GROUND ZERO: HOW ARIZONA CREATED

TODAY’S CRISIS AT THE BORDER

(December 6, 2021)

INTRODUCTION
It was a landscape of sand and crumbling rock, of harsh
sunlight and tumbleweeds, of cacti, venomous spiders
and rattlesnakes, Gila monsters, and scorpions: a god
forsaken place inhabited by deadly creatures, where vul-
tures feasted on the dead.

In Arizona Luis Urrea called it the Devil’s Highway.

For more than a century poor Mexicans had pushed north

into this wasteland, following a path blazed by their an-
cestors, both indigenous and European. They were des-
perate people just trying to survive, willing to endure
what otherwise was unendurable, searching for a better
way of life1.

For more than a century these poor Mexicans mixed their

blood, sweat and tears with cement, lime and sand to
form Arizona’s foundation, and to power the state’s
cheap labor economy based on the “Five C’s”: copper,
cotton cattle, citrus, and climate. Their ability to work in
conditions others found intolerable, their willingness to
work twice as hard and twice as long for half as much

1 The Devil’s Highway, by Luis Alberto Urrea, pg. 8

1
money and most importantly, their fear of deportation
which kept them in their place, made Mexican illegal en-
trants the most desirable source of labor for Arizona em-
ployers.

A labor dispute between employers, legal, and illegal im-

migrants was already before the territorial courts when
Arizona was admitted as a state. In 1915 the U.S. Su-
preme Court affirmed the equal rights provision of the
14th Amendment as the basis for their decision to protect
the right of legal immigrants to earn their livings. 2

However; in 1972 the Arizona legislature passed the Ag-

ricultural Employment Relations Act, which limited Mex-
ican Americans right to protest the use of illegal Mexican
labor. One supporter said the farm owners were “men
who tried to scratch a living from the desert with their
bare hands, and won, engaged in a struggle with com-
munism for control of the nation’s food supply.”3

Subsequently, Arizona state courts used a rationale in-

comprehensible to the common man to effectively void
the Supreme Court’s decision in Truax. Instead of pro-
tecting Arizona citizens’ right to work, and right to

2 Truax v. Raich, 239 US 33 (1915) The suit had been filed in a

territorial court.
3 “New Labor Law Expected to Set off Clash,” NY Times June 11,
1972
2
protest, Arizona courts protected the employer’s right to
hire illegals. They used the phrases “right to work” and
“right to contract” to justify injunctions stopping Mexican
American workers from picketing employers who em-
ployed Mexican illegals, thus denying them their right to
work.

From the very beginning Arizona employers had always

favored illegals who worked for less and often subjected
them to conditions worse than slavery4.

It was ironic: by 2006 many of the Mexicans who crossed

into Arizona had been displaced in their jobs by what Luis
Urrea called “the unwanted horde of aliens coming north
to sample the good life in Mexico;5” other illegals even
more desperate than they—Guatemalans, Salvadorians,
Columbians, and Panamanians—all fleeing poverty,
crime cartels and social decay. So, what else could a
poor Mexican do? Zapata had promised them “Tierra y
Libertad,” but he was murdered. The Plan of Ayala6,

4 “Goldwater Ranch Uses Illegal Aliens” Indianapolis Star, March

20, 1977, describes horrific labor conditions on the Goldwater
owned Arrowhead Ranch in 1976.
5 The Devil’s Highway, by Luis Alberto Urrea, pg. 44
6 Plan of Ayala

3
Zapata’s impossible dream, died with him and remained
just that….a dream.

In America the romantic myth of the frontier, of cowboys

and Indians, and endless opportunities for achievement
and wealth, had encouraged Americans to migrate west
in search of what was advertised as the American dream.
But in Mexico the same dreams for opportunity and ad-
vancement, ran north7. The Mayas had pushed north,
the Aztecs had pushed north, and the Spaniards had
pushed north, as far as present-day Kansas, in search of
the mythical Seven Cities of Gold. 8

So, Mexico’s poor pushed north, following their ances-

tors, the myth and the dream.

First, after the American Civil War, they came by the tens
of thousands, then, after the Mexican Revolution of
1910-19209, by the hundreds of thousands. Finally, in
2006, by the millions they came, part of a longstanding,
culturally evolved process created by poverty and war,
driven out of their homeland by hunger and need.

7 The Devil’s Highway, by Luis Alberto Urrea, pg. 48

8 Seven Cities of Gold
9 Mexican Revolution

4
Though their country was rich, they were poor and would
forever be poor as long as their government was indif-
ferent to their needs.

