Oh, Che Can You See?

Recently I finished a book, Son of Hamas, written by Mosab Yousef.  Yousef was a Muslim who became a revolutionary for the cause of Christ.  His hatred for Israelis, which was fostered by his religious culture in the Palestinian areas of the West Bank in Israel, consumed him.  This prince of Hamas, however, encountered the Prince of Peace in Old Jerusalem.  A Christian invited Yousef to attend a Bible study.  From that invitation, Yousef's path led to a belief in Jesus Christ as the only source of true peace.

At the end of the book Yousef lamented that Christians are not more involved in confronting the Islamic culture.  As he is risking his life to expose the dark workings of Islam, Yousef challenged Christians to do more to share the truth.  Simply praying about the situation can often be a cop-out.  Thinking about that challenge a moment I questioned: "What exactly does he want me to do?"  Then it occurred to me.  Although Yousef's context is confronting Islam, where I can passionately demonstrate truth was something I had to figure out for myself.  How can I effectively put my faith into action in America?

Yousef's challenge to Christians came to mind as I was at the gym on the running track.  On the track I noticed someone (whom we'll call "Joe") wearing a T-shirt with Ernesto "Che" Guevara's image on it.  This cult of personality saddens and sickens me.  Guevara was a thug and a brutal murderer, and yet he is revered as if he were a war hero by many on the political left.  As I try to live by my motto scripture -- "Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but, rather, expose them (Ephesians 5:11)" -- I knew I needed to say something to him.  I approached Joe as he was stretching on a mat.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I noticed you are wearing a T-shirt with Che Guevara on it."  Right then, I could tell by the look on Joe's face that others must have shared with him their opinions of Che.  He immediately put up the defenses.

I tried to be as respectful as I could, yet remembering that "speaking the truth in love" still requires "speaking the truth."

"Do you know who Che Guevara was?" I inquired.

"I know he was a revolutionary," he offered, and then added "and I don't appreciate my free speech being questioned."

"No, I'm not saying you shouldn't wear the shirt; I'm just trying to see if you know who he truly was.  Do you know any specifics of what he did?"

"No, I don't know any specifics, but I know he was controversial," Joe admitted.

"Well, Che was a very wicked man..."

Joe interrupted.  "That's a matter of opinion."

I continued.  "His revolutionary principles are completely antithetical to our American ideals.  He is not a man to be celebrated." 

Joe again interrupted.  "That's a matter of opinion, and, if you please, I need to get back to my workout" -- a 15-minute workout that so far consisted of stretching, a few laps walking on the indoor track, and stretching again.

I respectfully concluded, "I appreciate your taking the time to hear me, and maybe next time you will do more research."

Here was a grown man, wearing the image of a mass murderer on his T-shirt.  All he cared to know about his idol, his hero, was that Guevara was "a revolutionary" and "controversial."  When confronted with my conclusion that Guevara was a wicked man that should not be celebrated, Joe only offered the relativistic refrain "It's just a matter of opinion."  He was not open to knowing the specifics.

Relativism sounds wonderful and accepting.  "You can have your opinion and I can have mine."  But what is relativism, really?  Generally speaking, relativism is a philosophy that asserts all points of view are equally valid.  A relativist will likely aver that there is no absolute truth or that absolute truth is unknowable.  Both of those statements are self-refuting.  How can one absolutely believe there is no absolute truth?  How can one know the truth about truth being unknowable?

The problem with relativists is they don't accept the consequences of their philosophy.  If truth really is relative, then why should a relativist get angry when I punch him in the nose?  His objection to my punching him is simply a matter of opinion, right?  I can have "my truth" and he can have his.

Sure, everyone is able to have an opinion.  They may even be entitled to that opinion.  But, not all opinions are created equal.  The problem with opinions is that "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."  The truth of John Adams' words resonates in our world that rejects absolute truth.

Let us look at the facts that should have informed Joe the "Che-ophile's" opinion of Ernesto Guevara:

• One murder is captured in Guevara's own diary in January 1957.  Guevara admitted that he shot Eutimio Guerra on suspicion of passing on information: "I ended the problem with a .32 caliber pistol, in the right side of his brain. ... His belongings were now mine."  Does "social justice" include execution without a trial and then theft of the estate?
• Guevara murdered Aristidio, a peasant, simply because Guevara suspected him of treason to the revolution.  The killing of the poor, dumb cart horse named Boxer in Animal Farm comes to mind.
• Guevara ordered the executions of hundreds of people without trial as the head of the La Cabaña prison.  Many were executed simply because they were Christians.  Refusing to serve two masters, many Christians died on Guevara's orders as they shouted "¡Viva Cristo Rey!"
• Guevara ordered the murder of 15-year old Carlos Machado, his twin brother, and their father simply for resisting the revolution's confiscation of their family farm.
• Guevara embraced hatred as a tactic necessary in his revolutionary struggle.

