IDOLIZING CHE

I saw a picture of Gloria Steinem in a magazine the other day, and she had a photo of Che Guevara on her wall, as if she idolized him.

La-dee-friggin-da.

This was in the 1960s or 70s. She might feel differently now, and I might have the meaning wrong. But so many left-wing intellectuals over the years have idolized Che, who was an idealist, but he was also a cold-blooded killer.

Che had great ideals. He wanted to reduce the power of the imperialist USA and create a better life for peons and other working poor. He wanted to change the world. Who doesn't? But he killed more than a few men in Cuba, by his own hand, when he thought they were not loyal to the Revolution. His Revolution.

Times were different then, and Batista was a fairly bloody dictator. Still, Che was no Mahatma Gandhi, no Martin Luther King. He was a man with a gun.

In Bolivia, Che ordered a young recruit killed because he was weak and couldn't keep up with the other guerrillas. Do you admire that? I don't. Hell, that could've been Che himself when he was young. Che had asthma all his life and he struggled with it, sometimes having to be carried by his men. He was weak, too. 

So Che was a left-wing idealist, but he was also a ruthless killer.

His photo does not hang on my wall.  Never has, never will.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

CHE: MY VERDICT

The famous revolutionary leader Che Guevara wanted to change the world. Stamp out imperialism. Eliminate hunger and poverty. Rein in the greed and violence of those right-wing governments that take it as their mission to protect the golden lifestyles of the rich.

Che's goals were not bad. Spread the wealth. Lift up the poor. Perhaps Quixotic, naive, and romantic. But basically his heart was in the right place, more or less.

Anyone who has a heart wants to do some of those things.

There are a million things I'd like to change. End war in the Middle East. Get rid of American exceptionalism, the snobbish idea that somehow we are better than other people. We need universal healthcare. Subsidies for artists and writers. A negative income tax. A pretty young assistant for every old writer. At least for one. Free Ai Weiwei.

I'd like to pay teachers more, enough to attract and keep the best young minds. (See this great op-ed piece co-written by Dave Eggers in the NY Times:)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01eggers.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=pay%20teachers&st=cse

But Che thought that violence was the only way. He saw what happened in Guatemala when democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown by the U.S. CIA, which rallied the opposition. Che's answer was simple: Kill the opposition.

As a kind of chess match--Che was an avid chess player--this makes a kind of brutal sense.

Fidel Castro and Che Guevara wanted socialism, so they took the means of production (the land, mills, factories, and businesses) away from the traditional owners and gave them to the peasants and the workers. Or, more accurately, took them for the state to run.

Che wanted people in Cuba to throw themselves into their crappy mundane jobs, so he preached to them and did volunteer work on weekends, as an example.

Again, chess moves, without considering human nature.

In my opinion, Che and Fidel replaced an unfair economic system with an incompetent one.

Che is a complex figure in history: adventurer, idealist, vicious killer, inspiring leader.

It's hard to explain why his image became such a huge international symbol. Here are two photos, one famous and one not so well known:

In the second photo, notice the beautiful woman by his side. I don't know who that was, but he was something of a ladies man. Women loved him.

The first photo is obviously more heroic. But that doesn't explain the myth that has grown up around that image and around him.

(I have the feeling my friend "Lito" is going to hate me for what I am about to say.)

Partly, I think Che died at the right time in his career. He was 39, still young and handsome. He was on a foolhardy and Quixotic mission, doomed from the start. There is something romantic about fighting for a hopeless cause, fighting till the end, and dying for that same cause.

Che was extremely charismatic. He embodied the ideal of resistance, which is always romantic, and of fighting for the little guy, of being the underdog, of fighting against fat cats and against imperialism.

Like a lot of symbols, his image and his reputation oversimplify the reality of his character and his life. He could be cruel and vicious, even to his friends. 

One of his most loyal followers begged to go to Bolivia with Che on what turned out to be his last mission. Wisely, Che wouldn't let him go; he was too valuable to the new government in Cuba. But then, at a farewell dinner, Che made fun of the younger man and shamed him in front of his comrades. 

Also, as I've said before, Che neglected his children and his family.

So the myth is more glamorous than the man.

My question, when I started reading Jon Lee Anderson's excellent biography, "Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life," was whether Che was a good guy or a bad guy. I wanted to settle an argument between two friends, Lito and Richard.

