Not very long ago a video was released showing two Liberal MPs, Andrew Hastie and Tim Wilson, having a polite discussion about same-sex marriage. Hastie being a conservative war hero, and Wilson being a prominent libertarian homosexual as well as a public advocate for gay causes, they didn’t see eye to eye, but had a civil conversation and agreed to disagree.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?ipadtype=3&sts=17229&utcoffset=660&v=tOpRBaEFx_I&oref=https%3A%2F%2Faccounts.google.com%2Fb%2F0%2FSmsAuthInterstitial%3Fcontinue%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.youtube.com%252Fsignin%253Fnoapp%253D1%2526hl%253Den%2526feature%253Dmobile%2526action_handle_signin%253Dtrue%2526next%253D%25252Fverify_age%25253Fclient%25253Dmv-google%252526ipadtype%25253D3%252526layout%25253Dtablet%252526next%25253D%2525252Fwatch%2525253Fipadtype%2525253D3%25252526itct%2525253DCBYQpDAYACITCLqSoOK81dICFQjOWAod%252525252FrQP1FIYY29vcGVycyBrZWVwaW5nIGl0IGxpZ2h0%25252526sts%2525253D17229%25252526utcoffset%2525253D660%25252526v%2525253DtOpRBaEFx_I%252526tsp%25253D1%252526utcoffset%25253D660%2526app%253Dm%26service%3Dyoutube%26sarp%3D1%26hl%3Den&has_verified=1&layout=tablet&client=mv-google
(Editor’s note: YouTube has decided to place this video behind an 18+ firewall……)
The video was made by the Bible Society, a long-time associate of Cooper’s brewery, and featured “Coopers Premium Light” beers on the table. The video was called “Keeping it Light” and was intended to show that people can honestly and genuinely hold differing viewpoints on contentious issues without descending into hysterical screaming matches, ad hominem attacks or over-the-top language.
Take a wild guess what happened next.
The left, in particular the rainbow-shaded portion of it, went bright red in the face and began the traditional dance of frenzied, finger-pointing, spittle-flecked, high-pitched spluttered shrieking we’ve all come to know so well.
This particular outrage followed the well-trodden blueprint so familiar that it must be nowadays taught as a mandatory class in universities.
It began with a reporter at Fairfax, Ebony Bowden. She had the clip brought to her attention a full month after it was filmed and contacted both MPs and Tim Cooper, the fifth-generation owner of the family-run brewery, to try and get a bit of grovelling, shamefaced backtracking.
All three men sent her packing, which if you read her article, seems to have upset the special snowflake more than anything.
So she went around the newsroom and found that some of her colleagues were equally outraged at the sight of two men discussing an issue without trying to pull each other’s hair out.
Rachael Olding wrote a piece in which she gloated over the huge backlash on social media, as virtue-signalling leftists loudly and obnoxiously displayed how outraged they were that Coopers had the temerity to be associated with something as icky and disgusting as a Christian group.
Rachael also reported that half a dozen pubs in some of the more fashionable parts of Sydney and Melbourne had decided to stop supplying the breweries’ product. One even ostentatiously videoed the destruction of the last of their Coopers stock.
How fortunate that this intrepid investigative journalist managed to discover these boycotts!
For those who don’t recognise the usual fingerprints, let’s explain. The establishments mentioned (including three in Melbourne’s hipster homeland of Fitzroy) didn’t come across this video and suddenly decide to make a political statement. They were almost certainly contacted by the journalist herself or by members of a gay activist group working with her, who then suggested such a move to shill for customers in traditionally progressive areas.
The story was then picked up by fellow leftist reporters at Fairfax, News Corp and elsewhere. It was even part of a parody skit on the SBS political comedy show “The Feed”, which was truly shocking to me, as I had no idea that show still existed.
Smelling blood in the water after Coopers kinda sorta disavowed the video, the pond scum that make up our fourth estate are circling like vultures hoping the management will break down and give a humiliating public apology.
Because that is the whole point of manufactured media outrage events like this. They are created and exist to ram home the message to the public that if you disagree with the left, it matters little if you’re a nobody or the head of a major company, they will bring you down, watch you squirm and threaten you with financial pain and ostracism.
The sad part is that if Coopers refuses to give in this will all be over in a week; they’re a well-run company with a great product. They have had twenty-three years of consistent sales growth in a time when beer sales overall have shrunk. Last year they sold over eighty million litres of amber nectar and recorded revenue of almost two hundred and fifty million dollars.
If Tom Cooper holds his nerve, the froth and bubble will die down. As the American examples of Chic-fil-a and Target show, the leftist outrage machine makes a lot of noise but right-wing consumer power usually wins in the end. After declaring their public restrooms a transgender-friendly zone, Target ended up losing 20 million USD from the resulting boycott. After declaring themselves in favour of traditional marriage, Chic-fil-a was attacked in much the same way Coopers has been; they refused to buckle and have financially gone from strength to strength.
When the execrable Andrew P. Street, possibly the most disgusting human being ever to work for Fairfax, gloats that “Coopers has created their own PR disaster,” he’s incorrect. The fact that most of Coopers customers, even the bearded and faux-bespectacled hipsters of Fitzroy in Melbourne or Newtown in Sydney, don’t care about this and will continue to drink as before, doesn’t enter his limited mental universe.
Mr. Street is right about one thing in his article, though: customers and the public are free to buy or not buy from any company that takes a political position, and while I would have been unlikely to go to any of the obscure venues boycotting Coopers, I will most certainly be buying a six-pack of Pale Ale tonight.
I won’t be buying any Coopers Premium Light, though.
I mean seriously, light beer? Sounds kinda gay.