Fight the GetUp! campaign against Australian businesses [Update]

I received this email from CANdo – the Conservative Action Network – today and thought it was worth passing on.  It’s time for us to have a go at fighting back against the bully-boy tactics of the Greens/union-funded astroturfers from GetUp!.  They may have had a win in getting clubs like the Broncos to cancel Chris Monckton’s speech at the last second, but the lifting of the ban on our live cattle export industry shows that if enough ordinary people get motivated to make their concerns known, true grass-roots movements can be just as effective.

Anyway, have a read and pass it on.  Also, think about joining Australia’s Conservative Action Network. They won’t swamp you with emails, only contacting you when there’s real action needing to be taken, and once you’re a member how much or how little you do is completely up to you.  Hey, as our Mole has found out, taking action can be fun!

Plus! Haven’t you really always wanted to be able to add “Community Organiser: VRWC Division” to your CV?  ;-)

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A message to all members of CANdo

Dear CANdo members

There has been a disturbing development in the carbon tax debate, led by left-wing activist group GetUp!

GetUp! is engaging in a campaign to blackmail businesses into dropping their public opposition to the proposed carbon tax. To blackmail legitimate businesses that are doing nothing more than exercising their freedom of speech is simply unacceptable.

The letter sent by GetUp! is available here for you to read.

What CANyoudo:

1. Contact your local talkback radio stations and let them know how disgusted you are by this latest scare campaign
2. Write a letter to your local paper to make people in your area aware of this atrocity
3. If GetUp! does indeed publish a list of businesses that it is boycotting (we’ll let you know if they do) go along to those businesses in your area and support them.

Australian businesses do not deserve to be intimidated by Labor-Greens front groups like GetUp!

Visit CANdo at: http://network.conservative.org.au/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

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As soon as we get word of the businesses GetUp! plans to target, I’ll post them here and we can go to work letting these businesses know (as several of us did with Max Brenner) that they have our support.

And seriously – read the GetUp! letter, especially the questions they’re demanding that businesses answer.  McCarthy had nothin’ on these people.

UPDATE:  More on this GetUp! boycott at the Australian – CLICK.  (via James)

UPDATE II: Bolt goes with the McCarty analogy as well – “The New Warming McCarthyists” – and makes a good point about their claim to as many as 570,000 “members”:

It’s time more people realised the GetUp’s power is wildly overstated. Those more than 400,000 members it boasts [EDIT: The boycott letter actually claims 570,000 members] are just names on petitions. Fewer than 18,000 people have actually sent it money – less than $100 each on average.

Update III:  Quadrant, March 2011 - Inside GetUp and the New Youth Politics 

 In its most recently published annual report for 2008-09, the total number of individual donors was just 17,295 with an average donation of $96.78.

Since most of the donated money came from big unions, the actual amount given by individual members must have been very small.

UPDATE IV:  Via CANdo, The Galileo Movement and Menzies House comes this plea - URGENT: Help Us Stop GetUp!’s Blackmail.  It appears that the AFGC are really feeling the heat – the CEO reports that their members are feeling “intimidated” – and they need to hear that they do have support out here.  Click over to MenziesHouse for details.