So we should probably have a thread about the fact that this guy died even if only to counter the Paul Walker thread so that we can actually call ourselves adults.
Anyways, i always assumed this guy was awesome since that’s all we ever really hear about.
Today on FB a friend / colleauge of mine posted a link to an article that presented an opposite viewpoint and it isn’t really written in a fanatical way and actually cites some reasonable sources. Apparently Mandela was on a terrorist watchlist for over 20 years because of his affiliation with a terrorist group even though he himself was in prison at the time.
I’m not drawing any conclusion here, just thought it would be a reasonable means of discussion and worthy of it’s own thread.
No, I remember a bit of this. Do I think he was a terrorist? No. However the circumstances were quite strange. He never admitted to any of it but he also never denied it.
The world loves to ignore the ugly parts of past when someone famous dies.
JFK’s Chicago team of mobsters rigged a presidential election, stole Illinois and got him in the whitehouse.
Ted Kennedy drove drunk and killed a girl.
There’s more than just anecdotal evidence linking Mandela to the “Necklacing” method of guerrilla warfare at the time. For those not familiar that’s where you place a tire filled with gasoline around someone’s neck and light it on fire. It takes about 20 minutes for them to die a most horrible death. When the terrorist organization UmKhonto we Sizwe you founded is doing something like this and you don’t condemn it you’re basically approving it.
Did Mandela become a voice for peace later in his life? Most definitely. It’s funny how that’s the only part of his life you’re allowed to talk about simply because he died though.
History is written by the winner. Didn’t the U.S. just have a national holiday celebrating the genocide of a native people partly based on manifest destiny?
No, I mean the one where in elementary school kids dress up like pilgrims and Native Americans pretending to be friends. You know, the one that went into effect as an official holiday in 1863.
Yes. But what is the common message of Thanksgiving as celebrated in the U.S.? It ties more into Plymouth rock than it does to an European harvest festival. The story that elementary aged children were taught (I’m not sure how it is taught these days) is Pilgrims and Injuns are buddies.
Sure, but how does that support your claim that Thanksgiving is…
Yeah, we did some shitty things to native Americans but Thanksgiving didn’t originate because of it nor does it exist today in these regards.
I see nothing wrong with telling kids that Indians and Pilgrims shared a harvest festival since there is some historical evidence that the Wampanoag Indians did take part.
It sounds like history is being re-written by you in this thread, lol. That’s why I point this out.
We certainly do gloss over our own history, but Thanksgiving is absolutely not attached to Native American culture. Obviously for some reason you perceive that it is, which illustrates the broader theme of this thread that the story we’re told about a person or event might just have another side.
