AI
Sunday, August 02, 2020 4:51:06 AM
The Boogaloo Movement Is Not What You Think
"POLITICIZING COVID - The rightwing groups behind wave of protests against Covid-19 restrictions
"Trump's Tea Party: Are right-wing "open the country" protests an AstroTurf operation?
Right-wing donors are overtly funding this feeble wave of protests — and it could be a Trump campaign operation" "
May 27, 2020
On May 26th, crowds gathered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to protest the death of 46-year-old George Floyd at the hands of the city’s police department. Floyd was black. Many of the protesters were people of color.
The department fired four policemen that same day, after footage emerged appearing to show Floyd being strangled by a white officer; the video shows him placing his knee on Floyd, cutting off his air supply. Firing these officers was not enough to defuse anger in the city where less than four years previously, a police officer shot a black man, Philando Castile, dead at a traffic stop after Castile informed him he had a legally purchased firearm.
On the internet, meanwhile, a largely white, and far right movement publicly contended over what risks its members should take to support a black man killed by police.
On the Facebook page, Big Igloo Bois, which at the time of writing had 30,637 followers, an administrator wrote of the protests, “If there was ever a time for bois to stand in solidarity with ALL free men and women in this country, it is now”.
They added, “This is not a race issue. For far too long we have allowed them to murder us in our homes, and in the streets. We need to stand with the people of Minneapolis. We need to support them in this protest against a system that allows police brutality to go unchecked.”
One commenter added, “I’m looking for fellow Minneapolis residents to join me in forming a private, Constitutionally-authorized militia to protect people from the MPD, which has killed too many people within the last two years.”
These exchanges offer a window into an extremely online update of the militia movement, which is gearing up for the northern summer. The “Boogaloo Bois” expect, even hope, that the warmer weather will bring armed confrontations with law enforcement, and will build momentum towards a new civil war in the United States.
Mostly, they’re not even hiding it. And for the last several months, their platform of choice has been Facebook.
Like many other novel extremist movements, the loose network of pro-gun shitposters trace their origins to 4chan. What coherence the movement has comes from their reverence for their newly-minted martyrs and a constellation of in-jokes and memes
Above all, though, the movement has gained momentum over the last two years by organising on the world’s most popular social network. At the time of writing, that network’s parent company had added just over $150 billion to its market cap since Boogaloo-friendly anti-lockdown protests began organizing there in mid April. The valuation of the company at $662.8 billion on May 26th beat out it’s previous high of $620.8 billion, set on the same day, January 20th, that the Boogaloo movement made its high profile public debut at Second Amendment protests in Virginia.
For now, Facebook chooses to allow the Boogaloo movement to flourish on their platform.
Open source materials suggest that, for now, the apocalyptic, anti-government politics of the “Boogaloo Bois” are not monolithically racist/neo-Nazi. As we have observed, some members rail against police shootings of African Americans, and praise black nationalist self defense groups.
But the materials also demonstrate that however irony-drenched it may appear to be, this is a movement actively preparing for armed confrontation with law enforcement, and anyone else who would restrict their expansive understanding of the right to bear arms. In a divided, destabilized post-coronavirus landscape, they could well contribute to widespread violence in the streets of American cities.
Mainstreaming Civil War: From /k/ To Facebook
[...]
[...]
His outfit combined references to neo-Nazism with high-powered weapons and internet-poisoned irony. A hastily created Twitter account tried to cash in on the limelight dished out racial slurs, referenced the neo-Nazi numerical code “1488”, and featured a picture of the pseudonymous protester alongside another man who was wearing Nazi regalia.
Armed men embracing a similar set of subcultural reference points began showing up at more public protests. On January 31, a group of armed men, some in Hawaiian shirts, others in face masks and the German “flecktarn” camouflage favored by modern neonazi groups, entered the Kentucky state house.
[...]
Reaction to these posts was not universal, with a fairly even mix of commenters opposing “Auburndale Red”’s racism. The point here is not that the Boogaloo movement is wholly or authentically anti-racist, but that there appears to be a very active struggle within some parts of this movement as to whether or not their dreamed-of uprising will be based in bigotry.
