Obama HQ has Che Guevara and Cuban flag on the wall

Bayou City has a new Obama campaign office, and the Houston branch of FOX has a video report here. Not big news.

But if you watch the video, you might notice something a bit... uh... weird:





Yes, it seems that they have a Cuban flag - with a superimposed portrait of Che Guevara - on the wall. Now, I appreciate that some progressives admire Che. But when you've got TV cameras rolling, is it really the best idea to be identifying yourself with a man who most of the country (including a lot of Dems) consider to have been a bloody murderer?

It suggests to me that some of these people are far from ready for the primetime. McCain will eat amateurs like these for breakfast. It also kinda makes me wonder what sort of "new support" is being brought into the party. I think Dems can live quite happily without the Viva Fidel contingent.

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Edited to add: Some people downthread have claimed this is not an Obama office, despite the fact that the video shows Obama volunteers working in there, wearing Obama buttons, and with an Obama poster on the wall (next to the flag - watch the video). Their argument is that because there are no paid staff there, the fact that the Obama campaign now has control of, and use of, the premises does not make it an Obama HQ.

I'll leave you to decide for yourselves the merits of that argument.

I noticed DU has a Che avatar too. Big deal (unless one is part of the John Birch Society, lol).

Only a repug would take Fox/Faux news seriously.

...and who is volunteering there. Still probably not a brilliant idea to have that right there for the cameras when trying to win in Texas.

convention and will be ALL some people consider...that's scary

will make a nice response ad.

Another one that needs to run come election time.

won't have that problem if he goes up against McCain.

he/she is right that the GOP will snatch this up and use it.

"Yes that is a Cuban Flag with Che's face on it, put up by one of my campaign supporters. I don't like the flag but I will defend a persons right to freedom of speech and expression. When you silence a persons right to free speech you are a fascist."

And we all know 'bout the Kennedy/Che thing, right?

Historical cognitive dissonance.

Bad move, people. That will probably be a sound byte by tomorrow.

It happens.

Viva la Revolucion!

But it's the sort of story that gets a lot of play on the news and can be quite damaging -- especially in southern Florida.

Stupid move by the people at the headquarters

things like this are bones
that the dog repukes will
chew and chew and not let
go.

Your candidate could be the Democratic nominee. There are groups out there that will latch onto any kind of imagery to malign the Democrats. This picture does NOT help, to put it mildly.

In other words, it's not an Obama office yet.

You should change your thread title to reflect the truth.

Doesn't get much better.

or any other indications either. What can McCain use?

There's a close-up of the Obama poster in it.

It's an Obama office. Staffed by volunteers at the moment.

before the campaign puts its stamp on the place and all of a sudden this is supposed to be a BIG issue.

You should know better than that.

I simply said it's an Obama office. The story says so, right at the beginning.

but until then, volunteers can do what they want. Cherry-picking DUers works here, and cherry-picking volunteers works for Fox. No surprise, really.

Take a breath and logically think about this along with the source.

Do you think they're not really Obama volunteers? Do you think they photoshopped the flag in? Please explain.

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"volunteers opened two new Houston offices for the Barack Obama Presidential campaign."

Where's the lie?

Are you saying it's not really an Obama office? Are these renegades who just opened an office on their own?

what they want. Just move on. It's hopeless.

You should know what the hell you're talking about before you post.

Please let me know.

My understanding is that he is a great Latin American Hero, and yes, he was a revolutionary.

Sounds like that's what George Washington was as well.

I have seen many here at DU with that avatar.

Are we really that concerned about the fucked up GOP assholes to this extent?

Will the Clinton campaign find a Reagan flag for her walls?

So much bullshit, so little time!

I hope they manage to spin it better than you're managing, because the "Che is a hero" line will not, I think, win many Americans' hearts.

But then, the politics of hatin' Obama is your specialty!

Not even a fool would think that there is widespread admiration for Che in the USA.

but politics aside He is not an evil person, quite the contrary.

"To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary...These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy of the The Wall! (El Paredón)" --Ernesto 'Che' Guevara

Say at the next debate. "Present!"

by BO's charm and his personality;. No substance just crap.










b)

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Oh, and enjoy your sure to be brief stay at DU.

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Gay bashing. Nice intro to DU. And FWI Che was very anti-gay but good job calling him a fag. Are you twelve?. Though Che's stance on LGBTQ fits Obama wooing the exgay movement.

Are you that type of gringo that feels the need to tell me about how tragedy in my country makes for a really cool t-shirt?

Well Good Day to you!

Che was a psychopathic murderer and a coward who executed helpless, unarmed people but ran from battle. He plotted to blow up Bloomingdale's, Macy's and Gimbel's the day after Thanksgiving, but fortunately, like everything else Che put his mind to, he failed. Even Castro knew he was too dangerous, so he sent him off to the Congo hoping he would die. When Che ran from the Congo rather than face real soldiers, Castro sent him to Bolivia, where he failed again and surrendered while his "troops" were still fighting and he still had a full clip in his pistol.

If you believe the Castro-sanitized version of Che's legend, you are what Lenin called a useful idiot. I suggest you read some real history, rather than propaganda straight from Havana.

If Che were in the Whitehouse right now...this forum would not exist.

If Che were sitting where Bushboy was sitting, we would not dare speak out against him.

Anyone that did would face a firing squat.

the Ignore feature is working full blast.

It will not go over well when the republicans run the add this fall.

It is Obama who loves Reagan "correcting" the liberal Democratic "excesses" of the 60's and 70's.

I know that many Clinton haters here are very, very upset about Bill having unacceptable sexual relations.

--p!

And that Clinton haters usually cite Bill's behavior as a reason for their hate.

You gotta read it before you can slam it.

--p!
Slam it, baby!

Only members of Free Republic use the term "Slick Willie".

Be gone, troll!

on the wall, it is HIS BUTTON on HER COAT, and they are IN HIS/THEIR CAMPAIGN OFFICE.

Maybe my remarks were stupid. MAYBE, just maybe, it is really NOT their flag - but good luck with that since it IS next to OBAMA'S poster, it IS behind OBAMA's supporters, and it IS in OBAMA's campaign office.

it's not an Obama office because there are no paid staff there yet?

It says right in the story that volunteers opened an Obama office. What does it matter whether they're paid or not?

It is in no way official or sanctioned.

Power to the People.

Republican voters.

That sounds like nothing more than desperation.

We are a sick country, with a number of sick democrats ....with absolutely no backbone, afraid of their own shadows.

they're identified as volunteers with the campaign.

Just because they're not paid staff doesn't mean they're not working with the campaign. How dumb.

Oh, the horror!!1!

Surely you realize that this can be used against him?

I'm actually a bit relieved by this.

should he get the nom. In that case,just say hello President McCain.

Next, Democrats will be voting for War that cost trillions and kills hundreds of thousand in fears that they will lose elections! oh....wait! that has already happened.

To little time, not enough brains....and certainly no backbone while succumbing to the dumbass politics of hate.

Y'all are something else.

And Obama volunteers inside it?

The fact that PAID STAFF have yet to move in does not mean that it is not an Obama HQ. Watch the video.

NOTED COMMUNIST AND MASS-MURDERER... etc.

Che was a socialist which is not at all the same thing. I'd love to see your sources re his being a "mass-murderer". Got link?

You really don't know that Che executed more than 1,400 Cubans without trial?

For your edification, some quotations straight from the horse's mouth:

“a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.”

“If the nuclear missiles had remained, we would have used them against the very heart of America, including New York City.”

“We will march the path of victory even if it costs millions of atomic victims.”

“We must keep our hatred alive and fan it to paroxysm.”

“Individualism must disappear.”

“I don’t need proof to execute a man--- I only need proof that it is necessary to execute him!”

“Certainly we execute. And we will continue to execute as long as it is necessary. This is a war to the death against the enemies of the revolution”

“In my fury I yelled at them that they were behaving like women.”

“The peasant base has not been developed. Although it seems that through the use of planned terror we can neutralize some of them. Their support will come later.”

“My friends are friends only so long as they think as I do politically.”

“Don’t shoot! I am Che. I am worth more to you alive than dead!”

