The real Che Guevara


- Worked in a Leper colony and treated lepers like Jesus did

- Is prayed to as "Saint Ernesto" by the poor in Bolivia

- Was instrumental in teaching over 900,000 Cubans to read

- Tended to thousands of sick campesinos

- Helped construct dozens of schools throughout Cuba

- Removed the Mafia and dictatorship of Batista from Cuba which had killed 20,000 Cubans and tortured thousands more

- Desegregated the schools in Cuba before they were in the Southern US

- Called out South Africa’s Apartheid in 1964, 30 years before the West!

- Denounced the racism and KKK in America

- Warned of the dangers of the IMF, 3 decades before most of the developing world realized they had been scammed into debt slavery

- 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!
... In fact, near the end it took 1,800 rangers to bring down his 25 men.


---> There is a reason that in September 2007, Che was voted "Argentina's greatest historical and political figure"


"It was difficult to recall that this man had once been one of the great figures of Latin America. It was not just that he was a great guerrilla leader; he had been a friend of Presidents as well as revolutionaries. His voice had been heard and appreciated in inter-American councils as well as in the jungle. He was a doctor, an amateur economist, once Minister of Industries in revolutionary Cuba, and Castro’s right-hand man. He may well go down in history as the greatest continental figure since Bolivar. Legends will be created around his name."

— Richard Gott, journalist in Bolivia on the day of Che’s execution


"Che was not only a heroic fighter, but a revolutionary thinker, with a political and moral project and a system of ideas and values for which he fought and gave his life. The philosophy which gave his political and ideological choices their coherence, color, and taste was a deep revolutionary humanism. For Che, the true Communist, the true revolutionary was one who felt that the great problems of all humanity were his or her personal problems, one who was capable of feeling anguish whenever someone was assassinated, no matter where it was in the world, and of feeling exultation whenever a new banner of liberty was raised somewhere else."

— Michael Löwy, author of The Marxism of Che Guevara


"This secular saint Che was ready to die because he could not tolerate a world where the poor of the earth, the displaced and dislocated of history, would be relegated to its vast margins."

— Ariel Dorfman, Time Magazine

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When Professor Elias Entralgo from the University of Havana once invited Che to speak to his students and added that a payment of a specific sum would accompany the address, Che answered him in a polite but extremely curt letter:

"You and I have radical differences concerning the proper behaviour of a revolutionary leader.... I find it inadmissible that a Party or government figure be offered a monetary remuneration for any kind of work. As far as I personally am concerned, the most treasured of all payments which I have received is the right to belong to the Cuban people, a right which has no equivalent in pesos or centavos."


... meanwhile vapid self-serving right-wing clowns like Sarah Palin charge $ 150,000 to give a 1 hour speech !

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Why the CIA had to see him killed ...

"There was no person more feared by the company than Che Guevara because he had the capacity and charisma necessary to direct the struggle against the political repression of the traditional hierarchies in power in the countries of Latin America."
— Philip Agee, CIA Agent


Luckily, one of the greatest intellectuals of all time - the brilliant existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre was able to spend time with Che and concluded that ...
"Che is not only an intellectual, he was the most complete human being of our time, our eras most perfect man."


And as Che's Christ-like corpse had its hands chopped off by CIA goons, another freedom fighter Nelson Mandela fought against the Apartheid regime which Che denounced to the U.N. in December of 1964 - leading Mandela to state that ...
"Che’s life is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom, we will always honor his memory."

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The U.$. Imperialist Aggression that Che heroically fought against and died battling ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbjr_cPS9_A

"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service in the country’s most agile military force, the Marines. I served in all ranks from second lieutenant to major general. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. Thus I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the raping of half-a-dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers and Co. in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras ‘right’ for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested."

— Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler (former Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps), November 1935



"I knew that the moment the great governing spirit strikes the blow to divide all humanity into just two opposing factions, I would be on the side of the common people." --- CHE GUEVARA

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If you are truly interested in the life of Che Guevara ... I would suggest you read the 800 + page – 'Che Guevara: a Revolutionary Life' by Jon Lee Anderson.

... It is an investment in time, but you won’t regret one second of it. A first class biography by a world class journalist which is unparalleled in its scholarship and accessibility.

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CHE's LAST WORDS to his children in a farewell letter:

"Above all, always be capable of feeling most deeply any injustice committed against anyone in the world. That is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary."

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An Academic Journal > A Right-Wing hack like Victorin1

"The application of the death penalty in Cuba against war criminals and others followed the same procedure as that seen in the trials by the Allies in the Nuremberg trials. Had the Revolutionary Government not applied severe legislation against the few hundred torturers, terrorists, and other criminals long employed by the Batista regime, the people themselves would have taken justice into their own hands–as happened during the anti-Machado rebellion–and thrown the society into chaos. It was only the population’s confidence in the government’s effective and cautiously selective administration of revolutionary justice that kept the society in order. The death penalty was imposed on the enemies of the people–those who had killed, tortured, and committed crimes against humanity during the revolutionary war and continued to conspire against the revolution. These were the traitorous elements that supported and participated in the Batista regime and received shelter in the United States or Falangist Spain and those that feared fulfillment of the promise to the end of class privilege, exploitation, and all abuses of the Batista regime maintained by the overthrown Cuban bourgeoisie, American corporations, and the U.S. regime."

Thirty Years of Cuban Revolutionary Penal Law, by Raul Gomez Treto, Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 18, No. 2, Cuban Views on the Revolution (Spring, 1991), pp. 114-125

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SOME GREAT CHE GUEVARA QUOTES:


"If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine."

"Many will call me an adventurer, and that I am… only one of a different sort: one who risks his skin to prove his truths."

"The ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration: to see human beings liberated from their alienation."

"While a person dies every day during the eight or more hours in which he or she functions as a commodity, individuals come to life afterward in their spiritual creations. But this remedy bears the germs of the same sickness: that of a solitary being seeking harmony with the world."

"Ever since monopoly capital took over the world, it has kept the greater part of humanity in poverty, dividing all the profits among the group of the most powerful countries. The standard of living in those countries is based on the extreme poverty of our countries. To raise the living standards of the underdeveloped nations, therefore, we must fight against imperialism. And each time a country is torn away from the imperialist tree."


HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!

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Yeah, Nelson Mandela, whose pacifist compatriots (including his WIFE) invented NECKLACING -- put an old tire over your victim's head, fill it with gasoline, and light it on fire.

That's the height of humanitarian pacifism, all right.

Che would have approved, no argument.

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"The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth." ― Che Guevara

SOURCE: 'On Revolutionary Medicine' (1960)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1960/08/19.htm

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[NELSON MANDELA, at a rally honoring the CUBAN REVOLUTION & CHE in 1991] ―

"From its earliest days the Cuban revolution has itself been a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people. We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of a vicious imperialist-orchestrated campaign to destroy the impressive gains made in the Cuban revolution... We admire the achievements of the Cuban revolution in the sphere of social welfare. We note the transformation from a country of imposed backwardness to universal literacy. We acknowledge your advances in the fields of health, education, and science... We also honour the great Che Guevara, whose revolutionary exploits, including on our own continent, were too powerful for any prison censors to hide from us. The life of Che is an inspiration to all human beings who cherish freedom. We will always honour his memory... Long live the Cuban revolution! Long live Comrade Fidel Castro!"


Text of Full Speech
http://db.nelsonmandela.org/speeches/pub_view.asp?pg=item&ItemID=N MS1526

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[Debunking the "CHE GUEVARA WAS RACIST!" Lie]
• Issue #1 in a series of articles correcting misinformation on El Che

"The life of Che is an inspiration to all human beings who cherish freedom. We will always honour his memory."
— Nelson Mandela, while visiting Cuba in 1991 {1}


One of the favorite libelous smears by right-wing hacks is that Argentine Marxist revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara (1928-1967) was RACIST against blacks. Being shameless, they usually attack where they think left-wing icons or heroes are strongest. However, when you understand the full depth to which the forces of reaction LIE, then you realize why they can't be trusted for information generally and especially on leftist figures! Hopefully, this article will operate as a mini case study displaying that reality.

