Cult of Che is a fraud

Baiting the whacko Left is just too much fun, and so easy!

The Cult of Che: Don’t Applaud the Motorcycle Diaries

[quote]The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution’s first firing squads. He founded Cuba’s “labor camp” system

The ‘Cult of Che’ is about no more than sporting a trendy picture. Ask any of these little dedicated followers of fashion you see wearing one what Che did - hell, who Che was even - and they’ll have no idea. It’s got nothing to do with worshipping him as an icon of freedom or anything like that; it’s about wearing a cool T-shirt.

Che was a murderous zealot.

An abysmal ignorance of history is the only explanation for perpetuating his blood-stained legacy.

Zealotry comes in many forms though. Here’s another legacy whose perpetuation can only be explained by a likewise fundamental ignorance of history:

Red-baiting:
the action of accusing someone of being communist, socialist or, in a broader sense, leftist, mainly with the intention of discrediting his/her political views.

[quote=“spook”]
Red-baiting:
the action of accusing someone of being communist, socialist or, in a broader sense, leftist, mainly with the intention of discrediting his/her political views.[/quote]

and the compliment of that is the act of accusing someone of being facist, right wing, or neo-con with the intention of discrediting his/her political views. :slight_smile:

[quote=“porcelainprincess”]

I don’t know diddly about Che Guavara but who knows, maybe the “standing ovation” and the “glowing admiration in the press” were reactions to the movie, not the man. The diaries were written when he was quite young if I recall. (Right wingers are easy bait too.)

Another thing… that article makes it sound almost like Guavara spoiled some idyllic egalitarian democratic societies going on in S America, which again, speaking as a layman here, that’s not the case is it? I can’t defend Che’s politics, I don’t even know them, but to this day it seems like the problem with Latin America has been the enshrinement of political and economic oppression by a landlord class from very early days. Wouldn’t want that to get lost in a “Che sucks” debate.

I have no qualms about getting sucked into a Che sucks debate. Che is like much of the left in America.

(MT: Always abasing yourself and your country. You go girl! Reagan = Che = Stalin = Hitler. Right. That is why Central American and Grenda and Eastern Europe are so angry about Reagan. Funny that the very countries that were most oppressed by Reagan seem to appreciate him the most. But how could that be? Strong policies are always wrong especially when fighting communism which is after all the true path to salvation?)

Che was a spoiled little pampered brat who had “issues with his father.” So he went running off to drink and whore and pose. Sounds like a leftist to me. Then, some peasants who cared nothing about politics put an end to his philandering with their women permanently. What were Che’s contributions? The only thing that I can remember about him is the myriad different poses he had smoking a cigar or playing with his beard.

Did anyone else get the irony of this long hair or whatever that idiots name is in Hong Kong who was just elected to the legislature decrying communist China’s harsh gestapo tactics while wearing a che guevera t-shirt? What an idiot. No what a butt munch.

That’s a fact. It’s lizard versus snake in Latin America and the millions of poor people are caught in the middle.

The problem I have is that you walk into a bookstore and you see all this Che paraphenalia everywhere - 4 or 5 books on Che prominently displayed to encourage the movie tie-in. Most Taiwanese are fairly ignorant of Western history and are getting misled into thinking that Che was some kind of hero. That troubles me. What with all the Nazi crap Taiwanese wear for fashion…well, Che is certainly more handsome than Hitler. He looks so fuckin’ cool, dude. The Rock Star of Commies.

Re: Latin America’s problems - I’ve read fairly extensively on the subject and it would take too much space to explicate here, but in a nutshell, the above comments are correct: the biggest problem those societies have traditionally faced has been unequal wealth distribution - the widest gaps (by far) in the world. A strong racial component is present - the mostly white descendants of conquistadors, a tiny minority, lording over the mostly illiterate hordes of native Indios (and Africans in Brazil and a few other places).

Fred, you’ve always got lots of cute little lines. . . which tend to be factually incorrect. While I admit that I know as little about Che as the rest of the people in this discussion (although I’d like to read up on him some day if I have the time) it’s my understanding that Che was killed by the Bolivian army.

Bolivian soldiers trained, equipped, and guided by CIA operatives, actually.

gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/

Who turned in Che to be so slaughtered? The peasants of course who were filled to the brim with his tiresome antics.

Remember when Latin America in the 1970s was the mess that the Middle East is today. We won in Latin America and we will win again in the Middle East. No, we will not bring paradise on earth either but we will stave off oppressive dictatorships and keep the economies open so these nations do not stagnate like Cuba.

