Boycott Amazon

Hi Everyone,

I would like to bring to everyone's attention that Amazon is currently selling a book that teaches parents how to abuse their children. They are written by Michael Pearl and include the book To Train Up a Child. The advice in this book has recently led to the death of a child. You can read about it here. There is also an excellent post by a blogger here which delves into the matter further.

I am no fan of censorship, but I do believe that companies have the right to refuse to sell merchandise based on their values. I would hope that Amazon has the value to not condone child abuse.

Please sign a petition asking Amazon to remove the book from its site

Also, please consider boycotting Amazon yourself until they do.

Ridiculous. You're going to hold a bookseller responsible for the misuse of information by a consumer? And why just Amazon? Do you work for Barnes & Noble? Why not boycott LT, since it links to booksellers that sell the book?

This is such a terrible thing. Thanks for starting this thread!

The information was not misused. It was used as directed. The book advocates using willow switches on babies of three months of age, and using plumbing supply lines on older children.

Barnes and Noble, as far as I know, also carries the books. The only bookseller I know for sure that does NOT carry the book is Powells.com. They stopped due to customer request. Which is what Amazon should also do, considering the size of the petition.

LT does not stock the book. Nor do I think LT could block links that users wanted to post.

OK, somehow this came up blank the first time I tried to post it, so I'll try to be succinct without using an HTML link.

The long and short of it was, I know nothing about this book, so I'll keep my trap shut about its contents. But e-petitions aren't effective -- in fact, they're all but ignored. Snopes.com explains why internet petitions get palmed off so easily, compared to, say, their pen-and-ink cousins. The link is:

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/internet.asp

> 4

Barnes and Noble, as far as I know, also carries the books

Then why aren't you proposing a boycott of B&N? Or any other bookseller that sells it?

LT does not stock the book. Nor do I think LT could block links that users wanted to post.

You misunderstand. If you go to the book info or social info page for this book, you will find a link, placed there by LT, to Amazon (among other booksellers) that will take you to the page on that site so that you can buy the book. (It may, in fact, be the case that LT gets a tiny percentage of sales made via these link-throughs.)

If you are going to be credible and consistent, you should be urging a boycott of B&N, LT and anyone else making money off the sale of this book.

Amazon sells and even promotes (while suppressing counter opinions) lots of downright evil books. Just today I was browsing their white supremacist selections. I try not to buy from Amazon, but I admit I often do for the sake of convenience. You are not asking for a law against Amazon, just for people to exercise their moral conscience and free market rights, good for you. I have seen boycott threats work with Amazon--just this year thousands (15,000?) signatures were collected by the anti-Israel/jihadist/white supremacist/"progressive" supporters of Jimmy Carter's error-ridden and hateful book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid telling them they'd stop doing business with Amazon if they didn't change the Spotlight or provide an alternative view on the product page--lo and behold, not only did they provide an alternative view, it was an exclusive interview with Carter himself.

You're venturing into dangerous territory because, when you think about it, theres no way to draw the line when it comes to censoring.

Have you heard of the book The Secret? It's currently a bestseller. One of the books proponents was on Larry King (I think), where a question was asked that caused quite a ruckus. The guest said the book teaches that everything that happens to you happens because you attracted it to yourself. The host asked if a little girl that had recently been killed had brought that on herself. The proponent said that yes, she had.

Should this book be yanked from every store on the merit that it justifies criminal behavior? After all, people could justify going out and murdering children because a book said the kid really wanted it.

I haven't read the book you mentioned, but if it's true, I think it's sick. But keep in mind that if someone abuses their child, it's because they have issues, not because of what a book told them to do. A sane, caring parent wouldn't hurt their child, even if a book told them to.

Where do you draw the line?

Uh, am I completely off in thinking that it's the *author of the book* that should be petitioned and not every single bookseller on earth?

In refference to the Secret, it also claims to be a secret revealed only recently after being hidden for a thousand years or more. Its not. Even a cursory look through the New-Age, self help, or Eastern reliigon sections will reveal dozens of books about the same thing.

#5 - that's interesting. The UK government recently opened an online petition function, to ease the access for residents to the Prime Minister's dept. It was swamped with petitions as is currently running at several hundred a month. There are official reponses to the issues posed.

It's not censorship for a customer to ask a bookseller to stop selling a book, or to threaten to boycott a bookseller if they don't. It's only censorship when the government does it.

I read the Snope article. It doesn't say online petitions never have an effect, just that there are lots of reasons why they might not, and that there are more effective ways of making your opinions known, such as sending a snail-mail letter in your own words.

Personally, I'd rather Amazon didn't pay any attention to people asking them to remove books from sale. Because if they did, it wouldn't just be the books I dislike that would be targeted.

#12
"Because if they did, it wouldn't just be the books I dislike that would be targeted."

exactly, exactly,exactly!!!!!!!!

#13 My thoughts exactly, too.

If you think this book teaches inappropriate and dangerous behavior for disciplining children then advise people of that fact and ask them not to use the book. I raised children and you don't beat them. That is common sense. I have no intention of boycotting Amazon, it is not their job to police the contents of every book they sell for how a purchaser use them. That type of reasoning ignores the principle of individual responsibility.

Lilithcat: I don't use B&N. I don't think I've ever even gone into a B&N, since they aren't in my area, and I've never gone to their website.