Their "evidence" for this often-parroted internet falsehood is Che's youthful diary passage where he visits a Venezuelan slum and offensively opines that the blacks he encounters there are "indolent and lazy", waste their money on booze, and don't save money like Europeans. He also compares the "racial purity" of the blacks in Caracas to the Portuguese. However, these lines are always deceptively and disingenuously culled from the larger historical context of his later life ... so what is the truth?

That quote was written by Guevara in 1952 when he was 24 and encountered blacks for basically the first time in his life, during his Motorcycle trip around South America (as told in his memoir 'The Motorcycle Diaries'). ** The full context of this statement is addressed by biographer Jon Lee Anderson on page 92 of 'Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life', and Anderson notes they were "stereotypical of white Argentine arrogance and condescension." ** However, months later at the end of his continental trip, Guevara announced himself a transformed man and even denounced the racism he encountered while living in Miami, USA for a month, while awaiting his return to Argentina. Essentially, the quote was before he was "Che", in both literal nickname and political beliefs.


From then on and throughout his life, Che showed he was ANTI-RACIST through his ACTIONS:

- The following year in 1953, while travelling through Bolivia with his friend Carlos "Calica" Ferrer, Guevara became indignant when he observed that all the dark-skinned indigenous Indians had to be sprayed with DDT (ostensibly to kill lice) before being allowed to enter the Ministry of Peasant Affairs.

- Che's very first student in 1957 as a guerrilla fighter was a 45-year-old illiterate black guajiro named Julio Zenon Acosta, whom he was teaching the alphabet. After Acosta was killed in an ambush by Batista's forces, Che exalted him as "my first pupil" and the kind of "noble peasant" that made up the heart of the Cuban Revolution.

- During the Cuban guerrilla campaign, Che's girlfriend (for all intents and purposes) for the first half of 1958 was Zoila Rodríguez García, a black/mulatto woman. Moreover, his first wife Hilda Gadea whom he married in 1955 was a dark-skinned indigenous Peruvian.

- In 1959, Che pushed for racially integrating the schools and universities in Cuba, years before they were racially integrated in the southern United States. For context, the Alabama National Guard was needed to force Governor George Wallace aside at the University of Alabama in 1963 and forced school busing wasn't enacted in the U.S. until 1971.

- In 1959, Fidel & Che pushed through "Law 270", which declared all beaches and other public facilities open to all races. For the first time in Cuban history, clubs, businesses, and other establishments that refused equal access and service to blacks were shut down.

- In August 1961, (9 years after his "indolent" remark), Guevara attacked the U.S. for discrimination against blacks and the actions of the KKK, which matched his declarations in 1964 before the United Nations (12 years after his "indolent" remark), where Guevara denounced the U.S. policy towards their black population. It was around this same time, that the black anti-colonial philosopher Frantz Fanon proclaimed Che to be "the world symbol of the possibilities of one man."

- Che's friend and personal bodyguard from 1959 till his death in 1967 was Harry "Pombo" Villegas, who was Afro-Cuban (black). Pombo accompanied Che everywhere in Cuba, then to the Congo and to Bolivia, where he survived and escaped the final battle where Che was wounded and captured. He resides in Cuba and wrote his own diary about his time in Bolivia entitled 'Pombo: A Man of Che's Guerrilla, With Che Guevara in Bolivia 1966-68' and speaks positively of Guevara to this day.

- In 1964, when Che addressed the U.N., he spoke out in favor of black musician Paul Robeson, in support of slain Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba (who he heralded as one of his heroes), against white segregation in the Southern U.S. (which still unfortunately existed), and against the white South African apartheid regime (long before it became the Western 'cause de jour'). Nelson Mandela later remarked that while he was imprisoned Che's "revolutionary exploits, including on our own continent, were too powerful for any prison censors to hide from us." {1}

- Che was heralded by Malcolm X during this trip to NYC and in contact with his associates to whom he sent a letter. On behalf of his actions in Africa, Che would also later be praised by the Black Panther's Stokely Carmichael. The Black Panther's even adopted their black berets in honor of Guevara iconic headwear.

- In 1965, Che toured and met anti-colonial leaders from the African nations of Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Tanzania, Congo Brazzaville and Benin. This led to Che assisting and befriending Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella, Egyptian leader Abdel Nasser, Angolan independence leader Agostinho Neto of the MPLA, Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah, and Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere. Che also established Cuban collaboration through supplies and military support for Amilcar Cabral's PAIGC in Guinea Bissau, Alphonse Massamba-Débat in Congo Brazzaville, and Laurent-Désiré Kabila in Congo Leopoldville. Later Guevara offered assistance to fight alongside the (black) FRELIMO in Mozambique, for their independence from the white Portuguese.

- When Guevara ventured to the African Congo in 1965, he fought with a Cuban force of 130 Afro-Cubans (blacks) alongside all-black Congolese fighters — they then battled against a force comprised partly of white South African mercenaries and white Cuban exiles backed by the CIA. This resembled the fight in Cuba, where Che’s units were made up of many poor rural mulattos and blacks, against a Cuban army staffed at the top by whites with connections to the upper class. Of note, nearly all Cuban exiles who fled Che’s economic reforms to Miami throughout the early 1960′s were white, despite the island being 1/3 mulatto & black.

- Che's Congolese teenage Swahili interpreter for his African expedition named Freddy Ilanga lived until 2006 in Cuba, and his dying wish was to erect a lighthouse memorial to Guevara in Africa. In 2005 he told the BBC that Che "showed the same respect to black people as he did to whites." {2}


[CHE QUOTES REGARDING RACIAL JUSTICE]

On EDUCATION ...
"The university should color itself black and color itself mulatto—not just as regards students but also professors... Today the people stand at the door of the university, and it is the university that must be flexible. It must color itself black, mulatto, worker, peasant, or else be left without doors. And then the people will tear it apart and paint it with the colors they see fit."
— Che Guevara, to the University of Las Villas on December 28, 1959 {3}


On U.S. RACISM ...
"Democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy, with discrimination against Blacks and outrages by the Ku Klux Klan."
— Che Guevara, to the OAS on August 8, 1961 {4}


On U.S. HYPOCRISY ...
"Those who kill their own children and discriminate daily against them because of the color of their skin; those who let the murderers of blacks remain free, protecting them, and furthermore punishing the black population because they demand their legitimate rights as free men -- how can those who do this consider themselves guardians of freedom?"
— Che Guevara, to the U.N. on December 11, 1964 {5}


On SOUTH AFRICAN APARTHEID ...
"We speak out to put the world on guard against what is happening in South Africa. The brutal policy of apartheid is applied before the eyes of the nations of the world. The peoples of Africa are compelled to endure the fact that on the African continent the superiority of one race over another remains official policy, and that in the name of this racial superiority murder is committed with impunity. Can the United Nations do nothing to stop this?"
— Che Guevara to the U.N. on December 11, 1964 {5}


On PATRICE LUMUMBA ...
"We must move forward, striking out tirelessly against imperialism. From all over the world we have to learn lessons which events afford. Lumumba's murder should be a lesson for all of us."
— Che Guevara, in 1964
* U.S. imperialism would similarly help murder Che 3 years later.



