Thread: The All-American Minutemen.. looney & adorable (opinion)

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The All-American Minutemen
By: JOHN VAN DOORN - Staff Writer

This month's monitoring of Arizona's border country by an organization that calls itself the Minutemen is a purely American exercise, an exquisite microcosm of the whole of American life and the sweep of American character.

Which is to say, it is looney in every respect, but adorable.

The idea, as expressed by various spokespersons ---- they have been easy to find and eager to speak ---- is to stop illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border, concentrating on about 20 miles of desolate country in Arizona. And to call attention to what they're up to.

Nobody asked them to come; the Border Patrol itself is very uneasy about their presence, particularly in view of sidearms and longer-barreled weapons that some are carrying. But they came anyway, some adhering to the illegal angle, some talking about stopping terrorists, some saying they just want U.S. law obeyed, some ---- it is suspected ---- with a little racial hatred in their hearts.

Behold your fellow Americans. These are volunteers, and we all love a volunteer. Behold the Minutemen (40 percent are women), taking a patriotic name from some men who were practically midwives at the dawn of the nation itself. Brand names are so American that ... but I need not tell you. Great choice.

From the beginning, the volunteers said they were doing it for the publicity. To draw attention to illegal immigrants who over 20 years or so have not minded dying by the thousands that a few might slip into the land of the free. They said it openly: publicity. Behold the marketers, American in song and sinew, who know how to push product in dust and heat and to simplify what is not so simple. If that is not American, I don't know what is.

Did they get their publicity? Of course. All Americans know that if they have the daffiest, goofiest, most ridiculous (and perhaps dangerous) of ideas all they have to do is call the nearest newspaper, TV or radio station, network, cable or wire service, and utter a buzzword, and they've got coverage.

Among today's buzzwords guaranteed to light the fires of American journalism are military, terror, border, immigrant, weapons, patriotism, Muslim, hero, cocaine, homeland and gang. The Minutemen called this time with five or six of the top 11 in the spiel, and so they couldn't fail, and they didn't. News persons, if you will pardon such a careless definition, rushed to cover the story, in spite of the fact it wasn't one.

That's America for you. Every man a public-relations genius, every thought a gem, every call theater of the absurd, but theater. You don't find these dynamics in Harbin on the Songhua River or anywhere else in the province of Heilongjiang. These are Americans, and you have to love it. (Oh, you could, as so many Minutemen suggest, leave it, but Americans are not quitters; keep that in mind.)

What is going on in Arizona has that military twang to it. Military is as American as steroids in pro ball. We won't list all wars and conflicts here, but there have been plenty. Since the border between Mexico and the United States became a purely military front with nifty, oh-so-American-military titles ---- Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego, Operation Hold the Line in El Paso, Operation Safeguard in Arizona, to name a few ---- the atmosphere for the length of it, about 2,000 miles, is like a battlefront. It's war.

So who can resist a fast trip to the front? During the Civil War, the ladies and gentlemen of Washington society used to take buggies out to ridges near the city from which they could watch battles, occasionally applauding. It was a way to spend an afternoon.

To sum up: The Minutemen may be wrong-headed, and deluded in their quest, but they're lovable and they're good ol' boys and girls. Besides, they're just off to the front, itself wrong-headed and grotesque. They're going to have a swell month of it and get on TV and in the papers, and make some point or other, rather loudly. You can't get more American than that.

Contact John Van Doorn at (760) 739-6647, or jvandoorn@nctimes.com.

Which is to say, it is looney in every respect, but adorable.

It is very serious to me.

Did they get their publicity? Of course

The ISSUE needed the publicity--not the Minutemen.
Understand the difference.