DBWI Mao's family didn't emigrate to the US

Still was one of the scariest gangsters the US ever had. The brutality his group committed was nothing short of legendary--very cold, even for organised crime. It's no wonder the Hong Kong organised crime groups prefer to distance themselves from Mao's methods of operation.

If Jimmy Mao hadn't got here, well, I bet there'd be a lot more Chinese, and being a Chinese-American would be a lot easier. It's no wonder the Magnuson Act wasn't fully repealed until the final dismantling of his organisation in the 70s. Then the Chinese came in as expected and gave Chinese organised crime a kick in the pants. I wonder if the Chinese didn't have such a reputation for being cold-blooded criminals that we'd see more Chinese culture in mainstream US society? Or at least a more diverse display of it aside from the usual Fu Manchu and Jimmy Mao sorts of evil.
 
While I'd like to say he would be some great Chinese political figure that wound help the country avoid the tens of millions of deaths that the KMT brought through genocide and purposeful famine, odds are he'd be just another intellectual in late Qing early Republican China.

California might be better off, though, with less of a drug trade.
 
What if Mao's family didn't emigrate to California? Would "Jimmy Mao Thought" have the same importance in China that it wound up having in America?

The market for Jimmy Mao "Thought" was largely confined to wannabe gangster kids in the Asian-American communities, and for the most part consisted of a bunch of macho anti-white sloganeering, compiled in that book. My understnding is he didn't even write it, he just hired some ghost writer in order to capitalize on his badass reputation. He did score a bit of a coup in getting that left-wing sociology professor Yoko Ono to write the introduction, and she made it all sound very challenging and profound.
 
While I'd like to say he would be some great Chinese political figure that wound help the country avoid the tens of millions of deaths that the KMT brought through genocide and purposeful famine, odds are he'd be just another intellectual in late Qing early Republican China.

California might be better off, though, with less of a drug trade.

Why would some gang lord wind up as a political figure? Jimmie Mao was just a hoodlum who hired somebody who knew something to write "his" book.
 
While I'd like to say he would be some great Chinese political figure that wound help the country avoid the tens of millions of deaths that the KMT brought through genocide and purposeful famine, odds are he'd be just another intellectual in late Qing early Republican China.

California might be better off, though, with less of a drug trade.

Why would some gang lord wind up as a political figure? Jimmie Mao was just a hoodlum who hired somebody who knew something to write "his" book.

That's like asking what if Al Capone had been a gangster instead of a Senator.
 
Why would some gang lord wind up as a political figure? Jimmie Mao was just a hoodlum who hired somebody who knew something to write "his" book.
Yo never know with alternate history, ESPECIALLY in China in the late-Qing. The amount of somewhat educated peasants that became commanders and representatives is insane.
 
While I'd like to say he would be some great Chinese political figure that wound help the country avoid the tens of millions of deaths that the KMT brought through genocide and purposeful famine, odds are he'd be just another intellectual in late Qing early Republican China.

Well, the man was a gangster. If he had somehow become highly-placed, I doubt he'd have been any different to the KMT.

I always find it depressing: the KMT killed millions, but in modern China they're remembered as 'firm but fair'. The Yunnan and Guangxi warlords who rose up against them in the Second Civil War and broke Southern China off into the Democratic Republic of China took a stand against genocide and tyranny...but ever since China reunified in the 1980s, they've been remembered as Japanese stooges. OK, the DRC was allied with the Japanese until reunification - guns and military aid in exchange for favourable trade relations - but they were nobody's puppets.
 

UKFA

Banned
This thread reeks of bias. Yes he was an anti-establishment figure, and the media demonized him (as much because of racial attitudes at the time as concern for his criminal behaviour if we're honest) but his intentions were good, if imo slightly misguided. He became a rallying figure for the disaffected, he wasn't anti white he was anti segregation, which was not a unique position at the time. He just happened to embody that radical aspect that the bourgeoisie found so worrysome. His political rants were drug-fueled utopian nonsense imo, but he was more of a revolutionary than a mob boss. He engaged in crime not for criminality or moneys sake, but because he rejected the very notion of capitalism. And he was also somewhat of a Robin Hood character, stealing from the banks and helping out the neighbourhoods under his control. Which brings me to another point, his following was extremely racially diverse, he even boasted he had Patricia Campbell Hearst, the granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst among his '[inner circle'. But that didn't help much with his public image of course. BTW he did have a small following in China, who circulated his writings for a short time until they were disappeared by the KMT. If he himself had been from China I suspect his unique philosophies would have dealt him an early demise.. Earlier than his OTL one in the shootout at his compound anyway.
 

