Minutemen on the march

Shocking news alert: Conservatives are now almost rushing to embrace the Minutemen even as evidence mounts that the funny smell coming from their ranks isn't just a case of bad tamales.

The latest Republican politician to do so (following in the footsteps of Sen. Wayne Allard of Colorado and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a Texas congressman named John Culberson of Houston, who has introduced legislation that would give official sanction, for the first time, to "border militias":

The Border Protection Corps Act, introduced on July 28, would authorize access to $6.8 billion in unused Homeland Security funds to form volunteer border militias that report to their respective county sheriffs.

It is not known when or if the measure would be put to a vote.

Gov. Rick Perry stopped short of endorsing the bill, noting in a prepared statement that illegal immigration was a "pervasive problem."

"Regardless of the mechanism, the federal government must provide a stronger presence along the border," Perry said in the statement issued July 28. "I welcome federal efforts to protect our borders from illegal immigrations and threats from terrorists."

The movement appears to be spreading northward as well. A Minuteman project was recently announced up the road in Bellingham:

A controversial group known for gathering armed volunteers to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border to slow illegal immigration plans to patrol America's northern border as well.
A representative from the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps recently spent two weeks in Washington state, including Whatcom County, to start two chapters here, one on each side of the Cascades, said Chris Simcox, president and founder of the Tombstone, Ariz.,-based organization.

Washington is one of several northern states to which volunteers want to bring the border-guarding effort, Simcox said.

"We've had an overwhelming response from people along the northern border, who feel we need to do the same thing there," he said.

All this is occurring even as concerns mount over the extent to which the Minutemen are not only attracting extremists to their movement, but are in danger of having their direction reflect that kind of activist core.

Indeed, a number of human-rights monitors have pointed out the extremist origins of the movement, rooted as it is in the "militia movement" of the 1990s -- as well as the white supremacists who preceded that movement:

Devin Burghart, who monitors anti-immigrant movements with the Illinois-based human rights group, the Centre for New Community's Building Democracy Initiative, is not surprised by the growth of the vigilante movement -- or its potential for internal strife.

"we are seeing a similar trajectory today with the Minutemen movement that we saw with the militia movement in the early 1990s," Burghart told IPS.

However, Burghart maintains that the Minutemen are in a much better position then the militias were because "they appear to be mostly relying on a number of already established anti-immigrant networks and activists to spread the word."

Twelve years ago, the Militia of Montana, the Michigan Militia and a number of other like-minded groups appeared to spring up out of nowhere. In short order, they captured the nation's attention as well as the media's spotlight.

Militia leaders such as Montana's John Trochmann and Michigan's Norm Olsen became oft-quoted spokespersons for what was at first portrayed as an amorphous collection of anti-government activists.

"In the early 1990s, it didn't take long for new militia groups to start springing up, many of which weren't even organised by the originators of the concept," Burghart pointed out.

"The establishment of local militia groups took on a life of its own, becoming somewhat of a mass movement. Even older and pre-existing Christian Patriot groups started calling themselves militias. It sounds like we could be on the verge of that happening with the Minutemen phenomenon."

... "The Minutemen of today and the militias of a decade ago have many commonalities ideologically,” Burghart said. "Despite all their 'law-and-order' rhetoric, they both rely on illegal paramilitary vigilantism and intimidation to push public policy."

"They both appear to be expressions of Middle American Nationalism -- the notion that 'middle Americans' are being squeezed from above by the economic elites, and from below from the multicultural hordes that are sucking the lifeblood from the productive middle."

"Both the militias and the minutemen create a demonised 'other' based on citizenship status: The militias had the 'sovereign citizen' concept, which divided people into (white) state 'sovereign' citizens and so-called '14th Amendment' citizens. The Minutemen do it the basis of perceived immigration status."

He noted that "both are rife with conspiracy theories. For example, the militias were concerned about the New World Order, while the Minutemen have La Reconquista, which contends that there is a secret plot to re-conquer the American southwest for Mexico."

Moreover, both the militias and the Minutemen have something in common with the Posse Comitatus, an anti-Semitic white supremacist group that sprung up in the 1970s. Latin for "power of the county," the Posse Comitatus was founded in 1971 by retired army lieutenant colonel William Potter Gale.

Gale "believed that all white, Christian men had an unconditional right to take up arms to enforce the principles of a 'Constitutional Republic,' and challenge various 'unlawful acts' of the federal government, including integration, taxation and the federal reserve banking system," Daniel Levitas, the author of ”The Terrorist Next Door. The Militia Movement and the Radical Right” (St Martin's Press, 2002), told IPS.

The extremist roots of the movement are laid out in some detail in a new SPLC report on the Minutemen, which notes that Chris Simcox and Jim Gilchrist, the movement's two leading figures, specialized in racist Latino-bashing prior to taking their organization national:

While Gilchrist is newly prominent on the anti-immigration front — he recently joined the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, a hate group whose leader routinely describes Mexicans as "savages" — Simcox has been active since 2002, when he founded Civil Homeland Defense, a Tombstone-based vigilante militia that he brags has captured more than 5,000 Mexicans and Central Americans who entered the country without visas.

"These people don't come here to work. They come here to rob and deal drugs," Simcox told the Intelligence Report in a 2003 interview. "We need the National Guard to clean up our cities and round them up."

But that was the old Chris Simcox talking, not the new, spiffed-up, buttoned-down, ready-for-primetime Chris Simcox.

The old Simcox described Citizens Homeland Defense as "a committee of vigilantes," and "a border patrol militia." The new Simcox — the one interviewed for dozens of national TV news programs and major newspaper articles about the Minuteman Project — characterized his new and larger outfit of citizen border patrollers as "more of a neighborhood watch program."

The old Simcox said of Mexicans and Central American immigrants, "They have no problem slitting your throat and taking your money or selling drugs to your kids or raping your daughter and they are evil people." The new Simcox said he sympathizes with their plight, and sees them as victims of their own government's failed policies.

The report also makes clear just how serious the Minutemen really are about weeding out extremists from their midst -- as well as limiting their firearms:

Early this year, white supremacist and neo-Nazi Web sites began openly recruiting for the Minuteman Project. In response, Gilchrist and Simcox proclaimed that neo-Nazi Skinheads and race warriors from organizations such as the National Alliance and Aryan Nations were specifically banned from participating. Pressured by journalists to explain exactly how they planned to keep these undesirables out, the two organizers said they were working with the FBI to carefully check the backgrounds of all potential Minuteman volunteers, only to have the FBI completely deny this was the case.

Gilchrist and Simcox then claimed they were personally checking out each and every potential volunteer using on-line databases. Even if this were true, one of Gilchrist's computers crashed the morning of April 1, wiping out the records of at least 75 pre-registered volunteers. As a result, the registration protocol in Tombstone rapidly degenerated into a free-for-all, and virtually anyone who showed up and gave a name was issued a Minuteman Project badge and told where to go the next day to be assigned to a watch post.

Gilchrist and Simcox further claimed to the media prior to April 1 that the only volunteers who would be allowed to carry firearms would be those who had a concealed-carry handgun permit from their home states, an indication that they had passed at least a cursory background investigation. In fact, virtually no one was checked for permits.

While most of the Minuteman volunteers were not organized racists, at least one member of Aryan Nations infiltrated the effort, and Johnny and Michael said they were two of six members of the Phoenix chapter of the National Alliance who signed up as Minuteman Volunteers. They said the other four had arrived separately in two-man teams in order to cover more ground and be less conspicuous. They said the Alliance members came out to support the Minuteman Project, but also to recruit new members, and to learn the remote hot zones for border crossers in Cochise County. They said they intended to return and conduct small, roaming, National Alliance-only vigilante patrols in the fall, "when we can have a little more privacy," as Johnny put it.

Perhaps the most chilling part of the report, though, were the quotes the SPLC's investigators obtained from Minuteman participants:

At Station Two, Minuteman volunteers grilled bratwursts and fantasized about murder.

"It should be legal to kill illegals," said Carl, a 69-year old retired Special Forces veteran who fought in Vietnam and now lives out West. "Just shoot 'em on sight. That's my immigration policy recommendation. You break into my country, you die."

Carl was armed with a revolver chambered to fire shotgun shells. He wore this hand cannon in a holster below a shirt that howled "American bad asses" in red, white and blue. The other vigilantes assigned to Station Two included a pair of self-professed members of the National Alliance, a violent neo-Nazi organization. These men, who gave their names only as Johnny and Michael, were outfitted in full-body camouflage and strapped with semi-automatic pistols.

Earlier that day, Johnny and Michael had scouted sniper positions in the rolling, cactus-studded foothills north of Border Road, taking compass readings and drawing maps for future reference.

"I agree completely," Michael said. "You get up there with a rifle and start shooting four or five of them a week, the other four or five thousand behind them are going to think twice about crossing that line."

I don't think the Minutemen or their apologists can claim any longer that these kinds of attitudes are the exception in this movement. There are too many instances of them cropping up.

Which raises the question: Why exactly are ostensibly mainstream Republicans adopting their cause?

