It would be nice to know what you are talking about. A link? Story? Details? Anything?
Nearly 500 men have joined the "Minutemen Project," a group of civilian volunteers who patrol the Arizona stretch of our Mexican border. 52% of the 1.1 million illegal immigrants caught last year had entered the U.S. through Arizona. Intelligence reports suggest al Qaeda agents see the border with Mexico as the most favorable point of entry into the United States. Jim Gilchrist, a retired accountant and Vietnam War veteran who helps lead the group, stated, “I felt the only way to get something done was to do it yourself.”
Screening of those who enlist in the border patrol group is lax. MSNBC observes
It may also prove to be a magnet for what Glenn Spencer, president of the private American Border Patrol, described as camouflage-wearing, weapons-toting hard-liners who might get a little carried away with their assignments.
Gilchrist noted, “We’ve been repeatedly accused of being people who are taking the law into our own hands. That is an outright bogus statement. We are going down there to assist law enforcement.”
Personally, I think the whole group is one big advertisement for gun control.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
It's interesting I guess. I'm not sure exactly what to comment on though. There doesnt seem to be much controversy that I can see.
I was just curious if anyone thinks what these guys are doing is right/wrong etc. Apparently, traffic is slowing in areas where they are present:
(CBS/AP) The number of Mexican migrants trying to sneak into the United States through the Arizona border has dropped by half since hundreds of American civilians began guarding the area earlier this week, say Mexican officials assigned to protect their citizens.
But that doesn't mean the migrants have given up. Most remain determined to enter the United States and say they will simply find other places to cross.
Before Minuteman Project volunteers began patrolling, Mexican officials encountered at least 400 undocumented migrants daily. On Monday, the second day Minutemen were present, they spotted just 198, said Bertha de la Rosa of Grupo Beta, a Mexican government-sponsored group that discourages people from crossing illegally and aids those stranded in the desert.
"The fact that we're not seeing them here doesn't mean they are not trying to cross," said de la Rosa, the group's coordinator in Agua Prieta, a town across the border from Douglas, Ariz. "They say they will look for another place or wait awhile — but they are not giving up."
Grupo Beta, along with armed state police officers, began patrolling the Mexican side of the border on Sunday.
Jose Luis Mercado is among those determined to cross.
Mercado, a farm worker from central Mexico state, was one of 10 migrants who walked through the desert all night Monday and early Tuesday before they were abandoned by the smuggler they had paid to get them across the border.
"He just said it was too risky to cross and to wait for him, but he never came back," Mercado said.
Mercado, like most migrants trying to cross into the United States from this dusty border city, had been unaware of the Minuteman Project, despite extensive news media coverage of the group.
He and his companions were resting in a ditch littered with plastic bottles, clothes and empty tuna cans when they were spotted by Grupo Beta agent Hector Salazar.
"There are a lot of people trying to catch you," Salazar told the migrants as a small plane and then a U.S. border patrol helicopter flew over the barbed-wire fence dividing the border.
"It's not only border patrol, but also armed civilians," Salazar said. "Don't give them the pleasure of detaining you."
But the migrants declined Grupo Beta's offer for a discounted bus ticket back home. They vowed to attempt the crossing as many times as it took to make it into the United States.
"I'm going to risk it and try somewhere else," said Mercado, 40, who has five children and earns $60 a week. "I have no other option. I want to be able to pay for my children's education so they don't have to go through all this."
Pro-migrant activists say people unable to cross in Agua Prieta have begun arriving at shelters in Nogales, about 80 miles west, and in Altar, a town about 125 miles southwest.
Minutemen organizers initially promised as many as 800 volunteers would participate in the monthlong migrant-monitoring project at one time or another. They say about 480 have shown up thus far. There was no way to independently verify that number. Authorities were not keeping count.
The Minutemen, some of whom are armed, say their purpose is partly to draw attention to the high influx of migrants across the Arizona-Mexico boundary, considered the most porous stretch of the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Of the 1.1 million illegal migrants caught by the U.S. Border Patrol last year, 51 percent crossed at the Arizona border.
But in Mexico and Central America, the volunteers are seen as "hunters of illegals" or racists.
"They have a right to patrol their border, but I only want to cross to find work," said Vidal Sanchez, a 26-year-old farmer who was walking through Sonora's scrub-covered desert Tuesday.
"If they detain us, I'm going to tell them I need to work. I think they'll understand."
A State Department official said the implementation of the law will be done in three phases, beginning the end of this year, reports CBS News' Charles Wolfson. The new rules, to be completed by Jan. 1, 2008, were called for in intelligence legislation approved last year by Congress.
Safeguarding U.S. borders are a top concern of U.S. intelligence and security officials. The concern increased after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Pentagon.
The travel industry has raised concerns that the changes might hamper tourism, one official said.
The announcement follows a three-way summit last month that President Bush held with Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada and President Vicente Fox of Mexico.
Francisco Garcia, a volunteer for Altar's lone shelter, said most migrants dismiss the Minutemen as "crazy people" — but for migrants' rights activists, the situation is worrisome.
"For us, it's clear to see things could get out of control because those in the migration business are not easily intimidated," Garcia said. "We're afraid an aggression could escalate into an international incident."
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Buggy wrote:
It's interesting I guess. I'm not sure exactly what to comment on though. There doesnt seem to be much controversy that I can see.
Quote:
Rude Pundit 4/7/2005 Armed Rednecks At the Border: When a group of armed men and (a few) women take the law into their hands in order to protect their "homes" because they believe their government fails to do so and when that moves beyond creating gated compounds to actually confronting others, don't we usually call that "terrorism"? 'Cause, like, isn't that what the Taliban did to take over Afghanistan? When the "religious students" saw that Afghanistan was out of control, they stepped in to impose order, right?
The Rude Pundit doesn't know about you, but he's a little, let's say, concerned about the notion of groups of gun-wielding paranoid white people "guarding the borders," as the Minuteman Project purports to do. The Minutman Project is a group of pathetic rednecks and redneck wannabes who get the chance to "patrol" the Arizona wasteland at the Mexican border in desperate hopes of hog-tying Paco and Jacinta and dragging them to the Border Patrol. It is led by a man whose last name sounds like a computer game of a gay orgy, Chris Simcox. Simcox last led the Tombstone Militia, but, since "Tombstone Militia" sounds fuckin' scary, they're now the "Minutemen."
Simcox loves guns, man. In every interview, he's fondlin' it, playing with in its holster, hopin' for a free minute to discharge it somewhere, oh, sweet lord, let it discharge soon. He even played a gunslinger in the tourist shows in the streets of Tombstone. He also claims, vociferously, that he's not a racist, although he says he left Los Angeles because the streets were lined with immigrants: "Oh Jesus, it is unbelievable. I mean, we need the National Guard to clean out all our cities and round them up. They are hard-core criminals. They have no problem slitting your throat and taking your money or selling drugs to your kids or raping your daughters and they are evil people." Oh, the charming part: while in Los Angeles, Simcox taught kindergarten. And his fucked-up bleatings about race might have been what got him fired and lost him custody of his son.
See, one of the side benefits of the Bush administration's extra-fine emphasis on driving us all batshit insane with paranoia is that it nudged people like Simcox, deluded with notions of race war and conspiracies, to see themselves as under attack from all around them. All the little McVeighs everywhere, the ones who were less ambitious than that cocksucker, had to come up with some outlet for their insanity, and patrolling the borders offered them a chance to lock and load and play soldier. Since 9/11, the number of border-wandering, armed wack-jobs, driven to desperation by a Bush-wrecked economy, the inner rage flames fanned by rhetoric from a government and mass media that substitutes violence for any semblance of civil discourse, has grown exponentially. The Minutemen are just the most publicized face of this because it's an attempt, like the presidency of George Bush, to put a mainstream face on extremism.