In my blog, I said I would stop using Amazon, because I used them heavily (many links a day, advertising for them), and they are REFUSING customer requests. Not because they stock the book.

I asked my blog readers to consider boycotting amazon, too, because most of them are also book bloggers, and most book bloggers link frequently to Amazon. I don't even know if you can link to B&N.

As far as why Cara didn't call for a boycott in her post here, I can't answer for her.

As EncompassedRunner said, I just (in my blog post) asked people to shop with their consciences.

And please understand that this is not just "a book I don't like" but a book that KILLED A CHILD. The people who wrote it did not ask themselves what their Jesus would do, apparently, because they are choosing to continue to offer their book. Other people are calling for boycotts on sites that are supported by a magazine that prints their articles and runs their ads, etc. I don't use any of those services, so I can't say I'll stop using them, same as with B&N.

I didn't know LT would get money if someone clicked the link here and bought the book.

In my opinion, the mother killed her child, the book didn't. And if someone is brainless enough to murder their children on the advice of a book, then people need to pay attention to that person's personal problems rather than their reading material! They would probably have done so without reading it. Remember that books that are banned (books including Tom Sawyer) are always considered dangerous by those who want it banned.
It is the authors and the people who follow the book's advice that need to be petitioned and written to, not the booksellers. Once we start forcing booksellers and libraries to stop offering some books, all of them are up for grabs.

edited to add:
One more view is that we could say that just about every single major religious book (Bible, Koran, etc) has "killed people" if your definition of that is that people read it and then took it upon themselves to kill people as a result. Try boycotting booksellers that sell those! :-)

Hateful stuff - yet I doubt that the advice in the book was applied as directed. (And strictly speaking, the news story says that the child was suffocated, not beaten to death.)

A negative review of the book at Amazon might be more effective in reducing sales than the indirect pressure of a boycott.

I dislike the 'slippery slope' analogy - most slopes provide quite sufficient traction, thank you - but pressuring merchants to drop unpopular material really is a 'slippery slope' : The "spare the rod" types are quite numerous and are also relatively well organized, and it's probably not in society's long-term-interest to teach Amazon to yank stuff from distribution just because some organized opponents decide that it's "bad".

Jefferson pointed out that the answer to bad speech is more speech, not less. Swamping Amazon with negative reviews would likely be at least as successful a way to stop people from buying this.

(revisited to fix a typo)

I've got mixed feelings on this ... on the one hand, I hate it when books/movies/video games get blamed for someone's actions instead of the actual person who commits the action ... on the other hand, because it literally advises people on how to harm children in "real life," I think it should be held to some kind of higher standard ... what would people think if this was a book advising adults on how to commit sexual abuse with children?

... and regarding #17: "One more view is that we could say that just about every single major religious book (Bible, Koran, etc) has "killed people" if your definition of that is that people read it and then took it upon themselves to kill people as a result. Try boycotting booksellers that sell those! :-)"

Maybe the boycott wouldn't work, but what you outlined is certainly a reason many people have for not believing in religion.

And please understand that this is not just "a book I don't like" but a book that KILLED A CHILD.

You mean like Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman)'s Rage? King says he has voluntarily taken it out of print in the USA, but it is still available, both used and new at Amazon. And just about everywhere else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_(novel)

The novel's plot vaguely resembles actual events, to a degree that the author is no longer comfortable with the book in print for fear that it may inspire similar events, as it had already been associated with two previous high school shootings:

Michael Carneal, who shot three students on December 1, 1997 in West Paducah, Kentucky had a copy of Rage in his locker, and
Barry Loukaitis, who killed two fellow students and his algebra teacher on February 2, 1996, in Moses Lake, Washington, even quoted directly from the book ("This sure beats algebra, doesn't it?") after shooting his teacher.

Boycott Amazon if you like. Your choice. I'm not. Not that I'd buy the book that's got you upset, mind you, I just happen think you're wrong with what you're proposing.

> 16

The book didn't kill the child; a person did.

So I went over to Amazon to check out some reviews on this "author", Michael Pearl, and he is one sick puppy. Wow.

What mother would pull her infant's hair, for example, if the child bit her as it nursed from her breast? Maybe she should switch to bottle-feeding if she just can't deal with that.

My husband and I managed to raise two upstanding, outstanding children without beating them with a switch (or anything else!) even once. Imagine that!

This is a whole creepy sub-culture I would rather not know about, but I do pity the poor children.

No, not like Stephen King's Rage, or any other work of fiction that a disturbed person might imitate. This was a work of non-fiction, and the woman was following the book's direction both by wrapping her child so tightly in blankets that he suffocated, and by beating her kids with plumbing supply lines.

This book deliberately encourages parents to practice severe abuse and to keep their practices secret. The mother did kill her child. But do we want another parent doing so? Maybe this woman was desperate, not too bright, very easily influenced. But unfortunately, there are a lot of parents out there, and a whole shitload of them are members of extremist religious fringes of the type that would take a book like this seriously.

I totally respect anyone else's choice to not boycott Amazon or any other business connected with this situation. It's a personal decision.

But I'm sort of taken aback by all this boycott=censorship thinking. Boycotts are a way of demonstrating public opinion. You vote with your dollar, so to speak. No one is calling for a government ban on this book, no one is talking about having the author's website closed down, etc. That stuff is censorship.

