Is it true that the minutemen and the nazis went to happy hour afterwards? can someone report on this? maybe the nazis will join free republic up at walter reed this friday. they would probably get along.

What in God's name are you talking about? I was there. 2 Nazis showed up and a bunch of cops escorted them away. You were waving flyers around for fuck's sake, not throwing punches

This was an important action. TheMinutemen took notice of their counterprotesters, saying "It's a sad day for America when those people with their faces covered with masks can do what they're doing."

To mi, it's sad that their faces are covered. They should speak boldly and proudly of the stand they make against the racist and classist so-called Minutemen.

The sad ones were the so-called Minutemen, wrapped in the American flag, as if that alone would overcome their transgressions against the US Constitution and humanity.

This was an important action.

Excellent work DCers. Solidarity from the borderlands of Southern California/Aztlan!

Countering the Minutemen is important AND we must also show up in mass to support the pro-active March for Migrants (from San Diego to DC) arriving at the capitol on Saturday, Feb. 18th. Be there to rally in support of migrant workers at 2pm on the West Lawn of the Capitol Building.

For more on the March for Migrants check out www.borderangles.org or sdimc.org

the link doesn't work. is the page down?

Are the Minutemen against immigration, or just illegal immigration? I'm fine with immigration, but I think that if someone would like to move to this country and take advantage of all that it provides, they should be a resident on the same terms that I am: pay taxes, be licenced to drive or for their work, etc. Is that really too much to ask?

1. Do you not think the current immigration laws are racist?

2. Even if you think that they aren't racist, what do you think the best remedy for illegal immigration is? Is it simply to deal with the illegal immigrants as criminals, or is it to deal with the causes that lead people to such desperate and dangerous acts?

I don't think #1 is easily answered at all; what are the basis of immigration laws? On what authority do they rest, especially from a nation of immigrants that took most of the land it has from indigenous peoples? How are those laws applied? I can tell you that they aren't applied evenly; there are quotas and regulations in place that give preference to some types of people from some countries over other countries.

But, even if you could satisfy all those questions, one still wonders why the object of scorn is the illegal immigrant and not the multi-national corporation that in its attempt to drive the wages of labor so low both in the US and across the world that they both destroy the living conditions for many people in these countries and therefore driving people to fulfill jobs that virtually no American citizen or legal immigrant would want to do. Why isn't the scorn directed at the free trade agreements that Bush, Clinton, and Bush again have pushed on us that have created this situation? Why do the minutemen insist on dividing one class of working people against another class of working people when both classes share their suffering from the same root cause?

Even if you could convince us that immigration laws are not racist, you cannot convince us that its anything short of racist to turn your scorn against people who often face no other better choice. Perhaps, it would be helpful for people to share some essays that show how people are driven from their homes, unable to feed themselves. I mean, one would have to be crazy to want to come to the United States as an illegal immigrant with all the dangers that are involved with that under normal circumstances. Do you think these people are living high and large?

What's really behind this? You want to enforce laws. Yet, why these laws? Why of all the laws that aren't getting forced do these ones matter so much to you? Billions get blown away on war, the military, the Department of Energy, so much more than any immigrant could possibly receive, and yet this is your fight?

Please answer these questions and please go beyond the same answers you always give. Your answers have been challenged.

Thanks,

Jim Macdonald

Jim, you are an idiot.

Probably so, but I do what I can do

"You answers have been challenged" is just about the dumbest thing you can say. You didn't challenge anything, you made your points, facts as you see them.

The standard answer that we have been reading on these comments by minutemen apologists is the tautology that illegal immigrants are illegal and therefore are a problem. Some have gone on to argue that they are not being racist or bigoted because they aren't determining their opposition based on color or on nationality but based simply on the law.

That was the impetus for saying that the answers have been challenged. Is the law racist? Even if it is not racist, is the solution being proposed racist and thoroughly ineffective at dealing with the problem. So, I fail to see how dumb I was to claim that the standard answers have been challenged. Let's see how good a job you've done in taking the conversation forward.

It is obvious you have no real view of the world. You are too focused on righting preceived wrongs than looking at the world as it exists today.

I fail to see how that's so. What is a "real" view of the world? Aren't you just begging the question with a criticism and answer like this?

