Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2521335)

i don't think that the term "anti-americanism" means anything. it collapses the ideology and interests of a particular faction within the united states into the whole. i think that's wrong: it's no surprise that this "anti-american" thing is a conservative meme.

Originally Posted by Charlatan (Post 2521078)

jorgelito: I would agree that "romanticizing" and "commodifying" Che is a bit odd (and in the latter case, highly ironic). But I would say that about most historical figures.

When I was asking if a comparison can be made to George Bush and his Admin, I was really just asking about the ends and the means part of the equation rather than the pop culture legacy.

That said, I can certainly see why a certain left leaning crowd might view Che with misty eyes. He presents a very heroic figure... an intellectual and a doctor who not only talked but took action. Yes, he was a guerrilla warrior who killed people (it's difficult to call him a terrorist as he largely fought against soldiers). But you can also argue that he was an idealist and a nation builder -- someone who viewed the colonial, imperial and corporatist dictatorships of Latin America and Africa as something that could only be overthrown through armed struggle.

It's the funny thing about most historical figures, they are never black and white. Some of them did some pretty awful things.

For me, Che stands as someone who stands firm against the worst aspects of US imperialism. It's also important to remember that he was a man of his time. I would like to think that if he were alive today he would be working with the democratically elected governments of Latin America that are currently struggling to rid themselves of decades of negative US influence (see: Boliva, Argentian, Venezuela, etc.).

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2521093)

jorgelito---i have no particularly nostalgic ideas about che guevara--but you don't need to be attached to find the ongoing conservative revision of the past to be disturbing.

watch chris marker's "le fond de l'air est rouge"

Fond de l'air est rouge, Le (1977)

Originally Posted by dc_dux (Post 2521292)

One only need to examine the history of the School of the Americas (now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) to understand a little about US colonialism in Latin America...particularly to prop up right leaning regimes...and how it created an environment for "revolutionaries" to thrive:


I expect someone to say...consider the source...SOA Watch has agenda..blah blah blah...

But some of the nastiest goverment officials in Latin America are graduates of the School of the Americas.

Originally Posted by jorgelito (Post 2521480)

Yes I believe this was the "better a dictator than a communist" doctrine from the Cold War era.

Originally Posted by jorgelito (Post 2521480)

Yes I believe this was the "better a dictator than a communist" doctrine from the Cold War era.

Originally Posted by dc_dux (Post 2521490)

yes..but the School of the Americas or the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation is still training thugs who pose as right wing government officials today.

Originally Posted by Charlatan (Post 2521550)

Yes, it was that but it was also a huge push to open the Latin American markets to American business interests. The left leaning governments were interested in protectionist policies that would not give access to (or would with high tariffs) US business interests.

Without exception, the Juntas imposed Chicago School lassez-faire styled economic systems upon their nations.

Originally Posted by jorgelito (Post 2521556)

I think the economic systems they imposed were thuggery and gangsterish. Not true free market.

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2521328)

the contemporary neo-cons are the direct descendents of the fine people who brought you the school of the americas, who brought you right-wing paramilitary death squads (by training them) who preferred to support fascist and fascisant regimes in latin america to anything remotely progressive, even social-democracy--anything that would have redistributed wealth and land, anything that would have disrupted the colonial power structure that the americans have worked to maintain in the interest of "anti-communism" since world war 2, in the interest of the colonial project set into motion by the "monroe doctrine"---the contemporary neo-con movement is the pure excresence of the national security state, the representatives of the direction along which the united states turned itself into everything it claimed to oppose, setting itself up as an enemy of democracy and ally of oppression and exploitation. the school of the americas is just one of those places that allows you to walk through the mirror, shift from living inside the consumer-bubble that is "the amurican way of life" and start to think about what that way of life has cost others, the extent to which the "amurican way of life" is predicated on exporting of the worst features of american capitalism--from the plantation system (pace united fruit) through to the "free trade zones" particular to globalization. the neo-cons are the pure excresence of this trajectory within the history of the united states. threatened by the unravelling of the cold war that enabled them to flourish, by the undermining of the rationale for the vast expenditures on military equipment, the vast expenditures on "security systems," by the undermining of the rationale for the entire national-security state, this class fraction developed an alliance with the populist-reactionary politics of the american extreme right beginning in the middle 1970s and working steadily since. the outline of this history is well-known, obvious in a way to anyone who looks.

Originally Posted by Charlatan (Post 2521574)

Some would suggest that a "true free market" cannot exist without "thuggery". If there is a democratic rule the populace would never stand for it.

Originally Posted by Cynosure (Post 2521588)

:oogle:

Reading your comments makes my eyes glaze over.