***

Open Border Policy Makes Arizona Ground Zero in

Today’s Border Crisis

In 2006 the New York Times called Arizona “Ground Zero

for the world's largest and longest wave of illegal migra-
tion.”10

“In the last five years, Arizona has become the principal,
and deadliest, gateway for illegal migrants”, the Times
said. “It accounts for nearly one-third of the 1.5 million
people captured for illegally crossing the border last
year, and nearly half the migrants who died, according
to the United States Border Patrol.”11

The Times further described illegal immigration as “a

huge business managed by powerful interests to make
money and political careers. Among the beneficiaries
were immigrant smugglers, whose fortunes increase
every time a new law enforcement effort is announced,

10 “Desperation on Unforgiving Arizona Mexico Border” N.Y. Times,

May 21, 2006
11 Ibid.

5
and the Border Patrol, whose budget has increased five-
fold in ten years.”

In 2008 Arizona author and journalist Jon Talton identi-

fied Phoenix Arizona as “ground zero” in what he referred
to as America’s “illegal immigration nightmare.”12

“Phoenix second largest industry (after house building)

is people smuggling,” Talton wrote. “Many of the immi-
grants that staff the chicken plants of North Carolina,
and the meat-packing plants of the upper plains states
came through Phoenix.”13

“Immigrants have taken over not only landscaping but

the former Anglo bastion of construction,” Talton contin-
ued. “That cheap house you bought when you moved
from Minnesota, those inexpensive restaurant meals --
they come from the same illegals you love to hate.”14

Phoenix is in Maricopa County, which is well north of the

Arizona Mexican border. Southern Arizona county gov-
ernments, Cochise, Santa Cruz, Yuma and Pima, share
the border with Mexico. These counties set the policies,

12 The Rogue Columnist, February 16, 2008

13 Ibid
14 Ibid

6
written or otherwise, which control the flow of people
and products across the Mexican Arizona border.

As Tip O’Neill famously said, “all politics is local.”15 This

is especially true today with national politics and the
public outcry related to open borders and illegal immi-
gration.

Today’s problem of illegal immigration, including drug

smuggling, and child sex slavery, would not be possible
without what the federal courts refer to as the long term
“custom and practice” of southern Arizona political and
economic entities. These governments, which represent
the interests of their constituents, have always worked
in concert to “set goals (and to) promote cross border
cooperation and business opportunities.” 16

***

Ninety miles to the south of Phoenix, in Pima County, lies

Tucson, Arizona’s oldest city, established in 1774.

Pima County controls the longest section of Arizona’s

border with Mexico. Most of the illegals who flow through
Phoenix first come through Pima County.

15 All Politics is Local, Tip O’Neill, January 1, 1997

16 Arizona Border Counties Coalition (ABCC)

7
By 2006 Tucson had become the epicenter of border re-
lated political protest and what the media termed “The
Immigration Debate.”

Decades earlier, Tucson teachers Clyde Phillips and Wes

Bramhall formed Arizonans for Immigration Control.
They were concerned that racially divisive politics was
being taught as history in Tucson schools, a fact which
was later confirmed by TUSD teacher John Ward17.

On numerous occasions, Bramhall and Philips addressed

the board of the Tucson Unified District School District,
the Tucson City Council, and the public. They held public
meetings and talked and talked. But nothing changed.

Post 911, Minutemen, responding to the federal govern-

ment’s failure to protect the homeland, began patrolling
the border. Their appeal for assistance received nation-
wide attention and support.

The Arizona media branded them as “vigilantes” and

“racists.”

Glenn Spencer, the founder of the American Border Pa-

trol, lives on a ranch on the Arizona-Mexico Border.

17 “Racism, Distrust of U.S., Being Ingrained in Raza Studies Pro-

gram” Doug MacEachern, Arizona Republic, February 3, 2008.

8
Shortly after 911 Spencer, began flying reconnaissance
missions to document the huge influx of illegals.18

The Southern Poverty Law Center branded Spencer “an

extremist, a vitriolic Mexican-basher,” and a racist.19

In 2006 Colonel Al Rodriquez, the former mayor of Doug-

las Arizona, formed the activist group “You Don’t Speak
for Me”20 to represent more than 10,000 Hispanic Amer-
icans such as himself who had joined his organization to
oppose Raza theology and legalization for illegal en-
trants. Colonel Rodriquez, Mexican born legal immigrant
Anna Gaines21 and Minuteman Vice President Al Garza22
were among the first Arizona activists to challenge the
Raza narrative that all Hispanics favored open borders.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has vilified this

author in support of left wing, race-based identity poli-
tics23, has never acknowledged that the majority of

18 American Border Patrol

19 Glen Spencer, Southern Poverty Law Center
20 You Don’t Speak for Me
21 American Citizens United Anna Gaines
22 Minuteman Vice President Al Garza
23 “Anti Immigrant Activist Roy Warden Threatens Latinos”, SPLC,
October 19, 2006

