Fausta's Blog

The Environmental Protection Agency is outdoing itself,
EPA Honors Hispanic Heritage Month With Poster Of Che Guevara And A Bit Of Plagiarism

The Environmental Protection Agency commemorated the start of Hispanic Heritage Month with a picture of Che Guevara and a bit of plagiarism.

An internal email obtained by BuzzFeed and distributed to agency employees marking the start of the celebration of Hispanic culture this Saturday, featured the above image of a horse and buggy passing a billboard of the Marxist revolutionary, in addition to a listing of facts about Hispanic culture.

“Hispanic people are vibrant, socializing and fun loving people,” one entry reads. “Among various facts associated to this culture is that they have a deep sense of involvement in their family traditions and cultures.”

Which they plagiarized from Buzzle.com. Go read the whole thing about us, “vibrant, socializing and fun loving people,” and,

To add insult to injury the photo in question was taken in Cuba, a country with a dismal environmental record thanks to the government that was installed with the help of the above pictured Che Guevara.

But fret not, it was an “inadvertent error“.

I’m sure they’ll send a retraction right away…

“And until I listened to it I never realized how much I can sound like Jerry Seinfeld when I get angry.”

I hope Carlos had TUMS handy while doing that radio show (he comes on at the 57:00 mark).

More on the proposed Galway monument to Che here.

Who said this?

“Just because Che became a chic brand for the capitalism he tried to destroy, it doesn’t mean he’s worth honoring on Galway Bay.”

Maureen Dowd said it.

I kid you not!

She said it in her column Gaelic Guerrilla (h/t Babalu),

Cameron hopes the city council takes the memorial matter up soon. Meanwhile, he sees the totalitarian rainbow. “The ultimate fruit of all this is that Che will be known as having the Irish blood and the Galway connection,” he says. “And that is an achievement in itself.”

Certainly Cameron is checking out Pol Pot’s genealogy, in case someone from Galway turns up.

Prior files on the proposed monument to Che here.

Murderous Ché Guevara – 101

UPDATE,
Linked by Stix. Thank you!

Billy Cameron, the Galway City councilman who proposed the monument to Che Guevara because Che was of Irish ancestry, insults a man who opposes the monument and says the man “should just butt out of Irish affairs”, even when the man’s Irish ancestry is so clear Eire is his last name?

Eir·e   [air-uh, ahy-ruh, air-ee, ahy-ree]
noun
1.
the Irish name of Ireland.
2.
a former name (1937–49) of the Republic of Ireland.

I kid you not,

Councilor Cameron indicated that Cuban-Americans such as Yale Professor Carlos Eire (who recently criticized the monument plan) should not become involved in Irish affairs.

‘I won’t be taking lectures from Cuban-Americans, who have their own agenda. I’m looking for a balanced debate. You won’t get balance from Cuban-Americans, or the Cuban-American lobby,’ said Councillor Cameron.

‘We live in an independent country. We fought long and hard for our independence, we’re not under the jurisdiction of the United States, and they should just butt out of Irish affairs, the Cuban-Americans,’ he added.

Or do only Irish Communists get respect?

As Babalu says, no tiene nombre.

After reading the posts about the proposed Galway monument to Che, several friends are forwarding Irish stories,

New Irish exodu$ rivals days of old

New York beckons again for Ireland’s latest lost generation, her sons and daughters fleeing their country’s battered economy on a scale not seen since the early 20th century.
After the spectacular boom years of the famous Celtic Tiger turned to bust in 2007, more than 350,000 emigrants have fled, more than half the number that left over a 20 year period between 1900-1920. It’s Ireland’s traditional safety valve during painful periods of economic distress.
Hundreds of Irish workers are streaming into New York every month, according to Irish community leaders. That reverses an earlier trend, when some Irish workers in New York went back home to participate in the Emerald Isle’s once blistering growth.
…
When Ireland entered recession in 2008, people were already packing: 42,200 left in 2007, 45,300 emigrated in 2008, 65,000 in 2009, the same number in 2010, 76,400 last year. And more than 60,000 are forecast to go in 2012. That’s about 355,000 in six years — out of a population of 4.5 million.

