WOW....I had always wanted to go to Cuba, and I have heard all the things that you had heard about it...I think I'll do a bit more homework on the subject...but thanks for the info. Santana should be ashamed of himself!

hey michael,
i'm based in Bombay, in India. I'm not sure if you're surprised that you have fans way acros the world over here in India, but you really shouldn't be. Anyone who's been into gay porn has surely come across you, and my old computer had a lot of galleries of your pics. As one of my pals put it: u're the one with de face of an angel and the 10 incher of de devil! ;-)
ive ben reading ure blog entries lately, but this is de first time i'm commenting. guess i just wanted to say hullo, and also say something on de subject.
1) it's ironic dat so many ppl are such avid che fans, without even knowing the basic story of his life, good or bad. It's merely a fad, perpetuated by de tshirt companies, and dat just makes me wonder how stupid ppl really can be!
2) I can understand your viewpoint about Muslims, but honestly speaking, it IS merely a minority of the Muslim populace of the world we're targetting here. And most of them are poor misguided fools who don't know much better. (And no, i'm not Muslim myself - belong to yet another religious minority - am a Hindu.)
cheers and ciao.

Couldn´t agree with you more - great post.

agreed. all of a sudden you have a lot to say about a lot of topics. i see u tell it like you see it.

Very well said, Michael. People forget the human cost of Communism is well over a billion people. Chairman Mao, for example, was responsible for more deaths than Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot COMBINED.

i totally agree. i think a lot of people still romanticize communism because they hark back to their teenage when they first heard about it, and frankly, on paper, it does seem like the perfect system- ownership for all, abandonment of laissez faire et al. but as Cuba today or the Stalinist Russia of the past suggest, in practice, communism has entailed some of the worst crimes on humanity in the post-Nazi era. while capitalism has its flaws, it is still the only system that has brought prosperity and equal opportunity to a large number of people. Excellent post!

Dear Michael:

You hit the nail right on the head, baby. Che Guevara was a no-good motherfucker...a spoiled rich brat who was rebelling against Mommy and Daddy...trying to play Robin Hood. The guy wasn't even Cuban!

However...what did you think of Batista - the polar opposite of him...a right-wing scumbag? I serious doubted that he liked gays.

I'd like to hear your opinion...

Kisses,

Diana

A comment that would not look out of place on Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. What a disappointment, I didn't think Michael was such a shallow character. As an aside, I wonder if he has ever visited any other Central or South American country, most of which have never known Communism, yet most of their population don't seem to be much better off than the Cubans.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!

I'm so fed up with a$$hole$ glamouring Che, Castro, and Cuba.

I LOVE GAEL GARCIA!!!!!!!!

“After overthrowing the Batista government Castro put Guevara in charge of La Cabana Prison where he executed thousands of people. Che then decided to branch out and opened the first Cuban concentration camp where among dissidents, homosexuals, and Jehovah Witnesses, he also got rid of Catholics.”

While this claim has been repeated time and time again by various ideologues as well as members of the exile community, no one has ever been able to offer any legitimate evidence to support it.

In fact, Jon Lee Anderson, author of the most exhaustive Guevara biography and New Yorker reporter, challenges these claims in the following way:

In his characterization of Che Guevara, Mr. Ravelo makes a number of sweeping and emotional assertions which are historically unsound.

For instance, he says that Che was "the executioner of innocents all the way from the Sierra Maestra to the Cabana prison." To this I must point out that, while Che did indeed execute people [an episode I have gone into at length in my book] I have yet to find a single credible source pointing to a case where Che executed ‘an innocent’. Those persons executed by Guevara or on his orders were condemned for the usual crimes punishable by death at times of war or in its aftermath: desertion, treason or crimes such as rape, torture or murder. I should add that my research spanned five years, and included anti-Castro Cubans among the Cuban-American exile community in Miami and elsewhere.

Michael,

What a fantastic post! I just discovered this blog (tragically) and wow, you've hit the proverbial "nail on the head" with respect to Castro, Che, etc. etc.

Congrats!

Your remarks about Che aside, it's not correct to conflate communism---that is, Marxist thought---with what Stalin and his contemporaries practiced (and, in some cases, continue to practice). Anyone who has compared the works and actions of Marx, Engels, and Trotsky to the ideologies and actions of Stalin, Mao, Castro, etc. can see that.

The so-called "communist" dictators of the twentieth century used Marxist rhetoric to placate their people while they carried out fascist policies. The proper name for what they practiced is oligarchical collectivism, not communism, which has neither states nor leaders. (Indeed, "communist dictator" is a contradiction in terms.) Do we believe that President Bush is a compassionate progressive because he TALKS about his economic policies as though they're going to make everyone more prosperous and the market more democratic? Certainly not, because we know that he's actually working to reverse progressive efforts to improve the market. Then why do we believe that Stalin is a communist when he speaks and acts like a fascist?

oh my god,

you're all sick!!! what the fuck is going on in your minds.

yeah, of course they've blood on their hands, yet you should see maybe the "good" things also...

i love your blog, but right now, dear michael your becoming a hypocrite!

just to know, what do you like actually?
no muslims, no communism, no whatever.

leave the political issue for people, who really know what's going on.

for god's sake! stop it!

right on! Cuba Si, Castro No. even we liberals have to acknowledge that Castro is a terrorist and that communism simply does not work. let us model ourselves over more fair-minded socialists like those in Spain and Sweden.

>>>What’s so pretty about people forced to sell their bodies for a pair of socks?<<<

This comes from a former male hooker.