Ted Cruz slammed by some for is Facebook statement on Mandella's death.

[OGOC]

If you look it up, Nelson Mandela did things that would put his sainthood in doubt. For example, he associated with people who blew other people up.

But that kind of stuff doesn't get mentioned.

 

[sandorski]

If you look it up, Nelson Mandela did things that would put his sainthood in doubt. For example, he associated with people who blew other people up.

But that kind of stuff doesn't get mentioned.

Been mentioned plenty. Unfortunately, those people were the only ones who shared his desire to bring Freedom to his people. Even the great Reagan didn't share that ideal, but wanted to prop up a brutal racist regime for the sake of a supply of Titanium.

 

[OGOC]

Been mentioned plenty.

No it hasn't. I saw Mandela tributes on the news all week. Never saw that stuff. Or stuff about his wives.

And one of these days when I'm really bored, maybe I'll look up the whole "he slept on the floor" thing. The news keeps telling me he always slept on the floor, but other things tell me his cell was furnished, or that he even slept outside of his cell.

People can argue whether he did a lot of good, did some good, or did no good, but, regardless, the news I've been seeing seems a bit biased.

 

[Ancalagon44]

So if life for a majority here would improve under a dictatorship I guess you would support it.

Life is worse for blacks post apartheid because the whites who lost power pretty much did everything they could to make it fail.

It is akin to destroying something so no one else gets it.

Ba ha ha ha ha! Lol! Have you ever been to South Africa? Can you point it out to me on a map? Would you recognize our national flag?

I have lived 25 of my 28 years in South Africa, just FYI.

No, the whites that lost power did everything they could to make it WORK, but sadly, when you are fighting against government, there is little you can do.

A few things really screwed South Africa up, post '94. One of them is corruption. Corruption is bad and so endemic, you simply would not believe it. Billions upon billions of Rands have been lost to corruption - Rands that could have been invested into schools, roads, telecommunications, water and other infrastructure. It goes to expensive parties, crooked dealers, crooked tenders, crooked everything. A government minister, for example, will award a contract to his own company, and pay himself a massive bonus. That literally happens. An accepted quote for a small provincial website came to R50 million, which is about $5 million US. What kind of website could I get for $5 million US?

The other things that screwed up South Africa are Affirmative Action and Black Economic Empowerment. Now, before I continue, let me explain that I fully support empowering black people and getting them more involved in the economy. However, there is a right way to do that, and a wrong way to do that. AA and BEE are the wrong ways.

AA was wrong because it immediately caused a massive skills drain. White skilled people left South Africa because they could not get jobs and could no longer get promoted - no matter how skilled they were. These people may have benefitted from apartheid, but they did not create it, and were now losing their livelihood. So they left the country. What would you do, if your ability to support your family was at stake?

Also remember, the sheer difference in numbers between black and white in South Africa. There are about 5 million white people, about 40 million black people. So lets say you apply AA in its strictest format - you remove those 5 million white people from their jobs, and give those jobs to black people. Now you have 5 million homeless white people, and 35 million black people still in poverty. So have you really done anything useful? To my mind, what the government should have done is focused on the CREATION of new wealth, rather than taking existing jobs away. Focus on job creation, skills development, help black entrepreneurs to start businesses, get more black people involved in the economy.

And BEE was a failure because it simply transferred wealth from the white elite to the black elite - it does nothing to help millions of black people living in poverty. And as above, not even AA can help those black people living in poverty, because there arent enough jobs to go around.

The end result is that, post 94, you have a brutal police force that enforces the will of the ruling party, a party that has no serious opposition. So it is a one party state, more or less. You have black elite and white elite, but still serious poverty. You have massive unemployment and crime, and massive corruption that magnifies all of these problems.

Tell me how all of this is the fault of the white man again?

 

[AViking]

I spent a couple months in South Africa and it definitely has problems but the idea that somehow Apartheid was better is laughable at best. Apartheid was atrocious.

Talking to the people there they complained about affirmative action and just wasting rand. As an example for the World Cup they built stadiums all over the country that are just a massive waste of money and sit empty. I'm sure a couple wealthy people benefited from it but everyone else didn't. So the stadium in Cape Town sits there and costs a million rand a day so that they can host Cold Play once and bring in a few other concerts and events. A total waste.

