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‘Book Burning Party’ fights Tea party idiocy with intellectual jujitsu

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A 2004 Harry Potter book burning in Missouri

This Troy, Michigan civic brouhaha happened last November—I confess it was news to me—but it’s currently getting a second go ‘round via reddit/r/politics and Redditor ClydeStuff.

Absolutely worth watching, this “reverse psychology” propaganda tactic is GENIUS and could be successfully adapted to a number of different situations in other parts of this country, as you will see:

The city of Troy, Michigan was facing a budget shortfall, and was considering closing the Troy Public Library for lack of funds. Even though the necessary revenues could be raised through a miniscule tax increase, powerful anti-tax groups in the area were organized against it. A vote was scheduled amongst the city’s residents, to shut the library or accept the tax increase, and Leo Burnett Detroit decided to support the library by creating a reverse psychology campaign. Yard signs began appearing that read: “Vote to Close Troy Library on August 2nd - Book Burning Party on August 5th.” No one wants to be a part of a town that burns books, and the outraged citizens of Troy pushed back against the “idiotic book burners” and ultimately supported the tax increase, thus ensuring the library’s survival.

As someone who has toiled in the trenches of advertising and marketing myself, I genuflect to whoever thought this up. This is the kind of thing that can really cheer you up when you’re feeling down about living in an Idiocracy.

The creatives on this Swiftian tour de fource should be snapped up by the Democrats now and given extremely high-paying consultant gigs. And the Democrats should unleash them and fund them to do whatever it takes to deploy this stunt nationally and stay the fuck out of their way.

BRAVO! Standing ovation!

Troy, Michigan’s controversial mayor is Tea party favorite, Janice Daniels. You may dimly remember her as the dipshit who made national news last summer when an unintelligent, unfunny comment she made about gay marriage in New York on Facebook came back to haunt her. Then a few months after that she said she wanted an expert to testify that homosexuality is a mental illness at an anti-bullying educational forum for high school kids!

Dum-dum Daniels, who now faces a recall vote in November which she will surely lose, is also deeply unpopular for her vote against millions of dollars in federal funding to build a transit center near the Troy/Birmingham border that would have created hundreds of new jobs in the area and increased the town’s tax base.

Last week, reacting to news of the recall vote being called, Daniels, doubled down on the stupid by musing aloud that she felt homosexuality might be “dangerous”—like cigarettes!

Ignorance and ideology is a nasty combination.

Of course as soon as she is recalled, Fox News will probably race to sign-up Janice Daniels as a commentator on gay and lesbian issues! I mean hey, wouldn’t she be the perfect spokesperson for all those dimwitted Christian Americans who have had their First Amendment rights stomped on by TEH GAY AGENDA?!?!?
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.18.2012
10:30 am
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