Now we just fill in the middle part.

Ackkkkk.......... not an easy task.

Bear in mind that there are many more youth from poor families that never get involved in violent gangs than those who do. Apparently it is not as simple as class and economics, nor can it be any more pigeon holed based on economic grouping than on racial grouping.

Well, all I was really alluding to is that it is predominantly a class issue, though you're right about less rather than more kids join gangs, but also to the overwhelming complexity of the issue. there is no simple answer. And, I certainly would not want class to be the excuse for any criminal behavior. That's why I agree that much of it begins in the home. But then, we have the issue of bad homes. Then what's the answer? Very complex stuff. I'm not a sociologist, and I have no answers, but I cannot just dismiss it all unfixable. I'm too idealistic for that.

Having said that, I think it's imperative, partly because of bad homes, that social programs, ie midnight basketball, teen jobs and training, work programs, Head Start, whatever, be funded to the max to get to these kids early. Once they have become gang members, it's usually too late.

Dabe "Very complex stuff. I'm not a sociologist, and I have no answers,"

I do not have all the answers either, but between all the people who share the same starting and ending point it can be easier than you think to fill in the middle. It is usually when we think that where we are starting and where we want to end up are vastly different that we get stuck on the middle part.

I can go back to my own experiences and see what might have been a factor. I come from a period when hard consequences were still a real threat and fear for a youth contemplating an anti-social path. My mother was poor and she was uninvolved in my upbringing. My father was a Marine and left for better things early in my life. I had all the criteria to go down a very bleak path, and to some degree I started that way. But there were real consequences from society that matched my actions. In time I learned the simple concept that "If I do this, then this other thing will happen to me". and that gave the pause needed to learn (and be taught) how to walk the better path. The same for my parents. If I went down the wrong path, my parents would be held accountable in some way as well. The lack of involvement in parenting by my parents was the main contributing factor to my starting out the wrong path. My own kids do not have a mother, but they have a very involved and aware father. From the oldest to the youngest they make me very proud of their accomplishments, humanity and sense of right and wrong (although they often express frustration at how well I remember my own youthful experiences-they originally thought I was psychic). So my own experience says an involved parent will prevent a lot. A system of comsequences will prevent a lot. An uninvolved parent and a lack of consequences will not prevent much of anything.

We dispensed with that in the 60s (a questionable by-product of our social growth back then). As a result youth now believe they can do anything and there will none or little consequence. There is no more pause to allow the chance to be directed down a better path. Not to mention that those already well down the path of violence are allowed to stay among us victimizing innocent people over and over.

That is just the preventive side. We also have to deal with what already is and we have to deal with it decisively. There are 2 benefits to dealing with what already is. One it serves as a very strong message to those needing the pause to think and second, it serves to remove those already over that line. Perhaps we don't need to be as drastic as snipers, but I can say that responding to merciless violence from an uncaring enemy with a greater force and mercilessness has quite an impact. In the end the people hurting innocents are cowards and bullies who run the second they get a bloody nose.

Whip "Wow, just a couple of months ago?"

That was just a local example. It happens all the time, all across the country. And biker gangs have previously taken over and terrorized entire towns. The difference was they moved on after their fun, inner city gangs stick around, they don't have the same level of mobility. The inner city gangs are consigned to mostly reecruting new people to start new chapters in towns where they try to entrench. I will acknowledge the motorcycle variety haven't been that overt in quite a while, but that is only because they learned the art of low profile to keep the heat off. They will still gladly attack an innocent person for "disrespecting" a member of the gang just like inner city gangs do for turning down the wrong street. And the definition of "disrespect" could be as simple as looking at some one in what is perceived as the "wrong way". I personally have been present for the taking of many such assault reports. In the context of just the couple of months ago example, that is in the present enough for me to keep them in the same grouping with other violent gangs. It is the culture to be violent and since you were associated with them you know that to be true. Even the term 1%s is intended to denote being outside the confines of society. It is often used as a banner of being a martyr of some type to generate a sense of sympathy and comraderie, but then the international terrorists make claim to the same thing.

