On Tuesday, November 9, George Bush’s memoir Decision Points comes out in bookstores around the country. Taking a cue from a movement in Britain that called for people to subversively move Tony Blair’s recently published memoir, A Journey, to the Crime section of bookstores, Waging Nonviolence is asking that in honor of the release of the Bush memoir, people reshelve Decision Points to the part of the bookstore where it really belongs: Crime.
If you do decide to participate in this nonviolent act of subversion, please respond to our invitation, take a picture of your “mission accomplished,” and post a photo of your handiwork to the Wall of the event page we’ve created on Facebook.
In Bush’s upcoming memoir he defends several of the criminal policies that he implemented during his time in office, including the invasion of Iraq and the use of waterboarding.
As another fun act of subversion, back in April the Huffington Post asked readers to send in their new and improved Photoshopped Decision Points covers. The one above was my personal favorite.
Here’s your chance to voice your opinion on what you think about George Bush’s presidential recollections. Is it a crime, humor, horror, dark fantasy? Whatever your opinion, go out on Tuesday and put Bush in his right place.
Where does it belong? How about…autobiography. Where will it go? Top of the NYT or Amazon best seller lists? Opinion of the book? I don’t know, I haven’t read it yet.
Alas, I do not think this is what you mean. You mean childish pranks. Yes, CHILDISH. People can decide what to buy/read or not buy/read without you cackling taking a picture of you reshelving the Bush book next to Helter Skelter.
By the way, will you ask the same to LTC Shaffer’s book Operation Dark Heart: Spycraft and Special Ops on the Frontlines of Afghanistan — and the Path to Victory?
It would be much more effective if you simply wrote an accurate, well written, yet scathing critique of the book.
Stay classy and continue to shop of your reading in the children’s section.
What a sad, sick, childish idea is this proposed underhanded interference with our libraries. Books are for reading:trying to suppress them is a crime. If you don’t like the author, don’t read his book but let others decide for themselves.
I am the decider. I’ve decided these books should be moved to the Crime section of every bookstore in America.
What about his crimes against America. What about nationalizing the banking system which he has no constitutional right to do. He has fired car company CEO’s and nationalized them as well. Or what about during the largest oil spill ever witnessed when he spent more time playing golf? And you have the NERVE to say Katrina was President Bushes fault. The people of New Orleans live BELOW sea level, they had to see this coming, they were adequately warned and most refused to leave. Then when he sent people to help after the storm cleared, about four days, he gets shit on by people like you! Durning this oil spill President Obama spent more time golfing then the oil spill. Hell, he probably spent more time at the tee total then he did even thinking about the spill. It was laughable how he handled it. Also, why does he insist on blaming everything on President Bush? He has been incharge for almost 2 years now. It’s YOUR mess Mr. President. Stop acting like a child and buck up.
Agreed. Celebrities ranting about the last administration’s neglecting New Orleans is just another example of how they use the ignorant Masses to financially enrich themselves.
Boring
1. Sometimes a playful, childish idea is what we need.
2. We’re not talking about libraries, we’re talking about bookstores.
3. We’re not advocating harming or destroying the book. In fact, on RT TV last night, Jasmine insisted that she’s not opposed to people reading it. I would go further and say that people should—and critically.
DON’T WORRY THE LITERATE PEOPLE WILL KNOW WHERE TO FIND IT. AND FOR THE SHEEP THE BOOK IS LOCATED RIGHT BY THE ENTRANCE FOR READILY MASS CONSUMPTION AND FURTHER BRAINWASHING.I DOUBT IT WILL MAKE IT TO ANY PUBLIC LIBRARIES, MAYBE ONES IN NEED OF SURPLUS TOILET PAPER.
Absolutely not! Those titles are being shelved in a brand new section: “Innocent People Died So That You Could Read These Books.” Enjoy.
I agree with you, well said D.Killion. I was looking for a critique, now we know we can’t get a serious one here.
Have you started a Move Sarah’s Book campaign? I plan on starting to move it to some suitable place. Any Suggenstions?