I hate to say it, but finally I have to come down on the side of Richard. Che was 60% insensitive, selfish bastard, and 40% hero, in my judgement.

And that is being charitable. He put his own ideals above humanity. He was trying to save people by neglecting and destroying some of those around him. He was a self-appointed judge and jury. He did some good, but he caused a lot of pain.

For me, I am glad to finish reading about Che and move on to other pursuits.

Adios, Che. I'm glad I'm not like you. And, BTW, I won't be wearing one of those T-shirts. Not anytime soon.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

CHE IN DISGUISE

The last two years of his life, Ernesto "Che" Guevara traveled around the world trying to foment armed revolution.

He spent six months in the African Congo involved in a total debacle, a mess of classic proportions. The Congolese rebel soldiers were undisciplined and unmotivated. They got drunk and visited whorehouses, and most of them had venereal diseases. Che, a doctor, spent time giving them penicillin shots.

Che couldn't speak the native language, so he talked to the officers in French. The soldiers blamed invisible spirits and other people for their own failures and refused to train or learn weapons.

When Che criticized the soldiers, they laughed hilariously. The one disciplined Congolese officer he could rely on drowned under suspicious circumstances, perhaps killed by his own men.

Che spent time in Prague and Paris, Moscow and Beijing. He burned up a lot of jet fuel.

Throughout his life, he neglected his own family, putting his epic dreams of international Communist revolution ahead of his own parents, his two consecutive wives and his five children.

The most horrific event occurred the last time he saw his wife Aleida and their four children in Cuba. He had snuck into the country in disguise, under the name Ramon:  

His wife knew who he was, but his children did not. He pretended he was "Uncle Ramon" and played with his kids in disguise. He didn't want anyone to find out where he was. He knew the children couldn't keep the secret.

That seems incredibly sad. In my opinion, he was playing games with people's lives, including his own and that of his family. He was more interested in his grandiose plans, and in sending men off on dubious missions, where many died.

As he predicted, after his death the two littlest kids had no memory of him whatever. I think that is a misplaced value. What a horrible way to treat your kids. I have to say, I am not a fan. I don't have a lot of respect for a man who put his family last.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

OSAMA & CHE: TWO OF A KIND?

Two famous men, Osama bin Laden and Ernesto "Che" Guevara, had several things in common, it seems to me:

1. They were both extreme idealists, focused more on the way the world should be rather than the way it is.
2. They believed they had the answers to the world's most pressing problems, more so than other people.
3. They believed in violence, often extreme violence, as the best way or only way to create political change. Elections were not good enough.
4. They both thought they were special people in the world. Perhaps they were narcissists. I'm not a shrink, so I don't know.
5. Both men, although violent, were known as polite and sometimes even deferential in person. Che was extremely attractive to women, and admirable to many men personally. He was hard to resist in person. Very charismatic. I don't know about OBL.

Che killed or participated in the killing of several hundred people in Latin America. Osama, of course, planned and took credit for the killing of about 3,000 people in the USA on 9-11-2001.

In case you don't know, Osama Bin Laden was the "head" of Al Qaeda who was killed last Sunday night (1 May 2011) by U.S. special forces in in his walled compound in Pakistan. I say "head" because apparently Al Qaeda is extremely decentralized.

Here is a photo of Osama:

Che Guevara was an Argentine adventurer who helped Fidel Castro overthrow Batista in Cuba in 1959 and establish a Communist state there. His is the revolutionary image you see everywhere in the world: 

The second photo is Che fishing on May 15, 1960 off the coast of Cuba in the "Ernest Hemingway Fishing Contest," a photo that is not so famous.

Guevara was killed in Bolivia in 1967 while trying to "export" the Cuban Communist revolution to other Latin American countries, a long-term project that Che believed in and which led to his death.

To me, the most interesting things are two: their belief in violence and their extreme self-confidence that their way was the right way.

They seemed to admit no higher authority than themselves. Even though Che was against "imperialism," it seems to me he was extremely imperialistic himself. He was a follower of Fidel and always deferred to Fidel's leadership, but he always thought his ideas and his ideals were correct.

Both men, it seems to me, were unwilling to accept the flaws and the foibles of human nature, and of human society, the way that it is and probably always will be. They clung to their ideals, in spite of everything. And tried to force their ideals on others.

