A Duck wrote:
The Brits would have called the American revolutionaries terrorists...
and only a hard liberal idiot would grant any credibility to such an utterly stupid opinion
A Duck wrote:
The Brits would have called the American revolutionaries terrorists...
and only a hard liberal idiot would grant any credibility to such an utterly stupid opinion
American revolutionaries were more like "rebel scum", to quote Star Wars.
I would point out that Mandela was long considered a terrorist by the US government, long after he had been freed from prison - indeed he did participate in what would be considered terrorist activities in the USA of today.
It was a CIA agent inside the African National Congress that provided South African security officials with precise information about Mr. Mandela's activities that enabled the police to arrest him in the first place.
He has long been an irrelevant figure anyway in that country which is rapidly following the well worn path of black African states, widespread poverty, corruption and violence.
Thousands of the white farmers that solely provide the food provisions have been murdered and most of those left are seeking opportunities to work in safety in other lands, even in old ex-communist countries.
Only the fact that, despite everything, a sizable minority of white people still live and work there, providing the wealth that is squandered by the crooks in charge, prevents that land becoming just another Zimbabwe.
Incidentally, a year ago, a huge white South African approached me in my local gym, asking about local rugby clubs.
Turns out he had recently bought a local farm, but more relevant, had played for the South African national second team at rugby union.
I pointed him in the direction of my local little third division rugby club and they must have thought Christmas had arrived early!
Cry Freedom wrote:
Mandela gave his life to end Apartheid in South Africa. The challenge is to eradicate Apartheid from Israel and other backward nations.
The political elites love Mandela now.
When he was fighting against Apartheid, they called him a terrorist.
Let's hope that Palestine follows the same trajectory and ten years from now Apartheid Israel is history
This is the greatest person of our generation. Look at the sheer number of world leaders who payed him a courtesy call and posed for a picture even a decade after he retired from public life.
Wørd wrote:
Charlie Freak wrote:I get that he was a major political figure of our time and deserves credit for helping transform South Africa. But why should he have a black page on ESPN today? I don't get it. Maybe I need to read more about him and his impact on sport and athletics.
Sorry that Limbaugh, Drudge and Hannity have let you down. If you had ever paid any real attention you would know how Mandela demonstrated the power of sports to bring people and nations together, even in the most challenging circumstances. His appearance in a Springboks rugby jersey is legendary as one of his most powerful conciliatory gestures (rugby was an almost exclusively white sport). And with his very visible support the national soccer team became a symbol of unity - it was a team of blacks, whites and coloured[sic] players and in the 90s they won the Africa Cup of Nations on home soil in front of full stadiums of whites and blacks side by side. This would have been unthinkable without Mandela.
So yes, you do need to read up. But based on the half-brained rightwing dumbf***ery you usually post, nobody believes that you will.
Haha, pwned!
Hey mods, why the heck did you delete my post? I said, "Two big losses in less than a week. RIP, Mandela. RIP, Paul Walker."
Literally, nothing inflammatory about that. I was just acknowledging that two pretty famous people who did good things with their lives died in the same week. No reason to delete, guys. Seriously, why on earth would you delete an RIP message that was heartfelt?
K5 wrote:
Cry Freedom wrote:Mandela gave his life to end Apartheid in South Africa. The challenge is to eradicate Apartheid from Israel and other backward nations.
The political elites love Mandela now.
When he was fighting against Apartheid, they called him a terrorist.
Let's hope that Palestine follows the same trajectory and ten years from now Apartheid Israel is history
This just proves that sometimes political and societal opinions/values can change based on historical perspective.
At one time, slavery was OK with some US Presidents. Now, not so much. Rarely can one man have such impact but Mandela did.
letsrun.com/whyvotebush.php wrote:
Wørd wrote:Sorry that Limbaugh, Drudge and Hannity have let you down. If you had ever paid any real attention you would know how Mandela demonstrated the power of sports to bring people and nations together, even in the most challenging circumstances. His appearance in a Springboks rugby jersey is legendary as one of his most powerful conciliatory gestures (rugby was an almost exclusively white sport). And with his very visible support the national soccer team became a symbol of unity - it was a team of blacks, whites and coloured[sic] players and in the 90s they won the Africa Cup of Nations on home soil in front of full stadiums of whites and blacks side by side. This would have been unthinkable without Mandela.
So yes, you do need to read up. But based on the half-brained rightwing dumbf***ery you usually post, nobody believes that you will.
Haha, pwned!
It still doesn't merit a black screen on ESPN.com. His contribution to sport and athletics is minimal. I can understand news and political sites giving it big play, but not a sports site.
South Africa is still practically a 3rd world country where Oscar Pistorious had to live in a gated community with security guards to protect him from roving bands of black criminals.
Why do you care so much that it was deleted? Are you so self-centered that you think everyone really needed to read it? Is your life so void of meaning that it really bothered you that an "RIP Mandela RIP Walker" post was removed?
