Dinesh D’Souza along with Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly form the triad of neo-con loonies. Their dream is Pax-Americana and they have found immense vocal support in post-911 America, where anything even slightly critical of America or its culture is immediately dismissed as unpatriotic.
Mr. D’Souza seems to have a lot of ulterior motives in writing this book. Its well known that its easy to succeed as a person of color in a predominantly Anglo party which is the Republican party. This is because he will be easily eclipsed by others who are infinitely brighter than him, if he’s a Democrat.
Coming to the book, I have never read such self-righteous views. This book seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to the general denunciation of the Western culture as evil, by many in the East, especially in the Islamic world. Like many conservative writers, he fails to delve into the reason as to why America is perceived as oppressors by the people who hate it.
In the book, he tries to explain as to why one race has been more successful than the others, the origins of slavery and racism and alternate solutions to the problem of racial equity. His vociferous appeal to do away with any form of affirmative action and to let the minority compete on a level playing ground is ludicrous at best. The very term level playing ground is vague and is always brought up when the majority feels deprived of what it thinks its entitled to. A case in moot would be the University of Michigan admissions case.
I cannot believe that he (D’Souza), who comes from a country that suffered under the yoke of colonialism for over two centuries, can speak up in support of colonialism. I concede, that colonialism had the advantage of exposing countries to alternate cultures and ideas, but ignoring its rapacious evil is plain stupid.
D’Souza says that the cause of the current moral decline in the US is the ’’hippie culture’’ and the hedonistic philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau. I suppose that morality according to him means a throwback to the pre-civil rights era , where racial segregation was not only acceptable but an ideal solution to resolve race related conflicts.
I am not a bleeding heart liberal, but I find this book abhorrent and its author disgusting. It glorifies a lack of knowledge of counter-cultures, indulges the idea that ’’America is the world’’ and is unapologetic about its advocacy of making every single country in the world follow ’’American style Democracy’’.
Mr. D’Souza seems to forget one of the basic tenets of his religion ’’Judge not, lest you be judged’’. The book desperately wants to go head-to-head with ’’The Ugly American’’ by Eugene Burdick and William J. Lederer and ends up seeming like an ad for immigration. Ironically he seems to classify the United States as America, not knowing that America is a term for both North and South America and North America alone consists of three countries, with differing ideologies.