"The Boogaloo" is an inherently fash concept. Buuuuut many people will be drawn into it because liberalism is failing them and they don't see other alternatives available.
Actually working with boogs is a stupid thing to do, but different people mean very different things when they say that.
Aligning with, or voicing any sort of support, critical or not, for the boog movement is a shit idea.
Jimmy Dore is dead to me. Fuck him.
But refusing to open up lines of communication with people who are sympathetic to the boog movement, is also a shit idea.
I'm talking about counter recruitment.
If people are getting drawn into it, it only hurts, maybe even dooms, us, if we refuse to even try to connect with boog sympathizers before they fall further down that rabbit hole.
Lots of people on the left nowadays equate interacting with people sympathetic to fascism as aligning with fascism.
And that's. not. the. same. thing.
Counter recruitment is tough, tricky, draining, not for everyone, and never near as effective as it should be.
But if the modern left, as a whole, never offers people an off ramp on the road to fascism, they'll never take it.
And then we're fucked.
"It behoves us to overcome Fascism ideologically and politically. This imposes enormous tasks on us. We must realise that Fascism is a movement of the disappointed and of those whose existence is ruined. Therefore, we must endeavour either to win over or to neutralise those wide masses who are still in the Fascist camp. I wish to emphasise the importance of our realising that we must struggle ideologically for the possession of the soul of these masses. We must realise that they are not only trying to escape from their present tribulations, but that they are longing for a new philosophy. We must come out of the narrow limits of our present activity."
"We must take up the struggle more energetically not only for the souls of proletarians that have fallen to fascism but for those of small and medium bourgeois, small peasants, intellectuals—in a word, all the layers that are placed today, by their economic and social position, in increasingly sharp conflict with large-scale capitalism."
[...]
"If the new masses that we must attract do not come to us, we must find them and talk to them in their own language, one corresponding to how they see things, without giving up the slightest bit of our Communist outlook."
The people playing dress up with Hawaiian shirts and thousands of dollars in kit---you know, the actual Boogaloo people who are it's public face, and not just people with idle leanings---are not being failed by liberalism.
I said there's a difference between support and counter recruitment.
Didn't even criticize your post because I didn't know what you meant by it.
So I sketched out two things they could mean.
One I agree with.
One I disagree with
I also outright said fuck Jimmy Dore
You did the whole "none of these people are reachable" bit, I disagreed, you PPB'ed me.
If I'm not understanding your point, please help me to.
What does supporting the boog mean to you?
Is reaching out to people who are sympathetic to the boog aesthetic, as unabashed socialists, supporting them?
Is buying a low end rifle, wish kit, and a Hawaiian shirt a sign that someone's unreachable?
Because that's what I took from your reply.
I genuinely don't know how to interpret it any other way.
They may appear “reactionary” to self-proclaimed leftists but are very much prone for conversion. If we don’t do that, the fascists will win over their support.
Nothing in this post is opposed to this. Not a word.
What I can say from my experience is that the vast majority of the working people are apolitical and have no coherent ideology.
This has been my experience as well. There's obviously a line to not cross. Anyone putting out 6MWE DOTR and/or 1488 vibes I stay far the fuck away from.
But most people tend to be a swirling mishmash of very different, and usually contradictory, viewpoints.
You did state that if people have the money for the getup, they can't be failed by liberalism.
Maybe that's not the same, but I strongly object nonetheless
I have a few firearms.
I have some cheap yet functional and practical tactical gear.
And I even have a couple Hawaiian shirts: they were gifts.
I'd never ever put the third together with the first two, but I have literally everything needed to make a boog outfit in my home, right now
I've personally been failed by liberalism and live well below the poverty line.
I just saved, cut expenses, eating more cheaply, and used my tax returns and stimulus money on the first two things.
Many gun stores have layaway plans.
Plenty of people have televisions, computers, videogame systems, and phones, that are more expensive than a decent low end AR-15.
If that's not the "winning argument" I think it is, I really would like to know why.
I'll even pinky promise not to reply to it.
Because I still genuinely don't see how someone who can afford a boog outfit can't also be failed by liberalism.
There are certain boog spokespeople who are emerging, and they're almost certainly lost causes.
That I do agree on.
Some of them are also sporting SCARs with Trijicons and shit like that. I tend to see those kinds identifying as and representing "Boogaloo boys" publicly moreso than the budget store kit. And this post isn't about random sympathizers sitting at home, it's about the guys traveling across the country to marches who are repping the brand, so to speak.
The boog isn't a central org.
Anyone can go to their thrift store, buy some gaudy shirts, buy a shitty Hi-Point Carbine, Kel-Tec, or midrange M&P sport, buy the rest of their kit through Wish, then go out in public with that combination, and they're now "it's public face."
Many of the kitted out boogs I've seen have a low end rifle and shitty china gear. I could buy an entire boog getup, rifle included, with the contents of my tax return.
If you're buying a Boogaloo cosplay kit then you're well past being merely "adjacent" or "sympathetic." And you're also likely not being failed by liberalism; that said kit costs hundreds rather than thousands isn't the winning argument that you think it is.
So, backtracking if I'm allowed to, because I misread what you said then got mad about what I misread.
I'll own up to that.
That's totally 100% my bad.
I'm a fucking dolt, when it comes to reading comprehension sometimes.
What makes having the money for boog kit different than having the money for SRA kit?
Because oftentimes the only difference is the Hawaiian shirt
The kitted out SRA member is a comrade sure, but they had to spend the same amount of money that somehow disqualifies the boog, when the only physical difference in kit is the Hawaiian shirt, which have always been a thrift store staple.
Counter recruitment isn't the same as conversion/radicalization, fwiw.
If I wasn't clear about that, I apologize.
The Zetkin quote did mention both tactics. If not one, then the other, so that could have contributed to the misunderstanding.
It's reaching out those most vulnerable to being radicalized by reactionaries and attempting to stop them from being so, by laying bare what the ideology they're sliding into is, all at once.
And those are the people wearing american flag bandanas, unfortunately.
ETA: If a proto-chud stays a proto-chud, but they're now unwilling to put themselves in fight the for reactionary causes, that's still a win.
Also, yes, you you totally gotta make sure you aren't being played, a'la Daryl Davis.
The people he reaches out to are outright unabashed racists and far beyond that line of engagement.
But people wearing Hawaiian shirts or flag bandanas aren't. Or at least aren't merely by nature of them wearing Hawaiian shirts or flag bandanas.
"The Boogaloo" is an inherently fash concept. Buuuuut many people will be drawn into it because liberalism is failing them and they don't see other alternatives available.
Actually working with boogs is a stupid thing to do, but different people mean very different things when they say that.
Aligning with, or voicing any sort of support, critical or not, for the boog movement is a shit idea.
Jimmy Dore is dead to me. Fuck him.
But refusing to open up lines of communication with people who are sympathetic to the boog movement, is also a shit idea.
I'm talking about counter recruitment.
If people are getting drawn into it, it only hurts, maybe even dooms, us, if we refuse to even try to connect with boog sympathizers before they fall further down that rabbit hole.
Lots of people on the left nowadays equate interacting with people sympathetic to fascism as aligning with fascism.
And that's. not. the. same. thing.
Counter recruitment is tough, tricky, draining, not for everyone, and never near as effective as it should be.
But if the modern left, as a whole, never offers people an off ramp on the road to fascism, they'll never take it.
And then we're fucked.
"It behoves us to overcome Fascism ideologically and politically. This imposes enormous tasks on us. We must realise that Fascism is a movement of the disappointed and of those whose existence is ruined. Therefore, we must endeavour either to win over or to neutralise those wide masses who are still in the Fascist camp. I wish to emphasise the importance of our realising that we must struggle ideologically for the possession of the soul of these masses. We must realise that they are not only trying to escape from their present tribulations, but that they are longing for a new philosophy. We must come out of the narrow limits of our present activity."
-Clara Zetkin, "Fascism."
"We must take up the struggle more energetically not only for the souls of proletarians that have fallen to fascism but for those of small and medium bourgeois, small peasants, intellectuals—in a word, all the layers that are placed today, by their economic and social position, in increasingly sharp conflict with large-scale capitalism."
[...]
"If the new masses that we must attract do not come to us, we must find them and talk to them in their own language, one corresponding to how they see things, without giving up the slightest bit of our Communist outlook."
-Clara Zetkin, "The Struggle against fascism."
The people playing dress up with Hawaiian shirts and thousands of dollars in kit---you know, the actual Boogaloo people who are it's public face, and not just people with idle leanings---are not being failed by liberalism.
Not every single person sympathetic to the boog movement has "thousands of dollars worth of kit."
You're taking a certain subsection then turning them into a monolith, as if they represent everyone attracted to it
Owning a Hawaiian shirt means you're not a prole?
:pigpoop:
This isn't a bit I'm doing, this is me saying that if we stay the course we're on, we're fucked.
The post I replied to with ppb is you taking my words in incredibly bad faith and nothing more.
I said there's a difference between support and counter recruitment.
Didn't even criticize your post because I didn't know what you meant by it.
