Reprehensible lying racist scum bag.

Be warned it involves a sight that you may never be able to scrub free from your mind.

the gangs actually do run most chicago neighborhoods.

any candidate for any office running in chicago, with the exception of the economically cleansed north side, HAS to enlist the services of the street gangs to get out the vote.

you can get head counts for lit distribution, electioneering on voting day, etc. etc. by paying local people about a $100 per head. maybe $50.

in chicago's poorer areas, gangs are endemic, multi-generational, and runs in families.

If your dad was GD, you become GD.

but yeah, any chicago politician worth his salt has to include gang membership in their overall campaign strategy in certain locations.

i thought everyone knew this.

when a racial/ethnic group starts having obvious gangs, it's usually a sign they're moving up the economic ladder. primitive accumulation and all that.

irish gangs, jewish gangs, italian gangs, etc.

do you actually think gangs in chicago have increased 40% since obama took office?

i thought everyone knew that was race-baiting horseshit from the right.

when they were mostly white, they were called "Social/Athletic Clubs."


Old man Daley got his start in the Hamburg Athletic Club at 37th/Emerald.

they were fist fighters and rogues, but they didn't have 12 year old shooters and heroin/crack dealers like they do now.

on edit:

i can tell you're spoiling for a fight, but i ain't with ya on that.

good luck with whatever it is you are trying to accomplish though.

.

FBI finished smashing the Black Panthers in the late 60s and early 70s, a fact conveniently forgotten by revanchists and reactionaries like Gingrich. With the Panthers out of the way, a power vacuum in those urban settings would have to be filled by some form of organization.

Conspiracy theorists actually go a step further and credit the CIA's coke- and smack running for the rise of gangs in (black) urban America, drawing on the work of journalists like Gary Webb and others. Such theories have yet to be definitively proved, imo, but they make an interesting counterpoint to Gingrich's ahistorical drivel and race-baiting.

all were co-opted to greater or lesser degrees within the black/brown power movements.

in chicago at least.

the current chicago street gangs trace their roots to the time period after ww2.

have some civic-minded gangs. Here in Philadelphia gangs, and they are by no means all African-American, sell drugs and kill each other. They probably don't even know who the president is or where the nearest voting booth is. Not that we don't have organized get-out-the-vote entities, they just aren't gang members generally.

are gangs?

for stealing the front row seat in the Black House... oops I mean The White House! Now more people will want to join a gang. It's just the logical next step.

Obligatory /Sarcasm tag.

a white president is the only thing that stands between total chaos and domination by black gangs running rampant.

A middle aged, would-be Trayvon Martin snuck in to the White House (he snuck in unnoticed, with his dark skin at night) and now suddenly every black American is in his gang. The blacks all communicate with signs and jive talk, to keep all the whites out of the loop. They've got their own language, you know, so it all goes right under white people's radar. Make no mistake, though, it's one big, mean, scary, gang.

(Obligatory /sarcasm tag)

Q.v.

he`s pretty much failed at everything he`s done in the last few years. he shows up when the talkie shows can't find anyone else. now he`s an expert on the gang problems in chicago?
if obama was`t a mixed race president newt would be the main attraction at the opening of new senior centers.

oh yes the whiteside county republicans would like to have their $40,000 back

Or just haven't figured out Google?

Or perhaps we should reduce the level of discourse to something like "reasoned" and "sound" instead of the polemical and hyperbolic? Just for a change of pace from SOP.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/21/justice/gang-membership-increase
Most likely source for Gingrich's data or his proximate source's data.

http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/2011-national-gang-threat-assessment
The source of CNN's data, fully unbowdlerized and unexpurgated.

http://www.nationalgangcenter.gov/Survey-Analysis/Demographics
Reduce to nice charts for visual learners. Tactile learners can use blocks to duplicate the charts and kinesthetic learners can form human pyramids.

Enjoy, esp. that second link. It'll keep you busy for a good part of the day, if you bother to digest it.

There are perfectly good fact-based and logic-based reasons for dismissing Gingrich's details, questioning his motive, or refining his claims. Unemployment vs. gang membership, noting that there's no indication (that I can find) that the gang-membership increase of 40% is unique to black gangs or that black gangs even had a 40% increase. (It may have been less; it may have been more; I don't feel like trying to tease out the number, CNN didn't, Gingrich didn't although, given his background, he might be able to).

However, it is still true that gang membership, pretty much across the board, is a social blight. Gang members graduate school at lower rates, engage in high-risk and high-crime activities at higher rates, and foster a very nice sense of alienation from society in exchange for close bonding with a small group with its own set of values and norms for behavior. (That last, when imposed from outside, used to be called "segregation.&quot

Newt is associating this with Obama.

Now, I am no rocket scientist, but I am pretty sure Obama being the president has nothing to do with gangs and whether or not they have grown in size.

Perhaps the idea that there are state and local governments who have a lot of control over their local laws and can address these problems has escaped you, but I can assure you states and such do have the money, time, and resources to address such issues if they so desired.

And while I have issues with gangs, the ones that worry me the most these days are the ones who sit around boardrooms and rob people of their money and jobs without even drawing a weapon. And that IS something we could be doing more about on a federal level (and which would reduce crime that has a root in poverty - but that itself is somewhat misleading as some of the biggest crimes are done by the most wealthy, but we don't like to hear about that).

Oh - and this:
However, it is still true that gang membership, pretty much across the board, is a social blight. Gang members graduate school at lower rates, engage in high-risk and high-crime activities at higher rates, and foster a very nice sense of alienation from society in exchange for close bonding with a small group with its own set of values and norms for behavior. (That last, when imposed from outside, used to be called "segregation.&quot

Describes perfectly the 1% who have done far more harm to society overall than any other gang.

Betting Newt is pretty mute on that

penny pritzker brought obama to the dance.

the west and south side african american political establishment (bobby rush and danny davis) pretty much thought obama was a joke.

that's why bobby rush gave him a "shellacking" when he ran against him.