UKFA

Banned
Why would some gang lord wind up as a political figure? Jimmie Mao was just a hoodlum who hired somebody who knew something to write "his" book.

He was more of a cult leader than a gangster imo. His followers were inclined towards criminal activities of course, but he did recruit a lot of his followers from prisons and street gangs, it was inevitable he would be tied to some criminal activity.
 
This thread reeks of bias. Yes he was an anti-establishment figure, and the media demonized him (as much because of racial attitudes at the time as concern for his criminal behaviour if we're honest) but his intentions were good, if imo slightly misguided. He became a rallying figure for the disaffected, he wasn't anti white he was anti segregation, which was not a unique position at the time. He just happened to embody that radical aspect that the bourgeoisie found so worrysome. His political rants were drug-fueled utopian nonsense imo, but he was more of a revolutionary than a mob boss. He engaged in crime not for criminality or moneys sake, but because he rejected the very notion of capitalism. And he was also somewhat of a Robin Hood character, stealing from the banks and helping out the neighbourhoods under his control. Which brings me to another point, his following was extremely racially diverse, he even boasted he had Patricia Campbell Hearst, the granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst among his '[inner circle'. But that didn't help much with his public image of course. BTW he did have a small following in China, who circulated his writings for a short time until they were disappeared by the KMT. If he himself had been from China I suspect his unique philosophies would have dealt him an early demise.. Earlier than his OTL one in the shootout at his compound anyway.

He was far from the first or the last gangster to wrap up his criminal activities in the rhetoric of revolution. 99% of the money he took from the banks went into his and his gang's pockets while the rest he dabbled out to the locals so that they covered for him. He is far from the only mob boss to do that. He lived high on the hog for a would be anti-capitalist revolutionary. OOC: That was certainly true OTL.
 

UKFA

Banned
He was far from the first or the last gangster to wrap up his criminal activities in the rhetoric of revolution. 99% of the money he took from the banks went into his and his gang's pockets while the rest he dabbled out to the locals so that they covered for him. He is far from the only mob boss to do that. He lived high on the hog for a would be anti-capitalist revolutionary. OOC: That was certainly true OTL.

OOC: I'm role-playing as a regressive radical lefty Mao apologist here so don't take my posts personally. :p I'm left wing but not to this extent..

I bet you think it's morally wrong to tape a song playing on the radio, and thus cheat the poor multimillion dollar record company and their shareholders out of your hard earned money! Just because he broke a few laws doesn't make him a 'gangster', whatever that means. The real gangsters are the bankers and the lobbyists, the 'hoodlum' on the street only gets a bad rap because the corporate owned media like to make them into scapegoats for societies ills, a nice distraction from the fact they are the ones causing and perpetuating the economic imbalances and unfair distribution of the fruits of labor. Who was trying to flood his neighbourhoods with drugs and guns to make them kill themselves? That's right, your precious government! As always, wholly sponsored by a few wealthy industrialists, the select elite who make the real decisions. Perhaps you'd like the US to be more like China, where poverty prevails for all but a select elite? This is exactly what Mao stood against, it's truly sad that people condemn a man like him for holding to his principles rather than the real tyrants who make life hell for the poor.
 
OOC: I'm role-playing as a regressive radical lefty Mao apologist here so don't take my posts personally. :p I'm left wing but not to this extent..

I bet you think it's morally wrong to tape a song playing on the radio, and thus cheat the poor multimillion dollar record company and their shareholders out of your hard earned money! Just because he broke a few laws doesn't make him a 'gangster', whatever that means. The real gangsters are the bankers and the lobbyists, the 'hoodlum' on the street only gets a bad rap because the corporate owned media like to make them into scapegoats for societies ills, a nice distraction from the fact they are the ones causing and perpetuating the economic imbalances and unfair distribution of the fruits of labor. Who was trying to flood his neighbourhoods with drugs and guns to make them kill themselves? That's right, your precious government! As always, wholly sponsored by a few wealthy industrialists, the select elite who make the real decisions. Perhaps you'd like the US to be more like China, where poverty prevails for all but a select elite? This is exactly what Mao stood against, it's truly sad that people condemn a man like him for holding to his principles rather than the real tyrants who make life hell for the poor.
Do those principles include making deals with the Yakuza to increase his income from drugs, despite them oppressing his fellow Chinese in the DRC, through a massive racketeering and extortion operation?
 
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