Charlie Steiner
Footballguy
More precisely, this recent kerfuffle in the Vail Unified School District?
One of my old friends who lives in Oregon and leans pretty strong to the right shared a post from one Steven Tyler Daniels, in which he narrates/participates in/guides a protest at a school board meeting. Not sure if anyone else here knows about this, but it was new to me and frankly left me troubled and torn.
It wasn't the 'protest' that bothered me, but rather the fact that this guy came from another state and stuck his nose in a local school board issue. While he didn't necessarily initiate the tension on his own, he also didn't seem interested in mitigating it, either, and found a few opportunities to stir the pot back up when things seemed to be calming down. To me, it was like watching an alternate version of Norma Rae, where he breezes into town, stirs up the locals to unionize against their corrupt overlords and leaves after getting as many new devotees to his Patriot Party as he could. I think all he did, other than draw attention to himself/the Patriot Party, was to create harsh feelings between neighbors, i.e., the school board and the protesting parents. I will say, however, that it was quite impressive that it took almost an hour into the video before they offered up the Nazi comparison.
FWIW, I didn't read the article until after I watched much of the video (gave up shortly after the hour mark, and after he had convinced them to elect a new board from among the small group of protesters around him in the building's lobby, which was completely ridiculous even though he cited Robert's Rules--I had to look that up, too), which made comparing the article and the video interesting. The article said some protesters were armed, which doesn't show in the part of the video I watched. The article also said the staff were quickly losing control of the situation, which I also would disagree with after watching the video; there were multiple sheriff's department deputies there and they all seemed to stay calm and managed the situation pretty calmly. There was a lot of grumbling and some yelling, but the deputies never raised their voices or got physical.
All in all, it was a train wreck that I couldn't resist watching. I won't argue the philosophical points he was trying to make, but the fact that he encouraged the crowd to not compromise--without having any real investment in the specific issue--completely turned me off of any points I may have agreed with. Going after a school board of all things was a bully tactic, nothing more. Just sad to see him
so many people.
One of my old friends who lives in Oregon and leans pretty strong to the right shared a post from one Steven Tyler Daniels, in which he narrates/participates in/guides a protest at a school board meeting. Not sure if anyone else here knows about this, but it was new to me and frankly left me troubled and torn.
It wasn't the 'protest' that bothered me, but rather the fact that this guy came from another state and stuck his nose in a local school board issue. While he didn't necessarily initiate the tension on his own, he also didn't seem interested in mitigating it, either, and found a few opportunities to stir the pot back up when things seemed to be calming down. To me, it was like watching an alternate version of Norma Rae, where he breezes into town, stirs up the locals to unionize against their corrupt overlords and leaves after getting as many new devotees to his Patriot Party as he could. I think all he did, other than draw attention to himself/the Patriot Party, was to create harsh feelings between neighbors, i.e., the school board and the protesting parents. I will say, however, that it was quite impressive that it took almost an hour into the video before they offered up the Nazi comparison.
FWIW, I didn't read the article until after I watched much of the video (gave up shortly after the hour mark, and after he had convinced them to elect a new board from among the small group of protesters around him in the building's lobby, which was completely ridiculous even though he cited Robert's Rules--I had to look that up, too), which made comparing the article and the video interesting. The article said some protesters were armed, which doesn't show in the part of the video I watched. The article also said the staff were quickly losing control of the situation, which I also would disagree with after watching the video; there were multiple sheriff's department deputies there and they all seemed to stay calm and managed the situation pretty calmly. There was a lot of grumbling and some yelling, but the deputies never raised their voices or got physical.
All in all, it was a train wreck that I couldn't resist watching. I won't argue the philosophical points he was trying to make, but the fact that he encouraged the crowd to not compromise--without having any real investment in the specific issue--completely turned me off of any points I may have agreed with. Going after a school board of all things was a bully tactic, nothing more. Just sad to see him
so many people.
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