Video: President Obama reflected on the legacy of former South African president Nelson Mandela, who died Thursday at 95.
By Scott Wilson, Published: December 5 E-mail the writer
Entering his sophomore year at Occidental College, Barack Obama sought a political movement to match his personal awakening, which he signaled to friends and family at the time by reclaiming his African first name.
Barry became Barack that year. He had read Du Bois, Fanon, Malcolm X — an array of authors writing about the black struggle for liberation in his country and in others shaking off the legacy of colonial rule around the world.
That is where he looked for — and found — a figure and a cause to channel his rising political enthusiasm: Nelson Mandela, then imprisoned on a lonely island off Cape Town, and his outlawed African National Congress. Obama would help lead the student push for the Southern California college to divest from companies doing business in apartheid South Africa.
“As the months passed I found myself drawn into a larger role — contacting representatives of the African National Congress to speak on campus, drafting letters to the faculty, printing up flyers, arguing strategy — I noticed that people had begun to listen to my opinions,” Obama wrote in his memoir, “Dreams From My Father.” “It was a discovery that made me hungry for words.”
Thirty-three years later, Barack Obama, elected twice to his nation's highest office, memorialized Mandela from behind a podium far from those heady student-led strategy sessions at Occidental.
In a statement he delivered Thursday evening with halting emotion in the White House Briefing Room, Obama called his participation in the divestment movement “my very first political action, the very first thing I ever did that involved an issue or a policy or politics.”
And he located the very start of his long walk to the Oval Office — through Columbia University and Harvard Law, through Chicago’s South Side and Springfield — in the inspiration set by Mandela, the prisoner-turned-president of a nation ruled for generations by a white minority.
“I cannot fully imagine my own life without the example that Nelson Mandela set,” Obama said. “And so long as I live I will do what I can to learn from him.”
The two men were born half a world and four decades apart. Obama’s birth came a year before the start of Mandela’s nearly 30-year imprisonment. And their achievements are far different in scale, even if the outlines of their lives trace similar lines.
Mandela became one of his country’s first black lawyers, while Obama, decades later, became the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.
After negotiating the end of apartheid, Mandela was elected the first black president of South Africa. Obama became the first black president of his country a century and a half after the end of slavery.
Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for helping ensure a democratic transition through a plea for racial forgiveness. Obama was awarded the same prize 16 years later, acknowledging in his Nobel Lecture that “compared to some of the giants of history who’ve received this prize — Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela — my accomplishments are slight.”
Obama never met with Mandela as president. Out of respect for a frail Mandela, he avoided his sickbed during a summer stop in South Africa earlier this year. His homage came tacitly, during a visit, accompanied by his family, to the damp cells on Robben Island where Mandela spent nearly two decades.
In the guest book, Obama wrote, “We’re deeply humbled to stand where men of such courage faced down injustice and refused to yield. The world is grateful for the heroes of Robben Island, who remind us that no shackles or cells can match the strength of the human spirit.”
Obama did meet Mandela as a U.S. senator in Washington in 2005 and kept a photograph commemorating the encounter in his Capitol Hill office. Last month, Obama screened “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,” the new film based on Mandela’s 1994 biography, at the White House.
Mandela spoke of Obama as an example of American resilience and, as the son of a Kenyan, a symbol of possibility for many on his continent.
In a letter to Obama delivered on the day of his January 2009 inauguration, Mandela described the new president as “something truly historic not only in the political annals of your great nation, the United States of America, but of the world.”
“We are in some ways reminded today of the excitement and enthusiasm in our own country at the time of our transition to democracy,” Mandela wrote. “People, not only in our country but around the world, were inspired to believe that through common human effort injustice can be overcome and that together a better life for all can be achieved.”
Like Mandela’s election in South Africa, Obama’s first election here frightened a portion of the country. As president, he has sought to make clear that his race is not a factor in his policy decisions.
That has disappointed some African Americans, who believed that his election might bring special attention to the problems they face. Obama, in an echo of Mandela’s post-apartheid message, has said he is a president for all Americans.
At a politically challenging time in his own presidency, Obama received word of Mandela’s death at 5 p.m. Less than half an hour later, he stood before cameras to pay tribute, as much of the world did, to the man who gave him a “hunger for words” on a college campus decades ago.
“For now, let us pause and give thanks for the fact that Nelson Mandela lived — a man who took history in his hands, and bent the arc of the moral universe toward justice,” he said. “May God bless his memory and keep him in peace.”
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
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“You Americans are so gullible.
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Personally, I think the guy died back in July or so and they kept it a secret until his bio came out. After all, if you time things a certain way it appears to be coincidental and even perhaps "supernatural" right?
Only us old farts remember the 1970′s and to say that I have anything good to say about Nelson Mandela, alive or dead, would be a lie. As the leader of the terrorist organization known as the African National Congress (ANC) he implicitly supported the decades of violence which has lead to the end of the evil apartheid system and instead, replaced the government in Johannesburg with a Neo-Marxist extremist regime which has take a first world nation and turned it into a disease infested third world basket case.