1) The laws are not racist. There are plenty of people from all over the world who come into this country legally. (That is what you guys always seem to miss, LEGALLY)

That does not prove your point. In fact, what I argued were that the laws give preference to some countries and some types of people in some countries over other types of countries. Even if we can justify national boundaries (which you simply assume), your argument does not prove that immigration laws are not currently racist. All it proves is that some people, perhaps, of all nationalities have been able to come to this nation legally. Yet, it pays no attention to the quotas by country, to the economic circumstances of people who can come versus those who cannot, it in no way proves that all are equally able to emigrate to this country.

So, please do a better job of proving your point and spare me the fallacies.

You only want to enforce the laws you think should be enforced. Wiretaps - Bad (I agree) Illegal immigrants - Good (I disagree)

Actually, being an anarchist, I don't think we should be enforcing any laws as a nation. But, given the sad state of affairs where big government and big business are the two choices, what's most important is standing on the side of people working to stand up to both. But, that's neither here nor there and is irrelevant to the discussion we've been having. It's merely a guess of my position and not a useful exposition of the rationale behind the minutemen position (it merely sets you up to make more ad hominem attacks against me).

2) The best remedy for illegal imigration is to first close the boarders. This will allow us to get the situation under control.

What situation are you trying to get under control? Illegal immigration? You've still failed to argue why illegal immigration is inherently a problem or why you think it is a problem.

Second, find all illegal immigrants and run back ground checks on them to find out if they are running from something in their own country. Murderers, rapists, anyone with a felony type of criminal past, should not be allowed to stay.

Why? I think this discussion could take us much further in a direction neither of us wants to go right now, but I am curious.

Give those that want it a chance to become US citizens, this includes speaking English at a level that allows them to function in society.

Why the emphasis on English? Hasn't society functioned well enough with multiple languages? Aren't there enough translators? Doesn't this prejudice English-speaking countries in immigration? How is that not a kind of bigotry? Maybe, you think it's justified bigotry, but it does favor one class of people against everyone else. It seems that many in this country get by well speaking Spanish; there are even a number of places where an English-speaker does not function well, and there are multiple Spanish-language television stations. With so many millions of Latinos in this country, it seems language isn't much of a barrier. And, for those that it is, why should it be a barrier for us to enforce on immigrants, since their lack of linguistic skills adversely effects them enough as it is.

Those that do not wish to become US citizens are given work visas that allow them to travel freely back and forth while their visa is active. Once the time is up on the visa, they need to reapply or stay out of the country. After the illegals in the US are taken care of, we need to allow people to come in and work, if they want. But by woking they are also going to be expected to pay taxes, contriubute to society in a manner that benefits everyone, not just them and their families back in their country.

Why is the highest value here benefiting "our country"? Shouldn't the highest value be benefitting each other? There's a broad value gap here between you and me, so this discussion could take a long while to deconstruct, but it's worth it so that we can be rid of you minutemen and your racism once and for all. Let's give it a try, and if you convince me that I should be a nationalist bigot, then you'll have scored a great victory for the American cause.

Free trade isn't the problem. A government run by Corporations and not the people is the problem. Free trade has the potential to give those in less developed contries the chance to improve their lives and that of their children.

The problem with that point of view is that it treats nations as aggregates and assumes that nations have as much to offer in return. Look at what trade relationships did to Native tribes in North America. It ruined them. Since the richer countries have more market control and more resources, they can leverage prices and set wages. These leverages ultimately ruin many people and set up a greater social class stratification in society. This stratification produces greater despair, and before you know it, people are running to the borders for jobs to take care of their families. They don't care about Mexico or the United States; they care about suviving. And, why shouldn't they? And, why should we continue setting barriers in their way? Native tribes that were once robust are now starving inside the United States and have been almost since the dawn of trade agreements written into many of the treaties. Similar processes keep happening all over the world.

The agreements need to be rewritten to allow for environmental inspections and investigations of the paper trails of money. The US hasn't had a relationship with Cuba for decades, no reason it wouldn't work on another country. Free trade isn't the problem, those in charge are the problem, because they are in Corporate America's back pocket.

I think your analysis is too narrow and doesn't get at the larger picture, but I'll leave it at that for now.

I agree we are wasting money on war, the military is necessary but only when our boarders are threatened. The military is not a tool the president can use to seek revenge. The Department of Energy is nothing but an arm of oil companies.

It's more precisely a tool of the nuclear power industry. Most of the Department of Energy budget goes toward nuclearization.

We could be independent of oil in less time than most people think, if we did it now and did it smartly. Nuclear energy is not a bad thing, wind power, solar power, ethanol, there are so many choices but we have the wrong people making decisions.

No matter what, at some point overconsumption is not sustainable. But, we are drifting away from the point.

