The body of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and occasional teacher, was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky. The Census has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, pending the outcome of the investigation.
Investigators are still trying to determine whether the death was a killing or a suicide, and if a killing, whether the motive was related to his government job or to anti-government sentiment.
What in the hell would make somebody kill and deface the body of a census worker? When did people become angry at this group of government workers?
Oh yeah.
To be fair we do not know exactly what happened in this particular case, but don't you think when people start making these kind of unfounded allegations about government workers, community organizers, and sitting Presidents, that somebody is bound to get hurt?
And when it finally happens who holds those who created the fear and hate accountable?
2 weeks later the FBI is involved. That says to me they figured out it was not suicide, which as a loyal fan of Law & Order, would have been obvious by day two, after the autopsy if nothing else.
ReplyDelete9/12
census
"fed"
palin/bachman 2012
Who is going to be the first one to say it: Michele Bachmann! She warned people against the Census. I wonder if her crazy speech actually resonated with some one.
ReplyDeleteLet's see what is done about this?
ReplyDeleteI guess it's OK when the right wingnutters start killing people - it's for a good cause.
I grew up in the South. Long time Southern beliefs and traditions are that after the Civil War, those from Southern states were suspicious of the Census so would "give incorrect info, would not reply to Census takers if someone came to the door". I think you would find that many, many people in the South still feel that way -- "The government doesn't need to know anything about us". This anti-census attitude isn't new but the violence against a census worker is new - never heard of that before.
ReplyDeleteBachman and Beck have blood on their hands. As does O'Reily, who kept repeating "Tiller, the baby killer," until one of his sheeple did the dirty work. First amendment rights do not encompass inciting violence/killings.
ReplyDeleteHate speech abounds on the right, and Palin has proved that she is also on board ("pallin' around with terrorists"). Dangerous loons. How any of them sleep at night is beyond my comprehension.
Beck is a masterful manipulator. Notice how he wove the topic of Census into planting the idea that your gun license might be revoked, while throwing in illegal aliens as well.
ReplyDeleteIf you think about it, the Feds already have the lists of who is a citizen with Soc Security numbers, tax records, etc.
How irresponsible of him to promote not participating in the Census.
This is the kind of info that helps them allocate funds to poor neighborhoods, and get demographics to help people.
So yes, he & the likes of Bachman are fanning the flames and really driving a wedge into this country.
Too bad they don;t have a graphic meter @ the bottom of the screen of his broadcasts....
FABRICATION • TOTAL BULLSHIT • COMPLETE LIE • LUNACY
A red indicator would let viewers know what is being broadcast.
anon@3:35pm: OK so you're suspicious right?
ReplyDeleteSo you HANG the guy?
Oh that's right, it's the South. We all know they want to rise again don't they? They just never got over having to free their slaves.
Not that I condone violence, but one day here in the extremely remote area where I live I was pretty freaked out when a strange woman pulled up my mile long driveway, sat right in front of the house, and waved some sort of device right at my door. I went out to talk to her and she behaved very strangely, finally she said she was part of the new census and they'd been told to use GPS tracking devices (she showed hers to me, a little handheld thing) to get an exact GPS coordinates reading on every front door in the country. That's the only data she was collecting at this time.
ReplyDeleteFreaked me the hell out. Someone has an exact set of coordinates for my front door? Why? Why would this info be needed?
Here's an idea,
ReplyDeleteI am going to be sending an email to Michelle Bachman with a link to this story.( or where it was originally posted) Imagine if a few hundred or a 1000 people did it as well.
The message will simply be...
" Did you read this story..? Are you happy now?".. or something along the lines of see what you started. Your Free speech has consequences.
Reps and Dems both have crazies, but with the Tiller murder and now this, I think it is clear that some are taking their orders from our supposed leaders and Fox. Wow.
ReplyDeleteSuicide?
ReplyDeleteHe scrawled the word "fed" on this own chest before he hung himself? Really? Does anyone really believe this?
I wonder if the media will make the connection. Or will they ignore it from fear. I do worry that these lunatic fringe types are going to use violence to intimidate everyone, including reporters who might otherwise call them out.
ReplyDeleteI truly feel that Michelle Bachmann has blood on her hands for her inflammatory comments about the census and all her talk about taking action, signing blood oaths, and other nonsense. All it takes is one wingnut to take all that babble seriously.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly why Psycho Palin should stop criticizing the FED as the cause of all of our countries problems. She is an idiot and doesn't even understand what caused the ecomin crisis we are in. Economists around the country think she is stupid and someone needs to tell her Reagan was president a long time ago and it's a different world. Her anti government ranting along with her other bright friends is what causes off the wall people to murder and write the words FED.
