The Four Color Media Monitor: Is Kurt Busiek fine with Nelson Mandela's communist leanings?

Busiek seems to be looking for an excuse to attack some GOP supporters for stating facts:

The GOP remembers Mandela… http://t.co/DLpRv9niUz
— Kurt Busiek (@KurtBusiek) December 7, 2013

This is not something I'm happy to deal with. When is it ever? But there's some very unpleasant truths about the late president in South Africa that have to be pondered. I suppose Frances Martel at Breitbart could make the case for starters:

An extraordinary figure, Mandela spent decades in prison for his country to emerge a benevolent leader, a follower of the law. He became an icon of equality before a state too rigid even to begin imagining change, living decades of his life in prison for his beliefs. Once out, he used the democratic process to achieve power--and gave that power to a legitimate successor when he enjoyed a popularity that could have allowed him to get away with not doing so.

Perhaps most importantly, Mandela did not use his power for revenge against those who implemented the apartheid system, setting the precedent that moving on together as a nation required all to live together without killing in the name of those already dead. South Africa has much to be proud of--and much to mourn.

But Nelson Mandela was no saint. He was the exact opposite of a saint--a politician. In the words of Dave Weigel, he was no benign, "muppety" leader for much of his life. South Africans get to choose whether they will forgive Mandela's involvement in the African National Congress, a terrorist organization. They will choose whether they will sweep under the rug that Mandela believed "that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy." South Africans alone get to decide how South Africans remember him.

Outside of South Africa, however, Mandela lent his name to a tyrant running his own kind of apartheid system, and the victims and families of Cuban exiles have a duty to their loved ones to speak up before the uncritical eye of the international media.

An avid supporter of Fidel Castro, Mandela visited Havana in 1991 and praised the Cuban Revolution as "a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people." Castro responded with praise in kind, as did state-sponsored media for decades to come. "South African and Cuba treasure an inextricable nexus of brotherhood," gushed the Castro regime's personal propaganda outlet Granma, "symbolized in the ties of friendship that unite the two exceptional figures in the histories of both nations: Nelson Mandela y Fidel Castro."

Much is made about the fact that Mandela felt a kinship with Castro over his decision to send up to 10,000 young Cubans to their deaths in Angola. Mandela himself said that few countries could "point to a greater record of selflessness" when describing this purge of Cuban youth. But Mandela did not stop at saying positive things about the regime. He insisted on telling its victims that he was choosing to ignore them.

The opinions of Cuban victims of Castro's oppression don't matter to the likes of Busiek? I'm very sad.

I was a teenager at the time Mandela was in the news and being released from prison, and at the time, there were a lot of things I didn't know about him. I first became more aware of the awful side of Mandela when he went and met with the PLO overlord Yasir Arafat - whose jihadist movement ordered the murder of two American diplomats in 1973 (H/T: Power Line) - and basically legitimized him. What can I say? I was disgusted for starters that he would embarrass the movements fighting for equality in Africa by legitimizing such a vile creature, and felt additionally so when I realized that his whole belief system was communist. Why would he embrace the very kind of belief system that may have harmed many blacks in Africa too? I've never understood that at all.

Yet comics writers like Busiek are fine with that, and apparently using this all as an excuse to attack righties with the courage to bring up those connections. I noticed Mark Waid retweeting his post too, and find it disappointing he too is using this simply as an excuse to attack conservatives with the courage to acknowledge reality. What, the public doesn't have a right to know that Mandela disappointingly embraced an ideology that destroyed many lives? Too bad they're resorting - much like the MSM - to using this subject for little more than an excuse to attack conservatives. There are some positives on Mandela's record, but that doesn't mean nobody has the right to know what the negatives are as well.

Labels: islam and jihad, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, politics, terrorism

I am wondering if, since printed comics is a dying medium, guys like Busiek just don't give a sh** anymore about insulting half their audience. A single tweet represents the entire GOP? Even several? Yeah, that's fair. Even a cursory examination of Twitter shows a multitude of conservatives honoring Mandela (yours truly, included).

