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DJ Barry Hammond

Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

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Guest Foxin_mad

I agree, we do have an over reliance on the service sector and we have a over reliance on the south east of the UK. I fail to see any Labour policies which address any of this.

 

Educating 10000 students to be Philosophers would help the economy in what way? The labour policy for some time has been University for all...why? perhaps if fewer people were pushed down the university route to study pointless subjects as we have discussed before, we might be able to better fund it.

 

What we really need is an increase in worked based learning, funded by employers and an increase in technology, that would be highly resisted by Labours powerful union paymasters. A Labour government and powerful unions will never allows modernisation, that is exactly why British Leyland and the UK Coals industry died a death and Corbyn/McDonnell are proposing to give back all of the power these militants had to bring the country to a standstill.

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13 minutes ago, MattP said:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/17/most-labour-members-want-uk-to-remain-in-single-market

 

Quite an interesting little read. This shows what a hard job the Labout front bench are going to have over the next couple of years.

 

 

The bit at the bottom of the article is interesting as well, 77% of Labour members are now from the ABC1 class and it has an average age of 53 (something you never imagine given it's the youth we are told have swarmed to Corbyn) - the political boundaries really are changing.

 

They really are in a tough position here, the affluent membership and the young are seriously pro-Europe, yet the northern heartlands where they pick up the majority of their vote is seriously anti-EU, will be very interesting to see how this plays out.

The political landscape has certainly changed with regard to the 'working class' vote. Labour voters now tend to be much better educated and affluent than was historically the case - the figures I've seen shows Tory voters to have less qualifications on average. 

It is a difficult one for them as you say. The party is pro-Europe (ignoring Corbyn and his McDowell), its MPS are predominantly pro Europe, but its northern base is anti-Europe. It's been a mistake of pro-europeans for decades allowing the sun and daily mail to rewrite reality and whip up anti-european feeling. Decades of reading those sorts of messages was always going to have an effect. Pro-europeans should have been much more vocal about the EU but instead was complacent and allowed the right to control the agenda. Once we had a serious economic downturn the ingredients were all there for Brexit.

I do find it strange that the Tories seem to be strengthening in those areas even despite the Brexit vote - there is still precious little evidence that the Tories make decisions for ordinary people.

It is certainly an interesting - even if for many of the wrong reasons - time. 

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Guest MattP

 

8 minutes ago, toddybad said:

I didn't advocate the politics of Corbyn/McDowell in my post. I simply said that focusing on cuts rather than growth is not a good thing. You can believe that and not be a socialist. You can believe that and be a Tory.

What has the gold got to do with it?

The only Chancellor in the past 60 years to have run a multiple year surplus was Gordon Brown. The deficit just prior to the financial crisis was smaller than the deficit being run by the Tory government in the mid 1990s. I'm not particularly saying that is a good thing, just pointing out the historical context.

 

Deficits-by-chancellor-001.jpg

I really wouldn't have posted that if I were you lol Just look at that from Brown, BOOM years between 1999 and 2006 and could only run a small surplus for three of those years and still somehow managed to borrow more overall, I remember my family having an income of around 60k a year in 2005 and still receiving tax credits, not hard to see how he ran it up, was he not throwing money at anyone?

 

Look at those years under Thatcher, modest deficits running into a surplus, exactly how it should be, rather than running a surplus and then engorging so desperately that you end up running a large deficit even before the "global financial crisis" hit.

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3 minutes ago, Foxin_mad said:

I agree, we do have an over reliance on the service sector and we have a over reliance on the south east of the UK. I fail to see any Labour policies which address any of this.

 

Educating 10000 students to be Philosophers would help the economy in what way? The labour policy for some time has been University for all...why? perhaps if fewer people were pushed down the university route to study pointless subjects as we have discussed before, we might be able to better fund it.

