08-07-2020, 02:43 PM
(08-07-2020, 02:17 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote: I think back to the Weather Underground in the Sixties setting off bombs everywhere, even on a college campus. They managed to pull off quite a few bombings before going into hiding. Here’s my point: a guerilla group (Boogaloo Boys, let’s say) operating today would find it much, much harder to organize and map out strategy, communicate throughout the organization, and execute armed violence without being detected by the increasingly sophisticated surveillance of the state. Guerillas with their AR-15s might inflict significant casualties on their targets at first. But once their cells are located, they would quickly be dispatched by the superior tactics and weaponry of law enforcement and/or the American military. And who or what would the guerillas target exactly? Minorities? That’s the “wet dream” of a paramilitary group like the Boogaloo Boys—to start a race war. Good luck with that; our population is too diverse and our law enforcement and military too integrated to have that notion get very far.
No, more likely than guerilla warfare is the no-less-palatable prospect of more Lone Wolf attacks which, given our saturated gun culture, is a hairy thought too. In short, anarchic violence.
Finally, America is still very much a capitalist nation, and anything or anyone that seriously threatens that political economy with widespread violence will quickly be squashed—by either a Biden or Trump administration. Barring outright societal collapse, of course.
Overall, I agree. I might supplement the analysis a bit.
The Boogaloo Bois are partnering with Trump’s secret police to promote violence. They might have trouble using this tactic against someone who listens to the people, who doesn’t deliberately match the violence with violence, who gives the protestors what they are protesting for.
Targeting infrastructure hasn’t happened. Stuff like wind turbines, power lines and bridges are spread out enough that they will be very hard to defend. I thought at the time of September 11th that someone would shift targets, but they went after highly symbolic office space. Good luck running the US out of office space, but it was enough to bring the US into the Middle East. Still, this form of violence just is not taking place. It doesn’t seem to be glamorous enough for the average terrorist.
I have heart the Boogaloos Bois are deliberately decentralizing to avoid surveillance or infiltration. As much as they can, each cell works on its own. This seems prudent these days. Put as little as possible on line or shared. As an approach it makes something bigger hard to do.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.