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In April 2020, the United Nations Secretary-General, Antnio Guterres, addressed members of the Security Council by warning them that the COVID-19 pandemic could threaten global peace and security.

If the health crisis was not managed effectively, he feared that its negative economic consequences, along with a mismanaged government response, would provide an opportunity for white supremacists, right-wing extremists and others to promote division, social unrest and even violence to achieve their objectives.

In early October 2020, less than a month before the United States federal election, the FBI thwarted an alleged terrorism plot by right-wing extremists to kidnap the Michigan governor, storm the state capital building and commit acts of violence against law enforcement.

Their aim, according to court documents, was to start a civil war leading to societal collapse. To date, 14 men have been arrested on charges of terrorism and other related crimes. Several of them are linked to the Wolverine Watchmen, a militia-type group in Michigan that espouses anti-government and anti-law enforcement views.

The FBI recently briefed U.S. senators on the evolving concern of domestic violent extremists, groups whose ideological goals to commit violence stem from domestic influences such as social movements like #MeToo, Black Lives Matter and government policies.

The composition of many of these organizations are right-wing terror groups whose grievances are rooted in racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, anti-LGBTQ sentiments, Islamophobia and perceptions of government overreach. Given the wide range of grievances, these groups are defined as being complex, with overlapping viewpoints from similarly minded individuals advocating different but related ideologies.

Feminist researchers believe the rise of disenfranchised middle-class white males is leading to increased toxic masculinity within society, as evidenced by the increased popularity of the so-called manosphere to share extremist ideas and vent their grievances. Law enforcement agencies are concerned that the manosphere and similar online communities are radicalizing young men to commit violence to achieve their goals.

This concern is valid, with plenty of evidence to support it.

According to the University of Marylands Global Terrorism Database, there were 310 terrorist attacks resulting in 316 deaths (excluding perpetrators) in the United States alone from 2015 to 2019.

Most were right-wing extremists, including white nationalists and other alt-right movement members. This alt-right movement also contains the incel (involuntary celibate) members who are a growing threat to women.

But the increase in right-wing terrorism is not just a U.S. problem. The UN Security Councils Counterterrorism Committee says theres been a 320 per cent increase in right-wing terrorism globally in the five years prior to 2020.

Recent terrorist attacks in New Zealand (2019), Germany (2019) and Norway (2019) are indicators of this trend. The Centre for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo reports that both Spain and Greece are growing hotbeds for right-wing terrorism and violence.

Canada isnt immune to these violent extremist ideologies. Many sympathizers to these causes reside in Canada, and as such there is always a risk for attacks. But the Canadian government is taking notice and has listed Combat 18 and Blood & Honour as right-wing terrorist organizations.

Right-wing extremism is of such concern that when the top international security policy-makers met at the 2019 Munich Security Conference, they ranked it among space security, climate security and emerging technologies as the top global security threats.

It would appear as though the world is at the dawn of a new age of terrorism thats different from before. Famed terrorism researcher David C. Rapoport argued in his influential thesis The Four Waves of Rebel Terror and September 11 that modern terrorism can be categorized into four distinct waves.

The first Anarchist Wave began in the 1880s in Russia with the Narodnaya Volya (The Peoples Will) conducting assassinations of political leaders. It continued until the 1920s, spreading across the Balkans and eventually into the West, influencing the creation of new terror groups within different countries.

The 1920s saw the beginning of the Anti-Colonial Wave coming out of the remnants of the First World War, when groups like the Irish Republican Army (IRA) began using ambush tactics against police and military targets to force political change.

In the 1960s, the New Left Wave was created. This third wave emerged from the perceived oppression of Western countries within the developing world (like Vietnam and the Middle East). Its tactics included plane hijackings, embassy attacks and kidnappings perpetrated by groups like the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Finally, the 1990s witnessed the birth of the Religious Wave in which terror groups like al-Qaida used religious ideology as a justification to overthrow secular governments with martyrdom tactics like suicide bombings.

What all these waves have in common is that they last for a few decades and become infectious over time, spreading across the globe as new groups learn and adopt the successful tactics of previous ones.

