From radical evil to farce in two generations
<p>There just isn&#8217;t any better marker for the fundamental narcissism of today&#8217;s left-wing politics that this:</p>
<p><center><img src="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20090618/us-peta-guevara-s-granddaughter/images/58c957b7-0cce-46e3-89a8-8ea4d8597a65.jpg"/></center></p>
<p>That&#8217;s Che Guevara&#8217;s granddaughter, Lydia, We are <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20090618/us-peta-guevara-s-granddaughter/images/58c957b7-0cce-46e3-89a8-8ea4d8597a65.jpg">told</a> that she posed semi-nude to promote vegetarianism and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.</p>
<p>There are so many levels of wrongness and unintended irony here that it&#8217;s hard to know where to begin&#8230;</p>
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<p>Let&#8217;s quickly dispose of the most obvious snark.  Granddad murdered political opponents by the truckload, built gulags, and starred in the creation of the Western hemisphere&#8217;s only genuine Communist shit-hole; granddaughter is promoting&#8230;vegetarianism.  OK, in this case regression to the mean is a good thing &#8212; but it&#8217;s still kind of pathetic. &#8220;Yeah, sure, you were a charismatic blood-soaked monster, but look at me, I&#8217;ve got <em>breasts</em>. And <em>hair</em>!  And I&#8217;m <em>really toned</em>!&#8221;</p>
<p>The not-so-subtle message here is that vegetarianism is revolution is sex; you too can fight the power and score hot naked rebel chicks by, er, eating tofu.   Yeah.  Forget all that whining about the objectification of women, one just like Lydia will serve herself up on a platter if you just strike the right clenched-fist poses and munch your beansprouts; we promise. (Well, it sort of has to read that way, doesn&#8217;t it?  Otherwise what would be the point of the ad campaign?)</p>
<p>I suppose if you&#8217;re female, the implied promise might be that you get to <em>be</em> the hot naked rebel chick. Which, if you&#8217;re one of the anorexic daddy-issues gothgirls or overweight lumpy-sweater lesbians who tend to flock to PETA events, must actually seem like a pretty good trade.</p>
<p>But this is just the surface of the presentation.  Let&#8217;s read a little deeper&#8230;</p>
<p>Vegetarianism is virtue because meat is murder, so our mascot is going to wear bandoliers of honkin&#8217; big&#8230;bullets. So, right, violence against animals is wrong, but violence against humans is dead sexy.  Got it. </p>
<p>Either totalitarianism is just a fashion accessory for PETA&#8217;s hip vegetarian lifestyle, or PETA is promising that come the revolution all those meat-eating motherfuckers are going <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Against_the_Wall_Motherfuckers">up against the wall</a>. Narcissism or Naziism, take your pick.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re morally confused enough not  to find this photograph ludicrous on its face and gape at it in disbelief, wondering &#8220;What was PETA <em>thinking?</em>&#8221;  you&#8217;ve entered the state of doublethink required for left-wing politics. Next, you can believe that you&#8217;re fighting for freedom and &#8220;the people&#8221; by advocating an ever-larger and more intrusive state apparat.  Hey, it worked for Che!</p>