Sure, Mandela was at one time a Communist. But he was a revolutionary fighting against an [arguably] eviller system. One has to look at what he did once he had his freedom: He assisted in a peaceful transition to a majority-rule democracy. Not to mention, he showed little-to-no bitterness against his former jailers and white gov. officials.

Sounds fairly extraordinary to me.

Posted by Hube | 1:43 PM

Good point, Hube.... comics are a dying medium and he probably doesn't care what he says or who he insults.

I've avoided talking about Mandela, but whatever his faults, I agree with Hube: he was non-violent and showed no bitterness toward whites or his jailers.

South Africa, since Mandela left office, has definitely gone downhill, though and Jacob Zuma apparently isn't very well-regarded at all. Some have compared him to Robert Mugabe, the dictator of Zimbabwe

Posted by Anonymous | 2:46 PM

Mandela was more Jimmy Carter than Robert Mugabe. Best thing I can say about the guy.

(For clarity: Carter had an exemplary military career with several incidents of heroism. However, when he turned politician, he made lots of unsavory friends, ranging from segregationists to Communists. And his policies and his administration's competence as PotUS go without saying.)

Posted by The Drizzt | 5:40 PM

S.A. is just another sorry third world hellhole now. At least it was somewhat livable before. The campaigners thought they would 'free' everybody and they'd live happily ever after. Like the Obama-Bush campaigns in the Middle East, it isn't that easy.

Mandela= huge abortionist as well. He did more violence after release than before.

I'm sure the twitbots will just call me a racist instead of looking at him rationally.

Posted by mike44 | 6:48 PM

Drizzt, to clarify: I was referring to Jacob Zuma, the current president of South Africa, in regards to the Mugabe comparison. I wasn't referring to Mandela. Apparently Zuma is not well-liked and I have heard people compare him to Mugabe.

Posted by Anonymous | 7:21 PM

Hey Busiek: It's not that you have a different political opinion, it's that you, Marz, Slott, et al are so frequently obnoxious dicks when you express them. Oh, and sorry if saying "half" was too much of a generalization for you. If that was "baffling," you can imagine how others felt when you ascribed one person's tweet to the entire GOP. But what's truly baffling is your (and your cohorts') continued predilection for giving the middle finger to a sizable segment of your audience. As I said, the medium really must be dying considering how you "professionals" conduct yourselves on social media.

Posted by Hube | 7:25 PM

To further support mike44's point:

http://barelyablog.com/nelson-mandela-the-che-guevara-of-of-africa/

From someone who lived in South Africa, so she ought to know.

Here's the money quote, and you make the call after the video:

"Cut to the year 1992. The occasion was immortalized on YouTube in 2006. Mandela’s fist is clenched in a black power salute. Flanking him are members of the South African Communist Party, African National Congress leaders, and the ANC’s terrorist arm, the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which Mandela led. The sweet sounds of the MK anthem mask the ditty’s murderous words:

"Go safely mkhonto

Mkonto we Sizwe

We the members of the Umkhonto have pledged ourselves to kill them—kill the whites."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC8qQE4Y2Js

Catch it before YouTube takes it down.

Either way, hmm.........

Posted by Killer Moth | 7:38 PM

So Busiek and Marz saw this, eh? What's even more pathetic than their obnoxious attitudes on social media is the fact that these idiots have Google alerts on their own names and read articles or blog posts about themselves. Why do they care about others have written about them? If it were me, unless it was something slanderous, I would ignore it.

Posted by Anonymous | 7:52 PM

Hube: by the way, I liked your own post about Mandela. I didn't comment on it.

Posted by Anonymous | 10:52 PM

Not yet, anyway. I didn't see it until just a few hours ago.

Posted by Anonymous | 10:53 PM

Carl: Yeah, they saw it, and had a Twitter convo about it (Busiek and Marz), snarky all the way. Busiek was the more reasonable (as usual), but he still can't help the usual insinuations, etc.

