Posted on 12/13/2006 4:48:21 PM PST by Kitten Festival
Business Ethics: Target, the retailer that distinguished itself last year by banning Salvation Army bell-ringers, has topped itself this yuletide by selling Che Guevara CD cases for a little tyrant-chic right under your tree.
The big box retailer has jumped onto the Guevara bandwagon, selling the murderous revolutionary's image as if it had just turned its stores into Marxist rally stalls.
What next? Hitler backpacks? Pol Pot cookware? Pinochet pantyhose? Target gives this monster a pass, while using common sense on almost everything else it sells.
We can only guess it's because Alberto Korda took one glamorous snapshot of Guevara in 1960 that has delighted leftists and blown around at global anti-American rallies ever since, something Target might do well to consider. ...
All this reflects an indifference to history. For some real market research, Target ought to go to Miami ... for the 20% of Cubans who fled for their lives from Guevara's communist Cuba.
For them, Guevara was no hip revolutionary with a free spirit wearing earbuds, as the Target CD case shows. He was a psychopath with a central role in Cuba's 1961 mass executions in the "year of the wall." Guevara signed at least 600 death warrants and executed children against firing squad walls; he was responsible for at least 2,000 deaths.
After that, the Argentine-born communist organized Cuba's gulag. His violence was so over the top it scared even Castro, who eventually sent him away to fight mercenary wars ...
Guevara also left a lot to be desired on a personal level, never paying bills, living in houses he confiscated and wearing Gatsby suits and smoking from a cigarette holder as Cubans starved.
Target would be well-advised to yank the Guevara trash from its shelves, melt it down and purchase their buyer some history lessons.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Well said.
Does anyone else appreciate the irony of a big-box capitalist retailer making bucks hawking the icon of the archetypal Marxist revolutionary? I foresee a chain of Che Boutiques, catering to the idle rich -- think Paris Hilton -- in such locales as Rodeo Drive, Singer Island, Park Ave., and staffed by displaced third-world proletarians who are paid starvation wages and treated like doormats by the patrons.
I don't think Pinochet belongs in this grouping.
More here: http://www.che-mart.com/
and to Castro's, relief got him killed
Yeah, I do. The same irony that has leftist Hollywood promoting communism. I think they mean communism for the rest of us however, judging by their actions (or inaction).
A little late. The graphic lost it's zing some time ago.
For those who don't know, Che Guevara's hands were cut off after his death, so that authorities [cough ... CIA ... cough] could identify the prints.
Oh boy, this needs to be mailed to every Cuban we freepers know, as well as to every Cuban exile group.
I won't be shopping at Target.
no Che at Wal-Mart
:-)
Communist Chic
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist
Boston Globe
2006.April.30
IN JANUARY 2005, Britain's Prince Harry attended a birthday party dressed as a Nazi. When the London Sun published a picture of the prince in his German desert uniform and swastika armband, it triggered widespread outrage and disgust. In scathing editorials, Harry was condemned as an ignorant and insensitive clod; months later, he was still apologizing for his tasteless costume. ''It was a very stupid thing to do," he said in September. ''I've learnt my lesson."
For a more recent example of totalitarian fashion, consider Tim Vincent, the New York correspondent for NBC's entertainment newsmagazine, ''Access Hollywood." Twice in the last few weeks, Vincent has introduced stories about upcoming movies while sporting an open jacket over a bright red T-shirt -- on which, clearly outlined in gold, was a large red star and a hammer-and-sickle: the international emblems of totalitarian communism.
And what was the public reaction to seeing those icons of cruelty and death turned into the latest yuppie style? Was there a furor? Moral outrage? Blistering editorials?
None of the above.
Enter ''hammer and sickle" into a shopping search engine, and up pop dozens of products adorned with the Marxist brand -- T-shirts and ski caps, bracelet charms and keychains, posters of Lenin and ''Soviet Kremlin Stainless Steel Flasks."
The glamorization of communism is widespread. On West 4th Street in Manhattan, the popular KGB Bar is known for its literary readings and Soviet propaganda posters. In Los Angeles, the La La Ling boutique sells baby clothing emblazoned with the face of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro's notorious henchman. At the House of Mao, a popular eatery in Singapore, waiters in Chinese army uniforms serve Long March Chicken, and a giant picture of Mao Zedong dominates one wall.
What can explain such ''communist chic?" How can people who wouldn't dream of drinking in a pub called Gestapo cheerfully hang out at the KGB Bar? If the swastika is an undisputed symbol of unspeakable evil, can the hammer-and-sickle and other emblems of communism be anything less?
Between 1933 and 1945, Adolf Hitler's Nazis slaughtered some 21 million people, but the communist nightmare has lasted far longer and its death toll is far, far higher. Since 1917, communist regimes have sent more than 100 million victims to their graves -- and in places like North Korea, the deaths continue to this day. The historian R.J. Rummel, an expert on genocide and government mass murder, estimates that the Soviet Union alone annihilated nearly 62 million people: "Old and young, healthy and sick, men and women, even infants and the infirm, were killed in cold blood. They were not combatants in civil war or rebellions; they were not criminals. Indeed, nearly all were guilty of . . . nothing."
