Nelson Mandela is an old geezer to learn from if you're into lawbreaking and no free markets.

Mandela made a great point in 1998. We do need to find other means of organizing our living and livelihoods because the present approaches have been found wanting. Aparthied and other equally vicious systems of repression are used to make certain the old approaches to life are kept in place. They are the product of social structures that are already unjust.

I spoke with a local official the other day who told me why our county is building an expanded jail while we need two new schools. It was a federal mandate that allowed them to expand the jail. Their hands were tied, he complained. My thought is that we should stop trying and tricking people on drug violations (which are both class and race based laws anyway) and ignore the federal court because it wants to perpetuate injustice.

"We Still Have a Lot to Learn from Nelson Mandela"

What is the most important lesson for today?

The end of apartheid did not bring about an end to capitalism in South Africa. Thus today there is vast economic social inequality and extreme poverty among the large majority of South African people.

Please read this article from the World Socialist Web Site:

South Africa 20 years after Mandela’s release
Ann Talbot
15 February 2010

Twenty years ago, Nelson Mandela walked free from Victor Verster prison. His release on 2 February 1990 heralded the end of the apartheid system, which maintained rigid racial segregation and disenfranchised the black and coloured majority in South Africa. The elections that followed in 1994 brought Mandela to power as president of a country that was hailed as the “Rainbow Nation”.

Two decades later, South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world, despite the ending of apartheid. The limited political gains that were made have not translated into greater social and economic equality. Rather, the gap between rich and poor has widened, and more South Africans now live in poverty than in 1990.

Some 70 percent of the population live below the official poverty line, according to the latest figures. Unemployment stands at about 40 percent of the workforce according to any realistic estimate. At the same time, the richest members of society have increased their annual earnings by as much as 50 percent.

Social inequality has grown between ethnic groups, as well as within them. The majority of black South Africans are still living in poverty, but a tiny minority of those at the top of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) have become billionaires and joined the wealthy elite that ran South Africa under the apartheid regime.
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The full article is here:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/pers-f15.shtml

"But this week, Obama told Bloomberg Business Week that he does not "begrudge'' the $9 million in stock bonuses to Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and the $17 million bonus to JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon."

Betcha someone with the power to sink his "presidency" told Obama to STFU with the "fat cat" talk, and he did them one better - "I think they're swell!"

-"it appears that someone got to President Obama to tone down his populist outrage."

Whether he tones it up or tones it down, The Democrats are still not that into helping the sick or the poor or the victims of war or the unemployed.

If you spent less time wishing corporate Obama would give recycled Mandela speeches, and spent more time supporting the people that are on your side, the side of the the ordinary American, you would be better off.

For me, Bishop Desmond Tutu was the hero in South Africa. Many years ago, John Pilger wrote about Mandela and he wasn't as kind as the author is, but that is a different story.

Obama's praise of the bonuses of the bilkers of America is reason alone for his future non-reelection run. FDR, in the heat of the depression, said that the top CEOs in America at that time should not receive more than $30,000, which would equate to something like a million today.

Obama - Hope and Change? Not bloody likely.

Obama said : “"There are some baseball players who are making more than that and don't get to the World Series either, so I'm shocked by that as well . . . I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen.'' And, of course, he thinks that he is a very savvy politician, and that he has sent a very savvy Secretary of State to the Middle East to repeat the hate-sowing feats of Donald Rumsfeld and Henry Kissinger at the time of the Iran/Iraq war n the 1980’s, when Henry Kissinger cynically said “ It is a pity that they, both Iran and Iraq, cannot both lose”. There is no doubt that Hillary Clinton, even as she seeks the help of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to prod the Chinese to support UNSC sanctions against Iran, is formulating in her heart the same wish as Henry Kissinger : ” It is a pity we cannot get both Saudi Arabia and Iran to wage war on each other and breach international laws so we can invade both and grab the oil of both countries”. That to Hillary Clinton would be “savvy business sense”. I still hope that Obama has not become that cynical!

