Che, Cuba and Christmas
By Mary Anastasia O'Grady
WSJ.com
Until yesterday Christmas shoppers at Target department stores could purchase a 24-CD carrying case decorated with the image of Che Guevara. When I heard about it, I wondered why the retailer would want to promote the memory of a mass murderer. What's next, I asked, when I spoke with a representative of the company on Wednesday, Pol Pot pajamas?
Late Wednesday evening Target sent me this statement: "It is never our intent to offend any of our guests through the merchandise we carry. We have made the decision to remove this item from our shelves and we sincerely apologize for ..
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CRASS COMMERCIALISM
The Wall Street Journal's Mary Anastasia O'Grady keeps us abreast of developments in Latin America in a way that almost no one else does. Latin America is not really on anyone else's agenda, which means that it will certainly be on Washington's in the near future. O'Grady is especially provoked by Cuba, which is a failed tyranny except that its population is still tyrannized, brutally, and impoverished. The only more impoverished country in the western hemisphere is Haiti. In any case, she had been apprised of the fact that, at Target stores, customers could buy a 24-CD carrying case emblazoned with the oh-so-heroic visage of Che Guevara. Which is like putting the face of Stalin or any other political mass murderer on merchandise. It's disgusting. And so the journalist, instead of just reporting, complained. And the item with the idol's face has since been removed from Target's shelves. Hooray for Target. Really hooray. All of this is described in Friday's WSJ.[$] O'Grady also tells us a lot about Guevara's career that the people who buy his carrying case or wear his mug on their sweatshirts or have his image framed and hung in their dorm rooms (and older veterans of the happy days, in their studies) clearly don't know. (And if they do, God help them and us.) |
