RADICAL CHIC, THE GERITOL YEARS: BuzzFeed News video looks at how Che Guevara’s “revolutionary legacy” has endured.
Link safe, goes to Twitchy. The groovy psychedelic artwork and video opening featuring dancing 1968-era hippies is particularly rich considering:
“Che hated artists, so how is it possible that artists still today support the image of Che Guevara?”, [asks Cuban jazz musician Paquito D’Rivera.] Turns out the rebellious icon that emblazons countless T-shirts actually enforced aesthetic and political conformity. D’Rivera explains that Che and other Cuban authorities sought to ban rock and roll and jazz.
“Che was an inspiration for me,” D’Rivera tells reason.tv. “I thought I have to get out of this island as soon as I can, because I am in the wrong place at the wrong time!” D’Rivera did escape Cuba, and so far he’s won nine Grammy awards playing the kind of music Che tried to silence. But D’Rivera says Che’s crimes didn’t end with censorship. “He ordered the execution of many people with no trial.” Che served as Castro’s chief executioner, presiding over the infamous La Cabana prison. D’Rivera says Che’s policy of killing innocents earned him the nickname-the Butcher of La Cabana.
“We’re rightly horrified by fascist murderers like Adolph Hitler,” says reason.tv’s Nick Gillespie. “Why aren’t we also horrified by communist killers?” Certainly, Che’s body count isn’t anywhere near Hitler’s. But what about someone Che idolized, someone whom he might have liked to wear on his chest?
“Che, Castro, all the communist regimes idolized only one thing that Mao personifies—violence.” Kai Chen grew up in China under the reign of Mao Zedong. Although he won gold medals for China’s national basketball team, Chen’s was far from the celebrity life of an NBA star. Says Chen, “You have no right to talk, and you have no right to think.”
That’s from a 2008 Reason TV clip by Nick Gillespie titled “Killer Chic: Hollywood’s Sick Love Affair with Che Guevara.” And while it’s true that “Che’s body count isn’t anywhere near Hitler’s,” as David Harsanyi writes in an article yesterday at the Federalist titled “Hey BuzzFeed, Che Guevara Was A Bloodthirsty Terrorist:”
Scaled for population, the Castro-Guevara police state rivaled any tyranny in history. As Humberto Fontova points out, Cubans “qualify as the longest-suffering political prisoners in modern history, having suffered prison camps, forced labor and torture chambers for a period THREE TIMES as long in Che Guevara’s Gulag as Alexander Solzhenytzin suffered in Stalin’s Gulag.” It’s worth mentioning that it would have been far worse if tens of thousands of Cubans hadn’t fled Che’s glorious revolution.
“Che Guevara would’ve happily ordered the execution of damn near everyone who works at @BuzzfeedNews over their lifestyle choices. But hey, celebrate him, leftist morons,” Derek Hunter of the Daily Caller tweeted on Monday in response.