Gang Related Quotes

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Once you are in a relationship you start taking each other for granted—that’s what destroys all love affairs. The woman thinks she knows the man, the man thinks he knows the woman. Nobody knows either! It is impossible to know the other, the other remains a mystery. And to take the other for granted is insulting, disrespectful. To think that you know your wife is very, very ungrateful. How can you know the woman? How can you know the man? They are processes, they are not things. The woman that you knew yesterday is not there today. So much water has gone down the Ganges; she is somebody else, totally different. Relate again, start again, don’t take it for granted. And the man that you slept with last night, look at his face again in the morning. He is no more the same person, so much has changed. So much, incalculably much has changed. That is the difference between a thing and a person. The furniture in the room is the same, but the man and the woman, they are no more the same. Explore again, start again. That’s what I mean by relating. Relating means you are always starting, you are continuously trying to become acquainted. Again and again, you are introducing yourself to each other. You are trying to see the many facets of the other’s personality. You are trying to penetrate deeper and deeper into his realm of inner feelings, into the deep recesses of his being. You are trying to unravel a mystery that cannot be unraveled. That is the joy of love: the exploration of consciousness. And
Osho (Love, Freedom, and Aloneness: On Relationships, Sex, Meditation, and Silence)
Most of Arbus's work lies within the Warhol aesthetic, that is, defines itself in relation to the twin poles of boringness and freakishness; but it doesn't have the Warhol style. Arbus had neither Warhol's narcissism and genius for publicity nor the self-protective blandness with which he insulates himself from the freaky nor his sentimentality. It is unlikey that Warhol, who comes from a working-class family, ever felt any ambivalence toward success which afflicted the children of the Jewish upper middle classes in the 1960s. To someone raised as a Catholic, like Warhol (and virtually everyone in his gang), a fascination with evil comes much more genuinely than it does to someone from a Jewish background. Compared with Warhol, Arbus seems strikingly vulnerable, innocent--and certainly more pessimistic. Her Dantesque vision of the city (and the suburbs) has no reserves of irony. Although much of Arbus's material is the same as that depicted in, say, Warhol's Chelsea Girls (1966)...For Arbus, both freaks and Middle America were equally exotic: a boy marching in a pro-war parade and a Levittown housewife were as alien as a dwarf or a transvestite; lower-middle-class suburbia was as remote as Times Square, lunatic asylums, and gay bars. Arbus's work expressed her turn against what was public (as she experienced it), conventional, safe, reassuring--and boring--in favor of what was private, hidden, ugly, dangerous, and fascinating. These contrasts, now, seem almost quaint. What is safe no long monopolizes public imagery. The freakish is no longer a private zone, difficult of access. People who are bizarre, in sexual disgrace, emotionally vacant are seen daily on the newsstands, on TV, in the subways. Hobbesian man roams the streets, quite visible, with glitter in his hair.
Susan Sontag (On Photography)
What makes psychopathy so different, so surreal, so much like a relational b@$*tch-slap that it nearly knocks her head off? --The sensation of being emotionally 'jumped' from behind. --The inability to wrap her head around the emotional-physical-spiritual-sexual gang-bang that just happened when she thought she was with the most wonderful person. No one can figure out how a dangerous psychopath curled up to them like a purring cat. Half of recovery is just trying to figure out 'what was THAT?
Sandra L. Brown (Women Who Love Psychopaths)
You were kind of mean to Brittany,” Holly said. “Was I? Trying to be protective, I guess. I have a problem with cheerleaders, sorority sisters, gangs, committees, groups, anything pack-related.” She shrugged. “Yeah, you’re not really a joiner.” I was never much for cheerleaders or jocks myself, especially in high school. I always knew that kind of popularity was short term, but when you’re a teenager it seemed like the most important thing in the world. But Holly was only twelve.
Michael Grigsby (Segment of One)
Some years ago I had a conversation with a man who thought that writing and editing fantasy books was a rather frivolous job for a grown woman like me. He wasn’t trying to be contentious, but he himself was a probation officer, working with troubled kids from the Indian reservation where he’d been raised. Day in, day out, he dealt in a concrete way with very concrete problems, well aware that his words and deeds could change young lives for good or ill. I argued that certain stories are also capable of changing lives, addressing some of the same problems and issues he confronted in his daily work: problems of poverty, violence, and alienation, issues of culture, race, gender, and class... “Stories aren’t real,” he told me shortly. “They don’t feed a kid left home in an empty house. Or keep an abusive relative at bay. Or prevent an unloved child from finding ‘family’ in the nearest gang.” Sometimes they do, I tried to argue. The right stories, read at the right time, can be as important as shelter or food. They can help us to escape calamity, and heal us in its aftermath. He frowned, dismissing this foolishness, but his wife was more conciliatory. “Write down the names of some books,” she said. “Maybe we’ll read them.” I wrote some titles on a scrap of paper, and the top three were by Charles de lint – for these are precisely the kind of tales that Charles tells better than anyone. The vital, necessary stories. The ones that can change and heal young lives. Stories that use the power of myth to speak truth to the human heart. Charles de Lint creates a magical world that’s not off in a distant Neverland but here and now and accessible, formed by the “magic” of friendship, art, community, and social activism. Although most of his books have not been published specifically for adolescents and young adults, nonetheless young readers find them and embrace them with particular passion. I’ve long lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people from troubled backgrounds say that books by Charles saved them in their youth, and kept them going. Recently I saw that parole officer again, and I asked after his work. “Gets harder every year,” he said. “Or maybe I’m just getting old.” He stopped me as I turned to go. “That writer? That Charles de Lint? My wife got me to read them books…. Sometimes I pass them to the kids.” “Do they like them?” I asked him curiously. “If I can get them to read, they do. I tell them: Stories are important.” And then he looked at me and smiled.
Terri Windling
The gangs filled a void in society, and the void was the absence of family life. The gang became a family. For some of those guys in the gang that was the only family they knew, because when their mothers had them they were too busy having children for other men. Some of them never knew their daddies. Their daddies never look back after they got their mothers pregnant, and those guys just grew up and they couldn’t relate to nobody. When they had their problems, who could they have talked to? Nobody would listen, so they gravitated together and form a gang. George Mackey, the former representative for the historic Fox Hill community in The Bahamas.
Drexel Deal (The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father (The Fight of My Life is Wrapped in My Father Book 1))
Back then, she had to worry about the government tapping her phone. It still probably does, but all the other stuff's been outsourced. Now, instead of just a COINTELPRO operation, she’s got to worry about that and some dude stalking her relatives from his mother’s basement, and kids bombarding her with death threats because it makes them feel like part of the (terrorist) gang, and a troll farm in Russia using the Center as the next cause célèbre to whip up Nazis. All the people who really are a threat to the country; somehow they’ve been convinced to do its dirty work, more or less for free. She would admire it if it weren’t so damn horrific.
N.K. Jemisin (The City We Became (Great Cities, #1))
(Time is relative, said Heraclitus a long time ago, and distance a function of velocity. Since the ultimate goal of transport technology is the annihilation of space, the compression of all Being into one pure point, it follows that six-packs help. Speed is the ultimate drug and rockets run on alcohol.
Edward Abbey (The Monkey Wrench Gang)
I’ve got good news and bad news for you, Ryan. The bad news is that you’re the only one in the world who can activate the Doomsday Machine, and Foe and his gang are never going to stop coming after you. The good news is that with myself and Valkyrie protecting you, you stand a very good chance of emerging from this relatively unscathed.” Valkyrie looked at the back of Skulduggery’s head. “You said they’d probably try to cut his hand off.” “I said relatively,” Skulduggery reminded her.
Derek Landy (The End of the World (Skulduggery Pleasant, #6.5))
i like the book my bloody life because it tell what gange related do and what makeks them feel bad
Reymundo Sánchez
White folk commit the bulk of the crimes in our nation. And, beloved, it might surprise you that white folk commit the most violent crimes too. According to FBI statistics, black folk committed 36 percent of violent crime in 2015, while white folk committed 42 percent of violent crimes in the same year. White folk consistently lead all other groups in aggravated assault, larceny, illegal weapons possession, arson, and vandalism. And white folk are far more likely to target the vulnerable too. White folk lead the way in forcible rape. You’re also more likely to kill children, the elderly, significant others, family members, and even yourselves. White folk commit a majority of gang-related murders too. A majority of the homicide victims in this country are white. White folk are six times as likely to be murdered by a white person as they are to be taken out by a black “thug.” The white-on-white mayhem is profound, yet no one speaks of it in racial terms. That’s
Michael Eric Dyson (Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America)
Nowhere do “politicians” form a more separate and powerful section of the nation than precisely in North America. There, each of the two major parties which alternatively succeed each other in power is itself in turn controlled by people who make a business of politics, who speculate on seats in the legislative assemblies of the Union as well as of the separate states, or who make a living by carrying on agitation for their party and on its victory are rewarded with positions. It is well known how the Americans have been trying for thirty years to shake off this yoke, which has become intolerable, and how in spite of it all they continue to sink ever deeper in this swamp of corruption. It is precisely in America that we see best how there takes place this process of the state power making itself independent in relation to society, whose mere instrument it was originally intended to be. Here there exists no dynasty, no nobility, no standing army, beyond the few men keeping watch on the Indians, no bureaucracy with permanent posts or the right to pensions. And nevertheless we find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends – and the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality dominate and plunder it.
