"Battles Without Honor and Humanity" (1973)

Gangs are a mundane part of everyday life. The world is rife with powerful entities, entrenched institutions, organizations, businesses and families that are often, but would rather not be, called gangs. They rather play up their constitutions, laws, governance, codes of honor, sense of duty, and service to their community. As well as the many outright gangs that love to play up their reputation of being fearsome ruthless killers. Their conflict and cooperation is the business-as-usual of the economy.

There are also many lesser known gangs, petty crooks, and one-time bandits. Some claim they had to resort to such activities and ways of life because they were forced by circumstance to do so. Others proudly boast of their choice. Then there are all the rest who are neither.

But it just so happens that straight-goers love gangster lore, movies and rap, and they get lots of silly ideas. Like the idea that, maybe, if they exercised a lack of scruples, they might achieve a fraction of the success of those who run the streets.

Anarchists, coming from all walks of life, aren’t exempt from any of this.
You’ll find among them everything from belonging to a gang, to fighting them straight on, to decrying them or fetishizing them from afar.

When anarchists get caught doing any petty crime, they’re liable to get trumped-up charges for terrorism, and given life or death in prison arbitrarily. In prison, they’re pitted against a whole plethora of gangs who are out to get them, just as they were in the streets.

How do anarchists do gang shit? What is their modus operandi? How does anarchist ethics and morality come into conflict with gang shit? How does it instigate it?

Comments

anon (not verified) Mon, 08/01/2022 - 15:54

Bruh... this totw is fucking stupid.

Why tf would you think a bunch of mostly white uppermiddle-class feminists raised in the burbs would have anything of substance to say about gang culture? Gang culture is based in brutality, poverty, hard drugs and very often involves the outright total subjugation of women. Notice the radio silence in the comments? Consider considering why that is. Stop fetishizing a bunch of shit you know nothing about from a distance. Go live in the hood, go live on the rez, ACTUALLY go meet ppl who are about that shit and then come back to me with that whitewashed West Island “ganggang” shit you fucking morons.

Like, bro, I remember everybody hating on ITS because they called ppl “faggots” in their communiques but meanwhile the racialized criminal youth that white anarchists absolutely love to fetishize say that word about ppl they don’t like all the fucking time, you just don’t really know about that, apparently, because you’ve never actually hung out with people like that.

Y’all be listenin to 21 Savage on Spotify and shit even tho his most famous song No Heart is basically a track about him and his Haitian buddies tying up some dudes wife and raping her while making him watch as the consequence to some Instagram beef like holy hell dude lol... That’s what real life gang shit is really about.

Stop the LARP.

lumpy (not verified) Mon, 08/01/2022 - 16:02

In reply to by anon (not verified)

do you think maybe you're uh ... in a little bit of bad faith there? hmm? you opened with shitty identity politics "bruh"

anon (not verified) Mon, 08/01/2022 - 16:55

In reply to by anon (not verified)

online anarchos DO indeed seem to be a bunch of privileged White (mostly) youngsters from uptown. Last time I was in Barcelona I came across some of these US "anarchists" and they were such despicable ultraliberal hipsters I could only watch them with disgust, not seeing any worth in even engaging with them.

I dunno why you brought ITS in the mix, tho. They were a fucked up gang of fuck ups who mostly just achieved cowardly attacks on randos instead of hitting at the very institutions and people running society. Their texts were incoherent garbage and their only known figures were some insane edgelord in Chile who died in prison, and some super-normie suburban in the US with a shitty name (AC). The fact they used the F-gg-t word is pretty irrelevant to me... but the latter issues are enough to ditch these fake-ass idiots.

anon (not verified) Mon, 08/01/2022 - 18:28

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Unless it really was just AC all along, who knows.

But anyways, you say it’s irrelevant and yet... while it’s true that some ppl were already getting uncomfortable w their actions, I definitely remember many ppl in the scene who didn’t fully disavow them until they started saying “faggot” and other stuff like that. That comp sci student they knifed to death? Totally fine, apparently. There’s one trans anarchist I used to know whom Im thinking of especially who I remember had no issue with them murdering random university students, but who drew a hard line once they started calling people “druggy faggots”.