9
American Hispanics now support increased border secu-
rity.24

In 2004 Arizona voters debated Protect Arizona Now

(PAN), one of the nation’s first “protect the border” initi-
atives written by citizen activists Kathy McKee and Rusty
Childress. It required persons to (a) provide proof of cit-
izenship when registering to vote, (b) provide a photo
identification before receiving a ballot, and (c) required
state and local agencies to verify the identity and eligi-
bility of applicants, on the basis of immigration status,
before providing non federally funded public benefits.25

The majority of Arizona voters found the initiative to be

reasonable, but local Raza supporters denounced McKee
and her supporters as “racist.” Establishment figures
joined together to support Raza. Democrat Governor Ja-
net Napolitano famously proclaimed, “show me a 50-foot
wall and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder.”26 Republican
senators John Kyle and John McCain, who disputed the
existence of voter fraud, argued that immigrants were
important contributors to the state's economy.

***

24 Pew Research Center, February 11, 2020

25 Protect Arizona Now
26 New York Times, July 19, 2011

10
 Tucson Police Employ Brownshirt Tactics
On March 6, 2004, McKee attended the Glenn Spencer
Petition Rally in Support of PAN, held in Presidio Park,
Tucson Arizona.

During this rally a large group of angry, masked, Raza

activists surrounded McKee and her supporters, shoving,
shouting slogans like “Death to the U.S.,” “We Didn’t
Cross the Border, the Border Crossed Us,” and “Drive the
U.S. Into the Sea.”

One Raza activist assaulted McKee, spit in her face and

screamed, “Fucking Bitch. Get out, it’s our country!”

Despite McKee’s plea to police officers she was afraid for

her life the police refused to mitigate or control the angry
mob.

Instead, the police arrested 80-year-old Spencer sup-

porter Maydell Purvis who, despite her age, had the au-
dacity to push away and pull the mask off one of her
Raza tormentors. They put her in handcuffs and charged
her with assault.

When McKee questioned the Purvis arrest, one of the ar-

resting officers told her to “shut up, get off the sidewalk
or we will arrest you.”

11
McKee said: “I was terrified by the police hostility and
intimidation tactics” and that she was afraid to return to
Tucson to attend any more political meetings or rallies27.

Affidavits provided by “protect the border” activists Su-

zan Lamberson and Laura Leighton, formerly employed
as a translator and paralegal by the Tucson Public De-
fender, confirmed McKee’s account of Tucson police sup-
port for Raza attacks on March 6, 2004:

“During that rally our group was assaulted and tor-

mented by a group of masked “pro-raza” demonstrators
who (1) physically assaulted us and (2) screamed ob-
scenities and various slogans including ‘Kill the Gringo’
and ‘Send all White People Back to Plymouth Rock,’”
wrote Leighton.

“I asked one of the attending Tucson Police Officers to

protect us, but he told me, in sum and substance, ‘I’m
sorry about what is happening to you, but we were told
not to intervene.’”28

Suzan Lamberson confirmed McKee’s and Leighton’s ob-

servations: “One of the masked boys (all appeared to be
teenagers) stood near me screaming epithets. I was

27 The Affidavit of Kathy McKee, pg. 2, October 19, 2007

28 Affidavit of Laura Leighton

12
afraid for public safety. So I asked one of the police of-
ficers to restore order, but they refused to intervene and
said. ‘They have a right to be here.’”29

Southern police used this same tactic—the selective ap-

plication of law—to protect white supremacists who as-
saulted black citizens demonstrating for their civil rights
in the fifties and sixties.

Decades earlier, during Hitler’s rise to power, Brown-

shirts (aka “Stormtroopers”) were created to intimidate
or exterminate rivals and opposition.30

Brownshirts made speaking opposition politics in public

a dangerous matter. Recognizable by their brown uni-
forms, similar to those of Mussolini’s Blackshirts, the SA
functioned as a ‘security force’ at Nazi rallies and meet-
ings, using threats and outright violence to intimidate
political opponents by breaking up their meetings.31

Nevertheless, and in spite of Raza hostility and estab-

lishment opposition, Arizonans passed PAN in November
2004, with 56% of the vote. 47% of Latino voters voted
in favor of the initiative,32 debunking the progressive

29 Affidavit of Suzan Lamberson

30 “Nazi Brownshirts and SS” History June 5, 2018
31 “The Brownshirts” HistoryHIT, September 28, 2021
32 Wikipedia, footnote 8, citing CNN exit polls

13
argument that all Latinos were pro illegal immigration
and voted as a bloc based on left wing, “pro-raza” iden-
tity politics.

