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Obama: Flags To Be Flown At Half-Staff In Honor Of Nelson Mandela [W:382]

Carjosse said:
The movement that required de Klerk to release Mandela in the first place to stop the protests and rebellion was the ANC and Mandela. He wouldn't have done it if everything was still peaceful in South Africa, or if he did much more slowly.
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ANC and the IFP (Inkatha Freedom Party) were killing each other off during the late 1980s. There was no pressure from the movement. They were fighting each other. Both almost sank the ending of Apartheid due to the Boipatong massacre.

Maybe you should learn some history on what really went down in South Africa.
 
Captain America said:
I don't know about all that stuff but I would bet a dollar to a doughnut that many Brits felt the same way about George Washington, back during our American revolution, as many Americans do about Mandela, today.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Mandela, I'm just drawing parallels to put things in perspective.

But I, for one, will NOT be lowering my flag.
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I'm sure, just like there were people who thought George III was the cat's meow.
 
Hamster Buddha said:
Are you saying Mandela is responsible for that? That he wanted 60,000 people to be murdered, and insinuating as such?
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He got the ball rolling. I haven!t seen him speak out against it.
 
Kobie said:
Nice dodge.
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Not a dodge at all, as I have already stated that our flag should not be flown at half staff for any foreign dignitary, but you have not discussed it should...
 
Bob Blaylock said:
The difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter has nothing to do with ideology, but about methods and ethics—particularly the treatment of noncombatants and the observance of established rules of warfare.

If you cannot see the difference between the great men who founded this nation, and the movement with which Mandela was associated, with regard to these parameters, then that's your deficiency. Mandela's movement may have been for a good cause, but its methods and ethics were those of terrorists and murderers, not of legitimate freedom fighters.
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Mandela himself did no such thing and what he did was revolutionary. Mandela did not bomb civilian targets the movement got out of control once he was imprisoned. The founding fathers were slavers and did nothing to free slaves or protect loyalists, you can add aboriginals in there to.
 
QUOTE=Bob Blaylock;1062632060]It seems to me that a more fitting tribute to Mr. Mandela would be a stack of gasoline-soaked tires around each flagpole, set on fire.[/QUOTE]

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austrianecon said:
ANC and the IFP (Inkatha Freedom Party) were killing each other off during the late 1980s. There was no pressure from the movement. They were fighting each other. Both almost sank the ending of Apartheid due to the Boipatong massacre.

Maybe you should learn some history on what really went down in South Africa.
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They were fighting each other and violence was taking place all over the country, the country was a war zone. Not to mention by the 80s the rest of the world had joined in.
 
Nelson Mandela isn't being remembered for his leftist politics, his association with less than tasteful Marxist guerrilla groups, or anything of the sort. He is remembered because of his powerful metamorphosis into a man of peace who steadfastly refused to give up hope and abandoned the path of the sword. When Mandela took power he instituted no retribution, no collectivization, no expropriation, almost nothing. This was no mean feat and it was a feat only he could have performed as his personage kept more aggressive elements of the African freedom movement at bay. Mandela deserves enormous credit for the largely peaceful transition to democracy that South Africa underwent and for staving off the kind of punitive recrimination that could have destroyed the country. He did all this despite being entombed in prison for decades as a prisoner of a racist state.

He would be remembered positively by many had he 'merely' been a fighter against the apartheid regime, leftist or not, in the same way that we don't cast aspersions on Jewish socialists who fought the Nazis. What makes him legendary is that he abandoned the sword and utterly embraced reconciliation as the only path forward for his country.

Rabid ideologically driven opposition to Mandela because he held less than savory political views or his association with leftist guerrilla groups is embarrassing.
 
Carjosse said:
The Founding Fathers also killed loyalists, innocent loyalists even after the revolution ended. Ever hear of tar and feathering.
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Not only have I heard of tarring and feathering, but unlike you, it seems; I even know enough about the practice to understand what it entails, and what the intended and likely results are of this practice.
 
WCH said:
Yahoo! News

President Barack Obama on Thursday ordered flags to fly at half-staff at the White House and public buildings, with the US in mourning over the death of "close friend" and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela.

