MISSION - keeganrs@gmail.com

My blog is about my dream for a world where everyone is allowed to exist and improving the quality of life of the world’s citizens is our priority.

For many reasons I reject the current path of the world.

Rich world insanity, excess and lies. Poor world denial of human rights and food. The destruction of the planet. Our homogenisation into one consuming mass of idiots.

We need to look for new ways. New human interactions at every level. New models of participation or at least rescuing old ones. Things like couchsurfing.com and woolf.org are steps in this direction as are the models of health and education being created and implemented in Venezuela.

We need to stand up and say "Enough!" to the current regimes and look to support all those initiatives for a better world and create our own. 

Wednesday 21 March 2007

Che

Well I'm finally in Argentina. The place where "Che" means "mate". It´s also how Ernesto "Che" Guevara got his nickname when he was organising with Fidel Castro to invade Cuba. I spent a bit of time reading today some of Che´s writings from http://www.che-lives.com/home/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=2 If you take a glance its very intense stuff. I have read about him before in Biographies and 2 of his diaries but even still this took my thoughts about him to a new place. It´s obvious that he was a very intelligent and had a vivid image of what he wanted to be a part of. He demanded amazing discipline from himself and all those around him both in the time of revolutionary struggle and as a government official. He was known for working through the night into daylight regularly. I admire the self-discipline and dedication that he had for what he believed in.

In this letter he explains why the socialist citizen has more liberty than a citizen under a capitalist regime. He describes the ideal of listening to the demands of the people and making all decisions with them in mind which will in turn be endorsed by the people and carried out with enthusiasm. This is the way that he came to think after travelling through Latin-America and seeing the suffering and repression at the hands of imperialist backed regimes. (Motorcycle diaries and before he was involved with Fidel in Mexico). If you have seen "motorcycle diaries" or read the book it is clear that he experienced a big change both during that trip and in the time between then and his writings in Cuba. My point is that everyone is in a different stage of awareness about the world and many will never cross paths. This is something I have thought about before when dreaming about a united world. The education and experiences that separate people that Che also talks about as a key to uniting them. The influence of there fellow citizens in encouraging consciousness and understanding of political life.

My conclusion is that even Che himself probably would not have fit within his ideas for the "new man" before his trip in Latin America and that people cannot be forced into thinking about the world much less to come to the same conclusions.

I see him as an example of what man is capable for his qualities of passion and belief in human capabilities. I also know that he executed a traitor that nobody wanted to execute then described the entry and exit wounds of the bullet and recounted that he slept very well that night with no trouble from his famous respiratory ailments