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What's the deal with biker gangs?
Hunter S. Thompson followed a biker gang called the Hell's Angels. He wrote a book about his experience and the Angels became the most famous biker club/gang/organization in the world. The romanticization of biker gangs traveled far thanks to the interwoven cross-section of 1960s counterculture that helped popularize it. Groups of American ruffians on two-wheeled transport, sexual revolutionaries, and psychedelic entrepreneurs found commonality in their love of drugs and rebellion to the Man.
It's obligatory to mention that one time in 1969 where the Rolling Stones chose to hire America's most famous biker gang to provide security for a concert with 300,000 attendees. Things went about as well as one might expect. The ignominy of Altamont is sometimes framed as the end of an era. Bay Area hippies played a part in elevating their preferred drug traffickers and bad boy cousin heavies to legendary Americana status-- on par with other household outlaw names.
A romanticized, rugged individualist archetype is a favorite of Americans. If you tack on criminal then, baby, you got a stew goin'. The outlaw who plays by their own rules is not welcome in our towns, they are certainly not welcome around our daughters, but Americans undeniably welcome their stories into our imaginations. Media of the 21st century carries on the tale which, yes, includes dangerous, criminal elements, but also includes loyalty, faith, patriotism.
These are red blooded, freedom loving types of criminals. This is the organized crime profile of the Red Tribe. Someone probably once wondered why the swarthy ethnic criminals get to rent space in American heads -- Mexicans, Italians, even the Jews got their own -- before deciding it was only right that the white, protestant Middle America should collect rent too. Respectable New England derived stock would never have allowed us to entertain a criminal mythos. It was the pioneers, ruffians, and rebels who helped shape the story of the American outlaw, and probably created it. These are the progeny of the Borderers, the trailblazers, underclass, and bushwhackers found far away from refined cosmopolitanism of Yankees.
If you want to talk about biker culture and its intersectional qualities I invite it. I found another
intersectionreason to flesh out this idle thought last week. All roads lead to Gaza.GHF would be the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that popped up to distribute food aid this year. The organization itself was established in February in anticipation of Israel relieving its own embargo to manage food distribution. In May, only weeks after the program got off the ground, the founding GHF director quit. This was reported as a protest exit. The man himself said he quit as a duty to "strictly [adhere] to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence." This was, well, hmm interesting. As far as I know he never went so far to say, "Israel and the spooks took over," but that'd be one interpretation.
Charities dislike the GHF. The UN dislikes the GHF. The only entities that appear to support the GHF are Israel, the US State Department which throws some cash at it, and a number of evangelical Christian charities. Which is about about where the lines are drawn on more general opinion on Israel and its conflicts. Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, said private donations helped as well:
What do biker gangs and food distribution in Gaza have in common?
Reportedly there happens to be an American style biker
gangsocial club operating out of Gaza right now. In the spirit Ukraine's AzovBattalionBrigade the BBC reported a story, constructed a story, or both: Anti-Islamic US biker gang members run security at deadly Gaza aid sites.Towards the end of the article the BBC expands its claims up to 40 -- out of 320 total -- security contractors from the Infidels Motorcycle Club (IMC) based on an unnamed source. IMC has a website. They present themselves as GWOT veterans who "reject the radical jihadist movement that threatens liberty and freedom around the world. The Infidels MC will support the fight against terrorism as military members, contractors in support of the military, and as patriotic Americans supporting our fighting forces from the homeland." Wayback machine confirms the group's roots online go as far back as 2008 when they wrote:
The company which recruits the security contractors still has openings for the role. I don't think I am recruiting for a cause, though if anyone does go to Gaza I would be most interested in reading your experience.
I expect there are a number of selection effects that shape the pipeline for Gazan breadline security. The compensation, as I understand, is competitive (~1000 USD/day) but not extraordinarily generous for a you may die, become a news story, or become a war criminal war zone. Even if salary was high enough to attract the most talented professionals, those who want a steady, high paying role might stick with relatively secure jobs on merchant shipping and corporate jobs at home or in the field. The more charity friendly contractors could already work for UN affiliated NGOs in more respectable organizations-- roles unassociated with a barrage of weekly accusations of massacres. The more mercenary, thrill seeking contractors looking to "Get some!" are perhaps more likely far away from a thousand prying media eyes in the middle of Africa. These are merely guesses.
The GHF adjacent (associated or blamed maybe) massacres are reported with some regularity. I personally remain agnostic to specific reports of "hundreds reported killed near aid distribution sites in Gaza." It is a callous position, but given so many interests do not care for the GHF, Israel, or America I have high confidence any damning videos will find little resistance surfacing. So far I am not aware of any that might suggest hundreds are being massacred while waiting for food. I extend the same courtesy to the GHF as well. One instance I recalled from this Summer was a report of Hamas members who allegedly "threw grenades" and injured GHF staff at a distribution site. It is possible Hamas militants did attack GHF staff and charity staff with grenades, although the journalists found and shared a different kind of testimony. That testimony built a picture of armed contractors throwing stun grenades to disperse a pugilistic crowd and 'aid seekers' throwing the stun grenades right back. That all sounds very plausible.
It would be nice to have journalists I could more-or-less trust with access to report on the ground, but we only have "Gen Z Republican influencers" invited by Israel. They don't buy a lot of purchase with me, although some are not wholly discredited.
BBC's reporting does succeed in persuading me to move a peg towards unprofessional shitshow on the Genocide Scale. Hiring members of a social club who idealize themselves as Christian warriors on a crusade would be low on my list. That is if I had the option to prioritize professionals able to run a tight ship in a contested war zone and controversial mission. If one did want to build a group to shoot civilians, or ignore cases of it, then ideological and righteous reasons to keep their mouths shut about crimes would be convenient. For whatever reason, the GHF hired up to a few 1095 fans to carry out their mission. Ukraine has great use for fanaticism and is no position to purge radicals, but the GHF shouldn't share this need. Chicano gangbangers exist in the US Army, but Chicano gangbangers don't make up 12% of its forces. I'm not saying that Crusader Kings enjoyers can't execute a clean charity mission, but...
When I wrote this, there was a brief press push around the story, but since then not much more.
I could believe that the BBC would write this story no matter if their investigation found 100 or 1 contractors with "crusade" mentions. Reckoning with ones faith in a far and distant land is a thing. Finding people with the same experiences to form a social club is a thing. At best, there's a performative aspect that gets all the blame. These fellas volunteered for a charity mission, are getting paid for it, and the Pope has not issued a decree.
On a practical level biker gangs, like many gangs, actually exist less from the financial angle (though that helps) but from (often violent but not always) kids from broken families getting caught up in a group that fills most of the needs a family would normally fill. Brotherhood, purpose, importance, outlets for anger, structure, exhilaration at breaking the rules, all that. It's a fake family in the ways that count, of course, but much like pets filling child-sized holes, it works pretty well overall - that's why it exists.
I agree the GHF seems to exist also to fill a need. The need here is someone else to take blame and occasionally do gruntwork. Yes, useful stooges, though Israel isn't the only one who likes a GHF-like entity so I would be cautious in assuming Israel is the only one propping them up. I wouldn't be surprised even if some enemies of Israel also support them for some reason or another.
I'm pretty sure the GHF has been hollowed out as the more legit people have left. I remember hearing I think this story a month and a half ago where you can start to see not only some pretty outright deception by some level of GHF leadership but also the more good guys get disillusioned and leave, with more callous people left. I should pause here and note that the job given to them is actually terrible. Holding mobs at bay while distributing food is genuinely dangerous. But unlike the military, it appears that there are effectively very few actual rules of engagement. Personally, again, I feel like this is the point, GHF again is there to take the blame and do the dirty work when it's convenient for them to do so. I think the violence exists, probably not massacre level, but people are definitely being killed when seeking aid for bad reasons. The scale is unclear. Personally I think it's bigger than you think, but it's not a great news environment to say the least.
Back to the point you make, I think it's something like a bunch of people go over and those with a conscience often go back soon, or fall into the morally compromised soldier position that happens in basically every war. So it works as a distillery for the cruel or callous. It's absolutely a shit job that few want to do. There are only so many places you can find semi-lawless violence-prone people in need of a job in America. The cartels certainly aren't going to let their people go and do it. So biker gangs is actually a great and logical fit and that surprises me precisely not at all. The other group would be financially distressed former soldiers of course, but motivation to go to yet another war-torn middle eastern country with a hostile local population has got to be... well... yeah, relatively low, though I imagine nonetheless they still fill out a good portion of the manpower.
Now again as I will say every time when it comes to Israel: Israel should be the one taking on all of this themselves. They directly created this cratered, destroyed, lawless zone with arbitrary and changing rules for civilians and a crippling need to import virtually all of its food, and need to take responsibility for it - direct responsibility for it. They don't probably because they have a borderline genocidal apathy towards gazans. I'm sympathetic, really I am, but apathy isn't a full moral cover.
On one end is La Cosa Nostra. The mafia has all the usual organized crime traits including a shared ethnic identity and occultist rituals. Unlike, for example, Salvadoran gangs the mob was regularly motivated by business interests more than common thuggery. Matt Lakeman has a great blog post on El Salvador which includes a chunk on the history of its gangs. Technically Salvadoran gangs made money like the American mob or any other organized crime outfit. They provided a living for members primarily by extorting impoverished people. Even accounting for the poverty, Lakeman says their violence was usually more street conflict than financial as the mob or cartels might operate. Even guys at the high end of the hierarchy were making peanuts.
I picture biker gangs as landing between the two. Although, there are many instances of serious and significant criminal enterprise involving bikers. The decentralized nature and sheer number of criminals on 2 wheels makes it a difficult comparison. The bonds, friendship, and potential for a surrogate family apply to all of them and to non-criminal clubs, too.
Yeah, I don't know what to think about that guy. He made claims as a "whistleblower," did rounds of press, then claimed a kid was killed who turned out to not be killed and was instead "saved" by Israelis so as to avoid him being murdered to prove he was killed. I never did see anything to refute that counter-counter-propaganda with regards to that dead kid claim. There were other efforts to discredit that guy. Mess, noise, I don't know. Someone's muddy psyop working on me as planned I suppose.
Israel doesn't win humanitarian plaudits or reprieves by taking responsibility which could mean a lot of things. Nonetheless, I agree it looks like they meander and coast on current status quo to avoid certain outcomes. They probably prefer it this way than a hypothetical Hamas-less Gaza with a path to statehood. They do have their reasons.
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