Friedrich Engels
People spoke to foreigners with an averted gaze, and everybody seemed to know somebody who had just vanished. The rumors of what had happened to them were fantastic and bizarre though, as it turned out, they were only an understatement of the real thing. Before going to see General Videla […], I went to […] check in with Los Madres: the black-draped mothers who paraded, every week, with pictures of their missing loved ones in the Plaza Mayo. (‘Todo mi familia!’ as one elderly lady kept telling me imploringly, as she flourished their photographs. ‘Todo mi familia!’) From these and from other relatives and friends I got a line of questioning to put to the general. I would be told by him, they forewarned me, that people ‘disappeared’ all the time, either because of traffic accidents and family quarrels or, in the dire civil-war circumstances of Argentina, because of the wish to drop out of a gang and the need to avoid one’s former associates. But this was a cover story. Most of those who disappeared were openly taken away in the unmarked Ford Falcon cars of the Buenos Aires military police. I should inquire of the general what precisely had happened to Claudia Inez Grumberg, a paraplegic who was unable to move on her own but who had last been seen in the hands of his ever-vigilant armed forces [….] I possess a picture of the encounter that still makes me want to spew: there stands the killer and torturer and rape-profiteer, as if to illustrate some seminar on the banality of evil. Bony-thin and mediocre in appearance, with a scrubby moustache, he looks for all the world like a cretin impersonating a toothbrush. I am gripping his hand in a much too unctuous manner and smiling as if genuinely delighted at the introduction. Aching to expunge this humiliation, I waited while he went almost pedantically through the predicted script, waving away the rumored but doubtless regrettable dematerializations that were said to be afflicting his fellow Argentines. And then I asked him about Senorita Grumberg. He replied that if what I had said was true, then I should remember that ‘terrorism is not just killing with a bomb, but activating ideas. Maybe that’s why she’s detained.’ I expressed astonishment at this reply and, evidently thinking that I hadn’t understood him the first time, Videla enlarged on the theme. ‘We consider it a great crime to work against the Western and Christian style of life: it is not just the bomber but the ideologist who is the danger.’ Behind him, I could see one or two of his brighter staff officers looking at me with stark hostility as they realized that the general—El Presidente—had made a mistake by speaking so candidly. […] In response to a follow-up question, Videla crassly denied—‘rotondamente’: ‘roundly’ denied—holding Jacobo Timerman ‘as either a journalist or a Jew.’ While we were having this surreal exchange, here is what Timerman was being told by his taunting tormentors: Argentina has three main enemies: Karl Marx, because he tried to destroy the Christian concept of society; Sigmund Freud, because he tried to destroy the Christian concept of the family; and Albert Einstein, because he tried to destroy the Christian concept of time and space. […] We later discovered what happened to the majority of those who had been held and tortured in the secret prisons of the regime. According to a Navy captain named Adolfo Scilingo, who published a book of confessions, these broken victims were often destroyed as ‘evidence’ by being flown out way over the wastes of the South Atlantic and flung from airplanes into the freezing water below. Imagine the fun element when there’s the surprise bonus of a Jewish female prisoner in a wheelchair to be disposed of… we slide open the door and get ready to roll her and then it’s one, two, three… go!
Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)
The longer someone ignores an email before finally responding, the more relative social power that person has. Map these response times across an entire organization and you get a remarkably accurate chart of the actual social standing. The boss leaves emails unanswered for hours or days; those lower down respond within minutes. There’s an algorithm for this, a data mining method called “automated social hierarchy detection,” developed at Columbia University.8 When applied to the archive of email traffic at Enron Corporation before it folded, the method correctly identified the roles of top-level managers and their subordinates just by how long it took them to answer a given person’s emails. Intelligence agencies have been applying the same metric to suspected terrorist gangs, piecing together the chain of influence to spot the central figures.
Daniel Goleman (Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence)
We could track down a gang guy wanted for armed robbery and assault.” “That sounds like a lot of fun, but I might have to pass on account of I don’t want to die right now.” “We could visit some of Sunny’s relatives and ask if he’s staying with them.” “Ditto for the above reason.
Janet Evanovich (Takedown Twenty (Stephanie Plum, #20))
Protection For gangs, clubs, and nations Causing grief in human relations It's a turf war on a global scale I'd rather hear both sides of the tale See, it's not about races Just places, faces Where your blood comes from Is where your space is I've seen the bright get duller I'm not going to spend my life being a color.
Michael Jackson
Imagine the horror of Obama and his aides, therefore, when one of the leading academic champions of Obamacare, economist Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, decided to reveal the con, even to the point of confessing it was a con. Gruber himself received $2 million in consulting fees related to Obamacare.
Dinesh D'Souza (Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me about Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party)
Well, we can’t have someone pick up the trash. You’ll have tuh wait ’til next week. Typically, as long as everything is bagged up properly, the weight rules are ignored, but you can’t have un-bagged and unboxed materials just lying about. It is dangerous for our workers, Ms. Chambers.” “Yes, Lord knows the dangers and perils to sanitation workers here in Westchester County is high! All over the worldwide news, they interrupt tales of muggings, gang related violence, and grisly murders to break out with stories about a hangnail one of your sanitation engineers received out here on the mean, dangerous streets of Larchmont Manor. It’s merciless mayhem, I tell ya!
Tiana Laveen (The Fight Within)
More than eighty thousand undocumented children from Mexico and the Northern Triangle, but mostly from the latter, had been detained at the US southern border in just the previous six or seven months. All those children were fleeing circumstances of unspeakable abuse and systematic violence, fleeing countries where gangs had become parastates, had usurped power and taken over the rule of law. They had come to the United States looking for protection, looking for mothers, fathers, or other relatives who had migrated earlier and might take them in. They weren’t looking for the American Dream, as the narrative usually goes. The children were merely looking for a way out of their daily nightmare.
Valeria Luiselli (Lost Children Archive)
As much as they were concerned about the police, the Panthers also took seriously the threat of crime and sought to address the fears of the community they served. With this in mind, they organized Seniors Against a Fearful Environment (SAFE), an escort and bussing service in which young Black people accompanied the elderly on their business around the city. In Los Angeles, when the Party opened an office on Central Avenue, they immediately set about running the drug dealers out of the area. And in Philadelphia, neighbors reported a decrease in violent crime after the Party opened their office, and an increase after the office closed. There, the BPP paid particular attention to gang violence, organizing truces and recruiting gang members to help with the survival programs. It may be that the Panthers reduced crime by virtue of their very existence. Crime, and gang violence especially, dropped during the period of their activity, in part (in the estimate of sociologist Lewis Yablonsky) because the BPP and similar groups “channeled young black and Chicano youth who might have participated in gangbanging violence into relatively positive efforts for social change through political activities.
Kristian Williams (Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America)
I think she’ll like me,” I said, concerned that my own mother wouldn’t like me. My fear exposed the unspoken shame of all families: if you didn’t know the people you were related to, would you befriend them? In the days when families hunted and gathered, this wouldn’t be a question worth pondering, but once butchering a mammoth stopped being a household chore, we began to suspect families are chain gangs held together by manacles of DNA.
