It's a problem with stealth rallies--nobody but you knows you're having one.
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\r\nA splinter group from Save Our State calling themselves No More Invasion tried to protest on Saturday outside of L.A. High School, but they decided not to tell anybody. So nobody noticed, except the cops.
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\r\nThey announced the event for next week to throw off counterprotestors. Prolly a good choice in that neighborhood. But they had to give up on the media and anyone from the school or the neighborhood being there in order to keep immigrant-supporters away. So about 20 minutemen hung around the school looking pretty lonely, taking pix of themselves.
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\r\nPoor minutemen, all alone. It's no fun at school when no one will play with you, is it?<\/p>\r\n
\r\n<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"The gang known as the Minutmen had a rally on Saturday. Nobody (not even me) noticed.","numcomment":5,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2008\/05\/217314.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":217332,"heading":"minutemen all alone","article":"","author":"photo!","parent_id":217314,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2008-05-07 04:36:55","modified":"2008-05-07 04:36:55","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2008\/05\/minutemen-alone.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2008\/05\/minutemen-alone.jpg"}},{"id":217382,"heading":"These are not Minutemen","article":"They are a bunch of clowns that escaped from the circus.","author":"Quackers","parent_id":217314,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2008-05-08 23:40:43","modified":"2008-05-08 23:40:43","fileurl":""},{"id":217385,"heading":"don't insult clowns","article":"hey, don't insult clowns by comparing them to these people. \r\n\r\nclowns are awesome.","author":"kookoo","parent_id":217314,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2008-05-09 02:08:03","modified":"2008-05-09 02:08:03","fileurl":""},{"id":217474,"heading":"Is the SOS - Minutemen Movement Dead?","article":"The public activity of these groups seems to have dropped off a great deal in the last year. Have they run their course? Have internal conflicts reduced them to this pitiful showing?\r\n\r\nOr is their message relevant anymore? The BuSh administration for the most part seems to have done a number of the things the SOS-MM were asking for; ICE raids and mass deportations, militarization of the border and the border wall enhanced and extended. What are their issues now?\r\n\r\nIs this latest showing a resurgence or a last gasp? How effective were the counter-demonstrations that dogged their every action and out numbered them 10 to 1 at times? \r\nThese are the questions that anti-racists and immigrants rights activists should consider and discuss.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s not always easy for activists to gage the effectiveness of the actions, but it's always worthwhile to take the time and consider what has past and where to go next. There are too many organizations just repeating the same game plan over and over with nothing to show for it. The SOS-MM seem to have fallen into the same rut that some organizations on the left have fallen into.\r\n\r\nActivists who have spent the last three years countering the SOS-MM should try to anticipate the SOS-MM next move and be prepared. Also this lull in SOS-MM activity could be a chance to shift from the mere countering of SOS-MM demonstrations to active programs of providing aid to those immigrants impacted by SOS-MM.\r\n","author":"FYI","parent_id":217314,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2008-05-12 14:35:53","modified":"2013-11-11 00:53:31","fileurl":""},{"id":217480,"heading":"my sense","article":"Most of the minutemen in SoCal have been scared off by the concerted response of activists to stop them at every turn. They didn't anticipate opposition--they thought they had a cause that everyone in the U.S. would support. They thought wrong here in the L.A.\/OC area. Props to all who pointed that out to them.\r\n\r\nTheir own didn't help, not just the factions and the upper level in-fighting (after the Repubs and FAIR hung them out to dry), but by the overt violence and the open racism. Most whites are more comfortable with covert violence and "colorblind" racism. So what are left are the meanest dogs in the lot, and Joe Turner cowering in a corner somewhere.\r\n\r\nHOWEVER, minutemen are still huge in San Diego and AZ, and they're picking up steam in other areas of the country. The LA area is less polarized between Brown folks and whites than elsewhere (long and ugly analysis needed of that), so it was an uphill battle here. The only hope they have here is if they can keep Ted Hayes stirring up sh*t between Black and Brown people. (But their hatred of Black people is getting in their way with Ted.) They thrive on gang fights.\r\n\r\nAND they have done the job the Repubs cultivated them for--they mobilized a few thousand people to telephone, email and fax blast Congress over and over, and made this an issue for the Repubs. Bush lost the Latino vote in 2004 because of his position on immigration, so the Repubs moved to mobilize white voters to vote against migrants. Alan Keyes was the Repub face that backed Simcox and Gilcrist. Someone with the right connections could probably find out a lot more about that.\r\n\r\nAs I said, the old white folks are still out there doing their thing, all too effectively. Every presidential candidate now endorses border deaths and turning employers into snitches for ICE.\r\n\r\nWell organized and funded groups have taken up "helping" immigrants (sort of). People without docs remain the first human fallout of globalization and fuel\/food\/water\/air depletion, and the U.S. and Europe are doing a damn fine job of making sure that when the shit hits the fan, the "first worlders" have all the stuff and "third world" people die.\r\n\r\nFYI, I don't know what next. There needs to be something. \r\n","author":"nobody","parent_id":217314,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2008-05-12 22:59:59","modified":"2008-05-12 22:59:59","fileurl":""}]}