His passing should be greeted with the same disdain as the death of Josef Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, or Nicolae Ceaușescu was. Instead the propaganda arm of the United States known as the mainstream media will forget the assassinations of random white and black citizens in South Africa, the “necklacing” which he turned a blind eye to and thus de facto endorsed, and of course, his association with terrorist regimes around the world be they the P.L.O. or evil government of Angola during the era of Civil War in the 1970′s throughout that region.
If my readers think that this is some reach or fantasy created by a right wing extremist, I would suggest actually opening up a history book on the subject or engaging in some actual research other than accepting Obama’s or the media’s version of history. The UK Telegraph covered this story almost one year ago on December 8, 2012 when the research from British Professor Stephen Ellis brought to light the following:
The former South African president, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, has always denied being a member of the South African branch of the movement, which mounted an armed campaign of guerrilla resistance along with the ANC.
But research by a British historian, Professor Stephen Ellis, has unearthed fresh evidence that during his early years as an activist, Mr Mandela did hold senior rank in the South African Communist Party, or SACP. He says Mr Mandela joined the SACP to enlist the help of the Communist superpowers for the ANC’s campaign of armed resistance to white rule.
His book also provides fresh detail on how the ANC’s military wing had bomb-making lessons from the IRA, and intelligence training from the East German Stasi, which it used to carry out brutal interrogations of suspected “spies” at secret prison camps.
As evidence of Mr Mandela’s Communist party membership, Prof Ellis cites minutes from a secret 1982 SACP meeting, discovered in a collection of private papers at the University of Cape Town, in which a veteran former party member, the late John Pule Motshabi, talks about how Mr Mandela was a party member some two decades before.
In the minutes, Mr Motshabi, is quoted as saying: “There was an accusation that we opposed allowing Nelson [Mandela] and Walter (Sisulu, a fellow activist) into the Family (a code word for the party) … we were not informed because this was arising after the 1950 campaigns (a series of street protests). The recruitment of the two came after.”
While other SACP members have previously confirmed Mr Mandela’s party membership, many of their testimonies were given under duress in police interviews, where they might have sought to implicate him. However, the minutes from the 1982 SACP meeting, said Prof Ellis, offered more reliable proof. “This is written in a closed party meeting so nobody is trying to impress or mislead the public,” he said.
Although Mr Mandela appears to have joined the SACP more for their political connections than their ideas, his membership could have damaged his standing in the West had it been disclosed while he was still fighting to dismantle apartheid.
Africa was a Cold War proxy battleground until the end of the 1980s, and international support for his cause, which included the Free Nelson Mandela campaign in Britain, drew partly on his image as a compromise figure loyal neither to East nor West.
In other words, much like our current President’s history, the myth of the man is far more entertaining than the actual history. His entire reputation as a peacemaker and one who had no political interests within the Cold War era was built on a lie; a lie the leftist media in the United Kingdom, United States, and other Western governments were more than happy to propagate.
The USSR had a key reason for destabilizing the Republic of South Africa (RSA) as during the 1970′s, that nation was viewed as a threat to communist expansion and domination; especially after reports of the successful development of and deployment of functional nuclear weapons (rumored to have been developed in concert with the Israel). Thus the pressure was increased by the Soviets with extra aid being funneled into rebel movements within Rhodesia, Mozambique, Southwest Africa (now Namibia), and of course Angola via the deployment of Cuban troops.
The covert support from Eastern bloc countries like East Germany, Romania, and the USSR in addition to covert support by other satellite states helped to keep the ANC functioning as the conflict expanded and wore down the resolve of nations like the United States to support its ally in the RSA. When Jimmy Carter became President, the entire region was basically sacrificed, along with tens of thousands of black and white citizens so the radical Marxist movements could win supremacy, first in world political opinion, then ultimately by allowing these dominoes to fall into chaos.
The entire region was completely self-sufficient, albeit with the barbaric concept of apartheid in place, yet the economic expansion which was continuing from the 1960′s through the 1970′s would have eventually brought the collapse of the separation as capitalism ultimately forces freedom upon governments. Instead, actors like Mandela, Mugabe, and others destroyed the breadbasket of Africa and created a two decade plus era of poverty, starvation, disease, and dysfunction. Others may celebrate, but I shall continue to remind everyone about the truth behind the man.
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Personally, I think the guy died back in July or so and they kept it a secret until his bio came out. After all, if you time things a certain way it appears to be coincidental and even perhaps "supernatural" right?
I believe that too, but they needed time to transition people, get them used to him gone while the ruling party of the South African Negroes plan the genocide of the the White South Africans. This is why the aforementioned instituted 'Apartheid' in the first place; survival in Africa as a native White tribe/nation. The Commies will pick up the pieces.
Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis on Friday paid tribute to anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela for "forging a new South Africa" and said he hoped his example would inspire the nation to strive for "justice and the common good".
Francis praised the "steadfast commitment shown by Nelson Mandela in promoting the human dignity of all the nation's citizens and in forging a new South Africa," in a message to President Jacob Zuma.
"I pray that the late president's example will inspire generations of South Africans to put justice and the common good at the forefront of their political aspirations," the leader of the world's Catholics wrote.
"It was with sadness that I learned of the death... and I send prayerful condolences to all the Mandela family, to the members of the government and to all the people of South Africa," the pope said.
"I ask the Lord to console and strengthen all who mourn his loss."
