Che guevara

[Lifesaver]

Capitalism is when those with capital use that capital to enrich themsleves with no consideration for the workers, the people upon who's labor they become rich. It's the economic equivalent of the law of the jungle, those with wealth and power become richer and more powerful while those with little or none become even worse off.

A rather bad description, I must say.
Capitalism (which is nothing more than property rights and freedom to deal that property), has enabled our society to achieve great advancements.
However, for the good of any discussion we might have, it would be better if we didn't use terms such as Capitalism and Socialism (who knows what this means?), and spoke directly of the particular concepts we have in mind. For example, instead of "Socialism distributes wealth", actually explain how wealth would be distributed

Sociallism is balance between these two extreems, instead of being soley responsible to thier shareholders or thier workers bussiness (with government oversight) must do thier best to balance the needs of both.

In short, it's the existence of property rights, with a lot of taxes, and a lot of government participating in the economy, by running services (electricity, telephones, health, education, etc), creating trade barriers, handing out subsidies, controling money exchange rates, interest rates, sets minimal wages and heavy labour laws, and some other things I might have forgotten.
If that is what you have in mind, then it has been already proven, and it is quite estabilished knowledge, that this system is less efficient than more economic freedom (capitalism, according to you), because it generates unemployment, poverty and wastes a lot of capital.

Once again we are in complete disagreement, while Cuba could benefit from a little more Capitalism in thier economy the idea that they are worse off now than under Batista is ridiculous.

There are people who SWIM their way out of it.
Surely, something has to be wrong!

Freedom of the working class of course. Guerrilla warfare is the manor in which weaker more poorly equiped militaries fight against more powerful militaries. It worked for us against the British during the Revolutionary war why should we condem it?

In Latin America, guerilla is always about some crazy leftwing revolution, often backed by drug money. Not to mention they use many terrorist tactics.

His intent was to help the poor exploited workers to throw off the oppression of the big multinational coorperations who who owned everything and exploited labor. It would have been great had he been more sucessful, however he fought the good fight.

His poor understanding of how the world works unabled him to fight the good fight.
He, like so many other apparently well-intentioned young men, fell for the lies of Marxist economics, a "science" with the same respectability of astrology. And with methods not too different...

 

[MatthewG215]

A government of United Fruit by United Fruit and for United Fruit.

 

[ACougar]

cap·i·tal·ism
An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=capitalism

com·mu·nism
A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=communism

Socialism is petty much everything in the middle. I would hold up Germany and Switzerland as effective examples of Socialist states where the interests of workers and stockholders are balanced. Compare:

http://www.mkeever.com/usa.html The United States
http://www.mkeever.com/germany.html Germany
http://www.mkeever.com/switzerland.html Switzerland

Back to Che, while I would never advokate a full fledged Communist or even overly socialist government I do believe that the United States should be moving in that direction. Full health care, much more investment in our education and job retraining, a social safety net focused on getting people back on thier feet instead of just surviving.

 

[Lifesaver]

Socialism is petty much everything in the middle. I would hold up Germany and Switzerland as effective examples of Socialist states where the interests of workers and stockholders are balanced.

I do understand what you mean. However, historically, socialism has been used to describe the middle-stage from the passage of "capitalism" to "communism". After the revolution, there would be a stage when a government would still be needed to coordinate things. This stage was called socialism, or "dictatorship of the proletariat".
Strictly speaking, USSR, Cuba and others never made it to communism (when the State is no longer needed), but stayed at socialism.
Still, this other use of socialism (a hybrid between free market and planified economy) is common as well, and refers to the social-democracies (Canada, France, Germany, etc) of our world.

Back to Che, while I would never advokate a full fledged Communist or even overly socialist government I do believe that the United States should be moving in that direction. Full health care, much more investment in our education and job retraining, a social safety net focused on getting people back on thier feet instead of just surviving.

Look at the sorry state of social-democracies today. Unemployement skyrocketting, public retirement funds almost exploding. Their population won't even breed.