BTW - I have had to talk to many parents who have lost children to drugs, including meth, that originated with one or another local chapter. So don't even try to promote the idea that they only hurt each other and no one else and are somehow about noble activities to help their communities. I understand you have a different view due to personal involvement with someone, understand that I have a much different one becuase of my involvement with the victims of their activities. Believe me when I say that when you have to look at the face of a dead 14 year old as the result of too much crystal and the eyes of their grieving parent or the bloodied face of a young man as he stands over the bed of his repeatedly raped girlfriend saying he should be dead for not being able to protect her because they passed a bar just as a group of Pagans who had too much to drink were coming out, all willingness to symnpathize or allow to exist the kind of culture that produces that type of people evaporates instantly. And although I wasn't present for the first example I used, I can only imagine how painful it was for the investigating officer of the 2 dead little girls when the mother asked, "Why are people like this allowed to be in our community?" Probably identical to the faces and pain of the people in New Orleans right now.

Understand that I am a big proponent of facts and would love to name specific towns, but I will not disclose things that define my locale. I think you can understand that given my background that is the prudent line to draw. I will be glad to drop all my examples based on personal experiences if naming a town is required to back it up. In lieu of that I would refer anyone to the Uniform Crime Statistics and research under violent crimes sections. You will find numerous examples from across the country of violent crimes committed by inner city gangs, motorcycle gangs, supremacy gangs and ethnic based gangs.

My local area has a large Mall that for almost 2 years was completely taken over by skinheads. They tagged every back hall and front facade and hung out in large groups in the lobbies, intimidating and threatening any number of people on a daily basis. They committed robberies and assaults and got drunk to the point of zero inhibition (except of course for the SHARPs who also added drugs to the mix). They regularly fought with wach other making small children who wanted to see the big toy store cry as they brawled openly. They made group assaults on women and they beat to death others. I was asked to come look in to and help develop a strategy to remove the same thing in several east coast mid-size cities and suburban areas. They are not as visible now because so much attention was given them last decade. As I pointed out before, skinheads were focused on in those communities where they flourished and other gangs were ignored allowing them to grow in strength and numbers. If we now focus on only those other groups, the remnants of the groups we focused on before will have the chance to re-group and re-emerge. Their intent has not changed just because their visibility or numbers have dwindled. Given the chance they will do exactly the same as the violent gangs in New Orleans. This is about a culture of violence and preying upon the defenseless to get more for yourself, not about where you come from or what race you are.

We must go after all of them if we are going to truly get this under control and not see something like New Orleans happen again. If one group has smaller numnbers than another, fine they will be easier to deal with, but they must still be dealt with. And they must be dealth with on the basis of their culture of violence not their ethnic or racial background.

BTW little_whip. I appreciate the respect of your tone and willingness to discuss on such a sensitive topic, especially since you have personal parts of your life that influence you in this area. The private email is something I do not do just as a personal line. It has nothing to do with any particular person or their views, it is something I do not do universally. I really appreciate that you offered though as I view that as someone energeized by the issue and wanting to dig deeper in to it. We may disagree in some principles, but we are clearly reaching for the same end. Good honest people trying to find a way to make things better.

Please do not take any passion of my own views as any kind of personal affront, it is just the passion of the topic speaking, not a judgment on any person. I know you have been bashed by others for some of your views and so have some on the other side of the fence, but I try very hard to avoid that way of thinking and prefer to stay on the issue as the point of contention not the individual. I say that as much for others who tend to feel agitated at my words as for you. Having said that I do on occassion express an honest impression of how someone is looking to me based on their words. Generally not meant as an insult, but as a method to get someone to think about it and their choice of words.

