| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
The Mind of Mandela
"If there is a country that has committed unspeakable
atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America."
"A president who has no foresight, who cannot think
properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."
"Iraq produces 65 percent of the oil in the world. What
Bush wants is to get hold of that oil." --- Nelson Mandela,
former South African president, at the International Women's
Forum in Johannesburg.
Just for the record, Iraq is producing five percent of the
world's oil exports right now, not 65 percent. Therefore, Mr.
Mandela's statistics were off by a factor of thirteen, which
doesn't do a lot to inspire confidence in his speechifying. But
that was the least of his injudicious statements.
When a highly regarded former world leader makes public
remarks that are indistinguishable from those by the likes of
Woody Harrelson, Susan Sarandon and Alec Baldwin--or, come
to think of it, Osama bin Laden--it is definitely time to hang it
up and step down from the world stage. Retirement in
Hollywood is highly recommended, where he would fit right in
with the multitudinous conflux of America-hating cracked
actors who fancy the United States the world's worst terrorist
and themselves the world's foremost experts on international
relations and geopolitical strategy.
In the meantime, here's a small dose of reality for Mandela
to chew on.
If there is a country in the world that has literally saved
civilization from the forces of evil and tyranny, it is the United
States. If there is a country without which the rest of the world
would have been plunged into a dark age of unspeakable
horror, it is the United States.
If there is a country in the world that has done the most by
leaps and bounds to promote freedom around the world at the
cost of its own treasure and blood, it is the United States.
If there is a country in the world that has done the most to
improve the lot of humanity through innovations in every
conceivable scientific, technological, medical and
humanitarian field, it is the United States.
There is something that needs to be said about Mr. Mandela.
Just because he may have suffered a grievous moral wrong (his
many years of imprisonment in apartheid South Africa) and
subsequently triumphed over his oppressors to become the
leader of his country, doesn't mean that he has been infused
with divine wisdom and is therefore right about everything
under the sun for all the rest of his days.
So, as unpleasant as it is to say about one who many believe
is to be admired for his triumph over immorality, if he truly
believes the things he said about the U.S., then Nelson Mandela
is a blathering, insufferable fool. And there is still more of his
blathering to consider.
In that same speech at the Women's Forum, which garnered
much applause, he said that Bush is undermining past work of
the United Nations. "Is it because the secretary-general of the
United Nations is now a black man?"
Now there was a despicably gratuitous playing of the race
card, a la Al Sharpton et al. Can he possibly believe, in his
heart or his mind, that what he was suggesting is even remotely
conceivable? Does he know who Bush appointees Colin Powell
and Condi Rice are? Does he believe, like Harry Belafonte, that
they are nothing but token negroes with no more usefulness or
power than a couple of house servants?
To top it all off, this addleheaded criticism of the U.S. is
coming from a man who stubbornly persists in cozying up with
the likes of Libya, Cuba and Iran. Why? Because, in Mandela's
words, "They gave us the resources for us to conduct the
struggle against apartheid and to win." Well, of course!
Apartheid was ended by those great liberators Libya, Cuba and
Iran. What has the civilized world been thinking all these
years?
How wonderfully magnanimous of the brutal dictators of
those basket-case regimes to do that. Too bad they go right on
oppressing, terrorizing and murdering their own citizens so
that they may hang on to that which they value the most:
absolute power. But in the mind of Mandela, these are trifling
details. Once, when criticized for his loyalty to this triumvirate
of thugs, Mandela said, "Those . . . who have berated me for
being loyal to our friends, literally they can go and throw
themselves into a pool."
Nelson Mandela is eighty-four years old, not a young man.
As tempting as it is to attribute his irrational views to
hardening of the arteries, or something, anything, that isn't his
fault, it just isn't so. His politics are left-wing, they are radical
and they are the same as they ever were. He doesn't know
what's best for the world nor even his own country.
His supposed wisdom didn't prevent the country under his
leadership from descending into a near anarchic state where
rape, murder, famine and disease ran rampant. Apartheid was
morally reprehensible, but it would be hard to describe what
has since become of South Africa as much of an improvement.
It's a wonder that he hasn't tried to pin that on the United
States, too.
