Totalitarian Apologists, Antisemitism, and Che Guevara (or: I Heart Che)
Dean
"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. We must create the pedagogy of the The Wall!" --Ernesto 'Che' Guevara
"The Wall" meaning the wall that Che Guevara so happily put people up against to shoot them.
But Che didn't always bother with the wall. One of his favored methods of killing was to tie his victim to a chair, gag him, walk around the room a bit ranting at him, and then slowly walk up, pistol in hand — and splatter the victim's brains and skull across the room while his companions watched.
Why do I bring all this up? Well yesterday, I noted Val Prieto's piece on Che's cheerful everyday execution of Christians during his "glorious revolution" in Cuba. In response to that, some faux-liberal left-wing twit posted an incoherent rant on his blog about me, Fulgencio Batista, George Custer, Ariel Sharon, and King David.
Yeah, you got it. Instead of just acknowledging that Che was a sadist and a mass-murderer, the guy changed the subject to the JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOZ!!!!!
What is it about totalitarian hate-freaks that whenever they're confronted with the monstrous crimes against humanity committed by one of their heroes, they think they can make it go away by changing the subject? And what is it with their creepy fascination with jews, anyway?
Mind you, I can sort of understand bringing up Batista, the man who Fidel and Che toppled. Batista was a gangster, a thug and a thief. He killed political opponents and cracked down hard anyone objecting to his thuggish regime.
On the other hand, anyone who's looked at what's happened on that island over the last 50 years knows the truth: Fidel has killed and tortured and imprisoned far more people than any dictator in Cuban history. He has also created more poverty and suffering than any other Cuban leader in history. Yet still people make a hero out of his buddy, the sadistic murderer Che Guevara?
Oh thank you Che! You helped replace a brutal thug named Batista with an even more brutal thug named Castro! And in the process you helped make the poor of Cuba even poorer, helped further suppress free speech, and were proud to institutionalize torture and terror for everyday Cubans! On top of all those glorious things, you wrote poetry!
Che, you looked so handsome and dashing on your motorcycle! But you were even more handsome and dashing when you were terrorizing Cuban peasants, blowing their skulls to bits with your personal sidearm! You romantic Stalin-loving poet you!
The twit anti-semite apologist for Che also had the audacity to say that Che was a "symbol" for "Latin Americans." Yes, certainly he is, and the Latin Americans at Cubanet will be happy to tell you just exactly what that symbol means to them: Just click here to read what these Latin Americans have to say about the "symbol" Che.
And here's what some other Latin Americans have to say about the symbol Che.
Che Guevara was a murdering pig. If you're an apologist for him, you're an apologist for a murdering pig--and an enemy of human rights.
Meanwhile, Bridget Johnson notes that it's has some serious suggestions for movies Hollywood should be making, but isn't.
Related Posts (on one page):
- From the Mailbag: Peter McLaren, Apologist for Mass Murder and Torture
- From The Mailbag: Che Guevara, Selfless Physician
- Get Your Red Hot Che Guevara T-Shirts Here!
- Che Challenge
- The New McCarthyism
- Totalitarian Apologists, Antisemitism, and Che Guevara (or: I Heart Che)
- Shooting Christians
Batista was a dictator, sure enough....but here's a look at his dictatorship, via the 1953 Collier's Yearbook:
"Counterrevolutionary"? Yep, Batista was a revolutionary, too; as must as Castro was. Also, its interesting to note that part of the opposition to Batista came from the Cuban police...can we imagine that there is any such opposition to Castro among his police forces? And I don't think even the most ardent Castro partisan in the United States would imagine that a fine would be all the punishment an opponent of Castro would merit...and nor can we imagine that there'd be a pardon for opposition at the end of the road. He did get worse, though; later that same year (1952), Batista did see to it that another rebel was sentenced to two whole years in prison.
We should also note that Cuba's biggest non-political problem in 1952 was how to dispose of its bumper crop of sugur. Over-production of commodities is not a noted problem in Cuba today. Cuba's trade surplus in 1952 was (in inflation-adjusted, 2005 dollars) approximately $896 million. There were $2.2 billion in gold reseves in Cuba in 1952, the Cuba peso was one for one with the US dollar.
When Cuban labor went out on strike in early 1953 in Cuba's sugar industry, the horrifically repressive measures of the brutal Batista dictatorship was to make the employers increase wages and otherwise give in to labor demands.
He was a dictator who engaged in the typical corrupt and thuggish tactics of run-of-the-mill Latin American dictatorships of that age; but he was an angel of light and mercy compared to what came after.
I do not see an ounce of Antisemitism in my post, but I could show you a few posts where I criticize Jose Maria Aznar for never condemning Manuel Fraga, president of the PP, for being an apologist of the Holocaust. Yes, Aznar the liar takes orders from a former Franco henchman. And we all know who eased Franco to power.
How can anyone that honors Jesus' message can be Antisemitic, wasn't Jesus a Jew?
Are you mad because I pointed at your discrimination against Christians when you wrote down crucifix instead of Crucifix?
Jesus is represented in that Crucifix, spelling it crucifix is derogatory.
Honestly you have only two choices: be an honest man and admit the shame of honoring this monster, or continuing to try to change the subject and pretend that the horrors this man committed never happened.
It's pretty clear to me that for the moment you're choosing to keep your illusions--since you keep changing the subject still. (Whether or not I capitalized "crucifix?" Whether or not your ranting about King David and bringing up allegations about the Jews is antisemitic? Grow up, kid.)
The word "cross" is also not capitalized in any translation I am aware of, not even when referring to the specific cross that was the instrument of Christ's death, although admittedly I did not check every single one of the versions available at biblegateway.com as I did with "crucifix." (The word "cross" appears many times in most translations, and there is a limit to the amount of my free time I will spend doing research for someone with whom I disagree on a fundamental level.) I suppose that Mr. Zazpiak feels that the popular New Testament translations all discriminate against Christians by failing to include "crucifix" at all and by failing to capitalize "cross."
Failing to capitalize "God," on the other hand, is in fact often an intentional slight; I'm well aware that some particularly obnoxious atheists do this. I can see how Mr. Zazpiak might confuse "God" and "crucifix," though; they're such similar words.
If you really want to get picky we should be calling the the man born to the Virgin Mary, Joshua - not Jesus. Jesus is a mistranslation of Yeshua (which, when pronounced correctly even sounds like Joshua).
So who's the bigger insult to Christianity - the guy who doesn't capatialize "crucifix" or the guy who refers to Joshua as "Jesus"?