HEY! DOMINO PIZZA PEOPLE, what was your objection to the thread MNHQ have just pulled? Was it that your founder funded an anti-abortion group that bullied women having late-term medical terminations?

[AitchTwoToTangOh]

... was it Greeny saying that your pizza bases are made of pastry?

or something else?

i was so shocked when i saw those reports, KM, i think that was pretty much the first time i became aware of that brand of american religion. not brand... ykwim? that screaming, wailing, evangelical kind, but it was so weird to me as a catholic that we were notionally the same religion.

I missed the original thread, but there's no logic to disapproving of a company because of someone who used to own it? After all, he's not associated with it any more is he?

Let's say a drug dealer lives next door to you. He deals drugs out of his house and there is a lot of trouble/violence involved. Then he is arrested, put away and the house is sold to another family who move in. Do you say bad things about them because a drug dealer used to live in their house? it is the individual that is worthy of the contempt, surely? And yes, if that individual owns a company then one might choose to have issue with that company, but once the company no longer belongs to said individual they shouldn't continue to be tainted with his name/reputation?

You are entitled to do anything you want.

And I'm entitled to find it bizarre that what Col Sanders (who did own KFC until the 1960s, I think, and AFAIK gave all his donations to completely unimpeachable medical charities) may or may not have done would be more significant and threadworthy than that KFC buys its soy from Cargill (who are known to illegally export soy from deforested rainforest areas in the Amazon), that it doesn't (except in Canada) recognise unions, and that it routinely ignores the advice of its own Animal Welfare Advisory Council while making a big PR song and dance about the fact that it has such a council (again, except in Canada, where they have introduced quite stringent animal welfare standards; yay for KFC Canada).

OK, all relatively small beer in the realms of evil faceless multinationals, but it's stuff they are doing now. And that puts me off a heck of a lot more than what someone who used to own a company but has absolutely no current link to it spends his money on. You are, as you say, absolutely entitled to take a different view.

But possible to argue that the current Domino owners are still bad to some extent? Because they dealt with someone involved in something very bad indeed, perhaps knowing that the money they gave him would fund the continuing OR?

And perhaps KFC and a million other companies are worse, but as Aitch says, the 'by that logic' logic is doubtful: we all have imperfect knowledge and comittment as consumers and react according the the knowledge we do have and the emotional impact that knowledge has.

ah, no, you see wannabe there is a logic to your story if the house was sold but being rented to the former colleagues of the drug dealer. i'd be very surprised if there are a lot of pro-choice people at the top of that organisation. but i might be wrong, of course. and until that's proved otherwise i'm not buying their pizza.

for me it's tainted, really. yuck. imagine buying a pizza from someone who was promoted by the guy who funded an organisation that sent busloads of religious fundamentalists to barrack women who have been told the heartbreaking news that their babies were not compatible with life. yuck yuck yuck.

None of the current Board of Directors was involved with Dominos in any capacity whatsoever before December 1998 (and the majority of them don't go back even that far). I have no idea whether or not they are pro-choice, but have no particular reason to suspect that they are any less pro-choice than the board of any other large American company.

The people who were promoted by Monaghan and served as his board when he ran Dominos will probably now be serving on the boards of other companies as executive or non-executive directors. But I'm sure you've looked into that already and are boycotting those companies too. After all, imagine buying something from someone who was promoted by the guy who funded an organisation that sent busloads of religious fundamentalists to barrack women who have been told the heartbreaking news that their babies were not compatible with life. Yuck yuck yuck, as you so eloquently said.

actually, the chief exec of the uk and ireland group (ie the one we'd be buying from) started working for them in 1990.

I would be very surprised if Dominos has noticed already TBH, I doubt they have daily 'vanity googles'. I reckon someone at MNHQ read it and peremptorily deleted it. Or somebody reported it to them.

georgina from corporate comms would tell you different, someguy. although MNHQ told me that they are quietly delighted by her offer of free pizza.

also I don't think Dominos were being defamed so much as Monaghan himself, and as he's a 72-year-old without any business interest in Dominos, I really don't think he would have noticed just yet - much more likely to be a MNHQ deletion.

no, someguy, you are wrong. either that or MNHQ are making up a very elaborate story. they clearly have a vanity googling dept.

they being dominos. not mnhq, perish the thought.

oops, crossed posts.

Well I guess advising people to boycott Dominos probably does piss them off, and if they can point out that the whole thead is rather defamatory of someone else, then that's quite convenient justification for vanishing the whole thread, discussion of Dominos' dodgy labour practices and all.

yup. no such problem with this thread, however. i note it's coming up on google already.

Mmmmm,Domino's

Oh, what's this. Another neck tie lynching all for the greater good?

Boycott Dominios. You principles will be out of date but smugly intact and you will help put hundreds of blue collar workers and their families back on the breadline just before xmas. Score!

Be proud. Be very proud.

lol. i don't think anyone's suggesting binning pizzas altogether... i'm quite happy to keep my local guy in business. he owns his own place, pays his staff well (judging by his low attrition rate and their clear enjoyment of their jobs), he gives to local childrens' charities and his pizzas are very nice. so everyone's a winner.

like neck-tie lynching, though. even if it's pretty redundant as most boycotts, nay even revolutions, come from an educated middle class saying 'no more of this, thanks'.

Can you cite some successfull middle-class boycotts Aitch?

define successful...