Che hits the big screen, ignorance hits the youth.

It seems that ignorance and general carelessness about American history and U.S. politics have become commonplace in the majority of the youth of my generation.

In the (altered) words of Roger Waters, we are “comfortably dumb.”

I recently came to this scary conclusion when I stumbled upon a great response to the new movie Che, a film which essentially celebrates Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s life and glorifies his revolutionary ways.  I proceeded to post the article as my Facebook status.

The response was shocking. It was quite eye-opening to see the support for this man by his commie-red t-shirt toting followers.  Never before had I truly come to terms with the severity of the situation until I read the comments defending Che.

When looking at this case of admiration gone wrong, there are two aspects which need to be examined in order to tackle the situation fully.  First and foremost, we must find out exactly what inspires the support and where it comes from.  The second is to look at the Che clan’s reasoning and justification for his actions, and see how well that stands up under scrutiny.

So why the Che support and vast lack of knowledge amongst our youngsters? In the case of Che, I believe it is applicable to a few things: the ‘snowball-effect’ of beliefs via the leftist media, political correctness in education, and the general rebellious behavior and appeal of a revolutionary figure to teenage kids.

Of course, the fact that the age at which kids become interested in politics coincides with typically rebellious high school and college years, is obvious. But why, even in the face of irrefutable facts detailing Che’s unwavering killing, do multitudes of of people support him and pay for his t-shirts and movies?  I think that much of it is due to the preaching of political correctness in our schools and its influence on students beginning at a very young age.  We, as students, are taught to be tolerant to all beliefs (which I do not object to), but sometimes this tolerance is exchanged for sympathy when in regard to our enemies and foreign threats.  This is especially the case when dealing with Latin America and U.S. involvement during the time of Che.  Students are presented with a situation which attempts to subtly give justification for Che’s actions.  History classes today often make it seem as if America’s insensitivity and  hunger for power breeds terrorists and tyrants such as Che.

Once these kinds of ideas are ingrained into our student’s brains, they are further upheld by the constant influx of overwhelmingly liberal TV media, the main source of politics for people of this age.  However, I also blame the kids themselves in my generation for being lazy and not finding the time or interest to research political arguments on their own, but rather taking what is given to them as the absolute truth.

So, the next step is find these Che apologists and find out how much they really know and what their defense is for him.  Truth is, most of the time I have received the same sorts of responses I did when I asked many people why they support Obama – no response.  However, when a response is given it typically takes the form of a blame-America-because-we-created-Che argument.

Instead of launching into the very long and complex analysis of Latin American regimes and social ideologies of the mid 20th century, we can take a much simpler approach on Che’s life that eliminates any need for finding a ‘motive.’

Che was a murderer; a cold man who imprisoned people without trial and took joy in executing those who stood in his way.  His concept of life is no gentler or sophisticated than that of Stalin or Hitler.  Che did not want peace or agreements with the U.S., but rather convinced himself, Castro, and his followers that “we must walk the path of liberation even if it costs millions of atomic victims.” Che made it publicly known that if he had the means he would do everything possible to bring death, chaos, and humiliation to America.

No matter what these followers say Che’s  ‘motive’ or ‘justification’ was, I will not side with Che or Castro, nor will I ever condone such staunch hate and cold brutality.  I find it disturbing that so many people flaunt the Che icon on their chests and defend a man, who, given the opportunity, would not have thought twice to wave a destructive hand over the same country which gives them such unparalleled freedom and opportunity to express their beliefs.

The massive Che promotion movement is a scary testament to the spreading ignorance and lazy mindedness of a large portion of generation X.

It is a plague and it must be stopped.

Thanks to Mark Goldblatt’s article for the inspiration and Facebook as a platform for political debate and communication.  Below is a transcript of my conversation between a Che follower and a moderate that took place on Facebook before I wrote this article.