Val Prieto raises the red flag (as in “Hold up! Wait a minute!”) on a featured ad in Time Magazine, and on the usually capitalistic Burlington Coat Factory. Fortunately, the media and the world are taking notice.

It now appears that lionizing the bloody legacy of Che Guevara has hit an all-time low in the literal sense. Onesies and t-shirts emblazoned with the infamous “cool-looking revolutionary in a beret” image are now on sale for infants and toddlers.

What’s really ironic about manufacturers of Che swag in general is the mind-boggling premise that they choose to ignore the truth about a man who murdered thousands of Cubans and dedicated his shortened life to destroying liberty — even denouncing the very capitalist system that are allowing the swagsters to make a buck off of whitewashing the same man who, if he were alive today, would probably put bullets to the back of their heads for the mere thought of profiting from the masses.

It just makes me wonder sometimes when companies like Appaman will release the next thing in “whitewash” gear. Will Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Nikolai Ceaucescu, Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, or Robert Mugabe be next?

Quite frankly, I hope anybody who develops a hero-worshiping infatuation with Che (or any iron-fisted icon for that matter) will have their Bobby Brady-esque epiphany* very soon.

(*=I’m referring to the Brady Bunch episode where Bobby idolizes the outlaw Jesse James, of course…)

Disclaimer: I’m aware that the Google ad bar is highlighting vendors hawking pro-Che merch based upon the keywords in this post (when selected as a direct link). I’m doing my best to filter the links out; however, there will still be some pro-Che links that will sift through. Blame Google.

For the record, I fully endorse these alternative items.