The Minutemen Project

[Susurrus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minuteman_Project

Summary: Xenophobic Conservatives(including some neo-nazis) with guns volunteering to patrol the border with Mexico.

[Fawkes]

Haven't heard about them in a while, have those pricks done anything noteworthy recently?

[Decolonize The Left]

Not from their wiki page. Looks like 2005-2007 was their time.

- August

[Rusty Shackleford]

was tabling outside the capitol building a few months back and this tall guy comes up to the table and starts talking. after a bit he mentions hes a minuteman representative and i was like "the same people that killed a little girl in Arizona?" he walked away

[Susurrus]

Aye, they seem to be keeping it to petitions and political manipulation. Their website doesn't say if they are still running patrols, and is mainly devoted to how awesome their founder is. There was one hilarious article blaming environmentalists for illegal immigration because they oppose cutting down border forests that immigrants sometimes sneak through.

[Rusty Shackleford]

i have to add.... i did shake his hand... i felt dirty. i just didnt know though!


i also have a problem with being too nice in real discussions. but yeah...


fuck the minutemen.

[RedSonRising]

What I don't understand is why no leftist organization has committed any sort of self-defense force against the innocent Latino families getting slaughtered every so often by similar "patrol" groups, regardless of their legal status. Obviously nobody is going to go out into the desert en-mass to bring in desperate and displaced immigrants for reasons aimed at provoking incrimination, but it seems natural to try and organize around ideas of race-based violence and show that people aren't going to let little boys and girls and fathers and mothers be shot down simply because some privileged nut-jobs feel they don't belong.

[Susurrus]

What I don't understand is why no leftist organization has committed any sort of self-defense force against the innocent Latino families getting slaughtered every so often by similar "patrol" groups, regardless of their legal status. Obviously nobody is going to go out into the desert en-mass to bring in desperate and displaced immigrants for reasons aimed at provoking incrimination, but it seems natural to try and organize around ideas of race-based violence and show that people aren't going to let little boys and girls and fathers and mothers be shot down simply because some privileged nut-jobs feel they don't belong.

I actually considered beginning the thread with this sort of thing, but I figured that it would just be sucked into the Practice and Propaganda black hole. I believe there is some sort of org that helps immigrants in the field, I think it's called "No More Deaths" or something. But I agree, there needs to be some sort of leftist organization to counter militant conservatives like this.

[Jimmie Higgins]

What I don't understand is why no leftist organization has committed any sort of self-defense force against the innocent Latino families getting slaughtered every so often by similar "patrol" groups, regardless of their legal status. Obviously nobody is going to go out into the desert en-mass to bring in desperate and displaced immigrants for reasons aimed at provoking incrimination, but it seems natural to try and organize around ideas of race-based violence and show that people aren't going to let little boys and girls and fathers and mothers be shot down simply because some privileged nut-jobs feel they don't belong.

There have been uneven but pretty regular counter-protests of the minutemen back when they were more active.

IndyMedia: Movement Against The MinuteMen and the Border (http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2005/04/108151.shtml)

And this by a bigot himself, quoted in an excellent ISR article about the minutmen,:

Vigilantes at the border (http://www.isreview.org/issues/43/minutemen.shtml)


I have been seething with anger since the rally, analyzing and thinking about how to proceed with this organization.… After repeated contacts between myself…and the police department in which we strongly asked for our group to be separated from the opposition…. They allowed the socialists/anarchists to scream, blow whistles and blare bullhorns in our ears. Literally, an inch from our ears. They allowed them to yell in our faces...within inches, so that spittle flew into our face. They allowed the opposition to jostle us on the sidewalk…. It worked to some degree as some members could not locate our scattered group and proceeded to return home instead of facing the rabid opposition by themselves.47:lol:

[Kamos]

This vigilantism seems to have become the newest publicity stunt of the fash and their friends. Over here in Hungary, we also have a "Defense Force" patrolling countryside villages and harassing Gypsies. I say, the best defence against these warbands would be to gather a load of people and collectively tell them that nobody cares. They don't like it when people don't see them as heroes.

[danyboy27]

i saw a penn and teller (i know...) documentary about immigration and they talked with the minutemen.

They are fews, ill equipped, and most of these folks dont get any training at all.

Most people crossing the border are nice folks, but one of these day, the minutemen are gonna ran into a group of cartel guys and its not gonna end well for them, severed head everywhere.

[KurtFF8]

i saw a penn and teller (i know...) documentary about immigration and they talked with the minutemen.

They are fews, ill equipped, and most of these folks dont get any training at all.