On June 20, 2018 the Southern Poverty Law Center,

which itself had engaged in “systemic culture of racism
and sexism,”33 admitted liability and settled a defama-
tion lawsuit for 3.4 million dollars.34

***

By April 10, 2006 the nation was already in turmoil over

border issues, perhaps even on the edge of revolution.
On that day two million people took to the streets. Their
leaders called it “a National Day of Action for workers
and immigrant rights”35

Democracy Now called it “the largest wave of demon-

strations in U.S. history, and the second coming of the
civil rights movement.”36

In New York 100,000 converged in lower Manhattan for

a rally at City Hall. In Atlanta as many as 80,000 flooded

33 SPLC President Steps Down CNN, March 29, 2019

34 SPLC Settles Lawsuit
35 2006 Immigrant Rights Protests Peak
36 Democracy Now, April 11, 2006

14
the streets. 50,000 marched in Houston. In Phoenix, an
estimated 100,000 rallied at the Arizona Capitol.

Hundreds of thousands streamed past the White House

to a rally on the National Mall, just yards from the Capi-
tol, where congressmen and senators had spent months
debating competing plans, for what both sides of the
aisle called “comprehensive immigration reform.”

President Bush said the Republican plan "includes not

only border security, but also a temporary worker plan
that recognizes there are hardworking people here doing
jobs Americans won't do.”

[Bush neglected to mention that for decades Arizona

courts had issued injunctions which, as a practical mat-
ter, protected employer’s right to employ illegal Mexi-
cans, thus denying employment for Mexican Americans
looking to do, what Bush said were “jobs that Americans
won’t do.”37]

“They ought to be here in such a way so they don't have

to hide in the shadows of our society,”38 continued Bush.
“Family values don’t stop at the border.”

37 Arizona Project, pg. 50-51 Also see “Two Courts Restrain Pick-
ets at Glendale Vineyards” Arizona Republic, June 28, 1973

38 CNN March 31, 2006

15
 ***

On April 10, 2006 more than 15,000 gathered in Armory

Park, Tucson Arizona.

Many held photos of labor leader Cesar Chavez, or post-

ers which read, “Viva la Raza. We didn’t cross the border,
the border crossed us.” Others waved Mexican flags and
shouted “Kill the Gringos. Send them back to Plymouth
Rock.”

Arizona’s “protect the border” activists had already been

aroused to fury by right wing commentators such as
Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly, Tucker
Carlson, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Lou Dobbs. Most
had read Michelle Malkin’s book Invasion which submit-
ted that lax immigration policy, and failure to secure the
border, led directly to the 911 attacks on the World
Trade Center.

By 2006 Arizonans were talking and voting. The Minute-

men were on the border. But nobody had employed the
highly effective sixties tactics of street confrontation and
provocation, which began America’s final chapter in the
century long battle for Civil Rights.

Nobody had engaged Raza leaders with dialog or had

used public demonstration to challenge the local govern-
ments which supported it.
16
Nobody had exposed the media’s support for the Raza
propaganda machine which used lies and deception to
create a false narrative. Raza used the words and image
of charismatic labor leader Cesar Chavez to create the
illusion that Chavez supported illegal entry, and am-
nesty, even though he had once served 30 days in in the
Yuma County Jail for disobeying an injunction which pro-
hibited lawful picketing, and for violently opposing the
entry of illegal aliens, once referring to them as “strike
breakers and wetbacks.”39

It was Chavez who, in 1972, first used the phrase “si, se

puede,” not to support illegal entry, or Raza, but to con-
front Arizona’s agribusiness and a new law which pre-
vented strikes by legal Mexican American farm workers
who picketed illegal labor. Many of his advisors warned
Chavez he could never overcome the power of Arizona’s
establishment which had always favored the use of ille-
gal labor, but Chavez assured them “Yes, we can.” 40

In 2006 the Raza leadership mislead their followers.

They used Chavez’s inspirational phrase to mislead stu-
dents and to advocate for open borders and citizenship
for illegal aliens, even though Chavez had opposed it.

39 Cesar Chavez Interview, 1974

40 The History of Si se Puede

17
And the local media, which knew better, which knew
Chavez had opposed illegal immigration, failed to hold
Raza accountable.

And most importantly: even as late as 2006, nobody had

spoken about Arizona’s nearly century old Open Border
Policy by which business leaders, the courts, and the leg-
islature, had used the law and the government appa-
ratus itself to stop legitimate protest, and to aid and abet
or otherwise encourage illegal entry.41

Street Confrontations Begin on April 09, 2006

On April 9, 2006, I was part of a small group called “Bor-

der Guardians” which gathered in front of the Tucson
Mexican Consulate to protest the Raza agenda, and the
government’s failure to protect the border.

