Harry's Place

Are you Sarah Palin in disguise?

Very good post. The hypocrisy over the way many view Che and Castro is astonishing. Especially when compared to many of the same people’s opposition to Guantanamo.

Locking up people on suspicion of them being genocidal terrorists? Bad!

Locking up people on suspicion of them being gay?
Oh, let’s just overlook that! Cuban cocktails all round, comrades!

Oh look, Comrade Zin is in attendance.

Che wanted launch a nuclear attack on New York City

Blimey. Did John Carpenter direct the movie?

I agree with the post I have never understood the fascination with Guevara.
Those who wear che t shirts done them until they get to 30 and then they vote Tory.
Like most of the writers on this site
Start off as commies/trots then they become radical neo cons / economic liberals like Nick Cohen, David T, Gene, Brett and Edmund S.
Never have liked radicals of any sort.

No, he did ‘Fidel ate my Hamster”.

I am one of those boring people who kind of admire folk who stood up to Batista, didn’t like some of the stuff that happened afterwards, wants reform, but doesn’t think the answer lies in US capitalism. But that would make a boring blog post.

But my personal favourite was the New York Post headline:

CASTRO PLANS SHARK ATTACK ON MIAMI BEACH

…closely followed by

CUBA PLANS REMOTE CONTROL PIGEON ATTACK ON NEW YORK

…the birds… the birds…

Give that Edmund Standing a job on the New York Post!

Excellent post. It is really quite stunning to read this and realise this is the hero of so many here in the West, so many who vehemently oppose the notion of such actions in any other scenario.

But that would make a boring blog post. Benji

Anything written on your moribund blog would be a relief all round so why not piss off and write it.

I agree with the post I have never understood the fascination with Guevara.

Because the Left is founded in murder and terror, and seeks to claim a murdering terrorist as one of its own.

Hey Zin! So this is your hero Che huh? Do you agree with all 7 points as necessary for the socialist utopia that is Cuba?

There’s something about your diction [and more] that is so unnaturally similar to DavidT’s. The two of you are not Siamese twins by any chance? LOL
But on a serious note, what is that ostrich metaphor again… You know where its head is buried in the sand whilst its rear is stuck out for all to see from miles around. It can’t be more apt, mate!

Why would anyone think Guevara was like Bin Laden? Oh, look! Israel!

As a youngster I didn’t know what Che had really been up too! I saw him as a symbol of fighting against repression and someone who was prepared to stand up and be counted.

So along with other wannabe militants I was proud to flaunt his image on T shirts.

Because the Left is founded in murder and terror, and seeks to claim a murdering terrorist as one of its own.

So was the right

The thing you have to remember is that Che doesn’t represent an outlier, a freak. Liberals and progressives in fact support many of these things too. They’re just abashed to admit it. How else do you account for the Chomsky-Pol Pot love fest?

But, I am agreeing with you, Hot Dog. What makes you think otherwise?

Let’s not forget he also sported a beard. Quite enough to condemn him in the eyes of those such as myself who suffer from “Hirsutophobia”.

Talking of phobias – Che is the classic example of the complete Libertophobe who wants to boss everyone around (but not be bossed himself – he could shag who he liked, read and view what he liked, diss who he liked).

He helped make of Cuba a prison from which only the insane and the criminal were allowed to flee.

Now they’ve got a socialist monarchy, young girls ply their trade on the beach promenades looking for fat foreigners to f*ck and a large part of their housing is literally ready fall down.

Hope it was all worth it Che. At least you suffered the sort of treatment you meted out to others.

Count on Zin to do two things. One, lick Castro’s arse, and two, not check the facts.

Incidentally, Che was also a crap guerrilla leader. Congo 1965, Bolivia 1967 – the two campaigns he led were disasters.

As Nigel Jones points out, every retard in the world has Che on his bedroom wall or t-shirt while few outside Germany know of von Stauffenberg. Let’s hope the film Valkyrie will to something to redress the injustice.

Some may have seen the Mark Steyn t-shirt parodying Che. May I suggest that if someone would care to create a tasteful Che-style shirt featuring von Stauffenberg and put it up on Cafe Press, I would gladly buy it.

Surely it’s better to have a count on one’s shirt than a…

But I’m sure von Stauffenberg also had some pretty offensive views about all kinds of things, so making t-shirts, posters, and boxer shorts with his image on them is just going to get you into a similar moral headache, surely.

I find it hard to get too worked up about people’s love of the Guevara image. How many people who have got a Che t-shirt actually know who he is, let alone subscribe to his dogma? If I’m not mistaken you can buy such t-shirts in shops like Gap and Topshop. The irony of this devoted anti-capitalist’s image helping to boost the profits of corporations surely makes the image on t-shirts more silly than politically scary.

Has anyone seen the new film yet?

I sometimes find that a mail I consider important comes at the end of a thread that is about to disappear from view. I am writing this mail on a fresh thread, becasue I find the things I have to say relevant to all threads on HP. It will be one of the most important comments I have to make, if I manage to be coherent, onder the stress of almost incoherent passion.

On another thread I read variations on a theme, until the theme itself was baldly stated:

“What we need is more judgement and less understanding.”

This is a recipe for unbridled fascism. The Hitlers and Talibans know only judgement; their umbilical cord to the understanding of themsleves and human nature has been broken.

That statement conjures up the image of a hard-boiled, hide-bound father figure, or Thatcherite mother figure,who are themsleves responsible for all the ills of our world.

You can’t tell me that understanding was rejected in a particular context, because understanding can never be enough in any context. Understanding does not mean permissivenesss.

If you want to come a quarter of a way to understanding how a Palestinian youth in Britain can become a Jihadist, read Maajid Nawaz on Democratya.

If you don’t try to understand these things, we are lsot.

