It used to be said that the Coalition was too gentlemanly to use the same tactics that Labor did. It's worse now. The Coalition has cravenly scuttled to the Left. They stand for nothing, so votes, huge unearned salaries and superannuation are all that matter. The Morrison government has turned the whole game on its head, becoming the most ardent big-spending socialistic government ever. It has shat itself over the China virus, and has lost the will to fight - or, more correctly, ensured that there is no fight, the Opposition and small parties merely squeaking occasionally to no avail because Morrison is doing what they used to do.

There will be no "battle" - Australians don't have it in them; they still trust politicians. There is no do-it-yourself spirit in Australia. We've surrendered our lives to big brother. With politicians like Scott Morrison and others, we don't need China to bring us down.

> Sleeping Giants are fascists using brownshirt tactics,
Really? Who are they threatening violence against?

And if you dislike Sleeping Giants's campaigns, perhaps you'd care to suggest an alternative way of dealing with those organisations that use disinformation to gather support for rightwing causes?

Dear GrahamY,

I'm sorry but you doth protest too much.

How many corporate fundraising dinners did you help arrange in your time within the Queensland Liberal party? How much access to sitting politicians did you sell to swell the election coffers?

How much are Gina's fingerprints over the 457 visa policies by government? How much sway did her and other miners have over the Coalition's climate policies? Why were the threats to withdraw funding from charity groups if they were critical of government policies acceptable?

Our democracy is for sale. The influence of the wealthy is a direct relation to how much money they are able to bring to the table. Why isn't the exercise of purchasing choices by the ordinary punter to drive change any less legitimate?

I would argue that this 'speaking with the wallet' is a direct result of the feelings of impotence by the general public.

And another thing why weren't you defending Yassmin Abdel-Magied when the cancel culture drove her from our shores?

I don't see much merit in war! Or ideological imperatives from either the right or left!

But rather in critical thinking and being guided by the science, rather than those who want to cherry-pick their science so it fits a flawed belief system.

The right seems to believe that coal and fossil fuel do not contribute to climate change? And for a time that both tobacco and asbestos were benign and or useful? I mean, if there's a buck in it, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more!?

It'd be different if we didn't have superior alternatives to coal to use. And thorium is cheaper than coal ( Professor Robert Hargraves) as abundant as lead and the most energy dense material on the planet! So abundant we can never ever run out of it! NEVER!

We could have a recovery on steroids if we use thorium to turbocharge it. And we could! Moreover, energy retailed for around $1.98 (Economist Profesor Robert Hargraves) would do just that!

We will run out of coal one day but not before the world goes beyond a climate change tipping point toward an extermination event! But for most of the right wing here, not an issue, even if not the case in dozens of other more enlightened countries? And even as we argue for coal they are going elsewhere.

Can't see the point of electric cars, if we charge them with coal-fired power. TBC
Alan B.

Defend diabolically despicable Yassmen? You're dreaming SR!
Alan B.

. ..Gina's fingerprints over the 457 visa policies by government?
Steeleredux,
I think I can safely guess that there'd be massively fewer than than the number of those Labor supporters who think themselves too good for the bulk of the work done by 457 Visa holders.
My other guess is that if our Govt had the sense & Labor's backing, just about every 457 Visa holder would jump at the offer to serve a two-year non-military National Service with the prospect of another 5 years of menial work & another prospect of gaining permanent residence after another two years of probation.
Wouldn't work I hear you think ? Are you game enough to take the chance ?

Bring it on Graham. Let the market decide.
And no snowflaking it when your side loses.
If the public boycott a company because of its actions then thats the market in action. Nothing "uncivil" about it. Pure market forces in my opinion. Typical of you rightys and your lies when you normally spout the "if a company is bad people wont buy their goods blah blah blah" spiel but when it actually happens youre all "wah wah its not fair, wah wah poor little multinational corporations, wah wah so hard done by, wah wah not making billions wah wah" Fing makes me sick.
If your great and hallowed business entities cant make it against a few lefty activists then they arent that great and wonderful are they and maybe they deserve to fail. At least thats what your so called ideology of freedom and capitalism would have us believe.
But as we can see here its total bollocks and you lot only believe in markets when its an abstract theory in an economics class but in the real world you go running to your mates in government to "protect us from our customers and make them buy our s#!t".
Pathetic hypocrites.