We gave speeches and burned a Mexican flag, each of

us stating our personal reasons why.

Some aid it was to stop the “invasion”; others said illegal

Mexicans were raping, murdering, and stealing American
jobs.

I denounced the Mexican government which favored the

rich at the expense of the poor. I knew that, ultimately,

41 “Chavez Continues Fast in Arizona” New York Times, May 21,

1972
18
the Mexican government was responsible for the flood of
illegals across our southern border.

On April 10, 2006, we held a second demonstration, a

counter demonstration to more than 15,000 who had
gathered in Armory Park to support what the national
media had advertised as a “National Day of Protest for
Worker’s Rights and Immigration Reform”.

Many of the so called “immigration reformers” were high

school students in the Raza Studies Program, led by
Pima County Legal Defender Isabel Garcia and Pima
County Assistant Public Defender Margo Cowan, who
used their government offices to organize the event na-
tionwide. In 1976 Cowan, the Director of Tucson’s Manzo
Project, was indicted for “providing illegal forms of assis-
tance to undocumented immigrants” though the charges
were mysteriously dropped the following year.42

[Question the local media never asked: How does one go

from federal criminal indictment to become a Pima
County Public Defender?]

On April 10, 2006, Tucson students followed the lessons

they learned in school, often taught by non-accredited,

42 “Civil Religion in Tucson Immigrant Advocacy Groups”, page 63-

64. Lane Van Ham, 2006. Also see “Counselors facing 166
Years in Jail”, pg 5-6.

19
self-identified Chicano teachers43. They threw water on
a group of old ladies who peacefully sat in lawn chairs.
They attacked “protect the border” demonstrators who
gathered in front of the U.S. District Court to demand
the government protect the border.44 They pushed and
shoved, waved Mexican flags, and shouted “Si se
Puede,” “Viva la Raza,” and “Kill the Gringo. Send him
back to Plymouth Rock!”

I picked up a bullhorn. “Return to Mexico and fight your

revolution there,” I shouted. “Zapata didn’t tell you to go
north and feed off Gringo table scraps!”

Then I said: “We will burn the Mexican flag as a symbol

of your oppression.”

We burned two Mexican flags.

The crowd erupted in violence. They threw rocks and fro-

zen water bottles, used slingshots to launch ball bear-
ings, jumped on police officers, knocked them down, and
kicked them in the face, resulting in six felony arrests for
assault, and aggravated assault on police officers.45

43 “Raza Studies Defy American Values” CBS July 2, 2008

44 [See page six of listed documents] Tucson Police After Action
Review, Captain Mike Gillooly May 8, 2006.
45 Ibid

20
One raza supporter, (later identified as Marisol Luna),
bounced a frozen water bottle off my head46.

The Tucson Police arrested 6 Raza demonstrators and

charged them with felony assault on police officers.

That night Tucson Police Department spokesman, Cap-

tain Klein, justified the arrests: In sum and substance he
said it was not illegal to burn a Mexican flag, but to riot
and assault on police officers was.

The next day, Raza leaders complained to Tucson City

officials they had “lost trust in the police department,”47
the same police department which had protected Raza
attacks on peaceful demonstrators in Presidio Park 2
years before. Shortly thereafter Tucson police officers
came to my house to arrest me. They charged me with
reckless burning, a subset of Arizona’s arson statutes,
along with four other misdemeanors including criminal
damage and assault, even though none of the officers
who attended the rally had seen me commit a criminal
offense.

In total I faced 2 and a half years in the county jail.

46 “Problematic Protest” Saxon Burns, Tucson Weekly, April 13,

2006
47 “Organizers of March Air Complaints With City” Rob Odell, Ari-
zona Daily Star, April 14, 2006.

21
It didn’t matter what the Constitution said about the First
Amendment, or the subsequent case law which precisely
defined what it meant. Can’t bust him for flag burning?
Then bust him for criminal damage and reckless burning.
Behind the scenes, the Tucson City Attorney, Mike Ran-
kin, met with Raza leaders to address their concerns.
They devised an illegal plan48 to mislead police depart-
ment officials, and to violate my clearly stated right to
attend public meetings in Armory Park and speak in op-
position to Raza leadership and local government pol-
icy49, a right Rankin himself had confirmed in an opinion
letter dated April 12, 2006.50

Shortly after my arrest Raza leaders told the local press

they had begun to regain trust in the police department.
Several months later the police gained even more of
Raza’s “trust” when prosecutors quietly dropped all fel-
ony charges against the rioters, an act unremarked upon
in the local media.

