Tea Party Leader Urges "Agent Provocatuer" Plan to Disrupt and Discredit Protests

Submitted by Lisa Graves on

SEIUrallyIn an email sent this week, the "Tea Party Nation" urged members to impersonate SEIU organizers at upcoming labor rallies in an attempt to embarrass and discredit the union and the protestors. Former Tea Party leader Mark Williams urged the plan, according to Think Progress.

The plan includes signing up with the Service Employees International Union, wearing SEIU T-shirts, and then approaching television crews and camera operators with signs that say things like "You OWE me" and "Screw the taxpayer." It also urged tea partiers, in disguise, to make outrageous comments to reporters to make the gathering look "greedy," and undermine the protestor's credibility with the press.

The plan even suggested that it would not matter if Tea Party Nation's planting of operatives became public because "the quotes and pictures will linger as de facto truth."

The email added that "Tea Party Patriot groups and individuals are flooding me with emails vowing to participate and come up with their own creative ruses!"

Tea Party Nation and Mark Williams’ own site posted the plans on their sites and then removed them. The original documents are available here, here and here.

Activism
Wisconsin
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Lisa Graves
Lisa Graves

Lisa Graves is President of the Board of the Center for Media and Democracy and President of True North Research. She is a well-known researcher, writer, and public speaker. Her research and analysis have been cited by every major paper in the country and featured in critically acclaimed books and documentaries, including Ava Du Vernay’s award-winning film, “The 13th,” Bill Moyers’s “United States of ALEC,” and Showtime’s “Years of Living Dangerously.”

 

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Comments

Anonymous replied on

LAME get over it! you lose 88% of the wage and salary earners in the country say be thankful you have jobs! PS union protests ...nowhere on the news anymore...

True American replied on

Get out of the country and go back to England! We don't want your brand of politics here, you sycophant Tory's! Stop trying to make a monarchy of the corporate and wealthy!

Some English Dude. replied on

We've got enough trouble with the Tories gutting our public services right now too. We should make a compromise. Put them all in the middle of the Atlantic. They should enjoy it. They'll find plenty to serf on the high seas.

B replied on

Lolz! Nowhere on the news anymore? http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wisconsin-14-group-of-democratic-senators-returns-greeted-by-thousands-at-capitol/2011/03/12/ABB28IS_story.html Saturday, March 12 in Madison was the biggest labor protest in US history. ~70,000 in the morning became over 100,000 by mid-day. We're lifting each other up instead of tearing each other down, and we're not going anywhere. :)

Anonymous replied on

With all the union workers marching against the Governor and Legislators in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and elsewhere who the ------is back at home doing the work of providing services to the citizens of Wisconsin and the other states. I'm just betting many are collecting paychecks you really aren't entitled to. Do all your contracts have a clause that you will continue to receive your paychecks whether you are working or not? Maybe you can just decide to become a career protestor and let the big union leadership support you. I'm taking control of my union dues and they will not be used to support your kind. The union leadership doesn't care about you, they only care about the power they have because they are ripping you off month by month year by year, pretending they are your protective Big Daddy. Just hand onto those union dues a few times and you will see what kind of protector they really are.