What this Action is About
This, the second action coordinated by SWARM [1], is an attempt to move
beyond the minutemen [2] - as one group of people working against
migrants and migratory movement – to a systemic logic. This logic that
pervades American society [3] is canonized in Academia and
institutionalized in the US border Patrol. [4]
It is logic that ‘others’ migrant people and people of color in general.
[5] It marginalizes migrants; dehumanizes migrants; Subjects them to
unnecessary violence and persecution. [6]
The recent and broad-based recognition and legitimization [7] of these
anti-immigrant groups is rooted in a much larger ideology that underpins
white American identity. [8] It is an ideology that tells its history
as if it is not a history of migrants, immigrants, and indigenous
peoples some of whom suffered genocide in the face of European
migration. [9] This attention has also re-invigorated even more radical
and racist organizations [10] Though some may portray the Minutemen as
simply “backward hicks’ – they share the interests and goals of
academics like Samuel Huntington [11] , the policy makers behind NAFTA
[12] and the US patriot act [13], and US nationalists. [14] The rhetoric
of such policies has paved the way for Nazis and White Supremacist to
rise again. This Racism is systemic within the US. It goes from the
mouth of a Ivy League academic to the gun of a civilian border agent. [15]
This virtual sit-in is an attempt to disrupt the modes of communication
and information dissemination that facilitate racist organizing. Over
the next few weeks, the California Minutemen Border Patrol Auxiliary
camp out in Campo, recommencing their summer long campaign of violence
against Migrant people [16]. For this we will not stand – but SIT – IN –
In conjunction with protests at the Minutemen camps [17], on their
virtual domain – in the names of those who have died and will die as a
result of their actions. The software we are using request files from
the servers of the targeted websites that are not found – files like
Justice, Freedom, and the names of those who have died crossing the
border [18]. In effect you will see the error message – “files not
found.” The sit-in will interfere with and slowdown the servers of
these various groups and individuals – much like a physical sit-in slows
down the movement of people in buildings or on streets. [19] More than
78,000 people sat with us in our first action against the Minutemen. As
our target grows – so will the resistance.
We have charted the movements of migrants, those who resist them
[20] and those who support them [21] – across the map of North America.
We have only included the lines chosen by nation-states solely as a
reference - not because we feel they divide us or define us. The paths
charted are only but a few of the infinite journeys traveled by the
migrating world.
For more information, go to: http://swarmtheminutemen.com
or
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.htm
Thank you for participating.
1. South West Action to Resist the Minutemen http://swarmtheminutemen.com/
2. Minuteman Project
http://www.minutemanhq.com/project/
3. Zogby poll: Americans fed up on illegal aliens Majority against Bush
plan for workers, 81% think local police should help feds
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44154
4. The Persistence of White Privilege and Institutional Racism in US
Policy - http://www.arc.org/downloads/trji010417.pdf - COMPILED BY
TRANSNATIONAL RACIAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE
What is institutional Racism? -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism
5. Definitions of Othering -
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/rww03/othering.htm
6. Photos of boder vigilantes humilating migrant people by Todd Bigelow
http://www.toddbigelowphotography.com/portfolio/photo_essays/vigilantes/vigilantes.html
7. San Diego Union Tribune -
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/editorial2/20050512-9999-lz1ed12bottom.html
CNN - http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/16/broken.borders/
8. "Hate or Heroism: Vigilantes on the Arizona-Mexico Border" – a
report by the Border Action Network
http://www.borderaction.org/PDFs/BAN-Vigilante%20Report.pdf
9. History of World Migration - History as Migration -
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Migration-(human)
10.'Aryan Resistance' http://resist.com/
11. Samuel Huntintion -
http://www.gov.harvard.edu/Faculty/Bios/Huntington.htm
Hispanic Challenge
http://discuss.agonist.org/yabbse/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=17351
12. "Neoliberalism, NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and
Migration: Their Impact on Labor Markets in North America"
http://www.alast.org/PDF/Marshall1/MT-VelascoArregui.PDF
13. ACLU reports on The USA PATRIOT Act -
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12126&c=207
14. For example, see the The Project for the New American Century -
http://www.newamericancentury.org/
15. "Nazis, racists join Minuteman Project" -
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?aid=13
The Minutemen and the Media: Mainstream news overlooks vigilante group's
ties to white supremacists -
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=19008
[16] For an example of the kind of violence vigilantes in the San Diego
region engage in, see:
http://www.toddbigelowphotography.com/portfolio/photo_essays/vigilantes/search_guard.html
[17] "Stop the Border Vigilantes in Campo, July 15-19th"
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2005/07/109826.shtml
[18] http://stopgatekeeper.org/English/index.html
"3,000 Migrants dead, does anyone care?" from the stopgatekeeper.org
website. The current number is estimated at over 3,500 migrant people
who have died.
[19] "Just as the Vietnam War and the Gulf War brought thousands into
the streets to disrupt the flow of normal business and governance -
acting upon the physical infrastructure - future interventionist wars
will be protested by the clogging or actual rupture of fiber optic
cables and ISDN lines - acting upon the electronic and communications
infrastructure."
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/oecd.html
[20] Websites and organizations targeted in this action are:
The Arizona Minutemen - http://www.minutemanhq.com/
California Minutemen - http://borderwatch.us/
Save Our State - http://www.saveourstate.org/
Border Patrol -
http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/xp/cgov/border_security/border_patrol/
NAFTA - http://www.nafta-sec-alena.org
CAFTA - http://www.ustr.gov/
Samuel Huntington, Harvard Academy of International and Area Studies -
http://www.gov.harvard.edu/Faculty/Bios/Huntington.htm
[21] Websites and organizations working for human rights for migrant
people which are highlighted in this action are:
Delete The Border - http://deleteTheBorder.org
Ejercito Zapatista Liberacíon Nacíonal - http://www.ezln.org
No One Is Illegal - http://solidarityAcross.org
Baldwin Park Demonstrations - coverage at http://la.indymedia.org/