"Weimar Without the Art?"

 “Gang Politics – Revolution, Repression and Crime” by Kristian Williams, 2022

This is a nuanced study of the methods of counter-insurgency used against U.S. civilian populations; the seemingly dual character of some gangs in the 1960s; the roots of Antifa and its battles with the Proud Boys in the 2020s and problems of violence in anti-fascist fighting groups. As an anarchist Williams ignores the role of economics or class in the identification of a real gang, leaving the definition somewhat vague, then defining it as similar to a ‘state’ or any group using violence.  That is not a surprise for some anarchists, who see economics as peripheral. 

In a prior review, I said we needed a more detailed look at the behavior of criminal gangs in politics.  Williams has provided one for the U.S. that looks at recent history.  I say ‘criminal’ because that is the most common understanding – i.e. working an illegal business.  A generic ‘gang’ of kids who protect each other, hang out and sometimes get into fisticuffs with outsiders is not what immediately comes to mind.  Police, fascists and subculture groups have sometimes been called gangs too, and even Williams contends that Antifa can be seen as a ‘gang.’  This is a broad and sloppy definition, as it ignores the economic purpose of real gangs like the Mafia, cartels, motorcycle MCs, online fraud, illegal fishing outfits, and drug and smuggling groups. At any rate, Williams does an excellent job showing the role of gangs in the hyper-political 1960s in regard to the Left, especially the relationship between Chicago’s Black P. Stone Rangers and the local Black Panther Party.

The key tool for both counter-insurgency and fighting fascism is social support from the local population and being seen as ‘legitimate.’  In other words putting the political over the military or tactical. She considers defensive violence by a community as sometimes necessary, but only in carefully chosen situations. Military counter-insurgency strategy - both ‘carrot and stick’ – was used in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, and those tactics were also brought into the U.S. by the police.  NGOs, non-profits, foundations, local leaders in churches and poverty programs and government money are useful in ‘pacifying’ a neighborhood or issue according to this doctrine. The military called NGOs a ‘force multiplier.’ They are the carrots, while the threat of ‘the law’ and state violence sits in the background until required.  The argument between Democrats and Republicans boils down to when to use either, with the former leaning towards soft power first, while the latter favors immediate military repression.

Counter-Insurgency

Forms of domestic counter-insurgency are ‘community policing’ methods, ‘broken windows’ policies and massive databases and surveillance.  This results in precinct-level maps of city geographies.  All these were used against Muslims in the U.S. after 9/11.  The NYPD worked with Israeli intelligence and the CIA to develop programs for that city.  These methods are now used in every city, extending beyond Muslims.  Williams cites their use in Salinas, CA; Newark, NJ; Boston, MA and the US DOJ’s own ‘Weed and Seed’ program, which is a domestic version of the U.S. military’s ‘Clear-Hold-Build’ strategy.  When needed, the police also encourage and plot divisions among criminal gangs in the face of any truces.  This is significant.  

Political Gangs?

In Baltimore during the 2015 Freddie King riots criminal gangs called a truce, urged non-violence, protected black businesses and even stood between protesters and police at one point. They tried to play a ‘neutral’ role.  However the truce between the Black Guerilla Family, the Bloods and the Crips was denounced as a threat by the police.  A 1992 gang truce after the Rodney King beating was followed by LAPD attacks on truce leaders, negotiations, raids and deportations.  The truce had resulted in a huge drop in murders.  She concludes that the police favor internecine warfare among gangs over peace, even if it cools a situation. 

Williams investigates whether criminal gangs are ‘political insurgents’ and eventually decides no.  She looks at the Gangster Disciplines, who promoted voter registration, a political action committee and organized protest marches when not attending to their drug business.  The Vice Lords gang also formed a political action committee, while Los Solidos in Harford participated in food drives, youth sports and neighborhood cleanups.  The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation in NYC went to protest marches, and did tutoring, AIDS education and addiction recovery.  We must remember that cocaine cartel head Pablo Escobar was elected to the Columbian national Assembly for a year too. Yet these criminal gangs eventually collapsed back into their ‘business’ roles as time went on and radical politics was not so fashionable.  The tension between these two facets cannot be resolved and ultimately leads to the original motivation dominating – that being financial survival.

In Chicago in the 1960s the Black P. Stone Rangers, who ran drugs and practiced extortion, also had a social outreach arm.  The Rangers adopted social work strategies in their neighborhoods like Woodlawn, even more than what the Mafia did in NYC’s Little Italy or the Irish gangs did in Boston’s Southie.  This is part of building ‘legitimacy’ in a community.  They sympathized with Malcolm X and black-nationalist causes and were granted thousands of dollars in anti-poverty money by the local Democratic Party machine and federal agencies.  A conscious attempt was made by the government to buy off the Rangers and “use them as an alternative policing force for potentially rebellious populations.” This is another counter-insurgency tactic.

