October 08, 2005
Next time you see someone in a che t-shirt...
Like him...
Source: Harry Hutton
Be ready to counter him with this when he babbles on about why he's wearing the Argentine killer's image astride his ample muffin top - your handy crib sheet is here:
October 8, 2005
Ten Shots At Che Guevara
By Alvaro Vargas Llosa
Che Guevara fans are preparing to commemorate one more anniversary of the revolutionary's death, which took place thirty-eight years ago at the Yuro ravine in Bolivia. It's an appropriate time to address ten myths that keep Guevara's cult alive.
The last time I visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York, an American student wearing a Che Guevara T-Shirt and a beret caught my eye (the fact that Nicole Kidman happened to walk in at that very moment may have had something to do with my noticing him). I asked him politely what exactly he admired so much about that man. Here are the ten reasons he mentioned and my response:
1. HE WAS AGAINST CAPITALISM. In fact, Guevara was for state capitalism. He opposed the wage labor system of "appropriating surplus value" (in Marxist jargon) only when it came to private corporations. But he turned the "appropriation of the workers surplus value" into a state system. One example of this is the forced labor camps he supported, starting with Guanahacabibes in 1961.
2. HE MADE CUBA INDEPENDENT. In fact, he engineered the colonization of Cuba by a foreign power. He was instrumental in turning Cuba into a temporary beachhead of Soviet nuclear power (he sealed the deal in Yalta). As the person responsible for the "industrialization" of Cuba he failed to end the country's dependency on sugar.
3. HE STOOD FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE. In fact, he helped ruin the economy by diverting resources to industries that ended up in failure and reduced the sugar harvest, Cuba's mainstay, by half in two years. Rationing started under his stewardship of the island's economy.
4. HE STOOD UP TO MOSCOW. In fact, he obeyed Moscow until Moscow decided to ask for something in return for its massive transfers of money to Havana. In 1965 he criticized the Kremlin because it had adopted what he termed the "law of value". He then turned to China on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, one of the horror stories of the twentieth century. He simply switched allegiances within the totalitarian camp.
5. HE CONNECTED WITH THE PEASANTS. In fact, he died precisely because he never connected with them. "The peasant masses don't help us at all," he wrote in his Bolivian diary before he was captured, an apt way to describe his journey through the Bolivian countryside trying to stir up a revolution that could not even enlist the help of Bolivian Communists (who were realistic enough to note that peasants did not want revolution in 1967; they had already had one in 1952).
6. HE WAS A GUERRILLA GENIUS. With the exception of Cuba, every guerrilla effort he helped set up failed pitifully. After the triumph of the Cuban revolution, Guevara set up revolutionary armies in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Haiti, all of which were crushed. He later persuaded Jorge Ricardo Masetti to lead a fatal incursion into that country from Bolivia. Guevara's role in the Congo in 1965 was both tragic and comical. He allied himself with Pierre Mulele and Laurent Kabila, two butchers, but got entangled in so many disagreements with the latter and relations between Cuban and Congolese fighters were so strained that he had to flee. Finally, his incursion in Bolivia ended up in his death, which his followers are commemorating this Sunday.
7. HE RESPECTED HUMAN DIGNITY. In fact, he had a habit of taking other people's property. He told his followers to rob banks ("the struggling masses agree to rob banks because none of them has a penny in them") and as soon as the Batista regime collapsed he occupied a mansion and made it his own, a case of expeditious revolutionary eminent domain.
8. HIS ADVENTURES WERE A CELEBRATION OF LIFE. Instead, they were an orgy of death. He executed many innocent people in Santa Clara, in central Cuba, where his column was based in the last stage of the armed struggle. After the triumph of the revolution, he was in charge of "La Cabaña" prison for half a year. He ordered the execution of hundreds of prisoners, former Batista men, journalists, businessmen, and others. A few witnesses, including Javier Arzuaga, who was the chaplain of "La Cabaña", and José Vilasuso, who was a member of the body in charge of the summary judicial process, recently gave me their painful testimonies.
9. HE WAS A VISIONARY. His vision of Latin America was actually quite blurred. Take, for instance, his view that the guerrillas had to take to the countryside because that is where the struggling masses lived. In fact, since the 1960s, most peasants have peacefully deserted the countryside in part because of the failure of land reform, which has hindered the development of a property-based agriculture and economies of scale with absurd regulations forbidding all sorts of private arrangements.
