That Murdering Bastard Che
It seems like I can’t turn around today without seeing a Che/Communist-adorned shirt, poster, or sign. For example, a few weeks ago I was at the liquor store and spied a bottle of vodka with a sickle and hammer, earlier this week I was in New Orleans and saw a sign with Che’s image to sell cigars.
What the hell is that? It’s now fashionable to use symbols that represent ideas (Communism/collectivism/socialism) that have killed tens of millions in the past century to sell products?
I don’t believe that people would knowingly support such thugs and the ideas they espouse if they took a moment to really think about their implications. If they did, we’d see them rocking shirts with the images of Kim Jong-il or Robert Mugabe. Instead, I believe it’s just that folks haven’t been exposed to the harms that stem from such terrible ideas — thanks to government schools and tactful politicians that promote much of the same agenda without using the poisonous “Communism” label.
Think that’s a stretch? Then take a moment to compare where we’re at today with the 10 planks laid out by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto:
Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.- A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
- Abolition of all right of inheritance.
- Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
- Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
- Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
- Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
- Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
- Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
- Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factor labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c., &c.
Like you, I was able to go down the list and check off virtually all of the ten planks. This is why we’re pushing back — to restore the freedoms and rights of each individual rather than allowing bureaucrats to control their lives and the economy and to get people to think for themselves.
So when you see someone wearing a Che t-shirt, don’t let it go unopposed. Ask them if they have the whole set, when they respond perplexed, explain that you meant the Che-Hitler-Mao-Stalin etc. set. That may get them, and those who heard the exchange, to rethink their blind support for such symbols and bad ideas.
For more, check out our ”Communism Kills” overview over at Bureaucrash Social, The Che Guevara Myth by our friend Alvaro Vargas Llosa at the Independent Institute, and these related Contraband offerings:
