More gypsies tramps and thieves

My post 'Gypsies, tramps and thieves' has drawn a comment from what's clearly an American female gypsy. Here's what she has to say:

"It saddens me to see voice given to bigots like this blogger, and also to the book he is peddling, written by Dennis Marlock.Incidentally, I was led to this obscene blog link by one of Mr. Marlock's book links. Dennis Marlock is the owner of a website that degrades and defames one specific ethnic group (Rom) over all others, under the color of authority and the guise of crime and fraud prevention.It is unlawful to discriminate based on ethnicity.

The Romani people are such an ethnic group. They are a Micro-minority among other ethnic groups.The word Gypsy is considered derogatory, especially in the defamatory context that Mr. Marlock utilizes it in. He specifically, repeatedly targets the Romany people for degradation and defamation in all his writings and crime / fraud prevention speeches.

On his fraud prevention website alone, he mentions GYPSIES in regard to being responsible for crime over 95 times. Roma 16 times, yet all other ethnic, racial and organized crime groups, including the MAFIA, less than 5 times each.The fact is; US crime statistics show that the Romany people are responsible for over all crime in such a minuscule percentages that they can't be assigned a classification or numerical value.

Everything Mr. Marlock touches and creates is filled with neo-Nazi ideology and sentiment. Most of his Internet book listings lead back to various other Romani themed Hate sites, like this one.If I were to apply Mr. Marlock's formula for stereotyping, then I could point out that he hails from and originates in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is the second most active state in the country for neo-Nazi (NSM) activity and membership.

I could therefore suspect that Dennis Marlock is a stealth white supremacist who utilizes and exploits the criminal justice system to further his own neo - Nazi agenda.I find it particularly disturbing that Mr. Marlock has been in a position of power as a police officer. I shudder to think of what racist discrimination he may have been a party to, under the color of authority, during his employment with the Milwaukee police department.

This type of outrageous inciting and targeting (under the color of authority) is what leads to ethnic cleansing, pogroms, holocausts and genocide. As in the Nazi regime, once the Gypsy is socially acceptable for ethnic cleansing - genocide is next.It is hard enough to come to a new country and try to blend in and make it without this sort of hatred hobbling all honest attempts to adapt to a host social environment.

It has taken most Romani families close to 3 generations to recover from the holocaust, as well as adapt to a changing world. Just like the earlier immigrant groups, they come here because for the Romani people it is near to impossible to get past the stigma, blatant defamation and unhindred discrimination they are subjected to in Europe.Case in point ... this hate and venom spewing blogger. This is the very ethnic cleansing inciting crap some Europeans feel at liberty to spew forth about the Romani people. And nobody seems to object or do anything about it.

Like most other immigrants coming to America most Romani people lack education and language skills and thus are forced to work as criminals servants within American society. Like most other immigrants Romani immigrants adapt and raise their families by means of hard, back breaking and HONEST work.I know this response will never see the light of day. Just as on Mr. Marlock's website ... this blogger is probably too cowardly to offer a forum for discussion to his racist spews. But at least I have had my say."

Wow! What a powerful rejoinder! Did you see they way she systematically and in detail demolished each of the points I raised?

You didn’t?

Neither did I.

In fact she retreats to the one argument you wheel out when you have no other to silence the opposition: The Nazis and the Holocaust, and strategically locate them on the ‘slippery slope’ to perdition. Note also the expert use of the PC attack vocabulary, ' hate', 'venom' 'spewing'. Straight from central casting.

The closest to a specific rebuttal relates to the fact that gypsies are not accorded their own crime category in US statistics. Well of course, as I'm sure is also the case with Zoroastrians and Dancing Dervishes - because their numbers are miniscule. Even if we make the not unreasonable assumption that every gypsy in the US is engaged in crime, their numbers there are so tiny (lucky US) that they’d still fail to register on the aggregated statistics.

And she concludes with yet another error, that "this blogger is probably too cowardly to offer a forum for discussion to his racist spews."

In fact I’m always happy to present contrary views, especially when, like this, they underline the vacuity of those same views.

Quick gypsy joke

A traveller/gypsy/knacker brings his 14 year-old daughter to the doctor.

'Tell me', asks the doctor, 'is she sexually active?'

'Ah, no sir, no. She's a bit like her mother, just lies there'

Personal gypsy update

There’s an old saying that if something appears to be too good to be true – it is. During my early music career I was offered the opportunity to play at a wedding in Kinsale where we’d get £20 per head. Now this, in the early seventies, was the equivalent of a full week’s pay for the average industrial worker. And more than I got for playing behind Roy Orbison or Chuck Berry, I might add. OK, we’d have to play shite material, but we’d hold our noses and persist.

