yolland
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Didn't want to derail the Harry Potter thread even further by posting this there, but I stumbled across this while checking a reference in that thread and thought it was too good not to share. If this doesn't take the cake for overdrawn analogies, I don't know what does.
Wal-Mart To Apologize For Ad in Newspaper
By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said yesterday that it made a "terrible" mistake in approving a recent newspaper advertisement that equated a proposed Arizona zoning ordinance with Nazi book-burning.
The full-page advertisement included a 1933 photo of people throwing books on a pyre at Berlin's Opernplatz. It was run as part of a campaign against a Flagstaff ballot proposal that would restrict Wal-Mart from expanding a local store to include a grocery.
The accompanying text read "Should we let government tell us what we can read? Of course not . . . So why should we allow local government to limit where we shop?" The bottom of the advertisement announced that the ad was "Paid for by Protect Flagstaff's Future-Major Funding by Wal-Mart (Bentonville, AR)."
"It's not the imagery itself. It trivializes the Nazis and what they did. And to try to attach that imagery to a municipal election goes beyond distasteful," said Bill Straus, Arizona regional director for the Anti-Defamation League.
Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, has given about $300,000 to Protect Flagstaff's Future to help defeat Proposition 100, a local ordinance that would restrict stores of more than 75,000 square feet that devote more than 8 percent of their floor area to groceries. The proposal is one of a number around the country to regulate the size and design of big-box stores, particularly Wal-Marts.
Though the ad includes no apparent Nazi insignia or imagery, Straus said it's a well-known image among people "with any kind of knowledge of the Holocaust." Straus contacted Wal-Mart on Friday, and they told him an apology would be issued.
The group that created the advertisement said the ad was one of a series opposing Proposition 100. Other ads included a picture of a child praying and a person with duct tape over her mouth. "We wanted people to think about the freedoms we enjoy in America. The intent was wholly honorable and good," said Chuck Coughlin, president of Highground Inc., a Phoenix consulting company that created the advertisement. "We will not back away from substance of the ads . . . We will apologize for the use of imagery."
"People make mistakes. They move on," he said.
Wal-Mart To Apologize For Ad in Newspaper
By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said yesterday that it made a "terrible" mistake in approving a recent newspaper advertisement that equated a proposed Arizona zoning ordinance with Nazi book-burning.
The full-page advertisement included a 1933 photo of people throwing books on a pyre at Berlin's Opernplatz. It was run as part of a campaign against a Flagstaff ballot proposal that would restrict Wal-Mart from expanding a local store to include a grocery.
The accompanying text read "Should we let government tell us what we can read? Of course not . . . So why should we allow local government to limit where we shop?" The bottom of the advertisement announced that the ad was "Paid for by Protect Flagstaff's Future-Major Funding by Wal-Mart (Bentonville, AR)."
"It's not the imagery itself. It trivializes the Nazis and what they did. And to try to attach that imagery to a municipal election goes beyond distasteful," said Bill Straus, Arizona regional director for the Anti-Defamation League.
Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, has given about $300,000 to Protect Flagstaff's Future to help defeat Proposition 100, a local ordinance that would restrict stores of more than 75,000 square feet that devote more than 8 percent of their floor area to groceries. The proposal is one of a number around the country to regulate the size and design of big-box stores, particularly Wal-Marts.
Though the ad includes no apparent Nazi insignia or imagery, Straus said it's a well-known image among people "with any kind of knowledge of the Holocaust." Straus contacted Wal-Mart on Friday, and they told him an apology would be issued.
The group that created the advertisement said the ad was one of a series opposing Proposition 100. Other ads included a picture of a child praying and a person with duct tape over her mouth. "We wanted people to think about the freedoms we enjoy in America. The intent was wholly honorable and good," said Chuck Coughlin, president of Highground Inc., a Phoenix consulting company that created the advertisement. "We will not back away from substance of the ads . . . We will apologize for the use of imagery."
"People make mistakes. They move on," he said.
wal mart
