Axis Mundi X discussion
Che
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Hey Alejandro... thanks for that post. It's always great to get the perspective of someone who speaks from first hand experience. Like most things, Nicaraguan politics are complicated. Terms like 'Banana Republic' spring to mind. You can't argue against the fact that the First World has exploited the bloody hell out of the Rest of the World as much and as often as it could. I think most of the reasonable arguments against Che, and other bloody revolutionaries, comes down to problems with methodology. If you're stacking up bodies like cord wood, how is this better.
Bun... yeah, that image of Che kind of does come down to fashion ultimately, doesn't it? Sad comment on the state of revolution. People would be better off sewing their own t-shirt and embroidering it with pictures their kids drew than buying a Che t-shirt from Target. HA HA HA HA HA. Oh the irony.
Bun... yeah, that image of Che kind of does come down to fashion ultimately, doesn't it? Sad comment on the state of revolution. People would be better off sewing their own t-shirt and embroidering it with pictures their kids drew than buying a Che t-shirt from Target. HA HA HA HA HA. Oh the irony.

Yes, Portland is crawling with hipsters who know absolutely everything.

I felt Che channeling me when I was traveling through the countryside of Peru, outside Cusco last week, my first, and very exciting time in South America.
We were on a street used in Motorcycle Diaries.
Are any of you old enough to remember him?
I remember being traumatized when he was executed.

The people are gorgeous. They love him. I got souvenirs. Have any of you climbed Machu Picchu? I'm glad I did it now, before I can't manage it again. The heart rate pumps and air is thin. I panted unashamedly!.


I think it's easy to idolize someone from the comfort of The First World. Send these same people into Cuba to live, or into the jungles of Nicaragua, and I'm fairly certain you would get a different perspective from them. Unfortunately people cling to their POV desperately, choosing which facts to believe in order to support their comfortable world view. At least, that is my experience.

What about the people (ex-pats in Miami) whose land was stolen? Don't they have rights like Palestinians whose land was taken?
I don't like the concept of everyone owning everything. I've lived in two condominium complexes and luckily was able to purchase my own free-standing home. People have different standards of housekeeping.
BTW the two men who grew up in Cuba are now US citizens living in New York City, the commerce capital of the free world, and loving it. That says it all!
I have not read enough about the situation but can't deny Che did something about injustice.
Here's a link to an exhibit held at the V&A a couple summers ago.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsi...

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10...
Acting in the Way of Nature
...often means not acting--
Not doing anything.
Indeed an empire can often be won
By doing nothing at the right time.
Indeed a life can often be lost
By trying to do too much .
-Merton
...often means not acting--
Not doing anything.
Indeed an empire can often be won
By doing nothing at the right time.
Indeed a life can often be lost
By trying to do too much .
-Merton


“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it”
Terry Pratchett
“I try to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out.”
Harold T. Stone
“You can have such an open mind that it is too porous to hold a conviction.”
George Crane
“The open mind never acts: when we have done our utmost to arrive at a reasonable conclusion, we still - must close our minds for the moment with a snap, and act dogmatically on our conclusions”
George Bernard Shaw
“Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head”
Terry Pratchett
“I try to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out.”
Harold T. Stone
“You can have such an open mind that it is too porous to hold a conviction.”
George Crane
“The open mind never acts: when we have done our utmost to arrive at a reasonable conclusion, we still - must close our minds for the moment with a snap, and act dogmatically on our conclusions”
George Bernard Shaw
“Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head”



Think about Cheney and the stone cold, government-hating, incompetent reactionaries who are primarily responsible for our nation’s current circumstances.
There is no question people in South America, and elsewhere, regard him as a hero.

