Via "Issac Schrodinger," I'm pointed at this letter to Borders from Bidinotto Blog's author, in the wake of its decision to pull Free Inquiry magazine off the shelves because it published the Mohammed cartoons. You'd think that simple description says it all, but there's more to say here and it's said very well:
"By its public declaration of pre-emptive surrender, Borders has given the bullies of our age a clear message: Your intimidation works. Your bullying works. Your coercion works. Your terrorist threats work.
Borders has set a morally irresponsible and frighteningly dangerous precedent. It has told fanatics everywhere that all they need to do in order to obliterate First Amendment rights is to growl menacingly -- at which point a leading bookstore chain in America will clear its shelves of anything that could possibly offend the thug of the moment.
Having now encouraged the use of violence and intimidation, which magazine or book are you next prepared to expunge from your stores? Will you remove books about abortion, for fear of provoking some "right to life" fanatic? Will you eliminate Jewish magazines or black publications, for fear of upsetting neo-Nazis and skinheads? Scientology has been known to intimidate critics; are you about to bow to their demands for "proper" treatment in magazines and books, by eliminating all critical material? Or if some investigative journalist probes organized crime, will you hide his work in the back room, for fear of retaliation from the Mob?
You have given a sorry example of where such capitulation begins. But where does it end?"
Where, indeed. Robert has a ton of updates below, and a second article with the form letter response from Borders. Samizdata, meanwhile, notes that customer action may have a lot more leverage than usual given Borders' financial state. Readers are urged to send their own letters to ccare at bordersstores.com. As for myself, I can't see myself shopping there and hopefully neither can you.
Now PETA terrorists will threaten butchers.
Anti-abortion nuts will threaten pharmacists over RU-486.
Etc.
to Tom....
Ummmm.... these people already do that.
And everyone will threatend the Wherehouse over the Pina Colada song.
"And everyone will threatend the Wherehouse over the Pina Colada song."
Lets not mix apples and oranges, some threats are justified.
I have no problem with what Borders is doing, nor am I surprised. They are a big corporate entity and by nature seek the lowest common denominator and least contraversy (obviously they didnt see this backlash coming). The fact that it is a book store raises the dander, but realistically they arent the mom and pop store famous of championing freedom of speech. I dont know that they claim to be that either.
Universities are another matter entirely. Those guys have no excuse. Schools regularly court contraversy and are supposed to thrive on intellectual head-butting. There is no legitimate public safety threat in this country (certianly no more than contraversial Civil Rights figures would bring). The sudden concern can only be viewed in the prism of political correctness. Its darn close to de facto admitting they think the extremists are justified.
It's past absurd to announce that you're removing material from your store for security reasons, attracting attention to yourself. Is Borders so Islamophobic that they think Muslims are going to blow up one of their stores because it carried one issue of Free Inquiry? If so, they've just given away their position to the enemy and increased the chances of a violent attack a hundredfold. Unless thwey intend to take every Jewish author off their shelves, too, and even that wouldn't be good enough.
But of course they're not afraid of any such thing, and comparisons to threats from neo-Nazi groups will make no impact on them. They're not interested in petting neo-Nazis - at least, not yet.
This isn't about security, this is about "sensitivity"; this is about lefter-than-thou preening and strutting. Abasing yourself to violent Islam is the new Radical Chic. It's the unique progressive homage to their new favorite "victims": an equal dose of deference and condescension.
It probably doesn't reflect the company as a whole, so much as some mid-to-high layer of "diversity" experts who get paid God-knows-how-many-millions-of-dollars every year by corporate America to do nothing but posture like sociology sophomores.
" (obviously they didnt see this backlash coming)"
Backlash? I can see where they'd miss it.
Where is all the WOC uproar about the major networks refusing to air commercials from the United Church of Christ?
Mark (#4) - An interesting response, one that doesn't deny the scenarios sketched but sees them as inevitable results of corporate mega-chains:
Which essentially says that this is what one can expect long-term:
All pre-emptively, too, before a threat is even uttered. I'm deeply unenamored of that kind of future, and see two useful approaches:
If that fails, there's....
