Whatever, I just needed a stereotype of somebody who only cared for himself. As Bob pointed out he's a fictional character, so nobody really knows what he would think. "Over and above his taxes" just means he respects the state apparatus, doesn't say whether he would want it to change, and I for one think he would want to pay less tax and if his mind would've been more sophisticated, in a modern world he would likely had been favouring no taxes. That said, I agree, "immoral" is perhaps not what he would've called it in general, although for certain things he might call it that (he would likely be an opponent of expeditionary warfare for instance because of its costliness, just see today how much the US economy is plunging towards a fiscal cliff because of huge irregular military expenses (as well as big regular military expenses)).Kayla wrote:scrooge objected to requests for donations over and above his taxes - there is nothing to suggest that he found the taxes immoral
Che was a military commander and revolutionary ideologue as well as military theorist. To use the word "paid job" is misleading because Che is not the kind of person who blindly does something and certainly not for money, he was a strong-willed person with many opinions and a relatively humble lifestyle. However, that said, he was a totalitarian force within Cuba and advocated a USSR approach to shaping the state and the country's policies.Kayla wrote:wasn't Che's only paying job in his life - being the guy in charge of summary executions for Fidel?
He oversaw military executions of military supporters of the previous government, as one person has commented:
- http://www.politicalworld.org/showthrea ... obe-racistGuevara's role, like that of governors in the United States, consisted of reviewing the verdicts, offering pardons, and setting execution dates. Guevara remained assigned to this role for several months, during which he oversaw between 55 and 105 executions.
While Che was extremely forceful of will, and some has called him cold-hearted, I think this is out of perspective. By my knowledge Che was not a person who didn't care or who exaggerated or who showed real sadistic tendencies, he was just extremely efficient at what he did, his heart wasn't cold, but his mind was. To put things in perspective, take this example from Wikipedia:
As you can read, this kind of behaviour doesn't give you very good feeling, but there's nothing unusual to warfare going on, the unusual is that Che has an exceptional (though not very likeable) efficiency and cold mind at getting his job done. A person admits being a traitor, causing many losses of lives and loss of property. Executing the individual is not an unusual way of dealing with such an act, especially for that time. This type of mentality was rampant throughout Europe in World War 2 for instance only a decade earlier (and I'm not talking about Nazis or Stalinists), it would not be surprising to find this kind of behaviour even in my home country of Norway where nationalist insurgents tried to weaken the German occupation with planted bombing attacks for instance.During the guerrilla campaign, Guevara was also responsible for the sometimes summary execution of a number of men accused of being informers, deserters or spies.[74] In his diaries, Guevara described the first such execution of Eutimio Guerra, a peasant army guide who admitted treason when it was discovered he accepted the promise of ten thousand pesos for repeatedly giving away the rebel's position for attack by the Cuban air force.[75] Such information also allowed Batista's army to burn the homes of rebel-friendly peasants.[75] Upon Guerra's request that they "end his life quickly",[75] Che stepped forward and shot him in the head, writing "The situation was uncomfortable for the people and for Eutimio so I ended the problem giving him a shot with a .32 pistol in the right side of the brain, with exit orifice in the right temporal [lobe]."
On the contrary, the kind of behaviour Che didn't perform and which he would could've used as a sign of the cruelty and hostility of others, is this:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_GuevaraTo quell the rebellion, Cuban government troops began executing rebel prisoners on the spot, and regularly rounded up, tortured, and shot civilians as a tactic of intimidation.[83] By March 1958, the continued atrocities carried out by Batista's forces led the United States to announce it would stop selling arms to the Cuban government.
So, to your question, was he an executioner? Yes, but his role as an executioner must be seen in the light of the crimes of the people that were his enemies. The revolution didn't stop with the ousting of Baptista, the fact that they later had to stop the invasion attempt in the Battle of the Bay of Pigs shows how long the conflict really lasted, and in the meantime the country would have people who either voluntarily, or exploited with temptations (like monetary rewards) would indirectly or directly fight the rising state, and because of CIA's involvement (a foreign power) many people would became foreign agents of different types who would classify in any other country as national traitors. Had the same thing happened to the US, you could bet those people would've been executed in the US, the only difference would be who was the judge, the executioner, how the court was held and the more bureaucratic ways of the US.
I don't like this darker side of Che, but I think it's highly unfair to regard him merely as a summary executioner, he was so much more, as a person, a leader and as a symbol, for good and bad. Tough and cold-minded, there is still a person committed to making the world a better place in him (even if I disregard both his vision and his methods), and he would target his own army as well as anybody else if they committed injustice: in the 2-movie series "Che" you will see him kill one of his own soldiers for instance when he finds out the person has committed crimes against the people (I can't remember what, if it was murder of civilians, or rape or both or something of that kind).
