Posted on 07/27/2005 4:56:23 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
The president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps of Texas resigned by e-mail late Monday evening, criticizing a lack of structure in the group and claiming racist undertones in the Goliad-area chapter.
"The Sarco group has chosen to go a different course than what I feel is in the best interest of the organization nationally and locally," Bill Parmley of the small community near Goliad wrote in the letter e-mailed late Monday night to Chris Simcox, national president of the Arizona-based Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, and Goliad County Sheriff Robert DeLaGarza.
The Advocate obtained a copy of the letter late Tuesday afternoon from DeLaGarza's office, in which Parmley resigned as both the head of the Texas branch of the organization and the chapter in the Goliad area.
In a Tuesday phone interview Parmley accused members of the group of having secret meetings without him in violation of the group's bylaws and of actively working to undermine DeLaGarza because he is Hispanic.
Kenneth Buelter, the group's vice president and the man Parmley said was a key leader of the efforts against him, said the group has no underlying racism and hasn't held any meetings without notifying Parmley.
The resignation came as a surprise, he said. Buelter was traveling Tuesday and said he hadn't seen a copy of the letter, but had heard about the resignation from other group members.
"No, I did not see it coming," he said of the resignation. "We felt like Bill was doing a wonderful job for the organization."
He continued, "As of late, there have been differences of opinion as to how to do some things," Buelter declined to elaborate over the phone.
The national organization was sorry to lose Parmley, Simcox said.
"We were sorry to hear about it, and just thank him for everything he's done and we move on," Simcox said.
As an example of the attempts to undermine DeLaGarza, Parmley said members of the group secretly met with 24th Judicial District attorney Mike Sheppard earlier this month. Sheppard confirmed he had met with some community members earlier in the month in regard to DeLaGarza, but declined to discuss the contents of the meeting out of respect for the citizens' expectation of confidentiality.
Buelter said that he and other Sarco residents had met with Sheppard about certain practices of the sheriff in regards to using convicted felons on work details, but that meeting had nothing to do with the Minuteman Corps or immigration issues.
For his part, DeLaGarza said he didn't know of any efforts by the Minuteman Corps to undermine his authority or position. However, the accusations raised by Parmley did cause concern if the group is indeed plotting to take more aggressive actions, he said.
"I know the people in my community," DeLaGarza said. "The community itself will not tolerate racism in Goliad County."
If members of the Minuteman Corps should step out of line, "The community is going to come down on those people, not us," DeLaGarza said.
Parmley's accusations won't have any effect on how the sheriff's department does its job or responds to the Minuteman Corps, the sheriff said.
Parmley also wrote in the e-mail that group members circumvented his authority and took decisions to the national office in Arizona.
"There is no useful purpose for my position as state president or even president of the Goliad chapter with everything needing to be cleared and double checked with HQ," Parmley wrote in the e-mail.
Buelter said some members had simply contacted the national headquarters in Arizona seeking information when it was not passed on to Texas members in a timely manner.
In addition, Parmley stated the Sarco group refused to support his efforts to cooperate with the local chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens to conduct some sort of fundraisers to help provide humanitarian support to illegal immigrants taken into custody by DeLaGarza's department.
Buelter said he still hoped such a fundraiser could take place and was hoping to work with the Goliad-area LULAC chapter to plan the event.
As further evidence of the underlying racism in the group, Parmley said Judge Emilio Vargas, Goliad County Justice of the Peace, didn't show up for a July meeting because of concerns over racist views of members.
Vargas said in an interview Tuesday evening he didn't attend the function because of a family matter, but hoped to attend a future meeting of the Minuteman Corp if his schedule permitted.
Parmley also criticized the national organization as a whole for a lack of organization.
"You have no structure and these Texas chapters have no structures because there are no bylaws. How can leaders whom are assigned positions lead if what they implement are disregarded or circumvented. It is a recipe for disaster," the e-mail read.
But Simcox said he is not sure from where Parmley's concerns are coming.