***

48 “The Confidential Memo” was produced during discovery in my

civil rights retaliation claim in “Warden vs. City of Tucson.”
49 Gathright vs. City of Portland
50 Rankin Opinion Letter

22
Left wing radicals were the first to use flag burning as a
political tactic to protest President Reagan. The U.S. Su-
preme Court later ruled that burning the American flag
was an act of symbolic speech protected by the First
Amendment.51.

However; burning the Mexican flag in Tucson Arizona in-

furiated both Raza52 and the local establishment. They
might have cheered if we had burned an American flag
to support Raza. We had used a left-wing tactic to chal-
lenge the establishment’s support for Raza politics and
cheap Mexican labor policy. So, Raza denounced me as
a “racist,” just as they had with Spencer, McKee and the
Minutemen. I was illegally evicted, cast into the streets,
deemed a pariah in my own community. A local newspa-
per even told me “to get out of town.53” My possessions
were stolen by Rathbun Realty, a local real estate man-
agement company which used illegal Mexican labor to
landscape and to re-furbish their rentals. I lost my li-
cense to prepare legal documents and my employment
as an estate planner.

51 Texas v. Johnson, 491 US 397 (1989)

52 Raza leader Isabel Garcia later told a Mexican official: “you can’t
imagine how much trouble I have every time Roy Warden burns
a Mexican flag!”
53 Tucson Weekly, December 14, 2006

23
For the next decade I was homeless. I slept on floors and
couches, lived off food stamps and the charity of friends.
Meanwhile, I continued to bring to public view what I
knew was really going on behind the scenes. I held ral-
lies, attended city council meetings, and wrote “Public
Letters.54” When not scrounging to survive, I went to the
library and resumed my studies of constitutional law, the
right of free speech and the doctrine of first amendment
retaliation.

These were familiar subjects. In the sixties I studied po-

litical science at the University of California, at Berkeley,
the very heart of the free speech movement, the civil
rights movement, and the anti-war movement. I partic-
ipated in a number of street demonstrations and met
various radical leaders, including Mario Savio, Jerry Ru-
bin, Cesar Chavez, David Harris55 and Black Panther
Party Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver, who later
remarked:

"If a man like Malcolm X could change and repudi-

ate racism, if I myself and other former Muslims
can change, if young whites can change, then there
is hope for America.56"

54 Public Political Letters

55 David Harris
56 Eldridge Cleaver

24
At the end of his career as a Black Panther Cleaver re-
nounced racial division. Malcom X was murdered for his
support for racial unity and rejection of Black Muslim rac-
ism. Martin Luther King never preached what Raza called
“ethnic solidarity,” aka racism. Instead, King pled for his
version of the “the American Dream…a land where men
of all races, of all nationalities, and of all creeds, can
live together as brothers.”57

On August 26, 1963, King first expressed his vision for

America: “I have a dream that my four little children will
one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by
the color of their skin but by the content of their charac-
ter.” 58

But the sixties dream of ethnic solidarity, based on the

American principle of equal rights and equal protection
under the law, was not Raza’s dream for ethnic division
on the basis of skin color, and hate.

Raza did not dream of American cultural unification. In-

stead, they demanded reunification with Mexico, ethnic
segregation, race-based identity politics, and the

57 American Dream
58 “I have a Dream”

25
expulsion of all “Gringos” from a mythical nation they
called “Aztlán.”59

Raza’s appeal for support based on skin color and not

principle, was not the second coming of the Civil Rights
Movement Martin Luther King led. Raza’s message was
inherently racist and the antithesis of King’s dream.

Even though I was a sixties activist, I never became a

“left winger.” I read “The Revolt of the Masses” by Or-
tega y Gasset, and “The True Believer” by Eric Hoffer,
who expressed a cynical view of mass movements and
the inherent weakness of followers. 60

I believed in the cause of civil rights, but not in the left

wing movements which supported it. Lenin himself was
said to have disparaged the simple minded naivete of
America’s left, calling them “dupes” and “useful idiots”61

In the sixties I opposed the establishment elite and their

abuse of power; the very forces the Constitution was
written to protect us from. Sociologist C. Wright Mills
called them “the power elite,” or ruling class; those busi-
ness, government, and military leaders whose decisions

59 Aztlan
60 The True Believer
61 Useful Idiot

26
and actions set the course for America’s agenda62. In
1960 Eisenhower referred to the portion of them that he
knew best; “the Military Industrial Complex.”

America’s power elite were not motivated by ideology.

Ideology was merely a device they used to divide and
control the American public, to pit them one against an-
other.