For which one of these points was Joe displaying his pride in Guevara?  Relativism and blissful ignorance go hand-in-hand.  Hard-to-accept truth has simply become "a matter of opinion."  To the left, Guevara is a hero of the oppressed, a symbol to rally around for "social justice."  Many youth and other leftists celebrate Guevara's "revolutionary" and "controversial" nature without even the slightest curiosity of the truth of his ignominious life.

The great danger with blissfully ignorant relativism is that if a majority of society falls for specially marketed, iconic, charismatic "revolutionaries," the entire nation suffers the purges and atrocities for the blessed revolution.  The Che T-shirt wearers in Cuba made it easier for the revolutionaries to execute the country's Machados and steal their farms. 

Relativism crumbles as the light of truth exposes its deceptions.  Finding truth takes work.  Intellectual laziness is why there are so many liars and so many deceived.  In reality, relativism isn't about the existence of truth.  Truth isn't relative.  A person's will is relative.  Relativism really is a belief only in the truth one chooses to believe in.  All unpleasant, inconvenient truth is disregarded.  The philosophy of relativism is only created to excuse people's choices.  In Joe's case, relativism simply masks his intellectual ignorance.

So, today, I took up Yousef's challenge and performed my Christian duty to expose the darkness of relativism.  I wasn't about to let Joe carry his blissful ignorance on his T-shirt unchallenged.  I don't know if Joe is blissfully ignorant or deliberately so.  I just know that I was called to bear witness to the Truth.  I hope I shined the light on Joe's darkness and that he embraces the light by researching and he sees who Che truly was...and then burns his Che T-shirt.

By Christopher S. Brownwell 

Source: American Thinker

You Don't Know Che by Steve Pichan

Go to Home Page

Whole Lotta Stupidity—Jimmy Page Visits Cuba, Honors Che Guevara

Following in the footsteps of (among many other flower-children) Stephen Stills, Bonnie Raitt, Chrissie Hynde, Jimmy Buffet, and Carole King (who in 2002 serenaded Fidel Castro with a personal “You’ve Got a Friend”) guitar legend Jimmy Page made the pilgrimage to Fidel Castro’s fiefdom this week.

To Led Zeppelin’s former guitarist the visit probably seemed, not only fitting, but long overdue. Cuba was, after all, the first nation ruled by bearded long-hairs. Jean Paul Sartre, after all, hailed Cuba’s Stalinist rulers as “les Enfants au Pouvoir” (the children in power). Fidel Castro, after all, spoke at Harvard in 1959 on the same bill as pioneer beatnik Allen Ginsberg.

Remove the wispy beard and beret from the (late, thanks to Fidel Castro) revolutionary icon on those posters and t-shirts and you’ve got Jim Morrison of The Doors. Remove the cowboy hat from the (late, thanks to Fidel Castro) Revolutionary icon Camilo Cienfuegos and you’ve got Grateful Dead’s Gerry Garcia. Circa 1959, Raul Castro with his blond shoulder-length locks was a ringer for Joe Walsh circa Hotel California. These Cuban Stalinists were on the cutting edge of fashion. They pre-empted the Haight Ashbury look by a decade.

Castro’s captive (literally!) media, reports that Jimmy Page’s visit: “included tours of historic sites, and purchases of souvenirs such as the famous photograph of Che Guevara.”

In an interview with the BBC last year, Oscar and Cannes-winner Benicio del Toro explained the painstaking intellectual exertion that inspired his Che-mania: “I hear of this guy, and he’s got a cool name, Che Guevara! Groovy name, groovy man, groovy politics! So I came across a picture of Che, smiling, in fatigues, I thought, ‘Dammit, this guy is cool-looking!’”

In all likelihood, similar intellectual toil inspired Jimmy Page’s recent souvenir shopping spree in Havana.

For his role as Che Guevara in Steven Soderbergh’s movie Che, Benicio del Toro was recently honored by the peace-loving crowd in Hollywood and Cannes. For headlining their Concert for Peace. Jimmy Page was recently honored with the “Global Peace Award from the United Nations’ Pathway to Peace organization.

