Random US gangbangers? Barely human savages
Mexican Drug Cartels? Heavily armed savages
Russian Mob? Well dressed savages
Random muslims that just so happen to be criminals? I can’t even type what they call them.
But the Italians? Suave, well-spoken, extremely resourceful and classy.
I’m not sure what causes it. The most famous mob movies all talk about how they’re ultimately a bunch of backstabbers but they’re still so heavily mythologized. It wasn’t even that long ago that they had influence, we’re talking the late 80s where things started to take a turn.
US government
The Yakuza gets a good rep too
The Yakuza is an example of a mob where the government just gave up at some point and agreed to make laws to essentially legalize crime.
‘There is no crime in Japan’ cant exist in the same reality as ‘The Yakuza get free reign to deal drugs and pimp’
Not exactly the same, but people definitely still romanticize spartans, vikings, etc. and like to focus on the “badass tough alpha” imagery and avoid the incredibly homosexual and/or marauding rapist behavior when convenient
(Nothing against being gay , but you know the types of ‘Molon Labe’ bumper sticker motherfuckers who definitely ignore that part lmao)
Also
I know that many will disagree here when I say this but:
Most criminals are literally just lapdogs of the bourgeois class.
Al Capone
Meyer Lansky
Lucky Lucciano
Etc.
They harassed and killed communists.
They were usually pretty racist.
Usually participated in union suppression (at the behest of the company or sometimes the police).
They had pro-fascist sympathies for Mussolini too.
Even some modern-day “gangstas” sometimes ran crack for the CIA.
In Haiti, the “gangs” are not “down on their luck” beaten-down scamps just trying to make a living.
They are literally just brigands that steal from the poor and maybe middle class.
They are not rebels.
They are not Robin Hood.
Many school shooters are not “mentally ill” or “lonely” people but are active participants in an online fanbase (that worships other school shooters (going back to Columbine and even before then; keep in mind that there are Discord servers and Internet forums right now that lionize these people).
A pedophile or sexual predator is not “mentally ill” and in need of help; they are narcissists who prey on the young and weak.
The carjackers and car thieves in the DMV area (D.C.-Maryland-Virginia) are typically middle class, even rich, and steal cars or other vehicles.
Etc, etc, etc.
We need to stop lionizing criminals as somehow “lumpen proletariat” or “people who stick it to the higher-ups”
The gangsters in blue (police) torture, rape, steal, murder, etc. for a living.
So do the serial killers of the 70s, 80s, and 90s and even today (most of whom are white or male or fascistic, etc.)
They are menaces to working people.
Menaces to BIPOC folks.
Menaces to Autistic folks (so many turn out to be abusive at home too)
Menaces to women especially (and especially if you are BIPOC, neurodivergent, etc.)
They are not “suffering from capitalism.”
In a way: “they are suffering from success” (yes, making a reference to that meme lol)
They are not in danger, they are the danger.
They’re the running dogs of the bourgeois class.
Marx’s position on the lumpen proles in 18th Brumaire is that because they are the people that have fallen through the cracks that can no longer gain access to employment, they are much more likely to accept (lets say more directly than the labour aristocracy) bribes from the bourgeoisie to join forces of reaction. In France at the time, it was Bonaparte’s private army where they were promised food and wine for their services. This class fraction isn’t bad because of a special moral failing, but their economic position makes them the main recruitment grounds for reactionary organised violence (at the behest of branches of the bourgeoisie). Even Fanon agreed with this, but also suggested the lumpen could be revolutionary when engaged with appropriately and “snatched up” before the bourgeoisie get to them, especially within a colonial context.
Yeah, I know, but I also know the cartels in Mexico are also employed by the DEA and CIA, etc.
Idk, I get what you’re saying
But to me, they are not the main revolutionary force
Just cause they can run guns
Does not make them an asset to the working-class
So idk
The Threepers here in Virginia are certainly criminals
But, also, a lot of them are also rich or from well-to-do families
Yes, they sometimes try to employ or help the poor around them (to basically inculcate them into their organizations or movements).