I think that censorship is such a scary thing that maybe some of us are going overboard in fear of it. But not shopping at a place whose practices you disapprove of is a common practice, whether you're talking about books or anything else. People boycott Walmart, Blockbuster, Starbucks, all sorts of places, and I've never heard that called censorship.

Really, there are so many good points being made here. I can easily see most sides of the argument.

I have mixed feelings, too. On the one hand, I've never in my life even considered blaming a book for anything. Whoever said we have to consider individual responsibility is totally right.

But I have to consider my own individual responsibility not to advertise for a company that is ignoring consumer demands about this. You might feel you have an individual responsibility to avoid anything that involves suppressing the supply of a certain book, period. If I hadn't read all the horrifying details about this situation, read excerpts from the book itself, I might have taken the same stance.

And I have a lot of respect for anyone spending enough time thinking about this that they're commenting in the first place.

There is a vast difference between not buying the book encouraging others not to buy the book, which is a boycott and instead going after the more general sellers, which begins to get into censorship.

If you want book A to be not available at Amazon, someobdy else will want book B etc etc.

Whereas if you don't like book A then if enough people don't buy it Amazon et al will decide on their own not to stock it.

No, not like Stephen King's Rage, or any other work of fiction that a disturbed person might imitate.

Why not? If we accept the position that that books are responsible for deaths don't we have a responsibility to remove anything "harmful?"

And how do we know that the woman who did what she did is any less disturbed than the kid who pulled off the shootings? Both seem candidly disturbed to me. You think the gal who wrapped the baby in blankets had all her gears in alignment before she read this book?

This was a work of non-fiction,

So what? Are you saying it is only non-fiction that causes problems? I think I've shown that it is not.

and the woman was following the book's direction both by wrapping her child so tightly in blankets that he suffocated, and by beating her kids with plumbing supply lines.

Which I do not support, and like I said this isn't a book I'll be buying. Nor do I think anyone should be prevented from posting negative reviews or discussing what it says.

Besides, Amazon actually sells what I would consider to be far, far, worse fare, namely The Anarchist Cookbook. It is a poorly written guide to making bombs, and though apparently the "recipes" are more likely to blow up in the face of the bomb-maker than anyone else, there it is, for anyone to order. And my understanding that at least some of the recipes do work. So if Amazon takes down the book you're boycotting, will you now boycott that one? After all, it has at least the potential to do in many more people than this To Train a Child does.

I'm wondering why the petition isn't going after the Publisher? That worked very well for OJ's book if the publisher doesn't print it, it can't be sold. I agree that stopping a book seller from selling books is a line I worry about.

Making the book more difficult to find would be a better solution for Amazon. Posting bad reviews would have a much larger effect on peoples buying from there.

Whereas if you don't like book A then if enough people don't buy it Amazon et al will decide on their own not to stock it.

That's a very good point.

Posting bad reviews would have a much larger effect on peoples buying from there.

That's being done, and I encouraged people to do that in my blog post.

No, I definitely don't think the woman had all her gears in alignment. Nor do I think the couple who wrote the book have their gears in alignment. Nor did the people at her church who recommended the book to her have their gears in alignment.

But don't you think that if Amazon continues to sell this book, giving tacit support to it, that people without their gears in alignment will think, "Oh if it was so bad, it wouldn't be for sale, so it must be ok."

I know Amazon sells other horrifying books, like white supremacy stuff, bombmaking stuff, etc. It's also good just to support independent booksellers instead of a big chain.

Perhaps we should boycott Amazon until they remove all books promoting a vegan diet: http://my.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20070509/46414740_3ca6_1552620070509-18...

I know Amazon sells other horrifying books, like white supremacy stuff, bombmaking stuff, etc. It's also good just to support independent booksellers instead of a big chain.

I agree with your second sentence, but, you know, independent bookstores sell those "horrifying books" as well.

If you want to boycott Border's, Amazon, B&N, etc. in order to support independents, that's one thing. But if you want to boycott Amazon because they sell a book of which you do not approve, at least be consistent and urge a boycott of all stores that sell it.

Message 1: doublefantasy & Message 16: dew -- amazon and just about every other bookseller sell hundreds of different versions of The Holy Bible. If I did everything that The Bible demands me to, I would be on death row, many people (including children) would be dead, and many more might be institutionalized with mental illness. Are you suggesting that amazon should be boycotted for selling The Bible?

Your plea is inane, unsupportable, and unnecessary. Anyone can write and publish a book about anything. Only a criminally sick parent would follow the advice presented by the Pearls or anything like it. Moreover, many people who abuse children don't even read! Anyone predisposed to harming children doesn't need advice on how to do it.

More wars have been waged, more people killed, and more evil perpetrated in the name of religion than by any other institutional force in human history (Charles A. Kimball). Bush is a "God-fearing born-again Christian" who says God told him to invade Iraq. As a result, over 3000 American soldiers and journalists have been killed and over 10,000 inoocent Iraqis. That's murder in my book. I'm all for boycotting the government but, sadly, it wouldn't do any good.

Dew -- you said you urged people on your blog to boycott amazon because it is REFUSING customer requests. No kidding. Did it occur to you that some people may want to purchase that book from amazon because they are doing research into abusive parents or Christian child-raising techniques, or the sociology of child abuse, or any manner of related topics? How do you expect anyone to denounce this particular kind of Christian-dominated child abuse if they don't evn know about it?

