The Truth About Nelson Mandela Is Out There For All To Read

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – Professor Kevin Gutzman, on my Facebook page, comments thus on Gingrich’s post about Nelson Mandela.  “Patrick Henry was a Christian, a believer in private property, and certainly not one who would have condoned bombing civilians indiscriminately or “necklacing” anyone, let alone praised the Communist Party.” Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Quickly on the Ilana Mercer / Nelson Mandela love fest, I posted this on my fan page on Facebook yesterday and on today’s Pile of Prep.  She also excerpted a chapter from her book Into the Cannibal’s Pot where she tells the story — it’s a lengthy read.  The only reason I didn’t bring it on the show is it’s a lengthy read.  However, I did read to you excerpts from Newt Gingrich’s post about “What Would You Have Done? Nelson Mandela and American Conservatives.”  It’s Newt Gingrich saying, [mocking] “You all need to get in line.  This guy was one of us.   He was a great conservative.  He would have made a great American conservative.  Did he make mistakes?  Yeah, sure he did, but so did Patrick Henry.”

Professor Kevin Gutzman, on my Facebook page, comments thus on Gingrich’s hysteria.  Gingrich says Patrick Henry was a founder, “Give me liberty or give me death.”  He was out there raising people to the ramparts, “To arms! To arms!” the same thing Mandela did.  Gingrich putting Mandela in the same class as Henry is offensive to some of us.  I’m glad that Professor Gutzman chimed in on this because I was going to get into this.  Gutzman wrote this:

[reading]

Patrick Henry was a Christian, a believer in private property, and certainly not one who would have condoned bombing civilians indiscriminately or “necklacing” anyone, let alone praised the Communist Party.  We should recall that although he often mentions that he is a PhD historian, Gingrich’s dissertation is on “Belgian Education Policy in the Congo: 1945-1960,” not anything to do with the American Revolution — or even America at all.

[end reading]

Mike:  I was reading from Jack Kerwick’s piece that Mandela is no saint.  Kerwick had read Ilana Mercer.  He wrote this in part:

[reading]

Mercer informs us that long before apartheid came crumbling down, the government of South Africa offered to release Mandela from jail as long as he promise to renounce violence.  Mandela, though, “refused to do any such thing.”  Mercer adds that Mandela’s “TV smile has won out over his political philosophy, founded as it is on energetic income redistribution in the neo-Marxist tradition, on ‘land reform’ in the same tradition, and on ethnic animosity toward the Afrikaner.”

In 1992, two years after Mandela was set free, he was videoed at an event surrounded by members of the South African Communist Party, his own African National Congress (ANC), and “the ANC’s terrorist arm, the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which Mandela led.” Courtesy of YouTube, all with eyes to see could now witness “Mandela’s fist…clenched in the black power salute” as members of MK sang their anthem, a little song according to which they reaffirm their pledge to “kill them—kill the whites.”

Mandela remained a socialist to the last, Mercer assures us, even though he cleverly—but transparently—“rebranded” it. Mandela’s was a racial socialism, a point established beyond doubt by the remarks he made in 1997. Mercer quotes Mandela insisting that “the future of humanity” cannot be “surrendered to the so-called free market, with government denied the right to intervene.” Mandela also declared the need for the “ownership and management” of the South African economy to reflect “the racial composition of our society” and criticized “the…capitalist system” in South Africa for elevating to “the highest pedestal the promotion of the material interests of the white minority.”

For the conceit of those Westerners who assume that Mandela’s thought is a justified response to the evils of apartheid, Mercer has just the treatment. She reminds us that Mandela and his ANC “had never concealed that they were as tight as thieves with communist and terrorist regimes—Castro, Gaddafi, Arafat, North Korea and Iran’s cankered Khameneis.” Mercer further reminds us that in addition to once cheering, “‘Long live Comrade Fidel Castro!’” Mandela referred to Gaddafi as “‘my brother leader” and Arafat as “‘a comrade in arms.’”

[end reading]

Mike:  I link to all this.  You can read it for yourselves.  There is much more than this if you’re interested in it.  I was receiving questions from a listener as to why I did not delve into the Mandela waters that everyone else was delving into on Friday.  The answer is because I was unprepared to do so.  I don’t like doing subjects that I’m unprepared to discuss.  I don’t want to mislead you.  I don’t want to say something I’m going to have to retract or flow out some half-baked opinion that is based more on hyperbole and rumor than it is in fact.  You may disagree with Ilana Mercer.  You may read her book and go: Did you check all of her footnotes?  No, I didn’t check them all.  I did check some of them.  It’s a good read.  As I said, if you’re interested in the subject matter, she puts a good spin on it for certain, and also tells the tale — it’s a cautionary tale because it’s one filled with death.  It’s one filled with death by murder.  The picture that we are often presented of other parts of the world, as is the case with so many other places, is incomplete and tailor-made for a mass media audience.  Just keep that in mind.

End Mike Church Show Transcript