Petition & Boycott of Amazon for discriminatory treatment of Carter

[a.saccus]

Juan Cole mentioned a petition yesterday protesting Amazon.com’s prejudicial treatment of Jimmy Carter’s book. Deadline for positive response by Amazon is January 22. Since I signed Sunday 3 PM, there have been almost 3000 more signatures, up to 6975. Below is the petition letter being sent. At the website you can click a link, sign up, and view the list of those who have already signed. You can also contact Henry Norr, the organizer of the petition.

http://www.petitiononline.com/Amazon07/petition.html

To: Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com

As longtime Amazon customers, we are deeply disturbed by your treatment of Jimmy Carter's important new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

Under the "Editorial Reviews" heading — a space normally used either for the publisher's own description of a book, or for short, even-handed summaries from listing services such as Booklist and Publishers Weekly — you insist on running the complete, 20-paragraph, 1,636-word text of a review unabashedly hostile to Carter's viewpoint. You have refused to add information shoppers should have in evaluating this review: the fact that the reviewer, Jeffrey Goldberg, is a citizen of Israel as well as the United States, and that he volunteered to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, for which he worked as a guard at a prison for Palestinian detainees. And you have refused to balance his negative review by giving comparable space to a favorable assessment of the book, even though positive reviews by qualified experts have appeared in many reputable publications.

Because giving so much space in this location to such a negative review is so unusual — if not unprecedented — for Amazon, and because you have refused requests from many customers that you take a more balanced approach, we can only conclude that you are deliberately trying to discourage shoppers from ordering the former President's book.

This is contrary to Amazon's own interests as a bookseller. More important, it's also contrary to the interests of understanding, peace, and justice for all parties to the Israel/Palestine conflict

We are not interested in supporting a corporation that uses its power in the marketplace in such a biased and unconstructive way on such an important issue.

Accordingly, if you do not, by Jan. 22, remove the Goldberg review, move it to the more appropriate "See all Editorial Reviews" page, or restore a semblance of balance by giving comparable space and prominence to a more positive evaluation of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, we the undersigned pledge to:

1. Stop shopping at Amazon.com;

2. Completely close our accounts on your service; and

3. Encourage our friends, family, and associates to do likewise.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned
View Current Signatures

 

[Renaissance]

Since I signed Sunday 3 PM, there have been almost 3000 more signatures, up to 6975.

Just signed it; it's now up to 7,437. Seems to be spreading rather quickly.

 

[Jacques]

I've just signed too. The number is 8510 now.

 

[Alana]

Wow! I signed yesterday and i was number 5 thousand 5 hundreds something.......

 

[Mr. Premise]

Just about 10000 now.

 

[paulnotbilly]

I'm 9982, nice to be a number for a change

 

[Nienna]

Just signed. I'm 10033. Keep it going!

 

[Adaryn]

SUCCESS?!? I delivered the petition and 16,000+ signatures to Bezos on Jan. 19; on Jan. 20, Amazon posted an interview with Jimmy Carter on the page, ahead of the Goldberg review! Spread the word! Free Palestine!

http://www.petitiononline.com/Amazon07/petition.html

An Interview with President Jimmy Carter

Q: What has been the importance of your own faith in your continued interest in peace in the Middle East?
A: As a Christian, I worship the Prince of Peace. One of my preeminent commitments has been to bring peace to the people who live in the Holy Land. I made my best efforts as president and still have this as a high priority.

Q: A common theme in your years of Middle East diplomacy has been that leaders on both sides have often been more open to discussion and change in private than in public. Do you think that's still the case?
A: Yes. This is why private and intense negotiations can be successful. More accurately, however, my premise has been that the general public (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) are more eager for peace than their political leaders. For instance, a recent poll done by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem showed that 58% of Israelis and 81% of the Palestinians favor a comprehensive settlement similar to the Roadmap for Peace or the Saudi proposal adopted by all 23 Arab nations and recently promoted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Tragically, there have been no substantive peace talks during the past six years.

Q: How have the war in Iraq and the increased strength of Iran (and the declarations of their leaders against Israel) changed the conditions of the Israel-Palestine question?
A: Other existing or threatened conflicts in the region greatly increase the importance of Israel's having peace agreements with its neighbors, to minimize overall Arab animosity toward both Israel and the United States and reduce the threat of a broader conflict.