Your solution is to open the boarders and let everyone do as they please. Have you been to South Texas lately? I do not want to live in that kind of area, and I doubt you would too.

My solution is far more radical than that, but let's not get too far away too fast, or we are going to lose the thread of the discussion.

You are probably a really smart guy, but your statements tend to lean the other way. Put your energy into fixing things the way they should be fixed and stop grabbing onto a single issue and taking the most out of bounds solution as the truth.

I guess you don't know me very well. I've never been accused of being a single issue person without a worldview before. Leibniz would be ashamed of me if that were true!

Let's please continue this. Show me you have something more to say than this! Please!

Jim Macdonald

[2. Even if you think that they aren't racist, what do you think the best remedy for illegal immigration is? Is it simply to deal with the illegal immigrants as criminals, or is it to deal with the causes that lead people to such desperate and dangerous acts?]

They are criminals. They entered this country illegally and continue to stay here without abiding by the laws that all other Americans and documented immigrants live and work under. Should they go to jail here? No. Send them back home, and advise them that entry into the United States will require certain things from them. Refusal to comply will mean an indefinite denial into the US.

You mention the root cause of the immigrant flight. Good for you. That reason doesn't exist in the US, it exists abroad in their native land. My suggestion to you is to go there and fight for their rights to leave and come here. When you protest in the shadow of that foreign government's capitol or presidential palace, you will notice just how much you truly covet being an American citizen. You may however notice just how much you need to tend to your own house and it's needs over those of anothers who repeatedly violates the rules of your house.

Borders are nothing more than imaginary lines drawn by illegitimate governments. No on is illegal. The "law" is a sham. Minutemen clearly are racist. If they were so interested in enforcing laws, then why don't they make a big fuss about all the constitutional laws the President has broken in the name of "fighting terrorism"? The fact that the Minutemen only choose to focus on enforcing laws that hurt mostly immigrants from central and south America is revealing of what their true interests are. If the deportation of anyone will make this country better, it's the deportation of those racist, xenophobic, minutemen trash.

Are there any legitimate governments?

Stop the name-calling and personal attacks, or your whole comment will be taken down.

This is the biggest load of horse dung I ever read. I saw what happened. First of all the 5 masked anti-minutemen protestors stood at the back of the crowd and attampted to disrupt things. They were noticed but did not disrupt the Minutmen. The Nazis came and looked like something from a bad acting troop and there were only two. If I remember correctly it was the Minutemen who told the Nazis to go to hell as reported by Lou Dobbs on CNN if you need proof you can get a transcript. Also this claim that the Minutmen are KKK is totally ridiculous, if you look at the website under NEWS MEDIA you can see that the group accepts anyone or any race, creed, color, gender ect. There was more then one hispanic person with them, several african Americans, Several immigrants, several people who are married to immigrants and whats this NO WHITE SUPREMECISTS! Try researching a subject before you write about it. It's strange I didn't find anything the minutemen said offensive or racist and I myself am an immigrant. I checked out their website when I got home. These men and women are trying to stop these migrants from being exploited and treated as slaves, trying to help is not what a nazi or KKK would do. They also make it clear that they do no oppose LEGAL immigration.

If you need proof read it from the horses mouth not the mouth of an amature.

www.minutemanhq.com/project/LEO.html

Look man, very few people actually say that they are racists. Did William Rehnquist, back in the early 1960s, when he was the head of Operation Eagle Eye, down in Arizona, challenging the voting qualifications of African Americans at the polls who were going to vote, claim that he was a racist? No, what they simply said was that he and his Republican friends were defending the law. In effect, though, what they did was racist, since the laws at that time were enacted to discourage disadvantaged African American people from voting, and their challenges were almost exclusively against African American people.

There have been questions raised about whether the immigration law itself is racist and whether the best remedy (if you could clear that huge hurdle) is to harrass and confront illegal immigrants. Both tactics, however "nonviolent", and however they've been applied, are inherently racist, and if not that, then bigoted (favoring Americanism over anything and anyone else).

And, just because you might be an immigrant doesn't make it less so. I had people who were at one time close to me who were Greek immigrants, who should have known about the problems they had getting into this country. And, none of them would have claimed to be racist. But, they wouldn't support black families coming into their suburban working class neighborhood because it would drive down property values, and they wouldn't support Haitian refugees for no reason that I can figure out to this day. They had many good qualities and didn't think of themselves as racist and anti-immigrant, but they were racist and anti-immigrant, though they were themselves immigrants.