While the Minuteman website clearly states, "The Minuteman Project has no affiliation with, nor will we accept any assistance by or interference from separatists, racists or supremacy groups or individuals, no matter what their race, color, or creed," although, you know, that hasn't stopped groups like the Aryan Nation from pushing the Minuteman project. Nor, apparently, has it stopped the Project's website from featuring photos of its "massive" rallies where someone is hoisting a Confederate flag. (Of course, "massive" seems to mean a couple dozen mustachioed middle-aged white men baking to uncomfortable shades of brown and red in the desert sun - in other words, the Minutemen use "massive" in the same way they say they have "big" cocks.) Nor has it stopped the Project from linking to "Save Our State," where writers post the latest "news" about all the terrible things done by "illegals," like, say, flying on planes, or about the upcoming attacks by a secret army of Mexicans.
And it hasn't stopped the Minutemen themselves from kidnapping and forcing a Mexican man to hold a shirt that read, "Bryan Barton caught an illegal alien and all I got was this T-shirt," while photographing him to have a trophy to hang on the wall. Well, at least it's small compensation for not getting to mount the guy's head, huh?
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
I've only seen bits and pieces, but I'm really surprised no one here is talking about it.
GOD DAMN YOU
i thought we argreed to keep our love life off the board?
_________________ cirlces they grow and they swallow people whole half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul and so it goes
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 7:44 pm Posts: 8910 Location: Santa Cruz Gender: Male
PJDoll wrote:
I was just curious if anyone thinks what these guys are doing is right/wrong etc. Apparently, traffic is slowing in areas where they are present
Well, I suppose it's always better to have trained professionals there doing the job instead of civillians. Taking a look at the bigger picture though, nothing these people are doing is a long term solution to anything.
I'm a bit torn on the idea. On one hand, I like the idea of people doing something to stop the massive influx of illegals. On the other, the idea of a bunch of yahoos walking the border with guns is a bit disturbing.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
I don't have a problem with them observing and reporting, which is what they say they do, but they have already spilled over into kidnapping and it won't be long before one of these yahoos pops off a few shots and kills someone. Then we'll all be on here arguing about whether they should be shut down or whether Mexicans should expect to be killed if they want to try and live in America.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
PJDoll wrote:
bunch of yahoos
just_b wrote:
one of these yahoos
When do we ever agree?
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 7:44 pm Posts: 8910 Location: Santa Cruz Gender: Male
PJDoll wrote:
the idea of a bunch of yahoos walking the border with guns is a bit disturbing.
Yeah, I suppose I'm there with you. I prefer someone who is trained and has a reasonable idea of what they are doing and what to expect. But, these yahoos are also subject to the law. They dont have any special powers and should be prosecuted if they were to do anything unlawful.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:14 am Posts: 37778 Location: OmaGOD!!! Gender: Male
Strangely enough, I don't have a big problem with this either. But then that's because they haven't shot anyone yet.
From what I've read and heard about this (an hour show on NPR), this will be almost completely ineffective, and everyone knows this. This is what could be safely categorized as a "publicity stunt" by those who want the government to do more to stop illegal immigrantion over the Mexican border, an issue that I am ambiguous about to say the least.
_________________ Unfortunately, at the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Flower Children jerked off and went back to sleep.
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:53 pm Posts: 20537 Location: The City Of Trees
punkdavid wrote:
From what I've read and heard about this (an hour show on NPR), this will be almost completely ineffective, and everyone knows this. This is what could be safely categorized as a "publicity stunt" by those who want the government to do more to stop illegal immigrantion over the Mexican border
I agree, and I think the Minutemen realize this as well--thus them only being there for a month.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
petemd wrote:
These people should get jobs. They would be the same people to scream bloody murder when their taxes are raised to fully lock down the border.
Maybe if they spent their time sending out resumes instead of guarding the border, Mexicans would be "stealing their jobs."
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
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