You communists make me sick. You’re all onesided sad excuses of Americans. It ok to limit another man’s rights as long as it has nothing to do with your political agenda. Freedom fighters, your nothing more then thugs and terrorists. Get a job and get off your computers and do something constructive for the day, like help out in soup kitchen, read to blind kids or pick up trash on the fee way. Live outside your massive ego’s and liberal ideology BS. You people that participate in this are nothing more then pathetic human beings. What your doing is wrong and the dumbest thing ive heard of, since Hitlers book burnings.
Let’s be clear, as I state below, I am not asking anyone to destroy any books. Decision Points will still exist at the end of the day and will not be burned into oblivion so no one else will be able to read it afterwards. I’m also very proud to say that I’ve very recently helped raise over $63,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, volunteer at various soup kitchens around New York City, worked for several years with disabled children of all ages, and have picked up garbage on the streets of Brooklyn. I say this not to brag, but to hopefully inspire.
No, sir, you are not asking for the outright destruction of books, you are doing something far more cowardly- You are telling your busybody, passive aggressive friends to hide them.
Attempting to distinguish between the two actions is an exercise in distinction over practical difference.
The point is, you libs LOVE censorship, just like your people practiced in Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and during the French Revolution.
Burning a book and hiding it have the same effect, only one activity is a lot more apt to have the light shone on you for what you really are- Censors and Elitists. Hiding a book over burning it just makes you a Coward to go with-
And I love the jabs your folks always love to hit us Conservative / Right Thinking Americans with. Right, we’re all idiots, clinging to our guns & God and Social Antipathy. Give me a break. My Texas Rancher Grandfather had %1000 more wisdom than any of you.
Good luck winning elections from here on out. Pissing off regular Americans has cost you, officially, and is going to cost you again when we wash out your DOOFUS 2nd tier college prof. nincompoop of a ‘President’
Love it!
BS. You’re saying this as if it justifies moving an autobiography to fulfill your childish selfish desires.
Why isn’t Bill Clinton’s autobiography in the Crime section?
Was he not impeached? Didn’t happen to Bush, even with a Democratic Congress.
Can right wingers EVER spell?
The US has always been a mix of capitalism and socialism, as are all great free nations.
Good luck trying to factually defend this: “The US has always been a mix of capitalism and socialism, as are all great free nations.”
This should be rich…
Simple. Social Security. Medicare. Two great socialist projects.
False. Social Security is predicted to fail within the next generation or so, and Medicare is ALREADY falling apart.
You plan to refuse both Social Security and Medicare?
I love your blatant logical contradiction of “socialism” with “free nation.”
Thanks for the laugh.
And you, young patriot, are sentenced to reading books from the Spelling Section, which we’ve moved to the “fee way” median.
SAID LIKE A TRUE BRAINWASHED PRODUCT OF AMERICAN COMPULSIVE SCHOOLING.I GUESS YOU GET A GOLD STAR, OR A DUNCE HAT YOUR CHOICE.
I work in a library. When people pull stunts like this, it means extra work for me, moving the books back over and over again.
It also means that people who want to read the book — whatever their opinions on the subject — can’t find it, that we can’t find it for them, and that we can’t account for our inventory.
This is true of bookstores as well as libraries. Please be aware of the workers, who may or may not share your personal and political beliefs, who have to clean up after you when you do this, and consider finding some other way to express your point of view.
That’s true. Perhaps, for those who share these concerns, it’s best to return the book back to its original place after taking a picture.
As a former bookstore worker, I understand. But mocking a man who killed over 4,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi non-combatants is, well, it’s more important than your inconvenience, don’t you think? And I wouldn’t worry about this happening at a library. The people who will find this book interesting don’t know what a library is. George will be safe there.
He single handedly killed 4000 Americans? And HUNDREDS of thousands of INNOCENT Iraqis? The total death count isn’t even that high! And the ones killed are anything but innocent. You cannot just throw out random numbers and expect to be accurate. While I do not agree with the war, Bush did not kill anyone anymore than Obama is killing people right now. Oh yeah eh, forget about that, did ya? There are still troops over there and this President is still issuing kill orders. So is he also guilty of half a million counts of murder as you say Bush is? Double standards my friend, avoid them.