Bob Smith (Remembrance of Things I Forgot: A Novel)
The plain fact is that responsibility cannot be imposed. It can only grow from within, fed and directed by values absorbed at home and in the community. Responsibility that is not anchored in positive values can be antisocial and destructive. Gang members often show great loyalty and strong responsibility in relation to one another and to their gang. Terrorists take their duties in dead earnest; they carry out commands, even if they involve sacrificing their own lives. The
Haim G. Ginott (Between Parent and Child: Revised and Updated)
IN THE 1960S, WHEN I became a beat cop in San Diego, manufacturing, selling, possessing, or using “dangerous drugs” or “controlled substances” were all violations of the law. But there was no “war,” per se, on drug-law violators. We made the occasional pot bust, less frequently a heroin or cocaine pinch. Drug enforcement was viewed by many of us almost as an ancillary duty. You’d stumble across an offender on a traffic stop or at a loud-party call. Mostly, you were on the prowl for non-drug-related crime: a gas station or liquor store stickup series, a burglary-fencing ring, an auto theft “chop shop” operation. Undercover narcs, of course, worked dope full time, chasing users and dealers. They played their snitches, sat on open-air markets, interrupted hand-to-hand dealing, and squeezed small-time street dealers in the climb up the chain to “Mister Big.” But because most local police forces devoted only a small percentage of personnel to French Connection–worthy cases, and because there were no “mandatory minimum” sentences (passed by Congress in 1986 to strip “soft on crime” judges of sentencing discretion on a host of drug offenses), and because street gangs fought over, well, streets—as in neighborhood turf (and cars and girlfriends)—not drug markets, most of our jails and prisons still had plenty of room for violent, predatory criminals. The point is, although they certainly did not turn their backs on drug offenses, the country’s police were not at “war” with users and dealers. And though their government-issued photos may have adorned the wall behind the police chief’s desk, a long succession of US presidents stayed out of the local picture.
Norm Stamper (To Protect and Serve: How to Fix America's Police)
Wynter's Pass was a picturesque region in the north of Vohlfhein, where the Bleak Hills eventually collapsed into the Frozen Sea. From the back of Mr. Buckles, who had been on a slow trot since sunrise, Monch watched the light glisten off of the frozen branches of the evergreens. As the sun warmed the frozen ground, sending the evening's frost into retreat, Monch absorbed the splendor of it all and wondered how expensive the local real estate must be around here. He then contemplated attempting to find an agent that would represent his interests well. "This land is such a spectacular wonder," the Lion of Ahriman declared. "It would be very much sought after if they could just do something about the bears, the White Orts, the wolves, the bloodthirsty cannibals, the snow manapés, the frost wizards, the northern bandit gangs, the dire lynxes, the similarly sounding but not related pygmy bloodthirsty cannibals, the demon possessed yaks, the dead-soul animated trees, the..." Monch paused for a moment. "It just occurred to me that this land is really not safe at all. It seems almost everything in it wants to kill me," the Templar admitted.
D.F. Monk (Tales of Yhore: The Chronicles of Monch)
Poor Henriette Lund, there to grieve for her beloved uncle, was overwhelmed by a gang of gawkers who pushed their way into the church. The scene she relates was one of a ceremony on the verge of chaos, much like a restless mob waiting for something, anything, to happen. “The tightly packed mass of people surged like an angry sea,” she wrote, “while a ring of rather unpleasant-looking characters had placed themselves around the small flower-decked coffin.” This group was largely composed of self-declared supporters of Søren, upset that with this funeral the church was attempting to absorb into its own one of its most outspoken opponents.
Stephen Backhouse (Kierkegaard: A Single Life)
So why did strong, modern states not emerge in Latin America as they did in Europe? If there is a single factor that explains this outcome, it is the relative absence of interstate war in the New World. We have seen how central war and preparation for war were in the creation of modern states in China, Prussia, and France. Even in the United States, state building has been driven by national security concerns throughout the twentieth century. Though Europe has been remarkably peaceful since 1945, the prior centuries were characterized by high and endemic levels of interstate violence. Over the past two centuries, the major political acts that reconfigured the map of Europe—the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, and the wars of unification of Italy and Germany—all involved high levels of violence, culminating in the two world wars of the twentieth century. There has been plenty of violence in Latin America, of course: today the region is infested with drug cartels, street gangs, and a few remaining guerrilla groups, all of which inflict enormous sufferings on local populations. But in comparison with Europe, Latin America has been a peaceful place in terms of interstate war. This has been a blessing for the region, but it has also left a problematic institutional legacy.
Francis Fukuyama (Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy)
I asked, “When the Rebellions were at its peak doing nonsense, everyone was trying to keep away from the area, yet you were going in, why were you going into that area? Supt. Strachan answered quite frankly, Because I was not afraid. I felt like they are my people, they are my color. I don’t know of anyone born after me that I should be afraid of, that was how I felt. I knew I could’ve walk through Strachan’s Corner, sit down and felt at home, and their parents also accepted me. I came to the conclusion; these kids just need someone to show them some attention. They just wanted to belong, that was what a lot of them were looking for. So I said to myself, if I could assist them I would, and that was what I did. Supt. Allerdyce Strachan, the first female officer to rise to the rank of superintendent on the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
Drexel Deal (The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father (The Fight of My Life is Wrapped in My Father Book 1))
Letter You can see it already: chalks and ochers; Country crossed with a thousand furrow-lines; Ground-level rooftops hidden by the shrubbery; Sporadic haystacks standing on the grass; Smoky old rooftops tarnishing the landscape; A river (not Cayster or Ganges, though: A feeble Norman salt-infested watercourse); On the right, to the north, bizarre terrain All angular--you'd think a shovel did it. So that's the foreground. An old chapel adds Its antique spire, and gathers alongside it A few gnarled elms with grumpy silhouettes; Seemingly tired of all the frisky breezes, They carp at every gust that stirs them up. At one side of my house a big wheelbarrow Is rusting; and before me lies the vast Horizon, all its notches filled with ocean blue; Cocks and hens spread their gildings, and converse Beneath my window; and the rooftop attics, Now and then, toss me songs in dialect. In my lane dwells a patriarchal rope-maker; The old man makes his wheel run loud, and goes Retrograde, hemp wreathed tightly round the midriff. I like these waters where the wild gale scuds; All day the country tempts me to go strolling; The little village urchins, book in hand, Envy me, at the schoolmaster's (my lodging), As a big schoolboy sneaking a day off. The air is pure, the sky smiles; there's a constant Soft noise of children spelling things aloud. The waters flow; a linnet flies; and I say: "Thank you! Thank you, Almighty God!"--So, then, I live: Peacefully, hour by hour, with little fuss, I shed My days, and think of you, my lady fair! I hear the children chattering; and I see, at times, Sailing across the high seas in its pride, Over the gables of the tranquil village, Some winged ship which is traveling far away, Flying across the ocean, hounded by all the winds. Lately it slept in port beside the quay. Nothing has kept it from the jealous sea-surge: No tears of relatives, nor fears of wives, Nor reefs dimly reflected in the waters, Nor importunity of sinister birds.
Victor Hugo
I want to say you'd be surprised by the kind of people who go visit their relatives and lovers in jail, but really you wouldn't be surprised at all. It's just like you see on TV - desperate, broken-toothed women in ugly clothes, or other ladies who dress up like streetwalkers to feel sexy among the inmates and who are waiting for marriage proposals from their men in cuffs, even if they're in maximum security and the court has already marked them for life or death penalty. There are women who come with gangs of kids who crawl over their daddies, and there are the teenagers and grown-up kids who come and sit across the picnic tables bitter-lipped while their fathers try to apologize for being there. Then there are the sisters, like me, who show up because nobody else will. Our whole family, the same people who treated my brother like he was baby Moses, all turned their backs on Carlito when he went to the slammer. Not one soul has visited him besides me. Not an uncle, a tia, a primo, a friend, anybody.