They were both arrogant and violent, a bad combination. A fatal flaw.

-- Roger


(Links:)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

CHE, HERO OR VILLAIN?

I am nearing the end of Jon Lee Anderson's bio of Che Guevara, and I don't know if I have settled my main question yet.

I started out trying to settle an argument between my friend Jose and my friend Richard about Che, whether he was a good guy or a bad guy, whether he was a hero or a vicious killer.

I don't know about that. But I have settled my own attitude toward Che and toward his cause. I think he and Fidel -- who was an overbearing horse's ass, by most accounts, even when he was young -- made several fundamental errors and some immoral choices. 

First, and perhaps most important, I think it's wrong to take away people's businesses, farms and properties.

If a man or woman, or their family, has worked for years, in some cases for generations, to build up a farm or a ranch or a business, I think it's immoral and unethical to take it away from them.

If these business owners or land owners have treated their employees or their tenant farmers badly, and paid them almost nothing, I think the aggrieved employees should be compensated justly for past inequities and raised up to a decent standard of living, whether the owners want to do that or not.

In other words, free the slaves. Force the owners to do the right thing. The rich should have certain moral restraints. Regulations, if you will.

Second, I think too many people were killed. The tribunals, firing squads and summary executions were too frequent and too many.

But it's a fascinating biography. I recommend it. Che and Fidel, and their followers, accomplished amazing things. They changed Cuba forever. In some ways, for the better, in some ways for the worse.

I am a reformer, not a revolutionary. A social democrat, not a communist. I would not have gotten along well with Che or Fidel.

Oh, well. You can't get along with everyone.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

CHE REJECTS LUXURY

I just read, today, that after helping to lead and win the revolutionary war in Cuba, in 1959, Ernesto "Che" Guevara got sick with a lung infection and moved with his girlfriend and some aides into a luxurious villa by the sea.

There, he worked on the new concepts and details of agrarian reform, which he considered the cornerstone of the revolution.

Che was criticized by a magazine, or rather the magazine pointed out that he was living in confiscated luxury. He was outraged, published a rebuttal, and as soon as he was better, moved into a more modest house.

Amazing. Here was a man who had risked everything. Put his life on the line a thousand times for the poor people of Cuba, and he didn't want the spoils of war. He didn't want anything for himself, and he didn't want to be seen as self-aggrandizing.

To me, he deserved as much luxury as he could get, at least for awhile. But not Che. He didn't want anything that ordinary people couldn't have. That is one of the things that made him such a hero to his people, I think.

His intelligence, his bravery, his commitment to the cause, all these things made him admirable. Of course, he was a complex man who had decided to devote his life and sacrifice himself for his ideals.

Obviously, there were good things and bad things about him. He was a committed communist, for one thing. And he believed that violence was necessary.

Was he wrong? It's hard for me to judge, at this distance in time and place.

But at the same time that Che was plotting agrarian reform, to help the poor peasants, the good old USA was plotting to either "handle" or overthrow Fidel Castro and the revolution.

Apparently, we didn't give a damn about the peasants. What we cared about was the big sugar business.

How arrogant were we, to think that we knew better than the Cubanos how they should live and how they should be governed, and that they didn't have the right to govern themselves.

I think the way the USA behaved was abominable. Capitalism may be better, and democracy may be better, but I think we had no right to interfere.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

RED vs. BLUE -- BUSH2 vs. CHE

I think it's interesting and instructive to think about the differences between left wingers and right wingers.

I am not biased. Of course not. Hell, no. But I do have more sympathy for the right than some lefties I know.

Let's contrast George W. Bush and Che Guevara. They are good examples and embodiments of right-wing and left-wing beliefs, attitudes, and ideals.

I am about halfway through a bio of Che Guevara, and of course I lived through eight years of GWB as U.S. prez.

Who was more successful, more influential, more intelligent, more widely admired, and more deserving of admiration? Who accomplished more? Who was the better human being? Who cared more about people?

Who did the better job instituting regime change in a foreign country?

Gee, I don't know. Are these questions loaded, toward one side? Probably.

Who made more money for fewer people? Who improved the lives of the rich? Who lied more often? Who killed more people?

Hmm. This doesn't seem fair, does it?