[RELEVANT IMAGES]

Che with his bodyguard Pombo, after Guevara’s wedding in 1959
http://www.nydailynews.com/img/2007/10/01/gal_cheguevara_4.jpg

Che beside Pombo in Bolivia in 1966
http://www.wumingfoundation.com/giap/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/pombo2 .jpg

Pombo in 2008
http://argentina.indymedia.org/uploads/2008/05/pombo.jpg

Che meeting with Kwame Nkrumah and Kojo Botsio in Ghana in 1965
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv6pxacLB31qgfbgio1_500.jpg

Che visiting Agostinho Neto of the MPLA in Angola in 1965
http://www.mpla.ao/imagem/Che%20visita%20escritorio%20do%20MPLA146.jpe g

Che in disguise on his way to Tanzania in 1965
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2156/3358/1600/123.jpg

Che aiding Congolese national liberation fighters in 1965
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/90/254180447_c767decf1f.jpg

Che in the African Congo, where he led an all-black force of Cuban and Congolese soldiers against white South African mercenaries of apartheid, 1965
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/CheInCongo1965.jpg

Che in Mozambique offering to assist the FRELIMO against the Portuguese
http://31.media.tumblr.com/d3a5c0b8a8606c47148176da51ebe18b/tumblr_mg0 m47VAjO1r84pkto1_500.jpg

Che's Congolese Swahili translator Freddy Ilanga, he went on to be a paediatric neurosurgeon in Cuba
http://cdn.24.co.za/files/Cms/General/d/190/a51e1a06098e436e82abbf26b9 ceed95.jpg

Che in Bolivia with indigenous Indian children in 1967, shortly before his capture & execution
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/CheinBolivia1.jpg

Children "Pioneers" of the Revolution in Burkina Faso donned starred berets honoring Guevara in 1987
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Pionniers_de_la_r%C 3%A9volution.jpg


[TO CONCLUDE]

Only to someone completely uninformed, could Che --(a man who fought shoulder to shoulder with African national liberationists against white supremacist South African mercenaries of Apartheid, and later died while attempting to galvanize dark-skinned Bolivian Indians to revolution against a U.S.-backed dictatorship)-- be seen as "racist" for a single diary paragraph he wrote in his youth 15 years earlier.

"Che Guevara taught us we could dare to have confidence in ourselves, confidence in our abilities. He instilled in us the conviction that struggle is our only recourse. He, was a citizen of the free world that together we are in the process of building. That is why we say that Che Guevara is also African and Burkinabe."
— Thomas Sankara, commonly referred to as 'Africa's Che Guevara'

"The death of Che Guevara places a responsibility on all revolutionaries of the World to redouble their decision to fight on to the final defeat of Imperialism. That is why in essence Che Guevara is not dead, his ideas are with us."
— Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Ture), 'Black Power' leader, 1967


P.S. If you want a dose of rich irony, nearly all of the people who criticize Che for his supposed imaginary racism, also then support his arch-nemesis the CIA, i.e. the same group who made the racist remark in their February 13, 1958 declassified 'biographical and personality report' that Guevara was "quite well read", while adding in apparent amazement that "Che is fairly intellectual for a Latino."


LINKS to primary web sources for selected quotes (others are books)

{1} http://db.nelsonmandela.org/speeches/pub_view.asp?pg=item&ItemID=N MS1526
{2} http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4522526.stm
{3} http://www.themilitant.com/2000/6401/640158.html
{4} http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1961/08/08.htm
{5} http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1964/12/11.htm

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Che was Everyman. Che is every one of us who has ever felt like fighting against injustice. Che is every one of us who has hated those who prey on the weak. Che is everyone of us who has ever believed in “by any means necessary.” Che is me. Che is you. Che only put into determined action the courage and anger we feel inside. He was a normal man who did heroic things. Che, in a sense, “died for the sins” of normal people trapped by a system that views them as disposable.

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Here is what Richard N. Goodwin, US Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, said after meeting with Che, in a US State Department memo (22 August 1961) to US President John F. Kennedy:

"Che was wearing green fatigues, and his usual overgrown and scraggly beard. Behind the beard his features are quite soft, almost feminine, and his manner is intense. He has a good sense of humor, and there was considerable joking back and forth during the meeting … Although he left no doubt of his personal and intense devotion to communism, his conversation was free of propaganda and bombast. He spoke calmly, in a straightforward manner, and with the appearance of detachment and objectivity … I had the definite impression that he had thought out his remarks very carefully — they were extremely well organized."


* Don't believe the right-wing propaganda. Even his enemies admired him.

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The insanity of Cuban-exile anti-Che Gusanos in Miami  

Four decades ago, the movie "Che," starring Omar Sharif, was shown in a Miami Beach theater. Large crowds of Cuban exiles protested in front of barricades around the theater. One protester, Zacarias Acosta, the 76-year-old former mayor of Regla, was arrested while entering the theater with a concealed revolver. Acosta stated to police that as a protest, he was going to shoot at the image of Che on the screen during the movie. This publicized act of desperation by a septugenerian plummeted ticket sales. Acosta was sentenced to probation and psychological counseling for the concealed weapons charge.

    

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- Worked in a Leper colony and treated lepers like Jesus did

- Impossible, communists hate Jesus, and apparently believe too that their "gods" can cure lepracy too.

- Is prayed to as "Saint Ernesto" by the poor in Bolivia

- They are forced to, they wouldn't pray the real Guevara.

- Was instrumental in teaching over 900,000 Cubans to read

- The whole generation? had probably learned to read even without Che. Only in church schools.

- Helped construct dozens of schools throughout Cuba

- And how many catholic schools he destroyed.

- Removed the Mafia and dictatorship of Batista from Cuba which had killed 20,000 Cubans and tortured thousands more

- Helped to establish Castro's commie dictatorship, and participated in killing of 14,000 Cubans.

- Desegregated the schools in Cuba before they were in the Southern US

- Yes, he desegregated the schools of their teachers and established a Marx-worhipping pseudo schools.

- Called out South Africa’s Apartheid in 1964, 30 years before the West!

- This however had nothing to do with his otherwise racist sympathies.


- Denounced the racism and KKK in America

- But maintained his own hate against blacks.

- Warned of the dangers of the IMF, 3 decades before most of the developing world realized they had been scammed into debt slavery

-another example why some people regard him as a godlike prophet.


- 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!


- He never really knew what he wanted. He totally sucked as a military commander too.

... In fact, near the end it took 1,800 rangers to bring down his 25 men.


- of the 1,800 no where near all of them engaged. Che's headquarters was known for his Elvis-like act. And when the action started Che was gunned down like a sheep right in the beginning. You couldn't call that even a battle.


1411 > 192 ~mrsV

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Great post.

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[deleted]

Che was fighting against:

- American Oligarchy (United Fruit, Texaco, U.S. Sugar)
- The US based Mafia (1959 Havana)
- The Monroe Doctrine rationale for Latin American Imperialism (Bay of Pigs)
- The idea of Banana Republics (Arbenz 1953 coup)

It just kills reactionary Conservatives that such a heroic man will not go away. That is because these troglodytes cant fathom that he lives in the hearts of the hungry and the oppressed and that ideas never die. Hence Che Lives on in hearts across Latin America

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How the idiotic Amerikkkan Reich-Wing Mind Works:

- Nuking 250,000 Japanese women and children = Good
- Che overseeing the execution of around 200 torturers for a brutal Dictatorship = Bad

- Slave Owners on US currency = Good
- A t-shirt with Cuba’s National Hero's face on it = Bad


------------->

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CUBA UNDER the U.S.-BACKED DICTATOR BATISTA:

- Americans owned 70 % of the arable land

- 1% of the population controlled 46 % of the wealth

- Batista's goons and secret police killed 20,000 Cubans (tortured even more)

- 40 % of the population were illiterate

- 50 % of the population lived in Bohio shacks

- Dissidents were hung and left to dangle in the streets as a warning sign

- The Mafia (Meyer Lansky & Co) ran Havana and used Cuba as a whorehouse for rich gringos from the U.S.


.... These are the conditions that allowed Fidel and Che to rise to power



"Brothels flourished. A major industry grew up around them; government officials received bribes, policemen collected protection money. Prostitutes could be seen standing in doorways, strolling the streets, or leaning from windows. One report estimated that 11,500 of them worked their trade in Havana. Beyond the outskirts of the capital, beyond the slot machines, was one of the poorest, and most beautiful countries in the Western world."