Patricia Engel (The Veins of the Ocean)
Nobody ever talked about what a struggle this all was. I could see why women used to die in childbirth. They didn't catch some kind of microbe, or even hemorrhage. They just gave up. They knew that if they didn't die, they'd be going through it again the next year, and the next. I couldn't understand how a woman might just stop trying, like a tired swimmer, let her head go under, the water fill her lungs. I slowly massaged Yvonne's neck, her shoulders, I wouldn't let her go under. She sucked ice through threadbare white terry. If my mother were here, she'd have made Melinda meek cough up the drugs, sure enough. "Mamacita, ay," Yvonne wailed. I didn't know why she would call her mother. She hated her mother. She hadn't seen her in six years, since the day she locked Yvonne and her brother and sisters in their apartment in Burbank to go out and party, and never came back. Yvonne said she let her boyfriends run a train on her when she was eleven. I didn't even know what that meant. Gang bang, she said. And still she called out, Mama. It wasn't just Yvonne. All down the ward, they called for their mothers. ... I held onto Yvonne's hands, and I imagined my mother, seventeen years ago, giving birth to me. Did she call for her mother?...I thought of her mother, the one picture I had, the little I knew. Karin Thorvald, who may or may not have been a distant relation of King Olaf of Norway, classical actress and drunk, who could recite Shakespeare by heart while feeding the chickens and who drowned in the cow pond when my mother was thirteen. I couldn't imagine her calling out for anyone. But then I realized, they didn't mean their own mothers. Not those weak women, those victims. Drug addicts, shopaholics, cookie bakers. They didn't mean the women who let them down, who failed to help them into womanhood, women who let their boyfriends run a train on them. Bingers and purgers, women smiling into mirrors, women in girdles, women in barstools. Not those women with their complaints and their magazines, controlling women, women who asked, what's in it for me? Not the women who watched TV while they made dinner, women who dyed their hair blond behind closed doors trying to look twenty-three. They didn't mean the mothers washing dishes wishing they'd never married, the ones in the ER, saying they fell down the stairs, not the ones in prison saying loneliness is the human condition, get used to it. They wanted the real mother, the blood mother, the great womb, mother of a fierce compassion, a woman large enough to hold all the pain, to carry it away. What we needed was someone who bled, someone deep and rich as a field, a wide-hipped mother, awesome, immense, women like huge soft couches, mothers coursing with blood, mothers big enough, wide enough, for us to hide in, to sink down to the bottom of, mothers who would breathe for is when we could not breathe anymore, who would fight for us, who would kill for us, die for us. Yvonne was sitting up, holding her breath, eyes bulging out. It was the thing she should not do. "Breathe," I said in her ear. "Please, Yvonne, try." She tried to breathe, a couple of shallow inhalations, but it hurt too much. She flopped back on the narrow bed, too tired to go on. All she could do was grip my hand and cry. And I thought of the way the baby was linked to her, as she was linked to her mother, and her mother, all the way back, insider and inside, knit into a chain of disaster that brought her to this bed, this day. And not only her. I wondered what my own inheritance was going to be. "I wish I was dead," Yvonne said into the pillowcase with the flowers I'd brought from home. The baby came four hours later. A girl, born 5:32 PM.
Janet Fitch (White Oleander)
I thought about the aftermath of the 1862 war, when thirty-eight hastily condemned warriors had been hung in Mankato, in the country's largest-ever mass execution. Their bodies were buried in shallow graves and then dug up for study by local doctors, including Dr. Mayo, who kept the body of Cut Nose for his personal examination. I thought about my father losing his teaching job, about his struggle with depression and drinking. About how angry he was that our history was not taught in schools. Instead, we had to battle sports mascots and stereotypes. Movie actors in brownface. Tourists with cameras. Welfare lines. Alcoholism. 'After stealing everything,' he would rage, 'now they want to blame us for it, too.' Social services broke up Native families, sending children like me to white foster parents. Every week, the newspapers ran stories about Indians who rolled their cars while drunk or the rise of crack cocaine on the reservations or somebody's arrest for gang-related crimes. No wonder so many Native kids were committing suicide. But there was so much more to the story of the run. What people didn't see because they chose never to look. Unlike the stone monument in New Ulm, built to memorialize the settlers' loss with angry pride, the Dakhota had created a living, breathing memorial that found healing in prayer and ceremony. What the two monuments shared, however, was remembering. We were all trying to find a way through grief.
Diane Wilson (The Seed Keeper)
Once you are in a relationship you start taking each other for granted—that’s what destroys all love affairs. The woman thinks she knows the man, the man thinks he knows the woman. Nobody knows either! It is impossible to know the other, the other remains a mystery. And to take the other for granted is insulting, disrespectful. To think that you know your wife is very, very ungrateful. How can you know the woman? How can you know the man? They are processes, they are not things. The woman that you knew yesterday is not there today. So much water has gone down the Ganges; she is somebody else, totally different. Relate again, start again, don’t take it for granted. And the man that you slept with last night, look at his face again in the morning. He is no more the same person, so much has changed. So much, incalculably much has changed. That is the difference between a thing and a person. The furniture in the room is the same, but the man and the woman, they are no more the same. Explore again, start again. That’s what I mean by relating. Relating means you are always starting, you are continuously trying to become acquainted. Again and again, you are introducing yourself to each other. You are trying to see the many facets of the other’s personality. You are trying to penetrate deeper and deeper into his realm of inner feelings, into the deep recesses of his being. You are trying to unravel a mystery that cannot be unraveled. That is the joy of love: the exploration of consciousness.
Osho (Love, Freedom, and Aloneness: On Relationships, Sex, Meditation, and Silence)
Brittany Ellis," Mrs. Peterson says, pointing to the table behind Colin. I unenthusiastically sit on the stool at my assigned place. "Alejandro Fuentes," Mrs. Peterson says, pointing to the stool next to me. Oh my God. Alex . . . my chemistry partner? For my entire senior year! No way, no how, SO not okay. I give Colin a "help me" look as I try to avoid a panic attack. I definitely should have stayed at home. In bed. Under the covers. Forget not being intimidated. "Call me Alex." Mrs. Peterson looks up from her class list and regards Alex above the glasses on her nose. ' Alex Fuentes," she says, before changing his name on her list. "Mr. Fuentes, take off that bandanna. I have a zero tolerance policy in my class. No gang-related accessories are allowed to enter this room. Unfortunately, Alex, your reputation precedes you. Dr. Aguirre backs my zero tolerance policy one hundred percent ... do I make myself clear?" Alex stares her down before sliding the bandanna off his head, exposing raven hair that matches his eyes. "It's to cover up the lice," Colin mutters to Darlene, but I hear him and Alex does, too. "Vete a la verga," Alex says to Colin, his hard eyes blazing. "Collate el hocico." "Whatever, dude," Colin says, then turns around. "He can't even speak English." "That's enough, Colin. Alex, sit down." Mrs. Peterson eyes the rest of the class. "That goes for the rest of you, as well. I can't control what you do outside of this room, but in my class I'm the boss." She turns back to Alex. "Do I make myself clear?" "Si, señora," Alex says, deliberately slow.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
The attachment voids experienced by immigrant children are profound. The hardworking parents are focused on supporting their families economically and, unfamiliar with the language and customs of their new society, they are not able to orient their children with authority or confidence. Peers are often the only people available for such children to latch on to. Thrust into a peer-oriented culture, immigrant families may quickly disintegrate. The gulf between child and parent can widen to the point that becomes unbridgeable. Parents of these children lose their dignity, their power, and their lead. Peers ultimately replace parents and gangs increasingly replace families. Again, immigration or the necessary relocation of people displaced by war or economic misery is not the problem. Transplanted to peer-driven North American society, traditional cultures succumb. We fail our immigrants because of our own societal failure to preserve the child-parent relationship. In some parts of the country one still sees families, often from Asia, join together in multigenerational groups for outings. Parents, grandparents, and even frail great-grandparents mingle, laugh, and socialize with their children and their children's offspring. Sadly, one sees this only among relatively recent immigrants. As youth become incorporated into North American society, their connections with their elders fade. They distance themselves from their families. Their icons become the artificially created and hypersexualized figures mass-marketed by Hollywood and the U.S. music industry. They rapidly become alienated from the cultures that have sustained their ancestors for generation after generation. As we observe the rapid dissolution of immigrant families under the influence of the peer-oriented society, we witness, as if on fast-forward video, the cultural meltdown we ourselves have suffered in the past half century. It would be encouraging to believe that other parts of the world will successfully resist the trend toward peer orientation. The opposite is likely to be the case as the global economy exerts its corrosive influences on traditional cultures on other continents. Problems of teenage alienation are now widely encountered in countries that have most closely followed upon the American model — Britain, Australia, and Japan. We may predict similar patterns elsewhere to result from economic changes and massive population shifts. For example, stress-related disorders are proliferating among Russian children. According to a report in the New York Times, since the collapse of the Soviet Union a little over a decade ago, nearly a third of Russia's estimated 143 million people — about 45 million — have changed residences. Peer orientation threatens to become one of the least welcome of all American cultural exports.
Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
Now the boy was dead and Sergeant Barris knew he had to call his house to inform his parents. He doubted anyone other than relatives would grieve over a gang banger fresh out of camp but police protocol determined that he call and inform the next of kin, so that’s what he did. Sergeant Barris hated the “touchy feely” activities utilized by the department when a homicide occurred but as Sergeant, he was required to perform them.” From More than A Gangster
The Prophet of Life (A Week's Worth of Fiction 1, People on The Edge: A Storyteller Series Book)
Anglos dominated the prisoner population in 1977 and did not lose their plurality until 1988. Meanwhile, absolute numbers grew across the board—with the total number of those incarcerated approximately doubling during each interval. African American prisoners surpassed all other groups in 1988, but by 1995, they had been overtaken by Latinos; however, Black people have the highest rate of incarceration of any racial/ethnic grouping in California, or, for that matter, in the United States (see also Bonczar and Beck 1997). TABLE 4 CDC PRISONER POPULATION BY RACE/ETHNICITY The structure of new laws, intersecting with the structure of the burgeoning relative surplus population, and the state’s concentrated use of criminal laws in the Southland, produced a remarkable racial and ethnic shift in the prison population. Los Angeles is the primary county of commitment. Most prisoners are modestly educated men in the prime of life: 88 percent are between 19 and 44 years old. Less than 45 percent graduated from high school or read at the ninth-grade level; one in four is functionally illiterate. And, finally, the percentage of prisoners who worked six months or longer for the same employer immediately before being taken into custody has declined, from 54.5 percent in 1982 to 44 percent in 2000 (CDC, Characteristics of Population, various years). TABLE 5 CDC COMMITMENTS BY CONTROLLING OFFENSE (%) At the bottom of the first and subsequent waves of new criminal legislation lurked a key contradiction. On the one hand, the political rhetoric, produced and reproduced in the media, concentrated on the need for laws and prisons to control violence. “Crime” and “violence” seemed to be identical. However, as table 5 shows, there was a significant shift in the controlling (or most serious) offenses for those committed to the CDC, from a preponderance of violent offenses in 1980 to nonviolent crimes in 1995. More to the point, the controlling offenses for more than half of 1995’s commitments were nonviolent crimes of illness or of illegal income producing activity: drug use, drug sales, burglary, motor vehicle theft. The outcome of the first two years of California’s broadly written “three strikes” law presents a similar picture: in the period March 1994–January 1996, 15 percent of controlling offenses were violent crimes, 31 percent were drug offenses, and 41 percent were crimes against property (N = 15,839) (Christoper Davis et al. 1996). The relative surplus population comes into focus in these numbers. In 1996, 43 percent of third-strike prisoners were Black, 32.4 percent Latino, and 24.6 percent Anglo. The deliberate intensification of surveillance and arrest in certain areas, combined with novel crimes of status, drops the weight of these numbers into particular places. The chair of the State Task Force on Youth Gang Violence expressed the overlap between presumptions of violence and the exigencies of everyday reproduction when he wrote: “We are talking about well-organized, drug-dealing, dangerously armed and profit-motivated young hoodlums who are engaged in the vicious crimes of murder, rape, robbery, extortion and kidnapping as a means of making a living” (Philibosian 1986: ix; emphasis added).
Ruth Wilson Gilmore (Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (American Crossroads Book 21))
Further interrogation revealed that the Pires were a gang of Goths who only came out at night and liked to wear fake fangs and drink each other’s blood. I could relate; there wasn’t much good on TV anymore, and kids can get bored in the ‘burbs.
Jeff Strand (Suckers (Jack Daniels and Associates))
Economic growth Stalin style was simple: develop industry by government command and obtain the necessary resources for this by taxing agriculture at very high rates. The communist state did not have an effective tax system, so instead Stalin “collectivized” agriculture. This process entailed the abolition of private property rights to land and the herding of all people in the countryside into giant collective farms run by the Communist Party. This made it much easier for Stalin to grab agricultural output and use it to feed all the people who were building and manning the new factories. The consequences of this for the rural folk were calamitous. The collective farms completely lacked incentives for people to work hard, so production fell sharply. So much of what was produced was extracted that there was not enough to eat. People began to starve to death. In the end, probably six million people died of famine, while hundreds of thousands of others were murdered or banished to Siberia during the forcible collectivization. Neither the newly created industry nor the collectivized farms were economically efficient in the sense that they made the best use of what resources the Soviet Union possessed. It sounds like a recipe for economic disaster and stagnation, if not outright collapse. But the Soviet Union grew rapidly. The reason for this is not difficult to understand. Allowing people to make their own decisions via markets is the best way for a society to efficiently use its resources. When the state or a narrow elite controls all these resources instead, neither the right incentives will be created nor will there be an efficient allocation of the skills and talents of people. But in some instances the productivity of labor and capital may be so much higher in one sector or activity, such as heavy industry in the Soviet Union, that even a top-down process under extractive institutions that allocates resources toward that sector can generate growth. As we saw in chapter 3, extractive institutions in Caribbean islands such as Barbados, Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica could generate relatively high levels of incomes because they allocated resources to the production of sugar, a commodity coveted worldwide. The production of sugar based on gangs of slaves was certainly not “efficient,” and there was no technological change or creative destruction in these societies, but this did not prevent them from achieving some amount of growth under extractive institutions.
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
demanded a birth certificate, relatives’ names and addresses, employment and criminal history for the last ten years, even tax returns. Preparing an undercover identity involved an elaborate operation. Gringo and JD had to create fake records—including school, credit, and work history—that corroborated their fictitious lives.
Charles Falco (Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws: My Infiltration of America's Deadliest Biker Gangs)
Let other people worry about the mafia, or gang-related organized crime. I live in the South. We’ve got Baptists. Their church-women whisper campaigns make J. Edgar Hoover look like an amateur. And anything found in Vogue or, in some cases, Charlottesville, was the lure of the devil and Satan’s snare.
Shannon Hill (Crazy, VA (Lil and Boris, #1))
All over the worldwide news, they interrupt tales of muggings, gang related violence, and grisly murders to break out with stories about a hangnail one of your sanitation engineers received out here on the mean, dangerous streets of Larchmont Manor.
Tiana Laveen (The Fight Within)
On average, around 500,000 people die on the planet every year as a result of intentional violence and homicide. These acts span domestic violence, war, terrorism, infanticide, gang violence, honor killings and state executions. Many of these deaths pass relatively unnoticed while some attract attention.
Chris Rhyss Edwards (Good Reasons to Kill: an Anthology of Morality, Murder & Madness)
The progressives pose as the champions not only of fairness and social justice but also of compassion. They are the ones who insist on our obligation to those from whom we have allegedly stolen. Let’s leave aside for the moment whether they are right about the theft. What we do know for sure is that progressives assert there has been a theft. They further acknowledge that they are among the beneficiaries of it. Based on this, they would seem to have a clear obligation to return the stolen goods that they are currently enjoying. We might expect, from this analysis, to discover that progressives are the most generous people in America. We can anticipate that they contribute the highest portion of their incomes and time to help their wronged and less fortunate fellow men and women. The truth, however, is that progressives are the least generous people in America. I saw this personally with Obama, who unceasingly declares that “we are our brother’s keeper” even as he refuses to help his own half brother, George, who lives in a hut in the Huruma slum of Nairobi. I met George in early 2012 when I interviewed him for my film 2016: Obama’s America. A few months after that, when I was back in America, George called me from Kenya to ask me to give him $1,000 because his baby son was sick. Surprised, I asked him, “Why are you calling me? Isn’t there someone else you can call?” He said, “No.” So I sent him the money. I guess on that occasion it was I, not Obama, who proved to be his brother’s keeper. And besides George, the president has other relatives in dire need—his aunt Hawa Auma, for example, sells charcoal on the roadside in rural Kenya, and desperately needs money to get her rotting teeth fixed. Although Obama is aware of their plight, he refuses to help them.
Dinesh D'Souza (Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me about Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party)
The Dreamer This green glowing night I'm lying right beside you. Demons summon me in my sleep, waterbording me with tyrannical interogations: 'Who are you?' Again, 'Who are you?' asks the gangly inquisitor With the Roswell eyes and Twilight fangs. I am my parent's son, my wife's husband, my children's father. 'Wrong!'' says his chain smoking subordinate with a cleft lip, 'That is a relative answer. We demand the true answer!' 'Who are you?' Again, 'Who are you?' Exhausted, I yell, 'I am the dreamer.' The demons walk backwards, disappearing into smoke. I wake with a start. My woman sleeps beside me, oblivious to my torture. She seems more beautiful than ever. I ask myself, 'Who are you?' Again, 'Who are you?' For if I am the dreamer, you too, my dearest love, are the dream.
Beryl Dov
This is one untold story of an extremely rare adventure that happened in the world of Minecraft. It is well documented in the “Top secret archived records of Minecraft”, also known as “X-Files”. They are not accessible to anyone. This adventure is known as “The Battle of Legends”. It’s one of the greatest adventures in the world of Minecraft. The world of Minecraft exists in a multi-verse. That means that many universes co-exist at the same point of time and at same place without disturbing each other. In other words, there are alternative timelines or parallel worlds existing simultaneously. A person can exist in many different universes at the same point of time. In some universes he may be a king or hero, whereas in some he may be a villain. This story relates to two alternative timelines existing simultaneously in the World of Minecraft. One timeline was of “Gang of Ninjas” and other was of “Minecraft Agent”. Many centuries ago, Dark Lord who is the supreme Master of dark energy, lost its most powerful warrior “Vertigo”. That creature was so powerful that it had power to destroy 10 galaxies. He was blowing up galaxy after galaxy, clearing the way for dark lord to take over the universe and become its unrivalled Master. “The secret society of brotherhood”, who were the guardians of the universe were afraid as to what might this monster do if he is not tamed or captured. They used to remain tensed and think about how to get rid of this monster. No plan seemed to work on that monster.
