Barbara Coe’s racist troupe leaves Westminster empty-handed.

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Barbara Coe

Well, the Council’s motives were inscrutable and their reasoning a dodge, but it WAS satisfying to see bitter old Babs and her motley group of eight haters shuffle off disconsolate into the Little Saigon night withOUT one more SB1070-backing OC municipality under their belt.

And here I was all set to retell the story of Mendez v. Westminster, under the title “Westminster Returns to Its Proud Mexican-Bashing Heritage.”  But now I don’t have to!  And cheers!

Quashed by Quach

If you think you’re already a connoisseur of senile, brain-dead OC Councils; if you’ve derived perverse, superior enjoyment from listening to the free associations of Fullerton’s Dick Jones, the pronouncements of Orange’s Dim Jon Dumitru, the musings of Costa Mesa’s tongue-tied Mansoor, or the grunts and squeaks of Huntington Beach’s barely sentient Carchio and Green, you ain’t seen nothing till you’ve seen the two old white people on the Westminster Council – Mayor Margie Rice and Mayor Pro-Tem Frank Fry.  (Watch the meeting here; enjoy Fry at 1:33:00; and Rice throughout.)

Andy Quach

The only brains on this council seem to be in the three-member Vietnamese (Trannie) majority, specifically the hard-drinking Andy Quach who had a ready-made dodge for the situation which should work in the near future for any cautious Councils whose desire to avoid controversy is greater than their anti-Mexican animus:  We really care how all members of the community feel, but we should first wait to see how Obama’s lawsuit against Arizona is resolved! (In Mayor Rice’s simple mind, that became “We’ve got to make sure the Feds don’t sue US!” as though anyone’s gonna sue some one-horse California town for a punk-ass resolution saying that you like the unconstitutional AZ law.)

This was all just a pretext anyhow, and I’m sure the haters knew it, which brings me joy.  I think the real reason Quach and company tabled the measure is that they are, above all, loyal disciples of Van Tran (popularly known as Trannies) and I’m betting Boss Tran has instructed them that he will consider any antagonism toward the Hispanic community unhelpful in his run against Loretta.  I’m glad if he’s going that route – he probably noticed how little immigrant-bashing accomplished for the campaigns of Bill Hunt, Tan Nguyen and Steve Poizner.  (Too bad Allan Mansoor doesn’t KNOW any other tune.)

Lupe Moreno

It probably didn’t help the nativists’ case that Dale Bradbury, perhaps their most colorful commenter (don’t miss him at 1:01:33!) after first claiming Nebraska has a new law preventing you from living or working in the state unless you’re a citizen, and then criticizing the Mayor for not being at some July 4 event that she apparently was at, started in to bitching about how Westminster’s Vietnamese-Americans don’t pay any taxes and aren’t real Americans, and how Westminster needs to cancel the “Tent Festival” where the Viets march around with “the homosexuals.”  Way to keep the Westminster council on your side, Dale!  (Way to unite minorities, actually.)

The usual nutjobs performed their usual shtick:

  • An apparently sober Ms. Coe (34:15) was a trembling fireplug of fury as she described the “Invasion of Illegal Aliens.” A  self-contained manufacturer of her own mad “facts,” she told us “it is fully documented that over TWENTY-FIVE INNOCENT VICTIMS DIE at the hands of THESE VIOLENT CRIMINALS, EVERY DAY.”  Also, “the blood of our people is on the hands of the IMPOSTOR in the White House!”
  • The pulsing heap of misery Lupe Moreno (30:17) , braving the fear of “political correctness,” undertook to name some of these hundreds of thousands of victims allegedly slaughtered by “Illegal Aliens” over the years, managing to name off nearly eight.  She excoriated her assemblyman Jose Solorio for being “very proud to march in the Illegal Alien Marches,” and ended with a plea to “stand with Arizona against this evilness.”
  • Actual Westminster resident Vaughn Becht (37:35) , whose letter to council set this resolution in motion, repeatedly and emphatically used the terms “Authentic Americans” versus “Illegal People.” As an Authentic American, he feels “assaulted” by the Illegal People whenever and wherever he sees them… “Where, you may ask?  At churches, Mexican Consulate, and the Home Depot, not too far away from here!”  (The Westminster Home Depot, where day laborers seek work, was an especial source of angst for those few speakers who actually knew the town.)
  • The utterly batshit insane Judy Ahrens, (58:21) longtime Westminster nightmare, breathlessly hashed out her grievances over having to live with Mexicans in her midst.  The other day she saw TWO signs in Spanish at her local DMV – why TWO?  She berated the Council for failing in their duty to defend the Constitution by shielding her from the presence of illegals, reminding them that she had previously read them a “litmus” (litany?) of complaints, and sent them “stats and statistics from her internet.”  Later she took note of the “Boy Scout Fleet” (??) that was in attendance, and opined that we shouldn’t be teaching them to scoff at the law, but to “come in through the front door.”
  • And finally some horrific old Germanic hag named Anita Hynds, (1:19:35) thick Nazi accent still intact, claimed that “we are not free” any more because of all these immigrants.  In fact “We are practically SLAVES to these illegal aliens!” because “these people are living on welfare, food stamps, and social security.”  It was as fact-free a presentation as all the rest; I don’t need to bother with it beyond mockery, do I?

