Thread: Misguided militia missing the point

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/13608375.htm

Posted on Thu, Jan. 12, 2006

Misguided militia missing the point

By BUD KENNEDY
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

For two hours Saturday, a line of six protesters prevented anyone from hiring day workers in Denton County.

Why in the world would anyone do that?

Ask the misguided militia calling itself the LoneStar MinuteMen, or the Texas Minutemen, or maybe the Wise County Minutemen.

Instead of guarding the border, they decided to guard a Whataburger in Denton. Then they protested employers hiring workers -- some of them illegal immigrants -- at the Denton day-labor corner, El Sitio.

The protest was part of a nationwide anti-immigration stunt called "Stop the Invasion."

All it did was stop the construction. And then only for two hours. Once the Minutemen's 120 minutes of TV-ready camera time was up, they retreated. Never mind that Denton police say most workers at El Sitio come to the United States legally. The local Mini-Minutemen decided to protest anyway, just to make sure nobody hired workers to roof houses or trim hedges.

"We're succeeding in keeping them away," said a Denton County woman who gave reporters only the nickname "Cindy Lou."

Great.

So does Cindy Lou do lawns?

By all descriptions, "Stop the Invasion" turned into a Texas-size flop. Some of the scheduled protests in 19 states never materialized. One Houston-based anti-immigration organization had announced a protest in Austin, but the Web site is now closed.

Another tiny Austin protest was sponsored by a small group of murky origin named the Confederacy of Texas. The LoneStar MinuteMen did not exactly dominate Denton. They were met by three times as many counterprotesters -- so many that three MinuteMen apparently decided to run for the highway, according to a description posted under "Cindy Lou's" name on a Web bulletin board.

"Out of the dozens that said they were coming, only 10 showed up," the e-mail says. "1 of them got scared and left town, and this Woman was literally shaking when she realized that the 3 young men that was sitting beside them at a table were against us. Then she saw the number of adversaries and freaked! ...

"There were ALOT of Media there, typical for any Immigration event. ... I gave more interviews today than I have on all 4 Border Watches the past year."

The LoneStar MinuteMen achieved their goal, she wrote, to "bring attention to the issue."

Or to bring attention to the puny LoneStar MinuteMen.

The Denton-based LoneStar band and its Wise County cousin, the Texas Minuteman Project, are local enterprises raising their own money but peddling the politics of the Minuteman Project, the Arizona-based movement to recruit a "volunteer border patrol" to watch U.S. borders and discourage illegal immigration.

Minuteman spokesmen consistently say their motive is border security, not race. Yet the Minuteman Project's own Web site still carries the racially charged prediction that further immigration will turn the United States into a "tangle of rancorous, unassimilated, squabbling cultures."

In other words, the only culture the Minutemen like is their own.

The same Web site also predicts "political, economic and social mayhem." I see only one way Texas might sink into economic mayhem.

That's if we can no longer find enough workers.

The real immigration news story last week didn't involve day-labor parks or protests.

Texas' unemployment rate sank to 5.2 percent, the best in four years. Our economy is booming. Our housing market is setting records. And immigrants -- many of them illegal -- are doing much of the work.

According to statistics released this week by the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, the Texas construction industry added 16,500 jobs last year. Construction is the fastest-growing industry in Texas, leading even the energy industry and gas drilling in the Barnett Shale.

When Gov. Rick Perry announced his campaign for re-election this week, he bragged about the state's "300,000 new jobs" and all-time employment record.

Who do you think is doing thousands of those jobs?

Hint: It's not those six MinuteMen.

I just left a post on this blog telling expressing my support for these Minutemen.
http://minutemanhq.com/b2/index.php/...=1&disp=single

Maybe someone else can find a better blog that goes directly to the Lone Star Minute Men who so bravely stood out there with only 6 and have to endure this press coverage.

I am going to look for a place on these papers' websites to leave a comment. They need to hear from us.