"We have a mission statement and we have a very clear standard operating procedure and a very clear operational procedure with strong management," Simcox said. "I'm not sure where he's coming from with that."
The resignation should have no effect on the organization's plan for extensive border observation activities in October, Simcox said.
Thomas Doyle is a reporter with the Advocate. Contact him at 361-580-6511 or tdoyle@vicad.com.
Why can't the Goliad Minutemen just raise the money and help the illegals on their own?
Bill Parmley Ping!
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off this South Texas/Mexico ping list.
ping
Lol, good one!
Looks like Parmley was not very interested in actually stopping illegal aliens!
He want to provide support???
That should be translated as....help them get legal help.
Translation: the occupation force from the nation of Mexico plans to hold their ground this time, by using gringo law against the gringos.
It will soon be considered 'racist' in Texas to speak approvingly of well known racist xenophobes David Crockett and Sam Houston, two fellows who were guilty of 'ethnic cleansing' in Goliad just a few years back.
For the record, folks: "Mexican" is not a race, it's a nationality.
This article has a fishy smell to it. There's one or more infiltrating leftists involved here somewhere in my opinion. There are some people who act like racists connected with the movement to stop illegal immigration. However, I think many of them are leftist agents provacateurs.
What a great coaltion of voices all desireous of open borders
I thought that too. Don't put it past the government either - the MM have basically embarrassed them, and they want to retaliate. Some of the worst rioters in the '60s turned out to be agents, who were sent there to de-legitimize the movements by pushing them over the edge.
Nothing would de-legitimize the MM better than by painting them as Klansmen, which both the government and leftist agitators know.
This article (more helpful than the earlier one) seems to indicate that Mr. Parmley had his own personal agenda and he got shut down before he could implement it and possibly do harm to the MMP here in Texas. We at least were warned about troublesome provocateur's early on and possibly this is just one of them or perhaps he had visions of grandeur for political office somewhere. Who knows. The Texas MMP should work to put Mr. Parmley behind them and move on now.
They were all "Texicans" in 1835, Regulator.
"Some of the worst rioters in the '60s turned out to be agents, who were sent there to de-legitimize the movements by pushing them over the edge."
Yeah, I remember.
"Don't put it past the government either - the MM have basically embarrassed them, and they want to retaliate."
I know Bush is wrong on this one, but I hope he's not quite that bad.
I think Bill was doing a good job, from all I read, and that his resignation was a surprise to everyone. Something growing this fast, is bound to have some bumps and will require a lot of time and effort from many volunteers, just like the original Minutemen.
Sheesh. I thought you were going to chastise me for getting the history wrong - Houston and Crockett weren't at Goliad!
For the record, this is what happened at Goliad:
After Fannin's surrender, he and 400 Texan troops were marched back to Goliad and held prisoner by Urrea. Although he requested that Fannin's troops be treated as prisoners of war, Santa Anna refused and ordered Urrea's command to execute all the prisoners, which they did on March 27th. The outcome of the Goliad Campaign is generally credited to two factors: First, the strategies of Colonel Fannin and General Urrea: Fannin divided his forces, hesitated several times and improvised his strategy on the spot, while Urrea had a clear objective, pursued the Texans vigorously and organised his own forces quickly. Second, the decision by Santa Anna to summarily execute all Texan soldiers. The Goliad massacre became the most promenent symbol of the brutality that the Texans had ascribed to the Mexican army, and in particular to Santa Anna. Over time, however, it has become overshadowed in history by the Alamo. In part, this is because Goliad had no otherwise famous figures involved: while Davy Crockett, James Bowie and Santa Anna have all passed into history as legends, James Fannin, William Ward and Jose de Urrea have faded into obscurity.
Funny, but I don't get the impression that it was a bunch of Anglos and Spaniards all holding hands and singing "we are the world". And here is the prelude to the whole thing: Come and Take It
I don't know what your point is - so I have to guess. Perhaps you would like me to believe that Anglos and Mexicans fought side by side against the illegitimate government of Santa Anna, and that aside from that, everyone was just fine with each other, one big happy family?
