The Global Marketer

Came across this on MSNBC just this morning. Check it out: http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/06/05/213639.aspx

Having a bit of history with this enchanted but troubled island, this is one gringo who can’t wait for the wall to fall and for la fiesta mas grande to begin.

I say the sooner that brands from all over the world can be openly sold and marketed in Cuba, the better.

But Coke and Super Glue selling on the black market at crazily inflated prices do not a cogent argument make.

Of course the greatest economic transformation in that tiny country’s history would come about at once if the floodgates of free trade and open commerce were to suddenly be flung open.

The trouble is, making that happen is a two-way street — a fact conveniently overlooked by the mind-numbed Blame America robots responding to Mr. Sanders’ blog.

Here’s the Inconvenient Truth:

- Selling foreign-made consumer goods NO MATTER WHERE THEY COME FROM — without Fidel’s o.k. is and has been FELONY, and thus a one-way ticket (if you’re lucky) to a not-very-comfortable PRISON in the People’s Republic of Cuba, for the past four decades.

That’s because the individual (as in capitalist pig) is nothing and the all-powerful state (as in bureaucratic bully) is everything in this and other Workers’ Paradises around the world.

So let’s get real: The situation is not merely about us ‘keeping hard U.S. currency out of (Cuban) peoples’ hands.’ It’s about the Catro regime preventing Cubans from having the slightest control over their own destiny.

We’re ready to trade, market and sell branded consumer goods down there from now until the cows come home, as are millions of Cubans both on an off the island.

Drop the embargo now — and see how long it takes Fidel and his cronies to lift their fanatical oppositon to individual and collective free entreprise in their own backyard.

We’re ready. ‘La Navidad en Habana,’ as they say every year in Miami. Pense en eso.

But don’t hold your breath.