HOLLYWOOD, 11 February 2007--Yesterday at 10:45 a.m., ANSWER-LA led a small crew of fifteen, with banners, signs,\r\nand a blaring loudspeaker packed in a shopping cart, south down Argyle and\r\nacross Hollywood Boulevard into a sea of forty minutemen. Half an hour\r\nlater, the minutemen, amassed from across southern California, retreated to join\r\ntheir fellows on the southeast corner, pushed back by the growing crowd of\r\nprotesters.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
At an anti-minuteman protest last July 8 at the same location, the cops\r\ncornered and beat ANSWER-LA members in yet another videotaped\r\nLAPD brutality incident. In that instance, the cops decided not to press\r\ncharges. Today reporters at the march compared notes and came up with four or five\r\narrests, but only one was verifiable: a man carrying a concave foamboard sign\r\nwas deemed by the cops to be carrying a shield and, when he reappeared with the\r\nsign, was hauled off. A second arrest was reported by the Los\r\nAngeles Times.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Ultimately, about 120 protestors shouted down a nearly equal number of minutemen today on Hollywood\r\nBoulevard. The minutemen, formerly über-patriots \"defending\"\r\nthe U.S. from an \"invasion\" of \"illegal\" workers, are now\r\nattempting to bypass a jury trial and judicial appeals, demanding a\r\nCongressional or Presidential pardon for two border patrol agents convicted for assault\r\nwith serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm\r\nin relation to a crime of violence, civil rights' violations, and obstruction of\r\njustice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Deprived of their key speaker, an agents's father-in-law stalled en\r\nroute by a blown tire, the\r\nminutemen scrambled for alternates, who\r\nwere mostly drowned out by bullhorns, the loudspeaker, and the chants of angry\r\nprotestors. The minutemen cavalierly, and undeterred by the\r\ncops, moved through the protesters' ranks, along with a bevy of\r\nunidentified T-shirted young white men with close-cropped hair. The more notable\r\nminutemen were\r\nforced back into the street, and two were chased off when they tried to pose as\r\nundercover cops. Angry shouting matches erupted, as the minutemen crossed\r\nonto the sidewalk and the plaza behind it.<\/p>\r\n
What could be heard was a speaker announcing that \"the streets have been\r\ntaken over by Mexicans\" and \"Bush is a traitor.\" A bullhorn\r\ndeclared, \"Why does anyone allow you to walk these streets? You are\r\nworthless. You are foolish.\" Later it blared \"You are Hispanic\r\nslaves of the King of Spain.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The Minutemen rallied under a billboard for The Naked Truck\r\nand T-Bones<\/i>, a commentary not lost on the protesters.<\/p>\r\n
Meanwhile, the protesters continued confronting and pushing back the invading minutemen. At 11:45,\r\nthe Danza Cuautehmoc leader blew a conch shell to signal their arrival, and\r\nbegan ritual dances that reached back to a time before the Conquest. At\r\n12:20, the mintuemen began their march with a round of \"The Star-Spangled\r\nBanner.\"<\/p>\r\n
Yesterday's minuteman march was notable for their confusion, who have\r\nbeen repeatedly thwarted in their efforts to demand patriotic xenophobia from\r\nthe ruling elite, but today appeared with far fewer flags and flag-emblazoned\r\nclothing than at their previous events. Frustrated at President Bush's\r\nsupport for a bracero-style guest worker program, Congress's refusal to pass the\r\nonerous Sensenbrenner HR4437 immigration reform bill after mass demonstrations\r\nlast spring, and now the judiciary's insistence that migrants have human rights,\r\nthe minutemen appeared rudderless.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
A red, white, and blue\r\nTorino without a passenger led the march, perhaps intended for the\r\nmissing speaker. Protesters filled the south sidewalk, continuing their\r\nchanting and bullhorning, and talking to curious passersby. When the\r\nminutemen reached the Chinese\r\nTheatre, several took turns posing for photographs with the costumed\r\ncharacters before the procession U-turned and returned along the same\r\nroute. Christie\r\nCzajkowski, one of the leaders of the San Diego Minutemen who\r\nlast weekend tried to hold a San Diego cop under citizen's arrest, today walked\r\namong the slow-moving police vehicles, stuck her head in each, and demanded they\r\nenforce her citizen's arrest against several women who had moved her off the\r\nsidewalk when she forced herself into their group. One policemen,\r\nshrugging her off, asked, \"What did you expect?\" Ted Hayes,\r\nleader of the Crispus Attucks Brigade of the minutemen but best known for his work\r\nfor the homeless, skipped a\r\nmajor homeless protest against city sweeps to stand with the minutemen. \r\n\r\nOrganizing group Save Our State leaders Joe Turner and Don Silva straggled along at the end of the march while Jim Gilchrist of\r\na sometimes competing group, the Minuteman Project, strode in the front ranks.<\/p>\r\n