In 2014 the influence of “the power elite” was confirmed

by a study published by Princeton and Northwestern Uni-
versity professors Gilens and Page, who concluded that
ordinary Americans had virtually no impact whatsoever
on the making of national policy in our country. Rich in-
dividuals and business-controlled interest groups largely
shaped American policy.63

I also worked as an investigator64 for a team of high pro-

file, San Francisco activist lawyers identified by Tom Wolf
in the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, and later for the famed
left wing attorney Vincent Hallinan, the Progressive Party
presidential candidate in 1952.65

62 C. Wright Mills
63 “Who Rules America?” Allan Lichtman, August 14, 2014
64 Read “Nark” by Joe Eszterhas, dedicated to one of my sixties
era friends, Michael Murphy.
65 Vincent Hallinan

27
In 1972 I spent seven months in the Sahara Desert trav-
eling with supporters of the nascent Polisario Movement,
then forming to expel Spain from what was then known
as Spanish Sahara66. I was arrested in Mali, imprisoned
in Timbuktu and expelled for “illegal entry.”67

Therefore, on the basis of my own personal experience,

I was familiar with the horrific conditions experienced by
most illegals crossing the border, and the true meaning
of “illegal entry.” I was well-schooled in the techniques
of political activism, propaganda, street demonstration,
and actual revolution, as well as the police state tactics
CoIntelPro employed to infiltrate political movements
and incite violence in the sixties68.

This experience was invaluable to me between 2006 and

2016 when I confronted Raza and Arizona’s power elite.
I excoriated both the Raza leadership, which had de-
ceived their followers, and the local government which
engaged in what I referred to as “Open Border Policy”,
to wit: “to aid and abet, entice and invite and to

66 Polisario
67 I also performed “Cheap American Labor” on an American reg-
istered charter schooner, the Quest, while working in San Car-
los Mexico for wages no Mexican would accept.
68 CoIntelPro

28
otherwise encourage the illegal entry of impoverished
Mexican citizens for political and economic exploitation.”

Between 2006 and 2016 I was arrested and prosecuted

13 times and denied trial by jury. Tucson municipal and
justice courts followed the same methods previous Ari-
zona courts had used to subdue Mexican American farm
workers in the seventies and eighties. They issued in-
junctions to prevent my lawful right to speak in public on
matters of public concern. Under penalty of imprison-
ment, I was enjoined from coming within 500 feet of any
public gathering. I filed civil rights lawsuits in federal
courts, which ultimately were denied in the Ninth Circuit,
even though my suits were based on precise case law
the Ninth itself had written.

In 2015 I posted a YouTube video of the media coverage

in 2006. I called it “The Riot in Armory Park.69”

On April 10, 2006 Tucson based Raza leaders did not

plead for what President Bush and congress called "bi-
partisan support for comprehensive immigration re-
form.” They did they seek to accomplish Martin Luther
King’s dream; a nation where all people were judged by

69 The Riot in Armory Park

29
the content of their character and not by the color of
their skin.

Instead, Raza’s message “Viva la Raza! Kill the Gringo!

Send him back to Plymouth Rock” was segregationist in
nature, essentially the same racist message the white
supremacists expressed the fifties and sixties to oppose
Martin Luther King.

Raza demanded nothing less than revolution. And by

April 10, 2006, they were well on their way to achieve it.

***

A Communist Plan for Revolution

In In 1957 Czech Communist Party leader Jan Kozak ex-

plained how a small number of communists managed to
gain power in Czechoslovakia. The communists exerted
pressure for radical change from two directions simulta-
neously — from the upper levels of government and from
provocateurs in the streets. Kozák called this tactic
“pressure from above and below.” One way to exert
“pressure from below,” as Kozák explained, was to fill
the streets with rioter, strikers, and protesters, thus cre-
ating the illusion of a widespread clamor for change from
the grassroots. Radicals in the government would then

30
exert “pressure from above,” enacting new laws on the
pretext of appeasing the protesters in the street70.

In 2006 left wing radicals were creating “pressure from

above” in the media and congress, and “pressure from
below,” in the streets. But now they were supported by
the entire business establishment, what Mills called “the
power elite,” represented by both houses of congress
and a republican president.

Most ordinary Americans had never heard of C. Wright

Mills, Jan Kozak, or “Raza” for that matter. They could
not comprehend what was unfolding right before their
eyes.

Cloward Piven Strategy

By 2006 left wing radicals were also employing a plan

first elucidated in the 1960s by a pair of pro-communist
Columbia University professors, Richard Cloward and
Frances Piven. Their plan was a strategy to force political
change through orchestrated crisis. The “Cloward-Piven
Strategy” sought to hasten the fall of capitalism by over-
loading the government bureaucracy with a flood of im-
possible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and
economic collapse. Cloward and Piven were inspired by

70 The Shadow Party by David Horowitz, L56-62

31
radical organizer [and Hillary Clinton mentor] Saul
Alinsky: “Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book
of rules,” Alinsky wrote in “Rules for Radicals.” When
pressed to honor every word of every law and statute,
every Judeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit
promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies
would inevitably fall short.

