On the Minutemen

In the Shadow of the Minutemen

Sunday, February 26 2006 @ 06:00 PM PST
by Zach Morris, ARA

Their founders and spokesmen have appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs, Fox News' Hannity & Colmes and chapters have popped up from Bisbee, Arizona to Fort Lee, New Jersey, but what few know about the anti-immigrant, vigilante Minuteman Project is their connection to violent white power groups.

Their founders and spokesmen have appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs, Fox News' Hannity & Colmes and chapters have popped up from Bisbee, Arizona to Fort Lee, New Jersey, but what few know about the anti-immigrant, vigilante Minuteman Project is their connection to violent white power groups.

THE NEW THREAT
Founded by right-wing extremists Jim Gilchrist and Chris Simcox in April of 2005, the Minuteman Project ostensibly began as “a reminder to Americans that our nation was founded as a nation governed by the 'rule of law,' not by the whims of mobs of ILLEGAL [sic] aliens who endlessly stream across U.S. borders.” Vigilantes, many of them armed, pledged to keep watch on the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexican border, to detain anyone crossing the border illegally from Mexico and to promptly notify the U.S. Border Patrol of their location. Instead, their patrols have either been covert vigilante actions of questionable legality (there has been talk of setting up “sniper posts” along the border on Minutemen web forums, coincidental to a series of at least nineteen “unexplained” murders of Latino immigrants, by gunshot wounds, in the Arizona and New Mexico deserts) or have been orchestrated media stunts aimed at whipping up racist, anti-Latino sentiment.Supporters say that they are simply helping over-taxed, under-powered law enforcement perform their duties under the Constitution, but critics contend this is nothing more than a veil to legitimize the actions of violent racist organizations.The Minuteman Project has since moved from the U.S.-Mexican border to recruitment throughout the United States, usually in areas with a large or growing Latino immigrant population far away from any international borders.

COMMON THREADS
Looking at the background and political affiliations of the Minuteman Project's leadership, as well as the activities of its membership, critics' claims are not surprising.56-year old Gilchrist, the Minuteman Project's director who once envisioned a future where America would be host to “neighborhood armies of 20 to 40 going out and killing and invading one another” if immigration continued, is also a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens and the California Coalition for Immigration Reform. Both organizations are considered hate groups: the Council of Conservative Citizens opposes “race-mixing” and has close links to the neo-fascist British National Party, while Barbara Coe, president of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, refers to Mexicans as “savages” and claims to have knowledge of a “secret plan” by the Mexican government to invade and annex the American Southwest.Simcox joined forces with Gilchrist only after suffering a mental breakdown in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on NYC. Initially restricting himself to bizarre answering machine messages that demanded the caller recite the preamble to the Constitution before leaving a message, he left his home and family in Los Angeles to embark on an anti-immigrant crusade. His ex-wife, Kate Dunbar, filed for sole custody of their child in late 2001, citing “sudden, violent fits of rage,” paranoid outbursts and instances of child abuse at the hands of Simcox. Organizationally, the idea of holding vigilante patrols of the southern border is not new: the Ku Klux Klan did it in the 1960's and called it the Ku Klux Klan Border patrol. Then in the 1980's, the KKK did it again and called themselves the Minutemen. The 1960's also saw the rise of right-wing terrorist group who called for the assassination of left-wing student and civil rights activists. Their founder was arrested after an armed bank robbery attempt in 1968. The name of this right-wing terrorist organization? The Minutemen. Go figure.

DISSENT WITHIN THE RANKS
Interestingly enough, the most jarring criticism of the current Minutemen does not just come from anti-racist activists, it also comes from within the Minutemen's own ranks.Self-described anti-immigration activist Jim Chase, founder of the California Border Watch group, publicly severed all ties with the Minuteman Project and other groups in November of 2005. Chase stated in his open letter to them: “You have murderers in your ranks. You have Nazis, other anti-Jews, and anti-Hispanic racists side by side with you. You are whom you run around with. Proud to be a Minuteman now? You may not be so proud in the future.”What Chase is referring to is the deep association of the Minutemen to racist groups. In April of 2005, during the Minutemen's border watch, a neo-Nazi group called the National Alliance flooded the border towns of Bisbee, Douglas and Nogales with racist literature calling for the extermination of all non-whites in support of the Minuteman Project's efforts. Members of White Revolution, the National Vanguard and other Nazi groups have been featured prominently at Minutemen recruitment events. Most blatantly, many Minuteman affiliated groups, such as California's Save Our State, now openly embrace white power fascist politics.The Minutemen also claim to be peaceful, yet encourage their members to engage in armed patrols. They have also engaged in violence. On May 25, 2005, Minuteman supporter Hal Netkin drove his van into a crowd of anti-racist protesters outside of a Minuteman rally in Garden Grove California, sending two people to the hospital. Yet, in public, Minutemen spokesmen continue to deny such accusations.

CALLING THE BLUFF ON A POKER FACE
Local activists from Anti-Racist Action and the One People's Project recently exposed the band Poker Face for its anti-Semitism, leading to a flurry of follow up articles in local New Jersey papers. Poker Face was scheduled to play the NJ Libertarian Party's annual convention at the University Inn at Rutgers University, but after residents, students and alumnae sent letters and phone calls of protest to the administration, Rutgers pulled the plug. Rutgers' officials denied the cancellation had anything to do with the allegations of anti-Semitism. Lead singer Paul Topete repeatedly denied being anti-Semitic in interviews to various newspapers while at the same time effectively denying that the Holocaust ever happened. Topete also denied being racist by stating that he was half-Mexican.Well, it just so happens that after Poker Face's Rutgers appearance was canceled, they managed to book another show at a conference held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The conference just happened to be a recruitment meeting for a Pennsylvania chapter of the Minuteman Project, headed by John Ryan of Quakertown, PA. The conference was moved to that hotel after the management of the Valley Forge Convention Center canceled the Minutemen's event due to protests regarding the group's racist ties. Outside the conference, one attendee said to a protester holding a sign that read, The Minutemen are a Nazi Front: “Yes, we are, and proud of it!”

GROWING CONCERN, GROWING OPPOSITION
Despite being lauded by public figures such as CNN's Lou Dobbs, Fox's Sean Hannity and California Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar, there is growing opposition to the Minuteman Project, ranging from small community groups to national civil rights organizations and direct action oriented anti-racist activists. Yet all recognize the Minutemen for what they are, only a symptom of a much larger problem. While membership in racist organizations has declined over the past five years, the number of racist and anti-Semitic bias incidents has increased. Hysteria created by politicians and conservatives over national security issues, the so-called “Culture Wars” and the large influx of Latino immigrants is proving to be a volatile mix. Neo-Nazis have seized on this to incite violence against people of color, Jews, Muslims and homosexuals.

On February 25, the same day as the Minutemen conference in Pennsylvania, members of the swastika-armband clad National Socialist Movement attempted to march through a predominantly black neighborhood in Orlando, Florida. Others held rallies outside of Chicago. Additionally, the Minutemen held recruitment meetings in 43 cities nationwide that Saturday. Anti-racist and civil rights groups are gearing up for a long campaign to counter the shadow cast by organized racists. They vow to keep working until Americans realize that the only border the Minutemen are really interested in patrolling is the Mason-Dixon line. Until then, anti-racists will continue to be ready at a minute's notice to stand up against this new face of hate.