Alex Anderson (Minecraft: Battle of Legends Book 1 (An Unofficial Minecraft Book))
Some anti-2A advocates (who simultaneously lecture people of faith) themselves have faith that firearms are magical creatures who discriminately creep around wealthy white schools and neighborhoods to shoot up people. When this happens in places like Chicago or Detroit it’s called “gangs” or “drug-related violence,” but everywhere else it’s called “an epidemic” of inanimate objects causing destruction.
Dana Loesch (Hands Off My Gun: Defeating the Plot to Disarm America)
And any domesticated primate alpha male, however cruel or crooked, can rally the primate tribe behind him by howling that a rival alpha male is about to lead his gang in an attack on this habitat. These two mammalian reflexes are known, respectively, as Religion and Patriotism. They work for domesticated primates, as for the wild primates, because they are Evolutionary Relative Successes. (So far.)
Robert Anton Wilson (Prometheus Rising)
Frederick Douglass spent some of his bondage working as a ship caulker in Baltimore and, like many others, deceived his enslaver about how much he was actually making, thus secreting funds for his escape. Many of these workers lived miles distant from their enslavers- indeed, it is precisely these urban communities of relatively independent Black people that would lead to the earliest development of police departments, as gangs of slave catchers evolved into formalized slave patrols designed to keep these "slave quarters" under surveillance and control.
Vicky Osterweil (In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action)
Ifness pursed his lips judiciously. “All folk, mercantilists as well as tavern-keepers and musicians, try to relate their work to abstract universals. We mercantilists are highly sensitive to theft, which stabs at our very essence. To steal is to acquire goods by a simple, informal and inexpensive process. To buy identical goods is tedious, irksome and costly. Is it any wonder that larceny is popular? Nonetheless it voids the mercantilist’s reasons for being alive; we regard thieves with the same abhorrence that musicians might feel for a fanatic gang which beat bells and gongs whenever musicians played.” Frolitz stifled an ejaculation. Ifness tasted the mug of green cider which Loy had set before him. “To repeat: when a thief steals property he steals life. For a mercantilist I am tolerant of human weakness, and I would not react vigorously to the theft of a day. I would resent the theft of a week; I would kill the thief who stole a year of my life.” Jack Vance. The Anome (Durdane Book 1)
Jack Vance (The Anome (Durdane, #1))
replied, and thought of Cathy Jones. “Touch that door handle, and I’ll let go,” she’d said, whilst balancing herself on the extreme edge of a chair, her fingers tucked beneath a noose she’d fashioned from torn bedsheets. It had taken ninety minutes to talk her out of it, he recalled, and when he’d finally left the room, he’d vomited until there was nothing but acid left in his stomach. Acid, and the burning shame of knowing that a part of him had wanted her to die. Even while he’d talked her out of it, employing every trick he knew to keep her alive, the deepest, darkest part of his heart had hoped his efforts would fail. Connor watched some indefinable emotion pass across Gregory’s face, and decided not to press it. “Briefing’s about to start,” he said, and left to join his brother at the front of the room. Casting his eye around, Gregory could see officers from all tiers of the Garda hierarchy, as well as various people he guessed were support staff or members of the forensics team. At the last minute, an attractive, statuesque woman with a sleek blonde bob flashed her warrant card and slipped into the back of the room. Precautions had been taken to ensure no errant reporters found their way inside, and all personnel were required to show their badge before the doors were closed. Niall clapped his hands and waited while conversation died down. “I want to thank you all for turning out,” he said. “It’s a hell of a way to spend your weekend.” There were a few murmurs of assent. “You’re here because there’s a killer amongst us,” he said. “Worse than anything we’ve seen in a good long while—not just here, but in the whole of Ireland. There’s no political or gang-related motivation that we’ve found, nor does there seem to be a sexual motivation, but we can’t be sure on either count because the killer leaves nothing of themselves behind. No blood, no fingerprints, no DNA that we’ve been able to use.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “Contrary to what the press have started calling him, the ‘Butcher’ isn’t really a butcher at all. It’s our view that the murders of Claire Kelly and her unborn child, and of Aideen McArdle were perpetrated by the same person. It’s also our view that this person planned the murders, probably weeks or months in advance, and executed their plans with precision. There was little or no blood found, either at the scene or on the victims’ bodies, which were cleaned with a careful eye for detail after the killer dealt one immobilising blow to the head, followed by a single knife wound to the heart. These were no frenzy attacks, they were premeditated crimes.” One of the officers raised a hand. “Is there any connection between the victims?” she asked. “Aside from being resident in the same town, where they were casual acquaintances but shared no immediate family or friends, they were both female, both married homemakers and both mothers.” “Have you ruled out a copycat?” another one asked, and Niall
L.J. Ross (Impostor (Alexander Gregory Thrillers, #1))
I will do so.” The captain still sounded polite, but Jackson could tell he was angry about having his integrity questioned. They were a gang of thieves, but honest ones. Relatively.
Larry Correia (Gun Runner)
I ended up joining the gang because my family was part of it. And, because of what I’d been through, I felt like I could relate to the gang. With them, I had camaraderie and people who made me feel like they cared about me.
Lorenzo Louden (A Soldier's Redemption: Life of a Gangster (Shorty G))
Already embittered at being separated from loved ones, slaves on the frontier grew 'mean.' Planters, eager to get on with the work at hand, often countered the slaves' discontent by pressing them with greater force, only to find that slaves called their bet and then raised the stakes, resisting with still greater force. As the struggle escalated, planters discovered that even their best hands became unmanageable. One planter noted that his previously compliant slaves evinced 'a general disregard (with a few exceptions) of orders . . . and an unwillingness to be pressed hard at work.' In the face of festering anger, planters struggled to sustain the old order. Drawing on lessons of mastership that had been nearly two hundred years in the making on the North American mainland, planters instituted a familiar regime: they employed force freely and often; created invidious divisions among the slaves; and exacted exemplary punishments for the smallest infraction. If they sometimes extended the carrot of privilege, the stick was never far behind. The results were violent and bloody, as slave masters made it clear that slaves, by definition, had no rights they need respect. The plantation did not just happen; it had to be made to happen. Planter authority did not transplant easily. Relations between masters and slaves teetered toward anarchy on the cotton frontier. In some places, negotiations between owners and owned became little more than hard words and angry threats. Rumors of rebellion seemed to be everywhere. 'Scarcely a day passes,' observed Mississippi's territorial governor in 1812, 'without my receiving some information relative to the designs of those people to insurrect.' While few rebelled, some joined gangs of bandits and outlaws who resided in the middle ground between the westward-moving planters and the retreating Indians. On the plantations, slave masters saw sabotage everywhere - in broken tools, maimed animals, and burned barns. Slaves regularly took flight to the woods, and a few, eager to regain the world they had lost, tried to retrace their steps to Virginia or the Carolinas. It was a doubtful enterprise, and success was rare. Recaptured, they faced an even grimmer reality than before.
Ira Berlin (Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves)
Let us ask the parents in any county throughout this land, and see what they will generally say. Who in their families give them the most pain and trouble? Who need the most watchfulness, and most often provoke and disappoint them? Who are the first to be led away from what is right, and the last to remember cautions and good advice? Who are the most difficult to keep in order and limits? Who most frequently break out into open sin, disgrace the name they bear, make their friends unhappy, embitter the older relatives, and cause them to die with sorrow in their hearts? Depend on it, the answer will generally be, "The Young Men." Let us ask the judges and police officers, and note what they will reply. Who goes to the night clubs and bars the most? Who make up street gangs? Who are most often arrested for drunkenness, disturbing the peace, fighting, stealing, assaults, and the like? Who fill the jails, and penitentiaries, and detention homes? Who are the class which requires the most incessant watching and looking after? Depend on it, they will at once point to the same group, they will say, "The Young Men.
