James Chase Jr. of the Buenos Noches Brigade | 24.07.2005 23:50

Here I present a response to the minutemen from within their framework. I was specifically responding to this  http://www.immigrationwatchdog.com/?p=124 but the response is to all minutemen. I hope others will present in-depth responses to the minutemen in simple terms, within their language and framework, so that they can understand the depth of the problem. I believe that at some level they are racists, but that that is not the only way to approach them or call them out.

We are not babies. We are not communists, socialists, or whatever. We are not on drugs. We are not paid to be there. We are not professionals. We are concerned citizens from San Diego, Campo, El Centro, San Ysidro, Los Angeles, Orange County, Yuma, Riverside, and more. We are white, brown, black and yellow. We are americans who love our country enough to recognize how important migration is to our country, history, culture, and future. We are americans who love our country enough to recognize how dangerous armed vigilantes on our borders are to the democracy of our country.

The video we filmed was real. Please don't make lies up about it. You can get your confirmation from one of your friends here:
 http://www.saveourstate.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=3596&st=0&#entry31853

We are unarmed.

We will be there until you leave. Everyday, Every week, every hour.
We will use all nonviolent means of resistance.

You are there for 3 main reasons:

1. To stop Al-Qaeda terrorists from sneaking into our country with dirty bombs, islamic terrorism, and such.

2. To stop the drug smugglers and coyotes from bringing drugs into our country and corrupting our children.

3. To stop people from coming into our country illegally, and forcing us American citizens to pay their healthcare, and taking our jobs.

You are misguided on each point.

1. You will never stop terrorists from coming into this by 'securing' the borders. Terror is inbred, terror is local. Terrorism occurs on every street corner, in every community. Our US government has massive financial relations with the three biggest terrorist states in the world: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Columbia. These relations are inextricable. Our government is producing terrorism all over the world by invading foreign countries, 'imposing justice', planting multi-national corporations all over the occupied states, and leaving. Terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq has increased exponentionally in the last 4 years, with more suicide bombings, assassinations, and extremist groups popping up than ever before. These wars make the world unsafe. The Heroin trade has risen more than ever with Afghanistan since the war, and we don't care. If you really want to end terrorism, then stop participating in it. You are fighting a link on a causal chain that goes so deep, that it begs the question whether you are furthering the problem itself. This is a structural problem, not a personal one. Go to the root of the problem, not the leaf of a branch of a branch of a branch of a branch.

2. Drug smuggling is one of the biggest parts of the American economy.
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,947880,00.html. Along with illegal immigration and pornography, these sectors of the black market are crucial to the sustainability of our markets. The overwhelming majority of drugs in this country is produced domestically except, when like most products in a capitalist market, the cost-benefit ratio is better for importing than producing.
A good book on this is "Reefer Madness" by Eric Schlosser:
 http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=688450
Now I'm not saying that this is good or bad, but rather that this is too a structural, integral factor in the construction of our stable democratic state. The fact that our country relies on these 'illegal' products should not confuse the reader . A market is a market - if it is more effective to manufacture and distribute a product illegally than legally, than so be it, the market dictates.

3. Illegal immigrants make up the majority of the agricultural work force in the state of california. They work more hours for less pay in worse conditions than any other labor sector in the country. See "A day without a Mexican" for a humorous take on this situation. However, it is very serious. These people are human beings, with family on both sides who work to send money back to their families or build american families, because their job market has been slammed by the excessive imports dumped in their communities at the dictates of transnational corporations, international free trade agreements, and corrupt governments. Resistance is happening inside Mexico as well as it is here. This resistance must be binational, because the exploitation is itself binational. And the majority of our taxes don't go to healthcare for these people. Check any breakdown of the distribution of our taxes - the majority is weapons that kill people, defense, etc.  http://www.nationalpriorities.org/taxday2005/taxday05.html
The slave wages that migrants live by should be reason enough to allow them free healthcare, but we don't have that ethical consciousness yet. In most countries, everyone is welcome for healthcare in emergency rooms. For instance, in France, Morroco, Canada, Mexico, and Germany, I was accepted into the hospital no questions asked as a human being for health problems.

I hope you all will go home nicely, before our country turns into a breeding ground for more militias and vigilante groups.

Thank you. See you in Campo.
James Chase Jr.

e-mail:: JesusWasIllegal@yahoo.com
Homepage:: http://www.usagreencardcenter.com/Five%20Immigration%20Myths.htm