Scott Walker got punked big time by Buffalo journalist Ian Murphy recently. I’m sure that you have heard about it. Murphy claimed to be one of the right-wing financier Koch brothers (Pronounced “coke”…y’can’t make this stuff up.) and recorded the call.
But…the media has almost universally labelled this labelled this a “prank” call. Dig deeper into it and hear the real deal.
I got yer “prank.”
Right here!!!
Read on for more.
I wonder how the hypnomedia will try to spin the first contemporary U.S. domestic protest shootings. A “prank?” I wouldn’t put it past them. They blew it when Kent State happened, but they were so much less competent at the time. Now? The media is a massive wall of disinfo. Massive and almost seamless. Of the several hundred TV stations that I receive via Direct TV only one (Link TV) gives even a hint of what’s really up here, and it is very small and basically unwatched channel.
So far? Very peaceful.
As Madison Police spokesman Joe DeSpain stated:
This is one of the largest sustained protests we have seen in Madison since the Vietnam War. And to my knowledge there were absolutely no problems.
‘Muricans are so nice. So peaceful! So well-fed!!!
We’ll find out…bet on it. Violence will happen eventually as the protests grow here. If the protesters don’t get unruly enough? Why…that can always be arranged. Governor Scott Walker’s own words show the direction that such action can take.
Mayor Dave Cieslewicz sent Gov. Scott Walker a letter Friday, demanding an explanation to comments Walker made during a prank call that the governor thought was with billionaire donor David Koch.
Ian Murphy, a reporter in Buffalo, called Walker pretending to be Koch and recorded the call. In the call, Murphy offers to help by “planting some troublemakers” among the protesters.Walker responded: “We thought about that,” and added, “My only fear would be if there was a ruckus caused, is that that would scare the public into thinking maybe the governor’s got to settle to avoid all these problems.”
Cieslewicz says he was “dumbfounded” when he heard the recording (here andhere). “I have a hard time getting my head around it,” he said. “I’ve got some responsibility to keep people safe in our community. And I’ve been really impressed with how police officers have conducted themselves and how the protestors have conducted themselves.”
On the same day the call was released, Cieslewicz referred to the governor’s comments as “very upsetting.” On Thursday morning, the mayor published a blog post offering a more detailed response, asking, “”Really, Governor, you thought about that? The Governor of Wisconsin actually thought about planting people in the crowds who might turn these peaceful protests into something ugly?”
Now, in a new letter (PDF) released Friday, Cieslewicz asks Walker to explain who made the suggestion, what was his immediate response, if he took any steps in that direction, and why he didn’t reject the suggestion on moral grounds, rather than political ones.
Cieslewicz says Walker doesn’t need to respond to him directly but that “has to respond to the people of Wisconsin. It’s not my place to be a moral inquisitor. But he owes a much bigger explanation to the people.”
He adds that Walker’s response in subsequent press conferences about the call disturb him just as much as the call itself. “He’s really defended this in his press conferences. He actually defended it.”
The mayor said he didn’t know how far he’d push his grievance over the phone call. He said he’d give the governor a few days to respond. “If there is no response, perhaps there’s some government accountability board action that might be taken, I don’t know.”
The fact that this recorded…and widely distributed…conversation has not resulted in front page news from the hypnomedia along with calls for Walker’s resignation or impeachment is evidence enough that the U.S. has already descended so far into the morass of an Abu Ghraib-like “security” system that it will never return.
Without a doubt some gangster security company already has its plans drawn up and stored in a nice office somewhere close to Langley, VA.
Bet on it.
I give it less than a year. Maybe sooner if the Middle Eastern revolts result in a true gas crisis.
Watch.
AG
than anything else that I have ever written here.
Abu Ghraib, middle America.
Watch.
It’s on the way.
“The ceremony of innocence is drowned”…the innocent, hypnomediated American people.
“The best lack all conviction…” Obama dithers while the world rocks right out from underneath his feet. Not just in the Middle East…now in our own Middle West as well. Do I hear a peep from him about this statement? Does he send in the FBI to arrest the man on charges of sedition?
No? I’m listening…
(Not a word unless the polls say it’s safe. Bet on it.)
