Who's the racist?

NOTE: I had been posting a lot of links about the Minuteman Project, but since it has been spreading throughout the nation I decided to restrict myself only to Texas. Unless something happens somewhere else that I just can't keep quiet about. I am not a member of the Project, nor am I affiliated with them in any way. I find their cause interesting, in part because all the media seemed to immediately jump on the "vigilante" bandwagon and such accusations infuriate me when no one has been able to report any real vigilante activity. That said, this really caught my attention.

Harlingen, TX:

'Go back where you came from and allow the local authorities to handle the situation,' Maldonado said. 'Authorities who are better prepared to deal with this situation.'

Joining Maldonado in his fight against the Minuteman Project were some members of the Brown Berets, a powerful and militant organization still around since the 1960s during the Chicano Liberation movement.

The Brown Berets said that they're ready for a physical confrontation with the Minuteman volunteers.

'They're just a bunch or a group of racist people that hate not only Hispanics but blacks and other races,' said Pablo Delgado, a spokesman for the Brown Berets.

Reading of a group that calls itself by some kind of colored beret name immediately set the alarm bells a-tingling, and their racist accusations made the alarm go to full clang. I suppose if a given neighborhood suddenly had a rash of burglaries, and the residents thereof decided to form a neighborhood watch so they could observe and report illegal activities to the authorities, and the persons observed committing illegal acts turned out to be Hispanic or black or any other non-white race, that would make the neighborhood watch group racist as well. I would like to point out that in Texas, the Minutemen will be forced to patrol private property, because there just isn't any public land to patrol. If a landowner allows other law-abiding persons onto his/her property to engage in legal activities (so far there isn't any law against observing and reporting illegal activity), there isn't much anyone can do about it. So protest all you want, amigo. Also, so far none of the Minutemen have engaged in any physical confrontation with anyone (except for possibly a shin-kicking involving an "activist" in California). But the Brown Berets are ready, anyway.

Armed only with my obsolete desktop and a dial-up connection to the Internet, to Google we go.

This information comes from Fight Back!:

Fight Back!: How did they see the world?

Carlos Montes: We believed in self-determination for Chicanos. The Brown Berets' thirteen-point political program talked about self-determination as having political and economic control over our lives. It called for a return of our land, release of prisoners, jobs, education, housing, an end to the destruction of the environment by the capitalists, open borders, solidarity with all revolutionary peoples engaged in the struggle for self-determination. And we denounced the U.S. system of capitalism and imperialism.

Okay, nothing racist yet. Everyone has a right (in this country anyway) to espouse communism if they want to.

Here's something I found in the Google archive for sci.military.naval:

The California state senator and his aides took serious note of the hostilities and violence conducted by the Nazi-like, anarchist brown berets. Americans...these goons are incurably evil and have a history of routinely suppressing the First Amendment rights of Americans through acts of violence and threats of death.

Our First Amendment rights of freedom to peacefully assemble and speak are in serious jeopardy, and it is time a stand is taken to preserve these rights.

The rampage was orchestrated by Armando Navarro, a known anti-American racist, who holds a comfortable, taxpayer funded, tenured position as a professor (of hate and blood-letting?) at the University of California - Riverside, Ca., and who has devoted his life to promoting the Mexican conquest of the seven southwestern US states. He calls for the conquest to be carried out by force, if necessary. Navarro, and his minions whose combined IQ was that of a dead house plant, all appeared to be under the influence of drugs.

One California Minuteman volunteer, Jim Woods, was physically assaulted by a gang of ten of Navarro's thugs as he sat in his car alone at a border outpost. He was physically restrained in his car seat by the brown berets, who threatened to kill him. They stole his keys from the ignition and left him stranded without food or water for several hours. When Jim Woods identified two of the gang members to the Sheriff's Dept. and asked for an arrest, no action was taken by the Sheriff's deputies. One deputy just responded to Mr. Wood's plea for help with "Oh, you just lost your keys," despite repeated pleas to the contrary from Mr. Woods.

Here is a website detailing why another group--M.E.Ch.A.--has disassociated themselves from the Brown Berets. I'll just point out one item:

February 1997--Vandalism at CSUF M.E.Ch.A. office. Carolina Garcia and Rafael Barragan's picture with faces crossed out and profanity written on them. Disrespectful comments to Janette Hyder, being called a "vendida," and Monica Hernandez a "white sell-out." Painting found destroyed by glue.

Here is "news release" (or something) from the Ministry of Information of the Nation of Aztlan. I'll just throw in a couple of paragraphs. Boldface emphasis is, of course, mine:

The attack was sudden and vicious on the Internet and through the print media and came in the form of fouled-mouth threats and insults. The pornographic "jewish" LAWEEKLY with the assistance of a lackey known as the "cucaracha cartoonist" are principal culprits. This group of judios, jotos and pochos also launched an attack on the Internet through a joto infested chat room. Our intelligence sources informed us that these individuals defamed the Nation of Aztlan by calling our organization Nation of Asstlan. This same term has been used against us by the notorious anti-Mexican VCT. These pocho people are phony Mexicans with no identity nor ethnic pride. They have much self-loathing and are easy prey for judios and gringos in their efforts to manipulate them against us. The word pocho has the same meaning as taco-tio, brown anglo and vendido. Since they are economically dependent on the judios and gringos in their businesses and jobs, they easily sell out La Raza and do their bidding.

This same group also launched a World Wide Web effort to deny us our right of free speech, writing and expression. Utilizing the UCLA Physics Internet server and a "jewish-front" Internet Service Provider, they have made great efforts to deny the Mexican-American Education Council the ability to distribute their communiques through a University of New Mexico listserv. Their efforts have been largely successful because the University of New Mexico as well as a large part of the state of New Mexico is dominated by "hispanic sephardic jews." This group of influential jews are also called "marranos" and "cryptic-jews" because of their tendency to remain hidden among the general population. They are primarily descendants of the jews that were asked to leave Spain by Isabel La Catolica. The cryptic jew is "a jew first and Raza second" just like a joto is "a joto first and Raza second." This same listserv did not however censor an attack against the Brown Berets by a M. Sedano that is now published at the Brown Berets Discussion Forum at: [url deleted]

On the other hand, I will revisit a previous post about an example of Minuteman Project "racist, vigilante" behavior, in which some volunteers saved the life of a man suffering from dehydration and possibly heatstroke.

Finally, if we look again at the end of the Fight Back! interview, we read this revelation:

Fight Back!: What about today's 'Brown Berets?'

Carlos Montes: The current group that call themselves Brown Berets have not led or been involved in any positive mass campaigns for self-determination or social change. They have not been able to grow or get support from any large segments of the Chicano community. They have not taken up the fight for immigrant rights or other important issues, especially the growing anti-war movement of today. They are primarily male and male dominated. They use militant rhetoric, but do not organize.

Pffftht!