| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Another sloppy piece of work,
By A Customer
This review is from: Hells Angels at War: The Alarming Story Behind the Headlines (Paperback)
Here again LaVigne takes on the Hells Angels, and as with his other works the author's bias shines as bright and clear as the sun. In describing the recent war between Scandinavian chapters of Hells Angels and the Bandidos, and other conflicts between the clubs, he portrays the Hells Angels as cunning, calculating and devious adversaries to police, the civilian population at large, and other motorcycle clubs; but he downplays the Bandidos' role in the violence. Not surprising, considering how proud he seems to be to have had his picture taken with national officers, including the national president, of the Bandido Nation at Sturgis. Many times the author's writing style relies heavily on what seems to be quotes from newspaper stories covering various biker conflicts, which, in itself, becomes very tedious. LaVigne's journalistic ego never seems tire in telling the reader how he's traveled to this and that country as an expert in "motorcycle gang" politics and tactics advising various governments and police departments on how to handle this "problem." He also is quite proud of his theory that the Hells Angels all along have planned to and will absorb the Bandidos MC; how the Hells Angels bitter enemies in Canada, the Rock Machine Motorcycle Club will never become Bandidos; predicting this will all come to pass; etc. He continually states this WILL happen. Well, for all of LaVigne's "expertise," he is wrong: The Rock Machine just became a probationary part of the Bandido Nation, and it's now just a matter of time before they are fully accepted into the fold. This, and other misinformation, is indeed is a reflection of the author's inadequacy in the field of journalism. His hatred of the Hells Angels Motorcycle club clouds any sense of objective reporting on the subject.
11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Highly Informative But Sometimes Tedious,
By "hubec" (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hells Angels at War: The Alarming Story Behind the Headlines (Paperback)
A very thorough investigation into the bikers, the police, and the public. This book is something of a big deal up here in Canada because the upper rungs of the RCMP were embarassed by it revealing their sometimes reprehensible strategies. The RCMP brass reacted by coming down hard on the officer who leaked the information to LaVigne. Really a sad story because the officer is highly decorated and leaked the information only because he was fed up with being stifled in his pursuit of the bikers. Of course the main focus of the book is the bikers. It certainly shows illegal biker gang members for what they are; career criminals who will do anything for more money and power.On the down side the book can be tedious. It largly consists of a frank description of events. More of an attempt should have been made to identify the important people and tell their specific stories throught the book. Instead what we tend to get is a constant stream of seemingly unrelated events.
7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kids, this is how the real world works,
By A Customer
This review is from: Hells Angels at War: Hells Angels and Their Violent Conspiracy to Supply Illegal Drugs to the World (Hardcover)
Revealing in many regards, and highly informative and credible as a result.Lavigne tells us about himself, something which was lacking in his earlier oeuvres. For example, we learn that he has ridden motorcycles for over thiry-one years, and that he owns at least two. Lavigne's brushes with death and serious injury in Chapters 1,2 and 5, as well as his Sturgis photos, definitively and conclusively refute the lackies' hackneyed lament that he never met any real 1%ers and simply compiled his books from police reports. Chapter one says a lot about Québec and Canada. We learn that affirmative actionism and employment equity forced the Mounties to hire a mole who was working for the Colombian drug cartels. The section on Bill C-68 dispels and destroys the myth that gun control makes for a safer world. Lavigne also notes that Québec's warring 1%ers are dead set against Separation, pointing out that their "NO" signs were the only ones Separatists left unmolested. Lavigne's description of the 1%ers ability to take care of business should tell all semi-intelligent Canadians that no Québec referendum will ever lead to independence. Lavigne's section on the police brass is profound in many respects. He reveals how police ignore 1%er MC's at their embryonic--and most vulnerable-- stages, after which the only time they do anything about them is when they raise the bogeyman of a biker war in order to secure and perpetuate their massive budgets. The comment of one police official on the possibility of 1%ers moving into his baliwick says it all; "Good, that means more work for us!" This advocacy and promotion of blatant falsehoods in order to sustain one's budget finds a startling parallel in the military, in academia and research, in the pharmaceutical industry, and in nursing. Lavigne's description of how 1%ers operate in isolated cells, not wanting to know what individual members are doing, also parallels what Naomi Klein writes about Coke and Sprite, who simply license franchises to use their names, averting any direct link to human rights abuses. Lavigne also shows what a MAN he is, by 'fessing up to his own mistakes in casting aspersions on the Wild Pigs MC. He denounces the prejudices and discriminataory attitudes some police brass have towards this group. You don't see any of Lavigne's critics doing the same. An excellent read. This is how things work in the real world.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
|
|
