This is a little challenging for me to listen to - when D'Souza spouts his conservative Christian dogma my skin crawls . . . right off my body and hides in the closet. But I'm sure conservatives feel the same way when Hedges speaks.
The real topic of the debate is the "film" D'Souza made, which is supposed to be about Obama, 2016: Obama’s America (currently at a 30% level among critics on Rotten Tomatoes), which has been described by Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman as:
“an outrageously unsubstantiated act of character assassination,” which espouses “the standard right-wing argument that Obama has always been out to hide what a radical he is,” and the “underlying message is that Obama is a stranger, a man you “don’t know,” a refugee from another land, another culture,” and that “[d]eep down, he’s an angry Third World upstart just like his father.”
The story and links are courtesy of Utne Reader. Below the article, I have posted the original article from Uprising.
This is the full article from Uprising.9/18/2012
This morning, KPFK, a listener-sponsored Pacifica radio station in Los Angeles hosted a debate between Chris Hedges and Dinesh D’Souza. The debate is moderated by Sonali Kolhatkar, host of the KPFK show Uprising and author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence. Hedges and D’Souza touch on the War on Terror, the Arab Spring, and the 2012 election, among other topics. Both authors have been fiercely critical of U.S. foreign policy and the Obama administration, but for very different reasons. You can listen to the full hour-long debate below, courtesy of KPFK.
Listen: Chris Hedges vs. Dinesh D'Souza
About the Speakers
Chris Hedges is a journalist and author, who spent nearly 20 years as a war correspondent in Latin America, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In 2002, he was part of a team of reporters at the New York Times who received the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of global terrorism. He is the author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and Death of the Liberal Class. His latest book, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, was coauthored with artist Joe Sacco, and describes inequality and poverty in 21st century America. Hedges is currently a senior fellow at the Nation Institute and writes a weekly column for TruthDig.
Dinesh D’Souza is a New York Times bestselling author, filmmaker, and president of King’s College in New York City. A vocal critic of the Obama administration, D’Souza served as a policy advisor to Ronald Reagan before moving on to fellowships at the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution. Since then, he has debated with Michael Shermer and Christopher Hitchens, and authored several books defending conservative Christian values. D’Souza is the director of a new film called 2016: Obama’s America, which appeared this summer and has already grossed close to $30 million. The film is based on D'Souza's 2010 book, The Roots of Obama's Rage.
Obama’s America: 2016 – a Debate between Dinesh D’Souza and Chris Hedges
Listen to the entire program
Timed for release in the thick of the 2012 presidential campaign season, a new film called 2016: Obama’s America has hit 2000 theater screens nationwide and earned an estimated $30 million to become a box-office success. The film is based on the best-selling book by conservative commentator, Dinesh D’Souza, called The Roots of Obama’s Rage, and produced by Gerald R. Molen, who has been a producer for such Academy award winning films as Schindler’s List and Rain Man. The Hollywood Reporter called it “perhaps the most popular conservative doc of all time.” 2016: Obama’s America questions President Obama’s allegiance to the United States and makes inferences from Obama’s 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.
Since it first screened at a theater in Houston in July, the low-budget documentary was heavily promoted by Houston-based conservative talk show host, Michael Berry after which it spread by word of mouth and opened in even more theaters locally and then nationally. 2016: Obama’s America has since been endorsed by Glenn Beck, Rupert Murdoch and others. In fact Murdoch tweeted the following after watching the film: “Truly scary if no answer. Every voter should see and decide for self what future they want for America.”
But Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman has called the film “an outrageously unsubstantiated act of character assassination,” which espouses “the standard right-wing argument that Obama has always been out to hide what a radical he is,” and the “underlying message is that Obama is a stranger, a man you “don’t know,” a refugee from another land, another culture,” and that “[d]eep down, he’s an angry Third World upstart just like his father.”
President Obama’s reelection campaign has also responded, calling the film “nothing more than an insidious attempt to dishonestly smear the President by giving intellectual cover to the worst in subterranean conspiracy theories and false, partisan attacks.”
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