Hippies You know those people the people who go around telling the world that they are anti-war that George W Bush is a neo-liberal neo-con (as if those 2 things were actually bad) warmongering, devil, oil hungry, racist, fascist, Texan bla bla bla. Lets talk about their poster boy Che Gureva.
In 1965 Che and Castro decided to send the Cuban Army into the Congo to over throw the government. In 2003 George Bush sent in the American Army into Iraq to over throw the government. But of course there is no comparison there now is there. Seriously there is none. George W Bush wants to and is in the process of installing a democratically elected president
Jalal Talabani. To give the people a real chance of shaping their future giving them freedom and not let them fall into the hands of fascist that want to bring Iraq back to the middle ages, save for a few hiccups
hiccups that need to be corrected and the fact Bush couldn't plan a piss up in a brewary. Che on the other hand supported a guy called Laurent-Desire Kabila.
This is what human rights watch have to say about him
During his nearly four years in power, Kabila regularly and ruthlessly violated the human rights of the Congolese people, killing, torturing, imprisoning, and causing the "disappearance" of any who he thought threatened him or his regime. Among those who suffered most were political opponents, leaders of civil society, human rights activists, and journalists."
He also tried and failed to start a revolution in Panama and went to fight in Bolivia where he died. Of the Bolivian’s he said “The peasant masses don’t help us at all” not exactly the words a leader of the people fighting the popular fight more like the leader of a revolution that is not popular. Unlike in Iraq where 129,700 have joined the Iraqi Army and where 72% of the population voted in the Election brought about by the US.
Also Che was known as the Butcher of the Cabaña where is reported to have killed hundreds of prisons “enemy’s of the revolution” read people who have a different opinion. During the Cuban revolution 1 in 17 people in Cuba were political prisoners. Do you see Bush doing this? No of course not, neither do I see the people that disagree like Howard Dean, Cindy Sheehan and Naom Chomsky spending time in prison. But would Che or Castro extend the same right to free speech to his people? Of course not. You can read a list of the people che order to be killed here. His labour camps were used and are still used to “house” dissidents, homosexuals, AIDS patients, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses and Afro-Cuban priests. But of course none of this matters because Cuba has a great health service.
Che was an advocate of Nuclear war speaking after the Cuban missile crisis he said.
“If the rockets had remained, we would have used them all and directed them against the very heart of the United States, including New York, in our defence against aggression.”
Also after killing his first person this is what he wrote in his diary.
I ended the problem giving him a shot with a .32 pistol in the right side of the brain, with exit orifice in the right temporal. He gasped for a little while and was dead. Upon proceeding to remove his belongings I couldn’t get off the watch tied by a chain to his belt, and then he told me in a steady voice farther away than fear: Yank it off, boy, what does it matter. I did so and his possessions were now mine.
Not the nicest thing to say certainly that kind of cold blood sentiment would not be gone a miss from a psychopathic serial killer. Then again maybe that is what Che was a psychopathic serial killer and if I want to make a few bob I should head down to Shannon Airport and try and flog a few Mara Henley T-Shirts there might be a few willing buyers in the peace camp.
After Che was executed in Bolivia the guards removed his Rolex watch. How many working class people do you know with Rolex watches indeed how many middle class people do you know with Rolex watches. Not many I wager. Not exactly a model of class solidarity now is it.
Che enjoyed war purely for a love of violence and adventure while in Guatemala he wrote “It was all a lot of fun, what with the bombs, speeches, and other distractions to break the monotony I was living in.”
As for his ideas about running the country the San Francisco Gate offers us this.
The great revolutionary also had a chance to put into practice his economic vision as head of the National Bank of Cuba and of the Department of Industry of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform at the end of 1959 and, starting in early 1961, as minister of industry.
This period saw the near-collapse of Cuba's sugar production, the failure of industrialization and the introduction of rationing -- all this in what had been one of Latin America's four most economically successful countries since before the Batista dictatorship.
This can not be simply explained away by the American embargo of goods that came into being in 1961 as much of the crops were bought by the Soviet Union which took the economic place of the US.
Che Gureva was an evil man who cared little for human life. So next time you are wearing a che t-shirt and calling Bush a evil warmongering so and so, think about the man not the myth and thank what ever divine entity you want that you are protesting against Bush and not Che. Because have no illusions about it. Che would kill you.
And if you have no problem supporting and sporting Che T-shirts. I really can’t see your problem with George W Bush
