Bill Gates vs Che Guevara

No, silly, this isn't a real photo of Bill Gates wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the famous likeness of Latin American dynamo and counterculture hero Che Guevara. I simply used Photoshop to make it look like Gates is wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt. OK, it was a sloppy job, but it helps me make a point.

If asked to describe this picture, most people would probably say "ridiculous!" But why?

Che Guevara was an intellectual, like Bill Gates, right? Guevara was a passionate humanitarian, Bill Gates a passionate philanthropist. They both rank among the most influential people of the 20th and 21st centuries. If Che Guevara was still alive, he and Bill Gates would probably be best friends - right?

Right, like Bill Gates is best friends with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Let's back up and take a closer look at Che Gates.

First, Bill Gates is a computer nerd, not an intellectual. There's a huge difference.

Bill Gates is arrogant enough to think he can fix the public education system. He thinks he can end disease and world hunger. He even thinks he has a solution for global warming.

Reality Check: Under Gates' "leadership," education has actually continued to deteriorate. The dumbass has even been blamed for ruining entire schools. Similarly, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has actually contributed to poverty and disease.

Che Guevara was a genuine intellectual. He was a doctor, a philosopher, a brilliant military strategist and a leading political figure.

Che Guevara traveled widely in Latin America and was deeply touched by the poverty and suffering he saw everywhere. He was inspired by a leper colony in Peru and bemoaned the sorry state of so many Latin American schools just moments before he was brutally executed - in a dilapidated school.

Bill Gates was born with the ultimate silver spoon in his lying mouth. His father's a very powerful and corrupt corporate attorney. Together, they built a criminal empire known as Microsoft, then founded an even more criminal enterprise, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Gates Foundation is nothing more than an investment firm. Bill Gates' crusade against disease is nothing more than a scheme to get even richer via the pharmaceutical industry. His crusade against hunger is a scheme to get richer via genetically modified food and other corporate gimmicks.

The closer one looks, the more Bill Gates and Che Guevara look like different species. Guevara was a powerful athlete who was praised even by his enemies for his courage on the battlefield. Bill Gates is the consummate pussy, perhaps best remembered wailing and flailing his frail arms as he lies about competitors that are beating him through something he scarcely has a clue about - innovation.

Che Guevara was an advocate of socialism or communism, while Bill Gates likes to shoot his big mouth off about "creative capitalism" - you know, the kind of free market capitalism that let's people who make crappy software monopolize markets, exploit schools and manipulate the government, legal system and media, funneling still more money into their vast vaults.

Bill Gates is eager to fight for a cause - under certain conditions. It has to be a politically correct cause, and his choice of weapons is always money. Moreover, it has to be HIS money - i.e., money stolen from consumers or from taxpayers through corporate welfare - as that makes him look like a really nice, caring guy. More important, it gives him a financial stake in whatever cause he's fighting for. Bill Gates never fights for a cause that doesn't offer a financial reward.

Can you imagine Bill Gates picking up a gun and actually fighting for a cause bigger than himself?

Hell, when's the last time that gutless asshole even spoke out against something as inhumane as the CIA, the Pentagon or the International Monetary Fund? When has Bill Gates ever complained about the United States' treatment of Latin America? Bill Gates has voiced concern over the state of education in various Latin American countries, even donating money (primarily to countries that promised to buy more Microsoft software). So why doesn't Gates care about the impact of U.S. imperialism on the children he claims to care about?

Who are Bill Gates' heroes, anyway? He's never spoken a word in support of Hugo Chavez. In fact, he appeard to idolize Chavez' arch enemy, George W. Bush, who rescued Bill Gates from the justice system. If Che Guevara was alive today, I don't think Bill Gates would support him, and I can't imagine Guevara wanting to hang out with that amoral nerd with the whiny voice and flailing arms.

So viva la revolucion carried on by Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Hugo Chavez and others who believe in a cause more important than amassing more than $50 billion by screwing people around the world 24/7.

And Bill Gates: Keep on fighting for your cause, you self-serving asshole. If there's a revolution in this country some day, and if that revolution ends with accountability, I hope to see you on the other end of a firing squad.