On the idiocy of Che shirts and the iconography of murder
01/20/10
One of my good friends, a remarkable guitarist, has for the past several years professionally imparted his knowledge of the instrument to the aspiring. Having taught lessons myself on several occasions, I can tell you that you meet some interesting kids in this line of work. Some have it together. Some have clear talent but little wherewithal to following through on the practice required to grow on an instrument. Some are a good 15 degrees off center, if you know what I mean. It's quite a mixed bag. You often never know what you'll see or hear from them.
On several occasions he's relayed to me several stories that all have essentially the same arc. The student comes in for lesson wearing a t-shirt we've all seen and, if we have firing synapses, are repulsed by:
I always enjoyed the clever tract my friend would take next. He'd ask the kid who was on that t-shirt. (Aside: You'd be amazed how many people wear those things thinking it's former Rage Against the Machine front man Zach De La Rocha. De La Rocha is an admitted socialist and fan of Che who, and I assume, knows the history. So there might really not be much difference.) A few would know it was a guy named "Che". Some would have no idea. My friend would then ask the kid, "what do you know about him?" By his account, rarely, if ever, did they know this history of Che Guevara.
Rather than giving the student scales or a prepared piece to work on for the next week's lesson, he would give them another assignment: write a one page paper on who Che Guevara, his history and legacy.
According to my friend, the student, returning for the next week's lesson would rarely have a written paper. They'd just explain that they got rid of the t-shirt.
My friend is doing a public service. For those who are unaware of the history of Che, here's just a taste:
"Executions?" Che Guevara exclaimed while addressing the hallowed halls of the U.N. General Assembly on December 9, 1964. "Certainly we execute!" he declared, to the claps and cheers of that august body. "And we will continue executing as long as it is necessary! This is a war to the death against the revolution's enemies!"
According to the Black Book of Communism, those firing-squad executions had reached 14,000 by the end of the 60's, the equivalent , given the relative populations, of over 3 million executions in the U.S..
Guevara was a mass murderer in the name of Marxist/socialist revolution. The analogy is clichéd among thinking people, but it's none the less true: anyone who knows history would no more wear a Che t-shirt than they would wear one with the image of Adolf Hitler.
(Another aside: That the famous image of Che that is plastered on t-shirts is under copyright protection, meaning it can't be reproduced without gaining permission and paying royalties for the rights to do so. The copyright holders of the image of a Marxist socialist are using the capitalist system to enrich themselves. Can you taste the irony?)
This isn't the only disturbing iconography that has seeped into our culture. Chinese mass murderer Mao Tse Tung has become a fashion statement:
Chairman Mao's body count is estimated somewhere between 38 and 67 million people.
Useful idiot Cameron Diaz recently sported the red star of communist China on a trip to Peru:
China, history's largest murderer in the name of Marx and socialism and "progress", has a death toll exceeding 73 million people.
Even the type of propagandistic iconography used to lionize Vladimir Lenin, who oversaw the death of 6 to 8 million on the early days of communist Russia, was used in the Obama campaign. The famous "Hope" poster (seen below) was in the style of classic Soviet Communist propaganda posters:
On Friday, Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck will air a documentary on the history of these mass murderering pop culture icons that, disgustingly, of which far too many seem ignorant:
The next time you see someone sporting one of these fashion statements, you'd be completely justified in asking them if they're ignorant of history or just cool with mass murderers.