The fuck was up w that?

It reminds me of how crazy everyone got about Trump back in 2016, bc he was arrogant and loud and used “bad words”... and yet Hilary, who had literal bodies on her soul, drew nowhere near the same level of ire.

anon (not verified) Tue, 08/02/2022 - 09:54

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Same for back when the DGR cult was flushed by NA anarchist circles... Not that this group did any repulsive murderous acts, but they were still ridiculous for their leader-worship.

But the moment someone in the group sez anything not too nice of the supreme ID that is trans, get your group suddenly treated as irredeemable transgressors who just deserve to die. This, in a context where you got top corporate execs doing the trans shift, and big corporations brandishing the Pride flag.

What a bunch of ultralib snowflakes.

anon (not verified) Tue, 08/02/2022 - 10:25

In reply to by anon (not verified)

DGR was always seen as sus in anti-civ circles. The anti-trans outbursts just sealed the deal that they were shit academics with shit motivations existing only to build a following and sell books/tickets. Don’t get it twisted, “snowflake”.

anon (not verified) Tue, 08/02/2022 - 10:51

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Imagine feeling so threatened by trans people your brain malfunctions so miuch you call others "snowflakes".

Get over yourself, brah. You're not fooling anyone.

anon (not verified) Sat, 08/06/2022 - 08:54

In reply to by anon (not verified)

@s never liked dgr because they were an authoritarian cult based around the ideas and leadership of one dude, just like rcp. DJ used to call himself an anarchist until he realized actual @s weren’t going to fall in line with his eco fascist beliefs. Turns out he was just a fascist a few years ahead of the curve (transphobia and ecology are favorite far right topics now)

anon (not verified) Mon, 08/01/2022 - 18:13

In reply to by anon (not verified)

I think the supreme irony back then was that ITS were themselves the very same kind of racialized (i.e: they're from Mexico...) criminal youth that anarchists usually make excuses for.

lumpy (not verified) Mon, 08/01/2022 - 16:01

great topic!

slight modification to the pitch?

literally everything is gang shit: cops are a gang. corporations are a gang. hobbes' leviathan is just a gang. russeau's social contract is the smokescreen in front of a gang. primitive accumulation is gangs taking by force. feudalism was gangs by "divine right". the descent in to corporate neo-feudalism is just a resurgence of gang rule, dropping the thin pretense of democracy and so on and so on ...

it's the oldest, most honest expression of all politics. whoever calls the shots and backs it up with force. and when two or more powers are competing, biggest or meanest or smartest wins. anarchists would do very well to understand all this and prefigure their politics accordingly.

anon (not verified) Mon, 08/01/2022 - 17:06

In reply to by lumpy (not verified)

yeeaaaa.... Leftie. And accumulate power for their gang, and...

Aw, see? That's the point of understanding how gangs work under capitalism, before becoming another one lost in the thousands.

nice nature (not verified) Mon, 08/01/2022 - 17:12

young people have to get their rocks off somehow - I feel like a lot of that ends up in places like antifa, which lets you do cool stuff like get into street fights with strangers who like different soccer teams than you. I think the general anarchist take on gangs (they suck, they're hierarchical, they brutalize people in similar ways that the state does, etc) is true, but then you also get stuff like this:

"Open ties are visible. Take group strolls, pick fights, write up on walls, vandalize everything—especially people. Jump people, Start parties, talk about how cops suck scams you know, and how boring straight cis people are; jump people in to the conflict between sex in squats and wild dance parties. Be loud, obnoxious and annoying. Being seen from a block or two away—a similar style of dress may be adopted, or not. A way of flagging what your down for might come into play—one group tied a pink bandanna over a black one to single that they were down to ride on someone. Walk into stores in groups of i0, fill your bags, make a mess and leave, dominate clubs and bars. Take over street corners, or wherever people can still congregate near you; enforce your spot as you please. Act wild, because you can—whatever is a rush. Live a presence built over time. When others see you, encourage them to set up their own group and support other sets. "

I know, the early 2010's, it's like hauling out someone's baby pictures, but I think there's something evergreen about the desire for violent conflict that also rings true in antifa streetfighting too. The story of small violent sects of politically conscious people who become small violent sects of people left wearing their politics as an aesthetic is also an old one, though marxists seem to be better at that.

