Mugabe Launches Election Campaign... by attacking Rice and Blair

[Catholic Sensation]

From the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4257673.stm

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has sharply criticised the US Secretary of State during a speech to launch his party's general election campaign.

Speaking at a rally, Mr Mugabe said Condoleezza Rice was a girl born out of slave ancestry who should know "that the white man is not a friend".

A banner said 31 March poll would be an "anti-Blair election", in reference to the UK prime minister.

---

I'm no fan of Ms. Rice, but I'm sorry, making such racist statements as "the white man is not a friend" is sickening. He could have attacked her views on foreign policy, but choose the attack what he views as her apparently appalling fraternization with white people. Disgusting.

[Cha]

1. The color of your skin doesn't matter...

it's what's in your freakin' heart!

[Anarcho-Socialist]

2. Robert Mugabe is dispicable, delusional swine

in Zimbabwe, young girls are sent away to attend 'reeducation camps' where they are beaten, abused and raped by boys who also attend as it 'builds character'. More at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3493958.stm

Add to this fraudulent elections, massive famine and poverty, political opponents being killed and a 700+% inflation rate. Mugabe is indeed a racist and homophobe, not to forget the fact that he has stated that he is an admirer of Adolf Hitler. In his delusional head he pins the blame for everything he has done to cause harm to Zimbabwe on "Britain and the homosexuals".

[EST]

3. The man probably has plenty of reason to dislike white

people, at least some white people. Ascending to a position of power and attention does not necessarily imbue one with any sort of sense of propriety or fair play. Plenty of idiots in power in this country are just waiting for the public acknowledgment, by the entrenched crazies, that we truly have now become a fascist theocracy to blat out their own publicly repressed racism. (sigh)
I have become so bitterly cynical I find it almost surprising.

[Igel]

5. In which case he should dislike just *some* white people. n/t

[EST]

9. I agree, but insanity has no claim to consistency or logic.

[AP]

4. I think there's enough other context to suggest Mubabe's problem is...

...with European colonialism, post-colonialism and imperialism and the "white man" is shorthand for that.

I'm sure he doesn't have a problem with white Swedes.

[Igel]

6. In which case he should say what he means.

I assume he's capable of it.

I mean I could say that "black people are the problem" and *mean* "the legacy of slavery". But I'm quite sure nobody would bother to worry about context, what I 'really' meant, and try to be my apologist.

[AP]

7. This quote above is WAY out of context.

Mugabe is always talking about imperialism.

Also, I think that if anyone thinks that Zimbabwe is country were the white man is oppressed by the black man, they have to reflect on the fact that Ian Smith, who was a racist imperialist and who murdered a lot of black Zimbabweans before Zimbabwe fought for independence from him, was part of democratic government in Zimbabw for half a decade after he lost power and even today comes down from his big farm in Shurugwi to make pronouncements about how bad things have become since colonialism ended and the western press eats it up.

[Catholic Sensation]

8. "The white man is not a friend"

He basically lumped all white people as being the adversary of blacks. You can't use the sins of a few people to besmirch an entire group.

There's no context that would allow me to react with anything other than revulsion unless, to steal from Al Franken, he had said "I would have to be fucking retarded to say..."

[AP]

11. Mugabe isn't some random guy off the street. He has 35 years of quotes

and political positions that give this quote context.

By all means, however, if you want to oversimplify this, have at it. I don't really care.

[Catholic Sensation]

12. i will simplify this: he's a racist

he's a lunatic, he's a murderer, he's a homophobe, he's an anti-semite, and he's the new Idi Amin. So it's fair for him to say all whites are the enemy of blacks because of a few bad whites? Okay, then I hope you won't jump down anyone who lost a family member in 9-11 when they say something similar of Muslims.

[AP]

13. Why do they let Ian Smith live in a big farm and not bother him at all

even though he's alwasy arguing to the media that it was better before '80?

[AP]

14. Incidentally, Mugabe did kill a lot of people: other black Zimbabweans

in an incredibly bloody civil war which the west loved (and which they encouraged when they pulled out by setting factions against each other). Black on black political violence allowed the west to control Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa from afar.