“We reject any peaceful approach! “declared the souvenir icon of the Concert for Peace’s honoree “Violence is inevitable! To establish Socialism rivers of blood must flow! If the nuclear missiles had remained (in Cuba) we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City. The victory of socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims!”

“Hatred is the central element of our struggle!” raved this icon of flower-children. “Hatred that is intransigent….Hatred so violent that it propels a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him violent and cold- blooded killing machine… My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any surrendered enemy that falls in my hands! We must keep our hatred alive and fan it to paroxysm!”

In fact, Jimmy Page should know that many Cuban youths “tuned-in and turned-on” to (smuggled) Led Zeppelin music in the 60’s and 70’s. But rather than meet with his Cuban fans, Jimmy was hosted by apparatchiks of the Stalinist regime that jailed and brutalized them en masse.

In a famous speech in 1961 Che Guevara denounced the very “spirit of rebellion” as “reprehensible.” “Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates” commanded the KGB –mentored Guevara. “Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service.”

Cuban “roquero” of the time Charlie Bravo recalls the process: “When Castro’s goons caught me with a Led Zeppelin record, they led me to a Stairway alright—but at bayonet-point and this stairway hardly led to Heaven, instead it led down into a dark jail cell.”

On the orders of Jimmy Page’s smiling hosts, Charlie was joined by tens of thousands of Cuban youths. A few years earlier the hundreds of Soviet KGB and East German STASI “consultants” who flooded Cuba in the early 60’s, found an extremely eager acolyte in Che Guevara. By the mid 60’s the crime of a “rocker” lifestyle—long hair, blue jeans, etc.–or effeminate behavior got thousands of youths yanked off Cuba’s streets and parks by secret police and dumped in prison camps with “Work Will Make Men Out of You” in bold letters above the gate and with machine gunners posted on the watchtowers. The initials for these camps were UMAP, not GULAG, but the conditions were quite similar.

Today the world’s largest image of Jimmy Page’s souvenir icon adorns Cuba’s headquarters for Cuba’s KGB-trained secret police, a gang of Communist sadists who jailed and tortured at a rate higher than Stalin’s own KGB and GRU—and many of their victims were guilty of nothing worse than listening to music by Jimmy Page.


by Humberto Fontova 

From: Big Hollywood

To read:

Exposing the Real Che Guevara: And the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him

Go to Home Page

Guevara shouldn't be revered

Criminals and murderers like Guevara shouldn't be revered

On Oct. 9, people around the world and students on this campus will recognize the anniversary of Che Guevara’s death. People honor him on a regular basis by wearing a cool looking shirt with his face on it. If you do not know who he is, you have certainly seen this T-shirt (probably on this campus). In today’s world, Che is idolized. Yet, Che Guevara was an international terrorist and mass murderer much along the lines of Lenin, Stalin and Mao. He maintained an inhuman campaign to impose communism on Latin American countries. He trained and motivated Fidel Castro’s firing squads who were responsible for the execution of thousands of men, women and children.

We do not glorify and idolize murderers like Stalin because we know about their evil deeds. Che’s life is more ambiguous — he is praised as a hero and his cult of violence is largely ignored. This is a man who is quoted as saying, “I’d like to confess, at that moment, I discovered that I really like killing.” Does he still seem like such a great hero who should be praised, who should be an icon for students, who should have his face printed on shirts all over America? Maybe we should use the anniversary of Che’s death to learn the truth about this vicious murderer.

From: The Daily Collegian 

To read:

Exposing the Real Che Guevara: And the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him

Go to Home Page

Using Che Guevara image riles some Cuban Americans

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Some Cuban Americans in south Florida are upset to see a picture of revolutionary Che Guevara promoting an irreverent car race.

The “24 Horas de Cuba del Norte” — or 24 Hours of Cuba of the North — is part of a national circuit of farcical auto races called 24 Hours of LeMons. Drivers spend less than $500 and race junk cars decorated like Halloween floats.

Other races in the circuit have names like “The Can’t Get Bayou” in New Orleans and “The Rod Blagojevich Never-Say-Die 500″ in Chicago.

But the use of Cuban revolutionary Guevara’s image in the Dec. 30-31 race’s logo crosses the line for some native Cubans. Critics say it’s like using Ku Klux Klan imagery to advertise in the South.

Race organizers say they don't plan to change the campaign.

From: Cheat Games

Video - The Victims of Che Guevara

Go to Home Page