Pic Of The Moment: Santorum Says Struggle Against Apartheid Like Struggle Against Obamacare

[Nonhlanhla]

87. This is so offensive

I don't even know how to begin to express my disgust at this vile excuse of a man. When I was a teenager in South Africa in the 80's, I vowed never to vote for the National Party, because I said I could never vote for the party of apartheid, even if they change their ways. Later, when I moved to the US for studies and eventually stayed on for work, I quickly discerned that the Republican Party is cut of the same cloth, and in some of its extreme corners are even worse than the National Party. (And yes, in South Africa there were worse groups than the National Party, namely the ultra far right Conservative Party - many of whose members find their natural counterparts in the Tea party types here in the US.) So I find it deeply offensive and deeply ironic that this vile man, Rick Santorum, would even dare to say Mr. Mandela's name, when in fact he and his kind represent the very people who put Mr. Mandla in prison for so many years.

Mr. Santorum, I did not know Mr. Mandela himself, but I knew something of Mr. Mandela's world in a way that you most certainly do not. When you were confessing your masturbation adventures to your priest, or hanging around your equally worthless friends thinking you're the kings of the world, I was walking around in black townships with black and white Christians, seeking with them to build bridges in a broken society. There I met ANC comrades and church folk in the anti-apartheid struggle, people who had been tortured by the apartheid government, children, and old people. We visited a Catholic church and together with the congregation marched along the route where kids walked in 1976 when the apartheid police shot them, and sang Nkosi Sikel iAfrika (God bless Africa) together. (I don't think those folks were your kind of Catholic, by the way, Mr. Santorum.) We went to see Mr. Mandela's home. We met conscientious objectors and warriors and quiet serious people and warm hosts with open arms in places like Soweto and Mamelodi. So, while I never had the privilege of meeting Mr. Mandela himself, I do know people who did, and I knew his world and his people and his struggle and his story in a way that you, Mr. Santorum, did not. And you, Mr. Santorum, are no Mandela. Not even close.

Oh, and by the way, just as I vowed all those years ago that I would never vote for the National Party, so I vow never to vote for the Republican Party. Because you are cut from the same cloth.