Who was the braver man? Who risked his life more times for what he believed? No, this question is not fair. Bush weasled his way out of combat during the war in Viet Nam, while Che risked his life in his every battle in Cuba and was wounded twice.

OK, let's just admit that Bush2 was a bastard, except for his AIDS policy in Africa. That's the only good thing I remember about him.

Let's compare two facts: Bush caused the deaths of more than 100,000 innocent people in Iraq and made a terrible mess of regime change.

Che caused the deaths of fewer than 2,000 people, I'd estimate, during and after regime change in Cuba. And the regime change was masterful, although communism didn't work out so well in the long run.

How you feel about these two political leaders depends more on your biases than on the facts, it seems to me.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

FIDEL AND CHE WIN

Last night, I read the chapters, in Jon Lee Anderson's bio of Che, where he and Fidel's rag-tag, tattered, bloodied, out-manned, out-gunned band of rebels won the revolutionary war in Cuba, against Batista's brutal dictatorship.

I cheered, and I almost wept. Stunning. Unbelievable.

I don't know about you, but when I read a book like this, I feel like I live in that world. So the experience is profoundly moving, in a different way from real life, of course. Perhaps, in a way, you understand it better, because you aren't so close to it.

But I don't understand how those small bands of guerrillas won all those dozens or even maybe hundreds of battles against superior forces. They started out with 22 men, for Christ's sake. Often they would be out-numbered ten to one, or a hundred to one.

There isn't enough detail in the book, except for the taking of the armored train in Santa Clara, where they threw Molotov cocktails and the train got too hot for the soldiers inside.

When Che entered one city, I think it was Santa Clara, with 350 men, one of his lieutenants asked a supporter how many soldiers the Army had waiting to fight them. About 5,000, the supporter said. Oh, good, Che's man said, with our jefe, that's no problem.

I thought, holy Christ. What confidence, what audacity. But he was right. They won. 

I imagine that Batista's Army had never fought a war like this. They were used to brutalizing and terrorizing the people, so I imagine they were unprepared to face such intelligent and dedicated guerrillas. Also, I doubt the Army soldiers were willing to die for their cause, which the rebels were.

I was amazed at the amount of thought that Che and Fidel put into preparing to rebuild the country after they won. As they were fighting, against tremendous odds, they planned their new world.

They hit the ground running and began on day one to create a whole new society, a whole new economy, and a whole new government, in all its complexity, from the military to the schools to the infrastructure to the tax system. 

No vacations here. These men knew how to fight, how to work, and how to plan. They were amazingly intelligent in their forethought. 

Then came the bloodbath. Apparently, Raul was the worst, but Che and Fidel did it, too. I'm not sure they needed to kill so many. The firing squads were brutal. Trials lasted a few hours, and then, boom, you were dead.

Che and Fidel claimed it was necessary to kill the men who had tortured and killed thousands of innocent citizens under Batista. But the top dogs got away, many of them. Che said he had seen the government in Guatemala collapse because the president didn't eliminate his enemies.

How many were killed? Several hundred, in the first few months. Maybe that is not terrible, given the numbers of citizens who had been tortured and killed.

The Cuban revolution was bloody, that's for sure. But they won, they got rid of a brutal dictatorship, and they reformed Cuba, which had been known, under Batista, as "the whorehouse of the Caribbean."

Not any more.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

SO BRUTAL

As you may know, I have been reading Jon Lee Anderson's excellent biography of Che Guevara, and now I am up to Page 290, and they have been in the Cuban jungles and mountains fighting for about a year, supported by peasants and by sympathetic people in the cities and in the USA.

(At about this time, 1957 or so, it was my first or second year in college, and I remember seeing some Hollywood actor, I think it was Errol Flynn, on TV, I think it was The Jack Parr Show, talking about Fidel and the revolution. He made it sound romantic, glamorous and wonderful.)

Now, as I read the details of the fighting, I am appalled by the brutality, both by the revolutionaries Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, and by the government of Fulgencio Batista.

Batista was a bastard. He and his men butchered thousands of people. They tortured people, executed people in the streets, and set fire to peasant villages. (Sound familiar? Much like the USA did in Viet Nam.)

But Che and Fidel summarily executed their own men if they deserted or if they disobeyed orders. On the good side, they dismissed volunteers who were not brave enough or committed enough, even if they wanted to say and fight.

