Texas bloodbath may be start of all-out gang war

Predictably, experts see the hand of the Hells Angels behind Sunday’s Waco bloodbath. They say the Angels have been encouraging the Cossacks to challenge the Bandidos’ control of Texas. On Sunday, the Cossacks were helped by another gang, the Scimitars.

US experts fear that this may well be the beginning of an all-out war between highly organized crime syndicates – with the potential of going global.

The massacre in Waco had all the signs of a proxy war. It basically pitted the Bandidos against the Cossacks. But the latter group is supported by the Hells Angels, a biker gang with branches in Europe, Canada and Australia, and the archenemy of the Bandidos.

The real war will likely be fought between these two organizations. Control of Texas might be the immediate spoils, but the world might see other battlegrounds, as well.

The shootout in Waco was just the latest clash in a long history of rivalry. The Bandidos are generally considered the world’s second-largest biker gang, behind the popularly better known Hells Angels, with as many as 2500 members in 13 countries, according to the US authorities.

The Hells Angels were founded in 1948 in California and entertain more than 400 chapters in 50 countries, according to the organization’s own count.

Other gangs are the Outlaws, the Pagans, the Warlocks and the Mongols.

The Bandidos began in 1966 in Texas, almost 20 years after the Hells Angels, but the two gangs soon became bitter rivals. Named in honor of the Mexican bandits who refused to live by anyone’s rules but their own, the Bandidos began recruiting their first members out of biker bars in various Texan cities.

The Mongols have a big Lebanese Muslim contingent in Germany and the Middle East, too.

Looking at mugshots from Texas, some may think that these are “white” bikers and some of the Mongols are. Some even display the double lightning bolt tattoos, Nazi insignia based on runes.

But there is a tremendous amount of anti-white racism present. Although Hispanics do not frown upon white Norman Spanish, they avidly support racial mixing.

These mixed-race gangs fight against the white power gangs in the US and in Europe. Naked hatred based on “cultural differences”, actually racial differences, are pretty big deals for these gangs.

By the time the carnage was over, bodies were scattered across the tarmac in what one witness described as a war zone. Nine bikers were dead and 18 wounded, some critically. Police surrounded the rest and arrested 170, who face organised-crime charges.

There were claims on Monday night that one gang was ambushed by the other to settle a turf war over who becomes the king of the roads in Texas.

As local police braced themselves on Tuesday for more bloodshed, anti-white sentiments were gaining with policemen calling white gangs “domestic terrorists”.

In a memo dated May 1, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) cautioned authorities about increasing violence between the Bandidos and the Cossacks, Dallas TV station WFAA reported.

The DPS Joint Information Center bulletin said the tension could stem from Cossacks refusing to pay Bandidos dues for operating in Texas and for wearing a patch on their vest that claimed Texas as their turf without the Bandidos’ approval.

Israel gives up on bus apartheid

The Israeli government has had to suspend a recently passed law that would have prevented Palestinians from travelling on the same buses as Israelis.

The apartheid-style segregation law was introduced by Israel’s Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon on Wednesday but provoked outrage from Israeli opposition.

The segregation programme was however short-lived and within hours of being launched, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was “unacceptable” and suspended it with immediate effect. The programme would have run a three-month trial.

If implemented, the programme would have stopped Palestinians who commute to Israel for work from using public transport available to Israelis living in West Bank settlements.

Source: eNCA

Post Racial? Hollywood didn’t get the memo

The movie industry really has me, Roschelle, second guessing this post racial era we’ve been living in since the last presidential election. Hollywood. The industry is viewed by many as the most progressively liberal set of folks (producers, directors, movie stars, etc.) you ever want to meet. But they are not post-racial enough.

What do Robert DeNiro, Ron Perlman, Tyne Daly, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Justin Chambers, George Lucas, Halle Berry, Sidney Poitier, James Earl Jones, and Alfre Woodard all have in common? All these Hollywood heavy hitters have husbands/wives/significant others to someone of a different race than their own.

I’ll use the black white dichotomy for this argument. Although, the same applies regarding other races and ethnic groups.

You see the thing is out of every actor or actress I mentioned with the exception of Halle Berry none of these stars have been in a role that would have their love interest, mate or spouse someone of another race.

Sure Sidney Poitier ruffled a few feathers in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. It was too much for many people to take in. Taboo. Unthinkable. And I guess that still applies today.

I certainly consider myself a movie buff. So, if my knowledge of movies is too limited and I’ve overlooked a blockbuster that depicted an interracial relationship worthy of mention please let me know. I hardly think Billy Bob banging Halle or Denzel with his part time lover in Training Day (oh, how I hated that movie) make the grade.

I’m not asking to be subjected to another typical racially charged plot. The interracial couple and all the challenges they face in a society that’s, for the most part, completely unaccepting of their relationship and spend the next 120 minutes of the movie making their lives miserable. That’s just more of the same. And with all due respect, we’re past all that stuff anyway. This is post racial America!

It’s as if Hollywood frowns on this reality as much as some of us. Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins could never come home to a woman of color and sit around the dinner table with their biracial children, get a good night’s sleep and wake the next morning to begin a family vacation that ends in disaster…or a wholesome made for TV movie about family life in the Midwest…or be the parents of the next guy who battles the Decepticons along with the Transformers.

Gabrielle Union, Lynn Whitfield, Thandie Newton, and Cicely Tyson would never be viewed as authentic as they kissed their white mate good bye as he went off to foil some terrorist plot, pull off a big jewelry heist, coach a bunch of misfits into the winniest team in high school football history or save the planet from aliens!

I understand that movies have to be seen and gross mega bucks to be considered blockbusters or worthy of the little gold statue by the Academy. Is that the problem? Are the execs fearful that releasing these types of movies might land them in the soup line?

Life isn’t cookie cutter. Love isn’t monochromatic nor are those we choose to love. Black people love white people and brown people love yellow people and yellow people love red people.

The entertainment industry owe it to us to be true to the ideology of mixing. Maybe even help make the idea of interracial relationships less foreign by changing the humdrum family dynamics found in just about every movie I’ve ever seen. Or am I being unrealistic?