putin’s gangland politics | the great debate
TRANSCRIPT
Putinacircs gangland politics | The Great Debate
Russian President Vladimir Putin calls them his brothers -- this group of burly motorcyclists whosee themselves as road warriors fighting for the greater glory of Mother Russia Theyre known asthe Night Wolves and Putin himself has ridden with them on that icon of American wanderlust aHarley-Davidson
Even as Russia was preparing to send troops to Crimea to reclaim the peninsula from Ukraines newgovernment the Night Wolves announced that they would ride to the troubled region to whip upsupport for their powerful brother and Harley devotee
Clad in leather and sporting their best squint-eyed make-my-day defiant stares the Night Wolveshad a message for Ukraines anti-Russian dissidents Protest at risk of your health
Putin however is not the first political leader to appreciate the importance of physical intimidation
Somewhere in the political hereafter Democratic boss Richard Croker was wondering how muchmore effective his Tammany Hall enforcers might have been -- if only they had motorcycles
Croker ran the Tammany Hallmachine in the late 19th century a man who came to the attention of the party leaders not becauseof his dynamic personality or his extensive knowledge of the Constitution but because he beat thedaylights out of a legendary street fighter during a neighborhood picnic He went on to become agang leader -- like another Tammany boss Bill Tweed
Putins relationship today with the 5000-strong Night Wolves suggests that he is a serious studentof US history Or perhaps he just is a fan of Martin Scorceses great film about American streetpolitics The Gangs of New York which showed how intimidation was just another form of politicaldebate before and during the Civil War
Croker was not a character in Gangs but Tweed certainly was Like Croker Tweed literally foughthis way to power and influence in New York -- and saw no reason to change his style once he becamea state senator and boss of Tammany Hall Tweed recruited an army of toughs referred to in thepress as shoulder hitters to keep an eye on the polls during hotly contested elections
One of those shoulder-hitters was the young Croker In the early 1870s Croker and few friendsfound themselves engaged in a lively political debate with a group of anti-Tammany DemocratsShots were fired and an anti-Tammany Democrat fell mortally wounded Croker was indicted forthe crime but found not guilty He returned to his work as a city coroner
Croker a barrel-chested man with a hard stare was second to nonein his devotion to the democratic process During one election in the late 1860s Croker cast his vote17 times Nobody dared challenge him
Across the river in New Jersey boss Frank Hague made a name for himself in the early 20th centurywhen he delivered a brutal message to opponents on the Jersey City Board of Aldermen Fearful thatthe aldermen were about to oust him as a custodian in City Hall Hague dispatched his version of theNight Wolves to deal with an aide to a particularly irksome alderman The aide was roughed up --nothing brutal but he was more than a little shaken The message was received Hague retained hisjob and went on to become Jersey Citys mayor from 1917 to 1947
Historians and journalists often point to machine politicians like Croker and Tweed as somehowunique in their use of muscle as a form of political power Most recently sportswriter Mike Lupicasuggested that aides to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie have been running some head-banging20 version of Tammany Hall Yet Tammanys foes were equally enthusiastic about the use of forceas a gentle persuader in local politics When voters went to the polls in New York in 1841 nativistgangs invaded the heavily Irish-Catholic Sixth Ward to engage in what political insiders now callvoter suppression Neighborhood residents found themselves confronted by menacing Protestantsupremacists who sought to block the election of Catholic-friendly candidates for municipal office
The great poet of the common man Walt Whitman sympathized with the gangs complaining thatthe citys Democrats were aligned with filthy Irish rabble
Small wonder that Irish politicians aligned with Tammany responded in kind
A more-sinister version of these tactics found its way into the South not long after Robert E Leerenewed his acquaintance with Ulysses S Grant at Appomattox Court House Faced with theprospect of freed black men participating in politics and government men in white sheets and hoodspatrolled the fields and lanes of the South in a violent campaign to make sure politics stayed awhites-only affair
The Ku Klux Klan under the command of the famousConfederate cavalry leader Nathan Bedford Forrest essentially invalidated the freedoms guaranteedto African-Americans under the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution By the time the Klanwas done the notion of equal protection under the law was a cruel joke and the right to voteregardless of race was rendered meaningless from Texas to Virginia