“…while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
Watch.
Disgusting.
Here’s what’s happening, friends:
If this Walker fool fails…and falling for that phone call is evidence a’plenty of his own incompetence…why…they’ll jes’ try and try again. It worked with Bill Clinton and it will work with Barricaded Obama as well. Didja see Gingrich’s recent “impeachment” float?
These fishermen will just keep casting from their virtual Swift Boats.
And on and on and on and on and on.
It’s what they do. And it works.
I said it when they honeytrapped Bill Clinton; I said it when they Swift Boated John Kerry and I’m saying it again.
Only direct, “You want it? Stand-up-and-let’s-fight, motherfuckers” opposition works against bullies. No diplomacy, no compromise, no polls, no nuthin”. Strap Walker to an FBI rail and drag him out of office for treason? That’d work. Things would get rough, but it could be done.
But Obama does not work that way.
So…he’s gonna get taken down.
Watch.
AG
It is quite possible that Obama could not “strap Walker to an FBI rail” simply because he does not believe that he commands enough loyalty in the ranks of the PermaGov/Intelligence/Military apparatus to get it done.
I wonder what a PermaGov poll would show…not that we would ever see the results.
AG
would be instead of it’s current take on the matter if the following story read a little differently.
Instead of:
What if it read:
Yup.
Headlines galore!!!
I can see them now.
And so on.
But here?
In this so-called “democracy” the actual machinery of which is now actually run by filibuster, flight and dollar-operated hype?
Will we see U.S. Senators running the same game next?
When legislators must run from their seats and hide in other states in defense of what we have considered basic rights for a century or more…basic rights built on the blood of thousands… then the “winning” is already over.
Bet on it.
Watch.
AG
When a sitting governor openly conspires with someone on a recorded phone call where he responds to “offers to help by ‘planting some troublemakers’ among the protesters” by saying “We thought about that” and then adding, “My only fear would be if there was a ruckus caused, is that that would scare the public into thinking maybe the governor’s got to settle to avoid all these problems,” and he not only gets away with it but openly defends his statement in press conferences…
Things are in bad shape here, folks.
Bad, bad shape.
Bet on it.
AG
What is amazing to me is how the Koch brothers were able to buy the state of Wisconsin for really not very much money, and it doesn’t seem like anything can be done about it.
Can you even consider Wisconsin a democracy anymore? Is it accurate to call Wisconsin an oligarchy? Is it a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch enterprises?
I think anybody who is watching the situation develop in Wisconsin has to reconsider opposition to the filibuster. If the Tea Party can take control of the Executive branch and capture 50% plus one seat in each house of the legislature, they can (and will) do anything they please. It is happening in Wisconsin now, and will likely be happening in Washington, D.C. in 2013. State Senators skipping out of state is what happens when there is no institutional check like the filibuster.
Wisconsin does seem to be run much the way Mubarek, Ben Ali, and Gaddafi ran their respective countries.
Sorry…gotta shout.
Where is the outrage?
Left?
Right?
Center?
Nofuckingwhere!!!
This motherfucker openly discusses…and then defends…the use of violence by government plants as as an aid to putting down resistance to union busting…and NOBODY SAYS SHIT ABOUT IT !!!???
The U.S. is so fucked!!!
AG
No comments?
The sitting governor of a state that is part of the the (so-called) United States of America openly discusses the planting of agents provocteurs and nobody says a fucking word!!!???
Lord!!!
We’re through!!!
AG
When it is SOP, it doesn’t merit outrage anymore, and I don’t think we are quite ready for the appropriate response — action.
The only broadbased coalition around this issue is in Wisconsin, and it is broadbased only because some very visible members of the middle class are losing their rights, not because someone else is losing theirs. But it’s being dismissed as “just Wisconsin”. And the hypnomedia are raising the specter of class war.
We don’t need outrage, we need enough Badger boots on the ground that Walker has to resign. How many might that be in a state with a population of 5.6 million? The protests have not been able to ramp up beyond 150,000 so far. And that is not enough, it appears.
