Che's Famous Picure

[mykeuva]

Like the chicago boys,in Chile,after the elected government had been ousted,and thousands killed and tortured.But this is apparently forgivable,as their economic miracle enabled them to loose fewer lives

in and earth quake,as compared to the poorest nation on earth?

I would add,you do not hold a monopoly on suffering,as several of my relations died on the fields of France,to fight a Fascist,not a communist.If you tour my country you will find memorials in so many villages to those who did the same.

I wonder if they died so their descendants could buy jeans for £4 in asda/walmart,or even worse primark,made by child labour.I wonder how they would feel knowing that an English farmer cannot afford to produce milk from his hurd,as he needs 28pence/litre to break even,and the supermarket will only pay 15pence(that'll be asda/walmart again)they sell the milk for around 60pence/litre.

I also find the diatribe about freedom offensive,as we live lives of such privilige,we can afford to send off for cigars that cost more than some will earn in a year,who will work a lot harder than we.

I find it interesting that you seem to paint my comments as pro communism,thus polarising the debate.

this is sad,as I have clearly stated,as my own preference is only for a decent degree of social welfare.

I can't see how anyone could argue against a Healthcare system for all

an education system

an emergency services system

care for the elderly

rhetoric,but all true,and plainly spoken

Again, what does capitalism have to do with authoritarianism? Yes, Friedman went to Chile because a private group asked him to help improve their economy. Friedman was willing to go anywhere to improve economies, and thus help people in those economies by creating wealth. And it worked, he improved the lot of the ordinary people in Chile. In fact, Friedman stated something to the effect of (I'm paraphrasing) "I've also given the same advice to leaders in communist countries, and yet you don't see leftists criticize my speeches to those leaders like you do Pinochet, I wonder why that is..." What does Pinochet oppressing his people politically have to do with Friedman, or capitalism?

No, nobody dies so that someone can buy jeans. You know why people give their lives fighting oppression? So those left alive have the option to buy jeans, or whatever they heck they want. People die so that others can live free.

As for your farmer example, where is the supermarket getting its milk then that it sells for 60 pence/litre? If the supermarket is only buying milk for 15 pence/litre, and farmers need 28 pence/litre to break even, where is the milk coming from? The milk has to be produced somewhere.

It's sad that you consider words about freedom offensive, and that you would label them as "diatribes." But that's not the truly sad thing. The truly sad thing is that you blame the very thing that has allowed for us to have these privileged lives. Free market capitalism has brought prosperity so that a number of people around the world can afford to buy cigars, and yet you blame that very system for the poverty in the world? Again, the most prosperous nations have the most free economies. The poorest nations on earth have some of the most closed off, unfree economies. Should we blame the prosperous nations because of their situation, or should we encourage those closed off nations to open up?

And I'm sorry to break it to you, but when you say it is "silly to demonize communism without acknowledging the underbelly of capitalism," that is deflecting criticism off of communism. Why, I don't know, when the system deserves every ounce of criticism it gets, and more. Why is it silly to demonize communism? After all, it is the greatest killer of man other than natural causes. Why "must" one discuss the faults of capitalism when discussing the negatives of communism, as capitalism has proven to be a much better economic system, and not even in the same league as communism when considering drawbacks?

As for your questions about having a healthcare/education system/elderly care/emergency system for all, you're engaging in a fallacy that a lot of people make, confusing government with society, and thinking that government must provide those systems, otherwise they would not exist. Also, people for economic liberalization also want everyone to have healthcare and to be healthy, and to be educated, etc. etc. Those people just disagree on the path to get there.

[mazolaman]

I honestly don't know where to start.

[Ken Gargett]

now we have something else to blame che for - this post.

[Ken Gargett]

as mentioned above, take hours to respond to all this but two points from way back -

if you are unhappy with new l;abour, it is a bit rich to blame the previous govt. if you are unhappy with thatcher, do you blame harold wilson for putting the country in such crap that she got elected?

and i suspect that the only reason we don't place che with hitler et al (and forgive me for returning to the original topic), is that he was less competent and didn't get the chance. had he managed to get his wish and launched those missiles at the states, i suspect he'd be right up there with any of them.

and we might see less morons wearing che 'peace' t-shirts. to me, they may as well wear hitler 'peace, light and tolerance' t-shirts.