So, the west LLLLLOOOVVVEEEDDD Mugabe then, and they loved him even more when he didn't push the west to keep to the Lancaster Agreement which would have transferred land back to Zimbabweans a long time ago. Yes, the west loved the victor in the bloody, chaotic civil war who wouldn't push the west on keeping to their promise. He was a real hero then.

But guess what? '98 rolls around and Zimbabwe says times up. Now we hold you to the Lancaster Agreement. So now suddenly the west really cares about all those awful things they ignored all those years ago, which aren't even happenign anymore. And they crticize elections that are 100 times more fair than those in Nigeria (which they don't criticize at all since the right party wins those elections).

This whole debate is really depressing because Mugabe is no poster boy for Democracy. He's no Gandhi. But this situation TOTALLY reveals western priorities: neoliberalism-good; anti-neoliberalism-bad.

[Igel]

31. Yes, Smith did.

But I've never found another person's misdeeds to be justification for my own.

Smith isn't forcing Mugabe to purge his party, nor was Smith responsible for not releasing water from dams when starvation from drought is imminent, nor is Smith responsible for the underhanded games Mugabe's played with the opposition party. Mugabe's a grown man and can take responsibility for his own misdeeds; as many people do, he finds it easier to blame others for the problems he's caused or allowed to continue, and so deflect dissent at home.

[EST]

10. Sounds like he and KKKarl Roverer read from the

same playbook.

[applegrove]

30. Karl Rove writes the playbook. Don't let that babyface fool ya!

A lack of wrinkles is a dinstinct sign of a lack of emotion (in a very pale, 56, white man).

[pretzel4gore]

15. simply not true...it's typical bushgoof media filler....

frigging bbc, can't trust the racist punks!....here's truth for those can handle it- 'bush' (meaning nazipoo racism class warrior giggling fukks) needs to isolate 'his' critics and paint them with a blackened brush; how better then to put a desperate fool like mugabe in the 'opposition's' camp and make him spokesman? mugabe has been playing the nasty type of 3rd word politics for 30 years, and nothing he's done or said lately is different....maybe the nazipoos are getting scared...fukk them (excuse my english) and do not let them lead you around the way they lead the herd of grunting swine (gadarene?)....listen to oreally and limbah-humbug fox'news' cnn cbs nbc bbc abc ap, nytimes etc, use this story to portray us bushevik enemies as 'hopeless befuddled half savage murdering..(?)..whatever
fact- the 'story' is made up to cause reaction among uninformed; tell the local media to stop it or one day, they may face a brutal judge

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. What is not true? (n/t)

[pretzel4gore]

18. it's not 'news'

the right use 'news' as a tool to create popular perceptions which somehow help them or fix the record for future use.....when the men at bbc got up that morning, they never read the newswires to see what they were going to feature in their 'news' but they already had mugabe in their grab bag...mugabe might have said 'humpty dumpty fell off the wall!' somewhere and the bbc editors would say...'gotcha!' then feature the 'news' we're now discussing....and it simply isn't true. humpty dumpty never fell off no wall, in fact humpty dumptry is a mythical creature, from children's play- it's unlikely mugabe said anything about him, and even if he did THE ASSHOLES WHO USED HIS WORDS ARE LYING! And they're llying to create confusion...that's the ONLY news!

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. So why was this also reported by

the Press Association, Associated Press, and AFP, on South African, Irish, Jamaican, Turkish and al Jazeera websites?

Exactly why do you think that reporting that Mugabe has started his election campagin is 'lying'? Do you mean that the BBC should never report any news from Zimbabwe? How would that help 'the truth'?

[pretzel4gore]

23. mugabe came to power after a long

and hideous war...he's a political gangster, no one has ever thought otherwise. But. Our crooks are bigger then their crooks....so why should their crooks deflect interest and att'n from ours? Infact, proof that our crooks outdo theirs is the 'news' itself, which our crooks arrange to get us to look ONLY at their crooks, in the first place....my 'logic' is as follows:
a)the busheviks have been caught again, red handed, using tax money to fund a pro bush newsview (as president, the news conferences are literally publicly funded events, and by fixing the journo who asks the questions, it's abuse of taxmoney)
b) along with blowback from rw'ers regarding the soc sec idea that bush is pushing, bushinc is looking very bad; to blunt criticism a real loser like mugabe helps alot in terms of optics- even if mugabe said what the news says, who's to say he wasn't promised something for doing so? Or do you think the rove is too honest for such trickery?
C) the best conmen rely 99 percent upon factual truth to place their lie within....so if you know they're conmen, that upsets their evil schemes, i mean plans, if you just ignore them....
mugabe's done enough to earn rebuke, but please do not empower bushinc while rebuking him