The Klan murdered at least 200 people in Arkansas in the run-up to the national elections of 1868 InGeorgia the Klan countered support for Republicans -- associated of course with the North andabolition -- with a ferocious campaign of violence and murder
The Republican vote in Georgia and throughout the South quickly disappeared By the 1890s theSouth was solidly Democratic and blacks were thoroughly disenfranchised
This was achieved not through politics but through intimidation
The contest for power in the 19th century was not always conducted in the streets and fields andnot always with brute even homicidal force The poor of New York discovered that in the late 1870swhen a group of civic elites proposed that voting privileges in local elections should be restricted tomen of property
This recommendation which had the support of noted business leaders journalists universitypresidents and an up-and-coming politician named Theodore Roosevelt came after several years ofintellectual intimidation in the citys best newspapers and private clubs
Through the 1870s as blacks were forciblydenied their voting rights in the South New Yorks civic elites including journalist E L Godkinnoted attorney William Evarts and the citys Chamber of Commerce argued that the Northsproblems were the result of ignorant voters White Southerners argued the New York-basedCommercial and Financial Chronicle have an ignorant class to deal with as we have here
The result was a constitutional amendment in New York state that stripped non-property owners ofthe franchise in municipal elections It was never enacted however because Tammany rallied publicsupport against it The kid-glove version of voter intimidation failed -- thanks to the shoulder-hitters
Putins gangland tactics may strike Americans as peculiarly barbaric but the United States is not sofar removed from the days when physical force trumped the democratic process In factintimidation not elections kept millions of African-Americans from expressing their opinions andcasting their votes for a century after their rights had been secured at least in theory
There was a time and a place in US history when the Night Wolves would have felt right at home
PHOTO (TOP) Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rides with motorcycle enthusiasts during hisvisit to a bike festival in the southern Russian city of Novorossiisk August 29 2011REUTERSAlexsey DruginynRIA NovostiPoolAcirc
PHOTO (INSERT 1)A scene from The Gangs of New York a Martin Scorcese film starring DanielDay-Lewis (C)
PHOTO (INSERT 2) Boss Frank Hague of Jersey City in 1920 WIKIPEDIACommons
PHOTO (INSERT 3) Boss William Tweed of New York WIKIPEDIACommons
PHOTO (INSERT 4) Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rides with enthusiasts during his visit toa bike festival in the southern Russian city of Novorossiisk August 29 2011 REUTERSIvanSekretarevPool
Croker ran the Tammany Hallmachine in the late 19th century a man who came to the attention of the party leaders not becauseof his dynamic personality or his extensive knowledge of the Constitution but because he beat thedaylights out of a legendary street fighter during a neighborhood picnic He went on to become agang leader -- like another Tammany boss Bill Tweed
Putins relationship today with the 5000-strong Night Wolves suggests that he is a serious studentof US history Or perhaps he just is a fan of Martin Scorceses great film about American streetpolitics The Gangs of New York which showed how intimidation was just another form of politicaldebate before and during the Civil War
Croker was not a character in Gangs but Tweed certainly was Like Croker Tweed literally foughthis way to power and influence in New York -- and saw no reason to change his style once he becamea state senator and boss of Tammany Hall Tweed recruited an army of toughs referred to in thepress as shoulder hitters to keep an eye on the polls during hotly contested elections
One of those shoulder-hitters was the young Croker In the early 1870s Croker and few friendsfound themselves engaged in a lively political debate with a group of anti-Tammany DemocratsShots were fired and an anti-Tammany Democrat fell mortally wounded Croker was indicted forthe crime but found not guilty He returned to his work as a city coroner
Croker a barrel-chested man with a hard stare was second to nonein his devotion to the democratic process During one election in the late 1860s Croker cast his vote17 times Nobody dared challenge him
Across the river in New Jersey boss Frank Hague made a name for himself in the early 20th centurywhen he delivered a brutal message to opponents on the Jersey City Board of Aldermen Fearful thatthe aldermen were about to oust him as a custodian in City Hall Hague dispatched his version of theNight Wolves to deal with an aide to a particularly irksome alderman The aide was roughed up --nothing brutal but he was more than a little shaken The message was received Hague retained hisjob and went on to become Jersey Citys mayor from 1917 to 1947