This brings us to todays right-wing terrorism.

Already observers have signalled the decline of violent Islamic movements and the rise of far-right extremist activities. Is right-wing violent extremism the new fifth wave of modern terrorism?

If so, theres no doubt the negative societal impacts of COVID-19 will only help accelerate the radicalization of its adherents.

And if the duration of the previous four waves have taught us anything, its that this new one could be around for many more years to come.

More:
Right-wing extremism: The new wave of global terrorism - The Conversation CA

The U.S. militia movement has long been steeped in a peculiar and unquestionably mistaken interpretation of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and civil liberties.

This is true of an armed militia group that calls itself the Wolverine Watchmen, who were involved in the recently revealed plot to overthrow Michigans government and kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

As I wrote in Fracturing the Founding: How the Alt-Right Corrupts the Constitution, published in 2019, the crux of the militia movements devotion to what I have called the alt-right constitution is a toxic mix of constitutional falsehoods and half-truths.

The term militia has many meanings.

The Constitution addresses militias in Article 1, authorizing Congress to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining, the Militia.

But the Constitution makes no provision for private militias, like the far-right Wolverine Watchmen, Proud Boys, Michigan Militia and the Oath Keepers, to name just a few.

Private militias are simply groups of like-minded men members are almost always white males who subscribe to a sometimes confusing set of beliefs about an avaricious federal government that is hostile to white men and white heritage, and the sanctity of the right to bear arms and private property. They believe that government is under the control of Jews, the United Nations, international banking interests, Leftists, Antifa, Black Lives Matter and so on. There is no evidence of this.

On Oct. 8, the FBI arrested six men, five of them from Michigan, and charged them with conspiring to kidnap Whitmer. Shortly thereafter, state authorities charged an additional seven men with, according to the Associated Press, allegedly seeking to storm the Michigan Capitol and seek a "civil war. Included were the founders and several members of the Wolverine Watchmen.

As revealed in the FBI affidavit accompanying the federal charges, the six men charged claimed to be defenders of the Bill of Rights. Indeed, some of the men in April had participated in rallies in Lansing, the state capital, where armed citizens tried to force their way onto the floor of the State House to protest Governor Whitmers pandemic shut-down orders as a violation of the Constitution by a tyrannical government intent upon sacrificing civil liberties in the name of the COVID-19 fight.

According to the FBIs affidavit, the conspirators wanted to create a society that followed the U.S. Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient.

Militia members imagine themselves to be the last true American patriots, the modern defenders of the United States Constitution in general and the Second Amendment in particular.

Hence, the Bill of Rights and especially the Second Amendment, which establishes the right to bear arms figure prominently in the alt-constitution. It is no accident that the initial discussions about overthrowing Michigans so-called tyrannical governor started at a Second Amendment rally in June.

According to most militias, the Second Amendment authorizes their activity and likewise makes them free of legal regulation by the state. In truth, the Second Amendment does nothing to authorize private armed militias. Private armed militias are explicitly illegal in every state.

Additional foundational principles of militia constitutionalism include absolutism. Absolutism, in the militia world, is the idea that fundamental constitutional rights like freedom of speech, the right to bear arms and the right to own property cannot be restricted or regulated by the state without a citizens consent.

The far rights reading of the First and Second Amendments which govern free speech and the right to bear arms, respectively starts from a simple premise: Both amendments are literal and absolute. They believe that the First Amendment allows them to say anything, anytime, anywhere, to anyone, without consequence or reproach by government or even by other citizens who disagree or take offense at their speech.

Similarly, the alt-right gun advocates hold that the Second Amendment protects their God-given right to own a weapon any weapon and that governmental efforts to deny, restrict or even to register their weapons must be unconstitutional. They think the Second Amendment trumps every other provision in the Constitution.

Another key belief among militia members is the principle of constitutional self-help. Thats the belief that citizens, acting on their inherent authority as sovereign free men, are ultimately and finally responsible for enforcing the Constitution as they understand it.