An Upstate sheriff is getting some attention after comments he made about lowering flags for Nelson Mandela.
Pickens County Sheriff Rick Clark said in a Facebook post “I usually don’t post political items, but today is different. I received this notification today, “As a mark of respect for the memory of Nelson Mandela, the President orders that the flag of the United States be flown at half-staff effective immediately until sunset, December 9, 2013.” Nelson Mandela did great things for his country and was a brave man but he was not an AMERICAN!!!! The flag should be lowered at our Embassy in S. Africa, but not here. Our flag is at half-staff today for a Deputy in the low country who died going to help his fellow Deputy. He deserves the honor. I have ordered that the flag here at my office back up after tomorrow’s mourning of Pearl Harbor Day!”
WYFF News 4 spoke to Rick Clark on the phone tonight and he did confirm that he made those comments.
WYFF News 4 has spoken to several Upstate sheriffs who said they lowered their flags to honor the life of Nelson Mandela. The sheriff’s we spoke to were from Anderson, Oconee, Abbeville, and Greenwood.
We are also trying to reach out to other sheriff's offices to see if they lowered their flags to honor Mandela. We will report what we find.
Nelson Mandela is a Nobel Peace Price winner, but he sings about killing white South Africans.
After Mandela sings about killing whites, he talks about the fear of whites & democracy to reporters.
The "white" male standing next to Mandela is the South African National Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils. He is a Jew, and not a European.
Nelson Mandela never publicly renounced violence & he did not condemn this ceremony. Nelson Mandela does not publicly condemn killing of white people. This is proof of his hidden & racist agenda to support genocide of white people in South Africa.
The problem is that Mandela has achieved next to nothing in his relatively short political career which saw South Africa rapidly decline to the status of the world's most violent and crime-ridden country.
To add to the confusion, is the fact that his greatest friends are communists and Muslim dictators like Fidel Castro, Moammar Qaddafi, Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein.
His ex-wife Winnie Mandela, whom he quickly jettisoned when it became clear she was a
considerable embarrassment to his political career, is a self-confessed advocate of terrorism and violence, and has even committed murder.
Nelson and Winnie Mandela are an African version of Bill and Hillary Clinton. In his public statements and speeches Mandela is always critical of the democratic countries of the west, but has nothing but praise for the remaining communist and Muslim dictatorships of the world.
He condemns mistakes and controversial policies of the west, but refuses to publicly condemn the genocides and brutal repression of current or former communist countries; he is supposedly a "champion of freedom and democracy", the "hero of oppressed people everywhere" but considers dictatorships like Cuba and Libya shining beacons of freedom and justice...
Herewith another link to African Brutality. This is the reason why Europeans segregated from Blacks in Africa. Mandela sings to kill whites, and blacks practice cannibalism:
Warning: graphic text & imagery- not suitable for children or sensitive readers:
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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by Ben Shapiro 6 Dec 2013 On Friday, the White House announced that President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama would travel to South Africa next weeks to pay their respects to Nelson Mandela. Obama has already announced that the White House will fly the flags at half-staff though December 9 in Mandela’s honor.
When former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died, President Obama did not lower the White House flags, nor did he attend her funeral, instead sending ex-Secretaries of State George Shultz and James Baker III. The Sun reported, “[Downing] Street is most angered by rejections from Obama, First Lady Michelle and Vice-President Joe Biden. And none of the four surviving ex-US leaders – Jimmy Carter, George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton and George Bush Jr. – is coming either.”
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
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No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
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“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
MSNBC's Alter Suggests Releasing Criminals from U.S. Prisons to Honor Mandela
By Brad Wilmouth | December 6, 2013 | 13:41
On Thursday's PoliticsNation, MSNBC political an analyst Jonathan Alter played the liberal caricature by actually suggesting that, in light of former South African President Nelson Mandela's passing, Americans should practice "forgiveness" toward "hundreds of thousands of people" who are serving life prison sentences. Speaking to host Al Sharpton, Alter suggested:
So my question tonight, Rev, is can we import that spirit of forgiveness and apply it to the hundreds of thousands of people incarcerated who, for the rest of their lives, you know, will be stigmatized by this. Could we figure out a way to forgive them, maybe expunge some of those records? Release some prisoners who, with three strikes and you're out, you have, you have people who have been there for so many years.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Thursday, December 5, PoliticsNation on MSNBC:
AL SHARPTON: Jonathan, let me go to you first. You've covered President Obama extensively. What kind of Mandela influence do you see in President Obama?
JONATHAN ALTER, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Huge influence, as the President himself said today in his statement. I believe that he said he would not be who he was without Nelson Mandela. He followed him from an early age. You may recall when the President was a student at Occidental College in California, he took part in anti-apartheid demonstrations. He was a leader on that issue and focused on it.
So one of the things that is really striking me tonight, Rev, is what can Americans learn and American society learn from the example of Nelson Mandela? You know, I think back to during the Civil Rights movement, Mahatma Gandhi was very influential in the United States on that movement, with his principle of civil disobedience, and that helped to give the movement life. So what is Mandela's message? Well, today we're hearing even very conservative Senators and other figures talking about the spirit of forgiveness that he embodied in truth and reconciliation in South Africa.