Featured? Does that mean a spot on Fox news? Can I be a highly paid "retired" expert on something? I thought not, oh well Powerball and highly paid expert, pipe dreams I guess.

Just as an aside to this topic and more food for thought, I used to travel around as a guest speaker to galvanize neighborhoods to fight back against the crime with their local police. I often had to reverse the tendancy to finger point and play the race card first before progress could be made on the real problems and bring all the people affected together to fight back.

One of my favorite examples was to caution against letting history repeat itself. I used the example of turn of the century (19th to 20th) Pennsylvania. At that time german was the preominate culture and language. I found a newspaper article that talked about complaints about how the new immigrants were filthy, lazy and causing crime. They were accused of refusing to learn the language of their new home (German) and of trashing whole neighborhhods with their disgusting ways and criminal gangs. This went on for years. I could have sworn I was reading an article right of the present about blacks or hispanics. Turns out it was German/Dutch people talking about Italians and Irish. They stayed so focused on the topic of what culture they were that no one ever truly addressed the actual gangs. We all know now what those Italian and Irish based gangs did later. We also know what the good honest people from those groups did for communities. People stayed so polarized along cultural and language lines they never got together to address that small group who represented the violent gang culture that was the real threat.

So what do we do, repeat the mistakes of the past or move beyond that and focus on the real problem?

In none of the speaking engagements did we discuss where I was from or my locale. We spoke of the neighborhoods I was addressing other than general items like the PA example. Uniform Crime Statistics is the best source to back up the crimes I refer to. Many incidents involving many types gangs were not reported as gang related in newspapers. In some cases this was by design as the thinking at one time was to not give them any press and at other times because communities were trying to smokescreen what was going on.

'll back off the "towns" part with bikers as I can't recall the specific incidents (in fact I did not even remember the CA incident until you mentioned it-I just remember seeing incidents listed while training back in the late 80s), and I ackowledge it has been quite a while since incidents like that and am not sure where I would research it. Can't back that one up with cold hard links, so I will concede. The violence and drug related deaths are documented everywhere there are crime statistics being kept. Sorry, I don't buy in to the "the drug supplier is innocent because the user chose to use". If they are the benefactors to the community you are trying to portray, they would not be doing something they know will result in the deaths of young people who are no where near mature enough to make choices like that. They peddle death and protect it with extreme violence.

I did not say skinheads beat women to death, I said they beat others to death and committed group assaults on women, as a group. Hence the enactment of hate laws to add to the prosecution. Children cried because opposing factions were openly fighting in their presence, scaring them. You have never seen a public brawl where children were present and reacted this way? There are numerous statistics available through most states court records that involve groups like those you defend involved in crimes of violence as a group. I do not feel the need to link to every state's online court systems to prove that it happened. Anyone can do that on their own. Just go to state web sites and see if they have court and crime statistics available online. Some do not, some do. Do not try to do a google for news stories on the outside chance that a local paper's articles actually get picked up by Google or that they chose to specifically identify the term gang, skinhead, etc. in their articles. Go to sources that are based on actual court records and police reporting of statistics.

I won't bite on the "it never happened if there is not a news story on it" side of the argument. Just because some commercial interest wanted to keep it quiet or prevent any mention of "gang" does not mean it did not happen. You are welcome to believe what you want, but I stand by my assessment of who needs to be included in the push against the culture of gang violence and the reasons why. If groups like the skinheads never did anything why did we enact hate crime and ethnic intimidation laws all across the country? Just part of some anti-white conspiracy I suppose? I am white and welcomed those laws, I saw the need and supported putting a stop to it. We should have addressed all the groups though, not just the media spotlighted ones. LA tried to do that, but a lot of it got overturned. That is why I said the ACLU should not be allowed to file any briefs related to gang suppresion afforts. They have perverted the interpretation of the Constitution's provisions to protect the innocent from unjust prosecution to protecting the guilty from the innocent. If bikers do not meet any one of the three criteria I initially set out, then I would favor removing them from the effort.

