Borders, Waldenbooks Betray Founding Fathers

Borders and Waldenbooks have chosen this day whom they will serve:

Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries.

"For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority," Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham said Wednesday. [emphasis and link added]

Wow. Just... wow. This story is rife with kowtowing.

Borders (a subsidiary of Amazon.com whom I boycott) claims their customers' safety and security as a top priority. Do they realize that they are actually endangering their customers by caving in to threats of violence? Giving the bully what he wants only emboldens him. Breaking the bully's nose (or neck, if necessary) is how you get him to leave you alone.

Of course, if the bully were a network of Christian radicals, Borders would have no second thought about telling them "go to hell."

Borders isn't the only culpable party here. The AP writer, Carolyn Thompson, didn't care to do any research that would endanger the credibility of her Muslim masters, as shown in this simple statement:

Islamic tradition bars depiction of Muhammad to prevent idol worship, which is strictly prohibited.

Ms. Thompson couldn't bother to do a simple Yahoo search for "mohammed depictions" to find the demonstrable falsehood of such a claim. She also conveniently forgets her recent history, with the statement from the earlier quote:

[The cartoons] provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries.

No, the cartoons provoked nothing. They had been published for four months before the rioting (not "protests"!) started. It took radical Muslims from Denmark and other European countries that long to get their sheep to take to the streets in a coordinated display of "rage." (Gee, where have we seen that recently? Oh, yeah.)

I propose that AP change their name to "Allah Press," since that seems to be their true allegiance these days.

Posted on 03/30/2006 at 05:49:13 PM EST.