Obama's proclamation, which also extended to the White House, US foreign missions, military posts, naval stations and military vessels, was valid through sunset on Monday.

"Today, the United States has lost a close friend, South Africa has lost an incomparable liberator, and the world has lost an inspiration for freedom, justice, and human dignity -- Nelson Mandela is no longer with us, he belongs to the ages," he said in the document.

"Through his fierce dignity and unbending will to sacrifice his own freedom for the freedom of others, he transformed South Africa -- and moved the entire world.


For a Communist? Antithesis to Freedom and Liberty?

And nothing for Maggie Thatcher...nothing

I truly want to vomit.
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To quote Jack Nicholson "I'd rather stick needles in my eyes."
 
shrubnose said:
Not that I know of, but I guess that it's one reason.




What do you think?
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You asked how many people Thatcher had freed from Apartheid. Were you suggesting she was not worthy because she had nothing to do with apartheid?
 
APACHERAT said:
Obama was close friends of the racist Reverend Wright, and the terrorist Bill Ayers.
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Well we will see if they die if he lowers the flags to half mast.

I don't see how Obama could have been close friends with a man that probably couldn't have cared less who he was but whatever.
 
Bob Blaylock said:
The difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter has nothing to do with ideology, but about methods and ethics—particularly the treatment of noncombatants and the observance of established rules of warfare.

If you cannot see the difference between the great men who founded this nation, and the movement with which Mandela was associated, with regard to these parameters, then that's your deficiency. Mandela's movement may have been for a good cause, but its methods and ethics were those of terrorists and murderers, not of legitimate freedom fighters.
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Baloney. What an incredibly narrow and arbitrary distinction. The great men who founded our country had advantages that most rebellious movements couldn't dream of. The oppression and retribution our forefathers faced paled in comparison to that which others have endured. We did not face annihilation, we did not face slavery, ghettoization, mass-murder, etc. We were a rebellion operating from largely self-governing and friendly areas, in defeat most would have been re-absorbed into the colonial fabric. The tribulations our revolutionary ancestors faced was great, but they fought a very different kind of war.

Let me give you a personal example. My grandfather was a holocaust survivor, he managed to escape from one of the deportation trains going from a transit camp to what he suspected was a death camp. While hiding from the Nazis he murdered German colonists who had come as farmers to Poland. He did this to steal their food and undermine the German presence in the region before linking up with other cells and groups further east. This was quite obviously classified by the Nazis as murderous activity. I'd call it justified, I'd call it a blow for freedom.

I refuse to censure Mandela or his associates from contesting their oppression the way they did. Without the strategy of tension and violence which exhausted South African society it is unlikely that they would have won the final concessions they did as quickly as they did. The endless call up of reservists, the limitless military campaigns, the ceaseless attacks, the riots and assassinations, all foisted a siege mentality on South Africa that contributed greatly towards the final settlement.
 
Carjosse said:
The founding fathers were slavers
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Some owned slaves; some were abolitionists.


and did nothing to free slaves
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Several -- many -- from the north were quite outspoken abolitionists who very much intended to outlaw slavery at the outset, but it was not politically possible to do so. In fact, the Declaration was nearly defeated because northern delegates wanted to declare slavery one of the crimes of King George and emancipate America slaves right away. The import of slaves WAS abolished, so that's hardly "nothing."

You have much to learn. Of course, you have to want to.


or protect loyalists
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Persisting in ignorance when you've been presented with truth is a vice, and a particularly nasty one.

By the way, a good chunk of loyalists moved to Canada after the war was over, and they weren't especially welcome.


you can add aboriginals in there to.
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Yeah, 'coz the British Empire were saints in general when it came to that, ANZAC especially. :roll: Never mind that it isn't terrorism.
 
Bob Blaylock said:
How many people were burned to death in gasoline-soaked tires at her behest?
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Winnie Mandela is a corrupt, conniving, and pitiless murderer who deserves much worse than what fate has dealt her. However if the secret police executioner is to walk free, than so should she.
 
Mason66 said:
You asked how many people Thatcher had freed from Apartheid.
Were you suggesting she was not worthy because she had nothing to do with apartheid?
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If that was what I meant that is what I would have said.

If you don't like the flags flying at half staff for Mandela try and change it.
 
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