I'm Ready For My Close-Up, Mr. DeMille

Now admit it. You forgot to fly your flag at half-staff on October 9 to honor the passing of that great freedom fighter, Che Guevara. Yes, it has been forty-three years since Che was confronted in the jungle by two Bolivian soldiers, dropped his gun, and uttered the immortal words of revolutionary defiance: "Don't shoot. I'm Che. I'm worth more to you alive than dead!"

Now if that doesn't stir your revolutionary heart, you must have no heart at all. I'm also guessing you noticed that the accompanying image is not the one that shows up on tee-shirts worn by doofus college students who don't know the first thing about this cowardly, sadistic, mass-murdering icon of the left. The peace and love crowd are always stirred by his other immortal words: "My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. Crazy with fury, I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any vencido (defeated one) that falls into my hands.!"

The failed dentist (no, folks, he wasn't a "doctor" as the left would have it) was extremely brave, at least while those he had fought were bound and helpless. He took such a sadistic pleasure in the cold-blooded murder without trial of his enemies that he had a hole knocked in the wall of his quarters so that he could watch the executions when he wasn't performing them himself. He particularly seemed to favor the muzzle-to-head shattering of the skulls of teenage boys. Their words prior to their impending execution were somewhat different from Che's after his capture: "Viva Cuba Libre! Viva Cristo Rey! Abajo Comunismo! (Long live free Cuba. Long live Christ the King. Down with communism)."

For those of you who aren't completely convinced of just how grave the Cuban missile crisis was, here are the words of El Che before Castro decided he was becoming a liability: "To achieve our ideals, I crave millions of atomic victims. The U.S. is the great enemy of mankind. Against those hyenas there is no option but extermination. We will bring the war to the imperialist enemies. We must keep our hatred against them alive and fan it to paroxysms!" When President Kennedy allowed as how he didn't care to be nuked, the Russians backed off their missile installations, and Fidel decided it was time for Guevara to go spread the revolutionary word somewhere else.

Che found that after leaving Cuba, it wasn't so easy to kill people who were free to shoot back at him. He dodged and weaved, but rarely put himself in the line of fire. After running from the sound of the guns in civil wars in Africa, Guevara returned to the western hemisphere and attempted to restore himself to his former glory in Central and South America. His own birth nation of Argentina put a price on his head. Otherwise, he was generally ignored. To paraphrase the Bible, "a cowardly murderer is without honor in his own land."

Che's swan song took place in Bolivia, where he attempted to conduct a comic-opera guerrilla movement. He should have used gorillas. They would have been more effective. There was a lot of shooting and killing, but it was mostly the Guevaristas shooting each other in confusion. That Bolivian jungle is very disorienting, don't you know. Filthier and thinner than usual, Che's denouement came while he was hiding out (from his enemies or his guerrillas is unclear). Two startled Bolivian privates were suddenly facing a fully-armed "warrior." With a full clip, Che could very likely have done in the two surprised youngsters. Instead, he dropped his fully-loaded weapon, and ignominiously surrendered.

Che's ubiquitous image is exceeded in recognition only by images of Christ. Think of it as the images of hell and heaven--in that order. One is the Savior of mankind who gave Himself to the cross for the redemption of all humanity. The other is the mass-murdering coward who was perfectly happy to try to save his own miserable life by surrendering without even a fight. The only question that remains in my mind is whether or not Flocabulary has a nice video on the subject.

As a final note, the coward's body was finally removed from its nondescript grave in Bolivia and brought back to his beloved Cuba in the 90s. There was much fanfare, and plenty of speeches from the Castros extolling the virtues and heroism of the communist icon. At long last, Che was proven wrong. Fidel Castro finally realized that Che was more valuable dead than alive.