'Make them disappear'

Len at Blogesque had a noteworthy post the other week about a bizarre incident in Fairfield, Ohio, in which a car belonging to the mother of a soldier recently killed in the Iraq war was set on fire by vandals who lit 20 small American flags, gathered from the lawn in front of their house, under it.

Predictably, the right was all afroth over the case, assuming the fires had been set by America-hating libruls, and even suggesting that it represented a "hate crime." Er, not quite.

But, as usual, the Free Republic was the forum where the froth rose to fresh heights. The vandalism was variously ascribed to "anti-qar 'PEACE' people" [sic], "liberal losers trying to make a statement," "Democrat, Liberal Sh*t Eaters," "the pot-smoking, Commie Left," and "the socialist culture as professed by the anti-American-secular-left-wing." One poster finally cut loose with what everyone seemed to be thinking:

Actually, I think lynching should be brought back. And now I'm not being sarcastic. I hope I don't get in trouble for writing this. But I think people who do things like this should just go away, if you know what I mean? Find them and make them disappear.

No one contradicted him.

Then it turned out that a couple of local teenagers were charged with the crime: ages 15 and 13. There's no evidence at all that it was a political act; as far as anyone can tell, they just wanted to set something on fire and the flags were handy as a firestarter.

Hard to tell if the Freepers still want to lynch them; there hasn't been any further commentary from the right.

Update: Seems the mental wizards at Wizbang leapt to the same conclusion, naming their link to the original story, "Leftist Vandals Attack Family Of Slain Soldier." And of course, they haven't bothered to correct it. Standard MO for that crowd. Hat tip to s9 in comments.

The base line

Anti-illegal immigration activists keep insisting that there's nothing the least racist about their efforts to crack down on the problem. It's only illegal immigration they oppose. Really. It has nothing to do with race or ethnicity.

So maybe they can explain why, in Denver, anti-illegal immigration activists have mounted a protest against the city librarian because the library has (gasp!) expanded its collection by adding large numbers of Spanish-language books, including, evidently, some with racy pictures inside.

This elicited the following response from one of the protest organizers:

"You always hear they want to come and work," said Robert Copley of the Colorado Minuteman Project. "Well, they also want to come and kill, and destroy wages, and just demean our quality of life."

It's pretty clear Mr. Copley's concern is not with illegal immigration -- though we're sure he can rhapsodize at length on that subject as well -- as it is with Latino immigration. And it's kind of funny how that theme keeps cropping up a lot.

Again, none of this is surprising. I've argued consistently that people who think the solution is to harass immigrants who come here illegally are, almost without exception, concerned more with the racial (and cultural) aspects of the current immigrant wave than they are about, say, the war on terror (though they sound that theme frequently enough) or the fact that most of these immigrants are here illegally.

It may seem that the two are not logically connected, but when you think about it a bit, they are.

Illegal immigration is a serious problem, not least for its effects in spreading a Wal-Mart economy to the working classes, as well as the way it depresses wages. It requires serious and thoughtful solutions that change the framework of how we deal with both the nuances and the fundamentals of the problem. Blaming desperate Mexicans -- millions of whom have been thrown out of work and off their lands because of NAFTA -- for wanting to come here for jobs is not going to solve anything.

But that's exactly what the Minutemen and their ilk are proposing to do: Harass illegal migrants as they cross the border. This has also created a predictable spate of freelance Minutemen conducting their own version of a border watch. (In two recent cases this escalated to someone shooting a couple of Latinos.)

It's called scapegoating, and it is the hallmark of American right-wing extremism. The paranoid mindset always insists on a scapegoat: Jews. Blacks. Mexicans. Gays. In the 1920s, it was Catholics. They always insist that someone is conspiring to bring harm to them and to America. They describe them as vermin, and urge their elimination. It is a story that has repeated itself many times.

This is why, when you hear someone talk about organizing a border watch, you can bet that, if you hang around their campfires long enough, you'll start hearing a lot of talk about Latinos. How they're ruining the country. Causing crime. Crowding the hospitals. Pretty soon the usual slurs come out too.

It isn't about whether they're legal or not. It is, in the end, all about the color of their skin.

'Death on the Fourth of July'

I've been sorely remiss (what with my energies focused on Strawberry Days) in mentioning that the new paperback edition of my second book, Death on the Fourth of July : The Story of a Killing, a Trial, and Hate Crime in America is now out on the bookshelves as well.

For anyone who has hesitated to plunk down $30 for the hardcover edition, this one retails at $15.95 and may thus be more within reach.

While you're at it, you may want to check out the nice review of DOTFJ from Janinsanfran at Happening-Here?:

Death is really two books. One theme is an extremely well researched, exhaustively argued, explication of bias crimes legislation, the laws that enable courts to name and give enhanced sentences when they find that perpetrators were motivated by bigotry. Neiwert covers all the bases here. He describes the origin of the effort to criminalize bigotry with anti-lynching laws in the 1920s and 30s(we never got a federal law!) and continues up through modern right wing insistence that protecting gays from bias crimes would create "special rights."

If I were a neutral Martian I'd be really fascinated by all of this, but I'm not (either a neutral Martian or fascinated.) The creeps who don't want hate crimes laws haven't changed much since they were repressing uppity Negroes in the old South after the Civil War -- they enjoy being top dogs; they don't want to share; and they make up any intellectually specious nonsense (all pretty much cut from the same legal-rights-for-moral-white-folks cloth) that enables them to hang on to superior status.

I was much more interested in Neiwert's other narrative describing the sequence of events which left a Confederate flag waving white man dead and an Asian immigrant on trial for manslaughter in a small Washington state beach resort town. As a pretty visible dyke, I've known what it is to be afraid of the locals in slightly seedy vacation spots where bored local kids sometimes get their kicks by harassing the "wrong kind" of tourists. That kind of scene is trouble waiting to happen. What was unusual in this case was that, not only did someone end up dead, but, almost accidentally, it was the bully who was killed while his intended victim walked away (though certainly not unscathed.)

The book has, frankly, kind of stiffed at the box office; that's the price, I suppose, of writing on unpopular topics. But it continues to garner good reviews, and I know that (as with In God's Country) a number of communities have turned to it as a reference when dealing with these crimes. That's satisfaction enough.

Minutemen: A home for extremists

This is a recent Minutemen rally. And yes, that's a Nazi flag there, third from the right.

Well, I've been saying all along that the Minutemen's core demographic is constituted of right-wing extremists, including many outright racists.

At a recent anti-immigrant rally in Laguna Beach, the connection was made explicit.

The rally was held July 30. It apparently was a follow-up of sorts to a similar rally held in the same locale on July 16, in which a local anti-immigration activist decided to protest a local arts festival's financial support for a day labor center for undocument workers. This rally drew the participation of the Save Our State campaign (an ostensibly mainstream anti-immigration organization) and the Minutemen's Jim Gilchrist. It also drew a contingent of neo-Nazis.

A Live Journal account gives a quick overview of what occurred:

Save Our State and founder of the Minutman project Jim Gilchrist organized the protest at the Day Labor Center to oppose the hiring of day laborers by city residents two weeks after some members of SOS attended an unofficial rally at the Laguna Beach Arts Festival. There they protested the event's contribution through rental space sale to city coffers, which in turn pays out $21,000 to the group that operates the Center. That original anti-immigrant protest organizer, known as OCAngel, has publicly disassociated herself from the Minutman Project/S.O.S. after neo-Nazis stood with S.O.S. members threatened her due to her Jewish background.

Another account can be found in this Indymedia post, which also provided the above photo.

Interestingly, an account of what happened from the other side can be found at the neo-Nazi Stormfront forum, where one of the participants described how the neo-Nazi flags appeared:

The flags came out in the last few moments of the protest. The commies were chanting "Nazis Go Home" for hours on end non-stop, so I and everyone present on the street in the hot sun, facing hostile commies, browns, and who-knows-what greenlighted the flag idea. We will stand behind our decision.

If anyone wants to do it differently, come with us and tell us then and there.

Besides, this is America and if they can fly their commie flags, burn the US flag, fly their brown flag, we can fly anything we want.

