Fight the right-washing of Nelson Mandela’s legacy

[DonViejo]

THE RIGHT-WASHING OF MANDELA

Fight the right-washing of Nelson Mandela’s legacy

Much of the American right supported apartheid, almost to the bitter end. Why we must remember that

JOAN WALSH

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.)

It’s shocking how little American leaders of both parties did to oppose the rise and consolidation of the brutal apartheid regime in the ‘50s and ’60s, but it was Richard Nixon who developed closer ties. The anti-apartheid movement of the 1970s and ’80s – where Barack Obama got his political start; I covered the University of Wisconsin’s successful divestment movement with the Daily Cardinal in 1978 — was demonized as the far left at the time. Moderates proposed alternatives like the Sullivan Principles, named after Rev. Leon Sullivan, a General Motors board member, which tried (and failed) to impose a code of conduct on companies doing business in South Africa (Sullivan eventually agreed they weren’t enough).

full article
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/06/fight_the_right_washing_of_nelson_mandela%E2%80%99s_legacy/

[publicdefender76]

2. Supporters of Senator Ted Cruz Eulogize Nelson Mandela

Would someone be willing to post this as a new thread? It is JAW-DROPPING.

From the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/supporters-of-us-senator_b_4399368.html

[mrgorth]

3. Wow.

Now I need a bath.