Suse,

Thanks for your concern about my existence. Despite the full-force of the feminist bureaucracy bearing down on us men, we are doing ok. We might work longer hours, take less sick leave, retire later and take less extended time out of the workforce than you women, only to die earlier, but we are generally not bitter. We accept that you women are just so much more important than us and that this is our lot in life.

However, I do think, that when it comes to breaking up relationships, men having to spend years in jail and being labelled sexual predators for life just because they hurt their Ex's feelings is taking things a bit too far.

We men know how much more mature and logical you women are so I'm sure you'll stick to your promise of not reading these forums again. I wish you well. That is, I guess, if you manage to take your fingers out of your ears and stop jumping up and down long enough to read my bitter and twisted response.

Dane, I am glad to see you finally making sense : )

However, where did I promise not to read this forum again?

Heh, heh, somehow I don't believe that the bellicose Suseonline represents women or feminists. More the sort of person who would pick a fight in a phone booth and then depart, feeling better for having vented her spleen. For some, getting angry and being rude is a time-wasting pastime and an addiction. What a posting record,and for years. LOL

Oh dear me Onthebeach, if we are discussing rude posts,
I am not even in the same league as you.
You and Dane should join a mutual admiration society!

I should probably leave this thread now before I get thrown off...

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It seems to me appropriate, at this point, to pause for a moment and hail the departure of Nelson Mandella, one of the world’s greatest political leaders of all times. He died on Thursday, 5th December and is due to be buried on Sunday, 15th December.

Mandella was a Methodist. He told the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1999. “Without the church, without religious institutions, I would never have been here today.” In speaking of his 27 years in prison under apartheid, he declared: “Religion was one of the motivating factors in everything we did”.

Margaret Thatcher denounced him as a terrorist, and former US vice-president Dick Cheney voted against a Congress motion calling for his release from Robben Island prison. But as the Anglican Archbishop, Desmond Tutu observed: “To virtually everyone else, he was held in the highest possible regard, almost as a paragon of virtue and impeccable integrity – indeed, almost of sanctity. The ANC and the anti-apartheid movement were able to use his extraordinary moral stature to galvanise support for their efforts to bring about fundamental change in South Africa and as a rallying point for their call to release all political prisoners”.

Nevertheless, Mandella was not lacking in critics and political opponents. Most of the criticisms directed against him were probably true. He never wavered from his singular objective of vanquishing apartheid and reconciling the multi-cultural peoples of the South African nation. Everything he said and did contributed to the attainment of that sole objective.

He seems to have considered that the ends justified the means. He consistently denied being a communist, for example, despite evidence that he was a member of the communist party early in his career. If he was, it was obviously not because he believed in communism but more likely to gain a useful ally to help further his cause.

His victory over apartheid and rise to power were accompanied by an unprecedented reign of tolerance, forgiveness and reconciliation – in striking contrast to the far less admirable means he had employed in order to achieve his final objective.

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Banjo Paterson,

Hi. You may not have noticed the thread on Nelson Mandela. See here,

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6132

Your comments are interesting but I will not add to them here. Maybe if you copy to the other thread?