(even if you aren't vegan)
Lex's Rants/4/CheGuevara
So we all know that one guy. The left wing activist who's all about "knocking the establishment down", killing the "evils" of capitalism, and all that. Chances are that they're usually stoned most of the time and they smell like they haven't had a shower in weeks. But one particular thing you might notice about these people is their hero worship of a certain figure through their choices of clothing. The figure I'm talking about?
Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
So you recognize this man, right. Of course you do, I mean who wouldn't? Even if you know nothing about South American history, you know his face from all the t-shirts and posters. Look at him, doesn't he look inspiring? With his stony eyes, glaring into the distance. This looks like a man who had an ambition. This looks like the face of a hero.
However, despite what this image may lead you to believe, the truth is much more different to that. Che Guevara was in fact a guerilla war fighter who aided Castro during the Cuban Revolution. He is portrayed as an underdog revolutionary, and to be fair, he was. But this man was no hero. This man was a fiend. The man was in fact a mass murderer, who used to travel around all of South America, trying to incite Communist revolutions like the one in Cuba. He was a vicious man, who used brutal methods to get he wanted. he slaughtered innocents by the thousands, reveling in the bloodshed that he caused, and yet people don't realize this and prefer to see him as a shining beacon of humanity. Why? Simply because his face looked good on a shirt.
Not to mention that the whole commercialism surrounding his image is also the ultimate irony in the first place. His image has been mass produced by the millions by corporations making money off him. You see him everywhere, on t-shirts, hats, posters, tattoos, all over the place, all for sale! In a way, it's brilliant, because due to his marketing, he's basically become the face of the consumerist and capitalist culture that he absolutely despised and wasted his life trying to fight against. It's a beautiful irony really.
I just wish that people who wore his face non-ironically actually understood how terrible of a person he really was and how hypocritical they are being by wearing him all over the place.