There have been issues raised above in my posts above; I'd suggest you answer them. Stop rehashing the same stuff. Just because someone says they aren't a racist doesn't make it so.

In fact, it's a lot like the KKK because the minutemen try to disguise their racist intentions behind a mask of respectability (just as few people know who really is in the KKK). At least those idiot Nazi's that showed up understood the implications of what the Minutemen project was about and had the nerve to be open about their racism. You all live in denial, cloaked behind the white sheet of a law that protects and gives advantages to white male citizens (including me, and it sickens me that the law has set me against all my sisters and brothers). And, you do more than burn crosses in someone's lawn; you actually go out and confront the poorest of the poor - day laborers. You may not shoot them dead, but you make it that much harder for them to live.

Jim Macdonald

There is a difference between being anti-immigrant and being against Illegal immigration. The laws of the United States were created to protect the AMERICAN people. I had to wait 10 years to immigrate LEGALLY into this great nation. Poland was under communist control and we had to secretly meet with American contact from the ebassy. Some people were killed by the Soviets and Secret police. So you think we need to abolish all laws and just let everyone do whatever they please? Why should we give one or two groups of immigrants who come and cause crime and bring gangs and drugs and advantage over Legal immigrants like myself who risked death to come over for a better life and an education. I am now a Doctor of American history, wonder if I could have done that in Poland. I fully respect the Mexican people who are coming here to legally make a better life. But I say this to any immigrant, you are coming to another country, they are nice enough to allow you to stay, OBEY THE LAW, LEARN ENGLISH, WORK HARD.

The horse's mouth didn't mention that the co-founder Jim Gilchrist is a member of a hate group and the political party that he ran for congress with is also a white supremacist party. Then there is John Clark who was also there bitching about Jews and what not.

You ought to stop with your cliched conservative defenses against the racism charge that once again you cannot beat.

Also,

I would like to add what your protestors were shouting about Evil Europeans was about the most racist thing I heard that day. The two fake nazis were there but at least they didn't talk. I immigrated from Europe to find a better life in America. Up until yesturday I have never heard a racial slur uttered to me. Looks like you guys are the real KKK you only hide it behind masks not hoods.

so, you immigrants support the Minutemen in their quest to stop immigration? hypocrites. Here is a dose of your own medicine since you support the Minutemen - go back to Europe. we don't want your kind here. America for Americans. stop stealing our jobs. You Eastern Europeans just come here and join up with the Russian Mafia and steal our jobs, deal drugs, take our women, drive our cars and use up valuable jail space. go home.

Now, take the average rhetoric from you average Minuteman supporting American and substitute Mexican, where i said Eastern European or Russian above and compare the two.

all that shit you said makes no sense. legal immigration into this country is not the problem, it's those who do so illegally, without the proper documents needed to enter. your views are so fucking twisted it's pathetic.

I think it is funny how you talk about things you don't know. Like the fellow who mentioned the Hateful comments, I am also am immigrant. I came from Poland in 1975, both my parents suffered during the war and were sent to camps by the nazis and we all suffered under communism. You make these statement that Europeans invaded Indian lands and just took them, I have researched America for many years now and if you want to be more accurate you would say there were no inhabitants of what we call the USA. There are in fact sites that have been uncovered that actually prove the first people to live in America were in fact of Norse origin. Then about 2000 years later what we know of today as Indians crossed into the Americas and actually killed the Norse who were here. Accounts of more peaceful tribes dating from around 1AD actually tell of trading with strange bearded men who had white skin. So technically if you want to obey the laws of history and not fantasy you should be only greatful that the Vikings don't want it back.

I read the link the fellow put up and I can't see any racist talk in what the minutemen are saying. Are they not entitled as citizen of this great nation to advocate people follow the laws? Perhaps fighting them is not the answer, perhaps you should talk to them and learn whats really happening. I read an article about how there has been 200+ attacks by the Mexican Army as they defended drug shipments and crossed into the US. Honestly as a jewish person and a survivor of persecution we as Americans are being invaded. It just seems pointless to scream KKK and Nazi when you were the ones shouting hate. Ask my mother about the real nazis and communists.

Are you seriously arguing that the Indians stole the Americas from the Norse 2,000 years ago?

No I am saying the Norse arrived first in the fossil record and the two coexisted until for some reason the Norse disappeared. The Indians could have killed them in wars, they could have had an epidemic, they could have just intermarried. This has been a proven fact for more then 20 years. It is quite interesting too. There are even Indian grave sites where Norse beads and forged tools have been found, evidence of trade or war and looting. What we refer to today as Native Americas were actually Immigrants themselves.