Historians and journalists often point to machine politicians like Croker and Tweed as somehowunique in their use of muscle as a form of political power Most recently sportswriter Mike Lupicasuggested that aides to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie have been running some head-banging20 version of Tammany Hall Yet Tammanys foes were equally enthusiastic about the use of forceas a gentle persuader in local politics When voters went to the polls in New York in 1841 nativistgangs invaded the heavily Irish-Catholic Sixth Ward to engage in what political insiders now callvoter suppression Neighborhood residents found themselves confronted by menacing Protestantsupremacists who sought to block the election of Catholic-friendly candidates for municipal office
The great poet of the common man Walt Whitman sympathized with the gangs complaining thatthe citys Democrats were aligned with filthy Irish rabble
Small wonder that Irish politicians aligned with Tammany responded in kind
A more-sinister version of these tactics found its way into the South not long after Robert E Leerenewed his acquaintance with Ulysses S Grant at Appomattox Court House Faced with theprospect of freed black men participating in politics and government men in white sheets and hoodspatrolled the fields and lanes of the South in a violent campaign to make sure politics stayed awhites-only affair
The Ku Klux Klan under the command of the famousConfederate cavalry leader Nathan Bedford Forrest essentially invalidated the freedoms guaranteedto African-Americans under the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution By the time the Klanwas done the notion of equal protection under the law was a cruel joke and the right to voteregardless of race was rendered meaningless from Texas to Virginia
The Klan murdered at least 200 people in Arkansas in the run-up to the national elections of 1868 InGeorgia the Klan countered support for Republicans -- associated of course with the North andabolition -- with a ferocious campaign of violence and murder
The Republican vote in Georgia and throughout the South quickly disappeared By the 1890s theSouth was solidly Democratic and blacks were thoroughly disenfranchised
This was achieved not through politics but through intimidation
The contest for power in the 19th century was not always conducted in the streets and fields andnot always with brute even homicidal force The poor of New York discovered that in the late 1870swhen a group of civic elites proposed that voting privileges in local elections should be restricted tomen of property
This recommendation which had the support of noted business leaders journalists universitypresidents and an up-and-coming politician named Theodore Roosevelt came after several years ofintellectual intimidation in the citys best newspapers and private clubs
Through the 1870s as blacks were forciblydenied their voting rights in the South New Yorks civic elites including journalist E L Godkinnoted attorney William Evarts and the citys Chamber of Commerce argued that the Northsproblems were the result of ignorant voters White Southerners argued the New York-basedCommercial and Financial Chronicle have an ignorant class to deal with as we have here
The result was a constitutional amendment in New York state that stripped non-property owners ofthe franchise in municipal elections It was never enacted however because Tammany rallied publicsupport against it The kid-glove version of voter intimidation failed -- thanks to the shoulder-hitters
Putins gangland tactics may strike Americans as peculiarly barbaric but the United States is not sofar removed from the days when physical force trumped the democratic process In factintimidation not elections kept millions of African-Americans from expressing their opinions andcasting their votes for a century after their rights had been secured at least in theory
There was a time and a place in US history when the Night Wolves would have felt right at home
PHOTO (TOP) Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rides with motorcycle enthusiasts during hisvisit to a bike festival in the southern Russian city of Novorossiisk August 29 2011REUTERSAlexsey DruginynRIA NovostiPoolAcirc
PHOTO (INSERT 1)A scene from The Gangs of New York a Martin Scorcese film starring DanielDay-Lewis (C)
PHOTO (INSERT 2) Boss Frank Hague of Jersey City in 1920 WIKIPEDIACommons
PHOTO (INSERT 3) Boss William Tweed of New York WIKIPEDIACommons
PHOTO (INSERT 4) Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rides with enthusiasts during his visit toa bike festival in the southern Russian city of Novorossiisk August 29 2011 REUTERSIvanSekretarevPool
Croker a barrel-chested man with a hard stare was second to nonein his devotion to the democratic process During one election in the late 1860s Croker cast his vote17 times Nobody dared challenge him
