XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.society.liberalism, alt.transgendered   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: sal@buttfucker.no   
      
   TRUMPublicans Sex With BOYS  wrote in   
   news:ste0ih$tkhc$1@news.freedyn.de:   
      
   > edell@post.com wrote   
   >   
   >> Any company that promotes dick sucking and faggots needs to be   
   >> bankrupted.  Totally put under and buried.  Kill the CEOs who let   
   >> this get started.   
      
   Target is the latest company swept up in a growing wave of boycotts led   
   by right-wing critics. The boycotts are aimed at companies that have   
   allied themselves with trans people. Experts say the boycotts work   
   thanks to the culture wars and panic-stoking online and in the media. In   
   early May, Target began rolling out its Pride merchandise, just like   
   last year and the years before, going back a decade.   
      
   But this year, something was different: Target workers began getting   
   violent threats from customers.   
      
   The confrontations — which stemmed from an online backlash led by   
   right-wing commentators who made false claims about certain Target Pride   
   merchandise — prompted Target to start pulling some of the products from   
   its shelves and disassembling prominent Pride displays at some stores.   
      
   But the fallout goes beyond Target. Bud Light was the target of   
   social-media outcry in April after it partnered with the trans   
   influencer and TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney. And Disney has found itself   
   the target of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as well as right-wing   
   protesters and conspiracy theorists, after it took a stance against the   
   state's controversial education bill dubbed "Don't Say Gay" by critics.   
      
   If it feels like these types of boycotts and online firestorms are   
   gaining steam, that's because they are.   
      
   Experts say it's due to a combination of the culture wars and   
   panic-stoking media coverage that forces brands to either back down or   
   face a firestorm.   
      
   Protests spark fears for worker safety   
   Joe Raedle/Getty Images   
   Joe Raedle/Getty Images   
   © Joe Raedle/Getty Images   
   Brand boycotts are nothing new.   
      
   In fact, they are "as American as apple pie," Lawrence Glickman, a   
   professor of American Studies at Cornell University and the author of   
   "Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America," said.   
      
   What is new is how polarized our society has become and how that   
   polarization gets amplified on social media.   
      
   "These boycotts sort of came along at that moment when the right is   
   making such a big deal about trans issues," he said. "If you watch a lot   
   of conservative media, you might be very panicked about this. And so   
   this is a way you can sort of assert your concern for that cause."   
      
   Glickman described the current situation as "kind of a perfect storm."   
   The rhetoric around the boycott of Bud Light and protests against Target   
   have been hostile to the point of threatening, with both companies   
   citing fears for employee safety as a serious concern.   
      
   Bud Light owner Anheuser-Busch said that several of its facilities had   
   received threats following the weeks of backlash against its brands.   
      
   Target CEO Brian Cornell wrote in a letter to employees last week that   
   call-center workers were getting "high volumes of angry, abusive and   
   threatening calls" and that store employees had been confronted in the   
   aisles. The decision to pull the merchandise, he wrote, was in an effort   
   to alleviate the threats to employees' physical and psychological   
   safety.   
      
   And this comes at a time when retail workers were already facing   
   unprecedented levels of violence. Restaurant and store workers were on   
   the front lines of the battle over pandemic mask mandates, forced to act   
   as enforcers and bouncers in the face of angry and sometimes violent   
   customers.   
      
   More recently, a surge in organized retail crime — where professional   
   shoplifters steal large quantities of inventory to resell for cash — has   
   put store workers at risk of physical violence and even death on the   
   job.   
      
   In fact, according to the National Customer Rage Survey, an annual   
   survey of 1,000 Americans conducted by the W.P. Carey School of Business   
   at Arizona State University, found that customer aggressiveness is   
   increasing: 43% said they had raised their voice at an employee, up from   
   35% in 2015.   
      
   The threats of violence, combined with low pay and shrinking hours, have   
      
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