Never forget how despicable US Republicans are:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/080300-102.htm
There was a political scandal in the 70's in South Africa called the "Information Scandal" or "Infogate" or "Muldergate". Anyway it was basically about how the then government and the Department of Information (which was like a propaganda department) under Minister Connie Mulder (and the Secretary of Information, Eschel Rhoodie), spent huge amounts of money to sway foreign news agencies to report positively on the apartheid government.
Eschel Rhoodie was the brains behind the whole thing: one of the things they did, was to buy/or start a Washington D.C. newspaper that basically made sure that Reagan was elected president, since Reagan was also quite pro-SA at the time.
Rhoodie moved to the USA in 1982, and wrote a book "The Real Information Scandal" that apparently mentions some of these dealings, including stuff about Jack Abramoff.
(The reason the whole thing was a scandal, was not because of what they did mind you, but because they used tax-payers' money to do it all.)
Kind of like how NBC is using the Emmy Awards to make Conan O'Brien seem like the second coming of Johnny Carson. I mean ... I like Conan as much as the next person, but his sense of humor is so self-centered, he is going to implode the super-ego of the American TV audience psyche when he is given The Tonight Show. Then three things are going to happen. One, intelligent people will stop watching The Tonight Show. Two, anyone with any sense of self-worth whatsoever will translate O-Brien's self-important tone into their own ego-base, which will promote an overwhelming outbreak of narcissism. And three, nitwits who don't recognize O'Brien's I-me-mine-rantings will all in time bow to the all mighty and powerful Conan. Any way you slice it, it's going to be great for ratings.
shareWhat does Conan O'Brian have to do with "Cry Freedom"?
And no, it's not the same as what Eschel Rhoodie did.
(not everyone on this board is American you know....so we don't care about Conan O'Brian or what he becomes)
Please understand, the O'Brien rant was directed at the thread title and the original post. Not you. I found your post informative. But saying Dick Cheney voted to "support apartheid" is about as accurate as saying people who drive cars are responsible for the war in Iraq. In a round-about way, it's true. It's a severe over-simplification of a single vote in U.S. Congress in which Cheney did not support economic sanctions against the South African government.
So to answer your question, O'Brien has about as much to do with "Cry Freedom" as Cheney. They are both powerful American figures, and apartheid was a South African issue.
Are you *beep* kidding?! You've got to be kidding.
Conan O'Brien is one of the most harmless, humble people on the planet. Every other joke is either teasing, humiliating, or making fun of himself in some kind of way. He's absolutely silly and 100% goofball... not to mention he's a pretty awesome writer as far as comedy goes. Conan doesn't take anything too seriously and he's always making fun of himself. He purposely humiliates himself whenever interviewing women. He always has this I'm-not-worthy type of attitude. Completely humble and lighthearted.
...his sense of humor is so self-centered...Conan is like the epiotome of the opposite of this sentence. I sure hope your post was being sarcastic. You obviously don't watch much Conan, otherwise you would never label him as egotistic. He's the opposite. If anything, I'd label Jay this before I would Conan (and this is coming from someone who loves Jay just as much as Conan).
I'm not saying Conan O'Brien isn't talented. But his self-deprecating humor is soooo self-centered. During interviews, he always has to compare his guests' stories to something that happened to him; or something that has to do with his hair. He should just put a mirror in the guest chair and interview himself. That's in essence what he does anyways.
shareI've never heard anything so absurd. Conan O'Brien self-cenetered..? The man is the epitome of humble. He calls himself an 'ass' and a 'loser' every chance he gets (as well as any other name in the book). Are these the signs of a man who is egotistic? A host who insults himself often..? Of course not. You are making it very apparent that you haven't watched many Late Night shows before. It's as if you just watched one or two and then came and posted here.
The man even makes fun of his own ratings. He often jokes about the fact that "no one is watching" or people are probably "turning off their television sets." All he does is make fun of himself. So how is he focused on himself? I watch Conan religiously and I've never got the vibe from him that he's always stuck on himself. I've never observed an interview where he was more concerned with himself than with his guest. The main reason I watch his show is because he's so (seemingly) easy-going and a he's just a down-right fool (meaning, he makes a fool of himself purposely, and makes fun of himself constantly).
Needless to say, I'm still confused..
I'm not a control freak, I just like things my way
You said it yourself. He calls HIMSELF names. He insults HIMSELF. He makes fun of HIS OWN ratings. All he does is make fun of HIMSELF. That is being self-centered. I don't want to get into a less-filling, tastes great debate here. I've watched a lot of Conan. He isn't terrible. Just very narcissistic. Have a good day.
shareNarcissistic people think POSITIVE of themselves. Someone who is always concerned with themselves in a negative way has a self-esteem problem. It's not the same thing. Let's be logic about this, shall we..
