My Hero Was A Revolutionary, And All I Got Was This Stupid Shirt



If you want substance, you'll need to either scroll up or scroll down. This post is half-scorn, half-mock toward T-Shirts "honoring" Che Guevara. Question: Does every little trust-fund wannabe intellectual own one of these?

It appears so. While sipping their $5 Starbucks (poured by people who make, what, slightly more than that an hour?), these kids -- and sometimes 40-somethings who never really grew up -- bemoaning the plight of the poor and oppressed. Never mind that most of these same people went to private, all-white high schools and then private, mostly white universities. They feel their pain.

And these same people always seem to break out the Che shirts in time for the latest globalization protests, even though the T-shirts were probably made in some Third World factory -- which brings up the point that in the days before globalization, those same people making $1 an hour sewing were living on $1 a day 20 years ago.

But where does that leave those of us who, you know, don't see Che as an idol, but as the Stalinist strong man and founder of the death camps still being used to silence free-speech and democracy supporters in Cuba?

At last we have our own T-shirts. Viva la merchandise!