— David Detzer, American journalist, after visiting Havana in the 1950s

"Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years ... and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state - destroying every individual liberty. Yet our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror. Administration spokesmen publicly praised Batista - hailed him as a staunch ally and a good friend - at a time when Batista was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people, and we failed to press for free elections."

— U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy, October 6, 1960

"I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear."

— U.S. President John F. Kennedy, interview with Jean Daniel, October 24, 1963

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johnny johnny johnny...merely listing the facts, quotes of a man as though you are doing the inventory on vegetables and meats in a kitchen means absolutely nothing...

the very point of the love/hate people have for che is exactly how this thread was laid out...for every point of che doing something 'good' there is a counterpoint of something he did that was 'bad', read terrible!

was he a poet-warrior? a successful revolutionary? did he help some people? where his intentions noble? perhaps

but that does not in any way mean he wasn't a murderer...to simply list off what che himself would consider his good points without mentioning the eggs he broke to make the omelette is absurd to the point of trying to change history...

history has remembered che exactly as it should...a true revolutionary in the purest sense of the word...unfortunately, people only remember about 50% of what a revolutionary is..

great movie though



it is better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it

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10 FACTS THAT CHE-HATERS HATE

(1) Che was named one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century by Time Magazine, and listed as a "Saint and Icon".

(2) Che's famous image entitled: "Guerrillero Heroico" has been declared the most famous and reproduced image in the world.

(3) Che Guevara is prayed to as "Saint Ernesto" in Bolivia and seen as an equal figure to Christ and the Virgin Mary by rural campesinos.

(4) In September of 2007, Che was voted "Argentina's greatest historical and political figure", and that Summer they erected a giant statue of him in Rosario.

(5) In Argentina schools are named after Che.

(6) In Cuba, Che is on the 3 dollar Peso, and school children begin every morning reciting "we will be like Che".

(7) Che oversaw the revolutionary tribunals of convicted War criminals from the U.$. Supported Batista dictatorship. These rapists, torturers, and goons ran Batista's dungeons and killed 20,000 people. Che simply reviewed the appeals of those sentenced to death. A decision supported by 93 % of Cubans at the time.

(8) Cuba under Batista was a Mafia ran casino and hooker haven for American tourists, where mostly US companies owned 75 % of the arable land. This is the context that Fidel and Che rose to power in.

(9) Che's radicalism was spawned from living in Guatemala during the 1953 overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz by the CIA at the behest of the United Fruit Co.

(10) Later, U.S. Imperialism would follow this practice up by overthrowing Mossadeq, Allende etc and propping up Brutal dictators like the Shah, Suharto, Marcos, Pinochet, and Saddam Hussien (Just like they did with Batista).

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TIME 100: CHE GUEVARA
By Ariel Dorfman
June 14, 1999
TIME Magazine


Though communism may have lost its fire, he remains the potent symbol of rebellion and the alluring zeal of revolution.

By the time Ernesto Guevara, known to us as Che, was murdered in the jungles of Bolivia in October 1967, he was already a legend to my generation, not only in Latin America but also around the world.

Like so many epics, the story of the obscure Argentine doctor who abandoned his profession and his native land to pursue the emancipation of the poor of the earth began with a voyage. In 1956, along with Fidel Castro and a handful of others, he had crossed the Caribbean in the rickety yacht Granma on the mad mission of invading Cuba and overthrowing the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Landing in a hostile swamp, losing most of their contingent, the survivors fought their way to the Sierra Maestra. A bit over two years later, after a guerrilla campaign in which Guevara displayed such outrageous bravery and skill that he was named comandante, the insurgents entered Havana and launched what was to become the first and only victorious socialist revolution in the Americas. The images were thereafter invariably gigantic. Che the titan standing up to the Yanquis, the world's dominant power. Che the moral guru proclaiming that a New Man, no ego and all ferocious love for the other, had to be forcibly created out of the ruins of the old one. Che the romantic mysteriously leaving the revolution to continue, sick though he might be with asthma, the struggle against oppression and tyranny.

His execution in Vallegrande at the age of 39 only enhanced Guevara's mythical stature. That Christ-like figure laid out on a bed of death with his uncanny eyes almost about to open; those fearless last words ("Shoot, coward, you're only going to kill a man") that somebody invented or reported; the anonymous burial and the hacked-off hands, as if his killers feared him more after he was dead than when he had been alive: all of it is scalded into the mind and memory of those defiant times. He would resurrect, young people shouted in the late '60s; I can remember fervently proclaiming it in the streets of Santiago, Chile, while similar vows exploded across Latin America. !No lo vamos a olvidar! We won't let him be forgotten.

More than 30 years have passed, and the dead hero has indeed persisted in collective memory, but not exactly in the way the majority of us would have anticipated. Che has become ubiquitous: his figure stares out at us from coffee mugs and posters, jingles at the end of key rings and jewelry, pops up in rock songs and operas and art shows. This apotheosis of his image has been accompanied by a parallel disappearance of the real man, swallowed by the myth. Most of those who idolize the incendiary guerrilla with the star on his beret were born long after his demise and have only the sketchiest knowledge of his goals or his life. Gone is the generous Che who tended wounded enemy soldiers, gone is the vulnerable warrior who wanted to curtail his love of life lest it make him less effective in combat and gone also is the darker, more turbulent Che who signed orders to execute prisoners in Cuban jails without a fair trial.

This erasure of complexity is the normal fate of any icon. More paradoxical is that the humanity that worships Che has by and large turned away from just about everything he believed in. The future he predicted has not been kind to his ideals or his ideas. Back in the '60s, we presumed that his self-immolation would be commemorated by social action, the downtrodden rising against the system and creating — to use Che's own words — two, three, many Vietnams. Thousands of luminous young men, particularly in Latin America, followed his example into the hills and were slaughtered there or tortured to death in sad city cellars, never knowing that their dreams of total liberation, like those of Che, would not come true. If Vietnam is being imitated today, it is primarily as a model for how a society forged in insurrection now seeks to be actively integrated into the global market. Nor has Guevara's uncompromising, unrealistic style of struggle, or his ethical absolutism, prevailed. The major revolutions of the past quarter-century (South Africa, Iran, the Philippines, Nicaragua), not to mention the peaceful transitions to democracy in Latin America, East Asia and the communist world, have all entailed negotiations with former adversaries, a give and take that could not be farther from Che's unyielding demand for confrontation to the death. Even someone like Subcomandante Marcos, the spokesman for the Chiapas Maya revolt, whose charisma and moral stance remind us of Che's, does not espouse his hero's economic or military theories.

How to understand, then, Che Guevara's pervasive popularity, especially among the affluent young?

Perhaps in these orphaned times of incessantly shifting identities and alliances, the fantasy of an adventurer who changed countries and crossed borders and broke down limits without once betraying his basic loyalties provides the restless youth of our era with an optimal combination, grounding them in a fierce center of moral gravity while simultaneously appealing to their contemporary nomadic impulse. To those who will never follow in his footsteps, submerged as they are in a world of cynicism, self-interest and frantic consumption, nothing could be more vicariously gratifying than Che's disdain for material comfort and everyday desires. One might suggest that it is Che's distance, the apparent impossibility of duplicating his life anymore, that makes him so attractive. And is not Che, with his hippie hair and wispy revolutionary beard, the perfect postmodern conduit to the nonconformist, seditious '60s, that disruptive past confined to gesture and fashion? Is it conceivable that one of the only two Latin Americans to make it onto TIME's 100 most important figures of the century can be comfortably transmogrified into a symbol of rebellion precisely because he is no longer dangerous?

I wouldn't be too sure. I suspect that the young of the world grasp that the man whose poster beckons from their walls cannot be that irrelevant, this secular saint ready to die because he could not tolerate a world where los pobres de la tierra, the displaced and dislocated of history, would be eternally relegated to its vast margins.

