Have you seen the new Obama documentary, or has anybody you know seen it, and if so, was it good?

No – I think it is anti-Obama propaganda from what I“ve heard about it.

Here’s a unbiased take on it. If you are willing to believe that a father who left Obama when he was 2 years old imbued him an anticolonialist ethic (and that being against colonialism is a horrible thing) then the movie might actually convince you that Obama’s plans to reinvigorate the middle class and his centrist policies are really Nazi communism [sic] in disguise and 4 more years of Democratic rule will end America. It might convince you that Romney’s plans to return to Bush II policies on steroids, with even more tax cuts for millionaires and more deregulation (exactly what got us into the great recession of 2007) are just what you want.

I haven’t seen the whole movie but I received an email with a clip on YouTube with Dines DeSousa summarizing the gist of it (the whole anti-colonialism focus)

There are numerous quotes from his book as well as the title being ultra parsed for supposed hidden meanings. Ill wait till its available on TV or DVD. I’m in no big rush to see it sooner.

Sean Hannity wants me to see it.

(I can’t believe this is playing in movie theaters. We’ve gone to a weird place.)

You might want to watch this first.

@ETpro : Haven’t read the link but… really? The premise of the ‘documentary’ is that Obama is an anticolonialist? And a communist Nazi? My history brain hurts…

Dinesh D’Souza sounds like a real piece of work…

If I were desperate for money, I might make an anti-Obama film, put it in theaters, and get lots of Republican Money. But I would never do that, because I have a soul.

No, but I saw Bill Maher’s interview with the filmmaker on Real Time this week (catch it here before HBO has it taken down). It sounds like D’Souza is oblivious to… what are those things called? Oh yeah, facts.

Sounds like it’s good propaganda, if you’re into that sort of thing. Personally, I don’t give a shit about opposition propaganda. But I love my own side’s.

This is a game, you know. This being politics. There are no rules, any more, now that the Supreme Court has taken the lid off of giving and puts no boundaries on free speech.

All we have are liars and fact checkers. Fact checking, by it’s difficult nature, takes longer to reply to lies than the political schedule will permit. So we will be seeing the most outrageous lies appearing towards the end of the campaign when there is no time for the opposition to reply or check facts. That’s just the way it is.

What we have to do is discount the lies. We know they are all lying because we see their lips moving. We need to have our own understanding of parties and candidates that goes beyond what they say; that is based on their past behavior and our personal interpretations of that behavior (instead of the liars’ interpretations).

We need our own models of how we want the world to work. We need to understand economics and politics and education and many other issues, and we need to do this independently. We can’t believe what they say about it. It is only with that kind of understanding that we can counteract the effect of the politicians rhetoric and propaganda.

I guess I’ve always been interested in policy, and I’ve worked in policy on a wide variety of issues for decades. Maybe I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to make a living as a policy analyst and an educator. I have the in-depth knowledge that I’m talking about that allows me to evaluate the lies and propaganda and discount it. I see many others on fluther with the same knowledge and skills. So I know it is possible and I encourage people to take the time to get an independent education on a variety of issues so they can withstand the onslaught of the political liars.

It’s full of propaganda, and the “facts” it lists are false or incomplete.

I wouldn’t waste my time with it (especially since I already know the majority of the things it covers).

@wundayatta I don’t know… the lies we’re seeing from the Republican candidates in the past couple of years don’t fall into the “their lips are moving” category to me. They have kicked bald-faced mendacity up several notches, and they deserved to be called on it. To say that both sides lie is a false equivalency. This is new, and I desperately hope they are not rewarded for it.

@glacial I think Bush II lied just as much as the current liar does. Also, the rules are different. The lies come from supporters, not just the campaign. Not that I believe this nonsense about them not coordinating things. The Super-rich Mormon could easily issue a statements saying he disavows certain ads. They would go away fast.

@wundayatta @glacial I think the difference this year (and arguably the last few years) is the boldness of the lies. Bush 2 lied to us, but in ways that could be “interpreted” as not lying, or just leaving out the whole story. While those “methods” of lying haven’t left the picture, this year from the Republicans you’re seeing just flat out lies now. “Obamacare shortens the solvency of medicare!”—It actually lengthens it by more than a decade.. “We’ll preserve medicare”—The only policy they’ve given so far is removing Obamacare (which would shorten it) and in the past they’ve talked about turning it into a voucher program (which is just wholesale dismantling of medicare…. “Obama is raising taxes, we’ll cut them!” —Except your plan is to remove tax credits such as how much you get for claiming children on taxes, or credits like first time home buyer or making work pay.. which would add several thousand dollars to the average american’s tax bill.

@tedd: Add to that the tax cuts for the rich and corporations.

@tedd It’s things like that that get me to the conclusion that if they are moving their lips, they are lying. I suppose that’s a bit unfair, but as a general rule, it seems to work.