After setting up the gear we strolled around – and the penny dropped with a resounding clang. Oh Jesus! Was this a knacker (traveller/itinerant/ gypsy) wedding?

Quick - check the guest list! An ample sprinkling of Carruthers, Ponsonbys or Pilkington-Gores would be reassuring. On the other hand were I to see… my heart sank and my sphincter dilated as I moved down the tables..... McDonagh, O’Driscoll, Ward, Mongan, Carmody. Worst fears confirmed.

A quick conflab. We could probably flee now, while the going was good. All three of us were driven in almost equal measure by greed and cowardice. Greed won. ‘But we’ll need to get paid in advance’ Richard the bassist suggested.

‘Fine – excellent idea’ I responded, ‘off you go up to nice Mr. Ward and tell him we want to get paid in advance because we think he’s a violent crook’. He declined, deferring to me as the band leader. Eventually it was agreed that all three of us would go to forward. In fact Mr. Ward was a perfect gentleman, and even if he was offended by the implication of what we were doing, he never let on. In fact I felt a bit guilty when he handed us the money, but not guilty enough, of course, to refuse it.

We commenced shortly afterwards, and it all seemed to be going swimmingly. Plenty of people on the floor, good natured bantering, good response to my witticisms on the mike. But after about an hour I noticed Denny (our drummer) removing his false teeth, and storing them carefully in the innards of his kit bag.

This was a worrying development. Although he had been known to remove his teeth say when a particularly energetic drum solo was coming up (to stop them flying out), he always placed them casually beside him, where they grinned at us for the duration of the solo. The fact that he was storing them away now was a source of considerable worry to me, because Denny was many years older than the rest of us, and was a shrewd and experienced observer. Even if he was a drummer.

‘There’s something up here’ I turned to Richard ‘keep your eyes peeled’

The atmosphere had indeed changed and an air of menace was palpable. We played on, but now nobody was dancing. I then got a brainwave. Based on Shakespeare's premise that ‘music soothes the savage breast’ I felt that a relaxed pleasant tune was just what was needed.

‘Right lads – Travelling Light’ I called out, ‘quickly now, for Chrissake’

‘Got no bags or baggage to slow me down…... no comb or no toothbrush’ !!!!!!!!

My Jesus, what the fuck had I been thinking? They’ll think we were taking the piss out of them, and indeed, I noticed a few sharp looks cast our way. I immediately stopped, holding up my hands and saying: ‘ladies and gentlemen, a special announcement’. Now I had no idea what that announcement would be, all I wanted was to stop singing Travelling fucking Light.

My mouth, which was by now fully disengaged from my brain, was starting some bullshit when there was a loud crash, and two men could be seen wrestling at the far corner of the room. This was obviously the cue for the battle to begin, as suddenly the whole room was engulfed. As chairs, glasses, tables, bodies all flew through the air, we implemented our well practiced riot response routine.

Bass drum turned on its side, amps and speakers laid face down, and guitars buried under anything that could be found. Such incidents were fairly common, and usually broke up after a few minutes, with pride restored all around. The gear safe, we’d usually sit it out, and in fact quite enjoyed the entertainment, providing our yellow hides were safe.

But this was something else,. violence on a level none of us had ever seen before. Punches, of course, kicks, sometimes, but that was largely it for us. Here faces were ripped open with broken bottles and glass, downed combatants were kicked stamped and gouged as they lay on the floor, metal chairs smashed over heads. Fearsome punches thudded into bare flesh . And women were in the middle of it, laying into all and sundry.

We were sickened and terrified. But escape was blocked – the nearest exit was half way down the hall – and none of us were stepping into that melee! However, there was a large window behind the stage, which opened out onto a back alley.

‘Right lads, no arguing now. I’m going out that window, I’ll drive the car up, and ye can pass out the main gear. By that I mean guitars, echo unit and snare drum. We can come back for the rest later’ I raised my hands to forestall any opposition, but there was none. (This manoeuvre also gave me the opportunity to abandon my comrades in the event of their becoming embroiled, but I felt it better not to worry them with this possibility).

Anyway, it worked, and we survived our first exposure to authentic traveller culture, the kind of thing Denise Milani wants us to celebrate.

Gypsy update

Following my post a few days ago on gypsy, er 'culture', a diligent reader sent me this link from the Daily Mail, which goes straight into my bulging 'You Couldn't Make This Up' file.

In a move which has caused disbelief amongst rank and file officers, Scotland Yard has asked staff to 'celebrate' the contribution of Roma gipsies to 'London's culture and diversity.' In a notice posted on the force's intranet website, Denise Milani (pictured), director of the Met's 'Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate' (I kid you not), urges officers to observe the first ever 'Gipsy Roma Traveller History Month.'