I expect that is the trend from the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) countries, too.

The other Irish story this morning?Dublin patron saint’s heart stolen from Christ Church Cathedral
The heart was housed in a wooden box surrounded by an iron cage
The preserved heart of Dublin’s patron saint has been stolen from the city’s Christ Church Cathedral, officials say. St Laurence O’Toole is Dublin’s patron saint. Laurence O’Toole would make a great name for an actor, too, as it evokes Lawrence Olivier and Peter O’Toole.

No word as to whether St Larry’s heart “migrated” to US shores.

Meanwhile, back in the old country,they’re looking forward to the second annual Che Do Bheatha festival, due to be held in the seaside town of Kilkee this September because

is not a celebration of Guevara himself, but rather his image. It was made popular by artist Jim Fitzpatrick, who worked in Kilkee at the time of the visit. “It is not a political thing here and is a fun celebration,” [organizer Tom] Byrne says.

Alberto de la Cruz suggests,

As long as we are “celebrating” the “fun” side of vicious and ruthless murderers, here are a couple of suggestions for some other festivals they may want to consider:
The Idi Amin Food Festival
Political opposition, they’re not just for breakfast

* * *

The Pol Pot Gardening Festival
How the right fertilizer can make your killing fields into a prize winning garden

Maybe the Galway Council ought to look into Pinochet’s ancestry, too, while they’re at it.

As a final note, yesterday someone tweeted this,

To which I replied,

Did I make myself clear?

First, to refresh your memory as to Che’s vile nature, an excerpt from an article, The Killing Machine: Che Guevara, from Communist Firebrand to Capitalist Brand, by Álvaro Vargas Llosa I linked to a while ago,

Guevara might have been enamored of his own death, but he was much more enamored of other people’s deaths. In April 1967, speaking from experience, he summed up his homicidal idea of justice in his “Message to the Tricontinental”: “hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine.” His earlier writings are also peppered with this rhetorical and ideological violence. Although his former girlfriend Chichina Ferreyra doubts that the original version of the diaries of his motorcycle trip contains the observation that “I feel my nostrils dilate savoring the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood of the enemy,” Guevara did share with Granado at that very young age this exclamation: “Revolution without firing a shot? You’re crazy.” At other times the young bohemian seemed unable to distinguish between the levity of death as a spectacle and the tragedy of a revolution’s victims. In a letter to his mother in 1954, written in Guatemala, where he witnessed the overthrow of the revolutionary government of Jacobo Arbenz, he wrote: “It was all a lot of fun, what with the bombs, speeches, and other distractions to break the monotony I was living in.”

Guevara’s disposition when he traveled with Castro from Mexico to Cuba aboard the Granma is captured in a phrase in a letter to his wife that he penned on January 28, 1957, not long after disembarking, which was published in her book Ernesto: A Memoir of Che Guevara in Sierra Maestra: “Here in the Cuban jungle, alive and bloodthirsty.” This mentality had been reinforced by his conviction that Arbenz had lost power because he had failed to execute his potential enemies. An earlier letter to his former girlfriend Tita Infante had observed that “if there had been some executions, the government would have maintained the capacity to return the blows.” It is hardly a surprise that during the armed struggle against Batista, and then after the triumphant entry into Havana, Guevara murdered or oversaw the executions in summary trials of scores of people—proven enemies, suspected enemies, and those who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In January 1957, as his diary from the Sierra Maestra indicates, Guevara shot Eutimio Guerra because he suspected him of passing on information: “I ended the problem with a .32 caliber pistol, in the right side of his brain…. His belongings were now mine.” Later he shot Aristidio, a peasant who expressed the desire to leave whenever the rebels moved on. While he wondered whether this particular victim “was really guilty enough to deserve death,” he had no qualms about ordering the death of Echevarría, a brother of one of his comrades, because of unspecified crimes: “He had to pay the price.” At other times he would simulate executions without carrying them out, as a method of psychological torture.

