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To Alfred and Sprite, I respect both of you and like you say, most of us appreciate hearing differing points of view so I will reiterate mine. Even though many of Che’s goals were truly admirable, “the ends (no matter how noble) can never justify the means”…Isn’t that what we have been discussing all along on this Forum? I can think of no better advice from Jefferson than this and I can assure you that Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevarra did not subscribe to this philosophy:
“Never suppose that in any possible situation or under any circumstances that it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing however slightly so it may appear to you. Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises, being assured that they will gain strength by exercise…and that exercise will make them habitual.” Thomas Jefferson
I’m glad that many great things were accomplished in many places because people dared to dream and had the courage to act, but I also believe it detracts from them when it’s done on the backs of others and with great joy in the cruelty inflicted on fellow human beings….Your humble Cuban Friend, Rebeca…
Rebeca, You and I have had discussions about Che before. I fully respect your feelings about him. Your knowledge of the true Che is infinitely more than mine. I know you had relatives in Cuba during that time, and still do now. I could never possibly imagine what it was truly like. I have read only Anderson’s biography, and some of Che’s writings. I believe his principles and intent, in his early formation of his philosophy, was of noble intent. Along the way he became as many others. His methods were ruthless (firing squads and the like), and he believed in violent, rather than peaceful revolutionary solutions for Cuba, and the world’s oppressed population. I admired his intellect, and his ideals of wanting to set persecuted peoples free from the governments that bound them. His methods are not any that I share.
“Never suppose that in any possible situation or under any circumstances that it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing however slightly so it may appear to you. Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises, being assured that they will gain strength by exercise…and that exercise will make them habitual.” Thomas Jefferson
That statement by Thomas Jefferson, may have struck a nerve, and given me a little pause about raising anyone on a pedestal. The ends never justify the means. There are no perfect heroes, there are no perfect men or women. We tend to magnify what we see as the good in a person, and minimize the evil or unsavory. Further knowledge of any individual can change our opinion of them. Wisdom comes with age, sometimes. We should never stop learning, or listening to other people’s thoughts and opinions.
Learning from history, and learning from each other in this forum, has opened my eyes in the past year. Even though we are a same interest group (Costa Rica), there is a lot of diversity of thought here. I enjoy all of the discussions we have, and it is my sincerest wish they may continue.
I know at times I can be provocative or annoying. Thanks for putting up with me. You too, Scott,
Alfred, I don’t think any less of you because you admire great philosophies and achievements, even when they come from monsters such as Che–I recognize them also. We all have great capacity for kindness and great capacity to inflict pain on others–it’s typically a choice for each of us and context plays a huge role too–unless you’ve turned into a sociopath, then there is no choice. That which constructs our personal shadows is grotesquely fed by great power over others. It enables our flaws to become the pain and the cry of many. Che is personal with me because if it would have been left up to him he would have executed my father for his personal enjoyment and I would not be alive today–my father who was an innocent man and a child that was not yet conceived—you can’t get more personal than that… Frankly, other than Che & Walker’s ruthlessness, arrogance and thirst for waging war or bloody revolutions I don’t see an iota of similarity between them when it comes to much of their thoughts and goals. Mr. Walker never had the slightest of decent intentions in his process and never lost his way (as I believe happened with Che) while waging his aggressions, his path was clearly one for self gain and domination from the very beginning…
Ditto, “El Che” the tshirt is a seductive pop icon . “El Che”, the idealogue was a passionate leader. But, “El Che’s” actions enslaved the very people he pretended to free… My father was jailed for selling his own furniture… My uncle was sent to a concentration camp, for requesting an exit visa… When my uncle arrived in Miami 3 years later he looked like a holocaust victim…
Imagine your in the states and you declare your intentions to move to Costa Rica, the government takes your engineering job seizes your remaining property and sends you to a “work camp”.
Would you still wear his tshirt, plaster his face on public buildings and billboards?Che started down a wonderful path full of promise and virtue. He then helped dragged an already battered nation into 50 years of hell… Why do thousand risk their lives and those of their kids to across the Gulfstream in inner tubes… Are they running from Che’s utopian dream or his inferno?
“El Che” / “Bush” Same kacke Different Day…
Sprite, Mao and Stalin also have their statues and images. If its communists you revere, fine. I’m not disappointed at all, that people think differently than I do. As far as “an army of like minded people on this site” goes, the hatred for George Bush runs deep. Its a hate that I don’t respect.
Edited on Nov 14, 2007 15:57
Ha! I actually agree with Roark… That last line “El Che” / “Bush” Same kacke Different Day…” Is absurd.
George Bush is clearly responsible for the deaths of far more innocent people than El Che… But of course the estimates of the number of people killed in Iraq that comes out of the US press is in the tens of thousands – MORE DAMNED LIES.