Demonstrating this way of thinking, the men arrested in Michigan discussed taking Gov. Whitmer to a secure location in Wisconsin to stand trial for treason prior to the Nov. 3 election. According to Barry County, Michigan Sheriff Dar Leaf a member of the militia-friendly Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officer Association the men arrested in Michigan were perhaps not trying to kidnap the governor but were instead simply making a citizens arrest.

Leaf, who appeared at a Grand Rapids protest in May of Gov. Whitmers stay-at-home order along with two of the alleged kidnappers, mistakenly believes that local sheriffs are the highest constitutional authority in the United States, invested with the right to determine which laws support and which laws violate the Constitution. The events in Michigan show how dangerous these mistaken understandings of the Constitution can be.

The Wolverine Watchmen are not a Second Amendment militia or constitutional patriots in any sense of the word. If they are guilty of the charges brought against them, then they are terrorists.

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The FBI and Michigan law enforcement shut down the Watchmen before an egregious crime and a terrible human tragedy unfolded. But as I concluded just last year in my book, there is little reason to think the militia movement will subside soon.

Unfortunately, I did not account for the possibility that President Trump would encourage militias to stand back and stand by, which seems likely to encourage and embolden groups that already clearly represent a threat. Expect more Michigans.

Continued here:
Plot to kidnap Michigan's governor grew from the militia movement's toxic mix of constitutional falsehoods and half-truths - The Conversation US

A flyer went up on Twitter last week about a "free speech rally" for Proud Boys and other nationalists in San Francisco's Dolores Park on October 17 but this event has all the hallmarks of the weird, sometimes fictional, antifa-antagonizing rallies that happened in SF and Berkeley in 2017, which were mostly poorly attended gatherings of kooks with homemade shields gunning for street battles with libtards.

The Proud Boys are hopping mad about the fact that they were kicked off of Twitter two years ago. And while they're relegated to the right-wing circle jerk known as Parler, a bunch of gay men last week claimed the #ProudBoys hashtag to post a bunch of photos of men kissing men and the like on Twitter and Instagram, flooding social media and confusing other Americans who heard Proud Boys mentioned at last week's presidential debate and didn't know who they were.

So now, a Proud Boys event that's apparently being organized by a Black Texas man named Philip Anderson is scheduled for October 17 in San Francisco, with a focus on "free speech" and "big tech," and it appears to be, in part, a protest against Twitter itself. The rally is scheduled for 1 p.m. next Saturday, and then at 4 p.m. the flyer calls for some sort of protest outside Twitter headquarters. The rally has a website under the name #TeamSaveAmerica.

But as we learned in 2017 and saw again in Portland this year, among the multiple agendas of the alt-right crowd, one uniting purpose is going to war with black-clad youths in the street whom they see as a threat to patriotism and law and order while the black-clad youths see all these self-described patriots as fascists and racists and Trump supporters, which most of them are.

The original flyer for the October 17 event features a bunch of scheduled speakers, some of whom apparently hadn't agreed to attend like this QAnon conspiracy peddler who calls himself QAnon Obi Wan, who argued publicly with Anderson about his inclusion on the flyer.

The Berkeley Antifa Twitter account has taken the bait, and posted an alert about the event last week.

Also, Anderson claims that his group will have "police protection" at the rally.

Also listed as a speaker is former fringe mayoral candidate Ellen Lee Zhou, who infamously paid for a billboard last year with a racist depiction of a barefoot London Breed with her feet on a desk while she counts cash, apparently taken from human traffickers.

Now, to take a step back... Anderson has fewer than 1,400 followers on Twitter, and he is not a leader of the Proud Boys organization. The current leader, Enrique Tarrio, is listed as a speaker at this San Francisco event, but there's no guarantee he's agreed to this and he can't respond on Twitter because he's not on the platform. There's very little way to verify that any of these people have concrete plans to come to San Francisco and you can bet they haven't sought any permit for this supposed rally. Update: Rec & Parks spokesperson Tamara Aparton confirms that no one has applied for a permit for this October 17 event.