And urging this kind of boycott is censorship. You are demanding that amazon stop stocking and selling this book. How is that different from a public library giving into demands that certain books not be available to the public for borrowing? Most LT members would never tolerate this kind of behavior. If you don't like this particular book, or any other for that matter, simply don't read it.

reading_fox (#11) - do you have a link for that? I live in the States and wouldn't know where to look.

I'm completely against censorship, but certainly in favor of encouraging people not to buy this book.

#4 - The idea that someone would hit a 3 month old at all, whether it be with a willow switch or anything else, is unbelievable to me. I remember when my daughter was 3 months old and can't imagine how anyone could think any good could come of it.

My daughter is 3 (years) now & is generally well-behaved despite never having been spanked, water-boarded, or put in stress positions.

#10...

I know, it's just positive thinking techniques wrapped in a hype burrito. But, these days, all you need to do is call something a secret or code or some such and it reaches critical mass quickly.

#30 If amazon or anyone else sold Bush, I'd have 13,000 more reasons to boycott them. As it is, I don't watch pro-Bush news like Fox. Probably you don't either.

Also #30 As far as what you said about research purposes, I am not asking to keep this book unavailable. Again, I am only choosing not to buy from or advertise for a company that supplies it and has ignored consumer demand. If I wanted to research something like that, I'd look for it at a library, so as to avoid putting money into the pockets of people who support it.

#29 Again, I already don't use those other book suppliers.

#34
But you aren't "only choosing not to buy from or advertise for a company that supplies it..." You are going on a public list and asking people to all stop buying it, to boycott the entire store for selling it and to sign a petition against that store. That is a bit more than choosing not to buy from or advertise for a company! I think that is what most people are objecting to.

Also, I couldn't condemn a book I hadn't personally read, and to read it I would have to buy it, and thus give the author money and, as I live in Germay, I would have to buy it *on Amazon*, which kind of defeats your purpose, eh? :-) A young adult book was just banned in a high school (info on Neil Gaiman's blog). The whole school board voted to pass the movement to remove the book, and only two, yes, two of them had actually read it (kind of like the patriot act :-) ). Just the angry mother and the librarian, who defended it, had even looked at it! How can I be upset by this, but then take action against this book you are against just because you tell us its bad?

#35 Actually, no, I didn't go onto a public list and ask anyone to do anything. That was doublefantasy. She linked to my blog, yes, and I have no problem with that, but I did not choose to post my bloglink on this site. I chose to participate in this discussion, but I haven't at any point asked all of you to do anything.

I agree that you shouldn't take action unless you've read the book, or excerpts from the book, which are being posted all over the internet lately.

I can see the fine line between not advertising Amazon any more and explaining why in my blog and actively asking my blog readers to stop using Amazon, too. Maybe that was wrong of me. If someone read my reasons and chose to stop using Amazon, that's great. I didn't need to actively ask them to do so.

Its always amased me how willing some people seem to be to beat their kids. Honestly, how could a loving individual see beating a kid to be ok, period, not even to a dangerous extent. Corporal punishment is not only unchristian, but unhumane. The kid doesn't learn anything, he just becomes so scared of his parents that he doesn't break the rules, and infact, can become extremely violent towards others. Thats not love, thats fear, and a child of any age should love their parents, not be scared of them. I personally wish that we could arrest every single one of these sickos that beat their kids and put them away in a mental hospital for life, and put the pearls and their ilk in jail for multiple life sentences. If it were up to me, I'd also let their offense "slip" and let their fellow inmates beat the crap out of these low-lifes, but thats probably going too far. Children are perhaps our most precious resource in this world, and I am continually seeing very little done to safeguard them. Child abuse is an offense that needs to be enforced more vigorously, and perhaps conspiracy to commit should be punished as well. These people aren't parents, they are simply psychotics who need to be kept away from children.

Has anyone noticed that there are 2 reviews of the book on LT? One is favorable ("I wish I had this book when my children were going up!"), the other fairly neutral. That page says that 91 members own it. 5 people give it 5 stars. And the author page says that 88 users (does that make sense?) own 162 books by the author.

What shows up on LT gets cached by Google. (Yup. All of the inane comments we make remain out there for the world to see. Scary.) Maybe it would be a good idea for people who have read the book (must be available in libraries) to post some reviews on LT, and to start some discussions about it in relevant groups.

Btw, I'm not going to boycott Amazon. I don't want consumer pressure to determine what books they sell.

Maybe it would be an idea to lobby for a warning label on the cover of the book: "This book advocates practices which are illegal in many jurisdictions."

dew:
I admire your fair-mindedness and civility in the midst of attack - even though the attack is fairly low key. You acknowledge the fairness of others' arguements, and admit when you were wrong. How refreshing! I understand your position, and what you were trying to do. Perhaps, like you said, you didn't go about it just right, but your heart got in front of your head.

Good point myshelves about posting reviews--there are more ways to expose, warn about, and rebut bad books than boycotts, though I still think that's legitimate. Even a 1/2-star rating at least gives a heads up without wasting the users time to review a bad book. The only problem with review is that some places (I don't know about LT) delete "flagged for abuse" or "not helpful" reviews, which in turn can be influenced by a flame war group in opposition to one's viewpoint. So in theory one can write negative reviews, though in practice, at least on Amazon, I've found that not to work so well.