Why do Minutemen hate America so much and if they are against immigrants getting jobs that most americans won't take, why don't the Minutemen take them and stop killing people and stalking them! Also the Minutemen need to realize this is not their land most of them are white and had immigrants that invaded America from europe, while there were native people allready on this land. If you Minutemen are so anti immigration then leave now, you hate immigrants then go back to Europe now and stay out of america, but do not come to somebody elses country and take it over using massive amounts of violence and oppression and tell people they cannot come into a country that is not theirs to decide that, it is Indian land!

This is the type of Nazi that is protesting with you. I looked at the minutman site and it says nothing about hate any immigrants, it says all about loving America in fact most minutmen are former military. The minutemen have NEVER killed or stalked anyone. This is slander and I hope they sue you. Slander is a crime you know and the FBI just loves tracking down computers. honestly I was going to join this group unti I saw these hateful messages. By the way, I don't recall coming to this country and oppressing anyone or killing anyone. You are doing the oppressing. I bet you don't like it when Russian and Polish immigrants come here.

So let me get this straight you claim the Minutemen kill people, tell me then why was it not on the news, I can guarantee it would be the major headline for at least a week. In fact the only people I recall being shot at the border are American border patrol officers murdered by illegals and drug runners. What about the women who have to live in armed camps because the illegals break into their homes and rape them. If anyone is respecting human life it is the minutemen.

So what do you advocate doing with all these people you call invaders, camps, genocide, forced deportation? Sounds like somebody has a Hitler complex.

You want to punish people for something that happened 200 years ago? I personally do not recall any wars and oppression happening.

So tell me you think we need to go to EVERY civilization that conquered another and exact revenge upon everyone. Like stated in a previous comment the Indians you talk about were not the first people here, I have seen the same research and the Norse indeed had it first. So you are only blaming White folks for this oppression, what about Indian tribes who slaughtered and even ate each other, evidence has been found of this in the Ancient ruins of the Southwest, mass graves with chewed on bones and fossilized human waste with human enzymes in it (only caused by eating flesh) What about the black Americans who ventured west after the Civil War, they hunted Indians with more passion then most white men are you going to hunt down their relations too. All civilizations have wars, heck look at the Romans who enslaved most of Europe. I am not angry at them because I wasn't alive and neither were the modern Romans. So unless you are 200 years old nobody oppressed you, if you want to know about oppression ask the poor fellow who escaped from Communist Poland.

the Norse were here first? what fuckin' stupid fantasy alternative history novel have you been reading? you need to go back and take some basic history classes my European friend. the Norse probably didn't even exist as "Norse" or "Vikings" when the people who became Native Americans crossed the Bering Sea some 15-20,000 years ago. sure the Vikings beat Columbus here. but the Chinese probably did as well. doesn't change the FACT that there were somewhere between 10 and 20 million native americans here in 1492 and that this whole hemisphere was raped, plundered and occupied by European colonizer cultures.

fuck the minutemen, until they are willing to pick the tomatoes for cents on the bushel, and take to the streets to demand the dismantling of NAFTA and CAFTA they need to shut up.

Perhaps they were not known as the norse but you are the one that needs to learn about history. You see something that challenges your little bubble world and you have to resort to curses because you don't have proof to back what you say, I have proof that what we know as the Norse people predate any Indian habitation.

www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Lagoon/1345/caucasian.html

The two peoples lived together, why do you want to get rid of White Europeans when we have been coexisting for more then 300 years? If we kicked the indians out why did we pay them for the land?

Maybe they didn't teach you that in 1st grade before you dropped out. I also know for a fact that the Minutemen hate CAFTA and NAFTA too maybe instead of calling names you need to see that they are against exploiting these people and join them and see for yourself there is nothing racist. Tell me why would black folks and hispanic folks join them if they were? You know nothing of oppression and hate, the only hate people like you can feel is for White folks. Even though I am Jewish I do not hate Germans and the Nazis oppressed us far more then any indian was ever oppressed and the Soviets oppressed us even worse and were are still under attack by militant islamics. You know what it's like to turn on the TV and think did my cousin just die in that homicide bomb attack? You folks need to enter the land of reality. By the way, ever go into skid row in Washington? I see many homeless and jobless people who would be willing to pick fruit. Some of them don't even have food to eat.

So from people 9,000 years ago having "Caucasoid" features to "Norse" people being driven off by Indians 2,000 years ago? What the hell does all that mean?

