It Was 42 Years Ago Today...

[aptpupil]

That arguably the world's most famous revolutionary Che Guevara was executed on the orders of the Bolivian government. How you assess Guevara probably depends on your world view. To quote my esteemed SKMB fellow member John Dalglish "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter".

Love him or hate him though, he is destined to be remembered through the centuries.

"The current court of opinion places Che on a continuum that teeters between viewing him as a misguided rebel, a coruscatingly brilliant guerrilla philosopher, a poet-warrior jousting at windmills, a brazen warrior who threw down the gauntlet to the bourgeoisie, the object of fervent paeans to his sainthood, or a mass murderer clothed in the guise of an avenging angel whose every action is imbricated in violence – the archetypal fanatical terrorist."

Increase The Peace.

[NathanStrickland]

It's a funny thing. Read The War of the Flea and you'll come away thinking that Che was the brilliant vanguard of an inevitable force. Then you try The Sling and the Stone on for size and you come to realize that he wasn't nearly as smart as he (or his admirers) thought he was. Politics aside, his methods just didn't cut the mustard.

Of course there's nothing in the world like a bullet to remind you of your limitations.

[Jake Featherston]

Che Guevara wanted to torture the Soviet advisers until they gave Castro the launch codes, and launch a nuclear attack on the eastern USA, in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. That would have led to a U.S. nuclear counterattack on the USSR, Central Europe, and probably China & North Korea, too. Which would have led to a Soviet counterattack on the rest of the USA, Canada, Western Europe, and probably Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, too. So good riddance to bad rubbish.

[NathanStrickland]

Che Guevara wanted to torture the Soviet advisers until they gave Castro the launch codes, and launch a nuclear attack on the eastern USA, in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. That would have led to a U.S. nuclear counterattack on the USSR, Central Europe, and probably China & North Korea, too. Which would have led to a Soviet counterattack on the rest of the USA, Canada, Western Europe, and probably Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, too. So good riddance to bad rubbish.

Jake, where's your sense of adventure? Nuclear holocaust can be fun! Just look at those Mad Max movies. It'd be a shame to think I have those spiked hockey pads and garage full of Alpo dogfood saved up for nothing...

[youngfibre]

Always saw him as a voice for the masses. better go and read more on him. Sometimes i wonder who keeps history. For a man who was not the Government's buddy will written history tell the truth about his life, ambition, aspirations and beliefs?

[Nero]

I wonder how he'd feel to see how he's marketed nowadays. His face on trendy t shirts, posters, coffee mugs.

I've always meant to look a little more into Che and see exactly what happened there. I don't know enough to form much of an opinion, but it's probably time for me to read a little bit of non fiction anyways.

[Jake Featherston]

Always saw him as a voice for the masses.

The evidence would seem to suggest that the Cuban people, the ones who had the most experience with his efforts, do not agree.

[Bryan James]

This is a subject of popular culture about which I am uninformed.

A couple months ago I asked a cleancut guy wearing a "Guevera Foreva!!" T-shirt about the backstory, and he just murmured something into his Heineken about a girlfriend buying the shirt at a mall and then walked away.

That was reason enough for me to stop caring a lot about being uninformed on the subject.

[Srbo]

This is a subject of popular culture about which I am uninformed.

A couple months ago I asked a cleancut guy wearing a "Guevera Foreva!!" T-shirt about the backstory, and he just murmured something into his Heineken about a girlfriend buying the shirt at a mall and then walked away.

That was reason enough for me to stop caring a lot about being uninformed on the subject.

Well, buddy, maybe you should listen to " Rage against the machine " then a bit more often.

[JohnDalglish]

This is a subject of popular culture about which I am uninformed.

A couple months ago I asked a cleancut guy wearing a "Guevera Foreva!!" T-shirt about the backstory, and he just murmured something into his Heineken about a girlfriend buying the shirt at a mall and then walked away.

That was reason enough for me to stop caring a lot about being uninformed on the subject.

Hi,

Indeed, Guevera is famous for an iconic image on t-shirts and posters etc, not as apolitical figure.

If it were not for the t-shirt I doubt if we'd be discussing him today.

Long days and pleasant nights