On September 13, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent an internal email to its staff under the subject line "Hispanic Heritage Month." The email, obtained by The Weekly Standard magazine, featured a picture of infamous communist butcher Che Guevara with the slogan "hasta la victoria siempre," or "on to victory, always."
Che has long been a hero of communists and other radicals for his brutal tactics, and the iconic photo of Che taken Alberto Korda has shown up in inappropriate places before. But it is especially chilling to see Che's image being used by a government agency that has pursued an astonishingly aggressive anti-growth and anti-property rights agenda.
The seeming ubiquity of Che's image should not desensitize us to the depravity of the man. Alvaro Vargas Llosa explained the depths of Che's evil a few years ago in the New Republic. He noted that Che wrote in "Message to the Tricontinental" in April 1967: "hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine."
In January 1957, Che murdered Eutimio Guerra, writing his diary: "I ended the problem with a .32 caliber pistol, in the right side of his brain.... His belongings were now mine."
Most infamously, Fidel Castro put Che in charge of La Cabaña prison, where he summarily executed hundreds of men - over 500 according to U.S. State Department cables. According to Llosa, jazz musician Paquito D'Rivera wrote a letter criticizing the approving use of Che's visage. D'Rivera wrote that one of Che's prisoners "was my cousin Bebo, who was imprisoned there precisely for being a Christian. He recounts to me with infinite bitterness how he could hear from his cell in the early hours of dawn the executions, without trial or process of law, of the many who died shouting, 'Long live Christ the King!'"
The EPA email said, apparently unaware of the irony: "Religion plays a significant role in the daily life of Hispanics with more than 90% of the population being Roman Catholic. Churches and spiritual activities influence family activities and families unite together to involve in prayers and sermons."
So what could the EPA have meant by using a picture of the murderous Che with the slogan "on to victory, always"?
The EPA agenda is not literally murderous, but it is devastating to our economy. The agency's regulations are crushing the coal industry and driving up the price of electricity. The agency's corrupt shakedown of the auto industry will dramatically increase the price of all but the very smallest and lightest vehicles - putting them out of reach for the Americans who need them most.
The EPA's infamous abuses of the Clean Water Act led to a recent unanimous Supreme Court case in Sackett, with even the Court's liberals agreeing that the agency has no right to prohibit an Idaho couple from building a home on their property without even a right to appeal.
Former EPA administrator Al Armendariz resigned in disgraced after video surfaced of him explaining his philosophy of harassing oil and gas companies: "It's kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean: they'd go into little Turkish towns somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they'd run into, and they'd crucify them and then, you know, that town was really easy to manage over the next few years."
No wonder these guys idolize Che Guevara.
Fortunately, the U.S. House will soon vote on and pass H.R. 3409, which would block the most extreme elements of the EPA's anti-growth agenda. But when the Senate refuses to act, the American people need to elect a Senate that will. And the American people need to elect a president who won't hire bureaucrats who idolize Che Guevara.
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