Most people crossing the border are nice folks, but one of these day, the minutemen are gonna ran into a group of cartel guys and its not gonna end well for them, severed head everywhere.

Exactly, that's the thing about these groups. They can only do their "job" if they don't run into the people they claim they're after. But, as you pointed out, the minute they do, they're going to run into some real trouble.

Perhaps the increase in violence in the border area has scared folks like the Minutemen off (along with their major blunders and bad press)

[Susurrus]

To be quite honest, I would quite like open war between the cartels and the american right wing paramilitary types to begin, so long as it stays in the deserts. Two birds with one stone.

[Rusty Shackleford]

To be quite honest, I would quite like open war between the cartels and the american right wing paramilitary types to begin, so long as it stays in the deserts. Two birds with one stone.
No, it would probably end up in exponential growth of right-wing paramilitaries in the US.

[Susurrus]

No, it would probably end up in exponential growth of right-wing paramilitaries in the US.

Yeah, but if strong right wing paramilitary forces and strong cartel forces keep marching into a desert and fighting it out, they'll wear out the strength of both sides before its over, leaving us leftists who've been sitting in the sidelines to go scavenge the weapons and begin the revolution. (or just take over the desert and declare it autonomous. or march on down to Chiapas.)

[Hexen]

Proof that Minute Men are Fat Fascist Pigs

R0FPDPTd0LA

[GPDP]

Yeah, but if strong right wing paramilitary forces and strong cartel forces keep marching into a desert and fighting it out, they'll wear out the strength of both sides before its over, leaving us leftists who've been sitting in the sidelines to go scavenge the weapons and begin the revolution. (or just take over the desert and declare it autonomous. or march on down to Chiapas.)

No. Stop that. The last thing we need is warfare between paramilitaries. All that will result on is workers getting caught in the crossfire and a fuckton of people injured or dead. Take your fantasies about open warfare elsewhere.

[Susurrus]

No. Stop that. The last thing we need is warfare between paramilitaries. All that will result on is workers getting caught in the crossfire and a fuckton of people injured or dead. Take your fantasies about open warfare elsewhere.


Ahem:

To be quite honest, I would quite like open war between the cartels and the american right wing paramilitary types to begin, so long as it stays in the deserts.

[Rusty Shackleford]

so long as it stays in the desert? why the fuck would they be fighting over uninhabited land? the cities are where the drug money is at and where the paramilitaries live. they are not going to set up some random front line in the arizona desert and fight over it like its WWI.

fighting, especially between gangs and paramilitaries, would most likely take place in cities.

[Susurrus]

so long as it stays in the desert? why the fuck would they be fighting over uninhabited land? the cities are where the drug money is at and where the paramilitaries live. they are not going to set up some random front line in the arizona desert and fight over it like its WWI.

fighting, especially between gangs and paramilitaries, would most likely take place in cities.

this is a hypothetical scenario, based on the idea that paramilitaries would be patrolling the border(in a desert) and the cartels would be trying to get drugs over the border. This would occur by the minutemen stumbling into a cartel and being killed. The paramilitaries would declare them martyrs and start patrolling the borders with their forces. The cartels would be fighting them in the deserts to move their drugs across. They aren't fighting over the land.

[Red Commissar]

I'm going to have to agree with GPDP and Rusty here, wishing for a conflict between right-wing paramilitaries and the cartels probably won't end too well.

The main concern I have with that scenario is that it would legitimize and build support for the "border security" angle. In the past few years in particular the media has been focusing on this alot, building up paranoia about the Mexican drug war "spilling over" into the United States and endangering citizens living along the border. Politicians and others use this as a means to build up support for tougher immigration controls and more discriminatory legislation against Latinos - which are often justified by these nutjobs by blaming those communities for crime.

With respect to that, having open warfare between groups like the Minutemen and Cartels would only serve to legitimize those arguments and make things even more difficult for everyone involved, and give a propaganda victory to the paramilitary shitheads.

[danyboy27]

this is a hypothetical scenario, based on the idea that paramilitaries would be patrolling the border(in a desert) and the cartels would be trying to get drugs over the border. This would occur by the minutemen stumbling into a cartel and being killed. The paramilitaries would declare them martyrs and start patrolling the borders with their forces. The cartels would be fighting them in the deserts to move their drugs across. They aren't fighting over the land.

you dont understand, if the cartel is caught in a firefight with the minutemen, its not gonna continue in the desert, the cartel will go after the whole organisation, kill their families and friends in a whole range if verry disgusting way, and a shitload of civilian are gonna get killed in the process.

that will probably lead some of those minutemen fuck to kill some brown people to ''get even'' after that.