I don't see anyone addressing poverty there either. I gave away my clothes to poor black kids. Poverty leads to crime. The townships today are basically abandoned to self destruct. They will always point out Soweto as some shining beacon but reality is that townships are just like in the movie District 9. They're awful and they are a product of Apartheid. Take a drive through South Africa and the drivers will just drive by township after township and make very simple comments. "40%", or "50%", and then they'll drive on. They're referring to the HIV infection rate. This leads me to the last major problem in South Africa and that is that since the end of Apartheid they have elected people based on them being freedom fighters but not based on actual abilities. Having people with 3rd grade educations running the county is a massive problem.

The current president of South Africa is such an idiot that he literally said that you can avoid getting AIDS by showering afterwards. He got busted raping one of his friend's HIV positive daughters and tried to downplay the whole thing. Of course this set HIV awareness and prevention back a couple decades and things are now much worse because of his stupidity. The worst part is that he wasn't even president when he made these comments. He was elected afterwards. He's the George W Bush of South Africa. Somehow South Africans thought it would be in their best interest to elect a man with no formal education who was on trial for rape.

 

[AViking]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4879822.stm

 

[Thump553]

Excellent post AViking. South Africia was an absolute hell under apartheid except for a privileged few and the international corporations that dealt with them. After the overthrow-which nearly everyone expected to be a prolonged and violent bloodbath, which it was not-South Africia was, and still pretty much is, a violent, disfunctional society. But rather than a purge and looting like fellow apartheid Rhodesia went through Mandela led South Africia 180 degrees opposite. Is South Africia perfect-hardly, but without the towering figure of Mandela and what he did, it would be a whole lot worse.

BTW, you may have noticed the current president of South Africia was roundly booed when he approached the podium to give his speech at yesterday's memorial services. The would be like a Republican president being booed at the services for Reagan (which obviously didn't happen).

 

[BUnit1701]

By all means lets just go back when black people had no rights and were killed for just protesting having to "show me your papers boy"

I love how the world is only binary to you lefties. We can only have the racial oppression of yesterday or todays shithole. Nothing else is possible.

 

[sandorski]

No it hasn't. I saw Mandela tributes on the news all week. Never saw that stuff. Or stuff about his wives.

And one of these days when I'm really bored, maybe I'll look up the whole "he slept on the floor" thing. The news keeps telling me he always slept on the floor, but other things tell me his cell was furnished, or that he even slept outside of his cell.

People can argue whether he did a lot of good, did some good, or did no good, but, regardless, the news I've been seeing seems a bit biased.

Somehow you missed it. Not surprised, you seem the type to want to think he was a Commie, even if he wasn't. Way back in his Youth he associated with Communists, but only because they were the only group that supported his opposition to Apartheid. He was not given a choice in that matter.

Where were the Capitalists? The Libertarians? Anyone else? Nowhere to be seen. In fact, the great Capitalist Reagan didn't give a shit about the Afrikaans, preferring Oppression over Freedom. The South African Capitalists feared losing their Power and Wealth if they gave Afrikaans their Freedom.

Communists were not the problem here, Capitalists were.

 

[feralkid]

Somehow you missed it. Not surprised, you seem the type to want to think he was a Commie, even if he wasn't. Way back in his Youth he associated with Communists, but only because they were the only group that supported his opposition to Apartheid. He was not given a choice in that matter.

Where were the Capitalists? The Libertarians? Anyone else? Nowhere to be seen. In fact, the great Capitalist Reagan didn't give a shit about the Afrikaans, preferring Oppression over Freedom. The South African Capitalists feared losing their Power and Wealth if they gave Afrikaans their Freedom.

Communists were not the problem here, Capitalists were.

Perhaps, however "Afrikaans" is a language, not a people.

 

[sandorski]

Perhaps, however "Afrikaans" is a language, not a people.

lol, oops. thanks for the info.

 

[trenchfoot]

After reading up on what Apartheid was, I dare say life under Fidel Castro would have been preferrable. Yep, it was that bad, worse than North Korea actually, and still is for the majority of the population.

The situation in South Africa is a prime example of how the select few can prosper so well in a nation so steeped in poverty.

