Frightening Ignorance

Apparently Cameron Diaz recently showed up at Machu Picchu in Peru carrying a purse decorated in a Chinese communist motif, complete with red star and 'Serve the People' emblazoned on the side. This is highly offensive to many Peruvians who watched the local communist guerillas, Shining Path, terrorize their countryside during the late 20th century. The nutcases in that organization based their particular brand of communism in part on Maoism, and their leadership publicly rejected the idea of human rights (see Wikipedia article for citations).

I don't expect better from Madame Diaz, whose attempts at political discourse in the past have included:

Women have so much to lose... I mean, we could lose the right to our bodies. If you think rape should be legal then don't vote. But if you think you have a right to your body and you have a right to say what happens to you and fight off that danger of losing that, then you should vote. (see Wikipedia for citation)

Hear that ladies? If you don't vote, you must think rape should be legal. Not even worth commenting on.

However, the communist style thing is pretty scary. Several times in college, I saw people on campus wearing 'USSR' shirts. I wonder whether those folks or dear Cameron would like a bag emblazoned with a swastika and Deutschland ueber alles? After all, the Nazis killed far fewer people than Mao's communists.

I'm just shocked that anyone who went to public school in my country could think that the symbols of a murderous ideology are high fashion. I'm willing to write off the fad as mere ignorance of reality, but it's still scary. American journalism (which, by the way, gives to Democrats 9-to-1 over Republicans) has done a good job of painting opposition to communism as 'McCarthyism' or warmongering, but there's still no excuse for making murder glamorous.