But, hey, he looks groovy on a tie-dye t-shirt, dude.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? You say your team is better? Nu-uh, I say mine is!!

The history of suffering, starvation, oppresion, exploitation, war and inhumanity is in plain sight, all situational ethics aside.

Che was not born a revolutionary, but he certainly died one. And that doesn't mean I hold his memory in esteemed status, but rather that I can see what is for what it is, or what was for what, and why, it was.

Prior to 1959, Cuba had a standard of living twice that of Spain, or half of Europe for that matter. And it had net immigration. Now people die trying to leave in rafts. In the last two years, 77,000 have fled the paradise that Che built. Just in December, 40 Cubans, among them 12 children, in single boat were lost at sea. Oh yeah, no here cares about them.

The repugs will explain who he is while running the campaign ad.

Che Guevara is!!!

Ooooh, look behind your sofa! Communists!



It's not even Obama's office yet. Take your trolling somewhere else, Shillbot.

And calling other posters infantile names doesn't do much for your credibility.

Consider the source and laugh at it.

If you don't like it, you don't have to whine about it.

Get back to us when paid Obama staffers occupy the office at the end of the week.

And not reading your own posted articles doesn't do much for your credibility.

Not that you had any to begin with.

But it is.

Thank you for playing.

I can organize volunteers from my house, and decorate it however I want.

Any person with a brain would know that Obama has nothing to do with my house decorations.

Your constant harping on this as an "issue" makes you look more brain-dead than Terri Schaivo.

Thank you for playing, but you lost. Game over.

Say good night, Gracie.

I suppose those darned facts were just too much for you to handle.

Good night, Shillbot.

be sure to make that distinction. Is this your first campaign?

As others have said, if paid staff get there and it's still up, that could be a problem. But I can organize volunteers from my house and the Obama camp would have zero control over my decorations, whatever they are.

"Is this your first campaign?"

Actually I was a volunteer (meaning "not paid") for Gore, Bill Curry, Howard Dean, John Kerry, Harry Mitchell, Janet Napolitano and now Barack Obama.

Is this your first time acting like a condescending ass?

shapes the events going on, you're delusional. If this gets on the news (which it already is), people aren't going to distinguish unpaid/paid workers. Just that the dem candidate worships Che - that's how it will be perceived. If you're such an experienced volunteer, I'm surprised you don't understand that. Or is the Obama candidacy going to transcend the media?

Face it - the media will already make up shit far worse than this. Obama can easily blow this off by saying "I don't control everyone who volunteers for me". Done deal.

If this is the worst thing they're going to use, it must mean they haven't got much else.

and yet another has a North Viet Nam flag with a picture of Ho Chi Minh.

God people are dumb

These people need to think and be more careful. I guarantee you that there are Repubs collecting any kind of material like this to use against him if he is the nominee.

...produce Che flags and t-shirts to be sold by American retail firms to bourgeois teenagers.

could they have invented this? Could we put it past them?

But this local. Local FOX is usually better, in my experience.

Totally unimportant.

Add to that the fact that Hillary fired her Latina campaign manager as we approach the Texas primary, I can only find amusement in this little "blunder" by some Obama supporters.

Obama will do very well in Texas and that will be the sting that may just be fatal to the Clinton's ambitions.

I'll letcha know if it's still up. I expect that it won't be.

Thanks for the updates and, most of all, thank you for going down there for Barack. You totally rock!

I want to pick you up and carry you around the block on my shoulders!

With the greatest respect, DZ

That guy had a point.

And I'm sure that flag will come off the wall before any additional media spots. But, I must confess... as one who is firmly against the neoliberal economic policies that have been imposed on latin american nations around the world, that flag and the latina sitting in front of it, brought a smile to my face.

Having just come from San Antonio, I'm sure this will be death for Obama amongst Texas Latinos in the Democratic Party. This ain't Miami.

and those are people acting on their own

It was a local Fox News staged event.

The real HQ is at 2520 Southmore, in the heart of "Hillary country" which, by the way, is canvassing 9 to 1 for Barack.

Have you ever fact checked a damn thing you have posted?