Is it a "club" or a "gang?" What defines the difference?
THE REST OF THE STORY
History
More than anything, the term 'one percenter' is figurative. It represents a lifestyle, and the term's origins date back to the post-WWII years.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans were sent off to the vicious deadly fighting of WWII. They were made into killers of other men, made to do things most human beings could not do, and would never want to do. They returned from the war and there was a need to keep living a certain way. There were two main American motorcycles at the time; Harley Davidson and Indian.
These were the machines of our veteran American riders and they were probably pretty tough for people to take in the years following the war, at places like Hollister, California, but that is how it goes.
This is the town that bikers visited in 1947, that would later be the basis for the movie "Wild Ones" with Marlon Brando. The main club that day, the Boozefighters in California, still exist. What really happened wasn't much, some drinking and partying, riding bikes around the small town.
It was Hollywood that demonized that event, and possibly one posed photo of a biker leaning back on a Harley with beer cans everywhere.
And this led to the press asking the "respectable" motorcycle group, the American Motorcycle Association (AMA) to comment on the Hollister incident. The AMA responded by saying that 99% if all motorcyclists were law-abiding citizens, and the last one percent were outlaws.
That is when and where the term "1%" came into being, and it was practically an invitation to would-be outlaw bikers to embrace the term, thanks to the AMA. It happened in the wake of the 1947 event at Hollister.
I am going to close by noting one more very interesting thing in the news release from the Oregon Attorney General.
It is the statement, "The Criminal Justice Division focuses on public corruption and government misconduct, complex drug cases, organized crime and gangs, mortgage fraud and internet sex predators."
We know of at least one specific case of government misconduct here in Oregon; this is the tragic case involving our writer, Coral Theill. To encapsulate: her former husband was physically and sexually abusive. He was also a member of a right leaning church in Polk County, Oregon. This ex-husband, Marty Warner, was tight with the cops, the judge, everybody. When Coral turned Warner in for marital rape, she was told that if she tried to report this a second time, that she would be arrested. Coral today is living in hiding and the state of Oregon is on her tail all the time to pay back child support.
That is the kind of justice Oregon is known for. We have tried repeatedly to schedule time to talk with the AG about this, but for some reason they just never have time. We are also carrying the ball for an elderly woman in Oregon who was bilked out of over a million dollars by her son in California, yet Oregon leaves her out to dry.
So they can wave their banner telling everyone they busted a dangerous "biker" - but the spirit of the law here is the same one that has always been here. It has preferences built-in, and the whole idea of the AG being the only state office where you can take a grievance about an Oregon DA, is the biggest conflict of interest in the world.
I have a feeling that much bigger convictions than this one have taken place in Oregon this week, and that this was simply singled out in an effort to negatively affect the image of people who ride motorcycles and belong to clubs. I hope I am wrong; I don't think I am.
Dec-11-2009: Drug Dealer's 269 Month Prison Term 3 Times Longer than Sentence for Child Abusers - Social Perspective by Tim King Salem-News.com
Jan-22-2009: American Motorcycle Culture: The One Percenters - Tim King Salem-News.com
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Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines.
Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several others including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com
