Obama’s America: 2016 The Movie

[michaelskis]

I think we can see where you are headed with this - you wish to assert that if one has not seen/read/witnessed [fill in blank] they do not have the right to claim they posess an informed opinion on [fill in blank]. Is thatr it? If we were immortals and could read every book, interview thousands of eye witnesses, or watch every movie it might be possible to buy into such a thing. The trouble is, we have only so many hours in a lifetime and we are compelled to make judgements on a whole variety of things based on what amounts to incomplete knowlege. We make conclusions all the time based on our relative familiarity or unfamiliarity with a subject and as a result have to rely on a certain intellectual classification or concision (typically based on the source). Let me give you an example - I have never sat down and read Mein Kampf. The book is undoubtedly chock full of 'facts', yet based on my knowlege and impressions of WW2 history from a variety of other sources I quite comfortable I posess an adequate understanding of Hitler's actions, motives and mindset to conclude that the book is political propaganda. Similarly just because one has not not seen 'Obama's America 2016' does not mean they have uninformed opinions about it's subject matter.

Yes, but not at the scale that you are thinking. I don’t think that someone should say “I am not going to read Mein Kampf because it is a lousy book full of total lies and absolute crap.” Until one actually reads the book, then they don’t have the knowledge needed to give a book report.

However if someone wanted to say “I am not going to read Mein Kampf because it was written by a brutal dictator who have his sights on world domination and the extermination of what he thought was a lessor race, and was a jerk to boot.” Then that is perfectly fine. Alternatively, if you want to say “I have no interest in reading it because I hear that it is propaganda and it has been offically classified as propaganda.” then that is acceptable.

It is not about subject matter but that particular source of information. If you notice the poll above, only the yes responses have a direct opinion of the movie and not the subject of the movie. The no answers asked why or why not. Same thing with Paul Ryan’s speech that was referenced in anther thread, I did not read the transcript and therefore I was not qualified to make a statement on the content of his speech.

Think of it this way, if someone says that what is going into a retail space a few blocks from City Hall is an Adult Use because they sell items of questionable content. Until you actually go in to see for yourself, and determine that based on square footage of the area in question and find out that it is actually a retail business… as in the case just down the street from you, third party information is not actually suitable to make a direct judgment regarding the content. Maybe about an opinion if you want to peruse further investigation, but not the actual content.

The other part that I find interesting is there is all these opinions and as of the time of this posting, no one in here as actually seen the movie!

[Blide]

There's a point when content is irrelevant when you already know what they're trying to sell. I keep myself well enough informed to know that nothing new is being presented without ever having to go to the original source. Politics is all about swaying the low-information voter and that's why most of it is devoid of any real substance. These people don't care about facts, they just want their preconceived notions reinforced. A lie parroted in the news is that's needed to secure these votes for their respective party.

To take it back to this documentary. It's sole purpose is to try to feed some preconceived notions people may have on Obama regardless of whether they're true or not. It's clear just from the title that this filmmaker is making leaps that don't need to made. This documentary isn't biographical in nature, it's there to push the argument that America will somehow be fundamentally different in 2016 if Obama is reelected. If it was just biographical in nature, I'd doubt it'd be anywhere near as controversial as it is.