A city at war or a city infested with crime?

Civil wars are extremely violent.

But then you have contemporary situations like the US - Mexican Drug Cartel Wars.

democracynow.org

amazon.com

There are deep economic and political issues which underlie this.

And then as some US Cities do have extremely high violent crime rates, again, deep economic and political issues underlie this. So while these are not yet being interpreted as civil wars, they are clearly desperate attempts to maintain law and order amidst a deteriorating situation, so you could see them as continuing colonial oppression, which gets interpreted merely as a high crime rate.

The real issue is Neo-Liberal Capitalism. So I don't think you can separate the situations so easily. And also, the developing world is quite different from the industrialized world, and Mexico in right on the boundary between the two.

SJG

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I'd say that extremely violent US cities now are becoming an anomaly though. Homicide rates in suburban areas now are almost exactly the same as they were in 1970-1998 but the difference is that gang related turf wars taking place in the largest cities are not anywhere near as severe as they used to be. Another thing that isn't accounted for though is that low level violent crime like simple assault for example has actually had an even bigger decrease than homicide. There are not anywhere close to as many simple assaults now as there were in 1990.

I've heard some anecdotal reports online saying that in NYC from 1970-1995, certain areas were so bad you could find dead bodies in trash cans or in alleyways. Not anywhere in NYC but in the worst parts of it. Now NYC has impressively turned into one of the safest cities in America despite having possibly been the biggest warzone in 1990. But yes its interesting how, the violence in cities rife with gang conflict are not interpreted as civil wars yet contain violence that is as extreme or worse than what is going on in actual warzones. Of course, what's going on in Mexico is a very good example of this, as the Mexican Drug War is actually listed under being one of the deadliest armed conflicts currently going on at this current moment, with a similar number of fatalities in 2018 as Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan and easily surpassing all the other armed conflicts on the list.

With Mexico though its only because the violence there is very steady. Although it does increase and decrease, it does it relatively slowly by year. Syria, on the other hand, had 50,000 fatalities in 2012, 130,000 fatalities in the year of 2013, 110,000 fatalities in 2014, and then in 2018, only had about 25,000-30,000 fatalities. Mexico does not have this kind of wild fluctuation but rather has been experiencing about 20,000-35,000 fatalities each year in connection with the drug war since 2010. Course this doesn't count forced disappearances though.

As far as the deadliness of typical civil wars go. That is actually what surprised me is that typical civil wars aren't usually that bad now. If you only focus on the major wars, they look awful. But in the example I gave of the conflict in CAR, with 800 fatalities in the past year, this is actually significantly less people killed over the course of an entire year than would happen in say, a single day battle in the 18th and 19th centuries when thousands of people were typically killed over the course of a single day. The Third Battle of Panipat, taking place in India circa 1761, killed an astonishing 150,000-200,000 people in 1 day of battle.

Sorry, its not that homicide rates in suburban areas today are exactly the same, but rather that the difference in homicide rates in suburban areas has been negligible as opposed to sharp decreases in homicide in inner cities.

I still think that this stuff is being mis-analyzed.

SJG

Not the Congo, the Central African Republic.

Well 18th century warfare is more violent than current gang conflicts and modern wars. But the point was that gang wars are actually in a lot of cases more violent than regular wars are now.

And actually the point was that they are very comparable.

Carpet bombing was literally only used in WW2 and Vietnam, don't act like its a part of normal warfare.

Street gangs are not nearly as violent now as they used to be. As I pointed out, in the past, deaths from gang wars were actually worse than the level of deaths occurring from insurgencies. Street gangs essentially occupied certain neighborhoods and waged turf wars on each other, and yes, commit plenty of rapes. Its actually worse because all this violence becomes sown into the very fabric of the neighborhood whereas military occupation is typically very temporary.

Gangs in the early 90s absolutely had what essentially amounted to foot soldiers that waged gun battles on the streets. The crips and bloods feud, waged primarily during the 80s and 90s, killed about 20,000 people according to "Crips and Bloods: Made in America" documentary. That's 1,000 people per year, worse than the CAR conflict and doesn't even count the other gangs in the area.

We didn't carpet bomb them, those bombings are coordinated strikes on specific targets. Afghanistan has been almost constantly dealing with war and terrorist activities since 1979, they were already in the stone age long before we got there.

Gangs absolutely do what essentially amounts to forcing children into warfare. In the Crips and Bloods documentary, many of the gangsters mentioned having been a part of the gang and having guns since they were 12 or 13 and being prepared to use them. Certain gangs have terrorized neighborhoods for decades by turning violence, criminal behavior, and murder into a lifestyle and sow that lifestyle into the very fabric of the neighborhoods they occupy so that they can recruit new members. They push hard drugs onto kids and then try to use those kids as pushers to avoid getting in trouble with LE.

And uh, as far as battling with police and military. Just wanna leave this here...

en.wikipedia.org

Gangs became involved after the rioting started.

So you basically just confirmed what I said in terms of them brainwashing entire neighborhoods into thinking their behavior is kind of normal and then lowkey occupying them as "turf?" At least a military occupation only lasts for a few months but street gangs continue poisoning the social fabric and daily lives of these neighborhoods for years and even decades. Yes let's be thankful to gangs for providing young men a group of people to be around that make a career out of shooting people, robbing stores, committing crimes, and then being proud of it and bragging about being a thug like its a good thing. Most people just join a club at their high school.

During Mexico's drug wars, the border area to the East of Ciudad Juarez was seeing homicide rates reaching the levels of a war zone. But still there is nothing as violent as a civil war.