10. HE WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE UNITED STATES. He predicted Cuba would surpass the GDP per capita of the U.S. by 1980. Today, Cuba's economy can barely survive thanks to Venezuela's oil subsidy (about 100,000 barrels a day), a form of international alms that does not speak too well of the regime's dignity.
Alvaro Vargas Llosa is a Senior Fellow and director of The Center on Global Prosperity at the Independent Institute. He is the author of Liberty for Latin America.
UPDATE: Whatever you do, don't miss this picture from Robert's site here. The Vargas Llosa essay was written expressly for one!
UPDATE: Conductor at Tren Blindado has more, much more, about what an incompetent military commando che guevara really was. It's excellent, click on the Armored Train link - and scroll all over the site dedicated to exposing the cult of che guevara, it's really good.
UPDATE: Killcastro has some appropriate images here and here.
UPDATE: Muchas gracias for the links, from Plains Feeder, Arguing with Signposts, Leather Penguin, Daimnation, Isaac Schrodinger, Whacking Day, Dean's World, the lovely Fausta and Ace of Spades.
Posted by Mora at October 8, 2005 10:20 AM
Comments
Well said.
Posted by: j.scott barnard at October 8, 2005 02:34 PM
For more about Guevara's guerilla "genius" check out myh site. http://www.trenblindado.com
Posted by: conductor at October 8, 2005 04:08 PM
The cat in the picture is clearly a wannabe revolutionary guerilla. Reminds me of the fat pimply kids that used to hang around George Lincoln (the nazi) Rockwell. There's always a chance these dopes will grow out of it.
Posted by: PTG at October 8, 2005 05:09 PM
Excellent!
This is useful.
Thank you Mora.
Posted by: Manny Rodriguez at October 8, 2005 06:24 PM
Val:
Why do people entertain wilful blindnesss towards Che? There's another point about Che. He was born into a well to do Argentinean family and was able to become a doctor. Typical of the snobby elite, he wanted to free the exploited by their masters... So they could be exploited even more ruthlessly and efficently by the communists.
Che was like algae, he killed everything he touched.
xavier
Posted by: xavier at October 8, 2005 06:28 PM
Thanks Conductor - and everyone!
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at October 8, 2005 07:35 PM
Xavier - go see some of those Argentine blogs and what they have to say about the thug - they are loaded with the right sentiment, there is a link to an excellent blog above.
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at October 8, 2005 10:40 PM
Next time I see an idiot in a che-shirt, I'll just ask if they have the matching Hitler, Stalin and Mao shirts too.
Posted by: Russ at October 9, 2005 07:30 AM
I find the 10 exploded myths interesting and will try to remember them for use in intelligent debate.
However, In most cases, when I see some little tubby, punk, wannabe revolutionary, pseudo intellectual, Che' shirt wearing, POS like this, I'm overcome with sadness and to brighten my mood I feel compelled, nay, forced to put my size 13 steel toe up their a**.
I'm sorry but I'm beyond debating with these cretinous supporters of mass murder and tyranny. Boot to the head friends, boot to the head...
Sic Semper Tyranus
Posted by: Mordwyn at October 9, 2005 09:03 AM
I am struck by the fact that Alvaro Vargas Llosa, a very distinguished and prominent political analyst, took the time to address one piece of human flotsam walking around thinking he looked cool in a che tee shirt. The guy who was approached by Vargas Llosa was getting an education from someone who knew. Which reminds me of a certain story Val told about Mrs. Val and how she had the same kind of patience and courage to also approach some ignormus selling che postcards. http://www.babalublog.com/archives/002104.html (the link is also posted under the word 'response' in the body of this main post) and it tells us all something important: Every single one of us who knows the deal on che needs to approach those people wearing che tee shirts. We can't let it go. Alvaro Vargas Llosa didn't. Mrs. Val didn't. They both probably had better things to do. But there really isn't anything more important - the truth needs to be told.
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at October 9, 2005 11:53 AM
PTG: Quite right. But I suspect this one is a hard case. He was photographed at the Chavista communist youth festival in Caracas Venezuela last August. He's probably made up his mind. He needs to be laughed at.
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at October 9, 2005 12:54 PM
Or dispatched, a la che, so he can be like che, if someday caught trying to violently impose the late, cowardly thug's ways on the innocent and/or helpless...
Posted by: Alberto Quiroga at October 11, 2005 12:52 PM