Here’s President Obama speaking earlier today at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service:
A beautiful, powerful speech, in my ever-humble opinion. It was fully fitting too, I think, for Obama to make a veiled, but perfectly intelligible political demand late in the speech. As he said, Mandela was no marble bust; rather, he was a powerful, tough, smart leader of a struggle,”the last great liberator of the 20th century.” And, again, as Obama said, that struggle has achieved great triumphs — but yet has a long road to go.
One more thing. Unsurprisingly, Ta-Nehisi Coates nails it on the need to pierce the glow of fond Mandela remembrances to recall those who did all they could during Mandela’s life to ensure that his struggle would fail. TNC also reminds us that such foul behavior was not inevitable, and not the inevitable choice for American conservatives back in the day. Which is to say that those, like William Buckley (and many others) who came down on the side of white supremacy could have acted otherwise and didn’t, to theirs and their heirs lasting shame.
Cervantes
Their shame?
MattF
Despite all the excuses and the denials, racism is the tell. Come the day when ‘conservatism’ in this country isn’t infected with racism… but I’m not holding my breath.
Mike in NC
Which wingnut hack will focus on the cost of Obama’s trip to South Africa (neglecting to note that our ex-presidents are traveling there, too)?
Wag
“Which wingnut hack will focus on the cost of Obama’s trip to South Africa”
Cue Jennifer Rubin in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…’
Where are my buttons for block quoting?
cleek
i love the “He Was A Terrorist!” complaint. i really do.
i love it because it comes out of the mouths of the same clowns who think The Tree Of Liberty’s thirst for blood justifies their gun hoarding and the violence implied therein.
but apparently they don’t have Liberty Trees in Africa.
Fuzzy
It must be human nature that everyone must feel superior to some group whether by sex, nationality, color or whatever and the idea of an “inferior” having a higher place on the ladder of life cannot be tolerated. We all see it everywhere starting with our own families.
Cassidy
@cleek: Real ‘Mericans can never be terrists. Only brown ferinners can be terrists. No, they’re freedom fighters driving there armored scooters to victory.
Cassidy
@Fuzzy: It is human nature. We’re pack animals.
wilfred
Cornel West calls it the Santa Clausification of Mandela. Counterpunch has a nice article on the politics of the man, and the suppression of same in the name of pablum, particularly in regard to another apartheid state:
http://www.counterpunch.org/
Bostondreams
So now some of my more conservative friends are complaining that Obama went to South Africa for Mandela but not to Gettysburg for the 150th anniversary. Sigh. Guy can’t win.
Cacti
@cleek:
But the natural state of Africans is one of servitude. That’s why it’s wrong for them to want freedom. If the whites are in charge, it can’t be oppression, as that’s the way white Jesus made the world. That’s why the existence of a POTUS of African ancestry vexes them so. It forces them to confront a number of things they were taught to believe about themselves.
burnspbesq
Ultimately, if you win, you’re a “freedom fighter,” and if you lose, you’re a “terrorist.” Mandela won. Case closed. Just another real-world example of “history is written by the winners.”
Marc
Kos has the clip for those of you who don’t want to see somebody’s pleading linkbait plastered across the president’s face:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/10/1261597/-President-Obama-s-remarks-at-funeral-of-Nelson-Mandela
burnspbesq
Tom:
Oh, so we’re into corruption of blood now? I thought somebody’s ancestors (not mine; my ancestors were still in Donegal in 1775) fought a war once upon a time to get rid of shit like that.
Betty Cracker
@burnspbesq: I took that to mean the current crop of hacks producing dreck under the National Review banner.
Joel
@burnspbesq: Hassan al-Turabi won in Sudan, and no one here is calling him a freedom fighter or comparing him to Mandela, nor should they.
Cacti
@burnspbesq:
How dare you speak ill of Dimestore J. Taxlawyer, Esq.’s clients!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Betty Cracker: As did I; it was a rhetorical use of “heirs” in my view.
White Trash Liberal
@burnspbesq:
I read heir to mean those who adopt the same beliefs and thinking as their forebears.
The heirs of Buckley at NR continue to champion white exceptionalism.
burnspbesq
@wilfred:
If you think that’s a “nice article,” I can only conclude that you and I have very different standards. I saw a nothing-slider (a bite-size nothing-burger).