The Rangers also burned down an anti-gang church, extorted money from civil rights groups and defended grocery stories picketed by Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH. The leader of the Rangers, Jeff Fort, eventually went to jail for check fraud and forgery related to these ‘War on Poverty’ programs.  Mike Davis pointed out that the rise of the Crips and Bloods in LA in the 1970s was a product of the decline in the Panthers.  Williams notes that the Panthers in Oakland in the early 1970s under Huey Newton had started to extort money from criminal gangs, prostitution, clubs and drug dealers in the neighborhoods, using their money as a resource.  Newton, who became a coke addict, was later killed by a drug dealer.

Fort tried to form a block with the local Chicago Black Panther Party, even trying to recruit the Panthers to the Rangers.  The two had meetings but Fred Hampton’s approach was different from Fort’s and the bloc never happened.  The Rangers, Vice Lords, Disciples and Cobras attended a ‘Free Huey” demonstration in 1968 and also appeared at Hampton’s funeral after his assassination by Chicago police, but there was no bloc.  Using the same methods the FBI was practicing on the Marxist Left and MLK, the FBI had sent letters trying to turn the two groups violently against each other.  It didn’t work.  But the failure of the bloc shows that crime and politics are very unlikely bedfellows.

Proud Boys and Antifa

A few groups made the transition.  She cites the history of the Marxist Brown Berets in NYC, which evolved out of the Puerto Rican Young Lords street gang in the 1960s.  Anti-Racist Action (ARA) evolved out of a music-oriented skinhead group called The Baldies in the 1980s in Minneapolis, which ultimately combined many anti-racist groups in the U.S.  ARA evolved into Antifa – taking on fascism nationally and inspired by European anti-fascists.  On the other side the Proud Boys (PB) started as an explicit Alt-Right street gang borned by Gavin McInnes.  Its main purpose was violent confrontations with the Left.  As she points out, the violence rationale is easier for the Right to claim than the Left, as violence is one of their top values.  The PB claimed not to be racist, but many of their members were.  They became a virtual security auxiliary to the Republican Party in places, with some advocating a ‘Thug Reich.’  Even now anyone who publically disses a Republican issue gets a mountain of death and bomb threats, which is a method of the proto-fascist Trumpen Right.  Somehow the perpetrators are never identified.

Williams is familiar with the Antifa street battles with the PB in Portland in the 2020s. The PB have close links with the Portland police, who use them almost as an auxiliary against the Left.  Williams reports that at first Portland anti-fascist demonstrations were huge and outnumbered the Rightists by a long shot.  But as violence escalated, fewer and fewer anti-fascists came out to the demonstrations, leaving a hard core of Antifa anarchists and communists to face the PB, other militias and the police.  Deaths and injuries resulted from these reactionary provocations.  Williams thinks this was a product of certain Antifa methods, methods she addresses next.

Anti-Fascist ‘Gang’ Mentality

Here is where Williams will get the most heat from her ultra-left anarchist compadres. Personally I have noted 2 recent instances of local anarchists physically attacking leftists they disagreed with. Anti-fascist groups that make street-fighting the main priority can become reflective of machismo, isolation, top-down functioning and sectarianism according to Williams.  To Williams they can become ‘nascent states’ - which is ur-verboten to anarchism.  As Marxists understand, an army can be a 'state on wheels.'  Antifa groups have also done educational work, doxing, intel gathering, organizing, sabotage and cultural acts, not just participated in pickets, demonstrations or street fights.  But the ones that focus only on violent confrontations can damage themselves and the movement.  This is where Antifa merges on being a ‘gang’ according to Williams.   

This conclusion is no surprise for Marxists, who also hold to self-defense actions of the class against fascism, but carried out carefully by the greatest numbers and unity possible.  A united front against fascism is the organizational form a successful struggle will ultimately take. This book is very useful in its detailed and factual understanding of the interaction of criminal gangs and political struggle.   

Note: Kieran Knutson, now a Local CWA leader, is mentioned in this book as one of the founders of ARA.

Prior blogspot posts on this subject, us blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 17 year archive, using these terms:  “The Outlaws,” “Drug War Capitalism,” “Capitalist Shadows,” “Ragged Revolutionaries,” “Peaky Blinders,” “Subculture,” “Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate,” ‘The Coming Insurrection” or “anti-fascist series.” 

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog / September 21, 2024 / Happy Fall!