That's simply wrong. The Americans were 98% Anglo-Protestant, the Mexicans....Catholic Spaniards. The two groups had been at war with each other in different venues for 300 years at this point. Americans were largely British, and Britain had been at odds with Spain basically forever. It was insane for Mexico to invite in Moses Austin's settlers. They actually thought they could control them, and thus control land that they had never been able to control (er, rather, Comanches they had never been able to control....something the first Texas Rangers had no problem doing, if you read the link).
So enlighten me. What do you mean?
You're not serious, right?
He'll do anything he can to keep his people where they are. In power.
Running the United States is a game played for keeps.
Yeah, I'm with you on your observations but the effort must learn from this event and move on and not look back.
What's next?
Bill Parmley, the League of United Latin American Citizens, LULAC, and other "concerned citizens" tell the press that the Minutemen cultists deal in illegal guns and drugs, molest little girls, believe in God, and all live in a compound protected by 50-cal machine guns?
They were Texicans if they were in Texas. At least my ancestors considered themselves not Mexican, not American, but Texican. Wasn't it Davy Crockett who basically told America to go to hell, because he was going to Texas? As for Catholicism, others may know history better than I do, but one of the hallmarks of the Mexican government (after independence from Spain) was to stymie Catholicism.
I agree. The issue with Bill P. (and we haven't spoken with him yet.. today) simply may be a case of the Goliad Team did not have that On-Project experence and "Esprit de Corps" that the Dallas Team has and seems to excel in. The following is from a ...
Previous post> outlining the experence of the managment of the Texas Minutemen org, which was having it's first meetings the last week of the April Project. The co-founders of the Texas Minutemen had finished several weeks of work on the AZ project and were then back in the Dallas area.
Is the site of the Texas Minutemen, or the National Group?
Interesting question. The Texas Minutemen are one (prominent) group among several that grew from the original project. The folks that are running the Texas Minutemen are original MMP volunteers and are described here...
http://www.officialminutemen.org (the forum)
an exerpt..
"Who are we? Good question and we want you to know the correct answer! We are a group of original Minuteman Project volunteers that worked directly with Mr. Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project, by designing, building and operating the Communications and Command Center (CCC) at the Miracle Valley Bible College, the Communications Headquarters for the AZ Minuteman Project in April, 2005. My name is Carl and the rest of our team consists of Shannon (current p.o.c. of the Texas Minutemen), Sandra and Frank.
Frank and I began working with Jim Gilchrist last December, five months prior to the start of the April Minuteman Project in Arizona. We worked in two areas....."
What you are referring to as the "National Group" is actually Chris Simcox's "Minuteman Civil Defense Corps" which is the outgrowth of Chris's "Civil Defense Corps" (as I recall) webpage from about one year ago, (before the MMP.) The original Minuteman Project site is still running, it is the current site of "Operation Spotlight" which is Jim Gilchrist, the originator of the Minuteman Project.
http://www.minutemanhq.com/project/
So, when you refer to the Texas Minutemen, that is a continuation of the original project by the folks from Texas that worked directly with Jim Gilchrist, the originator of the MMP. When you refer to the "national group" that is actually Chris Simcox, who lives in Tombstone, AZ. He does pretty much the same thing. The Texas Minutemen focus on the issues of Texas, as it comprises half of the total border between the U.S and Mexico. Quite a handful. Chris goes about the country promoting and apparently intends to continue running projects. The Texas Minutemen focus on running projects, period.
The Goliad Team is in Chris's organization, not Texas Minutemen.
I hope all this helps, I know it can be clear as mud if you weren't working with all these folks as of last fall.
Whenever you have a lot of people involved, you are going to have some confusion with new groups such as this. It is a shame he resigned. Patience and growing pains sometimes conflict with eachother, Sorry to hear about this. Good luck, be ever vigilant.
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