As Appleyard-inspired retro fever sweeps the world, Cuba celebrates Che, the famous 70s poster. Meanwhile, the British 'government' is secretly at work on plans for a national That Bird In The Tennis Dress Rubbing The Ball On Her Arse Day. That'll give the nation some much-needed retro cheer and take our minds off inheritance tax.
(And meanwhile again, I grieve (not) to report that I am off to France for a few days, so I'll soon be obliged to fall blog silent till next week.)
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
...dont go [stop]...war ended [stop]...
ReplyDeleteso, this man Che Guevara - good egg or bad egg?
ReplyDeleteA grade A stinker, Ian - homicidal narcissistic playboy - but a great poster.
ReplyDeletethanks, nige. I did wonder. it's just that you can't trust history anymore than you can believe television these days.
ReplyDeleteI ask because I know he didn't get a trial, not even a kangaroo court. so he must either have been really, really bad - or not at all bad.
And a thug, Nige. Don't forget that he was a Stalinist thug who was lucky enough to have one picture taken of him which portrayed him looking like every student in the Seventies wished they could have looked.
ReplyDeleteNo, all round bastard with lots of blood on his hand.
Ah, France in October....Forget Che. I want to go to La Belle France, Nige. Got room in yon suitcase?
ReplyDeleteIIRC, the one who shot him was drunk at the time. Fitting end, I think.
ReplyDeletestop it, you're making him sound interesting.
ReplyDeleteNige, I wish you'd talk dirty like that every day. Tell me more about the ball and how she was rubbing it... please!
ReplyDeleteThe best thing about Che is how polarizing he is. I love when right-wing idiots use phrases like "Stalinist Thug". Actually Che was an idealist who despised the right-wing dictators who kept the people of South America in poverty. The movie The Motorcycle Diaries tells the story of Che's transformation into a revolutionary because of his tour of South America in which he saw the grinding poverty that most people lived in. You should look at how popular Che is in South America today. The Sandinistas won in Nicaragua in 2006 running on everything that Che supported (and wearing Che t-shirts).
ReplyDeleteBut Che would be nowhere near as famous as he is if it wasn't for the photograph by Alberto Korda and for his cool adopted name.
And as far as blood on his hands, I doubt that you can find a single government leader in the last 50 years without lots of blood on his hands starting with the idiotic leaders of our respective countries.
ReplyDeleteMost idealists end up as killers if they get a chance. It doesn't necessarily mean their ideals are false, unless (i suppose) their ideals state that killing is wrong under all circumstances.
ReplyDeleteIdealists are usually angry because the world is corrupt. Angry people want to kill. People who want to kill sometimes do.
Killing has a momentum & dynamic of its own, however. It's an old one, but Stalin & Hitler occupied supposedly opposing sides of the political spectrum. What they had in common was murder.
it was the screen print of the photo that caught on. there were other, better photos, imo - he was extremely photogenic. even after CIA 'interrogation' and immediately before execution, he looked better than the guys around him. A good casting choice in the film, Motorcycle Diaries. The Latin Brad Pitt, wasn't he? his name escapes me for the moment...
ReplyDeleteI guess there are two sides to everyone and the side you see depends whether you're looking from the left or the right of that person. Photographers say it is always important to move around the subject before using the camera.
Tom P
ReplyDeleteOh Tom you don't know how happy you make me feel. I've never been called a 'right-wing idiot' before. Of course I've been called an idiot plenty of times, and no doubt, frequently deserved, but right-wing - never.
Still I defer to your superior intelligence and understanding of the fact that 'Stalinist' is a synonym for being left-wing. Just good to have it clarified.
When people throw around phrases like "Stalinist thug" they are idiots unless they are talking about Stalin. Do you refer to fascist dictators you don't like as "Hitlerian thugs"? Phrases like "Stalinist thug" are convenient because they eliminate the need to actually think.
ReplyDeleteAnd I should add that Stalinism is a brand of communism which most people consider to be on the left side of the political spectrum. Or do you believe that Stalin was a libertarian?
ReplyDeleteWell, in the way I would refer to someone who followed a Trotskyist model as 'Trotskyist', or the Maoist model as 'Maoist', those who follow Marxist-Leninism to its logical conclusion, Stalinist to most, are called 'Stalinist'. See it's not really that hard.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course I wouldn't refer to a fascist dictator as a Hitlerian thug, although I might be inclined to call him a thug with Mussolini-like tendencies. If he was a Nazi, then of course I might well call him Hitlerian.
Getting one's definitions right is so important, don't you think? Much more important than casting aspersions on the mental or intellectual facilities of those one disagrees with.
"And I should add that Stalinism is a brand of communism which most people consider to be on the left side of the political spectrum."
ReplyDeleteOh, too good. Too good. You don't say Sherlock? And that paints the left in a good light, does it? But really I don't think we should carry on, this is like shooting fish in a barrel.
And in what way was Che more Stalinist than say Marxist-Leninist? Or does "Marxist-Leninist thug" just not roll off the tongue so easily?
ReplyDeletePerhaps you are too young to recall the Cold War when "left-wing commie bastard" rolled off the tongue of all good thinking people everywhere. But fortunately there is always Wikipedia which can help complete your education.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is true that if you go far enough on the left you find Communism and eventually Stalinism. And if you go far enough on the right you find fascism and Hitler. I'm not sure what color that paints people on the left or right who aren't extremists.
Oh, alright. We'll agree that he was only as murderous as that 'breaks the eggs but fails to create an omelette' character Lenin and leave it at that shall we?
ReplyDelete