My only question: why is it when brown people come together and take some kind of action to help themselves when the state has failed them, they are “gangs?” White people who do this are called “mavericks” and “pioneers” and “elite club members.” Anyway, this is totally cool. Out of a fucking shack in a ditch, people. Amazing.

Under a scorching summer sun, a swarm of 400 furious women engulfed the scruffy electricity office of Banda district in north India. They were all dressed identically in fluorescent pink saris. For more than a fortnight they and their families had had no electricity, plunged into darkness at dusk and stewed in sweat at dawn. But they had all been sent bills demanding payment for power they had never received.

It was at noon one day last May that the group, brandishing sticks, first surrounded and then charged into the office, punching the air and shouting slogans of solidarity. They wanted to confront the officer in charge but met instead his cowering juniors, at whom they bawled to telephone the boss. When the man refused to come to the office, the women became incensed. They snatched the office key, roughed up the terrified staff and, after herding them outside, locked the door and ran away, vowing to return the key only when they had electricity again.  Read more 

This fascinates, and scares me. I’m not kidding when I say I expect many of these kids to end up enforcers for the state someday. Nor do I believe that the particular peculiarities of this “gang” came solely from teen brains. Get to know Straight Edge:

You wouldn’t expect a splinter faction of teens that rejects alcohol, tobacco, drugs or promiscuous sex to be an active criminal street gang, but in Washoe County that’s exactly what’s happening, authorities say.
In March — following a six-month investigation — Straight Edge was officially classified a gang by the Regional Gang Unit. Nearly every week, gang officers investigate Straight Edge crimes or harassment that doesn’t seem to subside following arrests.
Authorities describe Straight Edge attacks as random, opportunistic, violent beatings that can be spurred by minor comments from nonmembers. Members — who sometimes use bats, shovels, knives, brass knuckles and Mace — don’t engage in violence unless they can outnumber their targets, police said.  Read more 

This may not mean much to you now. But this is the tip of the iceberg. On the other side of the big park just across from Cottage grove, Englewood is one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country, with 43% of the population living below the poverty line, and the stronghold of two of the nations most powerful gangs. It is also one of the major thoroughfares of the city of Chicago and was once one of the richest neighborhoods in the city. Troutman has presided over the continued destruction of Englewood managing it like a Nigerian dictator. And she just got busted.

Troutman was arrested for allegedly accepting a $5,000 cash bribe, with the understanding she would receive an additional $10,000 and other benefits, in exchange for supporting a purported private developer.  Read more 

Most people, particularly those in the Blogosphere, don’t know or don’t care to know – it’s about to be on. Compton is about to look like Rio; Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Long Beach, Detroit – all those deeply impoverished areas, urban and rural; black, brown, yellow and white, are about to explode. France, Rio, Mexico. This is here in America, all the immigrants from America’s proxy wars in Latin America, the veterans of the drug war, they are all here getting hungrier by the day.  Read more