Across the river in New Jersey boss Frank Hague made a name for himself in the early 20th centurywhen he delivered a brutal message to opponents on the Jersey City Board of Aldermen Fearful thatthe aldermen were about to oust him as a custodian in City Hall Hague dispatched his version of theNight Wolves to deal with an aide to a particularly irksome alderman The aide was roughed up --nothing brutal but he was more than a little shaken The message was received Hague retained hisjob and went on to become Jersey Citys mayor from 1917 to 1947
Historians and journalists often point to machine politicians like Croker and Tweed as somehowunique in their use of muscle as a form of political power Most recently sportswriter Mike Lupicasuggested that aides to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie have been running some head-banging20 version of Tammany Hall Yet Tammanys foes were equally enthusiastic about the use of forceas a gentle persuader in local politics When voters went to the polls in New York in 1841 nativistgangs invaded the heavily Irish-Catholic Sixth Ward to engage in what political insiders now callvoter suppression Neighborhood residents found themselves confronted by menacing Protestantsupremacists who sought to block the election of Catholic-friendly candidates for municipal office
The great poet of the common man Walt Whitman sympathized with the gangs complaining thatthe citys Democrats were aligned with filthy Irish rabble
Small wonder that Irish politicians aligned with Tammany responded in kind
A more-sinister version of these tactics found its way into the South not long after Robert E Leerenewed his acquaintance with Ulysses S Grant at Appomattox Court House Faced with theprospect of freed black men participating in politics and government men in white sheets and hoodspatrolled the fields and lanes of the South in a violent campaign to make sure politics stayed awhites-only affair
The Ku Klux Klan under the command of the famousConfederate cavalry leader Nathan Bedford Forrest essentially invalidated the freedoms guaranteedto African-Americans under the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution By the time the Klanwas done the notion of equal protection under the law was a cruel joke and the right to voteregardless of race was rendered meaningless from Texas to Virginia
The Klan murdered at least 200 people in Arkansas in the run-up to the national elections of 1868 InGeorgia the Klan countered support for Republicans -- associated of course with the North andabolition -- with a ferocious campaign of violence and murder
The Republican vote in Georgia and throughout the South quickly disappeared By the 1890s theSouth was solidly Democratic and blacks were thoroughly disenfranchised
This was achieved not through politics but through intimidation
The contest for power in the 19th century was not always conducted in the streets and fields andnot always with brute even homicidal force The poor of New York discovered that in the late 1870swhen a group of civic elites proposed that voting privileges in local elections should be restricted tomen of property
This recommendation which had the support of noted business leaders journalists universitypresidents and an up-and-coming politician named Theodore Roosevelt came after several years ofintellectual intimidation in the citys best newspapers and private clubs
Through the 1870s as blacks were forciblydenied their voting rights in the South New Yorks civic elites including journalist E L Godkinnoted attorney William Evarts and the citys Chamber of Commerce argued that the Northsproblems were the result of ignorant voters White Southerners argued the New York-basedCommercial and Financial Chronicle have an ignorant class to deal with as we have here
The result was a constitutional amendment in New York state that stripped non-property owners ofthe franchise in municipal elections It was never enacted however because Tammany rallied publicsupport against it The kid-glove version of voter intimidation failed -- thanks to the shoulder-hitters
Putins gangland tactics may strike Americans as peculiarly barbaric but the United States is not sofar removed from the days when physical force trumped the democratic process In factintimidation not elections kept millions of African-Americans from expressing their opinions andcasting their votes for a century after their rights had been secured at least in theory
There was a time and a place in US history when the Night Wolves would have felt right at home
PHOTO (TOP) Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rides with motorcycle enthusiasts during hisvisit to a bike festival in the southern Russian city of Novorossiisk August 29 2011REUTERSAlexsey DruginynRIA NovostiPoolAcirc
PHOTO (INSERT 1)A scene from The Gangs of New York a Martin Scorcese film starring DanielDay-Lewis (C)
PHOTO (INSERT 2) Boss Frank Hague of Jersey City in 1920 WIKIPEDIACommons
PHOTO (INSERT 3) Boss William Tweed of New York WIKIPEDIACommons
PHOTO (INSERT 4) Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rides with enthusiasts during his visit toa bike festival in the southern Russian city of Novorossiisk August 29 2011 REUTERSIvanSekretarevPool