100k-150k is a pretty impressive number. I’m not sure what the numbers were on the streets of Cairo needed to bring down the Mubarek regime, but it may well have been proportional to Madison (I’m just making a wild guess – could well be wrong on that point though). The stumbling block is the perception that what goes on in our statehouses and in DC is “democratic” and hence “legitimate.” It would take quite a readjustment of perception to bring about the conditions needed to get someone like Walker to resign – the sort of change that would ditch our perception of ourselves as belonging to an exceptionally fair and representative government. Events over the last few years have chipped away at that perception, but we don’t yet have a critical mass willing to openly challenge that perception. Once that critical mass is reached, watch out.
Don, I’m impressed with the turnouts in Madison too. But…(you knew there was a “but” coming, didn’t you?).
But drawing comparisons between Madison and Cairo just isn’t helpful (in my view). 30 days of Gov. Walker is nowhere close to 30 years of President Mubarak.
It’s reminiscent of Hollywood celebrities saying they would “have to leave the country” if Bush was reelected in 2004. Well guess what? Bush got reelected, they didn’t leave the country and nobody cared.
If there’s a lesson to be drawn from recent events in Madison and in Cairo, it’s the importance of organizing for the long haul. Waiting for the people to rise up after “things get worse” is a fool’s mission.
Walker won’t get 30 years to do damage the way Mubarek did. He’ll be lucky to get 4 or at max 8. But he does have an authoritarian streak that strikes me as very similar, and already shows a propensity toward abusing power very early on.
Well…yeah, but my is…it wouldn’t have to be about the number people on the march if it could be proven that Governor Walker plotted…I believe that many peple laughingly call stuff like this “a conspiracy”…or even seriously considered using provocateurs to ramp up the violence quotient in Madison.
And it has been proven. He said so himself and he was recorded saying so. He (“they”) only decided not to do it because hey were afraid that it might backfire. he then defended the statement in a press conference!!!
We don’t need feet on the ground in Madison…we need the President of the United States of America to speak to his Attorney General about prosecuting the man.
And he has not done so.
Is his own lack of prosecutorial vigor perhaps an impeachable crime in and of itself?
Lemme see.
Let’s say that Obama had been recorded saying the same damned thing about a Tea Party demonstation.
Hmmmm…how long do you think it would take the right wing to get all over his ass!!!???
Maybe we ought to start taking the same tack.
Howzzat for an answer to FDR’s statement to a group of reformers?
But the bloodless leftinesses will not do it.
I refer you to the Yeats quote above.
‘Fraid so…
AG
(and Magnanimous) as they target Koch?
on Magnanimous, which is legal-talent oriented.
may also be relevant to your interests…
Still not even a hint of public outrage at Walker’s confession of his consideration to use provocateurs to ramp up the violence in Madison. Nowhere in the news as far as I can bear to see. Nowhere!
We’re fucked.
Sorry, but there it is.
I simply cannot get my head around this fact.
How did it happen?
Is there truly a massive, all-knowing, all-controlling mass media center where news of this sort is somehow marked “TOXIC!!! DO NOT DISTRIBUTE!!!?” I cannot believe that. It’s just too massive to work.
So…how does it happen?
I mean, even on the leftiness sites.
Nothing.
Here?
No real outrage. The closest thing to “outrage” that I see on this thread (besides my own contributions) is Tarheel’s “When it is SOP, it doesn’t merit outrage anymore,” and as far as I am concerned that is absolutely the wrong approach. When something like this is generally regarded as “Standard Operating Procedure” and is so deeply entrenched in the public hivemind that it is passively accepted as “Oh, that’s just the way things work,” then that is the point at which “outrage” not only has its uses but is a necessary reaction.
But what do I know?
I’m just some crazy jass musician.
Wake the fuck up.
AG
.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
Oh, I grew an extra set of eyes in the back of my head back was I was organizing in south FL in the early 70s. Nothing they do surprises me and I can’t carry that kind of rage that long. I try to work from the school of “don’t get mad, get even” instead.
Great.
Bust his ass!!!
Walker publicly admitted tio being part of a conspiracy that considered planting agents in a peaceful demonstaration in order to ramp up the level of violence, and further said that the only reason he did not do so was because he feared that it would work to his disadvantage. Just in case there was any doubt left, he then held a news conference where he defended his participation in that planning.
