Last night, I did an item about Che Guevara and the Israeli Foreign Ministry. A ministry spokesman said something mind-blowingly stupid. And Israel can’t afford stupidity in its high councils just at the moment. Anyway, I always get a lot of mail about Guevara, and I thought I’d share with you a few missives that have gathered in my inbox: gathered in recent weeks.
Several readers saw an episode — if that’s the word — of CBS Sunday Morning, in earlyish May. There was a segment about the Robin Hood movie starring Russell Crowe. And the reporter Dean Reynolds (or whatever he is) said that the protagonist was portrayed “not as a thief, but as a revolutionary figure trying to limit the king’s power. Robin Hood meets Che Guevara.”
Oh, cripe. Guevara never tried to limit any king’s power. He was a totalitarian butcher who wanted all lands to resemble Castro’s kingdom. He would have dumped Dean Reynolds into the gulag for sure, if not killed him outright. (Unless, of course, Reynolds chose to be a regime mouthpiece.) If you ask CBS News to know something about Guevara, you’re asking too much. But why should that be?
And there was this note:
Jay,
I just returned from a trip to Bogotá and wanted to tell you about a poster I saw everywhere. It was the iconic red and black image of Che, but at the bottom, in large black letters, was the word “Cliché.” Thought you might smile at that.
I do. Unfortunately, Colombia knows a lot about Guevara: whose spirit lives in the FARC, which has tried to terrorize Colombia into submission for years.
Finally, a reader sent a pie chart, here. It suggests that a small number of people who wear Che T-shirts know who and what he was; and that most wearers are clueless kids whom the real Che would have shot without blinking.
I don’t know. A lot of the “kids” I see in Che-wear are middle-aged men who probably know something — and simply like the old, moldering brute.
UPDATE: Please see this post.