Even though I have come to be wary of dead heroes and the overwhelming burden their martyrdom imposes on the living, I will allow myself a prophecy. Or maybe it is a warning. More than 3 billion human beings on this planet right now live on less than $2 a day. And every day that breaks, 40,000 children — more than one every second! — succumb to diseases linked to chronic hunger. They are there, always there, the terrifying conditions of injustice and inequality that led Che many decades ago to start his journey toward that bullet and that photo awaiting him in Bolivia.

The powerful of the earth should take heed: deep inside that T shirt where we have tried to trap him, the eyes of Che Guevara are still burning with impatience.

http://205.188.238.181/time/time100/heroes/profile/guevara01.html

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The Final Triumph of Saint Che
Andres Schipani in La Higuera, Bolivia
The Observer
September 23 2007


By 8pm in the main square of the dusty town of Vallegrande, the only sound is the buzz of prayer coming from the church. Inside, devoted Catholics sit and stand around the image of Our Lord of Malta - the only black Christ in Latin America, brought to this Bolivian town during the Spanish conquest.

But this is not the only foreign element of devotion. Father Agustin, the Polish priest, reads out prayers written down by local people: 'For my mother who is sick, I pray to the Lord and ...', hesitantly, 'to Saint Ernesto, to the soul of Che Guevara.' 'Saint Ernesto,' the parishioners murmur in response.

It was here in Vallegrande, 40 years ago, that the corpse of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara lay on display, eyes open, in the hospital laundry. And it is here that his unofficial sainthood is becoming firmly established. 'For them, he is just like any other saint,' Father Agustin says ruefully. 'He is just like any other soul they are praying to. One can do nothing.'

On a bench in the square, Freddy Vallejos, 27, says: 'We have a faith, a confidence in Che. When I go to bed and when I wake up, I first pray to God and then I pray to Che - and then, everything is all right.' Freddy wears a cap bearing Alberto Korda's iconic image of Guevara. 'Che's presence here is a positive force. I feel it in my skin, I have faith that always, at all times, he has an eye on us.'

Guevara, born in Argentina to an impoverished aristocratic family, was caught on 8 October, 1967, by US-trained Bolivian rangers as he was trying to open up a new front in his revolution. Guevara was executed the following day in a little adobe school in La Higuera, and his body brought the 70 miles to Vallegrande.

Forensic experts found his skeleton 10 years ago and it now rests in a mausoleum in Cuba, where he achieved his most impressive victory in 1959. Standing at the site of his first grave, the president of the Che Guevara Foundation, Osvaldo 'Chato' Peredo, said: 'Why do we say Che is alive? Because of his grandeur, his transcendence. For us, Che is here, very much alive, in everything we say.'

Eight-year-old Juan Ernesto (named after Che), who lives amid Vallegrande's eucalyptus trees, says: 'I feel good that he is right there, close to me.'

In his 1967 dispatch to the Guardian, journalist Richard Gott, in Vallegrande on the day of Guevara's death, wrote: 'It was difficult to recall that this man had once been one of the great figures of Latin America. It was not just that he was a great guerrilla leader; he had been a friend of Presidents as well as revolutionaries. His voice had been heard and appreciated in inter-American councils as well as in the jungle. He was a doctor, an amateur economist, once Minister of Industries in revolutionary Cuba, and Castro's right-hand man. He may well go down in history as the greatest continental figure since Bolivar. Legends will be created around his name.'

Gott was right. Susana Osinaga, a nurse who cleaned Guevara's body back then, recalls: 'He was just like a Christ, with his strong eyes, his beard, his long hair.' Today the laundry where Guevara's corpse was laid is a place of pilgrimage. On the wall above Osinaga, an engraving reads: 'None dies as long as he is remembered.' Osinaga has an altar to Guevara in her home. 'He is very miraculous.'

Gott's companion that day, Christopher Roper, compared Che to a medieval painting of John the Baptist, 'who then became the iconic figure in death for millions who had paid little or no attention to him while he was alive'. Osinaga admits she had no idea who Che was until his death.

In this region, images of Che hang next to images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Pope John Paul II and Bolivia's President Evo Morales. Stories of miracles have mushroomed. The winding road that connects Vallegrande to La Higuera leads to a cluster of humble houses, walls plastered with Che's images and graffiti. In the middle of the village is a cobbled star-shaped square with a small bust of Che; next to it is a large altar with a cross and a big grey sculpture of Guevara. Melanio Moscoso, 37, sits against a wall next to a Guevara poster. 'We pray to him, we are so proud he had died here, in La Higuera, fighting for us. We feel him so close,' he says. His neighbour, Primitiva Rojas, professes devotion: 'I have lots of faith in him. Because he stopped existing does not mean he is not here with us.' A few days ago, when feeling sick, she prayed to him and soon felt better. 'That same night I dreamt of a man with a black beard and tender eyes, who was telling me: "I was the one who cured you".'

According to his executioner, Mario Teran, Guevara's last words were: 'Calm down and point well; you are about to kill a man.' What came after the shots, according to inhabitants of La Higuera like Manuel Cortes, was that 'Saint Ernesto was born in La Higuera'.

In Pucara, Remi Calzadilla wears a beige cap that says 'Che'. He prays to him every day. 'And he helped me; a few years ago I couldn't walk at all', he says, describing how every time he 'speaks' to Che he feels 'a strong force inside of him'.

'I am devoted to him as if he were a saint,' Remi's grandfather, Conrado Calzadilla, 83, adds, jutting a proud chin in the direction of one of the images of Che plastered on the wall of his home. 'Still, 40 years after his death?', I asked. 'Always', he replies. 'Always.'

With local sainthood and worldwide immortality, history has not proved true the claim that Guevara made on the day he was captured. 'Halt, do not shoot, I am Che Guevara and I am worth more alive than dead,' he said, as he lay wounded on a rock. In that same stone today, a shiny white inscription reads: 'Che is alive.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/23/theobserver.worldnews

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that's it huh? i'm giving you gold and you come back with copy and pasted long winded posts...

fin



it is better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it

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Jonlenin- Your use of the word troglodyte does not make up for your blatant inability to use your own brain to bring anything to this discussion. rivero frames his arguments expertly and blows holes in any of your arguments that you copy and paste from other websites. He is a sniper and you look like a little kid with a potato gun.

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"Guevara was like a father to me ... he educated me. He taught me to think. He taught me the most beautiful thing which is to be human."

— Urbano (aka Leonardo Tamayo), fought with Che in Cuba and Bolivia

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7034953.stm

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"Because the photo of Che Guevara was, before the eyes of millions of people, the image of the supreme dignity of the human being. Because Che Guevara is only the other name of what is more just and dignified in the human spirit. He represents what sometimes is asleep in us. It represents what we have to wake up to know and to learn to know even ourselves, to add the humble step of each one of us to the common road of all of us."

— José Saramago, Nobel-laureate novelist

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2007/10/che-guevara-image-revolut ion

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"Some argue that history has transformed Che's revolutionary image into just another fashion accessory. It is tempting for those of us on the left to feel uncomfortable with his popular appeal; rather like music fans who, when their favorite underground band hits the big time, moan that they've 'gone commercial' ... I don't see it that way. If only 10 percent of the people who wear the image know what he stood for, that is still many millions. Overwhelmingly, they are also young people, with their hearts set on making the world a better place. Indeed, in my experience, many more than 10 percent have a very good idea of what he stood for ... If Che's image seems to be everywhere, that is because what he fought and died for is more fashionable than ever."

— George Galloway, British politician

http://www.newstatesman.com/200606120036

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"The resemblance to aspects of Christ's life on earth can be easily traced in the life of Che. Both were doctors – Christ as miracle healer, Che as the trained physician, and were active as such, even or especially so when they were fighting, doctoring when others were resting or escaping. Both men were particularly concerned with leprosy, the disease of the downtrodden and outcast, as The Motorcycle Diaries (books and film) have reminded us in the case of Che. Like Che, Jesus was an egalitarian, a communist in terms of owning little and sharing all, and his disciples were bidden to hold all in common. Both were strict disciplinarians, who insisted on individuals leaving families, friends and privileges behind to join them, sacrificing comforts and, if need be, their own lives."

