is or isn't anti-colonial— overlooks what is to me the more intriguing question:
Since when did anti-colonialism become anti-American?
McKinley's war, and Wilson's
Resistance to colonialism— the notion that one country should rule and exploit another— is what created America in the first place. It's why William McKinley went to war to liberate Cuba in 1898 and Woodrow Wilson went to war to democratize Europe in 1917. (Never mind the results; I'm discussing motives here.) It's why the U.S. pressured France, Britain and the Netherlands to dismantle their foreign empires after World War II, and why we granted independence to the Philippines.
D'Souza himself is a native of India. Is he suggesting that India would be better off under the British?
"There has never been, there isn't now and there never will be, any race of people on earth fit to serve as masters over their fellow men," an angry anti-colonialist told the White House press corps in 1941.
OK, OK— the angry anti-colonialist who said that was Franklin D. Roosevelt. But as D'Souza would no doubt tell you if you asked him, FDR had an anti-American agenda too.♦
To read a response, click here.
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