The US has a higher violent crime rate than many other industrialized nations. But this never occurs in a vacuum. There is a history of racial injustice, and of extreme poverty. And then today, the mental health system and then recovery programs are used to keep a lid on discontent. Or so they try.

I believe that here in the US we in what could be the beginning stages of a civil war. It might not happen. The center and reason could hold, and we could move in a very progressive direction.

But if that does not happen, then tensions and violences will only increase.

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Today, the crimes and violences are not seen as revolutionary acts. And they aren't, the people doing them are living in a state of isolation created by our politics, and backed up by religion. But this could change. We could see a politically aware movement, using violence in order to bring about change.

So the way the OP laid out his terms is not something I agree with.

SJG

and Akon got it right, what one needs is Money, Power, and Respect youtube.com

Mexico doesn't qualify as a civil war only because the drug cartels are not politically motivated but the violence caused by the Mexican drug war exceeds that of all but the most violent modern conflicts. The drug war has killed at least 350,000 people now with no end in sight to a situation that is constantly getting worse. Way way way higher levels of violence than the CAR civil war which killed 8,000.

No, the Mexican drug wars are not a civil war. Civil wars are even more violent.

But the high US crime rate cannot be discounted as the beginnings of a civil war.

SJG

The Libyan Civil war in 2011 killed about 10,000 people in a year and Libya was a major war. The Mexican drug war in 2018 killed at least 35,000. How can you say that they are by default more violent? The only way to do that is to look at Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan specifically and say those three conflicts define what civil wars are like but in all three of those cases we had one side using terrorism and mass murder. So we actually don't have a single war in the 21st century where terrorist organizations did not get involved that exceeds the violence of the drug war.

Civil wars are more vicious, no lines, no uniforms, sometimes at the end there is the settling of scores which might go back decades. And yes it can turn into terrorism.

Our US high crime could be seen as the opening of a civil war.

SJG

If you count the drug cartels as "narco-terrorists" you realize that all of the most violent conflicts in the 21st century have involved terrorism.

Terrorism is a much larger component in most all modern warfare. My point though is that here in the US, you cannot draw a hard line between civilian property crime, and the beginnings of a civil war.

In a civil war its not about conquering territory, its about killing off the supporters of an ideology.

SJG

And the worst is a city like Tijuana that could be considered to be afflicted with high crime and war. South Chicago too.

Omg stop using that argument. Are you seriously going to claim that there's not a major difference between 350,000 people killed "at least" as opposed to 8,000 or 10,000? Statistics mean something, especially when there is a massive difference.

The drug cartels aren't really as politically motivated as the Colombian militias were. The drug cartels basically want to cripple the Mexican police force so that they are incapable of being effective but the FARC in Colombia actually wanted to setup a communist government.

I think common crime and drug cartel crime often do have political motivations and political dimensions.

The high US crime rate is not just happenstance.

SJG

^^^^^^ agreed!

I think a key point will always be when a community decides that it is not going to deal with police, and then when the scope of that increases, so that they never call police and never talk to them.

In the movie Battle of Algiers (1965) they are executing police, until they can't have police, but have an occupying paratrooper unit.

Full film in on youtube.

Here is some analysis. youtube.com

In the mid-60's, Hoover and the FBI were terrified of the "Black Messiah". A way of looking at this is that MalcolmX and MLK were moving closer together. Thta could have meant a revolution. 1968 was the most intense year, world wide.

SJG

White, sheltered liberals would be in serious trouble if the police weren't around.

^^^^^ You know so little, and especially about the lives of ordinary people, and then you talk about who is sheltered.

Real good: "Five Directors on The Battle of Algiers" (2004)

But here, Battle of Algiers (1965) english subtitles, everyone should watch this! youtube.com

SJG

@SJG

I am sheltered, I would be in serious trouble without the police. It takes a special kind of naivety to think we would all be completely fine without the police.

In modern revolutions, it usually does start when people decide that they won't use police and won't deal with them.

Then the next step is when they start executing them.

Today in the US, crime is used as a way of keeping people mistrustful of each other,and dependent on the police.

SJG

No crime just happens. Some people are shitty human beings and they murder people, its not a government conspiracy. I'm sure the government would like there to be less crime than we currently have.

True there are social reasons for crime rates.

As long as people feel an extreme need for police, then there can never be anything like workers movements.

Watch Battle of Algiers

SJG

April Wine - I Like to Rock youtube.com

'This is personal for me': Hillary Clinton urges caution on Trump impeachment news.yahoo.com

Frantz Fanon youtube.com

^^^^^ Indeed.

and most of the time people accept this.

But when things get too extreme:

youtube.com

SJG

I think it starts when people understand that supposedly common crime is really just inept ways of protesting.

We have to start from the bottom and raise political consciousness.

Marx felt that the Lupenproletariate is incapable of political consciousness. And yes, I would say that sometimes this is true. But 100 years later in Algeria, Frantz Fanon built revolution on the lumpenproletariate.

Many feel that the Occupy Movement is one of the most constructive precedents we have seen yet.

Here in San Jose, some were working their day jobs, and then driving their cars to the Occupy Zone at City Hall, and taking out tents to sleep with the homeless and other protestors.

I think also, even on this forum, people are starting to see that inflating the stock and real estate markets benefits no one. We want that money paid out as Universal Basic Income, as that lets people have jobs and businesses, and rebuild our society.

SJG

I agree that the Occupy Movement had its limits, but in other ways it was quite visionary. But we do need more.

SJG

Well, more things might be coming. Doing the best I can to learn as much as I can, then act.

SJG

Well, more things might be coming. Doing the best I can to learn as much as I can, then act.

SJG

What prophets do is destroy the middle ground, force people to choose sides.

SJG

That certainly was so during the 2016 election.

SJG