I suspect that few of the veterans of the media event that was the
2005 Minuteman Project will read this slim study of the political
theory behind the post-Sept. 11 “border vigilante” movement.
It’s not that it presents members of the Minutemen and similar
groups in a wholly negative light; actually, many of the voices in the
book seem downright rational. It’s more that theory can’t really get to
the heart of the matter, and this book, like most academic endeavors,
is all about theory—and it’s a rather obvious theory at that,
finding that people who join groups like the Minutemen are worried more
about their national and personal “sovereignty” than the human rights
of the “others,” making it easier for them to see whole groups of
people—Mexicans, say—as an “exception” to be treated as, at
best, a public threat, and at worst, invaders with an insidious plan to
take back the Gadsden Purchase through baby-making.
While author Roxanne Doty, an associate professor of political
science at Arizona State University, does her best to put an objective
academic distance between herself and members of the various groups she
studies, she admits several times that she was often biting her tongue
while hanging out in the desert. A portion of the proceeds of the book
are going to No More Deaths and Humane Borders.
Doty comes closest to what I think is the simple truth behind
Bush-era border vigilantism when she drops the theoretical constructs
and writes like a journalist rather than a political scientist. In her
opening chapter, “Fear and Loathing on the U.S.-Mexico Border,” she
describes the office of the Tombstone Tumbleweed, the onetime
headquarters of the Minuteman Project, founded by ex-Californians Chris
Simcox and Jim Gilchrist—still the two most famous names in
border vigilantism. In the office, she sees two pictures hanging side
by side: one with the blown-up words of Article IV, Section 4 of the
U.S. Constitution, and the other a painting of Ann Coulter.
Her rage for theory allows Doty to miss, or perhaps to dismiss, the
very simple impetus behind the Minutemen and their ilk: These guys are
having fun. It’s like Boy Scouts with guns. To a certain kind of
man—and many of these men moved here with the idea that the West
still is a place where a man can live like Wyatt Earp—camping in
the desert with an armed posse, with binoculars and the squelch of
walkie-talkies everywhere, is a fantasy come to life. If there are more
members of the international press around than there are vigilantes,
and if they are treating you with the same deference and seriousness as
they would real soldiers who are actually protecting the
homeland, well, so much the better.
That’s not to say that Doty’s book isn’t useful. She uses reports
and statistics gleaned primarily from the Southern Poverty Law Center
to show the strong and poorly hidden links between the various
border-vigilante groups, anti-immigration groups, “think tanks” and the
neo-Nazi and white-supremacist movements. She also shows how media
outlets like Fox News and CNN support and sustain vigilante groups
through one-sided coverage, giving them a kind of legitimacy that may
cloud the real impact and meaning, or lack thereof, of their camping
trips along the border. Anyone who doubts that hate groups, Pat
Buchanan-style anti-immigration groups and border vigilantes all have
leaders, adherents and policies in common will want to look at Doty’s
research.
As of 2007, Doty writes toward the end of the book, the movement’s
founder, Chris Simcox, no longer lived in Tombstone, though his group
was still active along the border. Simcox now lives in Scottsdale.
That’s a pretty big jump for a guy who in 2001 lost his job as a
kindergarten teacher, his family and his life in California. Simcox
tried to join the Border Patrol, Doty writes, but was turned down,
because he was too old. When he decided to become a hunter of migrants
and smugglers in 2003, he was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon
on federal land and sentenced to two years of probation. Now, he’s an
internationally famous anti-immigration advocate, is running for the
U.S. Senate and lives in one the nation’s richest cities. The American
Dream, it seems, is still within reach.
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2009.
How anyone can seriously praise the SPLC and its spurious fund raising propaganda as factual is beyond me.
Of the 926 “hate groups” listed on their “Hate Map,” 127 are not affiliated with any location and not one single group is documented in any way.
These groups exist simply because the SPLC says they do, and if only their largely elderly donor base would send just a little more money, Mo Dees could “fight hate” all the better.
In the meantime, the SPLC sits atop a $200 MILLION donor dollar “Endowment Fund,” but the calls go out every month for more donations.
Just this month, the SPLC’s PR guru, Mark Potok, admitted that his “Intelligence Report,” the keystone of all SPLC fund raising propaganda, “…relies on media, citizen and law enforcement reports, and does not include original reporting by SLPC staff.”
(http://www.postcrescent.com/article/200907…)
Some experts. And for running this glorified news clipping service, Potok, who has no legal or law enforcement background, is compensated more than $143,000 donor dollars a year.
A “hate group” doesn’t even have to be a group to add its mite to the fund raising scare tactics.
“Potok says inclusion on the list might come from a minor presence, such as a post office box.”
(http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/st…)
Boy, you can’t beat hardcore crime fighting like that.
“Keeping America safe from PO boxes for almost 40 years!”
It’s easy enough to kick groups like the Minutemen when they insist that existing US laws be enforced, but why not engage in some REAL journalism and take ten minutes to visit the SPLC’s web site and take a serious look at the information they produce and then follow the money trail.
You won’t do it, but you’re not alone. Almost nobody else in the “media” has the journalistic qualities to take a hard look at these fear-mongering race-baiters either.
Splc ,POTOK IS A TOTAL PHONIE HE TAKES EVERYTHING FROM INTERNET AND PRINTS IT ,,,HE NEVER GOES OUT AND DOES HIS HOME WORK,,
She is just another pro-illegal goon spewing her rhetoric. If she wanted to really do her homework she would know that the Minuteman Civil Defence Corp. has a Search and rescue team that saves the live of illegals left in the desert then we do whats right and call Border Patrol, not harbor and transport illegals to safe houses. The group she is giving proceeds to have been criminally charged for transporting illegals in the past. Similar groups are responsible for killing cattle and other livestock by leaving trash behind in the desert. The Minutemen I know have saved over 400 lives in the short time they have had the search and rescue team. Keep in mind these are poeple that leave the comforts of thier homes and family to save LIVES.
Do we carry guns, HELL YEA we do, with the number of groups carry drugs into our country every day you would be stupid not to.
No one in the movement is anti-immigrant, WE ARE ANTI-ILLEGAL.
I would like to see her do a story about all of the American who have been killed by the illegals, its in the ballpark of 67,000.
One more note, people like to call us racist, if that were the case, I belive we would have only “white” members. We have people from all over the world who are minutemen.
So the race card is a old tactic that doesnt stick.
Your glib comment about those delusional Minutemen being overgrown Boy Scouts who view Mexicans as …”invaders with an insidious plan to take back the Gadsden Purchase through baby-making.” is quite interesting. History is replete with civilizations who sit back on their heels while geopolitical forces are reshaping societies and borders.
Charles Truxillo is a professor of Chicano Studies at the University of New Mexico. He has explicitly stated and believes that the Republica del Norte (what we now know as Arizona, New Mexico, southern Colorado California and Texas) will be a reality in the near future.
Truxillo has said the new country belongs to Mexico since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ceded this territory is invalid.
He has also been quoted as saying “We will one day be a majority and reclaim our birthright by any means necessary — and we shouldn’t shy away.” Sounds a bit like a plan to reclaim the territory through illegal immigration and baby-making to me…