J.C. Ryle (Thoughts for Young Men)
Whenever I attempt to understand the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Intelligence and the civilian Intelligence Bureau, whose purpose is to collect crucial information on the security of the state, I am left with biting questions about their true roles in internal and external matters. It is a fact that such countries as India and Pakistan have always suffered from a lack of limits on the role of their intelligence agencies and respect for international law and human rights, including the privacy of individuals within the concept and context of global peace and fundamental freedoms. The ISI, driven by the Pakistan Armed Forces, ignores the supreme constitutional role and rule of a democratic head of state, under which even the Armed Forces themselves fall. This is not only a violation of the constitution but also a rejection of the civilian leadership. This can be interpreted as Pakistan is a country where the servant rules its leader and patron. It is this bitter reality that leads toward the collapse of all systems of society, which the Pakistani nation has faced since the first introduction of martial law by General Ayub Khan in 1958, and such conduct has continued to exist ever since, whether visibly or invisibly. One cannot ignore, avoid, or deny that Pakistan has maintained its physical independence for more than 7 decades. However, its real freedom as conceptualized upon the nation’s creation has been only a dream and abused by its so-called defenders and its power-mongers. Unfortunately, such figures control the ISI and lead it in the wrong direction, beyond the constitutional limits of its power. Consequently, the ISI plays the role of a gang that disrupts the stability of the main political parties and promotes tiny, unpopular parties to gain power for itself. There is thus no doubt that the ISI has failed in its responsibility to support constitutional rule and to secure and defend the state and its people. The failure of the democratic system in the country, directly or indirectly, reflects the harassment practiced by both intelligence agencies without proof or legal process, even interfering with other institutions. The consequences are the collapse of the justice system and the imposition of foreign policies that damage international relationships. The result is a lack of trust in these agencies and their isolation. In a civilized century, it is a tragedy that one dares not express one’s feelings that may abuse God, prophets, or sacred figures. But more than that, one cannot speak a word against the wrongdoing of a handful of army generals or ISI officials. In Pakistan, veteran journalists, top judges, and other key figures draw breath under the spying eyes of the ISI; even higher and minister-level personalities are the victims of such conduct. One has to live in such surroundings. Pakistan needs a major cleanup and reorganization of the present awkward role of the ISI for the sake of international relations, standards, and peace, including the privacy of individuals and respect for the notable figures of society, according to the law.
Ehsan Sehgal
So why does American health care cost so much? The main reason is that the person receiving the service is not the one paying for the service. Imagine if you could go to Safeway or Giant, fill your cart with food, and then have someone else pay for it. Obviously you would get all kinds of stuff you don’t really need. Obviously the food chain would charge whatever it felt like, and you wouldn’t care, because you would not be the one paying. Now imagine further that the third party paying for the food was itself relatively indifferent to what it was charged. It raised its money through premiums paid for by millions of customers, and it could simply pass the cost to those customers in the form of higher premiums. This would be a scenario virtually set up to ensure runaway food costs. We don’t have it for food, but we do have it for health care.
Dinesh D'Souza (Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me about Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party)
It is time to consider the seriousness of our situation. America has been governed by a highly skilled con artist for the past seven years. Another con artist, perhaps even more adept, is waiting to take his place. This is truly historic. We think we made history by electing the first African American president, and we’re going to hear a lot about making history by electing the first woman. Despite all the hoopla, those are relative trivialities. What really matters is that never before in history has America had a con artist as its chief executive and commander in chief. And we may be getting ready to anoint another in immediate succession. One is bad enough; two con artists in a row may be our undoing.
Dinesh D'Souza (Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me about Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party)
Rather than treat nonwhites as complex persons, the media often reduce minorities to walking stereotypes: rapists, gang members, maids, terrorists, and so forth. White characters, though all too often also flat, nevertheless are typically the only ones allowed to blossom into multifaceted personalities, persons who respond to and also change their relations with others and, on occasion, alter their environment. As a result, media consumers learn to see nonwhites only as racial archetypes, while simultaneously being reminded that whites are unique individuals shaped by and in turn capable of shaping the world around them.
Ian F. Haney-López (Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class)
So how do my election law offenses compare to those of leading progressives? Well, let’s see. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took $31,000 in late 2013 from his campaign funds to buy jewelry for his granddaughter Ryan Elisabeth Reid’s wedding. In his campaign year-end report, Reid tried to hide his granddaughter’s relationship to him by simply listing the transaction as a “holiday gift” to one “Ryan Elisabeth.” The impression Reid sought to convey was that he was buying gifts for his supporters. When it came to light that Reid had funneled campaign money to his granddaughter, Reid agreed to repay the money, but waxed indignant at continuing questions from reporters. “As a grandparent,” he fumed, “I say enough is enough.” Although Reid’s case involves obvious corruption, the Obama administration has neither investigated nor prosecuted a case against this stalwart Obama ally.6 Bill Clinton, you may recall, had his own campaign finance controversy. Following the 1996 election, the Democratic National Committee was forced to return $2.8 million in illegal and improper donations, most of it from foreign sources. Most of that money was raised by a shady Clinton fundraiser named John Huang. Huang, who used to work for the Lippo Group, an Indonesian conglomerate, set up a fundraising scheme for foreign businessmen seeking special favors from the U.S. government to meet with Clinton, in exchange for large sums of money. A South Korean businessman had dinner with President Clinton in return for a $250,000 donation. Yogesh Gandhi, an Indian businessman who claimed to be related to Mahatma Gandhi, arranged to meet Clinton in the White House and be photographed receiving an award in exchange for a $325,000 contribution. Both donations were returned, but again, no official investigation, no prosecutions.7
Dinesh D'Souza (Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me about Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party)
Only the Army conducts an annual assessment, and they appear to do relatively little to analyze the problem, contributions to the problem, and potential solutions.
Carter F. Smith (Gangs and the Military: Gangsters, Bikers, and Terrorists with Military Training)
The Japanese have an expression for human relations that are sticky with the mutual obligations and dependencies of the collective life. They use the English word “wet.” Traditional Japanese family relations are “wet.” Yakuza gangs are “wet.” Behavior that is more detached, more individualistic, often associated with a Western way of life, is “dry.” Terayama Shuji was “dry.” Kara was most definitely “wet.
Ian Buruma (A Tokyo Romance: A Memoir)
Sadly, part of what Guinier and other parents must prepare their Black sons for is the prospect, and even the probability, that the group he is most likely to experience conflict and hostility with is not the police or the Ku Klux Klan but other Black males. For reasons that can never be fully explained, Black males kill and harm one another at a rate that far exceeds any other segment of the American population (Bell and Jenkins, 1990; Earls, 1994). The alarming homicide rates among young Black males is one of the major factors that has led to Black males being the only segment of the U.S. population with a declining life expectancy (Earls, 1994). Gangs, drug dealing, and the availability of guns are certainly contributing factors, but there is more going on related to the phenomenon of violence among and between Black males that defies easy explanation.
Pedro A. Noguera (The Trouble With Black Boys: ...And Other Reflections on Race, Equity, and the Future of Public Education)
Some blacks have carved out profitable niches for themselves as racial shakedown artists. For more than ten years, Mustafa Majeed of New York City has made a business of extorting money from moviemakers. When directors try to film a scene outdoors, Mr. Majeed shows up with a gang and demands that more blacks be hired for the crew. If he is refused, Mr. Majeed’s recruits blow whistles and shoot off flashbulbs, making it impossible to film. Mr. Majeed appears to be happy to accept money rather than more black employees. In 1991 he reportedly told film director Woody Allen that in return for $100,000 he would leave Mr. Allen’s sets alone. Other filmmakers have hired private security guards to keep Mr. Majeed away. Mr. Majeed is the head of the Communications Industry Skills Center, an organization that is supposed to train blacks for jobs in the entertainment field. Until April 1990 it was financed by the city of New York.740
Jared Taylor (Paved With Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America)
Realizing his ill manners, Thomas bowed at the waist, his eyes never leaving hers. “My name is Thomas Watson.” She made a shy curtsy, but said nothing. Would she not offer her name? His pulse quickened. Etiquette prohibited strangers from being introduced without a third party. But he was desperate, and in a desperate moment such manners were obsolete. “And will you be so kind as to tell me your name?” Her face flushed with color, adding to the pink that already decorated her skin. “My name is Eliza Campbell.” Thomas stepped back and straightened. “You wouldn’t happen to be related to the late Dr. Robert Campbell, would you?” A shadow of grief darkened her gentle features. “Aye. He was my Father.” The air in his lungs evaporated and all words escaped him. This magnificent woman was one of Robert’s daughters. Somehow he’d figured the Campbell girls would be young and gangly. Eliza was anything but that. Her
Amber Lynn Perry (So Fair a Lady (Daughters of His Kingdom, #1))
We have also an Indian legend which relates that a courtesan named Bindumati, turned back the streams of the river Ganges. [56:5] We see then, that the idea of seas and rivers being divided for the purpose of letting some chosen one of God pass through is an old one peculiar to other peoples beside the Hebrews, and the probability is that many nations had legends of this kind.