[...]
The Martyrs
At around 4:30 AM on March 12, 2020, a Montgomery County, Maryland SWAT team executed a no-knock raid on the family home of 21-year-old Duncan Socrates Lemp. He was suspected of owning firearms that he was not allowed to legally possess due to a juvenile criminal record. The Maryland police claim Lemp “confronted” them while armed, and that he had boobytrapped his door with a shotgun shell. Lemp’s family claims that he was shot dead while sleeping with his girlfriend, who was wounded in the raid.
What happened during that early morning raid remains bitterly contested, and is beyond the scope of this article. What is undeniable is that Duncan Lemp has become the pre-eminent martyr of the nascent Boogaloo movement. His name and face are constantly referenced, as in this post from the Virginia Knights Facebook group, which claims him as a former member:
[...]
[...]
Naturally, this sentiment is not universally held within the far right Boogaloo movement. In this conversation about the death of Ahmaud Arbery, one user posts the above meme while another scoffs that Arbery’s death is only newsworthy because of how “rare” it is when a white person kills a black person.
[...to end ...]
On May 1, 2020, Facebook and Instagram both updated their “violence and incitement” policy to ban the use of “boogaloo terms” when they occur alongside images or statements depicting or urging armed violence. Our research suggests that this policy has done virtually nothing to curb either the growth of this movement or reduce the violence of its rhetoric. Every new Boogaloo page and group we found led us to new related pages and “liked” pages, each either organizing people for direct armed action or agitating them to anticipate violence.
The world’s largest social network remains a hospitable place for would-be insurrectionists. We now know that Facebook has buried evidence that its platform facilitates the growth of extremism, due to a fear that combatting this would be seen as anti-conservative bias. It is not yet possible to say if the movement that has been nurtured on that platform will ever play a part in an American civil war. But every day, tens of thousands of heavily armed people log on to repeat their hope that it will.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05/27/the-boogaloo-movement-is-not-what-you-think/
"POLITICIZING COVID - The rightwing groups behind wave of protests against Covid-19 restrictions
"Trump's Tea Party: Are right-wing "open the country" protests an AstroTurf operation?
Right-wing donors are overtly funding this feeble wave of protests — and it could be a Trump campaign operation" "
May 27, 2020
On May 26th, crowds gathered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to protest the death of 46-year-old George Floyd at the hands of the city’s police department. Floyd was black. Many of the protesters were people of color.
The department fired four policemen that same day, after footage emerged appearing to show Floyd being strangled by a white officer; the video shows him placing his knee on Floyd, cutting off his air supply. Firing these officers was not enough to defuse anger in the city where less than four years previously, a police officer shot a black man, Philando Castile, dead at a traffic stop after Castile informed him he had a legally purchased firearm.
On the internet, meanwhile, a largely white, and far right movement publicly contended over what risks its members should take to support a black man killed by police.
On the Facebook page, Big Igloo Bois, which at the time of writing had 30,637 followers, an administrator wrote of the protests, “If there was ever a time for bois to stand in solidarity with ALL free men and women in this country, it is now”.
They added, “This is not a race issue. For far too long we have allowed them to murder us in our homes, and in the streets. We need to stand with the people of Minneapolis. We need to support them in this protest against a system that allows police brutality to go unchecked.”
One commenter added, “I’m looking for fellow Minneapolis residents to join me in forming a private, Constitutionally-authorized militia to protect people from the MPD, which has killed too many people within the last two years.”
These exchanges offer a window into an extremely online update of the militia movement, which is gearing up for the northern summer. The “Boogaloo Bois” expect, even hope, that the warmer weather will bring armed confrontations with law enforcement, and will build momentum towards a new civil war in the United States.
Mostly, they’re not even hiding it. And for the last several months, their platform of choice has been Facebook.
