Exactly what violent reactions have there been in developed countries due to the anti-Muhammad cartoons? To what extent is it actually realistic for US bookstore chains to fear violence against their employees or customers?
Well, the threat isn’t one I’d clasify as high risk… but neither is it nonexistent.
I think it should all be removed.
Wow. Sometimes the feel-good-corporate-speak just seems to mock itself.
First, “diversity” is the imperative of any business. You want as many people buying your stuff as you can get. “Diversity” is implicit for any company looking to turn a profit.
Second, your “strageic objectives” are to turn the highest profit you can. Of course these two are linked. But when you have no fucking commitment to your “Mission”, you have to fill the void with repetitive statements to give it the illusion of weighty thought.
Third, sales growth. See above. Keep stretching the karma you benevolents.
Fourth, culture. Heh. Kinda what this whole thread is about, isn’t it? Diversity of culture if fun and noble, depending on the culture. If cartoons that insult a segment of the population warrant the ban of sale of a magazine, why aren’t other magazines and newspapers banned for political cartoons about Catholics? You know you see shots taken at the Church often over the pedophile scandal. Catholics don’t en masse blow shit up over them. So they’re safe. Those can be sold. Even if it’s a cover story. (Maybe us Catholics need to start blowing shit up to gain some respect?) We won’t, but if you’re trying to avoid offending people, realize Islam isn’t the only religion out there.
Fifth, product selection. Well, you’ve taken care of that for us. You’re selecting the products that we are allowed to select. I don’t think any more comment on this one is needed. Though i’m sure someone will defend it.
Sixth, employee population. Yes, you have the position to populate your little world with the citizens you choose. You control whom works for you and you can easily keep out the “undesireables”. And if any of the populous gets out of line and acts in a way you see unfit, they’re fired. So long as they don’t deny the purchase of any materials you sell that spell out how to enter the US illegally, everything should be fine.
Seventh, vendor community. Community. I’m so fucking sick of this catchphrase. The word has become so bastardized that any group of millions is somehow a “community”. A community is a small, localized area where a majority of residents share common beleifs, social status, economic status, etc. For example, the “environmental community”. You’re talking about millions of people from hundreds of countries that have hundreds of different agendas. They aren’t a fucking community. I like that I know most of the people in my neighborhood. Are people like me the “Community” community? The “Neighborhood” community? Damnit, I want to be in the community! The vendors? They’re people trying to make a living. Which vendor that handles this magazine’s account isn’t part of the little community?
Eighth, customer base. I can see why we’re listed last. Probably an afterthought. We sometimes want to buy stuff that may piss someone off on the other side of the world. Thanks be to Og we’re protected from ourselves. :rolleyes:
If you were the manager or owner? Not good, but you may begin to realize the danger of openly psychotic Muslims that are just itching for a reason to rampage. In the US no less, considering your concern. If you’re talking about outside the US, you know they’ll find a reason other than a mag if they have to. It will be difficult, granted, but I bet they’ll come up with some reason.
There were many protests over The DaVinci Code. A shitload of protest over The Last Temptation of Christ. Remember the news stories over that little flick? How many deaths resulted? How many Mosques and Temples were burned?
You can apologize and make excuses all you want. At some point you need to look at the source of the problem. Running from it and caving into the hypothetical potential of violence that is already being plotted and carried out isn’t a reason to withhold information from people by a company that touts it’s mission as providing information and publications of diverse sources to a diverse consumer base delivered by a diverse community of vendors.
Unless you want to only allow publications that mock and insult those you mock and insult. That’s waht it sounds like. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Without knowing more about the owners of the corps, I’d be wary of assigning such motivations to them. My personal guess is that it has much more to do with PC-on-a-rampage than them liking to insult people…
If Catholic lunatics started murdering people when they were portrayed in a negative light, I’d wager that there’d be a national outcry. As there should be. But with Muslim fanatics we bend over backwards and give in to their demands.
Meshugenah.
That’s what I was trying to imply. Being implicit apparently isn’t my (insert appropriate accentuation marks) forte.
