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We call on people everywhere to converge on the San Diego/Tijuana region and the Mexicali/Calexico region of the Mexico/US border in order to stop the vigilante operation being planned there by the Friends of the Border Patrol, beginning on September 16th. We also call on those who cannot travel to these areas to organize solidarity actions in their home towns rejecting the Minutemen, Borders and the racist ideologies that Borders are built on.
Our goal for Sep. 16th-18th is to take action and directly shut down the Minutemen operations.
In the war for corporate globalization, every place has been turned into a battlefield in a conflict with innumerable battles. The US/Mexico border is one of the many, deadly battlefields in this war. In this battlefield, the Border Patrol are its foot soldiers and the economic refugees dying in the desert are its victims. Still, the power of the border is that it stands for so many things which must be unraveled. The millions of people struggling in abject poverty and dying in silence are also the victims, not just those that die crossing.
The MinuteMen represent the worst kind of "American" bigotry, and we will not let them continue to organize to spread their hate. We oppose them for all of the following reasons:
- The MinuteMen are racist: while they claim to not be racist, their rhetoric is openly anti-Mexican and the are enforcing racist laws which have led to the deaths of over 3,200 people of color trying to cross the US/Meican Border.
- The MinuteMen are anti-queer: in our interactions with them, they have made numerous homophobic and anti-queer remarks.
- The MinuteMen are anti-Arab: From the SaveOurState.org website, a group which was present at the Campo Minutemen operation: "Well I have heard that Arabs and Arab culture is a lot like the Mexican culture. And that they are just as dirty, they both get along."
- The Minutemen openly work with hate groups: As the Southern Poverty Law Center recently wrote, with help from Indymedia photographs, SaveOurState.org is an organization that consists of members of the National Vangaurd neo-nazi organization. The presence of these hate groups in SOS has been defended by the leader of SOS. SOS works closely with the Minutemen and their members were present at the Campo operation.
- The MinuteMen are against cultural diversity: The SaveOurState.org forums have long rants about how everyone in the US should speak english, and speak without an accent. At public events, MinuteMen supporters have displayed signs saying "deportation or assimilation", a message which goes far beyond "illegal immigration"
- The MinuteMen think they are fighting a fictitious "war on terror": the MinuteMen have said numerous times that they want to keep Al-Quaeda from crossing the US/Mexico border, despite the fact that none of the 9/11 hijackers entered the country illegally. Their efforts to keep this fiction alive only promotes anti-Muslim hatred and the idea of a war without an end.
- The MinuteMen are opposed to women's rights: At our events they have accused women protesters of "killing babies", showing their opposition to the right to choose. In addition, the border that the Minutemen are enforcing supports a system where the majority of Maquiladora workers are women and where women are being murdered in Ciudad Juarez.
- The MinuteMen embody the violent nature of capitalism: MinuteMen supporters equate capitalism with freedom, while we know that capitalism means only freedom for the wealthy and exploitation for everyone else. We reject trade agreements like NAFTA, which are a result of capitalism, and which promote destructive globalisation. The Minutemen are enforcing a border regime that determines who can be exploited, since capital can move freely while people cannot.
- We are opposed to all borders as they are artificial barriers created by corporations and politicians to divide working and poor people from each other. Borders facilitate the exploitation of people on the "wrong side" of the line, and box in special privilges for those on the "right side" of the line. The increased militarization of borders by power-hungry and violent imperialists, corporations, and politicians is also a great concern for well-being of the global population. In addition, the U.S. / Mexican border is a far deadlier border than the Iron Curton was during the Cold War in Europe and represents the equivalant of a "wanted dead or alive" bounty on Mexican citizens and other foriegn nationals. The U.S. government would never tolerate its citizens being treated the way it itself treats, by its actions and inactions, the citizens of other nations.
No one is illegal. All people have a right to travel and migrate wherever they want. Our struggle works toward the liberation of migrant people, women, indigenous people, people of all nationalities, queers and people of color against the violent bigotry of the MinuteMen and we intend to stop their project from going any further.
Migration controls hurt everyone's freedom and privacy. Some of us are more directly targeted and affected by these policies, but all of our lives are being reshaped by them. We are in this struggle not only to reject and stop these racist attacks, but to move towards a world without borders, a world of liberation for all people.
This call endorsed by:
The o.r.g.a.n.i.c. Collective
Anarchist Action San Francisco
The San Francisco Bay Area Anti-Minutemen Coalition
To add your organization to the list of groups endorsing this call,
please email info@organicCollective.org
--
o.r.g.a.n.i.c.
Opposing Repression Globally and Nurturing Independent Communities
http://deleteTheBorder.org
http://organicCollective.org
[photo by aymara. graphic design by indio.]
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