August 23, 2005

"Poisonous election" indeed: more smears of the Minuteman Project

Someone named "Humberto Caspa" predicts a "poisonous election" in Orange County CA's 48th District Congressional election in 2006. And, for an unknown reason, a little-known newspaper called the Daily Pilot has printed his ramblings.

In that district the head of the Minuteman Project, Jim Gilchrist, will be squaring off against Republican state Sen. John Campbell. And, Caspa predicts that Gilchrist will make it a dirty campaign:

...soon Orange County will turn into an open forum for anti-immigration rhetoric and Latino bashing...

[The MMP is] a tiny minority in our political system, though they carry loudspeakers that magnify their anti-immigrant rhetoric whenever they move around.

These people aren't known for their peaceful demeanor. They like to show off their guns, a few of them own mean dogs and almost all have great distaste for anybody crossing the U.S.-Mexican border. Whether immigrants come by legal or illegal means matters little to them -- anyone with a Latino background is unwelcome.

...Then their vigilante approach moved to the California border, where they found a stiff challenge from well-organized groups in the Mexican-American community and from human rights activists...

Obviously, Caspa is trying for a self-fulfilling prophecy. He's also apparently a professor of political economics at the State University of California San Marcos, although he isn't identified as such in the article.

If Caspa's editorial isn't self-fisking and self-discrediting enough, let's look at the last paragraph. Here's a transcript of a CNN report on those "human rights activists":

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Outnumbering the minutemen, a group of aggressive protesters who tried to drive the civilian volunteers away. They included anarchists, communists and advocates of returning the southwest to Mexico... This local rancher had to be rescued by sheriff's deputies after protesters surrounded his motorcycle. One minuteman did leave his post, but most others stood their ground. This state senator was also harassed by the mob while touring the minuteman outposts... Well, it's amazing. There were a wide range of groups. Most of them advocating just completely disassembling the borders, doing away with the borders... I mean, we talk about the open borders crowd on this program. This really was the open borders crowd. They're talking about there should be no border here.

It bears repeating that America has many enemies, and not all of them live in other countries.

Posted to Immigration2005b at August 23, 2005 03:40 PM

Comments

It's really curious the people who get their thoughts -- such as they are -- published. Far be it from me to suggest that their position on the issue, rather than any eloquence or ability to think logically and form an argument, is seemingly what's important. I've seem numerous examples where academics embarrass themselves by putting out trite crap like this.

And the oftenness with which this sort of thing appears should really make things clear: it definitely is an 'us vs them' sort of thing -- recall your "Wellington Webb: all power to the People of Color!" post.

Posted by: eh at August 24, 2005 03:21 AM

I knew Bush have given up on the War on Terror last Feb when he joined the ACLU and MoveOn's Soros and called these terrorist fighters "Vigilantes". Even after making a hard liberal turn Bush still gets mostly flak from the MS, as do these patriots, serves him right for betraying those who voted for him.

Posted by: Rodney A Stanton at August 25, 2005 09:23 AM