It would be entirley absurd to expect sociaòl responsibilty form Hitler and the Taliban. They were and are the puppets of their own misdoings (Adorno), and understanding and social responsibilty are unknown concepts to them. You can impose the concept of social responsibilty on people like Hitler but not instil it in them.

Social resposibility had to be cultivated and has to come, as it were, from inside.

It may be that there is nothing more to be done with Hitlers and Talibans, but that makes it all the more important to understand the historical, social and psychological mechanisms that led to them and make an effort, however, difficult it may be, to prevent their reoccurence. This require self-criticism also of our supposedly ‘free world.’

A propos, that ignorant statement about judgement rather than understanding, puts a perfect weapon in the hands of the knee-jerking leftists. You can tell them until you are blue in the face to look at the nature of Islamic fundamentalism and Hamas, they will flatly refuse to UNDERSTAND.

This a form of socialised schizophrenia. The banner, the demonstration, and irrational passions matter more than reason (which they contort with expertise – and with cunning, in the name of justice). Merely thumping them on the head is liable to increase their fervour.

I have already quoted Oscar Wilde, saying, unless we know who we are – in the fullest sense – we will be helpless when the revolution or crisis comes.

My father used to say to the Nazi German butcher’s wife in Namibia, “Try to think before you open your mouth.” This is a small comfort, but when I went to the butcher’s later, “She used to say to me, “Ach, your father was right!”

von Stauffenberg was still a Nazi.
He just didn’t want to be on the losing side

To be fair, Che didn’t actually nuke New York, as far as I’m aware. Perhaps he was boasting a bit to scare the opponent, as with boxers’ talk before a match. Harry Truman, on the other hand, actually did nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while all of their civilians were still at home. Therefore, perhaps it makes more sense to judge the American ruling class as the more ruthless of the two—them or Che—historically, on a strict comparison of accomplished deeds.

Che may have gone too far in his view of the creative use of hate, but, again, it’s probably a tactic, as when riot police bash their shields, or rugby players chant before a match. You can see something in a similar vein in slogans like “you have no idea how far I’m willing to take this”, in the Bourne Identity films and/or the 24 TV series posters. It’s the fight before the fight, to try, if you can, to see the other fellow off, to unnerve him, so that less real violence has to be used.

field , you are frank field
Who else would be pompous enough to use the word libertophobe

p.s I love that quote from the Daily Worker reporter thinking that Che was crackers – what’s the source?

Oh, dear, Dave. What a meanwhile. The A-bombs:

A) Were the first of their type with no points of reference;

B) Conducted aback total war.

But, all Guevara did was kill peasants, so who cares? It ain’t as if he and Castro *succeeded* in causing nuclear war.

Che wanted to launch a nuclear attack on New York City. He desired ‘atomic extermination’ of the ‘hyenas’ (read civilians) who lived there and in November 1962 he boasted to The London Daily Worker of the nuclear weapons, ‘We would have used them against the very heart of the US, including New York City’.

—

This tidbit can be found across the ultraright wing of the Internet, including newsmax.com. However, they seem to have embellished on Che Guevara’s original quote:

“The U.S. is the great enemy of mankind! Against those hyenas there is no option but extermination. We will bring the war to the imperialist enemies’ very home, to his places of work and recreation. The imperialist enemy must feel like a hunted animal wherever he moves. Thus we’ll destroy him! We must keep our hatred against them [the U.S.] alive and fan it to paroxysms!”

As you can see, there is no mention of nuclear weapons. Instead, it is simply a battle cry along the lines of “Create 2, 3 many Vietnams”. Now I can understand why a pro-imperialist website like Harry’s Place would hate somebody who preached armed struggle against the U.S. After all, everybody understands that the U.S. never harmed Cuba.

But what’s interesting is the need to interject the business about weapons of mass destruction. Isn’t there a precedent for telling lies about WMD’s? Hmmm…

The quotes about Che’s nucular threats reveal him for what he was — a bored, rich, middle-class wanker with some kind of chip on his shoulder and a shrunken brain.

The best thing Castro ever did was to make sure Che Guavara was sent off to be killed.

Off went my mail with bad typing slips. I didn’t talk about Castro, but he is implicit in every word I wrote. I have always been disgusted by the Castro T-shirts, without even knowing whether he was a good or a bad man. That type of idolisation is regressive. Karl Marx would have had a screaming fit if he had seen the photos and plaster cast images of himself. I don’t know if Lenin minded the widely distributed photos of himself looking like a dentist on heat.

If any readers are interested in going beyond out-of-context quotes and invented Sun newspaper type stories, there are some excellent and well researched bios of Che.

Setting the standard is Jon Lee Anderson’s ‘Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life’.
http://www.amazon.com/Che-Guevara-Revolutionary-Jon-Anderson/dp/0802135587

For a more skeptical portrait, you could do worse than buy a copy of ‘Companero’ by Jorge Casteneda.
http://www.amazon.com/Companero-Life-Death-Che-Guevara/dp/0679759409/ref=sip_rech_dp_10

Edmund Standing in action:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ju3h7yk4Hcg

(Hat tip DSTPFW)

Alec, I don’t think you can call the drawing a distinction between the actual annihilation of many tens of thousands of civilians and the unrealised threat of it counts as a meanwhile, technically speaking. What you seem to be saying is that you in fact agree with the nuking of cities, but only under certain socio-political circumstances—the same as Che. Needless to say, that would put you and Che and Harry Truman on one side of the argument, and me on the other.

We need better judgement. Not more judgement.

‘My ultimate goal as a socialist revolutionary was to have my face plastered on the t-shirts of rich white kids.’

It turns out that Standing was referring to this, which can be read at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Che_Guevara:

“If they attack, we shall fight to the end. 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 defense against aggression. But we haven’t got them, so we shall fight with what we’ve got.”