So I sketched out two things they could mean.
One I agree with.
One I disagree with
I also outright said fuck Jimmy Dore
You did the whole "none of these people are reachable" bit, I disagreed, you PPB'ed me.
If I'm not understanding your point, please help me to.
What does supporting the boog mean to you?
Is reaching out to people who are sympathetic to the boog aesthetic, as unabashed socialists, supporting them?
Is buying a low end rifle, wish kit, and a Hawaiian shirt a sign that someone's unreachable?
Because that's what I took from your reply.
I genuinely don't know how to interpret it any other way.
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Nothing in this post is opposed to this. Not a word.
This has been my experience as well. There's obviously a line to not cross. Anyone putting out 6MWE DOTR and/or 1488 vibes I stay far the fuck away from.
But most people tend to be a swirling mishmash of very different, and usually contradictory, viewpoints.
No, I didn't. Not even close.
Done wasting time with this bad faith shit.
You did state that if people have the money for the getup, they can't be failed by liberalism.
Maybe that's not the same, but I strongly object nonetheless
I have a few firearms.
I have some cheap yet functional and practical tactical gear.
And I even have a couple Hawaiian shirts: they were gifts.
I'd never ever put the third together with the first two, but I have literally everything needed to make a boog outfit in my home, right now
I've personally been failed by liberalism and live well below the poverty line.
I just saved, cut expenses, eating more cheaply, and used my tax returns and stimulus money on the first two things.
Many gun stores have layaway plans.
Plenty of people have televisions, computers, videogame systems, and phones, that are more expensive than a decent low end AR-15.
If that's not the "winning argument" I think it is, I really would like to know why.
I'll even pinky promise not to reply to it.
Because I still genuinely don't see how someone who can afford a boog outfit can't also be failed by liberalism.
There are certain boog spokespeople who are emerging, and they're almost certainly lost causes.
That I do agree on.
Some of them are also sporting SCARs with Trijicons and shit like that. I tend to see those kinds identifying as and representing "Boogaloo boys" publicly moreso than the budget store kit. And this post isn't about random sympathizers sitting at home, it's about the guys traveling across the country to marches who are repping the brand, so to speak.
Breaking my rule to state that I do agree with that. The people who are emerging as the spokespeople are most likely not reachable.
Same
The boog isn't a central org.
Anyone can go to their thrift store, buy some gaudy shirts, buy a shitty Hi-Point Carbine, Kel-Tec, or midrange M&P sport, buy the rest of their kit through Wish, then go out in public with that combination, and they're now "it's public face."
Many of the kitted out boogs I've seen have a low end rifle and shitty china gear. I could buy an entire boog getup, rifle included, with the contents of my tax return.
If you're buying a Boogaloo cosplay kit then you're well past being merely "adjacent" or "sympathetic." And you're also likely not being failed by liberalism; that said kit costs hundreds rather than thousands isn't the winning argument that you think it is.
Aaaaaaaaaaaah fuck, I read your comment wrong
Me rn
🌽
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deleted by creator
deleted by creator
I misread you.
See the edit to my comment above
So, backtracking if I'm allowed to, because I misread what you said then got mad about what I misread.
I'll own up to that.
That's totally 100% my bad.
I'm a fucking dolt, when it comes to reading comprehension sometimes.
What makes having the money for boog kit different than having the money for SRA kit?
Because oftentimes the only difference is the Hawaiian shirt
The kitted out SRA member is a comrade sure, but they had to spend the same amount of money that somehow disqualifies the boog, when the only physical difference in kit is the Hawaiian shirt, which have always been a thrift store staple.
No worries.
I never said don't try to convert people. But you'll probably have a better success rate if you don't begin with the guys wearing American flag bandanas.
Counter recruitment isn't the same as conversion/radicalization, fwiw.
If I wasn't clear about that, I apologize.
The Zetkin quote did mention both tactics. If not one, then the other, so that could have contributed to the misunderstanding.
It's reaching out those most vulnerable to being radicalized by reactionaries and attempting to stop them from being so, by laying bare what the ideology they're sliding into is, all at once.
And those are the people wearing american flag bandanas, unfortunately.
ETA: If a proto-chud stays a proto-chud, but they're now unwilling to put themselves in fight the for reactionary causes, that's still a win.
Also, yes, you you totally gotta make sure you aren't being played, a'la Daryl Davis.
The people he reaches out to are outright unabashed racists and far beyond that line of engagement.
But people wearing Hawaiian shirts or flag bandanas aren't. Or at least aren't merely by nature of them wearing Hawaiian shirts or flag bandanas.