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. If Rove is trying to use this to deflect attention from Bush, he's failed

because the coverage, which is fairly sparse (eg this is currently the 3rd story in the BBC's Africa section, and not in their 'top world stories' at all), is outside the US.

Your reasoning that this is probably a 'lie' (you still haven't identified anything that is false) is pretty thin. It appears to boil down to "Mugabe is a bad man, therefore it's impossible for him to say that Bush is bad without lying". That is bad logic.

[pedestrian]

27. Of course we can criticize Mugabe for bashing Rice!

pretzel4gore wrote:"please do not empower bushinc while rebuking "

One way of empowering Bush & co would be to act as if disagreeing with Bush and Rice means agreeing with any villain who also criticizes the neocons. Democrats will earn (and often have earned) a very bad name for themselves by refraining from criticizing dictators who happen to hate some of the things we also hate. If Rice is subjected to overt racism from other state leaders, Democrats would do well to be loud and clear about the fact that we do not tolerate it. We can strongly disagree with Rice's policies, but that is a sorry excuse for condoning racism or sexism against any person. Let Mugabe point out the policies he doesn't like (or in his case, clean up the mess in his own yard).

The Pedestrian

[pretzel4gore]

28. since 1980 i've seen same thing....

the media bias affects how the herd thinks....ronald reagan got elected because of media hiding certain facts (the october surprise for example) while relentlessly portraying the dems as weak....on and on and on the same bs went until today we have a blatant jackass in the white house and ...you know the rest. perhaps you're right and the mugabe story can be taken as just a news story; perhaps mugabe's mentioning blair and rice will not smear the already smeared democrats...i hope you're right, but i KNOW that 911 happened as planned by the bush criminals, i know they've committed cold blooded murder many times...i know the media has lied so much that the truth would now trigger a revolution (the nazi ideal; do such awful things the establishment must protect you to protect their own children)
i think it was cia boss will colby who said 'nothing makes it into the (mass media) featured news unless it's serves a purpose'... i agree saddam needs to be dealt with, but until bushinc is out of the picture, we should be wary of everything they do....while giving saddam his due

[Zynx]

16. I have a feeling Mugabe already knows what percent his party will get.

Mugabe's Zimbabwe is no more democratic than Saddam Hussein's Iraq was.

[AP]

20. Sadly, however, Zimbabwe is probably the most democratic country in Africa

And I think the only reason people complain so much about Zimbabwe has to do entirely with neoliberalism. The west turns a blind eye to much less democratic governments in Africa so long as those government turn a blind eye to the flow of wealth out of those countries to Europe and Texas.

[DavidDvorkin]

21. More democratic than South Africa?

What?

[pedestrian]

25. What? Surely, you're thinking about Botswana?

Botswana has a quite decent democratic record, high literacy rates, fairly transparent government - the country would have done fine if the AIDS pandemic hadn't come around to kill the young people.

Zimabwe has strong restrictions on press freedom and the regime's comflicts with the student union (ZINASU) have been bloody. And that's only the start. Mugabe does not deserve respect. Right, he took over the country from white racists, but that is no excuse for limiting the basic rights of your own population to the extent he has and with such means.

The Pedestrian

[DarienComp]

22. He's an a-hole.

You should hear some of his quotes about gays and lesbians. Worse than Falwell.

[sleipnir]

24. Wow, we depose Saddam, but we leave Mugabe alone?

Simply incomprehensible. If you want to free a people, removing Mugabe would be the best place to start. Oh, wait....I forgot, we don't help people if they don't have oil or white skin.

[applegrove]

29. Mugabe is a rogue leader. And he seems to be taking notes on how Bush got

re-elected.

George Bush - teaching all the rogues how to scapegoat!!

:thumbsdown: