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The Homeland War

by Leslie Radford Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007 at 8:32 PM
leslie@radiojustice.net

Even as they face escalating government threats to their lives, freedom, and human rights, migrant day laborers, with their supporters, face down the cazamigrantes in San Juan Capistrano.

The Homeland War...
statement.jpg, image/jpeg, 589x422

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, 27 January 2007 - It was just another skirmish in the two-year war on migrants.  Sixty minutemen, from San Diego Minutemen and Save Our State, tried to run day laborers out of San Juan Capistrano, but they were held at bay by thirty or so determined day laborers and their supporters.

But the terrain has changed in this low-grade war.  The Border Patrol still shoots and kills people on the border, but only a few a year.  Thousands of others die because they're forced to cross through the heat of the desert or the cold of the mountains.  What's new is a year's worth of terrorism, come home to southern California just last week.  Last week, Department of Homeland Security ICE agents rousted more than 700 people from their beds in an early morning raid across the Los Angeles area demanding papers, leaving in their wake terrified neighbors and children too fearful to attend school.  Yesterday, in Contra Costa County, federal agents identified themselves as police to gain admittance to people's homes, and grabbed more than 200 people off bicycles and away from their dinner tables.  Reports to date list only one of these nearly one thousand detainees who has been arrested for a felony.  The rest were tossed into detention camps, and half have already been shipped away.  Five weeks ago agents with automatic rifles raided workplaces in a coordinated raid across several midwestern states, identified people who didn't appear to be foreign-born with blue plastic wristbands, and transported the Spanish-surnamed people thousands of miles from family and lawyers to the camps.  It took a month and a union-instigated lawsuit to locate everyone.

President Bush announces that he plans to continue deportation "without animosity."  The Democratic-controlled Congress sets their immigration priorities: more confrontations at the border with Mexico, more workplace roundups, and, for those migrants who manage to remain, nearly impossible hurdles to legal status.

Leading provocateurs of the anti-migrant sentiment, the minutemen, early this morning targeted a donut store in San Juan Capistrano, where migrants wait and hope that more affluent people will hire them for a day's labor.

Today the laborers were beset with dozens of U.S. flags and nearly as many video cameras, patriotic songfests, and five hours of insults and intimidation from a bullhorn from the minutemen across the street.  "Too much teatro," a worker concluded with a frustrated, slightly disgusted expression.

With minutemen, jornaleros, and migrant advocates interspersed on the other side of Doheny Park Road -- and the cops nearly invisible in a nearby parking lot -- the protest became a verbal tournament.

The bullhorn announced, "you see the mix of races," referring to an African-American woman and a Mexican migrant among the otherwise white minuteman faces.  A "patriot," meanwhile, declared, "The Irish didn't drive down wages."

Another confronted a migrant supporter who was wearing a bandanna: "Are you a leper?  Are you on probation or parole?"

On minutewoman challenged the defenders by mocking their youth.  "I give you ten more years," she pontificated to one labor supporter.  "What?  To get bitter and cynical and become a minuteman?" he retorted.  Following her friend's theme, she responded to a compatriot, "He's a 17-year-old leper who works at Mother's Market."

A contractor hired a jornalero, and a minuteman on a motorcycle took off down the street after the truck.

"You need a benevolent and strong government system," another nationalist offered, "like the Roman Empire and the Egyptians."  He claimed the ancient Egyptians didn't have slaves, and didn't mention Rome's habit of feeding prisoners of war to lions for public amusement.  A few moments later he added, "My grandfather was Mexican. . . . OK, white Mexican, but so what?"

The bullhorn declared that migrants are subhuman.  "You can tell by the clothes they wear, by their attitude, their language."  Then the bullhorner pointed to a large sign with professionally-produced lettering and proclaimed, "Brokebutt Border, where Americans get screwed."  He hopped around shaking his ass at the crowd across the street and called over his shoulder, "Kiss me before he breaks it off in there" and "It's getting a little raw down there."

A cop pulled up and asked the minutemen on the counterprotesters' side to chill with the inflammatory rhetoric.  At the minutemen's insistence, he rebuked a counterprotester before he left.  When he drove off, a minuteman complained to a small group of counterprotesters, "You're not going to solve anything by calling names.  Say you're the only one smoking crack and sticking gerbils up your ass.  Is it fair to generalize?"  A man snapped back, "This is not a 'let's work together' rally."  "You guys are scapegoating poor people," one supporter told a video camera clutched protectively in front of a minutewoman's face.  "If you want affordable health care, talk to the government."  The only response was from a minuteman who mumbled, "He's a chica."

The bullhorner declared, "The rest of us have our fingerprints registered by the FBI.  We don't know who you are."

A woman spat on a minuteman organizer's flag.  The minuteman sought out a videographer to record the woman's face while proclaiming he didn't care about the spitting incident.  Meanwhile, a minutewoman pronounced, "Spitting on the flag -- that's desecrating the flag.  That's a federal offense."

A contractor pulled into the parking lot, and the minutemen rushed over to deter him.  The contractor assured the minutemen that he paid all the requisite business and employee taxes.  The call went out from the workers and their supporters:  would a minuteman take the job?  Eventually a white-bearded minuteman agreed and climbed into the truck, to the laughter of the laborers.  The contractor and the minuteman drove off, but the minuteman reappeared about half an hour later, admitting that he had been fired.

The bullhorn called out "Whose streets?"  The counterprotesters quickly shot back, "Our streets!"  "Who's jobs?"  Before the minutemen caught on, the counterprotesters chimed in, "Our jobs!"  "Whose country?"  A pause, and then a handful of minutemen recognized their cue: "Our country," they mumbled.

One Mexican worker told the minutemen, "California is Mexico.  Texas is Mexico.  Arizona is Mexico.  It isn't now," he clarified, "but it is." 

Several minutemen jumped in.  "I can't go to the emergency room and get care."  "My father had to take his business out of state because he wouldn't hire illegal aliens."  "How come hookers can't work legally but illegal aliens can?"  "Morally, it's never right to break a law, whether it's right or not."  

Off to one side, a minuteman sneered and quietly threatened a counter protester, "You'll be in a hospital longer than I'll be in jail."

"What do we want?" the bullhorn asked.  "Deportation!"  The minutemen had found the rhythm.  "When do you want it?"  "Now!"

A minutewoman continued the conversation:  "Have you ever seen an M-16?"

A migrant supporter asked, "What's the problem?"  "They're breaking laws" was the response.  "No, what's the problem with these people being here?" he persisted.  "The problem is that these are people not obeying the laws of the land."  Another added, "Laws are meant to make a cohesive society."  A counterprotestor retorted, "What about slavery?  Those were unjust laws."  A minuteman replied, "We're talking about now, not then.  Are you a communist?  Are you a Mexican?  Are you a proud American citizen?"

The counterprotestors didn't answer.

After exhorting a jornalero ally for calling a minuteman a "fucker," a minutewoman finally conceded, "The Lord Jesus Christ is the only way out of this mess."  A beat, then the man shot back, "You believe in god, I believe in cuss words."

As the flagwavers across the street sang "God Bless America," the bullhorn implored, "Where are we going to go when the United States becomes a horrible, awful place to live?"

A minutewoman declared, "If you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em."  Asked if she was saying Mexicans have too many kids, a minuteman passing by answered, "Yes."  Then it was her turn: "Illegal aliens cross the border with fifteen children.  They expect us to pay for them."  Her friend added, "We put stray dogs to sleep in Los Angeles.  It's comparable.  There's a lot of overbreeding."

The bull horn queried, "Who are we saying we're better than?"

One minuteman was asked about the "Europeans who came over here, walked off the boat, and killed and raped and destroyed everyone in their path."  "Crap happens," he shrugged, "It happens to every race."

It was noon, the minutemen were packing it up, so I dashed across the street, where I found four white guys with close-cropped hair lurking behind the minuteman line.  "Are you minutemen?" I opened the conversation.  "No, but after today, I'm going to join," the lead guy said.  A few minutes later I was told to go back to my country.  "I don't want to push 'one' for English," he told me.  Is it a problem to push that button?  "It's an insult," he announced to a backslap from one of his pals.

Then, except for two stragglers, the minutemen were gone.  A former day laborer told me his story.  "I worked hard in this country for twenty-five years, paid taxes, never took anything for nothing, raised four children.  I'm retired, and they want to separate me from my family.

"This isn't the land of the free," he went on.  "You pay for everything here.  Last week I paid $400 to take my children's children to Disneyland, and that was just to get in.  Three dollar Cokes, three dollars for a champurrado."  He shook his head.

The minutemen promised to return next week to San Juan Capistrano.  And like the swallows, and in spite of the efforts of the minutemen, the Department of Homeland Security, the Congress, and the President, the migrants will be there, too.

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by Leslie Radford Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007 at 8:32 PM
leslie@radiojustice.net

...
anti_racism.jpg, image/jpeg, 415x336

error
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by Leslie Radford Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007 at 8:32 PM
leslie@radiojustice.net

...
fashion_statement.jpg, image/jpeg, 242x448

a loincloth?
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by Leslie Radford Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007 at 8:32 PM
leslie@radiojustice.net

...
half-hour_worker.jpg, image/jpeg, 448x278

he lasted half an hour
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by Leslie Radford Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007 at 8:32 PM
leslie@radiojustice.net

...
homophobia.jpg, image/jpeg, 448x309

error
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by Leslie Radford Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007 at 8:32 PM
leslie@radiojustice.net

...
in_your_face.jpg, image/jpeg, 433x336

error
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by Leslie Radford Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007 at 8:32 PM
leslie@radiojustice.net

...
squaring_off.jpg, image/jpeg, 336x398

error
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by Leslie Radford Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007 at 8:32 PM
leslie@radiojustice.net

...
punks.jpg, image/jpeg, 428x336

future minutemen
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by Leslie Radford Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007 at 8:32 PM
leslie@radiojustice.net

...
nativism_is_so.jpg, image/jpeg, 448x315

error
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degrading

by Blah Monday, Jan. 29, 2007 at 3:26 PM

That's degrading to put the flag where you piss from. SOS/MM should be piss off. Does that guy masterbate with that flag on too?
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reply

by Jammer CC Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2007 at 1:38 AM

According to Rockerman on the SOS forums, they're gonna be there again. If you're going this Saturday to counter protest, beware of the guy who made threats to me. You can catch my videos on youtube under my username "silascode." In the video of the guy with the Gilchrist hat, you see another guy sitting on his bike with his sunglasses on his cap. That guy on the bike is the one who threatened me. I may put the footage of him doing that on here.
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Who Would Jesus Deport?

by repost Thursday, Feb. 01, 2007 at 5:06 AM

Do most Evangelicals support mass deportations?


Who Would Jesus Deport?


By Alexander Zaitchik, Intelligence Report
Posted on January 29, 2007, Printed on January 29, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/46853/

When Joan Maruskin took the podium last April at a Family Research
Council (FRC) immigration conference in Washington, D.C., it was hard
not to think of Daniel in the lion's den: The liberal director of the
Church World Service Immigration Program was addressing an audience
convened by a major force on the Christian religious right. It was not
her crowd.

It turned out that the Book of Daniel was among the few books of the
Bible that Maruskin didn't quote. While making the Christian case for
amnesty, she demonstrated that the Old and New Testaments are chock-full
of soundbyte-ready advocacy for the "stranger." All told, she counts
more than 300 scriptural admonishments to mercy toward immigrants.

"The Bible is an immigration handbook," Maruskin told the FRC audience.
"'Cursed be the person who oppresses the alien.' Can we forget that
Christ himself was a migrant and a refugee, born in a stable? Under our
laws, Mary, Joseph and Jesus would be sent to three different prisons."

A powerful image, but Maruskin's position is far from dominant on the
religious right. In a FRC member poll conducted last spring, 90% of
respondents chose forced deportation as the appropriate fate for
America's estimated 11 million-12 million undocumented immigrants. This
response aligns the FRC base with fire-breathing hard-liners like U.S.
Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), the evangelical co-sponsor of an
immigration reform bill notable for its criminalization of those who
"aid and abet" illegal immigrants, something many religious leaders and
laymen see as a Christian duty.

So it wasn't surprising that Maruskin's social-gospel message received a
tepid response from the FRC audience. Heartier applause greeted the
conservative Catholic journalist John O'Sullivan, who followed Maruskin
to the podium and scoffed at her liberal "proof-texting" of Scripture.
Arguing that such selective quotation did not "contribute to the
debate," he tried to debunk the argument for amnesty and dismissed
Maruskin and her ilk as "moral bullies."

"The fact is," said O'Sullivan, "most Christians are more hard-line when
it comes to immigration than their Church leaders. Are all of these
people going to hell?"

A better question might be: When did immigration assume a place next to
abortion and traditional marriage as a "family" issue for the religious
right? And is this new and highly charged issue a threat to that
movement's much-vaunted "culture war"? Or is it a legitimate part of it?

The 'definitive divide'?

The ascendance of immigration as a burning issue on the religious right
has been swift. Conservative commentators and politicians have both
fueled and responded to a grassroots movement in which anti-immigrant
rhetoric dovetails with the odes to God and country that have long
constituted conservative evangelical boilerplate. Hard-right evangelical
politicians like Tancredo have built national constituencies by blending
anti-immigrant rhetoric into broadsides against secular liberals and
Islamist radicals.

After languishing for years in smaller Christian nationalist groups like
Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, the immigration issue has now landed
squarely on the agenda of larger religious right groups with political
clout. Tony Perkins, president of the influential FRC, signaled this
shift while opening last April's immigration conference. "At question
today is, do we have an immigration policy that is serving to strengthen
the cultural fabric of our nation, which has a great influence on the
family?" he asked. "The answer is no. We must get this right."

Getting it right will not and has not been easy for the religious right,
any more than it has been for the country as a whole. Unlike abortion,
the immigration issue has sharply divided the movement's leaders and
political allies. Fierce "pro-family" culture warriors stand on both
sides of the debate, with religious right advocates in Washington
backing two radically different visions of immigration reform as
symbolized by the House and Senate immigration bills unveiled last
winter.

A unified evangelical position could do much to determine the shape of
immigration reform, which was to be taken up again by Congress after the
midterm elections in November. How the religious right tilts or
fractures over the issue also holds stakes for the movement itself. A
deep rift or further right turns could jeopardize the religious right's
political coherence as well as its potentially natural alliance with
America's growing and culturally conservative Latino and predominantly
Catholic population.

Already, there are signs of a split. According to the Pew Research
Center, 63% of white evangelicals view immigrants as a "threat to U.S.
customs and values," compared to 48% of the population as a whole. (Only
39% of secular respondents held negative views of immigrants.) Though
the two most influential Christian Right groups -- James Dobson's Focus
on the Family and its spawn the Family Research Council -- have avoided
taking an official position on the issue, their mostly white flock has
already tacked hard right.

Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian
Leadership Conference, says the Latino community is aware of rising
anti-immigrant sentiment on the religious right and is "very concerned"
about attitudes such as those reflected in the FRC poll.

"Before immigration came along, we were building an alliance," says
Rodriguez. "We had agreement on traditional marriage, partial birth
abortion -- so many threads were being woven together. Immigration
threatens to become the definitive divide."

Meeting of the minds

The Secure Borders Coalition is where the religious right meets and
meshes with the extreme end of anti-immigrant politics. An alliance of
Christian Right groups, hard-right organizations like Accuracy in Media
and the Swift Boat Veterans, and strident but secular anti-immigration
outfits such as the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, the coalition in June
issued a strong statement opposing all amnesty and guest worker
proposals. It vowed to oppose any candidate, regardless of his or her
stance on other issues, who does not toe the line on immigration.
Remarkably, it also calls for a near-freeze in legal immigration.

"We favor a policy of attrition of the illegal population through strong
enforcement of our nation's immigration laws, which includes, first and
foremost, the securing of our borders," reads the coalition statement.
"[W]e dedicate ourselves to defeating any 2008 presidential candidate
who [disagrees]... . We pledge to do so regardless of political party
and in both the primaries and the general election."

The list of religious-right figures signing the coalition statement is
long and varied. It includes Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, Lou
Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition, Howard Phillips' Conservative
Caucus and Bishop Harry R. Jackson of Hope Christian Ministries. The
signatories concerned primarily with immigration include English First,
the American Council for Immigration Reform, the Center for Immigration
Studies, Pro-English, and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

One possible future for this nexus can be glimpsed in the budding
relationship between two Secure Border Coalition members -- a
relationship that links religious-right political muscle to the literal
muscle of the vigilante border-patrol movement. Last spring, Chris
Simcox put his Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC) under the wing of
Alan Keyes' Declaration Alliance, a group dedicated to overturning Roe
v. Wade that also believes in a "founding mandate to freely and publicly
acknowledge the authority of the Creator God." Along with imbuing the
Simcox group with a touch of the divine, the MCDC/Keyes arrangement saw
Simcox's mailing lists handed over to Response Unlimited, a
Keyes-connected Christian mailing and telemarketing firm that now sells
lists of MCDC donors for $120 per thousand names.

Another, similar relationship is developing between the Eagle Forum
(founded in 1972 and one of the oldest religious right groups) and the
Minuteman Project of Jim Gilchrist, Simcox's former organizational
partner (Gilchrist did not join the Secure Borders Coalition). The Eagle
Forum's Schlafly, a long-time gay-basher, believes that guest-worker
programs and amnesty are "immoral." The Christian thing to do, argued
Schlafly in her newsletter last January, is to "erect a fence and double
our border agents in order to stop the drugs, the smuggling racket, the
diseases, and the crimes." Gilchrist, who holds a similar view, was a
featured guest at the 35th annual Eagle Forum Conference in September.

Other religious right groups may not be officially aligned with the
border-vigilante movement, but hold views indicating sympathy or
approval.

"As the United States Senate continues debate on an immigration reform
bill, the American people are backed up by the Bible in their demands
that America's national boundaries are to be respected," writes Roberta
Combs, national president of the Christian Coalition. "The left wing in
this nation is thoroughly wrong when they argue that 'because Christ
showed compassion to all of God's children, Christians should ignore
violations of the law by aliens.'"

'Culture,' Christianity and race

The kind of first-principle absolutism found in the Secure Borders
Coalition statement, once reserved for the so-called culture war,
indicates that immigration has touched a central nerve on the religious
right. But it is not simply a national-security or law-and-order nerve,
as no other national security issue generates so much heat within the
movement.

So what's going on? In the words of FRC's Tony Perkins, what's at stake
is not so much guarding America's security as protecting its "cultural
fabric."

Gary Bauer, president of American Values and an icon of the religious
right, has said as much. In June, Bauer wrote an op-ed for USA Today
that decried the failure of Latino immigrants to integrate into American
society. "Hyphenated Americans put other countries and affiliations
first, and they drive a wedge into the heart of 'one nation'," he wrote.

In choosing to highlight the "cultural" dimension of Latino immigration,
Bauer echoed the nativist argument offered by Patrick Buchanan in his
bestselling anti-immigrant screed, State of Emergency. Bauer also lifted
a lid on the motivations of many anti-immigration voices on the
Christian Right -- motivations more commonly cloaked in the rhetoric of
law and order. Bauer admits as much, calling culture the "unmentioned
undercurrent" in the immigration debate.

