I don't care what they call themselves, trying to ban books is a symptom of fascist tendencies.

stop using facts, it confuses the masses.

I wonder how many bookstores in Texas stock Obama's "Audacity of Hope"..... And do I care that they don't? Of course not. Maybe they don't want to carry "Anne Frank's Diary" - who cares, it's their decision. If they don't want to carry books by any Jewish writers, period - who cares? It's their store! Is it censorship if a Christian bookstore doesn't carry Anton LeVay's work?

In my imagination, 87 of them.

FFS they are selling it online.

It's excellent that the enlightened among - or should I say above - us are deciding what we get to read and who gets to sell what book.

We all need window smashers, wannabe authoritarians and otherwise enlightened individuals deciding what we think.

You can buy it in a dozen, if not hundred, of places online. How in any way is your access impeded because it's not available at Powell's? It doesn't work with the Powell demographic, and would also just be a headache.

1. Portland compliments itself on being open minded.
2. Group of thugs threatens bookstore. Media shows this, exposing Portland as city without free speech.
3. Response = "gee we don't need that silly book anyway!"

When a group of people can shutdown bookstore sales at will, where will they stop? You do realize they are still threatening store to stop online sales right? You also realize that some very well connected "journalists" have called on Andy to be kicked off twitter? (Sarah Jeong, NYT).

What if an Alabama bookstore had to stop in-store sales of a book that criticized Christianity?

"Had to stop" - who shutdown Powells? Man, what a bunch of whiners. Sounds like the best thing you can do is go to Powell's website and buy 10 copies of his book and hand them out in front of the store, to show them how wrong they are.

Do you think a lot of Alabama bookstores are carrying Anton LeVay's books? Do I care? Nope. Is it censorship? No. "Censorship" is done by the government. Businesses are free - and forced - to choose, they can't carry every book that exists, duh.

I will boycott Powells but they will probably close down because of union shit and amazon. it's about over for them anyways. Sad but likely.

Last I checked right wingers actually shot up Congress. Go ahead and clutch your pearls over the left wingers in a podunk city fussing at a bookstore.

Shot up Congress? When did that happen?

- The British in 1812
- Democrat Preston Brooks mercilessly beats Charles Sumner on the Senate floor in 1856.

- A leftist Harvard Professor detonated 3 sticks of dynamite in the capital in 1915.
- Four Leftist Puerto Rican separatists shot up the House of Representatives; injuring 5 in 1954,
- The Leftist Weather Underground exploded a bomb in the capitol in 1971.
- The Leftist ARU bombed the capitol in 1983.
- A madman killed 2 guards at the capitol in 1998 (in response to "cannibalism" in the US).
- An unknown capitol police officer shot unarmed protestor Ashli Babbet as she tried to gain access to the Senate chamber in 2021.

Who shot up the capitol?

You left out the left woman who bombed the Capitol in 1983 and was pardoned by a Democratic president. Pardon me for sharing your view that their outrage ends when their side is being violent.
Three billion dollars worth of damage and counting. These weirdos need to stop Ngo's book to keep the news from racing past the media censors.

I have been convinced by the media that the riots I saw last year didn't happen. The $3.5 billion in damage didn't happen.
I will add a slight change: Schtruggle. The great schtruggle" 😁

" It doesn't work with the Powell demographic, and would also just be a headache."

Nope.

"Powell's demographic" is huge and wide, your personal feelings of ownership over Powell's aside.

The "headache" would be the one that your cohort would deliberately, performatively inflict, out of spite that you don't get to call the shots.

If there was zero effect, then why are people so worked up about trying to get Powells not to carry it? There IS an effect, and it IS worth fighting for on principle.

They haven't been threatened, they made a marketing decision. I don't think they'd expect it to sell. Are you against private businesses deciding what they want to stock?

The mob of "C" students doesn't care whether or not the book will sell, they are not making a market based suggestion to Powell's to help them stay "in the black" and survive the pandemic.

They are demanding Powell's not carry a book in it's stores because they disagree with the politics of the author. Not only do they not want to read the book, assuming they are able, they don't want you or I to be able to go to the store, grab a cup of coffee, and skim through the book before making a purchase decision.

The question is, what side of this stupidity are you on? I think most understand the US Constitution, so to make arguments about the constitutionality of Powell's decision seems to be beside the point

I guess it's a trend now.

TheHill - 4/30/19 - "Bookstores, libraries and book fairs targeted by white nationalists: report"

Washington Post - 4/29/19 - "Beyond Politics and Prose: White nationalists target bookstores, libraries in protests nationwide"

Can you tell I didn't even open them up, and I'm barely literate to begin with? And didn't even read the WWeek article?

My bad, I'm an idiot and you're correct, it's total censorship. AntiFa are Nazis, BLM are commies. Now not a single person in Portland will be able to find Andy's book. Whitewashing history!! FAKE NEWS!!! Know what would happen if Powell's stocked it? Graffiti on the walls, probably bricks through the windows. Because Ted Wheeler is a wuss and allowed the Black Bloc kids to become emboldened over the summer. Antifa wants it blocked because Andy reports the unvarnished truth about them and their Brown Shirt tendencies.

