Che Guevara on Wall Street
My wife and I spent the Labor Day weekend enjoying the delights of New York City. Walking along Wall Street, we were startled when we glanced into the window of the upscale Tourbillon Boutique watch and jewelry shop at 45 Wall Street. Surrounded by pink and green enameled and bejeweled single cigar cases was a glossy humidor adorned with Alberto Korda's romanticized "Guerrillero Heroico" photo of communist thug Che Guevara:
As an added bonus, the humidor is inscribed in silver script with the slogan "Hasta la victoria siempre," which is the title of an adoring 1999 documentary on the life of the Leninist murderer. One part of my mind marvels at capitalism's protean ability to make money from any image, while another part is disgusted by the lack of historical memory that makes that an apparently palatable possibility.
For more on the Che vogue, see my colleague Nick Gillespie's excellent (and disturbing) Reason TV video, "Killer Chic: Hollywood's Sick Love Affair with Che Guevara." Nick asks, "We are rightly horrified by fascist murders. Why aren't we also horrified by communist killers?" Good question.