ReplyDeleteShe is so stupid she doesn't even know that most of the country is tired of this anti government rhetoric. She offered mo positive solutions several people mentioned about her speech.
I can't stand the ant government ranters. Either they are rich and don't wNt regulation so they can make more money or they are sheep with no economic knowledge.
As soon as I heard this on the news, my immediate thought was: Michelle Bachmann's insane rhetoric about the census inflamed one of her wingnuts to act according to her wishes. Just as O'Reilly's incessant "Tiller the baby killer" rhetoric caused another nut to comply with O'Reilly's wishes. When will these hate mongers be stopped? In my mind, Bachmann formed the knot in the rope and O'Reilly loaded the ammunition in the gun. They must be so effing proud.
ReplyDeleteFirst Tiller, then the guy in the Holocaust museum, now this single father who was working two jobs to support his kids...
ReplyDeleteSome time ago, people like Bachman, Beck, Limpballs, Palin, etc were arrested for inciting violence and terrorism, and the book was thrown at them. I guess it is not fashionable anymore, for fear of being labeled some Nazi or some such thing...
I wish our President, Mr. Obama would grow a pair of cojones and finally set his foot down. He of all people should KNOW that being lenient is being seen as being a whimp.
It's actually a suicide.
ReplyDeleteHe was trying to write 'Fed up' but couldn't finish before his oxygen ran out.
To the poster regarding the GPS unit. I'm sorry but are you a dino? Check google earth. Enter your address, the lat and long are noted. This is nothing new. How paranoid can you get? To Bachmann, there is no question, "are you an illegal?" Duh...you think they be truthful? What an idiot!
ReplyDeletehow is it possible that our country continues to give hate-filled nutjobs such a prominent media voice?
ReplyDeletehave you seen this yet? how evil is glenn beck? evil enough to mock a woman (a colleague's wife) on air for having a miscarriage:
""A couple days after Kelly's wife, Terry, had a miscarriage, Beck called her live on the air and says, 'We hear you had a miscarriage,' " remembers Brad Miller, a former Y95 DJ and Clear Channel programmer. "When Terry said, 'Yes,' Beck proceeded to joke about how Bruce [Kelly] apparently can't do anything right -- about he can't even have a baby.""
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200909220037
here is the full story on beck:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/09/21/glenn_beck/
in my opinion a rightwing nut talibangical is responsible and so are the wingnuts in the GOP inciting violence.
ReplyDeletehonestyinGov said...
ReplyDelete"Here's an idea,
I am going to be sending an email to Michelle Bachman with a link to this story...."
Tried and failed - her e-mail form (on her webiste) does not work. I e-mailed Gov. Pawlenty instead. I told him that Bachmann was a danger to his State and to America, and asked him to forward my "words" to her.
One thing that wasn't mentioned in the news articles about this was that the guy was working on the American Community Survey (ACS). He wasn't doing work on the 2010 Census. (Not that it makes his killing any less excusable.)
ReplyDeleteThe ACS was created after the 2000 Census so that the in-depth demographic questions would be answered on that survey rather than on the regular census. Also, it tracks demographic questions each year so that US can find out what is happening to poverty rates, federal funding and such more quickly than waiting every 10 years for the census to be completed.
Whomever this census worker was visiting had received the original ACS form in the mail, didn't return it, received phone calls and then finally the census worker went out. It's not like the census worker showed up in that neighborhood out of the blue. They knew in all likelihood that census person would be coming to their door.
And yes, killing a census worker, who is a federal employee, is punishable by the death penalty.
For anonymous (@ 4:20) above
(I went out to talk to her and she behaved very strangely, finally she said she was part of the new census and they'd been told to use GPS tracking devices (she showed hers to me, a little handheld thing) to get an exact GPS coordinates reading on every front door in the country. That's the only data she was collecting at this time.
Freaked me the hell out. Someone has an exact set of coordinates for my front door? Why? Why would this info be needed?)
You can't see actual "coordinates" on the hand-held computer on the GPS function for those who were doing address canvassing for the 2010 census. GPS was represented graphically on a map.
"Why would this information be needed?"
To place you geographically within an area. The Census doesn't list the information it gathers and gives to states (for districting) and the federal government with your address on it. The Census geographically divides all states into "areas." Then those "areas" are divided into "blocks." In the past they used to do this with paper maps. The address canvassers in the year previous to the census would mark an address on the "block" map, which was a paper map, and number it. What is being done by computer isn't much different from what was done by hand.
