“It’s time to start drawing from our proud American Tradition of Burning People in effigy.”  And with that Randall Terry is off, promoting a contest for, coming to youtube soon. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid Burning In Hell.

Proud American tradition?  As represented by the NY Times article of 1854 not available here — first item found on google.  Beyond that, when I think of burning in effigy in these United States, my mind wanders to intimidation against Black People and Civil Rights allies.   The next items in the google search have people in nations with populations hostile to the United States burning Obama in effigy.  This item digs back a bit further into the claim of “Proud American Tradition,” an import if there ever was.  Google news a bit and we get this write-up of a man burned in effigy, which brings us back to the “Religious Unenlightenment” angle. 

But Burning Reid and Pelosi in effigy is supposed to, claims Randall Terry, be an outlet to “let out steam”.

He predicted that because of the “rage” people are feeling in the country, they might resort to graffiti, violence against buildings or, “and God forbid, I pray this doesn’t happen, but I think it’s possible that we could see acts of violence against individuals seen as guilty of a murderous agenda.” He said that his video contest would help eliminate violence by providing an alternative outlet for expression, and give pro-life activists “something to do that’s not inane,” referring to recent mass mailings by conservative organizations to members of Congress with tea bags in envelopes.

Troy Newman, now the president of Operation Rescue, reacted with alarm to Terry’s contest. “When I saw the video I was at a loss for words,” he said. “Randall Terry has gone over the edge to complete lunacy.” Newman said that more than 50 percent of the American people identify themselves as pro-life, but Terry’s “extreme, fringe activities” hurt the movement’s efforts to draw more supporters. “I can’t see any good coming out of that.”

Contest Entry Example #1:  I don’t get it.  Cardboard cutouts of Reid and Pelosi burn in, I guess, Terry’s lawn.  Randall Terry interjects about them burning in Hell.  There is no creativity here.  But I guess it’s just a test example?

Really, Randall Terry is not arguing for much creativity in his contest partipants.  He calls for people to burn images of Reid and Pelosi on Halloween Night.  Follow the lead of that youtube video, and it doesn’t expand much beyond that limited range.  This would tend to end up procuring images of these extreme Christian Fundamentalists burning facsimilies of Reid and Pelosi, and the best I can think of beyond that would be placing the burnings in exotic or ironic locales.  The better contest idea would be to ditch the “Burn in Effigy” and ask for “Burning in Hell” videos– this might inspire storylines or creative conceptions of the the Hell — comical Hell, scary Hell, cartoony Hell.  Maybe some different images of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi along the same lines of the Hell.

Then again, who wants to win any of this stuff?

I have a gut feeling  that Randall Terry has piles of his “Inurrecta Nex”  lying around he just needs to unload.  But I could be wrong.

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