that's well worth reading. It's essentially pointing out that Che Guevara was not the purehearted martyr he's made out to be. The essential bits:
Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system—the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims...[h]e 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.
Berman's no reactionary; his leftist bona-fides are solid. And he's right to assail the cult of Guevara when it's about to get a pop-cultural shot in the arm. The people walking and driving around the bay area with their Che® patches and stickers right alongside their peace symbols have always struck me as remarkably ignorant. Almost as ignorant as those who say "what we really need is a revolution, maaaan". Right fella. Spoken like someone who's never been through a revolution. Cute patch, by the way.
Anyhow, don't let my ellipses speak for Berman's timely and worthwhile article. Read the whole thing.
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