Petorado
@Fuzzy: Yeah, humans seem to have an innate tribal sense that may have served its purpose when Homo Sapiens were competing against Neanderthals, but it’s diminished in its beneficial purpose in this day and age. It’s a baser human instinct that’s the root of all hatred, leading to unnecessary death and suffering in the tribes rather than perpetuating survival. The proto-brain notion that all of life is a zero sum game has yet to be conquered by the frontal lobe’s reasoning that cooperation can achieve greater success. It’s all the conservatives have right now, and hopefully will be their undoing.
Belafon
@burnspbesq: I believe Irving Kristol’s son has carried the banner on quite well.
burnspbesq
@Betty Cracker:
And my point (which appears to have evaded pretty much everybody) was about judging people on the merits of their own work, without resorting to short-cuts like damning them for the sins of those who came before them.
Belafon
@burnspbesq: Yeah, and Tom’s point seemed to me to be that the heirs, rather than distinguishing themselves, have chosen to follow in their parents footsteps. They are both complicit.
Are you auditioning for Tom’s troll? I don’t think he’s really had one.
Marc
@burnspbesq: And it would be that work that makes them the political heirs to Buckley and other advocates of apartheid.
Everybody else seems to have interpreted Tom’s comment correctly; maybe your point isn’t the one that’s being evaded here?
Baud
@burnspbesq:
These are not your father’s Nazis. ;-)
Knight of Nothing
TNC delivers praise where praise is due, I suppose, but Gingrich is an odd figure, ain’t he?
burnspbesq
@Belafon:
Bill Kristol is a dangerous idiot because he’s an idiot with access to people who may someday once again be in positions of power. The fact that he’s Irv’s son is (at most) tangentially relevant.
Betty Cracker
@burnspbesq: The shame handed down from Buckley to the current crop of NRO hacks stems from their attempt to continue the old troglodyte’s enterprise under new terms. It’s not some literal blood guilt or intellectual stain inherited independently of their own output, as everyone but you seems to immediately grasp.
hitchhiker
I’ve been listening to Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible, set in what was then called the Congo. I’m at the part where the country has declared itself independent and elected a former prisoner named Patrice Lumumba as its president.
Soon, I know, the CIA and the Brits and the Belgians will arrange to have him taken out in front of a firing squad, just days before JFK was inaugurated.
Can’t help thinking how things might have been different, if Lumumba had lived or if Mandela had not. Both of them were called communists, in large part because the west wanted to keep the status quo.
Cassidy
Odds are, if we go ahead and whack the children of conservatives, we’d be doing the world a favor.
Roger Moore
@cleek:
American Exceptionalism!
Betty Cracker
@hitchhiker: Poisonwood Bible is one of my favorite books ever.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
I will repeat myself again since the “Santa Clausification” is driving me nuts, too: yes, Mandela forgave his enemies, but only AFTER those enemies had made a full and complete confession of their crimes. Forgiveness was not free.
Baud
@Cassidy:
Wouldn’t that make us conservative?
I mean, you don’t kill zombies by trying to eat their brains.
Ash Can
@Cassidy: Enough, already. You’re over the line with this.
handsmile
@wilfred:
Thanks for the link to Counterpunch and the insightful article that first appears there, “Madiba in Palestine.” Useful to consider/compare the struggles against apartheid in both South Africa and Palestine.
Its co-author, Robin D.G. Kelley, is a brilliant young American historian now at UCLA whose scholarship has focused upon African-American history and culture. His 2009 book, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original is the single best biography I’ve read of any jazz musician. (The first volume of Stanley Crouch’s long-awaited biography of Charlie Parker is a hoped-for Christmas present.)
Tom Levenson
@Betty Cracker: Burnsie does try hard to misread stuff, doesn’t he?
Burnspbesq: it’s an old tool of honest argument to read your opponents in the best reasonable light, and respond to that. As everyone here except you seems to have grasped without much difficulty, Buckley’s heirs in the sense above are his intellectual (sic) and political heirs, who , as many have noted, inhabit the core of modern conservatism.
To put it so the meanest understanding may grasp it: in the sense above, Christopher Buckley is not William’s heir. Those who praise Mandela, now safely dead, while attacking voting rights here at home…those folks are the legatees in question.
