Guns or Butter?

After his stint dismantling the Berlin Wall, Mikhail Gorbechev's first assumption of self aggrandizing markers of Western civillization failed to garner a following. In 1991 Gorbechev appeared in a Pizza Hut commercial to the disgust of the same Western imperialists that helped to topple the European communist bloc. Now Mikhail is again toting principals by starring in the Core Value series of Louis Vuitton luggage ads. In the print ad the former magnate peers out the back of a limo with a brown hide, flesh trimmed "keepall" detailed in the Louis Vuitton gold leaflet insignia, the caption reads "A journey brings us face to face with ourselves. Berlin Wall. Returning from a conference." Placed in atop the luxury portmanteau, a Russian Daily critiques the radiation posioning saga implicating the succesor Russian administration. Does the Vuitton ad marquee an age now where politicians and other beauracrats are now apparatchiks for the middle class becoming aparat "chic"? Or is the luggage, baggage or suitcase of beauracratic "red" tape proper if it remains out of the camera's view waiting for the bell boy in the hotel's lobby? Let them eat cake!