Unequal unschmeaqual. The biggest problem in Latin America is lack of rule of law and corruption. Oh yes, the old racial aspect. Why then is Argentina 100% white suffering as well? Can you say C O R R U P T I O N. That’s the word and that’s why. But everytime the US complains or puts pressure on these governments, we are “interfering Yanquis” so what do you expect?

[quote=“mod lang”]Bolivian soldiers trained, equipped, and guided by CIA operatives, actually.

gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/[/quote]

Saved the KGB from having to do it. Che was a follower of deviationist Mao.

che-lives.com/home/modules.p … page&pid=4

gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/

:bravo: :bravo: :bravo:

Read a travel article about Bolivia last weekend. Seems the hamlet Che was killed in is being slated for tourism. The little schoolhouse he was executed in stands to become the centre-piece of the area’s attractions.

They may not have cared much for him when he was alive but the peasants are now learning to say “Che Che.”

Actually, I could see how someone like Che might be popular with some. I also see how someone like John Walker Lindh would be popular with some. It is the same adventure, self-mortification and probably stems from the same impulse. Read more about the “hero” Che… Actually, he is just like the nihilist terrorists of Islamofascism. Interesting. I had not thought if this before but this article does bring out the death cult for “honor” that is present to some extent in the Spanish tradition too. The same mortification of the flesh, the same torture and sadomasochism of an inspired death for a “cause.” Very very interesting. Understanding the youthful psychology of someone who might find Che “inspiring” or “heroic” would be a very interesting study indeed. I think it should also raise some very big red flags if adults are “still into” that kind of thing. New insights…

So Che’s father deserted him when he was younger and he was doted on by his mother. Interesting. John Walker Lindh’s father deserted him to become gay. Interesting. Obviously, a type of figure that could appeal to someone with a lot of internalized anger and perhaps psychological confusion? tension?

Here’s the link

slate.msn.com/id/2107100/#ContinueArticle

[quote]The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. [b]Che presided over the Cuban Revolution’s first firing squads. He founded Cuba’s “labor camp” system

[quote=“Mother Theresa”]Seeing as you’re so interested in psychoanalysis, Fred, can you tell me what might cause a person, theoretically speaking, to participate in a social Internet forum, posting nothing but confrontational political posts, mostly boasting of the greatness of unpopular actions and policy decisions by his government, then crying out that he is only defending his country? Would you say such a person likely grew up as a pampered little brat, or might he be trying to compensate for lack of attention from his parents? What could lead to such perverse behavior?

:ponder:[/quote]
Stick to the topic. All the evidence suggests that Che was a murderous, hypocritical wanker, through and through. He had few redeeming qualities socially, and virtually none ethically or politically.

Isn’t this topic a bit like shooting fish in a barrel?

[quote=“porcelainprincess”]All the evidence suggests that Che was a murderous, hypocritical wanker, through and through. He had few redeeming qualities socially, and virtually none ethically or politically.

Isn’t this topic a bit like shooting fish in a barrel?[/quote]

I’m sure it’s not so simple as that. Che, like most people, surely had good character traits and bad ones, committed good deeds and bad ones, and was a complex figure whose personality cannot rightly be summed up in a snappy slogan or pithy defamatory phrase. As I said, I’ve just begun reading a definitive, well-researched biography on the guy, so I’ll report back when I’ve gotten deeper into the book.

:slight_smile:

So what does the symbol stand for?

I suspect that most of us can probably agree with MT that it is hard to believe that Guevara had no redeeming qualities at all. Probably most of us can also agree with CS that someone can have redeeming qualities and still be, on balance, repugnant and evil. (Yes friends, I do assert that one can aggree with both MT and CS in the same paragraph. :slight_smile: ) From what I’ve read, it appears to me that death and suffering associated with the system Che promoted weigh most heavily on the scale – but I haven’t read any definitive, well-reasearched biographies, so I won’t be trying to convince anyone of that.

But for me, there is a second question that is perhaps more important: What is the meaning of Che, the symbol? When people buy a Che t-shirt, what is it saying to them? What do they think that wearing it says to others?

We had a guy in my Chinese class in college who had attached a patch of the PRC flag to his backpack. He was a freshman, and he was very interested in Chinese, and China, and he was trying to show people that.

Some people probably looked at his backpack and thought “Huh. I guess that guy is interested in China.” Others may have thought of suffering, torture, political prisoners, waste, militarism, empire, famine and tyranny.

So what do people think of when they wear a Che t-shirt?