(The following isn’t directly to FinnAgain)
I find it almost amusing (aside from all the corpses) that Muslims seem to be the only ones today that tout the peacefulness of their religion, then rampage and kill at the slightest, well, slight of the religion.
I know Catholics aren’t entirely innocent of ire, and there were a few issues a few centuries back that left a black mark on the record. But I wasn’t there to do anything about it. I’m here now. And I see almost daily shots taken at us. It can upset me, but I’m not taking to the streets and killing (or even attempting to hurt) any one over it. I let it go knowing my faith is my own and that I won’t be asked by the Pope to kill anyone in the name of Jesus. That’s good enough for me and my faith in God. I don’t expect anyone to come to the defense of my feelings. I deal with it and get on with life.
The fact that major bookstore chains are censoring (yes, Excalibre, it’s censoring) information that breaks no law based on caving to fear tells me how committed they are to providing ideas that are “progressive” and “diverse”. As I said in my previous post, the “feel-good mission statement” is bullshit since they seem to know best what is worthy of any of us having access to.
Diversity and progressive ideas are what helps civilization move forward. I think the Bible is a wonderful book, but I don’t force it on anyone. I don’t think LeVey’s Satanic Bible is anything worthy of writing home about, but I’m not going to insult the readers. (Heh, I’m more accepting and open-minded than many of the Dopers. Chew on that!)
What is the common denominator here? Pissed off Muslims looking for reasons to attack Westerners. When were the cartoons first published? When did the riots start?
Let me ask again, because nobody seems to understand this.
When were the cartoons published?
When did the cartoon riots start?
The Muslims weren’t rioting over the cartoons. They were looking for the newest reason to riot and kill. They will always find a reason. Border’s/Waldenbook’s choice to pull a magazine that shows, buried deep, 4 cartoons isn’t going to change the chance of violence.
I’ll go out on a limb and wager that within 6 months…well let’s make it fair, 6 weeks. Ah fuck it. I’m not a bookie, I won’t lose a sure bet payout. Within 6 days there’s going to be a riot and killing by Muslims over something the West does.
If you remember, when the cartoons were circulated in the Moslem countries, some were added that were really offensive. Would there be rioting over the real cartoons, or was it over the fake cartoons passed off as real?
Okay - bookstore owner chiming in here.
First of all, just to set the background, I carry whatever I please in my store. Most of it is stuff I like. Being a sensible capitalist, if a large number of my customers request, say, astrology books, I’ll go ahead and stock them, even though I think the books are thinly-veiled scams. I carry things that are unpopular in my community. I put Michael Moore and Ann Coulter on the same shelf. I stock Christian and Wiccan books in the same section.
I don’t sell magazines, and I don’t believe that there would be a credible danger of deadly violence in my store if I sold this particular magazine. Let’s assume for a moment, though, that I did sell magazines and there was a large, vocal, violent Muslim population here.
If I was the only employee in my store, then my decision to carry the magazine would be a direct reflection of my courage and a test of my strength of feelings on free speech.
With other people working in the store, it’s different. Do I have the right to endanger my employee’s lives because I believe in free speech? I don’t think I do. Working in a bookstore shouldn’t put your life in danger. Unless all of my employees told me they supported the decision, I would most likely pull that magazine.
The question is how real and palpable the threat of violence felt to the management of Borders. If they honestly fear for the lives of their employees, then they did the appropriate and responsible thing. If not (and I doubt their professed fear is any more than an excuse), then I’ll agree with everyone in the thread that says they’re cowards without the guts to stand up for free speech.
I see, that does smack a bit of cowardice.
I think the vast majority of Christians are not offended by “The Da Vinci Code”. Only a few nutty groups of Christians that don’t understand the concept of fiction found it offensive.
I said countless others, not simply others. None of those things you mentioned rise to the degree of offense, or the number of people offended by these cartoons.
Why in the world would you think that I support the use of violence?
