Sooooo…how many people do I have to kill to get my own iApp? I want to be a hero to the non-thinking masses.

Ronald Reagan’s right-wing Contra Death squads slaughtered 70,000 in El Salvador, 100,000 in Guatemala, and 30,000 in Nicaragua. Yet teabagging morons worship the diaper wearing war criminal.

… If only Che had lived long enough to battle Reagan’s goons and butchers.

The application of the death penalty in Cuba against war criminals and others followed the same procedure as that seen in the trials by the Allies in the Nuremberg trials. Had the Revolutionary Government not applied severe legislation against the few hundred torturers, terrorists, and other criminals long employed by the Batista regime, the people themselves would have taken justice into their own hands–as happened during the anti-Machado rebellion–and thrown the society into chaos. It was only the population’s confidence in the government’s effective and cautiously selective administration of revolutionary justice that kept the society in order. The death penalty was imposed on the enemies of the people–those who had killed, tortured, and committed crimes against humanity during the revolutionary war and continued to conspire against the revolution. These were the traitorous elements that supported and participated in the Batista regime and received shelter in the United States or Falangist Spain and those that feared fulfillment of the promise to the end of class privilege, exploitation, and all abuses of the Batista regime maintained by the overthrown Cuban bourgeoisie, American corporations, and the U.S. regime.

REF: Thirty Years of Cuban Revolutionary Penal Law, by Raul Gomez Treto, Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 18, No. 2, Cuban Views on the Revolution (Spring, 1991), pp. 114-125

This myth of the ignorant rich kid (who doesn’t know who he is) in the Che shirt – is mostly myth created to deligitimize those who truly look into the life of the heroic Che and honor him by wearing a shirt with his image on it.

It seems most popular criticism of the t-shirts comes from people who know little or nothing about Che and is directed at people they in turn think know little or nothing about him but wear his image. Their cynicism and criticism is best understood in the light of what they see as an affront to mindless conservative commercialism as right-wing consumerists fail to understand the usefulness of wearing one’s beliefs “on one’s sleeve”, so to speak. Fashion is a dictum to those people.

Furthermore, telling someone they can’t buy a T-shirt bearing the image of someone who criticizes capitalism is awfully convenient for capitalists. They don’t want capitalism questioned.

“The powerful of the earth should take heed: deep inside that T shirt where we have tried to trap him, the eyes of Che Guevara are still burning with impatience.” — Ariel Dorfman, Time Magazine

Che Guevara operates like a mirror. He forces you to look inside yourself and makes you question how your actions help aid others oppression. Che is the moral compass for the world – Everyone should always ask themselves … would Che agree with this? If he wouldn’t, then don’t do it.

If only che could have spread his brute force around the world.

We could all be living like Cubans right now.

Damn Democracy.

“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service in the country’s most agile military force, the Marines. I served in all ranks from second lieutenant to major general. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. Thus I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. “I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the raping of half-a-dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers and Co. in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras ‘right’ for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.”

— Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler (former Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps), November 1935

“After graduation, due to special circumstances and perhaps also to my character, I began to travel throughout America, and I became acquainted with all of it. Except for Haiti and Santo Domingo, I have visited, to some extent, all the other Latin American countries. Because of the circumstances in which I traveled, first as a student and later as a doctor, I came into close contact with poverty, hunger and disease; with the inability to treat a child because of lack of money; with the stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment, to the point that a father can accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident, as occurs often in the downtrodden classes of our American homeland. And I began to realize at that time that there were things that were almost as important to me as becoming a famous or making a significant contribution to medical science: I wanted to help those people.”

— Che Guevara, August 19, 1960

http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1960/08/19.htm

In his death Che has been a key inspiration to communist, nationalist, anarchist, and revolutionaries of all types. Through “Guerrilla Warfare” Che has given inspiration to countless warriors against oppression, whether they’ve put his words into action or have just held them in the hearts, Che has been the spiritual leader of revolution for over fifty years and will be for many years to come. Like Marion, Giap, Gelayev, and Mao, Che showed that the classic style of conventional warfare, with its seemingly endless supplies, political pawnbroking, and a-typical tactics could be defeated by bands of men, and women, whose dedication far outweighed there abilities, and could defeat and cripple the most powerful of adversaries. These ideas and practices that Che epitomized give testament to the legacy and to the man Che Guevara was.

“Che’s life is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom, we will always honor his memory.” — Nelson Mandela

Che will always be a hero to anyone who has ever witnessed real poverty as he did.