“… the British medical journal The Lancet, calculating that more than 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S. invasion and its ensuing chaos. ” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/10/16/EDG6PKDSLU1.DTL
I can only assume from your obviously doo-lally attitude about slaughtering innocent people Roark that you are one of the many millions of clearly deluded and demented Americans who are looking forward to the Rapture and are aggressively pursuing every means possible to accelerate the end of the world so you can fly up to heaven on your celestial wings and think you’re going to be laughing at us poor slobs down here who are strange enough to believe that a US caused genocide that’s comparable to Adolf Hitler’s is a “just cause” …
Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner. He also said a lot of brilliant things. That’s nice.
Che had noble ideals. He also had anger management issues. Sometimes a bullet is just a bullet. Had he not been good-looking do you still think so many people would be wearing his puss on their t-shirts. I can only guess how many of them he’d have had shot as counterrevolutionaries. I also understand that he had no appreciation for music and was known to be completely tone-deaf. Excuse me? He was from Argentina, Land of the Tango, fighting a revolution in Cuba, the country whose name makes me want to dance? A revolution without music?!! The horror! The Horror!
And who the #@&*% is Ron Paul?
Love and smoochies from Canada.
See you all in Alajuela this April and in Guanacaste in May.I spent time in Cuba many years ago. Be careful of all the anecdotal stories that have been spread by the enemies of what the Cubans tried and are still trying to accomplish. The bigger the lie, the easier it is accepted by people. Firing squads, cruel and unjust imprisonments, a starving Cuban population…. I have heard all those lies from the old Cuban reactionary refugees in Miami and still read such trash in american papers today.
Believe what you want to. I went there and saw for myself and had an eye opening experience. Thirty years ago I saw first hand how lies were disseminated by an american press and how easily and handily the whole country accepted the lies. It just happened again here a few years ago with our latest dirty little war. People never learn.
Cuban refugees come to the states for the same reasons Mexicans and other nationalities do; the lure of money.
Che never got his utopia…..nor did we.Edited on Nov 14, 2007 17:59
No problem at all about Cuba. I disapprove of violence as a means to an end, whether revolutionary, reactionary, Marxist, fascist, left , right, U.S., Canadian, Cuban, Mexican, British, Russian, Chinese, Iranian, Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Hindu or____________(fill in the blank) A bullet is just a bullet. Every mother who loses a daughter or a son is a mother who has been robbed.
Sprite, how many U.S. ball players are hunted down by the U.S. secret service and brought back against their will (zero)? Is this part of what, “The Cubans are trying to accomplish”. By the way you failed to address that pesky inner tube thing… Or is that another anecdotal story.
Your barking up the wrong tree here… You’re tagging all Miami Cubans as right wing fascist and Island Cubans as model socialist victimized by bad press… You think showing up at Varadero Beach popping back a few mojitos, maybe delivering some medical supplies makes you a credible witness to the Cuban condition. Take a cab ride in Anytown, Latin America. Tell the cabby your Cuban, then sit back and hear the most wonderful winded stories about Fidel and Cuba. They love Fidel because he has stood up to the “Imperialistas” not for his accomplishments. When he’s dead they’ll praise Hugo Chavez for the same reason…
I share very few political views with my Miami brothers… But, whether you’re a hardcore “fidelista”(left) or part of the “Miami Mafia”(right) as Fidel calls them. They all agree on one thing. Things have gone terribly wrong for the Cuban people and quite nicely for “El Comandante”…
You might want to visit the Amnesty International 2007 Report on Cuba… http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/Regions/Americas/Cuba
They seem to disagree with your Rosie Picture.Come on Sprite, your better than that last post… There are plenty of good causes… Fidel is not one of them… Here’s a list of 71 Cuban prisoners of conscience http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR250022005
Pick one… BTW, they won’t be staying on Varadero Beach or sipping Mojitos…Roark, I knew we’d agree on something…
Cheers,ps.
