I hang out at righty blogs. And what does my reading of the pulse tell me? They don’t like gangsta culture. Me either. I find the music especially grating. But there is a fundamental difference between me and them. I know history. Prohibitions engender gangst(a)(er) cultures. It is in 20th Century American History.
I swan. The people supposedly with the best grasp of history are surprised when doing the same thing gets the same results. It is my opinion that it takes a special kind of stupidity to maintain that line.
Comments
11 responses to “Gangsta Culture Be Ruining Da Republic”
I agree that prohibition is not the way to challenge gangsta culture. The real solution is ridicule and derision. If popular culture stops idolizing and promotion gangsta culture and instead mocks it, it would fade away.
Growing up I thought stupidity and over-inflated egos carried their own self punishment. Which they often do,(to some extent). I didn’t realize how organized groups could make everyone pay.
“I agree that prohibition is not the way to challenge gangsta culture. The real solution is ” to call a spade a spade. Nothing disinfects like truth.
Ending prohibition ends the fuel for gangsta culture. Then you just wait a while (decades) for he whole thing to die out.
Gangster culture is as old as Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger and as new as the Godfather and the Sopranos. People hate being ruled, and tend to appreciate those who are not.
“I swan”? How old and how southern are you, Simon? Haven’t heard that expression since my childhood.
On your larger point, you may be right.
clue,
I’m rather old and not very Southern. I did live in the South until age 6. But I believe I picked up the phrase from TV. Or maybe “Ma and Pa Kettle”.
I’m against the “war on drugs” (at least, I’m against the main strategy of the past twenty years) and agree about the disgusting qualities of gangsta culture, but I can’t agree that your historical comparison is accurate. Prohibition (the 1920s capital-P one) resulted in a certain set of memes, it’s undeniable, but they were created by outsiders– writers, both on the printed page and for broadcast– not created and maintained by gangsters themselves as a form of group identity. The Mafia were certainly fuelled by Prohibition, but they and their culture existed before it, as did their organized-crime cognates in various other cultures and times. (London thieves’ argot, which goes back centuries, comes to mind.)
Matt,
Gangsters get glorified under prohibition regimes. We have gangsta rap in America and corridos in Mexico. And that is just what I’m familiar with.
From an earlier era we had “La Cucaracha” in Mexico which became popular in America.
And this bit of news from mid March of this year:
http://tv.yahoo.com/news/mexican-city-bans-tigres-del-norte-drug-songs-025805325.html
From the above Yahoo link:
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — The capital of Mexico’s Chihuahua state has indefinitely banned the famous norteno group Los Tigres del Norte from playing in the city after the band sang ballads glorifying drug traffickers during a weekend concert.
There have been other attempts in Mexico to ban the ballads known as “narcocorridos,” but seldom have they affected a mainstream group as popular as Los Tigres.
The band has been a mainstay of norteno music for decades, with hits like “Contrabando y Traicion” (Contraband and Betrayal) and “Jefe de Jefes” (Boss of Bosses).
Los Tigres Del Norte-Contrabando y Traicion
http://youtu.be/jJvisERLw_0