Q: Your use of the term "apartheid" has been a lightning rod in the response to your book. Could you explain your choice? Were you surprised by the reaction?
A: The book is about Palestine, the occupied territories, and not about Israel. Forced segregation in the West Bank and terrible oppression of the Palestinians create a situation accurately described by the word. I made it plain in the text that this abuse is not based on racism, but on the desire of a minority of Israelis to confiscate and colonize Palestinian land. This violates the basic humanitarian premises on which the nation of Israel was founded. My surprise is that most critics of the book have ignored the facts about Palestinian persecution and its proposals for future peace and resorted to personal attacks on the author. No one could visit the occupied territories and deny that the book is accurate.

Q: You write in the book that "the peace process does not have a life of its own; it is not self-sustaining." What would you recommend that the next American president do to revive it?
A: I would not want to wait two more years. It is encouraging that President George W. Bush has announced that peace in the Holy Land will be a high priority for his administration during the next two years. On her January trip to the region, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called for early U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. She has recommended the 2002 offer of the Arab nations as a foundation for peace: full recognition of Israel based on a return to its internationally recognized borders. This offer is compatible with official U.S. Government policy, previous agreements approved by Israeli governments in 1978 and 1993, and with the International Quartet's "roadmap for peace." My book proposes that, through negotiated land swaps, this "green line" border be modified to permit a substantial number of Israelis settlers to remain in Palestine. With strong U.S. pressure, backed by the U.N., Russia, and the European Community, Israelis and Palestinians would have to come to the negotiating table.

1/18/2007

http://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Peace-Apartheid-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0743285026/sr=8-1/qid=1169371791/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-7887192-7963354?ie=UTF8&s=books

 

[mamadrama]

I signed the petition this morning and it was up to 17,454.

 

[Laura]

I think that there is a whole lot more support for Carter and anger at Israel than they even dream about. Just because people are taking up pitchforks and torches and marching on Washington YET doesn't mean it isn't bubbling to that stage. And that's the sad thing that pathocrats never think about: the ultimate result of their attempts to bamboozle and control normal people. Time and time again they have been taken down when the people have had enough.

You'd think they would learn.

 

[Nienna]

I think that there is a whole lot more support for Carter and anger at Israel than they even dream about. Just because people are taking up pitchforks and torches and marching on Washington YET doesn't mean it isn't bubbling to that stage. And that's the sad thing that pathocrats never think about: the ultimate result of their attempts to bamboozle and control normal people. Time and time again they have been taken down when the people have had enough.

You'd think they would learn.

Just a quick quote from Hervey Cleckley's "Mask of Sanity"

Before going on to the perhaps still unanswerable question of why the psychopath behaves as he does or of how he comes to follow such a life scheme, let us, as was just suggested, attempt to say what the psychopath is in terms of his actions and his apparent intentions, so that we may recongnize him readily and distinguish him from others.

We shall list the characteristic points that have emerged and then discuss them in order:

1. Superficial charm and good "intelligence"
2. Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking
3. Absence of "nervousness" or psychoneurotic manifestations
4. Unreliabilty
5. Untruthfulness and insincerity
6. Lack of remorse or shame
7. Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior
8. Poor judgement and failure to learn by experience
9. Pathologic egocentricity and incapacity for love
10. General poverty in major affective reactions
11. Specific loss of insight
12. Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations
13. Fantastic and univiting behavior with drink and sometimes without
14. Suicide rarely carried out
15. Sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated
16. Failure to follow any life plan

Sooooo it looks like the pathocrats just might get bitten in the butt by their own psychopathic flaws.

 

[Alana]

Once more Lobaczewski's words come to mind, as more and more these days, proving that the man KNOWS what he is talking about:

The following question thus suggests itself: what happens if the network of understandings among psychopaths achieves power in leadership positions with international exposure? This can happen, especially during the later phases of the phenomenon. Goaded by their character, such people thirst for just that even though it would conflict with their own life interest… They do not understand that a catastrophe would ensue. Germs are not aware that they will be burned alive or buried deep in the ground along with the human body whose death they are causing.