So my question tonight, Rev, is can we import that spirit of forgiveness and apply it to the hundreds of thousands of people incarcerated who, for the rest of their lives, you know, will be stigmatized by this. Could we figure out a way to forgive them, maybe expunge some of those records?
SHARPTON: Mmm.
ALTER: Release some prisoners who, with three strikes and you're out, you have, you have people who have been there for so many years.
SHARPTON: So you're saying can we find ways to-
ALTER: Exactly.
SHARPTON: -in our memorializing Mandela to really actualize it?
ALTER: That's the key.
--Brad Wilmouth is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Brad Wilmouth on Twitter.
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No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
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Shortly after the death of South African revolutionary Nelson Mandela, the South African Communist Party and the African National Congress both released official statements acknowledging what was already well-known among experts: “Comrade” Mandela was indeed a Communist Party leader who served on the Soviet-backed organization’s Central Committee. According to the Communist Party statement on Mandela’s passing, not only was the confessed terror leader a senior official on the South African Communist Party’s highest decision-making body, he was actually close to the outfit until his death.
Until last week, apologists for Mandela still claimed implausibly that his “alleged” alliance with international communism was mostly a marriage of convenience. Some of his more ardent or ignorant fans, relying on decades of lying denials from Mandela and others in the know about his membership in the party, even tried to claim that charges of communism were fabrications by Apartheid supporters, “conspiracy theorists,” and “extremists.” For now, the press outside of South Africa does not seem to have even noticed the earth-shattering news.
The controversial revolutionary figure, who admittedly oversaw a ruthless but largely forgotten campaign of terror against civilians that left women and children of all races dead, simply could not have really been a real, card-carrying communist — or so his adoring fans wanted to believe, at least. The latest evidence, however, confirms otherwise, once again. Now, the truth is officially out, but whether it will be reported by the establishment press remains to be seen.
Much of the world — especially government leaders, dictators, the press, and South Africans — has been too busy mourning his passing to take notice of the explosive revelations. However, the now-irrefutable fact that Mandela played a key role in the ruthless international communist movement should not be forgotten amid the praise. It has now been officially admitted, and despite the lack of attention, remains crucial to understanding Mandela and his real legacy.
Conservative estimates suggest that in the last century alone, communist regimes — virtually all of which backed Mandela with troops, funding, and more — have been responsible for at least 100 million murders. The numbers are probably much higher. Mandela’s own admitted terror campaign, including the infamous 1983 Church Street bombing, which killed 19 and wounded over 200, claimed many lives, too. He pled guilty to over 150 acts of public violence.
In the statement released on December 6 and published by assorted Marxist outfits, the South African Communist Party, or SACP, helped shed light on all of it. “At his arrest in August 1962, Nelson Mandela was not only a member of the then underground South African Communist Party, but was also a member of our Party’s Central Committee,” the SACP said in the statement, illustrating once again the enormity of the long and successful track-record of communist deception.
As to why it was denied for so long, SACP deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila was quoted in South African news reports as saying it was for “political reasons” — apparently people would have been upset to realize their hero and supposed “liberator” was, actually, a card-carrying communist. “There was a huge offensive by the oppressive apartheid regime at the time against communists,” Mapaila said, adding that all of the terrorists tried at Mandela’s Rivonia Trial were Party members.
When Mandela was released from prison, Mapaila added, the mass-murdering regime ruling over what was then the Soviet Union was supposedly “crumbling,” and there was “too much negativity around the Soviet system” to tell South Africans the truth. He added: “But we should not focus on that now, let us focus on resting the old man.”
Unsurprisingly, the statement went on to praise Mandela and his African National Congress (ANC), where the South African revolutionary would go on to found the outfit’s armed wing. “To us as South African communists, Comrade Mandela shall forever symbolise the monumental contribution of the SACP in our liberation struggle,” the SACP said. “The contribution of communists in the struggle to achieve the South African freedom has very few parallels in the history of our country.”
Also admitted in the SACP statement are facts that his adoring fans — the United Nations even designated a “Nelson Mandela International Day,” while Obama compared him to George Washington and ordered flags flown at half-mast — will have even more trouble explaining away. “After his release from prison in 1990, Comrade Madiba became a great and close friend of the communists till his last days,” the South African Communist Party said.
Today, the common perception of the South African revolutionary, who regularly sang “struggle” songs advocating the mass-murder of whites, holds that he was a “political prisoner.” Left unmentioned in the SACP statement and the adoring obituaries, of course, was the fact that Mandela was repeatedly offered the opportunity to walk out of jail if he would just renounce violence, which he consistently refused to do. For the SACP and the international communist movement, he represented nothing less than a hero for his positions and activities.
“The passing away of Comrade Mandela marks an end to the life of one of the greatest revolutionaries of the 20th century, who fought for freedom and against all forms of oppression in both their countries and globally,” the SACP continued, perhaps hoping to rally support for communism by making the announcement now, amid worldwide praise for one of their former leaders. “In Comrade Mandela we had a brave and courageous soldier, patriot and internationalist who, to borrow from Che Guevara, was a true revolutionary guided by great feelings of love for his people, an outstanding feature of all genuine people’s revolutionaries.”