IOW, Burnsie, try harder.
wilfred
@handsmile:
You’re welcome. I’d like call attention to one sentence in particular:
“Finally, the experience of the anti-apartheid movement’s academic boycott has a great deal to teach us as we debate the decision on the part of the American Studies Association to support the boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions (not individuals).”
As a member of the Association, I support the boycott. I would ask other academics, at least the ones who voice support for Nelson Mandela’s politics, to do the same.
Cassidy
@Baud: I don’t think that’d make us conservative. We’d bemusing foresight and logic to end the disease of conservatism. They don’t know what those words mean.
@Ash Can: Line? We don’t have no stinkin’ lines!
Bobby Thomson
@burnspbesq:
Your point was a non sequitur. No one was talking about the sins of the father being visited upon his biological children.
Chris
@hitchhiker:
I often wonder that about Iran, a few years before Lumumba.
aimai
@burnspbesq: Too literal. The Heirs of Buckley are not his children but his employees.
aimai
@burnspbesq: Actually, of course, Kristol’s nepotism in promoting his son is part of his son’s success. Their role as conservative cheerleaders is a literal family business.
Chris
@wilfred:
I was at an ISA conference a few weeks ago where I was one of the only people who sat in on a panel of Palestinian activists – what I found interesting was that every one of them pretty much accepted that the two-state solution was a crock and was pushing for civil rights a la Mandela, same as that article you linked.
I mean, I’ve pretty much accepted that the two-state solution is just smoke and mirrors, but didn’t realize that the sentiment was gaining weight among Palestinian activists too. The notion of a homeland’s not an easy thing to give up.
Baud
@Cassidy:
I don’t know what those words mean, at least as you’ve used them.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m sure the Village is outraged that the crowd at FNB Stadium went nuts when Barack and Michelle were put up on the jumbotron.
I’m certain that the teabagger filth is outraged.
drkrick
@burnspbesq: Except that Bill would not have access to those potentially powerful people without Irv’s tireless deployment of his influence to get Bill educational and job opportunities he wouldn’t have gotten on his on. All while denouncing affirmative action for genuinely disadvantaged people because it violated meritocracy.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
When the whose uterus did you come out of “meritocracy” in this country is abolished, and dimwitted dogshit like the deserting coward are installed in their rightful places as night assistant managers of Burger Kings.
“Sins of the Father” Is a useful tool in a society where position is inherited, not earned by deeds. We are in such a society right now. Liz Cheney should be hanging from the next lamppost as her vile sire, the Dark Lord.
It’s time to take out the trash.
ThresherK
Reminds me of how much Muhammad Ali was loved at the ’96 Olympics by people who thought he was a public enemy in the ’60s.
Except I’m too young to remember Ali as a public menace, but do remember Mandela before he was “safe” to admire.
Hill Dweller
@Villago Delenda Est:
Judging from my brief perusal of cable, they’re more obsessed with PO shaking Raul Castro’s hand.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Belafon: I think even Irving was a bit ruefully nonplussed by his son’s promotion of Palin, and without defending the vile old racist Buckley, at one of the last NRO cruises he participated in, his Loyalty to the Cause was being questioned n whispers
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Which is why Darth Cheney will never be forgiven. He’s proud of his crimes.
Cassidy
@Baud: stupid autocorrect. Be using….
Sarcasm, my man, sarcasm.
Villago Delenda Est
@drkrick:
DING DING DING DING DING.
Wipe these aristocrat wannabes out. All of them.
Cacti
@burnspbesq:
When we live in a society free of racial privilege, ethnic privilege, gender privilege, cronyism, and nepotism, your meritocracy argument might hold a thimble of water, counselor.
In the meantime, in the society we actually live in, the strongest predictor of one’s future status is the socioeconomic status of one’s parents.
Lurking Canadian
@Villago Delenda Est: well, to be fair, that’s for her own crimes, not Daddy’s, right?
Baud
@Hill Dweller:
FWIW
Cacti
@handsmile:
No coincidence that Netanyahu backed out of going to Mandela’s memorial service.
Cassidy
Fuck it. Wall off Texas and deport all conservatives their and let them go at it Hunger Games style.
handsmile
@Hill Dweller:
Yes, it would appear (from the frequent replayings of that two-second exchange) that the Village media has decided that Obama’s handshake with Raul Castro, obligatorily identified as the “Communist leader of Cuba,” was the most important moment of Mandela’s funeral service this morning.
