Edited on Fri Mar-31-06 06:43 PM by Mark E. Smith
From The BIDINOTTO BLOG 3/30
An Open Letter to Borders Books
Borders Customer Care
100 Phoenix Drive
Ann Arbor, MI 48108-2202
March 30, 2006
Dear Borders Representatives:
I have been a loyal borders customer -- now a Borders Rewards customer -- for quite a few years. i spend many hundreds of dollars annually in your store.
However, I have just learned that Borders and its affiliated Waldenbooks have banned the next issue of a publication, Free Inquiry, from your magazine shelves, because that publication is reprinting the controversial Danish cartoons of Muhammad on inside pages. The reason given by Borders is alleged fear of violence from radical Muslims, and desire to "protect" customers and employees.
Your company's craven policy of capitulation in the face of the mere hypothetical threat of terrorism is absolutely appalling -- a complete moral abdication that only encourages those threatening our rights and liberties.
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 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?
More ...
http://bidinotto.journalspace.com/?entryid=366Free Inquiry:
http://www.secularhumanism.org/fi/