I came upon this story today about a backlash that began in Troy, MI and reverberated through all known channels of media, causing Americans, politicians and even major networks and political satirists to weigh in and speak vehemently out about the sanctity of books and public access to education and express their outrage at such an incomprehensible campaign to burn them.
This vigilante Book Burning group lit up the political scene in Troy in response to a heavily-funded Tea Party misdirection-tactic that they felt was essentially serving to misguide voters about an issue on the ballot to save the public library by instead making it appear to be an unjustified or unworthy tax hike. Citizens heard the cry from the Tea Party to “Vote No!” to a tax increase and were led to believe that a “No” vote was for the greater good and would keep the government out of our pockets but it occurred to almost no one that the crux of this particular issue had been omitted. To this smug misappropriation of facts, an uprising of activists launched their Book Burners scheme to actually save the library in Troy, MI.
To garner taxpayer support to the tune of a .07% increase and rally against the Tea Party to save the local public library in advance of the impending vote, this group plastered the city of Troy with fliers stating:
“VOTE TO CLOSE TROY LIBRARY AUG 2nd, BOOK BURNING AUG 5th“
In ludicrous numbers, citizens angrily banded together across a variety of social media to throttle this book burning group. A book burning??!?? It’s an outrage! such callous disregard for literary works and the very staple of education!
Little did they know, citizens in Troy and across the nation were reacting, as we mere humans are apt to, with a knee-jerk, emotionally-charged response before educating themselves on the specifics of a topic and were willingly herding themselves like uninformed cattle to the forefront of their ‘issue’. In this case, thank goodness these little sheep stayed true to form; the book burning group masterminded an epic reversal in thinking and rammed a healthy dose of their own medicine down the Tea Party’s throats.
The idea of tax hikes causes voters (and even those annoying non-voters) to instantly bristle and in this case, most people had no idea (nor took the time to learn) that the initiative on the ballot was for a nominal increase to keep the library and it’s community programs alive and wasn’t quite the tax hike the Tea Party campaign aimed to persuade them it was. The underlying beneficiary, namely the library, was barely mentioned by them, if at all.
By employing a brilliant marketing and psychological strategy, this savvy group of book lovers and proponents of supporting public access to education taught the Tea Party and the average American, at that, an excellent tactical lesson by taking an if-you-can’t beat-join-’em attitude and successfully helped educate the community in spite of themselves in a most creative way as to what they were actually voting to achieve if, in fact, they voted ‘No’. See for yourself:
The result was, people were shocked and caught shame-faced when the truth was realized and sheepishly acknowledged their culpability in jumping on a tax-abolishing bandwagon, headed they knew not where , and admitted that they nearly voted for the demise of what,