 

What we really need is an increase in worked based learning, funded by employers and an increase in technology, that would be highly resisted by Labours powerful union paymasters. A Labour government and powerful unions will never allows modernisation, that is exactly why British Leyland and the UK Coals industry died a death and Corbyn/McDonnell are proposing to give back all of the power these militants had to bring the country to a standstill.

TBF university for all is also the Tory policy as far as I can see. I absolutely think that it should be there for the brightest and best but we would probably agree on there needing to be a mixed approach to education and training. We need industry on board and perhaps it is one way to seek agreement over a higher effective rate of corporation tax with business backing is by then targeting education and training according to industry's needs. It can't just be a what we need now thing though - we need to be looking to the future, so the education and training needed to get green industry really going forward as a world leader - retraining fossil fuel workers to move across and have a green revolution that we can then export to the world. 

 

We need to move away from the politics of Corbyn vs whoever is Tory leader this week. I'm sure Labour would give unions more power, but then the Tories took too much away. We can both make assumptions about each other's preferred party but neither of us are doing anything other than speculating. 

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1 minute ago, MattP said:

 

I really wouldn't have posted that if I were you lol Just look at that from Brown, BOOM years between 1999 and 2006 and could only run a small surplus for three of those years and still somehow managed to borrow more overall, I remember my family having an income of around 60k a year in 2005 and still receiving tax credits, not hard to see how he ran it up, was he not throwing money at anyone?

 

Look at those years under Thatcher, modest deficits running into a surplus, exactly how it should be, rather than running a surplus and then engorging so desperately that you end up running a large deficit even before the "global financial crisis" hit.

I don't particularly disagree with you Matt. I just happen to think we should aim for equilibrium with a high GDP economy rather than a lower GDP economy. 

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Guest MattP
5 minutes ago, toddybad said:

The political landscape has certainly changed with regard to the 'working class' vote. Labour voters now tend to be much better educated and affluent than was historically the case - the figures I've seen shows Tory voters to have less qualifications on average. 

It is a difficult one for them as you say. The party is pro-Europe (ignoring Corbyn and his McDowell), its MPS are predominantly pro Europe, but its northern base is anti-Europe. It's been a mistake of pro-europeans for decades allowing the sun and daily mail to rewrite reality and whip up anti-european feeling. Decades of reading those sorts of messages was always going to have an effect. Pro-europeans should have been much more vocal about the EU but instead was complacent and allowed the right to control the agenda. Once we had a serious economic downturn the ingredients were all there for Brexit.

I do find it strange that the Tories seem to be strengthening in those areas even despite the Brexit vote - there is still precious little evidence that the Tories make decisions for ordinary people.

It is certainly an interesting - even if for many of the wrong reasons - time. 

Well of course. The vast majority of Tory voters are older when people left school earlier and only a small proportion of people back then went to Uni, most young people vote Labour and now half the country go to Uni and virtually everyone stays at school until 18.

 

It's as relevent as saying Tory voters have greyer hair.

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Guest Foxin_mad
6 minutes ago, toddybad said:

I didn't advocate the politics of Corbyn/McDowell in my post. I simply said that focusing on cuts rather than growth is not a good thing. You can believe that and not be a socialist. You can believe that and be a Tory.

What has the gold got to do with it?

The only Chancellor in the past 60 years to have run a multiple year surplus was Gordon Brown. The deficit just prior to the financial crisis was smaller than the deficit being run by the Tory government in the mid 1990s. I'm not particularly saying that is a good thing, just pointing out the historical context. 

 

 

 

Deficits-by-chancellor-001.jpg

During that period of massive boom he should not have been operating a deficit of 42.6 billion in my opinion. The trouble is now we also along with the deficit have a 1.9 trillion debt to pay down. The Interest of that alone is over £40 billion. fortunately borrowing rates because of our fiscal credibility as a nation and ability to collect tax successfully historically. Our actual national debt has doubled form a historical rage of around 40% of GDP to 80% of GDP and rising, to me that is concerning and we had to take drastic action and simply could not afford to spend more.