"If there is a country that has committed unspeakable
atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America."
"A president who has no foresight, who cannot think
properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."
"Iraq produces 65 percent of the oil in the world. What
Bush wants is to get hold of that oil." --- Nelson Mandela,
former South African president, at the International Women's
Forum in Johannesburg.
Just for the record, Iraq is producing five percent of the
world's oil exports right now, not 65 percent. Therefore, Mr.
Mandela's statistics were off by a factor of thirteen, which
doesn't do a lot to inspire confidence in his speechifying. But
that was the least of his injudicious statements.
When a highly regarded former world leader makes public
remarks that are indistinguishable from those by the likes of
Woody Harrelson, Susan Sarandon and Alec Baldwin--or, come
to think of it, Osama bin Laden--it is definitely time to hang it
up and step down from the world stage. Retirement in
Hollywood is highly recommended, where he would fit right in
with the multitudinous conflux of America-hating cracked
actors who fancy the United States the world's worst terrorist
and themselves the world's foremost experts on international
relations and geopolitical strategy.
In the meantime, here's a small dose of reality for Mandela
to chew on.
If there is a country in the world that has literally saved
civilization from the forces of evil and tyranny, it is the United
States. If there is a country without which the rest of the world
would have been plunged into a dark age of unspeakable
horror, it is the United States.
If there is a country in the world that has done the most by
leaps and bounds to promote freedom around the world at the
cost of its own treasure and blood, it is the United States.
If there is a country in the world that has done the most to
improve the lot of humanity through innovations in every
conceivable scientific, technological, medical and
humanitarian field, it is the United States.
There is something that needs to be said about Mr. Mandela.
Just because he may have suffered a grievous moral wrong (his
many years of imprisonment in apartheid South Africa) and
subsequently triumphed over his oppressors to become the
leader of his country, doesn't mean that he has been infused
with divine wisdom and is therefore right about everything
under the sun for all the rest of his days.
So, as unpleasant as it is to say about one who many believe
is to be admired for his triumph over immorality, if he truly
believes the things he said about the U.S., then Nelson Mandela
is a blathering, insufferable fool. And there is still more of his
blathering to consider.
In that same speech at the Women's Forum, which garnered
much applause, he said that Bush is undermining past work of
the United Nations. "Is it because the secretary-general of the
United Nations is now a black man?"
Now there was a despicably gratuitous playing of the race
card, a la Al Sharpton et al. Can he possibly believe, in his
heart or his mind, that what he was suggesting is even remotely
conceivable? Does he know who Bush appointees Colin Powell
and Condi Rice are? Does he believe, like Harry Belafonte, that
they are nothing but token negroes with no more usefulness or
power than a couple of house servants?
To top it all off, this addleheaded criticism of the U.S. is
coming from a man who stubbornly persists in cozying up with
the likes of Libya, Cuba and Iran. Why? Because, in Mandela's
words, "They gave us the resources for us to conduct the
struggle against apartheid and to win." Well, of course!
Apartheid was ended by those great liberators Libya, Cuba and
Iran. What has the civilized world been thinking all these
years?
How wonderfully magnanimous of the brutal dictators of
those basket-case regimes to do that. Too bad they go right on
oppressing, terrorizing and murdering their own citizens so
that they may hang on to that which they value the most:
absolute power. But in the mind of Mandela, these are trifling
details. Once, when criticized for his loyalty to this triumvirate
of thugs, Mandela said, "Those . . . who have berated me for
being loyal to our friends, literally they can go and throw
themselves into a pool."
Nelson Mandela is eighty-four years old, not a young man.
As tempting as it is to attribute his irrational views to
hardening of the arteries, or something, anything, that isn't his
fault, it just isn't so. His politics are left-wing, they are radical
and they are the same as they ever were. He doesn't know
what's best for the world nor even his own country.
His supposed wisdom didn't prevent the country under his
leadership from descending into a near anarchic state where
rape, murder, famine and disease ran rampant. Apartheid was
morally reprehensible, but it would be hard to describe what
has since become of South Africa as much of an improvement.
It's a wonder that he hasn't tried to pin that on the United
States, too.