Initial thoughts on the Minuteman Project
“I want to get the president of the United States to uphold the oath of his office . . . which is to protect us from the invasion of criminals, drug dealers and illegal immigrants flowing across this border by the thousands every day.”
-- Chris Simcox, a former school teacher and one of the initiators of the Minuteman Project, also editor of the Tombstone Press
“Terrorists love open borders—Remember 911”
-- one of many bill boards along the highways in Arizona
“Americans [are] doing the job Congress won’t do.”
--Minuteman Project website
* * *
This is some of their mentality—the government isn’t doing enough to deal with the “border problem” and groups of angry and frustrated “citizens” are taking matters into their own hands. Although the numbers that the organizers of the Minuteman Project are not the 1000+ they expected, there were definitely more than a hundred vigilantes roaming around the border—many are armed. Not surprisingly many are retired (and I think active) corrections officials and ex-military people.
They say they are protecting the “homeland” from terrorists and foreigners. There are known white separatists and ultra right wing militia types involved in the project, but also a good percentage of Mexican Americans and other Latinos.
Some immigrants ask, “Why are they doing this? We’re human beings, you don’t hunt human beings like you do animals—don’t they see how much we contribute to the economy of this country? This country needs immigrant labor.”
I think that the U.S. government does realize how valuable immigrant labor is, but they do want to control it. It’s not a good thing in the eyes of the U.S. government to have increasing numbers of people—millions—from countries in Latin America and all over the world who have been ravaged and raped by U.S. imperialism to come to the U.S. This section of people know what U.S. imperialism does to entire countries and their economies, they know that NAFTA has made it impossible for a peasant to survive in the Mexican countryside, they know that the U.S. helped train the death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala, they have lost loved ones under the crushing fire of Made in the USA bombs.
In times of increasing polarization in the United States—at a time when some one like Newt Gingrich has said that the country hasn’t been this divided since the Civil War—where will this section of people who have no allegiance for the U.S. and know of its horrors align itself with?
These are just some stream of consciousness thoughts for the moment—there will be more.
posted by Luciente Zamora @ 3:39 PM
5 Comments:
Shit my brother is AZ today and said that he knows people who are flocking to the border for work. They are paying border patrol, I don't know who "They" is, but I guess the gov't, up to 60,000 dollars to bust people comming over the border.
Thats crazy! And it is all too real.
-JS
The racist issues that Ed Abbey raises are interesting, but are totally flawed. The borders create a block for higher paid work on one side, and lower paid jobs on the other. There is no such thing as an illegal. No human is illegal. One without 'proper documents' is no more illegal than a runaway slave in the north during slavery days.
There is no increased spending for welfare programs, health care programs, educational programs, and immigration reform. These line items exist for any person in the us to use, with or without documents. This is a good thing. Also, ed abbey overlooks the fact that the load of money that the international proletariat needs for its sustenance is being spent by the us military, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and hundreds of military bases internationally. The money that goes to the black budget of the CIA, FBI and other secret police agencies could well be used to solve many social problems in this country. The problem is not money, it is imperialism. The problem is not illegal immigrants; it is imperialist relations between the north and the south that causes migration in the first place. The proletariat is an international class. Those who cross borders to work are our class brothers. We support them in every way possible.
These are the types of issues that people like ed abbey and others of his ilk rhetorically overlook and deny. These are the type of issues that socialist revolutionaries like myself uphold and happily debate and defend.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Mexican American War (Noun)
James K. Polk (noun)
Manifet Destiny (Noun)
the person, place and idea that sold that land from the Mexican people in the first fucking place.
I like this game, it your turn now, how about Imperialism?
http://boingboing.net/
this site has photos of the Minutemen
Post a Comment
<< Home