The LA Times looks into the Obama-Che iconcography connection

After five days treading water in a Sea of Lefties I have returned:

Yes I survived a five day event surrounded by leftist propaganda, Obama stickers, pagan chants, and T-Shirts of Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, and Bob Marley. I attend this event every year just to keep an eye on the far left and to refresh my memory of who I use to be. I also seem to have found a way to wrestle a few dollars out of the crowd which makes the event somewhat financially profitable for me. To be fair I do have a good time with some of my life long lefty friends who I have known for thirty years. We don’t discuss politics; we have learned that it gets us nowhere. I do however through out a few Christian comments to see if anybody will take the bait. God is working on my friends.

I Pledge Allegiance to the Earth:

Yes, this is the slogan that many seem to want to adhere to. I was rounding a corner and there it was staring me in the face the words painted brightly on a wall.

“I pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora, fauna and human life that it supports. One planet indivisible, with safe air, water & soil, economic justice, equal rights and cooperation by all.”

This may sound harmless enough, but I believe that this pledge embodies the left’s lack of allegiance to the United States of America. You could replace the phrase “I pledge allegiance to the earth” with I pledge allegiance to the cause, I pledge allegiance to the left, I pledge allegiance to health care, I pledge allegiance to abortion, I pledge allegiance to the retreat of our troops, I pledge allegiance to legalizing marijuana, I pledge allegiance to one world government, or your favorite lefty cause of the week. The point is the left does not feel an allegiance to America. They see America as the problem.

Little Kid and Che Guevara; It’s the Shirt Stupid:

But the saddest image I saw that will remain with me for the rest of my life was a little boy about nine-years-old looking at my wares while covered in a Che Guevara T-shirt. I was stunned; I lost my focus as I was talking to a customer. My mind left the customer and shot straight to how can a parent dress their son in such a shirt? How has America come to the point that our young innocent children are being propagandized to believe that ruthless murderers are to be idolized? The boy wore the shirt as proudly as the other kids who sported Bob Marley Ts. This generation is being taught that murderous thugs are equally as valued as marijuana advocating musicians. Our country and its electorate have eaten the pill, drank the Kool Aid, and dropped to their knees for pop culture and pop politics. Obama epitomizes the new pop culture product. He is the product and many have been there, and bought the shirt.

Michelle Malkin reports:

By see-dubya • May 31, 2008 05:36 PM

This is buried deep within a (worthwhile, if creepily non-judgmental and incomplete) piece about the merchandising of Che Guevara’s image, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the LA Times make the connection between the visual cult of Che and the cult of Obama:

“Rebels and activists the world over still take inspiration from Guevara. But the image has lost something; Che’s face on a poster in 1968 isn’t quite the same thing as it is on a mousepad 40 years later. Perhaps it is precisely that loss — the shedding of Che’s radicalism and ideological rigor — that renders him so supremely marketable today. Things are not going well these days. Kids don’t want revolution so much as, um, something different.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that L.A. artist Shepard Fairey, in his design for a Sen. Barack Obama poster, looked to Korda’s Che. Fairey’s Obama is not wearing a beret, and he’s looking left instead of right, but his face tilts at the same angle as Che’s. His jaw is set with the same willfulness and strength, and he too is gazing recognizably upward into the future (hasta la victoria siempre . . . ). Obama’s eyes, though, are filled not with righteous anger but with vague and lofty hope.”

Look, you just can’t hide from Che’s history. It’s like putting a David Duke for President bumper sticker on your car and then explaining that for you, personally, it’s just about traditional values and not about white nationalism. It’s like flying a Hezbollah flag and just claiming that you’re not for terrorism or wiping out Israel, you’re just opposed to Zionism. This swastika tattoo? Why, it’s just a Hindu/ American Indian good luck symbol, friend–not a Nazi thing at all. Shame on you for thinking so. (More)

Michelle Malkin