To Whom Doth The Traitor Lie?
Just one day after the first press release announcing the June 5th rally, on May 6, 2010, ALIPAC made a second press release entitled: Americans Converge On Arizona For Historic Events June 5-12
"Encouraged by the news that at least twelve states plan to follow Arizona's lead by cracking down on illegal immigration with versions of SB 1070, organizers with Voice of the People USA and Tea Party Patriots Live are announcing historic mega rallies in Phoenix Arizona and around the nation this June 5 through June 12 accompanied by Americans shopping in Arizona to counter any boycotts.
Two large rallies will be held, one on June 5 and one on June 12 at the Arizona state legislature in Phoenix. Each rally will be supported by and have guest speakers"
Gheen once again pushed the AgainstAmnesty.com website. As a matter of fact Gheen links to it 3 times in the release and he links to ALIPAC twice. He did not link at all to the Tea Party website or to the Voice of the People Facebook group or to the Phoenix Rising Facebook Group. It was also becoming quite apparent to all involved that the AgainstAmnesty.com website just wasn’t going to cut it with big names like Tancredo, Pearce, Arpaio and with the continued growth of the event.
The next week would prove to be challenging - and
nobody saw it coming.
Smeriglio and I talked about naming the event, which had until that point been named simply "Huge Rally". Eventually we settled on Phoenix Rising: In Support Of Arizona And The Rule Of Law. I began work on the new website and the logo.
But something was amiss. There were things going on behind the scenes. ALIPAC was calling all of the speakers and leaders of groups and trying to get them to abandon the June 5th rally and move to the 12th. Why?
Rather than setting up the 12th to be a successful rally Gheen showed no signs of knowing how to organize one. In fact Gheen has never organized a successful rally in all of ALIPACs existence. He has always "piggy-backed" on other’s rallies. And in this instance it showed.
William Gheen was reaping what he had previously sown. Throughout the years he had burned a lot of bridges in the past with groups and their leaders over control issues. If people didn’t do it his way he would get angry. The other groups were willing to put aside differences for a unified rally, but they weren’t willing to work with those who wanted control over it all.
I started hearing reports that Gheen was literally screaming at people over the phone. Some leaders had even hung up on him. Figuring that he could make June 5th distasteful, he started spreading around false rumors that Smeriglio had ties to Nazi’s and White Supremacists in order to get people to move to the 12th rally.
I was contacted by him and provided the "evidence". I reviewed the "evidence" and found it ridiculous. I talked to Gheen and presented him my thoughts and told him he was ignorant for believing information that had been supplied by this pro-open borders group. I went over it with him point by point. At times he shouted at me and wouldn’t listen. Now remember, I’ve been working and helping this guy for years.
Finally he gave me a chance to speak, but then played the la-la-la game, with constant arrogant and huffy "yeah"s in there while I was speaking, totally ignoring what I was saying. The left-wing group that supplied him the "evidence" has been hounding Smeriglio for years trying to shut down his work in Pennsylvania because he is effective.
Gheen would hear none of it and yelled at me on the phone. He wouldn’t listen. He wanted me to abandon June 5th and move to the 12th and bring everyone with me that I could get. I refused. All the other leaders refused, but a handful.
By this time some citizens had already made plans to attend the 12th because they couldn’t make the 5th. They had booked hotels, purchased airline tickets, set up carpools and were spreading the word. The people going to the 12th were excited. The people going to the 5th were excited.
I completed the website and logo and as I was preparing to release it all hell broke loose as Gheen let loose a press release that he had consulted nobody on. Not a single leader that I know of, nor the people planning to attend the rallies knew anything about it.
Next: Sabotage
