Anyone here who doesn't like Che?

[RHIZOMES]

but he was a Stalino-Maoist, he had the worst tactics (guerillaism) and he wasn't even a good tactician .Although he has my respect for being an internationalist I don't really like Che Guevara.

I hate people that put tendencies above the revolution. I admire Che, and I'm still doubtful whether I would have the balls to do the things he did, for the revolution and for the working masses. What does his opinion on Mao or Stalin have to do with his practice at all?

I went for "don't like him". But I'm really more "so-so". I remember getting a book about him when I was about 12, I never idolized him, but he seemed like a good enough guy. But whatever, he's nothing but a capitalist money maker these days.

So you shouldn't like him because the capitalists have commodified him?

[Trystan]

So you shouldn't like him because the capitalists have commodified him?

No, but cheers for the red herring.

[Lenin's Law]

"What is now happening to Marx's theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the ‘consolation' of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it."

The fact that Che has been commodified has been discussed previously. I think those that argue against Che using this as a reason are somewhat utopian in their views; our clothing is created by capitalists. Working class people constantly buy clothes manufactured by capitalists. So now the question becomes what kind of clothes should we wear? I would much rather see someone wear a shirt of a revolutionary (of any of the various left ideologies) than a Nike Swoosh or some some piece of (free) corporate advertising.

After all, the capitalists produce something else too as Marx pointed out:

What the bourgeoisie above all produces are its own gravediggers

[RHIZOMES]

No, but cheers for the red herring.

That's just how you sounded man...

[Bilan]

Are you a capitalist I know of no left person who would say this kinda thing.

Here's another one: It is.
Socialised health care =/= socialism.
Cuba isn't socialist.

[Holden Caulfield]

I guess I don't agree with the IMT on this

split with them,

i like Che i suppose, anybody with a cigar is cool in my view, he is like a communist version of bender from futurama, a badass but still cool

....

[Knight of Cydonia]

what the heck is so-so ? does it means, so i like him in my past life and so now i hate him?

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Che Guevara secrificed himself for the sake of the Cuban People.
So yes, I like him.
I'm reading his memoires now.

[Devrim]

Are you a capitalist I know of no left person who would say this kinda thing.

No, I am a worker, not a capitalist. I also consider myself to be a communist.

This article explains our position on Che Guevara: http://en.internationalism.org/iccon...07/che-guevara

I imagine from your statement that you don't know that many left-wing people.

Devrim

[coda]

both those articles are vulgar tripe. Che is the consummate revolutionary who always upheld the common people. Guerrillaism works fine along side working class insurrection.

[Dystisis]

I give him an A++ in anti-imperialism and a C+ in socialism.

Same here.

In general he was a positive figure in history.

[John Lenin]