— David Kunzle, author of Che Guevara: Icon, Myth, and Message

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"Che Guevara was an amazing character. He's a person that changed the world and really forces me to change the rules of what I am."

— Gael García Bernal, portrayed Che in The Motorcycle Diaries

http://www.observer.com/node/47682

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"What explains the Che mania? Guevara's allure seems to stem, rather, from a nostalgic longing for the pure, uncompromising ideals of the past. In a world of ferocious competition and consumerism, some element of humanity is still looking for a hero with values. In Che, they have a paradigm: a man who was absolutely honest, completely selfless, constantly perfecting his personality."

— Orlando Borrego, close friend of Che's in Cuba

http://www.newsweek.com/1997/07/20/che-chic.html

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"I don’t disdain the impact of Che as a romantic image, especially among newly radicalized youth in the United States and Western Europe; if the glamour of Che’s person, the heroism of his life, and the pathos of his death, are useful to young people in strengthening their disaffiliation from the life-style of American imperialism and in advancing the development of a revolutionary consciousness, so much the better."

— Susan Sontag, famous author

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"If we wish to express what we want the men of future generations to be, we must say: Let them be like Che! If we wish to say how we want our children to be educated, we must say without hesitation: We want them to be educated in Che’s spirit! If we want the model of a man, who does not belong to our times but to the future, I say from the depths of my heart that such a model, without a single stain on his conduct, without a single stain on his action, is Che!"

— Fidel Castro, during Che's eulogy

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Che Guevara reciting a poem ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=QQI0BhEq4U8&vq=small

No one has managed to wield a hoe to the rhythm of the sun
And no one has yet reaped grain with love and grace

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Actual photos from Che's youthful Motorcycle Diary journey ...


Che contemplating life

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/CheOnBalcony.jpg


Che with Motorcycle
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/CheWithMotorcycle.j pg


Che with Granado aboard the raft given to them by the lepers
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/CheOnRaft1952.jpg

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Che Guevara's Private Life Revealed in New Documentary
By Oscar Laski
Associated Press
Oct 11, 2010


BUENOS AIRES — A new documentary is casting fresh light on Argentine-born guerrilla Che Guevara, with an intimate look at the revolutionary's life through newly-discovered images and writings.

"It was very moving to hear Che Guevara's voice reciting poems by Cesar Vallejo in a farewell message to my mother before he left for the Congo," Che's son Camilo told AFP shortly before the documentary was screened here.

"I was three years old. I don't remember anything from that farewell," added Camilo, now 48, and whose eyes and beard resemble his father, even though he also wears his hair in a pony tail.

He had arrived from Havana for the screening of "Che, un hombre nuevo" (Che, A New Man) in which his father's voice can be heard reciting sad verses from Peruvian writer Cesar Vallejo and Chile's Pablo Neruda in 1965.

It was two years before Che Guevara's death.

Camilo, the third of Che's five children, was accompanying the Argentine film director Tristan Bauer for the screening here, just after it opened in 333 theaters across Cuba.

Che Guevara is recognised as a national hero in Havana for his role in a key 1958 battle in Santa Clara during the Cuban revolution.

"There were lots of things that we hadn't even suspected," said Bauer. "That some documents could be kept secretly in Bolivia, that a film on his private life could have been kept by his wife or that in 1965, in the middle of the Cold War, he could have written that the Soviet Union would head toward capitalism if it kept on its current path."

A major patron of Argentina's public television, Bauer spent 12 years investigating Che's life in Latin America, where he obtained documents declassified by Bolivian President Evo Morales in 2008. They had been kept under seal as "state secrets" in the Central Bank's coffers for 23 years.

Notebooks, a journal and notes filled the Che folder.

In a planner and a red spiral notebook, Che commented on his companions in arms and the guerrillas he led in southeastern Bolivia before the army caught him in a dramatic 1967 capture. He was summarily executed a day later, on October 9 when he was just 39.

In another surprising find, Bauer's researchers came upon a handwritten copy of the last letter Che wrote to Cuba's Communist leader Fidel Castro as he left Cuba. The letter, which Castro read in public in 1965, concluded with "Hasta la victoria, siempre" (Until victory, forever).

Yet the original letter revealed that the now famous phrase was in fact incomplete, with the original saying instead: "Until victory, forever/always the homeland or death," Bauer explained.

The film also includes footage shot during Che's childhood in Alta Gracia, a mountainous region of north-central Argentina where his family moved seeking fresh mountain air for "Ernestito," who suffered from asthma.

In other images shot in 1961, Che is seen meeting with his parents for the last time in Uruguay's beachside resort town of Punta del Este.

"This film comes at a critical time in Latin American history," said Bauer, noting Che's lasting impact on the region.

His portrait still hangs in the Bolivian and Argentinan presidential palaces, while Ecuador's President Rafael Correa often repeats the truncated phrase "Hasta la victoria, siempre."

"If we, who are so familiar with these documents, can be so impressed, imagine what effect it will have on people seeing this for the first time," said Camilo.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g0Xc9PBujFXK0Bf83ej vi0ZPGBRQ?docId=CNG.ad2bc5f52f51dec8b773515b04c3270f.591

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loser.


it is better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it

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"I have yet to find a single credible source pointing to a case where Che executed 'an innocent'. Those persons executed by Guevara or on his orders were condemned for the usual crimes punishable by death at times of war or in its aftermath: desertion, treason or crimes such as rape, torture or murder. I should add that my research spanned five years, and included anti-Castr­o Cubans among the Cuban-Amer­ican exile community in Miami and elsewhere.­"

— Jon Lee Anderson, author of the 800 pg 'Che Guevara: A Revolution­ary Life', PBS forum

http://www­.pbs.org/n­ewshour/fo­rum/novemb­er97/che1.­html


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loser

it is better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it

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Wall Street Journal Video: Che still a folk hero in Argentina
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=6noTrPlERlg&vq=medium


Che Guevara embodies the ideals of justice, equality, freedom, truth, and bravery.

He is a martyr to the cause of world liberation from the shackles of capital slavery. The slave plantations were replaced by the corporation and Guevara gave his life to wake up the huddled masses of humanity.

CHE will live on for all eternity and will reside in the hearts of billions until this world breathes its last breath.

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Yeah, people are starving, too bad the capitalists refugees in America forced an embargo. You do know, of course, that's why they're starving, right?

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CHE = Hero, leader, icon, father, son, husband, rebel, soldier, writer, intellectual, doctor, politician, dentist, poet, statesman, military theorist, economist, guerrilla, teacher, diplomat, general, warrior, defender of the poor, inspirational legend, and current saint in Bolivia.


... Those right-wing turds who bash him because of ignorance, do it out of jealousy. They wish they could be 1/100th the complete human being that he was.

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LOSER.

it is better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it

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A good place for updated information on Che

http://heyche.blogspot.com/

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Che always appreciated the power of poetry - Pablo Neruda was his favorite but he also enjoyed John Keats, Antonio Machado, Federico García Lorca, Gabriela Mistral, César Vallejo, and Walt Whitman. In fact it is also said that could recite Rudyard Kipling's "If—" and José Hernández's "Martín Fierro" from memory.

Below is a video clip of him reciting a short two line poem ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=QQI0BhEq4U8

No one has managed to wield a hoe to the rhythm of the sun
And no one has yet reaped grain with love and grace

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On the 40th anniversary of Guevara's execution in Bolivia the compilation Che in Verse brought together a diverse collection of 135 poems and songs in tribute to Che Guevara.

Celebrated poets such as Pablo Neruda (Che's favorite), Allen Ginsberg, Julio Cortázar, Nicolas Guillén, Derek Walcott, Al Purdy, Rafael Alberti, Ko Un, and Yevgeny Yevtushenko devoted the aforementioned works to, as the book states in its introduction, "celebrate the world’s icon of rebellion".


