Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Las week we were treated to tales from our so-called Republican leadership in this state that a large scale demonstration would end in some sort of riot too big for the police to handle. They said that we needed to call out the National Guard, and they were scared of that big bad, mostly Latino crowd. I’m sorry, they weren’t saying they were scared because the crowd would be mostly Latino, were they? No, they would never say something like that to pander to the most fearful and bigoted parts of their constituency, would they?

So, I guess now they will be giving Janet Napolitano some credit for seeing that we didn’t need to spend all that taxpayer money to call out the National Guard. Now we can spend that money on something better, like a poorly thought out tax breaks.

They also owe an apology to the Phoenix Police. They were competent enough to handle the situation without the Guard. Obviously, the Republicans who were calling for a deployment didn’t think so.

No incidents were reported in Phoenix, but on the other hand, down here….

Well, you remember when Ron Gould said that there would be “outside agitators” that could disrupt the protests? Well, it turned out that they were people on Sen. Gould’s side. Must have been how he knew.

Several members of the group Border Guardians, who are kind of like the Minutemen, but they consider sitting on lawnchairs outside of Sasabe to be too strenuous, decided to stage a “counter-protest.” The “counter-protest” consisted of them hurling invective at the marchers, wearing shirts with offensive slogans on them, and burning a Mexican flag. Oh yeah, the Border Guardians do all this because they care about immigrants too.

The protest organizers had several minders who kept the crowd back from the “counter-protestors.” Unfortunately, one protestor threw water at one of the Border Guardians. The protestor, a fifteen year old, was arrested. Protestors became agitated because of her age, and tried to attack the police. The minders mostly did a great job keeping the crowd back.

Oh, Senator Gould, the police were able to handle it without the National Guard, 82nd Airborne or the Rough Riders. (I probably should throw in the 54th Massachusetts just to tick Gould off.)

Was it not too smart to throw water at the guy? Definitely not too smart. Was it not too smart to attack the police? Definitely not too smart. But the fact that the thing did not escalate into a larger incident once again proves that fears that these protests would turn into a Rangers-Celtic derby were unfounded.

(By the way, to give you an idea of the credibility of the Border Guardians, perrenial racist (his word, not mine) candidate Joe Sweeney was with them.)

Of course, at least one local station, KVOA, had a reporter assigned to the Border Guardians. Yes, assigned to the Border Guardians. They also had a second reporter at the police station. The two were Sandy Rathbun and Lupita Murillo, two of their more long standing reporters with a heck of a lot of gravitas. Of course, Murillo was the one at the police station. Who knows what the Guardians would have said to her with that last name. So, they take their more seasoned “serious” reporters and assign them to cover the yahoos and to wait at the police station hoping for arrests. Heck, makes you wonder if they wanted trouble. It also begs the question, would the Guardians have even pulled this stunt if they didn’t think a TV camera would be following them?

The reporter they assigned to talk to the crowd was a newer, less experienced reporter. She gave a good report, speaking to several marchers and some of the counter demonstrators on the parade route. However, when they assign your “name” reporters to cover something else, it tells you which side they take more seriously.

The event went well, but I have to have something to complain about, right?

NB - Michael Marizco has an extensive report on his site, Border Reporter. He has criticism for both the police and organizers for the flag burning incident.