Whatever the local nightly news reported, the pedestrians and shopkeepers\r\nalong Hollywood Boulevard missed the minuteman's message. One shopkeeper\r\nshouted, \"Why can't you march on Sunday? You're ruining my\r\nbusiness!\" When asked what the march was about, a young white\r\nemployee said, \"Illegals want freedom and American's don't want to give it\r\nto them.\" A Black guy in a wheelchair, when asked who were marching,\r\nanswered, \"Racists. Yeah, racists walking down the street.\" \r\nAnother shopper said, \"They want to shoot all the illegal\r\nimmigrants.\" Still another, an Asian woman, said, \"They want to\r\nget some guy out of prison.\" What's this about? \"Some guys\r\npretending to be police shot an immigrant, and they want to get him out of\r\nprison,\" another pedestrian explained.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The story is that border patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos were\r\nconvicted by a Texas jury after a border incident in which they called on a guy\r\ndriving a van to stop. After a brief foot pursuit he surrendered, hands in the air. \r\nOne of the agents began to hit him with the butt of his rifle, but the agent slipped, and the\r\nsuspect took off. The agents fired off fifteen rounds, striking him once. \r\nThen the agents scooped up as many shells as they could find, sent another agent back to\r\nrecover and dispose of the rest, and failed to file a report on the shooting. Only after the pursuit and shooting did\r\nthe Border Patrol confirm that the guy\r\nhad expired papers and was hauling pot. The minutemen were also\r\nchampioning Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez of Edwards County, Texas, who was\r\nconvicted of shooting at a fleeing vehicle and injuring a migrant in the\r\nvehicle.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Heated verbal exchanges between the minutemen behind the wrought iron fence\r\nof their parking lot and the protesters on the sidewalk continued until 2:30\r\np.m., when the LAPD urged the minutemen to leave.<\/p>\r\n\n<\/body><\/html>\n","contact":"leslie@radiojustice.net","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","summary":"Yesterday protesters in Hollywood used a confused minuteman march to take their message to the streets.","numcomment":15,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2007\/02\/it_begins.jpgv8wp27.jpg","filesize":"128.5 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2007\/02\/193256.php","image":{"original":"\/uploads\/2007\/02\/it_begins.jpgv8wp27.jpg","small":"\/uploads\/2007\/02\/it_begins.jpgv8wp27.jpgthumb.jpg","medium":"\/uploads\/2007\/02\/it_begins.jpgv8wp27.jpgmid.jpg"}},"attachments":[{"id":193257,"heading":"","article":"","author":"Leslie Radford","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","modified":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/protestors1.jpgmlh5qq.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/protestors1.jpgmlh5qq.jpg"}},{"id":193258,"heading":"","article":"","author":"Leslie Radford","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","modified":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/flags.jpg8f1iem.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/flags.jpg8f1iem.jpg"}},{"id":193259,"heading":"","article":"","author":"Leslie Radford","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","modified":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/take-off.jpgjciikv.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/take-off.jpgjciikv.jpg"}},{"id":193260,"heading":"","article":"","author":"Leslie Radford","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","modified":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/danzante.jpgog4ngf.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/danzante.jpgog4ngf.jpg"}},{"id":193261,"heading":"","article":"","author":"Leslie Radford","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","modified":"2007-02-17 04:45:01","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/christie_and_cop.jpgnssuyq.