Here's a shot of two of the flag bearers:



What's going on, of course, is that the Minutemen provide an ideal opportunity for white racists to "mainstream" their agenda, using the relatively benign "average citizens" that Lou Dobbs exclusively observes in their ranks as just so much cover. An online report from the July 16 rally discusses this in some detail:

By OCAngel's accounts, the rally she worked hard putting together was indeed a smashing success. More than sixty people showed up, while only five counterdemonstrators appeared to oppose them. Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist, an Aliso Viejo resident, dropped by for awhile to pay his respects. Barbara Coe, the venerable Chairwoman of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform (CCIR) and co-author of Proposition 187, was also there. And Don Silva (aka "OldPreach"), one of Joe Turner's close allies, was running around dressed in camouflage again, waving around an American flag (for matter of record, the rally itself was not officially endorsed by S.O.S.). {3}

But members of the National Alliance, an avowedly white supremacist organization, appeared to be out in full force that day. In fact, somebody who calls herself occutegirl, perhaps unbeknownst to her at the time, posted a photograph she took of two reputed members of that group on the "Save Our State" website. The photo shows a young woman (alleged to be "dixieland_delight" on the Stormfront White Nationalist Community website) and a man suspected of being her boyfriend holding up a blue banner reading, "DEPORT ILLEGAL ALIENS," with the words, "http://www.SaveOurState.org," emblazoned just underneath them in much smaller type. {4}

After realizing that a good number of "white nationalists" had attended her rally, OCAngel, to her credit, took some steps to distance herself from them. In one cryptic posting on the "Save Our State" website, she hinted publicly to a person who apparently had sent her a private message that they had "an agenda I do not agree with" and would "have preferred your group [possibly the National Alliance] to set up further and separate from us [on Saturday, July 16th], and not aligned yourselves with us in any way. I appreciated that you did not openly flaunt your views ..." {5}

But the truth is, despite OCAngel's apparent despair over all the National Alliance members who showed up to her Laguna Beach rally, evidence is rapidly mounting that white supremacists from across Southern California are trying to work hand and glove with "Save Our State" and its members in every protest and demonstration they organize; in fact, in some circumstances, it appears some white supremacists are active members of that group.

None of this should be terribly surprising. I've long held that immigration reform is an important issue that requires serious discussion, but I don't believe for a moment that scapegoating and harassing border crossers is going to provide any solutions. My experience has been that if you scratch beneath the surface of those who do, you quickly find that they are more likely to be concerned with Latino (or any nonwhite) immigration, not illegal immigration per se, though of course they pay lip service to the latter.

The Stormfront forum is especially enlightening, since it is a specifically neo-Nazi chatroom. Especially noteworthy were the many posts questioning the use of the Nazi symbology at the rally, since it would "turn off" many whites. It's worth remembering that most dedicated racists take care not to let it show publicly -- unlike these fellows. But the whole thread makes clear to what extent these extremists now move among allegedly "mainstream" right-wing operations and not infiltrate them, but fully hijack them.

And as much as they might disguise themselves in the process, the vicious nature of this contingent eventually manifests itself.

It appears to have done so recently near Tijuana, where two Mexican men were shot in separate incidents while attempting border crossings:

Carlos Alfonso Estrada Martinez, 38, was one of two Mexican citizens shot in separate incidents during the early hours of Saturday in the border region between Tecate and Campo.

In statements he made to officials, Estrada had said he was about 200 yards inside the U.S. when he was hit about 1 a.m. A second man who was shot about an hour later said he was assaulted just south of the border fence in Mexico.

... The second man, Jose Humberto Rivera Perez, a 32-year-old native of Guadalajara, was shot just below the left knee. Interviewed earlier this week as he recovered at the Centro de Salud hospital, he said he was shot by a man who had his face covered as Rivera and several others waited to cross the border roughly 20 yards south of the fence.

When they tried to flee, the man shouted at them in Spanish not to run and fired, hitting Rivera.

A statement released earlier that weekend by Mexican immigration officials blamed the shootings on bandits rather than on cazamigrantes, Spanish for "migrant hunters." Since mid-July, armed civilians have been watching the border in the area surrounding Campo, patrolling between Jacumba and Tecate.

The reporters also spoke to a Minuteman leader:

Jim Chase, the Oceanside resident who organized the three-week border watch, said none of his people have fired any weapons. But he added that while he turns away people he considers extremists, he has been running into people conducting their own patrols who are not with his group.

"It doesn't scare me, but it is scary from the standpoint of these are people who have not gone through me to pledge to be nonracist and nonviolent," Chase said earlier this week.

Somehow, getting that official Minuteman certification doesn't exactly seem like an ironclad guarantee against racism and violence, either.

But then, movements like these, borne of racial scapegoating in the first place, are always going to attract those kinds of supporters. It's in their nature.

An embarrasment to conservatives indeed

One of the joys of vacations to places devoid of electricity is that you can finally escape the barrage of idiocy from right-wing gits who now populate so much of our national discourse.

But you always have to come back home, and when you do, you inevitably find that they've gone and soiled the carpet again.

It was over a week ago that they did so, attacking Judge John Coughenour's sentencing for Al Qaeda terrorist Ahmed Ressam.

It wasn't just that Coughenour gave Ressam what they considered a light sentence (22 years, instead of the 35 sought by prosecutors). What really stirred their ire was that Coughenour -- a Reagan appointee largely considered a conservative on the court -- laid into the current regime's handling of similar cases under the aegis of the "war on terror", especially through military tribunals free of court oversight.

In a commentary on the ruling, Coughenour had the audacity to say the following:

I've done my very best to arrive at a period of confinement that appropriately recognizes the severity of the intended offense, but also recognizes the practicalities of the parties' positions before trial and the cooperation of Mr. Ressam, even though it did terminate prematurely.

"The message I would hope to convey in today's sentencing is twofold:

"First, that we have the resolve in this country to deal with the subject of terrorism and people who engage in it should be prepared to sacrifice a major portion of their life in confinement.

"Secondly, though, I would like to convey the message that our system works. We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, or detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant, or deny him the right to counsel, or invoke any proceedings beyond those guaranteed by or contrary to the United States Constitution.

"I would suggest that the message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart. We can deal with the threats to our national security without denying the accused fundamental constitutional protections.

"Despite the fact that Mr. Ressam is not an American citizen and despite the fact that he entered this country intent upon killing American citizens, he received an effective, vigorous defense, and the opportunity to have his guilt or innocence determined by a jury of 12 ordinary citizens.

"Most importantly, all of this occurred in the sunlight of a public trial. There were no secret proceedings, no indefinite detention, no denial of counsel.

"The tragedy of September 11th shook our sense of security and made us realize that we, too, are vulnerable to acts of terrorism.

"Unfortunately, some believe that this threat renders our Constitution obsolete. This is a Constitution for which men and women have died and continue to die and which has made us a model among nations. If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won.

"It is my sworn duty, and as long as there is breath in my body I'll perform it, to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. We will be in recess."

Perhaps the most noxious of the right-wing responses came from Michelle Malkin, who proceeded to call Judge Coughenour "the terrorists' little helper" and "an embarrassment to conservatives and an impediment to winning the War on Terror," as well as "a fool and a threat." As usual with Malkin, it was a classic case of projection.

It was actually Hugh Hewitt who led the charge against Coughenour, opining:

Whatever the message the judge hoped to send, the one he in fact did send was to Islamicists all around the globe: Come to America. Try and kill us. Either you succeed and get to your version of heaven, or you'll get a second chance 22 years later after spending a couple of decades setting up networks that can help you with round 2.

The arrogance of this renegade judge's lecture is simply beyond belief. Congress should summon the judge to testify as to his inane remarks, but precede and follow his appearnce with panels comprised of vitims of terror and the families of military killed in the war.

The real "arrogance beyond belief" lies in these attacks, made by a pack of ideologues who specialize in disinformation and whose only interest is in stifling any criticism of the grotesqueries of the "war on terror" as waged by conservatives.

Because the truth is that Judge John Coughenour has already done more to combat terrorism on American soil than any of these twits will conceive of achieving in their lifetimes. Moreover, I have no doubt he will continue to do so.

I have sat in on Judge Coughenour's court proceedings on many occasions, largely because he has been handed, over the years, a large number of the criminal cases arising from right-wing extremists in the Pacific Northwest. These include a number of terrorist plots, as well as the Montana Freemen, who were responsible for the longest armed standoff with law-enforcement officials (81 days) in American history.

He certainly is no fool when it comes to dealing with extremists. I watched him bring an abrupt end to Freemen leader LeRoy Schweitzer's fondness for erupting in federal court with claims that the courts had no legitimacy and that he was a political prisoner. I saw him deal swiftly and decisively when defense attorneys in the Washington State Militia bomb-building case tried to give jurors a "jury nullification" pamphlet. Throughout these proceedings, he was always fair, but he quickly shut down anyone who got out of line.

He was the model, in fact, of the no-nonsense federal judge. Coughenour is indeed a conservative jurist with very firm and unmistakable views about the respective roles of the law and the courts and the rights of American citizens. It's clear that, like many conservatives, he regards government power over citizens' rights as something best held in restraint. Defense attorneys in his courtroom have to be quick on their feet, since he rarely gives them a break, yet he also can be tough on prosecutors, particularly those who ignore his instructions or, worse, tread into areas of potential prosecutorial abuse. He also is very disciplined and exacting; no one is late for any proceeding in his courtrooms, and no one comes improperly attired.

I recently described Coughenour's handling of another recent case involving right-wing scam artists. Worth noting: Even though prosecutors asked for a 25-year sentence -- and Coughenour noted he had plenty of reason for acceding to their requests -- he gave the scam artists 15 years instead.