It means nothing. So what? So some people who have features similar to Japan's Ainu population or polynesian people may have crossed the Bering Strait, too? What difference does that make? How does that change genocide? How does it change that the United States is a "nation" of immigrants?

What the hell are you talking about?

No one has said that Native culture was idyllic, merely that a nation of immigrants, who stole the land through brutal genocide (see images.indymedia.org/imc/washingtondc/media/application/2/october12genocidedestructionandimperialismslideshow.pdf ) for my own teach-in on the matter, has a lot of nerve using its conquered borders to keep people out.

Also, you are very mistaken about the legality of the land grab. Even if all the land acquired by treaties, congressional resolutions, and executive orders were combined, a huge area of what is now the United States is not covered under any of those acts. When you consider that the treaties themselves were tools of leverage (often much like bankruptcy courts, often much like the NAFTAs and CAFTAs of the day), when things like the Dawes Act were used to futher subdivide Indian land, often in direct violation of treaty provisions (and the US has claimed the right to abrogate any treaty it sees fit to abrogate), the hypocrisy is more outrageous.

But, even if we put that all aside, how dare you set legal immigrants against illegal immigrants against homeless people. All these groups suffer the SAME class oppression, and they should not be at war with each other. You make your 10 year wait sound like some kind of badge of honor; it was oppression just as it is oppression to tell people they need to starve to death before they can work a job, before they can try and make something to feed themselves.

If you want to fight against NAFTA and CAFTA like you say you do, you wouldn't engage in tactics intended to destroy solidarity against the powerful forces that work to beat down American workers, legal immigrants, illegal immigrants, the working poor, the homeless, people of color, gay and lesbians, the disabled, women, and anyone who dares to stand with these and all the other people on the losing side of today's power equation.

You may be an immigrant, but you are working against immigrants and people of color and the poor and workers everywhere.

Jim Macdonald

here's a clip from your proof:

"In other words, the scientists say it is possible that it is only a coincidence that the ancient skeletons have features that resemble those of Europeans. The long heads and angular faces may have arisen independently in a strictly Asian population."

i will give you that it was an interesting article, but to stretch it to your conclusions was pretty ridiculous and a bit of wishful thinking on your part.

and your "proof" states the early maybe caucasoid skeleton was dated at 9600 years ago and they have no idea where it came from. it could have come from asia. Asians (the descendents of Native Americans) migrated here 15-20,000 years ago AT LEAST.

and, i don't recall seeing any Minutemen in Miami protesting the FTAA.

and, yes, you do need a history lesson, because this land was stolen from the natives through outright conquest, murder, lies and broken treaties. even a mainstream history book fesses up to a lot of that these days.

you can defend the Minutemen till the cows come home. to me, they will be reactionary racists in the worst traditions of the Klan, Conservative Citizen's Councils, Nativist Party (white political party active against another wave of immigration in the 1800's - probably when many of the Minutemen's members ancestors came over).

In a poor third world country: A family kicked off their land in the countryside ends up in the city's shantytown with no electricity, no running water, no sanitation. The mother works in a sweatshop owned by a foreign company, subjected to slave-like conditions and sexual abuse. Unable to find a job, unable to feed his family, the father hands his 14-year-old daughter to a man who promises to find her a "good job." In fact, the man is part of the international sex trade. The 10-year-old son, instead of going to school, ends up working in a factory making clothes for people in faraway countries to wear.

With no hope and no future, the father takes his family's life savings and gives it to a human smuggler who will get him into the United States or France or Germany. He finds himself in a run-down, poor neighborhood in Los Angeles, Paris, London, or New York. Hounded by the immigration authorities, he's cheated, misused, and ruthlessly exploited. Picking apples or working in a low-wage factory, living on the edge in a dilapidated apartment with five other immigrants, he sends most of his paycheck back home. He hopes someday he will see his family again.

This is life and reality for millions of immigrants, trying to survive, looking for some kind of future. If you make it past the border guards, if you're not attacked by racist vigilantes, or stopped, beaten, and jailed by the police... if you don't suffocate in a cargo container or die in the desert from dehydration... then you can live and work in the shadows, facing constant harassment and repression.

*****

In poor countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, hundreds of millions, peasants kicked off their land and workers desperately unemployed, are forced to leave their country in search of work.

In the year 2000, 850,000 people legally immigrated to the United States, more than half from Asia or Mexico. This doesn't include illegal immigration. It is estimated there are 11 million undocumented workers in the U.S.