The Census is not allowed by law to share anything about your personal information or residence. The same cannot be said for Google Maps, who already has a picture of your house online, and isn't accountable by federal law for making it easy to find you when someone types in your address.
I know it's early stages, but this is what is worrying about the right-wing hate rhetoric! The becks, Limbaughs, and the whole Fox news people know exactly what they're doing and it needs to be put out there on front page! I can just hear them, "we know what our base is comprised of, so let's stir 'em up and watch as they, not us, do the dirty, hateful work!" They can spew and tell lies all day long, and when one of their disciples does something violent, they can sit back and say I didn't do it. It's ridiculous and sad! To manipulate their fans and whip up anger to the point where violence might stir its head. The GOP is so warped now, that if this is indeed a murder and the person is caught, this person might be put up as some "hero" to the right-wing. But I know if this continues, it will backfire on them, just like the birthers, just like the tea parties.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I don't understand. Why in the hell would you be scared of the census!? This is absolutely ridiculous and sadly, comical. People need to stop listening to idiots and educate themselves. Do your research and get the truth if you don't understand something. My goodness, I'd never take what Beck, limbaugh, or Palin says as fact!
ReplyDeleteOne of the rumors going around is about special camps being built by Americorps. The wingnuts think that once the camps are ready they will be rounded up and sent to these camps. Just like the Japanese were in WWII. Bachman has talked about this in the past.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the killer turns out to be someone who is afraid of being sent of to the camps.
This rumor has actually been around for years in the survivor community. They also think many of the military bases are being readied. I've read that there is a secret one for 2 million out side Anchorage.
Now this comment from the lalate.com is both immoral and unacceptable and proves the point that Beck, Bachmann, O'Reilly, Palin and their ilk have stirred up such strong feelings of paranoia against Obama and the liberal left that people are indeed willing to kill.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.lalate.com/2009/09/24/bill-sparkman-census/
Shelly said,
on September 24th, 2009 at 1:39 am
"Violence is outcome of defiance of rule of law. Law says Obama must prove he’s legally President, and he refuses. No birth certificate. Dems are going to be tried for treason when their coverup is exposed. Republicans in 2010 needed to save country."
It's not the Dems who should be tried but those so-called leaders who incite the mindless violence that results in comments such as the one above.
I was a census worker in 2000. I went door to door to the homes of people who had not filled out and mailed the census form. Most of the time, people had no idea what all of the information was needed for, and once I explained it to them, and how it benefits THEM to give this info, and how the info is kept anonymous, they were happy to answer the questions. Some people would still refuse to answer certain questions, and a tiny fraction would either never answer the door, or would not answer any questions.
ReplyDeleteBut the vast majority just simply did not have any knowledge about the Census, and once informed, their attitude changed.
I never felt any fear for my safety from any people (a couple of dogs scared the living he!! out of me, though!). I had considered working again in 2010. Now I am too afraid too. People have become insane.
RIP Bill Sparkman. I hope they catch the sick person/people who did this to you.
This scares the hell out of me. My family and I live about 2 hours from the National Park where this lynching happened. It is a very rural part of Eastern Ky., where most everyone who lives there displays the Confederate flag. It is full of the type of racist, rethug, Fox Noise watchers you'd expect in a bad horror movie.
ReplyDeleteI am afraid this is only the beginning of the violence to come. This is the result of Atwater, Rove, Bush/Cheney's southern strategy. They are the ones who unleashed the likes of Bachmann, Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, and all the rest of the haters. I wonder if the leaders of the rethuglican party will come out and denounce this horrible crime? I sincerely doubt it. They never take responsibility for their words, actions and deeds. Now there is a child left an orphan thanks to these anti-government nutjobs.
This is a sad, sad commentary on the way this Country has turned so ugly and hateful under these so-called Christians. I wonder what Jesus thinks of all these false prophets using his name in vain to promote violence, racism, hatred and evil?