Like Anderson, Tarrio is Black (he identifies as Afro-Cuban), he lives in South Florida, and following the uproar after last week's debate, he spoke to a Miami TV station to declare that the Proud Boys are not a white supremacist group, they are not racist, and they are just "misunderstood." Speaking to the same broadcast, a regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, Sheri Zvi, described the Proud Boys as espousing "misogynistic, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, transphobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric [that] is often paired with violence directed at left-wing protesters."

The Proud Boys organization was founded in 2016 by VICE Media co-founder turned alt-right figure Gavin McInnes. As the Southern Poverty Law Center explains, they are best known for their "western chauvinism" that comes with a lot of "anti-Muslim and misogynist rhetoric." McInnes has long railed against PC culture, and another tenet of the group is the "veneration of the housewife" and a pledge to not masturbate in order to have better sex. Group members have been arrested in multiple violent incidents in the last several years most recently a 50-year-old self-described Proud Boy named Alan Swinney was arrested in Portland for injuring protesters there with a paintball gun.

While members of the Proud Boys, and McInnes, have repeatedly tried to deny any type of white nationalism, their members have been present at events with white nationalists and a former Proud Boy, Jason Kessler, was an organizer of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville three years ago.

So-called "third degree" members of the Proud Boys get Proud Boys tattoos on their arms. And according to Tarrio's Wikipedia page, he became a "fourth degree" member, which is "a distinction reserved for those who get into a physical altercation, after punching a counter-protester in the face in June 2018."

In San Francisco, a group of 20 Proud Boys held a meetup in October 2017 at Southern Pacific Brewing Company in the Mission District, after which the brewery issued an apology.

Update: Berkeley Antifa has put out a call to "wear black" and show up to "defend Dolores" on October 17, because they are nothing if not good at taking bait.

Philip Anderson, who may or may not even have his plane ticket to San Francisco, calls them racist for attacking his event, because he's Black.

Photo: Sand Crain

See the original post here:
Proud Boys Rally Possibly Planned For Dolores Park (But Don't Assume These Jokers Are That Organized) - SFist

Federal investigators have foiled a domestic terrorism plot, hatched by an anti-government extremist group, to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer and take hostages at the state Capitol. Thats according to an unsealed criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan.

Six men face federal charges for conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Another seven face preliminary charges under the states anti-terrorism statutes, according to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.

The charges have sparked a broader conversation about the rise of what federal law enforcement refers to as domestic violent extremists. The Department of Homeland Security released its Homeland Threat Assessment two days ago, noting that last year was the most deadly year for domestic violent extremism in the United States since the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing. The report says that white supremacist extremists are the most persistent and lethal threat of domestic terrorist attacks.

I have found, at least in the past, that sometimes the public and judges did not take these militia groups as seriously as perhaps they should have. Sometimes discounting them as crackpots, tinfoil hat wearers, that sort of thing. And in fact, that doesnt make them any less dangerous. I submit it possibly makes them more dangerous, said Barbara McQuade, a law professor at the University of Michigan and a former federal prosecutor.

Stateside's conversation with Barbara McQuade

Domestic terrorist groups are often hard to prosecute, according to McQuade. Many supporters of international terrorist groups can be prosecuted if the FBI finds that they provide services or monetary aid to those groups. But that same material-support statute does not exist for domestic terrorist groups.

Prosecutors, McQuade says, use the term left of boom to describe FBI agents or military personnels legal ability to disrupt terrorist groups as they near a planned violent incident. When it comes to domestic terrorism plots, McQuade explains, federal law enforcement has to have more extensive evidence of a planned attack before acting.

The closer you get to the incident, the more dangerous the group becomes because they got the weapons and theyre ready to go. So it is more difficult and challenging to take down these groups when theyre domestic groups because you have to get closer to boom, McQuade said.

Alexandra Minna Stern is the author of the book Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate: How the Alt-Right is Warping the American Imagination. She studies the recent rise of right-wing extremism in the United States and says that the past 20 years have given rise to what she calls the fourth wave of far-right movements--or what is often referred to as the alt-right. The groups that fall under the umbrella of alt-right arent monolithic, Stern says, and cover a wide range of far-right views and ideologies, she says.

Stateside's conversation with Alexandra Minna Stern

But what weve seen over the past two years, is really a more concerted rise of white supremacism and white nationalism and in particular, groups that are willing to take to the streets, take to the ground, and basically, as we see with the situation with Governor Whitmer, devise elaborate plots to overthrow sitting governors and to, in the grand scheme of militias, to overthrow democracy and the U.S. government.

Social media can be a recruiting ground for peopleusually young menwho get involved with extremist groups. The men charged in the alleged plot against Governor Whitmer first came to the attention of federal law enforcement early in 2020 through social media posts that talked about violently overthrowing members of state governments and law enforcement, according to the FBI complaint. Over the summer, the complaint says, the men gathered for weapons training and to lay out a plan to kidnap the governor from her vacation home and try her for treason. FBI agents say some of the men had planned to meet on Wednesday of this week to make a payment on explosives and exchange tactical gear.

Stern notes that the pandemic, a divisive political climate, and social unrest have created an environment in which violent extremism thrives. The stress and uncertainty of the current moment has created a dangerous pressure cooker, says Stern.

And were living in a context where we have a president who, with his tweetstorms and other actions, is actively and explicitly emboldening these types of actors. And all of this is leading up, I think in now 28 days, to a really defining election in this country. I would not be surprised if we saw, unfortunately, I dont like to say this, but if we saw further instances like this. Not just in Michigan but throughout the country.

See the rest here:
Michigan, militias, and terrorism: Experts give context to alleged Whitmer kidnapping plot - Michigan Radio

As the Boredoms have repeatedly proved, you can't have too many drummers. If anything, the lineup of Portland-based instrumental collective Secret Drum Band needs moreon their recent second album, Chuva (Moon Glyph), they've usually got two or three at a time.

Thankfully SDB also bring two things to the table that are even more urgently necessary than more drummers: antifascism (two songs use percussion parts originally improvised during a counterdemonstration at an alt-right rally) and environmentalism (two other songs were commissioned by the Portland chapter of the Oregon Native Plant Society, and almost every track uses field recordingsincluding a few of Amazonian ants).

SDB actually has four drummers on Chuva, but never all at once. Two of them are ensemble directors Lisa Schonberg and Allan Wilson, who also contribute synths, processing, field recordings, and occasional wordless vocals; the other two are Anthony Brisson and Heather Treadway. Wilson is formerly of !!!, and Schonberg and Treadway used to play together in Explode Into Colors. The new record also features at least eight guestsamong them guitarist Marisa Anderson and former Decemberists drummer Rachel Blumberg, playing synth mallets.

On her website, Schonberg explains that SDB's core members "document habitats and soundscapes in their compositions, with the goal of drawing attention to issues concerning endangered species, habitat loss, and other environmental issues." She also says that Secret Drum Band's music alludes to "Liquid Liquid, the Creatures, and Crash Worship."

I have irrationally strong feelings about Crash Worship, but I won't dispute the comparison beyond saying that SDB sound way less evil. I like the rough-and-ready feel of Chuva: the unfussy, energetic drumming centers acoustic rather than electronic sounds, and the elements that might read as "new age" (heavily reverbed chants, drifty synths, wilderness ambience) stick to supporting roles, inflecting the percussion with extra color and texture. The compositions evolve and progress in compelling ways, not just by adding and subtracting layers but also by shifting through distinct movements and sections.

The sound of Chuva isn't polished, but it isn't rough or unfinished either. There's no distortion, no dissonance, no noise to speak of. But this isn't wallpapery, unchallenging hippie bullshiteven though the music is warm, inviting, and sometimes serene, it's never directionless or lazy. Every track pushes forward with resolve and purpose, driven not by aggression but by confident collective strength. And that's punk as fuck.v

The Listener is a weekly sampling of music Reader staffers love. Absolutely anything goes, and you can reach us at thelistener@chicagoreader.com.

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Secret Drum Band build their beats as an act of collective strength - Chicago Reader