  • Do they think [color=blue]“Be brave, be passionate, fight for what you believe in!”[/color]
  • Do they think [color=red]“The only way forward is communist revolution!”[/color]

This is an honest question, and maybe one that no one person can answer. Since I haven’t seen any polls or studies on it, all I have to draw upon is anecdotal evidence. And a very small sample at that. Personally, I have only heard two people give their reasons for sporting Che paraphenalia:

[color=blue]Example 1[/color]

The first was a French soccer player, one of the top 2 or 3 players in the world, who I instantly respected a lot less upon seeing him wearing a Che t-shirt. His explanation: [color=black]“He is a man that I admire for what he did and I have been reading his books - as simple as that[/color].” But even this statement can be interpreted in more than one way.

Does “what he did” mean: Helping to bring about the deaths of many thousands? Helping bring Cuba into terrible poverty? Cutting out free speech and putting scholars and teachers into secret-police prisons? Creating a corrupt dictatorship? Sending AIDS patience to die in camps?

… or does he mean fighting for your cause (whatever that cause is) with passion, giving your life for it?

Does one admire the Nazi who, honestly believing that Hitler was leading the world to a better future, sacrificed his life to bring his family and the world what he thought was a 1000-year paradise? Does one admire the peasant revolutionary who sacrificed everything to help his fellow farmers by participating in the cultural revolution? The child who believed with a pure heart that she was right to turn her parents in to be killed for reading the wrong books? I understand that there are those who say that we should admire those who selflessly sacrifice with good intentions. But in many cases I, personally, cannot bring myself to do so.

[color=blue]Example 2 [/color]

The only other person I have heard give a reason for using Che’s image, was a poster on this board who explained that the sole reason behind his use of the image was [color=black]“in order to piss Fred off”[/color]. Where does this rank in the pyramid of noble goals? Is this a cause of worth sacrificing for? Open questions, friends. Depends where your priorities are perhaps. :wink:

So I guess I’m left with no real answer.

But my fear is that people see the image as a romantic and stirring call to revolution. My fear is that young people see it and become blind to the very real suffering, poverty and police states that communism has brought with it everywhere it has ever been – that young idealists see only the shining goal of “freeing the masses” (or some similarly noble). And the result is more poverty and much much less freedom.

And if this is the effect that they symbol has, then in my book the use of such symbol is at best misguided, and at worst offensive and insulting to the literally hundreds of millions who have died or suffered as a result of the system with which Guevara is associated.

-H

[quote=“Mother Theresa”]Hobbes,

I believe the symbol is mostly about rebellion, about a handsome, longhaired rebel, who traveled extensively like today’s backpacker tourists, took a long motorcycle journey, and chucked medical school in order to hang out in the jungle and fight for the peasants. I realize some may counter some of those points, but I believe that’s largely the image that makes him attractive to certain people (but obviously not to others).[/quote]

If that’s all that people are trying to say when they put on a Che t-shirt then that would make me feel a lot better. And I think you may very well be right about how other see him. Maybe it’s just hard for me to see since that’s not how I see him.

If, for most people, it is more akin to wearing a James Dean t-shirt than a Swastika, then live and let live I suppose. I still wouldn’t want my kids to wear one … but I guess that probably means that there is a decent likelihood that they will. :wink:

I’m confident that’s the case for most who wear his image. After all, aren’t most of his fans a bunch of dope-smoking hippies? They’re not likely to have actually read anything about him, are they? Wow, cool Che shirt, dude, pass the bong. :wink:

I saw the motor-cycle diaries just before I came to Taiwan a few months ago. I sure thought it was weird when I saw all of the Che merchandising in the eslite bookstore when I got here. Here’s my 2 cents on the subject:

  1. Che “the man”- I agree with most people here who have bashed him. His political idealogy was flawed and he should never have been elevated to martyrdom and should not be considered a symbol of freedom.

  2. The marketing of his image - Coming from San Francisco, I have seen the whole Che worshipping thing for many years, by both those who support his politics and those who have no idea who he was. I tend to sneer (internally , of course) at both cases but the later I believe is worse because everyone is entitled to express their opinion but to ignorantly flaunt a strong political symbol such as the Che image is just that: ignorant.

  3. and finally, The Movie - It’s good. I enjoyed it. Considering that I had read a bit about Che’s place in history beforehand, I certainly took the hero worship aspect with a grain of salt. As others have pointed out, the movie is about him as a young man…his formative year(s) if you will. I took it like this: A movie about how it was possible for an intelligent and driven person to develop (or adopt) one of the worst political philosophies of all time.

So if you have even a little bit of openmindedness (either as a Che lover or hater) I think the movie is worthwhile, as long as you don’t use it as the only source of education about his life and his place in history (unfortunatly movies tend to have this effect on many lazy people.)