The last line is trite bumperstricker material but they’re still both bums (no offense to bums intended)Aaronbz, so well said and every mother who’s lost a child (either by death or political separation) to war knows this! Sprite, if you think that you saw the “truth” when you were in Cuba 30 years ago, then you don’t really know how a communist government works. You saw what they wanted you to see. Even just a few years ago the “neighborhood watch person” came to check my Tica friend and I out when I went to visit my family. This wasn’t out of hospitality, but to make sure the “capitalist pigs” weren’t corrupting anyone. Her words, not mine. To her surprise she found herself with people that didn’t fit the propaganda schema she had expected and actually congratulated my aunt & uncle for having a socialist minded niece. You can bet your very life, that I would not have said ONE single word that would have put my family’s life at stake, and I never misrepresented my views, just abstained from topics that would put my family in jeopardy. I sure don’t see that my cell phone calls, emails or if I have friends abroad are any business of this administration and what makes this any different in Cuba where I can’t even visit my family in peace without a government appointed watchdog has to give me the “okay” or problems with work and rations can ensue? My cousin had a good job when her husband decided to try to make it to the US and left on a raft. When he established himself in the US, she wanted to join her husband, we tried to help her unify her family (two kids were part of this mix) and just for applying for an exit visa she lost her job and her ration card for her and her children!! She would have starved without the rest of the family providing some assistance–GRAND IDEALOGY AT WORK DON’T YOU THINK! UpeCity’s relatives and my father, my aunt, my uncles, my cousins, my grandparents, my siblings, father’s father, and the list goes on, these are not “anecdotes” they are real people who suffered exactly by those that dreamed one day of freeing Cuba and then enslaved her. Thomas Jefferson knew it in his time and was amazed how people could risk it all to gain freedom from oppression and then once it was achieved they then became the oppressors. It’s about having too much power and thinking that the ends justifies the means. I do not spew American propaganda, many who knew first hand of Che’s cruelties just as today we also have his writings to know what he dared to dream and ponder. You can’t idealize anyone and most certainly beware of idealizing men in power. I know the Miami bunch holds very extremist views which I don’t hold dear, but I really don’t blame them, they were traumatized by a revolution. One that you have never had the displeasure of having to live through in your own country, have your family be torn apart by and still suffer even though it’s been so long. You think this administration is bad? Well,try living it for over 4 decades!! Try living without the right to speak your mind like you do on this Forum and live your life as you see fit for 40+ *@! yrs of your life and have your life, your children’s lives and the even the lives of your grandchildren be affected by one political administration!!! I’m the first to say that Fidel brought many needed reforms to the island. You should never blind yourself to the good, even when the good is done by people you don’t agree with, and for heaven’s sake you should also never blind yourself to the harm done to others–even when that has not touched your life of the lives of your personal loved ones….The intellectual arrogance of sideline communist sympathizers has very little room for compassion for those real people that actually suffered because to them the ideology written in books and in the illusions they’ve been presented is worth more than the people it was meant to serve. I think the US was blessed to have Founding Fathers that started founding documents with “We the people…” and presidents that reminded themselves and others that gov’t was supposed to be ” “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Do you know why Jefferson thought everyone should at some point be a soldier as much as he didn’t care for war? Exactly for that very reason, because sometimes only when you experience the horror of this experience do you fully understand the profound attack it presents to human dignity on all sides. I always think that if presidents had to actually go to war and actually fight among each other, they would choose this option a hell of a lot less easily, but it’s always easier to expend with the lives and dignity of others….
Fidel is NOT my cause. However,I do respect the Cubans on the Island and their honest and sincere efforts. Say what you want about Fidel, but he managed to keep the meddling gringos out of Cuba’s business for almost half a century. And most Cubans are proud of their revolution and their country today.
The rafters are no different than Mexicans crossing the border except that our government encourages the Cubans by promising them residency if they make it. That more than any other factor is responsible for the deaths at sea of so many.
I didn’t spend my time as a tourist in Cuba. I lived in Habana (near vedado) in a typical Cuban apartment…electricity and water were shut off at times, breakfast consisted of crackers and Cuban coffee, and I rode the “guaguas” (buses) with everybody else. When you are 27 years old, you can put up with anything and I enjoyed immensely my time there.
Cuba is doing OK. They will get through another bad period. Had Fidel and Che NOT arrived 50 years ago, Cuba may have slipped into being just another Yanqui satellite state, producing only baseball players and tourist post cards and more off shore banking opportunities for the wealthy.
You say “Cuba is doing OK. They will get through another bad period.”???? Goes to show you haven’t been there in a while! No matter how many slogans plastered on every public surface of that island stating the contrary–Cubans are living under horrible conditions (you don’t have to buy a book to read propaganda in Cuba–it gets plastered over every billboard and building wall available). If Cuba gets thru this god awful “special” period it’s because Cubans are some of the toughest most hardworking people I know and under the current regime they have also had the privilege to become very educated. They “resuelven” (figure a way to get what they need) from the moment they open their eyes every morning for the simplest of things to the moment they lay their heads on their pillows at night. And I have family in very high places within the Cuban government who actually have gov’t cars and chofers! No one on the island nor any Cuban that really loves their country wants Cuba to become a satellite state like PR, they just want to be free. Cubans on the island today turn the volume down when the politicians come on because they’re sick and tired of having to be someone’s political experiment–that’s not respect, that’s disgust! They love their country, they’re proud of their achievements, but they ALSO want to be FREE. Fancy that, what you want for yourself, what Ron Paul wants by promising to restore the Constitution of the US, hmmmm…..What Cubans live thru on the island are not minor inconveniences, they live with major restrictions of their “inalienable rights” along with major everyday inconveniences to have toilet paper, sanitary napkins, oil for cooking, meat for eating, dairy (unless you’re under 7 or a senior citizen) and the list goes on–ALL considered great LUXURIES in Cuba. At least be coherent when touting the value of freedom in one country and then considering them dispensable in another….
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