TheMillerCircle.org

When you visit Buenos Aires Argentina, you don’t get the impression that one of their most famous sons, Che Guevara, was in fact a native born Argentinian. There is very little recognition of him and certainly no celebration of his work or life. This despite the fact that forty years after his death (1968) he remains an internationally celebrated cult figure and is among the most recognized figures in the World, from his famous photograph taken by Korda in 1960 (shown here). Apart from a few postcards and T-shirts in the gift shops, there isn’t much recognition of him at all, even in the poorer areas where you might have imagined he would be a real hero. During a recent trip that Rosemary and I took there (2006), I asked a local shop dealer why there wasn’t more made of Argentina’s most famous son (certainly a 20th Century charismatic revolutionary leader). The answer I got was a shrug of the shoulders. The right wing dictatorships that have controlled Argentina in the past did not want to recognize Guevara for fear of spreading his message and his revolutionary zeal. But the overthrow of those regimes and the establishment of a democracy, coupled with a motivation to see government back trying to re-establish social justice by throwing off the corporatist shackles of the IMF, have started to erode the barriers of talking about Guevara in a more enlightened and open way. So, in his home town of Rosario Argentina, a 13 ft statue of Che has been erected with an opening ceremony attended by his 3 children and representatives from the Cuban government.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was born into a well to do family, was an avid reader and writer, loved poetry, played in soccer tournaments and chess tournaments at the age of twelve and went to medical school, eventually getting his medical degree. While in Medical school, he took a year off and traveled throughout South America on a motorcycle. It was that trip, popularized by his writings and the movie, "The Motorcycle Diaries" that made him aware of of the extreme impoverished conditions of the entire region. He decided that he would dedicate his efforts to eradicating the squalid poverty he observed. He went back to medical school, completed his degree and went to Guatemala to participate in the social reforms that were underway through the democratically elected government of Arbenz. But the overthrow of the Arbenz government by a CIA-led coup (related to complaints from United Fruit to the US government), convinced Guevara that armed struggle was the only way to challenge the imperialist, neocolonialist, American-backed regimes that he saw responsible for the poverty in all of South America. It was that experience that transformed Guevara into a radical revolutionary, as he adopted a hard-line Marxist philosophy and pro-Soviet commitment through violent, armed insurrection against the imperilaist regimes.

Che’s greatest revolutionary success was achieved when he joined Castro and played a major role in the overthrow of the American-backed dictator Batista. When the group was small, hiding in the hills in Cuba, Guevara borrowed a trick from the CIA he learned in Guatemala: he started a radio station to broadcast the mission and policies of the revolution, which helped galvanize the rebel movement. Although he started as a military green horn, he eventually became a sophisticated military strategist and is credited for his brilliant moves in the final battle that achieved victory for Fidel Castro. He played many roles in the Castro regime and is responsible for introducing a harsh, hard set of government policies consistent with a permanent mindset of communist revolution. He had many of the Batista military leaders executed. He was captured and executed by a CIA-led group in Bolivia in 1968. Since his death he has become a cult hero for his life and actions. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century and the famous photograph of him taken by Alberto Korda in 1960 has been celebrated as the single most famous photograph of the 20th century (I am not sure who gets to name and rank these things). How in the World Castro’s regime has survived fifty years without Castro being executed by the CIA or the Miami Cuban clan is beyond me.

Here is a question for all of us to ponder, certainly a good question for John McCain. How many Che Guevaras have we helped to ignite in Iraq since our invasion? How many in Afghanistan? Guevara was a very bright, charismatic leader, whose aggressive, behavioral makeup predisposed him to be aggressive and radical if the conditions he experienced required it. Yet, even when he joined Castro at first, he saw his mission as that of a physician, not an armed insurrectionist. Castro’s communist regime in Cuba, which has survived for half a century, is in fact a blowback created by our government’s support of a purely capitalist view of the World and a capitalistic implementation of our foreign policy. What would the world look like today if we had adopted the attitude that Guevara had when he encountered the impoverished conditions, where the poor lacked access to food and medicine? Let’s see, where would we have to look within our own history or political philosophy to justify adopting Guevara’s attitude about the outside world (that is towards the impoverished countries). Voila! We only have to look to Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, to find the simple revolutionary zeal for such a commitment, but one embedded in our own political history and philosophy. What do you suppose Jefferson might have said about the American Hegemony we have tried to maintain for most of our post-industrial history? He for one would have been enthusiastic for the masses to overthrow their dictatorship government. Jefferson, like Guevara was for a permanent state of revolution. Well, given the recent history of the IMF in South America, maybe the Monroe doctrine at least is finally dead. Just imagine a World where America is better known for its production and worldwide distribution of vaccines rather than cluster bombs. Such a World was and is possible. There was a time when we were not the biggest arms merchant in the World and there was a time when we were the biggest creditor nation, not the biggest debtor nation. We can get there again. Vote for Obama, then be prepared to pressure him into a new philosophy for America: one more consistent with our own political and social beginnings.