Americans For Prosperity Fake an Attack On Their Tent at Michigan Right to Work Rally

Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:08 pm

tent coming down

Prepare to be confronted with yet another example of right wing deliberate deception. Today at the Right to Work protest in Michigan, an Americans for Prosperity tent came down with people inside of it. Naturally, Fox was there to capture the scene and AFP were quick to blame it on violent union supporters. Also, Breitbart was there to blame the tent falling on violent union supporters, with a video that doesn’t start until well after the melee (of course).

As you have learned by now (you’re quicker than the media), all is not always what it seems in Right Wing world.

A protester of the anti-union law passed today, Tom Duckworth, saw a man he’d spoken to earlier in the tent, wearing NRA garb, kick the AFP tent poles from the inside of the tent. Duckworth thought they must be getting ready to leave, until he realized there were people inside the tent. So, basically, a person described by Duckworth as “clearly a member of Americans for Propserty” kicked the tent down and then AFP blamed it on the unions.

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December 11, 2012: Tom Duckworth explains what he saw at the Americans for Prosperity tent earlier today. Watch here via ProgressMichigan:

Duckworth says that when the tent came down, people cheered, but nobody “rushed the tent” for about 30 seconds. Sure, they cheered – AFP are the people funding the death of a globally recognized human right. After about 30 seconds, the protesters did trample the fallen tent in their pleasure, cheering its demise.

However, tragically, there were people inside the tent, which the protesters didn’t realize right away. Duckworth says as soon as they realized that, they chased people off of the tent. He says he backed away to make room, and was told it was cut open and they got people out of the tent. Five minutes later, the mounted police showed up to clear the area. (Question: Would the AFP people have cut the union members out of a tent if the situation had been reversed?)

A commenter (av8tor17b ) concurs with Duckworth, writing, “I was physically there this morning and talked to the AFP people before the tents came down. This gentleman is correct- it was a guy with a “freedomworks” button, who was standing IN the AFP tent this morning, who caused the tent to fall.”

Duckworth agreed that it was an attempt by AFP to provoke violence or take advantage of the situation in order to blame the protesters for the tent going down, since AFP were clearly outnumbered (that happens when your cause is not a real grassroots movement).

AFP tried everything to get pro-right to work people to come out to the rally including using their Koch dollars to bribe the unwashed and deluded Fox News masses with free food, drink, and $25 gift cards.

Of course the press was there before the mounted police (who needs the mounted police by the paid instigators of the law that’s causing the ruckus, eh?), and so another meme is created and fulfilled for the plutocrats and their PR outlet at Fox News.

This has all of the usual shades of the secret Walker audio tape in which he discussed planting disruptors to blame on unions in Wisconsin.

No one is claiming the protesters are perfect, but this has all of the eerily familiar hallmarks of right wing propaganda. AFP kicked their own tent in on their own supporters.

Then they blamed the fallout on the unions. A Breitbart video was there just in time to capture the resulting melee and suggest it all started with the unions. For some reason, their videos never start off at the beginning or proceed without edits.

Sarah Jones

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