Nelson Mandela may be dying (I already hate this thread)

Massive news atm.

http://ewn.co.za/articleprog.aspx?id=58099

Almost a day after former president Nelson Mandela was admitted to Johannesburg’s Milpark Hospital there is still no official update on his condition.

VIPs continued to arrive at the hospital where Mandela is under observation, after being admitted for routine tests on Wednesday afternoon.

The only official statement was a brief one from the Nelson Mandela Foundation, saying that he is in good spirits. However, there was no communication from the foundation on Thursday morning.

Traffic was on Thursday morning backed up outside Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg, where former president Nelson Mandela has been admitted for "routine tests".

Parents trying to drop off their children at a nearby school struggled to find parking as journalists' cars lined the street.

A driver trying to get into the hospital showed his frustration by shouting from his car window, "It looks like a mob scene out here!"

Massive news

he's 93 years old

It's still massive news.

It's like when the last veteran of of the WWI trenches died, yes it's a man dying at a very old age but it's still of huge significance.

Yep. This bloke's personality-cult status there, the whole country will basically shut down for a week.

I mean I'm not saying old-age death is a tragedy but this is the sort of person nobody ever wants to die.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela just left the hospital in tears. Christ.

makes me think of this thread Shoe-ins for above-the-fold obituaries in the NYT (with a catch)

Staying for another night.

Maybe he is just in for tests, hey my grandma is 95 and goes to the hospital all the time, still showing no signs of slowing down. I mean he looks much younger than his age.

He doesn't look a day older than 89!

He spent a large part of his life in very harsh conditions, so reaching 93. and in a healthy state, is pretty remarkable. He's such an iconic figure, that I don't think death will diminish his influence, may even enhance it.

In Miami the guy's considered a Commie fellow traveler and barely mentioned, all because he muttered vague words in support of Fidel once. The city famously canceled a parade in his honor in 1989.

Mandela dying will be a huge deal. He's one of a handful of truly global icons.

Not to derail, but I've always wondered how many holocaust survivors we have left, because that number will likely dwindle down rapidly over the next ten years.

In Miami the guy's considered a Commie fellow traveler and barely mentioned, all because he muttered vague words in support of Fidel once. The city famously canceled a parade in his honor in 1989.

― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 28 January 2011 05:21 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Oh yeah, my father responds to any Mandela talk with 'but he was a Communist!' or 'but he was a terrorist!' Shallow, ignorant rubbish.

At the same time, though, let me be clear though: his friendship with Fidel is revolting.

(aa here) Oh look, not everything Mandela did was great (e.g. as president he fumbled the whole AIDS thing, and Umkhonto we Sizwe wasn't exactly seeking peaceful reconciliation) but in terms of the sheer positive impact of the man I don't think there's a person alive today who even comes close.

The problem I have with my father's take on Mandela is that his rabid right-wing cuddling gets in the way of any possible response to everything else Mandela did.

Oh and I believe he's still chums with Robert Mugabe, so.

South African former President Nelson Mandela has been discharged from a hospital where he spent two nights.

He home now.

knew this would turn out to be another RIP Lou Reed thread

omg did lou reed die

Have they registered www.isnelsonmandeladead.com www.isloureeddead.com yet?

on life support according to reports

dont trust everything you read!

Not surprisnig, if true. He had TB in prison. He's 94. He's had recurrent lung infections for many months. It's going to carry him off one of these days.

being nelson mandela on your death bed has got to be better than being lots of other people. nobody could tell him he has wasted any of his life. (hope this isn't a weird thing to say. i don't think it is.)

"Batman" would be a weird thing to say

Thread needs Mordy

morty

can't believe mark g. said "batman." what a weird thing to say.

i kind of just want nelson mandela to die as quickly and peacefully as possible. i hate this. i get the sense that the last six months in particular have been less than what a leader like him deserves.

Here's where I admit: he inspires mixed feelings because he loves Fidel Castro.

When Miami nearly rejected his visit in 1990 it was a HUGE deal, a rift between Cuban Americans and blacks from which Miami has never recovered, to be honest; but it's still the only issue in 30 years on which I've sided with these blowhards. I mean, Fidel's record of promoting black Cubans is not much better than Batista's.

save it for the history books, al.

I'm rehearsing the ILE obits, boy_slayer

Mandela and Fidel hookup just falls under the rubric of strange bedfellows. They made good use of one another to further their own aims, I'm sure. It isn't as if ANC could turn down allies on the grounds of insufficient purity.

i think i just cling to the notion that there's at least one living world leader who's more or less wholeheartedly admirable. but it is disappointing that he was so uncritical of castro.