I see. Level of offense seems to be dependent on ones point of view…and I would certainly disagree that a few cartoons are more offensive than most of the things I listed…from the point of view of those offended by such things. This leads me to think you, perhaps, playing some kind of numbers game. So, what is your formula for the number of folk who must be offended before things are pulled off the shelves? Obviously there are less Jews than Muslims so your point is probably a good one (i.e. Mein Kamph vs some frigging cartoons…yeah, I certainly see the relative importance there). Obviously there is some threshold you use to determine this…would you be willing to share it?
Or is it (again) the violence aspect. Since no one is rioting over the Hitler piece of garbage or over the other things I listed (you realize that my list wasn’t in any way exhaustive, right?), perhaps THATS your criteria over who is more deeply offended…and when self censorship is in order?
-XT
All of which confirms that craven appeasement merely creates worse problems down the road.
Precisely. Someone who resorts to terrorism has forfeited the privilege of being treated as if he had a legitimate grievance (whether or not he ever did).
Puh-leeze. I defy you to find an issue of Free Inquiry that isn’t offensive to followers of some religion or other.
The issue here is either 1)bowing to mob intimidation or 2)expressing a racist opinion that them mooslims just aren’t civilized and can’t control themselves like us normal folks can.
If the precedent is set that threats of violence are an effective means of curtailing the distribution of offensive publications, I see no reason why it won’t spread. Every religion with a large following has a few batshit-crazy members.
I’m certain you don’t support violence. My point was that Borders is enabling and encouraging violence by their cowardly act. The world is full of far more offensive things than these silly cartoons. But we tolerate them because we believe in free speech. What Borders is doing is saying "if something bothers you, threaten us (Have their been any threats to Borders over this mag?) and we’ll pull it.
Let’s say someone makes a movie called Buddha: What a Jerk!. Let’s say a bunch of Buddhists peacefuly, if angrily, protest this movie. And let’s say there’s a meeting at Borders and one of the executives says “Look, this is a really stupid movie. It’s just this guy standing in front of a wall ranting about Buddha. It’s full of profanity, lies, and historical mistakes. Let’s not give it shelf space. We’ve got lots of other things to sell.” This is something I would support. Borders is under no obligation to sell anything.
But when Borders pulls a single issue of a magazine they’ve already committed to sell, and does so because of the vaguest threat of violence, that sends a message of hope to the violent everywhere. It’s not about the specific cartoons anymore. The cartoons are pretty friggin’ lame, IMO. But lame or not, Borders should publish the mag–of which the cartoons are just a small part–to stand up for free speech. Our support of free speech is just empty rhetoric if we abandon it at the least sign of trouble.
Good thing this thread is not yet 6 months old.
Posting here because either Borders found courage or my comment of smelling a rat was valid:
Harper’s Magazine published all the Danish cartoons (except the fake more offensive ones added by the Danish Mulas)
http://www.harpers.org/MostRecentCover.html
I did go to the local Borders to check, Harpers was there.
I never got a reply from Borders for my complain, I broke my boycott against Borders by purchasing Harper’s (a vote to show support to Harper’s and that even Borders would notice).
My next note to Borders will be to congratulate them for not banning Harper’s, but seeing that there was not even a beep from the bookstores regarding Harpers “endangering their stores” I still demand an explanation for what they did to Free Inquiry.
heck, you should file a lawsuit (I’m serious). In the book 50 Ways to Fight Censorship it states quite clearly that the CEO of Waldenbooks signed a contract that the company would never support censorship in any form. Borders and Waldenbooks were merged by K-Mart about a decade ago, so they’re the same company, and I think that they both would be bound by that contact (the then CEO of Borders may have signed it as well, I don’t know, the only reason I remember that about Wallyworld is I read the book when I worked for them, and had to point that out to them when I tried to order a copy of The Anarchist’s Cookbook through work and they told me they couldn’t get a copy, which I knew to be bullshit.)
Hang on… you tried to order a copy of the Anarchist’s Cookbook through work?
Do you do part-time work for a crime syndicate, or are you in the IRS?
However, Harper’s was pulled from a book chain… in Canada. 
I worked at Waldenbooks and wanted my employee discount.