–Statement in an interview with a reporter for the London Daily Worker (November 1962), as quoted in Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara (1998), by Jorge G. Castaneda, p. 231, 1st Vintage Books

So basically Che Guevara advocated retaliation if the U.S. attacked Cuba. Of course, that’s what the missiles were there for to begin with, to defend Cuba against invasion. I guess that Edmund Standing is upset that Cuba was determined to defend itself with nuclear weapons, a thought that never would have crossed the minds of the people who ran the United States.

Dave, I don’t think, that anyone mentioned the A-bombs.

The one abov killing peasants was cheap, and I take it back. Still, Guevara’s braggadocio and impodent rage is reminiscent of Bin Laden’s.

I meant the Che Guevara T-shirts. One can tell when something is phoney.

Interesting that the fabricated story about Che attempting to launch a terrorist campaign in New York City dates from 1962, and coincides with Operation Northwoods.

Edmund Standing wrote: “With the nuclear attack plans shelved, Che instead attempted to launch a terrorist campaign in New York City.”

Wikipedia describes Operation Northwoods thus:

“Operation Northwoods, or Northwoods, was a false-flag conspiracy plan, proposed within the United States government in 1962. The plan called for CIA or other operatives to kill American civilians and commit apparent acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Castro-led Cuba. One plan was to “develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington”.”

From the document itself: “We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement, also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

The document ws presented to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13 1962.

On Nov. 17, 1962, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI ‘discovered’ that Cuban agents had targeted Macy’s, Gimbel’s, Bloomingdale’s and Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal with a dozen incendiary devices and 500 kilos of TNT.

Edmund Standing has since ‘discovered’ that Che was the terrorist mastermind behind this plot.

** In next week’s exciting episode of ‘Terrorists Uncovered’, Edmund Standing reveals the text of a secret letter sent in 1924 from the head of the Comintern to the British Communist Party **

Further reading for those interested:

Humberto Fontova’s writings, including his book ‘Exposing the Real Che Guevara’, cover this material, and Jon Lee Anderson’s ‘Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life’ has some good (or bad) stuff too.

In terms of using ‘right-wing’ sources for material on Che, so what?

As John Stuart Mill argues in ‘On Liberty’:

‘every opinion which embodies somewhat of the portion of truth which the common opinion omits, ought to be considered precious, with whatever amount of error and confusion that truth may be blended’.

And,

‘No sober judge of human affairs will feel bound to be indignant because those who force on our notice truths which we should otherwise have overlooked, overlook some of those which we see’.

Che also ♥d North Korea. The same North Korea that to this day incarcerates tens of thousands of men, women and children in forced labor camps.

As a person born in the same city as Che, I’m convinced it all started with a publicity campaign by our Convention and Visitors Bureau to attract tourists to the city.

All Edmund Standing needs to do is dig up an anti-Israel quote from Che and then the post may as well be renamed ‘Che: An UTTER UTTER BASTARD’

So, to defend Guevara’s from charges of murderous fantasies, Penny argues he merely wish mass killing of civilians of several orders greater than Vietnam. In 1962. When there was only a handful of American personnel there. And tries to pin the search for W.M.Ds on to site authors who had as much to do with it as Guevara did with Soviet nukes.

It’s like watching Micheal Rosen defend Harold Pinter.

Standing, the issue is not using rightwing sources but in giving your reader the full context. Don’t you want to be taken seriously as a neoconservative scholar rather than screwball like the one depicted in the John Cleese youtube clip forwarded above? I think you undermine your credibility by quoting out of context, but please don’t stop doing so on my account. I think it is a good thing that attacks on Che Guevara such as yours incorporate the same intellectual merit as a George W. Bush speech.

All Edmund Standing needs to do is dig up an anti-Israel quote from Che and then the post may as well be renamed ‘Che: An UTTER UTTER BASTARD’

Of course that would be all the more reason for some people to idolize him.

Today’s MacBook Marxists are just as dull as the last gaggle of fools.

What Edmund Standing said:

Che wanted to launch a nuclear attack on New York City… With the nuclear attack plans shelved

What Che actually said:

“If they attack, we shall fight to the end. 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 defense against aggression. But we haven’t got them, so we shall fight with what we’ve got.”

What a lack of integrity this Edmund Standing displays!

Che sounds like he was a true Lefty in the best Orwillian tradition.

But Edmund, yours is a common opinion.

And loving North Korea in the 1960s, although a huge political mistake, isn’t of the same order of reactionary reprehensibility as loving it in the 2000s, as with, say, Murray or Galloway.

How about a William Morgan t-shirt?

How about a Pedro Carmona t-shirt?

Yes, it is Sun style, with somewhat dubious use of quotations. Why is it that HP consistently over eggs the pudding when its really not necessary to do so?

It is necessary. The aim is to demonise in order to serve a pro-US agenda.

I think Castro was pleased and somewhat relieved by Che’s death.

Dampened the prospects of any latin american competition, competition that could have had an impact on Cuba’s cosy relations with the Soviet Union.

It is necessary. The aim is to demonise in order to serve a pro-US agenda.

We’re just carrying out our assignment as ordered, Zin.

isn’t of the same order of reactionary reprehensibility as loving it in the 2000s, as with, say, Murray or Galloway.

This should confuse you. Who said this:

“Andrew Murray’s fine writing is usually restricted to the Morning Star but he is given a platform today in the Guardian where he takes full advantage…”

We’re just carrying out our assignment as ordered, Zin

I thought you were freelance fabricators? Either way, you got caught, so you’re not very good at it.

Who said this:

“Andrew Murray’s fine writing is usually restricted to the Morning Star but he is given a platform today in the Guardian where he takes full advantage…”

Kim Il-sung?

No, someone much, much worse.

General Chavez?

No. Your beloved dear leader, Harry.

