Fight the Right-Washing of Nelson Mandela’s Legacy

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/fight-right-washing-nelson-mandelas-legacy



I tried to honor Nelson Mandela on the day of his death, and love my political enemies. But the white-washing of Mandela’s legacy, as well as the role of the United States in supporting both apartheid and Mandela’s long imprisonment, has to be rebutted.

It began on Mandela’s 95th birthday in July, when House Speaker John Boehner had the audacity to declare in a tribute “At times it can almost feel like we are talking about an old friend.”

It got much worse when Sen. Ted Cruz announced Thursday night: “Nelson Mandela will live in history as an inspiration for defenders of liberty around the globe.”

But Cruz’s political heroes opposed Mandela as a terrorist and a communist, and there’s little doubt the red-baiting Texas senator would have done the same had he been in Congress back then. ( The Daily Beast’s Peter Beinart and Foreign Policy’s Sam Kleiner(from July) have the two best pieces about “apartheid amnesia” I’ve read.)

[malaise]

1. US and Britain

It's hard to watch

[xchrom]

2. i's a little strange.

if you were alive through the 80s -- and the very stiff resistance by the right to the ANC and mandela -- this feels surreal.

[malaise]

3. I was right there in the protests

Jamaica and other Caribbean countries were heavily involved in the anti-apartheid movement.
I remember Thatcher defending violations of the Gleneagles Agreement by an English cricketer.
Never have I seen such a sanitized, ahistorical presentation of Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle.
But the scumbags of the planet always have some new meme to follow.

[xchrom]

5. same here -- but oakland, berkeley. nt

[marmar]

4. They always do.

How long before they claim that Nelson Mandela would support a war against Iran?