Um, when the census worker came to my door to get those GPS coordinates for the front door - that's exactly my point, dudes. The info is already widely available on Google Earth, not to mention by government satellite, etc and so on. So why did they need to send someone out to take a reading by hand? I'm not saying that census workers are evil and I'm not being paranoid, but this woman acted VERY strangely when I approached her with a huge smile on my face and a welcoming disposition (we live on a farm and people often come in to our property who are lost, etc. and we have a very open door policy as far as helping strangers and neighbors.) She acted very much like she was trying to conceal something and did not directly answer my question until I gently engaged her in some random chit chat, complimented her on her pretty watch, and she finally acted like she was "confessing" what she was really doing there. You had to be there. Something was really strange with this woman. I have no problems with the idea of a census, but why the concealment and odd type of behavior if nothing more weird is going on? Sorry, you had to be there - she freaked me out with her manner and I was extremely friendly and welcoming to her, so there is no way I triggered fear in her. (I'm also a petite, blond woman - so not like I was some huge farmer in overalls with a rifle.) The whole interaction just left a very strange feeling in my stomach, and believe me, when you live out in the country in isolation, you learn to trust your gut about stuff. I truly believe our nervous systems have an ability to sense when someone intends harm, or when someone isn't being forthright and is trying to conceal something. Hey, the Jehovah's Witnesses, steak salesman, Hispanic laborers looking for day labor, and just about everybody else that's ever come by the property NEVER gave me the willies like she did. Call me a "dino" if you want to. I like dinosaurs! Always thought they were cute.
ReplyDeleteAnon,
ReplyDeleteAbout the lady with the GPS.
She was either lying to you or you are really a rethug troll with an active imagination.
Google Earth (free download) will tell you where any body's home is.
Remember? (the)Dick Cheney tried to have his taken off of Google Earth.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteNo street name. Emergency Services?
I don't agree with my fellow posters here. I personally don't like the road we are going down with regards to throwing out accusations without full knowledge. ;/ It could very well be some RWN that has anti-government views, but the fact that we jump to this conclusion first is the troubling thing I find when I visit (which I why I don't post often).
ReplyDeleteRemember that when ignorant chick that carved stuff into her face to and tried to make it a racism robber deal? Do we really want to be like those Repugs that were first to make it a left wing thing? Granted there were some R's that didn't, but most jumped on the wagon without facts.
After working years with law enforcement and the legal system, we are used to this sort of speculation. Again it very well may be some anti-gubmint RWN. But my first thought was illegal activities. Having an understanding of the area, there is a prevalent drug and moonshine industry. A person may not have wanted to get caught for those and took action.
I would like to contribute here more, but I don't think I can. I thank my friend for showing me this site initially. And thank you Gryphen, you do a great job. :) I consider myself a moderate Dem that is logical and investigative. I just find the commenters here to be victims of confirmation bias. Again Gryphen thanks for running a great blog!
Sorry about the dino comment; I like them too. Did she have I.D.? What about her car (license plate number)? Did you call her boss? I live in the country also. I, as a paranoid habit, always write down license plate numbers. Good luck to you and be safe. ALWAYS GET ID AND A TELEPHONE NUMBER YOU CAN CALL BEFORE YOU GIVE OUT INFO TO A STRANGER. Yes, walking through this dialogue, I could be called paranoid too.
ReplyDeleteAnon, some people are just naturally paranoid about nothing. You are clearly one of them.
ReplyDeleteAnon@7:24:
ReplyDeleteI think that it's possible this woman was warned that she might encounter hostility, and maybe she was being overly-cautious about what she was doing for that reason. We all know that even a petite woman could be concealing a weapon. Not that you were, but you could have been.
Also, do you really think the federal government is going to trust Google Earth or Google Map Street View? I use both to look up addresses of homes for sale, and they are almost always wrong!
Personally, I don't believe anyone is over reacting to anything. My god...take a look...have a listen. You have shock jocks on 24/7. You have tv hosts, and you having raving loon politicians..ie; Bachmann ranting and raving about the census, about Obama taking your guns..about being put into fema camps, and about death panels. There is no doubt there are some virulent and nasty people out there, and they have proven several times in the last few months, they act on their crazy thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the comment from the poster who stated they were in law enforcement. However, I don't assume that means you know exactly how things are. This man was hung. Not shot...not bludgeoned...not stabbed...but hung. Remind you of anything? When was the last time a drug dealer hung someone? He had FED carved in his chest...and not backwards either.
If people do not wake up, worse things will happen.
I cannot tell you how horrified, and disgusted I truly am.
I will pray for that fine man and for his son. God help us all.
Somebody in the Republican party needs to step up, now! I know there are some that are level-headed and know the danger that this kind of hate-talk can create? Why are they not stepping up? Are they afraid of being called traitors or not seen as "real" conservatives? This is beyond ridiculous and I can't believe grown people could believe something like "being thrown in secret camps" (in this day and age)! Grow a backbone and stand up to/for your Party and call out the lunatic fringe the republicans now seem to be catering to.
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous - The information is not readily available on Google maps. The Census needs to identify each address geographically. Neither Google Earth nor government satellites provide a database that matches addresses with their physical geographic coordinates. This is what the Census listing process does. Moreover, Google Maps and Google Earth are not necessarily correct either. They don't show my parents' street name correctly.
ReplyDelete