What sad news. I hated to hear about his passing. He did so much great work. Without a doubt though, my favorite was his character Red in "The Shawshank Redemption."
He will certainly be missed.
Nice joke. I wish someone had posted a Morgan Freeman/Shawshank Redemption comment on the first page. Oh, wait. . . Fvcking idiot.
Nat King Cole Porter Waggoner wrote:
What sad news. I hated to hear about his passing. He did so much great work. Without a doubt though, my favorite was his character Red in "The Shawshank Redemption."
He will certainly be missed.
Joplas wrote:
This is the greatest person of our generation. Look at the sheer number of world leaders who payed him a courtesy call and posed for a picture even a decade after he retired from public life.
Gonna have to agree.
A remarkable man.
“My very first political action, the first thing I ever did that involved an issue or a policy or politics, was a protest against apartheid,” President Obama said in his eloquent, moving, and hypocritical eulogy of Nelson Mandela. As a citizen activist Obama opposed apartheid, and today as president he is presiding over billions of dollars in military aid to an Israeli regime that, by any reading of international law, is committing the Crime of Apartheid against the Palestinian people.
“Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians,” Mandela famously said in 1997, and he favorably characterized the UN’s stance as “recognition that injustice and gross human rights violations were being perpetrated in Palestine” going as far back as 1977. Archbishop Demond Tutu and other South African leaders have equated Israel’s regime to Apartheid or worse, calling for boycott, divestment, and sanctions.
If Obama withheld aid to Israel conditional on Israel respecting international law, human rights, equality, and the relevant U.N. resolutions, his eulogy of Mandela would be delivered by a leader worthy of the stage. As it is, Obama is doing what so many other Presidents have done: co-opting a revolutionary to hide his own shame. It’s reminiscent of those in the U.S. government (including Obama) who glorify Dr. King’s “I have a dream speech” and the movement for racial equality, entirely eliding King’s criticism of the Vietnam War, his strident insistence on nonviolence as the basis for a just society, and his indictment of the U.S. Empire as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.”
Perhaps Obama feels he can do no better than he’s done, that he’s tied to the mat by the Israel lobby and any move to confront the Israelis on colonization, human rights violations, and so forth would be political suicide. However, in a second term with no re-election around the corner, could he not at least be as courageous as Bush Senior and condition some of the aid on a change in behavior? As ex-President, freed of political constraints, will he recover the courage he had as a citizen activist, and join today’s struggle against apartheid?
"Unfortunately, the leaders of the anti-Apartheid movement, Mandela included, viewed Apartheid as a “capitalist” system, turning to Marxism-Leninism as the only viable economic (and political) alternative. When the African National Congress came to power in 1994, it dismantled Apartheid’s system of racial separation, opening up land ownership and labor-market opportunities for all South Africans, but continued to embrace the socialist economic principles that underlie the Apartheid model."
http://bastiat.mises.org/2013/12/mandela-and-the-economics-of-apartheid/
Jeezus, you revisionist guys suck. Maybe the Reagans thought of Mandela as a terrorist, but after he got out of prison he helped unite a divided country. WTF is wrong with that?
Unity isn't a worthwhile goal in and of itself; rationality is.
non-social justice person wrote:
"Unfortunately, the leaders of the anti-Apartheid movement, Mandela included, viewed Apartheid as a “capitalist” system, turning to Marxism-Leninism as the only viable economic (and political) alternative. When the African National Congress came to power in 1994, it dismantled Apartheid’s system of racial separation, opening up land ownership and labor-market opportunities for all South Africans, but continued to embrace the socialist economic principles that underlie the Apartheid model."
http://bastiat.mises.org/2013/12/mandela-and-the-economics-of-apartheid/
Absolute bulls\hit. Completely false. A Marxist-Leninist approach would have involved confiscation and nationalization of all private assets. Mandela's policies were "socialist" in the same sense that ignorant Fox-sucking drones think Sweden is a socialist country. Both white and black South Africans are better off today than they were before Mandela's presidency. But thanks for providing the reactionary rightwing argument. It helps put into perspective why Mandela was such a great man and is so widely mourned today.
Mitt the Plumber wrote:
Absolute bullshit. Completely false. A Marxist-Leninist approach would have involved confiscation and nationalization of all private assets. Mandela's policies were "socialist" in the same sense that ignorant Fox-sucking drones think Sweden is a socialist country. Both white and black South Africans are better off today than they were before Mandela's presidency. But thanks for providing the reactionary rightwing argument. It helps put into perspective why Mandela was such a great man and is so widely mourned today.
I agree that Mandela was a great man.
I am not so sure about the "Both white and black South Africans are better off today than they were before Mandela's presidency." I believe that many, many South African whites would take issue with this. I personally know of several who would.
In saying this, I am not claiming that apartheid was "ok". Only that the post-apartheid story is not so simple and all "happy, happy, joy, joy".
a great man to be sure, but no reason to fly the American flag at half mast - as many govt offices are doing - especially given that American service members KIA typically do not receive the same honor..