On the issue of how I protect my privacy, that is my choice to make and there is no shame in it. In fact, I give talks now on Internet Security (my new life is in computers) to teachers and always tell them to keep kids from disclosing things that give away who and where they are. People can have opinions and still maintain a degree of personal anonymity and I appreciate people who respect my personal space on that. It does not detract from the thoughts nor the legitimacy of things that are fact. I have referred everyone to the normal reporting sources for statements regarding types of crimes and who they are committed by, that is good enough. They are there and they bare it out. I fail to see where disclosing personal information somehow makes those sources any better.

I can see you feel very strong about your defense of 2 of those groups. I don't think there is anything I can say that you will not feel isn't good enough. I am sure there are many others who will not agree with various parts of my statements for a host of reasons. ACLU, Social Crusaders, Jesse Jackson, Supremacists, and the gangs themselves would disagree with me I am sure. That was the point, to provoke thought and discussion. That is fine, the whole world does not have to see it my way. In the end though, we still need to address this issue and many will agree. Many will also agree as to who it should not exclude. Many will also agree that race is an unreliable and incomplete method to base a solution on.

I think you and I are just re-hashing the same things over and over and not really moving either one of us. That is fine too, now others need to look at that, find their own facts as they see them and make their own decisions. You have given a lot of the other side of some thse points for people to chew on and I encourage everyone to do exactly that. I would not anyone to blow aside a single thing you or I said. We have to look at the whole picture and then decide where to go from there.

There, I did exactly as you suggested (because I agreed with you) and kept it focused to the issues and away from turning in to a personal confrontation. You can return the respect by allowing me to set my own personal limits while discussing these things.

Correction on a previous post. Philomedy asked where I defined qualifying as a violent gang and I replied that it was in my original post, It was actually in my second post.

I did a Google on "Skinhead violence" and came with pages and pages of links detailing specific incidents from numerous sources. Some of them would be brushed aside as biased and some of them are just non-aligned reporting sources.

Here is a link from National Gang Investigators site on motorcycle gangs. They seem to repeat the exact same things I said (excepting the "towns" remark which I conceded). Apparently I am not the only one out there with unprovable facts at my disposal. www.nagia.org/Motorcycle_Gangs.htm

I also did a search on "skinhead violence in malls" and came up with pages and pages of links detailing incidents. In fact, many of them identify Malls as a specific target zone for getting together and recruiting. In fact I even saw some links to skinhead aligned sites that tutor on how to use and view violence as a skinhead.

I think that is enough for links to back up many of my statements. While there might not be links to my specific stories from a newspaper, there are plenty that detail exactly the same things in numerous places throughout the country. Apparently these things are happening somewhere.

Everyone will just have to make up their minds as to what they want to believe or not.

"Stop it. I never asked for a link proving that Skinheads OR Motorcycle gangs engaged in violence. Of course they do, I've already CONCEDED that point"

Ahh, I see. I got off the track then. I thought my argument with you was whether those 2 groups qualified as violent gangs that needed to be included in any anti-gang effort, whereas you were arguing with my stories. Just as a point of reference, it has been close to 15 years since my days of direct involvement, so I would be surprised if there are specific articles anyway. I'll give up my specific stories in favor of the point that they do those same things across the country and elsewhere as detailed in my responses with links and search criteria, so it does happen just as I stated. I feel I did provide the documented proof of the assertion that they are violent gangs, just like any other violent gang and that race is not the qualifier for that.

"I really don't care to discuss it anymore, because I can't stand bullshit sensationalism and the perpetuation of stereotypical myths."

Since I provided links and search criteria that did return and document specific incidents all across the country, and in other countries, I am not sure how that qualifies as the perpetuation of sensationalistic and stereotypical myths. Are you trying to say that the absence of 3 specific stories on the web negates the multitude of other stories that detail the same thing?