Open mind folks? Wrap your brains around those tasty tidbits, then tell me how absolutely dreamy cool Che was. :::spit:::


Thanks all. Seriously, same ol' Axis that I've missed dearly. Apologies for having been away. Simple things like, oh, putting food on the table and payin' rent have their way. Hey, it's hard in the city for a pimp. :]
BunnWat...yer always on the spot with the necessary.
...and now :::ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiip!::::
Monica: Che was responsible for executing thousands of prisoners after the take over of Cuba. Here is a quote from one article:
Under Che, Havana's La Cabana fortress was converted into Cuba's Lubianka. He was a true Chekist: "Always interrogate your prisoners at night," Che commanded his prosecutorial goons, "a man is easier to cow at night, his mental resistance is always lower." [1:]
A Cuban prosecutor of the time who quickly defected in horror and disgust named Jose Vilasuso estimates that Che signed 400 death warrants the first few months of his command in La Cabana. A Basque priest named Iaki de Aspiazu, who was often on hand to perform confessions and last rites, says Che personally ordered 700 executions by firing squad during the period. Cuban journalist Luis Ortega, who knew Che as early as 1954, writes in his book Yo Soy El Che! that Guevara sent 1,897 men to the firing squad.
In his book Che Guevara: A Biography, Daniel James writes that Che himself admitted to ordering "several thousand" executions during the first year of the Castro regime. Felix Rodriguez, the Cuban-American CIA operative who helped track him down in Bolivia and was the last person to question him, says that Che during his final talk, admitted to "a couple thousand" executions. But he shrugged them off as all being of "imperialist spies and CIA agents."
Under Che, Havana's La Cabana fortress was converted into Cuba's Lubianka. He was a true Chekist: "Always interrogate your prisoners at night," Che commanded his prosecutorial goons, "a man is easier to cow at night, his mental resistance is always lower." [1:]
A Cuban prosecutor of the time who quickly defected in horror and disgust named Jose Vilasuso estimates that Che signed 400 death warrants the first few months of his command in La Cabana. A Basque priest named Iaki de Aspiazu, who was often on hand to perform confessions and last rites, says Che personally ordered 700 executions by firing squad during the period. Cuban journalist Luis Ortega, who knew Che as early as 1954, writes in his book Yo Soy El Che! that Guevara sent 1,897 men to the firing squad.
In his book Che Guevara: A Biography, Daniel James writes that Che himself admitted to ordering "several thousand" executions during the first year of the Castro regime. Felix Rodriguez, the Cuban-American CIA operative who helped track him down in Bolivia and was the last person to question him, says that Che during his final talk, admitted to "a couple thousand" executions. But he shrugged them off as all being of "imperialist spies and CIA agents."

Che is the hero of the radical leftists. But then you read more about him, and realize he made huge mistakes, and was just as misguided in his actions and blinded by his own dogma as many hard left and Communist people in the US and Europe about the Soviet Union during Stalin era until the truths started seeping out.
In South America there is such poverty and class division that it's very easy to fall into sympathy with a leader who seems to represent all your hopes, anger and downtrodden pride. So of course there are many people who still think of him as a hero. We here have the luxury of seeking the truth and seeing both sides of the man, not the myth.
Actually, I think I'll have to read more about Che myself.
Books mentioned in this topic
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (other topics)The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey (other topics)
Rather than try and rely on my spotty understanding of Che, or upon the way this film portrays him, I decided to spend some time reading several articles about him. I've heard him called a butcher, and a hero. I thought I would try and decide what I thought.
Not surprisingly I found myself agreeing with the POV in this article by Paul Berman:
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 system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. Full Article: http://www.slate.com/id/2107100/
Come to find out Paul Berman is what is known as a "liberal hawk". I had no idea there was a term for the political ground I find myself occupying these days. Personally I think I'm in good company (Thomas L. Friedman, Christopher Hitchens, Ed Koch, Ron Silver, Tony Blair). But then again, I would think that. ; )
Anyway, opening a whole can of worms here no doubt, but whatever. I think the worship of Che is another symptom of post-modern decadence. But I find it wildly amusing that a man who lived and died to fight against capitalism is the object of such wide-spread and cynical marketing and commercial exploitation. Ah life, you always win, don't you.