So, Zin, tell us the difference between Guevara and Bin Laden.

And unlike with Edmund Standing’s fabrications, Harry really did say it.

Zin, the difference between Harry and you is that he used to believe some crazy shit. You still do.

So, Zin, tell us the difference between Guevara and Bin Laden

Only after you tell us the difference between you and Sarah Palin, if any.

Plus, he was writing about a firefighters’ strike, one of the areas where it is possible for a non-Stalinist to have a temporary convergence of opinion with Mr. Murray.

It’s even funnier watching little left-wing groups claim Guevara as one of their own. I know someone who kept arguing Che was a Trotskyist.

Zin, the difference between Harry and you is that he used to believe some crazy shit. You still do

You believe that it’s OK to misrepresent and fabricate.

“Locking up people on suspicion of them being gay?
Oh, let’s just overlook that! Cuban cocktails all round, comrades!”

At the same time Cuba were locking people up for being gays, so were we.

And as for holding people without trial, Cuba holds less in its entire country (well, apart from the American bit) than we do at Belmarsh

Plus, he was writing about a firefighters’ strike, one of the areas where it is possible for a non-Stalinist to have a temporary convergence of opinion with Mr. Murray.

Temporary? He said: “Andrew Murray’s fine writing is usually restricted to the Morning Star”, which suggests that Harry was regular reader of Andrew Murray in the Morning Star – while Murray was a supporter of North Korea! Harry must be condemned! Condemn Harry! If you don’t, you are an apologist. So there.

Take this lady with a pink Che flag at a London ‘Stop the War’ rally for example.

I can understand your anger.

It’s the same anger I feel when someone says “XXX is the most moral country in the world,” when I know XXX to be a quite immoral country.

Homosexuality was illegal pretty much everywhere in 1960. Now Cub is the most socially progressive country in the region.

See here:
http://21stcenturysocialism.com/article/havana_rights_01453.html

And here is an interview with Mariela Castro, head of Cuba’s sex education centre.
http://www.russiatoday.com/guests/video/1952

I don’t have ovaries. There are many more, but none relevant to a discussion about Guevara and none I’ve made a song and dance about.

I don’t have ovaries.

Or brains.

Christ, nobody tell Edmund that there’s a statue of Oliver Cromwell outside Westminster Palace – he’ll go absolutely apeshit and no doubt get himself arrested trying to tear the thing down.

Pathetic, Zin. You and Penny should get married. You could produce thorough-bred trolls.

Gregg, not only has Cromwell been dead ten times as long, but no-one here is holding him up as a role model.

A very necessary corrective, thank you Edmund.

Here’s Michael Savage giving Soderbergh a smack-down: “Poo on you, Soderbergh, you stink”.

And Mark Goldblatt has some choice quotes from the thug himself, such as: “To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.”

Once again, the maxim that when you put ideology above people, you have lost your own soul and should you be in a position of power, you will blight many lives. Compassion must trump ideals, no matter how high they be.

I think Che is alright actually. Hugo is a nice bloke as well. As for Fidel, I love his speeches.

Not too keen on those US American types though, bit too arrogant for me.

Not only is Edmund Standing a fabricator, he’s also a plagiarist:

“A little perspective: for their March 2004 Madrid subway blasts, all 10 of them, that killed and maimed almost 2000 people, al-Qaida used a grand total of 100 kilos of TNT.” ~ ‘The Obama Campaign and Che Guevara’, by extreme right wing loony, Humberto Fontova

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25016

To give some perspective, the 2004 Madrid train bombings used 100 kilos of TNT and killed and maimed almost 2,000 people ~ ‘Che and what he stood for’, by extreme right wing plagiarist, Edmund Standing

And here is an interview with Mariela Castro, head of Cuba’s sex education centre.
http://www.russiatoday.com/guests/video/1952

And here’s Yoani Sanchez asking Mariela about when there is going to be tolerance in Cuba for, y’know, other stuff, and getting a non-answer.

As for Fidel, I love his speeches.

You are fantasizing. Few people could stay awake through his interminable rambling Marxist drivel.

I’m no plagiarist. This post is a short re-working of part of a fully referenced longer article of mine which you can read here. Perhaps I should have simply linked to it before, but never mind.

In that article you will find:

‘As Humberto Fontova notes, the Madrid train bombings carried out by Jihadists in March 2004 used a grand total of 100 kilos of TNT and killed and maimed almost 2,000 people’.

Zin, in your next allegation, I presume you’ll be claiming my many writings against the BNP are because I don’t find them right-wing enough or some such nonsense.

In that article you will find: ‘As Humberto Fontova notes…”

And in this article you omitted to attribute the quote and passed it off as your own words.

Not only is Edmund Standing a fabricator, he’s also a plagiarist:

You are a thick, reactionary and… yes… totalitarian joke, Zin, who finances his evenings flying the red flag from days working as a highly-paid corporatist. Furthermore, you ain’t got no idea what plagiarism is.

What you and Penny are doing is trolling. You are picking up on *one* comment about an attested common murderer and street thug, and applying to the most tortuously literal reading to it. Nothing is proved other than your low personal morals.

Penny tells us that Guevara is excused because he only fantasized about an orgy of violence against human beings which he called hyenas, and made no mention of nuclear weapons. All as a reasonable rhetorical twirl against what was being said about Vietnam. Except this was 1962, two years before the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

You, while accusing all and sundry of hero-worshipping, apply the same reasoning to Guevara’s words. They are, to you, the revealed Truth. So, when he says “if they attack”, he is giving a germane strategical analysis, and is not an ill-disciplined but accomplished sadistic killer. Like as has been said of you by Graham, you are a follower not a leader.

So, whatever the similarities are between Guevara and Bin Laden, there is one whopping difference between them and you. They did something and were/are prepared to put their personal comfort and/or lives on the line, while you sit at home filling the comments boxes of a blog you claim to despise.