In addition to cable television’s regurgitations, it is now the lead story at the NBC News website:
http://www.nbcnews.com/
Villago Delenda Est
@Knight of Nothing:
Suddenly, Gingrich is trying to recant his own words, because, heaven forefend, he’s wandered into the dare-to-question-the-shitty-grade-Z-movie-star penumbra as he hails Nelson Mandela, because Reagan led the charge against the ANC and Mandela in the 80’s, along with the Wicked Witch of Albion.
The teatards are outraged that any homage at all is paid to a “terrorist”, a “communist” and an obvious ni*CLANG*.
handsmile
@Cacti:
None whatsoever. Though I imagine it would have been nice for him to see his good friends, the Bush family.
Cacti
So, how long until the patron saint of the front pagers calls South Africans a bunch of cultists for their thunderous ovation of the Obamas?
Roger Moore
@aimai:
Almost all of it, in fact. Does anyone think Kristol the Lesser would have any political influence if not for his dad?
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
The whole Mandela backlash shit is disgusting for all the undertones they carry, and oh there are so many.
1) Once a “communist” always a “communist” (it doesn’t matter if you actually WERE one, just that you could be generously labeled as one
2) All “communist” are always evil, therefore if you were once a ‘communist’ you can never be forgiven
3) Similarly ‘once a ‘terrorist’, always a ‘terrorist”, with the same tone of eternal grudge and impossible penance.
4) And of course, the undertone of ‘he proved darkies can’t be trusted with power’. All the ‘S. Africa is even more corrupt/divided/unequal/etc. than ever since that superracist Mandela!’
Villago Delenda Est
ZOMG! Obama did the polite, proper, diplomatic, and APPROPRIATE thing and shook Raul Castro’s hand!
You’d think they’d immediately left to get a room or something.
The VIllage is a wasteland in the figurative and intellectual senses, It needs to be made a wasteland in the physical sense.
Roger Moore
@Cassidy:
Hell no! We should use an uninhabited island much smaller than Texas. That way, if they somehow manage to avoid killing each other off, rising sea level from global warming will do the job for us.
Cacti
@Roger Moore:
Or as Ira Katznelson recalled from a lunch conversation he had with Irving Kristol:
gelfling545
@burnspbesq: I presume their political heir, not heirs of the body.
jl
For some reason I woke up very early and turned on the radio just as Obama was giving his speech. It was an inspiring speech, and I couldn’t go to sleep afterwards since I was thinking about some of the lines and themes. The crowd reaction was inspiring.
It would have been nice to hear some of the other speeches, and I guess I will have to look for them on the internet.
I could turn the radio off, since most of the talk was nonsense about what the handshake between Castro and Obama meant. It meant about the same as the fact that Biden didn’t spit in the eye of the Chinese officials on his trip, or Hillary didn’t kick the last French cheese eating surrender monkey diplomat she met in the crotch. That is, it meant nothing, so of course it was more important to talk about than the memorial.
Elizabelle
Thank you for posting this speech.
One of the best I have heard.
I am going to ignore the carnival sideshow and anything negative our professional journalists have to say.
That is one of my takeaways from this powerful speech.
(Who’s to say Michele and Obama won’t fistbump over a martini and white wine tonight, laughing at what the US press chose to cover of an extremely moving day.)
geg6
@cleek:
Yup, that’s the hypocrisy that just kills me, too.
I loved hearing the crowd go nuts both when the Obamas taking their seats were on the big screen in the stadium and when he went up to give his eulogy. Just screaming their heads off, those wonderful South Africans were.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl:
To be fair, they need to talk about SOMETHING, and that SOMETHING needs to be the one that gathers the most eyeballs without being too far removed from actual reality, so Obama’s
intercoursehandjob with Castro is just the ticket for ratings whoring Villagers.Jim, Foolish Literalist
Bill Hemmer is apparently saying that Obama “dishonored” Mandela’s memory by shaking hands with Raoul Castro
Of course, Hemmer could say Mandela kept a picture of Ronald Reagan on his bedside table and no one on his network would contradict him and half his audience would believe it
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle:
Needs rabbit ears and spelling modifications
There. All better!
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti:
The lack of awareness of what he was saying is perfectly normal for types like Kristol.
