A second win in two weeks for GetUp!? A collection of lefties at a grassroots level running campaigns on climate change, marriage equality, indigenous rights, the internet filter, mandatory detention, voter rights… and succeeding? Where the ALP has long since given up pushing for any kind of change and the Greens are still trying to fight their way into a prominent role in parliament?
Expect now a concerted campaign to destroy GetUp and taint it in the eyes of its supporters. A pale imitation of the American MoveOn campaign! Probably has received donations from people who aren’t saints! It’s a front for the party it campaigned against on the internet filter! It stole the Liberal campaign line about getting up for action for Australia before we even thought of it! It’s named after a children’s book character!
His name is Simon SHEIKH. Come on, people!
We were happy to sit back and ignore them when they were just a bunch of lefties impotently – we thought – sending angry emails to MPs. But running High Court challenges and succeeding? Twice in two weeks?
They must be crushed.
Moved On 
Time to send them another donation.
I’ll second that.
They are doing a great job .. a very good example on how the internet can improve our democratic processes.
Getupthemselves! is a company which runs a club for desperate middle-aged public servants who seek validation from the youth, exuberance and trendy facade Simon offers them.
Their recent court actions are impossible to criticise. The litigation wasn’t particularly necessary but it certainly doesn’t undermine democracy.
Getupthemselves! has a real role to play by using gesture and symbolism to make their aging membership feel relevant again and even good about themselves. This is more difficult than it seems when your key demographic is that of bitter old failures living out their last productive years in the ghetto of broken leftist dreams. The downside of the Getupthemselves! project is the effect it has on younger folk who aspire to no more than to than to feast on the weevilled meal of the failed leftist project.
im not sure what your definition of grassroots is
they got 96% of their funding from a billionaire currency manipulator. the two founders were well connected millionaires from harvard kennedy school. one worked for the world bank, the other for the OECD
some of its founding board members were liberal john hewson, mining chief don mercer and super rich fabian evan thornley. hardly “true” lefties
do i need to continue?
Get Up are great, after all they’ve got SB frothing at the mouth 🙂
As I predicted in the post…
“they got 96% of their funding from a billionaire currency manipulator.”
Who? Source? If true – so what?
” the two founders were well connected millionaires from harvard kennedy school. one worked for the world bank, the other for the OECD”
Who? Source? If true – so what?
“some of its founding board members were liberal john hewson, mining chief don mercer and super rich fabian evan thornley. hardly “true” lefties”
Source?
If true, I’m still not bothered, since GetUp! campaigns for a mining tax and for public services over tax cuts and a whole host of other progressive policies, rather than anything you might imagine a John Hewson or a Don Mercer advocating.
Judge ’em by their deeds, and by their deeds, they’re doing a lot of good work for progressive politics.
everything ive mentioned is available in their annual reports, except the startup capital.
senator abetz tried to force getup to disclose where they got the initial $1.5m. but the AEC ruled it wasnt an associate entity. crazy as they might be, Lyndon Larouche’s CEC traced the source back to George Soros, yet again
you repeatedly ask “so what”. well, the reason nothing changes is because most of the grassroots movements are financed and covertly run by the very people they are supposed to be opposing. they dont just spontanously appear in 2005 with a million dollars…
No, the reason nothing changes is that people ignore good campaigns because they’d rather engage in irrelevant scuttlebutt.
I have no idea whether what you say about the people who set up GetUp is true or not (although the hostility of Abetz and the CEC is a wonderful sign) – the point is, the campaigns they’ve been running have been positive and useful.
If they start doing evil things, then I’ll be the first to condemn them.
i have no qualms with their campaigns, or their goals… but understanding how things are run isnt scuttlebutt, its essential
You’re not talking about “how things are run”, you’re talking about who put the initial money in and nothing more.
because naturally billionaires, mining kings and trilateralists just walk away from their creations