Leonardo Dicaprio, Naomi Campbell, Jack Nicholson. What do these people have in common? They are idiots. Yes that's correct. They, like so many other posturing pseudo intellectual morons have hopped onto the pinko commie bandwagon. You know the one I'm talking about. The type of people who think Che Guevarra belongs on t-shirts and coffee mugs, and that it's the pinnacle of idealist chic to visit the perpetually authentic, enlightened and progressive state of Cuba.

Ah Cuba. What once was, before the benign communist revolution, a place for rich foreigners to taste the sandy beaches and underage prostitutes- has now become a place for rich foreigners to taste the sandy beaches and underage prostitutes. Good job Fidel.

The people on this bandwagon are under the false impression that the Communist Cuban government's ethos of equality, redistribution of wealth, and suppression of religion result respectively in equity, prosperity, and tolerance. How amusing. Anyone with eyes can see that Cuba is even further dispossessed from that pipe dream than the politically "backwards," and capitalist United States.

The fact of the matter is that Cuba got their communist government. They got it, and now they are stewing in it. Many Cubans risk their lives on flimsy rafts to come to the United States. Cuban athletes abroad need guards to prevent them from defecting. This is not a country nor a system that in any estimation of the term "works." If the duty of a government is to make life for its citizens prosperous or at least tolerable- it says something that waves of citizens risk their lives and family scrambling away from said government.

If however, the distinction of a good government is to spout pretty, hollow and jingoistic ideals, while driving its population into the ocean, then Cuba has it down pat. For all its attractive bluster and idealism this is where the communist agenda ends up. Whether making the move towards the market (China, USSR), or engaging in slow decay (Cuba, North Korea), communism inevitably ends and belongs exactly where it is now.

But the bandwagon responds- Cuba wouldn't be poor and destitute if not for economic sanctions by the United States! And what would Cuba do if not for the sanctions? Trade with its neighbors? Its capitalist, market oriented, bourgeois minded and politically unsophisticated neighbors? Trading with neighbors- that's a market, subject to market forces determined by capitalist governments. And that means Cuba engaging in market capitalism.

Perhaps the pinko bandwagoners should reread their Marx. He said something about capitalism in the communist manifesto. It's there, trust me. The North Koreans read it, and they have dutifully engaged in political and economic isolation from the "evil" global capitalist system. Sure, their children are starving in droves because of it but at least we know they can read.

Oh what a cruel world. I suppose the pinkos could be right. The communists could, and would make the world a better place by undermining and destroying the global capitalist economy, replacing market forces with bureaucratic whim, self interest with community interest, greed with generosity, excellence with mediocrity- if only the self interested, greedy, market worshipping and politically brutish capitalists of the world would let the communist states eat at the proverbial table. Thus the only thing stopping Cuba from eradicating capitalism is that the capitalists won't do 90% of the job for them. Hilarious.

Essentially then what are the pinko commie bandwagoners saying? They want to destroy capitalism, but they need it, otherwise their "superior" communist states will die off? Communist states can only survive by hopping into bed with capitalists? If only we could bring Marx back from the dead to give him the news, I wonder what his reaction would be.

This weak rebuttal of the ill effects of economic sanctions constitutes impressive illogic indeed. But that's what one engages in by blaming a trade embargo for the demise of a communist state. It could very well be that in cause/effect terms, the embargo has been responsible for Cuban decay. But admitting as much would strike a dagger into the heart of any communist still under the delusion that their system works, and that the capitalist one does not.

The "celebrities" such as those I previously mentioned are famously smitten with the Cuban dictator. He has such wisdom, such eloquence- exclaim the gushing fans and part time philosophers. Perhaps these celebrities should give Fidel Castro their many millions of dollars, and subject themselves to the daily life of the average Cuban before offering their estimation of his enlightened rule. If the hypocrites bothered to do so, I imagine their estimation of Cuba would be quite different, and that they'd give it standing not on Cuban soil, but the on port of Miami.