And often, before a dangerous mission, they would let anyone go home who wanted to quit. But if any man betrayed the cause or was a spy or was suspected of treason, he was shot. Boom, dead. On the spot.

Che personally shot men in the head, maybe a dozen of them, up to this point in the book. It didn't seem to bother him. The brutality is horrific. I don't think I would have the stomach for it. You don't know what you would do, until you are there, with the gun in the your hand and the traitor at your feet.

You have to believe in the cause, I think, to kill anyone. Maybe that is the trouble. It wasn't my cause. Maybe you have to fight fire with fire. I don't know. But all this violence turns my stomach. Maybe that is what separates the men from the boys. If so, I am definitely one of the boys.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

CHE AND FIDEL - THE UPHILL BATTLE

I have to admit that I didn't admire Ernesto "Che" Guevara and the man he followed into battle, Fidel Castro, when they were training in Mexico, preparing for their invasion of Cuba.

They seemed grandiose and self-absorbed, a little nuts, and taking themselves too seriously.

But as I continue to read on, in Jon Lee Anderson's biography of Che, and as I learn more about the struggles they had in Cuba and the violence and viciousness of the Batista regime, I grow to admire Che and Fidel more and more.

It wasn't easy, what they did. Sure, they had big visions at first, and small capabilities. But they stuck to their guns, in more ways than one.

I don't agree with every action they took, especially some of the bloodshed. But by God they did it. And they overcame tremendous obstacles. And their cause was just.

They have won my respect and my grudging admiration. Say what else you will, these were men. And they put their lives on the line for what they believed was right.

I don't think I could have done it. Not many men could have.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

LORD OF THE FLIES

I started reading Jon Lee Anderson's biography of Che Guevara to find out if Che was a good guy or a bad guy.

Of course, it was a lot more complicated than that. Reading about Che and Fidel Castro training some 40 volunteers on a ranch outside Mexico City, in preparation for their invasion of Cuba, I am reminded more of "Lord of the Flies" than I am of King Arthur's roundtable.

Che would lead these all-day marches around the ranch, sometimes with little water and no food, to get the troops ready for the rigors of war, and one guy sat down in the trail and said, screw this. I'm not gonna do this crap.

Then they had a big debate about whether to execute him for insubordination. They had a court martial.

Hey, I want to say, give these guys a break. They are only volunteers. Fidel and his brother Raul voted to kill him, but Che talked them out of it. Later, supposedly, they did find a spy and kill him and bury him out there, on the ranch.

These guys remind me of children playing cowboys and Indians, only with real guns.

I suppose, since they won, a lot of people admire Che and Fidel. And history is written by the winners. But I didn't find these guys admirable. At first.

I do think the Latin American dictators, like Batista and Trujillo, created these revolutionaries, through their brutal and repressive policies. They tortured people and locked up anybody who didn't agree with them. 

So in a way, Batista brought about his own downfall. 

I'm glad I wasn't there. I don't think I would have joined either side. 

And the USA? What a joke. We were on the wrong side, protecting our business interests and those of the United Fruit Company. 

We were not heroic either.


-- Roger 

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

If you want to read more, here is a good article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista

CHE HAS LOST ME

Now for the first time, Che is signing his letters "El Che," having adopted the nickname given by his Cuban comrades. The year is 1956.

He says he has given up his concept of self to become part of the group. He writes to his mother that he hates moderation and self-interest. He talks now about dying for the cause, an idea that he seems to find glorious.

Not me. Maybe because I have never been there, never walked in those revolutionary shoes. It always seems to me that there is good and bad in everyone, and in most political systems. I can't imagine dying for Che's ideals. Or dying for Fidel Castro.

Maybe I am too old to feel the way Che felt at 24 or 25. I am on Page 204 of Jon Lee Anderson's bio of Che. And 1956 is the year I graduated from high school. Che was ten years older than me.

I am not him, and he is not me. If I was there, then, with what I know now, and I had to choose a side, I think I'd go to New York and become a poet.

If I had to choose an Argentine to admire, I'd choose Jorge Luis Borges, a writer, not a fighter, as far as I know.