Some, farther out on the intellectual fringes of the movement, are more
blunt. Thomas Fleming, president of the Christian-flavored Rockford
Institute and, like Buchanan, a Catholic, says "culture" sits at the
heart of his anti-immigration position. At a September
institute-sponsored conference in Washington where Sen. John Cornyn
(R-Texas) delivered the keynote address, Fleming said that "the cultural
ambience aspect of [the immigration debate] is the only one that
interests me." Writing in the Rockford Institute magazine Chronicles: A
Magazine of American Culture, Fleming was plainer about what he means
when he says "culture," admitting, "Whatever we may say in public, most
of us do not much like Mexicans, whom we regard as too irrational, too
violent, too passionate."

"Some American Catholics think we should welcome the hordes of pro-life
Catholics swarming across our southern border," continued Fleming. "But
this is a mistake. Mexicans quickly become acclimated to America's
culture of consumerism and infanticide. What they do not appear to
relinquish is their own traditional style of violence."

Nor has the contentious question of culture completely escaped the
notice of James Dobson's much larger and more mainstream Focus on the
Family, which maintains a Spanish-language website and has been cautious
on the issue. Last summer, the group's website chose to run a shining
review of Victor Davis Hanson's Mexifornia, a lament for the defunct
white-majority California of Hanson's youth. "Jobs do indeed have a lot
to do with the issue [of immigration]," the Focus reviewer wrote. "But
not as much as culture -- and that's what should really concern
Americans most."

The issue of immigration, it seems, not only threatens the success of
the religious right's larger culture war by alienating conservative
Latinos. Immigration is also a growing component of that culture war.

Hard to starboard

Nativism has been a recurring obsession among religious Americans since
the colonial era. As they assume battle positions in the 21st-century
immigration debate, today's hard-line crusaders echo mid-19th century
Know-Nothings who decried "ignorant and depraved foreigners" from Italy
and Ireland. Ditto 20th-century nativists like FDR's Assistant Secretary
of State, Breckinridge Long, who thought Jewish and Slavic immigrants
were "entirely unfit to become citizens of this country. ... They are
lawless, scheming, [and] defiant."

Such bald sentiments are not often heard in the larger religious-right
groups, many of whose positions are informed by Biblical injunctions to
mercy toward the "stranger," the groups' connections to the business
wing of the Republican Party, and a desire to cultivate Latinos as
religious and political allies in the culture war. But there is a clear
trend-line running right among a segment of culturally conservative
Christians, one that worries moderate evangelicals and Latinos alike.
What remains to be seen is whether the larger Christian Right will drift
into the arms of the hard-line anti-immigration camp, and how this will
affect the movement.

"I don't think white evangelicals are racist," says Rev. Samuel
Rodriguez of the Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. "But the
Latino community is starting to have some concerns that need to be
addressed. We must start changing hearts and minds through dialogue. The
risk of polarization is real."

Alexander Zaitchik is a freelance writer in Washington, DC.


© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/46853/

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Any bets

by Kristina Davis (via nazis for target practice Thursday, Feb. 01, 2007 at 7:02 PM

Anyone wondering what the minutemen did after they messed up traffic and messed with migrants in Capistrano?

Saturday evening, "joaquinsantigo" wrote on the SOS list: "By the way, there is a migrant camp on the hillside of the Pacific Coast Highway - Route 1 where a number of the laborers "live." I don't believe Orange County/Dana Point will be as complacent about this as San Diego Count as been."

Maybe a little beer, a little talk, a little more beer, then, maybe, come Sunday morning:

_________________________________


Vandals strike migrant encampments


Possessions slashed; police investigating
By Kristina Davis
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
January 30, 2007

RANCHO PENASQUITOS – Dozens of migrant workers returned to their canyon encampments Saturday afternoon to find their belongings slashed to pieces, police said yesterday.

