Review of D'Souza's America: Rose-colored glasses are not what is needed right now

Review of D'Souza's America: Rose-colored glasses are not what is needed right now

July 21, 2014
by Tod

Overall, the movie "America: Imagine the World Without Her" by Dinesh D'Souza was pretty disappointing. For one thing, the topic is way too involved for a two hour movie, and the topics of discussion, such as the Civil War, were heavily mischaracterized. Objectionable episodes in history, such as the "Trail of Tears" (Cherokee Indians) were downplayed and made to appear as little glitches in perfection. The line of thinking seems to be “after all, look at how good the Native Americans and African-Americans now have it, living in the land of opportunity" and "a few years of forced reservation life and the destruction of their culture or a few years of slavery are more than offset by having the good life today!”



The film lists a number of issues in the history of the country, starting with the takeover of the land from the Native Americans. The issues are minimized with the help of straw man arguments and the benefits of being part of the nation today are touted as offsetting any wrongs.

The Civil War – the War of Northern Aggression – was discussed as though the whole point of the war was to end slavery, which is of course way off base. No mention was made of the tariffs that had unfairly penalized the southern states for years, motivating them to secede from the Union, and there was no discussion of the rights of states to secede; that freedom of association was forbidden by Lincoln. Paraphrasing the song: “Welcome to the United States; your state can check in to the Union any time it likes, but it can never leave.”

The Declaration of Independence says, in part, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”. Disallowing secession is a violation of the basic premise of government described in the Declaration, that of governance with the consent of the governed.

“We can't break up the Union” is not an acceptable line of reasoning. All the same, the people in the Federal Government, backed up by large numbers of people in states that benefited from the unfair tariff structure, believed that the deaths of about three quarters of a million people was acceptable in order just to keep people from separating themselves from Washington, D.C. after they felt that the government was no longer fairly representing them.

The very fact that a war was fought which resulted in the freeing of the slaves was talked about in the movie as though that were a good thing, that it represented some kind of moral superiority, when in fact it represents a colossal failure – virtually every other country in the world freed their slaves without having to fight a war. The British managed to do it peacefully, and they did it way before the US, in 1833. Brazil was the last country in the west to outlaw it – again, peacefully – in 1888.

The movie completely failed to discuss the modern version of slavery, taxation, and how abolishing the original form of slavery, which lead to considerable productivity gains with mechanization, and then instituting the income tax allowed the federal government to grow and oppress Americans today to the extent that now a large percentage of the labor of Americans is taken to support the non-productive sector. Tax Freedom Day is not until the latter half of April. A hundred years ago it was in January. It is no wonder taxes are withheld from pay; if they didn’t, a whole lot more people would be up in arms about the amount of taxes they are being forced to pay.

In discussing the theft of resources from other countries, D’Souza points to Iraq, saying that the US could have taken their oil but didn’t. He fails to discuss the long history of exploitation of foreign resources by American and multinational corporations, often with the aid of the U.S. government which frequently sought to install a local government that was friendly to the exploitation. No mention of the Banana Wars, Anaconda Copper, the relationship between the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the CIA, and the overthrow of democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, or countless other cases of intrigue that put the U.S. in a position of control… at least temporarily, and caused the most highly decorated Marine of all time, Major General Smedley Butler, to proclaim that “War is a Racket.” Such stories are completely at odds with Jefferson’s vision of “peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations” and they represent a failure, caused by the collusion of big corporations and big government – fascism. Instead, overseas involvements such as the Viet Nam War are celebrated by D’Souza as noble attempts to save the South Vietnamese from the dastardly commies; founder’s advice to avoid entangling alliances be damned.

Capitalism and the free market are properly shown, but without any examples of how they have been perverted, of how there is no free market or true capitalism, thanks to corrupt politicians with too much power to dole out benefits and special favors to corporations in exchange for support and money. No discussion of “too big to fail” bailouts, the socialization of losses and the privatization of profits. No discussion of how the Federal Reserve has been fleecing us, no discussion of the massive debt being accumulated in our name.

Instead of acknowledging the error of our ways, pointing out the current problems, and showing the path we should be taking if our country is to begin to live up to the folklore, the myth, D’Souza ignores the problems and, instead tries to make the viewer feel good; that all is wonderful, that America has the moral high ground. That doesn’t help matters at all. Pretending one does not have cancer does not improve the situation.

The movie is not much more than a warm and fuzzy feel-good pat on the back for superficial flag-wavers, and to remove any doubt in the minds of borderline Neoconservatives who might be questioning the correctness of foreign entanglements after decades of near non-stop war. What the American public needs is most certainly NOT a warm and fuzzy movie. What the American public needs is a movie that will light a fire under them and get them to think about how best to face the considerable challenges ahead if we don’t avoid this rapid descent into totalitarianism at the hands of BOTH political parties.