Turning to Mandela, he said, in his 1998 lecture at Harvard: “ The current world financial crisis also starkly reminds us that many of the concepts that guided our sense of how the world and its affairs are best ordered, have suddenly been shown to be wanting.'' He noted how economic theorists went "unchallenged in the day-to-day operations of a system that operated in the interests of the powerful.'' Already at that time, the Structuralist Economist, Lance Taylor of MIT, had been leading a team of left-leaning Economists to advise the Mandela government on formulating an appropriate development path for the South African economy, while Harvard’s Jeffrey Sachs led a “Chicago School/Neoclassical Economics”-leaning team to advise South Africa’s private sector. Eventually, in 1996, the Neoclassical GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution) approach prevailed over the left-leaning model that Lance Taylor and his team had proposed, and, though it brought fiscal discipline and foreign direct investment, it did not create jobs. THAT was what led to the downfall of the otherwise-effective Mbeki regime and the so-far disappointing Zuma government. There are superb politicians and professional statesmen in Mbeki’s Government, among whom the still-popular Kader Asmal and Trevor Manuel, who would feel very comfortable implementing an economic policy and development agenda for South Africa that embraces the same structuralist approach of its originators Michael Kalecki and Hyman Minsky, who are now all the rage among economists disenchanted with the neoclassical appraoch. One hopes that, in the likely case that Zuma does not correct the course he has taken, these stalwarts of the struggle against apartheid, get their chance. Maybe that, by then, even Obama will have been won over to less “business savvy” approaches or make way for others who are not already indoctrinated by “business savvy” lobbyists.

Not only is it obscene to be rich, it is soul imperiling.
This is why most of us will be alive to see the abominable rich and powerful give everything they have away to the starving, the destitute, the poor, the unrich ... and become beggars.

The moment of the 20th century that people most remember is that of humans first-footing the moon in 1969. As important as that was, however, I remember the world wide television coverage of Nelson Mandela's release from a South African penitentiary. Minutes later Nelson was being herded in a direction and for a goal not of his choosing. Asserting his will, Nelson strode deliberately in the direction of wildly cheering children and young persons clamoring to see him, kids who had defied their parents in confrontational protest actions for his release. Looking on their happy faces was so moving for Nelson that he could not speak. But - his face erupted into the most beautific smile of affection that ever has been captured on television. I spontaneously wept at the sight. That moment, frozen in time, to me represents the character of Nelson Mandela.

To put Obama the Uncle Tom in the same sentence with Mandela is to put a bacteria in the same sentence with a giant.

Obama's not only an embarrassment to blacks but also the entire human race.

A favorite Mandela quote: "Why are they not seeking to confiscate weapons of mass destruction from their ally Israel? This is just an excuse to get Iraq's oil. ... If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care for human beings. Fifty-seven years ago, when Japan was retreating on all fronts, they decided to drop the atom bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; killed a lot of innocent people, who are still suffering the effects of those bombs. ... Because they are so arrogant, they decided to kill innocent people in Japan, who are still suffering from that. Who are they, now, to pretend that they are the policemen of the world?"

Given the numerous warnings that our US economic path was leading straight to a cliff I do not understand how Mr. Mandela can claim "The current world financial crisis also starkly reminds us that many of the concepts that guided our sense of how the world and its affairs are best ordered, have suddenly been shown to be wanting". Suddenly? Was he just then waking up from a slumber?
The remainder of Mandela's "lot to learn" is neither new nor original. I can state with more justification that we still have more to learn from Eugene Debbs than from Mr. Mandela.
The sad truth is that more than 99% of our citizens will answer "I don't know" when asked: "who was Eugene Debbs"? A country that does not know all of its own great persons deserves its economic and political fiasco.

You mean like how to cut deals with the corporations and wealth elites to keep the balance of power heavily tilted toward big money?

Obama already does that.

Because if you've spent even one half hour studying S. African history in the last 20 years nothing has really changed in the political economy. The few elites basically control everything. If anything poverty is actually worse under the ANC.

My understanding of the "rationale" for Mandela going along with the capitalists (which has worsened the inequalities post-apartheid) is that he was somewhat deceived into it. Prior to his release, several meetings of business leaders were arranged - while Mandela was still in prison. It was put to him in no uncertain terms - that any drastic attempt to redistribute the wealth would result in a capital flight out of the country, leaving the country in total poverty and chaos. So, an alternative was presented to him - one of "development" where everyone participates in the new economy and everyone benefits - though obviously not to the same extent.

It's possible that the way it was presented to Mandela, it probably made sense to him at that time. It's possible that he did not entirely understand the new breed of capitalists. After all, he had been locked up for 27 years, and to come out with one's sanity intact itself is a miracle. And to come out with such magnanimity and without bitterness and to lead the country - and what a country! - is not something you see too often.

Yes, some of us can say he failed, but the failure is also that of the black elite and the neo-rich. Any country is after all the sum of its parts. If a significant part of a country is selfish - doesn't have to be in the majority, a significant minority will do - and is ready to work for the capitalist system, then it's hard even for someone like Mandela to do much about it.