Archie Kobain

…back in the New York groove.

Yikes.  Did someone just quote Ace Frehley?

So… to a certain degree, I’ve been studying the life of Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

And although, I cannot agree with his politics, thought process or methodologies, one can’t help but impessed with all that this man was involved in during his short 39 years on the planet.

Guevara, most often referred to as an Argentine Marxist, first trained to be a doctor.  Then, still in his early 20s, he decided to take his medical skills on the road, on a journey to volunteer at a leper colony in Peru.  During this journey, he was deeply affected by all that we saw along the way, including extreme poverty, poor working conditions and what he considered the exploitation of the indigenous South Americans.  Mostly, he viewed this as inequaqlities between the “haves” and the “have nots”.  He further saw this as capitalist taking advantage of those who were not-so-capitalistic.

This thinking, of course, eventually led Che to become a political activist and revolutionary.  He saw socialism, followed by communism as the clear path to equality for all and he saw the United States as the big capitalist puppet master and international bad guy, who promoted global inequalities by way of money hungry businesses and/or business people.

Guevara eventually became Fidel Castro’s right-hand man.  Essentially, second in command during the revolution which ousted Fulgencio Batista and positioned Castro as Cuba’s new leader. 

What a lot of people don’t realize is that Batista was not necessarily a nice guy in the grand scheme of things.  He was a dictator.  Although he wasn’t a Sadam Hussein level bad-guy dictator.  He was nevertheless, viewed as promoting huge inequalities among the classes and he was certainly identified by many as a puppet of the United States.  This, of course, was the perfect revolutionary ground for El Che, as he was frequently called.

Guevara went on to try and effect change in other South American countries (like Bolivia) and was eventually assasinated in 1967.  His death is pinned on the CIA.

Personally, I don’t think he would have like what Cuba became.  When Castro first took over, land was taken from the wealthy and redistributed among the population.  This was supposed to be the beginning of true communism.  At the time, Cuba had an economy.  They exported sugar and tobacco and had a thriving tourism industry.  Unfortunately, most of that is gone now.  There is certainly equality among the people – no one has anything.  That includes food, clothing, and reasonable shelter.  It’s no surprise to me that many believe that later, around 1963, Guevara was involved in a plot to overthrow Castro.

So, at the end of the day, some considered Guevara a hero. Other considered him a villain.  I guess he was probably both.  Certainly his methodologies make him more of a villain.  But the lesson here has really nothing to do with Guevara.  As were given the same lesson during the opening credits of any Knight Rider rerun…

“One Man Can Make a Difference”

Isn’t it insane that here in America – the land of the free, we believe those words.  We believe that one man (or woman) can make a difference.  Yet, everyone you talk to believes that our political system is broken but no one can fix it. Be sure to pronounce that properly… No…ONE…can fix it.

True.  No ONE person can fix it, but maybe one man can still make a difference. Maybe ONE man with a plan. Maybe one man with a plan to throw out all the things that don’t belong in American politics, united Americans on common grounds (instead of focusing on the things that divide us), a coalition of common people from all walks of life, representing every political party – and then…  Once there are enough of us…  Then we can fix it.

Are you with me?

By the way, part of my plan is that all speeches from the White House will be accompanied by a musical guest.  Unfortunately, we have no musical guest here  today because I’m totally out of time (and out of town), and running late and…  I gotta go. 

Of course, there’s always time for one photo of hot chicks…

Hi Girls… 
I know what you’re thinking.  “Are those real?”
Yes.  Of course, they are real girls.  They aren’t avatars!!??

I love New York City. 

OK, See you next week…  I still need to catch you all up on my Key Largo boating excursion, Return of The Jedi (just kidding – we’re not going to discuss that… uh… movie), now there’s NYC… oh and now I may be launching my own political movement.  After all, maybe ONE MAN can make a difference?

Ugh…  So much to do and only one of me.  Rggghhh!

Gotta run. Love yas

– Arch