Like many other novel extremist movements, the loose network of pro-gun shitposters trace their origins to 4chan. What coherence the movement has comes from their reverence for their newly-minted martyrs and a constellation of in-jokes and memes
Above all, though, the movement has gained momentum over the last two years by organising on the world’s most popular social network. At the time of writing, that network’s parent company had added just over $150 billion to its market cap since Boogaloo-friendly anti-lockdown protests began organizing there in mid April. The valuation of the company at $662.8 billion on May 26th beat out it’s previous high of $620.8 billion, set on the same day, January 20th, that the Boogaloo movement made its high profile public debut at Second Amendment protests in Virginia.
For now, Facebook chooses to allow the Boogaloo movement to flourish on their platform.
Open source materials suggest that, for now, the apocalyptic, anti-government politics of the “Boogaloo Bois” are not monolithically racist/neo-Nazi. As we have observed, some members rail against police shootings of African Americans, and praise black nationalist self defense groups.
But the materials also demonstrate that however irony-drenched it may appear to be, this is a movement actively preparing for armed confrontation with law enforcement, and anyone else who would restrict their expansive understanding of the right to bear arms. In a divided, destabilized post-coronavirus landscape, they could well contribute to widespread violence in the streets of American cities.
Mainstreaming Civil War: From /k/ To Facebook
[...]
[...]
His outfit combined references to neo-Nazism with high-powered weapons and internet-poisoned irony. A hastily created Twitter account tried to cash in on the limelight dished out racial slurs, referenced the neo-Nazi numerical code “1488”, and featured a picture of the pseudonymous protester alongside another man who was wearing Nazi regalia.
Armed men embracing a similar set of subcultural reference points began showing up at more public protests. On January 31, a group of armed men, some in Hawaiian shirts, others in face masks and the German “flecktarn” camouflage favored by modern neonazi groups, entered the Kentucky state house.
[...]
Reaction to these posts was not universal, with a fairly even mix of commenters opposing “Auburndale Red”’s racism. The point here is not that the Boogaloo movement is wholly or authentically anti-racist, but that there appears to be a very active struggle within some parts of this movement as to whether or not their dreamed-of uprising will be based in bigotry.
[...]
The Martyrs
At around 4:30 AM on March 12, 2020, a Montgomery County, Maryland SWAT team executed a no-knock raid on the family home of 21-year-old Duncan Socrates Lemp. He was suspected of owning firearms that he was not allowed to legally possess due to a juvenile criminal record. The Maryland police claim Lemp “confronted” them while armed, and that he had boobytrapped his door with a shotgun shell. Lemp’s family claims that he was shot dead while sleeping with his girlfriend, who was wounded in the raid.
What happened during that early morning raid remains bitterly contested, and is beyond the scope of this article. What is undeniable is that Duncan Lemp has become the pre-eminent martyr of the nascent Boogaloo movement. His name and face are constantly referenced, as in this post from the Virginia Knights Facebook group, which claims him as a former member:
[...]
[...]
Naturally, this sentiment is not universally held within the far right Boogaloo movement. In this conversation about the death of Ahmaud Arbery, one user posts the above meme while another scoffs that Arbery’s death is only newsworthy because of how “rare” it is when a white person kills a black person.
[...to end ...]
On May 1, 2020, Facebook and Instagram both updated their “violence and incitement” policy to ban the use of “boogaloo terms” when they occur alongside images or statements depicting or urging armed violence. Our research suggests that this policy has done virtually nothing to curb either the growth of this movement or reduce the violence of its rhetoric. Every new Boogaloo page and group we found led us to new related pages and “liked” pages, each either organizing people for direct armed action or agitating them to anticipate violence.
The world’s largest social network remains a hospitable place for would-be insurrectionists. We now know that Facebook has buried evidence that its platform facilitates the growth of extremism, due to a fear that combatting this would be seen as anti-conservative bias. It is not yet possible to say if the movement that has been nurtured on that platform will ever play a part in an American civil war. But every day, tens of thousands of heavily armed people log on to repeat their hope that it will.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05/27/the-boogaloo-movement-is-not-what-you-think/
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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