The communists then went on to praise Mandela’s corruption-plagued ANC — which governs South Africa in an alliance with the SACP and a coalition of labor unions — as well as the controversial but intimate link between the two supposedly distinct forces. “The one major lesson we need to learn from Mandela and his generation of leaders was their commitment to principled unity within each of our Alliance formations as well as the unity of our Alliance as a whole and that of the entire mass democratic movement,” the statement said.
“Their generation struggled to build and cement the unity of our Alliance, and we therefore owe it to the memory of Comrade Madiba to preserve the unity of our Alliance,” the SACP continued about the Communist Party union with the ANC, referring to Mandela by his tribal name. “Let those who do not understand the extent to which blood was spilt in pursuance of Alliance unity be reminded not to throw mud at the legacy and memory of the likes of Madiba by being reckless and gambling with the unity of our Alliance.”
However, despite all of the praise, the SACP acknowledged that the effort to enslave South Africa under communist tyranny was not yet complete. Suggesting that Mandela supported their plans, the SACP said that “some would like us to believe” that the revolutionary’s push for “national reconciliation” meant leaving some freedoms in place — or “class and other social inequalities in our society,” as the communists put it. That is not the case, however, the party claimed.
“For Madiba, national reconciliation was a platform to pursue the objective of building a more egalitarian South African society free of the scourge of racism, patriarchy and gross inequalities,” it said, ignoring the spectacular horrors afflicting Communist Party-ruled North Korea, for example, or Cuba, where fervent Mandela ally Fidel Castro has shown what a society ruled by their “ideology” really looks like. “And true national reconciliation shall never be achieved in a society still characterized by the yawning gap of inequalities and capitalist exploitation.”
Ironically, perhaps, since communist forces seized power in South Africa two decades ago, it has become one of the most unequal societies in the world in terms of wealth distribution. In a nut shell, as in every country dominated by communist political forces, leaders and their cronies end up with what remains of the perpetually diminishing supply of wealth, while everyday people end up living in squalor — oftentimes starving to death.
“In honour of this gallant fighter, the SACP will intensify the struggle against all forms of inequality, including intensifying the struggle for socialism, as the only political and economic solution to the problems facing humanity,” the statement noted. The passing of Mandela, the outfit claimed, represents a “second chance” for everyone who has not “fully embraced a democratic South Africa” and “majority rule” — in other words, everyone who has not embraced totalitarianism under the guise of mob rule, instead of the rule of law, as in republics such as the one established in the United States under the Constitution.
The ANC, meanwhile, also confirmed Mandela’s Communist Party membership while praising the former leader of its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). “Madiba was also a member of the South African Communist Party, where he served in the Central Committee,” the ANC statement admitted. “His was a choice to not only be a product but the maker of his and his people's history.”
“In his lifetime of struggle through the African National Congress, he assumed and was assigned various leadership positions,” the ANC added. “He served with distinction. He was part of the ANC leadership collective and did not make decisions without first reflecting with his comrades. Yet he would fight for the principle of what was the right thing to do.”
Of course, increasingly iron-clad evidence of Mandela’s prominent role in the international communist conspiracy had been trickling out for decades. Early on, for example, there was a hand-written document by Mandela, dubbed “How To Be A Good Communist,” that was cited during his successful prosecution for sabotage, subversion, and terror. “We communist party members are the most advanced revolutionaries in modern history,” Mandela proclaimed in the essay. “The people of South Africa, led by the South African Communist Party, will destroy capitalist society and build in its place socialism.”
More recently, as The New Americanreported late last year, evidence uncovered by British historian Stephen Ellis also exposed Mandela’s denials of Communist Party membership as a fraud, all the while trying to downplay the significance. The new research, based on Party minutes and more, confirmed not only that the ANC leader was a member of the SACP, but also that he was actually a senior official working with the party’s Central Committee.
As The New American has documented extensively over a period of decades, despite Mandela’s communism and terrorism, Western governments and power brokers, along with the world’s ruthless communist despots, played a key role in bringing him to power. Now, however, even with the undeniable truth exposed, even as South Africa descends into chaos, genocide, and grinding poverty, it is unlikely that apologies will be forthcoming.
An excellent analysis of Mandela’s Communist Party membership, written by anti-Apartheid activist and Afrikaner journalist Rian Malan, explains the enormous significance well. South Africans and the world have been duped. The “man of peace” who is so widely revered around the world was not the real Mandela. If humanity knew that it was idolizing a man now conclusively exposed as a Soviet-backed Communist Party leader and an admitted terrorist, however, the reaction to his death may have been different. For more on the real Mandela, see William F. Jasper’s recent article, “Saint” Mandela? Not so Fast!
The end does not, and will never, justify the means, no matter what communists and Mandela apologists may claim. Amid the global outpouring of praise, victims of Mandela’s bombing campaigns have faded from memory. So, while the world mourns the loss of Mandela, perhaps remembering his victims — who were primarily fellow blacks suspected of being opposed to the communist takeover of South Africa — would be a more worthwhile endeavor; along with the many tens of millions of victims of communism all over the world. They have been almost erased from history, but everyone who loves the truth has a responsibility to ensure that they are not forgotten, and that history does not repeat itself.
It’s really a shame Big Guy didn’t get the chance to enjoy the same kind of photo op with Nelson Mandela that Bubba did.
