I. Glenn Beck went on a tirade early this week against the moderator in a League of Women Voters candidate debate in the Illinois 8th Congressional District. His team went about vilifying the woman who had initially objected to a candidate request for everyone attending to recite the pledge. When the audience began reciting, she joined them. Here's what happened in ensuing days:Evanston police and the FBI say complaints have been filed over possible Internet death threats directed at two League of Women Voters officials stemming from a candidates debate in Grayslake.Who are these people, indeed. Well, here's their Fuhrer:
Criticism started flying around cyberspace over volunteer moderator Kathy Tate-Bradish's perceived lukewarm reaction when she was asked if the Pledge of Allegiance would be recited before the 8th Congressional District debate on Oct. 21.
FBI spokesman Ross Rice confirmed Thursday that League of Women Voters Illinois Executive Director Jan Czarnik filed a report claiming she and Tate-Bradish have received Internet death threats. Czarnik triggered criticism after saying the pledge request was “phony patriotism” from a candidate's supporters.
“Her complaint has been received and is receiving due consideration,” Rice said.
Czarnik wrote the FBI that an Oct. 23 Daily Herald story on the debate she was quoted in was “turned into a cause celebre by Glenn Beck and Fox News.”
Since then, death threats have appeared on “right-wing websites,” said Czarnik, who provided printouts to the FBI. She also reported menacing posts on Fox News Channel's Facebook page and Beck's website, The Blaze.
“We don't say the Pledge of Allegiance at our events and we should be shot or hanged?” said Czarnik, who went to the FBI on Wednesday. “Who are these people?”
As their Fuhrer requested, this DID go viral, just in a different way than you or I think of that term.
II. So how many candidate debates have you been to where they recite the pledge? Did they recite the pledge before the Glenn and Sarah Show in September? Did they recite the pledge before the Joe and Sarah Show yesterday in Anchorage? And where's Glenn's American Flag pin?
Anyone here have any information on how many GOP or Tea Party events they've been to where the pledge was NOT recited? I've been to several Tea Party events, and it was recited at some, but left out at others.
Side note: This is the 105th post at PA this month. The last month when this blog carried this many articles was April 2009, the month Alaskans defeated Sarah Palin's Attorney General bid for Wayne Anthony Ross, who is now the attorney for Drop Zone.
We won that one, and we may win this one.
Go Scott!
Go Ethan and Diane!
Go Give 'Em Hell Harry!
2 comments:
William Fulton was also Eddie Burke's campaign treasurer for his recent Lite Guv run.
XXXXXXXX
<a href="https://webapp.state.ak.us/apoc/searchcandidate.jsp>APOC</a>
2010 State Primary REGISTRATION
filed April 6, 2010
by BURKE, JR., EDWARD A.
(Candidate for Lt Governor)
CAMPAIGN CHAIRPERSON
Burke, Eddie
8921 Boulder Bay Circle
Anchorage AK 99507
522-8921 229-2287
eddie@eddieburkeforalaska.com
CANDIDATE INFORMATION
BURKE, JR., EDWARD A.
8921 Boulder Bay Circle
Anchorage AK 99507
229-2287
DEPUTY TREASURERS
Burke, Candice
Fulton, Bill
I like Beck's calling the moderator arrogant because she resisted the demand for an unscheduled display of patriotic conformity. Beck's not a fuehrer, though, just a useful idiot.
Calling for the pledge was a deliberate move, probably even part of the playbook. Why? Many liberals don't care for the Pledge because it calls America a nation "under God," something atheists, who are constitutionally entitled to their beliefs, cannot say in good conscience. ("Under God" is actually silly; to a believer, all nations are "under God"; to an atheist, no nation is.) Knowing this, right-wing types demand that people say the Pledge with the covert purpose of identifying "atheistic liberals" who might resist in order to isolate and humiliate them.
I suggest that after this maneuver has been tried once, a group of 6-10 liberals should organize a response. On the next occasion, after the Pledge has been demanded and recited, a couple of people planted in different parts of the room will suggest that everyone sing "The Star-Spangled Banner." Of course, no one will object, although most people, i.e., those without a passable singing voice (including a reliable upper register), would rather not. This delays the business of the meeting even longer, indeed much longer, since the liberal conspirators have memorized the second, third and fourth verses. (What, doesn't everybody know Our National Anthem?)*
If this one-upsmanship doesn't work and the Pledge is again demanded at a subsequent meeting, after singing the national anthem someone could propose, say, a reading of the Constitution, which he or she just happened to have handy. Eventually people will decide to skip the pointless patriotic pep rally and get down to business without the Pledge.
*Until I looked it up, I had thought there were three verses, not four, having never learned the eminently forgettable verse 3:
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
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