But I didn't see the things that Che saw. I have never seen brutal injustice up close. So I don't condemn him or vilify him. All I can say is that he isn't me, and I am not him.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

CHE: USES WOMEN

I don't really know yet if Che is a good guy or a bad guy, but he sure is a self-centered prick. (Pardon my French, but there is no better way to describe him.)

I'm on Page 194 of Jon Lee Anderson's excellent biography of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and it is the Cubans, already led by Fidel Castro, who are giving Che his nickname, which means "hey, you," or something like that, in Spanish. I think of it like we say "buddy" to a guy we hardly know.

Ernesto has a "girlfriend," Hilda, whom he is using for sex and as a source of borrowed money. He says in his journals, "too bad she is so ugly," but he is having sex with her because he needs a woman for that. In other words, he doesn't care about her, he only cares about himself.

Well, he is not the first man to do that. But it is not what I would call honorable.

Now, in the book, he is in Mexico, training for the Cuban revolution, along with about 40 Cubanos. He climbs mountains and goes to the gym and trains in firearms and hand-to-hand combat. He wins the respect of the other men who recognize him as a leader.

But it is hard to reconcile a man who wants to help others with the same man who is taking advantage of a woman who loves him.

He is becoming good friends with Fidel, and they are getting ready to attack Batista in Cuba.

I am learning a lot about Che. I don't particularly like him, as a man. He seems narcissistic, a person who only values himself, and everything he does for others he really does for himself, so he will look good in his own eyes.

But there is no doubt that he was charming and intelligent, and possessed leadership qualities and great talents. And he was making history. For better or for worse. Or both.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

CHE: HIS POOR PARENTS

Last night, I felt sorry for the parents of Che Guevara.

As I was reading the Jon Lee Anderson biography of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, I realized that he must have broken their hearts, and that of his whole family.

He was attracted to revolution and armed resistance against the USA. Yes, I think he was right to be outraged at the exploitation of Latin America, but I also think he was grandiose, self-absorbed, and perhaps even narcissistic.

Imagine the anguish of his parents. I know how long it takes and how hard it is to raise a child. How much of yourself you invest and sacrifice. It must have been more extreme here, with young Ernesto's debilitating asthma.

Now, in the book, Ernesto is in his mid-20s. His parents have spent all these years raising him, and protecting him, and supporting him, and they have put this brilliant kid through medical school, and they are so proud that he is a doctor.

As soon as he gets his MD degree, he runs off to pursue various adventures, and he goes to Guatemala, along with a lot of other left-wing idealists, to see a true revolution in action.

Then the USA invades that country and bombs it, to overthrow the duly elected government, because of our misguided fear of socialism and communism.

And there is Ernesto, in the wrong place at the wrong time. If circumstances had created a trap for someone who was young, idealistic, and foolhardy, he dove head-first into it. The experience radicalized him, to say the least.

How sad, tragic even. How could such a brilliant mind go so wrong? 

I wish I could go back in time. I'd say to young Ernesto: OK, help the poor. Become a revolutionary doctor. Work in a medical clinic in the jungle among indigenous people. Maybe run for office when you get a little older. But don't sacrifice your life. 

Last night, I flipped to the end of the book and saw photos of Che dead.  I couldn't help but think about his mother and father, and the rest of his family.

Such heartbreak. Such a waste.   

I don't know how much good he did in the world. We'll see. The book is a great history lesson. And a cautionary tale.

More to come. I'm on Page 164. I recommend the book.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

CHE: SHALLOW FEELINGS

It's hard to have much sympathy for the future revolutionary hero, when young Ernesto Guevara, in 1953, was living like a bum in Ecuador.

He was an M.D., for Christ's sake. Why didn't he get a goddamn job? You'd think he could work in a hospital somewhere.

He seems to have preferred being a mooch.

I'm only on Page 115 of the Jon Lee Anderson bio, but the young "Che" seems like a jerk here. He says he has trouble showing emotions when he parts with his friends. He says he is "as usual cold... incapable of showing deep feelings."

Another friend recalls Ernesto "crying like a child" at their goodbyes. But I think I know whom to believe.

I hope this doesn't foreshadow him being cold later in Cuba after the revolution.

We'll see, as we plod onward.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

CHE: A YOUNG PLAYBOY?

When I was a young man, I hung out with some very rich people, part of the Coleman family in Wichita, KS.

