Wednesday, April 26th, 2006...5:55 am
Those Border Guardians: Just Concerned Citizens, Really
In the last week or so, two leaders in the Border Guardians have been in the news showing just the sort of people they are. The Border Guardians have been “guarding the border” by burning Mexican flags in Tucson. I’m not sure exactly how this is supposed to work, but imagine the lives that could have been saved in the Second World War if more people stayed home and burned Japanese, German and Italian flags.
Roy Warden, the man who recently pled not guilty to charges, including assault, stemming from one recent flag burning incident, has been sending a series of e-mails where he doctors quotes from Arizona Daily Star stories. For example, a quote from Raúl Grijalva regarding labor leader César Chávez started out as:
“Above all, he showed us there was a human worth in every individual,” said Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz.
This ended up in his e-mail as:
“Above all, he showed us there was a human worth in every individual,” said Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz. “It does not matter that Chavez was a communist. Rumors that communists have murdered millions of their own people are racist, capitalist lies.”
Um, okay. Warden sends out such doctored quotes in different colors, but many e-mail programs don’t display the colors, so who would know? The Star has asked Warden to stop sending the doctored quotes and representing them as the Star’s. This led to a high minded response from Warden to Star Editor Teri Hayt, who Warden refered to as a “hairy breasted Amazon”:
PERHAPS YOU SHOULD HAND OFF THIS ISSUE FOR THE MEN TO SETTLE.
The Star decided that Warden isn’t worth suing over this matter.
Oh, but don’t think of Warden as a sexist. I mean, one of the other leaders in his group is a woman, Laine Lawless. Lawless, if you remember, is the one who always likes to claim that the Guardians’ protests are against the Mexican government, but not against migrants or Hispanics in general. So, why, Ms. Lawless, are you posting to hate group bulletin boards suggesting that people steal money from and beat up illegal aliens? Why do you suggest that people do what they can to keep Spanish-speaking immigrant children (no matter what their legal status) out of school? What do you mean by talking about sabotaging “food and entertainment”? And, if this isn’t about race, why are you posting on neo-Nazi bulletin boards?
By the way, Chris Simcox and company haven’t yet disavowed these chowderheads.
The funny part is there actually are a significant number of Hispanics in this country that want to limit immigration, but its exactly these sort of extremist nut-jobs that keep them from being outspoken. The fact that so many Republican politicians and commentators are more than happy to line up with these racist nitwits only gives ammunition to people who think that the Republican party and the anti-immigrant movement are uniformly anti-Hispanic. To paraphrase an addage from a few decades ago: they aren’t for the racists, but the racists are all for them.
1 Comment
April 27th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Ch. 15 in Phoenix is airing radio ads touting a report on The Minutemen and what they do with the donations that they have collected. I don’t remember all of the spot, but they did use the phrase “…taking advantage of your patriotism…”
I generally don’t watch the local TV news here (any industry that can foist JD Hayworth on us can’t be any good, lol) and NEVER expect hard-hitting investigative journalism out of any major media outlet in Metro Phoenix, but if I’m home, I’ll watch this.
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