Lumpen Organizations: Organizations of the Oppressed Feared by the Police

This article was translated and updated by USW C-4 based on an article originally printed in Notas Rojas

Lately there have been news reports about the amount of L.O. related violence. The “solution” proposed is the presence of more police on the streets and barrios of the oppressed nations. In every state where lumpen organizations exist propositions are being heard to raise police funding by millions of dollars. Asking from a reformist perspective, why isn’t that money used to create youth training centers for office/trade or education, and the only logical response is that the police, government and white-nation simply want to make life more impossible for oppressed nation people. Above all for Latinos and Blacks.

Lumpen Organizations are a logical extension of capitalist society

When speaking about gangs and violence let’s not forget that the most powerful gang and most violent of ’em all is the U.$. government, and it’s agencies of protection are the same entities that determine what is and isn’t a gang. It can be said that the gang of “Amerikkka” serves as a model for street gangs which are less violent and less powerful. The similarities are obvious: they both defend territories they’ve taken possession of, many times with violence, they both take part in illegal trade of narcotics and guns for financial gain (and in the case of street-gangs for protection). In the U.$. there was the initiation of chemical warfare on the Black nation in the form of the crack cocaine epidemic which began in the 70s and 80s, also worth noting is the more recent uncovering of CIA agents selling high power firearms to the drug cartels of Mexico. The difference with respect to lumpen organizations and their members is that many times they don’t have another option. The government on the other hand does it as a way to enforce it’s politics to assure it’s hegemonic control over the Third World as well as a form of making money. No one prohibits the government from continuing.

The irony of the matter is that government functionaries are fighting against something that represents the logical extension of the colonizer’s society of the U.$. along with it’s values and all. The power, the violence and the voracious ambition are all part of the patrimony of the United $tates. Instead of attacking the root of the problem, the pigs favor armed suppression of the youth. To truly solve the problem you have to solve the problem of the nature of society as a whole and destroy the model on which street gangs are based, the military and the government of the United $tates.

Whatever diminishment in gang activity there is due to mass incarceration and/or the augmented presence of pigs will only serve to quiet the issue for a short period of time and might even cause the transfer of the gang to a territory with less police. A real solution to the violence of street crime needs to include the abolition of the system that requires that some live in misery while others live in disgusting and exaggerated wealth, while the rich accuse the poor of not being “smart” like them as an explanation for the wealth.

The inequality of power is a necessary condition of capitalist/imperialist society. The solution requires doing away with this oppressive system. For those who are searching for a more immediate solution for society’s problems like gang violence which affect their communities, the community ends up losing when they make it a priority to increase police presence. How many times must it be proven that the police are our enemies. They kill us without a care in the world. See our recent article on David Deacon Turner, former NFL player killed by the pigs.

Many people who witness the more visible violence, that of the LOs and not of the police, are siding with the pigs against the LOs. This is expected for many reasons, including the friendly relationship between the police and the press. The press doesn’t occupy itself with exposing the abuses and assassinations by the police.

For this debate the voice that’s most needed is that of the LOs and their members. After all, can we trust in the press or in a press conference by the police? Or that the press will lie about the LOs? The LOs and their supporters have reason to stay away from the yellow press; instead they should utilize other methods and mediums in building public opinion to speak for them. This is another of the millions of reasons why the oppressed need their own independent media. LO members are encouraged to write MIM(Prisons) to have their voices heard in ULK and to help develop an analysis of the lumpen by the lumpen for the betterment of the lumpen.