It is a great book

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Che biographer Jorge Castañeda has proclaimed that: "Che can be found just where he belongs in the niches reserved for cultural icons, for symbols of social uprisings that filter down deep into the soil of society."

Castañeda has further stated that "Che still possesses an extraordinary relevance as a symbol of a time when people died heroically for what they believed in", adding that in his view "people don't do that anymore."

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- Bolivian president Evo Morales has paid many tributes to Guevara including visiting his initial burial site to declare "Che Lives", and installing a portrait of the Argentine made from local coca leaves in his presidential suite.


- Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez who has referred to Guevara as an "infinite revolutionary" and who has been known to address audiences in a Che Guevara T-shirt, accompanied Fidel Castro on a tour of Guevara’s boyhood home in Córdoba, Argentina, describing the experience as "a real honor." While awaiting crowds of thousands Chávez responded with calls of "We feel it! Guevara is right with us!"

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How the American RIGHT-WING mind works ...

Nuking 250,000 Japanese civilians = Good
Che overseeing the execution of former Dictator Batista’s torturers = Bad

Slave Owners & Genocidal Presidents (millions of Natives) on US $ = Good
T-shirt with Cuba's/Argentina's National Hero’s face on it = Bad

US Jets Shock and Aweing Iraq and killing thousands of people = Freedom
Che traveling to Bolivia to fight for the landless peasants = Terrorism

Guerrilla & Slave Owner George Washington shooting the enemy = Hero
Guerrilla & non-slave owner Che Guevara shooting the enemy = Assassin

The US invading Vietnam and causing 2 million civilian deaths = Freedom
Che killing a total of around 50 Bolivian soldiers in an attempt to topple an oligarchy = Terrorism

Reagan aiding in the death of 1 million Iraqi/Iranians by selling weapons to both sides = BEST PRESIDENT EVAH !
Che having a few hundred rapists and murderers of the former dictator shot after found guilty in tribunals = He's a Butcher !

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Carlos Puebla is amazing ...

"Hasta Siempre" is one of the best songs of all time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=fcnH8oK8FlY


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"THE TRUE STORY OF CHE GUEVARA"


A Recently released Full Documentary From The History Channel .... (1 hr 30 min)

Watch it for free below ...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5762714709014580290





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"The United States hastens the delivery of arms to the puppet governments they see as being increasingly threatened; it makes them sign pacts of dependence to legally facilitate the shipment of instruments of repression and death and of troops to use them."
--- Che Guevara, April 9 1961




----> A NEW DEFINITION FOR "CHUTZPAH"

When someone who supports the same country that nuked 2 cities and turned 250,000 people to dust ... the same country that fire bombed Dresden and burned 150,000 women and child alive, the same country that killed 15 million Natives because they felt it was their manifest destiny ... the same country that enslaved millions of blacks … the same country whose CIA has killed 6 million people since 1950 (John Stockwell) ... the same country that invaded Iraq which has caused 950,000 deaths ...

The same country that since 1949 has led CIA coups in - Greece, Iran, British Guyana, Guatemala, South Vietnam, Haiti, Laos, South Korea, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Brazil, Bolivia, Zaire, Ghana, Cuba, Cambodia, El Salvador, Chile, Australia, Liberia, Chad, Grenada, Fiji, Venezuela ... and installed puppet governments.

Not to mention propped up the many brutal tyrants like Pinochet, Suharto, Marcos, and Somoza ... backed contra movements through the School of the Americas ... and sold arms to Iran and Saddam's Iraq at the same time as they fought each other and killed over a million people ...

HAS THE CHUTZPAH to pretend to be upset that Cuba under CHE had tribunals (just like the Nuremburg one after WWII the US had) and then as a result had a few hundred of the brutal dictator Batista’s convicted henchmen, rapists, & torturers (most who were the secret police of the BRAC and who had killed 20,000 people) executed at La Cabana.

WOW ... there are no words for the audacity of such insanity !

American Reich-Wing Propaganda would make Goebbels blush.

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A Guardian Image Gallery of the Global Che ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/gallery/2007/oct/05/internationalnews1


"If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine." --- CHE GUEVARA

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"Sacrificio" (documentary trailer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=G2J7JV6KyMs



"This epic before us is going to be written by the hungry Indian masses, the peasants without land, the exploited workers. It is going to be written by the progressive masses, the honest and brilliant intellectuals, who so greatly abound in our suffering Latin American lands. Struggles of masses and ideas. An epic that will be carried forward by our peoples, mistreated and scorned by imperialism; our people, unreckoned with until today, who are now beginning to shake off their slumber. Imperialism considered us a weak and submissive flock; and now it begins to be terrified of that flock; a gigantic flock of 200 million Latin Americans in whom Yankee monopoly capitalism now sees its gravediggers.”

— Che Guevara, to the U.N. General Assembly, December 11 1964


"Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery."

— Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 1961

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Worst.
Thread.
Ever.

Way to cut-and-paste a thread into oblivion, Luddite and JLenin...

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what, you think there's something wrong with two guys sukkin each other off with their posts back to back to back to back ? :) hahahaha

yeah, it's pretty much garbage.


it is better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it

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There is an entire anti-Che industry of lying hucksters who make their living by creating lies about the heroic guerrilla and then parroting each others lies as if it gives them any credibility. Luckily, when actual historians research the man, they realize just how many noble qualities he does have and see through the Miami propaganda.

It is actually hard to think of another historical figure who was as well rounded, intelligent, poetic, brave, sincere, audacious, and revolutionary as Che Guevara. This is why he has so much resonance over 40 years after his CIA-aided execution.

There is a Che in all of us who dream of a better World and his ghost haunts the U.$. Empire wherever they go and attempt to rape the resources of other nations. Anyone who has ever seen 3rd world poverty up close understands Che's fury and determination. Anyone who has ever seen how the top 1% live in luxury while most barely have enough to eat will sympathize with Che's struggle.

... America needs a Che Guevara of our own.

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"Che's dedication to his revolutionary beliefs was deeply religious. Che had a missionary's faith in the innate goodness of man, in the ability of workers to dedicate themselves to ideals and to overcome selfishness and prejudices. It was the other side of the coin of his passionate indignation against injustice and exploitation of the humble. He saw the solution in an exalted form of Marxism that would bring freedom and brotherhood. Such men are born to be martyrs."

--- Herbert Matthews, author of Revolution in Cuba

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Che is justice ... Che is righteousness ... Che is liberty ... Che is equality ... Che is fearlessness ... Che is rebellion ... Che is truth.

Che is everything noble in the human spirit. An eternal flame that burns in the hearts of millions - that flame can never be extinguished. If a heaven didn't exist before Oct 9 1967, then one would have had to be created = solely for Che Guevara.

Hasta la Victoria Siempre !


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Companies have tried to bury Che’s meaning inside the images on T-shirts and profit from his heroism. But that's fine, because some of those people wearing Che shirts will lead to themselves or others picking up a book of his work and that will be 1 more person enlightened to his message.

Also, be forewarned that there are reich-wing ex-Cuban oligarch, ass clown hucksters (i.e. Humberto Fontova) - who make their living by spreading unfounded CIA spoon-fed LIES in an attempt to smear Che.


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"Che is not only an intellectual, he was the most complete human being of our time."
— Jean Paul Sartre



In addition to being a Marxist revolutionary, Che was also a talented writer (authored dozens of books, diaries & essays), theorist of guerrilla warfare, internationalist statesman, self-taught economist, medical physician, and poetic intellectual who wrote some of the most impassioned pleas for battling against imperialism that you will ever read.

So, what are some of the things that Che did?

Che Guevara:

- Traveled the length of South America and worked in a Leper colony where he treated lepers (as seen in the excellent film/memoir ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’).

- Was radicalized from living in Guatemala during the 1953 overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz by the CIA (Operation PBSUCCESS) on behalf of Secretary of State Dulles and the United Fruit Company. He tried to no avail to organize a resistance in the streets as U.S. planes bombed and strafed the capital city.

