'Commie cadet' who wore Che Guevara T-shirt kicked out of US army
Source: Guardian
West Point graduate Spenser Rapone’s views raised red flags after he posted the message ‘communism will win’ on Twitter
Associated Press in Watertown, New York
Tue 19 Jun 2018 08.15 EDT Last modified on Tue 19 Jun 2018 10.39 EDT
A West Point cadet who wore a Che Guevara T-shirt to his graduation and posted a message online saying “communism will win” has been discharged from the US army.
The images Spenser Rapone posted on Twitter from his May 2016 West Point graduation were meant to shock: in one, he opens his dress uniform to expose a T-shirt with a red image of the socialist icon Che Guevara. In another, he raises his fist and flips over his cap to reveal the hand-scrawled message: “Communism will win.”
The images, posted later in 2017, drew vitriol and even death threats. Now the second lieutenant who became known as the “commie cadet” is out of the army with an other-than-honorable discharge.
Top brass at Fort Drum’s 10th Mountain Division accepted Rapone’s resignation on Monday after an earlier reprimand for “conduct unbecoming of an officer”. Rapone said an investigation found he went online to advocate for a socialist revolution and disparage high-ranking officers and US officials. The army said in a statement only that it conducted a full investigation and “appropriate action was taken”.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/19/west-point-commie-cadet-us-army-socialist-views-red-flags
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Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)the Pig has great relationships with all the best despots.
sinkingfeeling
(51,444 posts)
groundloop
(11,518 posts)
xor
(1,204 posts)
OhNo-Really
(3,985 posts)7962
(11,841 posts)Mr. 5 time deferment.
HopeAgain
(4,407 posts)Tells you how our military really thinks. No surprise there are generals like Kelly.
Aristus
(66,316 posts)but due to publicly disparaging his fellow officers.
HopeAgain
(4,407 posts)Still better than a fucking Nazi.
7962
(11,841 posts)He must not have done well in history.
Ernesto killed thousands of innocents; women, children, gays, blacks, etc. He had disdain for all of them. Executions without trial. Wanted Cuba to nuke the US. Imposed Soviet style gulags. This is the true history of Ernesto Guevara.
Yet as the years go by some still think its "cool" to wear that silly shirt
Judi Lynn
(160,515 posts)Thanks in advance.
It's doubtful all the people in the world who see him as courageous and driven by his convictions have ever been exposed to the "truth" as you "detail" it.
It would be helpful to see you expose everyone to the truth of his racism and disdain for innocent people.
Why anyone would ever, still today, try to work him/herself into a frenzy gibbering concocted yarns about leftists is so mysterious, to some, and comical, to others.
The truth is there for any conscientious person who takes the time to look for it. It has been buried under tons of carefully fashioned disinformation created for the clueless public to swallow in their youth, and continue to believe if they have lazy ethics, apathetic about stirring themselves to go looking for it when there is already so much free hard-right crap on hand.
Here's an attempted clever poster by a right-wing "artist":
Did you ever see anything so brilliant? We're #1.
7962
(11,841 posts)Read his OWN words; condescending & insulting. He used the blacks for cannon fodder. Oh, but he "grew" as he got older.
And my other points still stand; he had multiple executions of people who never had any trial. He professed a love for killing to his own father. Fortunately he was killed trying to overthrow Bolivia. Everywhere he succeeded has been a failure ever since. Just like Venezuela is now failing and will CONTINUE to fail trying to emulate the Socialist myth.
Judi Lynn
(160,515 posts)7962
(11,841 posts)It is estimated that between 156 and 550 people were executed on Guevara’s extra-judicial orders while he was in charge of La Cabana prison
"The results of his policies were so destructive that even large Soviet subsidies weren’t enough to bolster the country’s economy."
http://www.theplainsman.com/article/2018/04/that-che-guevara-shirt-doesnt-mean-what-you-think-it-means
"..estimated the people executed under the direction of Che during the first year of the Cuban revolution at 14,000".
"Che remarked in a letter to his father, “I discovered I really liked killing.”
Throughout Che’s leadership in the Castro regime, he sent thousands of men, women and children to his prison “La Cabana” or slave labor camps. One dissident of the regime, Roberto Martin-Perez, commented that, “There was something seriously wrong with Guevara. ... For Castro, it was a utilitarian slaughter, that’s all. Guevara, on the other hand, seemed to relish it.”