This is a man, incidentally, who would have been rejected outright decades ago solely on the basis of his religion and ethnicity.
elmo
Not only are the RWNJs screaming and flinging poo at Newt Gingrich and Ted Cruz, they’re also full of praise for Snowbilly Snooki for failing to say anything about Mandela since he died. This is, of course, part of her absolute political genius, as is her new reality show on the Sportsman channel.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@elmo:
You’re assuming Palin is actually aware of somebody named Mandela in a country called South Africa…
MattF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s been pointed out that the politics of US-Cuba relations are changing, so a ruckus over an Obama/Castro handshake could well be a sign of right-wing anxiety about the change.
And, to be explicit about it, what’s so bad about detente between the US and Cuba? Fidel is out of the picture, Raul Castro appears to be at least as rational as any Caribbean leader– so–…
Gene108
@Villago Delenda Est:
Without the Internet available to mock the media for their stupidity, Obama would be stuck trying to answer to these idiots like Clinton had to.
Real time mockery of these morons is a blessing for our Democracy.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@MattF:
Is Cuba any worse than say, China?
Patricia Kayden
@Cervantes: Sad to say they have no shame, huh? Oh well.
Villago Delenda Est
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
Or, for that matter, the apartheid state of Israel?
Elizabelle
@Villago Delenda Est: That’s “professional” as in oldest profession.
@Villago Delenda Est:
props for getting all of that into one line. Intercourse, ratings, whoring, Villagers.
Patricia Kayden
@Certified Mutant Enemy: Perfect question. China has “most favored nation” status with the US, which provides it with preferential trade/financial access to the American market. Yet China has a horrible human rights record and is a fully communist country. How is Communist Cuba worst than Communist China in any meaningful sense? The hypocrisy is galling.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MattF: Maybe it’s a function of age/generation (and at 46, I still sometimes have to remind myself that the 80s were a long fucking time ago), but Beltway CW is often shockingly outdated. I always said that David Broder was trapped in a Nixon-less 1973, and people spoke with great seriousness of impact of “Reagan Democrats” as late as 2008.
handsmile
@Villago Delenda Est:
That moral arc of the universe does bring along some unpleasant creatures, just as an earlier ark brought along mosquitoes.
Patricia Kayden
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Does Bill Hemmer know that President Mandela and the Castro brothers were close friends and allies?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tNF0YkRQjM
Sometimes I wonder if people get paid extra to play dumb.
Botsplainer
Query – wonder what America would look like now had the views of White Christian Conservatives prevailed in the era from 1940-1965?
Roger Moore
@MattF:
Some people are stuck in the 1960s and assume that if it was bad in the 1960s it must still be bad today. You know, the kind of people who talk about the Soviet threat and Obama dissing Czechoslovakia.
GregB
@MattF:
Cuba is an existential threat to Marci Rubio’s political career.
The embargo must go on!
Elizabelle
One has to remember how Bull Connor is remembered today. (He was a Democrat, FWIW.)
And the architects of apartheid. Those for massive resistance in this country.
The arc of justice turned. It sometimes took damn long for that to happen, but it did.
Why ruin a perfectly good thread about Mandela — a man Obama says we will not see the likes of again in our lifetime; I am not so sure about that — talking about prattle by lesser and viler tiny minds?
It’s entertaining, but it’s demeaning too.
Roger Moore
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
Yes. The Chinese revanchists mostly live in Taiwan and can’t vote in American elections, while the Cuban revanchists live in Miami and can.
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: Unfortunately, the prattle is hard to ignore but I understand your point. Thankfully, the prattle will not be remembered when we think about President Obama/President Mandela in future years.
Knight of Nothing
@Villago Delenda Est: is he now? I didn’t see that. Well, there it is then. I guess his feckless retreat must be the reason why TNC’s piece doesn’t portray the Gingrich I remember from those days or the days his abortive presidential bid.
Thanks for clearing that up! Cheers.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
To be very even handed, the problem with a “Soviet threat” is that it was, after all, just a redressing of the previous “Imperial Russian threat” (see “The Great Game” in Central Asia), and now, we’ve got a “Russian Federation threat” that is endangering our sovereignty over Santa Claus’ workshop.
La plus ca change…
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
Fortunately, they’re dying out, and most of their children have been assimilated into the collective, and really don’t give a rat’s ass about the lost peasants in Cuba.
