The Scamming of the Minutemen

There is a certain irony in the fact that extreme right wing movements tend to end up victimizing the very people they claim to fight for. In the heyday of the KKK, for example, when it was at the appogee of its influence and membership, Stetson Kennedy documented how KKK leaders used the organization to bilk rank and file members, and enrich themselves. That behavior and its exposure, along with the large degree of bunkum at the core of the organization’s mystique, arguably led to the fatal decline of the Klan; the story is compellingly told in the popular book Freakonomics.

It may well be the latest populist expression of nativist/racist sentiment may burn out in a similar fashion due to the greed, duplicity, and in-fighting of the movement’s leadership. Chris Simcox is being accused from within the Minuteman movement of financial improprieties which may end up discrediting the movement and imploding civil border partol organizations around the country.

ABC affiliate Channel 15 in Phoenix recently ran an investigative report (Real Media) of Simcox’s Minuteman Civil Defense, which is required viewing by anyone concerned about the Minuteman militias. In the report, volunteers relate how the hundreds of thousands, or perhaps millions of dollars in donations collected by Simcox have failed to manifest as equipment and support for volunteers, or in substatial progress on the much bruited volunteer construction of a border fence. Simcox refuses to open his organization’s books, or provide any financial disclosures, and the organization’s legal status (non-profit, PAC, other?) remains in limbo. Essentially, Simcox is personally sitting atop a grassroots fundraising bonanza, and won’t tell anybody where the money is going.

Is the fence just a fundraising scam? Is Simcox lining his own pockets with the donations of conerned (though, I believe, misguided) citizens around the country? Will the Minutemen implode into acrimony and criminal charges as right wing organization so often do? My answer is that if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and takes to water like ducks always have in the past, it’s likely a duck. The Minuteman movement, having had its short time in the sun, seems likely to implode under the wieght of its founders egos and greed. Ultimately, there’s really only one person who put the concerns of Minutemen sympathizers and volunteers to rest, and Simcox isn’t talking – likely for a very good reason, like avoiding imprisonment.

When their ducks come home to roost, the political fallout for all those Arizona politicians who have proudly proclaimed themselves supporters, sympathizers, even members of the Minutemen may prove to be truly awesome. I can already hear furious backpedalling and denials of any association with the group – and it’s the sound of the Democratic party picking up new Congressional and state legislative seats in November.