The best reply I've seen was another T shirt with the Che picture and the line "Communism Killed 100 million people and all I got was the lousy T Shirt !"
I just read your post above and thought you might appreciate my line of "Just Ché No!" t-shirts and other merchandise. Inspired by former First Lady Nancy Reagan's 1980s anti-drug message (i.e., "Just Say No!"), "Just Ché No!" items provide conservatives an alternative to the now-popular Ché Guevara t-shirts being worn by people who don't realize he executed as many as 400 people during the Cuban Revolution.
Bob, you do not need to be 'conservative' (I am certainly not) to find Che despicable.
Well, the defining image of Che is by that most capitalist of artists, Andy Warhol.
We stole him.
So fuck 'em.
Very thought-provoking article.
An image represents many things and it would be a mistake, in the case of the Che image to supppose that people wearing the t-shirt are only waiting for the opportunity to behave just like Che. One of the wierdest things I heard in the last couple of years was that in some parts of Europe (Italy definitely and possibly France and Germany) young adherents of right-wing youth organisations had adopted the Che image. They would definitely never vote or support a left-wing party of any description.
Argue with someone wearing a Che shirt? Nah. You can't argue with an epiphany.
Are the young simply ignorant of his execrable record and drawn to the image of the dashing young rebel?
Yes.
Che T-Shirts are, I think, a nice example of a relatively trivial matter that can help elucidate deep and obscured political faultlines, including within the Right, where there are three discernible positions:
1) Those who wear Che T-Shirts have an admirable belief in equity and fairness, but are naive. They need to be reasoned into understanding that progressive ends are best achieved by conservative means (which are themselves fundamentally progressive blah blah blah - hey fancy a canape and a line of coke?).
2) Che T-shirts are a perfect example of the triumph of capitalism, wherein the free market neutralises potentially sibversive threats and makes money from them.
3) I hope all the people wearing Che T-Shirts get run over by a combine harvester.
Me, I'm with (3) all the way. I hate having to wade through organic and fair trade groceries, I hate being confronted with a company's statement to social responsibility, I hate having to feign a whole bunch of lamebrained opinions to pass a job interview. I hate it all even when I know that it's just a cynical ploy to turn credulity into ready cash. I fundamentally can't stand the way capitalism absorbs and profits from the sort of repulsive, milquetoast gross stupidity that makes up received opinions. I don't want to make money from it, I wan't to destroy it.
And that's what I'm talking about. Che T-shirts make me realise that on some level what I want is the rule of the saints and that's something I should probably work on.
If they don't look particularly violent, I usually just ask "Is it Racist Mass Murderers' Day Today? Damn, my Hitler shirt is in the wash."
I work in Boulder, Colorado. The streets are dense with Che shirts.
My take, as a fresher of '71 (so not quite a '68-er) is that it [the T-shirt] was/is just an anti-establishment statement.
All this post-hoc rationalisation (even revisionism), that the guy must be recognised as evil and a failure, however true, misses that point.
Oh, and I never wore one, nor wanted to: my anti-establishmentism, such as it is, really only got going around '03.
Best regards
I read a biography on the unflushable turd a few tears back.
What an abject failure he was. He left Africa just before his own "allies" strung him up, his advice and posturing beconing that odious.
And if youve never read them you must check out Pacos Che diaries, they are the best piss take you will ever read on the bearded fool. Truely inspired, well written and funny.
http://pacoenterprises.blogspot.com/2008/12/che-philia.html
Heres a sample. The link is to the last episode, but has the previous ones linked at the top.
"Ok, I won’t deny that this is a bit of a setback. Being captured by Bolivian troops has definitely thrown the revolution off schedule. And of course, since Felipe and Julio are the comrades planning the rescue effort, things don’t look particularly rosy for me, personally. However, so far, my treatment hasn’t been bad. In fact, this morning, when I complained to the guard about the effects of this stuffy cell on my asthma, he smiled and told me that they would be working on my ventilation shortly."
Che liked to shoot things- so do Americans!
Che liked being top dog- so do Americans!
Che liked espousing populist slogans to gain power- so do Americans!
What's not to like?
Half of you lot sound like shy, socially-awkward nerds who are so angry with everyone that you fantasise about summarily executing people. Political extremists tend to be dodgy - that's partly why they went out of fashion. Get over it.
And you sound like someone who reacts to trigger words rather than actually reading people's comments, Bendle.
And who should get over what, exactly? Please try again with something coherent.
Hi!
I am from Argentina and I agree 100% with your article.
Unfortunately here he is a hero fueled by the atmosphere of extreme left wing stupidity along with Ecuador, Bolivia and (specially) Venezuela.
It is embarrasing for me that Che Guevara is Argentinean. He has never done ONE SINGLE act for the good of this country. Still considered a hero. Nonsense.
Thats why we are a third world country, with high poverty levels, high unemployment, and abundant corruption.
Nacho-
Che did one good thing- he died! He stopped wasting good air that was needed elsewhere!
In fact, you could say he died by his own creed- violence!
At least Harold Shipman's patients seemed to have liked him but then he only killed about 300.
I work near the university in Manchester and see thousands of students on Oxford Road most days. The Che T shirt is very rarely spotted.
