Dissident Veteran For Peace: Proud Boys & Shameful Media

Dissident Veteran For Peace

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." —Alexis de Tocquevile. Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter XV.

With a nod to the Most Rev. Dom Helder Camara: When I support Palestinians some call me an 'anti-Semite', when I try to explain why I stand in solidarity with Palestinians they call me a Nazi.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." —Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)

"... no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." —character of O'Brien in 1984, part 3, ch. 3 by George Orwell.

"Every prophet has realized that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions. Every prophet has realized that most of us want peace at any price as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price. That is why the prophet Jeremiah said, ' "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace,' ..." —The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. "Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword."

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Proud Boys & Shameful Media

Whoopi Goldberg poses with members of the
Proud Boys in Florida in 2019.

After the sh*tshow that was last night's presidential "debate" the mainstream media's major talking point is the allegation that Trump refused to "condemn white supremacists". Never mind that, beginning no later than August 2017, Trump has repeatedly "condemned white supremacists". Never mind, too, that White supremacism is virtually a non-issue in modern America.

In any case, the media frenetically seized on Trump's failure to condemn a group fingered by Biden—the Proud Boys. Earlier today, I ran a search on "proud boys" + "hate group". Every news hit on the first page of results claimed, assumed, or implied that the Proud Boys is a violent "hate", "white nationalist", and/or "white supremacist" group, mostly on the strength of allegations by the disreputable ADL or SPLC. In typical fashion, spineless Republicans and Fox News piled on.

Here's the strange thing, as even some of its detractors acknowledge, the Proud Boys is a multi-racial group. Here's what one critic wrote earlier today:

Indeed the group has a membership that includes those of Black, Hispanic, and Asian backgrounds. This fact would be the core argument against the Proud Boys being termed a "white nationalist" group, which goes along with its also-problematic rebranding to center on the coded language of "Western values."

"Proud Boys is a multi-racial fraternity with thousands of members worldwide," a lawyer for McInnis asserted in 2018. "The only requirements for membership are that a person must be biologically male and believe that the West is the best."

So, how is a Progressive goodthinker supposed to reconcile the Proud Boys' racial/ethnic diversity (good) with White people/hate (bad)? Injunction 1: Who said you were allowed to think? Your betters have told you what to believe, just accept that the Proud Boys are a hate group and leave it at that. Injunction 2: If you disobey Injunction 1, realize that their refusal to accept (White) racial guilt proves their crime. It goes like this:

However, the group's [i.e. the Proud Boys'] website includes a list of core values [see also here] as tenets: "Minimal Government, Maximum Freedom, Anti Political Correctness, Anti-Drug War, Closed Borders, Anti-Racial Guilt, Anti-Racism, Pro-Free Speech (1st Amendment), Pro-Gun Rights (2nd Amendment), Glorifying the Entrepreneur, Venerating the Housewife, Reinstating a Spirit of Western Chauvinism."
The impossible notion of couching "anti-racism" together with "anti-racial guilt" is informative, in the implicit suggestion that Proud Boys do not hate non-whites as long as they (whites) aren't guilted into taking ownership of their privilege or past sins of racialized violence. In other words, per their ideology, "others" can join as long as they fully adhere to white-centered, libertarian ideals of freedom, and inherent superiority.

In fact, all ethical and thinking people reject both racism and racial guilt. Moreover, the Proud Boys nowhere, that I have seen, claim or imply that non-White members are "others" who must "fully adhere to white-centered, libertarian ideals of freedom, and inherent superiority."

In one of the rare, more balanced accounts USA Today reported:

Current Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who is Afro-Cuban, says the group has "longstanding regulations prohibiting racist, white supremacist or violent activity," Ronald D. Coleman wrote in an email to USA TODAY. Coleman said he is a spokesman for the Proud Boys.

"We do not care what color you are or what your background is ... if you love America ... we consider you a brother," Tarrio said in a written statement provided by Coleman. The group condemns racism, fascism, communism and socialism, the statement says.

As for the allegations of violence. I have little doubt that some of the Proud Boys and/or its associates have instigated violence and they should be arrested and tried for it. However, I have watched a lot of video of the violent encounters and they, overwhelmingly, seem to be defensive on the part of the Proud Boys.

One recent example occurred this summer in Kalamazoo. The USA Today report quoted above said simply: "When the Proud Boys met with counterprotesters in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in August, the tensions boiled over into fights requiring law enforcement to step in." The reporter did not see fit to tell his readers that Kalamazoo police determined, and provided video showing, that "counterprotesters" initiated the violence (see also here).

In a largely ignored statement issued before Kalamazoo police had their press conference the Michigan chapter of the Proud Boys said, in part:

For those in Kalamazoo city government who claim to reject our values of hate – we merely ask who do we hate? African American Proud Boys, Asian Proud Boys, Jewish Proud Boys, Arab Proud Boys, Hispanic Proud Boys were all represented as photo and video documentation of our protest prove. We hate no one, but we do pity those that must resort to violence when confronted ... by those who vote for a different political party than they do, and support the current President of the United States.

All this is not to say the Proud Boys are angelic beings who can think or do no wrong but all the evidence of which I am aware indicates that the mainstream media has generally shamefully misrepresented them for transparently political purposes.