MerryMary: Thanks so much. I needed a little encouragement! I've been thinking about nearly nothing else since yesterday, and you're right, I did let my heart get ahead of my head.

I just spoke with two librarians about this. I don't want to rewrite it all here, but if anyone is interested, I just wrote about it: http://deweymonster.com/

Encompassed,

Tim has resisted calls for "reviewing" or flagging reviews. (Most objections have been directed at inane ones such as "Great!" or "Haven't read it yet" or at copying reviews from the jacket or other sources.)

I read reviews on Amazon, and a well-written, well-reasoned negative review can influence my buying decision.

dew

Thank you for such a thoughtful and considered response.

Thinking that a book "murdered" someone is really nutty! What I sense here is a desperate defense lawyer trying to find a hook that might sway a jury. Juries can be really dumb that way, speaking of OJ.

>#34
If I wanted to research something like that, I'd look for it at a library, so as to avoid putting money into the pockets of people who support it.

While that will avoid putting more money into the pockets of people who support it, placing it in a library could increase the potential risk. People browsing the library are more likely to be unaware of negative publicity than someone who deliberately searches for the item at Amazon. And libraries do pay for the copies available to be borrowed.

Yes, there are some valid reasons to have it in a library, and also some against. By the way, Worldcat shows the title is available at 43 libraries.

"Books don't kill people; people kill people"? :-)

46> from the literature of the NBA (National Book Association) ;)

I agree with Readafew: write to the publisher. I also read reviews at Amazon, myShelves, and a negative view will influence me not to buy a book - but only if it's well written. ;o)

Would you be surprised to know that they are self-published?

“But I'm sort of taken aback by all this boycott=censorship thinking. Boycotts are a way of demonstrating public opinion. You vote with your dollar, so to speak. No one is calling for a government ban on this book, no one is talking about having the author's website closed down, etc. That stuff is censorship.

I think that censorship is such a scary thing that maybe some of us are going overboard in fear of it. But not shopping at a place whose practices you disapprove of is a common practice, whether you're talking about books or anything else. People boycott Walmart, Blockbuster, Starbucks, all sorts of places, and I've never heard that called censorship.”

Boycotting isn’t censorship, but asking for a book to be removed from availability is. It’s that simple. If I boycott Walmart because of something they actually do, I’m not asking them to censure some else’s right to free speech or another person’s right to read what they wish. What I am doing is trying curb the company’s behavior. There is a difference.

If you want to speek with your dollars, don't buy the book, but don't attack Amazon for carrying it. (I personally won't be buying the book, but I will continue to shop at Amazon from time to time.)

By the way, I personally do boycott Walmart because they censor artist by refusing to carry materials with which they disagree. So, I boycott Walmart for doing the very thing you are asking Amazon to do.

</b> One of the articles you posted said that 400,000 copies of that book had been sold, and that the organisation behind them offer this sort of 'advice' to tens of thousands of people a week via newsletters etc.

Yet 399,999 people chose to not follow the book's advice to wrap up their children in a blanket and suffocate them or beat their toddlers to death with plumbing supplies (else I'm sure we would have heard about it).

Yes, the book appears to be advocating violence against children as a legitimate form of parenting, but, as a few have you have mentioned, there are plenty of other books (and I can think of quite a few, fictional and otherwise) that explicitly glamorise/ encourage equally odious behaviour.

I read American Psycho and didn't go nuts, Dangerous Liaisons and kept my trousers on, Communist Manifesto and didn't appropriate any property, The Qu'ran and didn't pursue any infidels, Republic and didn't persecute any poets, Walden and didn't run off into my shed. Nor should they be banned.

There might be a case where certain books should be challenged. An erroneous chemistry book, maybe. But it seems quite clear to me that you don't wrap up your children in blankets or hit them with bits of plumbing to punish them, regardless of what some stupid book said, just as you don't kidnap people The Collector, rape people you have enchanted The Monk (!), run people over with your car The Bonfire of the Vanities, shoot yourself if you get a bit depressed Sorrows of Young Werther, or kill your neighbours to get on in the world The Prince.

If we all did/believed/followed everything we read.... etc.

#1-- Congratulations. You are now responsible for adding to the publicity this book is getting which will only lead to more sales of the book. Humans have an inate sense of curiousity and will satisfy it by buying or reading about books getting more than their fair share of hype. Negative buzz is an effective driver of sales.

BTW, this is the 17,468th call for an Amazon boycott I've seen in just the last five years.

Here's a gem from the author's webpage...

"As the weaker sex, a young married woman needs to allow her feelings to show when her husband is wounding her. In other words, she needs to cry loudly, brokenly, and express to him (...) how hurt she is. He will be shocked and embarrassed, and soon learn to treat her more kindly (...) A woman needs to ask herself, “Am I being a sensitive, silly girl, trying to manipulate my husband with my feelings, or am I truly mistreated?” (...) Not everything that crawls like a worm is a worm, but who is to know unless it hollers “Ouch” when walked on?"

I almost peed my pants laughing at this one...and theres *more* :-) Suddenly being single doesn't sound half bad!

oh! oh! and another one!