In this post I haven’t directly lifted a quote and it’s hardly ‘plagiarism’ to repeat an observation about the destructive capabilities of TNT. It’s not like I’ve stolen someone’s research and passed it off as my own, or copied and pasted an entire article.

I’ve now added an update linking to my article at B&W, where the references can be found.

Edward’s first remark about Che and hatred seems rather misleading. The passage in context reads: “The great lesson of the invincibility of the guerrillas taking root in the dispossessed masses. The galvanizing of the national spirit, the preparation for harder tasks, for resisting even more violent repressions. Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy”

Why did Edmund omit the final two statement about soldiers and a people attempting to ‘vanquish a brutal enemy’? Surely it is important to know that Guevara was talking specifically about transforming people into guerrillas in order to resist ‘violent repressions’ and expel a brutal enemy in places like Vietnam. If he had been talking about, say, the struggle to secure better canteen facilities at my workplace, then I would agree that he was going over the top, but in the circumstances, and as a rallying cry, his statements are unremarkable. After all, who would call for ‘ineffective, placid, undiscriminating and emotionally sensitive’ soldiers?

Zin, in your next allegation, I presume you’ll be claiming my many writings against the BNP are because I don’t find them right-wing enough or some such nonsense.

Fuck, you really are a weirdo.

I have made three specific allegtions against you:-

1. That you have deliberately distorted Che’s comments on the use of nuclear weapons. The actual quote destroys your false allegtions.

2. That you have reposted a fabricted story regrding Che’s ‘terrorism’.

2. That you are a plagiarist.

I meant ‘Edmund’s first remark’, of course.

Fuck, you really are a weirdo.

Yup, it’s started now. What are you on? You’re mentally unstable you. You are a weirdo. You strange person. Oh, mammy.

All we need now is Flying Rodent to tell us what we should be thinking.

That you are a plagiarist.

Do you know what plagiarism is?

Gregg, not only has Cromwell been dead ten times as long, but no-one here is holding him up as a role model.

But surely the fact that anybody does, the fact that we tolerate a statue to him, is as offensive as the fact that anyone walks around in a Che t-shirt. And what can we say about all those who voted for Cromwell in that Greatest Britons competition? Or for Drake, Rhodes, Henry V, etc.? What about that picture of Alexander the Great I have on the wall – doesn’t that stand for bloody conquest?

Or maybe, just fucking maybe, the icon is not the same thing as the man, and Edmund, and you, and all the other witless bleeting tossers above, are just indulging yet again in what seems to be your single occupation in life, the tedious exploration of your own arseholes.

Judging from his article on Butterflies and Wheels, Edmund is either too young or too poorly-read to know better (the line “as Vladimir Ilyich rightly notes, devotion to Che is ‘an infantile disorder’”, and the attendant footnote, was the tell there – though even most undergrads, if unfamiliar with it, would have the presence of mind to google that phrase, and might then manage to figure out who and what Daniel Wolf was talking about). But I know you know better, Alec. So why post this kind of idiotic claptrap when you know full fucking well it’s going to allow the likes of Benji and Zin to ridicule you? It’s a deseperate, defeatist line – a bizarre hybrid of the ad hominem, guilting by association, and slagging people off for their fashion sense – which implies that we can’t attack the anti-war movement on its actual policies but only on vaguely-related ephemera in a kind of of “Outraged of Tunbridge Wells” way.

This entire thread is deranged.

Where can I get a von Stauffenberg T-shirt?

Alec McPherson: “Except this was 1962, two years before the Gulf of Tonkin incident.”

Sometimes I am truly amazed at the cluelessness of the rightwing commentators on this blog. The Bay of Pigs invasion took place in 1961 and the U.S. continued to support violent bands of ultrarightists in Florida. Cuba decided to procure nuclear missiles since this was the only language Uncle Sam understood, as the standoff with the USSR throughout the Cold War indicated. It also amazes me that for all its cheering on of the “war on terror”, Harry’s Place has never said one word about the freeing of Luis Posada Carriles, who is acknowledged widely to have brought down a civilian Cuban airliner with a bomb. A Che Guevara t-shirt seems to anger you more. Pathetic.

Gregg,

That was indeed a bad slip and I shall correct the text. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

But surely the fact that anybody does, the fact that we tolerate a statue to him, is as offensive as the fact that anyone walks around in a Che t-shirt.

Only if there were a statue on every street corner, and people were advocating the application – no matter how unlikely the realization of this is – of his plans to contemporary life. As it stands, this one statue is of an individual who, like it or not, played an integral part in the formation of the modern British state; and, to be honest, is probably better remembered as the man who attempted to ban Christmas. But, a deal, the next time Morgoth suggests Cromwell’s assault on Ireland was a net benefit or should be re-applied anywhere, I’ll object.

What about that picture of Alexander the Great I have on the wall – doesn’t that stand for bloody conquest?

Someone who’s been dead 50 times as long as Guevara? You’re the one who brought Cromwell into the discussion, so what do you think?

So why post this kind of idiotic claptrap when you know full fucking well it’s going to allow the likes of Benji and Zin to ridicule you?

This is a blog post, not an academic journal. Edmund can defend himself, what I am responding to are the efforts – from Zin in particular – at obfuscation and to shut down un-approved arguments by screaming the loudest. We are not seeing the application of critical evaluation, just an inverse hero-worship of Guevara. Who bears strong similarities to Bin Laden.

Sometimes I am truly amazed at the cluelessness of the rightwing commentators on this blog.

Sometimes I am truly amazed at the steely inability to accept that 1968 is long gone, and the attendant twattishness in thinking that any differing opinions can be denounced as “right wing”.

The Bay of Pigs invasion took place in 1961 and the U.S. continued to support violent bands of ultrarightists in Florida.