I realized that I could be one of those guys who lives in the guest house, comes in after breakfast and says, "Anyone for tennis?"

As I'm reading the biography of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, by Jon Lee Anderson, I realize that young Ernesto had the same choice.

He was handsome, aristocratic, fun-loving, a potential playboy.

But injustice in the world moved him too much. On a trip through Chile, he went to visit a huge copper mine, and he saw poor, indigenous people being exploited by rich American capitalists.

He was outraged, and that sense of outrage eventually changed his life. Why did he care? Many other people saw the same thing and didn't lift a finger. Why him? Why did he care so much?

Years later, when he was 39 and had become famous as a revolutionary, and the Bolivian army and the American CIA were about to kill him, he said, "Come on, coward, pull the trigger. You are only killing a man."

What brought him to that point?

I'm reading the book to find out if he was a good guy or bad guy. To settle an old argument between two friends.

The jury is still out. It's still early in the story. At this point, young Ernesto has not met Fidel Castro yet. Castro has just gotten out of jail for leading a student revolt. Others were killed by the Batista government. Castro was one of the lucky few.

In the book, history is moving forward. Their paths are about to cross.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

CHE AND ME

I would not say I'm an admirer of Che Guevara. As I said on my other blog --
http://kulture-vulture.blogspot.com/
-- I'm reading a bio of Che by Jon Lee Anderson. The book doesn't make you love Che or hate him. It's objective, and fascinating.

The book raises two underlying issues, for me:

1. Have things changed since Che's time?
2. Was he fighting for a good cause against something that needs to change?

No, and yes.

No, things have not changed. It seems to me that the CIA was trying to protect American big business interests in Latin America. The CIA was involved, I think, in the overthrow and assassination of the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, and in the killing of Che Guevara.

What do you think? Do you want agents of our government killing people in your name, when their great sin is that they are trying to help the common man?  

The same issues are present today, in the year 2011 in the USA. We have the right wingers, who want to shut down the government and protect big business. And we have the left wingers, who want to help the working class.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

The questions for most of us are which side are we on, and how much of our own lives do we want to sacrifice for our ideals?

The power, of course, is on the side of big business, especially now, with the Supreme Court's decision in Citizen's United. Big business can spend unlimited amounts of money in politics. Big business owns both parties in this country. It's just that the Democrats are more interested in helping ordinary people, working people, who don't have the big bucks.

This division, I believe, will go on forever. But every once in a while, we can do something that will shift the balance of power, just a little bit.

That's what Che tried to do. He was successful enough that he scared the hell out of 'em.

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

http://front.moveon.org/

CHE THE QUIXOTIC DREAMER

A couple of years ago, two buddies of mine got into a heated argument about Che Guevara. One guy, Jose, said that Che was the second most famous man in the world, after Jesus. The other guy, Richard, seemed to think that Che was less than admirable.

They argued late into the night, standing outside a restaurant in the rain. I didn't know enough about Ernesto "Che" Guevara to have an opinion. But I stood and listened. Now I am learning about Che.  

I'm reading Jon Lee Anderson's biography of Che, and it is fascinating. Anderson is a wonderful writer--he writes for The New Yorker, my favorite magazine, after all. The book is remarkably detailed.

Che was a very active, intense, fun-loving, and idealistic young man. He was also an aristocrat and quite the ladies man. You might even say he was a skirt chaser. He was a lover before he was a fighter, although he was always passionate and fearless.

He suffered from asthma, and that colored his whole outlook on life. He seems to have inherited his fearlessness from his mother Celia, who was also a daredevil. Young Ernesto was a grandiose and Quixotic dreamer who thought he could single-handedly change the world.

He could also be enormously self-centered. On one of his many trips, he and a buddy were sleeping in the barn of a nice family that had provided them shelter for the night. Warned of mountain lions in the area, Che heard scratching and growling at the barn door and fired a single shot from a revolver, killing the family's favorite dog.

Instead of staying to face the family's anguish and anger, Che and his buddy high-tailed it out of there. He was 23, and this was the time of his "Motorcycle Diaries."

So he wasn't always admirable.

I'm only about 80 pages into this 754-page book, but I plan to read the whole thing. This is one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read, and so far it's the best biography, more interesting even than those about Freud and Faulkner, whose writings young Ernesto also read, by the way.


-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle