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Re: recent debates about the Boogs, I think that we need to separate rhetoric from reality. They're a far-right movement that uses ostensibly left-wing rhetoric in much the same fashion as sovereign citizens and even fascists have in the past. /1
The classic example I've drawn on is JT Ready going to Occupy to "defend" protestors' "1st, 2nd, and 4th Amendment rights" w/ his border militia. Some even suggested he could stay, but he was kicked out by antifascists. He insisted he wasn't a racist. /2 https://embed.crooksandliars.com/embed/1vwUg
There are countless other examples, though, of far-right groups harboring fascists but insisting that they're not the real racists/homophobes/sexists, etc. The easiest way the Boogs have of avoiding the whole thing is just boiling things down to reactionary impulse. /3
Most of that is gun culture, a ludic sense of socio-political spontaneity, and a gaping lack of responsibility. It's one of the most fast-and-loose cultures I've ever tracked. And while some posts stress anti-racism, one often finds the tenner of the comments quite different. /4
It is reminiscent to a degree of the Proud Boys or Patriot Prayer in that regard, inclusive of non-white people and purporting to be anti-racist, but at the same time advocating in many instances a syncretic and vacillating combination of right- and left-wing demands. /5
I think what's most valuable about the early Bellingcat piece is the naming of the Boogaloo movement as "entryism." The movement and its propaganda, as far as I've seen, is opposed to federal law enforcement, antifa, socialism, looters, and illegal immigrants. /6
For further discussion on how the far-right has instrumentalized anti-racism for the purposes of brutalizing pro-civil rights protestors, retrenching anti-immigrant politics, and violently opposing the LGBQT+ community, as well as Planned Parenthood: /7 https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/producers-parasites-patriots
Don’t forget that the far-right has been courting the radical left for a long time—the whole “black power plus white power” formula is quite popular among the “European New Right” fascists, and some appropriate the Zapatistas. Dugin wrote, “Oppose the West, Support the Rest.” /8
Point is, that doesn’t mean the New Right or Duginist “now-Eurasians” aren’t racist. Dugin’s used traditional Nazi race myths ffs. Just means that they find exigency in exploiting unrest and steering it toward their interests in opposition to liberalism. /9
Absolutely crucial reading here by @LeilaShami regarding lessons from other social movements about what's going on wrt Boogs, militia "support/defense" of protests, and what to do about it. I can't recommend this highly enough. /10
https://newpol.org/the-us-protests-lessons-from-syria/
https://newpol.org/the-us-protests-lessons-from-syria/