[mykeuva]

as mentioned above, take hours to respond to all this but two points from way back -

if you are unhappy with new l;abour, it is a bit rich to blame the previous govt. if you are unhappy with thatcher, do you blame harold wilson for putting the country in such crap that she got elected?

and i suspect that the only reason we don't place che with hitler et al (and forgive me for returning to the original topic), is that he was less competent and didn't get the chance. had he managed to get his wish and launched those missiles at the states, i suspect he'd be right up there with any of them.

and we might see less morons wearing che 'peace' t-shirts. to me, they may as well wear hitler 'peace, light and tolerance' t-shirts.

I think you're right about Che if he got the chance. And not only in terms of using the missiles, but considering if the population of Cuba was much larger. I don't think he would have paused at killing a greater number of people had Cuba been a nation with a greater population. I don't believe Che was constrained from killing more people due to any internal moral problem with killing, but rather it was just a numbers game.

Edit:

And you're also right about the thread getting off track, and I apologize as I am partly at fault. I try to be respectful of others requests/rules, but sometimes I get sidetracked.

[PigFish]

as mentioned above, take hours to respond to all this but two points from way back -

if you are unhappy with new l;abour, it is a bit rich to blame the previous govt. if you are unhappy with thatcher, do you blame harold wilson for putting the country in such crap that she got elected?

and i suspect that the only reason we don't place che with hitler et al (and forgive me for returning to the original topic), is that he was less competent and didn't get the chance. had he managed to get his wish and launched those missiles at the states, i suspect he'd be right up there with any of them.

and we might see less morons wearing che 'peace' t-shirts. to me, they may as well wear hitler 'peace, light and tolerance' t-shirts.

Gargett you are a Fascist apologist!!! You can't hate Che and love humanity or effin' whales for that matter. What's a few hundred million dead... we are talking utopia here??? The academics simply won't allow it! -LOL

Wake up Ayala will ya? -

[Ken Gargett]

Gargett you are a Fascist apologist!!! You can't hate Che and love humanity or effin' whales for that matter. What's a few hundred million dead... we are talking utopia here??? The academics simply won't allow it! -LOL

Wake up Ayala will ya? -

glad you mentioned whales....

[Colt45]

now we have something else to blame che for - this post.

Che has been dead for a long time and has nothing to do with this thread and it's contents - we all choose what we do here.

[Ken Gargett]

- we all choose what we do here.

i choose to blame che.

[Colt45]

i choose to blame che.

Tonight I chose Masi Campofiorin - one love, mate.

[Ken Gargett]

good choice!

[mazolaman]

as mentioned above, take hours to respond to all this but two points from way back -

if you are unhappy with new l;abour, it is a bit rich to blame the previous govt. if you are unhappy with thatcher, do you blame harold wilson for putting the country in such crap that she got elected?

and i suspect that the only reason we don't place che with hitler et al (and forgive me for returning to the original topic), is that he was less competent and didn't get the chance. had he managed to get his wish and launched those missiles at the states, i suspect he'd be right up there with any of them.

and we might see less morons wearing che 'peace' t-shirts. to me, they may as well wear hitler 'peace, light and tolerance' t-shirts.

Undoubtedly,The UK was knackered when Thatcher came in,people like the miners had been working for todays equivalent of less than the minimum wage.So they decided to strike and won,but then got greedy(humanity again) and became militant,giving Thatcher a good reason to cut them down.

It could be argued that her move to a modern economy was agood thing,but I believe it went to far,wiping out manufacturing completely,mining etc.

This is where we still are,the mass of people who once worked in these industries then went into service industries,call centres etc,but now most of those are in India,as their labour is cheaper.

