By Michael Carl
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
The key to Barack Obama can be found in the writings of his biological father and other anti-colonial African leaders, says author Dinesh D'Souza in his new book "The Roots of Obama's Rage."
The author, a former White House policy analyst and writer for National Review, says that the way to understand the current president is to understand that the younger Obama accepted his father's ideas.
D'Souza says the moment of acceptance took place when Obama visited his father's grave.
"He went to his father's grave and he weeps. He says in effect to his father, 'I don't have you, but I will take your dreams. Where you failed, I will succeed. I will carry your dreams out and make them a reality.' This is the sacramental moment in which Obama internalizes his father's ideology and resolves to carry it out," D'Souza added.
"It's a riveting story really and helped me connect much of what Obama has internalized and how it has impacted what he does while he is in the Oval Office," D'Souza stated.
Listen to an interview with D'Souza:
The author adds that the source of the views adopted by the younger Obama is his father's 1965 article "Problems Facing Our Socialism."
"In it he talked about concentrations of wealth at the top and how you can bring those down. He recommended state confiscation of land and he also recommended heavy taxation up to a limit, but theoretically he said there's nothing wrong with a 100 percent tax rate as long as the money all went to the state," D'Souza observed.
D'Souza said an unlimited tax rate is understandable if Obama Sr.'s view on wealth is understood.
"The assumption here is that money isn't earned. It's not generated by entrepreneurship or hard work. Ultimately the rich get rich by looting everyone else. Since they're in possession of, you might say, stolen goods, it's perfectly OK to take everything they have because it doesn't belong to them in the first place," D'Souza explained.
The author adds that Barack Obama Sr.'s article is available online, but the piece has received very little attention.
"It's quite astonishing that we've never seen anything about it in the New York Times, on CBS News. Major news outlets are covering for Obama; they're quite familiar with this data, but they don't want to report it," D'Souza claimed.
"Yet, the article is very helpful in understanding what Obama means when he says certain things. For example, President Obama says the rich are not paying their fair share. Now if you look at government data, it looks like the rich are paying a lot. The top 10 percent of income earners are paying 70 percent of the income taxes, but apparently for President Obama, that's not enough; they should be paying more," D'Souza added.
D'Souza says that Obama's father was absent throughout his early years. Ironically, the author says that the younger Obama's incomprehensible identification with the elder Obama is the work of the president's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham.
"Even though the father abandoned her, she always treated him like he was the great son of Africa, the great representative of freedom. Whenever Obama would say, 'Where's my dad?' 'How come he isn't here?' the mother would defend him," D'Souza explained.
"She would say, 'No don't criticize him. He was a liberator; you should be like him,' so Obama revered his father. Later he discovered that his father was a flawed man. He was a drunk who had multiple accidents. In one of them he killed a man," D'Souza continued.
"He was also a polygamist. He had four wives and eight children and Obama Sr. didn't really look after any of them. So Obama the president realized his father wasn't really the role model. He concluded that although his father was flawed, nevertheless, he had great ideals. He had great dreams," D'Souza said.
D'Souza says that while Obama doesn't model his political philosophy after Saul Alinsky, Obama embraced Alinsky's campaign strategies.
Alinsky advocated pretending to identify with the middle class as the best way to win the middle class' trust. However, Alinsky and his followers apparently had some sharp hurdles standing in the way.
"Alinsky didn't like the middle class. He said they're small minded, they're provincial; they're religious; and they're racist," D'Souza said as he quoted Saul Alinsky.
D'Souza continued to explain Alinsky's method.
"They're narrow and they're bigoted, but you can't admit that. You can't approach people and let them know you hate them. You can't scowl at them, you can't make fun to them," Alinsky is supposed to have written.
"You can't show up in a leather jacket with a goatee and with radical slogans on your t-shirts. Rather you've got to pretend to be one of them. Be a preppie, show up in khaki pants, cut your hair short and speak with a respectful Midwestern accent; smile a lot and don't snarl," D'Souza added.
"Make common cause with them," D'Souza stressed.
The writer for National Review magazine observed that Obama's adoption of Alinsky's methods is one reason Obama succeeded in his White House run.
D'Souza points out that Obama's deeply held acceptance of his grandfather's philosophy had him set most of America's struggles in the context of African anti-colonial leaders.
Listen to another interview with D'Souza:
The most prominent anti-colonial leader in Barack Obama Sr.'s time was the first president of an independent Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta. However, the senior Obama opposed Kenyatta because, as Martin Meredith writes in his book "The Fate of Africa," Kenyatta was a pro-Western capitalist.
"Kenyatta was an anti-colonialist, but his argument was that the West was right to be democratic and right to be capitalist, but wrong to rule Kenya," D'Souza explained.
"He wanted Kenya to continue the free market policies but to do it by themselves," D'Souza added.
D'Souza says that is something Barack Obama the elder couldn't support.
"The idea held here was that Kenya should be free, but it should also socialize the economy. The state should feel free to confiscate wealth; taxation levels should be very high. Obama Sr. thought that it would be OK to have tax rates up to 100 percent. This was a different vision than Kenyatta's so Kenyatta ultimately kicked out Obama Sr. from the government," D'Souza further explained.
Barack Obama also spent time with his Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetero, and Obama's time in Indonesia links him to Islam. But D'Souza points out that Obama's stepfather had little influence on his development.
In fact, D'Souza says Obama's mother sent the younger Obama to live with his grandparents in Hawaii to get him away from the pro-Western thinking of his Indonesian stepfather.
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