The Bay of Pigs is in Vietnam? That’s the country you referred to! Go back and read what I have and have not said. For instance, I have not mentioned, let alone approved of, named American policies.

Carry on, Lenin.

On another thread I read variations on a theme, until the theme itself was baldly stated:

“What we need is more judgement and less understanding.”

This is a recipe for unbridled fascism. The Hitlers and Talibans know only judgement; their umbilical cord to the understanding of themsleves and human nature has been broken.

That statement conjures up the image of a hard-boiled, hide-bound father figure, or Thatcherite mother figure,who are themsleves responsible for all the ills of our world.

You can’t tell me that understanding was rejected in a particular context, because understanding can never be enough in any context. Understanding does not mean permissivenesss.

Very well said Felix. I am often amazed how people so often fail to grasp the very simple point that trying to understand why people do things, sometimes very bad things, does not in any way mean we have to condone them.

LOL… Lenin? Uh? Who? Friend of Che? ROFL

Give it up, Edmund. Look. Hole. Stop digging.

LOL… Lenin? Uh? Who? Friend of Che? ROFL

In English, please.

Che was the Stalinist hard man of the revolution and responsible, I feel, for much of the needless bloodshed after the revolution.

There are far more worthy T-Shirt candidates from the revolution, Camilo Cienfuegos particularly.

I see the need the point for posts like this because Che is a pretty dreadful character and has been treated to hagiographies so far. Although in context the bit about homosexuals is silly.

Cuba today needs reform as posts here ad naseum point out. Despite the accomplishments of the revolution that exist today and not in other similarly developed countries. Still I hope the “line” here at HP won’t descend to criticize the revolution and the reasons for it.

There was an interesting article by left-wing writer Paul Berman a few years ago warning against the Che myth. It was actually a review on Slate of the movie Motorcycle Diaries. Have a look:

http://www.slate.com/id/2107100/

Ah, now I see, Alec. You don’t actually know what you’re outraged about, hence this completely misdirectd line.

On one level, it’s the commercialisation that outrages you: Only if there were a statue on every street corner. What you’re really talking about is the market saturation of Che’s image. Many Che fans are also outraged about this, I am given to understand. Maybe we should get the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to look into it?

But you are also concerned about those who actually want to advocate the things Edmund listed above: and people were advocating the application – no matter how unlikely the realization of this is – of his plans to contemporary life. Let’s be generous and say that, what, one in every thousand of those who have a Che t-shirt, poster, zippo, whatever, actually know what his plans were, let alone advocate the application of those plans to contemporary life. It should have been made clear that all this hand-wringing only referred to them. Somehow we’ve all got it into our heads that Edmund’s original post and the subsequent dittos, were about everyone who displayed Che as an icon, or at least those who celebrated him in a political context, from the lady with the pink flag in Edmund’s post, all the way to Nelson Mandela. Clearly, you guys didn’t mean that at all.

But I think the real source of your outrage is that it’s “too soon”: Someone who’s been dead 50 times as long as Guevara? You’re the one who brought Cromwell into the discussion, so what do you think? Celebrating or tolerating Cromwell as an icon is OK, because that was centuries ago, so the simple icon of Cromwell does not constitute all that the man did. But, because it was only fifty years ago, the icon of Che today does constitute everything he said, everything he did? So, when punks wore swastikas, did that actually mean they were Nazis? If I put up a poster of Churchill, am I calling for famine in India? What’s the cut-off point here: How long does it take for icons to become, to your satisfaction, seperated enough from the grim historical reality?

to be honest, [Cromwell] probably better remembered as the man who attempted to ban Christmas.

You don’t think beheading a King (and yay! for that) somewhat eclipses the Xmas thing? And I think we know what he’s still best remembered for in Ireland. The people who put the statue up were, IIRC, celebrating him as a man who fought for Protestantism and Empire. Again, as an icon, does he mean all of these things, all the time, and more? And if not, when did he stop meaning all those things? When did iconography of Cromwell become acceptable to you, and how long do we have to wait before you will accept iconography of Che? Tell us when you will let us have our Che shirts, Alec!

But, a deal, the next time Morgoth suggests Cromwell’s assault on Ireland was a net benefit or should be re-applied anywhere, I’ll object.

Alright. And as my side of the deal, the next time someone wearing a Che t-shirt actually advocates nuking NY or putting gay men in concentration camps, I’ll twat them. Actually, I’ll do that whatever they’re wearing. And perhaps you could object to Morgoth or anyone who advocates any religious persecution, even without reference to Cromwell. Because that’s the important thing. What the current individual in question actually believes in, not what the person pictured on their t-shirt or their desktop or their wall did and said during their life.

If you’re going to get on, as a functioning member of society, you can’t go around with this spoddy attitude, telling everyone what this and that historical figure really believed in, said and did, and how that means that any popular iconography of that individual taints those who have it, enjoy it, tolerate it, etc. There isn’t some kind of semiotic osmosis here. And Pretty much every historical figure was a complete shit by modern standards, so you’re going to have trouble finding anyone who you couldn’t do that for (and if you’re going to insist on doing it for one, shouldn’t you do it for all?). Just because someone has a historical figure on their shirt or desk or wall, doesn’t mean they believe all the same things as that person, admire or approve of or even know about all the things they did. And anyone who needs that pointed out to them, needs help fast.

Che like most of us said some crazy things in his life and even did a few unjust and stupid and brutal things. But he also stood up courageously and put his life on the line against the ruthless consistenly brutal unjust and stupid Batista regime and its United States class sponsors. But the noble people on this blog accuse him of being simply a “terrorist” and it was a grievous fault and grievously hath he answered it.

Angry, Gregg? For the umpteenth time, this is the Internet.

On one level, it’s the commercialisation that outrages you: Only if there were a statue on every street corner.

