Blue Mountain Has Taken The Love Democratic Style Bondage eCard Off Of Its Site!

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=389&topic_id=215086&mesg_id=215086

Here is the email I just received from them!

Hello ,

Thank you for contacting BlueMountain.com Customer Service.


Thank you for sharing your feedback on one of the political humor eCards offered by our online greetings division. As of February 16, the eCard in question has been removed from our network of personal expression websites. Our company tracks and considers
all consumer feedback, so your comments have been forwarded to the people who plan our future online card programs for their review. We will definitely take your comments into consideration as we develop future content.

It was never our intention to offend anyone, and we regret any concern this e-card may have caused. With billions of online and paper cards sent annually in the U.S., I'm sure you can appreciate the wide variety of individual tastes that the industry
seeks to meet.

We appreciate the fact that this creative direction is not for everyone. However, humor is very subjective, and just as preferences in books, movies, TV programs and stand-up comedy routines vary widely, so do online card preferences.

Again, thank you for writing. We value hearing about the interests and concerns of card users.


Thank you,
Joshua M
Your Customer Support Representative
BlueMountain.com

[BonnieJW]

1. No, not everything is funny.

You don't have to appeal to the lowest tastes to be successful. Would they show a black person in chains and make a joke about it? Would they show starving people in Dafur and make a funny ecard? There are limits and anyone with a brain cell knows that. I hope they send a response to me so I can give them an email in flames.

[Marr]

2. From what I've heard, it's conservatives who generally harbor the real kinks.

I've heard this from more than one person- one a dominatrix, the other a stripper. Both said that business boomed (and the Weird Request level shot through the roof) when a Republican/Fundamentalist function was in town.

[Uben]

3. I received the letter yesterday, but......

....as of that time they had not chosen to remove it. I guess enough DUers wrote to make a difference! Way to go DU! Mess with the best, lose like the rest!

[hashibabba]

4. That's great that they took it off. I think I'll write to them,

not to flame them, but to thank them. After all, they obviously listened to the complaints and removed the offending card.

[Divernan]

5. BS "apology". "This creative direction is not for everyone"!?!?!?

I'm glad they took it down, but they left it up through Valentine's Day, though they started getting complaints about it several days before. Also, NOWHERE else on their site are there any porn cards (S&M), or cards using a cutsey "VD" acronym to describe any political party or minority group. Nowhere on their site do they sell cards ridiculing actual living persons. Nowhere on their site do they have cards depicting S&M. I couldn't even find any cards generally ridiculing political figures. This card was a quite unique and deliberate attack on current Democratic leaders.

I also sent them a scathing commentary on this card in which I noted there were no parallel cards trashing Republican leadership, or "Love, Republican Style" cards.

What I want is an apology from this company to every living person ridiculed and demeaned by that card, for allowing someone in their employ to misuse their web business to attack and slime Dem. leaders of our country.

[keepCAblue]

8. Ditto! What you said. And I'll never visit their site again...

The damage has been done and Blue Mountain's true colors exposed.

[rinsd]

9. Did you forget the sarcasm tag?

"What I want is an apology from this company to every living person ridiculed and demeaned by that card, for allowing someone in their employ to misuse their web business to attack and slime Dem. leaders of our country."

It was a member created card. What you suggest is like going after Skinner for what I post.

Should we stop using Cafe Pree because they sell GOP related merchandise?

Can we stop being a bunch of hysterical ninnies?

That card wasn't even part of their tree of Valentine's day cards. You had to searh for it.

But thanks to hysterical ultra sensitive types the card has now acheieved far greater publicity than the member who created it could have hoped for.

[Divernan]

11. It was NOT a member created card, and Blue Mountain didn't claim that.

The Blue Mountain website offers a few "free cards", and the rest, like the offensive one in question, are ones which only paying members could send. As a paying member, you can select any card, whether free or restrictd to members, and then add your own comments/greetings to it to pesonalize it. That personal greeting is the only "member created" portion of the card, and it is seen ONLY by the person to whom the card is sent. It is not offered for others to send.

I'm sorry that you are incapable of understanding how the Blue Mountain card site is set up.

I'll try to put this as simply as possible, in hopes that you can follow it. The Blue Mountain website does NOT allow members to create and/or post their own cards. And speaking as a hard-nosed attorney, I'm telling you that Blue Mountain would be idiots to do so, because they would have their asses sued out of existence by individuals portrayed in such cards. If you persist in your delusional statements, simply go to the Blue Mountain website, and find that option and post it in response to me.

Of course you can't. And I expect you are one of those posters who can never admit you made a mistake and didn't know what you were posting about.

[rinsd]

13. "hard-nosed attorney"

LOL. Well that would explain why you make a mountain out of a molehill

"
The Blue Mountain website does NOT allow members to create and/or post their own cards. And speaking as a hard-nosed attorney, I'm telling you that Blue Mountain would be idiots to do so, because they would have their asses sued out of existence by individuals portrayed in such cards."

Hmmmm that doesn't seem to have happened with ebay or you-tube or myspace or the dozens of websites offering community produced materials.

"And I expect you are one of those posters who can never admit you made a mistake and didn't know what you were posting about."

Pot meet kettle.

http://www1.bluemountain.com/category.pd?path=73063

Hmmm what is this? Looks like a card maker with flash. And my my that first frame looks mighty similar the Democrats like SM card.

[Buzz Clik]

6. Can we end the boycott now?

:sarcasm:

This is a classic example of supersensitive people with stick up their butts.

Non-issue. Period.

[Beelzebud]

7. Wait, I thought Dems were FOR personal freedom?

Aren't we the ones that won't judge someone's sexual proclivities? I'm sure there thousands of liberals/Dems that enjoy some consenting bondage among adults...

Are we really going to become the hyper-sensitive people that try to shut everyone up that "offends" us?

Am I impure for thinking such a card is funny, and not offensive? Am I impure if I practice bondage?

[NewJeffCT]

10. Shouldn't they have used Bill Bennet if they wanted a bondage card?

If the rumors are true at least. And, of course, to quote Peggy Noonan - it would be irresponsible not to speculate.

[City Lights]

12. They remove a Valentine's Day card two days after Valentine's Day.

How nice of them. :eyes:

My problem with their humor is that it was totally one-sided. I would not have had a problem with it if they offered up some humor at the expense of the Repubics as well.

[ieoeja]

14. I actually liked it.

But then I am a Democrat in large part because I believe the Democratic Party supports the right to be and do all those things the Church Lady considers evil. When I get crap about Democrats "smoking pot in the White House" or whatever my reply is, "damn straight! And that's why I will continue voting Democratic! We put the 'party' in party politics."

Republicans are boring.

[cascadiance]

15. I think Blue Mountain Coffee company in Jamaica should sue them for slandering their name!

http://www.bluemountaincoffee.com/

When I first saw this story, I thought, "Oh Damn! You mean these guys who make such great coffee are doing this sort of crap?" But they appear to be separate companies. I think perhaps we should write this company to see if they can do a lawsuit on Blue Mountain cards! What do you all think? Might be a better way to make them feel PAIN, since that was what was implied was "enjoyable" through these cards!