"He was not the humanitarian savior of the oppressed that many like to claim. In an article for the Independent Institute, Alvaro Vargas Lloso wrote Che’s initial labor camp on the Guanahacabibes peninsula was the “precursor to the eventual systematic confinement of dissidents, homosexuals, AIDS victims, Catholics and Afro-Cuban priests.” This reflects many of Che’s racist remarks made in his Motorcycle Diaries like when he called blacks “indolent and frivolous” for example."
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/this-endless-myth-making_b_151217.html...said that “the people [of Cuba] you see today tell you that even if they should disappear from the face if the earth because an atomic war is unleashed in their names... they will feel completely happy and fulfilled” knowing the revolution had inspired people for a while.
"He urged Khrushchev to launch a nuclear strike, now, against US cities. For the rest of his life, he declared that if his finger had been on the button, he would have pushed it. When Khrushchev backed down and literally saved the world, Che was furious at the “betrayal”.
The facts then are the same as they are now, as evidenced by the total failure in Venezuela. Total Socialism is and always WILL be a total failure. Ernesto pushed policies that ruined his own "home" country. He was a mass murderer. There is no disputing these facts.
Judi Lynn
(160,515 posts)who has viewed herself as the voice of the right-wing reactionary Cuban-American National Foundation, the sponsors of terrorism against Cubans and Cuba-supporters around the world. Their old leader, Jorge Mas-Canosa always believed that when the U.S. overthrew the revolution and handed the control of Cuba back to the racist monsters the people overthrew in the Revolution, that he would become the next Cuban President, the US approved successor to bloody US puppet Fulgencio Batista.
He's another "former political prisoner" who gets his Miami street cred by telling whoppers about his daring deeds against the Revolution. Miami seems to be filled with these wonder boys who scared the Revolutionaries so badly they had no choice but to "lock'em up."
Álvaro Vargas Llosa, also from a family of right-wing US capitalism and pro-US control of the Americas, just like his US-suck-up dad, another man not-of-the-people. They couldn't care less about the unluckily born poor vast majority of Latin America.
Not to mention the History Channel, all war, all the time, hooray for the U.S. military industrial complex which former President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the world about in his final speech before leaving office. Apparently none of the hard-right Republicans could be bothered to pay any attention to what he was telling them all these long years since then.
Do you have any sane sources to list? It would be great to hear from someone who doesn't put greed and power first.
I forgot your source from the Huffington Post article, Johann Hari:
Wikipedia:
Johann Eduard Hari (born 21 January 1979) is a Swiss-British writer and journalist.[1] He has written for a number of publications including The Independent (London) and The Huffington Post and has written books on the topic of the war on drugs, the monarchy, and depression. He also gave a TED talk on the topic of addiction.[2] His journalism has been the subject of accusations of plagiarism, due to numerous cases of him including quotes from other sources as if they were said directly to him; something Hari initially denied but later admitted.[3] He was identified as, and later admitted being, the author of pejorative edits (under an anonymous pseudonym) of his critics' Wikipedia pages.[4][5][6]
. . .
2011 scandals
In 2011, Hari was the subject of two scandals involving his conduct as a journalist. First, he was accused of plagiarism following the discovery of his repeated use of quotes from other journalists' work as if they were the product of his own interviewing. Then, having attracted critics' attention, he was found to have anonymously edited the Wikipedia pages of some of those critics so as to present them in a negative light. These behaviours resulted in significant damage to Hari's reputation: he was required to return the prestigious Orwell Prize, which he had won in 2008, and he lost his position as a columnist for The Independent.
Plagiarism
In 2011, bloggers at Deterritorial Support Group and Brian Whelan, editor of Yahoo! Ireland, garnered significant press interest after they alleged plagiarism in some of Hari's interviews, which they compared with earlier material published by other journalists and also previous written works by his interview subjects.[15][16][17] Hari denied wrongdoing, claiming that by presenting his subjects' previous statements and writing as part of his interviews, he was not passing off someone else's thoughts as his own.[18] He said that his use of unattributed quotes was only a clarification.[19] However in 2018, he noted that 'I did two things that were completely wrong. One is that when I interviewed people I often presented things that had been said to other journalists or had been written in books as if they had been said to me, which was not truthful.' [20] Reviewing this argument, The Guardian's media law consultant focused on copyright issues.[21]
The Guardian later reported that a 2009 interview with Afghan women's rights activist Malalai Joya included quotations from her book Raising my Voice in a manner that made them appear as if spoken directly to Hari.[22] The newspaper's former editor, Peter Preston, wrote that Hari had been foolish, but not dishonest.[23] In July 2011, Hari was suspended for two months from The Independent [24] "pending investigation" by Andreas Whittam Smith,[25] and he later resigned from his role as a columnist with the newspaper.
