Che Guevara—Hollywood Keeps Lying

Townhall.com ^ | October 13, 2012 | Humberto Fontova

[Kaslin]

“Steven Soderbergh made certain his movie, “Che," about the life of revolutionary Ernesto “Che" Guevara, couldn't be attacked -- at least on a factual level,” stressed CNN Entertainment, upon the movie’s release in 2009.

“I didn't want was for somebody to be able to look at a scene and say, 'That never happened.' "(Steven Soderbergh CNN Entertainment, January 1, 2009)

Well, Mr Steven Soderbergh (and CNN,) pull up a chair.

Soderbergh’s movie shows Che Guevara steely-eyed and snarling with defiance during his capture (45 years ago this week.) Why, according to Soderbergh, only seconds before his capture, Che’s very M-2 carbine had been blasted from his hands and rendered useless by a CIA-Fascist machine gun burst!

Then the bravely grimacing Guevara jerks out his pistol and blasts his very last bullets at the approaching hordes of CIA-Fascist soldiers!

The (typical) viewer gapes at the spectacle. His very eyes mist and lips tremble at Soderbergh and Benicio Del Toro’s impeccable depiction of such undaunted pluck and valor.

OK, but just where did Soderbergh and Benicio Del Toro (who starred as Che and co-produced the movie) obtain this version of Che’s capture? Remember they were both utterly obsessed with “historical accuracy.”

Well, the notoriously skeptical towards U.S. businessmen (see Erin Brockovich) director Steven Soderbergh transcribed this sterling account of Che’s capture exactly as penned by Fidel Castro, who apparently cannot tell a lie, according to Hollywood.

The man who mentored Soderbergh’s film for impeccable historical honesty is also on record for the following testaments:

“Again I stress I am not a communist. And Communists have absolutely no influence in my nation!” (Fidel Castro, April 1959)

“Political power does interest me in the least! And I will never assume such power!” (Fidel Castro, April 1959)

As evidenced by Steven Soderbergh’s film, the author of these proclamations merits his version of Che’s capture transcribed on the silver screen as gospel. Fidel Castro, you see, wrote the forward to Che‘s Diaries wherein this Davy Crocket-esque-at-the-Alamo version of events appears. These diaries were published in Castro’s fiefdom by the Stalinist dictator’s very own propaganda ministry. So to guarantee their film’s historical accuracy, Soderbergh and co-producer Benicio Del Toro were scrupulous in repeatedly visiting a Stalinist regime’s propaganda ministers for the unvarnished truth!

Actually they’ follow a fine Hollywood tradition. Robert Redford privately screen Motorcyvle Diaries for Fidel Castro and Che’s widow. Only after the approval of these two Stalinists was the movie released by this adamant proponent of artistic freedom.

On the other hand, a mental defect diagnosed by my physician as “not believing Communist dictators, especially after living under them” led your humble servant here while researching his books, to dig-up and study the actual records of the men actually on the scene of Che Guevara’s capture, and to interview those who today live in places where they need not fear Castro’s firing squads and torture chambers for the crime of telling the truth.

As might be expected, this mental defect led to the discovery of major “discrepancies” between Soderbergh and Del Toro’s Fidel Castro-mentored film and the historical truth.

In fact: on his second to last day alive, Che Guevara ordered his guerrilla charges to give no quarter, to fight to the last breath and to the last bullet. “Che drummed it into us,” recalls Cuban guerrilla Dariel Alarcon, who indeed fought to his last bullet in Bolivia, escaped back to Cuba, defected, and today lives in Paris. “Never surrender,” Che always stressed. “Never, never!” He drilled it into us almost every day of the guerrilla campaign. “A Cuban revolutionary cannot surrender!” Che thundered. “Save your last bullet for yourself!”

With his men doing exactly that, Che, with a trifling flesh leg-wound (though Soderbergh’s movie depicts Che’s leg wound as ghastlier than Burt Reynolds’ in Deliverance,) snuck away from the firefight, crawled towards the Bolivian soldiers doing the firing—then as soon as his he spotted two of them at a distance, stood and yelled: "Don't Shoot! I'm Che! I'm worth more to you alive than dead!"

Learning of Che’s whimpering capture with fully loaded weapons after his sissified escape from the firefight started Alarcon’s long road to total disillusionment with Castroism

His captor’s official Bolivian army records that they took from Ernesto “Che” Guevara: a fully-loaded PPK 9mm pistol. And the damaged carbine was an M-1—NOT the M-2 Che records in his own diaries as carrying. The damaged M-1 carbine probably belonged to the hapless guerrilla charge, Willi, who Che dragged along—also to his doom.

But it was only after his (obviously voluntary) capture that Che segued into full Eddie-Hasquell-Greeting-June-Cleaver-Mode. "What's your name, young man?!" Che quickly asked one of his captors. "Why what a lovely name for a Bolivian soldier!"

"So what will they do with me?" Che, obviously desperate to ingratiate himself, asked Bolivian Captain Gary Prado. "I don't suppose you will kill me. I'm surely more valuable alive....And you Captain Prado!" Che commended his captor. "You are a very special person! ...I have been talking to some of your men. They think very highly of you, captain!..Now, could you please find out what they plan to do with me?"

From that stage on, Che Guevara’s fully-documented Eddie Haskell-isms only get more uproarious (or nauseating.) But somehow none of these found their way into Soderbergh’s film.

