Just Don’t Call Her Che

[TBF]

LATE last month the British newspaper The Guardian asked readers to vote for its person of the year. The candidates included household names like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Egyptian techno-revolutionary Wael Ghonim and the Burmese pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. All placed far behind a striking, nose-ringed student from Chile named Camila Vallejo.

Though far from a familiar face in the United States, the 23-year-old Ms. Vallejo has gained rock-star status among the global activist class. Since June she has led regular street marches of up to 200,000 people through Santiago’s broad avenues — the largest demonstrations since the waning days of the Pinochet regime in the late 1980s. Under her leadership, the mobilization, known as the Chilean Winter, has gained nationwide support; one of its slogans, “We are the 90 percent,” referred to its approval rating in late September.

Ms. Vallejo’s charismatic leadership has led commentators to make the obligatory comparisons to other Latin American leftist icons like Subcomandante Marcos and Che Guevara. Yet “Commander Camila,” as her followers call her, has become a personality in her own regard. She skewers senators in prime-time TV debates and stays on message with daytime talk-show hosts hungry for lurid details about her personal life, while her eloquence gives her a preternatural ability to connect with an audience far beyond her left-wing base.

In perhaps the most poignant set piece in the year of the protester, Ms. Vallejo addressed a dense ring of photographers and reporters in August while kneeling within a peace sign made of spent tear-gas shells, where she calmly mused about how many educational improvements could have been bought with the $100,000 worth of munitions at her feet...

Much more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/opinion/sunday/student-protests-rile-chile.html?_r=1

[socialist_n_TN]

1. My kind of woman!..........

I've heard of Camila before and admire her greatly! That's one thing I love about being a socialist. Our heroes don't have to be white males.

[Speck Tater]

2. I frst read about her in the Spanish language press.

And I wondered why she was not well known in the U.S.

When I compared her to OWS I couldn't help but conclude that her approach is the one that works. She has focus, clear purpose, and she doesn't alienate the average citizen by appearing "scary" and "weird". She's getting the job done.

[TBF]

3. Educating our youth is a big job

in this country. Communism/socialism have been so demonized & our heroes were deported in the 1950s. We've lost a generation or two here at least. So, we get our guidance where we can. I do a lot of reading on the KKE's website (Greece's communist party). OWS has resisted, which is positive for sure, but asking for a kindler, gentler capitalism is not enough.

[Speck Tater]

4. Having grown up in the 50's

we had it pounded into our heads night and day that the word "socialism" was as bad as "the F-word", and was equated with the very worst kind of demonic evil ever to infest planet earth. Those filthy Communist bastards had every intention of destroying us utterly. My parents, who grew up in the 30's where just as strongly indoctrinated. You can't even use a phrase like "democratic socialism" in front of people of my generation or earlier without getting a vehement knee-jerk negative response. They can't even hear what you are saying over the din of their own anti-communist caterwauling.

[TBF]

5. Even in the 70s we were still doing the hide under our desk

drills in case of nuclear war and watching the propaganda movies about Russia in which there was no food on the shelves in stores ... it's very deeply taught for sure.

[ellisonz]

6. Someone better...

...wake up Henry Kissinger!

[white_wolf]

7. Or McCarthy...