In fact, that has been characteristic of nearly all of Coughenour's proceedings: the outcome always just, always tempered, always striving for real justice. In the Montana Freemen case, he threw the proverbial book at Schweitzer, the Pied Piper who had led so many people to join him in the armed standoff, and gave him a 22-year sentence. But when it came to the elderly Clark brothers, on whose ranch the standoff had occurred, he recognized that, even though they had broken the law, they too were largely duped. Moreover, both men were in failing health. After both were convicted, he gave them light sentences that mostly let them return home in short order.

A lot of critics of the courts are people who mistakenly believe they can delve the real issues involved in rulings by examining news accounts. The reality is that most such rulings hinge on extended histories and backgrounds that don't make most news stories, which by their nature provide only snapshots of the proceedings anyway.

Second-guessing Coughenour's ruling based on what little they actually know about the Ressam case is grotesque enough. But accusing him of being soft on terrorists and actually inviting terrorist attacks is outrageous, not to mention utterly at odds with reality.

It's also well worth noting that, even though many of Coughenour's critics have brought up his rulings in the Freemen and Washington State Militia cases, not one of them has recognized that these cases involved acts of domestic terrorism. Could it be they have a blind spot when it comes to defining just who is a terrorist?

Moreover, as Auguste at MalkinWatch points out, the real thrust of Coughenour's message was clear and direct: We do not need to suspend the Constitution to win the war against terrorists; our long-established institutions of justice, created by the Constitution, are more than effective.

The only thing that should embarrass conservatives about that statement is the realization that their ranks are being led by people (such as Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin) who think it's wrong.

Contra Hewitt's characterization, Coughenour's message to Islamist terrorists was quite clear: You will not destroy us by destroying our adherence to Constitutional principles.

But of course, Coughenour's message was also directed at this administration and its horde of hack apologists: You will not win the war on terror by destroying the very institutions and principles that the terrorists seek to destroy as well.

Obviously, that's not a message they want to hear.

UPDATE: Leah at Corrente has a lot more, including an examination of the factors in Ressam's case that go unmentioned by the right-wing attack dogs.

Orca report

It was a nice bit of guesswork that led me to schedule our annual camping trip to San Juan Park on the west side of San Juan Island this last week. Every day had nearly perfect weather -- sunny but not too hot. The wind kicked up enough to keep us from kayaking too much (we used the windy afternoons to visit other places on the island), but we still were on the water a lot.

Oh, and we saw a lot of whales.

One of them was this fellow you see atop the post, a big male who came swooping along the shore at Lime Kiln Lighthouse at the lead of a pod of about 10 killer whales on the afternoon of July 28. We had been observing whales from the campground both the previous day and earlier that morning, a number of them in what appeared to be orca sleeping behavior: a large group of about five to nine orcas aligned in a row, one in a lead position and the others coasting along in a tight arc right behind him. They would surface about every hundred yards or so, exhale a row of plumes into the air, like the fountains in a Vegas plaza, whose mist would linger even in the sun's heat, then dive again. We saw about three other whales (one of them a large male) cruising along in their vicinity, seemingly acting as watchmen should anything go amiss.

We decided to visit the lighthouse, about a mile south of our camp, where the kids could hike the trails and see some sights. They did. A large superpod of about 25 orcas came passing through, directly in front of the crowd that had gathered along the shore. The first group of about 15 orcas performed some half-breaches and tail lobs (or so I am told), but appeared to be intent mostly on moving south. As it happened, I was charged with taking a 4-year-old to the potty when most of this group came through, and I missed them.

But as we watched this last group fade into the horizon, a second group of about 10 came zooming alongside the bank at the lighthouse. This spot is deservedly famed for orca-watching, because beneath the surface, the rocks drop off in a sheer cliff face into the water, so the whales will come right up next to it, trapping the abundant fish and snatching them up. In other cases, like this, they'll just use it to ride the back eddies in the stiff currents that roil these waters.

Among this group was a calf and a female companion, probably its mother (though "aunties" often play the role of guardians). We first saw them shortly after the big male came by. The calf was playing around. but was kept moving steadily by it mother:



Another whale -- either another female or a juvenile male -- seemed to be playing a role in keeping the calf moving forward:



The current was working in their direction, but the wind was against them, which created some wave action that they seemed to enjoy crashing through, especially a couple of other females/young males we saw:





I had a chance to see this group (at least, I think it was them; my identification skills are pretty nonexistent) much closer the next evening, the 29th. We had seen them earlier in the day off our camp site, in transit mode far out in Haro Strait and followed by the usual phalanx of whale-watching boats. That evening, they came back our way, headed north, and they came in close to shore to play a little just as the sun was setting.

I had just headed out in my solo kayak to get some photos -- a plan that did not work, due mostly to the low light and the situation -- toward a kelp bed about 250 yards offshore from the campground when I stopped short. The whales, I realized, were, actually coming in on my side of the kelp bed, as well as through it. Indeed, the same mother and calf, it appeared, were playing in the fronds.

One thing I've learned about orcas is that, despite the cute and cuddly image they may enjoy -- thanks to a gazillion Shamu stuffed dolls -- orcas in the wild are wild animals. It's true that there has never been a recorded attack by an orca in the wild on a human (a fact that, I think, speaks volumes about our relationship to them, considering the potential) -- but there have been some recorded instances of retaliation for harassment.

A lot of kayakers think that the absence of an engine on their boat means they can't possibly harass the whales. And it's true that, while I've witnessed hundreds of close encounters between kayakers and orcas, I've never seen even a smidgen of actual contact. A lot of this, of course, has to do with the amazing gracefulness of these huge animals; and some probably has to do with their well-noted sensitivity to contact with their skin. Still, I did witness on one occasion last summer a large bull make an aggressive, perhaps playful, rush at a group of kayakers, and I've read accounts of numerous real threats from bulls (who seem to play a protective role, which is only natural, considering the real awe they inspire).

But kayaks can harass by their silence. If you paddle directly into an orca's path and expect him or her to avoid you by virtue of their grace, you're more likely to unpleasantly surprise the whale and force it to dive unexpectedly or interrupt its breathing pattern. Certainly you're increasing the stress on the animal and, if it's hunting, you're probably disrupting its ability to feed. Most of all, you're really counting on its good will to keep from knocking you into the water and chewing you to little pieces. Or worse.

Interestingly, one of the behaviors that researchers and watchers have seen in the resident orcas this summer involves an unusual bit of killer-whale brutality: they seem to be killing a few Dall's porpoises. Now, understand: transient orcas -- the whales who traverse the Pacific Coast from Baja to Alaska, including the Puget Sound -- regularly eat Dall's porpoises, who are the fastest marine mammal in these waters (reaching speeds above 30 knots with relative ease); they mostly eat seals and sea lions, but will chase down and eat porpoises too.

But the transients and the residents of these waters seem to have little or nothing in common; their languages and calls are entirely different, as well as their diets -- the residents are strictly fish eaters. Indeed, Dall's have been seen cavorting in the presence of resident whales, seemingly undisturbed by them.

This summer, though, there have been at least three confirmed instances in which resident orcas were seen "capturing" a young Dall's porpoise, "playing" with it at length -- in on instance clearly penning it in and pushing it, in another tossing it into the air, and finally in another case of chasing,they submerged with it for an extended period, only to emerge a little while later on the surface with the porpoise's body, which they pushed around on the surface for awhile. Researchers recovered the porpoise's body and found it had been drowned.

Doug M summed it up on the Orca Network's listserv:

... [Killer whales are big predators and deserve respect. Often we've encountered people who look at the resident population as the the kindly vegetarian intellectual version of killer whales. From many of these same people we have heard the desire to call them "orcas" instead of killer whales. It is noteworthy to mention that the root of orca is roughly translated to mean "demon from hell" (think of the "Orcs" from Lord of the Rings). While many people emphasize the fact there has not been a recorded human kill from a killer whale in the wild, it should not take away from the fact that they are large, efficient predators. I don't mean this to instill fear in anyone, just a healthy dose of respect. Something to consider before chasing after the whales in a kayak or small dinghy.

Those thoughts clearly never crossed the minds of some of the other kayakers out on the water in the strait that evening. One fellow drove his kayak directly into the path of the orcas as they headed toward the kelp bed, then hooted loudly as several of them sprayed him with their plumes (which is indeed a great but putrid experience; whale breath reeks of rotting fish). Other kayakers he was attached with kept seeking out new whales as they came by and paddling toward their path in hopes of being similarly sprayed, and a few of them were. Some got warning tail lobs too.

I didn't manage to get any good shots off that evening, because my camera was still in its dry bag, tucked under my spray skirt when I first suddenly encountered the whales near the kelp bed; and the light had grown too dim in short order to photograph any of the others farther out. I could have gotten a great shot, I suppose, by diving into them, but some things are more important than a good shot. And besides, I saw them quite close up, which was what mattered more.

---

The next day, the whales returned at about 3 in the afternoon, and one of the other fathers in our group, Adam Peck, headed out with me in our two-man kayak. I rode in front in hopes of getting off some good shots. The whales were spread out, it seemed, across the entire nine-mile swath of Haro Strait, but they all were consistently headed south.