 

Gold is a fundamental asset which can survive currency collapse, devaluations etc. It is something to base a sound economy and borrowing upon much like Germany.

 

Growth is a good thing and we have had and continue to have growth, whilst maintaining employment, keeping a cap on inflation and reducing the deficit.

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People keep highlighting Greece as an example of socialist failings pretty sure a lot of Greece's woes can be put down to a culture of tax avoidance inbred for years nothing to do with a left or right wing government.

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Guest Foxin_mad
10 minutes ago, toddybad said:

TBF university for all is also the Tory policy as far as I can see. I absolutely think that it should be there for the brightest and best but we would probably agree on there needing to be a mixed approach to education and training. We need industry on board and perhaps it is one way to seek agreement over a higher effective rate of corporation tax with business backing is by then targeting education and training according to industry's needs. It can't just be a what we need now thing though - we need to be looking to the future, so the education and training needed to get green industry really going forward as a world leader - retraining fossil fuel workers to move across and have a green revolution that we can then export to the world. 

 

We need to move away from the politics of Corbyn vs whoever is Tory leader this week. I'm sure Labour would give unions more power, but then the Tories took too much away. We can both make assumptions about each other's preferred party but neither of us are doing anything other than speculating. 

It is now, it seems to be the new norm. I think its wrong but I am sure there are many think tanks and professors who say otherwise. There are many many tory policies I disagree with, I mainly just think Corbyn and Socialism is a very dangerous path to take.

 

There must be a mixed approach. Businesses are crying out for skilled staff, then they have to be willing to fund the training.

 

Again the classic case of despite differing views there is some common ground, and I do agree we need modern, green energy and new technologies, we need to encourage more R&D Work. I would start by making the Severn estuary tidal barrage happen, and cancel Hinckley point. A green infrastructure project such as that could make a huge difference to the nation and it sets out our intentions to the world.

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Guest Foxin_mad
4 minutes ago, katieakita said:

People keep highlighting Greece as an example of socialist failings pretty sure a lot of Greece's woes can be put down to a culture of tax avoidance inbred for years nothing to do with a left or right wing government.

The point is Greece spent money it didn't have, then tried to make the rich pay, it does work whichever way you dress it up.

 

I'm happy for someone to point out a successful socialist country with low unemployment, no debt and a booming economy.

 

Again, Germany and the Scandinavian countries are not socialist, as we are they are Social democracies.

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18 minutes ago, Foxin_mad said:

The point is Greece spent money it didn't have, then tried to make the rich pay, it does work whichever way you dress it up.

 

I'm happy for someone to point out a successful socialist country with low unemployment, no debt and a booming economy.

 

Again, Germany and the Scandinavian countries are not socialist, as we are they are Social democracies.

What would that prove?  

 

Corbyn wants to nationalise vital industries like energy and train lines but he's not said anything (that I've seen) about making all means of production public.  In this day and age all successful socialist-leaning countries acknowledge that they have to employ some capitalist ideas to make sure the socialist elements don't destroy the economy meanwhile their socialist ideas protect society from the ravages of capitalism.

 

But since you asked for low unemployment, no debt (ok so I've settled for significantly lower per capita/%of GDP - see #14 on the list) and a booming economy...

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Guest Foxin_mad

It would prove that the ideas Corbyn has would work.

 

Corbyn and McDonnell have suggested many times the economic philosophies and what they are suggesting is a full socialist state, they have time and time again promoted  the success Hugo Chavez had in redistributing the wealth in Venezuela. They are very dangerous men, I can not understand why people don't get this.  McDonnell in particular has talked of class wars, Corbyn has talked of seizing private property by any means necessary, they talk of 'overthrowing' a government that has a democratic majority of the vote.

 

The problem is a capitalist business will not function in a country ravaged by high taxes and militant unions with too much power.

