Back in the 1960’s the Minutemen were a right wing fringe group that engaged in harassment of civil rights and anti-war activists. They were organized under the premise that the time was soon coming that paramilitary groups would be called upon to defend the US against the creeping communist conspiracy. As the decade ended, the organization splintered, with various factions arising based on differing views of the need for immediate action.
San Diego’s splinter came to be known as the Secret Army Organization. They went beyond the pamphlets and occasional counter-protests of their predecessors and engaged in a multi-year spree of harassment, vandalism and, eventually, bombings and a drive by shooting. As it came to pass, this splinter was largely funded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There have been allegations, as yet unproven, that they were building up towards even bigger acts of terrorism during the 1972 GOP Convention, which was originally slated to be held in San Diego.
Fast forward ahead four decades and San Diego has another Minuteman organization.
Founded in the heat of the anti-immigration campaigns of the last decade, they’ve focused on immigrants as the Next Big Threat to the US, but their agenda includes a wide variety of causes near and dear to hearts of rightists everywhere. Their website features links to rightists old and new, from the John Birch Society to the World Net Daily.
June 2008 protest by Minutemen outside San Marcos church.
An article published by the Southern Poverty Law Center described the local group:
“San Diego Minutemen take year-round pleasure in scaring immigrants. On Saturday mornings, when they travel to the sleepy suburban gas stations where immigrant day laborers go to find work, they create scenes that would play well in a show called “Nativists Gone Wild.” They call immigrants “wetbacks” and “Julios.” They pull out Mace and threaten passing motorists who disagree with them. Calling those who hire day laborers “slavemasters,” they’ve been known to slap flashing amber police lights on their SUVs and chase the would-be employers down. When they’re not busy physically intimidating migrants, they take to the airwaves and the Internet to accuse them, without a shred of evidence, of running child prostitution rings and practicing “voodoo Santeria rituals.”
Like their predecessors, the San Diego group is also a splinter. From the same article:
The SDMM also has been rejected by the very groups it borrowed its name from — the Minuteman Project and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC) — because even for these hard-line groups, the SDMM is a bit much. “[T]hey don’t abide by our rules, our SOP [standard operating procedure], and would not be considered Minutemen,” said Carl Braun, MCDC’s California leader.
Since 2007 the San Diego group has competed with other similarly named organizations for funding and influence. The local organization has attempted (often with marginal results) to differentiate themselves by engaging in verbal altercations with Latino and pro-civil rights groups. The group also boasts that its members are armed. And they maintain an “Enemies List” on their website that is regularly updated.
Here’s their current list, which includes a healthy share of local elected officials: (The descriptions are also theirs, BTW)
SAN DIEGO
Enrique Morones, Border Angels, agent of Mexican Govt.
Victor Manuel Torres, El Grupo Spokesman / La Raza Lawyer
Claudia Smith, CRLAF
Joanne Yoon, paid La Raza activist, Bakersfield, CA (formerly of SD)
Daniel Gilleon, Claudia Smith & Joanne Yoon’s Lawyer for their frivolous lawsuits and attacks against American activists
Rev. Mary Moreno, St. Paul’s Cathedral (former illegal alien)
Mexican Consulate, San Diego (Maria Arnau, Con Gen)
Rep. Susan Davis
Rep. Bob Filner
Lori Saldana, CA Assemblywoman, San Diego
Mayor Jerry Sanders, San Diego (sanctuary city)
Mike “Nifong” Aguirre, former SD City Attorney, prosecuted innocent American activists
Chief Bill Lansdowne, SDPD
Ben Hueso, SD City Councilman
Christian Ramirez, AFSC
Pedro Rios, AFSC
Tina Jillings, AFSC Vista
Bill Flores, El Grupo (former spokesman; retired (racist) SD Sheriff)
Ruben Navarrette, SDUT, Open Borders Editorial Writer
Ed Sifuentes, NC Times, Pro-alien reporter, works with alien activists.