MattF
OT, but we’ve won one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/11/us/politics/senate-democrats-filibuster-threat-gone-approve-appeals-court-nominee.html?hp&_r=0
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Just saw on the MSNBC chyron that besides Obama being cheered, George W Bush was booed. ANd I’m small enough to chuckle at that.
Also, too, while looking for confirmation, I found this
I will now go lie down for a couple of minutes.
catclub
@MattF: 56 votes in favor. I will look up which republican.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle:
What one forgets, and those on the right do so conveniently, is that prior to the defection of Strom Thurmond to the GOP, Rethugs could not get elected dog catcher in the South due to the GOP being the “Party of Lincoln”, the vile tyrant who launched a war of aggression against the peaceful plantation civilization that was the Confederacy.
Thurmond opened up the gates to the mass migration of Dixiecrats to the GOP, away from the party of FDR, HST, JFK, and most certainly LBJ, the race traitor who made civil rights for darkies a reality, and ended Jim Crow.
MomSense
@Patricia Kayden:
I often wonder about this while watching the “news”. Then I think that they could just be that dumb.
Mnemosyne
@MattF:
Oh, New York Times. She was “forced through” by a 56-38 majority vote?
Davis X. Machina
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Still do. (Morning Joe, last week.) Even after it made the dictionary as a synonym for ‘dead guys..”
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
Communist China supplies our companies with dirt-cheap goods made by poorly paid, disenfranchised labor – Communist Cuba does not. It’s just good business. If Cuba continues to liberalize, i suspect you’re going to see more and more pushback against the right wing Cubanos in Miami from American business interests. These guys just want the money and access; they don’t care if the politician they buy off is a bearded guy in a uniform or a clean-shaven one in a guayabera.
@Roger Moore:
I feel like even then, the Chinese revanchists in Taiwan have calmed the fuck down in a way that the Cuban revanchists in Miami still haven’t, but I could be wrong.
Cervantes
@wilfred: Thanks.
The authors quote Mandela asking that we not “fall into the trap of washing our hands of difficulties that others face.” They should have quoted the full paragraph:
(Emphasis mine.) Mandela chose to acknowledge the Africanness of the Afrikaner — not easy to do — but he demanded truth in return for that reconciliation. What are the prospects for Palestinians in this light?
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Jeebus. Could they be any more tone deaf? If they insist on only white musicians to honor the memory of the most internationally famous and impactful African of the last forty years or so, they could have at least gone with something from Paul Simon’s Graceland album. Not that I think they should use either, but at least you’d have some semi-African music there and definitely some South African musicians, with Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
Kind of a sad day today, though the celebration of his life has been wonderful. I just keep thinking back. My first two big introductions to political activism were through the women’s movement (I’ll cry like a baby when Gloria passes away) and anti-apartheid. I spent few weeks every year I was in college camping out in the shanty town we built on the William Pitt Union lawn to protest Pitt’s South African investments. I was so idealistic then!
Cervantes
@catclub: Murkowski and Collins.
Redshift
@Villago Delenda Est:
It always seems very weird to me that I grew up during this strange and anomalous period when we had “non-ideological” political parties, entirely because Southerners held a century-long grudge against Republicans. It’s also worthwhile to remember that this is the reason for the “bipartisan” era that all the pundits pine for, and believe is the natural state of America.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
All you need to remember about Strom Thurmond is his death. You know, when one of the biggest Republicans in Congress stood up and gushed that “when Thurmond ran for president, we supported him. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn”t have all these problems.”
Forget Lee Atwater, that’s the single most damning response to any of that “but but but the KKK were DEMOCRATS!” bullshit.
scav
@Villago Delenda Est: Even the hobbyist revanchists by proxy are getting a little white around the jowls and creaky. I’m utterly sure there are fans even now for Mattel’s LED-based Football game from the 70s but are they a solid and dedicated enough base for winning national elections?
elmo
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
No, nothing of the kind. I’m not, but I’m sure the RWNJs are.
Gypsy Howell
@MattF:
Yes, they FORCED her through… By having a majority vote for her. Why does the NYT hate democracy?
Villago Delenda Est
@geg6:
My first thought as well, but Toto’s “Africa” has the virtue, for the musically illiterate American masses, of being a big hit with the word “Africa” in it. While Graceland has the virtue of tapping into South Africa’s rich musical legacy, it’s not in your face “African” enough for mass consumption.