Several small encampments throughout Rancho Peñasquitos were targeted in a string of attacks, said attorney Claudia Smith of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

“It was truly stunning to see and pick your way through maybe 100 items, and every one of them is slashed. Jackets right down the middle,” said Smith, who notified police after reports of the attacks began to pour in Saturday. “This was so vicious and so deliberate.”

San Diego police Capt. Boyd Long said the incidents were under investigation.

Officers interviewed victims yesterday and toured the encampments, including one near Rancho Peñasquitos Boulevard and state Route 56.

It was unclear if there were witnesses or how many people were responsible for the vandalism.

The destruction appeared methodical, Smith said; for example, all the pants were slashed from the crotch down the side of the leg.

Pencils, cell phone chargers and a child's belt were not spared, she said.

“One old man kept saying to me 'mis zapatos (my shoes),' making a slashing movement in the air,” Smith said. “The workers were just stunned.”

Authorities say some of the encampments emerged in the area after migrants were ordered to clear out of nearby McGonigle Canyon in November.

The workers, many of whom are undocumented, had squatted on private land in McGonigle Canyon off and on for the past 20 years.

Landowners and police were working on a long-term plan to close the encampments last year, but the effort was hastened in November when residents, joined by supporters of the Minuteman Project, loudly protested the camps.

Developer D.R. Horton, one of the landowners, since has posted No Trespassing signs in McGonigle Canyon and torn down the large shantytown.

Many of the evicted migrants are believed to have relocated to Rancho Peñasquitos on land that is part of an open-space preserve and part privately owned, police said. Caltrans also owns some of the land along the freeway.




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by Jammer CC Thursday, Feb. 01, 2007 at 7:52 PM

As mentioned in the article, someone said that he'll be out of jail before the counter protestor he threatened is out of the hospital. I'm not sure if that guy is an actual Minuteman but he was definitely supportive of them and interacted with them as if he was one of them. And I'm the one he threatened. I got it on video so I'm gonna prepare the footage to show here. Stay tuned...
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by Jammer Cc Thursday, Feb. 01, 2007 at 8:35 PM

video: windows media at

Here's the video of the guy who made threats to me. If you go to Capistrano to counter protest against the Minutemen/SOS this Saturday, keep an eye out for this guy and avoid him. If he gives you or anyone any trouble, it's best to let the police know about this. If he's just talking trash, just let him interact with the Minuteman participants or be by himself to be miserable. If he physically strikes anyone, tell the police and let them handle it. I've interacted with the police and they were cooperative. If it looks like he's about to strike someone, film him from a good distance for your own safety. I doubt he'll try to seriously hurt someone but if he does that, any decisions on apprehension and self defense is your call. Infact it's all your call but I'm just making suggestions. Doing anything malicious to him isn't a good idea so I suggest you don't be tempted. Let the Minuteman/SOS participants make the mistakes.

While watching the footage of him, it may look like I was following him with my camcorder. But that was hardly the case. You can even see in one part where he approaches me. I was always a distance from him and besides, this was all in public. I continued to film him because of the threats he made against me. If someone threatens me like that, of course I'd want it on film to show the police and to show on the internet or where ever for everyone's awareness.

You'll see Minuteman/SOS participants consistently hound people with their video cameras, as seen on their videos on youtube. You'll see one of them actually follow a man into the donut shop/restaurant much like a paparazzi photographer would do to a celebrity. I don't do this.

I probably could press charges against the man shown in this video making threats. However, I'm not out to try to get people arrested for any reason I can find. I'm not there to play that kind of game. Even though he tapped me with a protest sign and made the verbal threats, I'm still okay to let that go. I did of course let the police know about this and will do so again if I'm there this Saturday.