Many poor whites and Latine folks kinda end up in such organizations (err, not necessarily the 3%ers that I mentioned before but you get the point).
Honestly, I think lumpen can be included in the movement.
But they are not the main revolutionary force, even if they may be important.
Honestly, probably not in places in the Global South either tbh
there are all sorts of criminals. naturally, the structures of the mafia or the cartel (appear to me to) largely mirror the structures of the corporation or the cartel. i can’t say whether the soldiers are as reactionary as the brass, but i doubt you can get an accurate picture just by looking at the elements of those organizations who are largely bourgeois.
Honestly, the white supremacist who threatened to kill me who later joined the National Guard is probably still a grunt even now or maybe an officer in one of the lower positions, idk
But he is probably more evil than most of the upper brass.
Honestly dawg?
When it comes to a lot of people I met:
It wasn’t the people they followed who they blamed all their problems on
It was the people themselves, the grunts
The only way the upper brass is culpable in their behavior was the fact that they let it happen and even enabled it from the sides.
Same with white settlers.
Same with those that joined the Army or Marines.
The gang leaders don’t really scare me.
It’s the gangsters that will replace them that give me pause.
Spartans weren’t even that successful military! They regularly got owned by Athens, Argos, Thebes, Corinth, Macedon, not to mention that their most famous battle had them crushed by Persians!
Never forget how Ubisoft justified the Viking conquest of the British Isles in one of their videos during the lead-up to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla:
“We read a book about them Vikings and – you’ll never believe this – they just WANTED TO FARM! Also, did you know the Vikings back then were simply called North or Norse men?! Crazy, right!?”
I’m not gonna say they were like, good or anything, but it’s wierd to take such a heated position like it’s still happening. It happened because of climatory and economic reasons, conquerors like the Turks or the Germans and such.
Yeah, I am Turk, but I don’t act like they were somehow just conquering Constantinople just to, idk, farm or trade or whatever lol
It’s weird to have to paint over the Vikings’ actions like that ahahaha
I think it’s because Italian isn’t really seen as an ethnic minority anymore. All the ones you mentioned are generally ethnic minorities, or “othered” so they are, of course, “savages.” The Russian mob is also more recent given the whole, yknow, fall of the USSR thing, so the experience might be more “raw” per se.
Yakuza also get a good pr treatment, although that may be more outside Japan than anything.
A good example might be peaky blinders, although I haven’t watched the show it’s about organized crime and, to my knowledge, more “respectful” [per se] to the mob than theu would be otherwise
If you help the CIA for long enough they get hollywood to start romanticizing your organization.
See Israeli organized crime
https://www.counterpunch.org/2008/09/27/an-israeli-trojan-horse/
“According to LAPD internal documents, the Israeli crime group obtained the unlisted home phone, cell phone, and pager numbers of some 500 of LAPD’s narcotics investigators, as well as the contact information for scores of federal agents – black info, numbers unknown even to the investigators’ kin. The Israelis even set up wiretaps of LAPD investigators, grabbing from cell-phones and landlines conversations with other agents – FBI and DEA, mostly – whose names and phone numbers were also traced and grabbed.”
This is also a Fox News clip mentions it near the end.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
The most famous mob movies all talk about how they’re ultimately a bunch of backstabbers but they’re still so heavily mythologized.
Agree, outside of maybe don corleone in the godfather (which despite being a good movie and book, is a major whitewash of the mafia), none of the movies really glorify them.
The only theme I can think of that would cause this, is the “rags to riches” motif that coincides with the american dream, which is a major product of the US film industry.
Lately I’ve been turning over in my mind a comparison between the mafia and Zionism.
One example is the fact that Moe Dalitz, a mobster tycoon received the Torch of Liberty Award by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (the ADL) in 1982. https://web.archive.org/web/20251205212311/https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/moe-dalitz/
A lot of top American mobsters were also Jewish so there was some serious overlap.
were they zionists?
What about the US military?
The Yakuza
Their video games are dead-ass better too