 

China is interesting and thriving, but I am not sure its where we want to emulate, what is their wealth per capita as a % of GDP, how is their education and health system funded and what is the quality like? what are pay and conditions like in their factories? clean air etc etc. They are still going through their industrial revolution age.

 

I do agree that closer ties with China, India and other developing nations are key to our future, much more important than close ties to a failing Europe for instance.

 

For the record I am not necessarily against nationalisation of rail and infrastructure if done correctly what I am against is regressive tax policy that costs jobs and causes skilled people to move abroad.

 

We would all like to see free education, free healthcare, cheap good quality housing, people living longer, but at some point something has to give!

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2 hours ago, Buce said:

 

One of those rare occasions where we agree, Matt.

 

Plenty of historical evidence that Mans' inhumanity has always been with us.

Maybe but I include religious leaders in with the interfering bracket. Religion politics not much difference. Both tell their people who to like and who to go to war against. I don't care what others say the politicians control the people no matter what country they live in. I was referring to politicians in general. It is them who decide who we go to war against not the public. The public do as they are told as a rule because they only know a little of what goes on

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40 minutes ago, Foxin_mad said:

It would prove that the ideas Corbyn has would work.

 

Corbyn and McDonnell have suggested many times the economic philosophies and what they are suggesting is a full socialist state, they have time and time again promoted  the success Hugo Chavez had in redistributing the wealth in Venezuela. They are very dangerous men, I can not understand why people don't get this.  McDonnell in particular has talked of class wars, Corbyn has talked of seizing private property by any means necessary, they talk of 'overthrowing' a government that has a democratic majority of the vote.

 

The problem is a capitalist business will not function in a country ravaged by high taxes and militant unions with too much power.

 

China is interesting and thriving, but I am not sure its where we want to emulate, what is their wealth per capita as a % of GDP, how is their education and health system funded and what is the quality like? what are pay and conditions like in their factories? clean air etc etc. They are still going through their industrial revolution age.

 

I do agree that closer ties with China, India and other developing nations are key to our future, much more important than close ties to a failing Europe for instance.

 

For the record I am not necessarily against nationalisation of rail and infrastructure if done correctly what I am against is regressive tax policy that costs jobs and causes skilled people to move abroad.

 

We would all like to see free education, free healthcare, cheap good quality housing, people living longer, but at some point something has to give!

football-players-carry-goalpost-steaua-b

lol

 

I'm not disagreeing that Corbyn et al. have been a bit too... zealous... on the Chavez issue but he's also dropped a lot of personal politics for the sake of party viability. I don't see where he's proposed chucking capitalism in the bin so I'm not sure why you're so reluctant to compare his plans to successful hybrid countries.  Being against his proposed tax structure is a completely different argument to saying he wants to build a marxist utopia which won't work.

 

And I don't see the problem with doing something about houses standing empty while millions struggle to find housing and our homeless population continues to steadily grow although requisition should only be considered as a last resort manoeuvre.  If you think Corbyn would spend his time as PM chasing all the rich people out of their holiday homes in Cornwall then you're more paranoid about him than I thought.

 

I fully agree with your final line but doing nothing to get more out of the exploitative companies and private individuals taking our government (and in turn our population) for a ride because we might upset them is spineless beyond belief when we've spent the past couple of years being told how brilliantly attractive the UK is - I mean if that's true then we can surely afford to twist a few arms.

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Why is that one cannot recognise the positive work of somebody, in any walk of life for that matter, without that leading to an outright devotion to said person, country, people etc? I admire Che Guevara and Gandhi for work that the work that they did for the people of Cuba and India, but I wouldn't say that I agreed with Gandhi's hypocrisy of allowing his wife to die by not accepting medical treatment, and I also don't think there should be Guevara-eque guerrilla warfare in the UK. I very much enjoy the films of Woody Allen and think he is a genius, not quite on board with the tribulations of his private life. I love John Lennon and the Beatles, but I don't believe that Lennon was a flawless God. 

 

Corbyn's comments on Chavez, for example, are certainly a little over zealous, but from the quotations themselves it clear to see that Corbyn recognises the work he put in to make the country a level playing field for all. I suspect that he doesn't intend to carbon copy Venezuela's example for the UK Government and lead us into a Brave New Socialist World. 

 

Corbyn is seemingly a man of principle and equality, his praise of socialist countries is clearly born out of a desire to help those in need not to lead a Marxist/Leninist revolt. It's difficult to compare any two countries because what is best for one is not always best for another. The morals, history, economy, production, views etc of large groups of people can change between a county boarder, let alone a few thousand miles.  

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Guest MattP
16 minutes ago, David Guiza said:

Why is that one cannot recognise the positive work of somebody, in any walk of life for that matter, without that leading to an outright devotion to said person, country, people etc? I admire Che Guevara and Gandhi for work that the work that they did for the people of Cuba and India, but I wouldn't say that I agreed with Gandhi's hypocrisy of allowing his wife to die by not accepting medical treatment, and I also don't think there should be Guevara-eque guerrilla warfare in the UK. I very much enjoy the films of Woody Allen and think he is a genius, not quite on board with the tribulations of his private life. I love John Lennon and the Beatles, but I don't believe that Lennon was a flawless God.

Without getting too far into this debate how do those on the left still manage to celebrate people like Che Guevara?

 

He was a racist who wrote about the supremacy of whites above blacks, he executed prisoners (many who were certainly innocent and nothing more at worst than political opponents) and his opinion of homosexuals and the treatments of the regimes he worked with on them weren't much better than what we see from ISIS.

 

It's something I've never got my head around, it seems a lot of the time if the end game is socialism a lot will turn a blind eye to anything, similar to the anti-semitism we now see, they just pretend it doesn't happen.

Edited by MattP
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4 minutes ago, MattP said:

Without getting too far into this debate how do those on the left still manage to celebrate people like Che Guevara?

 

He was a racist who wrote about the supremacy of whites above blacks, he executed prisoners (many who were certainly innocent and nothing more at worst than political opponents) and his opinion of homosexuals and the treatments of the regimes he worked with on them weren't much better than what we see from ISIS.

 

It's something I've never got my head around, it seems a lot of the time if the end game is socialism a lot will turn a blind eye to anything, similar to the anti-semitism we now see, they just pretend it doesn't happen.

Same reason Winston Churchill gets voted "the greatest Briton" all the time. I'm uncomfortable with hero worship by any side.  

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16 minutes ago, MattP said:

Without getting too far into this debate how do those on the left still manage to celebrate people like Che Guevara?

 

He was a racist who wrote about the supremacy of whites above blacks, he executed prisoners (many who were certainly innocent and nothing more at worst than political opponents) and his opinion of homosexuals and the treatments of the regimes he worked with on them weren't much better than what we see from ISIS.

 

It's something I've never got my head around, it seems a lot of the time if the end game is socialism a lot will turn a blind eye to anything, similar to the anti-semitism we now see, they just pretend it doesn't happen.

 

I think you might find this a fascinating read, Matt:

 

596e0b9b814f4_Chebook.png.1634b85d405cc4c2133e63a3ad673649.png

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Guest MattP
7 minutes ago, LiberalFox said:

Same reason Winston Churchill gets voted "the greatest Briton" all the time. I'm uncomfortable with hero worship by any side.  

Churchill certainly wasn't perfect, but he was the figurehead of our country when we avoided being taken over by probably the most evil set of people ever to walk the planet, so of course he's going to be seen as a hero.

 

Unless you look at it through a very tainted window, Che and the people like him weren't exactly on the right side of history when you look at the regimes he supported and the ones he opposed. Not many Americans try and swim the ocean to escape to a new life in Cuba. It's a bit of a red line for me to say someone has a positive influence on a country where a significent proportion of the population are then prepared to die to try and escape it.

