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About That Che T-Shirt
The Stream ^
| October 9, 2019
| Lawrence W. Reed
Posted on 10/10/2019 7:57:13 AM PDT by Heartlander
About That Che T-Shirt
Think twice about adding a Che Guevara T-shirt to your Christmas giving this year.
Lets say that all you knew about Adolf Hitler was that he painted scenic pictures, postcards, and houses in Vienna, loved dogs and named his adorable German Shepard Blondie, and frequently expressed solidarity with the people. You might sport a T-shirt adorned with his image if you thought such a charismatic chap was also good-looking in a beret. But your education would be widely regarded as incomplete.
If you later found out that the guy on your T-shirt was a mass murderer, you might ask your oppression studies professor why she left out a few important details.
This hypothetical resembles a real-world phenomenon seen today on numerous college campuses. Fifty-two years after his demise in Bolivia on October 9, 1967 the maniacal socialist Ernesto Che Guevara is still making headlines and spoiling perfectly good clothes.
In film and pop culture, Che comes off as an adventurous motorcyclist, a humble-living commoner, a romantic egalitarian revolutionary, and a swashbuckling sex symbol. His ghastly history as one of Fidel Castros favorite thugs routinely gets whitewashed because, in spite of all the murders, he supposedly had good intentions (read: hate the rich, concentrate power, eliminate dissent, help the poor by creating more of them).
In his remarkable 2007 volume, Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him, acclaimed journalist Humberto Fontova contrasted the fiction with the facts in these terms:
Who Was Che Guevara?
Myth: International man of the people. Humanitarian. Brave freedom fighter. Lover of literature and life. Advocate of the poor and oppressed.
Reality: Cold-blooded murderer. Sadistic torturer. Power-hungry materialist. Terrorist who inspired destruction and bloodshed through Latin America.
Here are some lesser-known info bits about the psychopath-on-the-T-shirt, drawn from Fontovas book and other sources:
- He publicly applauded the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and denounced the student protesters battling Soviet tanks in Budapest as fascists.
- Upon the victory of the 1959 communist revolution in Cuba, Che commandeered for himself one of the most luxurious mansions in Havana complete with a yacht harbor, monster swimming pool, seven bathrooms, sauna and massage salon, and five television sets.
- Che played a leading role in the Cuban Literacy Campaign of 1961 and, at the same time, helped direct the regimes brutal policy of crushing dissenting opinion and opposition media. As Fontova documented in his biography, Che promoted book burning and signed death warrants for authors who disagreed with him. Communist despots routinely teach reading and writing but work even harder at making sure you only read and write what they want you to. Ches first public book-burning set more than 3,000 books ablaze on a Havana street.
- Even Ches adoring hagiographer, Jorge Castaneda, admits that Che played a central role in establishing Cubas security machinery in the early days of the Castro regime. In that capacity, Che supervised the torture and execution of untold thousands of Cubans without trial. He had a special affection for firing squads.
- Cuban poet and diplomat Armando Valladares, author of Against All Hope: My 22 Years in Castros Gulag, says Che was a man full of hatred who executed people who never once stood trial and were never declared guilty and who declared, At the smallest of doubt we must execute.
- Che was no equal opportunity oppressor. He held special dislike for gays, whom he incarcerated in multiple prisons. He was a well-known racist, as well.
- Fidel Castro appointed Che Guevara as communist Cubas first Economics Minister and president of the countrys National Bank. Within months, the Cuban peso was practically worthless. Castro appointed him Minister of Industries, too. In that job, Che proved equally incompetent. He once bought a fleet of snowplows from Czechoslovakia because he thought they would make excellent sugar cane harvesters but, sadly, the machines simply squashed and killed the plants.
- Che was Castros economic czar, though he knew nothing about economics beyond Marxist bumper stickers. His former deputy Ernesto Betancourt said Che was ignorant of the most elementary economic principles. Nonetheless, he actually wrote communist Cubas agrarian reform law, limiting the size of all farms and creating state-run communes. Production plummeted and is still lower today than before the revolution.
- The Soviet missiles in Cuba that nearly precipitated a world war in 1962 were Ches idea. When the Soviets were pressured by the Kennedy administration to remove them, Che publicly declared that if the missiles had been under Cuban control, they would have been fired at the US because the cause of socialism was worth millions of atomic-war victims.
- Che left Cuba in 1965 to foment violent insurrections first in Africa and then back in Latin America. He was captured by the Bolivian military on October 8, 1967, and administered a dose of his own summary medicine the next day.
- Bottom line: Think twice (actually, just once ought to be enough) about adding a Che Guevara T-shirt to your Christmas giving this year.
For additional information, see:
Lawrence W. Reed is President Emeritus, Humphreys Family Senior Fellow, and Ron Manners Ambassador for Global Liberty at the Foundation for Economic Education. He is also author of Real Heroes: Incredible True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction and Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.
This article was originally published on FEE.org.
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TOPICS: Education; History; Reference; Society
KEYWORDS:
To: Heartlander
2
posted on
10/10/2019 8:05:40 AM PDT
by
fishtank
(The denial of original sin is the root of liberalism.)
To: Heartlander
I once printed this out on a 24 x 36 poster for a friend (a Spanish teacher). Her students were getting into the "Che is cool" attitude. The details of the picture show a face of one of his murder victims.
3
posted on
10/10/2019 8:07:54 AM PDT
by
budj
(combat vet, 2nd of 3 generations)
To: fishtank
4
posted on
10/10/2019 8:10:37 AM PDT
by
RightGeek
(FUBO and the donkey you rode in on)
To: Heartlander
I think the People’s Cube guy has it right. Mockery is the best approach when it comes to Che (with that poster being a spot-on example). You can point out historical reality all day long to the lefties who buy these shirts but they are impervious.
5
posted on
10/10/2019 8:10:42 AM PDT
by
Yardstick
To: Heartlander
To: Heartlander
This Third World, multi cultural champion was as white as Elizabeth Warren. He was an Argentinian of Basque and Irish descent. Argentina is possibly the whitest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
To: Tijeras_Slim
8
posted on
10/10/2019 8:28:05 AM PDT
by
Howie66
("...Against All Enemies, Foreign and Democrat.....")
To: Heartlander
9
posted on
10/10/2019 8:33:33 AM PDT
by
sevlex
To: Howie66
We were in Spain several years back and vendors on every corner were selling Che T-shirts.
10
posted on
10/10/2019 8:34:41 AM PDT
by
lilypad
To: sevlex
I’ve always liked the che Reagan shirts.
I have one of those.
11
posted on
10/10/2019 8:40:13 AM PDT
by
sauropod
(I am His and He is Mine)
To: Tijeras_Slim
That second is my favorite picture of Che.
My version of the iconic (to Communists) Che shirt:
12
posted on
10/10/2019 8:52:10 AM PDT
by
FreedomPoster
(Islam delenda est)
To: sauropod
Heh, likewise, see my previous.
13
posted on
10/10/2019 8:52:48 AM PDT
by
FreedomPoster
(Islam delenda est)
To: Heartlander
I would rather kill a commie for mommy..
14
posted on
10/10/2019 9:01:45 AM PDT
by
ßuddaßudd
((>> M A G A << "What the hell kind of country is this if I can only hate a man if he's white?")
To: Heartlander
15
posted on
10/10/2019 9:15:48 AM PDT
by
PapaBear3625
("Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire)
To: Heartlander; All
16
posted on
10/10/2019 9:59:59 AM PDT
by
PGalt
To: Heartlander
17
posted on
10/10/2019 10:03:08 AM PDT
by
equaviator
(There's nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth.)
To: Heartlander
My leftist sister-in-law once wore a Che shirt to a family gathering. I engaged in a conversation with her about it and she clearly knew nothing about who this guy really was. I proceeded to educate her. She never wore it again, as far as I know.
A lot of ignorant people out there.
18
posted on
10/10/2019 10:07:24 AM PDT
by
cld51860
(Volo pro veritas)
To: Heartlander
19
posted on
10/10/2019 10:22:15 AM PDT
by
Disambiguator
("Progressives" want government in action. Conservatives want government inaction.)
To: Heartlander
20
posted on
10/10/2019 10:59:12 AM PDT
by
Sergio
(An object at rest cannot be stopped! - The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight)
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