The only solution is for you to buy 100 copies and hand them out to people along Burnside. Do it for America!

We've now come full circle. Remember the good old days when it was the bible thumpers and do-gooders who wanted books removed from shelves? I really don't know why the two extremes are fighting with each other. They are the same.

From library shelves or from private store shelves? There's a big difference. If the Multnomah County Library was refusing to carry his book, that's something else entirely, or if there were people protesting that the library has it available.

Threatening a business for carrying a book is not right. They can boycott all day long, but forcing the closure of store is inherently wrong and anti-American.

I agree. I think "Portland Liberals" and "Political Correctness" are out of control. It started years ago, forcing restaurants to close because (gasp) white people were making tortillas, etc.... and WWeek certainly espouses those actions and amplifies them. To the point where these morons are emboldened enough to force a bookstore not to carry something they hate. So much for defending free speech, AnQueefa.

The whole cultural appropriation of food is really absurd too, and very anti-American at its core. We are a melting pot, both metaphorically and culinarily.

This story was also covered by the Oregonian.

Everyone loves to act brave, "look we carry a book some Baptist doesn't like!!".

Only in Portland do the "anti-fascist" ban books. In most other cities bookstores are free to sell what they want.

It's a PRIVATE BUSINESS, for those of you who keep needing it repeated. Their inventory is THEIR CHOICE not yours. Half of those animals who voted for the T dog can't even read, I wager. Nor do they have the independent funds to spend, from what we're learning from the Shi tstain Rebellion.

Or do you whiny little Disney Princesses all of the sudden have a problem with how a proprietor chooses to run their business? Hypocrites. What a surprise.

Living 75 miles out of town, Portland has already lost most of the money we spend on restaurants and shopping over the last year. Powell's was always a major destination for us but if they bow to the left wing extremists it will be one more nail in the coffin to avoid your city. Like someone else has already posted Amazon can fill their place very easily.

Ngo is a troll and distorts facts. And Powell's should carry his book in-store if they carry others like his. They should not give in to bullies on either side of the political spectrum.

"...distasteful ... badly written .. execrable .."
OOPS
Powell's gives Ngo its off-handed opinion. I do commend it for standing its ground. As a statement published in the O quoted, it sold Rushdie's book also, under threat.
Booksellers are neutral actors. Don't like the author? Don't buy the book.
Simple.
But don't try to pressure the bookseller esp during these trying times for retail business.

Exactly. I wonder if these protesters would be happy once the local business they are protesting shutters their doors and then Amazon takes over the market. Amazon's corporate ethics couldn't care less about their protests and would be closer to their utopia, I'm sure.

pdxnoob - You make a good point. But while they might not admit it, I think those protestors would be very happy if they shut down a local business that didn't comply with their demands. It's about power for them, nothing else.

I think Andy Ngo, like Donald Trump, is a total troll, but I don't believe in banning books. If you don't like his book, here's a thought: Don't buy it.

Of course, right-wingers have no higher ground here, as the idea of banning books is a bipartisan issue...

According to a YouGov 2017 survey, the majority of Republicans (55%) feel that books with homosexual or transgender characters should be banned from all elementary school libraries, and 2 in 5 (21%) think that they shouldn’t be present in public libraries either.

Democrats aren't any better... who here read about the recent Huckleberry Finn fiasco?

WW/Disqus won't allow links, but here's the YouGov survey you can Google:

yougov Daily Survey: Book Banning October 16 - 17, 2017 - 1000 US Adults

I agree with your position, but would suggest you are comparing apples and bananas. Banning or selecting the reading menu for children in public schools, is not the same as banning books for adults.

If you looked at the source I provided, you'll see that public libraries are also included. I just gave one sample of the survey.

Banning books in libraries would be banning books for adults.

Regardless, banning books is banning books and it seems like apples and apples to me.

Does Powell's sell Trump's "Art of the Deal"?

Just looked and it does, for $16.99.

I don't know though... Art of the Deal was written (not by Trump, by the way) before Trump was a full-on living manifestation of an online troll.

That's all Andy Ngo is... a triggered troll trying to cash out on "owning the libs."

Powell's can sell or not sell any book they want... it's still a free country.

When I hear about crap like this it does give me pause. It may be a vocal minority, but they are clearly calling for censorship and they think it's ok. We shouldn't give in to this type of stupidity.

So, have we encountered another example of censorship. I can buy almost any book at Powells but not this one conservative author/journalist. Shame on them.

I will take antifa's effort to stifle any author as an admission that they cannot refute that author's claims or ideas.

How does one refute claims that aren't objectively based in reality? Asking for some friends attending the Aunt Teefa annual convention in Des Moines this year

Good question, and one I ask myself every time somebody tries to tell me that words are violence but arson isn't.

The answer is with claims that are rooted in reality. But that doesn't mean that you are garraunteed to have people change their minds instantaneously upon exposure to such claims. Would that it were so simple, but it is not. People do, after all, have the right to be wrong, and every single one of us on this planet is wrong about some things, and you're going to have to get used to that, while noting that as a person on this planet you are also wrong about some things.