Revolution

The more I study world history, the more I see that I was taught a biased one-sided story in school. I get so angry when all that is taught about communist, socialist, revolutionaries is how bad they are and that the United States is always the “good guys” here to save the day and rid the world of “bad” governments. When I read about historical characters, and read beyond what they did to who they are and why they did it, I see a whole other side of the story I was not told. Che Guevera is regarded in western capitalist circles as a brutal communist revolutionary. Well, this is true. It is exactly true! He was a brutal guerilla fighter who went around the world leading communist and socialist revolutions. He killed many and executed more but why did he do it? At the age of 23 (also my age – happy birthday me!) during his years at medical school he took some time with a friend to travel South America via motorcycle. Out of this trip came his famous book, The Motorcycle Diaries. It was on this trip that he saw the poverty and oppression consistently throughout Latin America. In his mind he saw the problem as capitalism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism. He thought the only way to right the state of Latin America was to expell these types of government by force, thus his commitment to revolution around the world. I do not agree with his conclusion of the need of revolution but I do agree that something is wrong and needs to be changed. I agree that the Northern Hemisphere exploits the Southern Hemisphere. I do not know how to right this but I see the same fundamental problem that good ol’ Che saw.