Thanks for letting us know about the latest incarnation of the Sleeping Giants. I'm interested in knowing if the Sleeping Giants in the US were charged with defamation. The head of the group got fired from the advertising company he worked for- from memory. It will be interesting to see how this pans out here. It'll be interesting if these groups spawn copy cats in other places around the world, or just Australia.

I like your ideas about how to fight these unrepresentative "woke" groups- companies themselves will start to develop their own strategies for dealing with these groups.

Maybe the companies can create a list of troublemaking callers and collaborate with other companies.

Surely these subversives Cancel Tactics aren't representative of the community.

I think this Cancel strategy is similar to CFO Eduardo Severin's big coin little coin tactic in the Facebook movie. Use your resources to surround the target with opposition and they will be starved of oxygen.

Consumption is a political act.

when it actually happens youre all "wah wah its not fair, wah wah poor little multinational corporations,
mikk,
And, just remind us how you Lefties carry on when we taxpayers ask for some value in return from you lot for the Dollars spent on you for exactly WHAT ?

When it comes to choices, there lies the power.
I'm already aligned to "corporations stupid".

Qantas is very very high on the list.
Already I'm not at all happy with Coles, but I notice neither are many around me.
I've made conscious efforts to not shop there.
Unless I feel I use and abuse them, my shopping is very very consciously sourced at other locations.

Black lives at times do matter in my life, a big tick is Israel Falou, for whom I hold the greatest respect.

Dan

individual,

What do you think of project home builders who are in the money laundering business for the likes of the Lebanese Mafia, bikie gangs, etc.?

Good point SR - Abdel-Magied was at the forefront of cancel culture when she actually had a session with Lionel Shriver (a renowned author, unlike herself) cancelled.

So it would be fair retaliation for Magied herself to be cancelled, not that it's happened - she was on Q&A the other night. I wonder if they'd have Shriver on?

But I certainly hope any government grants she was getting have been pulled and no more are available.

If there are to be adverse consequences for free speech as free speech, then those urging the consequences ought to be first in line for the counteroffensive, and in fact don't really have a place in any liberal democracy - if you tolerate those who want to pull the structure down, then you'll end up without any structure if you're not careful.

project home builders who are in the money laundering business
Mr Opinin,
You'd better put that question to the over-paid Leftist bureaudroids who are supposed to close loopholes not keep them open for their mates !

Dear GrahamY,

You wrote; "Abdel-Magied was at the forefront of cancel culture when she actually had a session with Lionel Shriver (a renowned author, unlike herself) cancelled."

It seems all she did was walk out of a address Shriver was giving. How is that personally cancelling it?

Further Shriver returned to Australia last year after emphatically vowing never to do so.

If you are trying to make a point here I'm not sure it is all that clear.

However you haven't said why you feel that the ordinary punter using they very limited purchasing power to try and bring about changes in corporate and government behaviour is any less legitimate than billionaires doing the same with their extreme wealth?

While an app designed that help remind people of who the corporate knee-benders are and to guide buyers to better outlets/retailers/producers, would be a very useful tool, the real solution to all this is to get CEO's who have a backbone.

In the end, these people demanding boycotts for this and boycotts for that based on the flimsiest pretext (Coon cheese FFS), represent a very small, though vocal group. CEO's who recognise this and tell the 'woke' to take a hike, would first save their business a deal of angst and would also gain the admiration of those who don't in the least support the 'woke' agenda.

We don't see much of this in Oz, but the US is starting to see more and more businesses fighting back. The best recent example is Goya Foods. The CEO of this company had the temerity to praise Trump. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (who, one wonders, might will be a one women RNC 5th columnist) led a boycott of the company. But the company refused to yield and people like Ivanka Trump led the fight-back, including a 'buycott' whereby people moved their purchasing TO the company. Funds were raised from ordinary Americans to buy Goya products and then donate them to food-backs.

