The Che iPhone app

The Che iPhone App

Humberto Fontova

You knew it was coming. Well, now you can carry around Che Guevara's quotes on your iPhone -- as just announced by the good folks at iPhone!

Alas, many of us, though not customer of this unquestionably hip product, suspect that most of Che Guevara's hippest quotes are missing from this hippest of iPhones.
Among those we fear were overlooked:

"My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood...Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any surrendered enemy that
falls in my hands! With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for
the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!"
(From Che's own diaries, later immortalized as The Motorcycles
Diaries, though we note that executive producer Robert Redford
"overlooked" this unquestionably dramatic citation for his
movie.)

"Hatred as the central element of our struggle!...Hatred that is intransigent....Hatred so violent that it
propels a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him violent
and cold- blooded killing machine...We reject any peaceful approach.
Violence is inevitable. To establish Socialism rivers of blood must
flow!... The imperialist enemy must feel like a
hunted animal wherever he moves. Thus we'll destroy him! These hyenas
(Americans) are fit only for extermination. We must keep our hatred alive
and fan it to paroxysm! The victory of Socialism is well worth millions of
atomic victims!" (thus spake the icon of flower-children)

"Don't Shoot! I'm Che! I'm worth to you more alive than dead!" The plea was whimpered with a Eddie Haskell-in-front-of June Cleaver-esque smile on
Oct. 8th 1967 in Quebrada de Yuro, Bolivia, as Che dropped his
fully-loaded weapons. At the time, Che, dragging along his guerrilla
charge Willi, was trying to slink away from a firefight when confronted by
two Bolivian soldiers.

That's exactly two flunky Communist guerrillas facing two Bolivian soldiers, by the way. But then, Che's bloodthirsty
bluster (see above) always had a habit of evaporating when facing men (or
boys) capable of defending themselves. His stock-in-trade was blasting
their skulls apart from five feet while they were bound and gagged.
(Amazingly, Steven Soderbergh and Benicio del Toro overlooked any
depictions of such guaranteed drama in their recent
movie.)

"The Negro is indolent and spends his money on frivolities and booze, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent."

"What will our Revolution would do for blacks?--why, we'll do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the Cuban revolution. By which I mean: nothing!"

"The negro has maintained his racial purity by his well known habit of avoiding baths" (as if Che had room to talk)

("Viva Che!" bellowed Jesse Jackson while arm in arm with Fidel Castro in Havana in 1984. "I'm like Che with a bling!" sings rapper Jay Z.)

"The solutions to the world's problems lie behind the Iron Curtain.....If the nuclear missiles had remained we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S.
including New York City. The victory of socialism is well worth millions
of atomic victims." (look for Che t-shirts and any and all "Peace"
demonstrations.)

"Mexicans are a rabble of illiterate Indians." (Note the numerous Che T-shirts and banners at May Day demonstrations by Mexican immigrants)

"Bolivian campesinos are simply Animalitos" (Note Bolivian President Evo Morales' frequent genuflections to the ghost of Che Guevara and to his puppeteer,
Fidel Castro.)

"Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates. Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service. The very spirit
of rebellion is reprehensible. ("Che is our fifth band member!" Rage
Against the Machine's Tom Morello).

Che the Lionhearted's image indeed belongs on college campuses. But it's usually in the wrong places. He belongs in the marketing, PR, advertising -- and especially --
psychology departments. His lessons and history are fascinating and
valuable, but only in light of Sigmund Freud or P.T. Barnum. "One born
every minute," Mr. Barnum? If only you'd lived to see the Che phenomenon.
Actually, 10 are born every second.

Here's a "guerrilla hero" who in real life never fought in a guerrilla war. When he finally brushed up against one, he was routed and surrendered while a sniveling,
whimpering wreck.

Here's a cold-blooded murderer who executed thousands without trial, who claimed that judicial evidence was an "unnecessary bourgeois detail," who stressed that
"revolutionaries must become cold-killing machines motivated by pure
hate," who stayed up till dawn for months at a time signing death warrants
for innocent and honorable men, whose office in La Cabana had a window
where he could watch the executions - and today his T-shirts adorn people
who oppose capital punishment!

Here's a humorless teetotaler, a plodding paper-pusher, a notorious killjoy and all-around fuddy-duddy - and you see his T-shirt on MTV's Spring Break revelers!
Perhaps competent psychologists (if any exist) will explain this some
day.

Che excelled in one thing: mass murder of defenseless men. He was a Stalinist to the core, a plodding bureaucrat and a calm, cold-blooded - but again, never in actual battle -
killer. Che's true legacy is simply one of terror, murder and sniveling
cowardice.

Humberto Fontova is the author of four books including Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant and Exposing
the Real Che Guevara. Visit hfontova.com .

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