There are still large parts of Northern England and Scotland that are ghettos of joblessness,where there is absolutely no chance of any work.I recall Norman Tebbitt saying that they should get on their bikes and look for it.

So Blair loaded up the civil service and led people into being students,to get the jobless numbers down,he did not encourage any form of manufacturing,whether it be small or large scale.

So,our economy is based largely on the"city",this is the result of Thatcher,and Blair,who also deregulated.

And we all know how well the city has been doing recently.

Selling productd that didn't exist,to people who they knew would default,so they could also get commission from that.Breaking people.

The city led economy is Thatchers legacy,aided by Blair.

Cameron is now cutting anything that moves,(closing public toilets,selling national woodlands,cutting police numbers)

I think Cameron may want to recoup some from the banks and bankers,but he is either powerless or scared.

Annual cost of unemployment benefit in Britain £11billion

Estimated annual cost of tax evaded in Britain £160 billion (42bn average tax payer,the rest high earner avoidance)

So anyway,this is Thatchers and Blairs legacy.

Are we now also condemming Guevara on the strength of what you think he might have done?Sounds a bit frightening to me.

The toilet paper is possibly the idea that might bring us out of recession.......

[mazolaman]

BTW,sorry for going on,as previously stated,I had no intention of a sermon from the pulpit,I shouldn't have taken the bait.

This was a thread about art.

I personally find this interesting though,and learn a lot about opposing views.

Certainly no ill feeling meant,and only wish we could sit with a cigar and argue over this.

[Ken Gargett]

Are we now also condemming Guevara on the strength of what you think he might have done?Sounds a bit frightening to me.

not what he might have done, what he wanted to do and tried to do but fortunately was prevented.

add to that everything he did do.

for me, he was one of the very worst humans of the 20th century.

[CanuckSARTech]

...I can't think of a single country that passes muster in the court of morality.

How 'bout Canada? We only bludgeon little baby seals and shoot Bambi's dad - no harm in that, right??!!

And, to add to all of the political / ideological discussions.....

I like steak! Mmmmmm!

[Peter11216]

At the end of the day, job losses overseas are not in the same ballpark, nor in the same city, state, country, or planet, as things like the holodomors, the killing fields of cambodia, the la cabana prisons, the great leaps forward, the north korean systems, not to mention the plain old lack of standards of living and poverty, the terror and oppression of the regimes, the lack of individual freedoms, the lack of state criticism, the lack of opposition for the one parties, for those left alive.

It's pretty hard to enter this kind of discussion. Terms like "capitalism" and "communism" are rarely used in any precise way. Personally I don't think any Western society has anything close to a free market capitalism system. We don't need to look back very far to see plenty of examples indicating that the United States does not have a free market system of capitalism. Every large bank in the United States owes its existence to the Federal Government, for example. The development of technology, discussed in the fantastic work of David Noble e.g., has always been highly coordinated by the U.S. government, especially through so-called defense spending. The computer would never have gotten to the state it is in today, had the U.S. government not invested in decades, and decades of research and development before computers became commercially viably.

But putting aside what the terms mean, I think it is important for those of us living in the West to look at what has been done under the banner of "democracy," "fight against communism," "free markets" and so forth. To be absolutely clear, I don't think there is any point in developing a metric to measure how bad one system is compared to another. If that is your interest what I have to say doesn't really apply. I want to bring up some facts about OUR system, that generally are ignored completely. Acknowledging these things is useful to those of us interested in making things better.

Starting with a few things you mention above. The killing fields under Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge are well-known. Less talked about is the bombing of Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge came to power. More explosives were dropped on Cambodia and Laos than during the entire WWII. The country was devastated by U.S. bombing before the Khmer Rouge came to power. People rarely ask how much death and destruction this caused, and continues to cause, nor about whether this massive attack against the people of Cambodia had something (not everything) to do with the rise of the Khmer Rouge.

After North Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1979, they put an end to the Khmer Regime. You thus would do well to remember it was a so-called communist regime that removed the Khmer Rouge. Once this happened Western countries started defending the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government of Cambodia. For example, they insisted that the Khmer Rouge continue to be recognized in the UN as the government of Cambodia.

