Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mack4289]

The criticism of George Bush has been covered in this forum and everywhere else (and deservedly so). But I've never understood why Che Guevara has been such a hero to so many young people. What's even more incomprehensible is why he's become so synonomous with rebellion and freedom (he presided over show trials to justify the execution of people for their religious or political beliefs). As much of a disaster as Dubya's been, he's a beacon of liberalism and tolerance compared to Guevara.

http://www.slate.com/id/2107100/

"He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system�the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che's imagination. 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. He was killed in Bolivia in 1967, leading a guerrilla movement that had failed to enlist a single Bolivian peasant. And yet he succeeded in inspiring tens of thousands of middle class Latin-Americans to exit the universities and organize guerrilla insurgencies of their own. And these insurgencies likewise accomplished nothing, except to bring about the death of hundreds of thousands, and to set back the cause of Latin-American democracy�a tragedy on the hugest scale.

...... Che was an enemy of freedom, and yet he has been erected into a symbol of freedom. He helped establish an unjust social system in Cuba and has been erected into a symbol of social justice. He stood for the ancient rigidities of Latin-American thought, in a Marxist-Leninist version, and he has been celebrated as a free-thinker and a rebel."

[Fresh Prince]

[mack4289]

What things? I'm not clear on what you mean.

[Big_Bird]

[mack4289]

[swetepete]

IMO: In the late 60s and early 70s, when there was a radical, violent left-wing in the West, Guevara was an icon to people who advocated violence as a means of social change. Those people are basically done now, but the image for a long time retained its cachet as 'hardcore' even as the popularity of aggro-Marxism faded.
Then, in the early 90s, the Rage Against the Machine album with Che on it sold a few million copies, and a lot of people were like 'wow, the lead singer of this band is really cute' and started putting the Che's face all over the place.
Then 'the motorcycle diaries.' Again with the uncompromising idealistic cute rebel stuff, minus the yucky bits.
Now his image is not really representative of what he actually believed politically, and has instead become an image representing the 'uncompromising, fearless, cute rebel.' His actual beliefs aren't really relevant.
Kinda like the James Dean posters hung in so many millions of suburban teenage bedrooms in the 1980's. Nobody cares if he was a s&m freak nicknamed 'the Human Ashtray'* who only made four movies. He's an icon of 'misunderstood angry cute youth.' His opinions are even less relevant than Che's...for all we know, he was a John Bircher.

*this may actually be true.

[twg]

Why Che?

He died and it left him open for great marketing without the messy human to ruin it.

[dutchy pink]

very good analysis Swetpete.

I hate Che,

The only thing i'll say is
Reinaldo Arenas

read any of his books,
you'll hate Che too

Actually,
Bush, Che and Fifo have quite a lot in common

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