 

Although it's impossible for me to really give a neutral viewpoint on this as my close friendd in the states married into a Cuban family and I now know the personal stories of those that suffered at the hands of Castro and the people around him.

 

6 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

I think you might find this a fascinating read, Matt:

 

596e0b9b814f4_Chebook.png.1634b85d405cc4c2133e63a3ad673649.png

Thanks, I have a very extensive reading list already but I'd certainly give that a go.

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Daniel Hannan what a spazstik

 

 

In one of the more bizarre developments of silly season 2017, it has emerged that Daniel Hannan, the Conservative MEP and author of Brexit manifesto What Next, shared stock images of Wales and the US while claiming to be walking in the English countryside.

 

https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/uk/fake-views-mep-daniel-hannan-says-hes-walking-english-countryside-tweets-picture-vermont-usa/

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41 minutes ago, MattP said:

Without getting too far into this debate how do those on the left still manage to celebrate people like Che Guevara?

 

He was a racist who wrote about the supremacy of whites above blacks, he executed prisoners (many who were certainly innocent and nothing more at worst than political opponents) and his opinion of homosexuals and the treatments of the regimes he worked with on them weren't much better than what we see from ISIS.

 

It's something I've never got my head around, it seems a lot of the time if the end game is socialism a lot will turn a blind eye to anything, similar to the anti-semitism we now see, they just pretend it doesn't happen.

As I said, I am more than aware that he is far from flawless. However, I admire the way he gave up an easier life in Argentina to give his life, ultimately, for the cause of people who were worse off than him and to overthrow General Batista. Ultimately he failed in his mission for a united man, but I feel as though it was through positive intentions. I do feel as though much of the negativity surrounding him is generated by the US agenda, though much of it is also fact of course. As with Churchill, he was the man for the time and it is perhaps difficult to judge him objectively with the morals and background of today.

 

I also have an interest in flawed icons from all walks of life, from Guevara to Henry Hill, for different reasons of course! 

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Guest MattP
4 minutes ago, David Guiza said:

As I said, I am more than aware that he is far from flawless. However, I admire the way he gave up an easier life in Argentina to give his life, ultimately, for the cause of people who were worse off than him and to overthrow General Batista. Ultimately he failed in his mission for a united man, but I feel as though it was through positive intentions. I do feel as though much of the negativity surrounding him is generated by the US agenda, though much of it is also fact of course. As with Churchill, he was the man for the time and it is perhaps difficult to judge him objectively with the morals and background of today.

 

I also have an interest in flawed icons from all walks of life, from Guevara to Henry Hill, for different reasons of course! 

No worries, as I say, it's just something I find a bit strange but I don't want this to become a central point of the discussion.

 

We all have flawed idols I imagine, I certainly have more than most!

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11 minutes ago, David Guiza said:

As I said, I am more than aware that he is far from flawless. However, I admire the way he gave up an easier life in Argentina to give his life, ultimately, for the cause of people who were worse off than him and to overthrow General Batista. Ultimately he failed in his mission for a united man, but I feel as though it was through positive intentions. I do feel as though much of the negativity surrounding him is generated by the US agenda, though much of it is also fact of course. As with Churchill, he was the man for the time and it is perhaps difficult to judge him objectively with the morals and background of today.

 

I also have an interest in flawed icons from all walks of life, from Guevara to Henry Hill, for different reasons of course! 

 

I'm guessing Matt is more talking about the use of his likeness by people who know nothing about his life as some sort of universal symbol of socialism/the left. You know the sorts, they have the poster, the badge, the t-shirt, the blank expression when questioned on who he was and what he stood for.

 

Nearly all revolutionaries are flawed, Castro, Gandhi, Mandela, King I even heard that Rosa Parks only used to sit in the white seats just so she could do a big fart. Guevara is no different but he is idolised by many who know nothing about the man.

 

Edit:

 

I just had a flash back to doing this years ago in a photoshop Matt thread.

 

post-9839-0-13357600-1385109825.jpg

 

 

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