Forum Post: Metaphor from the motorcycle community
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 7, 2011, 1:34 p.m. EST by bluefish
(24)
from Spokane, WA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
When I think about the protests going on I think about a metaphor that would apply in the motorcycle riding community:
The 1% in the riding community represents club members who are bad ass hombres and the 99% are the rest of the riders.
The 1% in the real world are the wealthy, super wealthy and the 99% are the rest of us.
The difference? In the ride community the 1% are left alone to do their business. They are respected and feared all at the same time. They have no qualms about who they are and proudly defend their club. They can take you out with wepons or a fist. They can mess up your body, burn your belongings, and you would know for sure who did it.
The other, sheepishly hide behind tinted glass, security guards, and can take you out with a swipe of a nice ball point pen. They can hide behind a faceless panel.
It should be noted that such terms like %1 and similar things, pop up from time to time in the typical "us vs them" debates. This %1 has nothing to do with the MC %1.
our use of the term %1 has nothing to do with the %1 MCs. yes, I know what a %1 MC is. I know how close the protestors are to HA's NYC chapter clubhouse.
So how did the biker %1 get its name?? See after a little so called "riot"(wild party really) in holister, california in 1948, the American Motorcycle Association(AMA, kinda like the AAA for bikes), denounced the "riot" and "rioters". They said that 99% of the motorcycle riding population are rightous upstanding mainstream citizens, and its just the %1 of bikers causing trouble. The next day clubs like POBOB(Pissed off Bastards of Berdoo, a breakaway sect would later become Hells Angels) started wearing a diamond with the %1 logo after tossing their AMA patches.
Used outside the context of the motorcycle world
As for hiding behind tinted glass, security guards, I think you'd find both in the entryways to all the major financial institutions oh-so-close to the protestors who camping out who have neither.
If you want to talk about taking someone out with the swipe of a pen, just ask the millions of Americans who lost their homes and everything to the very same banks.
No, if I piss off a %1 biker, I'd probably see some patchholders coming to stomp me with boots and chains. If I piss off %1 of society so rich to not work, they are going to get the cops to stomp me, and the press to denounce me. They are going to hide behind whatever they can.
The %1 clubs are also pretty serious fraternal organizations with the club coming first in all aspects of life. I just can't imagine anyone in the %1 wealth wise comitting to such a thing.
Here and now is not a good place to discuss the biker world. All I can say is the term %1 has been used in "us vs them" games for a very long time, and the context does not dirrectly transfer.
You are correct. It's just a metaphor. I ride and I completely understand the makings of the mc world. The corporate one is more conniving and conveluted than the other. At least with the mc 1% you can understand them and know exactly where they stand and have more honor than the corporate 1%.
Sounds like the gang mentality to me. Is that what we really want, a beer hall putsch, so we can “punish” our “enemies”? That will only lead to new elites dominating the displaced ones. We need to have more brains than that.
I agree there has to be a better way than the same old shit.
Thank you.