We caught up with a group of them about a mile offshore and got a good look at a big male about 50 yards in front of us, and about four more smaller whales followed in short order, but I didn't manage to capture any decent images of any of them; I was discovering that, on a long flat surface like these waters, my autofocus was having diffculty settling on a setting before snapping the shutter, since a flick of the wrist on a bobbing kayak could shift the range from fifty yards to five miles. By the time I realized I needed to turn it off, the whales were gone.

It was such a pleasant day, Adam and I decided to head south in their general direction and go take a look at the lime kiln and lighthouse in the distance. We paddled for another 45 minutes or so that way, and then realized that the pod had turned around and was headed back northward. We decided to follow along from a distance, sticking close to shore, since the current favored us there, and we wouldn't be harassing the whales.

As luck would have it, though, a mother and calf chose to go very close to the rocky shore too. In fact, when we spotted them, they were on the inside of our path, and as we caught up to them, we decided to stop before coming perpendicular to them, so as not to "trap" them. The mother appeared to be teaching the calf how to catch fish, and she was using the sheer cliff of the rocky shore as a training ground, trapping the fish next to the rock wall while the little one grabbed away. They shortly headed back toward the larger group, the calf spyhopping and frolicking in a kelp bed along the way.

We continued to follow for awhile, but as we approached the campground, we hugged the shoreline and rode the current and wind back into camp. We'd been on the water two and a half hours and were a little worn out; it looked as if the whales were heading out for good northward anyway, and there was no point chasing them.

Well, whales are nothing if not unpredictable. They also have a gift for confounding their pursuers. Sure enough, no sooner had we landed and walked up the bank than it became clear that the entire group that had spread across the strait throughout the day had coalesced in an area about a mile offshore from the park -- just far enough to make their figures too small even with my telephoto lens. This was about 30 whales, as near as I could tell, and they proceeded to put on the most spectacular display of breaching I've ever watched.

The show lasted for about 15 minutes, and featured at least 30 breaches, by my count. In one instance, two whales breached simultaneously next to each other, one peeling off left and another to the right. At times, it resembled a large ballet, with massive leaps and splashes almost synchronized to the whales' own mysterious music.

If you've never seen a whale breach in the flesh, it's hard to describe the effect on your psyche, but two words spring to mind: joy and awe. There is a something profoundly exuberant about these bursts into our world, but the whales -- who are always checking us humans out -- also can't seem to help knowing that the displays strike us dumb with wonder. And you know what? I suspect they like that, too.

In any event, it was a woundrous show. My wife is one of those people who always seems to be looking the other direction when whales breach in our vicinity. That day, she saw more breaches than in her entire 15-year career of whale watching. She just sat on the grass and soaked it in through her binoculars.

Adam and I sat on the bank with our little ones -- my daughter and his son, in fact, are best pals -- and watched the show. And the truth was, while we wanted to be out there (and I was chagrined that I had guessed wrong once again), we didn't really mind a bit that we weren't. I didn't have any photos, but I had the memories, memories that included watching the whales with my little girl. Some things, after all, are more important than a great shot.

[Note: last year's orca report is here.]

Gone whaling

I'm off to the San Juan Islands for a six-day outing with a passel of small children. Pray for me.

Nah, don't.

The other kind of terror

Christopher Dickey has a terrific piece up on Newsweek's online content this week:

The sentencing of Eric Rudolph, who bombed abortion clinics, a gay bar and the Atlanta Olympics, ought to be a milestone in the Global War on Terror. In Birmingham, Ala., on Monday he got life without parole. Next month he’ll stack up a couple more life terms in Georgia, which is the least he deserves. (He escaped the death penalty only because he made a deal to help law-enforcement agents find the explosives he had hidden while on the run in North Carolina.) Rudolph killed two people, but not for want of trying to kill many more. In his 1997 attack on an Atlanta abortion clinic, he set off a second bomb meant to take out bystanders and rescue workers. Unrepentant, of course, Rudolph defended his actions as a moral imperative: "Abortion is murder, and because it is murder I believe deadly force is needed to stop it." The Birmingham prosecutor declared that Rudolph had "appointed himself judge, jury and executioner."

Indeed. That's what all terrorists have in common: the four lunatics in London earlier this month; the 19 men who attacked America on September 11, 2001; Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City, and many others. They were all convinced they had noble motives for wreaking their violence. Terrorists are very righteous folks. Which is why the real global war we’re fighting, let's be absolutely clear, should be one of our shared humanity against the madness of people like these; the rule of man-made laws on the books against the divine law they imagine for themselves. It's the cause of reason against unreason, of self-criticism against the firm convictions of fanaticism.

He goes on to explore something we've discussed often here: the hard reality that terrorism does not always come from abroad, from brown-skinned foreigners, but often from our own midst as well; and that at the root of all of them lies a broad disaffection with modernity; and that truly winning the fight against terrorism requires us to confront and defuse that disaffection.

He also explores how this reality stands in stark contrast to the "war on terror" our current leaders have given us:

But if the war of ideas that British Prime Minister Tony Blair talks about is going to be won -- and he's right in saying that's the core battle -- then the difference between rationalism and obscurantism should be underlined at every opportunity. And that's not what's happening. Instead, since the detour into Iraq it seems the intellectual compass of those who led us there has gotten lost in a fog of moral pieties, and sweet reason has surrendered to missionary zeal. To be a true believer in the Global War on Terror you are supposed to believe that we are fighting terrorists in Iraq, but that they would never think of fighting back outside of Iraq. Any effort to understand the enemy or his motivations is treated as an apology for what he does. At times we seem to be infected by the very pathology we are fighting against.

In case there's any doubt that domestic terrorism remains a potent force, you can turn to the recent U.S. News and World Report piece outlining just how extensive their activities have in fact been even since Oklahoma City:

In the 10 years since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 people, roughly 60 right-wing terrorist plots have been uncovered in the United States, according to an upcoming report by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. The plots, all foiled by law enforcement, reportedly included violent plans by antigovernment militia groups, racist skinhead organizations, and Ku Klux Klan members to use various types of chemical bombs and other weapons.

It's important to understand that this terrorism was defeated precisely because we undertook a law-enforcement approach to defeat it. Much of the success was predicated on solid intelligence-gathering and threat assessment, as well as appropriate timing for law-enforcement action. In other cases -- especially those since 9/11 -- we simply got lucky.

Some instances from the SPLC report:

-- May 20, 2005: Two New Jersey men, Craig Orler and Gabriel Garafa, who allegedly belong to neo-Nazi and skinhead groups, were charged with illegally selling to police informants guns and 60 pounds of urea to use in a bomb.

-- Oct. 25, 2004: FBI agents in Tennessee arrested Demetrius "Van" Crocker after he allegedly tried to purchase ingredients for deadly sarin nerve gas and C-4 plastic explosives from an undercover agent. Crocker, who was involved with white supremacist groups, was charged with trying to get explosives to destroy a building and faces more than 20 years in prison.

-- April 10, 2003: The FBI raided the home of William Krar, of Noonday, Texas, and discovered an arsenal of more than 500,000 rounds of ammunition, 65 pipe bombs and remote control briefcase bombs, and almost 2 pounds of sodium cyanide, enough to make a bomb that could kill everyone in a large building. Krar, reportedly associated with white supremacist groups, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for possession of a chemical weapon.

In many of these cases, the potential for mass casualties -- probably not as great as 9/11, but equal to or greater than the London or Madrid bombings -- was very high.

Of course, I've also written previously that Oklahoma City was the first major strike against us in the fight against terrorism -- we just didn't recognize it at the time. Maybe, slowly, we'll get there.

The Zigzag March of the Minutemen

One of the most disturbing trends we've observed this year has been the growing mainstream acceptance of the Minutemen, who represent a real incursion of right-wing extremism into the broader body politic. As we've noted, this includes endorsements of their activities both by public officials and the media.

The most recent advancement of this trend came from a top Border Patrol official (the same, it should be noted, who endorsed the Minutemen previously) saying his agency was considering giving official sanction to the Minutemen or similar groups:

The top U.S. border enforcement official said Wednesday that his agency is exploring ways to involve citizen volunteers in creating "something akin to a Border Patrol auxiliary" -- a significant shift after a high-profile civilian campaign this spring along the Arizona-Mexico border.

Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner told The Associated Press that his agency began looking into citizen involvement after noting how eager volunteers were to stop illegal immigration.

"We value having eyes and ears of citizens, and I think that would be one of the things we are looking at is how you better organize, let's say, a citizen effort," Bonner said.

He said that could involve training of volunteers organized "in a way that would be something akin to a Border Patrol auxiliary."

Bonner characterized the idea of an auxiliary as "an area we're looking at," and a spokeswoman said it hadn't been discussed yet with top Homeland Security officials.

A day later, his superiors at the Department of Homeland Security backed away from any such proposals [via Talk Left]:

"There are currently no plans by the Department of Homeland Security to use civilian volunteers to patrol the border," spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said in a statement. "That job should continue to be done by the highly trained, professional law enforcement officials of the Border Patrol and its partner agencies."