Bush started the war for reasons known only to him. That makes him far more culpable than the guy who inherited the war with his extremely difficult new job. You try & go to that many meetings & see how much you get done. Obama doesn’t have a magic wand. He said from the start change wasn’t going to happen overnight & every step along the way takes united effort. The American public is like a scared crying baby wanting immediate gratification. Americans have become a nation of weak, unhealthy, phobic ridden, unthinking, unreasonable, scared wimps. What has happened to the American spirit?
Um- why dont you try reading the book, eh genius? Cant read? Um, hello?? wow, this is the best the Left can do for an informed opinion? Hey dumb*ss, how did that one feel? This is the part where you say ‘Thank You Sir May I Have Another’
And what about your Bill Clinton who stood idly by while 800,000 people slaughtered one another in a conflict we could have at least taken the moral ascendancy in waged out of control in Rwanda?
….say it again, Horace:
‘Thank You Sir May I Have Another’
The old boy just couldn’t bring himself to act, kind of like Carter during the Iranian crisis and the 444 days….We could have at least mitigated some of the slaughter, and we DIDNT. YOUR CLINTON did this, and has the blood on his hands, along with radically devaluing the office of the President itself
OUR President choose to act, and liberated 50 million grateful people in the process and stabilized the Middle East, all in one go. And if you think the US Government staged the twin tower attack, we need to get you fitted for a tin foil hat to go over your pointed head-
Thank you. My sentiments, exactly. Most of us agree bombing buildings & killing innocent people is a crime.
I was agreeing with patriotaxe, not Duhmay-uss Redneck Uhhh NOT!
Not that libraries were even mentioned (it was bookstores), but I also shelve books at a library and I wouldn’t mind the extra work because I would be thrilled to know there were others who were also outraged at Bush’s crimes. (well, we all know Cheney pulled the strings, but still)
AH IT WILL KEEP YOU EMPLOYED DON’T KIDD YOURSELF
Any library or bookstore that puts the book anywhere other than in the Crime section has the book misfiled. This is a way to help libraries and bookstores maintain themselves properly.
Alright people, don’t get all bent. Find a compromise– move ONE book to the crime section. Harmless, low-effort (for you as well as book store employee), yet makes the point.
pour a bucket of blood over the lot!
Comrade, a bucket of blood…seems rather unnonviolenty of you. How about you donate about 10 pints of your own blood to the cause? The world will not miss you.
wow, nice censorship- you free speechers are all alike-
Let me just be clear that I’m not asking anyone to destroy any books. In fact, I’m completely against book burning and destroying of ANY books at all (pouring blood on them included) and that is not what we’re asking to do. The book will not be suppressed or incinerated so that no one else will be able to read it, or that any property is destroyed. I’m encouraging people to take the book and move it to the section of the bookstore that they deem the most suitable category. As Nathan says above, if you really do have concerns about this act, then feel free to snap your pic and put the book back in it’s original place. Let’s be honest, Bush will sell hundreds of thousands of copies of this his book and reap giant royalties from Decision Points. I doubt moving the book to another section of the store will take any money out of his oil-rich pockets. And yes, this movement is a prank. And good one, I think. I’m more than happy to be lumped in with other iconic, poignant, and yes, perhaps, even childish pranks that have come and gone. (The Yes Men come to mind.) And yes, I’ve worked in retail before. I know how tedious it is to move back all the items that people picked up and left in another part of the store. However, it was all part of the job. And I think if someone had done it in the name of a clever political act, I’d smirk and happily put it back in the right place.
But it’s not really clever, is it? Hundreds of people do this kind of things every week. It’s ceased being clever. It’s just annoying and no, we don’t all smirk and happily put the books back. Especially when we are getting chewed out by a politically liberal customer who thinks our store is purposely hiding or not promoting liberal-agenda books, and then getting chewed in the other ear my a conservative-minded customer who is pissed about the Bush book.
It’s not clever. It not a “political act”. It’s a pain in the butt.
