Along with many others, I complained a couple of days ago that Mercedes-Benz was morally bankrupt for using the image of a notorious racist, communist, and murderer as part of a marketing gimmick.
Well, the company has backed down. We won. It’s only symbolic, but let’s enjoy a small victory.
Here are some excerpts from a Foxnews.com story.
Daimler AG, the German company that manufactures Mercedes-Benz luxury cars, called its promotional use of an image of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara a “thoughtless” and “stupid” decision that was not intended to offend people. …In a statement sent to FoxNews.com, Daimler said it “was not condoning the life or actions of this historical figure or the political philosophy he espoused.”
That’s probably not the most heartfelt and sincere apology ever issued, but it will have a positive impact. Somewhere at Daimler AG, there’s a marketing executive that is going to lose a bonus (and maybe even a job). Other people in the fields of advertising and public relations will have seen the backlash and be much less likely to make similar mistakes.
And perhaps a few people who were ignorant will actually learn a bit about history and begin to understand the evil nature of communism.
I doubt this will have any impact on the empty-headed kids who wear Che t-shirts, but you can’t have everything.
From a personal perspective, the best thing about this episode is that I’ve been attacked by a water-carrying apologist for totalitarianism.
In my line of work, one way to measure whether you’re doing a good job is the degree to which you get criticized by bad people.
Being called a “dickhead” by this tool may be even better than the time a left-wing British columnist called me a “high priest of light tax, small state libertarianism.”
