This has got to be the strangest op ed I have seen yet from a "mainstream" Repub on Obama

[n2doc]

Is Obama trying to 'decolonize' space?
Observers were puzzled when President Obama apparently gave the space agency NASA a new mission to reach out to the world’s Muslims. But his action makes sense when you consider the influence of anticolonial ideology.


By Dinesh D'Souza / October 13, 2010

New York
Soon after becoming president, Barack Obama evidently gave the space agency NASA a new mission of reaching out to the world’s Muslims. Observers were puzzled. Why should rocket scientists focused on outer space now worry about hearts and minds on Earth?

I believe I have solved the mystery. The reason is that President Obama has adopted his father’s ideology; the son is, as his father was, an anticolonialist. And according to this worldview, NASA is a symbol of America’s effort to colonize outer space. It follows that Obama wants to “decolonize” NASA, and that means converting it from its traditional mission of American exploration into a kind of international project to recognize what Muslims and others have contributed to the development of science.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/1013/Is-Obama-trying-to-decolonize-space

epic fail.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Newt's comment was from D'Souza first crazy article.

[n2doc]

7. ok that makes sense. n/t

[sinkingfeeling]

8. Here's the first article, published in Forbes at the end of September.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0927/politics-socialism-capitalism-private-enterprises-obama-business-problem_print.html

[JuniperLea]

2. This really pisses me off...

The bizarre twists and turns and outright fabrication involved in their dot connecting is ridiculous! This is all they have? Fairytale bullshit?

:banghead:

But their legions of cretins will believe, oh yes they will.

[old mark]

3. One of the strangest things, and one of the dumbest as well...does no one

on the right have any sense at all?

rec.

mark

[Jim__]

4. Media matters debunked D'Souza's lies about Obama's anti-colonialism.

http://mediamatters.org/research/201010040030

D'Souza has always been full of shit. This is just more of the same.

[lolly]

10. Beyond full of it, though

This sounds like "I hear messages beamed from the galaxies to my dental fillings" stuff.

Is he going to write his next article on how the Kling-ons are in league with Obama to take over the world?

[HughBeaumont]

5. Dumbass Duh'Soozuh.

Zell Miller has more common sense.

[emulatorloo]

6. Why is the CSMonitor publishing this deranged claptrap?

[Aristus]

9. That surprised me, too.

I'm not a fan of the Church of Christian Science's religious beliefs. But I have always respected their journalism.

Guess they're losing their touch... :eyes:

[Lucy Goosey]

11. Is "anti-colonial" even a slur in the US?

I don't know what the fuck D'Souza is talking about. Even if one accepts his premise that Obama the son is full of anti-colonial rage inherited from his father (which I don't), D'Souza's point still doesn't make sense.

Barack Obama Sr. was anti-colonial because he was living in a British colony and thought things would be better if Kenya were independent. It wasn't an unusual position to hold - the Republic of Kenya was proclaimed in '64, I think. Also - isn't that the same view held by a lot of colonists living in the part of the British Empire that is now the USA in the mid to late 18th century? Weren't the founding fathers anti-colonial?

D'Souza says that "The basic principle of anticolonialism is that the world is divided into two parts: the colonizers and the colonized", but he is the one endorsing the idea of the USA as colonizer: of Iraq and Afghanistan, and of outer space. In demonizing Obama Sr.'s position, he is strongly implying that Kenyans should just have accepted their status as colonized.

If Obama is anticolonial, and anticolonialism requires a belief that the world is divided into colonizers and colonized, and Obama has shown that he doesn't believe the US should be colonizers, I guess D'Souza is saying that Obama believes that the US should be colonized?

And of course none of this addresses the fact that President Obama's life has been very different from his father's and it's specious, not to mention demonstrably inaccurate, to say that Obama Jr has inherited his father's idologies whole-cloth.

(Forgive me if there is some nuance I'm missing here - I'm not American, and most Canadians I know aren't interested in colonizing or in being colonized. It would be weird up here to hold the pro-colonial position that D'Souza is pretty clearly endorsing.)

Trying to understand this is hurting my brain. Either I need to go back to university to take a first year Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking course, or Dinesh does.

[salinen]

15. What really hurts my brain

is that calling someone an anti-colonialist is a compliment!

[applegrove]

12. So Obama should not be appealing to the best nature of people? Okay I get where you are coming from

you fink!! The GOP truly wants their followers and the world to be grown down as they get appealed to in their worst natures.

[BzaDem]

13. Mainstream repub? Are you serious? This was the author that wrote a whole book on how Obama was

essentially an anti-colonial Kenyan agent on a secret mission given to him by his father.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

14. I'm Pro-colon.

It's been a great relief for me.

[struggle4progress]

16. Republicans have been strange as long as I can remember: thirty years ago,

they were trying to panic everybody about some alleged secret plot to force everybody into same sex toilets. I never did figure out what that was about.