Germany, though a huge economy, is undergoing a crisis exactly because of its excess of taxes, regulations and "income distributing" laws.

If one is interested in economic growth, that is, more goods and services being produced and consumed, more people working, and lower prices, they must defend a freer economy over a overly State controled one.

 

[adams apple]

Er, yeah. Cuz employment rates were just dandy when Thatcher was around

 

[j davis]

I think che guevara was awesome. I must say i look up to him for his courage(yes, even people you don't like can be courageous) and that he stood up for the poorest of the poor. He didn't just talk. He actually took action which is a lot better than most people. Che Guevara was not the type of person to have other people fight his fights. He was actually in the battlefield.



Also, to the person who said:



In Latin America, guerilla is always about some crazy leftwing revolution, often backed by drug money. Not to mention they use many terrorist tactics.



Don't you think thats a little ignorant. Its not always about some "crazy lefty". The contras were were not left wingers unless you think Ronald Reagan would actually support "some crazy leftwing revolution". Also not all guerrillas are or were backed by drug money.



Also who uses many terrorist tactics? All guerillas? I'll give you one example: Guatemala. I don't think the Guatemalan guerrillas were terrorists. They persons they attacked were armed soldiers since they were in a war. The terrorists were the army and government. The army kidnapped, tortured, raped and "disappeared" thousands of thousands of people. The army went in villages and killed everyone they could in the name of liberty. They claimed to be saving the villages from communism. The only reasons the guerrillas in Guatemala started is because the army and a few men had oppressed and murdered the rest of the country for hundreds of years. Of course people are going to fight the army if the army massacres whole villages. To create fear in the population the army would commit atrocities in front of everyone. In one town a truck load full of people was brought in for everyone to see. the people in the truck had been captured for allegedly being connected to the guerrillas. these captured men were so badly beaten that their faces were not recognizable. Who knows how long the army had tortured these men. The torture was so brutal that the captured men had their own tongues inside their shirt pockets. After a few minutes the army set the captured men on fire and left the town to deal with the tragedy. The people watching could not even put out the fire since there was no water nearby.



They army even went as far as killing babies. does that sound like only crazy lefties would take action?

People protested only to be killed. In 1980 peaceful protesters occupied the Spanish Embassy to tell the world of their suffering. The protesters knew their voices at home did no good. And what did the so mighty army do you might ask?? They set fire to the embassy killing the protesters.



Anyone telling the truth about what the government was doing was "disappeared". Union leaders, university students, and opposing parties also took the full wrath of these terrorists and their death squads. This is called state terrorism.



A truth commission created after the peace accords found the army responsible for 93 percent of the deaths in the war. The guerrillas were responsible for 3 percent and another 4 percent is unknown.



The majority of the population is Indian and somehow they have been terribly discriminated against ever since the Spaniards set foot in Guatemala. Guatemala suffered a terrible repression at the hands of these fascist terrorists. Before you generalize you can at least educate yourself a little bit.

Why don't you read rigoberta menchu's book?That will give a very small glimpse and maybe you'll understand how these people finally said enough and fought back with all they could.

 

[Lifesaver]

Indeed, there have been some very brutal rightwing dictatorships in Latin America, and that makes some guerrillas more understandable.
I'm sorry for the sweeping statement, but I'm carried away by thoughts of the FARC, which are indeed terrorists and backed by drug-money.

 

[El Guapo]

Look at the sorry state of social-democracies today. Unemployement skyrocketting, public retirement funds almost exploding. Their population won't even breed.

Actually, low reproductive rates are usually characteristic of affluent nations and thus would be a sign of their general economic stability and strength (in addition to completely unrelated economic factors like culture). 'Course as the population ages and becomes predominately elderly the nation will be screwed with rising health care costs. Interestingly though, Spain and I believe another European country now have shrinking populations due to the fact that their people have on average less than two children and the parents do not effectively replace themselves.

 

[ACougar]

This problem is usually solved with imigration from less affluent nations.