Looking reflectively pensive is just not the same when you’re alone in the cell.
Looks good though, no?
And if Barry had actually had a chance to spend some quality time with “Madiba” perhaps he could have taught him the same thing he taught Bubba: how to forgive people for telling the truth about the lies you told:
It must be something you learn at President School: how to make every major world event about you. Because left to my own devices, I never would have been able to make the connection between a militant South African black man being left to break rocks in a hell-hole of a prison for 27 years, and the first black American President being impeached for lying to the Grand Jury about getting bjs in the Oval office. Only a world class fabulist/prevaricator like Bubba could do that.
Big Dawg sure has set a high bar for making this “all about you” though. Especially since the only opportunity BO ever had to meet Madiba in person was“in his first months as an Illinois senator. He met briefly with Mandela in his hotel room in a hurriedly arranged get-together for a senator already rising like a rocket.”
As a result, they never really had a chance to swap stories and experiences that could later be translated into life-changing insights. Like how smoking crack for 18 hours while cramming for finals is like cracking rocks all day for 27 long, hard years.
I’m not saying Nelson Mandela didn’t have a big impact on BO’s life. Indeed, the symbolism of President Mandela has not been lost on our President.
Take for example this iconic shot of BO and Lady M in Oslo, accepting his (first) Nobel Peace Prize. Here he is, shot behind bars, flashing Nelson’s signature raised fist salute:
"It's a way of indicating that you intend to meet malevolent, massive institutional force with force of your own - you are an individual who feels bound with other individuals to fight an oppressive status quo."
Granted, it has most frequently been embraced for extremist movements like Communism and militant black power and female-power activists.
As well as black American Presidents
and important, bankrupt, American cities:
Detroit’s iconic “Black Fist” on Jefferson Ave.
I think the message’s clear.
And speaking of messages, Bubba’s self-aggrandizing remarks actually included a deeper message, intended for the GOP.
He was just reminding them that when he was President, he was a very big man; he forgave his adversaries for the good of the party and the stability of the Republic. His not so veiled threat is that they have no reason to assume that to be the case with Big Guy.
So got that boys? “If you impeach this little pissant President, you will all pay the price; as will the rest of the country.”
So be vewy, vewy quiet. And consider this your last warning.
Oh, and while you’re at it, better pass that message on to all those damn Teahadists as well:
"It's a way of indicating that you intend to meet malevolent, massive institutional force with force of your own - you are an individual who feels bound with other individuals to fight an oppressive status quo."
P.S. That welt on Bubba’s forehead? Not the mark of the devil, he just got clipped with another flying ashtray.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Mandela Event Sign Language Translator Accused of Being Fake (1)
By Chris Spillane December 11, 2013
U.S. President Barack Obama, left, delivers a speech next to a sign language interpreter during the memorial service for late South African President Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg, on December 10, 2013. Photographer: Alexander Joe/AFP via Getty Images
An interpreter used to communicate with hearing-impaired people at a memorial service held for Nelson Mandela yesterday was a “fake,” according to the Deaf Federation of South Africa.
“Handshapes used were meaningless,” the group said in a statement today. “The interpreter did not use the established, recognized signs for President Mandela, President Zuma, President Thabo Mbeki and South Africa amongst many others.”
Thousands of South Africans gathered in the rain yesterday at the country’s biggest stadium to mark the life of Mandela, South Africa’s first black-president, who died at his home in Johannesburg on Dec. 5 at the age of 95. Speakers included South African President Jacob Zuma and U.S. President Barack Obama.
“This ‘fake interpreter’ has made a mockery of South African sign language and has disgraced the South African sign language interpreting profession,” the Deaf Federation said.
The government is looking into the matter, Collins Chabane, a minister in the presidency, told reporters in Pretoria.
The “government will report publicly on any information it may establish, but wishes to ensure South Africans that we are clear in defending the rights and dignity of people with disabilities,” he said.
Funny enough, the president's message was just as accurate.
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
-- Theodore Roosevelt
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Just when it seemed the scandal over the bogus sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial had run its course, a cousin and three friends say he was part of a mob that accosted two men found with a stolen television and burned them to death by setting fire to tires placed around their necks.
Thamsanqa Jantjie never went to trial for the 2003 killings when other suspects did because authorities determined he was not mentally fit to stand trial, the four told The Associated Press Monday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the fake signing fiasco, which has deeply embarrassed South Africa's government and prompted a high-level investigation into how it happened.
Their account of the killings matched a description of the crime and the outcome for Jantjie that he himself described in an interview published by the Sunday Times newspaper of Johannesburg.
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"It was a community thing, what you call mob justice, and I was also there," Jantjie told the newspaper.
Jantjie was not at his house Monday, and the cousin told AP Jantjie had been picked up by someone in a car Sunday and had not returned. His cellphone rang through to a message saying Jantjie was not reachable.
Instead of standing trial in 2006, Jantjie was institutionalized for a period of longer than a year, the four said, and then returned to live in his poor township neighbourhood on the outskirts of Soweto. At some point after that, they said, he started getting jobs doing sign language interpretation at events for the governing African National Congress party.