*****

The workings of imperialism force people to migrate: The poor countries of the world are dominated and oppressed by a handful of rich imperialist countries. Multinational corporations pump billions of dollars into poor countries, transforming and controlling the whole way food is grown, cities are built, factories are run, and governments rule. Imperialist countries like the U.S.grow strong, powerful, and wealthy on the backs of oppressed nations. Millions are displaced by wars of imperialist aggression.

As a result, hundreds of millions of people in poor countries around the world live in dire poverty without enough food, without safe drinking water, basic sanitation, adequate housing and healthcare. Every year, worsening economic conditions compel millions to migrate in search of jobs. It is estimated that nearly 1 out of 6 people in this world, more than one billion people, are crossing national borders as migrant workers. Half of the world's people still make their living farming the land, but hundreds of millions are being kicked off their land, forced to move to cities to try and eke out a living in slums and growing shantytowns.

*****

Millions of lives have been ruined by "fair trade" agreements and policies by international finance organizations--which are designed to bring more profit to the capitalist corporations. The World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), controlled by the U.S.and other rich countries, impose strict requirements on poor countries in exchange for badly needed loans. They demand cuts to social services, higher food prices, currency devaluations, and measures to boost export production and imports--leading to increased poverty and unemployment. The WTO Agreement on Agriculture and NAFTA have forced poor countries to open up to more agricultural imports, paving the way for large agribusinesses to buy up land, and the ruin of small family farmers who can't compete with cheap imports.

In India a devastated farmer commits suicide by eating pesticides to end his life. Another sells his kidney to feed his family.

*****

José Antonio Villaseñor Leon, living in a town outside of Mexico City, had a hard time making ends meet and supporting his 5-year-old son, Marco Antonio. He sold his taxi and other possessions to pay smugglers for the trip across the border. On May 14, 2003, Jose and his son Marco were among 18 people who were found suffocated to death in an abandoned tractor-trailer truck in Victoria, Texas. Four were from Central America, one was from the Dominican Republic, and 13 were from Mexico. They were among dozens of people packed into the locked trailer headed for Houston.

*****

Endless and vicious anti-immigrant laws passed by the U.S. government which criminalize and demonize undocumented immigrants have further emboldened and whipped up fascist anti-immigrant movements.

On September 30, 2005, deep in the lynching belt in Tifton, Georgia: Six Mexican immigrant men were killed. Beaten with an aluminum bat and shot. One immigrant woman was raped. Several others were critically injured. There had recently been 20 other similar incidents in this area.

20-year-old Guillermo Martínez lived just over the border from San Diego. His family says he was trying to get to Fresno, California to take a job picking fruit. On December 30, 2005, just after dark, the border patrol shot him dead. Human rights advocates report that at least four other immigrants had died in the last 15 months in run-ins with Border Patrol agents. One man fatally shot, three others drowned running away.

*****

Where there is oppression is resistance: On July 1, 2005, a huge outpouring of 40,000 people, primarily immigrant Mexicanos, hit the streets in Chicago to oppose the anti-immigrant vigilante group, the Minutemen, and the government’s immigration policies. In May of 2001, in the town of Oldham (190 miles northwest of London), hundreds of immigrant youth from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, rebelled against police brutality and anti-immigrant attacks from the racist National Front and the rightwing British National Party. They took to the streets for three nights, throwing bricks, garbage cans, and firebombs at the police. After 9/11, protests were organized in cities throughout the U.S. against the whole way the government targeted and viciously persecuted Middle Eastern and South Asian immigrants. In November 2005, in the working class suburb of Paris, Clichy-sous-Bois, after two teenagers fleeing from the police were burned to death on an electrified barbed wire fence, thousands of working class youth, largely children of Arab and African immigrants, took to the streets, night after night, for three weeks.

*****

The basis for proletarian internationalism is more powerful than ever.

Only revolution can put an end to the lopsided world where a rich, imperialist countries dominate and oppress poor third world countries.

Only the rule of the proletariat worldwide can put an end to the oppression of nations that gives rise to the need for immigration and overcome the national divisions among the workers.

