Che is someone I think is very interesting. Would anyone, by any chance, like talk about this revolutionary? He has been dead longer than some on here have been alive. But those of us who are as old as dirt know a little about him. Is anyone here from Argentina? Some other place he was active? How did his life impact you?

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What kind of person celebrates a butcher like Che?

I was once a little shocked when I read a text from Adolf Hitler - until I found out in the end this text was from Che Guevarra - then I was heavily shocked because when I was young I weared a sweat shirt with his shadow face. I loved this shirt and I always thought this perverted asshole was a fighter for freedom.



YouTube - ?La Cucaracha"

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Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt, quia ignoratio causae destituit effectum
Sir Francis Bacon

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CZq051btlE

Filth like him encouraged a lot of people to flee to America and lead a life as productive citizens here where they could enjoy freedom while their homeland rotted under tyranny and mismanagement. That's how Che impacted my life.

He was certainly one of the most interesting people of the twentieth century. I don't know enough of the history to make an informed comment but I've always been fascinated by how polarizing a figure he is. On the one side he is elevated to near sainthood and on the other despised like the devil. One biography or another is definitely on my reading list.

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"I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of imagination. What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth - whether it existed before or not."

-John Keats

Che was a failure. On very level. He did not accomplish a single thing he set out to do, became a carbon copy of his enemy, and recruited many to only die.
He captures a lot of attention from the very young because his image, particularly when blackened, looks cool...that's pretty much it for 99% of "admirers".

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I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to improve our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy.
Wynton Marsalis

I see the thread has been moved to historical discourse and modified a little. That's OK. I hadn't thought of him in years until WFCY came on with his likeness. He isn't mentioned very often as a key historical figure, but he came to a very bad end, and some who helped with that end were US operatives, apparently.

I'm not sure I see what he DID want as clearly as I see what he did NOT want. It would seem to me that in order to be really effective as a 'revolutionary' you would need to have a clear GOAL. Saying 'this is what I WANT" is more effective than 'this is what I DON'T want.' If one is to accomplish a successful revolution you have to be moving toward something as well as away from something.

It looks like he didn't understand that concept. He didn't seem to like much of anything, and in not liking, brought about a lot of blood shed including his own.

He was an MD first and that tells me a lot. EVen though they may have plenty of influence, MDs don't often have the best touch with reality when it comes to political agendas.

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Seriously Sunshine...if Che was not a cool looking dude, he would be a long forgotten figure in the course of things.
I think the guy started out admirable. He chose, as a physician, to travel around and treat those who couldn't afford care. After seeing so much poverty, and knowing (and he was right) that it would not change under the conditions Latin America was in (and still is) - he became involved in politics in Cuba and was an absolute tyrant and about as intolerant as any leader has ever been. Few know it was Che who started Cubas work camps...yeah man of the people my ass. He sat out to "save" Bolivia, but did not recruit a single Bolivian..and in an effort to "free" them...instead 100,000's died in a conflict that was extraordinarily poorly operated by Che, basically one mass suicide attempt after another.
The man is the polar opposite of what he so falsely symbolizes.

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I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to improve our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy.
Wynton Marsalis

I think he IS largely forgotten. What you describe, IMO, is what happens when an aristocrat wants to help the 'little' people. They make it worse.

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I would put it more like this..it is what happens when Sean Penn sets out to start a revolution. Looks cool, thinks he knows what he is talking about, but in reality is a thug who knows nothing.

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I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to improve our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy.
Wynton Marsalis

Sean Penn looks cool?

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Yep, a regular Willie Stark.

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Dems....a flash in the pan.

well, in his will, he praised the "extremely useful hatred that turns men into effective, violent, merciless, and cold killing machines". Love that...

Plus he was such a peach of a guy he absolved a 12 year old for stealing some food because he was starving...NOT, actually he had him shot, he was a thug, a psychopathic thug to boot.

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit...

Is the sentence incorrect? Given that he was officialy a "commandante" of (para -)military organisations, in itself I see nothing wrong with it

Na sounds like harsh law and order policies to me.

Anyway don't get me, wrong I have no love for Che as well, he was a failure, but apart from judging him being a failure I despise all those youngsters adoring him today.

It's one thing to be a failure during one's lifetime, when the final forseeable judgement is still upon oneself, it's another thing to praise someone about whom history has taken the final etnernalk lethal judgement already.

For Che it's the one of having a bit of a role in the fight/uprising against a brutal dictator and failing at everything else that followed.

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"Homo Homini Lupus"
Thomas Hobbes

Nahhh...not so fast.
No one could argue that Che was trying to solve a very bad issue, thing was - Che was no better than the enemy he wanted to defeat.
Again - this man created/organized and for a while ran Cubas "work camps"..where "undesirables" defined as basically anyone Che or Castro didn't like worked until they died...and that was a good day, because in those hell holes - torture was a way of life.

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I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to improve our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy.
Wynton Marsalis