[FONT=Arial Narrow][/FONT]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]With all due respect to the posters who have commented here, I find most of this thread disconcerting, ill-informed, and unfortunate. [/FONT]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]To me Che Guevara is one of the most heroic figures in world history who is a stoic example of what all those who speak of “revolution” should espouse to be. [/FONT]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]This was a man who left a bourgeoisie comfortable life of the upper class, a potential well compensated career as a medical doctor, and a high regarded governmental position --- each time to slog through the jungle and fight guerrilla wars against impenetrable odds = for a better and more equitable society. [/FONT]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]I endorse Jean Paul Sartre’s declaration that Guevara was the “most complete man of our time” … and find his life not only fascinating but deeply inspiring. [/FONT]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]Guevara despite his crippling and acute asthma which would debilitate him almost daily to inches from death, directed “suicide squads” in the battle against the U.S. armed and backed Dictator Batista where with less than 300 men; he literally took on 10,000 Batista soldiers armed with tanks, jets, and U.S. weaponry, and came out victorious at and leading up to the victory at Santa Clara. [/FONT]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]In Bolivia, Guevara spent almost over 1 hellish year in the festering jungle battling a disease which left his hands as mounds of swollen flesh, the fact that his allergic reaction to mosquito bites would leave walnut sized welts all over his body, kept fighting even when he was without food for nearly a month, went shoeless, without blankets, and STILL with less than 30 men took on a force of 1,800 Bolivian U.S. armed rangers with an air force, green beret advisors, and CIA technology. Despite these odds Guevara’s men killed 30 Bolivian troops before they even lost their first Guerrilla. Moreover, displaying his character, despite all these hardships, when Guevara could have simply taken the food of Bolivian campesinos to eat, he insisted on paying for everything. [/FONT]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]Throughout his life Che tended to thousands of sick campesinos, helped construct dozens of schools throughout Cuba, worked in a Leper colony to helped those afflicted, and even when he was literally tied up in a small mud school house awaiting his own execution ! , still complained to the local teacher that in a nation where the leaders drove Mercedes … it was a travesty that the peasants were taught in a dilapidated place like he was in. [/FONT]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]Although I don’t believe in religious dogma (neither did Che), and view myself as an atheist, I do find it telling that the person Che was so often compared to by those who knew him was Jesus Christ. Because of his implacable character, unbending morals, and innate desire to fight in favor of the afflicted, I think that those who knew him were left with no other figure to compare him to. [/FONT]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]Was he perfect? Of course not. No human is. But in mind he was awfully close considering the circumstances and cards he was dealt. I also find it telling that the best “canard” his detractors and those propagandists of monopoly capitalism can come up with - was his short stint at La Cabana prison. Where Che simply reviewed the cases and convictions of war criminals convicted by revolutionary tribunal (modeled after Nuremburg). The same secret police and Batista backed torturers that killed 20,000 people and tortured tens of thousands more. At a time when Fidel and Che would release military captives in the Sierra after tending to them medically, Batista would gouge the eyes out of captives until they gave away rebel positions. The fact that Che saw to it that justice was delivered cold to the Cuban people to me only makes him more heroic. He knew that a “pedagogy of the wall” was the only thing that could cleanse a society from the thousands of goons who raped and terrorized it with impunity. [/FONT]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]Yet I still see those on the left apply some sort of “perfectionist” fallacy to Guevara or more foolishly overlook his heroism on the basis of the fact that Capitalists profit from his defiant image. This is exactly what the capitalist vampires want. They will take every hero of the toilers and the left and revise them into “terrorists” … they will take every noble guerrilla who fought against imperialism and craft them into “mad men” so as to make you think that heroism and socialism/Marxism etc are antithetical concepts. If this doesn’t work … the Capitalist/Imperialists will try to make our heroes into caricatures, or “de-fanged” banal symbols of popular culture – so as to “devalue” their serious and conceptual analysis. Thus Che dawns a bikini, Mao dawns a purse, and Lenin dawns your Zippo lighter. [/FONT]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]We on the 'revolutionary left' MUST not fall for that sort of non-sense. And I would implore those who give credence to the idea of a world revolution … to give much deserved recognition to one of the few men in the past century who literally threw aside “the arm chair” and went out to (imperfectly) create it. [/FONT]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]If the world had 100 Che’s … or hell even 10 … we would be in much better shape. [/FONT]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]Hasta la Victoria Siempre ![/FONT]

[Incendiarism]

Good post, John Lenin

[Comrade Stern]

ive come to know him as a ruthless, murderer, warmonger...heres some quotes by him as an example “In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm” personally i dont see christ as the son of god...but its what he represents that che is gonna squish...and "If the missiles had remained we would have used them against the very heart of America including New York. We must never establish peaceful coexistence. In this struggle to the death between two systems we must gain the ultimate victory. We must walk the path of liberation even if it costs millions of atomic victims."... he clearly was gonna kill millions of people if he could with his blood stained hands

i also believe the greatest revolution is a bloodless one he and he did not exemplify that and if he would have been placed in power he simply would have abused it... like in this quote by him "Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel" does he think he was the only one to transcend that? i think not...

i beg of you to prove me otherwise

[#FF0000]

*words*

i beg of you to prove me otherwise

You have to take into consideration the situation of Latin America at the time. There was horrendous poverty and plenty of brutal dictators to go around. Most of these dictators (all?) were supported by the United States, including Cuba's Batista, up until Che and Fidel started that little revolution over there. The U.S. and Batista would not (and did not) show Che or any Cuban revolutionaries any sort of mercy, and so naturally, Che can't be expected to do the same.

Not saying he was a saint and was always in the right, but to call Che a murderer is to say that he killed people who were not already planning on killing (or torturing) him, and to say he's a warmonger is to say that he fought for no good reason.

[Dóchas]

i think one of his greatest characteristics was that he never wanted to give up. the best example is when he was fighting in the congo he was sick with dysentry and was suffering greatly from his crippling asthma he was asked to return to cuba with the other guerrillas but he wanted to stay on his own to keep fighting. only a very dedicated person would take those impossible odds the way che did.

