my connection with the tea party

[Jester]

I reject that. Documentation is good, when you can get it. But, "Truth" is often more elusive and requires one to see between the lines. Facts, and material evidence are great and usually incontrovertible, however, the crime scene is usually scrubbed clean over time.

By reviewing all the evidence for and against him, I find that Che was a barbaric war criminal who riled up his supporters into a murderous frothy rage.

How about; Che Guevara's Forgotten Victims.

And you are unworried by confirmation bias? Because it scares me to death, as a historian. And it should scare you too, if you're interested in being objective.

My argument is not that Che was a nice guy and did not kill people. Che was a violent revolutionary who believed the uncompromising use of force was the only viable way to attain social change - changes which I do not, by and large, believe in.

My argument is that *whatever* you want to say about Che, from making a saint of him to damning him utterly, it must be based on facts. You can "read between the lines" once you've got the lines straight, but the process is clear: evidence first, interpretation second. If your interpretation is already in place, colouring your "evidence," then you are at serious risk of falsifying the historical record.

Re: the Cuba Archive, I'll look into it. Although it is interesting to note that their tally is in the hundreds, not the tens of thousands, as regularly claimed. Once again, I have no doubts the Cuban revolutionaries executed plenty of people, and many of them with little or nothing in the way of a trial. But whether that's a couple hundred people killed during a revolution, or tens of thousands killed in massive political oppression, is a matter that needs to be settled historically, not by going with whatever our gut feelings tell us.

-Jester