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/christie_and_cop.jpgnssuyq.jpg"}},{"id":193262,"heading":"","article":"","author":"Leslie Radford","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","modified":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/protestors15.jpg9akyhm.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/protestors15.jpg9akyhm.jpg"}},{"id":193263,"heading":"","article":"","author":"Leslie Radford","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","modified":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/more_commentary.jpg6cv6w4.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/more_commentary.jpg6cv6w4.jpg"}},{"id":193264,"heading":"","article":"","author":"Leslie Radford","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","modified":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/mingling.jpgzqljbq.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/mingling.jpgzqljbq.jpg"}},{"id":193265,"heading":"","article":"in the parking lot","author":"Leslie Radford","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","modified":"2007-02-12 20:46:29","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/mm_behind_bars.jpg1b27nc.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2007\/02\/mm_behind_bars.jpg1b27nc.jpg"}}],"comments":[{"id":193281,"heading":"LA-IMC server problems","article":"I have been emailing LA-Indymedia repeatedly this morning to correct the lead picture to this article on the front page. It is not a picture that I included with the article or one that is anywhere on my hard drive.\r\n\r\nI have had problems with picture files getting mixed up on their server before--in ways that seem more than coincidental--and this appears to be another instance of the same. It does appear in go vegan's collection, along with other photos that I don't believe are from yesterday's protest. That might be a hack as well, I just don't know.\r\n\r\nHowever, the folks at LA-IMC appear to be off doing other things, and the picture remains. So please, until it can be fixed, know that I did not post it, and I do not want it associated with this article.","author":"Leslie Radford","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2007-02-12 22:18:51","modified":"2007-02-12 22:18:51","fileurl":""},{"id":193292,"heading":"looks like all is good","article":"and LA-IMC has cleared things up. I like the new photo. Thanks, all.","author":"Leslie","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2007-02-13 02:30:16","modified":"2007-02-13 02:30:16","fileurl":""},{"id":193293,"heading":"Gilchrist was not there.","article":"You must have mistaken John March for Gilchrist. He was in Vegas this weekend, I believe.","author":"Noididntreadthewholething","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2007-02-13 03:13:44","modified":"2007-02-13 03:13:44","fileurl":""},{"id":193294,"heading":"thanks","article":"gawd, I love open publishing. Thanks for the correction.","author":"Leslie","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2007-02-13 04:00:19","modified":"2007-02-13 04:00:19","fileurl":""},{"id":193297,"heading":"Typical Racist Media - a blonde gets","article":"yelled at and it is news.\r\nLatinas suffer domestic violence and they get deported.\r\n\r\nAnna Nicole dies and it is all the news all the time.\r\n\r\nMexican women are murdered in the hundreds near Tia Juana. And no one cares.","author":"report","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2007-02-13 05:45:32","modified":"2007-02-13 05:45:32","fileurl":""},{"id":193299,"heading":"LA IMC","article":"No, thank you Leslie","author":"LA IMC","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2007-02-13 07:09:26","modified":"2007-02-13 07:09:26","fileurl":""},{"id":193318,"heading":"This is great stuff","article":"Ah, hell. I wish I could have been there. It's great seeing neo-Nazi scumbags confronted where ever they show their faces.\r\n","author":"Fredric L. Rice","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2007-02-13 16:38:37","modified":"2007-02-13 16:38:37","fileurl":""},{"id":193324,"heading":"Nothing new under the sun, here","article":"Immigration between wealthy nations and less wealthy nations has been happening since the beginning of time, nothing new under the sun, here. Our last mid-term elections the previous party that control the House, the Senate and the White House went with this wedge issue. Last Presidential elections it was gay marriage, something to bring out the \u201cI hate those people vote\u201d. For all the time they were in power they did nothing about the immigration issue. The failure of the existing immigration