Throughout the world, immigrants, especially immigrant proletarians, must be a powerful and driving force in this revolution.

rwor.org/a/031/global-migration-lopsided-world.htm

If these minutemen were to time travel back 200 years ago, they'd help round up runaway slaves, and then they'd say, "Hey, we're not racist! We're just enforcing the LAW!" But we all know better, that the law is racist and that those who uphold racist laws are racist. Hey minutemen, if you're so interested in upholding laws, then why don't you do anything about all the laws that the U.S. government is breaking with their warrantless wiretapping and spying on citizens? Oh yeah, you don't really give a rat's ass about the law when it comes down to it. You just like to harass people who can't fight back and make yourselves feel real tough. Your "LAW" explanations aren't fooling any intelligent people. You're racist, xenophobic, ignoramus trash.

Yes, what would a minuteman person who goes back in time during the time of the Fugitive Slave Act do(a law protected by the Taney Supreme Court as constitutional)? Would they not say to the slave who ran away that they should make themselves free like other black people using the legal opportunities available to them? In fact, would they further not argue that they are not racist because the organization they used to defend the law was open to free blacks as well as free whites (and they might even be able to show us a free black who had joined).

Minutemen, and those who stand up for them, what would you have done?

And, if you would have done differently, do a better job of explaining how today's immigration law is not racist.

Jim Macdonald

The Minutemen, like many Socialists, believe that free market economies are zero-sum games. Infact, every immigrant (illegal or otherwise) expands the economy and that makes everyone better off.

That is not only the economic theory, but the actual experience of the USA. In the 1890's, there were more foreign-born people in the U.S. as a percentage than there are now, yet not only did the U.S. survive, but it thrived.

There is no point in keeping Mexicans in a country where they cannot be economically productive. Let them come to the U.S., and they will become more productive, making them richer and us richer.

Minutemen co-founder Gilchrist ran for Congress on the Constitution Party ticket. The Constitution Party Platform calls for erasing all federal government intervention in "state sovereignty" issues, such as "state education", "transportation, private business, housing, health care, ad infinitum". That's straight out of their platform. In other words, no federal regulations that would, for example, desegregate state schools. It's the old segregationist stand-by, "State's Rights". Of course, it's not just public schools, it's transportation as well…care to guess who gets those "reserved" seats at the back of the bus again? Guess who can be denied rental property based on race? And in terms of "private business", guess who the bosses can once again refuse to hire, without having to worry about any pesky Equal Opportunity Employment conditions?

And how about what the Constitution Party says about immigration? Not just ILLEGAL immigration, by the way -- no, ALL immigration. They want a moratorium on ALL immigration. They want to end availability of public assistance to immigrants -- ALL immigrants, not just illegal ones -- and they refer to immigration as "the mass importation of people with low standards of living".

So that's the type of party, and the platform, that Mr. Gilchrist ran on. They also favor using the Bible as the basis for U.S. society, by the way. They oppose the "homosexual agenda" and are rabidly anti-abortion, for example. In other words, it's about time that folks stop trying to portray Mr. Gilchrist and his Minutemen as soft 'n fuzzy multiculturalists. Because they aren't. Do a little google search on his name, and look at some of the articles about the number of National Alliance members who helped found chapters of the Minutemen, for example, or how other right-wing racist groups show up to join and support the Minutemen. It's absurd to deny what is so obvious. WE know it, and we know that YOU know it, so why screw around lying about it when it's not fooling anybody?

Re Gilchist's views:

...explains why some on this thread have a great "need" for the archeological record to show that "Norse" bones are "not abnormal Asians" and landed on this continent, "first".

...Similar methodology re bones and the justification for the State of Israel.... same methodology for the "Aryan" supremecists.

BTW:

Modern archeologists have debunked all the above "racial" views.

Those "Nazis" are probably agent provs. Most likely members of some groups opposed to the Minutemen whom took it upon themselves to put on a spectacle to frame the issues in race or black and white and further divide people in their need to stand up to corporate globalism and the influence of the Elites modis-operandi of racing to the economic bottom by hiring those whom will work for wages that are not survivable in this society. The notion of multiple languages in a country of this size will only serve to fracture an already divided society into warring factions and reapeat the same mistakes that have plagued Europes history. It's much easier to conquer a society especially if they can't communicate with one another, it's a shame most activists see only race when confronted with the brutality of being conquered and divided. Those whom don't want to be conquered and divided are labeld racists while those that want to spread disorder and the failure to defend against globalist threat are somehow good or "open minded". If America has no border then why is America not South America or Canada for that matter? Seems illogical to assume that a people that call themselves something will continue to exist if they functionally have no boundaries and maybe having boundaries is the kind of thing that would teach Politicians in power a few boundaries in terms of their power. The very need to control a border also aligns with the need to control the branches of government, no control over boundaries can slide into no control over corporations and the powerful.