So what happened to the left/
socialist/revolutionary impulse
that haunted the
West from the
coffee houses
used to be
places
of
countercultural foment,
wombs of
revolution;
libertéégalitéfraterniténow
they're "investment opportunities"
now they're
leisurepalaces
ka-ching!
through
peace
love
ka-ching!
Woodstock? Has it vanished, to be supplanted by
ka-ching!
Time Warnerka-ching!
Starbucks
Joe? Not even right-wing media
outlets like The National Post think so. They obsess about
the left.
like Abe Simpson
on a bad day
spitting at
ghosts The same day as their (anti-spirit-of) Woodstock editorial, they ran a piece on the NDP from coast to
coast and one on how chimpanzees are socialists -- you can
look it up. They sound like Milton Acorn's poem of the sixties, "Where is Che Guevara?" Che, a leader of the
Cuban revolution, suddenly vanished in the 1960s and
rumour made him part of every revolutionary uprising in the
world.
saw him in Mozambiquesaw him in Nicaragua
saw
him in Berkeley
saw him in Paris
saw him under the
bed
splashing rum
in the boogie man's
latte
Acorn pictured the leaders of the capitalist West pausing as
they went about their grisly business to wonder with a
shudder, "Where is Che Guevara?" Acorn's answer: "He
moves..."
wherever people struggle against wealth and power.
You won't find him in the NDP. They've so adapted to the needs
of "the market" that the only capitalists they'd cause a shudder in would be certifiable paranoiacs.
"Talent on loan from God..."
Nor in the left in the media, such as they (or we) are.
Counterspin is a show on CBC's Newsworld that uses
left and right perspectives. But host Avi Lewis often introduces
guests as "lefties" or "lefty-in-exile," as if it's in their
CV and ought to get them media gigs just like experts on
mutual funds. None of this passes the Che Guevara Threat
Test: a sense that those who occupy the corridors of power
would think, Uh-oh, here's something we better put serious worry
into.
-- Rick Salutin, The Globe and Mail, 29 July 1999
Remixed (the Gas Face in boldface) by me. Che Guevara: still dead. The livin' bejeezus sleeps tonight. Unless
you're really, really paranoid -- then your bejeezus likes to
jump out and take long, soothing walks.