If by commericialization you mean a money-spinner, no it’s not. Fools and their money, and all that. Given what I myself had said, it should have been clear that “one on every street corner” referred to the ubiquity of an image. Once again, it was you who brought up Cromwell and inferred hysteria in Edmund (and implied it in me) for talking only about the subject of the article, and not discussing an individual whose public image is found in only a handful of locations.

If you can find images of Cromwell, in stone or on fabric, which say something along the lines, “Kick ‘em up the Ireson!”, I join in with the criticism of it.

You don’t think beheading a King (and yay! for that)

Considering what went down in Ireland (and elsewhere, of course), some might say his motives were not of common humanity. And, as soon as Cromwell popped his clogs, they couldn’t get a King back fast enough and submit to any restriction of freedom for decades afterwards rather than not return to the mayhem of the 1640s.

the somewhat eclipses the Xmas thing?

I said “better remembered as”.

And I think we know what he’s still best remembered for in Ireland.

Fair enough, I should have qualified. Yet, I also referred to the effects of his policies in Ireland.

The people who put the statue up were, IIRC, celebrating him as a man who fought for Protestantism and Empire.

Dead, gone, never coming back, no longer celebrated as a paradigm worth following. Unlike Guevara by Zin; or, even idiotically, by muggins wearing a t-shirt.

Celebrating or tolerating Cromwell as an icon is OK, because that was centuries ago,

No, try again. However, nor is iconoclasm by destroying those images no longer deemed historically acceptable to be pursued. Once more, if Cromwell’s image and deeds continued to receive the same approval as Guevara’s, I would apply the same degree criticism. But they’re not, which is the point.

Furthermore, Cromwell at least had rational reasons for what he did. Guevara seems to have been consumed only by impotent rage, and failed miserably at everything he tried to do on his own.

And as my side of the deal, the next time someone wearing a Che t-shirt actually advocates nuking NY or putting gay men in concentration camps, I’ll twat them.

Sounds fair to me. You do recall that I said this in response of a claim by yourself, and not apropos of nothing?

I vote we rename this thread Zin and the Art of Motorcycle Diary Maintenance.

‘You believe that it’s OK to misrepresent and fabricate’.

Says the Castro apologist’s apologist.

‘Sometimes I am truly amazed at the steely inability to accept that 1968 is long gone, and the attendant twattishness in thinking that any differing opinions can be denounced as “right wing”.’

I’m not sure how old our ‘Straight Left’ veteran is, but he’s cut from the same cloth as those who cheered the suppression of the Prague Spring. Funnily enough, Fidel was one of them.

I’m not sure how old our ‘Straight Left’ veteran is, but he’s cut from the same cloth as those who cheered the suppression of the Prague Spring. Funnily enough, Fidel was one of them.I’m not sure how old our ‘Straight Left’ veteran is, but he’s cut from the same cloth as those who cheered the suppression of the Prague Spring. Funnily enough, Fidel was one of them.

I’ve noticed that Zin ignores any questions about his views on Budapest 1956 or Prague 1968.

Do some research. Che started as a doctor working with the poor. He ended up fighting the regimes the US propped up with arms sales at the expense of poor people.

The out of context quotes like hating the enemy are directed at soldiers you fight and politicians who represent the things you are fighting against. Eventually he ended up angry and bitter because the fight against injustice was not winnable. He was no angel. While he saved a lot of people, he’s responsible for many deaths too.

You are absolutely right that there are a lot of idiots who idolize Che without knowing squat other than his image on a pink baby tee. There are an equal number of idiots who demonize him with the same level of knowledge.

Love the many rabid ignoramus posts like Macpherson and Morgoth. It’s good to know the “left” and “liberals” are “claiming Che as their icon”.

I prefer to claim the terrorists Washington, Jefferson and Adams who should have been summarily executed by the rightful ruler of the Americas.

I assume you clowns idolize the saints Timothy McVeigh, David Koresh and Jim Jones.

Edmund and Gene who are your heroes.

Standing’s article gives us a series of horrifying quotations and supposed facts which have terrified most of the inhabitants of Harry’s Place out of their wits – so much so, that they don’t bother to ask the basic question “What are Standing’s sources?”

Fortunately, Standing himself has told us, since his much longer article on “Butterflies and Wheels” contains footnotes. It turns out that his source material for Guevara was mostly written by Humberto Fontova, a right wing Cuban exile.

Fontova left Cuba in 1961 at the age of seven. So he obviously had no access to source material in Cuba, and the other Cubans he spoke to about Guevara were, like himself, hostile to the Castro regime.

Of course, not all Cuban exiles are far right extremists. Unfortunately, Fontova is. He is unabashedly on the far right of the Republican Party, and writes for such publications as “Human Events” which describes itself as “Headquarters of the Conservative Underground”. In this magazine he has not merely denounced Castro and Guevara, but has published material in support of the 1973 Pinochet coup in Chile.

In December 2006, he made the wild claims that, shortly before the coup which overthrew the democratically elected president Salvador Allende, “dozens of ‘’Guerrilla’’ schools were being set up throughout Chile by Soviet bloc agents”, and that “Marxist death squads were also roaming Chile, murdering “bourgeois elements” with impunity or with the tacit support of the regime”.

“In September of 1973, Pinochet’s men weren’t out to score debating points on some fatuous think-thank panel or win applause on some asinine chat show. They knew their nation was looking up the locked and loaded muzzle of a Stalinist takeover”, raved Fontora. “So they marched into the Chilean OK Corral loaded for (Soviet) Bear. That they managed the messy business with 3,000 dead, including all collateral damage, will amaze anyone fully informed of what they went up against”.