[John Lenin]

Good post, John Lenin

Thanks

i also believe the greatest revolution is a bloodless one he and he did not exemplify that

So Che should have simply asked Batista to close his rape rooms and BRAC torture chambers ? Che should have simply nicely asked the local land oligarchs to share their haciendas with the peasants and give them a little more food to eat ? I am sure they would have smiled and complied.

What world do you live in ? Because it sounds quaint.

When it comes to revolution you use whatever means are necessary and puppet dictators and despots don't care how many "kumbaya" candle vigils you organize ... they will simply just run you over with their tank.

[JimmyJazz]

ive come to know him as a ruthless, murderer, warmonger...heres some quotes by him as an example “In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm” personally i dont see christ as the son of god...but its what he represents that che is gonna squish...and "If the missiles had remained we would have used them against the very heart of America including New York. We must never establish peaceful coexistence. In this struggle to the death between two systems we must gain the ultimate victory. We must walk the path of liberation even if it costs millions of atomic victims."... he clearly was gonna kill millions of people if he could with his blood stained hands

i also believe the greatest revolution is a bloodless one he and he did not exemplify that and if he would have been placed in power he simply would have abused it... like in this quote by him "Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel" does he think he was the only one to transcend that? i think not...

i beg of you to prove me otherwise

You've obviously been reading your Che in the form of cherry-picked quotes from right-wing sources. I mean, you can prove me wrong if you are able to produce any quote from Che that doesn't seem to reveal him as a sociopathic murderer. Why don't you try reading some unedited stuff?

Not that this necessarily makes Che's comments just fine, but do I need to remind you of the kind of comments American and other Western leaders made during the height of the cold war? In secret, they openly advocated the murdering of millions of people to preserve the hegemony of American capitalism. In public, they advocated the same exact thing in a more veiled fashion.

http://www.quotesandsayings.com/qvietnam.htm

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]''The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient."--Gen. William Westmoreland on the Vietnamese.

And remember, Che just talked about nuclear holocaust. The USA did it. Twice. And they firebombed the fuck out of civilian residential areas in Japan and Germany. Then in Vietnam they dropped more than three times as many bombs (8 million tons) on a tiny, backward Asian country as they had dropped in all of WWII. They helped install all kinds of repressive fascist dictators, like Pinochet and Suharto, and a few CIA-led coups literally led to genocide, as in Indonesia and Guatemala.

So was Che right to "advocate" (he had missiles and didn't do it, so obviously he wasn't too serious) New York City? Right or not, it certainly would be hard to make the case that he was advocating an out-of-the-blue, offensive strike. He would only have been returning an overdue favor from the third world. That wouldn't make it right--which is probably why he didn't do it even though he could have--but it makes the comment a tad more understandable.
[/FONT]

[Post-Something]

He's not really that important tbh.

[Comrade Stern]

You've obviously been reading your Che in the form of cherry-picked quotes from right-wing sources. I mean, you can prove me wrong if you are able to produce any quote from Che that doesn't seem to reveal him as a sociopathic murderer. Why don't you try reading some

Not that this necessarily makes Che's comments just fine, but do I need to remind you of the kind of comments American and other Western leaders made during the height of the cold war? In secret, they openly advocated the murdering of millions of people to preserve the hegemony of American capitalism. In public, they advocated the same exact thing in a more veiled fashion.



[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]''The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient."--Gen. William Westmoreland on the Vietnamese.

And remember, Che just talked about nuclear holocaust. The USA did it. Twice. And they firebombed the fuck out of civilian residential areas in Japan and Germany. Then in Vietnam they dropped more than three times as many bombs (8 million tons) on a tiny, backward Asian country as they had dropped in all of WWII. They helped install all kinds of repressive fascist dictators, like Pinochet and Suharto, and a few CIA-led coups literally led to genocide, as in Indonesia and Guatemala.

So was Che right to "advocate" (he had missiles and didn't do it, so obviously he wasn't too serious) New York City? Right or not, it certainly would be hard to make the case that he was advocating an out-of-the-blue, offensive strike. He would only have been returning an overdue favor from the third world. That wouldn't make it right--which is probably why he didn't do it even though he could have--but it makes the comment a tad more understandable.
[/FONT]

youre right... i take back calling him a murderer and a warmonger but i still dont canonize him or wear him on t-shirts...not that you do but some people do... i think we should just accept him for what he was