A happy anniversary

(Warning: lefty fashionistas ignorant of history should avoid the following post)

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of Che Guevara's death, an event that should be celebrated, not mourned. Yet the revisionists persist:

Che the titan standing up to the Yanquis, the world's dominant power. Che the moral guru proclaiming that a New Man, no ego and all ferocious love for the other, had to be forcibly created out of the ruins of the old one. Che the romantic mysteriously leaving the revolution to continue, sick though he might be with asthma, the struggle against oppression and tyranny.

In fact Che was responsible for as much opporession and tyranny as he opposed.

Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system—the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims.

In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "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. This is what our soldiers must become …"— and so on.

Sounds like a terrorist to me. I'm almost convinced that if Guevara looked like Yuri Andropov he'd be nearly forgotten.

But Guevara's iconic visage sells, and thus we're subjected to a movie like "The Motorcycle Diaries" celebrating Che's earnest "idealism." It'll be interesting to see if Steven Soderbergh maintains that empty-headed romanticism in his forthcoming biopics (the plural is intended) about the late revolutionary. I'm not optimistic.

Comments

[Atlpaddy]

Che is the political counterpart to Jim Morrison of the Doors. He pretty much sucked while he was alive, started to become a bloated, fat mess and then died young - thereby preserving his romantic image for the younger folks. At least they don't play Che on classic rock radio.

[Mister Conservative]

What is wrong with tyranny and murder as long as you care for the common man?

[james]

amen to what the paddy says....