With only two days’ notice, the Frente Contra las Redadas del Condado Ventura(
FCR-VC)’s mobilization against the Minutemen/Peckerwoods was an overwhelming victory for the people of the 805.
The idyllic and beautiful Ojai Valley was the stage for a political battle between the forces of decrepit anti-Worker, anti-Human Rights, and anti-Mexicano racism and the progressive, assertive, and youthful people of the County. About a dozen alien invaders from San Berdu, San Diego, and Orange County attempted to reach out to the largely middle-class and retired Ojai folk who, according to the main organizer, are "people who moved to Ojai to get away from the crap in L.A. and feel as we do!" While SOS descended on the County of Ventura with expectations of an enthusiastic burst of anti-Mexicano hatred, they sulked away with their heads hanging, accompanied by the bitter taste of failure in their mouths... all 11 of them.
These Peckerwood/K.K.K. elements had been planning this event for three weeks in advance. They had planned to use it as a means towards polarizing Ventura County, while also reaching out to the newly-formed Santa Paula Minutemen (who allegedly failed to attend). The SOS action targetted a Day Labor Site, where young men congregate daily in order to feed themselves and their families in the largely affluent Ojai Valley where the demand for Day Labor is strong and work can be found readily.
FCR-VC learned about the event two days beforehand, and started mobilizing the community the day before. Largely based in Oxnard,
FCR-VC has been a focal point for community self-education regarding ours legal rights as residents, while building a culture and infrastructure of community self-defense and resistance against the Department of Homeland Security/Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (DHS/ICE) escalated policy of raids and deportations of migrant workers. According to the
FCR-VC’s website,
"this inhumane and rabid assault on human rights is not a simple question of simply enforcing policies that ’are already on the books’ - it is an escalated policy of socio-ethnic cleansing applied to our communities, a siege targeting working class and Raza families."While the march was announced by SOS to begin at 9:30 AM,
FCR-VC established its presence at 9:00 AM. While the Minutemen draped themselves in the blood-thirsty colors of US Imperialism, internationalist youth stood under Black and Red flags of struggle, as well as the Mexican flag and the banner of the Zapatistas (EZLN). While the Peckerwoods were disdainfully called "white trash" by pedestrians and passers-by, the forces of workers’ struggle and universal human dignity were cheered on by the community and thanked for their bravery in standing up to xenophobic fools. So on, and so forth...
By 11:15 AM the local High School’s student journalist established an SOS vs.
FCR-VC headcount of 11 vs. 45. Far from being threatened or cowed by the forces of white supremacy, the day laborers took up the banners and placards reading "Alto al Terror de la Migra/ICE" and spoke to the neo-klansman through the megaphones. A few surprised locals held signs reading "The Racists are Not Ojai Residents!". The Ojai High School student newspaper journalists, after attempting to engage the Minutemen, were angrily denounced as "the Liberal Media"[!]. One FCR-VC organizer with a camera was even called a part of "the Liberal Press". Local neighborhood youth united with
FCR-VC and day laborers in denouncing the Minutemen, while SOS lashed out in every direction - - obviously deeply hurt by the fact that their proposal of Race War and inarticulate hatred was flatly rejected by Ventura County.
SOS can be credited with providing the means for displaying a moment of unity, always present but rarely public, which shines through the darkness of exploitation which pervades the largely-agricultural County of Ventura. With a fast-deflating "Real Estate Bubble" and a local economy in terminal decline, the crosshairs are on the working peoples of the area - regardless of race. The Mexicano, Asian, Pacific-Islander and European workers and poor are set to pay the bill for decades of economic chaos and imperialist greed --
FCR-VC proposes community organization and self-determination as a solution to the mismanagement of millions of lives by state terrorists and the short-sighted greed and anti-social racism of capitalism.
Meanwhile, the Minutemen/Save Our State see the panacea as some wholesale roundup of "illegal aliens" (economic refugeees of NAFTA) - the expulsion of more than 15 million undocumented peoples living in the USA. This suits the managers of the US Homeland Security-state perfectly; the DHS has set this out as its goal explicitly in Operation Endgame. The Republicans and Democrats debate the tactical approach and minutiae towards militarizing the border and establishing an American equivalent of GULAGs (sub-legal wages, no OSHA protection, no union representation, i.e. the "work permit program"). The SOS agitate public opinion towards supporting this inhumane goal and the working people struggle to live in a profoundly dignified manner. Ventura County has and will prove its willingness towards defeating these forces wherever they appear, in whatever fashion or form.
Santa Paula Minutemen can crawl out of their holes at their own leisure, but their defeat is a foregone conclusion. If in fact they do exist, they will be crushed in the egg. Make no mistakes,
FCR-VC will overpower all immigrant-hunters because we have the support of the community. Marginal elements and alien agitators will never be welcome in Ventura County, period.
The Minutemen are flaccid, they are puppets -- there are bigger fish to fry.
May 1, 2008 will be a day when the
FCR-VC plan to host a community march through the economic heart of the county: Oxnard. Raising the slogans "
La Tierra Pertenece al que la Trabaja (the Land Belongs to Those who Work it) and "
Todo Poder a las Trabajadores (All Power to the Workers)" we will present the questions of self-determination, political power, and working-community ownership in a straightforward manner. We are not some toy that can be discarded when convenient, we are not a voting bloc that can be neatly alligned behind one or another representative of neo-colonialism and imperialism, and we are not voiceless. We are opposed to the systemic denial of our human rights, the neglect and poverty which the rulers and banker-mafia consign us to, the silence which they ignorantly expect.
On Thursday, May 1, 2008 we will assemble at Parque del Sol (Rose ave/Camino del Sol) for a politically independent and strong March for Dignity. Join us if you are nearby - or build your community’s participation in a local May Day March, or even organize a March for Dignity of your own.
Our future is our own - No fear in defense of our communities!
From
OjaiValleyNews.com..
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