I'm not a control freak, I just like things my way
Surely you don't think O'Brien actually suffers from low self esteem. If you want to turn this into a debate of symantics, he isn't a gloating narcissist. Neither are high school girls who lose at homecoming court, and play the poor-me act for the next week so people will feel sorry for them ... all the while, believing how good-looking and perfect they are. Now, I'm not calling Conan O'Brien a girl. I repsect the guy. His show is pretty entertaining, and he IS a funny guy. What makes him narcissistic though is he always brings the attention to himself during interviews. He responds to his guests stories with the phrase "When that happens to me ..." or "I have this problem when ..." or some other "me-me-me" response at least once a night. He can't stay intersted in his guests' lives because he is too preoccupied with his own. That is narcissism plain and simple, no matter how he plays it off with the Opie Taylor "oh golly, poor me" act.
And yeah, yeah. I know ... stop calling you Shirley.
Have a good one.
Take a peek if you dare seek the truth.
<a href="http://secure.mediaresearch.org/news/mediawatch/1990/mw19900701stud.html">Mandela the communist</a>
Ghost, you know that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter...it all depends on which side you're on.
Yes, Nelson Mandela did kill people, and did blow up buildings (with civilians in it), and did propegate violence and sabotage to overthrow the then government....but he chilled out quite a bit while in prison.
I find it odd though, that people compare him to the Messiah, and every black celebrity from Naomi Campbell to Oprah Winfrey do the "Mandela Tour" when they do their "return to the motherland (south africa)": Everyone just wants to meet "Madiba" and have their photograph taken with him....then they cry and go on about what a wonderful person he is...
I also think he's wonderful (now), and his personality and character helped a lot to ease the transition from Apartheid to majority rule (without the "civil war" happening that everybody feared in 1994).
Who knows how it would have turned out had he spent less time in jail...?
shut the *beep* up. it's an anti-apartheid activist who spent years in prison we're talking about. the 'communist' thing was used by western governments as an excuse to sit on their fat arses and let the whites rule South Africa. i wish you a slow and painful death (by falling 10 floors or self-strangulation, perhaps), whoever you are.
shareagreed. that also works for quite a few other western government reps. Thatcher, for instance...
shareAlthough I did not vote for the Bush/Cheney ticket in either presidential election (00'/04). I am truly getting tired of every film discussion with even a slight (or overt) reference to politics being an opportunity to link Bush or Cheney to some vast evil conspiracy.
Please, people, can we move on? Yes Cheney may have casted a vote in favor of Apartheid but there is more to that vote than just the fact that "Cheney is an evil racist." He certainly did not enact the laws of Apartheid in South Africa..because he is American..an American politician. He is not guilty of every sin perpetrated across the world!
When we start unjustly linking every political issue to Bush/Cheney we begin to sound like rabid uninformed fools and propagandist. I believe politics is best served with genuine honesty...however as we've discovered that seems hard to come by.
*sighs*
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Whatever Mandela is, all I want to say is that I don't think it's ever safe to be so in-love with anyone. But it will take a few decades after his death before we are allowed to write an unbiased work on him. He is a normal human being. He has done more good than bad (I think), but he did plan a lot of things which a lot of anti-apartheid activists did not approve of.
Regarding the communist thing, he did in fact admit in his trial that he wrote the book "How to be a good communist" but that he copied most of it from other source, Soviet I assume. And it's no secret that people like current president Thabo Mbeki and many other ANC members received their military training in Moscow, or that Mandela received his training in Ethiopia. There is nothing fake about the whole communist deal, let's just be happy that the Soviet Union fell and that Cuba's economy crashed shortly there-after. If Southern Africa was under their influence, as they planned, Europe would have been in a pickle seeing as 80% of their oil depend on the Cape Route, and that South Africa has a few rare minerals which we shared with the West. You'll also notice from recent declassified documents, freely available on-line, that the CIA knew about our nucluer weapon program, but where unable to penetrate it. This was our last line of defence, in case the international communists ever tried something like invade us. One by one states around us were "liberated" and we got very scared and paranoid. Namibia was a buffer we kept by force. And we only released it, Mandela, and the ANC, after the Berlin Wall fell, which signalled the end of a real communist threat. We made it, the people of this country held on long enough to see the end of communist-supported regimes in Africa.
The black people in this country would not have benifited from a civil war. Although I'll add that we got close to one, as the ANC's Truth and Reconcilliation hearings recorded 103 cases of mass murder from 1990-1996, of which only 5 were apartheid-government related, the rest were black-black violence, as the ANC (Xhosa) and the IFP (Zulu) fought for power in the upcoming elections.
We also helped the West in that we monitored Soviet activity in the Atlantic Ocean, in exchange, with the British MI5 and CIA, for all ANC communication in Africa and Europe. Here is a very good report by a US marine on communist goals in Southern Africa, if you still think it was a lie, God help you:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1984/STP.htm
US Republicans are 'closet' segregationists to begin with.
I dont think we're falling off our chairs here.
It's really depressing how many American politicians supported the Apartheid government of SA.
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules. "
-Walter Sobchak