A Glorious Anniversary - Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, Hey Che, Goodbye!

Forty-five years ago today . . . Ernesto "Che" Guevara assumed room temperature.

I say, let's all have a drink!

"When you saw the beaming look on Che's face as his victims were tied to the stake and blasted apart by the firing squad," said a former Cuban political prisoner to this writer, "you saw there was something seriously, seriously wrong with Che Guevara."

As commander of the La Cabana execution yard, Che often shattered the skull of the condemned man (or boy) by firing the coup de grace himself. When other duties tore him away from his beloved execution yard, he consoled himself by viewing the slaughter. Che's second-story office in La Cabana had a section of wall torn out so he could watch his darling firing-squads at work.

A Rumanian journalist named Stefan Bacie visited Cuba in early 1959 and was fortunate enough to get an audience with the already quasi-famous "Che" Guevara. Upon entering Castro's chief executioner's office, Bacie noticed Che motioning him over to the office's newly constructed window. Bacie got there just in time to hear the command of FUEGO! hear the blast from the firing squad and see a condemned prisoner crumple and convulse.

The stricken journalist immediately left and composed a poem, titled, "I No Longer Sing of Che." ("I no longer sing of Che any more than I would of Stalin," go the first lines.)

This hero of Hollywood, the Occupy movement, and uneducated college youth - especially those of Hispanic heritage who want to hold this man as some Roberto Hood for themselves - was naught but a murderous thug.  As the article points out, Robert Redford was quite selective in which parts of Che's motorcycle diaries' he chose to include, omitting the entries evidencing a sociopath.

\

How stupid are people?  When actor Benicio Del Toro was interviewed about his role playing Che, he had this to say about the man:

"So I went to a library and I was looking at books, and I came across a picture by René Burri of Che, smiling, in fatigues, I thought, 'Dammit, this guy is cool-looking!'"

"He was killed like a war criminal, man, and he was not a war criminal. He should have been given a fair trial." He puffs on his cigar. "Ah oh! Here we go. Bring it on! Cha-cha-cha," he says, like a boxer psyching himself up before a fight. "It reminds me of a mafia hit, the way he was killed, because nobody wanted to take the blame. I think the fact that he was killed like that gave me a bit of extra drive to say, 'This story has to be told.' There was something about the way he was killed that really put the flame up my asssssss." 

I wonder if Del Toro knows how many people did not get a fair trial from Che - and how many would like their story to be told.   But they simply cannot be merchandised; no useful idiot will buy a simple straw hat whn they can get a cool black beret with a STAR on it.  Fierce!

So, I say, let's celebrate la revolucion, but the real one - the one that liberated this Earth of a pitiful man such as Che through his extermination at the hands of the CIA.  The man who once shot a pregnant woman in the stomach because her father refused to give him information.  The man who said, "It is better to die standing up than live on your knees," and yet at his moment of death, cried and begged the men who found him not to kill him, trying to convince them he was more valuable alive to them than dead - meaning he would betray his comrades to save his own neck.  

I cannot say where Che is currently, but I am hoping it's warm.  Very, very warm.