Thomas William Doane (Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Being a Comparison of the Old and New Testament Myths and Miracles with those of the Heathen Nations ... Considering also their Origin and Meaning)
Alex whispers, “There’s a thin line between love and hate. Maybe you’re confusing your emotions.” I scoot away from him. “I wouldn’t bet on it.” “I would.” Alex’s gaze turns toward the door to the classroom. Through the window, his friend is waving to him. They’re probably going to ditch class. Alex grabs his books and stands. Mrs. Peterson turns around. “Alex, sit down.” “I got to piss.” The teacher’s eyebrows furrow and her hand goes to her hip. “Watch your language. And the last time I checked, you don’t need your books in order to go to the restroom. Put them back on the lab table.” Alex’s lips are tight, but he places the books back on the table. “I told you no gang-related items in my class,” Mrs. Peterson says, staring at the bandanna he’s holding in front of him. She holds out her hand. “Hand it over.” He glances at the door, then faces Mrs. Peterson. “What if I refuse?” “Alex, don’t test me. Zero tolerance. You want a suspension?” She wiggles her fingers, signaling to hand the bandana over immediately or else. Scowling, he slowly places the bandana in her hand. Mrs. Peterson sucks in her breath when she snatches the bandanna from his fingers. I screech, “Ohmygod!” at the sight of the big stain on his crotch. The students, one by one, start laughing. Colin laughs the loudest. “Don’t sweat it, Fuentes. My great-grandma has the same problem. Nothing a diaper won’t fix.” Now that hits home because at the mention of adult diapers, I immediately think of my sister. Making fun of adults who can’t help themselves isn’t funny because Shelley is one of those people. Alex sports a big, cocky grin and says to Colin, “Your girlfriend couldn’t keep her hands out of my pants. She was showin’ me a whole new definition of hand warmers, compa.” This time he’s gone too far. I stand up, my stool scraping the floor. “You wish,” I say. Alex is about to say something to me when Mrs. Peterson yells, “Alex!” She clears her throat. “Go to the nurse and…fix yourself. Take your books, because afterward you’ll be seeing Dr. Aguirre. I’ll meet you in his office with your friends Colin and Brittany.” Alex swipes his books off the table and exits the classroom while I ease back onto my stool. While Mrs. Peterson is trying to calm the rest of the class, I think about my short-lived success in avoiding Carmen Sanchez. If she thinks I’m a threat to her relationship with Alex, the rumors that are sure to spread today could prove deadly.
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
The old and infirm who come near to death, and those entangled in a severe sickness, who fear to linger to the end of their days, and through disgust wish to escape the troubles of life, or those who desire release from the trifling affairs of the world and its concerns, these after receiving a farewell meal at the hands of their relatives or friends, they place, amid the sounds of music, on a boat which they propel into the midst of the Ganges, where such persons drown themselves. They think thus to secure a birth among the Devas. Rarely one of these may be seen not yet dead on the borders (of the river).
Sandhya Jain (The India They Saw (Volume 1))
Nothing but total capitulation by the Sandinistas would suffice for Reagan. Thus, as the ICJ related, revolutionary leader and then Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega made it clear that he would give in to all of Reagan’s stated demands (i.e., that he would send home the Cuban and Russians advisers and not support the FMLN guerillas in El Salvador) in return for only “one thing: that they don’t attack us, that the United States stop arming and financing … the gangs that kill our people, burn our crops and force us to divert enormous human and economic resources into war when we desperately need them for development.”10 But Reagan would not relent until the Sandinistas and Ortega were out of power altogether. Ultimately, Reagan’s terror campaign would work, with the Nicaraguan people finally crying uncle in 1990, and voting the Sandinistas out of power. The Sandinistas would be voted back in, however, in 2007, and they remain the governing party to this day, with Daniel Ortega as president. Meanwhile, the United States continues to punish Nicaragua, the most stable and prosperous country in Central America after successfully breaking off from US domination, for its impertinence in overthrowing the Somoza dictatorship, having the audacity to survive the Contra War which claimed fifty thousand lives, voting back in the Sandinistas, and for now working with the Chinese to build the canal that the United States has coveted for so long. Thus, as I write these lines, the US Senate is considering passage of the “Nica Act,” already passed by the House, which would cut Nicaragua off from multilateral loans (e.g., from the World Bank, IMF). This, apparently, will show Nicaragua and other countries what they get for deciding to go their own way.
Dan Kovalik (The Plot to Attack Iran: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Iran)
In the summer of 1966, Seale was hired to run a youth work program at the North Oakland Neighborhood Anti-Poverty Center funded by the federal War on Poverty. Through his role as a social service provider, he came to understand even more clearly the economic and social needs of black youth. Beyond delivering services, Bobby brought his revolutionary nationalist theory to the job and used the opportunity to push up against the ideological bias in the government program. Rather than merely guiding young blacks into a government-prescribed path, he used his authority to help them stand up against oppressive authority, particularly against police brutality. One day Seale’s boss instructed him to take a group of young black men and women on a tour of the local police station. When the group arrived, the police officers pulled out notepads and pencils and started to interview the teenagers about the character of gangs in the neighborhood. Seale protested, instructing his group to remain silent and announcing that his program would not be used as a spy network to inform on people in the community. The officers claimed that they simply wanted to foster better relations with the community. In response, Seale turned the conversation around, creating an opportunity for the teenagers to describe their experiences with police brutality in the neighborhood. It was the first time the young people had had the opportunity to look white police officers in the eye and express their anger and frustration. One teenager berated the police for an incident in which several officers had thrown a woman down and beaten her in the head with billy clubs. “Say you!” said a sixteen-year-old girl, pointing at a policeman. “You don’t have to treat him like that,” Seale said to the girl. “I’ll treat him like I want to, because they done treated me so bad,” she replied. Bobby sat back as the girl grilled the officer about whether he had received proper psychiatric treatment. The officer turned red and started to shake. “The way you’re shaking now,” she said, “the way you’re shaking now and carrying on, you must be guilty of a whole lot! And I haven’t got no weapon or nothin.’”69 The poverty program provided a paycheck, some skills, and an opportunity to work with young people. But Newton and Seale were still searching for a way to galvanize the rage of the “brothers on the block.” They wanted to mobilize the ghetto the way that the Civil Rights Movement had mobilized blacks in the South. They dreamt of creating an unstoppable force that would transform the urban landscape forever. The problem was now clear to Huey and Bobby, but they did not yet have a solution. Huey and Bobby were not the only ones looking for answers.
Joshua Bloom (Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party (The George Gund Foundation Imprint in African American Studies))
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Law Offices of Evan E. Zelig, P.C.
Chinese companies have been smuggling pill presses illegally into the United States, mislabeling them as machine tools or other items or sending them disassembled to avoid detection.69 The destination is drug dealers and criminal gangs70 for the “mass production” of street drugs.71 Now Chinese companies send large quantities of pill presses to Mexico, too, including the metal cast dies to imprint pills with counterfeit numbers such as “M523” and “10/352,” which are the markings of real oxycodone pills. In other words, these Chinese companies are helping dealers produce counterfeit and illegal street drugs.72 In April 2020, the DOJ sent out an alert to law enforcement agencies with a blunt headline: “Chinese Pill Presses Are Key Components for Illegally Manufactured Fentanyl.” In the document, which was obtained by the author, the DOJ noted the “relatively moderate pricing” of $1,000 per pill press—essentially at cost. Why are Chinese companies not charging a huge markup to sell the pill presses to the drug cartels? The DOJ also noted that the “ambiguous export regulations in China allow traffickers to use vague manifest descriptions to describe pill press machines to avoid scrutiny from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel.”73 Chinese pill press manufacturers are required by US law to alert the DEA when they ship pill presses to the United States so federal authorities can track those who might be illegally producing drugs.
Peter Schweizer (Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans)
The Women’s Freedom Society began in a very proper, intellectual way in 1906, holding lectures and discussions on issues involving women’s rights. To avoid attracting crowds of single men to its public gatherings of women, the society’s leaders imposed a rule: no single men would be admitted unless accompanied by a female relative. But one of the single men turned away at the door complained to his cleric, and this cleric denounced the Women’s Freedom Society as an anti-social conspiracy. Next, gangs of angry men broke in, fighting for their rights and disrupting the lectures until the society disbanded.
Zhinia Noorian (Mother Persia: Women in Iran's History)