And people died as a result of this guy’s “decision points.” Really.
This action will soon be over, and its main purpose is simply for everyday people to say “these crimes are not okay. I won’t just stand by. We’re here and we don’t agree.” But the lost lives will never return. I get that re-shelving may annoy you but I can’t help but feel annoyed at the lack of perspective. Shelving and re-shelving is your job. If not for a principled reason, you’d be re-shelving Maxim magazines simply because people are too lazy and inconsiderate to put them back after drooling. Get a grip.
Is this just a target reason to complain?
Nonetheless, thank you for your work, and I’m sure most would agree that we’re sorry one of the side-effects of this action is inconveniencing people like you.
Frankly, I wish statements like these didn’t need to be made. Not so much because the side-effects annoy you but because it would mean lives wouldn’t have been lost and the world would be just a little bit better than it happens to be.
Book by book, step by step. So it goes.
There are other ways to make the same statement that are both more effective/visible and don’t ruin the day of someone other than the target of your protest. I bet you wouldn’t feel the same way if someone was going into your job and making tons of extra work for you just to feel as if they were making some big statement, when in reality hardly anyone will notice the action other than you and your co-workers.
You lack perspective if you think this is a serious or important statement/protest.
ONE BRICK CREATES A WALL
If you have concerns about this act?
IF?
Honey, it’s not part of the bookstore employees job to clean up your childish political protest. It’s not the owners job as well to pay someone to clean up after your self-centered stunt.
Idiot.
Last I checked, I thought it was illegal for criminals to profit off of their crimes?
How long have you lived here in Amerika?
Baaaaaadddd PatAxe-
I wouldn’t go there about crooks profiting from their successes…
this is from your left leaning WikiPedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers
‘In 1969 he co-founded the Weather Underground, a self-described communist revolutionary group that conducted a campaign of bombing public buildings during the 1960s and 1970s, motivated by U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He is a retired professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, formerly holding the titles of Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar’
Um, why does he get to profit after Bombing New York City Police headquarters and the Pentagon?
He even admitted he did this stuff-
What about this guy? should he be subject to the same scrutiny?
Obviously you’ve never checked…
Sarcasm is a wonderful tool. Learn it.
You have the “tool” part down pat…
Right- so LBJ should have been tossed out for OFFICIALLY registering DEAD people in Texas to vote for him? and then having them show up as having voted? maybe his estate should have to pay back everything it got from all the money he made during and after his Presidency?
Um, Hello?
or Maybe I should say, DOH!
Really? Are we getting that butt hurt over what was clearly a sarcastic joke? The person wasn’t actually telling everyone to move the book over to the crime section.
Have all of you just started using the internet? I’d hate to see how any of you would do reading youtube comments.
Seriously. Keep your pints and buckets of blood to yourself, all…save your indignation for something worthy of your righteousness.
You’ve clearly never worked in a bookstore. People move books to make a political or religious “point” all the time. All it does is mess up the day of the bookseller who has to clean up after them.
Looks like Glen was the only one who got it. It was a joke, about moving the book. Not worthy of reading tho it is. Don’t make work for the librarians. A joke. Get it.
Some NeoCons have the mark that equal them with fanatics of any creed: The lack of humour
A sense of humor (or humour, across the Pond) is a sure indication of high intellect. Oh, yes, I see what you’re getting at …
There is never any humor on the left- Only when they want to back peddle on something, ‘Whoa whoa, hold there, uh I wuz jes jokin there pardner, yuk yuk yuk!’
BS mister- this is how you guys think, and is vulgar and obvious-
And FYI the call HAS gone out to do this, ie; stash the Bush Books, just Google it, Ding Dong. Sheesh- A hard core right wing ideologue like me is hipper than you to the talk in the street?
WHATS THIS COUNTRY COMING TO??!? *Gasp*
Every library and every bookstore has a public restroom. Place one book on top of the toilet paper dispenser. Consider it a public service.
I don’t think so…bookstores don’t let you take their merchandise inside there, unless, of course, it was already bought.
And believe me, I’ve been in enough bookstores & seen those warning signs often enough to know this..