It’s all about the ratings, and the familiar. Heaven forefend that television attempt to educate people. Bill Paley is revolving rapidly in his grave at the state of the very tarnished “Tiffany Network”.
Gypsy Howell
@Mnemosyne:
You read it quicker than I did.
Yatsuno
@geg6: Was “Pata Pata” not available either? A familiar song by a South African who also worked with Mandela?
scav
@Villago Delenda Est: It also shows up near the top when one types in a key-word search for appropriate music, so is a cost-saver!
MattF
@Gypsy Howell: An oddity about the article– the byline is ‘THE NEW YORK TIMES.’
Belafon
@Redshift: I’d be more than willing to continue hating on the Republicans in order to get some bills through Congress.
Villago Delenda Est
@Yatsuno:
It’s certainly possible that a royalties/rights issue prevented that from being used, but frankly, I don’t think “Pata Pata” meets the “familiar to the American masses” test.
Gene108
@Patricia Kayden:
China, unlike Cuba, did not expropriate billions in assets of US firms.
If Cuba paid Americans back for the loss, plus interest, the whole embargo could have been avoided.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Jaysus. They couldn’t at least pick some Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel that used actual South African musicians?
I mean, I don’t expect them to use “Biko,” but have some fucking self-awareness, people.
Chyron HR
@geg6:
Wait, Toto isn’t a black group?
Well, there’s smoke in the air
And there’s blood everywhere
And I’m hopin’ that the white man,
He don’t recognize me.
Mnemosyne
@Gypsy Howell:
I read fast AND type fast. ;-)
Villago Delenda Est
@Gene108:
You mean the way the newly formed United States of America paid back the Loyalists driven into Canada for their lost assets in the 13 colonies?
Yes, by all means, we should maintain the boycott until the mafioso who invested so much legitimate capital into Cuba are compensated.
catclub
@Cervantes: Two women senators only GOP votes to confirm. The GOP outreach to women continues its merry way.
Cervantes
@catclub:
Apparently they convinced Ayotte and Fischer — 50% — not too shabby.
They must have appealed to them on an emotional level.
chopper
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
jesus, that is the single whitest song ever written about africa.
WaterGIrl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @chopper: That really is the single whitest song ever written about africa. It’s downright embarrassing.
Chyron, Wikipedia shows a photo of the band from a concert (already closed the tab, but maybe 2010). Looks like 8 members of the band: 2 black men, 1 white woman, 5 white men. But that song sounds a lot like it could be a bee gees song, and it doesn’t get much whiter than that.
Jay C
@Chris:
Well, if, say, the non-Communist Cubans had fled to some small off-shore island, set up a rump government that claimed to be the “real” Republic Of Cuba, got the US to (implicitly) defend them, and spent the next several decades pushing that claim until economics and realpolitik got in the way: then, there might be a parallel.
As it is, the Cuban “exiles” ended up as a localized pressure group/voting bloc in the US, instead, where the operations of democracy (real democracy, not the Cuban version) have given them an outsize voice in the direction of US/Cuban policy choices: and, since there really has been little downside (either for us or the Cubans) in maintaining the hostile status quo – we both get a handy boogeyman to rag on, and (most importantly), gthe US doesn;t have to get embroiled in Cuban affairs – not much os going to change until Fidel croaks. And maybe not even then.
Jay C
PS: Balloon Juice still seems to be crashing Firefox on Mac for me (usually on comments) anybody else having probs?
Crashes ONLY on BJ, ONLY on FF
wilfred
@Cervantes:
You’re welcome, and thank you for reading the article. In response to your question, in my opinion what made Mandela a great man was that he spoke truth to power and was willing to confront hypocrisy where he saw it, starting with himself. That’s the minimum a man should do.
Boycott. Divest. Sanction.
Jebediah, RBG
@Jay C:
Yes. I have had it happen four times in the last hour or so.
ETA Make that five.
Jebediah, RBG
@Jebediah, RBG:
Six.
Cervantes
@wilfred:
Depending on what you already know, this might interest you.
The Other Chuck
@Villago Delenda Est:
What about Under African Skies?
Ah screw it. Some famous Aussie dies, we’ll probably get treated to Men At Work. Bring on the Brawndo.
Cervantes
@The Other Chuck: What about Under African Skies?
Hey, at least they didn’t play this.
As far as I know.