The Ku Klux Klan under the command of the famousConfederate cavalry leader Nathan Bedford Forrest essentially invalidated the freedoms guaranteedto African-Americans under the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution By the time the Klanwas done the notion of equal protection under the law was a cruel joke and the right to voteregardless of race was rendered meaningless from Texas to Virginia
The Klan murdered at least 200 people in Arkansas in the run-up to the national elections of 1868 InGeorgia the Klan countered support for Republicans -- associated of course with the North andabolition -- with a ferocious campaign of violence and murder
The Republican vote in Georgia and throughout the South quickly disappeared By the 1890s theSouth was solidly Democratic and blacks were thoroughly disenfranchised
This was achieved not through politics but through intimidation
The contest for power in the 19th century was not always conducted in the streets and fields andnot always with brute even homicidal force The poor of New York discovered that in the late 1870swhen a group of civic elites proposed that voting privileges in local elections should be restricted tomen of property
This recommendation which had the support of noted business leaders journalists universitypresidents and an up-and-coming politician named Theodore Roosevelt came after several years ofintellectual intimidation in the citys best newspapers and private clubs
Through the 1870s as blacks were forciblydenied their voting rights in the South New Yorks civic elites including journalist E L Godkinnoted attorney William Evarts and the citys Chamber of Commerce argued that the Northsproblems were the result of ignorant voters White Southerners argued the New York-basedCommercial and Financial Chronicle have an ignorant class to deal with as we have here
The result was a constitutional amendment in New York state that stripped non-property owners ofthe franchise in municipal elections It was never enacted however because Tammany rallied publicsupport against it The kid-glove version of voter intimidation failed -- thanks to the shoulder-hitters
Putins gangland tactics may strike Americans as peculiarly barbaric but the United States is not sofar removed from the days when physical force trumped the democratic process In factintimidation not elections kept millions of African-Americans from expressing their opinions andcasting their votes for a century after their rights had been secured at least in theory
There was a time and a place in US history when the Night Wolves would have felt right at home
PHOTO (TOP) Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rides with motorcycle enthusiasts during hisvisit to a bike festival in the southern Russian city of Novorossiisk August 29 2011REUTERSAlexsey DruginynRIA NovostiPoolAcirc
PHOTO (INSERT 1)A scene from The Gangs of New York a Martin Scorcese film starring DanielDay-Lewis (C)
PHOTO (INSERT 2) Boss Frank Hague of Jersey City in 1920 WIKIPEDIACommons
PHOTO (INSERT 3) Boss William Tweed of New York WIKIPEDIACommons
PHOTO (INSERT 4) Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rides with enthusiasts during his visit toa bike festival in the southern Russian city of Novorossiisk August 29 2011 REUTERSIvanSekretarevPool
Through the 1870s as blacks were forciblydenied their voting rights in the South New Yorks civic elites including journalist E L Godkinnoted attorney William Evarts and the citys Chamber of Commerce argued that the Northsproblems were the result of ignorant voters White Southerners argued the New York-basedCommercial and Financial Chronicle have an ignorant class to deal with as we have here
The result was a constitutional amendment in New York state that stripped non-property owners ofthe franchise in municipal elections It was never enacted however because Tammany rallied publicsupport against it The kid-glove version of voter intimidation failed -- thanks to the shoulder-hitters
Putins gangland tactics may strike Americans as peculiarly barbaric but the United States is not sofar removed from the days when physical force trumped the democratic process In factintimidation not elections kept millions of African-Americans from expressing their opinions andcasting their votes for a century after their rights had been secured at least in theory
There was a time and a place in US history when the Night Wolves would have felt right at home
PHOTO (TOP) Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rides with motorcycle enthusiasts during hisvisit to a bike festival in the southern Russian city of Novorossiisk August 29 2011REUTERSAlexsey DruginynRIA NovostiPoolAcirc
PHOTO (INSERT 1)A scene from The Gangs of New York a Martin Scorcese film starring DanielDay-Lewis (C)
PHOTO (INSERT 2) Boss Frank Hague of Jersey City in 1920 WIKIPEDIACommons
PHOTO (INSERT 3) Boss William Tweed of New York WIKIPEDIACommons
PHOTO (INSERT 4) Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rides with enthusiasts during his visit toa bike festival in the southern Russian city of Novorossiisk August 29 2011 REUTERSIvanSekretarevPool