laws has been the lack of enforcement, since all politicians know if they aggressively enforce immigration laws their action will reduce the margins of large corporations and they put in jeopardy the large political contributors they rely on for re-election. So that party that previously had the majority wanted to pass more laws that they do not expect to enforce and in the process trample on those less fortunate and look tough back home to get re-elected, well, guess what , it did not work!","author":"Benito","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2007-02-13 17:56:20","modified":"2013-11-11 00:47:12","fileurl":""},{"id":193588,"heading":"AWESOME REPORT","article":"AWESOME REPORT","author":"AWESOME REPORT","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2007-02-18 21:27:13","modified":"2007-02-18 21:27:13","fileurl":""},{"id":194346,"heading":"Q\/A on goals of Minutemen\/SOS leadership","article":"Leslie wrote;\r\n\r\n"Ted Hayes, leader of the Crispus Attucks Brigade of the minutemen but best known for his work for the homeless, skipped a major homeless protest against city sweeps to stand with the minutemen. Organizing group Save Our State leaders Joe Turner and Don Silva straggled along at the end of the march while Jim Gilchrist of a sometimes competing group, the Minuteman Project, strode in the front ranks."\r\n\r\nHere's four prominent people who strongly influence the rhetoric of the so-called 'militia' movement of anti-immigrant activists (Minutemen, SOS, etc..)..\r\n\r\nWhat are the goals of these individuals? We already know Gilchrist is running on a conservative political platform that seeks to villify (mostly Mexican) immigrants who journey to the US because of economic need. However, Gilchrist and his peers almost NEVER address the actual cause of this economic based immigration, the poverty in Mexico induced by decades of globalization free trade programs like NAFTA, WTO and now PPP. \r\n\r\nIn addition to the right to migrate freely between different regions, people ALSO have the right to live and work in their homeland country without being coerced by adverse economic conditions to migrate elsewhere..\r\n\r\nIF the Minutemen\/SOS wanted to protest the source of undocumented immigration from Mexico to the US, THEN they would be most effective by protesting at Cargill, the US corporation responsible for dumping cheap corn on the Mexican market and causing local farmers to lose their land (and then forced by survival to migrate to el norte.)..\r\n\r\nSome reasons to protest and boicott Cargill;\r\n\r\n"Cargill, the biggest grain distributor in the world, was permitted to buy six hundred thousand tons of corn at 1,650 pesos per ton. Later, Cargill began to sell the corn in the valley of Mexico at 3,500 pesos the ton (\u201cPactortilla,\u201d Reforma, 1\/21\/07). Profits resulting from the price hike were clearly reaped by the major grain distributors but not by corn producers. Article 253 of the federal penal code prohibits hoarding, and excessive profits based on price-fixing, but the Federal Competition Commission has done little to enforce the laws (\u201cMaiz: Cosechar Tempestades,\u201d Oaxaca Libre, 1\/18). \r\n\r\nCalder\u00f3n\u2019s pact includes a promise to investigate and punish responsible hoarders, but considering the intimate relationship between big business and the PAN, it is unlikely that the investigation will uncover anything that turns out to be politically inconvenient. \r\n\r\n\u201cLet Them Eat Cake\u201d\r\n\r\nFor his initiative to increase imports of tariff-free corn, Calder\u00f3n has been criticized as merely adding fuel to the fire.\r\n\r\nThe North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, has not made its way to the forefront of the debate but is certainly at the heart of the problem. Part of the idea behind the signing of NAFTA was a plan to shift the economy away from corn production and towards more lucrative goods aimed at the export market. In the years leading up to NAFTA, protected communal lands were parceled off and all support for small farmers and corn production was withdrawn, thereby escalating the expulsion of farmers from their lands." \r\n\r\nread on @;\r\nhttp:\/\/www.chiapaspeacehouse.org\/en\/node\/397\r\n\r\nAs a result of the anti-immigrant psuedo-militias' one-sided PR campaign that ignores NAFTA, we now have the GW Bush regime calling for an apartheid segregation wall between the US and Mexico. In addition the same GW Bush regime promotes a wall between Iran and Iraq, and supported the segregation barrier between Israel and occupied Palestine. Is it clear by now that the GW Bush regime believes that building higher and longer walls is their solution for every political problem??