Check out the Yale Genocide Program website for information about this. for information about this. Including the lovely quote from Kissinger, apparently talking to Thai officials, "You should also tell the Cambodians that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we won't let that stand in our way. We are prepared to improve relations with them." Importantly, citing Cambodia without acknowledging the US and other Western Countries' role in the death and destruction there obfuscates reality. Yale, by the way, is better than your standard internet source.

There's lots to say about this, and I would encourage people to look at some of the scholarship regarding US involvement in Cambodia.

Second, the la cabana prisons and Cuban regime. Again, it is worth looking at our own role in what has happened in Cuba --- obviously not excusing anything done by the Cuban government, obviously. The United States conducted a terrorist war against Cuba. In the U.S. many, many people are sympathetic to the measures undertaken in the name of fighting terrorism, including detaining people in Guantanamo, CIA black sites, drone strikes against Pakistanis, domestic spying - take your pick. Few people would say that these things, restrictions on liberty, torture, and so forth have nothing to do with the terrorist crimes of 9/11/2001. However, we rarely examine the effect of terrorist attacks against Cuba, conducted under the guidance of the United States, on Cuba's repressive domestic policy. Nor the effect of the embargo on Cuban domestic policy.

Remember, we all find it quite easy to apply this logic to Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, where the repressive government of Mubarack was excused because of threats it faced from terrorism.

So simply citing the repression in Cuba as though it exists in a vacuum is hardly helpful to understanding what has happened in the Caribbean - nor understanding how we might make things better there.

The United States was also happy to support Suharto in Indonesia. I'm sure East Timor is familiar to Australians, but in this country, many people are unaware of what happened there, and what happened in the 1960's when Suharto came to power. It is still not known how many people were slaughtered as Suharto came to power. The United States for many reasons, including perpetuating it's economic and politic control of Asia was quite willing to support and supply Suharto. Ben Kiernan, of the Yale Genocide Studies Program, has written about this killing. He notes in his book Blood and Soil (which I have not read) that the CIA described the killing as "one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century, along with the Soviet Purges of the 1930's . . ." Perhaps 500,000 communists (or people label as such) were killed in a few months. This didn't stop the US from arming Indonesia as Suharto launched another genocide against East Timor.

Finally, to bring things back to Che . . . The United States overthrew the ARbenz government in Guatemala and installed a facist regime, that lead to mass suffering for Guatemalans eventually culminating in a genocide that took place in the 1980's. Reagan, during this period, was willing to defend the Guatemalan government carrying out this killing. Also check out the Yale site for information on this. Che was in Guatemala when Arbenz was overthrown. However this actually affected him, one would not be unreasonable to come to the conclusion that anything less than violence would be insufficient to defend progress in Latin America.

Arbenz was attempting to institute capitalism in Guatemala.* Doing so was a threat to foreign businesses who were operating under a feudal system, and could not be tolerated by the United States. So in 1954 the United States intervened to prevent capitalist reforms in Guatemala. Curiously, the US Justice Department was right in the middle of bring an anti-trust action against a US company because of its illegal practices in Guatemala. The State Department acknowledged that Arbenz was trying to do the same thing, in essence, to the US Department of Justice. In fact, because the State Department was intent on getting rid of Arbenz they asked the Justice Department not to prosecute the US business - because that would make Arbenz look good!

There are many, many of example in which Western self-named "capitalist" states have participated in horrendous mass murder and killing - on par with Soviet Purges, as the CIA put it.

The point, again, is not that our system is worse or better than some other, but that we have to look at these things in order not to repeat them. There is lo lack of horrendous crimes committed in the name of spreading free markets and stability.

*Why was Arbenz instituting capitalist reforms in Guatemala? Probably because he and a few others believed that it was a necessary step on the way to communism.

Here's a cute picture of the guy who took over after Arbenz:

[Trevor2118]

Talk about getting off the rails.....