Starting in the early 1800s and running for the better part of the 19th century the gangs in New York were thousands of men strong. They were, depending on the neighborhood and the decade, criminals and murderers, but more often than not they were men who had day jobs as butchers or dock workers and their gang allegiance was a combination of neighborhood allegiance, love of booze and brawling, and useful side work as part of a political machine guarding/stuffing ballot boxes at election time and conjuring mass intimidation and violence whenever it seemed useful to the politicians (or whenever the gang was good and pissed at some other gang).
In short, we don't have anything like this today. Nothing. Yes, yes, we have drug gangs, but all of them believe excessive public violence against anyone but other drug traffickers just brings unwanted public attention. In the 19th century, there seems to have been no middle class public to be scandalized and demand action. There were years when literally not a week passed without multiple brawls in the streets. In the 1830s, one policital boss running out of Tammany Hall, Mayor Wood, had the police doing so much extortion and bagman work for him that the City Council tried to take control of the police and when Mayor Wood refused the council hired their own police. For months no crime in the city was punished no matter what it was. One police force was forever undoing the work of the other, letting the criminal go. Then the policemen would have a brawl between the two forces.
We live in a country today where our worst problem is whether the elderly get enough healthcare. Now don't get me wrong. I want the elderly, of whom I will someday be one, to get GREAT healthcare. But for fuck's sake, no one can drag me off the street in broad daylight, steal everything I possess and drop me in the river without the government noticing.
The situation in New York in the 19th century arose essentially because there was no strong middle class to demand the madness stop. The rich could either barricade themselves away from the mess or use it for their own political ends. The parent of crime and vice is acute poverty. And it's something we in this country today largely know nothing about. I guess the thing I find myself shocked by is how often we act shocked when bad things happen.
There's a bitterness I can't quite quantify that I feel at all those who over-simplify our current national situation taking it out of context of human history.We live beautifully. We have a great deal -- to be poor in the United States is to be middle class in many other countries. And we're ungrateful. It'd be foolish not to always try to improve things. Sure, we want more honest politicians, more civilized conditions for those who can't take care of themselves. But look -- is it reasonable to expect to be able to do much better? How much corruption is acceptable in a healthy system? If you say "None" you're unrealistic. Whenever a human being can see a material personal advantage to doing the wrong thing someone will do it. Until we have complete social brainwashing corruption will happen.
So, between Inequality.org and my history reading of late I keep thinking I owe the system something more than my vote once every X years. But I'm going to finish this journal now, and talk more about that later.
Posted by karen at May 4, 2002 12:00 AM