Jantjie told the AP that he has schizophrenia, hallucinated and believed he saw angels while gesturing incoherently just 3 feet away from President Barack Obama and other world leaders at the memorial on Tuesday. Signing experts said his arm and hand movements were mere gibberish.
In the interview Thursday, Jantjie said he had been violent "a lot" in the past, but declined to provide details. He blamed his behaviour on his schizophrenia, saying he was institutionalized for 19 months, including a period during 2006.
The 2003 killings, carried out by a grisly method known as "necklacing," occurred a few hundred yards (meters) from Jantjie's tidy concrete home, according to the cousin and friends, one of whom described himself as Jantjie's best friend.
Necklacing attacks were fairly common during the struggle against apartheid, carried out by blacks on blacks suspected of aiding the white government or belonging to opposing factions. But while people who encounter suspected thieves in South Africa have been known to beat or kill them to mete out punishment, necklacing has been rare in such cases.
An investigation is underway to determine who hired Jantjie for the Mandela memorial service and whether he received security clearance. Government officials have not said how long the investigation will take.
Four government departments involved in organizing the memorial service have distanced themselves from Jantjie, telling the AP they had no contact with him. A fifth government agency, the Department of Public Works, declined to comment and referred all inquiries about Jantjie to the office of South Africa's top government spokeswoman, who has only said a "comprehensive report" will eventually be released.
Jantjie told the AP he was hired by an interpretation company that has used him on a freelance basis for years. The address Jantjie gave, however, was occupied by a different company that is not involved in interpreting for the deaf.
The owner of the company, South African Interpreters, was identified by the Sunday Times as Bantubahle Xozwa, the head of a religious and traditional affairs agency of the ANC.
Xozwa told the newspaper that Jantjie was an administrator in his company but was not an interpreter because he was "was disqualified years ago on the basis of his health."
"He was interpreting at the memorial service in his personal capacity," Xozwa said. The ANC has said it had no role in hiring Jantjie for the memorial, but has acknowledged using him at events in the past.
Two ANC spokesmen and a spokeswoman did not answer their cellphones Monday, a public holiday, when AP tried to reach them for comment. A number listed for Xozwa in Johannesburg rang unanswered.
The Deaf Federation of South Africa has said it filed a complaint with the ANC about bogus signing by Jantjie at a previous event where South African President Jacob Zuma was present.
"We will follow up the reported correspondence that has supposedly been sent to us in this regard and where necessary will act on it," the ANC said in a statement last week.
The AP was unable to verify the existence of the school where Jantjie said he studied signing for a year. An online search for the school, which Jantjie said was called Komani and located in Eastern Cape Province, turned up nothing. Advocates for the deaf say they have never heard of the school and there are no known sign language institutes in the province.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
It’s reasonable to wonder how many Western leaders in South Africa for Mandela’s memorial today have been keeping their tears of grief in check since June
President Barack Obama may have already known the real date of Nelson Mandela’s death and studiously planned funeral when he made his June 2013 African trip—and was even able to take the photo he would later Tweet on the day of Mandela’s officially announced death while he was still in South Africa.
Claiming to defer to Mandela family members on visiting the ailing Mandela during his June 28-30 whistle-stop trip through Johannesburg, Obama instead met with South African President Jacob Zuma.
Zuma was one of the key figures who kept the news that doctors had been keeping Mandela alive in a vegetative state, a top world secret.
Among thousands of news outlets, only one newspaper made a valiant attempt to get the true story out and keep it there.
According to the read-by-millions Las Vegas Guardian Express, Mandela died on June 26th, 2013, but was kept on life support until December 2013.
On December 5, 2013, the White House tweeted a picture showing Obama behind the bars of the Robben Island prison, where Mandela had been incarcerated for 18 of his 27 years. The picture tweeted on Dec. 5, 2013 had been taken on June 29, 2013, when Barack and Michelle Obama visited the world famous site.
As president and first lady of the USA, the Obamas make pretty good vultures.
This is the story of Mandela’s June 26 death following his persistent vegetative state as reported by the Guardian Express:
“On the morning of June 26, we received a message from one of our South African correspondents, Laura Oneale that Nelson Mandela had passed away the previous evening. The news had come to her in the form of a text message from an acquaintance who was well-placed in the South African media. It should be understood that this organization was not authorized to break the news. Clearly, the South African government and the Mandela family had already decided that the news would not be made public. Undoubtedly, this decision had been made even before his death; at least, that’s what we were thinking.
“Our assumption, at the time, was two-fold: firstly, we doubted that such news would not long escape the attention of the international media, even if the South African media was being muzzled. As is the nature of the news media industry, we saw that we had been handed a major scoop and that our window of opportunity to be the first to break this news was limited. Cynical? Perhaps, but we did not doubt the integrity of the source, given that individual’s position. We are in the news business. What other publication – given the gravity of the story and the knowledge of Mandela’s health condition – would not have immediately prepared to publish? We began both to work on a couple of articles and to seek out verification. We found no other corroborating evidence. We wrote our stories.
“In the interests of being completely honest, we cannot say that we did not second – guess ourselves. Did we have direct, first-hand proof that Nelson Mandela was dead? No, we didn’t. One must look at how news stories are broken, though: A media publication receives information from a trusted source; every good faith attempt is made to verify the information. In the absence of verification, the editor or editorial team must make a decision to publish or not to publish. What we did have was the best source we could have, other than first-hand, eye-witness testimony. Moreover, Mandela was seriously ill; according to reports, the icon and former African leader was on his deathbed; hooked up to medical devices that enabled him to breathe.
