Your thoughts on Che Guevara?

[armyowalgreens]

From much of his writings, he seemed like a very passionate revolutionary.

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

"I am not Christ or a philanthropist, old lady, I am all the contrary of a Christ.... I fight for the things I believe in, with all the weapons at my disposal and try to leave the other man dead so that I don't get nailed to a cross or any other place."


I mean for god sakes his last words were "I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, you are only going to kill a man."

His words combined with his willingness to travel the world in grave danger, in order to support revolution, seems to give credit to his mythological status.



The issue I have with him is his glorification of such mass murderers as Stalin, stating...

"I have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin that I won't rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated."

He also stated this...

"This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate."



Was Che a naive idealist? Or was he a really charismatic man with a taste for bloodshed?


I think there is one thing that we cannot deny. The man had brass balls.

[LeftinOH]

1. Dying in circumstances which are melodramatically appropriate to one's image

-are guaranteed to leave a huge following (regardless of what the person was really like -or what they really achieved). It also helps sell t-shirts, posters & books.

[Hestia]

2. The truth is somewhere in the middle. History Int'l channel did an

unbiased documentary about him (back when the BBC/Discovery/History Channel were running things). Che was great in firing up the populus, and taking the real hits for Castro, who could be the conciliator (as much as someone in his position can) and not look so fringe. As soon as Castro was installed as leader, he really had no use for Che, who then went to Bolivia, firing things up, where he was then killed. Men like Che are useful in the beginning, but as an unrelenting "conscience" of any revolution, he/they get old, and usually can't move on.

[fascisthunter]

6. did ya see the movie?

[brendan120678]

3. All I know is, according to many...

teenagers and college kids, you aren't cool unless you have a Che t-shirt, or poster.

If you have both, then you're super-cool.

[MADem]

4. He meant well. A lot of dilettantes who claim to be his followers, or just love the tee shirt,

they don't always mean well, or have much in the way of real awareness.

They also, many of them, have no idea what "revolution" really entails. It ain't all peace, love and understanding. A lot of times, it's "Meet the new boss--worse than the old boss."

Ask the people in the streets in Teheran.

The guy started out well. I'll give him that. At the end of the day, Che had the very same problem that a lot of people have with fame--they start to believe their own publicity. And they'll do what they need to do to stay on top of their game. That's where he fell down.

You have to live with those "means" that you say the ends justify. And if they're as bad as the last guy's means, you're no better than the last bum was.

[slackmaster]

5. Lovable, passionate, revolutionary muderous bastard

Highly intelligent but he went too far for a political cause.

[NashVegas]

7. The Uncompromising Idealist Who Understood the Personal Risks

I once read the CIA fact sheet on Che, online, and got the impression that whomever wrote it wished he'd been on our side.