Amazon Boycott

[Rhubarb]

For those who might have missed this on the parenting threads.

Amazon are stocking books that encourage child abuse and paedophilia and refuse to take these books off their shelves. One of the books is called 'No Greater Joy' by Michael Pearl and it advocates whipping babies and children, quote "Many people are using a section of ¼ inch plumber’s supply line as a spanking instrument. It will fit in your purse or hang around you neck. You can buy them for under $1.00 at Home Depot or any hardware store. They come cheaper by the dozen and can be widely distributed in every room and vehicle. Just the high profile of their accessibility keeps the kids in line." This is for babies as well as children! Their website \link{http://www.nogreaterjoy.org/index.php?id=59&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=247&tx_ttnews[backPID]=7\here} says it all.

The other two books promote paedophilia and they are called 'Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers' by David L Riegel and 'Pedophilia - The Radical Case' by Tom O'Carrol, both authors are members of the 'childlove' movement, a paedophilia sympathisers club.

I've emailed Amazon and got a standard computer generated reply in response blabbing on about censorship. Of course they would do, they don't want to lose money over this. Mumsnet have dropped Amazon as one of their sponsors and I've closed my account. I ask all of you to contact Amazon and do the same. I'm also contacting all the parenting sites I can think of, registering and posting all of the above on their forums, if you are member of another parenting site, please do the same.

Thanks everyone.

Do you know that Sainsbury, Tesco, WH Smith etc sell men magazines that portray women as wanton, sexual whores? However, what is worse, they sell The Sun and the The Daily Sport. I have to cover my DTS eyes everytime I walk pass the news aisle. Its just not on.

Time for a campaign to have all these titles banned and if these shops will not stop selling them, then we must boycott them until they do.

Come on sisters, time to unite against these capitalist, money grabbing, purveryors of filth!

lol @ speedymama, what are you on?

Barnes and Noble (big big American bookellers) took a decision not to stock the book.

Actually, I am in sympathy with all sides of this debate, but lots of people have to make qualitative decisions about things all the time - magazine editors, arts venues, newspapers. Decisions aren't based solely on what is legal or not. (see my post on making choices on other thread).

I was the first person to voice that I would be writing to Amazon. I just thought 'uuurgh, these people make money from selling this stuff' and knew that I would not want to do that. If I was a bookseller, I would not stock this book. If I was a doctor, in an NHS hospital, I would treat the man who wrote it.

I do not think Pearl should be gagged, I DO think what he advises and instructs should be made illegal, and I would not rest easy selling instruction manuals on beating babies.

Do you know that Sainsbury, Tesco, WH Smith etc sell men magazines that portray women wearing next to nothing? However, what is worse, they sell The Sun and the The Daily Sport. I have to cover my DTS eyes everytime I walk pass the news aisle. Its just not on.

Time for a campaign to have all these titles banned and if these shops will not stop selling them, then we must boycott them until they do.

Come on sisters, time to unite against these capitalist, money grabbing, purveryors of filth!

Oh yeah, I forgot that physical child abuse and naked breasts are so similiar.

Well I dond't go a bundle o mass slaughter either so should we boycott all shops that sell books about Stalin and Hitler? What about Mein Kampf?

As it happens I know quite a few women readers of the Sun. It's pretty harmless compared to the racism of the Daily Mail.
There is a quite interesting correlation between the legality of porn that position of women in a given society.
Islamic societies ban porn up to and including naked arms. Not much female liberation there.
China occasionally executes pornographers, and depending upon their abilty to bribe officials, locks them up as well. Again women have fewer rights than men, though of course no one in China has that many rights.
In countries like Britain, the law now allows pretty much anything without animals and children. Women have anti discrimination laws, and both a high participation in the work force and one of the lowest disparities between male and female wages, most of which is down to poor education choices, rather than access to education since women frequently are better educated than men.

In Germany & France harder porn has been available for many years, and people tend to see women in these countries as having a better status than in Britain. Scandanavia is of course famous for both it's porn as well as aggressively pro female social policies.
Latin american countries fall between the extremes, as do the status of women.
Not a smooth curve by any means, but a strong correlation.
I suspect we can have a good argument about what is cause and effect here.

Good points Dominic

If there were less publishers of shite like FHM and NUTS then maybe publishers would listen a bit more to women demanding that certain books shouldn't be allowed

But stay-at-home mums? Haha get back to your agas darlings and let the boys decide on the complicated stuff

Unless you want to whip your baps out, of course

Dumbledores - because they are not instruction manuals aimed at peope who have a 4m old child in one hand and the book is urging them to put a branch from a willow tree in the other hand and beat them at least 10 times with it, for crying.

If you want to make a political / massacreing comparison, you might try an instruction manual from a contemorary political movement - Al Queda, for e.g

I am aware of what they are advocating. I have read their website. I do not like it any more than you do. They are sick individuals. But my point was that many things offend many people but I still support the freedom of the press. Stop that and we will soon be living in a much less freer society.

Some people here were outraged that they were not allowed to criticise a GB parenting guru recently. If you want to be free to criticise her methods and the methods of the Pearls, then you must allow them equal fredom to state their cases.

DC: "most of which is down to poor education choices, " so, did the male bosses of these women make the same poor education choices in order to get the better job??

Is it REALLY poor education choices of women (foolish creatures) and not the men, who often openly say they don't like employing women of childbearing age etc etc etc who are responsible for workplace discrepancies and discrimination?

Interesting to see that Amazon.com (US) has a special offer on the Pearl books - you get a discount if you buy both together. That amounts to the company positively promoting these books IMO.

Dumbledores - yes, I agree with that.

I just don't want to be part of supporting the profit they make out of it. (so have read their horrible website for free. thank heavens for the net!)

good read this thread.
i wont be boycotting amazon though.

I know Wikipedia is not gospel, but this is interesting

"In 1999, the Simon Wiesenthal Center documented that major Internet booksellers like amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com sell Mein Kampf to Germany. After a public outcry, both companies agreed to stop those sales. The book is currently available through both companies."

I think that selling "Mein Kampf", like other Nazi symbols, is illegal in Germany - some internet book sellers tried to get around this by selling outside of the country, but this was stopped

So that's a matter of legality rather than taste

yes, it was to do with legality that they stopped selling in Germany.

Um, what's wrong with Mr Men books??

Tinker! You have to ask?!

I said this on the other thread and i'll say it here: I do not want amazon making choices for me about what books i should or should not be able to buy. if they cave into this boycott in fact I would be moved to start my own.

also I don't quite know how this thread got onto male/female equality, but it is quite patently not down to "poor" education choices (why do more women study to be doctors and lawyers then?), though the degree to which either sex is motivated by money possibly comes into it.

As said on the other thread Rhubarb I admire your determination to tackle this issue but feel boycotting is misguided and in fact pointless. Did you hear back from the NSPCC yet? I will be interested to hear what they say.

should have read "boycotting Amazon in this instance"

I don't feel boycotting in general is misguided or pointless

I dont get it with the mr men books neither.