After the plagiarism allegations, the Media Standards Trust said in a statement that they recognised the potential of the complaints to damage the reputation of the Orwell Prize,[26] which Hari had been awarded in 2008,[27] and instructed the Council of the Orwell Prize to examine the allegations.[28] As a result of this investigation, Hari returned the prize, though the Council said it "would have been vacated in any case" and that they "now consider... the matter to be at an end".[29]
Hari did not initially return the prize money of £2000.[30] Hari later offered to repay the sum, but Political Quarterly, responsible for paying the prize money in 2008, instead invited him to make a donation to English PEN, of which George Orwell had been a member. Hari arranged with English PEN to make a donation equal to the value of the prize, to be paid in instalments once he returned to work at The Independent.[31] However, he did not return to work there.
Wikipedia editing
In mid-2011, Hari was revealed to have made anonymous pejorative edits to the Wikipedia pages of journalists who had criticised his conduct[32][33][34] after Nick Cohen raised concerns in The Spectator.[35] He wrote that he had been attacked on Wikipedia by an editor named "David Rose" (which was later identified as one of Hari's pseudonyms)[36] following a dispute with Johann Hari, and the same editor had made similar changes to the Wikipedia pages of Telegraph columnist Cristina Odone,[37] and Oliver Kamm, a leader writer for The Times[38] after they had been critical of Hari. Cohen also wrote that Hari's own Wikipedia entry had been edited by Rose "to make him seem one of the essential writers of our times".[35] After "David Rose" was later shown to be a pseudonym of Johann Hari,[39] Hari made a public apology for his behaviour.[40] This apology was criticised on a blog on the website of The Economist for being insincere.[41]
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari
7962
(11,841 posts)Most of your post is classic "whataboutism", railing on about things having nothing to do with he subject at hand. Everything you write about the HuffPo writer doesnt dismiss the article about Ernesto.
And obviously you dont watch the History Channel.
Che Guevara was a mass murderer. Proven and admitted by his own words. Thats a fact whether you like it or not. His dream of total Socialism has been a failure EVERYWHERE it has been tried.
THAT is also a fact whether you like it or not.
Judi Lynn
(160,515 posts)—?U.S. President John F. Kennedy, interview with Jean Daniel, 24 October 1963
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Revolution
There were many death squad members Batista used against the desperate population to try to keep everyone subservient, and paralyzed with fear. The most famous death squad was organized and controlled by Rolando Masferrer, who called them or "Masferrer's Tigers."
Regarding the monster at the head of Masferrer's Tigers:
Ex‐Batista Aide Killed by Bomb As He Starts His Auto in Miami
SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES NOV. 1, 1975
MIAMI, Oct. 31 —Rolando Masferrer Rojas, the feared head of the secret police in pre‐Castro Cuba, was killed today when a dynamite bomb exploded as he tried to start his car.
The bombing was the latest and most dramatic in a series of terrorist blasts in the Cuban community here in recent weeks. It is the first such blast to result in death.
There was fear in the Cuban community that Mr. Masferrer's death would trigger reprisals.
. . .
Mr. Masferrer, who was editor of Libertad, a Spanishlanguage weekly newspaper in Miami, wrote an editorial a week ago praising terrorist bombers who opposed Premier Fidel Castro of Cuba.
Born in Cuba's Oriente Province in 1919, Mr. Masferrer attended school in Texas, fought with the Communists in Spain in the nineteen‐thirties and rose to power in Cuba in the nineteen‐forties with Carlos Prio Socarra and later with Batista.
. . .
https://www.nytimes.com/1975/11/01/archives/exbatista-aide-killed-by-bomb-as-he-starts-his-auto-in-miami.html
ETC.
melm00se
(4,990 posts)Che Guevara is a mythological figure in the pantheon of anti-capitalist revolutionaries...he was also a murderous thug. Dr. Armando Lago details 216 documented victims (both direct and killed when he was in command) of Che Guevara.
Che was also a racist (in his own words):
it should be noted that Che apologists dismiss these writings as writings of a callow, inexperienced youth.
