Chic hypocrisy

Chic hypocrisy. It's what comes to mind when I see "cool" youth bandying images of Che Guevara the Cuban revolutionary who chose violence over peace in freeing the masses. I suppose all revolutions and revolutionaries must employ violence---I mean, look at what's come of Flower Power, and we all know of what befell Robespierre---but the glaring irony about Ernesto Guevara, who came to be known as Che, is that he was already on the path to leading a life dedicated to helping those in need of help as a respected doctor.

bourgeoisie is to be just that: bourgeois. Hardly a thing that makes panties wet with admiration

Maybe that was the rub. The machismo in the Argentine was adventurous and hungered for revolution. He wanted fear, not respect. Power and fear. Che, like his famous surviving compatriot, no doubt read The Prince. To be a member of respectable bourgeoisie is to be just that: bourgeois. Hardly a thing that makes panties wet with admiration. Rather than cure ills Che grew a beard, dressed in fatigues and learned his way around firearms---and promptly took to administering the ultimate cure-all to dissidents: Death. After all, when was the last time anyone heard a dead patient complain? (Lidsey Lohan's gruesome flop I Know Who Killed Me doesn't count.)

I do not pretend to be dovish or oppose saber-rattling but Che was as much a despot---and a better-looking one than Fidel Castro---than the martyr into which Fidel made him. If ever there was a case of cura te ipsum, medicae, this was it.

Che was a self-righteous murderer who got struck down in his existential prime before having the chance to lead an authentic dictatorship of torture.

Undergrads and punks, alike, fail to see pass the rebellious posture and bibliophilia of the man. Yes, Che studied philosophy and medicine, spoke French, and smoked mary jane but so does Hannibal Lector. By that romantic rationale it makes more sense to tape up posters of Dr Jack Kevorkian. At least he administered death to patients who asked for it. But the cool aspect, like drugs, blurs right and wrong---ever notice all hip, open-minded liberals despise absolutes?---thus affording someone like Che wall space amongst posters of Martin L King, Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, Playboy pin-ups in dorm rooms all across the nation.

While waiting at the bus stop yesterday I noticed an absurd fashion statement (and, no, I was not in NYC). A teenage boy was sporting a T-shirt with mug shots of mad men of which included Hitler, Pol Pot, Mussolini, W., and a few other world leaders. The reverse of the shirt depicted images of their victims/dead enemies. Here's where it gets interesting: on his handwoven bag, the teenager had respectfully pinned a hand-beaded portrait of Che. Clearly, the point was that Che was unlike the tyrants on the front of the T-shirt. Not far from this 'hallowed' image was sewn on another patch. The picture? A marijuana leaf.

How chic.

Che has tons of cool cache to his legacy which explains his chic hypocrisy: Despite popular fantasy he was a bad guy but, man, he liked poetry and, anyway, he looked cool. I suppose this is where Adolf Hitler and our Monkey and Chief got it wrong: neither is known to have appreciated poetry. Come to think of it, W. doesn't even have fashion sense either so...he's just bad inside and out.