Doctors advised unplugging 'vegetative' Mandela's life support
(AFP) – 23 minutes ago
JOHANNESBURG — Doctors treating Nelson Mandela said he was in a "permanent vegetative state" and advised his family to turn off his life support machine, according to court documents dated June 26, obtained by AFP Thursday.
"He is in a permanent vegetative state and is assisted in breathing by a life support machine," said a legal filing related to a family dispute over reburying the remains of three of Mandela's children.
"The Mandela family have been advised by the medical practitioners that his life support machine should be switched off.
"Rather than prolonging his suffering, the Mandela family is exploring this option as a very real probability."
The "Certificate of Urgency" document was filed by a lawyer representing Mandela family members who had successfully sought a court order to return the disputed children's remains to the revered South African leader's childhood home, after a grandson had them moved to his own village.
The document was presented to South Africa's Eastern Cape High Court as President Jacob Zuma reported that Mandela's health had faltered and cancelled a trip to Mozambique.
The next day Zuma reported that Mandela's condition had "improved during the course of the night".
"He is much better today than he was when I saw him last night. The medical team continues to do a sterling job," Zuma said in a statement dated June 27.
Since then the government has said Mandela's condition remains "critical but stable", but has provided few details, citing patient confidentiality.
Lawyers for Mandela's relatives, family members themselves and government officials were not immediately available for comment.

bump

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/408713832064770049

rip

what a life

Rip big mandela

sad news.

rip

Fuck.

RIP but not Fuck

life support seems worse than death when you 95 years old

RIP. Really,

RIP

You know, I wonder if this death might reveal a case of real generational divide. Obviously most people understand how important Mandela was, but I'm old enough to remember just how sickening a condition and galvanizing a cause apartheid was, and what a major figure Mandela was. It's easy for me and anyone to make jokes - lol Bono, Spice Girls, whatever - and he had became an almost avuncular figurehead, but man, is his death just absolutely devastating to me. On a purely selfish level, I can't even begin to estimate the effect he had on my politics and political awareness. I doubt I'm alone on that front. It made me very proud when my daughter, who is 9, compared him to Martin Luther King when I told her he had died.

I should stress just how much younger me picked up stuff via music, movies and other pop culture tuned into South Africa.

Yeah, I don't know how it was in the US, but in Britain pop music was really central to raising awareness and marshalling indignation against apartheid.

Odd photo.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/12/05/world/africa/20131206-MANDELA-REACT-HP-slide-X9U5/20131206-MANDELA-REACT-HP-slide-X9U5-articleLarge.jpg

i listened to 'free nelson mandela' by the special aka for the first time in years earlier and it was wrenching but not in a gloomy way.

Had it on repeat all morning.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3013436/late-leader-nelson-mandelas-5-most-innovative-moments

I think we've got our first Mandela-based tenuous business mag thinkpiece.

Thanking this thread for introducing me to Larry the Downing Street Cat

still surprises me how unassailable his reputation has become across the board, but i suppose there will be an obituary where someone has a little pop.

Enjoy the comments at NRO: http://nationalreview.com/corner/365631/nelson-mandela-rip-deroy-murdock

When these people unleash their lizard brains, it's a sight to behold.

As Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon beautifully dramatize in the excellent film Invictus,

worst statement

that movie is the dumbest shit ever. "if i can just kick this penalty then racism will be over forever"

thanks for that masakela song morbs!

What I remember about the day he was freed is no one knew what he would look like, as there were no photos we saw after '62.

personalities ranging from Simone de Beauvoir to the Dalai Lama

The Kardashian and West of their day, no doubt.

almost feel like the telegraph is str8 up baiting its readers here. probably a good thing the comments are closed:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100249502/few-human-beings-can-be-compared-to-jesus-christ-nelson-mandela-was-one/

jesus christ

Walks into an inn and sets down three nails...

I love that all the GOP-ers who have to pretend to have liked Mandela are being confronted with the real opinions of their base: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/ted-cruz-really-steps-in-it-this-time.html

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/409036087638491136

What I remember about the day he was freed is no one knew what he would look like, as there were no photos we saw after '62.

― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Friday, December 6, 2013 9:51 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the SA press published a few photos in the years immediately preceding his release IIRC

I have a strong memory of my mom talking to me, probably in the late 1980s, about how the white minority not-so-secretly funded some black tribal/nationalist groups who were, essentially, waging war against the ANC. it was my first introduction to the idea of divide-and-conquer (the next lesson was israel funding hamas) and some of the complexities of politics.

i admit i am a little struck by how the veneration of mandela has, in some fora, obscured the fact that he was one figure in a large movement, and indeed for a while he was mostly a symbolic figure, deliberately chosen by the ANC to represent, in a kind of abstentia, their cause and their persecution. of course he was much more than that before, after, and in the late stages of his imprisonment. his most important aspect in those later years was that he was a figure who had a hard-won legitimacy among the ANC and who the white rulers felt they could talk with. having someone like that was key to avoiding a full-fledged civil war, it seems.

i wonder what mandela would have been like, as a politician, a thinker, if he had been let out of prison at any number of points before he was. he seems to have underwent several intellectual transformations in prison, and emerged a different figure from the one that was first sent to robben island. is his autobiography very revealing about this kind of stuff? i should probably read it.

ppl not interested in giving communists like Tambo and Slovo any credit

i think it's less that than great-man narratives being the default, social-movement narratives get fewer page hits

btw mandela emerged from prison still in favor of nationalizing major industries, but he was talked out of this by (among others) folks from the ostensibly Communist governments of Vietnam and Cuba, of all things.

rip nelson mandela.... you said some fucked up things in that Act Of Killing movie but you were p. old and i dont hold it against u

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/10/world/cia-tie-reported-in-mandela-arrest.html

linked to in this:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_12/for_most_of_his_life_nelson_ma048091.php

Not surprising but I never knew this

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A Brief Moment Of Derpitude
Dec 6, 2013
Conservatives Can Own Reagan, But You Don't Get Mandela
By Charles P. Pierce at 1:00PM

Michael Evans/The White House/Getty Images

Conservatives can own Ronald Reagan and be welcome to him, but you don't get Nelson Mandela.

It is possible, if we all think really hard, we can use the days between Nelson Mandela's death and his journey to his final resting place deep in the hills of his boyhood to make quite plain to young people who may have joined us late what a thoroughgoing moral disaster was the Reagan Administration (1980-88), and not just because it sold missiles to the country that sponsored the killing of several hundred of our Marines

One year ago:

http://media.tumblr.com/a0e5ac1455c8339fb75ba572907c806a/tumblr_inline_mxd98rzhkg1qawfnh.png

Yesterday:

http://media.tumblr.com/4972f18953567511f7ef3144e99caa42/tumblr_inline_mxd98obKp91qawfnh.png

i think this has cemented his standing as being beyond reproach. the people who are saying he was a terrorist look ridiculous, they're isolated... i'm not sure what it is about the narrative that gave him this aura that so many on the right are enamoured by. amazing thing i heard that he started studying for a law degree in 1939 & didnt get one until 1989

he got distracted by... stuff

smh at Pierce thinking those AIDS comments "emerged" this week.

I love Pierce when he gets the knives out

"Attempts, notably by white liberals, to enshrine Mandela as a peaceful freedom fighter do no justice to his actual fight.... Mandela’s story should remind us that there’s nothing simple nor pure about violence."

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/08/what_nelson_mandela_can_teach_us_all_about_violence/

btw, "Nelson Mandela" Special AKA made number 96 in the charts this week.

Amazing if 'blurred lines' surged to xmas #1 as ppl reflected on the dilemmas faced by mandela in his struggles

South African prez Zuma booed at memorial service; not the other guy who spoke, as they haven't been following the SOB too closely apparently

how amazing that they wouldn't boo a visiting head of state what's wrong with them?

boo to you too

http://marksteelinfo.com/tributes-have-flooded-in/

If you universally boo heads of state, the math is with you.

the nuance of the pissy "-Mr. President" affixed to criticism is so beautiful

http://bullettmedia.com/article/super-cool-teen-heads-state-taking-selfies-funerals-now/

Fascinated by this guy, just making shit up

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/sign-language-interpreter-at-nelson-mandela-memorial-was-a-fake-who-made-up-his-own-hand-gestures-8997189.html

yeah that is just the weirdest, weirdest story

Didn't this happen in 'Spin City'?

wow that story is amazing

He's claiming schizophrenia, which strikes me as odd given there were presumably ridiculous security checks before anyone allowed him to stand right next to the President of the United States.

I'm guessing that whichever agency put the interpreter forward were just complete shysters, especially given the owners have seemingly gone into hiding.

"Hallucinating angels" was not the excuse I was expecting.

really hope it's this guy again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5evS-ApSNQ

that guy is incredible

The story gets weirder and weirder. I actually heard someone claim he was not just making shit up, that he was struggling to translate between different strains of sign language and various African dialects (before he actually went, you know, crazy). When called on it some officially claimed their offices had never gotten complaints about the guy before, despite an apparent history of mental illness and violence. The scary story is this guy getting so close to so many heads of state and dignitaries. Thank god he just saw angels and didn't hear anyone command him to kill kill kill.