Best wishes for South Africa that they can create a healthy and prosperous middle class even as our own nation is headed in the opposite direction.

 

[werepossum]

The Jesus of US political right, Ronald Reagan, called Mandela a terrorist and wanted him to stay in prison. He also vetoed the Anti-Apartheid sanctions, and it took Congressional override to get them in place. Mandela wanted one man one vote in Africa. The US right is not even a big fan of one man one vote in the US, trying gerrymander, filibuster, and voter suppression to try to replicate some of the "successes" of Apartheid in keeping a select minority in power.

You're aware that American policy under Johnson and Carter also rejected economic sanctions, right? 'Course you are.

Ba ha ha ha ha! Lol! Have you ever been to South Africa? Can you point it out to me on a map? Would you recognize our national flag?

I have lived 25 of my 28 years in South Africa, just FYI.

No, the whites that lost power did everything they could to make it WORK, but sadly, when you are fighting against government, there is little you can do.

A few things really screwed South Africa up, post '94. One of them is corruption. Corruption is bad and so endemic, you simply would not believe it. Billions upon billions of Rands have been lost to corruption - Rands that could have been invested into schools, roads, telecommunications, water and other infrastructure. It goes to expensive parties, crooked dealers, crooked tenders, crooked everything. A government minister, for example, will award a contract to his own company, and pay himself a massive bonus. That literally happens. An accepted quote for a small provincial website came to R50 million, which is about $5 million US. What kind of website could I get for $5 million US?

The other things that screwed up South Africa are Affirmative Action and Black Economic Empowerment. Now, before I continue, let me explain that I fully support empowering black people and getting them more involved in the economy. However, there is a right way to do that, and a wrong way to do that. AA and BEE are the wrong ways.

AA was wrong because it immediately caused a massive skills drain. White skilled people left South Africa because they could not get jobs and could no longer get promoted - no matter how skilled they were. These people may have benefitted from apartheid, but they did not create it, and were now losing their livelihood. So they left the country. What would you do, if your ability to support your family was at stake?

Also remember, the sheer difference in numbers between black and white in South Africa. There are about 5 million white people, about 40 million black people. So lets say you apply AA in its strictest format - you remove those 5 million white people from their jobs, and give those jobs to black people. Now you have 5 million homeless white people, and 35 million black people still in poverty. So have you really done anything useful? To my mind, what the government should have done is focused on the CREATION of new wealth, rather than taking existing jobs away. Focus on job creation, skills development, help black entrepreneurs to start businesses, get more black people involved in the economy.

And BEE was a failure because it simply transferred wealth from the white elite to the black elite - it does nothing to help millions of black people living in poverty. And as above, not even AA can help those black people living in poverty, because there arent enough jobs to go around.

The end result is that, post 94, you have a brutal police force that enforces the will of the ruling party, a party that has no serious opposition. So it is a one party state, more or less. You have black elite and white elite, but still serious poverty. You have massive unemployment and crime, and massive corruption that magnifies all of these problems.

Tell me how all of this is the fault of the white man again?

Well said, but one part of this IS the fault of the white man. By keeping the black majority poor, ignorant, uneducated and warring amongst the tribes as a matter of policy, the ruling whites set the stage for the country's near-destruction once blacks took power. Had they been gradually integrated as full partners and citizens, South Africa could have had even greater prosperity and become a shining beacon in Africa, but whites clung to the policies that kept them in power as long as they could. Now you have the brutal, lawless poverty of corrupt racial politics, but let's not forget that racial politics set this up as well.

I know some white South Africans who have given up and applied for US citizenship. These are educated, intelligent people, but they could no longer earn a living in South Africa. They are economic refugees from the black leadership, true, but also from the white leadership before.

After reading up on what Apartheid was, I dare say life under Fidel Castro would have been preferrable. Yep, it was that bad, worse than North Korea actually, and still is for the majority of the population.

The situation in South Africa is a prime example of how the select few can prosper so well in a nation so steeped in poverty.

Best wishes for South Africa that they can create a healthy and prosperous middle class even as our own nation is headed in the opposite direction.