I see some other threads revolving around the issue of racism, looters in N.O. being mainly black and whether it is racist to notice. I looked back on this article thread and see where some of my responses may not be entirely clear on that topic. Indeed, it appears from the media images that the majority of the looters, and likely violent gang members, were black in this case.

When I tried to refute race as a factor in reference to my original post, I was saying that in the big picture of dealing with gangs, nationally, we can not base it on race or economics or any other similar factors. It must be based on the violent gang culture. The reasoning being that if we only pay attention to certain races or classes when removing gangs from our neighborhoods, the next N.O. will have the same outcome, just diffferent faces on TV. The problem remains.

The whole problem here is that in that the way the reporters are covering the stories out of New Orleans.
First of all, as I watched TV, I noticed that the words of the reporters did not match the images they were showing.

1) "Turmoil and breakdown at superdome...." All I saw were people who were asking for food or water along with a bunch elderly people,
women and children. The reporter was not attacked, no one tried to rush him and he did NOT feel threatened. So where is this TURMOIL?

2) "Situation out of control in New Orleans...." Once again, reporter is standing smack dab in the middle of the city, no gunshots going off, and not feeling threatened, surrounded by hundreds of people without food and water for days. So is the situation out of control becaused of the gangs, or is it just that THOSE who were SUPPOSED to be giving the people food and water and a way to evacuate DROPPED THE BALL. What better way to take focus off of the issue of government responsibility than to continually report any kind of story that makes the situation in the streets more violent than it actually is.

3) "Looters is rampant and out of control.... people taking TVs...." MOST of the images I saw of looting were the same ones from 4 days ago of people taking food, water, clothes and other things that were NEEDED. However, they OVERLY characterized this as somehow blacks were OUT OF CONTROL and NEED TO BE CRUSHED so that the RIGHTEOUS people of America can TAKE BACK THEIR CITY.

4) "12 year old girl raped in Superdome...." Who saw it? Where is the perpetrator? Where is the victim? What is her name? Where is the EVIDENCE so we can put the BASTARD IN JAIL. Reporters should not report everything that they "HEARD" without confirming it first, especially in a crisis situation. Otherwise, just like I pointed out in the last 3 bullets, the WORDS dont match the IMAGES. And in a crisis like this, we dont want to spread panic and the wrong impression of what is going on. Especially since so many who are going to help may be turned off and refuse to help those in need. If you didn't see it and it didnt happen directly in front of you, and all you have is a story told to you by someone who had it told to them, then it is a RUMOR and should NOT be reported as a FACT.

5) "Shooting at Helicopter stops all evacuations...." OK, maybe maybe not. But somehow I dont see how 1 incident stops the WHOLE show. If the people we have to rely on in a time of crisis are people that wear PINK PANTIES, then I don't need their help at all. Thats like saying "Abandon the women and children! There is DANGER we need to run for our lives and protect our lives... aaaaaahhhh!" In my opinion, this is the attitute of a COWARD who has no place amongst men (or women) in a time of crisis. If the only time you can rescue women and children is when the WHOLE U.S. Army is there, then God help us when the situation EVER GETS REALLY UGLY.
That is piss poor performance on the part of those who supposedly "protect and serve" and shows the utter, complete break down in their ability to help the people who needed help.

Well then, why aren't you chasing all those who agreed with me and echoed my sentiments all over JU as well? You know, dharma, PB, Shovel, Island Dog, foreverserenity, Righwinger, etc, etc. Hey, I guess you prefer your "racism" sugar coated, I'll keep that in mind next time I have something to say about racial issues. (not.)If you have an issue with me personally, (which you obviously do) it would be nice if you didn't crap all over other people's threads in order to perpetuate it.

So I shouldn't bring stuff up in other people's threads huh? Sorry I misunderstood you, what with echo coming from the other side of your mouth.

If you have issues with what I said about you, come talk on my thread. Until then, you remain a coward and prove my words right with every passing day.