nimh wrote:Instead, I would compare any Che flag waving with the rapturous welcome that an extensive group of Republican Party honchos gave to Jonas Savimbi, Angolan guerrilla leader-cum-mass murderer, when he came to visit Washington DC in the late 80s. (There was a hell of an article about that in TNR several years ago, but unfortunately their archives are not online these days..). Bad taste and bad judgement, but not talking swastikas.
Ah, it's online on another site - back in 2003, it was:
ARE FOREIGN REBEL LEADERS DUPING THE AMERICAN RIGHT, AGAIN?. It's an article about Chalabi and how the Republicans were being duped by him, actually, but it hilariously delves into the earlier Savimbi episode as comparison.
I think cheering Savimbi on with chants of U-NI-TA!, as the Conservative Political Action Committee did at the time, that's more comparable with what it would be like if a group of Dem politicians would cheer on Che. Except in this case, of course, we're not talking Dem politicians but local campaign volunteers, and they're not inviting and cheering on someone like Che, but just hung one of those flags with that uebertrendy image of his face on it on the wall, the kind that you see wafting in tenfold over any rock festival.
How such a cruel political figure has been turned into a commodity item for teenagers worldwide looking for something that will make them look rebellious for $10 is a farce of a story, but thats how it is. It's silly to act like kids waving a Che flag or wearing one of those ubiquitous Che t-shirts (or pinning one of those flags on a wall) are in any way promoting totalitarian communism of the kind Guevara helped to impose. They're just being stupid.
