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http://mimnotes.info/news.php?file=20050708cliffordalford More articles at: www.mimnotes.info
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Minuteman Clifford Alford admits to infiltrating ACLU
See also: mimnotes.info's "Minutemen" section.
By HC116, July 8, 2005
Posted on mimnotes.info July 8, 2005
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As reported in "Fox News lifts New Mexico Minutemen from obscurity," Clifford N. Alford, leader of the New Mexico chapter of James Chase's border vigilante and rabid anti-migrant organization called "Border Watch," has openly admitted on "The O'Reilly Factor" to infiltrating the American Civil Liberties Union.
The following is an excerpt from a transcript of the "The O'Reilly Factor" on July 5, 2005. John Kasich was filling in for Bill O'Reilly.
"KASICH: Now—now you want to be—patrol the border. I understand that. Minuteman, I think people are like—they didn't know what to think. Now they're saying they're a good group of people. Now, but you were in the ACLU. Why did you end up in the ACLU to begin with? This seems a little bit, like, whacky to me.
"[A]LFORD: Well, it probably would, except that I've been pretty much a right wing American most of my life, have served in the military, have done things along the way to support my country.
"And after 9/11 when my wife and I were moving out here to New Mexico, and I wanted to be able to do something. And I'm a little bit old and a little bit out of shape to be doing anything of a military nature.
"KASICH: Right.
"[A]LFORD: So I came here, registered as a Democrat for the first time in my life, joined the ACLU and told them I wanted to do something, and they put me on their board.
"KASICH: But why would you join the ACLU? I mean, if you were a military guy and all that, and you're on the border? I mean, were you trying to infiltrate here? What were you trying to do?
"[A]LFORD: Well, the ACLU overall is a pretty tame organization, but they attract a lot of strange, left-wing people. And it was a good place to be to kind of try and monitor that activity.
"The interesting thing here is that it turned out that the local board had—they had two or three of the people who you could really call liberals, a couple of us who were pretty right wing. And then the rest of them were pretty much moderates and worked on protecting everyone's civil rights."
"KASICH: Now...
"[A]LFORD: So it was a good place to be."(1)
After this awkward revelation, Kasich shifted focus to how tame the Minutemen supposedly were. Then, Kasich suggested that Clifford Alford's alienation from the ACLU represented a lack of "diversity" in the ACLU.(1) Kasich did not pursue the question about Alford's involvement in the ACLU further. The effect was to justify the infiltration and future infiltrations. This coincides with neo-McCarthyites' hysterically calling the Liberal ACLU a communist front group, and others' saying that the ACLU aids and abets "illegal" border-crossers and terrorists.
In June, the ACLU suspended its Las Cruces, New Mexico, chapter after it came out that chapter board member Clifford Alford was the leader of the New Mexico Minutemen vigilantes. Since the ACLU sent legal observers to the Arizona Minuteman Project, the ACLU has sustained persynal attacks and unsupported accusations of aiding various law-breakers.
The Associated Press has confirmed that Clifford Alford joined the ACLU "to monitor its activities."(2) Yet, Alford expects to be rehabilitated. Most tellingly, the Associated Press quoted Alford as saying in an editorial (
http://www.stoptheaclu.org/wst_page8.html) that the conservative American Legion "and other veterans groups" should infiltrate the ACLU. In other words, Alford has called for military types to infiltrate the ACLU. In his editorial on the Web site of the Stop the ACLU Coalition, hysterical reactionary Alford writes that the ACLU has become a communist front group. Barely concealing the reactionary nature of his infiltration, Alford says: "Communism was the greatest threat to our freedoms at that time, and if the truth be told, it still is."
Despite Kasich's silly remarks about diversity for armed vigilantes, the real lack of diversity is in this incorrigibly pro-imperialist media. From CNN to FOX, even the Minutemen's critics appearing in the mainstream media share anti-migrant activists' and advocates' chauvinist criteria for evaluating migration issues. They all say that there is an "immigration problem," and they all value Amerikan oppressors' and settlers' lives over the lives of exploited and oppressed people in the Third World. These reactionaries perceive Third World workers as potentially threatening to Amerikans when in fact the vast majority of Euro-Amerikans benefit from the imperialist exploitation of Third World workers. The Minutemen are one manifestation of this reaction against migrant proletarians.
While Clifford Alford ridiculously plays like he is oppressed by the ACLU, we should not forget that the Minutemen and the larger movement they partake in are deeply reactionary. This vicious movement to heighten the already ruthless and lethal repression of migrants must be defeated. The repression of migrants from Africa, Asian, and Latin America, is imperialist repression and reinforces the same imperialist system that oppresses Latinos, First Nation persyns, and other oppressed-nation people in the united $tates and throughout the world.
Nothing short of revolution can end this imperialist system, but we can and must defeat this reactionary movement that threatens fascist repression against migrant proletarians and other oppressed-nation people.
Notes
1. John Kasich, "ACLU Suspends Chapter for Border Watch Activity," "The O'Reilly Factor 8:49 PM EST," 5 July 2005, 070505cb.256.
"The O'Reilly Factor Flash," 5 July 2005,
http://www.billoreilly.com/show?action=viewTVShow&showID=349#5 2. "Southern N.M. ACLU on suspension until September," 6 July 2005,
http://www.dailystar.com/sn/hourlyupdate/82914.php "Alford—who said he joined the ACLU to monitor its activities—said he has no intentions of giving up his ACLU membership and will continue to monitor the border."