Vol. 71/No. 30      August 20, 2007

Many of the pickets wore yellow Minuteman t-shirts. They chanted anti-immigrant slogans on bullhorns and waved placards at passing traffic. Among the pickets was the Iowa Minuteman Civil Defense Corps director, Craig Halverson.

The forum was part of a weekly series of workers’ political meetings organized by supporters of the Militant newspaper here. It had been publicized in the local media.

The rightists were campaigning for Colorado Congressman Thomas Tancredo, who is running for the 2008 Republican Party presidential nomination. They parked a large truck plastered on both sides with a Tancredo campaign sign in front of the forum hall. The sign read, “End Illegal Immigration, Secure Our Borders, No Amnesty, Pro-Life-Second Amendment.”

The rightists verbally attacked anyone who came to the event. A few approached forum supporters guarding the event, trying to provoke an incident. Others shouted provocations like “Where’s the militancy? We thought you were militant,” “Down with the Marxists, Communists, and Socialists,” “No to the Militant Labor Forum,” “Che is rotting in his grave,” and a slew of anti-immigrant remarks.

“As soon as I heard Minutemen were protesting the Militant Labor Forum, I got in my car and drove down to defend the meeting,” said Larry Ginter, a retired farmer. Ginter was one of several Militant subscribers who responded to calls from forum organizers to help prevent the Minutemen from making vigilante attacks on the meeting.

In recent months the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps has expanded its presence in the upper Midwest. In an interview in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Halverson described the group as “retired military, retired police officers. Just good, strong American citizens, patriotic. They’re tired of seeing what’s going on, and they’re tired of the government not enforcing the laws.”

One of the central goals of the outfit is to finger immigrants for la migra. “The Minutemen want to identify illegal aliens, who employs and houses them, and demand that the government and law enforcement agencies enforce immigration laws,” he said.

“Earlier this year the Minutemen were outmobilized by the Latino community in Denison, a rural meatpacking town in western Iowa,” said Helen Meyers, organizer of the Militant Labor Forum series here. When Minutemen and other rightists organize protests against immigrants, supporters of legalization should counter these actions and show their support for amnesty, she added.
 
 
Related articles:
Socialist Workers Party launches Iowa campaign
Candidates call for legalization, respond to rightist picket of workers’ meeting
‘Militant’ supporters fan out across Iowa  
 
 
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