"Raising daughters is not a good business deal. You make a twenty-year investment and then just up and give the whole thing away to an inexperienced boy who doesn’t at all appreciate the value of what he is getting, and is probably not worthy of the gift, or “theft,” as it may be. To top it all off, he changes her name – takes her out of the family, and erases all traces of her lineage. Her children will not carry on your family name! "

And I always said that there are no good men left out there :-)

Even if it's not meant as comedy, maybe people are buying it for laughs? After jenknox's quotes, I almost might...

>52 VisibleGhost:, 53 See, this is why I need to stop reading this thread. I'm just a click away from buying this book! I bought Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy after someone in the Christianity group suggested it may put one's soul in peril. Of course, I loved it. Now I'll just need some children to beat...er.. train. ;)

>54 LolaWalser: I thought the same thing when I saw the cover. It looks like "child rearing" meets Edward Gorey. ;)

Hey, you don't need to buy the book, this is all on his website! You can get it for free! hours and hours of entertainment and he doesn't even get a penny! and there is so, so much more there. go have a look at

http://www.nogreaterjoy.org

then click on topics on the left and browse masterpieces like "Pornography is the road to hell!" and "Bondage" and, my personal favorite "influencing free choice"

and it's my firm opinion that making fun of something...using humor...will kill a thing dead faster than anger... and this website, well, it just has so much potential.

#55-- I don't read or pay much attention to YA books so that's how I first heard about Harry Potter. I heard a snippet on a newscast that some fundy Christers were having a bonfire in their parking lot fueled by HP material because it was teaching their young'uns how to become warlocks and witches or some such percieved grievance.

>57 jenknox: OMG - thank you! I'm posting that site everywhere.

I had to reproduce this gem in full:
"I know mothers don’t expect their little boys to display the male aggression so early, but little boys are just baby men. I know that young boys don’t have the wisdom and self-control to sensibly direct their hormonally driven drives. They are often rowdy and hyper. If there could only be a drug that could make them act more sedate like the lovely female population, or maybe a drug that would just postpone their development… But wait, I have heard that there is such a drug. It is called Ritalin. The government, which is committed to a sexless society, is encouraging and promoting the use of this and other drugs to subdue the young male population. "

Bwaaa-hahahahaha! :D

Here's my favorite quote...it's going on my email signature...

"Sexual perversion is a quest for the bazaar."

Bazaars must me *much* more interesting than I thought...hmmmm. :-)

Insane. Completely, utterly bonkers.

>60 jenknox: What happens in Marrakech stays in Marrakech...

;^)

#57,

Hey, I had to search for bondage, and still couldn't find it! :)

That said, I was actually touched by the response to the the letter from the girl who was raped by a family member. Her family did nothing. The advice was, besides assuring her that she was not to blame, and God loved her, etc., was to confront the parents about their inaction and report it herself if they wouldn't. the letter was, of course, more involved, than that, but it seemed positive from a Christiam viewpoint.

#59.

from article: but little boys are just baby men.

So are grown men. :)

I like this one, describing the ID vs evolution debate:

It is true science and the Bible against the skeptic’s blind faith.

Priceless. That's it, I'm taking it to Pharyngula.

> 64

"the skeptic's blind faith"??

~scratches head~

#64...

That's a fantastic strategy, because I can't even begin to figure out how to respond to that.

I think inkdrinker (#50) raises a very valid point. Due to various convictions I have, I haven't shopped at Walmart in several years. I am boycotting Walmart, I guess, but I am not censoring them. There is definitely a difference.

I roared with laughter at the Pearls you found to throw before we swine, but when I went to their website and read some of their articles, it all just made me feel incredibly sad. Beyond sad, really. Quite glum.

>69 kageeh:

Naughty mind, going to hell. :)

#31 - sorry for the delay I've not read this thread for a while - petition the UK PM

Unfortunetly you need a valid UK address to do so (ie it is for people who will vote) but you may find it interesting anyway.

Of course the best way to "ban" a book is to ridicule it and make a laughing stock out of the contents. This thread seems to be doing so nicely.

Message 70: tiffin -- Even sadder is the fact that there are many many families who are just like the Pearls and worse. Parents who do not have any decent role models and self-esteem are most apt to follow such "structured" advice; they have been taught to bow to "authority". And there are religions that teach this kind of parental behavior as being God's will. Of course, children who are terrified to be spontaneous and to make their own decisions are most apt to follow bad advice themselves. And thus it perpetuates.

This scares and amuses me. It just boggles the mind that a minister and his wife who follow a religion that teaches that God is all loving could so actively advocate beating and abusing children and each other. I would love to know how they support their violence and abuse, as it seems quite alien to Christian faith as it is presented by Christ in the gospels. People have to keep in mind that the Bible is not a book written by one individual, but a library, written by many individuals over an unknown span of time. Even if God inspired the writers, each would be dealing with entirely different situations, so different solutions would be required.

I think you're preaching to the choir, Child_of_Light :-) But that website is fantastically funny! the writer is the guy with the big fluffy moses beard, by the way :-) You should have a look at one of the articles "our possessed damsels" or something like that. It appears that 8 women in his city have dedicated their lives to making his life difficult, like calling ahead to churches and getting them to cancel events featuring the Pearls and whatnot, and even got the FBI involved at one point. I'd love to find out if those ladies have a website, too!
:-) I'd like to send them flowers.

