Che Guevara and Ted Cruz

Here's a picture of two right-wing politically divisive U.S. Senators who happen to look a lot alike.

As things stand right now, the one on the left will be the next president of the United States, if only because he's the only person officially in the race.  I trust that's only a temporary advantage.

Here's another combination of very divisive politicians.

Same right-wing guy on the left - I did the best I could shoehorning him into the famous Alberto Korda image.  Red is a good color for a Republican.  On the right is left-wing revolutionary communist Che Guevara, possibly the most perfect example of a divisive political figure.

Guevara is known to some as only slightly less evil than the Devil or Adolf Hitler, nothing more than a mass murderer.  Elsewhere - like in rural Bolivia where Guevara was killed trying to foment class warfare - he's regarded as a Saint.  Fact is, both sides have good reasons for their characterizations: that's the most infuriating part of it.

I guarantee that today, nearly 50 years after his death, Guevara is much closer to becoming an actual Catholic saint than Father Junipero Serra was 50 years after he died in 1784.  Che has another connection with the Vatican: both he and the current Pope are Argentinian.

Here at Mixed Meters we're mostly interested in the famous photograph of Che Guevara, an iconic artistic visual meme of massive proportions, used over and over again for purposes even more varied than his reputations.

Two previous MM blog posts on the subject are called Che's Brand and Che's Image.   Check those out for some bizarre capitalist uses of the Che/Korda images.  The first one is a review of a book about the picture.  There's also A Combination of Jingle Bells and the Internationale a piece of my music. That post has pictures of the Che credit card and the Che Guevara Rolex ad.

Here are a few more I want to share.

Top to bottom - Chinese actress Fan Bingbing in Che drag; Adolf Hitler in the Che pose promoting  some website called The People's Cube; can't find this ashtray so here's a different Che Guevara ashtray on Amazon; Alberto Korda's heirs sued the maker of the Che dog image; you can buy Viva La Evolución throw pillows for less than twenty U.S. dollars here.

Want more?  You can see seemingly infinite variations on the Che image using Google Search.

I did two other variations on the Ted Cruz Che before I added some cheekbones..  I'm including them here just to prolong your agony.

Clicking on a picture might make it bigger.

Read about Joseph McCarthy.

Visit tedcruz.com.