February 17, 2008
The Latter Day Kennedy? Not Really.
Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby doesn't think JFK would be amused by the association of Che Guevara with a presidential candidate whom some have crowned as his (JFK's) political heir:
In December 1962, Kennedy offered a blunt summary of the Castro/Che record. "The Cuban people were promised by the revolution political liberty, social justice, intellectual freedom, land for the campesinos, and an end to economic exploitation," he said. "They have received a police state, the elimination of the dignity of land ownership, the destruction of free speech and a free press, and the complete subjugation of individual human welfare." Eleven months later, in a speech intended for delivery on the day he was assassinated, Kennedy regretted that Castro's "Communist foothold" in Latin America had "not yet been eliminated."Were he alive today, it's hard to imagine JFK feeling anything but contempt for those who extol a dictatorship that has been crushing freedom and human beings for nearly 50 years. And it would surely pain him that so many of the cheerleaders are members of his own party.
The lionizing of Che, a sociopath who relished killing and acclaimed "the pedagogy of the firing squad," is not just "inappropriate." It is vile. No American in his right mind would be caught dead wearing a David Duke T-shirt or displaying a poster of Pol Pot. A celebrity who was spotted with a swastika-festooned cap or an actress who revealed that she had gotten a tattoo depicting Timothy McVeigh would inspire only repugnance. No presidential campaign would need more than 30 seconds to sever its ties to anyone, paid staffer or volunteer, whose office was adorned with a Ku Klux Klan banner. Yet Che's likeness, which ought to be as loathed as any of those, is instead a trendy bestseller and a cult favorite.
Judging from the policies that the fashionable Left promotes, it's not always a simple matter to discern whether it's the symbol of revolution that so captures the movement's imagination or a deep-seated sympathy with the lustful totalitarian impulse.
It could be that the picture of Che Guevara represents a time for abrupt change, a signal to “throw the rascals out”, a time to get rid of Bush and his cohorts who have pushed this country to moral and political bankruptcy. If there’s an historical parallel to be made it’s between Bush/Cheney and the ruthless Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista, who was propped up both by U.S. corporations and the Mafia.
If you look at Central and South America you will find Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Lula Da Silva y mucho mas positioning their countries away from US domination.
I hate to break it to you Justin, but somebody has to, “The Caribbean is no longer a U.S. Lake.” Wake up and smell the roses, and yes, it’s the pink ones that are blossoming.
So cry and decry, Obama is going to be our next president. Squeal and deal and still Obama is going to be our next president. It’s you who deal in fear and scare tactics. You insist on implacable enemies and your very insistence creates them. You cry “terror” and want to direct our national attention away from our poverty stricken neighbours and towards exaggerated threats from a faceless enemy. It’s you who is willing to trade away current liberties for “security” against phantoms - Let me be clear the people who perpetrated what we call 9/11 were real and the destruction was real, but you traffic in bogeymen, not reality which is why Osama Bin Laden is still operating, and operating to your advantage for the only thing that the Republican Party has to sell is war and fear and you Republicans have supplied plenty of both.
OldTimeLefty
It could be that the picture of Che Guevara represents a time for abrupt change, a signal to “throw the rascals out”, a time to get rid of Bush and his cohorts who have pushed this country to moral and political bankruptcy.
That's got to be the most idiotic thing I've heard. Che Guevara was a murderer and a Stalinist. Regardless of what anybody's interpretation of his face is, that's what he was. If the opponents of the president need a symbol to unite around, I suggest they pick another mass murderer like Charles Manson or Ted Bundy and see if they can get away with that stupid argument.
There are really only two explanations for Sen. Obama's anemic response to his Texas office's disgusting display.
1. He does not see anything wrong with revering the Cuban flag and the murderous Che, or
2. He lacks the willingness to stand up to supporters who are far left moonbats.
Neither explanation speaks to well for the Senator.
Posted by: brassband at February 17, 2008 7:47 PMSquirm and scream and shreik and yell. Make any outrageous claim ypu think you can sell. Obama's going to be our next president and this electorate isn't buying your facil good guy white hat bad guy black hat ideas. In the words of that great umpire Bill Klem, "Yer out".
OldTimeLefty
Squirm and scream and shreik and yell. Make any outrageous claim ypu think you can sell. Obama's going to be our next president and this electorate isn't buying your facil good guy white hat bad guy black hat ideas. In the words of that great umpire Bill Klem, "Yer out".
OldTimeLefty
Richard, where in this comment thread or this post does anyone say that Obama is a bad guy? Where does anyone (other than you in a baseless, almost comical attempt to race bait) talk about white versus black?
Please point to these instances and quote them exactly.
In the meantime, to celebrate the month of Abraham Lincoln's birthday, here are some facts about Republicans and race. Abe Lincoln, the President who ended slavery in America, was a Republican, a party established specifically to abolish this horror. And it was Republicans in the 1960's who brought about an end to Jim Crow laws by giving President Johnson the 1964 Civil Rights Act to sign. They did so despite a 14 hour filibuster by Senator Robert Byrd and the opposition of 22 other Senate Democrats, including Al Gore's pappy.
(By the way, are these the kind of "Old Time Lefties" to which your nickname refers?)
Posted by: Monique at February 18, 2008 7:26 AMMonique,
Point 1:
I read your thread and was startled to read that you were accusing me of veiled race baiting.
I used the phrase , “this electorate isn't buying your facile good guy white hat bad guy black hat ideas.” in reference to the neurotic Right’s demonization of Che Guevara branding him a sociopath who relished killing.” You turned the ideas into people, one black and one white. I am reminded of the joke which has a man lying on a psychiatrist’s couch.
Patient: Doc, I don’t know how to relate to women.
Psychiatrist: Hands patient a piece of paper with a single horizontal line drawn on it and says, “What do you see?
Patient: A naked woman lying on her back.
Psychiatrist: Obviously, you are obsessed with sex.
Patient: I am!? You’re the one drawing the pictures.
Pont 2:
Now, I ask you to compare and contrast the condemnation of Che Guevara in this thread with what John Foster Dulles (Secretary of State and United Fruit stockholder), and Alan Dulles (CIA and United Fruit stockholder), and Walter Bedell Smith (Under Secretary of State and United Fruit stockholder) did to Guatemala. I hope that this clears up my use of I used the phrase, “facile good guy white hat bad guy black hat ideas.”
Point 3:
It’s true, Abraham Lincoln was the head of a radical party which was dedicated to overthrowing the status quo. What radicals do you currently support?. Or is it true that “Conservatives are worshipers of dead Radicals.”
I call Emma Goldman, Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, to name a few, old time lefties. I believe that power corrupts; that property is incompatible with freedom; that authority and property are between them the begetters of crime.
OldtimeLefty
Posted by: Richard Tuoni at February 18, 2008 8:20 PMWell, then, in those terms, just how unfree are you, Mr. Tuoni?
Posted by: Justin Katz at February 18, 2008 9:40 PMA very wise man said that if you want to know how far you are from god, just make a list of everything that you call "mine", and the length of the list is how far you are from god. Also see Saint Francis. It's true, I fall short, but I plod along in my imperfect way.
Now tell me about United Fruit's doings in Central America and remind me again about how the unseen hand of the benevolent marketplace knows all and sees all.
OldTimeLefty
This Che Guevara, like the flag pin, is just a complete nonissue. It's Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly stuff.
Posted by: rhody at February 19, 2008 8:04 PM