[catfish1957]

I’d love to somehow bring back people living 75-100 years ago, and let them see what hollywood is pandeing out as “heros”. They would be truly horrorfied.

[ETL]

According to Chris "tingles", Che was 'kind of cute'.

From MSNBC Hardball with Chris Matthews (transcript)
March. 21, 2006:

KRISTINN, FREEREPUBLIC.COM: We have kids that wear Che Guevara shirts here in the United States.

MATTHEWS: Yes, but they're kind of cute at this point, aren't they? They're not about somebody out to get us now. I think there's a difference. I mean, that's kind of camp almost, isn't it?...is Che Guevara the symbol of hate in the United States anymore?

KRISTINN: Yes.

MATTHEWS: I don't think so. I mean, a lot of our kids wear them. I see kids wearing them all the time, even my kids wear them.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11943459/

[ETL]

Che flag sends 'disturbing' message about Obama
Candidate attracts 'people who think mass murderers are romantic revolutionaries'
February 13, 2008
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

The Fox TV affiliate in Houston has captured images of a volunteer in a campaign office for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama working in front of a flag featuring the image of Che Guevara, the South American revolutionary who became Fidel Castro's executioner after the communist takeover in Cuba.

And while the Obama campaign has issued a statement placing a modest distance between the campaign and its "volunteers," the issue of such an image on display in an office operating on behalf of a man hoping to be commander in chief of the world's last remaining superpower is raising alarms.

Even Obama supporters have been forced into corners because of the issue, with one likening the Texas state Republican Party to Guevara, to whom have been attributed hundreds of executions of anti-Castro leaders.

Under the heading "Barack Guevara," Investor's Business Daily raised some of the more pointed questions, to which the campaign responded only with a statement: "The office featured in this video is funded by volunteers of the Barack Obama Campaign and is not an official headquarters for his campaign. ..."

http://www.wnd.com/2008/02/56293/

[samtheman]

Wow. This is a keeper.

[ETL]

I’d love to somehow bring back people living 75-100 years ago, and let them see what Hollywood is pandeing out as “heroes”.

Red Star over Hollywood
The Film Colony’s Long Romance with the Left
By Ronald and Allis Radosh

"Until now, Hollywood's political history has been dominated by a steady stream of films and memoirs decrying the nightmare of the Red Scare. But Ronald and Allis Radosh show that the real drama of that era lay in the story of the movie stars, directors and especially screenwriters who joined the Communist Party or traveled in its orbit, and made the Party the focus of their political and social lives. The authors' most controversial discovery is that during the investigations of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the Hollywood Reds themselves were beset by doubts and disagreements about their disloyalty to America, and their own treatment by the Communist Party. Abandoned by their old CP allies, they faced the Blacklist alone."

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Star-Over-Hollywood-Colonys/dp/1893554961
___________________________________________________

"...at the time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Communists suddenly transformed the 'Anti-Nazi League' into the "Hollywood Peace Forum," calling for American neutrality and using the slogan 'Let's Skip the Next War.'..."
--Ronald Radosh, from his book, Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony's Long Romance With the Left
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4251
___________________________________________________

"[Pete] Seeger was antiwar during the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact; pro-war after the Soviet Union was the ally of the United States; and anti-war during the years of the Cold War and Vietnam." --Ronald Radosh (former communist)
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=01133F31-CE9A-40BC-B797-47CBB0023EF4

[ETL]

Red Star over Hollywood
The Film Colony’s Long Romance with the Left
By Ronald and Allis Radosh

"The Radoshes describe the infatuation of "the Hollywood Party" from its roots in the 1930s, when several visited the Soviet Union. They demonstrate that, far from being innocent, the "Hollywood Ten" were committed Communists, who used and abused free-speech supporters (like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall) for their own ends. The Communist Party, in turn, cynically used the "Ten" for its own ends -- trotting them out to speak at unrelated left-wing events for years, which prevented the Ten from individually rehabilitating their images and obtaining work.

The authors also describe the way the CP line was inserted in several films, most notoriously, "Mission to Moscow." This film, designed to turn the views of a skeptical American public toward the USSR during World War II, whitewashes Stalin's purge trials of the 1930s, where many truly innocent were tortured into confessing and executed. Perhaps most interesting is the difficult path faced by those who broke with the Party and either "named names" or walked a fine line to avoid naming names. For many, being seen as an informer was worse than preventing and exposing genuine Communist infiltration."

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Star-Over-Hollywood-Colonys/dp/1433219298

[ETL]

RED STAR OVER 2008 DNC CONVENTION CENTER:

[AU72]

Che was becoming more popular, so Castro sent him off on a suicide mission to Bolivia hoping to soon have a dead legend rather than a live rival.

[KC Burke]

He rounded up and killed most of the young pop musicians playing early rock and roll in Cuba.
He liked to watch the executions.

[TalBlack]

I surfed into the movie “Shutter Island”. Thought it had recived decent reviews or had been called ‘very scary’ or some such thing. Stuck around to see what it was about. Discovered, according the DiCaprio character, that Shutter Island was the warehouse for all of the failed mind experiments (people)committed by a top secret CIA group funded by the HUAC and which apparently availed itself of ex NAZI doctors. Too evil for me. Surfed out

[Cuttnhorse]

My favorite photo of the worthless piece of crap:

[procrustes]

Watch that movie to the end and you will be surprised. But it is a very depressing ending. It seems to be about the delusions the mind can invent to avoid facing horrible truths.

[ETL]

“Twinkle Toes” Guevara.