The Cosby Mysteries Were the Opiate of the Masses

What do you do when you're the leader of a half-assed Marxist uprising that's ten years old, your revolution has stalled on the ground, your international supporters have lost interest, and the only thing anybody knows you for is your pipe and ski mask? Take a page from Subcomandante Marcos' book, and start co-writing mystery novels.

Comments

[wade]

shouldn't revolutionaries be blowing shit up rather than writing shit down? unless the pen is truly mightier....

[joe]

The Zapatistas have always been more about getting press for their issues that actually fighting an insurgency. This guy is about as much of a military commander as the guys who used to stand on the stage in fatigues at Public Enemy concerts.

[DavePotts]

I believe you mean the S1W's, or "Security of the First World..."

[Mexile]

Commandanta Esther is the Zapatista military leader. Marcos has never been more than propaganda minister. He's a brilliant PR guy in his own right -- managing to convince the European leftists and Latin Americn ultra-conservatives (the Indiginous "uses and customs" issue gained the support of prominent Mexican Synarchistas -- Falangists -- as well). The movement is as much a reaction against Protestant fundamentalism as it is a Marxist movement. In Latin America, we don't need no stinkin' European labels anyway.

At any rate, when he isn't being pretentious and pedantic, he's a good writer.

By the way, my round-the-corner neighbor, and the co-author of this book, Ignacio Pablo Taibo II, is rather fascinated with the idea of Revolutionaries as mystery writers. Taibo himself invented Hector Belescourt Shayne, Mexico City's "People's Detective" and in "Cuartro Manos" much of the convoluted plot involves a search for a lost murder mystery written by everyone's favorite Mexican European revolutionary, Leon Trotsky.