Here’s a letter I plan to put in the mail tomorrow:

Robert J. Ulrich
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Target Corporation

Dear Mr. Ulrich,

First, let me offer my congratulations on your product. I probably shop at the Target megastore on Lee Highway in Alexandria, Virginia twice a month. It has an enormous selection of low-cost, high-quality, stylish merchandise. I particularly enjoy the convenience of being able to get such a diverse array of goods at a single store. It saves me lots of time, energy, and — important if you’ve been to the pump lately — gas. The typical contents of my Target cart might include an item of clothing, dog food, toiletries, some groceries, a picture frame or two, a CD, something for my car, and/or a kitchen appliance. I’ve bought electronics, eggs, seeds, hardware, linens, a cup off coffee, and a great blanket at your store, too. I gave two Target gift cards as Christmas presents last year. Target succeeds in being hip, cost-effective, and practical, all at the same time. The niche you’ve found and occupy so successfully is a fine tribute to the beauty of the free market.

Which brings me to the reason I write this letter. This past weekend, I was at your store to pick up a few household items. As I was passing by the men’s section, I was alarmed to see a prominent display of clothing emblazoned with former Soviet Union imagery. I couldn’t help but note the irony: There, amid the wonderfully functioning example of capitalism that is your store, were kitschy, trendy (I guess), and ultimately offensive items celebrating the brutal, oppressive, and murderous regime that was Soviet communism — an ideology that had no room for the peaceful commerce and voluntary transactions that happen hundreds of times per day in that store.

In particular, I’m referring to the “Men’s Roma Atletica Black CCCP Crew Tee” and the “Men’s Roma Atletica Hot Red Mockba Crew Tee,” which features the Soviet hammer and sickle. Both are available on your website as well. There may be other items. These are merely the two I noticed.

I don’t mean to condescend, but I believe the person who does the ordering for your menswear department needs a lesson in world history. I’m sure neither Target nor any other major retailer would ever consider setting aside retail space for t-shirts advertising the Nazi insignia, even if done in a “retro” or kitschy fashion. And rightly so. The swastika has come to symbolize the six million Jews murdered by Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party last century (Hitler is ultimately responsible for more than twenty million deaths).

Let’s hope we never see the day when “Nazi chic” comes into vogue.

But did you know that Joseph Stalin was responsible for twice as many dead as Hitler? In fact, if we’re ranking 20th-century totalitarian brutality, Hitler doesn’t even come in second. Another communist, Mao-Tse Tung, killed an estimated thirty-eight million. All told, communist regimes last century killed more than 100 million people. Communism isn’t and never has been a “good idea in theory” that “went bad,” as it is sometimes described. It’s an anti-individual, anti-freedom philosophy that is immoral on its face.

For reasons that escape me, we still rightly deplore Nazism, yet last century’s most lethal dictator and its most dangerous ideology not only get a pass, they’re sometimes considered downright fashionable.

Please understand that I’m not asking for censorship. I’m not even asking that you, chief officer of a private corporation, inhibit the flow of ideas in your stores. I’d have no problem with Target (or, more likely, a store like Barns & Noble) stocking a biography of Stalin or Lenin in its book section, or even with stocking political tracts by either of them, or any works by Karl Marx. It’s the celebration of communism that I find distasteful. Or, to be more precise, the diminution and glossing-over of its history.

As I write you, the current U.S. president is in Moscow, celebrating the end of World War II. The great news from the last century was capitalism and freedom’s triumph over totalitarianism — Nazism and communism. Unfortunately, we have already forgotten just how great a threat the latter posed to our way of life. There’s some evidence that that threat may even be reemerging.

There’s been some consternation of late that Russian President Vladimir Putin sees this week’s celebration not as the defeat of Nazism, but as the triumph of communism. Indeed, several news outlets have reported a resurgence of Soviet pride and nostalgia for Stalin in Russia over the last several years. All of this as President Putin — a former KGB agent — has become troublingly comfortable with Soviet-style authoritarianism. He has nationalized entire industries, censored and intimidated the free press, and oppressed and threatened his political opponents.

It’s important that we remember the ruthlessness, brutality, and threat to our own liberty wrought by Soviet-style communism. It’s difficult to find anything trendy or fashionable about state-enforced famine, gulags, or the suppression of human potential forced upon billions of people for nearly a century. There would have been no place for Target in the old Soviet Union. I hope you’ll find no room for celebrating or whitewashing the evil of the Soviet Union in any of your Target stores.

Sincerely,

Radley Balko

Feel free to write and send your own.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 9th, 2005 at 11:22 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.