Census Worker Lynched. Should We Thank Glenn Beck Along with Michelle Bachman?

A single father who worked two jobs while finishing a teaching degree was hanged in Kentucky earlier this month.  His body was found on September 12 , 2009 according to most reports I've read, by a cemetery in a little visited part of the Daniel Boone National Forest in South East Kentucky with the word 'fed' drawn on his chest.  He was a part time census worker, a job he was doing when he disappeared.

William Sparkman was apparently well liked by students when he worked his assistant teaching job, as well as assisting the census bureau. Another employee, at the school for which Mr. Sparkman did substitute teaching, had previously been a state law enforcement officer. The former lawman say he'd warned his colleague about the attitude, of residents in the region where his body was found, towards any government employee, but many remember the rants of Michelle Bachman a congresswoman from Minnesota who has her own radio based talk show against, Obama's census'.

I'm guessing that the Congresswoman got the biggest boost for her fetish on June 25, 2009, when TV talk host Glenn Beck featured her in an anti-census screed.  We do know it has become an obsession with Bachman and many right wing people, possibly because people thought that ACORN would be doing the legwork. 

Unfortunately, too late for Mr. Sparkman, ACORN was thrown out of the census taking business summarily after some videos emerged showing a few employees giving unofficial advice to attack journalists which, if officially offered might have been a crime. 

Would that have made a difference, and will the right wing work to reduce anti-census sentiments, now that their nemesis ACORN is out of the picture?  I'm sure that ACORN was the main impetus for the rage against the census on the right though Michelle expressed many excuses for fearing the count.  In her usual hyperbolic manner she asked her followers to 'make a pact to slit our wrists and become blood brothers' in denying extended information to census takers, though only a relatively few people are asked to give extra information during the decade ritual of renumbering ourselves. 

Of course, embarrassing any Democrat in the White House has been the pathological obsession for right wing pundits since they've learned how to demagogue. I didn't know how deep a hatred the conservatives had worked up against President Kennedy until someone took care of the martyred president for them, but I helped raise the level of vitriol against Johnson, myself by being loudly antiwar, but since most conservatives were in favor of  the Vietnam conflict, I don't believe I was playing into their hands by protesting the war.  And I admit I was only one of millions.)

Cemetery in Lilley Cornett Woods Kentucky

Used as an example of type of location in which Mr. Sparkman's body may have been found.

These woods are very close to parts of the Daniel Boone National Forest, but I don't know if they are as remote as the actual location of the apparent crime, or if the area receives some regular maintenance.

Picture allowed via Creative Commons license. No support of nor further contribution to this blog by photographer/artist implied. Thanks to "hspauldi" at flickr.com. Click on picture to go to original site and for link to options on different sizes. Rollover picture for further attribution.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hspauldi/ / CC BY 2.0

Michelle Bachman may have started the meme of 'the evil census', but Glenn Beck's show is likely to have helped it out nationwide when he hosted the Congresswoman on June 25, 2009.  Furthermore, Beck's team picked up the theme and ran with it, picking up snap interviews, and promoting only those in which people were not happy with having to answer questions.  You'd think they would leave in at least one person who isn't repulsed by being asked questions; like someone who'd say "Well, it's the census. If you don't answer the questions how will we know anything?  The minions also told their victims that the US census could levee a fine on them of $5000 if they don't answer all the questions, but I didn't hear them tell their respondents that no one has been fined for a refusal so far.

The right wing rhetoric ignores how easy it is to get someone worked up for murder until after it happens, and if they think they are responsible, I'm sure Mr. Beck and Congresswoman Bachman feel bad about the killing.  I doubt though it will stop them from attacking some other part of our government in an effort to embarrass Obama.

I notice that Glenn Beck has come out this week and made conciliatory statements to the effect that Barack Obama is a better president than John McCain would be.  Obviously he couldn't be gaming the system because he didn't know at that time that someone had been killed while trying to perform census duties, right? Right?  

I do know where to find out if the right wing was on to this killing before the rest of us, but I'm waiting another week to make sure what I saw wasn't a fluke or a sign that the numbers can't be updated for a week after the time period in question.  

The FBI is involved because Mr. Sparkman is a federal employee , and the act is considered a case of domestic terrorism Ed O' Keefe of the Washington Post's "Federal Eye" blog in "Eye Opener: Census Worker Found Hanged ."  But, of course, no right wing pundits are being questioned over this.  Now if they were Imans?  You betcha!

See reports for more complete details on William Sparkman see reports:

HP: Census Worker Hanged: Bill Sparkman Found With "Fed" On Body

AP: Feds probe US Census worker hanging in Kentucky

HP: Bill Sparkman: Tragic Details About Census Worker Found Hanged

tags: census  michelle bachman  glenn beck  bill sparkman  kentucky  daniel boone national forest  lynching  

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