The far-right wingnut blog Sonoran Alliance just posted a whiny e-mail from Sheriff Joe begging for campaign contributions, even though his next run for sheriff wouldn't be until 2012. At times, he makes it sound like it's some sort of legal defense fund. Yet Joe's Web site notes that donators' credit card statements will read "Re-elect Joe Arpaio."
Joe -- or more likely one of his henchmen -- writes: "I am outraged at the sham being played right now by the Obama administration to stop my lawful enforcement of our immigration laws. Please -- I need your help today.
"The United State Justice Department just advertised late last week that they established a Sheriff Joe Arpaio `Hotline' for the sole purpose of soliciting people (so-called victims) to call and report so-called injustices and wrongdoings that my deputies are allegedly conducting. This is a blatant and transparent demonstration of the hollow shell of the Justice Department's non-existent case against me. Further, it clearly shows the level of outright fraud on their part to bring baseless allegations against the very deputies that THEY THEMSELVES trained to arrest illegal aliens."
Um, okay, so why do you need the money, Joe, to combat the Justice Department? Thing is, according to Kristi Passarelli over at Maricopa County Elections, Arpaio can only use money raised through his 2012 campaign for legal bills related to that campaign, not for his defense in some unrelated civil or criminal matter being pursued by the DOJ. (Joe filed the paperwork for his 2012 run in December 2008.)
And, sadly, most of Joe's legal bills are already covered by county taxpayers.
Joe also suggests that a massive recall effort is under way, though the only thing close to a recall out there right now is paperwork filed by activists Leonard Clark and William Crum, who, despite their good intentions, hardly have the resources or the organization to pursue a legitimate recall drive against Arpaio or County Attorney Andrew Thomas.
"Today, I make you a steadfast promise," reads the Joe letter. "No matter what political shenanigans these people try, I will never back down one inch. And, I'm not going to surrender. But I desperately need your help.
"These left-wing groups and their allies in the media need to know just how strong the support is among law-abiding people like you for me and my policies. They are mounting an all out effort to remove me as sheriff. For months now, people have been bused in to protest in front of my headquarters. Will you please stand with me and help me fight this fight?"
Pardon me, but no one's being "bused in" to protest Arpaio at Phoenix's Wells Fargo Building, where Arpaio keeps two pricey floors of executive office space. Those protesters are affiliated with civil rights activist Sal Reza's Puente Movement. They're local, and are hardly being "bused in" from anywhere. That is, unless you count the five-minute ride from the Tonatierra offices on Seventh Street, near Roosevelt, to the Wells Fargo building at Washington Street.
But, hey, if the extremist nativists over at Sonoran Alliance want to throw away their moolah on this hooey, let 'em. You see, SA (initials that are oddly appropriate) allows its posters to peddle bigotry and Mexican-bashing.
Take one piece of filth recently posted by SA contributor Veritas Vincit: "Aborting and Importing -- Is Immigration the Replacement for Native Born Population?" Forget for a sec the fact that it's written by some anonymous schmuck whose bio features a photo of the Guy Fawkes mask-wearing anti-hero of V for Vendetta -- a sure sign of a comic-book obsessed moron if there ever was one. Check this lamentation that abortion is offing the "native" (read, "white") population, only to be replaced by brown folks.
"Unlike any culture in history, we are aborting our children. Have we bought into the self-Hate so much that we are committing a protracted national and cultural suicide?
"America can you handle the CHANGE? You'll have to. Consider once again that we are aborting our native-born population and importing their replacements. The numbers speak for themselves."
As commenter The Klute points out, such sentiments are dangerously close to white nationalist David Lane's 14 words, "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children," and to statements by neo-Nazis like Tom Metzger that, "Abortion for white people should be totally banned."
The conveniently anonymous Vincit plays on the fear of whites becoming a minority in America -- a demographic shift that's anticipated to happen by 2050. He pulls this off while claiming that all he wants is a "color-blind society."
Really, then why all the kvetching about Mexicans making up the largest mass of illegal immigrants? Vincit is down on the brown, you see. Race-baiting based on the loss of white hegemony -- as Vincit is doing on the Sonoran Alliance blog -- has been a rallying point for bigots since the heyday of the KKK. (Oh, and spare me the "straw man" allegation, VV. There is no straw man here. Only scaredy-cat Vincit-man.)
That VV's sentiments appear on the same blog that features an appeal by Sheriff Joe for funds so he can continue his fight against illegal gardeners and dishwashers is no mistake. Arpaio has become the icon of nativist nutjobs and far-right dingbats, two elements that are dominant here in Ari-bama's GOP. That such moonhowlers are an embarrassment to the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower, a party SA purports to represent, seems lost on SA's editors, if there are any.
It's amusing, though, to note that Vincit avers, "In 1964 the Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act..." Best give up the hallucinogenics, old bean. None other than President John F. Kennedy introduced that legislation in 1963 -- and no, JFK was not a GOPer. It was passed in 1964 by a solidly Democratic Congress, and signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, another Dem.
Segregationist Dems did oppose it. But LBJ pushed the legislation, though many Dems knew that in supporting it, they might be ceding Deep South states to Republicans in future presidential elections. That was a fear realized by the GOP's infamous "Southern strategy."
Here in 2009 Arizona, the state Republican Party base is wedded to a grotesque, unyielding nativism that belittles the humanity of recent immigrants. These base GOPers regularly sow the seeds of hatred, and their hero, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, acts as their nativist scarecrow.