According to Dr. Alberto Benegas Lynch "...since early age Che delighted with causing sufferings to animals and, after growing up, insisted that the death (of others) was not so bad after all..." (causing abusing animals is one of the early indicators of serial killers).
I could go on but I have found that Che is a divisive and polarizing figure and people generally come down in one of two camps and rarely accept the views of the other.
Judi Lynn
(160,515 posts)by hard-right barely conscious lunatics:
Here in America, Dr. Armando Lago is writing a book about the same subject, but concentrating on the island of Cuba. Its title is "The Human Cost of Social Revolutions: The Black Book of Cuba." This book-in-progress so far has documented 97,582 deaths due to Castro’s communist regime. As its European counterpart, this new book will likely be ignored by the American left and the U.S. media, or discredited, as is usually done with the facts of communism.
http://www.cubanet.org/htdocs/CNews/y01/mar01/15e4.htm
Your Che accuser, Dr. Alberto Benegas Lynch clearly has a right-wing agenda, as well:
Dr. Alberto Benegas Lynch gave the lecture "Liberalism and the social question"
30 abr. 30 Apr 2008 2008
On Thursday, April 3, the "Liberalism and the social issue" conference was held at the Faculty of Administration and Social Sciences, dictated by Dr. Alberto Benegas Lynch, President of the Economic Sciences Section of the National Academy of Sciences of Argentina. The activity was organized by the Academic Coordination of Economy.
Dr. Benegas Lynch (h) is a Doctor of Economics and Doctor of Management Sciences. He is a member of the National Academy of Economic Sciences of Argentina. Author of 16 books and four in collaboration. He was a tenured professor at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and taught in five Faculties: Economic Sciences, Law, Engineering, Sociology and in the History Department of Philosophy and Letters. He is a professor in the Master of Law and Economics at the UBA. He was Director of the Doctorate Department of the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the National University of La Plata and, for 23 years, Rector of ESEADE where he is Professor Emeritus. He was an economic advisor to the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, the Argentine Chamber of Commerce, the Argentine Rural Society and the Inter-American Council for Trade and Production. On two occasions, he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Mont Pelerin Society , an Associate Academician of the Cato Institute of Washington DC, a member of the Consultative Council of the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, and received honorary degrees from universities in his country and abroad.
https://www.ort.edu.uy/54854/9/el-dr-alberto-benegas-lynch-dicto-la-conferencia-el-liberalismo-y-la-cuestion-social.html
Benegas is a total tea party guy from Argentina. He despises Social Security, believes governments should never indulge in social programs to help the poor, etc. etc., etc. etc. All these guys think alike, they all despise leftists, and even moderates. It's all about "every man for himself, I got mine, and I want to get yours, too, and no stupid law should stop me."
Reflection of Sunday: "Default of the Argentine opposition" - By Alberto Benegas Lynch (h)
26
Sunday
Apr 2015
Posted by Adrián Ravier
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fpuntodevistaeconomico.wordpress.com%2F2015%2F04%2F26%2Freflexion-de-domingo-default-de-la-oposicion-argentina-por-alberto-benegas-lynch-h%2F
You know where he is headed when he claims to be an expert on any leftists. So sad. They do get windy when it's time for them to throw their BS.
7962
(11,841 posts)LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Or at least illustrate their biases for additional context to the stories they write.
But I get it... illustrating a writers biases is often considered an "attack" by many weak-minded people, in addition to those people who publicly allege they are not weak-minded.
7962
(11,841 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,515 posts)7962
(11,841 posts)As long as you've been around, you've seen REAL rancor for sure!!! You give as good as you get; never being insulting or condescending.
As for the previous post, I'm just toying with my stalker. He has a list of folks that he enjoys berating & speaking down to & I happen to be one of them. Its a sad existence, but I guess some folks find enjoyment in odd ways. Even though he never provides anything of substance, its always fun to see someone who thinks that highly of themselves.
Judi Lynn
(160,515 posts)from Che's personal diary can't be verified, no matter how many right-wing reactionaries claim they are the "God's truth."
One really has to consider the source, first, to have any insight regarding what is pushed forward as the "truth."
7962
(11,841 posts)He didnt actually write the letters to his dad & the Motorcycle Diaries are wrong too?
I'll give you this, you stick to your guns!!
Judi Lynn
(160,515 posts)was it actually provided for public awareness in entirety, or are the excerpts taken out of context, etc.
