Morning Briefing: Military Members Involvement in White Supremacist Groups Highlights Failures Revealed in DOD Audit
Recent incidents of involvement of U.S. military members in far right extremism and White Supremacists organizations highlights the failures in screening recruits revealed in recent DOD audit.
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Morning Briefing: Members of the U.S. Marines have allegedly been involved in an active club, neo-Nazi White Supremacists fight clubs, “including a lance corporal machine gunner currently in detention on insubordination charges and a former US Marine Corps staff sergeant who was booted from the service for stealing large quantities of ammunition.”
The Marines were reportedly involved in the active club known as the Clockwork Crew has reportedly “organized several small-scale events of its own but also participates in ‘White Lives Matter’ and ‘Goyim Defense League’ rallies hosted by other white supremacist groups.”
Christopher Woodall, a member of the U.S. Army Reserves and served in the North Carolina Army National Guard and worked for a local sheriff’s office as a detention officer, reportedly “has a long history of activism in the white power movement that coincided with his service in the U.S. military and government work.”
These incidents of the involvement of U.S. military members in far right extremism and White Supremacists organizations comes a week after Department of Defense audit “found military recruiters frequently failed to complete mandated checks to find recruits who are members of extremist groups, including not giving a screening questionnaire to 4 in 10 eligible recruits.”
The The Ancient Rites Through Native Pride (ARTNP) is organizing the upcoming Autumn Equinox Celebration heavy music festival at The Dungeon in El Paso, Texas, and residents have expressed “fears the venue is connected to Neo-Nazi and other fascist groups.”
Gino DiGiovanni, an alderman and candidate for mayor of the city of Derby, Connecticut, was in court this week and charged with “two counts of entering a restricted building, one count of disorderly conduct inside a Capitol building, and one count of parading, demonstrating or picketing inside a Capitol building.”
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Annika Brockschmidt writes that “while Republicans have decided to defend stoves as part of their effort to fight the ‘culture war,’ German conservatives have decided to do the same—only with oil-fired central heating as the cause. And, since DeSantis has declared war on ‘wokeness,’ prominent German conservatives have followed suit. Friedrich Merz called ‘Cancel Culture’ the ‘greatest threat to freedom of expression,’ tweeting: ‘I see with the greatest concern what is happening at universities in the US; this is now spilling over into #Europe.’ Markus Söder, head of the CSU, railed against ‘wokeness,’ claiming that the Greens want to ‘re-educate Germans,’ while Carsten Linnemann and Christoph Ploß (both CDU) called ‘wokeness’ a ‘dangerous’ frame of reference. Earlier this year, a CSU delegation visited Ron DeSantis in Florida, and gave the Governor rave reviews. Andreas Scheuer, former secretary of transportation, praised DeSantis’ attack on the rights of LGBTQ (but especially trans) people. [Religion Dispatches]
Moira Donegan writes that “in a years-long campaign that now seems destined to end with a third-place finish in Iowa, [Ron] DeSantis reshaped Florida in his image, pursuing culture-war fights that he hoped would grab media attention and convince Republican primary voters that he was hurting their most hated enemies. Among these was the seizure and restructuring of New College of Florida, a public liberal arts college in Sarasota that was long known in the state for its curious students, eclectic faculty and countercultural bent. DeSantis overhauled the college’s board of trustees, appointing his own loyalists. The man newly in charge of New College is Christopher Rufo, a rightwing influencer known for whipping up moral panics. He’s been given a mandate to make the school conservative, bringing the curriculum in line with the governor’s ideological preferences, and reshaping it in the image of Hillsdale College, a private conservative Christian school in Michigan. [The Guardian]
Chauncey DeVega writes that “the right-wing social engineering project is predicated on such ambiguous concepts as ‘traditional’ American values and untrammeled ‘freedom,’ which in practice means a society dominated by the moneyed classes and specifically by white Christian conservatives. In an increasingly global, pluralistic, and diverse society, that goal is clearly antithetical to democracy and the long-term health of the nation. Because leading figures on the right understand that time and changing demographics are not on their side, in response their plan is to capture the hearts and minds of young people, who they can then develop into the future leaders and foot soldiers for their counterrevolutionary project. As seen in Florida and numerous other states, PragerU, the powerful right-wing media, advocacy and pseudo-educational organization, is playing an integral role in that project. PragerU is clear in its mission, which it describes as being ‘a free alternative to the dominant left-wing ideology in culture, media, and education.’” [Salon]
What to expect from Radical Reports: Morning Briefing provides a daily round-up of reporting on the Radical Right; Extremist Links offers a weekly round-up of extremists activities including the white supremacist and militia movements; Narratives of the Right delivers weekly analysis of the current narratives in far right online spaces and promoted by right-wing media; and Research Desk provides monthly highlights research and analysis from academia on the Radical Right.