If you live in or around liberal areas, then you no doubt have run into the communist chic. These are the folks sporting Che Guevara shirts or hammer & sickle patches, emblems, buttons, etc. A couple of years back, the North Face company even featured a special line of hammer and sickle clothing . . . no better proof that a fool and his money are quickly parted.

Working for a university, I’ve even had the chance now and again to directly engage some youth who were nostalgic for the glories of the Soviet Union. Each fall, a student communist organization usually sets up a booth on library mall along with other campus student organizations. When I’ve spoken to the commies, the conversation quickly becomes other-worldly. For example, I typically ask them about the failure of the Soviet Union and the horrors of North Korea. They respond with a vigorous defense of these countries and blame any mistakes or implosions on American spy activities. Yes, you heard right. The student commies are also conspiracy theorists who maintain that all would have been well in the Soviet Union and North Korea if it weren’t for American, covert infiltration into these benevolent governments. Eventually, the student commies usually conclude their argument by telling me that I’m not worth talking to . . . I guess I’m just a hopeless capitalist pig.

Then there’s the local “artist” community near which I live. They’ve set up their own community theatre and are now featuring a one man play called, “Red Moon Rising in the East,” by playwright Duane Yancey. It was the hammer and sickle flyers around town that caught my eye. The play is about Sergei Korolev, the father of the Soviet space program in the 1950’s. It explains, through an actor playing Korolev, the space race from the Soviet perspective. I tried to investigate the play, but found very little written about it on the Internet. So, who knows, maybe it’s truthful about Korolev’s life and the stress of working under a maniacal regime. But then again, maybe it’s not. If I know my artsy-fartsy liberals, it’s probably quite sympathetic to the “Soviet” perspective. When it comes to liberals and their nostalgia for commies, the best practice is to never trust, verify, and then beat them silly with the facts.

Finally, there’s the good old whipping boy, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). They’ve just hired Lydia Guevara, the granddaughter of Che Guevara. She’s posing semi-nude for a new PETA advertisement. In the ad, Lydia is wearing bandoliers of carrots and strikes a Che-like pose. The verbiage on the ad reads, “Join the vegetarian revolution.” PETA even admits that the ad is an “homage of sorts” to Che, who is an “icon” of progressive revolution. Your run of the mill communist chic liberals will absolutely love this poster and ownership of at least two (in case they lose one) will be mandatory.

Allow me to suggest a possible follow-up ad campaign for PETA. Maybe they could roll this idea out next year after the Lydia Guevara advertisement. Imagine a tag line that reads, “Reducing meat consumption, and doing it the Che-Way!” The poster could portray a detailed re-creation of the yard at La Cabana prison. The photo for the poster could be taken from a perspective behind a model portraying one of Che’s numerous victims about to be executed by firing squad. You would see the man’s back with the firing squad in front of him. In the distant background, there would be the iconic profile of Che Guevara watching from the window he had specially installed in his office so he could watch executions.

Don’t like that one? OK, I got another. We recycle the same exact tagline from above, “Reducing meat consumption, and doing it the Che-Way!” This poster however would feature one of Che Guevara’s trademark techniques. Whenever mothers used to come begging for the life of a politically imprisoned child, Che would have the son executed in front of his mother. I know it’s a risky ad, but reducing meat consumption is serious business and sometimes shock techniques are needed to wake people up to the horrors of eating old Bessie the cow.

In all seriousness, though, the romanticizing of communism by liberals, which is so well demonstrated by their love of all things hammer and sickle or all things Che, is stale and brings to light a rank stupidity that leaves one speechless. These communist chic liberals simply love an image and have no deep understanding of the ideas behind it, no less the history associated with it. Unawares, due to their own sloth, they are celebrating death. Every time they play dress up with Che shirts or hammer and sickle garb, they engage in buffoonery. And, it’s the Devil himself that laughs while very probably sitting nearby, Che Guevara cowers.