This part seriously creeps me out, where he fantasizes about his infant grand-daughter's future husband and their wedding night:

"It goes without saying that he must be a virgin. Furthermore, he must be absolutely innocent in regard to pornography. If he has ever been a user of porno, he can forget Laura. It will not matter that he has confessed his sins and is forgiven. David confessed and God forgave him, but he and his family continued to reap what he had sown until the day he died. Laura will bring innocence and purity to the marriage. I do not want her to come crying to Big Papa with tales of how her husband confessed that he fantasizes about other women when they are together, or of a sordid story of how he is not satisfied with natural sex. I want her husband to be clumsy on their honeymoon. I want them to laugh about it years later -- about how naive they were, about how they discovered things together, thinking they were the first to know, believing they had reached heights others have never known. I want Laura to always know that she is the first and only -- including his private world of fantasy."

#76 That's creepy on so many levels. How the hell is good ole granddad going to find out about those poor boys' "private world of fantasy," anyway? And does he not realize that he has just revealed that his own "private world of fantasy" includes the sex lives of his children and grandchildren?

Exactly what I was thinking, littlegeek.

Do any of us know any young women at all who would listen to their grandfather's opinion of their future husbands I sure don't.

Look, people like this live in a fantasy world where pop-culture doesn't exist, people don't swear, and their opinion and parenting practices dictate the norm, not what is socially accepted. Lets just humor them a bit, and then continue making fun of their cruel, bullshit.

Am I the only one who had sexual fantasies years before I became sexually active? And I managed it without porn.

The man wants his granddaughter to marry a eunuch or a pathological liar...

Ezzo and Pearl are terrible, yes, and the books are awful. And I encourage booksellers that I know not to carry them. But Amazon carries everything, indiscriminately. I don't penalize them, or other big chain stores for what they carry (although I sure let my local store know if they're promoting the books actively).

And your facts are wrong. Pearl is terrible, awful, bad, dangerous, abusive advice about raising a kid. It advises hitting small babies. It certainly contributed to the sad life and death of that child. But he doesn't advocate the specific treatment that killed that boy.

#81 bookishbunny, So true. I have always believed my imagination is far better than someone else's idea of what might be titillating.

I'm reminded of the people who in the 80s (and maybe still) wanted high biology textbooks used in Texas to delete information about human sexuality so the teenage students wouldn't get any ideas.

Don't biology textbooks teach that babies are a common outcome of sex? Do we NOT want that idea to enter into their heads?

Not to mention all those biology textbooks that were around in the prehistoric era. Nobody would have gotten any idea to have sex without those.

bookishbunny, you ask: "Don't biology textbooks teach that babies are a common outcome of sex? Do we NOT want that idea to enter into their heads?"

I think the answer to both questions is ... NO.

I seem to remember that sexual reproduction was about, you know, reproduction. The sexual kind. Where people (and other animals) have sex. Then reproduce. In that order.

No, Bookishbunny, no. Everyone knows that Mr. Stork brings them to the cabbage patch. Have you *never* watched bugs bunny?
geez.

:-)

I wonder if he has unprotected sex with Lola.



If so, puts a crimp in that "bunnies" theory.

Isn't Bugs, ahem, "ambivalently" sexed? Or do I hear nothing but rumours?

Bugs is a flaming carrot.

*rimshot*

Its never clear which sex he is. However, and this might just be because we live in a blatantly patriarchal society in the US, Bugs has always seemed like a guy to me.

> 92
Its never clear which sex he is.

Oh, please. What woman would ever allow herself to be called "Bugs"?

;-)

'Bugs Bunny' is obviously a drag name - that rabbit wore more dresses than J. Edgar Hoover!

Speaking of bunnies, when I was a child (and I mean around 6 or 7), we had a book called The Habits of Rabbits -- and their habits were just what you think they were! I am happy to see that 4 LTers have it, but I'm not surprised that it seems to no longer be in print.

#95 - that'll be eating a lot of grass then, everybody knows that's what rabbits are famous for?!
- paraphrased from Terry pratchett, one of witches lines I think it is Weatherwax, to Nanny Ogg. No-idea what book though.

## 77 & 78: As we have seen in real life (Ted Haggard, Mark Foley, some Catholic priests, etc.), fantasizing about the sex they are not "permitted" to have, according to God, is a strange syndrome commonly seen in the so-called "good Christians". For many, fantasy is not enough.

I have also read about clinical experiments conducted with groups of extreme gay-hating heterosexual men who responded quite actively to videos of gay male sex that control groups of tolerant heterosexual men did not. Methinks they doth protest too much?

Message 80: Child_of_Light -- How do these people know to rant against pop culture and swearing and the like unless they know in fact what they are? They can't say pop culure is harmful if they haven't witnessed it. So, in actuality, they know a lot more than they admit to and, most probably, they enjoy it more also.

RE: Bugs

Have you guys never seen the one where there was a tarted up robot-bunny? His reaction to 'her' was obviously that of a straight male.

Yes, #99, but we also have to keep in mind the episode where bugs dressed up like Brunhilda to seduce Elmer Fudd dressed up like Siegfried...

"Oh, Bwunhildaaa, you're so wuvwy"
"Yes, I know it, I can't heeeelp iiiiit."
"Oh Bwunhilda, be my wiiiife!"

Evidence suggests that Bugs was an early metrosexual, swinging all ways.

I thought that was just a throw-back to early theatrical history. We recently did an all-male production of Caesar. The most willowy of men (2 of them) played the female roles, as well as some male ones.