- Was named "the best guerrilla of them all" by their instructor General Bayo, despite having crippling asthma, during their training for invading Cuba.

- Tended to numerous sick campesinos in the Sierra Maestra as both a doctor and even at times as a dentist.

- Set up factories to make grenades, built ovens to bake bread, taught new recruits about tactics, organized schools to teach illiterate campesinos to read and write, established health clinics, workshops to teach military tactics, a newspaper to disseminate information, and set up the Radio Rebelde station – All as a guerrilla fighter in the Sierra Maestra.

- Won the Battle of Santa Clara where his men were outnumbered 10:1.

- Played a pivotal role in the victorious two year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime, rising from medic to second in command behind only Fidel Castro.

- Helped remove the Mafia and U.S.-backed dictatorship of Batista from Cuba which had killed 20,000 Cubans and tortured thousands more. He also saw to it that a few hundred of the worst war criminals received revolutionary justice by firing squad.

- Stopped American companies from owning 70 % of the arable land in Cuba and 1% of the Cuban population from controlling 46 % of the wealth.

- Helped spearhead a nationwide literacy campaign in Cuba, which brought the national literacy rate from 60 to 97 % in 1 year.

- Instituted agrarian reform as minister of industries and broke up the large estates, served as both national bank president and instructional director for Cuba’s armed forces, and traversed the globe to 40 + countries as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism.

- Trained the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion and brought the Soviet nuclear-armedballistic missiles to Cuba which won the agreement from Kennedy that the U.S. would never invade the island again.

- Composed a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, which is still studied by military academies and insurgents all around the world even today. He also created his own military theory of Focalism (Foco Theory), which describes how rural peasants can utilize guerrilla warfare and class consciousness to overthrow a urban based dictatorship.

- Desegregated the schools and universities in Cuba before they were in the Southern U.S.

- Called out South Africa’s Apartheid in 1964 to the U.N., 30 years before the West!

- Denounced the racism and KKK in America in the 1960’s and denounced Patrice Lumumba’s assassination by the Belgians/CIA on the World stage.

- Warned of the dangers of the IMF, 3 decades before most of the developing world realized they had been scammed into debt slavery.

- Fought white mercenaries in the African Congo with an all black army in 1964.

- Battled 3 U.S.-backed dictators on 3 separate continents (Batista/Cuba, Mobutu/Congo, & Barrientos/Bolivia).

- Spoke out against US and eventually USSR Imperialism while demanding that the poor of the world be allowed to live a life of dignity.

- Gave his life to help bring down capitalism, imperialism, and neocolonialism by leaving 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. In fact, near the end it took 1,800 Bolivian and CIA assisted rangers to bring down his 25 men.



"Above all, always be capable of feeling most deeply any injustice committed against anyone in the world. That is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary."
— Che’s last words to his children in a farewell letter

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Tuesday marked the 45th anniversary of Guevara’s assassination.

An intellectual and an idealist, able to speak coherently about Aristotle, Kant, Marx, Gide or Faulkner, Che also loved poetry, and was equally at home with Keats as with Sara De Ibáñez, his favorite writer. It is said that he knew Kipling's "If" by heart.

Guevara suffered from a life-long asthmatic condition that might have prevented any other man from participating in guerilla warfare as he did, but he was determined to not let his ailment interfere with his ideals for a just society. This condition may be why, as a doctor, he specialized in allergies.

His execution in Vallegrande at the age of 39 only enhanced Guevara's mythical stature. That Christ-like figure laid out on a bed of death with his uncanny eyes almost about to open; those fearless last words ("Shoot, coward, you're only going to kill a man") that somebody invented or reported; the anonymous burial and the hacked-off hands, as if his killers feared him more after he was dead than when he had been alive: all of it is scalded into the mind and memory of those defiant times.

No lo vamos a olvidar! We won't let him be forgotten.

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[deleted]

Che was, is, and will always be the a shinning example of a true Revolutionary HERO.

I have taught my children who he was, what he accomplished, stood for and what he represents ... and that his memory is to be defended PERIOD.

The right-wing has invented an imaginary villian of Che that bares no resemblance to the actual man. Sort of how they also have with President Obama (muslim, kenyan, socialist) etc. Luckily, Che has 100's of books written about his life, anyone who has read even one of these will realize just how ignorant they sound and are.

During the Cuban Revolution, the Cuban people, lead by Guevara and Castro, kicked out the drug dealers, pimps, murderers, and gangsters. On a related note, Miami has America's highest violent crime rate.

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[deleted]

[ANTI-RACIST CHE]


ON EDUCATION ...

"The days where University education is a privilege of the white middle class are over. The University must paint itself black, mulatto, worker, and peasant." — Che Guevara to the University of Las Villas, 1959


ON U.S. RACISM ...

"Those who kill their own children and discriminate daily against them because of the color of their skin; those who let the murderers of blacks remain free, protecting them, and furthermore punishing the black population because they demand their legitimate rights as free men -- how can those who do this consider themselves guardians of freedom?" — Che Guevara to the U.N., December 11, 1964


ON SOUTH AFRICAN APARTHEID ...

"We speak out to put the world on guard against what is happening in South Africa. The brutal policy of apartheid is applied before the eyes of the nations of the world. The peoples of Africa are compelled to endure the fact that on the African continent the superiority of one race over another remains official policy, and that in the name of this racial superiority murder is committed with impunity. Can the United Nations do nothing to stop this?" — Che Guevara to the U.N., December 11, 1964

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[SOME QUOTES]

"Che was an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom." — Nelson Mandela

"Che was the most complete human being of his age. He lived his words, spoke his own actions and his story and the story of the world ran parallel." — Jean Paul Sartre

"There was no person more feared by the company than Che Guevara because he had the capacity and charisma necessary to direct the struggle against the political repression of the traditional hierarchies in power in the countries of Latin America." — Philip Agee, CIA Agent

"That he was shot after capture demonstrates the fear that the Bolivian authorities felt even of an imprisoned Che. They were afraid to bring to him to trial: afraid of the echoes his voice would have aroused from the courtroom: afraid to prove that the man they hated was loved by the world outside. This fear will help to perpetuate his legend, and a legend is impervious to bullets." — Graham Greene

"Che was not only a heroic fighter, but a revolutionary thinker, with a political and moral project and a system of ideas and values for which he fought and gave his life. The philosophy which gave his political and ideological choices their coherence, color, and taste was a deep revolutionary humanism. For Che, the true Communist, the true revolutionary was one who felt that the great problems of all humanity were his or her personal problems, one who was capable of "feeling anguish whenever someone was assassinated, no matter where it was in the world, and of feeling exultation whenever a new banner of liberty was raised somewhere else." — Michael Löwy

"'Revolutionaries are not normal people': an understatement in relation to Ernesto Che Guevara. Physician, brilliant intellect, competent soldier, charismatic leader, developed—and eventually creative--Marxist economist, always a man able to capture the spirit of an experience in his own being, Che remains one of the four or five greatest revolutionaries in modern history." — Alfredo López

"Che ate babies, he stole my mansion which had 45 bedrooms in it, life was heaven in Cuba before Che. He personally shot 3,500,000,000 people and then drank their blood one by one. My Grandmas sisters aunts brothers neighbor who was blind, one time saw Che bite the head off of a young kitten." — Every bitter lying Gusano in Miami

"You may cut the flowers, but it will not stop the spring."
"Podran cortar las flores, pero no detendran la primavera."
— (A saying about Che's legacy written on many walls throughout Latin America)

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"Che Guevara taught us we could dare to have confidence in ourselves, confidence in our abilities. He instilled in us the conviction that struggle is our only recourse. He, was a citizen of the free world that together we are in the process of building. That is why we say that Che Guevara is also African and Burkinabe."
— Thomas Sankara, commonly referred to as 'Africa's Che Guevara'

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