Replies

Brown Berets threaten Minutemen: Group urges group to think twice before patrolling
The Monitor / Brownsville Herald ^ | July 28, 2005 | Cari Hammerstrom

Posted on 07/28/2005 6:42:07 PM PDT by Main Street

PHARR, July 28, 2005 — Once a powerful and militant organization in the Chicano Liberation Movement, the Brown Berets made it known Wednesday that they will oppose the Minutemen border watch group with physical force if necessary.

“We want to send the message, ‘Think twice before you come here,’” Pablo Delgado, a Brown Beret leader, said at a press confer-ence at the Hidalgo County Democratic Party headquarters.

The Minutemen have said they will come to Texas in October, although it is still unclear whether South Texas is in their plans.

Hidalgo County Democratic Party Chairman Juan Maldonado said the party does not condone the actions of the Brown Berets; however, because the group asked him for a platform, he agreed to let them speak at the press conference.

“We do not need the Brown Berets armed against the Minutemen,” Maldonado reiterated after Delgado spoke. He said the people of South Texas are more “evolved” and “civil” than that.

The Brown Berets, primarily active in the late 1960s and early 1970s, are likened to the Black Panthers.

Further fueling the Brown Berets’ anger was the news of Bill Parmley’s resignation from the leadership post of the Texas chap-ter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps Monday. Parmley claimed the Texas chapter lacked structure and members from his area near Goliad had “racist tendencies,” according to the Victoria Advocate.

News of possible racist tendencies couldn’t have come at a better time for the local opponents of the civilian border patrol.

The Minutemen “are nothing more than a group of zealous over-enthusiastic racists that want to promote these types of immi-grants as being terroristic,” Maldonado said.

Even before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Sept. 11, 2001, he said, there was an unfounded fear held by some in the United States that Mexicans were taking over the country.

“For all the strides that we have made toward equality, the Minutemen are the epitome of hate, fear and ignorance,” he said. “We are unified to stop this racist movement from entering our region.”

“When will they begin patrolling the Canadian border?” asked Juanita Valdez-Cox, state director of La Union del Pueblo Entero. According to the project’s official Web site, www.minutemanhq.com, the answer is soon. Volunteers to patrol the United State’s northern border with Canada are being recruited.

Cox claims southern border patrolling is a race issue. The “vigilantes of the Caucasian persuasion” don’t want legalization for immigrants. They want the Mexican workers to be at the mercy of employers, she said.

At the end of the press conference, Maldonado was the first to sign a petition denouncing the border watchers. The Democratic Party plans to send the petition to Gov. Rick Perry to get him to do the same.

The petition also points out the need for more money to hire Border Patrol agents, a point deputy Mexican consulate Ernesto Herrera touched on privately with reporters after the conference.

“It isn’t in the scope of the private citizen to do the job of the government,” Herrera said. “The Mexican government thinks the U.S. has the institution, the department in charge of protecting the border. … They (the Border Patrol) know the limits. They know that everybody, undocumented or not, has human rights. It’s not something you leave behind when you cross the border.”

You've got NO COMPLAINTS from me; (although, I won't be able to get that tune outta my head all day now).
I got to thinking about this last night, and these Brown Beret whackos might actually be unintentionally very good for the anti-illegal cause. My family has always been conservative and voted Republican. But, there were 2 things that happened very close together that pretty much made my parents MILITANT conservative Republicans, and it was in the mid-70s when I was just a kid, if I recall correctly.
Wasn't it Jimmy Carter (or was it Gerald Ford) who pardoned the draft dodgers? My dad was outraged. He didn't like bumper stickers on cars, so I remember what a big deal it was when he put a "No Pardon Needed. I Proudly Served" sticker on the family car. Around the same time, there was a handful of "Chicano" (how my dad hated that word) activists in the region who formed a "Brown Beret" chapter, and, inspired by this, some of the hispanic high school kids in our town refused to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance (back then it was done every a.m. in school on the loud speaker). My dad, who was in a position to hire high school kids for his side business, fired a couple of the offenders and forever refused to hire the ones that had done this. (All this was happening at the same time I was doing solo performances of "America the Beautiful" at school parents' nights--how ironic). After that, my folks became even MORE committed and dedicated to the conservative cause.
What I'm trying to say, is, I hope the media keeps covering these Brown Beret whackos. Maybe it will have a similar effect on others as it did on my parents.
Personally, the fact that I was a little kid when all this was happening around me is a primary reason for my beliefs today.