#96 NOT!

You know, my husband and I have these "discussions" about whether or not Buckwheat in the Little Rascals is a boy or a girl. I mean, in the later episodes, he is clearly a boy and belongs to the "He-Man Woman-Haters Club", but in the earlier episode where the little kids (including Buckwheat) follow the bigger kids when they go camping at night by the scary bridge, he is Stymie's little sister. So maybe it is something like that.

Sorry - double post.

You lost me at "I am no fan of censorship, but..."

I'm pretty pissed (no apologies for language here Mrs. Lee, I'm pissed, furious) at Amazon right now, not for the issue mentioned in Message #1, but for something that just happened to me today and I need suggestions as to how to respond so that this doesn't happen to anyone else.

As I hinted at in an earlier post, I've bought (for research purposes) hate group books through Amazon, one directly from Amazon, others through their Market Place program--BUT, before buying I always look at the seller's info--address, inventory, etc--to get reasonable confidence if the seller is a neo-nazi group or an Islamic terrorist front group, for ex., since I don't want to get on their mailing lists, for one thing. So today I get an email from the seller of the pro-Wahabbi book I ordered and am told it's already shipped--but not from them, but directly from another fourth-party vendor.

I want you all to be aware of this danger. And if anybody has ideas on how to keep this from happening again, please let me know.

I'm not sure what you can do, Amazon only has so much control over the sellers and the Seller in question is doing Exactly what Amazon is with it's other party sellers. You can complain but I don't see it as likely to come to much as long as you get the book in the condition stated and in the time allotted.

Well, to start with, I would contact Amazon about it and find out whether this is acceptable behavior for one of their MarketPlace vendors. If it is, then you could explain to Amazon why you don't think this is the way they should run the program. If it isn't, you can sic Amazon on the vendor who passed the sale along to the other vendor.l

I agree with #109
Leave bad feedback for the seller and tell Amazon about the problem so they can take care of it.

Thanks guys. I do know of one case that was taken to the FBI over a similar type thing except that the person who put her on his white supremacist mailing list was the seller himself, in my case I made a point of choosing who to release my personal information to, the seller only, only to find out it's being distributed to another seller who for all I know may be Osama or CAIR or on the other hand, may be the FBI seeking to draw certain types. Either way I don't want to hear from them. (I'll go calm down now...)

When I was in high school, one of my teachers devoted a good part of a year (can't remember in what course) to a study of Communism. We read Marx & Lenin, along with anti books. You know me. :-) Have to read more; anything I can find. I decided to subscribe to "The Daily Worker" (organ of the CPUSA) to get the up-to-date take on events from the horse's mouth. (Somewhere I must have a juicy FBI file.) The Worker was interesting, but more interesting was some of the other odd mail I started to get (using the same label with a series of numbers) from organizations that apparently had no connection to the Party. Educational to see who shared the mailing list.

Anybody else locked out of their Amazon account today besides me?

> 113

I just signed into my account, with no problem.

113> ooohh, nailed by the thought police ;)

Thanks, I'm actually in my Amazon account now browising the "Marketplace Selling Offenses & Prohibited Content" info, checking my unshipped orders, copying all my info in case I get locked out again....and as much as I want to boycott Amazon, I'm also feeling the urge to splurge.

> 116

as much as I want to boycott Amazon, I'm also feeling the urge to splurge.

I know the feeling. Despite the many bizarre and inappropriate recommendations they're always making for me, somehow they also always manage to come up with enough good ones to increase my wish list exponentially!

Whoa, think I'm onto something that could help other buyers--this Wahabbi Myth book problem I've been having is fishy, because before placing another book order now, I decided to look back to the Wahabbi Myth book page where at the time that I'd placed my order there were 2 sellers offering the book as "In Stock"--one a known Muslim book seller and the other an unknown, but because of their volume (over 100,000 books sold thru Amazon) I'd decided to go with them. Any way, this unknown seller is at it again, saying the book is "In Stock" when in actuality using a different party to mail the book directly--seemingly in violation of the Amazon "Items that infringe upon an individual's privacy" prohibition and "Multiple sellers may not be aggregated into a single account" provision. ("Therefore, items that infringe upon, or have potential to infringe upon an individual's privacy, are prohibited.") I'm gonna report this seller to Amazon and for all you Wahabbi book buyers, think twice.

Good catch.

touching on message #1:
I would complain and petition the publisher. They usually only want to print books that bring in money. If they see it will cause trouble, that they could be sued, that they could lose money, the book could be dropped.
OK, here is my next thought. We cannot control every aspect of every persons life. We cannot legislate it, we cannot morally mandate it. People who choose to read books and then act inappropriately, were most likely going to act out in some way at some time anyway, triggered by something or other.
I resent that my life is already over legislated. I don't want my reading censored. If something is bad and horrible I have the right to decline to read it, but I also have the right to choose to read it.
On a more humerous note:
If the FBI has a file on me, it must be the most boring reading of all time. Can you imagine things like: Won a baking contest, listens to jazz music, collects Victorian art, has more husbands than charms on a bracelet, pays her bills late, fails to exercise three times per week. Is addicted to the smell of Bleach or Spic and Span.
I can't imagine the FBI is too interested in much of anyone, heck they don't even investigate the really bad guys.