Yeah-
I’ll do that with the Koran, too, just so that we can be intellectually balanced. No? Problem with that? Why not do it on principle, just, of course, so that we do justice in the marketplace of ideas, right?
Did he write the book himself? Did he use crayons or a pencil? Come on, who helped him? Here in London we moved lots of his books, organised protests at planned book signings and got the major London one cancelled.
Thing was, we didn’t listen to moralistic right wing nutcases. We campaigned against a war that was never justified – remember the WMDs? – and the perpetrators of that war.
Bush has just been on UK radio telling us torture is justified and that waterboarding stopped two attacks in the UK.
Perhaps you could move the books to “fantasy” or “horror”?
Glad to hear that the US still have bookshops 😉
Oh come now, who in their right mind believes Obama wrote his books. Of course Bush had professional help writing it. Who the heck cares what freaks in the UK do? Besides, such childish stunts actually push sales higher from all the free press. More people read the book, the more people are sympathetic to the President’s decisions which is contrary to all the far lefts desires.
I’ve been waterboarded, suffered no ill effects. I have NO idea what the big deal is. It freaks you out. You talk. I wouldn’t call it torture. Electrocution, beating, white hot pokers, drinking oil, castration…THAT is torture. So, yeah, I agree with the President on that one.
Bookstores, bookstores, bookstore, for all of you who misread the word “bookstores” as “libraries” and “bookstore” as “library”; please go back to school.
Why not address the ideas instead of something trivial like spelling? I think you are probably not really equipped to do this, so you dwell on a point of error that doesn’t even trace into semantics. At least draw a meaningless distinction or something. Cry racism? anything? is this REALLY the best critique you can offer?
And, um, have you READ the book?
You Lefties always ask us well read Righties that one every single time! So, have you read the book?
It’s totally okay to make a bookseller’s day miserable, though right? As long as we don’t mess with a librarian’s day it doesn’t matter whose life we disrupt. Would it be okay if I went to your job and re-arranged things? Tossed some files on the floor? Put your stapler in the freezer and your tape dispenser in the toilet? That would be HILARIOUS, right? What if I did it repeatedly? And encouraged tons of other people on Facebook and Twitter to join me?
A friend of mine wrote the following on my Facebook page:
My replies seem to address some of the issues raised here, so I thought I’d share them:
Fantastic, Nathan. Love it. Hey, guys #reshelvebush is trending on Twitter. Tweet it up!
As the friend Nathan mentioned earlier, I agree with the principle of the act, i just felt that it may be immediately affecting people who aren’t the inteded victims.
An excerpt from my response:
“Move your book, take your picture, move it back.
That seems like a perfectly reasonable act. But leaving it there could be seen as selfish.
To say that many of the bookshelvers might agree with us anyway seems like a bit of a stretch. If that’s the case, ask them to move it. If they will, fantastic, if they won’t, neither should you. The logic that they’d have to reshelve many other books anyway, so why not add to it doesn’t hold water when applied to any other situation.
They (hopefully) mop the floor at my local grocery store daily, so why don’t i write a message in ketchup on the floor to Timothy Dalton asking him about the next James Bond movie? The only people I’m affecting are the staff at the store, or at the very best, a man who is no longer the person I should be voicing my concerns to.”
So, if you’re planning on participating (which I fully agree with), either ask the staff if they mind, or move it, take your picture, and move it back.
Be as kind as you can to those who have to clean up after you.
Something we all can agree the previous administration failed at.
Be better.
Speaking as a retail bookstore employee, I’m begging people to not do this. I spend hours of my week taking Obama books out of the humor section, Palin books out of the sex section, religious pamphlets out of the self-help books, army recruiter cards out of the GED study guides, and finding hidden books all over the store.
It sorta more bums me out when it’s so-called intelligent, otherwise enlightened progressives hiding the books and screwing up my job.
So, don’t do this. I get paid not a lot of money to do quite a bit of work, and what I’d really like to do is be available to help customers find books, talk to parents about how to get their kids reading more….things like that.