Not worse than North Korea by a looooong shot. Maybe worse than Castro. Right now South Africa is moving away from a healthy and prosperous middle class, but the majority has its freedom, and with freedom comes hope.

 

[shadow9d9]

And yet I keep hearing from the progressives who gerrymander districts that it is how we achieve a diverse balance of representation in the government, that the minorities are not dominated by the majority.

Can't have it both ways.

If you are hearing "progressives", then you really should get that mental health problem checked out!

 

[shadow9d9]

If you look it up, Nelson Mandela did things that would put his sainthood in doubt. For example, he associated with people who blew other people up.

But that kind of stuff doesn't get mentioned.

George Washington associated with people(he was one) who blew people up...

 

[RampantAndroid]

The US right is not even a big fan of one man one vote in the US, trying gerrymander, filibuster, and voter suppression to try to replicate some of the "successes" of Apartheid in keeping a select minority in power.

Because the left dosn't gerrymander, change laws to limit republican governors or filibuster. They're all angels!

 

[shadow9d9]

Because the left dosn't gerrymander, change laws to limit republican governors or filibuster. They're all angels!

The democrats do, but I hardly think the one state with a socialist senator really has that much influence over the country!

And if you by chance were referring to the middle/right Democrats, who hold the positions now that the Republicans held just 15 years ago, then no, the Republicans have doubled all previous records when it comes to Fillibusters, so trying to equate them is outright laughable.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Somehow you missed it. Not surprised, you seem the type to want to think he was a Commie, even if he wasn't. Way back in his Youth he associated with Communists, but only because they were the only group that supported his opposition to Apartheid. He was not given a choice in that matter.

Where were the Capitalists? The Libertarians? Anyone else? Nowhere to be seen. In fact, the great Capitalist Reagan didn't give a shit about the Afrikaans, preferring Oppression over Freedom. The South African Capitalists feared losing their Power and Wealth if they gave Afrikaans their Freedom.

Communists were not the problem here, Capitalists were.

Afrikaner - normally white person of European descent who speaks Afrikaans.
Afrikaans - language derived primarily from Dutch, but also has Malay and French influences.
Boer - Afrikaans term for farmer - also used by some Afrikaners to refer to Afrikaners in general.
African - normally used to refer to black people from the continent of Africa. Some white people claim to be African because they were born there, but generally African refers to a black person.

Afrikaner != African

Well said, but one part of this IS the fault of the white man. By keeping the black majority poor, ignorant, uneducated and warring amongst the tribes as a matter of policy, the ruling whites set the stage for the country's near-destruction once blacks took power. Had they been gradually integrated as full partners and citizens, South Africa could have had even greater prosperity and become a shining beacon in Africa, but whites clung to the policies that kept them in power as long as they could. Now you have the brutal, lawless poverty of corrupt racial politics, but let's not forget that racial politics set this up as well.

I know some white South Africans who have given up and applied for US citizenship. These are educated, intelligent people, but they could no longer earn a living in South Africa. They are economic refugees from the black leadership, true, but also from the white leadership before.

Definitely true - bantu education was not a good idea, and South Africa has more racial hatred than other African countries because of Apartheid.

However, I dont think that quite excuses the actions of the ruling party. They have greater responsibility, and yet all they do is party and abuse their power.

 

[trenchfoot]

You're aware that American policy under Johnson and Carter also rejected economic sanctions, right? 'Course you are.


Well said, but one part of this IS the fault of the white man. By keeping the black majority poor, ignorant, uneducated and warring amongst the tribes as a matter of policy, the ruling whites set the stage for the country's near-destruction once blacks took power. Had they been gradually integrated as full partners and citizens, South Africa could have had even greater prosperity and become a shining beacon in Africa, but whites clung to the policies that kept them in power as long as they could. Now you have the brutal, lawless poverty of corrupt racial politics, but let's not forget that racial politics set this up as well.

I know some white South Africans who have given up and applied for US citizenship. These are educated, intelligent people, but they could no longer earn a living in South Africa. They are economic refugees from the black leadership, true, but also from the white leadership before.


Not worse than North Korea by a looooong shot. Maybe worse than Castro. Right now South Africa is moving away from a healthy and prosperous middle class, but the majority has its freedom, and with freedom comes hope.

Agreed.:thumbsup: