29 February 2008

“Tengo una remera del Che y no sé por qué,”

An Argentine expression, meaning, "I have a Che T-shirt and I don’t know why." That's from an excellent article by Alvaro Llosa called The Killing Machine: Che Guevara, from Communist Firebrand to Capitalist Brand.
No man is without some redeeming qualities. In the case of Che Guevara, those qualities may help us to measure the gulf that separates reality from myth. His honesty (well, partial honesty) meant that he left written testimony of his cruelties, including the really ugly, though not the ugliest, stuff...
...
In April 1967, speaking from experience, he summed up his homicidal idea of justice in his “Message to the Tricontinental”: “hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine.”
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See also: A list of people Che had executed
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Just to keep things linked up, see also, a past blog on Communism and Che

1 comment:

chris said...

It's great to see the other side of this cult icon. I don't have time right now, but I'm looking forward to reading your other post on him too.