So Fontora believes that Guevara was an appalling terrorist, but that 3,000 murders by Pinochet was an acceptable price to stop a fictional “Stalinist takeover”. The same article correctly places Pinochet in a long line of coup-makers – Pilsudski in Poland, Horthy in Hungary, Franco in Spain. But whereas civilized opinion is horrified by this line of monsters, Fontova applauds them.

In back copies of “Human Events” you will also find Fontova articles that denounce Nelson Mandela, praise the Bay of Pigs fiasco (supposedly a heroic effort to overthrow Castro, betrayed by Washington), and call for offshore drilling (he dismisses “environmental superstition”, and describes oil tanker spills as “minor blips”).

In February 2008, Fontova was fuming against the Barack Obama campaign for the democratic nomination because – horror of horrors – “the offices of two Texas Obama campaign volunteers were found prominently decorated with Che Guevara images, against the backdrop of Cuban flags”.

On the right-wing site LewRockwell.com, Fontova wrote, in September “Our next vice President boasts a lifetime NRA membership and poses for pictures blasting shots from an assault rifle”. That’s right, Fontova really did think Sarah Palin was headed for fame rather than oblivion. And he openly slavered over her fondness for guns and hunting.

But the point of this article is to denounce Palin’s speechwriter, Matthew Scully, for daring to disagree with her on the virtues of firearms. “Our next Vice President is a lifelong hunter who fills her freezer and feeds her family with the flesh of hooved mammals that she proudly stalked, killed and field dressed herself. Pictures of her posing next to the violently deceased creatures flood the web and blogospheres”, declared Fontova. “Yet her speechwriter is an animal-rightist and vegan activist whose book, Dominion, was hailed by PETA in 2003 as their “Book of the Year!”

Clearly the Republican Party is far too generous and inclusive for Fontova, who is infuriated that it can contain both hunters and anti-hunters. Furthermore, he is angered that his favourite pastime is taxed.

“To “preserve nature,” they don’t tax Birkenstock hiking boots and Ying-Yang pendants – but DO tax my shotgun”, whined Fontova. “They don’t tax yoga manuals and Tofu tidbits wrapped in recycled paper – but DO tax my 30.06 rifle. They don’t tax binoculars or birding Field Guides with cutesy photos of the red-cockaded woodpecker and spotted owl – but DO tax my rifle scope and the shotgun shells I blast at Mallards before arraying on my grill as Duck-K-Bobs. Going further, they don’t tax Kayaks and rock-climbing picks and ropes – but DO tax my compound bow, and the arrows that fling from it. They don’t tax mountain bikes – but DO tax my duck decoys and camo jumpsuit. Ten cents of every dollar I spend on my hunting and fishing toys funds Federal and State “conservation” programs”.

This voice from the far right of the Republican Party and Cuban exile community is the man whom Standing trusts as his source on Che Guevara.

None of this, of course, proves that Che was a lovable and cuddly character. But you cannot draw a minimally intelligible picture of the man just by quoting his enemies.

Harold Shipman was a doctor, LOL. So is Radovan Karadic.

Nice try linking me with Moggie. Now, when did we start discussing the American Revolution? I hope this ain’t an attempt to change the subject.

I agree Paul
I cannot see much diffeence between Gene, Brett, David and Edmund and Fontova.
Not much difference in their hate.

Edmund and Gene who are your heroes.

Among others, Yoani Sanchez.

The record is pretty clear no matter who quotes it, Che was the Stalinist thug of the Cuban revolution.

I hope you learned something from your humiliation, Edmund. Recycling discredited far right propaganda and out of context half-quotes is so Richard Littlejohn. Next time try learning the basic facts about a topic before you write about it and you will avoid mking such a fool of yourself. Also, it’s worth finding out who Lenin is before you ‘quote’ him on Che. Muppet.

Zin, what are your views on Budapest 1956 and Prague 1968?

Zin, I cannot believe (well, yes, I can) you, after debasing yourself over the differences between Guevara and Bin Laden, can plumb even further lower standards by accusing others of humiliating themselves on the Internet.

Strangely, references to Calvin Tucker and his proud association with a communist party splinter group that supported the invasion of Czechoslovakia have been removed from the “Straight Left” page on wikipedia.

Covering your tracks Zinster? Is your association with totalitarian communists hindering your ability to do PR work for Chavez?

Also, why is it that in the “most socially progressive country in Latin America” you can’t vote, speak freely, assemble freely, or do any of the things that someone in, say Costa Rica, can?

Zin, I cannot believe (well, yes, I can) you, after debasing yourself over the differences between Guevara and Bin Laden, can plumb even further lower standards by accusing others of humiliating themselves on the Internet. ~ Alec Macpherson

Che = Bin Laden? LOL

Oh well, I suppose that disproves the notion that all Alecs are smart.

No idea what you’re ranting on about, Mr Danger. I don’t know how to edit Wikipedia, nor do I have any desire to do so. But I imagine it’s all tracked somewhere, if you want to continue your swivel-eyed ‘investigations’. Nutter.

No idea what you’re ranting on about, Mr Danger.

You’ve never heard of Czechoslovakia? Come on Calvin, you may be stupid and you are a pathetic little apologist, but I don’t think that’s going to cut it.

Go away loony, and stop hiding behind your moniker. Reveal yourself, troll.

Why, you want someone to pay me a visit? This isn’t Cuba and I’m not Yoani Sanchez.

Che = Bin Laden? LOL

No, neither Graham nor I said they were equal. We said there were similarities. Now, tell us what the differences are.

P.S. There is nothing in etiquette to stop Internet users from adopting regular monikers, as you demonstrate. Still, at least we know your real name. Unlike the poster Lol, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Penny Pemberton is not real.

You’re getting rattled.

Yeah, Mr. Danger, come to think of it, that does sound like the local heavy trying to scare the independent trade unions into silence and agreement with Comrade Fidel.

Quite disgraceful from a so-called Leftist.

Zin?