Davebo - The who?
Though the tack of immediate evasion of the issue and moral equivalence deserves note here. One wonders why Davebo couldn't sdimply address the issue directly... but one doesn't wonder for long.
So, we know Border's and Waldenbooks are not carrying this issue of Free Inquiry. Are any of the major chains carrying it? Last I heard Barnes and Nobel hadn't decided yet, anyone know which side they came down on?
I'd like to buy a copy of the magazine, preferably from one of Border's competitors in my local area.
Personally i am entirely in favor of a market based solution. If Borders doesnt want to carry this (or Playboy, or Mien Kampf, or the Bible for that matter) so be it, they are free to run their stores as they wish. There is enough competition in the field to make them pay for it if the market rejects their policy. Vote with your dollars.
The lousy thing about corporations is that they tend to take the cowardly way out, but the good thing about corporations is that consumers define what the path of least resistance is. If this becomes a public relations debacle, Borders will change their policy. There is limited idealogy involved and it will always be trumped by profit (eventually, it sometimes takes a change of command). At the end of the day Borders may well end up with a policy of championing free speech that wasnt there to begin with, if that is what consumers demand of them.
You can buy a subscription to the magazine on Amazon.
It's hard to blow up pixels.
I have stopped buying at Borders and sent them my polite but heartfelt email saying why.
This will save me hundreds of dollars a year - and the price on a nice book on Art Deco that I had my eye on (it was on special) for a start. And the price of the DVD of The Island (2005), though I'll just get that somewhere else. And time I spent browsing there, that I won't spend any more.
I'll miss Borders. There's no other convenient book-store nearly as good.
But, darn it, you just can't do that.
Borders has always tried to be special, with the author presentations, Les Murray (Australia's greatest poet) reading from his latest book at my local store, the banned book event and so on. I've accepted the store on the terms it wanted to be accepted, as special and deserving of my loyalty.
Agreeing that behind the scenes, intimidating thugs will decide what magazines Borders may sell, where the Koran will be shelved (top shelf, the Koran must always be on top!), and who knows what else, is inconsistent with the image of itself that Borders cultivated and that I used to accept.
The one thing that Borders did do right in this is to say honestly why they did it: out of fear. I respect that, as opposed to the hypocrisy of those who say that this is about "sensitivity" when they are showing obvious cowardice, and the even worse hypocrisy of those who damned inoffensive cartoons they wouldn't show as offensive and bigoted, to take pressure off themselves by putting it on the unjustly accused cartoonists.
But, the story was: this should be done for the safety of staff and customers. That won't do. I'm a customer, or I was, and I don't want the supposed "security" that comes from giving in to thugs.
It sure is an eye opener to read a site infested by conservatives with eager hard ons; eager to bring the front lines of their battle right into my neighborhood Borders Bookstore.
I take my family to Borders almost every weekend. The last thing I want is for you right wing wacko nut cases to make it a place of danger for my kids over some stupid cartoon.
Make sure to put your wife and any daughters in burkas just to be safe.
Ken -- you give up your rights to read a magazine with a cartoon Muslims hate, next thing you know Muslims will FORCE your wife and daughters into Burkas.
#13 from ken: "I take my family to Borders almost every weekend. The last thing I want is for you right wing wacko nut cases to make it a place of danger for my kids over some stupid cartoon."
I'm not "making" Borders anything. Thugs intimidating Borders changed things. I just wanted Borders to go on living up to its professed values.
Your anger should be directed not against those who want book-stores to continue to represent freedom but against Islam and its pressure to abridge or vitiate freedom.
I'm not the one who would blow up a book-store, so the anger at "you right wing wacko nut cases" is misdirected.
The cartoonists aren't the ones who were willingly manipulated into actions such as burning embassies and killing two priests, so the "stupid" is also misdirected.