You're right -- why even bother reading our stuff? I know I've mentioned this before, but doing what we're doing is precisely what Busiek desired back in the day -- in lieu of any economic boycotts. He commented on Twitter yesterday "Why can't I just write a good story ...?" Yet, ironically, he chums around w/Marz who is the biggest advocate of boycotting someone like Orson Scott Card. It's not good enough for Card to just write a good story, apparently.

Busiek is a comics GOD compared to Marz, Slott and many others. I respect him a lot more than those chumps. His stories remain classics, and again, he's not nearly as bad as many other lefties on social media. But he's getting worse; this is the reason for my "dying medium" comment -- maybe he just doesn't care that much anymore. He was snarky about my comment regarding alienating "half his audience" ("half my audience is Republican?"), again, seemingly aloof about the overall point.

Maybe Doug Ernst was right -- maybe they care about what we say because we are having an effect. Who knows. But I do know that what we do is, again, just what Busiek preferred people do instead of engaging in an economic boycott. Which means, based on his reaction, he really didn't mean it. ;-)

Posted by Hube | 6:08 AM

Marz really IS bored. He keeps coming back here and bringing it up to Busiek. It "delights" him, he says. (Translation: "I wish these f***ers would stop making me look so damn foolish and petty!") Funny how he didn't mention how complimentary I was to Kurt regarding his work, as I have been in various locales that feature/sell it.

Which sort of makes sense. If I was the microcephalic Marz, I'd be insanely of jealous of Kurt's success too.

You're boring, Ron. And you make it reeeeeaaaaally easy, buddy.

PS: That check come yet?

Posted by Hube | 5:19 PM

Oh, and here, Ron -- here's more stuff to suck on for your "delight."

And Kurt, if you're listening? So much for "fighting speech with more speech," eh? For you guys it's more like "You're 'beneath' us and worthy of only mere snark." Which really makes me wish I hadn't forked out so much of my hard-earned cash over the years to SUPPORT you.

Ugh.

Posted by Hube | 5:27 PM

(Sorry for eating your bandwidth here, Avi.)

Posted by Hube | 5:28 PM

It's okay, there's plenty of bandwidth, and text doesn't take up too much on a post. Besides, the leftist loonies of the medium do need to be told what we think of them for spending all their time on Twitter when they could be using more of that time for writing story drafts. Indeed, I've wondered at times why they spend so much time Twittering when they could be taking more time writing up manuscripts. Then, maybe they'd succeed in turning out better comics.

Posted by Avi Green | 9:13 PM

Might as well join in with one more link:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/africa/item/15888-saint-mandela-not-so-fast

Pack a lunch, as long link is long.

And I guess these professionals have nothing than to do than to read us "amateurs."

(That said, I really do like Busiek's work. However, if he chooses to lessen himself. well. I can always read his past work and recall a different time, when we didn't have to fear about that comic writer being some liberal hack or "Shut Up and Write.")

Posted by Killer Moth | 9:51 PM

Yeah, I like a lot of Busiek's past work too, and it's a shame he dampens everything by wallowing more and more in leftism. If he'd only spend more time writing scripts and less time on Twitter and Facebook, he'd be helping himself a lot more.

Posted by Avi Green | 10:25 PM

I was speaking more tongue-in-cheek about the bandwidth, Avi ... just apologizing for responding to Marz/Busiek here since they're having their convo about it on Twitter and block those on there with whom they disagree ...

Posted by Hube | 4:32 AM

@Hube, I wasn't referring to your post.

My first roommate in college back in 1990 was South African (technically American, son of missionaries, but had spent almost all his life over there). He shared with me that the sense of most whites was that they were going to be butchered as apartheid fell. Thankfully, it never happened, and part of that was due to Mandela.

That being said, you can't overlook his Carterian friendships with dictators and thugs, nor his horrid economic track record.

Posted by The Drizzt | 6:59 PM