Mandela's birthday message: Rich should help poor

[one...two...tree 2,762]

heh...interesting what you can find on the internet.

Check this out...

Gandhi's hypocrisy; anyone is easily as moral as their heroes

Criticism of Gandhi is pretty mainstream. In the town my mothers from, they still celebrate every year by distributing sweets in most Hindu neighborhoods on the day Gandhi was assassinated. Gandhi's a freakin 'demi-god here in the West, in India he's just another goddamn desi

Ghandi was a megalomaniac?

I don't think he was, but there are many (not a small fringe) who do. They think many other things of him, too. It's too much to get into here, but rest assured just because you think an idea is out of the mainstream doesn't make it so.

It's not a question of mainstream, but about nitpicking to look for hypocrisy of any strong personality behind a movement as a way to deflate or derail that movement.

Edited July 19, 2008 by Jabberwocky

[alienlovechild 75]

I certainly wouldn't shy from bringing up as long I wasn't disrupting the class. As for speakers...it seems a bit odd that you would divide them up as either conservative or liberal as not everyone can fit so easily into one set of views.

May I ask - do you have a college degree and if so, what is your major? (just curious)

I left this loose end. So I'll answer it.

So you didn't speak up if thought it was too hot to handle. I usually opened my mouth when I couldn't let an instructor go unchallenge when he or she kept droning on and noboby would say anything. Not all speakers on campus are politically oriented but if they are you can expected a few in the audience to react positively or negatively and it will get beyond polite listening and questioning.

B.A. Political Science

1/3 of law school

Army classes

Teacher's Certifcate (History and Geography)

Master's in Urban and Regional Planning

How about you?

[Amby 490]

so when the poor get rich do they give the money back to the rich that helped them?

are you kidding?

no I'm serious. there's those programs where you can donate to help a person start their business and then they pay you back once their business is going good and they're making enough to live. doesn't have to be rich.

plus, if I were to give someone money to help them out I would expect them to either do the same for someone else when they are in the position to or repay it.

I think your simplifying it a bit. There is a huge wealth-divide in South Africa - the very poorest people are living in shanty towns with limited access to basic amenities.

Having the "rich help the poor" doesn't necessarily involve writing them a check - rather it has a lot to do with building up the infrastructure and investing in the development of the country's future.

I volunteered in South Africa for 9 weeks a few years ago. I've seen the divide, but I've also seen how much donating money to individuals to start businesses helps a great deal. I remember one lady in particular wanted $15 so she could buy a scale to weigh produce she was selling at the market.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

It's not a question of mainstream, but about nitpicking to look for hypocrisy of any strong personality behind a movement as a way to deflate that movement.

You'll find hypocrisy in just about anyone.

I'm a big believer in evaluating leaders by the results of the movements they started.

By that yardstick, to call Gandhi or Mandela anything but a huge success would be wrong.

That said, I am 100% positive if Gandhi was not killed and actually stuck around in the early years of freshly partitioned India, whatever little patina he had left would have wore off completely.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

It's not a question of mainstream, but about nitpicking to look for hypocrisy of any strong personality behind a movement as a way to deflate that movement.

You'll find hypocrisy in just about anyone.

I'm a big believer in evaluating leaders by the results of the movements they started.

By that yardstick, to call Gandhi or Mandela anything but a huge success would be wrong.

That said, I am 100% positive if Gandhi was not killed and actually stuck around in the early years of freshly partitioned India, whatever little patina he had left would have wore off completely.

I agree....except the part about patina...I don't know her and I swear we've never met.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

[one...two...tree 2,762]

so when the poor get rich do they give the money back to the rich that helped them?

are you kidding?

no I'm serious. there's those programs where you can donate to help a person start their business and then they pay you back once their business is going good and they're making enough to live. doesn't have to be rich.

plus, if I were to give someone money to help them out I would expect them to either do the same for someone else when they are in the position to or repay it.

I think your simplifying it a bit. There is a huge wealth-divide in South Africa - the very poorest people are living in shanty towns with limited access to basic amenities.

Having the "rich help the poor" doesn't necessarily involve writing them a check - rather it has a lot to do with building up the infrastructure and investing in the development of the country's future.

I volunteered in South Africa for 9 weeks a few years ago. I've seen the divide, but I've also seen how much donating money to individuals to start businesses helps a great deal. I remember one lady in particular wanted $15 so she could buy a scale to weigh produce she was selling at the market.

Microloans have been a great success.

[Sassy1natl 0]

you made a funny...

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Which doesn't add anything to the argument. You've demonstrated blatant ignorance about the man's public work, focussing instead on the fact that he owns a house as reason to call him a hypocrite. You honestly think that's entirely fair?

Unlike you 6, I actually looked up Mandela's record on charity and provided a link. Where did say he did no good in his life? To be frank, I really don't care that much about Mandela but pointing out an affluent guy lecturing others on poverty is no different than Gordon Brown and the G-8 leaders having an 8 course meal and talking about rising food prices.

Unlike me? Lets just say you assume a lot (i.e. that a person's knowledge is dependent on how many links they post).

Here's the relevant part of the original story:

But the man who has become a symbol of peace remains troubled by the demoralizing poverty still faced by so many of his countrymen.

"If you are poor, you are not likely to live long," he said.

His message was simple — the wealthy must do more.

"There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so fortunate, who have not been able to conquer poverty," Mandela said during the 10-minute interview, his first such exchange with journalists in years.

Your argument was this:

Nobody got the irony of a 90 year-old guy living in a big house complaining about the wealthy doing more. Mandela must have won the Nobel Prize for hypocrisy.

What do you think is the bigger issue that we should be talking about here? South Africa's economic inequalities, or that Mandela should button his lip because he is *rich* and hasn't sold his house?

He may well feel a resposibility of guilt, but whether or not he can do much for the country isn't really irrelevant here is it. He's trying to do something (which is more than many people do) - and spending his twilight years doing it, when other people of his age would be expected to have retired from public life altogether.

Then again some politicians love the limelight.

If that ain't cynicism, then I don't know what is...

Edited July 19, 2008 by Number 6

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I volunteered in South Africa for 9 weeks a few years ago. I've seen the divide, but I've also seen how much donating money to individuals to start businesses helps a great deal. I remember one lady in particular wanted $15 so she could buy a scale to weigh produce she was selling at the market.

It does help - but individual donations on go so far when the underlying conditions remain unchanged. To do that requires more than simply handing over money to individuals.