Babalu Blog: The LA protest

December 31, 2008

The LA protest

A group of us were out protesting the Dec. 12 sneak preview of Soderberghs’ movie glorifying the butcher of la Cabana. Due to especially bad traffic, most of us arrived late, but wouldn’t have missed it for anything. We were well situated near the theatre entrance, which is also an entry to a major mall, so there were plenty of people. Jose Luis Fernandez handed out almost 200 flyers, while the rest of us displayed posters, and talked to those folks passing by.

A special thanks to Jose and Maria who drove up all the way from Temecula to be with us. Maria is a teacher, and along with Joe and others was the perfect person to educate a group of young high school students on the evils of the che. They left vowing to boycott the movie and to tell all their friends to do the same. We were clearly in “enemy” territory, in the ultra-liberal Westside of Los Angeles. Some laughed at us; a couple of die-hard idiot followers were outraged and felt the need to confront. Logan from Freestar Media was with us, more than ready to take them on. One young woman called us “you people” with that special tone reserved for the scum of the earth. Her point being that we had no right to be there besmirching the icons good name because “che only helped people.” There was the ageing long hair wearing the token tee, the young hip couple decked out in the latest urban looking fashion, no doubt purchased with evil parental capitalist dollars, who broke out in giggles, probably enjoying expensive drugs. My favorite was the lone Code Pink Lady. She didn’t say anything, but our presence compelled her to stomp pass us in a complete tizzy. She didn’t look happy.

Very heartening were the people who gave us thumbs up, or went out of their way to offer words of encouragement. One elderly lady walked over to us, sized up our posters, and said simply, “you’re right.”

This was just the sneak preview, the wide release opening night is upcoming in January, and we will be there. Please if you are in Southern California, set aside an hour or two, or however much time you can spare and come join us. I’ll post the particulars as soon as I have the information. Believe me, it feels great to stand up and tell the truth about the murdering bastard, and to do something to counter all the BS about Cuba.

Thank you Fernando, Joe, Henry, Maria, the Jose’s, Logan, Adrian, Steve, David, and all who supported the effort.

Posted by Ziva at December 31, 2008 12:21 AM

Comments

Keep up the good fight! Prosper ano and sana saheedah سنة سعيدة to all of you at Babalublog!

Posted by: Uranus_attacks at December 31, 2008 06:38 AM

At best, eventually Che will go the way of Stalin, whom prominent "intellectuals" and artistic types once publicly admired and praised in ways that are beyond sickening. But those who praised the Soviet monster never really paid for it, not in this life, and even now their "mistake" is tacitly excused or downplayed, if not conveniently ignored. It's the same with communism in general. Despite causing far more harm and deaths over a much broader area and a far longer time, it has never been treated with the kind of horror and revulsion as the Nazis. The world would never have accepted an ex-Nazi as head of Germany after 1945, but it had no problem with ex-KGB colonel Putin, did it? There's a terrible, bitter, nauseating lesson in all that.

Posted by: asombra at December 31, 2008 10:30 AM

Gee, I wonder where Cameron Diaz stands on the Che movie. Well, not really.

Posted by: asombra at December 31, 2008 10:52 AM

Hey Ziva

My brother couldn't make it to the protest. I'm going to push him to make it to the next protest, and hopefully, I'll have the time to lend a hand. God bless.

Posted by: j2tharome at December 31, 2008 11:39 AM

Awesome!! You guys look great!

Posted by: SunriseInHavana at January 1, 2009 12:43 AM

Great job, keep up the work of bringing out the truth about Che and rubbing it into the noses of those idiots that want to lionize the murderer.

Posted by: Max at January 1, 2009 09:59 AM

Although protests are good, this will only bring unwanted publicity to this crap movie. Sometimes it's better not even to protest and give it so much energy!

Posted by: Mandingo at January 1, 2009 12:13 PM

Ziva, I live in the SFV. Please e-mail me at zhangbucker@yahoo.com to let me know when/where the next Che movie protest will be.

Posted by: Zhangliqun at January 1, 2009 05:41 PM

Mandingo, I understand your concerns, but our small protest is not going to impact the movie going public here. Only followers are going to sit through this film, so what we have here is an opportunity to educate people about who Che was. This was made evident during this protest when people motioned to our posters and asked why? Why not see the movie? Why is Che bad? The bottom line--many, if not most of those t-shirt wearing young hipsters are well intentioned. They have been raised by liberal parents, and want to do good in the world. Unfortunately, they have been sold a pack of lies. Remember the quote, All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing? Well, we are doing our small something. I have to tell you, based on the results, I wish I could be out there everyday.

Posted by: Ziva Sahl at January 2, 2009 12:41 AM