If there is no criminality involved in this set of actions, then we are through.
Through!!!
And if that concept is not tested in a court of law?
Through squared.
Is this kind of tactic common practice?
You bet it is.
Has it ever been publicly acknowledged and then defended by one of the conspirators?
Not to my knowledge.
Headlne today:
Geez!!! Must’ve been those radical protestors!!! They’ve got lots of access to hollow point ammo in heir lower middle class neighborhoods, right? Why…they’ve got so much that they just leave it lying around!!!
Please.
Is everyfuckingbody asleep here!!!????
AG
I don’t know if you spend any time on Twitter, but if you ever check that site out, do a search for the tags #wiunion, #wearewi, #solidarity, and #notmywi. There’s a lot of traffic – some driven no doubt by activists on the ground, the rest driven by people who are interested in what’s happening. I think it’s safe to say that there are plenty of people who are starting to awaken, and who get that this is bigger than Wisconsin (not to diminish the impact Walker’s regime [and I figure regime fits, as he acts more like a dictator than a governor] will have on that state’s workers).
I’m not really sure what else you want. Folks in Wisconsin and neighboring states are doing what they can. There may be some good news in some of the polls suggesting that younger folks are considerably more favorable toward unions than those of us who are gen-x-ers. They may be more willing to raise a stink over the next few years than my age cohort would ever accepted – protests were considered totally uncool back in my day, something only hippies did. Maybe it means that the concept of collective action is slowly coming back into vogue. It’s a concept that will be necessary to grasp and live for any hope of survival. I just hope this new generation is not too late.
You write:
You don’t?
Really?
I’ve been quite clear about it on this thread.
I want to see pressure put on the feds to prosecute Scott Walker for conspiracy. For participating in a conspiracy to end the protests in Madison by the use of planted goons to ramp up the violence quotient in those protests and thus have an excuse to send in the police and/or the National Guard to end those protests.
I want to see real outrage over this situation.
It most certainly merits outrage on a moral level.
Can I be any more clear?
I think not.
If we do not protest these sorts of tactics, they will continue to use them.
And that will be the end of the story.
Kristallnacht 2012.
I can hear the glass breaking already.
AG
But why waste our time raging when there are other techniques useful to us against hired guns like Walker. For example, from the morning birdcage liner in Indy:
Will Charlie lose his job? – maybe, maybe not. Will he do any time? Probably not. Will he be tapped to run for another office by the Indiana GOP? What do you think?
This is a long-term operation, but pretty effective. White was brought down by one guy who initiated the investigation, made lotsa noise and didn’t give up.
Walker and his ilk are arrogant. They believe they are above the law. Most, if not all have skeletons. Its only a matter of finding the correct closet. Admittedly, its a slow and agonizing process. Best we can do is bring down one of the higher-ups and set an example. That may chill them out for awhile. Will it be enough? Dunno. Time will tell.
Not about “raging” regarding what Walker said, Indiana…it’s about the rage that we should all feel regarding the plain fact that not only y not called on it by the so-called justice system but almost the entire mass media dumped it too.
You write:
OK…here’s a much shorter-term op.
Let’s make some noise about Walker’s statements regarding his serious consideration of the use of goons. I’m no lawyer, but I am pretty sure that it’s prosecutable…I mean, he has to take an oath of office, right?…and even if it isn’t prosecutable it would be one hell of a lot more publicly damaging than some lame vote-rigging scheme.
Bet on it.
I can see the headlines now.
Yup.
Bad news for the right.
AG
I like your thinking, AG.
I am sorry, Indiana, but I have to ask this question:
Seriously.
Got any ideas?
All of the agreements in the world add up to…well, they add up to the leftiness history of losing.
Whatchoo gonna do about it?
AG
Arthur, you probably won’t see any detailed plans from me here for rather obvious reasons. Suffice it to say that one does what one is able.
“One does what one is able?”
Yup.
Guess so.
And…as Fats Walle said: “One never knows, do one?”
Nope.
AG
P.S. This joint may start jumpin’ soon enough…