NIHILO (not verified) Mon, 08/01/2022 - 19:01

The State has always used gangs and mafias to attack anti-authoritarians.

"The “mafia” is not a Sicilian phenomenon. It is a way of seeing things, a way of building relationships and solving problems from a perspective that could be called “feudal.” The Mafia organization par excellence today is the large State managerial company," -Bonanno

Urban black communities were/are decimated by gangs working with the CIA. Rural poor communities were/are decimated by the State through gangs and drugs.

I agree with the anon that suggested you stop the LARP.
Stop romanticizing Holywood-glamorized authoritarianism.
Get off your bullshit.

MasterSyrup (not verified) Tue, 08/02/2022 - 06:39

In reply to by NIHILO (not verified)

Also pretty sure that radical rap of the 2pac and Kendrick fam was also decimated by talentless hacks working for the same 3-letter agencies, like Kanye, Jay Z and Lil Wayne.

CIA was involved in their own Cultural Revolution as soon as the `70s. It just merged with their COIN ops starting in the '90s. Cultural warfare is the deepest end of social warfare, as if you can achieve control over culture and counter-culture, you can get an entire youth in your pockets.

anon (not verified) Mon, 08/01/2022 - 19:26

Define "a gang" . A football team is a gang. A room full of politicians is a gang. The team of ornithologists studying albatrosses are a gang. The folk running @news thecollective are a gang. The nation is a giant gang. Only the pure Stirnerian is NOT a member of a gang/cult/party/team etc

lumpy (not verified) Tue, 08/02/2022 - 07:30

multiple commenters now, saying shit about "the LARP"

read this part again -

"You’ll find among them everything from belonging to a gang, to fighting them straight on, to decrying them or fetishizing them from afar."

the original topic post included a critique of any fetishization? it's not that long of a read, only paragraph 4. do better.

anon (not verified) Tue, 08/02/2022 - 07:46

In reply to by lumpy (not verified)

very sweet to assume this is more than one person instead of one person commenting over and over again, but yes, the point stands, it's a bad opinion no matter how many times it gets posted

anon (not verified) Tue, 08/02/2022 - 08:05

The Stirnerian Knights abhor gang relationships, gang hierarchy, gang herd morality, gang bangs (depends), gang idols and icons. Be gone gang consciousness spooks!

Luke from DC (not verified) Tue, 08/02/2022 - 13:56

Think of two tribes fighting 10,000 years ago over a good water source, quarry, or hunting grounds. Neither would want to risk a total wipeout, and there was NO authority above your own tribe. You and your friends made their own history or became history.

That being so, there was a strong disincentive for either side to commit to a battle to the death. A pitched battle could wipe out the losers in a single day. Instead you saw small scale raiding, and in living memory some tribes considered a raid a failure if even one warrior didn't make it back. As it was then, so it is now as crews of similar size duke it out over street corner "business."

You even see this in some of the "cold civil war" in the US. Lots of times, we confront fash and both sides have a lot of spectators while a few duke it out. Rarely have I seen all of one side charge directly into all of the other, though that DID occur on Nov 14 2020 in DC when we cut off the Proud Boys' march on BLM Plaza.

anon (not verified) Wed, 08/03/2022 - 05:29

Gangs as a way of life are for weaklings.

Of course they come as an obvious compromise when facing off all machineries of oppression, where acting on your own can be too self-defeating.

The over-reliance on the crowd, the herd, the mob becomes quickly unchecked, tho, and in tight groups people lose awareness of what they're doing and can become monsters by themselves, reproducing the social oppression.

Triviabot (not verified) Fri, 08/05/2022 - 22:10

My grandma used to always say, "it's so much gang shit that I can't see the floor."

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