This mainstream support, uncertain as it may be, has helped the movement continue to spread, even to places with no discernible international borders, like Tennessee:

MORRISTOWN, Tenn. -- A volunteer movement that vows to guard America from a wave of illegal immigration has spread from the dusty U.S.-Mexican border to the verdant hollows of Appalachia.

At least 40 anti-immigration groups have popped up nationally, inspired by the Minuteman Project that rallied hundreds this year to patrol the Mexican border in Arizona.

"It's like O'Leary's cow has kicked over the lantern. The fire has just started now," said Carl "Two Feathers" Whitaker, referring to the fabled start of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Whitaker, an American Indian activist and perennial gubernatorial candidate, runs the Tennessee Volunteer Minutemen, aimed at exposing those who employ illegals.

Critics call the movement vigilantism, and some hear in the words of the Minutemen a vitriol similar to what hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan used against Southern blacks in the 1960s.

The Minuteman Project has generated chapters in 18 states -- from California to states far from Mexico, like Utah, Minnesota and Maine. The Tennessee group and others like it have no direct affiliation, but share a common goal.

"I struck the mother lode of patriotism or nationalism or whatever you want to call it," said Jim Gilchrist, a Vietnam veteran and retired CPA who co-founded the Minuteman Project 10 months ago. "That common nerve that was bothering a lot of people, but due to politically correct paralysis ... everyone was afraid to bring up -- the lack of law enforcement."

At the Department of Homeland Security, whose authority includes patrolling borders and enforcing immigration laws, response to Minuteman-type activism is guarded.

"Homeland security is a shared responsibility, and the department believes the American public plays a critical role in helping to defend the homeland," agency spokesman Jarrod Agen said from Washington. "But as far doing an investigation or anything beyond giving us a heads-up, that should be handled by trained law enforcement."

As the story notes, the uglier side of the Minutemen's base of support already has begun manifesting itself:

A group leading patrols of the California border raised concerns from the U.S. Border Patrol last week when they urged volunteers to bring baseball bats, mace, pepper spray and machetes to patrol the border. They backed off the recommendation, but insisted on another weapon when they started patrols Saturday: guns.

"The guns are for one reason -- to keep my people alive," said Jim Chase, a former Arizona Minuteman volunteer who is leading the effort.

It's worth keeping in mind, too, that these kinds of right-wing organizations are prone to implosion and real instability, as they typically involve a lot of high-maintenance egos and paranoid sensibilities. We saw this recently in the internal squabbling that erupted between various factions of the Minutemen:

Three months after hundreds of people descended on southern Arizona to stage civilian border patrols as part of the Minuteman Project, the anti-illegal-immigration movement has snowballed, with offshoot groups forming along the southern border and in other states.

But as the movement has grown, along with the media attention surrounding it, it has also splintered. Rival factions have emerged, squabbling over issues ranging from political correctness to use of the "Minuteman" name, and even over e-mail etiquette.

Some leaders of offshoot groups have launched verbal grenades at each other in the media and via news releases; others have traded insults online.

One group leader who feels particularly picked on says he has cut ties with Minuteman leadership and plans to operate solo.

And last month, Minuteman Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist dismissed two volunteers -- whom he characterized as "wackos" -- for sending querulous responses after he issued two e-mails to members of his group that threatened excommunication for those who didn't stop sniping at one another.

He signed one of his missives from "An American with better things to do than baby-sit quarrelsome adults."

"It's so counterproductive. It gets people distracted," said Gilchrist, a retired Orange County accountant who presides over Minuteman Project Inc., which he said is awaiting nonprofit status, and hopes to soon pursue employers who hire unauthorized workers.

"If I were to set up some rules of conduct, it would be to stop the argumentative attitude and be pleasant."

... [M]any agree the international media attention showered on the Minuteman Project, while it energized the anti-illegal-immigration movement, has also created a monster of sorts.

"When we left Arizona in April, too many people had seen the glamour," said Mike Gaddy, who is active in a Simcox-sanctioned Minuteman group in Farmington, N.M. " 'Gosh, I was on Sean Hannity. Gosh, I was interviewed by The Baltimore Sun. Gosh, I was interviewed on Spanish radio.' Egos are a terrible thing."

Like several others, Gaddy sees the elbowing as competitive. He says it bothers him that there are people in the movement who have political aspirations.

Gilchrist, for one, is contemplating a bid for Congress.

You have to read the whole thing to see how absurd the sniping gets. One of their opponents had the most accurate take:

Christian Ramirez of the American Friends Service Committee, a human rights group affiliated with the Quakers that has condemned the Minutemen and their successors, says he's not surprised.

"There has always been bickering among these types of organizations," Ramirez said. "There is always someone trying to become the leader of the anti-illegal-immigration movement, because it is such a fashionable thing. People are just fighting to see who is going to get more media attention."

One of the more interesting feuds has involved the Texas Minutmen, who announced their split from the national group:

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corp., the national organization led by co-founder Chris Simcox of Arizona, drew attention earlier this year with its patrols of the Arizona-Mexico border.

Last month, Simcox began to organize chapters around the U.S. and Canada. At least four sprouted in Texas, with plans to patrol the 1,200-mile border area as part of a national initiative called "Operation Secure Our Borders."

Some volunteers in Arizona were from Texas, and they returned to form Texas Minutemen LLC, based in Arlington. The group's co-founder, Shannon McGauley, said he agrees philosophically with Simcox but objects to the national structure.

McGauley's group also objects to paying the $50 fee per person that goes toward background checks and use of the national group's consultants, Web site and training.

"We wanted to keep it among Texans," he said. "And we don't charge anything."

Both groups have scouted land and have been gaining permission from landowners to set up lookout stations. Other groups have formed in New Mexico, California and Michigan -- among other border states -- with varying degrees of affiliation with Simcox's organization.

The Texas Minutemen said they will patrol the El Paso area, including Fabens and Fort Hancock. McGauley said his group has formed a loose network with similar organizations in New Mexico and California. He said another Texas group based in Houston is forming and expected to be part of the network.

Two Texas groups could cause problems, said Felix Almaraz, history professor specializing in Texas-Mexico border issues at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

"They're under different commands," he said. "They have a common objective of border security, but they're not coordinating together. It'll end up being selective surveillance."

Because the groups under close watch, any mishap could cause major damage to them, said Jerry Thompson, history professor at Texas A&M International University in Laredo.

"I think we need to be careful," he said. "This Texas individualism can get out of hand. What we need is more Border Patrol agents on the border. We don't need more Minutemen."

Meanwhile, of course, Simcox's national organization keeps bubbling along, despite all the zigzags. According to a news release on its Web site, its plans to organize patrols in four states -- California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas -- for the entire month of October:

Join fellow Patriot-Minutemen in October for a four state month-long Border Patrol to observe, report and protect the US from illegal immigration in all southern border states

MinutemanHQ.com is the new National Organization for the original Minuteman border project. It is the only group authorized by Chris Simcox and Jim Gilchrist who organized the first border watch.

Contact us immediately to learn about upcoming missions. We are expanding to California, Texas and New Mexico on the southern border. Requests from activated volunteers on the northern border with Canada - Maine, Vermont, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Idaho and Washington State are creating new operations, this is truly an exciting time for Patriots!

"Congress and the U.S. Senate continue to drag their feet on securing our borders with U.S. military and National Guard troops. Meanwhile, thousands of illegal immigrants cross our southern border every week.

Note, if you will, that this release specifically identifies the Minutemen as part of the Patriot movement -- that is, the movement that brought us militias in the 1990s. Indeed, the Minutemen are a direct offspring of an earlier "border militia" movement that was organized by Patriots.

However, you would be hard-pressed to find a mention of these extremist origins -- as well as the pervasive influence of extremists within its leadership and its membership -- in the recent love letter to the Minutemen that appeared in the right-wing Washington Times. The report offers fulsome details on the upcoming fall campaigns, as well as the Minutemen's supposed accomplishments to date:

More than 15,000 volunteers will man observation posts and conduct foot and horseback patrols this fall along the Mexican border from Texas to California and in seven states along the Canadian border in a new Minuteman vigil to protest what organizers call the government's lax immigration enforcement policies.

Chris Simcox, who heads the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said volunteers from throughout the country who are "concerned that the U.S. government must be made to act and take control of our borders" are signing up in record numbers for the new monthlong patrols set to begin Oct. 1.

"We want a secure U.S. border and an end to the blatant disregard of the rule of law regarding illegal immigration," Mr. Simcox said. "Nearly four years after the September 11 attacks on America, we should be doing a better job of securing our borders.

"Our government is more concerned with securing the borders of foreign lands than securing the borders of the United States," he said.

Now, you'll want to take the numbers they predict on the border with a large mine of salt. They predicted 10,000 for the Arizona watch and came up with something far short of that (some media observers counted only around 2,500, at best, though of course the Minutemen's "official" numbers are around 8,000).

