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

AI WEIWEI, REDS & TEA PARTY

I just finished reading an article in Newsweek -- which is getting better, by the way -- about the famed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, (which I guess is pronounced "Eye Way-way," rather than "I Wee-wee"): 
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/04/10/a-provocateur-finds-out-just-how-far-he-can-go.html

Here is a photo of Ai Weiwei, from the AP:

 Weiwei says his political actions are works of art. Reminds me of my old argument over whether serving a bowl of soup is a work of art. Well, I just made a work of "art" in the bathroom, if you get my drift. Getting my drift is another work of art, BTW. 

Anyway, my question is this: Which is worse, the brutal repression the Communists do in China or the ruthless capitalism the Tea Party wants to effect in the good old USA? 

Both are forms of social engineering, and I think they are both pretty bad.

It seems to me the Communists and the Tea Party are a lot alike. Both care more about their ideology than they do about people.

Both want to protect their own interests. In China, those are the Party leaders and apparatchiks. In the USA, the Tea Party wants to protect the rich.

Is either one good for their country? No.

Political activists in the USA divide themselves into two camps: those who care more about people, and those who care more about money. In this country, the USA, the former are liberals and the latter are conservatives. 

Pretty neat division, huh? That's so you can tell the good guys from the bad guys. Obviously, the good guys want to help people, more or less unselfishly, and the bad guys want to screw poor people out of their money and help the rich get richer.

In the USA, our right wingers think it's OK to screw the poor, but they don't want to screw the rich, who they think are more valuable, for some reason that I can't fathom.

In China, there are those who follow the party line and those who want to speak for themselves. The Communists think it's OK to screw anyone whom they can't control or who won't kow-tow to the party line.

Communism was supposed to help the poor, but it doesn't really do that. What it has done, in China and in the former Soviet Union, is create a social system that is just as bad as rampant capitalism. Those who rise to the top screw those on the bottom, in both systems.

So there are bad guys on both sides. Which kind of bad guy do you prefer? 

But I think both sides need reform. We need to do more to help the working poor rise up out of poverty. The Chinese need to level their playing field, too, I think.

In this country, the poor carry the capitalists on their backs, it seems to me. I wouldn't mind screwing the rich a little bit; that would help the poor a lot.

In China, the working people carry the apparatus of the state on their backs. Both systems are equally at fault, I think.

I prefer this country, of course, because we can speak our mind. Now if we could just get rid of those Tea Party jerks.

Weiwei's family was repressed, in 1958, because of his father, a poet. Today, Weiwei is similarly treated. 

Meanwhile, Weiwei is nowhere to be found. We don't know if he is in prison or what. Here is a recent update:
http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-24/detained-ai-weiwei-s-supporters-march-in-hong-kong-scmp-says.html

About China, there are two issues here:

1. Are Weiwei's political statements art? No, they are not.
2. Is the Chinese government in the right to suppress Weiwei and people like him? No, it is not.

So what should we do about all this? We should do whatever we can, short of going to war, to support Weiwei and his "art." It's about freedom of speech. We should always support that.

What should we do about the Tea Party people? Maybe if we ignore them long enough, they will go away. Or grow up.  

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

(Ai Weiwei links:)
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/heads-up-ai-weiwei-2274341.html

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

SCARED OF MARX?

This is pretty interesting, about one of history's supposed villains, Karl Marx:

"There is a sense in which the whole of Marx's writing boils down to several embarrassing questions: Why is it that the capitalist West has accumulated more resources than human history has ever witnessed, yet appears powerless to overcome poverty, starvation, exploitation, and inequality? What are the mechanisms by which affluence for a minority seems to breed hardship and indignity for the many? Why does private wealth seem to go hand in hand with public squalor?"

Is there "something in the nature of capitalism itself which generates deprivation and inequality, as surely as Charlie Sheen generates gossip?"

That is from The Chronicle of Higher Education, and from an article there by Terry Eagleton called "In Praise of Marx":
http://chronicle.com/article/In-Praise-of-Marx/127027/?sid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en

I think those are damn good questions. I read the entire article, and it gave me a new outlook on Marx. He was a better guy than I thought.

Let me know what you think. Leave a comment.

PS: Don't be scared off. We studied this stuff in college, and I didn't catch a disease.

-- Roger


 

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle