OldPreach of Save Our State says:
As some of you know, about 6 months ago I posted a long winded post about how I was tired of talking to the same folks about the same things, and how that if posts were perceived in any way to be not good for us, they would be deleted, and the posters would be warned. I also went into a rant about how if you make me cringe, you need to go. Further, I talked about how it simply did not matter what you had done in the past, or how many posts you had. All that mattered was your overall reputation as a poster in regard to the issue at hand....our image. Its taken enough beating. The beating is officially over. I basically reneged on my promise, but not this time. I have talked to hundreds of activists, and we all agree...SaveOurState has somewhat of a bad rap, and we need to change that. We are afraid to tell some of our friends to come to the forums because of other posters offensive speech. No, not non PC speech... truly offensive speech. Some have told me stories about how folks have come back to them and said they don't want to post here because of this. There is just no excuse for this. We are all adults.
What does this mean ? It means I do not except the ' well, your friends are just PC, so that is why they are turned off by the forums '. No, they are turned off many times because we have let some folks stick around that just CONTINUALLY have expressed a 'latino this, and latino that' attitude. Its, 'Mexican this, and Mexican that'. So, we let you stay to try and give you the benefit of the doubt. Big mistake.
Let me just say that USA today and I went back and forth several times for over a year, and 2 times recently. He chilled for quite some time, and everything was pretty good....save for scores of basically vacuous posts. Then, I ask him to basically chill out, NOT LEAVE (even tho it was perhaps the 5th or 6th time I had to ask him to chill) and what do I get ? A goodbye thread (which are always just a lame ploy to cause trouble. I have seen goodbye threads for the better part of 10 years now.) in which he displays my PM and says we are asking him to leave even tho it plainly says ' instead of asking you to leave...' and then basically back stabs the living daylights out of me. So, that is what a year of working with someone gets ??? Never again.
Basically, SaveOurState is due for a royal emema. We have had INCREDIBLE growth in the last year....from 1100 to 3400 registered. With growth, there is always a need for a pruning. I will NOT stand by and see the insanely hard work of so many get trashed, or go stagnant. One activist gave $7,000 for the national add. Another worked 10+ hour days 7 days a week, all while have a child under 3 to take care of. Another pounded the sidewalk 40 hours a week for 2 months to get the job done. I could go on and on but, suffice it to say, we will not be ruined by a few that have a bone to pick with Mexicans or Latinos. There, I said it.
So, if you have anything against Mexicans for the sheer sake of them being Mexican, you can just leave the web page you are on right now before you even read the rest of this rant, because you are D O N E done. I am sick to death of your 'dirty Mexican' type of talk, and so are a LOT of others that just roll their eyes and move on to the next post. We will no longer walk by your side, you racists. We tried to give you the benefit of the doubt and be human, but that was a mistake, just like giving the goons the benefit of the doubt always is. Puke on your 'filty fat anchor baby' type statements. Puke on your 'its the culture' statements that veil your true anti-Mexican sentiment. You consider this PC ? You are a clueless nooblet. Come and earn your stripes, as it is usually those that have not stood with us on the streets or at the border that I am talking about. And, if you are not a noob, and have, we are DONE ignoring you and hoping that you go away. No, there are not many of you, but we have tolerated you when we should have not done so. We have left your rebuke for someone else to do. Not any more. If you are with me at a gig, you are toast. If I do not know you are like that, and you get that way in front of me, the rest of us will give you the steel toe. We will stand away from you. Yes, a few bad apples ruin it for everyone...and yes, its a few considering the hundreds...the 99% that are not.
Oh, btw, plz make sure that if you have not read the forum rules to do so. Also, lets make sure that our posts have some substance to them if the context calls for it.
As the dust settles over the next few weeks, you will notice some deletions. You will also notice that we are MUCH the better for it. So, just know that things will be a bit topsy turvy for a bit, but the ship will right itself. No, we are not going to engage in heavy handed moderation and deletions of posts. We will only be dealing with those we know that are like this, and those that show us they are. Remember, its just a natural cycle.
SaveOurState
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Today we march, tomorrow we vote!
Latinos throw more support to Democrats
Analysts say GOP candidates' stance against immigration helped defeat them.
By Teresa Watanabe and Nicole Gaouette, Times Staff Writers
November 10, 2006
Anger over anti-immigrant rhetoric helped fuel a shift in the Latino vote to Democrats, damaging Republican hopes of luring this fast-growing population into its fold, Latino activists and political analysts said Thursday.
The electoral defeat of several Republican immigration hawks, along with national polls that showed the Latino vote helped Democrats recapture Congress, was touted as proof that the community had delivered on its vast political promise.
"We are showing at the ballot box that we can translate our numbers into political power," said Angela Sanbrano, executive director of the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles.
Latino and immigrant-rights groups had vowed to follow up massive rallies earlier this year with campaigns to register voters and mobilize them to reject anti-immigrant candidates. Although many of them fell far short of their fundraising goals, activists said that the immigration debate, along with the Iraq war and the economy, had particularly fired up immigrant and young Latino voters.
In a troubling trend for Republicans, most of those voters went for Democrats. Nationally, a CNN exit poll showed that Democratic House candidates won 69% of the Latino vote this week compared with 55% in 2004 (other polls show 58%). A Times exit poll showed that 61% of Latinos supported Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, compared with 33% who backed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Analysts said that Republican attempts to use immigration as a wedge issue to galvanize conservative voters backfired by instead rousing more Latinos to vote. Those results were particularly apparent in Arizona, "ground zero" of the immigration debate, where several Republican immigration hawks were defeated, analysts said.
"[Republicans] have done long-term permanent damage to their brand with this community," said Simon Rosenberg, president of the Washington, D.C.-based New Democrat Network.
Some Republican analysts gloomily agree.
"It isn't what you say, it's how you say it," said Allan Hoffenblum, a Republican political strategist in Los Angeles.
"You had these Republicans sounding mean…. It's an angry tone that all American problems are because of illegal immigrants. There's little doubt that when you go around acting as if you don't like a group of people, they don't vote for you. So Latinos stopped voting for Republicans."
It was not clear, however, that immigration was the top priority for Latino voters. Several polls showed that education and the economy were more important.
In California, a Times exit poll did not find any significant surge of Latino voters. They made up about 12% of the electorate — about the same proportion since 1998.
Antonio Gonzalez, president of Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, said 1.2 million California Latinos voted this week, an increase of 100,000 over the 2002 election. However, he said that fell short of the 1.5 million voters that his group had hoped for.
One problem, he said, was that his group only managed to raise one-fourth of the $1 million it wanted for voter registration. In addition, he said, there were few candidates or ballot measures that generated the excitement or controversy needed to drive higher turnouts.
The We Are America Alliance, a national coalition of religious, labor and immigrant rights groups, also fell short of fundraising goals, raising only about $500,000 of the $1.6 million targeted for voter mobilization, according to Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
But Salas and others said the pro-immigrant marches and rallies this year had energized record numbers of immigrants into volunteering for voter outreach and education programs.
On election day, for instance, Ethiopian immigrant Admasu Mekonnen and Mexico native Antonio Bernabe teamed up to knock on doors and remind people to vote in one South Los Angeles neighborhood. In sweltering heat, they encountered dogs, housekeepers, relatives — but only a handful of voters at the 20 or so homes they visited.
That did not seem to discourage the pair, both noncitizen legal immigrants. After all, their work that day helped the immigrant rights coalition surpass its goal of contacting nearly 3,000 voters.
"We can't vote, but we can walk," said Bernabe, 46, who organizes day laborers for the immigration coalition. "This is not work. This is a mission."
An exit poll released Thursday by several Los Angeles immigrant-rights groups found that 60% of immigrants surveyed said Democrats had done a better job on the immigration issue than Republicans. The poll of 1,200 voters at 30 Los Angeles voting sites was sponsored by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, the Central American Resource Center and the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium.
Another poll of Asian, Latino and African American voters released Thursday by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California found widespread support for the legalization of undocumented immigrants across all communities.
Now that the Democrats control Congress, Salas said, many immigrants and their supporters expect immigration reform to become a top priority.
"Democrats have a huge opportunity to make good on the promise of comprehensive immigration reform, keeping in mind that many of those who brought them to power were the immigrants and their families," Salas said.
Analysts say GOP candidates' stance against immigration helped defeat them.
By Teresa Watanabe and Nicole Gaouette, Times Staff Writers
November 10, 2006
Anger over anti-immigrant rhetoric helped fuel a shift in the Latino vote to Democrats, damaging Republican hopes of luring this fast-growing population into its fold, Latino activists and political analysts said Thursday.
The electoral defeat of several Republican immigration hawks, along with national polls that showed the Latino vote helped Democrats recapture Congress, was touted as proof that the community had delivered on its vast political promise.
"We are showing at the ballot box that we can translate our numbers into political power," said Angela Sanbrano, executive director of the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles.
Latino and immigrant-rights groups had vowed to follow up massive rallies earlier this year with campaigns to register voters and mobilize them to reject anti-immigrant candidates. Although many of them fell far short of their fundraising goals, activists said that the immigration debate, along with the Iraq war and the economy, had particularly fired up immigrant and young Latino voters.
In a troubling trend for Republicans, most of those voters went for Democrats. Nationally, a CNN exit poll showed that Democratic House candidates won 69% of the Latino vote this week compared with 55% in 2004 (other polls show 58%). A Times exit poll showed that 61% of Latinos supported Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, compared with 33% who backed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Analysts said that Republican attempts to use immigration as a wedge issue to galvanize conservative voters backfired by instead rousing more Latinos to vote. Those results were particularly apparent in Arizona, "ground zero" of the immigration debate, where several Republican immigration hawks were defeated, analysts said.
"[Republicans] have done long-term permanent damage to their brand with this community," said Simon Rosenberg, president of the Washington, D.C.-based New Democrat Network.
Some Republican analysts gloomily agree.
"It isn't what you say, it's how you say it," said Allan Hoffenblum, a Republican political strategist in Los Angeles.
"You had these Republicans sounding mean…. It's an angry tone that all American problems are because of illegal immigrants. There's little doubt that when you go around acting as if you don't like a group of people, they don't vote for you. So Latinos stopped voting for Republicans."
It was not clear, however, that immigration was the top priority for Latino voters. Several polls showed that education and the economy were more important.
In California, a Times exit poll did not find any significant surge of Latino voters. They made up about 12% of the electorate — about the same proportion since 1998.
Antonio Gonzalez, president of Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, said 1.2 million California Latinos voted this week, an increase of 100,000 over the 2002 election. However, he said that fell short of the 1.5 million voters that his group had hoped for.
One problem, he said, was that his group only managed to raise one-fourth of the $1 million it wanted for voter registration. In addition, he said, there were few candidates or ballot measures that generated the excitement or controversy needed to drive higher turnouts.
The We Are America Alliance, a national coalition of religious, labor and immigrant rights groups, also fell short of fundraising goals, raising only about $500,000 of the $1.6 million targeted for voter mobilization, according to Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
But Salas and others said the pro-immigrant marches and rallies this year had energized record numbers of immigrants into volunteering for voter outreach and education programs.
On election day, for instance, Ethiopian immigrant Admasu Mekonnen and Mexico native Antonio Bernabe teamed up to knock on doors and remind people to vote in one South Los Angeles neighborhood. In sweltering heat, they encountered dogs, housekeepers, relatives — but only a handful of voters at the 20 or so homes they visited.
That did not seem to discourage the pair, both noncitizen legal immigrants. After all, their work that day helped the immigrant rights coalition surpass its goal of contacting nearly 3,000 voters.
"We can't vote, but we can walk," said Bernabe, 46, who organizes day laborers for the immigration coalition. "This is not work. This is a mission."
An exit poll released Thursday by several Los Angeles immigrant-rights groups found that 60% of immigrants surveyed said Democrats had done a better job on the immigration issue than Republicans. The poll of 1,200 voters at 30 Los Angeles voting sites was sponsored by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, the Central American Resource Center and the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium.
Another poll of Asian, Latino and African American voters released Thursday by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California found widespread support for the legalization of undocumented immigrants across all communities.
Now that the Democrats control Congress, Salas said, many immigrants and their supporters expect immigration reform to become a top priority.
"Democrats have a huge opportunity to make good on the promise of comprehensive immigration reform, keeping in mind that many of those who brought them to power were the immigrants and their families," Salas said.
Anti-Mexican vigilantes accused of voter harassment
ARIZONA: Anti-Mexican vigilantes accused of voter harassment
Mexican flag burner, Roy Warden, had a 9mm Glock automatic
strapped to his side says New York Times
In Arizona, Roy Warden -- an anti-immigration activist with the Minutemen -- and a handful of supporters staked out a precinct in the city of South Tucson and questioned Latino voters as they entered the polls to determine if they spoke English.
Armed with a 9mm Glock automatic strapped to his side, Warden said he planned to photograph as many Latino voters entering polls at as many as 20 precincts in an effort to identify illegal immigrants and felons.
Warden heckled Democratic congressman Raul Grijalva as he walked into the precinct to cast his ballot.
Volunteer election monitors say three men armed with a video camera and a gun were intimidating voters at various polling stations throughout Tucson during voting on Tuesday.
From about 9:45 a.m. to noon, the men approached Hispanic voters as they attempted to enter Iglesia Bautista Kairos, 4502 S. 12th Ave. in precinct 25, said Diego Bernal, a lawyer with the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund.
One of the men would approach the voters with a clipboard, while another would film the encounter, Bernal said.
A third man, wearing an American Flag T-shirt and camouflage shorts, stood nearby with his hand on a handgun in a holster strapped around his hips, he said.
Kat Rodriguez of Derechos Humanos, who was also acting as an election observer at Iglesia Bautista, identified two of the three men as Roy Warden and Russ Dove, two anti-immigrant activists.
Bernal reported the incident to the FBI.
New York Times
AztlanElectronicNews
ChicanoForums
_________________________________________
Deadly Force
Brandishing insults and a gun, Roy Warden routinely threatens Latinos with death. Some observers fear the worst.
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Sunday services were under way inside St. Augustine's Cathedral. Outside, the summer air was still and quiet except for a few birds chirping in a courtyard near the entrance. But the serenity was doomed. A car pulled up, and a graying, bespectacled man carrying a handgun and a loudspeaker got out, two cameramen in tow.
Working fast, he positioned a collection of lawn chairs on the public sidewalk in front of the Catholic cathedral, then encircled the lawn chairs with what appeared to be a series of pink jump ropes and planted two American flags. With the bravado of a professional wrestler, he then stepped into the roped-off ring he'd constructed, threw down a Mexican flag, and ceremoniously stomped on it, grinding his heel for the cameras.
Then he turned on the loudspeaker and addressed the worshippers inside St. Augustine's.
"You people don't seem to understand forbidden territory, whether it's a child's anus or the American border! You just want to push on in, don't you?" he screamed, his face flushed with anger. "We are going to be driving you back to Mexico real goddamn soon!" Spit flew from his mouth. "Get used to it! My name is Roy Warden, and I burn Mexican flags!"
Defensive Perimeters
With a fanny pack loaded with water bottles strapped to his belly, a Glock 9mm on his hip, and a bullhorn to amplify his outrage, Roy Warden, 59, emerged this spring as one of the country's most controversial, volatile, and, many believe, dangerous characters of the anti-immigration movement. Along with occasional sidekicks Russ Dove, a former militia leader and convicted car thief, and Laine Lawless, the founder of the group Border Guardians who earlier this year urged neo-Nazis to terrorize Hispanics, Warden has burned and trampled Mexican flags in public, nearly started at least one riot, regularly wreaked havoc on Tucson City Council proceedings, and E-mailed a death threat to a prominent local public defender. Without regular followers or even a named group behind him, Warden is a one-man band of immigrant-bashing hate, a man so untamed that other anti-immigration activists shun him as an embarrassment.
Warden's tactics are over the top even for southern Arizona, a longtime hotbed of anti-immigration extremism. A typical Warden event has him standing within a roped-off "defensive perimeter" on a public sidewalk or in a city park, threatening to shoot anyone who crosses his line, then trampling and burning a Mexican flag while shouting insults through a bullhorn. In one recent instance he called Mexican immigrants "cowards and traitors who have abandoned the dream of Zapata and Marcos to feed like dogs on the table scraps of gringos."
Tucson is 70 miles from the border. Thirty-five percent of the city's half million residents are of Mexican descent. More often than not, Warden draws an angry crowd whose members he then bullies and taunts with carefully worded death threats such as, "If you try to inflict deadly harm upon me, I'll fucking blow you away!"
Warden may come off like a raving lunatic, but he is well versed in free-speech and self-defense laws, and he exercises his rights to the limit. As he explained to the Tucson City Council last May: "I am empowered to use deadly force to protect my own life. Now this is what it's gonna mean. It's gonna mean I'm gonna have a perimeter, I'm gonna speak through a loudspeaker down in the barrio, any place I want, and if people try to kill me, try to overrun my position, I will discharge a shotgun in their face!"
Interviewed by the Intelligence Report, Warden didn't shy away from his earlier remarks. "My safety, and the public's safety and the safety of those who oppose my viewpoints, is best ensured when everyone — police, rednecks, open border activists, judges, mayor, City Council, etc., etc. — truly understands I will blow the freaking head off anyone who offers me the imminent threat of deadly force."
Attention Deficit
Like many who've seen Warden in action, Matt Lowen, a human rights activist with the American Friends Service Committee, suspects that Warden may have "serious mental issues." "He reminds me of a child that doesn't get enough attention and continuously acts out and thrives on negative attention," Lowen says.
Warden's tantrums have been punished with frequent spankings in the Tucson media, plus two arrests in the past six months. Also, his website has been hacked, and Warden claims the reason he now lives out of his car is that he was evicted from his rental home in retribution for his demonstrations. He also says that gangbangers in baggy pants have followed him and that he has received many death threats from as far away as Colombia.
Whether Warden is a lunatic or just acts like one in order to raise a ruckus, he makes himself impossible to ignore, and his opponents say that he's the natural outgrowth as well as a symbol of the increasingly harsh tone of the national debate over immigration -- a debate in which mentalities and methods that were considered extreme in the past have now shifted into the mainstream. Three years ago, anti-immigration hard-liners were often portrayed as erratic fringe elements in the major media, with President Bush labeling one group "vigilantes." Now, anchorman Lou Dobbs hails them as heroes and patriots on CNN.
"The demagoguery and scapegoating of immigrants by public figures in the national media has encouraged the Roy Wardens of the world to be more brazen and violent," says Rich Stolz, a Tucson-based immigrant rights organizer with the Center for Community Change. "As long as fundamentally violent policy proposals like border militarization, vigilantism, mass deportations, and migrant concentration camps go unchallenged in the public debate over immigration reform, anyone with a Roy Warden mindset will perceive that they have a free pass to use the anti-immigrant platform to preach hate and violence."
Many in Tucson worry that it's only a matter of time before Warden either shoots someone or gets shot. "He's just waiting for the time when he feels threatened, his space is invaded, and that gun is going to be fired," Lowen says. In the meantime, as Warden's antics and rhetoric grow more inflammatory, they consume more time and energy among pro-immigration forces in the Arizona border region. In this respect, Warden is a success, a strategic diversion. "Activists in the Latino community really can't do anything but think about Roy Warden, follow him around with cameras waiting for him to slip up," Lowen says.
One of those activists is 16-year-old Arturo Rodriquez, who decided last June to find out what would happen if he stepped over Warden's line.
'I'll Put You in the Ground'
In the tiny living room of his Tucson home, Arturo Rodriguez connects his video camera to a television and presses play. Although his mother has seen the footage that pops up on the screen several times, the images still bring angry tears to her eyes, which she wipes away with the back of her hand.
The footage is of a demonstration Warden held June 3. Behind the camera was Arturo, a skinny teenager who wears glasses. Braces peek through his shy smile.
Arturo's a budding activist. He explains that he wanted to document Warden's activities this summer. "I was scared," he admits, "but sometimes you just have to suck it up." His footage shows Warden establishing his usual "perimeter" around a piece of sidewalk with a length of clothesline. As Warden rants and paces, Arturo and a friend step over the barrier. Warden erupts in the teenager's face.
"Get out of here!" Warden screams at Arturo, his face filling the video camera's lens. "I'll put a fucking bullet in your head!"
Arturo continues to film as Warden rages and moves toward him. "You get away from my border," Warden says. He then shoves Arturo backward. "You better stay out of our area because I'll put you in the ground if you don't."
Arturo turned his footage over to the police, who arrested Warden for assault, disorderly conduct, and two counts of making intimidating threats. Warden's trial on these charges is pending. In preliminary court appearances, he has used a Mexican flag as a doormat and worn a T-shirt bearing the legend "Chicana Pendeja" (very loosely, asshole) underneath a large photo of Isabel Garcia. Garcia is the Pima County legal defender and leader of the human rights organization Derechos Humanos.
Last May, Warden circulated an E-mail with the subject line "Warden to Isabel Garcia: I will blow your freaking head off." The text read: "If any of your pendejo thugs assault me in any way, break through my perimeter, make any threat of deadly force upon my life, etc., I will not hesitate to draw my weapon and blow your freaking heads off."
Interviewed about the E-mail by a television news reporter, Warden said: "I don't understand what the problem is. It's conditional: you try to kill me and I will kill you first. It's very simple."
Garcia, who Warden calls a "hairy-breasted Amazon," has been working on immigrants' rights issues for 30 years. Her parents were activists, and she held her first picket sign when she was 10. She's used to threats and insults and says she's not afraid of Warden, but she is frustrated by the effect his anti-immigration Tasmanian Devil act has had. Garcia points out that while massive immigration reform marches on April 10 drew millions of people into the streets all over the United States for peaceful marches, the Tucson march turned violent when Warden staged a flag burning in the middle of a park along the marchers' path. The crowd surged toward Warden, causing a Tucson police officer to draw his gun. Six young immigration activists were arrested on charges of aggravated assault on a peace officer, interfering with governmental operation, hindering prosecution and disturbing the peace, while Warden was arrested the next day and charged with suspicion of assault, criminal damage and reckless burning (these charges, like those resulting from his confrontation with Arturo Rodriquez, are pending).
"He really gets himself into this state of such venom and hatred. He calls us animals," says Garcia. "He'd like a young Latino to attack him. Then he'd pull out a gun and shoot him."
Jekyl and Hyde
Outside the St. Augustine Cathedral, Tucson radio journalist Jessie Bhangoo watched as Warden continued to rail against immigrants and the Catholic Church.
"You people are a chamber of horrors and you will not push into our country and destroy our culture with yours!" Warden shouted, his voice straining with emotion as police watched from a distance and television camera crews began to arrive. Bhangoo approached Warden and, with a tape recorder rolling, asked him why he was targeting the cathedral. Warden explained his belief that American parishioners are leaving the Catholic church due to sexual abuse scandals, and the church is bringing in Mexican immigrants to fill the pews. The church's "main concern is filling up the church with people that are more compliant, people that won't complain about the sodomy, people who won't give them any trouble. That is why they are openly courting the Hispanic people and helping import them from Mexico," Warden told Bhangoo, using a measured tone.
Then he started up on the loudspeaker again: "You Mexicans make me sick! You violate our law! You let priests screw your own kids! What is wrong with you? Maybe that is why you Mexican men are so violent, because you are frustrated, because you got sodomized when you were kids and you couldn't do anything about it, so now you beat your women. Yeah! Real tough guys aren't you!"
Bhangoo interviewed Warden a second time at Warden's home a week after the St. Augustine protest (Warden still maintained a residence at the time). At ease amidst a clutter of newspaper clippings and numerous empty grape juice containers, Warden sounded more articulate and rational than he ever does in public. "For months, I have sent out E-mails to all of the open borders groups asking them if their leadership would consider sitting down in something like a presidential debate format ... a town meeting where we would pick a local newscaster of trustworthy reputation and have a public discussion of the issues beyond the rhetoric and beyond all the sound bytes and the propaganda and discuss the issues," Warden told Bhangoo. "They simply don't want to discuss the issues, they have never agreed to that."
Wardens' transformation was startling. "At the rally, Warden incited the crowds using inflammatory language. But when I sat with him and turned on the microphone, his vocabulary expanded and his statements became a little more reasonable," Bhangoo says.
Locked and Loaded
During the demonstration at the church, Warden had spoken of his plans to prevent illegal immigrants from voting in the upcoming elections. He pledged to have people with cameras at Hispanic precincts snapping pictures of voters. "We will take every picture of every face and we will check your name and time against the voter roll and then we will run your name and your picture through software supplied to me by Homeland Security," he vowed. "We'll bring the law down upon your goddamn heads so fast you won't believe it."
When Bhangoo asked in the later interview what he meant by "we," Warden claimed to be working with several government law enforcement agencies. Pressed to reveal which ones, Warden's answer was vague -- and hard to believe. "You go through the FBI, you go through the Freedom of Information Act. If you know how to approach these people and you know how to write the applications, you can do it."
With or without the FBI on his side, Warden says he has no plans to turn down his volume in the weeks leading up to the elections, or after. "I've ordered dozens more flags," he wrote in an Aug. 12 dispatch to his E-mail list. "We're going to be very busy from here on out."
"I don't think Warden's going to stop," Lowen says. "He's wrapped his identity up in his crusade against [immigrants]."
In addition to his Glock, Warden wrote in August that he'll bring a baseball bat and a stun gun to future protests.
"We're locked, cocked and ready to rock," he said. "America is the stronghold, and here in Tucson, Ariz., we Americans will make our stand."
Intelligence Report
Fall 2006
SPLCenter
Mexican flag burner, Roy Warden, had a 9mm Glock automatic
strapped to his side says New York Times
In Arizona, Roy Warden -- an anti-immigration activist with the Minutemen -- and a handful of supporters staked out a precinct in the city of South Tucson and questioned Latino voters as they entered the polls to determine if they spoke English.
Armed with a 9mm Glock automatic strapped to his side, Warden said he planned to photograph as many Latino voters entering polls at as many as 20 precincts in an effort to identify illegal immigrants and felons.
Warden heckled Democratic congressman Raul Grijalva as he walked into the precinct to cast his ballot.
Volunteer election monitors say three men armed with a video camera and a gun were intimidating voters at various polling stations throughout Tucson during voting on Tuesday.
From about 9:45 a.m. to noon, the men approached Hispanic voters as they attempted to enter Iglesia Bautista Kairos, 4502 S. 12th Ave. in precinct 25, said Diego Bernal, a lawyer with the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund.
One of the men would approach the voters with a clipboard, while another would film the encounter, Bernal said.
A third man, wearing an American Flag T-shirt and camouflage shorts, stood nearby with his hand on a handgun in a holster strapped around his hips, he said.
Kat Rodriguez of Derechos Humanos, who was also acting as an election observer at Iglesia Bautista, identified two of the three men as Roy Warden and Russ Dove, two anti-immigrant activists.
Bernal reported the incident to the FBI.
New York Times
AztlanElectronicNews
ChicanoForums
_________________________________________
Deadly Force
Brandishing insults and a gun, Roy Warden routinely threatens Latinos with death. Some observers fear the worst.
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Sunday services were under way inside St. Augustine's Cathedral. Outside, the summer air was still and quiet except for a few birds chirping in a courtyard near the entrance. But the serenity was doomed. A car pulled up, and a graying, bespectacled man carrying a handgun and a loudspeaker got out, two cameramen in tow.
Working fast, he positioned a collection of lawn chairs on the public sidewalk in front of the Catholic cathedral, then encircled the lawn chairs with what appeared to be a series of pink jump ropes and planted two American flags. With the bravado of a professional wrestler, he then stepped into the roped-off ring he'd constructed, threw down a Mexican flag, and ceremoniously stomped on it, grinding his heel for the cameras.
Then he turned on the loudspeaker and addressed the worshippers inside St. Augustine's.
"You people don't seem to understand forbidden territory, whether it's a child's anus or the American border! You just want to push on in, don't you?" he screamed, his face flushed with anger. "We are going to be driving you back to Mexico real goddamn soon!" Spit flew from his mouth. "Get used to it! My name is Roy Warden, and I burn Mexican flags!"
Defensive Perimeters
With a fanny pack loaded with water bottles strapped to his belly, a Glock 9mm on his hip, and a bullhorn to amplify his outrage, Roy Warden, 59, emerged this spring as one of the country's most controversial, volatile, and, many believe, dangerous characters of the anti-immigration movement. Along with occasional sidekicks Russ Dove, a former militia leader and convicted car thief, and Laine Lawless, the founder of the group Border Guardians who earlier this year urged neo-Nazis to terrorize Hispanics, Warden has burned and trampled Mexican flags in public, nearly started at least one riot, regularly wreaked havoc on Tucson City Council proceedings, and E-mailed a death threat to a prominent local public defender. Without regular followers or even a named group behind him, Warden is a one-man band of immigrant-bashing hate, a man so untamed that other anti-immigration activists shun him as an embarrassment.
Warden's tactics are over the top even for southern Arizona, a longtime hotbed of anti-immigration extremism. A typical Warden event has him standing within a roped-off "defensive perimeter" on a public sidewalk or in a city park, threatening to shoot anyone who crosses his line, then trampling and burning a Mexican flag while shouting insults through a bullhorn. In one recent instance he called Mexican immigrants "cowards and traitors who have abandoned the dream of Zapata and Marcos to feed like dogs on the table scraps of gringos."
Tucson is 70 miles from the border. Thirty-five percent of the city's half million residents are of Mexican descent. More often than not, Warden draws an angry crowd whose members he then bullies and taunts with carefully worded death threats such as, "If you try to inflict deadly harm upon me, I'll fucking blow you away!"
Warden may come off like a raving lunatic, but he is well versed in free-speech and self-defense laws, and he exercises his rights to the limit. As he explained to the Tucson City Council last May: "I am empowered to use deadly force to protect my own life. Now this is what it's gonna mean. It's gonna mean I'm gonna have a perimeter, I'm gonna speak through a loudspeaker down in the barrio, any place I want, and if people try to kill me, try to overrun my position, I will discharge a shotgun in their face!"
Interviewed by the Intelligence Report, Warden didn't shy away from his earlier remarks. "My safety, and the public's safety and the safety of those who oppose my viewpoints, is best ensured when everyone — police, rednecks, open border activists, judges, mayor, City Council, etc., etc. — truly understands I will blow the freaking head off anyone who offers me the imminent threat of deadly force."
Attention Deficit
Like many who've seen Warden in action, Matt Lowen, a human rights activist with the American Friends Service Committee, suspects that Warden may have "serious mental issues." "He reminds me of a child that doesn't get enough attention and continuously acts out and thrives on negative attention," Lowen says.
Warden's tantrums have been punished with frequent spankings in the Tucson media, plus two arrests in the past six months. Also, his website has been hacked, and Warden claims the reason he now lives out of his car is that he was evicted from his rental home in retribution for his demonstrations. He also says that gangbangers in baggy pants have followed him and that he has received many death threats from as far away as Colombia.
Whether Warden is a lunatic or just acts like one in order to raise a ruckus, he makes himself impossible to ignore, and his opponents say that he's the natural outgrowth as well as a symbol of the increasingly harsh tone of the national debate over immigration -- a debate in which mentalities and methods that were considered extreme in the past have now shifted into the mainstream. Three years ago, anti-immigration hard-liners were often portrayed as erratic fringe elements in the major media, with President Bush labeling one group "vigilantes." Now, anchorman Lou Dobbs hails them as heroes and patriots on CNN.
"The demagoguery and scapegoating of immigrants by public figures in the national media has encouraged the Roy Wardens of the world to be more brazen and violent," says Rich Stolz, a Tucson-based immigrant rights organizer with the Center for Community Change. "As long as fundamentally violent policy proposals like border militarization, vigilantism, mass deportations, and migrant concentration camps go unchallenged in the public debate over immigration reform, anyone with a Roy Warden mindset will perceive that they have a free pass to use the anti-immigrant platform to preach hate and violence."
Many in Tucson worry that it's only a matter of time before Warden either shoots someone or gets shot. "He's just waiting for the time when he feels threatened, his space is invaded, and that gun is going to be fired," Lowen says. In the meantime, as Warden's antics and rhetoric grow more inflammatory, they consume more time and energy among pro-immigration forces in the Arizona border region. In this respect, Warden is a success, a strategic diversion. "Activists in the Latino community really can't do anything but think about Roy Warden, follow him around with cameras waiting for him to slip up," Lowen says.
One of those activists is 16-year-old Arturo Rodriquez, who decided last June to find out what would happen if he stepped over Warden's line.
'I'll Put You in the Ground'
In the tiny living room of his Tucson home, Arturo Rodriguez connects his video camera to a television and presses play. Although his mother has seen the footage that pops up on the screen several times, the images still bring angry tears to her eyes, which she wipes away with the back of her hand.
The footage is of a demonstration Warden held June 3. Behind the camera was Arturo, a skinny teenager who wears glasses. Braces peek through his shy smile.
Arturo's a budding activist. He explains that he wanted to document Warden's activities this summer. "I was scared," he admits, "but sometimes you just have to suck it up." His footage shows Warden establishing his usual "perimeter" around a piece of sidewalk with a length of clothesline. As Warden rants and paces, Arturo and a friend step over the barrier. Warden erupts in the teenager's face.
"Get out of here!" Warden screams at Arturo, his face filling the video camera's lens. "I'll put a fucking bullet in your head!"
Arturo continues to film as Warden rages and moves toward him. "You get away from my border," Warden says. He then shoves Arturo backward. "You better stay out of our area because I'll put you in the ground if you don't."
Arturo turned his footage over to the police, who arrested Warden for assault, disorderly conduct, and two counts of making intimidating threats. Warden's trial on these charges is pending. In preliminary court appearances, he has used a Mexican flag as a doormat and worn a T-shirt bearing the legend "Chicana Pendeja" (very loosely, asshole) underneath a large photo of Isabel Garcia. Garcia is the Pima County legal defender and leader of the human rights organization Derechos Humanos.
Last May, Warden circulated an E-mail with the subject line "Warden to Isabel Garcia: I will blow your freaking head off." The text read: "If any of your pendejo thugs assault me in any way, break through my perimeter, make any threat of deadly force upon my life, etc., I will not hesitate to draw my weapon and blow your freaking heads off."
Interviewed about the E-mail by a television news reporter, Warden said: "I don't understand what the problem is. It's conditional: you try to kill me and I will kill you first. It's very simple."
Garcia, who Warden calls a "hairy-breasted Amazon," has been working on immigrants' rights issues for 30 years. Her parents were activists, and she held her first picket sign when she was 10. She's used to threats and insults and says she's not afraid of Warden, but she is frustrated by the effect his anti-immigration Tasmanian Devil act has had. Garcia points out that while massive immigration reform marches on April 10 drew millions of people into the streets all over the United States for peaceful marches, the Tucson march turned violent when Warden staged a flag burning in the middle of a park along the marchers' path. The crowd surged toward Warden, causing a Tucson police officer to draw his gun. Six young immigration activists were arrested on charges of aggravated assault on a peace officer, interfering with governmental operation, hindering prosecution and disturbing the peace, while Warden was arrested the next day and charged with suspicion of assault, criminal damage and reckless burning (these charges, like those resulting from his confrontation with Arturo Rodriquez, are pending).
"He really gets himself into this state of such venom and hatred. He calls us animals," says Garcia. "He'd like a young Latino to attack him. Then he'd pull out a gun and shoot him."
Jekyl and Hyde
Outside the St. Augustine Cathedral, Tucson radio journalist Jessie Bhangoo watched as Warden continued to rail against immigrants and the Catholic Church.
"You people are a chamber of horrors and you will not push into our country and destroy our culture with yours!" Warden shouted, his voice straining with emotion as police watched from a distance and television camera crews began to arrive. Bhangoo approached Warden and, with a tape recorder rolling, asked him why he was targeting the cathedral. Warden explained his belief that American parishioners are leaving the Catholic church due to sexual abuse scandals, and the church is bringing in Mexican immigrants to fill the pews. The church's "main concern is filling up the church with people that are more compliant, people that won't complain about the sodomy, people who won't give them any trouble. That is why they are openly courting the Hispanic people and helping import them from Mexico," Warden told Bhangoo, using a measured tone.
Then he started up on the loudspeaker again: "You Mexicans make me sick! You violate our law! You let priests screw your own kids! What is wrong with you? Maybe that is why you Mexican men are so violent, because you are frustrated, because you got sodomized when you were kids and you couldn't do anything about it, so now you beat your women. Yeah! Real tough guys aren't you!"
Bhangoo interviewed Warden a second time at Warden's home a week after the St. Augustine protest (Warden still maintained a residence at the time). At ease amidst a clutter of newspaper clippings and numerous empty grape juice containers, Warden sounded more articulate and rational than he ever does in public. "For months, I have sent out E-mails to all of the open borders groups asking them if their leadership would consider sitting down in something like a presidential debate format ... a town meeting where we would pick a local newscaster of trustworthy reputation and have a public discussion of the issues beyond the rhetoric and beyond all the sound bytes and the propaganda and discuss the issues," Warden told Bhangoo. "They simply don't want to discuss the issues, they have never agreed to that."
Wardens' transformation was startling. "At the rally, Warden incited the crowds using inflammatory language. But when I sat with him and turned on the microphone, his vocabulary expanded and his statements became a little more reasonable," Bhangoo says.
Locked and Loaded
During the demonstration at the church, Warden had spoken of his plans to prevent illegal immigrants from voting in the upcoming elections. He pledged to have people with cameras at Hispanic precincts snapping pictures of voters. "We will take every picture of every face and we will check your name and time against the voter roll and then we will run your name and your picture through software supplied to me by Homeland Security," he vowed. "We'll bring the law down upon your goddamn heads so fast you won't believe it."
When Bhangoo asked in the later interview what he meant by "we," Warden claimed to be working with several government law enforcement agencies. Pressed to reveal which ones, Warden's answer was vague -- and hard to believe. "You go through the FBI, you go through the Freedom of Information Act. If you know how to approach these people and you know how to write the applications, you can do it."
With or without the FBI on his side, Warden says he has no plans to turn down his volume in the weeks leading up to the elections, or after. "I've ordered dozens more flags," he wrote in an Aug. 12 dispatch to his E-mail list. "We're going to be very busy from here on out."
"I don't think Warden's going to stop," Lowen says. "He's wrapped his identity up in his crusade against [immigrants]."
In addition to his Glock, Warden wrote in August that he'll bring a baseball bat and a stun gun to future protests.
"We're locked, cocked and ready to rock," he said. "America is the stronghold, and here in Tucson, Ariz., we Americans will make our stand."
Intelligence Report
Fall 2006
SPLCenter
Sony Takes Down Controversial Billboards
By Cesar Mendoza, main news editor
Category: News » Sony » PSP » Industry
Print This Post
Sony have withdrawn the controversial PSP ads that caused the company to be accused of racism and has issued an apology. See inside for more.
In an unexpected move, Sony has pulled the controversial PSP ads that were displayed in the Netherlands after issuing a statement defending them and has now issued an apology for putting the ads up in the first place. The billboards depicted a white woman and a black woman (representing the white and black models of the PSP) in hostile poses towards one another and in one billboard, the white woman seemed to dominate the other. While shown only in the Netherlands, the ads nevertheless prompted accusations of racism from commentators all over the world.
In addition to pulling down the ads, Sony has issued the following statement:
Whilst the images used in the campaign were intended solely to highlight the contrast between the different colors available for the PSP, we recognize that the subject matter of one specific image may have caused concern in some countries not directly affected by the advertising. As a result, we have now withdrawn the campaign.
We further recognize that people have a wide variety of perceptions about such imagery and we wish to apologize to those who perceived the advert differently to that intended. In future, we will apply greater sensitivity in our selection of campaign imagery, and will take due account of the increasingly global reach of such local adverts, and their potential impact in other countries.
One of the harshest critics of Sony’s ad controversial ad campaign, California assemblyman Leland Yee, commended Sony for their response: “I am pleased to see Sony taking responsibility for their racially charged ad and appropriately pulling it from the marketplace. Sony did the right thing by recognizing their insensitive mistake and apologizing for offending many of their customers.”
And thus ends what has no doubt been another nightmare for the marketing gurus over at Sony Computer Entertainment. With noise raised in the past over a series of TV ads featuring squirrels, a viral grafitti campaign as well as a set of posters including one that suggested that the PSP features facilitate pornography and another that could be interpreted as an invitation to suicide, the PSP has rarely been free of controversy. This comes as a result of a deliberate push to be edgy, but time and time again, Sony has fallen off the edge. Let’s hope they learnt their lesson this time.
Written by Cesar Mendoza, main news editor
MozlapunkGroundbreaking New Immigrant Health Care Study
Press Release:
GUTIERREZ STATEMENT REGARDING GROUNDBREAKING NEW IMMIGRANT HEALTH CARE STUDY
Congressman calls study an important and compelling counterweight to misleading and misguided anti-immigrant rhetoric and another important example of immigrants' enormous contributions to our country
CHICAGO -- U.S. Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Immigration Task Force, released the following statement today regarding a groundbreaking new Harvard/Columbia University study that appears in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The study shows that health care expenditures are substantially lower for immigrants than for U.S.-born persons and conclusively refutes the assumption that immigrants represent a disproportionate financial burden on the U.S. health care system.
"We constantly hear anti-immigrant extremists, elected officials and media commentators making baseless claims about how immigrants are contributing to our nation's high health care costs. This comprehensive new study shows just how unfounded these allegations are, and I hope it will permanently put to rest these misinformed and misguided myths.
"When you separate fact from fiction as this study does, you see the real picture of our immigrant community. You see hardworking men and women who are actually using half as much care as other Americans, while helping to subsidize the system.
"Similar to how undocumented workers help sustain our Social Security System with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year, these individuals are helping to subsidize our nation's health care system through the taxes they pay.
"I applaud the authors of this study for their invaluable work debunking this anti-immigrant rhetoric and for painting an accurate, thoroughly researched, fact-driven picture of our immigrant community and our nation's health care system."
GUTIERREZ STATEMENT REGARDING GROUNDBREAKING NEW IMMIGRANT HEALTH CARE STUDY
Congressman calls study an important and compelling counterweight to misleading and misguided anti-immigrant rhetoric and another important example of immigrants' enormous contributions to our country
CHICAGO -- U.S. Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Immigration Task Force, released the following statement today regarding a groundbreaking new Harvard/Columbia University study that appears in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The study shows that health care expenditures are substantially lower for immigrants than for U.S.-born persons and conclusively refutes the assumption that immigrants represent a disproportionate financial burden on the U.S. health care system.
"We constantly hear anti-immigrant extremists, elected officials and media commentators making baseless claims about how immigrants are contributing to our nation's high health care costs. This comprehensive new study shows just how unfounded these allegations are, and I hope it will permanently put to rest these misinformed and misguided myths.
"When you separate fact from fiction as this study does, you see the real picture of our immigrant community. You see hardworking men and women who are actually using half as much care as other Americans, while helping to subsidize the system.
"Similar to how undocumented workers help sustain our Social Security System with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year, these individuals are helping to subsidize our nation's health care system through the taxes they pay.
"I applaud the authors of this study for their invaluable work debunking this anti-immigrant rhetoric and for painting an accurate, thoroughly researched, fact-driven picture of our immigrant community and our nation's health care system."
Racists asked to leave Ruby's
Several white supremacists were asked to leave Ruby's yesterday after a rally in Maywood, California. Many customers complained that they were loud, obnoxious, and talking about illegal immigration in a non-politically correct manner. A big time kudos goes out to the police officers who removed these hate filled white supremacists from the restaurant.
Save Our State member Weasel arrested!
White supremacist Weasel of the Save Our State organization was arrested today in Canoga, California at approximately 9:30 A.M. for threatening a person of Mexican descent with a taser. The incident was all caught on tape by an undercover security officer and is currently being used as evidence to prosecute Weasel to the full extent possible under the law.
Gallery of Racists
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White supremacist Huck phlem from the Save Our State organization attempts to rally people into forming a coup d'etat to overthrow the United States government and replacing it with a regime similar to Nazi Germany.
He calls for this coup d'etat after learning that the White House would have the audacity to have a Spanish translation of the material on the White House website.
Link
Note that he is indeed "one pissed off mother fucker."
He should be investigated immediately by the FBI, CIA, and Secret Service for issuing such alarming threats against the United States government and conspiring to violently overthrow it.
Notice how he clues all of us in on his future plans of living as an outlaw, as a traitor, as a defector, as a murder, and as a criminal in the wilderness.
Scary, scary stuff...
View Image
White supremacist Frank from the modbee.com forum is determined to prove to everyone that people of Mexican descent are inferior to whites.
He asserts that because people of Mexican descent have not contributed to society in any major way that they should be treated harshly and inhumanly.
It can be seen that he is truly a classic racist.
Note the similarities between a racist against people of Mexican descent and a racist against people of African descent and how they will commonly try to debunk any achievements in the form of scholastic or medical excellence while focusing entirely on the negatives aspects of such races.
View Image
White supremacist Blondee from the Save Our State organization is fed up with people of a different colored skin and people who have an accent when speaking English.
Blondee believes that the American way is only for those of an anglo white culture. She notes that multiculturalism is sickening because it is not the American way.
View Image
White supremacist A Floridian from the Save Our State anti-Mexican organization advocates using nuclear devices in Mexico to kill off millions of people of brown skin. He states that it would be "great" to have another Mexican American war.
View Image
Members of the Save Our State anti-Mexican organization burn a Mexican flag at a protest.
View Image
White supremacist jinky from the Save Our State forum asks if there is a member of Hispanic descent in the organization.
The thread ironically goes unanswered on a forum of an organization that claims to be composed of many races.
View Image
White supremacist retired from the Save Our State forum threatens the President with assassination if he does not call for the deportation of illegals in his speech Monday.
View Image
White supremacist Maraakame from the Save Our State anti-Mexican organization fantasizes over a first person shooter type game that allows you to murder Mexicans in a virtual city. This is certainly not the first time the people of Save Our State have played these sorts of violent and disgusting video games. They have openly praised the racist Border Patrol video game that hit the Internet last year.
White supremacist Huck phlem from the Save Our State organization attempts to rally people into forming a coup d'etat to overthrow the United States government and replacing it with a regime similar to Nazi Germany.
He calls for this coup d'etat after learning that the White House would have the audacity to have a Spanish translation of the material on the White House website.
Link
Note that he is indeed "one pissed off mother fucker."
He should be investigated immediately by the FBI, CIA, and Secret Service for issuing such alarming threats against the United States government and conspiring to violently overthrow it.
Notice how he clues all of us in on his future plans of living as an outlaw, as a traitor, as a defector, as a murder, and as a criminal in the wilderness.
Scary, scary stuff...
View Image
White supremacist Frank from the modbee.com forum is determined to prove to everyone that people of Mexican descent are inferior to whites.
He asserts that because people of Mexican descent have not contributed to society in any major way that they should be treated harshly and inhumanly.
It can be seen that he is truly a classic racist.
Note the similarities between a racist against people of Mexican descent and a racist against people of African descent and how they will commonly try to debunk any achievements in the form of scholastic or medical excellence while focusing entirely on the negatives aspects of such races.
View Image
White supremacist Blondee from the Save Our State organization is fed up with people of a different colored skin and people who have an accent when speaking English.
Blondee believes that the American way is only for those of an anglo white culture. She notes that multiculturalism is sickening because it is not the American way.
View Image
White supremacist A Floridian from the Save Our State anti-Mexican organization advocates using nuclear devices in Mexico to kill off millions of people of brown skin. He states that it would be "great" to have another Mexican American war.
View Image
Members of the Save Our State anti-Mexican organization burn a Mexican flag at a protest.
View Image
White supremacist jinky from the Save Our State forum asks if there is a member of Hispanic descent in the organization.
The thread ironically goes unanswered on a forum of an organization that claims to be composed of many races.
View Image
White supremacist retired from the Save Our State forum threatens the President with assassination if he does not call for the deportation of illegals in his speech Monday.
View Image
White supremacist Maraakame from the Save Our State anti-Mexican organization fantasizes over a first person shooter type game that allows you to murder Mexicans in a virtual city. This is certainly not the first time the people of Save Our State have played these sorts of violent and disgusting video games. They have openly praised the racist Border Patrol video game that hit the Internet last year.
Success! Joseph Turner loses the election!
White supremacist Joseph Turner, founder of the Save Our State anti-Mexican/Mexican-American organization, has not surprisingly lost the school board election in San Bernardino. Major kudos to the American people for keeping this very dangerous man out of office.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Latinos voice concerns about racial profiling to police
Published: Wednesday, Nov 1, 2006
By DAN JOHNSON
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF
Source: ArgusCourier
By DAN JOHNSON
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF
Nina Zhito |
Alarmed at the growing concerns of local Latinos who feel targeted by law enforcement personnel, St. Vincent de Paul Church held a public meeting Sunday afternoon that included church leaders and Petaluma Police Department personnel.
“Many local Latinos say that they are being stopped by police who think they may be illegal immigrants or look like illegal immigrants,” said Ken Fujimoto, senior organizer of the North Bay Sponsoring Committee — a broad-based group of churches and other non-profit and business groups that helps immigrants face their many challenges — which helped to organize the event. “People can’t be stopped for that reason, but they can be stopped for speeding or having a malfunctioning tail light.
“We are asking the police department to put together a workshop for people in which they could explain when and why people can be legally stopped.”
Over 100 people crowded into Sunday’s meeting, which included Father Gary Lombardi, lay leader Abraham Solar and parish member Adriana Smith of St. Vincent and Sgt. Tim Lyons and School Resource Officer Ed Esponda of the police department. Spanish was the primary language spoken, and English translation was provided.
“The purpose of the meeting was to begin to establish a better relationship between the Hispanic community and the police,” Lombardi said. “We want to help local Hispanics observe the rules of our country and be sure that the police understand Hispanics.”
“We don’t want to point fingers at anyone,” Fujimoto said. “We hope to help build a better relationship between the Hispanic community and the police department. The problems of Hispanics have been persistent, but they now seem to be coming to the forefront.
“In 2004, Windsor was having the same problem between Hispanics and law enforcement officers. The two sides didn’t really understand each other: The police department needed to understand the perspective of Hispanic families, and Hispanic families needed to understand why they were being stopped.”
Fujimoto said that event organizers invited Petaluma Police Chief Steve Hood to the meeting, but he was unable to attend, so he asked Lyons to participate.
“We would like to engage the police chief in an ongoing conversation about these problems, and hope that he will be able to attend a follow-up meeting at St. Vincent on Nov. 12,” Fujimoto said, adding that having “very few” Spanish-speaking Petaluma police officers is a concern.
Fujimoto sees the local problems as representative of broader national issues.
“We seem to be living in a political atmosphere that is anti-immigrant, and there is a very strong sentiment that something wrong is taking place,” he said.
Lombardi felt Sunday’s meeting was a good preliminary effort to address local concerns.
“It was a good first step to build a mutual relationship of understanding,” he said.
(Contact Dan Johnson at djohnson@arguscourier.com)
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Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Some Calif. latinos receive letter warning them not to vote
By The Associated Press
SANTA ANA, Calif. — The state attorney general's office is investigating a letter received by some Southern California Hispanics that says it is a crime for immigrants to vote and tells them they could be jailed or deported if they go to the polls next month.
"It's a very malicious and degrading letter. It's to pull Latinos down and make them afraid," said Benny Diaz, who is running for City Council in Garden Grove. He said his wife and five other people he knows had received the letter.
The letter, written in Spanish, tells recipients: "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."
The truth is that immigrants who become naturalized citizens can legally register to vote.
Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, said the letter was "something we are investigating aggressively right now." He said the sender could be charged with a felony and receive up to three years in state prison.
Several of the people who received the letters appeared to be naturalized citizens, said John Trasvina, interim president and general counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
Source: Seattle Times
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hispanics angered over letter
State and federal officials are investigating a letter received by some Southern California Hispanics that says it is a crime for immigrants to vote and tells them they could be jailed or deported if they go to the polls next month.
"It's a very malicious and degrading letter. It's to pull Latinos down and make them afraid," said Benny Diaz, who is running for the City Council in Garden Grove. He said his wife and five other people he knows had received the letter.
The letter, written in Spanish, tells recipients: "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."
The truth is that immigrants who become naturalized citizens can legally register to vote.
In a letter Tuesday to state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called the letters "racist" and "despicable," and argued that the perpetrators should be tried for a hate crime.
Lockyer spokesman Nathan Barankin said the letter was "something we are investigating aggressively right now." He said the sender could be charged with a felony and receive up to three years in state prison.
The FBI's criminal division in Los Angeles obtained a copy of the letter Tuesday and was reviewing it, said Special Agent Kenneth Smith, a bureau spokesman.
The note's letterhead resembles that of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, an anti-illegal-immigration group based in Huntington Beach, and contained the signature Sergio Ramirez.
The group's founder, Barbara Coe, told the Los Angeles Times she did not know anyone named Sergio Ramirez, adding she did not authorize the letter and was unaware of anyone in her group who did. Over the past several days, Coe said, she has taken dozens of calls from Orange County Hispanics who received a letter.
It "puts a shadow on our credibility, that we would target certain people who might be citizens of our country," she said.
She did not immediately return calls Tuesday from The Associated Press.
The letter contained several grammatical errors and reads like a literal translation from English to Spanish, suggesting that it was not written by a native Spanish speaker.
"Why send something like this?" said state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles. "The intention is clearly to spread fear and intimidation, and ultimately suppress a vote that is critical in the elections."
John Trasvina, interim president and general counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, suggested that the letter might have a backlash effect.
"A lot of people will get angered by this and say, `No you can't take away my right to vote,"' said Trasvina.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Whatever happened to all of those American fruit pickers?
Whatever happened to all of those American fruit pickers that wanted these fruit picking jobs oh so badly?
Whatever happened to all the screaming about Mexicans taking jobs away from Americans?
Whatever happened to that 1 person who said "Mr. President. I'll do those jobs."
Whatever happened to all the high school students that were dying to have a job as a fruit picker?
I tell ya.. Some people tend to talk out of both sides of their mouths.
Everytime I see an article like this, I can't help but be reminded of this image:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fruit left to rot as US farmers struggle with labor shortage
by Rob Woollard Sun Oct 1, 6:44 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Tougher US-Mexico border controls are having an acute impact on American produce growers, farmers groups say, with tonnes of fruit and vegetables left rotting amid crippling labor shortages.
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Farms across the United States are reporting shortfalls in the number of available workers, which in many cases has caused crops to go unpicked.
Blame for the lack of labour is laid squarely at the door of a crackdown on illegal workers crossing the US-Mexico border and the absence of flexible legislation that would allow farmers to hire workers on a seasonal basis.
Toni Scully, co-owner of Scully Packing in northern California's Lake County, said she usually hired 900 fruit pickers to harvest their crop during the three-week window. This year, however, she could only find 500 workers.
"We think about 40 percent of our workers didn't come because of the increased security on the border," Scully told AFP.
"By our estimates we've left about 20 to 30 percent of the crop either hanging on the tree or lying on the ground because we couldn't pick it," she added. "It's just heartbreaking because we had a beautiful crop."
Scully said the labor shortages had not been felt as severely amongst growers of other produce in the region, whose crops were lower this year for unrelated reasons such as adverse weather.
"That's the important thing to bear in mind -- other crops like cherries and raisins were down from 20-40 percent this year and yet many growers still struggled to get everything picked," Scully said.
"If they'd had good crops, then what has happened to us would have been played out across California."
Scully's problems are far from an isolated case, according to farmers trade groupings.
The Western Growers Association, whose 3,000 members in California and Arizona account for around 50 percent of the United States' fresh produce, said the labour squeeze was being felt widely.
"We are getting reports almost on a daily basis from our membership," said WGA spokesman Tim Chelling. "If it's not a crisis then it's certainly close to a crisis. Millions of dollars have been lost so far."
Chelling also said the industry was also losing workers to better paid jobs in the construction and tourism sector.
To combat the problem, the WGA wants Congress to overhaul existing labour laws governing migrant workers.
"The WGA's position is that there should be a complete reform of immigration policies relating to these workers," Chelling told AFP.
"We are seeking a large, stable workforce. At the moment, it's a mess. The policy is a sick policy, and things are getting worse rather than better."
A bill before Congress known as "AgJobs", which would create a program to allow people who have worked in agriculture for a specified period of time to get green cards, failed to be put to a vote in Congress on Friday.
The bill's supporters sought to have it attached to legislation creating a 700-mile (1,100-kilometer) fence on the Mexican border.
Prominent California Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein warned of a worsening crisis in the farm sector unless legislation was introduced.
"It is a disaster, and it will be a very costly disaster, for the farm community as well as for the consumers of America," Feinstein said.
California's other Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer echoed Feinstein's warning. "This is tragic for us," Boxer said. "We could lose these farmers. We could lose agriculture."
Despite the bill's failure to progress, Toni Scully says she is grimly optimistic that a solution will be found before next year.
"The writing is on the wall for next year," Scully said.
"But I am optimistic that we will be able to make our point and that the American people will realise that we need to provide the people who grow our food with the workers to do it," she said.
"If we don't, then our family farmers are going to be driven out of business for lack of workers ... the alternative is to be dependent on foreign food like we are on foreign oil."
Source:
Yahoo News
Whatever happened to all the screaming about Mexicans taking jobs away from Americans?
Whatever happened to that 1 person who said "Mr. President. I'll do those jobs."
Whatever happened to all the high school students that were dying to have a job as a fruit picker?
I tell ya.. Some people tend to talk out of both sides of their mouths.
Everytime I see an article like this, I can't help but be reminded of this image:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fruit left to rot as US farmers struggle with labor shortage
by Rob Woollard Sun Oct 1, 6:44 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Tougher US-Mexico border controls are having an acute impact on American produce growers, farmers groups say, with tonnes of fruit and vegetables left rotting amid crippling labor shortages.
ADVERTISEMENT
Farms across the United States are reporting shortfalls in the number of available workers, which in many cases has caused crops to go unpicked.
Blame for the lack of labour is laid squarely at the door of a crackdown on illegal workers crossing the US-Mexico border and the absence of flexible legislation that would allow farmers to hire workers on a seasonal basis.
Toni Scully, co-owner of Scully Packing in northern California's Lake County, said she usually hired 900 fruit pickers to harvest their crop during the three-week window. This year, however, she could only find 500 workers.
"We think about 40 percent of our workers didn't come because of the increased security on the border," Scully told AFP.
"By our estimates we've left about 20 to 30 percent of the crop either hanging on the tree or lying on the ground because we couldn't pick it," she added. "It's just heartbreaking because we had a beautiful crop."
Scully said the labor shortages had not been felt as severely amongst growers of other produce in the region, whose crops were lower this year for unrelated reasons such as adverse weather.
"That's the important thing to bear in mind -- other crops like cherries and raisins were down from 20-40 percent this year and yet many growers still struggled to get everything picked," Scully said.
"If they'd had good crops, then what has happened to us would have been played out across California."
Scully's problems are far from an isolated case, according to farmers trade groupings.
The Western Growers Association, whose 3,000 members in California and Arizona account for around 50 percent of the United States' fresh produce, said the labour squeeze was being felt widely.
"We are getting reports almost on a daily basis from our membership," said WGA spokesman Tim Chelling. "If it's not a crisis then it's certainly close to a crisis. Millions of dollars have been lost so far."
Chelling also said the industry was also losing workers to better paid jobs in the construction and tourism sector.
To combat the problem, the WGA wants Congress to overhaul existing labour laws governing migrant workers.
"The WGA's position is that there should be a complete reform of immigration policies relating to these workers," Chelling told AFP.
"We are seeking a large, stable workforce. At the moment, it's a mess. The policy is a sick policy, and things are getting worse rather than better."
A bill before Congress known as "AgJobs", which would create a program to allow people who have worked in agriculture for a specified period of time to get green cards, failed to be put to a vote in Congress on Friday.
The bill's supporters sought to have it attached to legislation creating a 700-mile (1,100-kilometer) fence on the Mexican border.
Prominent California Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein warned of a worsening crisis in the farm sector unless legislation was introduced.
"It is a disaster, and it will be a very costly disaster, for the farm community as well as for the consumers of America," Feinstein said.
California's other Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer echoed Feinstein's warning. "This is tragic for us," Boxer said. "We could lose these farmers. We could lose agriculture."
Despite the bill's failure to progress, Toni Scully says she is grimly optimistic that a solution will be found before next year.
"The writing is on the wall for next year," Scully said.
"But I am optimistic that we will be able to make our point and that the American people will realise that we need to provide the people who grow our food with the workers to do it," she said.
"If we don't, then our family farmers are going to be driven out of business for lack of workers ... the alternative is to be dependent on foreign food like we are on foreign oil."
Source:
Yahoo News
Friday, October 13, 2006
What really happened at Columbia University?
The protestor who was kicked in the head ought to file assault charges against the person who kicked him.
The other protestors should file vandalism charges in response to the Minutemen ripping/tearing up their sign.
And the Minutemen should be charged for attempting to obstruct justice by propagandizing what occured at that University on various news outlets.
Right-wing lies about the protest at Columbia
Confronting the Minutemen
By Ben Davis, David Judd and Jennifer Roesch | October 13, 2006 | Page 12
A PROTEST against the anti-immigrant Minutemen at Columbia University in New York City has gained national attention after an attempt by the mainstream media to slander supporters of immigrant rights.
The October 4 forum at Columbia, sponsored by the College Republicans, featured Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minutemen, a vigilante group notorious for organizing armed patrols at the U.S.-Mexico border.
After 40 minutes of the Minutemen’s program, protesters mounted the stage to unfurl a banner reading, “No one is illegal,” in English, Spanish and Arabic. This protest turned violent when Minutemen supporters began assaulting the pro-immigrant protesters.
University officials and the Minutemen decided to call off the rest of the forum, but since then, they--with the help of the New York and national media--have shifted the blame onto protesters for “shutting down free speech.” From the New York Times to Fox News, media outlets claimed that “free speech” was “under attack at Columbia University.”
For more information
Videotape of the protest shot by the Univision television network has been posted at the YouTube Web site. The first selection shows part of the protest. A second selection clearly shows the Minutemen assaulting nonviolent pro-immigrant demonstrators.
A statement by the students who protested on stage at Columbia has circulated around the Internet. The Columbia Spectator has extensive coverage of the protest. Columbia President Lee Bolinger’s statement has also circulated on the Internet.
What you can do
Show your support for the Columbia student protests by calling (212-854-9970), faxing (212-854-9973) or e-mailing (bollinger@columbia.edu) President Lee Bollinger's office and asking that he stop his threats of discipline. Copy/send messages of support to the Columbia Protesters' Defense Committee at nominutemen@gmail.com.
You can also sign an online petition in support of the protests.
In response, student activists are organizing to get their story of what really happened out more widely--and show that they won’t be silenced by the lies and slanders.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
GILCHRIST’S MEETING at Columbia was more than the latest attempt to gain legitimacy for anti-immigrant scapegoating. As the Minuteman Web site details, the right-wing group is trying to get a foothold on campuses, targeting immigrant students and workers as part of their campaign of intimidation.
As soon as students found out about the event, planning for a protest began. The Chicano Caucus brought together a broad coalition of campus groups, including the Black Students Organization, the College Democrats and the International Socialist Organization (ISO), to sponsor a protest outside the event.
As the October 4 meeting was set to begin, a large and vocal crowd of students and community members had gathered on the sidewalk outside Columbia’s Roone Arledge Auditorium, chanting loud enough to be heard inside.
Inside, the program of speakers was delayed when it became clear that most of the crowd was opposed to the Minutemen. Audience members stood and turned their backs as the first Minutemen speaker launched into what even the apolitical Columbia student publication, the Blue and White, described as a “free-associative rant” about uniting church and state.
After 40 minutes, Gilchrist was introduced. As he took the stage, two students from the ISO did as well, unfurling their “No one is illegal” banner. The crowd cheered, and other members of the audience joined the two pro-immigrant demonstrators on the stage, holding other banners.
The protesters remained peaceful, but--as captured by Univision TV network cameras at the event--the Minutemen and College Republicans turned on the protesters, kicking and punching several people, targeting especially Latino students.
Unable to restore order, campus security eventually closed the curtains and ushered Gilchrist away. Outside the auditorium, protesters gathered to jeer the retreating Minutemen and celebrate.
But the story that university officials and the mainstream media have told about the protest is very different.
Columbia President Lee Bollinger immediately issued a statement denouncing the immigrant rights supporters. “The disruption on Wednesday night that resulted in the termination of an event organized by the Columbia College Republicans in Lerner Hall represents, in my judgment, one of the most serious breaches of academic faith that can occur in a university such as ours,” read the statement.
Administrators have launched an investigation and say they will be scanning campus facebook images and profiles to identify the protesters. They are threatening harsh disciplinary action--not against the College Republicans who attacked peaceful protesters, but against the immigrant rights supporters.
The media responded with the same torrent of abuse that characterized their campaign of the last several years against Columbia faculty who support Palestinian rights.
The New York Post published an editorial calling for the expulsion of all students involved. Fox News hosts Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity invited some of the protesters onto their shows--only to harangue them about why they were against “free speech.”
The pro-immigrant rights protesters responded to the press hysteria in a statement, that read, “We celebrate free speech: for that reason, we allowed the Minutemen to speak, and for that same reason, we peacefully occupied the stage and spoke ourselves. Our peaceful protest was violently attacked by members of the College Republicans and their supporters, who are the very same people who invited the Minutemen to our campus in the first place.”
The denunciations extended to New York politicians--even Mayor Michael Bloomberg stepped in, urging Bollinger to ensure a “safe space” for debate on campus. Unfortunately, some liberal groups have bought the Minutemen’s complaints about being silenced, and joined the condemnation.
Unsurprisingly, protesters have gotten hate mail and death threats. As the Chicano Caucus said in a statement, “We have received numerous messages filled with racist and violent threats due to the misrepresentation in the national media of the Chicano Caucus' involvement. This racist backlash exemplifies the nature of the organization that was brought to our campus, and only validates our initial decision to protest the anti-immigrant Minuteman Project.”
However, the students have also received support for challenging the Minutemen’s racism. “I salute the students who protested the hate speech and join them in opposing any organization or venue that accords hate groups like the Minuteman Project a place to spread their venomous message,” Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association, said in a statement.
At a protest last weekend against anti-immigrant groups rallying at the Mexican consulate in New York, immigrant rights supporters jeered “Columbia, Columbia” at the racists.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
STUDENTS ARE organizing to tell the true facts about what happened, build support and expose the racist violence of the Minutemen. The newly formed Student Protesters’ Defense Committee has organized an online petition and put out a fact sheet that refutes the Minutemen’s lies. It organized a packed press conference Monday and is building for a town hall meeting on campus.
“The Minutemen’s violence is in response to a mass movement of immigrants for justice, a movement that exploded on the streets last spring,” Monique Dols, one of the people who protested Gilchrist onstage, told the press conference. “The Minutemen are trying to silence that movement through fear, intimidation, a whipping up of racist hysteria and outright violence.”
“But,” Dols concluded, “immigrant workers have worked too hard and waited too long for equal rights and dignity. Our movement will not be silenced.”
Source: SocialistWorker
By Ben Davis, David Judd and Jennifer Roesch | October 13, 2006 | Page 12
A PROTEST against the anti-immigrant Minutemen at Columbia University in New York City has gained national attention after an attempt by the mainstream media to slander supporters of immigrant rights.
The October 4 forum at Columbia, sponsored by the College Republicans, featured Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minutemen, a vigilante group notorious for organizing armed patrols at the U.S.-Mexico border.
After 40 minutes of the Minutemen’s program, protesters mounted the stage to unfurl a banner reading, “No one is illegal,” in English, Spanish and Arabic. This protest turned violent when Minutemen supporters began assaulting the pro-immigrant protesters.
University officials and the Minutemen decided to call off the rest of the forum, but since then, they--with the help of the New York and national media--have shifted the blame onto protesters for “shutting down free speech.” From the New York Times to Fox News, media outlets claimed that “free speech” was “under attack at Columbia University.”
For more information
Videotape of the protest shot by the Univision television network has been posted at the YouTube Web site. The first selection shows part of the protest. A second selection clearly shows the Minutemen assaulting nonviolent pro-immigrant demonstrators.
A statement by the students who protested on stage at Columbia has circulated around the Internet. The Columbia Spectator has extensive coverage of the protest. Columbia President Lee Bolinger’s statement has also circulated on the Internet.
What you can do
Show your support for the Columbia student protests by calling (212-854-9970), faxing (212-854-9973) or e-mailing (bollinger@columbia.edu) President Lee Bollinger's office and asking that he stop his threats of discipline. Copy/send messages of support to the Columbia Protesters' Defense Committee at nominutemen@gmail.com.
You can also sign an online petition in support of the protests.
In response, student activists are organizing to get their story of what really happened out more widely--and show that they won’t be silenced by the lies and slanders.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
GILCHRIST’S MEETING at Columbia was more than the latest attempt to gain legitimacy for anti-immigrant scapegoating. As the Minuteman Web site details, the right-wing group is trying to get a foothold on campuses, targeting immigrant students and workers as part of their campaign of intimidation.
As soon as students found out about the event, planning for a protest began. The Chicano Caucus brought together a broad coalition of campus groups, including the Black Students Organization, the College Democrats and the International Socialist Organization (ISO), to sponsor a protest outside the event.
As the October 4 meeting was set to begin, a large and vocal crowd of students and community members had gathered on the sidewalk outside Columbia’s Roone Arledge Auditorium, chanting loud enough to be heard inside.
Inside, the program of speakers was delayed when it became clear that most of the crowd was opposed to the Minutemen. Audience members stood and turned their backs as the first Minutemen speaker launched into what even the apolitical Columbia student publication, the Blue and White, described as a “free-associative rant” about uniting church and state.
After 40 minutes, Gilchrist was introduced. As he took the stage, two students from the ISO did as well, unfurling their “No one is illegal” banner. The crowd cheered, and other members of the audience joined the two pro-immigrant demonstrators on the stage, holding other banners.
The protesters remained peaceful, but--as captured by Univision TV network cameras at the event--the Minutemen and College Republicans turned on the protesters, kicking and punching several people, targeting especially Latino students.
Unable to restore order, campus security eventually closed the curtains and ushered Gilchrist away. Outside the auditorium, protesters gathered to jeer the retreating Minutemen and celebrate.
But the story that university officials and the mainstream media have told about the protest is very different.
Columbia President Lee Bollinger immediately issued a statement denouncing the immigrant rights supporters. “The disruption on Wednesday night that resulted in the termination of an event organized by the Columbia College Republicans in Lerner Hall represents, in my judgment, one of the most serious breaches of academic faith that can occur in a university such as ours,” read the statement.
Administrators have launched an investigation and say they will be scanning campus facebook images and profiles to identify the protesters. They are threatening harsh disciplinary action--not against the College Republicans who attacked peaceful protesters, but against the immigrant rights supporters.
The media responded with the same torrent of abuse that characterized their campaign of the last several years against Columbia faculty who support Palestinian rights.
The New York Post published an editorial calling for the expulsion of all students involved. Fox News hosts Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity invited some of the protesters onto their shows--only to harangue them about why they were against “free speech.”
The pro-immigrant rights protesters responded to the press hysteria in a statement, that read, “We celebrate free speech: for that reason, we allowed the Minutemen to speak, and for that same reason, we peacefully occupied the stage and spoke ourselves. Our peaceful protest was violently attacked by members of the College Republicans and their supporters, who are the very same people who invited the Minutemen to our campus in the first place.”
The denunciations extended to New York politicians--even Mayor Michael Bloomberg stepped in, urging Bollinger to ensure a “safe space” for debate on campus. Unfortunately, some liberal groups have bought the Minutemen’s complaints about being silenced, and joined the condemnation.
Unsurprisingly, protesters have gotten hate mail and death threats. As the Chicano Caucus said in a statement, “We have received numerous messages filled with racist and violent threats due to the misrepresentation in the national media of the Chicano Caucus' involvement. This racist backlash exemplifies the nature of the organization that was brought to our campus, and only validates our initial decision to protest the anti-immigrant Minuteman Project.”
However, the students have also received support for challenging the Minutemen’s racism. “I salute the students who protested the hate speech and join them in opposing any organization or venue that accords hate groups like the Minuteman Project a place to spread their venomous message,” Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association, said in a statement.
At a protest last weekend against anti-immigrant groups rallying at the Mexican consulate in New York, immigrant rights supporters jeered “Columbia, Columbia” at the racists.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
STUDENTS ARE organizing to tell the true facts about what happened, build support and expose the racist violence of the Minutemen. The newly formed Student Protesters’ Defense Committee has organized an online petition and put out a fact sheet that refutes the Minutemen’s lies. It organized a packed press conference Monday and is building for a town hall meeting on campus.
“The Minutemen’s violence is in response to a mass movement of immigrants for justice, a movement that exploded on the streets last spring,” Monique Dols, one of the people who protested Gilchrist onstage, told the press conference. “The Minutemen are trying to silence that movement through fear, intimidation, a whipping up of racist hysteria and outright violence.”
