A new report shared with VICE News outlines the massive growth so-called Active Clubs, neo-Nazi fitness and fight clubs, have experienced in both the United States and internationally.

A new report shared with VICE News outlines the massive growth so-called Active Clubs, neo-Nazi fitness and fight clubs, have experienced in both the United States and internationally.

  • jeffw@lemmy.worldM
    568·
    1 year ago

    Oh no, the neo-Nazis are punching each other and giving each other brain damage. That sounds soooooo terrible

    • bane_killgrind@kbin.social
      431·
      1 year ago

      This is a really awful take. Fringe hate groups are organising and training for combat. The ending of fight club was domestic terrorism, did you actually watch that movie?

      • qyron
        9·
        1 year ago

        Full contact kickboxing and an emphasys on high kicks aimed to the temples for the added KO potential sounds better. Nothing like two very hard bone surfaces making contact to make your blood boil!

  • DV8@lemmy.world
    413·
    1 year ago

    Most reactions here are focusing too hard on the title. These clubs aren’t like, nor inspired by ‘Fight Club’. These groups pose as groups for men wanting to connect with other men so they can learn about physical and mental health, philosophy and self defense. The sports they train are absolutely effective and the hope they get brain damage from this is naive. They practice the same principle that most sane martial arts gyms use since many of them are involved in those as well.

    Some will even have chapters for women so they can learn about their sacred and divine femininity and reject the modern capitalist pressures society puts on them of being both a career woman and homemaker and wife.

    And very few of them are actually obvious about their neo Nazi roots. They usually just stick to neo paganism with some cherry picked Christianity tossed in for good measure.

    • Riskable@programming.devEnglish
      11·
      1 year ago

      How… how do you know this? Like, did someone write an in-depth description of how these clubs work after infiltrating some or do you have first hand experience?

      Your take sounds legit but can we get more info?

      • DV8@lemmy.world
        16·
        1 year ago

        I am a blonde blue eyed man who loves martial arts. Many, many people I train with are pretty open in their racism around me as long as there’s only white people around. In larger groups they make no secret of their conspiracy beliefs. And they’re constantly going to defense camps, survival camps, masculinity camps.

        They follow and idolize both the US fascists like Trump, Desantis, JP. And their local versions who organise these kinds of camps (look up Dries Van langenhove).

        It’s not the blood and honour kind of Nazism, so perhaps not accurate for this article, but they genuinely believe he was right.

  • cmbabul@lemmy.world
    341·
    1 year ago

    I love the work of Chuck Palahniuk myself, but he must really really hate what people have done with concepts derived from his work

    • blindbunny@lemmy.mlEnglish
      81·
      1 year ago

      He’s probably laughing. As a bi man I very much see it as being about fighting your homosexuality. Hopefully with a little self reflection he sees it as that too but I haven’t kept up with him in ages.

      • Bramble Dog@infosec.pub
        2·
        1 year ago

        I was a huge fan of his. My understanding is that he was an out of the closet man essentially married and living with another man but it was just agreed by all parties that to sell books it wouldn’t be discussed in the press.

    • Riskable@programming.devEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      Sounds great! Work out and practice kicking ass for an hour then everyone can meet up afterwards to play Wolfenstein 👍

  • j_roby@slrpnk.netEnglish
    14·
    1 year ago

    I have a family member who’s active in the MMA scene, who also happens to be rather naive and easily misled. These kinds of stories worry me…

    • qyron
      16·
      1 year ago

      I trained for about three years in a so called “self defence” class (we were actually trainning a precussor of MMA as we studied Muay Thai, Jiujitsu and Krav Maga) and from the start the feel of the class was very down to earth, very connected.

      The instructor was a former marine, with a PE degree and a history of olympic judo, most of the people trainning were police or military personel but there wasn’t a macho ambience in the gym. I was 16 then and one of the youngest and was treated like an equal and everyone was always looking out for each other. Our worst dread was actually when women enrolled as they tended to play dirty and kick low!

      Politics was a banned subject. We had all skin colors in the class (including purple and blue; it was a contact sport!) and we even managed to help some guys on very tricky situations, like domestic violence and mental abuse.

      15 years later I go back to martial arts and the class was pure toxic garbage and indoctrination, in a so called non violent style; people got in and lived for that, almost exclusively, to the point of having no other social life. That was a scary experience.

  • yumpsuit@lemmy.world
    131·
    1 year ago

    Brazilian jiu jitsu seems like a hilariously bad choice of core discipline for these assholes, in every way other than popularity amongst shitheads.

    • Rather crap on asphalt, useless in groups

    • Cops often have at least enough combatives training to neutralize techniques if grappled

    • Demographic guarantees highest proportion of scumbags blacklisted from other gyms. They’ll be thinking they’re in a Pahlaniuk novel and refusing to tap out when defeated, fake tapping, leaving chokes on too long, or snapping a locked bone because they’re angwy

    • Paper bag testable fashy instructors are gonna be subpar, and members will seek to train with other gyms for access to legitimate BJJ competitions. Some proud sons of the South are gonna get manhandled by gentle-spirited IT professionals, petite women, and roided out beefcakes who warmed up listening to the Gypsy Kings.

    It will break some Nazi brains to experience homoerotic submission at the hands and heavy hips of people with better politics and bigger meatier love in their hearts.

    • Riskable@programming.devEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      NGL… this sounds like a fantastic streaming event.

      “Real Nazis VS (possibly furry/trans) IT professionals”

      Even if the Nazis survive the tournament it’s likely that a few might be found with godlike, unbelievably satisfying cable routing around their necks in a dumpster behind the event.

  • iforgotmyinstance@lemmy.worldEnglish
    131·
    1 year ago

    Curb stomping Nazis should be legalized and encouraged. Allowing them to exist is an infringement on my first amendment rights.

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
    111·
    1 year ago

    “The groups are explicitly white nationalist but, like some other modern racist groups, try at best to hide their true intentions.”

    “Explicitly white nationalist but…try at best(?) to hide their true intentions”.

    So the opposite of explicit?

    This article has an alarming amount of errors and typos for a vice article. I’m sure the reporting itself is correct, and don’t let anyone recruit you to an active club, but blatant errors and self-contradictions in the article detract from vice’s credibility as a news source.

    Did a new guy write this or has the general written quality of vice articles lessened lately?

    I only read vice articles nowadays when I stumble across them, but I remember vice articles as generally being well-written(or at least correctly written).

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
    7·
    1 year ago

    So, you’re telling me there’s a place where lots of conservative terrorist wannabe’s gather in close proximity to one another to act like tough-guy pieces of shit and fantasize about slaughtering the normal people?

    I think I saw a scene like this in the woods in Red Dead Redemption.

  • kersploosh@sh.itjust.works
    7·
    1 year ago

    Did none of them remember the first two rules? I guess expectations shouldn’t be too high considering the club membership.