VERBATIM
Gangs are as easy to understand, they're neolithic
tribalism, as are baseball leagues and high school cliques, except
gangs take reputation, respect, revenge, power, protection and money to
criminal extremes. Add violence without limit, recruitment among the
young, and you have today's street gangs. And eighty percent of all
crime. In the '60s and '70s drug money brought a new ferocity to turf
battles and sharpened the ethnic war between the black Bloods, Crips,
Black Disciples and Gangster Disciples &c., and the Hispanic Latin
Kings, 18th Street Gang, MS13 Mara Salvatrucha, Mexican Mafia, Norteños, Sureños, and Vice Lords.
Urban gangs are very large.
Los Angeles's 18th Street Gang and its cliques are said to be 20,000
strong, sixty percent of which are illegal aliens. About a third of all
violent gangs are black, about half Hispanic, the rest are white and
Asian. Only in small city gangs will the membership be anything like
diverse. The best known white gang is the Aryan Brotherhood, a
comparatively small, prison-based, white supremacist outfit that dates
back to San Quentin in the mid-1960s. The Brotherhood is so insanely
murderous it's said the Italian Mafia sometimes turns to them for
protection. They use Nazi symbols and regalia although of late they've
been less about demographics than ordinary crime.
Gangs have historically been tolerated because they
were territorial and thus avoidable, but the twentieth century added a
new feature to gang life: mobility. If we're honest, nobody much cares
about body counts in gang battles, only when they intrude into the
larger society does the alarm go out. Gang mobility is an unstated
reason mass transit extensions are contested. The densely reasoned, and
often valid, official arguments are proxies in large part. America has
been self-segregating on all sides for several decades now but in the
end avoiding gangs will be impossible. In populated areas they'll come
to you one way or another.
It's with the Hispanic gangs we find real
mobility and staying power. In addition to being a parallel government
in large parts of Mexico, or even the actual government, they're said to
be the real authority in some US
border state counties. The upper reaches of Hispanic gangs exhibit
ambition, purpose and effective long range planning. For instance, they
identify and support young prospects for education in business
administration and law, and send others for officer training and combat
experience in the US armed forces. When we hear from the Pentagon about their "gang member" problem, this is what it's really about 
.
.
Black gangs will exhibit audacity,
unpredictability and recklessness. The survivalist can expect swarm
attacks rather than studied tactics, and more exhibitionism than method
all around, but beware their adaptability long term. Expect scorched
earth exploitation, pointless destruction of assets not immediately or
obviously valuable and personalized violence. As it is with black
gangs today, the younger members will be the most sadistically
homicidal, to gain credibility, or at the behest of the leadership, or
just because they can. Take black female gangs as seriously as black male gangs do, they're no mere curiosity.
Hispanic gangs will be no less brutal but more
results oriented. Unlike black gangs, terror will be used as a tactic,
they'll intend to hold and control territory they take. When Hispanic
and black gangs meet, Kosovo-style ethnic cleansing is likely. The
outcome seems predetermined but, as in all things, we have to be willing
to be surprised. What matters is which one dominates in your area at
any given time.
At the outset white and Asian gangs will be a
factor in scattered pockets but expect their numbers to grow as the
emergency deepens. Some sort of cooperation is likely with these two,
there's an underlying affinity that appears genuine. How effective
they'll be is an imponderable, the data base is small. At the skinny
ends of the present "white neolithic tribalism" bell curve we have
civic-minded outfits like Neighborhood Watches to modern day berserkers
like the Aryan Brotherhood without much in between beyond some biker
outfits.
Over time a somewhat stable territorial
arrangement will shake itself out. There will be skirmishes where
fiefdoms overlap, predictably enough, but as the necessities of
survival assert themselves ever more insistently, conflict would
gradually center on controlling intrinsically valuable resources such as
water, food producing land and basic manufacturing.
What's given here is a straight line
extrapolation of present gangs. In an extended catastrophe it's best to
assume a learning curve. The surviving gangs of the first ninety days,
say, would be a different threat from those at the outset. Yes, the
survivalist in a remote location is more likely to be beset by refugees
and raiders than a gang, but gangs have their splinter groups and
outcasts and freelancers too. It would be foolish to dismiss the
possibility.
No comments:
Post a Comment