The saddest part of the video is seeing the innocent, restless young Boy Scouts sitting in the front row being exposed to all this poison without a filter, and occasionally joining in the applause.  (Kudos to the three very moving and effective opposition speakers by the way.)

But, keep an eye on Mr. Ted Hayes.

Ted Hayes

There was only one anti-immigrant commenter to be taken seriously, the articulate and charismatic Ted Hayes; and it turns out he’s a celebrity I hadn’t heard of.  A homeless activist in LA since the 80’s, leader of Black Republican group “the Crispus Attucks Brigade,” and the 2008 Republican candidate against Maxine Waters, as well as an advanced inline skater and father of Olympic gold-medalist hurdler Joanna Dove Hayes, he has more recently become an outspoken activist against illegal immigration, joined up with the Minutemen, and will soon be co-hosting events with SB 1070 author Russell Pearce.

A guy like this is obviously prized by the immigrant-bashing community, as in their minds his very existence clears them of all charges of racism.  So I think I will have to deal seriously with his skillful and dangerous presentation, which you can watch at 42:08.

Dressed in Afro garb and yarmulke with a prophet’s grey beard, Hayes catalogues the oppression of Black folks – the Middle Passage in chains, centuries of slavery, terrorism from the Ku Klux Klan, kept from voting, employment and housing, he names it all, and claims that since Latino immigrants don’t have to suffer anything comparable, they have no claim to suffer Civil Rights abuses.

Sir, you win the OUCH contest. Nothing our Mexican immigrants endure is as bad as slavery or lynching (or for that matter, being shipped off to the ovens, or to a reservation with a smallpox blanket.)  But who the hell claims that anyway?  This is a Strawman argument, and all people IN America, citizens or not, Black or not, are entitled to Civil Rights.

He repeatedly claims these immigrants are “harming” and “hurting” him and his people, but never really says how.  Coming to the rescue of whites accused of anti-hispanic racism, he stoops to the old standby that “ethnicity” isn’t technically “race” – a contemptible semantic quibble not worthy of response.

From there he segues into “The racism is against ME, MY people!”  [From the immigrants I assume.] “THEY come here, they take MY legacy!”  WHAT?  That’s the problem?  You’re protective of your place on the oppression totem pole?  Are they devoting less weepy PBS docudramas to the troubles of blacks now, and more to the troubles of immigrants, or what?

I don’t waste time with bleeding-heart arguments when talking to Republicans (and I know most of my readers here are Republican or some hardnosed rightwing equivalent.)  And anyway Mr. Hayes APPARENTLY believes that Latino immigrants are here mainly because of their “suffering” in their native lands.

No, Latino immigrants are in the United States because we NEED them. We need their labor, for any number of jobs we don’t want to do, and if they weren’t here working for us, prices for many essential things would go through the roof.  We need them paying into the system, to keep our economy, Social Security and Medicare afloat.  And since we need them, we need a more sensible immigration system that will let us know who’s in our country, and help us prevent actual crime.  And until the Government gets it together to make a more sensible system, the laws we have now will continue to be flouted just because they’re unworkable.  And anyone blaming all of this on the brown people is a RACIST and ultimately unhelpful and piteous.

Mr. Hayes, you may be correct that the “suffering” of Latino immigrants doesn’t rise to the level of the suffering of your ancestors, but I’ll tell you what IS a good comparison:  Blacks like you who blame their problems on another poor minority are VERY SIMILAR to the impoverished, uneducated, white southern crackers who were manipulated by the rich whites to keep YOUR people enslaved and disenfranchised. It’s the same old divide-and-conquer, pit the different poor people against each other so they never change the oppressive system. Now you’re the dumb white southern cracker.   Wake up and pull yourself out of this if you can, Mr. Hayes!

The Outrageous Comedy Stylings of Margie “White” Rice

Mayor Rice

After the unexpectedly quick denouement to the issue, there was a sort of unsatisfying feeling, a sense that things had prematurely fizzled, that the momentous issue of protecting our borders had not been given the serious consideration it was due, a sort of blue balls of righteousness.  And so, Mayor Rice stepped into the breach.  (1:31:40)

“I don’t like the illegals here either.  I would like to see ’em ALL run out of the country.  NOT just the Hispanic – ” and here her eyes flashed and she leaned in to the mike for emphasis – “but ALL illegals!!!” Then, realizing she was maybe going over the top, she quickly added, “but… I think we should do it in a, a level-headed manner.”

(To be fair, she did seem sincerely moved by one opposition speaker’s argument – a Latino, who made the case that under the Arizona law, even though he was a citizen, he was now a second-class citizen.)

And THAT’s my report on THAT meeting!


About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.