The Cloward Piven Strategy remains in operation today,

as millions of illegals overwhelm the system. In 2021 an
Obama-era immigration official referred to the border
crisis as: “the rat king of policy shitshows.”71

Again, America’s vast majority were ignorant of left-wing

political tactics. They hadn’t read Rules for Radicals. So,
they amused themselves by posting pictures of eagles
on Facebook, pictures of themselves holding military
styled weaponry, calling themselves “patriots,” unaware
that they were already emersed in a modern-day Amer-
ican revolution, accomplished by street crisis and politi-
cal deception, orchestrated by left wing radicals and pub-
lic officials, without the use of guns, a revolution, as
Kozak said, when not a shot is fired72.

71 The Daily Beast, July 19, 2021

72 Jan Kozak “And Not a Shot Is Fired.”

32
 ***

However, in 2006, despite media spin and confusion cre-

ated by a variety of conflicting messages, one thing was
clear; behind the scenes there was a confluence of op-
posing ideologies. Arizona’s “Power Elite,” mainstream
business interests and Raza revolutionaries were on the
same page. Former ideological opponents were now
working behind the scenes to achieve a common goal.

Both sides wanted the borders to remain open. Both

sides wanted the illegals to keep on coming.

***

The border controversy has spurred a growth industry

for writers, moralists, pundits, and propagandists, re-
sulting in the publication of hundreds, if not thousands
of books, articles, and films. Each presents “facts”, ar-
guments, and anecdotal evidence to support the author’s
viewpoint, either for or against illegal entry.

In 2019 Michelle Malkin Published “Open Borders, Inc:

Who’s Funding America’s Destruction.” Pawel Styrna
called it “required reading for anyone wishing to under-
stand the forces and interests behind the open borders
and mass immigration lobby.”

33
“Ground Zero: How Arizona Created the Crisis at the
Border” is NOT another statement of political viewpoint,
or the dangers we face from “invasion”, or what we must
do to solve the border crisis.

It reveals the existence of Arizona’s “power elite,” the

old family pioneers who created open border policy to
attract the cheap Mexican labor upon which the state
was built, and the mafia directed human traffickers who
provided the cheap labor.

The book cites extensively from “Mexican Workers and

the Making of Arizona,” published in 2018, by University
of Arizona professors Plascencia and Cuadraz. Their work
reveals Arizona’s century long employment of what I’ve
termed “Open Border Policy: to aid and abet, entice and
invite and to otherwise encourage the illegal entry of im-
poverished Mexicans for economic and political exploita-
tion.”73

This book establishes a direct link between systemic Ar-

izona land fraud and the lawyers and judges who pro-
tected it, the connection between the mafia, human traf-
ficking, and Evo DeConcini, a former Pima County Attor-
ney, Arizona State Attorney General and member of the
Arizona Supreme Court, who once testified on behalf of

73 I first used this phrase in 2006

34
his “friend and neighbor74” mob boss Joe Bonanno, the
1976 murder of reporter Don Bolles who exposed Ari-
zona’s corrupt prosecutors and institutionally protected
land fraud, the 1989 Savings and Loan scandal, when
bankers, protected by Arizona Senators John McCain and
Evo’s son Dennis, (himself a former Pima County Attor-
ney), used fraud techniques perfected by Arizona gang-
ster Ned Warren and future U.S. Supreme Court Chief
Justice William Rehnquist to rip off taxpayers for tens of
billions of dollars,75 and the 2008 Mortgage Meltdown in
which Wall Street Banksters used the same techniques,
pioneered by Warren and Rehnquist, to rip taxpayers off
for more than ten trillion dollars, all because “the estab-
lishment” said they were “Too Big to Fail.”

And this book identifies a new complex of private and

government interests, similar to the one Eisenhower
warned us about; the “Law Enforcement, Criminal Jus-
tice, Prison Industrial Complex”—in particular the law-
yers and judges who currently prosecute, defend, adju-
dicate, imprison and deport—who today thrive on the
enormous caseload created by open borders and the
continuing conflict.

74 DeConcini often said, “I thought he was a retired cheesemaker.”

75 The Keating Five

35
These judges, who we’ve entrusted to provide equal jus-
tice under law, have abused their power. They’ve used
the law itself to protect the architects of open border
policy, to violate our right to oppose them, and to enrich
themselves at our expense.76

***

First Draft of Introduction

Ground Zero: How Arizona Created the Crisis at
the Border © 2021
roywarden@hotmail.com

76 The Abuse of Government Authority

36