“But,” Dols concluded, “immigrant workers have worked too hard and waited too long for equal rights and dignity. Our movement will not be silenced.”
Source: SocialistWorker
Take action to defend Columbia University protesters!
Write to Columbia University, demand: no reprisals!
On Wednesday night, October 4, progressive students at Columbia University protested the racist Minuteman Project inside and outside the auditorium where they were speaking. Although the students were subject to vicious and violent attacks by Minutemen stormtroopers, they held their ground and Jim Gilchrist, the Minutemen founder, terminated his speech. Now the university is threatening to punish the anti-racist students. It is urgent that you http://www.internationalanswer.org/ take action now to show your support.
The ANSWER Coalition has set up an easy-to-use mechanism to send a letter to Columbia University President Lee Bollinger in support of student protesters who are being threatened with reprisals following their protest against Jim Gilchrist, founder of the racist anti-immigrant vigilante organization, the Minuteman Project. The protesters went on stage with banners that said, "No One is Illegal" and "Say No to Racism." The protesters were physically assaulted by Minutemen and their supporters. When they spoke out against fascism and racism, they spoke for all of us. Yet, there has been a coordinated campaign seeking reprisals against the students, initiated by FoxNews, the Minutemen, New York City's Republican Mayor Mike Bloomberg, the New York Times, and other media.
It is important to understand that the Minuteman Project is at its core, the same as the Nazis and the KKK. This fact has been confused by the legitimacy granted to the Minutemen by Lou Dobbs on CNN, FoxNews, and other so-called mainstream media, including NPR. David Duke, the white supremacist leader of the KKK, achieved some of the same "legitimacy" from the mainstream media when he ran for Governor in Louisiana. Taking the hood off a Klansman, or the swastika off the arm of a Nazi, doesn't change their fascist essence.
Click here to send a letter to Bollinger expressing your support for the protesters, and to demand that the students suffer no reprisals.
For the initial report from the protest, click here. To see the statement of the protesters, explaining their decision to go on stage, see below.
Racist and fascist groups are not welcome!
Statement of Columbia anti-Minutemen protesters who took the stage against Jim Gilchrist on October 4
October 6, 2006
In the aftermath of the protest on the night of October 4 against Jim Gilchrist and the racist Minutemen at Roone Arledge auditorium, we want to state clearly: We are proud to send the message to the country that racist and fascist groups are not welcome at Columbia or in New York City.
As Chicanos and Latinos, alongside African Americans and progressive people of other nationalities, we took it as our responsibility to give voice to the undocumented immigrant families who live in fear at terrorist vigilante groups like the Minutemen. Armed patrols by these groups force more and more people desperate for work to find even more hazardous ways into the United States. Over 3,000 people—including hundreds of children—have died in the desert. Their blood is on the hands of Gilchrist and his thugs.
Fascist scapegoating is not up for academic discussion. Like Hitler in pre-Nazi Germany, Gilchrist and the Minutemen attempt to demonize foreign-born poor people, blaming “illegals” for society’s problems. His group doesn’t present reasoned debate. It spouts racism and hatred, aiming to divide people against one another.
Regardless of how Gilchrist tries to sanitize his message for national audiences, more candid moments tell the real story. Gilchrist is a member of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, which is now notorious for referring to Mexicans as “savages.” Speaking about Mexicans and Central American immigrants, Minuteman co-founder Chris Simcox once said, "They have no problem slitting your throat and taking your money or selling drugs to your kids or raping your daughter and they are evil people."
This vile racism translates directly into violence on the ground. “It should be legal to kill illegals,” said one Minutemen volunteer. “Just shoot 'em on sight. That's my immigration policy recommendation.” It is no wonder that neo-Nazi organizations like the National Alliance praise the Minuteman Project in their publications, and have members signing up for Minutemen militias.
We are sure that if the Nazi party held a public meeting on campus, Jewish groups would be there to challenge them—so would we. We are sure that if the Ku Klux Klan held a public meeting on campus, African American groups would be there to challenge them—so would we. The Minutemen are no different.
We are pleased that an overwhelming number of people answered our call to demonstrate against the racist, fascist Minutemen the night of October 4. The hundreds of people outside Roone Arledge chanting, “Minutemen, Nazis, KKK, racists, fascists, go away!” represented students and community people from all walks of life. Inside the auditorium, perhaps as much as 80 percent of the crowd was repelled by the Minutemen’s message of hate.
When we walked on stage on the night of October 4, with anti-racist banners for immigrant rights, we were met with violent attack by Gilchrist’s goons. We were the ones who were punched and kicked. We are proud that despite these attacks, we held our ground. When Gilchrist walked off stage, it was because he and his Minutemen outfit were isolated.
This is not an issue of free speech. The Minutemen were able to reserve a hall at our university and had the protection of campus security and the NYPD—all to espouse their hate speech. We along with hundreds of others expressed our right to speak and protest.
Over the last 50 years, throughout the Civil Rights movement and the women’s rights movement, ultra-right wing groups have routinely used violence, lynchings, armed assaults and bombings against oppressed people. Yet when we organize to oppose them to express our contempt for their violence, we are criticized for inhibiting the free speech of the ones who perpetrate violence.
We thank everyone who joined our protest inside and outside of the auditorium.
Shame on the Columbia University administration for launching an investigation of peaceful protesters, and failing to condemn the perpetrators of violence. Shame on the College Republicans for inviting this fascist thug and provoking such outrage on our campus.
On Wednesday night, October 4, progressive students at Columbia University protested the racist Minuteman Project inside and outside the auditorium where they were speaking. Although the students were subject to vicious and violent attacks by Minutemen stormtroopers, they held their ground and Jim Gilchrist, the Minutemen founder, terminated his speech. Now the university is threatening to punish the anti-racist students. It is urgent that you http://www.internationalanswer.org/ take action now to show your support.
The ANSWER Coalition has set up an easy-to-use mechanism to send a letter to Columbia University President Lee Bollinger in support of student protesters who are being threatened with reprisals following their protest against Jim Gilchrist, founder of the racist anti-immigrant vigilante organization, the Minuteman Project. The protesters went on stage with banners that said, "No One is Illegal" and "Say No to Racism." The protesters were physically assaulted by Minutemen and their supporters. When they spoke out against fascism and racism, they spoke for all of us. Yet, there has been a coordinated campaign seeking reprisals against the students, initiated by FoxNews, the Minutemen, New York City's Republican Mayor Mike Bloomberg, the New York Times, and other media.
It is important to understand that the Minuteman Project is at its core, the same as the Nazis and the KKK. This fact has been confused by the legitimacy granted to the Minutemen by Lou Dobbs on CNN, FoxNews, and other so-called mainstream media, including NPR. David Duke, the white supremacist leader of the KKK, achieved some of the same "legitimacy" from the mainstream media when he ran for Governor in Louisiana. Taking the hood off a Klansman, or the swastika off the arm of a Nazi, doesn't change their fascist essence.
Click here to send a letter to Bollinger expressing your support for the protesters, and to demand that the students suffer no reprisals.
For the initial report from the protest, click here. To see the statement of the protesters, explaining their decision to go on stage, see below.
Racist and fascist groups are not welcome!
Statement of Columbia anti-Minutemen protesters who took the stage against Jim Gilchrist on October 4
October 6, 2006
In the aftermath of the protest on the night of October 4 against Jim Gilchrist and the racist Minutemen at Roone Arledge auditorium, we want to state clearly: We are proud to send the message to the country that racist and fascist groups are not welcome at Columbia or in New York City.
As Chicanos and Latinos, alongside African Americans and progressive people of other nationalities, we took it as our responsibility to give voice to the undocumented immigrant families who live in fear at terrorist vigilante groups like the Minutemen. Armed patrols by these groups force more and more people desperate for work to find even more hazardous ways into the United States. Over 3,000 people—including hundreds of children—have died in the desert. Their blood is on the hands of Gilchrist and his thugs.
Fascist scapegoating is not up for academic discussion. Like Hitler in pre-Nazi Germany, Gilchrist and the Minutemen attempt to demonize foreign-born poor people, blaming “illegals” for society’s problems. His group doesn’t present reasoned debate. It spouts racism and hatred, aiming to divide people against one another.
Regardless of how Gilchrist tries to sanitize his message for national audiences, more candid moments tell the real story. Gilchrist is a member of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, which is now notorious for referring to Mexicans as “savages.” Speaking about Mexicans and Central American immigrants, Minuteman co-founder Chris Simcox once said, "They have no problem slitting your throat and taking your money or selling drugs to your kids or raping your daughter and they are evil people."
This vile racism translates directly into violence on the ground. “It should be legal to kill illegals,” said one Minutemen volunteer. “Just shoot 'em on sight. That's my immigration policy recommendation.” It is no wonder that neo-Nazi organizations like the National Alliance praise the Minuteman Project in their publications, and have members signing up for Minutemen militias.
We are sure that if the Nazi party held a public meeting on campus, Jewish groups would be there to challenge them—so would we. We are sure that if the Ku Klux Klan held a public meeting on campus, African American groups would be there to challenge them—so would we. The Minutemen are no different.
We are pleased that an overwhelming number of people answered our call to demonstrate against the racist, fascist Minutemen the night of October 4. The hundreds of people outside Roone Arledge chanting, “Minutemen, Nazis, KKK, racists, fascists, go away!” represented students and community people from all walks of life. Inside the auditorium, perhaps as much as 80 percent of the crowd was repelled by the Minutemen’s message of hate.
When we walked on stage on the night of October 4, with anti-racist banners for immigrant rights, we were met with violent attack by Gilchrist’s goons. We were the ones who were punched and kicked. We are proud that despite these attacks, we held our ground. When Gilchrist walked off stage, it was because he and his Minutemen outfit were isolated.
This is not an issue of free speech. The Minutemen were able to reserve a hall at our university and had the protection of campus security and the NYPD—all to espouse their hate speech. We along with hundreds of others expressed our right to speak and protest.
Over the last 50 years, throughout the Civil Rights movement and the women’s rights movement, ultra-right wing groups have routinely used violence, lynchings, armed assaults and bombings against oppressed people. Yet when we organize to oppose them to express our contempt for their violence, we are criticized for inhibiting the free speech of the ones who perpetrate violence.
We thank everyone who joined our protest inside and outside of the auditorium.
Shame on the Columbia University administration for launching an investigation of peaceful protesters, and failing to condemn the perpetrators of violence. Shame on the College Republicans for inviting this fascist thug and provoking such outrage on our campus.
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