North County Times Editors
San Diego Union Tribune Editors
Dick Eiden, Vista alien activist, North County Forum
Mark Day, Vista alien activist
San Diego City Beat – free weekly rag
Danny Perez, alien activist, Escondido
Francine Busby (“You don’t need papers for voting”), Dem. Candidate, 52nd Congressional District
Shannon Dowdy, local anarchist activist, Friends of Day Laborers
David Blair-Loy, ACLU of San Diego
Morris Casuto, ADL of San Diego
Reginald Owens, NAACP of San Diego
Fredi Avalos, alien activist
Raoul “Lowery” Contreras, alien activist and fake Republican
Consuelo Martinez, Escondido Alien Activist
Olga Diaz, pro-illegal alien activist & Escondido Council member
Hiram Soto, La Raza Reporter, SDUT & Enlace
CALIFORNIA
Naui Ocelotl Huitzilopochtli, Costa Mesa, Reconquista Goon
Ron Gochez, L.A. Radical Mexican activist
Armando Navarro – UC Riverside Professor, radical activist
NATIONAL
Barack Obama Administration – promising amnesty to ILLEGAL aliens
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Los Angeles
Assemblyman (former) Fabien Nunez
State Sen. Gil Cedillo
State Assm. Joe Coto
Rep. Lou Baca (CA)
Armando Navarro, UC Riverside, Radical Reconquista Activist
Nativo Lopez, Racist Radical Activist
Sec. State Hillary Clinton
Sen. Harry Reid
Sen. Ted Kennedy
Sen. Lindsey Graham
Sen. Barbara Boxer
Sen. Diane Feinstein
Rep. Nancy Pelosi
Bill Richardson, New Mexico Governor
Johnny Sutton, Federal Prosecutor, TX
Gov. Elliot Spitzer, NY (resigned 08)
Sen. John McCain
Rudy Giuliani
Geraldo Rivera, Fox News
Rick Sanchez, CNN
Cardinal Mahoney, Los Angeles, pro-illegal immigration
George Lopez, La Raza Comedian
*****
We at the OBRag are crushed to find that we’re not on this list.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
i thank god every day that there are god fearing americans keeping an eye on you and your ilk.
One of the biggest losers of that group is that Loch David Crane who finally wised up just enough to quit running for our mayor.
If only he were a better magician he could make himself, his worthless minute men and that insipid Star Trike disappear completely.
Would Texas secede already so we can ship all these yahoos over there? We can just move Austin somewhere else right?
Seriously…is that guy holding a “no Mexico” sign? WTF is wrong with people?
This group called Orfila Winery at one point threatening action if the winery did not take down the Mexican flag they fly.
In reality, Orfila flies the flags of The United States (highest pole), the flag of Argentina (origin of birth of Ambassador Orfila, the owner), and the flag of Italy (mistaken for a Mexican flag) because that is the birthplace of Leon the winemaker there.
Ignorance and arrogance seems to be their method of operation. They will chase the wrong person someday and get what is coming to them.
Looks like this group should buy some red shorts for their women, and join Fred Phelps and his crazy band of GOD hates fags BOZOS.
Ignorance on parade.
Sounds like this is an equal opportunity hate group, they hate both the left and the right. I don’t understand how anybody can hate Mexicans and live in Southern California. Do these people know how California became part of the US, or were they all asleep in history class?
Do you know? Did you know that from the time Mexico finally freed itself from European influences and basically stopped being a colonial state until California became a member of the Union is a period of about 24 years. Mexico mostly owned California on paper only. There was a war, which the US won and reparation money was paid to Mexico for annexation of the south west.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed consummating this arrangement and also guaranteeing the rights and liberties of the Mexicans then within the new US borders. Ever since that Treaty has been consistently and unapologetically violated – until the civil rights movement of Chicano-Mexicanos erupted in the Sixties and Seventies.
I wanna be on the list!!
even I come on shore enough to know that immigration is down across the border, jobs for immigrants are more scarce, and immigrants are sending less money back to relatives in Mexico. but let’s guard that border, goddamn it! and let’s spend more and more $$ on the border, as we all know we have plenty of that.
these are our yahoos, jon, as sandy ego county has always had a strong brand of redneck extremists, hell, OB itself used to have KKK guys in sheets, the posse comitatis in the town council prez … so if hip OB has such yahoos, you can imagine what the rest of the county has, my god, how did we survive here?!!!
I grew up in Mississippi (70’s-80’s) and have a very strong distaste for bigotry. I guess when you are raised in a place that still has “COLORED” and “WHITES ONLY” on public fixtures (at the time I was there there was much evidence of the past) one tends to want to escape such ignorance.
I know this- were *I living in MX and needed to feed my kids, hell yeah you’d see me trying to get in. Of course, it’s the same kind of redneck that is going to be offering up jobs to the immigrants so that they may be able to get that new 60″ bigscreen.
I have family members back there who on one hand, bitch about the usual rhetoric that SDMM proffers, and on the other hand hire a crew of “paperless” types and be thrilled they got such a deal on the construction project they just finished 75% under budget.
Check out Wireless Mike giving these yahoos the benefit of the doubt by thinking that they actually had an education.
The worst of this whole lot is known as the MCDC BPAUX. They are kind of a fake Border patrol Militia complete with badges, uniforms, guns, and plenty of hate. Here’s a link to pictures of their training camp by the border.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://defensiveresponse.us/images/bpaux_class_picture.jpg&imgrefurl=http://defensiveresponse.us/Gallery.php%3Faa%3D0%26si0%3D3&usg=__utMPopCw7PDFq2Pb309qXIG6mR0=&h=2304&w=3072&sz=2297&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=4Yu1OHNNgCam2M:&tbnh=113&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbpaux%2Bborder%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN
These are the dangerous ones people.
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