I’ll meet you halfway.
Even though I grew up in the 60’s (Che posters more common than t-shirts), I knew practically nothing about the man, so I just read the Wikipedia bio.
“psychotic” and “mass murderer” are judgment calls. I did read that Guevara was ruthless in killing defectors, and afterwards wrote down the details in clinical medical detail (he was trained as a physician), which might reveal a degree of psychopathy, but I didn’t find any evidence of Guevara killing or ordering the death of a non-combatant. If you know of this, please let me know and I may change my position here.
Guevara was certainly a violent revolutionary commander, but so was George Washington. I’m not suggesting an equivalence, but Guevara also doesn’t seem to be a bloodthirsty despot like Stalin or Idi Amin or Pol Pot. He appears to be a typical Marxist ideologue who put his principles into practice in order to overthrow capitalist governments and liberate the proletariat (apparently Guevara was miffed when the proletariat of certain countries didn’t go along with him).
So I’m hesitant to label Che Guevara a mass murderer. Let’s call him a violent revolutionary Marxist commander (or something like that) and anyone who wants to consider him a mass murderer on the basis of that role can do so.
Was Jefferson Davis a mass murderer? My response would be the same as above (without the “Marxist” label). But Nathan Bedford Forrest, I would argue, would (as a result of the Fort Pillow Massacre) qualify as a psychotic (and racist) mass murderer.
There’s a certain irony with Guevara t-shirts and rebel flags that the people wearing them would probably never consider engaging in violent overthrow themselves. It’s empty (and easy) fanaticism.
There’s another irony in that while Bernie Sanders and others were offering limited praise for Castro’s education program (Che was perhaps an even stronger advocate for educating the proletariat than Castro), he ignored individuals who advocated and actually instituted radical education for the oppressed without engaging in violence (e.g. Paolo Freire). I don’t wear t-shirts emblazoned with political figures, but if I saw a Paolo t-shirt at Goodwill, I’d snap it up.
Tom, what’s your take on Gen. Berger’s directive to remove Confederate paraphernalia from Marine bases?