I really don't want to read what a right-winger tells me is written in his diary, thanks.
7962
(11,841 posts)But even tossing out all quotes as questionable, his goal of Total socialism has failed everywhere its been attempted. And always will.
Cal Carpenter
(4,959 posts)and willingness to provide links and evidence to present the truth. You are a true champion for truth-telling about Latin America and the Caribbean.
Response to 7962 (Reply #7)
a la izquierda This message was self-deleted by its author.
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,338 posts)Someone must have noticed that his thinking was outside the norm for Army officers. The Mao and Fidel posters should have been a hint 
LiberalLovinLug
(14,173 posts)The boss of their boss ran the Commie KGB for years.
NOMOGOP
(87 posts)That he/we are told our fighting force defends democracy and freedoms all over the world and yet can't express own opinion w/in said organization. The article said it was @ graduation which suggests to me he was in good standing until this event. The last thing a plutocracy (those on wealthy side) wanna hear is talk about different way to divide wealth.
7962
(11,841 posts)Your car can be searched without consent or a warrant. You follow orders. You dont campaign for political parties. You dont push religion. Etc.
If one has a problem with the strict regimen and control of the military, then dont sign up for it. When you enter initial training, you're told "there is no black or white or red, there is now only green". The basic green color of your training uniform.
For the military to operate at an efficient functional level & confidently defeat the enemy, it moves as one.
ck4829
(35,044 posts)7962
(11,841 posts)Not to mention losing your pay.
I'd be very surprised if this guy remains in the service after fulfilling the sentence. The article may not have mentioned separation. You stay on active duty when you're courtmartialed; thats normal.
Calista241
(5,586 posts)It means you're not staying period. The only question is what kind of discharge he ultimately gets upon conclusion of his sentence.
It's pretty much guaranteed he won't get an honorable discharge, but the question of a dishonorable or general discharge is still open.
7962
(11,841 posts)I figured he was out, but wonder why the article never mentioned it. Hate to speak in absolutes since theres always that ONE time its different and you get your head bit off!!
Judi Lynn
(160,515 posts)Published on
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
byCommon Dreams
"I would encourage all soldiers who have a conscience to lay down their arms and join me and so many others who are willing to stop serving the agents of imperialism and join us in a revolutionary movement."
by Jon Queally, staff writer
Once his eyes were opened and he later became committed as a "revolutionary socialist," it wasn't easy for Spenser Rapone—a West Point graduate—to maintain conformity with the ideological strictures most valued by the U.S. Army, among the numerous military branches tasked with acting as the muscle of U.S. imperalism and projecting strength on behalf of American capital and corporate interests abroad.
But committed he was and—nearly a year after he was famously photographed with the words "Communism Will Win" under his graduation cap—the trained soldier, a second lieutenant with the Army's 10th Mountain Division based at Fort Drum in New York state, tendered his resignation from the service on Monday after he was earlier reprimanded by higher-ups for "conduct unbecoming an officer."
. . .
Prior to being accepted to West Point, Rapone enlisted in the Army after high school and served in Afghanistan. It was during his deployments there, he says, that he began to doubt his earlier assumptions about the roll the U.S. military was actually playing in the world.
"We were bullies in one of the poorest countries on Earth," Rapone told AP. "We have one of the most technologically advanced militaries of all time and all we were doing is brutalizing and invading and terrorizing a population that had nothing to do with what the United States claimed was a threat."
More:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/19/take-empire-and-shove-it-openly-hostile-capitalism-outspoken-us-army-lieutenant
safeinOhio
(32,671 posts)and Marx was right.
brooklynite
(94,499 posts)ck4829
(35,044 posts)xor
(1,204 posts)if he didn't go out of his way to make it a major "thing". I understand that he wasn't discharged specifically for his beliefs, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn they at least had some influence in his interactions with others. We'll probably find out that he isn't even a communist, but is rather just one of those folks who looks for ways to get attention.
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)ADX
(1,622 posts)politicaljunkie41910
(3,335 posts)If he were my child, I'd disown him. What a LOSER!!!!!!! He takes his white priviledge for granted. He could have been anything. Instead he chose to be a LOSER with this sophomoric stunt after working 4-5 years going through one of the most rigorous military academies when he obviously wasn't serious about it. Have a good life, FOOL. Thanks for showing your true colors before you embarrassed our Military. As a former member of the US Army, my service to our nation was an honor, not a stunt. Go away. Your presence won't be missed.