Ignoring the huge drain on resources caused by Romanian pickpockets who target commuters and tourists in the West End, Miss Milani - a protege of Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair - says Roma gipsies are welcome in the capital. She says: 'We welcome the celebration of the community's history and contributions to London's culture and diversity. 'The Gipsy Roma Traveller History month celebrates their history, culture and contributions to the rich tapestry of Britain's diversity.'

If you need to get a sense of such 'contributions', check my post here.

Her comments were described as 'political correctness off the Richter scale' by one furious detective. He added: 'What planet is this lady living on? We have been run ragged by gangs of Romanian gipsies who are targeting innocent people in the West End. How is that enhancing the rich tapestry of cultural life in Britain?'

Earlier this year, police staged a dramatic series of dawn raids in Slough, Berkshire, in a campaign to stamp out a Fagin-style crime ring involving Romanian slave children smuggled into Britain. Ten children were taken into care and 24 of their suspected controllers arrested on suspicion of human trafficking and organising theft involving up to £1billion a year. Many of those arrested were understood to be Roma gipsies.

The youngsters ranged in age from less than one to 17. Many such children are made to travel to central London every day and carry out crimes including pick pocketing, credit card cloning and theft. Police have estimated that each active Romanian criminal makes about £100,000 a year - most of which is channelled back to his home country to fund luxury cars and homes.

Gypsies tramps and thieves

Do I imagine it, or has there been a significant increase in the gypsy population since I've been away? If so, what a disaster.

These particular cultural enrichers are taught that their ancestry involved stealing in the name of God, and as such God has thus rewarded them with the license to steal from non-Gypsies as a means to live. A bit like the Religion Of Peace in that sense. God was certainly successful in this, as they have, in the intervening time, managed to scam incredible sums of money from their victims.

Another feature of gypsy ‘culture’ is that women are the main breadwinners (bread stealers?). In a polar reverse of almost every other culture, whereby a man’s pride is his ability to provide, a male gypsy is demeaned by ‘ordinary’ work. Hence women and children are trained in thievery and scamming from the earliest age.

Their abilities are truly extraordinary. For instance ex-Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson was relieved of his wallet by a small group of gypsy girls who accosted him on the famous Via Veneto in Rome. He gave chase but they outran him!

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Despite the usual bleatings of discrimination, gypsy ‘culture’ deems it important that they keep separate from mainstream society, which, and I kid you not, they regard as corrupting! This is like the Muslim with four simultaneous wives, who trades in the oldest for a new teenage model every few years, and who regards Western sexual mores as offensive. Which they do, I might add.

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Gypsies and Romanians are not synonymous

There’s a popular misconception that gypsies and Romanians are one and the same. This isn't true at all and causes ordinary Romanians no end of grief and indignation. The belief probably stems from the gypsies being known as Romani, but this actually refers to their language. In fact they originated in India, or more correctly in what is today’s Pakistan, in the Sind region.

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For some reason they left there and exploded into central Europe around the 15th century.

Even then they were up to their tricks. The usual scam involved a group claiming to be from Egypt showing up in a city and informing city officials that they were Christians doomed to wander for a period of years to fulfil a penance imposed upon them. They’d collect food, money and letters of protection from the city and then continue to the next town.

I've had – mercifully - only two significant exposures to gypsies. On one occasion in Barcelona I was sitting at a pavement café with some colleagues, our laptops at our feet. Nobody was within 20 feet of us. Suddenly we noticed a row breaking out amongst some gypsies further down the road, much shouting, pushing and screaming, which went on for a few minutes.

Shortly after one of us noticed that his laptop was gone. We were totally dumbfounded as nobody had been near us for about 15 minutes, and we knew it had been there in the intervening time. In a state of great agitation we called the waiter. He shook his head in sympathy and explained what had happened. The ‘row’ had been a distraction. While we’d been looking at it a gypsy accomplice had used a fishing rod to hook the laptop, drag it towards him (more likely her) and make off with it!

The second one was a beauty. Friends of mine in Cork objected to a landlord adding a major extension to the house adjoining theirs. In a highly original move he then filled up the house with about a dozen gypsy ‘refugees’. They made everyone’s life a nightmare. They stole everything that could be stolen, including clothes off their line. Worse, they fought and screamed all day and night, and their girls and younger women entertained their johns in the adjoining areas, often in view of neighbouring children.

These incidents are typical. Throughout Europe gypsies have become a byword for thieving, scamming, welfare dependence, truancy, violence and debased cultural norms. We owe these people nothing. We should force them out without compassion, or at a minimum subject them to the full force of the law. As long as they choose, and I emphasise choose, to live as nomadic parasites they should be treated as such.

If you’re interested in learning more I recommend License To Steal, Traveling Con Artists, Their Games, Their Rules---Your Money (Dennis Marlock & John Dowling)