After everyone left, I walked back to where I was parked with two other people. The man who made the threats follow us on his bike, as seen in the video. We ended up going to a Staples center where I called the police over. By the time they arrived, the man was out of sight. I left safety in my car and I assume the other two people did so on their bikes. They left and I thought they were saying they will pack their bikes and come back to where I was speaking with an officer. I didn't hear them and they must have meant they're leaving since that was the last time I saw them. Hopefully I'll see them this Saturday and let them know I did try to look for them for a while before leaving in my car.

If the man shown in the video follows you when you're trying to leave, try to video tape him from a safe distance. Don't be afraid to call the police.

If calling the local police, you can call the Dana Point or San Juan Capistrano police.

The number for the San Juan Capistrano non-emergency police is 949-443-6369

The number for the Dana Point Police services is (949) 248-3500

If it's a case of emergency, obviously call 911.

Good luck.
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by Jammer CC Thursday, Feb. 01, 2007 at 8:38 PM

I meant Staples store, not center as in the sports arena. Obviously we weren't in Los Angeles.
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Anarchists

by johnk Friday, Feb. 02, 2007 at 10:32 AM

A lot of anarchists believe they are mainstream, and that normal people don't like authoritarian rule, so they can be persuaded to an anarchist philosophy.

The problem is, many people like authoritarian rule, when they happen to benefit from the tyranny.
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Minutemom

by Gabe Friday, Feb. 02, 2007 at 10:02 PM

That minutemom chick is hot.
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by Jammer CC Saturday, Feb. 03, 2007 at 12:03 AM

Ask her out at the next rally. You'll recognize her right away. She wears camouflage and is really tall, looks like 6 foot 8 or so. Good luck.
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Gabe

by Duh Saturday, Feb. 03, 2007 at 1:30 PM

I think Gabe meant Barbara Coe.
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by Jammer CC Saturday, Feb. 03, 2007 at 6:20 PM

Okay then look for the elderly lady who calls certain people "savages." She wasn't at the rally though.
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Barbara Coe

by scientist Saturday, Feb. 03, 2007 at 6:53 PM

Barbara Coe...
chimp_like.jpg, image/jpeg, 200x220

Barbara Coe is considered "hot" by some species particularly those with chromosomal differences of only about 3% from the homo sapien (chimps).
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by Jammer CC Saturday, Feb. 03, 2007 at 9:49 PM

Looks like the Minutemen/SOS will do it again tomorrow morning in less than 12 hours from now. Be sure to view the video clip I posted above and if you see that guy tomorrow, be aware of where he is if he's near you. I don't know his name but the SOS guy with the long hair and beard may know so let the police there know about that. I've already made them aware of this guy but they still need his name and other info. They have their eye on him.
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by Jammer CC Sunday, Feb. 04, 2007 at 9:57 AM

I was there just now. Looks like the Minuteman parade didn't bother coming this time. There was only a couple of vehicles of the Minutemen I saw, including that of the bearded guy. They just stood across the street from the day labor site, I guess to take pictures or whatever. Their efforts won't amount to anything. With nothing else to do I headed home. This area is basically hassle-free for hard workers right now.
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bearded guy

by V Sunday, Feb. 04, 2007 at 10:33 AM

The bearded guy you are referring to is Mike Fair (aka Rockerman in SOS forum).
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by Jammer CC Sunday, Feb. 04, 2007 at 11:04 PM

Yes that is him.

I suppose the MM/SOS participants could have went somewhere this morning, maybe Lake Forest or Laguna Beach. If they did, I didn't know about it. I was at Capistrano from about 9am to almost 10am I think, and it was just two or three guys including Rockerman. I didn't see any pick ups. So we all basically drove there for nothing.

On the way home I saw another pick up site, possibly one the workers can go to if they're being hassled by the Minutemen. Of course I won't say exactly where. It is in front of a store, which isn't that good or proper, but hopefully the city will consider making a day labor hiring center like the one in Laguna Beach.
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by Jammer CC Monday, Feb. 05, 2007 at 2:59 AM

Their commitment seems to be fading hahahahahahahaha

http://www.saveourstate.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=21805&pid=1050021750&st=0&#entry1050021750
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