Meet Lenin the Duck

Hi. This is Lenin. Yes, I know. He is a communist. He carries a card, even. Keeps it in his girlfriend's nest, when he's not sleeping on her couch or mimeographing his pinko newsletters.

It is so embarrassing.

I met Lenin at the park, when I was running. Actually, I was hyperventilating and having spasming leg cramps because I had thought about running. Needless to say, while I was lying on the grass in humiliated agony, Lenin waddled over and began quacking to me about the future of America.

Apparently, capitalism is a bad thing. I guess the only reason I can pay the low low price of $150 on my designer jeans is because they are made in overseas sweatshops by people who only earn ¢5 per hour because they Don't Speak English.

I was confused. First of all, if they are people who Don't Speak English, then maybe they deserve to make no money. Secondly, if the labor is so cheap, then why are the designer jeans still so expensive?

Lenin told me, as he waddled back and forth in excited agitation, that the Greedy Corporate Fat Cats of America were taking advantage of not only the people who Don't Speak English, but the God-fearing American Consumers as well. With the low low overseas wages, the profit margins are potentially huge. Launching a marketing campaign of staggering complexity and evil genius, the Greedy Corporate Fat Cats had convinced the American Consumers that in order to be socially acceptable and get laid as often as possible, it was a abosolutely necessary, nay, a moral imperative, to pay $150 for a pair of jeans.

In fact, Lenin told me, the propaganda campaign was so successful, the Fat Cats couldn't believe it. They tried to push the envelope, to see just how far they could go. They started to tell the American Consumers that what is old is in, that worn is trendy, and now they are earning spectacular profits on T-shirts made in the '70s and jeans that look ten years old.

But, wait, I said. This doesn't make sense. They wouldn't do this. We speak English.

The joke is one you, Lenin cried, shaking so hard feathers were flying in the air. Everything you do is predicated on the earning of money, all so that you may have needlessly expensive clothes and $5 lattes! And even worse, the people who Don't Speak English