If you want to be an activist, do it some way that targets the big guy. Crap like this only makes the little guy’s day a little more miserable.
We do apologize for the inconvenience that reshelving the books causes employees. I understand, I worked in retail too. One of the other editors at Waging Nonviolence used to work at a B&N for 2 years and we’ve discussed the inconvenience this causes, which is why we told people who participate in this act to feel free to take their photo, and then put the book back in it’s original place. And I know Nathan was encouraging people to ask the employees if they minded if they carried out the action. For myself and the other editors, we picked up a bunch of misplaced books that we found around the store as we wandered, and correctly reshelved them, in the hopes of good karma.
Really? You said this in your article?
Could have fooled me.
I love how liberals like to claim that they’re morally superior, when they’re actually childish and lower the of ethics rather than raise it.
Good job. You’re truly “waging nonviolence.”
“Crap like this only makes the little guy’s day a little more miserable.”
I agree 100%. Please don’t make my day or my co-worker’s day miserable (we agree with you!) by pulling this childish stunt. If you move it to take a picture and re-shelve it then I’m fine with that, but please don’t encourage more of this nonsense. It already happens far too often. It’s not clever. It’s not original. It’s just a hassle to those of us who work hard and aren’t paid well, but continue to do it because we genuinely love books and getting others excited about reading.
PLEASE, please do not do this. The booksellers who will have to shelve countless books that you have “moved where they belong” not only likely agree with you but also have more important things to do than clean up after your childish jokes/political statements. This does not make a point about the horrors of the Bush administration, it just shows that you have absolutely no regard for the frustration and wasted time you are causing for hardworking, low-paid bookstore employees. There are more productive and less destructive ways to make your opinion know. Please don’t take it out on your local bookseller.
Let’s move all of President Obamas books to the humor section, because he is such a JOKE!
Well, if Hitler had published memoirs, they might have met even more opposition.
Lets get a few things in perspective, right or left.
Bush and his cohorts conned this country into attacking Iraq, even though they had nothing to do with 911, no weapons of mass destruction, had not attacked or threatened anyone in 12 years. In doing so, our forces, at his direction, murdered over a million Iraqis.
Bush cut brush on his Texas ranch while neglecting his duty during katrina.
Bush violated the constitution with illegal domestic wire tapping.
Bush violated the Geneva convention by ordering torture of prisoners of war.
Bush committed treason when he had cheney out a CIA covert operative and their entire intelligence gathering organization in the middle east.
Any person supporting the republicans is a Nazi sympathizer.
What an asinine post.
So if Bush was a Nazi, what does that make Obama?
Obama is continuing ALL of Bush’s policies:
1. Guantamo’s still going strong.
2. Obama CONTINUED the Patriot Act!!!!!
3. Obama is continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Keep in mind, of course, that our withdrawal from Iraq is based on Bush’s deal with the Iraqi gov’t.
So explain this, Mr. Hypocrite.
How can I possibly repay in words what he has done in foul deeds ? I wish I knew. I wish my words had powers beyond their sounds, beyond their script, powers of truth and justice that has yet to come and sadly may never come. For if we say that Bush is in God’s hands are we abdicating our own responsibility, and resigning ourselves to impotence and futility ? Kanye West has now apologized to him and in that small gesture hangs a great disappointment, a return to ‘untruth’ and an escape from one of the few moments of truth we have had the satisfaction to experience in these awful years. So I do not apologize. I do not forgive. Now is not the time to forgive or forget.
Why should we read the justifications of policies that have harmed America by the perpetrator?
From the abusive use of “signing statements” to Enron to “shock and awe” tactics of illegal military aggression the man’s book should be shunned.
From the tortures condoned at the highest levels of American government there should be justice for those responsible for those policies and the authors of those legal “justifications”.
The man is free to write his book just as we are free to shun it.
To protest the large corporations that encourage childhood obesity, any time I see an unmaned pizza delivery car, I slash it’s tires. Take that The Man!
Honestly, I don’t like Bush but I feel like the only thing you’re protesting with by moving these books is Barnes and Noble employees having a good day. If you’re so opposed to that go ahead.