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Earlier today AFSCME reported that 10,000 people showed up at the state capital in Lansing to protest the passage of Michian’s “right to work” law by the Republican dominated state legislature. Why anyone thought it was a good idea to throw up an anti-union tent in the midst of that is anybody’s guess, but Americans for Prosperity did, and the video above shows it being torn it down.
Update: Marcy Wheeler reports that “witnesses say the Americans for Prosperity people were trying to provoke union members to violence, and witnesses reportedly saw AFP people loosening the ropes on the tents so they would come down.”
Update II: Chris Savage from Eclectablog says that Americans for Prosperity tore down their own tent, and promises video soon:
Union representatives are also reporting that the crowd outside the Romney building have been tear gassed:
Detroit News confirms that pepper spray was used to “secure the scene.”
AP reports that Governor Snyder could sign the bill as early as Friday.
More from Talking Points Memo and RedState.
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Marcy writes:
Breitbart Folks Appear to Fake Violence in Lansing | By: emptywheel Tuesday December 11, 2012 2:30 pm
Thanks mzchief, added an update.
!De nada! plus Marcy calls out AFP:
I’m sure Anderson Pooper will expose this story for the fake out it was designed to be. Must be a hard choice for him …Tahrir Square or Michigan State House? He will probably split the difference and do a remote from David Koch’s ass. MSM is freedom’s greatest enemy.
I was born in Detroit, and my uncle organized for the AFL-CIO in the factories. I despair over this, another nail in the coffin of the working class. They had to kill education first, so we would not know what we were losing. . .
It’s important not to hide behind a middle class veneer of comity and pacifism on this one, though. The people who got us our rights braved bullets, refused to leave factories, and were trampled by horses. We have a right and an over-riding need to fight back.
Realisticaly, how many people will really resign from the unions? Is all this fight over keeping 2 or 3% of the workers in a union they don’t want to belong to? If the AFL-CIO is so afraid people will leave in droves once they can then they better rexamine themselves and their value to the workers. I was in the IBEW when I worked at a power company and the local leadership were idiots but I was stuck with them. The IBEW was a good ole boys club and if you were not a member of the in crowd they could care less what you thought.
You’re right Matt. The opponents of organized labor are the enemy to working people and that needs to be shouted from the roof tops. And needs to be confronted, tit for tat. My dad, now 82, was a UAW member from the week he mustered out of the US Army after the Korean War in ’52, until he retired as a tool and die maker at 65, in ’95. The UAW union allowed him to earn enough money to buy his home and help send me to college. I owe what I am to the help of organized labor even though I never joined a union. I do believe that violence is coming due to these types of legislation, and I for one will be dropping any middle class veneer of comity and pacifism once it starts. I owe that to my dad, and your uncle, as well as to those who died or were injured in organizing labor unions.
Of note:
Until the 1% is truly scared of the 99%, they will continue to suck the wealth from the 99%. Until that happens, expect more violence. When a person has nothing to lose, is when the 1% will be truly scared. That day cannot come to soon for me.
I appreciate this response. I was not specific enough in my comment about violence: spending time arguing that the protestors were coerced into pulling down the tent or arguing that they weren’t violent, etcetera is a mug’s game: time to tear all of their tents down–and their opulent playhouses, too.
Yes America’s 1% Corporate Fascists do have something to fear. It is called that sleeping giant, General Yamamoto knew would eventually awake and destroy the Axis powers. America’s corporate fascists will suffer the same fate.
Let’s just say the protesters DID tear down that tent.
Then we must conclude that from the viewpoint of the Villagers and the PTB that it’s perfectly ok for the police to destroy the personal belongings of Occupiers (some of which might represent all what’s left of their earthly possessions) but *not* ok for protestors to destroy a tiny asset of a multi-million dollar deep-pocketed astroturf organization.
Yeah, right.
-stewartm
Clearly the PTB now see that tents are a form of free speech and shouldn’t be torn down.
#winning#dreamingInterview posted by Progress Michigan may shed some light.
Take away point for me is that keeping people divided, by misinformation and other tactics, is beneficial to those of the .1% who are pushing us further and further into poverty. The more people are tricked into blaming and fighting with their neighbor, the easier it is to steal from them.
Don’t fall for it! Let’s keep talking, especially with those that disagree with us.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you post, but Americans For Prosperity is not anyone’s neighbor, right? Not in the zip codes that American workers live in.
This law does not force anyone to leave a union and not pay dues it just says they can. I don’t understand why that is such a big deal.