The proposed Galway monument to Che is indeed an obscene piece of propaganda, encompassing social media:

The commemorative sculpture will be entirely funded by the Cuban and Argentine Embassies and a design by Simon McGuiness will now go before the Galway City Council’s Working Group for approval.

Simon McGuinness told the Galway City Tribune that the image is a “total homage” to Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick’s iconic 1968 Che poster, which was based upon a photograph by Alberto Korda.

“It has three plate glass panels of varying heights which represent man, image and ideal,” Mr McGuinness explained.

The monument will feature a number of interactivity features and people visiting it will be able to use their phones to have a photograph taken at the statue and uploaded onto Facebook.

A planned WiFi feature at the monument will allow visitors to access videos and surf the Che Guevara website. They will also be able to post messages on the website.

As of now, however, The Mayor of Galway says she will not support plans to erect a monument of Che Guevara in the city.

What the hey??
Mercedes-Benz Uses Communist Madman Che Guevara to Sell Luxury Cars

Mercedes forgets that

Che Guevara, not to put too fine a point on it, was a psychopath whose sadistic lust for blood was not easily quenched. He killed for pleasure.

As Ed Driscoll puts it, The Baader Meinhof Complex comes full circle.  Or, is it Stockholm Syndrome for marketers?

(updated with photo)

This week’s big news: the helicopter crash that killed to Cabinet Secretary Francisco Blake Mora; he was Mexico’s second-in-command.

ARGENTINA
Argentina Can’t Slow Drain on Dollar Reserves

Currency control efforts worry Argentines

BRAZIL
Will Brazil become like Venezuela?

How Brazil can benefit from helping Europe
Brazil’s growing economy and 200 million people make it a major market
A financial contribution by Brazil to help the EU combat its debt crisis would be small, but provide an opportunity to improve ties with Europe and play a bigger international role. (h/t Gates of Vienna)

COLOMBIA
Se derrumba otro mito: El Caso Mapiripán

CUBA
Che’s Secret Diary
The guerrilla hero as a dispirited racist.

Michael Moore Salutes Our ‘Hispanic’ Veterans

EL SALVADOR
NYTimes book review: In the New Gangland of El Salvador

HAITI
The UN in Haiti
Damned if you do

MEXICO

Mexico Under Siege

Border: The helicopter crash Friday that killed Mexico’s top Cabinet official, Jose Francisco Blake, couldn’t have come at a worse time. Cartels are acquiring heavy arms to challenge the state and to move their war to the U.S.

In Mexico, Blake, the Interior Secretary, was the best hope of winning the war against the vicious cartels, who’ve killed as many as 86,000 people.

Blake, 45, had managed to crush the cartels and cut crime in his native Tijuana before he was asked to do the same for the country in the top Cabinet job in 2010.

He had some success — five of the top seven cartel capos were knocked off by the end of his watch.

But he’s the second interior secretary killed in a helicopter crash since 2008, and that leaves a great sense of uneasiness. Mexico’s currency fell on news of his death, the cause of which is still undetermined.

A fatal crash

Grassley: Holder refusing to provide 11 witnesses for Fast and Furious interviews

PERU
Leaders of China, Peru seek new cooperation

PUERTO RICO
Puerto Rico matches last year’s record for second-highest number of killings

URUGUAY
Quiet Success in South America
The underappreciated economic achievements of Uruguay and Paraguay

VENEZUELA
Venezuela’s Perez would revise Cuba oil deal

Patricia Bosworth has published a book on Jane Fonda’s life, and The Daily Mail has an excerpt:

She supposedly confided during a feminist consciousness-raising session, ‘My biggest regret is I never got to f*** Che Guevara.’

The ridiculousness of a “feminist” saying that her biggest regret in life is that she didn’t get to have sex with some guy is beyond parody.

But not to worry. Jane got to boink a lot of other guys, and married Tom Hayden, a communist who took her for all $he wa$ worth.

And Fidel’s still around!

Che’s dead, but here’s one for Stacy’s Rule Five,

Che t-shirt not included