This dunce is a pretentious tool and it is reflected in his writing.
A travel writer's opinion on Cuba and Che...makes about as much sense as getting the dog catcher's opinion on how to treat brain cancer.
“Study the life of Che Guevara and a complicated portrait emerges.”
Same could be said of Hitler. Or Edison.
Nothing is better than a good command of the English language.
A college degree is better than nothing.
Therefore, a college degree is better than a good command of the English language.
Actually, he seems to see that the Cuban “revolution” is old and tired and meaningless, in one key paragraph. Otherwise he doesn’t seem to have a clue about what kind of guy Che was—someone who got a kick out of shooting political prisoners in the back of the head.
But that one paragraph is telling, even if he draws all the wrong conclusions from what he sees:
“Look closer, however, and you’ll notice that the triumphant photos of Fidel and Che are faded and mildewed, their corners curled by age and humidity. The photo captions are spelled out in a clunky die-cast typeset that hasn’t been used in a generation, and contain glowing present-tense references to the magnanimity of the Soviet Union—a country that hasn’t existed since 1991. Despite the grungy glamour of the young men who toppled a tyrant all those years ago, the anachronism and decay of the museum’s exhibits reveal just how tired and toothless Cuba’s revolutionary myths have become in Havana. In many ways, the building is a museum of a museum—a yellowing relic of how the communist regime chose to portray itself in the 1970s.”
He recognizes that Che was a psychopath. But he doesn’t like the people who have said all along that Che was a psychopath. He feels much more comfortable among the people who think Che was a hero even though he’s figured out by now that Che was no hero.
All that lends a schizophrenic quality to his writing.
No, more like the Burger King of revolution. And when I say “Burger King”, I mean the guy in the picture captioned “WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?”
Or more accurately, their survivors.
How does he expect anyone to take comfort that Guevara's "intolerant extremes" can be sufficiently overcome by the crass commercial application of his heavily tarnished image.
Che personally murdered so many Cuban doctors, professors, judges, govt. officials, and intellectuals (and their families) with such reckless zeal, and in such excess, that even the Castro brothers (no shrinking violets themselves when it came to genocide) found him disturbing.
They finally had to send him away to go act out his little Young Pioneer war fantasies, to stop him from killing any more Cubans (and maybe sooner or later getting around to killing them).
How does the Che "brand" at Old Navy, Taco Bell, and Ben and Jerry's make all of that OK?