Simcox's insistence that the Minutemen's mission is focused on securing borders for the "war on terror" doesn't hold a lot of water, either. Most of the Minutemen, when interviewed, tend to talk about how their hometowns and neighborhoods are being overrun with criminal Latinos. It's about Latino-bashing, and the "war on terror" talk is just a fig leaf.

Indeed, Simcox himself will start talking this way if you let him go long enough, as one reporter did:

"It's a public safety issue because 30 percent of crimes are committed by aliens," said Simcox, who cites no source for the statistic. "There's an explosion of vicious gangs with no respect for human life that target us because of soft laws."

Perhaps in keeping with how things have actually gone so far for the Minutemen, their most recent patrol in California -- organized by Jim Chase, one of the splinter-group leaders -- once again featured more media folk and protesters than actual Minutemen.

Another report of the same event included some worthwhile observations from the people who came there to protest -- and an interesting response from the Minutemen:

Meanwhile, down a dirt road at the hilly, rugged border fence, protesters barbecued food, chanted and prayed, and stayed out of the sun. When they spotted border watchers, the protesters massed around them, telling them to go home.

"There's no place for you in California," said Bruce Cooley, of Los Angeles. "You are contributing to the deaths of people who are trying to cross to feed their families" back home.

One border watcher, who refused to give his name as he climbed into his Jeep, outfitted with a dirt bike, said he would be back. "It's intimidating to have all those people yell at you," the San Diego resident said. "But we'll come back tonight and just sneak up on them."

Yeah, that open daylight can be an annoying thing.

Reviews from here and there

My new book, Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community, just got its highest-profile review in a paper I've harshly criticized on many occasions in the past: the (ulp!) Washington Times.

Nonetheless, Tom Carter's piece is not just a strong review, but a good read in its own right. Carter, you see, grew up in Bellevue:

Growing up in the 1950s in a suburb of Atlanta "coloreds only" and "whites only" signs on water fountains and public toilets were fairly common. It never occurred to me that white people might have similar feelings toward "Orientals" until we moved to Bellevue, Wash., a suburb of Seattle in 1962. I remember my parents bewilderment at the openly hostile neighborhood reaction when a Japanese family tried to buy a house in our Mockingbird Hill development.

Riding our bicycles on Bellevue streets, walking to school, swimming in nearby Lake Sammamish, Bellevue was a white and middle-class. We knew nothing of the history, that Bellevue was a small farming suburb hewn from the wilderness, stumps removed, fields made workable and then planted by Japanese immigrants in the early 1900s. And after Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, it was one of many West Coast cities depopulated of Japanese by government order, a forced evacuation that sent hundreds of Bellevue Japanese to internment camps -- ultimately clearing the way for white suburbia.

Be sure to read it all.

And, while I'm at it, it's worth noting that the reviews for the book at the Amazon link were invaded earlier this week by the execrable "Bob," a onetime regular commenter here who not only liked to argue (a la Michelle Malkin) that the internment of Japanese Americans was justifiable but necessary, but eventually, he developed a habit of posting personal smears about local Nikkei, which earned him a deletion and a ban. Then he went away.

Eric Muller recently posted some information about "Bob", who is evidently closely associated with a Bainbridge Island figure named James Olsen (if he isn't in fact Olsen himself). Olsen and his wife, Mary Dombrowski, have been badgering the Bainbridge school district about its history curriculum regarding the internment, a campaign that has, unsurprisingly, earned Malkin's endorsement.

Unfortunately, Amazon deleted Bob's review of my book. I say "unfortunately" not because I endorse Bob's views, of course, but because I do believe in the free exchange of ideas. It's useful to have Bob's explanation of why the internment was justifiable out there in black and white so that anyone can see exactly how thin and, ultimately, groundless -- not to mention profoundly amoral -- their argument really is.

As it happened, I preserved a copy of his review, and so I'll reproduce it here:

Absolute Garbage! Neiwert's a race-baiting flake!, July 14, 2005

Reviewer: Bob - See all my reviews

It is well-documented that the evacuation was motivated, not by racism, but by information obtained by the U.S. from pre-war decoded Japanese diplomatic messages "MAGIC" and other intelligence revealed the existence of espionage and the potential for sabotage involving then-unidentified resident Japanese aliens and Japanese-Americans living within the West Coast Japanese community.

You can read about MAGIC and it's subseqently being ignored by the reparations commission here.

[...]

The actual declassified MAGIC intercepts are here.

http://www.athenapressinc.com/smithsonian/Appendix3.html

The U.S. Congress immediately passed legislation providing enforcement provisions for FDR's Executive Order, unanimously in both the House and Senate, provided under Article 1, Section 9 of the United States Constitution.

Only persons of Japanese ancestry (alien and citizen) residing in the West Coast military zones were affected by the evacuation order. Those living elsewhere were not affected at all.

It is not true that Japanese-Americans were "interned. Only Japanese nationals (enemy aliens) arrested and given individual hearings were interned. Such persons were held for deportation in Department of Justice camps. Those evacuated were not interned. They were first given an opportunity to voluntarily move to areas outside the military zones. Those unable or unwilling to do so were sent to Relocation Centers operated by the War Relocation Authority.

At the time, the JACL (Japanese American Citizens League) officially supported the government's evacuation order and urged all enemy alien Japanese and Japanese Americans to cooperate and assist the government in their own self interest.

It is misleading and in error to state that those affected by the evacuation orders were all "Japanese-Americans."

Approximately two-thirds of the ADULTS among those evacuated were Japanese nationals--enemy aliens. The vast majority of evacuated Japanese-Americans (U.S. citizens) were children at the time. Their average age was only 15 years. In addition, over 90% of Japanese-Americans over age 17 were also citizens of Japan (dual citizens)under Japanese law. Thousands had been educated in Japan. Some having returned to the U.S. holding reserve rank in the Japanese armed forces.

During the war, more than 33,000 evacuees voluntarily left the relocation centers to accept outside employment. An additional 4,300 left to attend colleges.

In a questionaire, over 26% of Japanese-Americans of military age at the time said they would refuse to swear an unqualified oath of allegiance to the United States.

According to War Relocation Authority records, 13,000 applications renouncing their U.S. citizenship and requesting expatriation to Japan were filed by or on behalf of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Over 5,000 had been processed by the end of the war.

After loyalty screening, eighteen thousand Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans were segregated at a special center for disloyals at Tule Lake California where regular military "Banzai" drills in support of Emperor Hirohito were held.

The Supreme Court of the United States upheld the Consitutionality of the evacuation/relocation in Korematsu v. U.S., 1944 term. In summing up for the 6-3 majority, Justice Black wrote:

"There was evidence of disloyalty on the part of some, the military authorities considered that the need for action was great, and time was short. We cannot -- by availing ourselves of the calm perspective of hindsight -- now say that at the time these actions were unjustified."

That decision has never been reversed and stands to this day.

It should be noted that the relocation centers had many amenities. Accredited schools, their own newspapers, stores, churches, hospitals, all sorts of sports and recreational facilities. They also had the highest percapita wartime birth rates for any U.S.community.

More history for you to consider regarding the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians:

Consider that of the nine commission members, six were biased in favor of reparations. Ishmail Gromoff and William Marutani, relocatees themselves, sat in judgment of their own cases. Arthur Goldberg and Joan Bernstein made sympathetic, pro-reparation statements publicly before hearings even began. Arthur Fleming had worked closely with the JACL (he was a keynote speaker at its Portland convention in the '70s). Robert Drinan was a co-sponsor of the bill establishing the commission.

Consider that notices of when and where hearings were to be held were not made known to the general, non-Japanese public.

Consider that witnesses who gave testimony were not sworn to tell the truth.

Consider that witnesses who were pro-reparation were carefully coached in their testimony in "mock hearings" beforehand.

Consider that witnesses against reparation were harassed and drowned out by foot-stomping Japanese claques, that the commission members themselves ridiculed and badgered these same witnesses.

Consider that not one historian was asked to testify before the commission, that intelligence reports and position papers contrary to reparations were deliberately ignored.

Consider that as a result of the above, the United States Department of Justice objected strongly to the findings of the commission.

Lastly while we've all been educated on the doctrines associated with the rise of Nazism, I would be curious to know if courses are provided teaching the history of the doctrines of Japanese militarism, a belief system similar and equally as insidious as Nazism?

Any clasess on the kokutai? Hakko Ichiu? Any reading of Kokutai no Hongi? Shimin to Michi? The role of Nichiren Buddhism and Japanese "Language Schools" in teaching these doctines of Japanese racial superiorty to ethnic Japanese colonies throughout the word prior to Pearl Harbor?

Those of you learning this history at your public schools and universities should understand you are being taught an extemely biased and partial version of what really happened and why. I would urge you to go beyond the politically correct version of this history as propagated by the Japanese-American reparations movement.

I understand that publishing Bob's remarks helps him circulate those views. But I also believe that seeing them in print helps people understand how these folks think -- and a careful examination reveals their utter bankruptcy.

