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Is Che Guevara or Soviet-style Communism trendy for the left?

gnome

Penultimate Amazing
gnome
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Made my own thread to discuss it. I can't say I have my finger on the pulse of the entire left. I do have a vantage of participating in political discussions among many friends that are liberal or left to a varying degree, even including those that are actively hostile to capitalism on general principle. Among them I can't find a single example of praise or apologism for the crimes against humanity or totalitarian rule of the Soviet Union, nor any use of the image of Che Guevara to represent "wokeness" or some kind of trendy hipster badge.

I suspect that to what extent this may have existed in the past is all but extinct among the modern left. If I'm mistaken I would certainly like to hear more. If it still exists at all, I question whether it's sizable enough to describe a typical left reaction to the issue.
 
gnome said:
Made my own thread to discuss it. I can't say I have my finger on the pulse of the entire left. I do have a vantage of participating in political discussions among many friends that are liberal or left to a varying degree, even including those that are actively hostile to capitalism on general principle. Among them I can't find a single example of praise or apologism for the crimes against humanity or totalitarian rule of the Soviet Union, nor any use of the image of Che Guevara to represent "wokeness" or some kind of trendy hipster badge.

I suspect that to what extent this may have existed in the past is all but extinct among the modern left. If I'm mistaken I would certainly like to hear more. If it still exists at all, I question whether it's sizable enough to describe a typical left reaction to the issue.
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Last week I looked up the CPUSA, the Communist party of the USA - which currently has a massive 5,000 members......in 1947 it was 75, 0000
 
Che is a folk hero in Latin America. Stalin, Lenin and their ilk, far from it.
Our right in Mexico is still less than your left and that form of communism would not be tolerated. Much less practiced here. No way the US left comes close to practice in that stuff.

It's much like the Greta cult fans for Che. Love the figurehead but don't do anything with the message for the cause. That would mean changes we don't want.
 
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I seem to recall seeing a fair number of images of Che Guevara on T-shirts in the past, but I suspect that most of those people have very little idea of who he actually was, and they just like that particular image. It was almost like wearing a Bob Marley T-shirt or a Black Sabbath T-shirt. It really doesn't mean much beyond a sort of fashion choice.

I do hear a lot of pro-Marxist rhetoric though. Which is not the same as pro-Soviet.
Every time someone says something like "late capitalism" it makes me think there must be at least a little bit of Marxist influence there.
 
My wife has the tee shirt. In her college days it was a thing to admire the idea but live as a pure capitalist.
 
I have the T-shirt, too, with the photo by Alberto Korda, but I bought it as a souvenir in Cuba a couple of years ago.
 
zooterkin said:
I have the T-shirt, too, with the photo by Alberto Korda, but I bought it as a souvenir in Cuba a couple of years ago.
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Most likely you have the stylised version of the foto that was made by Jim Fitzpatrick. That seems to be the t-shirt printable one.

Still the foto is pretty much the Mona Lisa of portrait photography and having it doesn't mean much.

Interestingly accelerationism that was pretty much based of Ches' Foco-guerilla warfare is now taken over by the Right Wing crazies, so you could say that they are the ones following in his footsteps...
 
Getting back to the thread question
Is Che Guevara or Soviet-style Communism trendy for the left?

Answer, no.

Guevara was of interest back in the 60s-70s, thus all the tee shirts. But no, the left isn't all the stupid things the alt-right calls us.
 
If you want to follow any old time communist then Trotsky is the one.
 
gnome said:
Is Che Guevara or Soviet-style Communism trendy for the left?Made my own thread to discuss it. I can't say I have my finger on the pulse of the entire left. I do have a vantage of participating in political discussions among many friends that are liberal or left to a varying degree, even including those that are actively hostile to capitalism on general principle. Among them I can't find a single example of praise or apologism for the crimes against humanity or totalitarian rule of the Soviet Union, nor any use of the image of Che Guevara to represent "wokeness" or some kind of trendy hipster badge.
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Wow! Trendy used twice in a very short post that seems to be made mainly for the purpose of using the word in the context instead of searching for the answer to the question yourself - it's what Google and other search engines are there for - and to imply a connection between Che Guevara and Soviet-style Communism.
As for the implied connection, I can recommend Jon Lee Anderson's biography, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, which was very well researched - unlike his recent podcast series about the 'Havana syndrome'.

As for T-shirts with "the image of Che Guevara", I have a couple. I was wearing one last night at an outdoor salsa event with a Cuban-Scandinavian band.

gnome said:
I suspect that to what extent this may have existed in the past is all but extinct among the modern left. If I'm mistaken I would certainly like to hear more. If it still exists at all, I question whether it's sizable enough to describe a typical left reaction to the issue.
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Again: The internet! It's right there in front of you! Use it!
 
gnome said:
Made my own thread to discuss it..
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Not a lot to discuss, I would have thought.

It sounds exactly like something the dickheads at SC accuse the left of, but it's without any basis in reality just as Biden isn't actually a communist.

The closest I can think of is the 1970s & '80s when trade unions made up of far-left morons praised USSR and drove Ladas.
 
dann said:
Wow! Trendy used twice in a very short post that seems to be made mainly for the purpose of using the word in the context instead of searching for the answer to the question yourself - it's what Google and other search engines are there for - and to imply a connection between Che Guevara and Soviet-style Communism.
As for the implied connection, I can recommend Jon Lee Anderson's biography, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, which was very well researched - unlike his recent podcast series about the 'Havana syndrome'.

As for T-shirts with "the image of Che Guevara", I have a couple. I was wearing one last night at an outdoor salsa event with a Cuban-Scandinavian band.




Again: The internet! It's right there in front of you! Use it!
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The internet does not give a sense of proportion, though, just from a general search.
 
The Atheist said:
Not a lot to discuss, I would have thought.

It sounds exactly like something the dickheads at SC accuse the left of, but it's without any basis in reality just as Biden isn't actually a communist.

The closest I can think of is the 1970s & '80s when trade unions made up of far-left morons praised USSR and drove Ladas.
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Kind of started here actually but I hope I'm not misstating what was being said.
 
gnome said:
The internet does not give a sense of proportion, though, just from a general search.
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Then you shouldn't do a general search if that's the problem.
I am pretty sure that an ISF thread also won't give you any 'sense of proportion' - as if you'd ever had any serious interest in the question.
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
All of you leftists are pretty much communists, although you'll never admit it.
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:sdl:

/dann
"Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht
"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx
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Why are conservatives so fond of lies and so uninterested in the truth? Was Che Guevara racist?
 
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