The upshot? The company is doing better than ever, the CEO remains in place the boycott went nowhere.

A few examples like this and the whole unsavoury practice would die a quiet death. Of course, it does require CEO's with fight and in Australia, given the way they've all acquiesced to the destruction of the economy, there doesn't seem to be too many backbones around the boardroom.

Another major failure of the "woke" cancel culture was that of Israel Folau who was "cancelled" by the whinging left and went onto make a motza getting paid another 3 years for free and going on to star in NRL rugby.

The major victims of this pogrom were the snowflake Raelene Castle who got fired for the cock-up, and rugby fans whose sport got reamed.

https://www.rugbypass.com/news/israel-folau-is-trending-on-twitter-again-but-this-time-for-his-monster-super-league-performance/

Dear mhaze,

My god you just can't help yourself can you. Is it that you post rubbish like this up on sympathetic forums and so never get pulled up?

“We don't see much of this in Oz, but the US is starting to see more and more businesses fighting back. The best recent example is Goya Foods. The CEO of this company had the temerity to praise Trump. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (who, one wonders, might will be a one women RNC 5th columnist) led a boycott of the company. But the company refused to yield and people like Ivanka Trump led the fight-back, including a 'buycott' whereby people moved their purchasing TO the company. Funds were raised from ordinary Americans to buy Goya products and then donate them to food-backs.

The upshot? The company is doing better than ever, the CEO remains in place the boycott went nowhere.”

Firstly the CEO who was suppose to speak on the fourth day of the RNC event has been dumped, cancelled by Trump by the looks.

Secondly the CEO is the grandson of the founder of the company. This is a family business so he is hardly going to get his marching orders.

Thirdly the complimenting Trump and the Boycott only happen last month. It is utterly fanciful to claim “ The company is doing better than ever, the CEO remains in place the boycott went nowhere”.

And now you seem to be saying people who are boycotting are wrong for basing their purchases on the politic of the CEO of a company but it is fine for those who are participating in a “buycott”.

How about some consistency from you for once?

Many of these "boycotts" seem to be based on a small number of pressure points such as the one against Sky TV and phone calls by lobbyists to their ten largest advertisers. It's not a traditional boycott. The US Sleeping Giants brought down Australian TV Channel "Your Money" by lobbying their advertisers.

The Traditional Media has been having a difficult time due to Google Ads. Blow's to large players such as Murdoch's Sky and The Australian will probably have wage impacts to the whole industry as a large number of journo's flood the smaller number of outlets. Possibly the only outlet to survive will be the advertising insulated government funded ABC.

In the US Sleeping Giants the founders consisted of a San Francisco based Advertising Executive and an Indian IT Specialist from memory.

It's good to hear cases of Sleeping Giants tactics backfiring

SR continues his policy of getting the ad homs in early when he's got nothing of substance to say....

" CEO who was suppose to speak on the fourth day of the RNC event has been dumped"

Well the RNC said it was due to logistic problems ie they couldn't fit him in the agenda as new more newsworthy speakers arose. They might be lying but I don't see why. But I'm sure you have better evidence to support your assertions, so show us.

"Thirdly the complimenting Trump and the Boycott only happen last month"

Oh, so there hasn't been enough time for your fantasies to come true? Quite how that'll happen now that there is no longer a boycott is something only someone disconnected from reality might understand.

"And now you seem to be saying people who are boycotting are wrong"

Well no where did I say that and I don't think it. But as we've learned over the years, you, in your dreamland, believe you know my views better than I do.

People have a right to engage in boycotts and buycotts. I do it myself. The crux of my post was that the outcome of either is entirely dependent on the strength of character of the company's leadership. Was that too complicated for you to get?

It's good to hear cases of Sleeping Giants tactics backfiring
Canem Malum,
When one bites the hand that feeds you .........

For perspective, Victoria is Australia's most Woke state, and unsurprisingly it is going the most broke.