Note by Hunterbear: I grew up in small town/rural Northern Arizona and Western New Mexico. I'm neither Yankee nor Easterner.
Here are two posts: One is a just-out newspaper article of today dealing with para-military militia stuff on the Arizona/Mexico border -- "sociology" that can be boiled down to one word: racism. It has nothing to do with the sensible right to firearms usage or with principled self-defense. It's old-line racist traditions [and all of its eternal greed connotations] married to "drug store cowboyism" -- and it spells all-around trouble for life, liberty, civil rights and just plain rationality. The whole concept of Euro-American borders is irrational in its own right. I've posted before on these so-called "border militias" -- and my second post right here is a repost on the border region and some of its very relevant history. Arizona has had some very fine human beings -- Cochise and Geronimo, and Governor Hunt. Racist stuff in Cochise County, some labor history, and the eternally good words of George W.P. Hunt [Hunter Gray 2/20/02] Note by Hunterbear: I am very glad to quote herewith the time-honoured words of the "Old Governor" of Arizona -- George W.P. Hunt: words which apply with the force of an old-time single-jack metal miner's hammer to the current mess in which our country swims today -- and to the people responsible for it. This posted article deals with very current Klan-type, anti-Mexican Anglo-racism centering in Cochise County, Arizona. Nothing new about these vile goings on in this general region -- except that the nature and conduct of the current US administration et al. and the generally poisonous national mood have provided, in the minds of these thugs, carte blanche. Fortunately, there have always been many decent and courageous people of all ethnicities in the Border Country and well beyond in all directions. But the history of this region has been dramatic and sanguinary. Cochise County [Arizona], was the scene on July 12, 1917, of the Phelps-Dodge Copper organized "Loyalty League" roundup and deportation of 1200 striking copper workers at Bisbee [not counting three that were killed.] This was in the context of the great IWW-led copper strike that stretched from Butte, Anaconda, and Great Falls down to the Mexican border. The 1200 were taken without food or water by box cars and dumped at Columbus, New Mexico. They were Chicano, Anglo, Oriental, and Native -- either members of the IWW or members of Mine-Mill [or both, a practice that actually lingered through the 1950s in the Western copper situation.] The Bisbee Deportation followed the July 10 deportation of about 100 IWW and Mine-Mill members -- at Jerome, Arizona, just south of Flagstaff -- by a "Loyalty League" organized by the United Verde Copper Company. These workers were dumped in California and then driven back into Arizona by a California sheriff's posse -- and finally imprisoned at Prescott, Arizona. In the early morning hours of August 1, 1917, Frank H. Little, Cherokee Indian and Chairman of the IWW General Executive Board, was taken from his Butte boardinghouse by gunmen employed by the Anaconda Copper Company. With a rope around his neck, he was dragged by automobile through the outlying streets of Butte for two miles before being hanged from a railroad bridge trestle. Frank Little, crippled from a car wreck at Jerome, was on crutches and was in Butte to assist the strike in Montana where he had just delivered a stirring anti-War speech. His funeral was the largest ever held in the State of Montana. No one was ever punished for any of these atrocities. But, soon after these horrific events, the "liberal" Wilson administration moved through the Justice Department to round up 150 top IWW leaders on charges of violating the "Espionage Act" -- hastily passed legislation outlawing anything construed as "interfering" with the War effort [including, of course, strikes fundamentally motivated by static wages and rampant inflation.] In three massive Federal trials in 1918 -- Chicago, Wichita, Sacramento -- the defendants were all convicted and sentenced to heavy prison terms. Eventually, as earlier with also victimized Gene Debs, they were released by President Warren Harding. Arizona [with New Mexico] had only become a state in 1912 and its fiery Governor George W.P. Hunt -- who had come into the Territory on a mule and who was essentially a socialist -- later denounced the brutal vigilante actions against copper workers in an extraordinary address before the Arizona Legislature: "At this juncture I am sorely troubled for lack of a word, a phrase, an expression with which to give poignant utterance to that which is in my heart; to adequately describe a certain sort of thing in human shape that wears the outward semblance of a man, but yet is a craven cur; whose heart is as malignant as a cesspool; whose mind is a sink of infamy. . . .Such a thing is the "profiteering patrioteer," the detestable hypocrite who, with sanctimonious demeanor, goes through the mummery of patriotic service, though striving all the while to profit by his country's dire distress; to vent a personal prejudice under the guise of patriotism, or to gain for himself a pecuniary advantage under the starry folds of his country's flag with which he drapes his sorry soulless figure. There is no word in all the range of human tongue from Sanskrit to Anglo-Saxon with which to describe this creature, so I abandon the effort in despair." >From Vernon H. Jensen, Heritage of Conflict: Labor Relations in the Nonferrous Metals Industry up to 1930 [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1950], pp. 426-427. Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] Wednesday, December 11, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific Arizona border-patrol militia reminiscent of Wild West By Tom Gorman Los Angeles Times TOMBSTONE, Ariz. - If these were the days of frontier justice, newspaper editor Chris Simcox would fit right in. With a .45-caliber handgun strapped to his side, he rustles through river-bottom oaks and reeds, looking for outlaws. His prey: foreigners, and maybe terrorists, who illegally cross into the United States from Mexico. His posse: 600 citizens who share his frustration about the porous border. Simcox, owner and editor of the Tombstone Tumbleweed, has formed an armed militia to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, fulfilling what he says is his patriotic duty to thwart illegal immigrants by placing them under citizen arrest. About a dozen members of the militia held their first strategy meeting Saturday at the O.K. Cafe, a sourdough biscuit's throw away from the corral where Marshal Virgil Earp, brothers Wyatt and Morgan and buddy John "Doc" Holliday shot and killed three cowboys for carrying guns in town. Townsfolk complain that the militia's activities will tarnish Tombstone. Authorities and civil-rights activists warn that Simcox's tactics will lead to lawsuits, if not injuries or deaths from gunfire. "We're seriously concerned, because we could end up having citizens killing people or getting harmed themselves," said Mary Frances Berry, chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The agency has asked the Justice Department for a report on the militia's activities. Others applaud Simcox. "He's drawing attention to a problem that's largely ignored by politicians and agencies who are supposed to protect us," local rancher Henry Harvey said. Anger about the growing number of illegal immigrants crossing Cochise County's 82-mile-long border with Mexico has been mounting for years. The number of arrests more than doubled in two years to 438,489 in 2000 as the Border Patrol heightened enforcement elsewhere in the Southwest and immigrants found the borders near here easy to breach. Immigrants arrested for committing crimes in the county cost Cochise County nearly $5 million a year in police, court and jail costs, said Pat Call, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors. "We're having to bear the brunt of the federal government's failed border policy," Call said. After the Border Patrol built sturdier fences, increased lighting and added agents along this part of the border, the number of crossers caught dropped to 156,950 in the past year, but critics argue that more needs to be done. Simcox's militia, called the Civil Homeland Defense, is one of at least three citizens groups formed along the U.S.-Mexico border to intimidate illegal immigrants from entering the country. "I don't really believe the militia will make that much of a difference," said Greg Moore, one of Homeland Defense's volunteers. "But we have to make a statement to the government. "We're not going out half-cocked, and we'll try to screen out all the wackos," said Moore, who served in the Marine Corps and now operates a Tombstone bed-and-breakfast inn. Simcox hopes that deploying militia members visibly along the border 30 miles south of here, in small groups and in 24-hour shifts, will deter illegal immigrants. Those who cross will be captured, handcuffed using plastic ties, read their Miranda rights and placed under citizen arrest until picked up by the Border Patrol, he said. Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever is wary of citizen arrests. "There's not a person in this county who hasn't experienced a great amount of frustration over the federal government's lack of responsibility," he said. But that doesn't allow Simcox to engage in activities that may be legally viewed as kidnappings, Dever said, and "we're prepared to take action if necessary." Simcox said he will screen members' criminal backgrounds and gun safety knowledge by having them qualify for a state concealed-weapon permit. Guns will be drawn only for life-and-death self-defense, he said, and if the immigrants run, they will not be chased. "There's no doubt someone will be killed one day - one of us - by drug traffickers," he said. Simcox and his supporters contend that illegal immigrants strain the nation's drug-enforcement and health-care systems and burglarize ranches and homes near the border. Simcox also worries that terrorists may sneak across with biological or chemical weapons. Tombstone's Wild West image drives the town's singular industry: tourism. A stagecoach plies the historic main street where the original Bird Cage Theater and Big Nose Kate's saloon are now crowded by souvenir shops and Western clothing stores. Cowboys packing six-shooters and wearing dusters sell tickets to re-enactments of shootouts. Civil-rights activist and defense attorney Isabel Garcia said Simcox's call to arms "is incendiary and outrageous." "You can't have civilians taking the law into their own hands and detaining people, especially if you're in no position to know for sure if a law is broken," she said. Legal issues aside, Mayor Dusty Escapule said he's "afraid some innocent people are going to get hurt or killed, and we'll have an international incident on our hands. "I'm worried (Simcox is) going to attract radicals who want to go on a human hunt." Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] www.hunterbear.org Protected by NaŽshdoŽiŽbaŽiŽ and Ohkwari' _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