The sight of yet another left-liberal like ken acting as a willing auxilliary for the world's jihadists long ago ceased to be remarkable, or unusual.
The spiritual poverty of this viewpoint, the importance of hate to its sustainment, and its basic and intrinsic hostility to the most elementary ideals of freedom, nonetheless remains noteworthy.
It sure is an eye opener to read a site infested by conservatives with eager hard ons; eager to bring the front lines of their battle right into my neighborhood Borders Bookstore.
I take my family to Borders almost every weekend. The last thing I want is for you right wing wacko nut cases to make it a place of danger for my kids over some stupid cartoon.
*************************************************
There's the fortitude that brought Freedom and Liberty to a New Land NOT
But then they had folks like that back then too,
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude
greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us
in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down
and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon
you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
—Samuel Adams
I did write Borders, the responce should surprise no one.
I believe I ended my letter with these words
All that is necessary for Evil to Triumph is that Good Men remain silent
"Dear Daniel:
Thank you for your expression of concern about our decision not to carry the
issue of Free Inquiry magazine featuring cartoons depicting Muhammad.
Borders is committed to our customers' right to choose what to read and what to
buy and to the First Amendment right of Free Inquiry to publish the cartoons. In
this particular case, we decided not to stock this issue in our stores because
we place a priority on the safety and security of our customers and our
employees. We believe that carrying this issue presented a challenge to that
priority.
We value your thoughts and sincerely appreciate that you invested your time to
tell us how you feel about the issue. I can assure you that our management team
gave careful deliberation to this decision and considered all sides of the issue
before reaching this conclusion. As always, we are interested in customer
feedback about our choices and while we know you do not agree with our position,
we hope you can understand the challenge of balancing the needs of our customers, employees and our communities.
Your comments will be duly noted in our customer service records for corporate
executive review. Feel free to let us know if you have any other questions or
comments.
Sincerely,
Dan
Customer Resolution Specialist
www.BordersStores.com
Which is, one should note, the exact same form letter linked above on Robert's site. He had some good thoughts about it.
And of course, every one of the things said in Robert's quoted excerpt above was completely borne out in the form letter.
Yet it is not the form letter that matters. Ultimately, what matters is that Borders continues to receive negative letters and then sees consequences therefrom.
I must say that if those consequences include the ruin of the company, which appears to rest on thin margins, I should not be at all sorry.
Ken -
This is my last attempt to save you, ever, and I'm only doing it for the sake of your children.
Free Inquiry, the dangerous object in question, is a magazine published by the Council for Secular Humanism. They will not take kindly to being characterized as a tool of "right wing wacko nut cases". They have a somewhat exalted opinion of themselves (as you can tell by their immodest title) and may become dangerously unbalanced if you provoke them. And they have no sense of humor at all.
We know that you're not part of a conspiracy, Ken. But they just won't understand that.
Conservatives are apparently just to immature to understand that a cartoon is not something to endanger someones families over.
Thank God Borders undertands what is important and what is not.
The 'battle' you kids are fighting should be kept in the sandbox. Leave the adults out of it. When you children are done, we of course, will clean up your mess.
Ken,
Fortunately we are not so immature as to be unable to recognize that freedom of speech is worth fighting for.
That you do not value your freedoms is not going to affect the values that I put upon them. I am also immature enought to recall the words of Ben Franklin.
Ken's a troll, let him go. Nobody can be that assinine for real. Maybe he'll catch Flight 93 and realize trolling about some things isnt funny. Or maybe he'll stop flying altogether. After all some things arent worth endangering your family for.
#23 from Mark Buehner: "Ken's a troll, let him go."
I agree.
I just don't care that much. Borders made a decision, (that's still ok under patriot act, right?) and they have the right to lose business because of it. I personally beleive that it seems like a foolish decision (they might not want to sell that particular magazine in dubai, but my local Borders will probably survive just fine)
Still, I don't care enough to not shop there. It's a good place to write my dissertation.