Well figured I would kick this off with a little analysis / opinions on the big cause of the minute from a short while ago.
The sample of George Bush's book Decision Points finally made it to the top of my reading list and I gave it a read. The sample had the introduction and two-ish chapters. It's a memoir so it's got the usual stuff, it presents issues he encountered while in office and his opinions and reasons why the decisions were made. It is fairly interesting for the same reason any book covering the same subject would be, it's a window into how a person thinks and makes decisions.
I think I may be missing the point of the uproar though. There are at least two facebook groups dedicated to moving the book to other sections of the bookstores where it is being sold. The bit that I don't understand is this. This isn't going to stop anyone from reading the book that wanted to, because they're going to just ask someone working at the store for a copy and they will get it. It's not going to win anyone working at these stores over to the side of this cause, this action is just making these people's job more annoying. And I am willing to bet it will not lower the sales numbers for the book odds are they will be higher because of the perceived scandal. Seriously look at other items that have had scandals or protests attached to them, generally the protest sparks interest.
So it comes down to the question of what could people actually do to get their point across. The point seems to be that the book is dirty, filthy lies and not much else. Ignoring the obvious problem of part of the protest being people saying that someone's personal opinion on things that were presented to them is wrong, it becomes an issue of mechanics. How would someone point out to a person who purchased the book the problems they had with the book, in a way that doesn't increase interest in the book in question.
The limits I set for myself in this exercise were the book can't be damages or made unreadable, this I would hope makes sense if it doesn't here's the reason don't break stuff you don't own. It can't be anything that is overt and draws attention to the book without conveying the problems with specific points the book raises, otherwise it's not a protest it's guerrilla marketing. I came up with one way fairly easily, slipping a pamphlet into the pages. If the points are something that can fit on both sides of a page you're set, if not well free websites are cheap, and web addresses will fit on a sheet of paper.
So why just hide the books then? Well I'm just guessing here since the discussion areas of the groups on facebook I found were members only. The first one that I can come up with is the malicious reason free speech only counts when someone I agree with is talking. Well, if you don't see the problem there nothing I say is going to sway you on that. The other one I could come up with was, they weren't serious about this it was more a reason for people to get together and tell each other how wonderful they were and put forth no real effort. Based on the responses I got from someone I know that was very into this, the movement the way they presented it was very juvenile. The basis was well this guy was in charge, but I'm going to show them who's the boss.
In closing, if you're going to do something think it out. Try to realistically achieve something, don't half ass it. Ironically that's a nice segue to a more mundane thing. I'm going to try to crack one of these out once a month to start I figure that will increase the odds of posting something worthwhile.
So until next time, peace out. And remember if something is worth getting angry about, it's worth protesting correctly.