Ironically, nearly every one of the points Bob raises is in fact addressed and specifically refuted in the text of Strawberry Days, including the very real role of racism in the drama; the actual significance of the MAGIC encrypts; the demographic makeup of the internees; the military signup debate; what was really taught in those Japanese schools; and the significance of the Supreme Court rulings and the fact that Korematsu has never been overturned. (I don't discuss the behavior of some audience members at the Wartime Relocation Commission hearings, but then, it doesn't strike me as particularly significant. Strange, though, how "Bob" isn't equally outraged by the treatment that was afforded anyone who dared speak out against the evacuation at the Tolan Committee hearings in the spring of 1942.) Oh, and incidentally: I have no connection to any "Japanese American reparations movement."

So, how odd is it to post a review of a book whose text specifically refutes everything in your review?

Well, that doesn't matter to people like "Bob" and James Olsen and Michelle Malkin. They are True Believers, and no evidence -- not even a mountain of it -- will move them to admit that they are wrong. (Not that "Bob" will have bothered to actually read the book.) Nor, it seems, do they possess enough self-awareness to recognize just how morally repugnant the upshot of their argument (to wit: those Japanese really were untrustworthy and deserved to be locked up en masse) really is.

The rest of us can judge for ourselves.

The elimination game

Probably the most striking scene in Patrice O'Neill's excellent P.O.V. documentary currently airing on PBS, "The Fire Next Time," involves my friend Brenda Kitterman teaching her two teenage daughters how to use a handgun.

The girls were more or less forced to learn because Elizabeth, the elder of the two, began speaking out against right-wing hate groups at her Kalispell, Montana, school in emulation of her mom, and was subsequently threatened and had her tires slashed. Their family was subjected to a barrage of threatening phone calls and late-night visitations from strange men in their yard, one of them shouting at the mother to come out. The elder daughter was being followed home from her job every night.

It was part of a campaign of right-wing intimidation of conservationists and "liberals" in Montana's Flathead Valley, a phenomenon I've described in some detail previously. The Kittermans were hardly alone in facing this kind of harassment, but they experienced an especially intense version of it.

So we see Brenda, who is an ex-cop and more than familiar with firearms, teaching her daughters how to hold the gun, aim properly, and squeeze off a shot at a silhouette target. Trisha, the younger of the two, is uncertain whether she can actually pull the trigger on another person, so they sit down to talk about it, and Brenda advises her not to carry a gun until she's sure she can use it. Trisha nods, and agrees, then tucks her face into her arms and silently begins to cry.

This was one of the more vivid sequences in the film's depiction of the dynamic that hits any community when hateful eliminationist rhetoric takes root. Just as striking for me, in a low-key way, was how it demonstrated the chilling and intimidating effect that such thuggishness can have on ordinary people. As the film's advance text explains:

Nothing was more telling -- and is more disquieting in "The Fire Next Time" -- than the community's reaction to discovery of Project 7, its cache of guns and its hit list. The targets, after all, were not distant officials or outsider bureaucrats. They were everyone's longtime neighbors, including popular Police Chief Frank Garner and Sheriff Jim Dupont. And while many citizens, like Brenda Kitterman and newly elected Mayor Pam Kennedy, felt immediately moved to rally in protest, there was a degree of denial about the potential danger. Those accused of being terrorists were also neighbors, who had carved out a place for their views in public meetings and on the radio. For elected officials like Pam Kennedy and Gary Hall, the daily blast of on-air attacks turns public life into a risky proposition, given the real threat from Project 7. The result was also a spreading fear as people began to weigh the costs of speaking out.

I thought this was particularly embodied in an interview with the family of Mike Raiman, a Flathead Valley conservationist who took a leading role in standing up to the hateful talk that emanated from the likes of local right-wing radio talk-show host John Stokes.

Raiman is a grandfather, and both of his sons are in their early 30s with families of their own, though they work with him and have supported him throughout his ordeal -- in some cases, coming in for abuse themselves. But the elder of the two sons, you can tell, is weary of it all and wary too: he has a family to think about, and their safety is paramount to him. He doesn't know how much longer he can keep it up. You can't really blame him.

That's how eliminationist hate works, regardless of its target: Its aim is to threaten and intimidate not merely the immediate target, but anyone who might think of speaking out on their behalf. This cuts the target off from the community support it might normally enjoy and leaves them feeling even more isolated.

What, really, is eliminationism?

It's a fairly self-explanatory term: it describes a kind of politics and culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas for the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through complete suppression, exile and ejection, or extermination.

I first encountered it in Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners, which is in many regards a problematic text, especially insofar as it describes prewar German society as almost uniquely predisposed to antisemitism. But Goldhagen's text correctly identifies and describes the essence of the Nazi campaign against the Jews as eliminationist in nature, something that was made undeniably manifest in the Holocaust.

But while eliminationism's most startling historical example was provided by the Nazis, it also has a long and appalling history in the annals of American democracy. It was manifest in the genocidal wars against Native Americans, when "the only good Indian was a dead Indian": in the many anti-immigrant campaigns waged by Nativists of many different stripes; in night-riding Ku Klux Klansmen, Jim Crow segregation, and the lynch mobs who murdered thousands of innocent blacks during the heyday of white supremacism; in the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans in World War II; in the continuing march of hate crimes that target various kinds of "undesirable" members of society for terrorization and exclusion; and in the lingering far-right "militias" and related hate groups who scapegoat minorities and immigrants, gays and lesbians, government officials, and liberals generally, making them the targets of both hateful rhetoric and actual violence.

Eliminationism in truth forms the really hateful, violent core of fascism, the facet that distinguishes the real item from its pseudo manifestations (though of course not all eliminationism is necessarily fascist). It glories in violence, in action over intellect, and always insists, of course, that it represents the true national identity.

Rhetorically, it takes on some distinctive shapes. It always depicts its opposition as simply beyond the pale, and in the end the embodiment of evil itself -- unfit for participation in their vision of society, and thus in need of elimination. It often depicts its designated "enemy" as vermin (especially rats and cockroaches) or diseases, and loves to incessantly suggest that its targets are themselves disease carriers. A close corollary -- but not as nakedly eliminationist -- are claims that the opponents are traitors or criminals, or gross liabilities for our national security, and thus inherently fit for elimination.

And yes, it's often voiced as crude "jokes", the humor of which, when analyzed, is inevitably predicated on a venomous hatred.

But what we also know about this rhetoric is that, as surely as night follows day, this kind of talk eventually begets action, with inevitably tragic results.

While in recent years much of this activity tends to be relegated to fringe behavior, it's disturbing to observe this trend treading out of the fringes and increasingly back into the mainstream, as it did in the Flathead Valley -- and moreover, as it is doing on a national mainstream level. It's worth remembering, of course, that there have been many instances when eliminationism was very much part of mainstream American culture, and there's no reason to believe it couldn't happen again.

I was reminded of this the other night when I was talking to the very nice-sized audience that turned out for my reading from Strawberry Days at Ravenna Third Place Books in Seattle. In the front row was an elderly Nisei woman I didn't know, but later found out was Mary Matsuda Gruenewald, who had authored her own book on the internment, Looking Like the Enemy (and an excellent book it is).

I had earlier in the evening discussed how difficult it was for white people in the spring of 1942 to stand up and publicly defend their Japanese neighbors, pointing out that the few who did were subjected to "Jap lover" epithets, sneering attacks on their motives, and in some cases threats.

Ms. Gruenewald asked an interesting question: What, she wondered, would I recommend for people today, in the current environment, should they be faced with a similar choice?

I found myself giving her an answer similar to one I've actually given many times, including during a community gathering in Kalispell the summer after the events of "The Fire Next Time" (the crew was there and filming the event, but the gathering mostly wound up on the editing floor), as well as at community discussions on hate crimes. I can't recall the exact words, but it went something like this:

I think it's important for people to understand the value of standing up and making their voices heard, regardless of the threats that may come their way. Failing to do so will make our communities less safe, places we don't want to bring our children up in anyway. And when people find the courage to stand up and be counted, they'll quickly realize that they are not alone, that others will be there to stand beside them. We're the true silent majority, and tragedies like the internment only happen because too many of us lack the courage to make our voices heard. If the internment offers us any real lessons for today, it's that we cannot repeat the same mistake.

Now, I have to admit to being amused by Rev. Mykeru's recent takedown of a right-wing intimidation artist who calls himself "Lord Spatula," who has a habit of spewing all kinds of vile eliminationist rhetoric in the direction of a number of liberals who post on the Internet, including various threats of physical harm. Mykeru called him on his bluff, arranged a halfway meeting place, and told Lord Spatula to show up for an ass-kicking. Spatula, of course, backed down.

I can't say I endorse Mykeru's tactics, as satisfying as they might be, since they come down to promising actual violence, and being prepared to carry it out. But it's well worth remembering what his little exercise clearly revealed: Bigmouthed bullies are all, at their core, pathetic cowards. When they are confronted, they run away. They may lob a few shots in retreat, but they always run away. Unless, of course, we cede the field to them.

And eliminationism, in all its myriad forms, is in the end nothing but pure bullying. The sooner we begin confronting it, the more certain we are to halt its spread.