\r\n\r\nIronically this so-called 'militia' is playing right into the hands of the GW Bush regime's call for a border wall. Why does it not surprise me that the leadership of the SOS\/Minutemen is getting their marching orders from the CIA\/FBI Homeland Security chumps who want to put dissidents behind the walls of FEMA camps??\r\n\r\nIn defense of a true militia movement in the US;\r\n\r\nA true militia is a guaranteed right under the US Constitution to be organized, bear arms and if needed overthrow an unjust government. As US citizens it is our responsibility to maintain a safe haven for organizing such a response in the face of a tyrant in US government.. \r\n\r\nThe gripes of the Minutemen\/SOS about undocumented Mexican immigrants being allowed to work in the US are not reflecting a genuine militia movement and furthermore gives authentic militias an undeserved bad reputation. What we need today is a well organized militia prepared to occupy US military bases in the event of either a 'troop surge' to Iraq or an unjustified and illegal US military invasion of Iran. Let's make sure that no more innocent lives are lost in this illegal war for oil profits. We cannot acomplish this important task if a psuedo-militia "Minutemen\/SOS" drains the people's energy potential by playing 'hunt the migrants' along the perceived US\/MEX borderlands.. \r\n\r\nThen we have the predicted reaction of leftists and liberals to the exploits of the Minutemen\/SOS. If the Minutemen say "No immigrants", the leftists say "Yes immigrants"! Again, any critical thinking about the initial causes of poverty induced immigration because of NAFTA\/WTO free trade agreements are shoved aside by the polarized debates between the opposing sides..\r\n\r\nNeither the 'border wall' Minutemen nor the 'open border' leftists seem prepared to get US policy makers to focus on the problems caused by neo-liberalism and NAFTA free trade globalization agreements. The suffering of Mexicans who attempt to cross the border and die in the desert is a result of economic disparity caused by NAFTA's free trade agreements. The suffering of both (un)documented Mexican immigrants in slaughterhouses, agricultural plantations and other undesirable jobs is prolonged by this polarized arguement between the factions. It is not acceptable to coerce people into working virtual slave labor because they were born on the 'wrong' side of a perceived border. Immigrant labor may in fact 'strengthen' the US economy as liberals often put it, though at the expense of the immigrant's lost land, language, (268+ indigenous tongues spoken in Mexico), culture and food sovereignty.. \r\n\r\nIn my search for answers i came across this group's response to immigration;\r\n\r\n"Liberal solutions have predictably failed to address the root causes of migration or the sources of racist injustice. Amnesty and legalization will undeniable make life better for migrants currently living in the US, but they will do nothing to prevent yet more indigenas and latinos from being driven from their homes, and they will do nothing to change the US economy's dependence on cheap migrant labor. \r\n\r\nA truly radical analysis of migration must acknowledge that most migrants would prefer to stay home, but desperate circumstances force them to risk their lives in the hopes of finding work in the US. It must recognize the effect of treaties like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which forces hundreds of thousands of campesin@s off their land every year by dumping cheap, subsidized, US corn on the Mexican market (according to some estimates, migration across the US's souther border has tripled since NAFTA went into effect in 1994). It must take into account the way that CAFTA will exacerbate the problem, and it must acknowledge the role of infrastructure projects like the PPP in facilitating these trade agreements.\r\n\r\nInfrastructure projects, in and of themselves, also dislocate millions of people every year. The World Trade Commission on Dams estimates that those directly displaced by dam construction in the last 60 years number 40-80 million worldwide. In Latin America, these dislocations inevitably feed northward migration."\r\n\r\nread on @;\r\nhttp:\/\/rootforce.org\/?q=node\/9\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n","author":"Minutemen\/SOS scapegoat migrants, ignore WTO","parent_id":193256,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2007-02-28 22:03:41","modified":"2013-11-11 00:47:22","fileurl":""}]}