Far-right 'boogaloo' militants have embedded themselves in the George Floyd protests

[marmar]

(Raw Story) Young, white men dressed in Hawaiian-style print shirts and body armor, and carrying high-powered rifles have been a notable feature at state capitols, lending an edgy and even sometimes insurrectionary tone to gatherings of conservatives angered by restrictions on businesses and church gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic.

Just as many states are reopening their economies — and taking the wind out of the conservative protests — the boogaloo movement found a new galvanizing cause: the protests in Minneapolis against the police killing of George Floyd.

A new iteration of the militia movement, boogaloo was born out of internet forums for gun enthusiasts that repurposed the 1984 movie Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo as a code for a second civil war, and then modified it into phrases like “big luau” to create an insular community for those in on the joke, with Hawaiian-style shirts functioning as an in-real-life identifier. Boogaloo gained currency as an internet meme over the summer of 2019, when it was adopted by white supremacists in the accelerationist tendency. In January, the movement made the leap from the internet to the streets when a group boogaloo-ers showed up at the Second Amendment rally in Richmond, Va. ..............(more)

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/they-want-their-civil-war-far-right-boogaloo-militants-have-embedded-themselves-in-the-george-floyd-protests-in-minneapolis/

[gratuitous]

1. Some very fine people, right Mr. President?

I'm really getting Travis Bickle-y about these motherfuckers.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. They are just a proto-terrorist street gang.

[DBoon]

3. It is time these euro-american gangs be treated like MS-13

as hardened violent criminals, in the target of law enforcement and given no sympathy by the media

[DBoon]

4. Hawaiian shirts?

First tiki torches and now hawaiian shirts?

Is nothing sacred to these criminals?

[JHB]

5. Don't leave out the "OK" hand sign

[Jamastiene]

11. I really hate that, because

I love Hawaiian shirts. Hawaii should officially condemn them for that.

[VOX]

14. Me too. I have a large collection of heirloom-quality Aloha Shirts and live in a hot climate.

Which I’ve collected for more than 25 years. How dare they appropriate this quintessential piece of the American wardrobe!

[Walleye]

6. Isn't this what they call identity politics?

[uponit7771]

7. K&R, then go on sights and wag their fingers at looting and burning down of buildings.

[ancianita]

8. There were guys in the Minneapolis crowd, in federal supply masks, who threw the first bricks

and molotovs into the stores. Blackshirts.

This insurgency is set up to create chaos in blue states, doesn't matter where valid citizen protests are located.

Who is funding them is now the question.

Because if this gets worse before the Nov 3, it could be another pretext for election scam that this dicktater will pull. There will be some pretext. A likely satellite attack by China or Russia, boogaloo incited riots, a virus spike, are only the obvious ones.

[Jamastiene]

12. The protesters are protesting against police brutality and police murder.

It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to know the who has a motive to embed the rioters into the protests against police.

[ancianita]

15. We know that. And they were hijacked.

They served lots of right wingers' motives. So the question remains -- who were they and who paid them.

They weren't just random guys, because The Boogaloo encompasses a number of known hate groups, some of whom run their show on Twitter and Facebook. I've looked them up.

Here's what I've found so far from an old digital journalist called Brown Moses: The Boogaloo flopped around for years after 4chan originated the word's use, but in 2018, it went mainstream through Facebook.

Increasingly, from early 2018 onward, people identifying themselves as /k/ users -- the official Weapons Board of 4chan -- began migrating their discussions to Facebook. This move coincided with a continuing wave of contentious street demonstrations, open-carry protests, extremist violence, and political instability that have characterized the Trump era.

There dozens of groups and pages currently on Facebook, with names like “Patrioti/k/ Boogaloo Bois”, “The /K/oronavirus: Electric Boogaloo”, “The /K/ombatant”, and “Carolina /K/ommando” — reference /k/ in their title. Most post ironic /k/-friendly memes on a few repeating topics: guns, civil war and social collapse, and, oftentimes, violent conflict with law enforcement officers.

So we can't characterize the protestors by the worst of them. Some of these players weren't form Minneapolis. A lot of fomenting of violence has been happening in other places, as well.

[Happy Hoosier]

9. Dammit....

I like wearing Hawaiian shirts in the summer. These fuckers ruin everything.

[Thyla]

10. Boogaloo??

I say we set the Juggalos on them.

[Jamastiene]

13. Hell yeah.

They'd be glad to help us too. Awesome idea.