“We published.
“Now, we were walking on eggshells; our reputation was at stake. What were we thinking? Other news outlets actually published stories announcing Mandela’s death; they quickly retracted, without actually justifying why they had done so. To us, that in itself indicated that they had been told to retract, rather than doing so because they had discovered that Mandela was still alive. The Las Vegas Guardian Express, however, was a relatively new and completely independent publication with no government ties and no corporate owners or shareholders. We could not be pressured into retracting, other than through legal action. In addition, we were a tiny speck on the world news radar.
“Naturally, it was in our own interests to quickly verify Mandela’s condition. Is that an admission that we published news of his death without being sure? No, it is not; we were sure and we could clearly see that an official announcement could be kept under wraps for any number of reasons; a visit by US President Barack Obama was already scheduled and there were obvious security implications. Additionally, the South African government is absolutely capable of using such news for political purposes. Our only misgiving was that we had failed to uncover any corroborating source. The strength of our conviction is proven by the fact that, even as the days went by and no word of his death came from official or family sources, we maintained our position. It seemed logical enough that there was no reason to retract without absolute proof that Nelson Mandela still lived.
“As the few articles we published drew attention – along with numerous comments – it became self-evident that both the South African government and the Mandela family were aware of our reports. Had we been wrong – and had the family been able to prove that Mandela was still alive – it is beyond doubt that the Las Vegas Guardian Express would have received some form of legal threat. Not only did such action never transpire, but our publication was subjected to cyber-attack: Denial of Service attacks, originating in South Africa, disabled our site on more than one occasion. We took this as proof that we were reporting something that the South African government did not want us to report.
“It should be remembered that our publication was relatively small and generated only modest revenue through advertising. Nevertheless – and at considerable expense – we dispatched a senior editor to South Africa. During his time there, Michael Smith uncovered intriguing details of the situation regarding Nelson Mandela, the family, the African National Congress and South African President Jacob Zuma. Our investigations opened a door into the corruption and dishonesty of the aforementioned parties. During a Mandela family legal battle, documents emerged which stated that doctors had advised the family to turn off Mandela’s life support as he was brain-dead. At a later point, Zuma made a statement denying this, but we noted carefully that, while other news organizations were reporting that the doctors themselves had retracted their claims that Mandela was brain-dead, no such retraction had been made; Zuma himself claimed that the doctors had retracted this assertion.
“Now that it has been officially announced that Nelson Mandela has passed away, our position on the matter has not changed in any way. Inevitably, his passing had to be revealed. Many of our South African readers have believed us from the start; those that have criticized us have presented not one shred of evidence that we were wrong. The idea that we are proven wrong because the official announcement comes only now is absurd.
“This article has not detailed every piece of evidence that fell into place during our investigation into why Nelson Mandela’s death was covered up. One of the most compelling discoveries was brought back from South Africa by Michael Smith: He returned with an audio tape of a recorded telephone conversation Between a South African Defense Force officer and a private security contractor. The audio can be found in the first of the links listed at the foot of this article. For the reader who wishes to get the full story of our reporting on this story, each of those articles listed provide, collectively, the complete picture. During the call, the officer details the circumstances of Mandela’s death – which, according to him, occurred even earlier than we reported – and the possible implications of it, as well as the Mandela family’s motives for not releasing the news.
“Even now, the South African government, it seems, is attempting to prevent the Las Vegas Guardian Express from revealing the truth to the people of South Africa. Our Facebook page received a telling comment today. The comment reads:
Hallo I am from South Africa and for some reason I cannot view your website or any articles regarding Nelson Mandela. Is it possible that your site being blocked by our country? could you kindly send the the articles you recently wrote.
Kind regards
“Nelson Mandela is now officially dead – but he was already dead. Nothing has transpired between our initial June 26 reports and the present time to prove otherwise.
“Nevertheless, we would be remiss if we did not convey to the South African people, that we have the utmost respect for Madiba and the great legacy he has left the world. However, as a publication, read by millions across the globe, we have an obligation and responsibility to report the truth and what we were thinking.”
On the White House.gov website, the itinerary for Michelle Obama’s June African trip is still online. The links from her page to Barack Obama’s page with information of the South African trip produce an error advising viewers that the page they’re looking for can’t be found.
It would take six months or more to plan a state funeral that would be the biggest since Winston Churchill’s.
It’s reasonable to wonder how many Western leaders in South Africa for Mandela’s memorial today have been keeping their tears of grief in check since June, 2013.
Was this week’s grief-stricken Obama let in on Mandela’s June 2013 death by family or the African National Congress (ANC) South African government when he was in South Africa June 28-30?
Or did Obama know they were keeping Mandela alive on life support courtesy of the international spying NSA?
Meanwhile, in a world where the mainstream media feeds government lies and propaganda to readers, listeners and viewers, the courageous Las Vegas Guardian Express stands alone.
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Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Re: Remembering Nelson Mandela
Originally Posted by American Patriot
17 hours ago
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