I had originally not planned to post accounts of the prankster call to Gov. Walker because the tactic of posing as someone else is dishonest. But seeing that Gov. Walker intended to use agents provocateurs as well as bust unions, I think the public good is served by posting it.
Governor Walker: “We Thought About” Infiltrating Wisconsin Protesters With Troublemakers
Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet.com, Thursday, February 24, 2011, https://www.prisonplanet.com/governor-walker-we-thought-about-infiltrating-wisconsin-protesters-with-troublemakers.html
Walker admits authorities considered using agent provocateurs to discredit demonstrators
Image: Vaxomatic/Flickr Commons
During a prank phone call in which he believed he was talking to billionaire philanthropist David Koch, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker admitted that state authorities had “thought about” using troublemakers to infiltrate the crowds demonstrating against his effort to eliminate collective bargaining rights, proving once again that the use of agent provocateurs to discredit legitimate protesters is a common political ploy.
The prank call was made by Ian Murphy, a reporter from the Buffalo Beast, who phoned Walker’s office pretending to be David Koch, a deep-pocketed political ally of Walker. Having believed Murphy’s claim that he couldn’t provide a number for Walker’s office to call him back on because his maid had put his cell phone in the laundry, Murphy was told to call back at a later time and subsequently spoke with Walker for 20 minutes about the situation in Wisconsin, with Walker firmly believing that he was speaking to David Koch.
During a subsequent press conference, Walker defended his remarks that were made during the course of the prank call, stating “The bottom line is, the things I said are things I said publicly all along.”
However, the media completely failed to pick up on the most shocking part of the call, when at 14 minutes 25 seconds in, Walker admits that his office “thought about” planting troublemakers amidst the demonstrators as a means of discrediting them in the eyes of the public.
“But what we were thinking about the crowds was planting some troublemakers,” states Murphy posing as Koch, to which Walker responds, “You know, the problem was, because we thought about that,” before going on to explain that such a move wasn’t necessary because the public was already largely in opposition to the union demonstrators.
Walker’s admission that his office considered using stooges to infiltrate the protests and stir up trouble is even more alarming given the fact that Jeff Cox, a deputy attorney general at the Office of the Indiana Attorney General, posted a tweet under the Twitter user name JCCentCom on Saturday in which he said that police in Wisconsin should use “live ammunition” and “deadly force” to break the protests.
Similarly, Walker’s move to put the Wisconsin National Guard on alert as hundreds of Guard troops return from Iraq in case of trouble is equally disconcerting given the fact that Walker himself considered using provocateurs to stage such trouble.
Walker’s consideration to use infiltrators to stir up chaos and mandate a law enforcement response also takes on greater significance in light of the fact that Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association executive board president Tracy Fuller said earlier this week that troopers would obey orders, don riot gear and “absolutely” use force against protesters to crush dissent if they were told to do so.
Setting aside the rights and wrongs of both Walker and the pro-union demonstrators in Wisconsin, the fact that Governor Walker admitted his office had considered using troublemakers to presumably stir up violence in a bid to discredit his political opponents is a shocking revelation.
As we have documented, the use of agent provocateurs to manipulate public opinion against activists by using infiltrators to stage violence is a tactic routinely employed by state and federal authorities, not only in America but around the world.
Walker’s admission that his office considered using the same ploy confirms that, far from residing in the realm of conspiracy theory, the use of agent provocateurs to stage violence as a means of deceiving the American people into supporting or opposing political agendas is a routine method of malevolent manipulation.
Listen to the full prank call below. The topic of using provocateurs to infiltrate protesters crops up at the 4:25 minute mark in part two of the clip.