Actually, low reproductive rates are usually characteristic of affluent nations and thus would be a sign of their general economic stability and strength (in addition to completely unrelated economic factors like culture). 'Course as the population ages and becomes predominately elderly the nation will be screwed with rising health care costs. Interestingly though, Spain and I believe another European country now have shrinking populations due to the fact that their people have on average less than two children and the parents do not effectively replace themselves.

 

[Real Corona]

Yes of course Batista was better than Castro.

I mean health care, education and social services aren't things that people want or anything.

 

[El Guapo]

This problem is usually solved with imigration from less affluent nations.

True dat. The month or two I spent in Spain a few years ago made it seem like the Spanish were almost as paranoid about North African illegal immigrants as Californians were about Mexican illegals back when I used to live there.

 

[Real Corona]

The Germans aren't much more kind to the Turkish.


And they INVITED them.

 

[Aduro Amnis]

Che Guevara is one of my personal idols, he explored a world not yet known and let it change him.

Che was a true revolutionay

'The monopoly capitalists - even while employing purely empirical methods - weave around art a complicated web which converts it into a willing tool. The superstructure of society ordains the type of art in which the artist has to be educated. Rebels are subdued by its machinery and only rare talents may create their own work. The rest become shameless hacks or are crushed.'
-Ernesto 'Che' Guevara

 

[Lifesaver]

'The monopoly capitalists - even while employing purely empirical methods - weave around art a complicated web which converts it into a willing tool. The superstructure of society ordains the type of art in which the artist has to be educated. Rebels are subdued by its machinery and only rare talents may create their own work. The rest become shameless hacks or are crushed.'

If there is one enemy of the arts, it is socialism, where only state-funded artists can create.

 

[Koba The Dread]

I'm sorry for the sweeping statement, but I'm carried away by thoughts of the FARC, which are indeed terrorists and backed by drug-money.

The FARC simply tax the farmers who wish to grow grow the coca plants, as this is the only way for farmers to make money. Regular crops will not feed their families. The war waged on the farmers who grow these plants is very extreme. The government has restorted to spraying large areas of land, using aeroplanes, with dangerous chemicals which damage the health of humans. Also, the perception of narcoguerrillas is completely false and was only created by the right-wing Colombian government and the United States to justify their 'Plan Colombia'...

Anyway, the majority of the inhumane/worst violence is committed by American funded, right-wing paramilitaries not the leftist revolutionaries.

More later....

 

[Lifesaver]

Not so. They are a marxist revolutionary group which carries on guerilla using terrorist tactics, and threaten to invade neighbouring countries.
As you admitted, they are supported by drug money, and among their inspirational figures are murderers such as Cuban tyrant Fidel Castro and terrorist Ernesto "Che" Guevara, about whom this thread is.

There is no defending the worthless FARC nor their evil delirious cause, which is to provoke a revolution and institute a socialist State.

 

[Real Corona]

And Batista wasn't a drug runner?


Havanna was mafia heaven in the 50s.


As to the point about Columbia, the US is only creating a bigger problem by forcing farmers to grow coca.

 

[Lifesaver]

Oh yes, Cuba was in a bad shape already. That did not justify the revolution, though.

 

[Real Corona]

I would have risen up.

 

[Koba The Dread]

Not so. They are a marxist revolutionary group which carries on guerilla using terrorist tactics, and threaten to invade neighbouring countries.
As you admitted, they are supported by drug money, and among their inspirational figures are murderers such as Cuban tyrant Fidel Castro and terrorist Ernesto "Che" Guevara, about whom this thread is.

There is no defending the worthless FARC nor their evil delirious cause, which is to provoke a revolution and institute a socialist State.

Threaten to invade neighbouring countries? Are you serious. If they had the ability to expand their war, they would have already captured Colombia itself which they have not. I will say, however, that there are numerous rebels active in areas of Ecuador and Venezuela but certainly not as active as they are in the regions where the FARC have a mojority support.

I would also like to know how comrade Fidel Castro is a murderous tyrant.

As a Marxist-Leninist, I support the FARC's cause which is the overthrow of the Colombian capitalist class and the establishment of a socialist state, wholeheartedly.