Can't remember ever having seen a spotted Che T-shirt ;-))
A couple of years ago I went to a folk fest wearing my 'Mickey Che' T. Almost everyone under forty years of age thought it hilarious; everyone over fifty just glared at me. Only two people, young college students, were genuinely puzzled. They asked me what it meant, and I explained about the executions, the torture, the mass graves, about Che's being first and foremost a psychopath and so on. They were utterly astonished. They had never heard one single word of this.
Well...
(a) the Che image we all know and love is due to that most captilaist of artists Andy Warhol.
(b) it's very commonplace in Manchester amongst the sort of folk who shop at Afflecks. And that would include a load of students.
(c) I shop at Affleck's.
(d) so does Debbie Harry.
(e) I dunno.
(f) What matters is what matters and Che doesn't. His image has been usurped by kids as a saleable symbol of rebelion which has nothing to do with the real Che.
(g) Nacho. Decent folk in this country (the UK) couldn't give a toss about Che. We do though care about your fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges. Now that is the Argentine I care for.
And who should get over what, exactly? Please try again with something coherent.
Ideologues should get over the fact that once-celebrated extremist leaders, and indeed government agencies, commit heinous crimes in the name of their causes. This is true of the left and the right, though it has of course been more common on the left.
The problem lies with people who want tell other people what to do. I suppose debunking one's opponents' mythologies is fun, but to me it seems locked in old, dualistic thinking.
Hardly anyone under 40/50 cares or even knows about Che Guevera's politics, but the Warhol portrait T shirts are still around in places like Afflecks Palce because a few years ago several ,ahem, "streetwear" designers began using old Leftist iconography from the 1960s and 1970s with a sort of arch, postmodern and nauseating irony. This seems to have started a trend that led to the revival of the Warhol image.
To me, it would be more interesting to talk about the (non) thinking driving trends such as that, and the reasons why Hollywood producers think they can now make money out of the Guevera myth, than it would be to get cross about "liberals".
Apologies for earlier abusive incoherence.
Let us not forget that the Bolivia of 1967 had virtually no large scale private estates (they had been stolen after the Revolution of 1952) or large scale private companies - they had been stolen in various waves of nationalization going back to the 1930's.
"Che" Guevara was fighting for Marxism - nothing else.
Of course that means, contrary to the writer, that the Obama activists were quite correct to have a piture of "Che" on the wall - as Barack Obama has a Marxist background going back all the way to his childhood.
"Che was a purist political fanatic who saw everything in stark black and white."
Sounds like a couple of commenters at this very website, only with a different political philosophy.
So Che pushed out the Batista reign that was supported by the american's, who deprived his own people and left the american mobsters rule the country. Cuba has national pride back no matter what you think.
And the American government actually helped Castro get in to power... that must be a bit more of a kick in the balls for you.
Get your facts straight before you write anything pal. John Anderson's autobiography on Che would be a great start.... instead of basing your article from Wikipedia!!
Che was not a native Argentinean. He name was Lynch. Father all Irish and mother 1/2 Irish and 1/2 Spanish(Barcelona). He was 100% European. The darker your skin color the more likely Che was going to kill you. Look it up.
Well wearing a Che tee gives me hope. And being that this is a free country and that is the reason you all feel so proud of yourselves to make comments about a person who at least had the guts to die for what he believed in, I have the right to wear my tees and feel good about it. i wear them because unlike you all who talk based on what you have read and based on movies you' ve seen. i have actually lived in poor countries and i have also lived in Cuba...and I love the country and its people. Che made the people of Cuba who they are and for that I am thankful. The experiences I have lived make me who I am today and make me have respect for others, even when their believes are not the same as mine. Some of you may based your opinion on experiences from family members who fled Cuba. I am sorry for that, but you don't leave your country, you stay and fight, or you died fighting. A war is a sad thing. It is sad to see kids go fatherless, it is sad to have your neighbors house destroyed by bombs. It is sad to meet your enemy and realize that he is just a human being like you, fighting for his own believes. Truth is we are all capable of doing wrong, we are all neighbors and friends to people who do wrong. we have all done wrong, and if in a war we would all kill inocent lives, like it or not. So don't be so quick on judging others, specially when they are already dead. To you Che may be the worst there is, to others he is a hero who gave his life for those who at that time had no voice. Go to Bolivia and see the way the poor live there, some kids run around naked because there is no clothe for them to wear. You don't even have to go that far, go to Mexico and look for yourself. Know that while you are reading this in your computer a 5 year old boy is working to make the "Made in not the USA" shirt you are wearing, and he will probably died by the age of 40, maybe younger, he will never know how to read or write and he will never own a computer. and if he hears of Che he will probably want someone like Che to come around just so that maybe he has a better chance at a better future.
Well wearing a Che tee gives me hope. And being that this is a free country and that is the reason you all feel so proud of yourselves to make comments about a person who at least had the guts to die for what he believed in, I have the right to wear my tees and feel good about it.
Yes unlike Cuba. Try wearing a Batista tee-shirt in Havana and see what happens.
Yes, he died for what he believed in. So did a lot of Nazis. Does that make them admirable? Cuba is an economic basket case and a civil liberties nightmare. Great job.