Yet communism rarely evokes the instinctive loathing that Nazism does. Prince Harry's swastika was way over the line, but Tim Vincent's hammer-and-sickle was kitschy and cool. Why?
Several reasons suggest themselves.
One is that in the war to defeat Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union fought with the Allies. World War II eventually gave way to the long-drawn Cold War, but America's alliance with Moscow left in many minds the belief that when it counted most, the communists were on our side.
Moreover, the Nazis didn't camouflage their hatefulness. Their rhetoric made only too clear that they loathed Jews and other ''subhumans" and believed an Aryan master race was destined to rule all others. By contrast, communist movements typically masked their ruthlessness with appealing talk of peace, equality, and an end to exploitation. Partly as a result, the myth persists to this day that communism is really a noble system that has never been properly implemented.
Third, the excesses of Joseph McCarthy hurt honest anticommunism. In the backlash to McCarthyism, many journalists and intellectuals came to dismiss any strong stand against the communists as ''Red baiting," and conscientious liberals found it increasingly difficult to take a vocal anti-Soviet stand.
But perhaps the strongest explanation is the simplest: visibility. Ever since the end of World War II, when photographers entered the death camps and recorded what they found, the world has had indelible images of the Nazi crimes. But no army ever liberated the Soviet Gulag or halted the Maoist massacres. If there are photos or films of those atrocities, few of us have ever seen them. The victims of communism have tended to be invisible -- and suffering that isn't seen is suffering most people don't think about.
"Communist chic?" The blood of 100 million victims cries out from the ground. To wear the symbols of their killers is no fashion statement, but the ultimate in bad taste.
Jeff Jacoby
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
________________
MSNBC Hardball with Chris Mathews [transcript]:
TAYLOR(spokesman for freerepublic.com): We have kids that wear Che Guevara shirts here in the United States.
MATTHEWS: Yes, but they're kind of cute at this point, aren't they? They're not about somebody out to get us now. I think there's a difference. I mean, that's kind of camp almost, isn't it?...is Che Guevara the symbol of hate in the United States anymore?
TAYLOR: Yes.
MATTHEWS: I don't think so. I mean, a lot of our kids wear them. I see kids wearing them all the time, even my kids wear them. It's like a Robert Marley T-shirt at this point.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11943459/
Sure it has. But no more than all the rest of that resurrected 60's claptrap. Besides, to a marxist, the cachet of "revolution" never goes out of style.
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Yes the irony is profound. But the obscenity of glorifying Che is more profound. everyone should do the research and learn the truth about this animal. The truth about him is easy to uncover. However, one must work to uncover it. The average American, it seems, would consider Joe McCarthy or Richard Nixon to be world class criminals and Che to be cool.
It's in Rodriguez's book, "Shadow Warrior."
I have been having trouble getting a hold of this book. It sounds like a great read.
Felix Rodriguez was also well aquainted with Barry Seal and Terry Reed; they were a very busy dudes back then.
"Che Guevara, alive as they never wanted you to be."
Welcome to Che-Lives, compañero!
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Hasta la Victoria siempre!
Saw a che book at Wal Mart, several times.
It was in Spanish, so have no idea what the slant was.
Ex-Senator Markey Dayton (D-MN) and his family own the Target stores. Their corporate philanthropy is pretty standard fuzzy PC and soft leftist causes. 'Nuff said.
That is a very interesting picture Phil! You find some unusual ones!
Pre-show fun
Sat "CHEESE" Che!
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.
Well that's it. They won't be getting one more 'red' cent from me. Stupid college kids putting the picture of Che "Political Prisoner Executioner" Guevara on T-shirts is one thing, but a corporation should know better. This was a really stupid act.
I knew Target was from the Dayton-Hudson family, and that one of them was involved in politics. It figures that it would be a leftist hypocrite: make your fortune at Wall Street's teat, then spend the rest of your life trying to kill the nurse. Kinda like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. Or George Soros.
I have that shirt. I even was wearing it once, when I came across a Che-shirt-wearing youngster. It was a fun interaction.
First you put your finger on Che, and then you tickle him. One, Two, Three, oh what fun it is to tickle a dead commie serial killer. Go Che, Go! You still have it!
?
I worked in Argentina for the past 2-years and it is unbelievable how much Che junk there is in that country.
I showed a couple of English speakers an article describing of all the murderous deeds done by their idol and they were a little embarrassed...the line was, "gee, I didn't know this about him". My Spanish was good enough that I could ridicule kids wearing Che tee-shirts and hats...it was fun.
Back in 2005 at my Festival, I was congratulated by many a Rennie for being so forward-thinking as to wear a Che t-shirt.
I took great glee in pointing out that I would never wear a skanky-chic murderer on my chest, and that their supposed icon was really Adam Ant.
(Wish I could find a picture of the shirt!)
ever watch "that 70s show"? hyde wears one of those shirts occasionally.
never understood why red didn't beat the crap outta him for it.
Is this it?
Chris Matthews son has a Che shirt, for real.
Not quite, but very close!
My shirt is yellow and Adam is black. His hair is curly and it's more a frontal-face shot than that.
He sorta does look like Che on mine, if you a) squint b) in the dark, and c) forget who's wearing him.
The same group that lionizes this monster now mocks outrage at Pinochet.
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