On the Beach

[Jeremiah]

What does everyone think "boonies" refers to in the context of "I've seen them dig their boonies where the ignorants are bred"?
The only definition I've found by googling is a slang form of "boondocks", meaning a wilderness or uninhabited area far from urbanisation.
But in this case, why "dig their boonies?"

I was wondering if there was some other meaning in military slang or similar; something you would actually dig, like trenches or latrines.

[Fallon]

In military parlance a Boonie is a hat, but it comes from the same origin word as boondock (tagalog word bundok).

I take it to refer to the regular definition of boondocks, as in: I have seen them establish their enterprise on the fringes. It seems to connect with the other border imagery pervading the song, and seems in part to refer to the Trumpists and the Brexiteers who essentially shore up their numbers by targeting fringe groups like survivalists, chatroomn trolls, QAnon conspiracy theorists, wacky extreme Christians, and just your garden variety persecution fantasists...and in the process legitimising their harmful ideologies.

I think a boondock here is not so much a physically remote or rural place (though it may be that as well), I think it's a new community. I read the boondock as being dug out in the way you do when you're about to start building there. I have seen them set up a base of operations in the outer regions.

[Esoterica]

I’ve always understood “the boondocks” to be rural. Meaning totally nowheresville. One dictionary states that it’s “rough country with dense brush.” This, as opposed to “boonies,” which is military.

[H. Blackrose]

And now I find out that "on the beach" meant "broke" in old-fashioned New Zealand English. That also seems relevant.