betiko wrote:Endgame422 wrote:Metsfanmax wrote:
I don't think sabotage is foolish and certainly wrong on everything. Just on some things.
BREAKTHROUGH!!
I don't think he's wrong on everything either. But he does tend to think he knows all about the person he's discussing with's perspective and will stick to his initial thought while the debate goes on while further explanations are made, which really gets on my nerves.
The Story of Sabotage: why I think as I do...
My grandmother came from a family that became very wealthy during her lifetime. Her father worked overseas for the US government on a very good package and invested in property in Montana just as a university was being set up. In twenty years or so he owned more than 30 houses which he had converted into multi-unit student housing. She got out on her own when her father moved to Iran just prior to all the shit going down there.
She married a half-Sioux, half-French forester/ski patroller and quickly had two children while at university. A few years later she had two more children, my mother was the youngest by a year. During this time she worked in advertising and slowly began to look down on my grandfather. She drank heavily, had affairs, was rarely home. This continued for several years until my mom was a pre-teen and my grandparents divorced. This was the seventies and her older siblings were in Montana's half-assed hippy scene. My uncles, aunt and mother were considered half-breeds, so joining the hippies wasn't really a matter of choice in 70's Montana.
My grandmother married a prominent politician who had kids, my grandfather married a nasty lady who had kids. Neither wanted much to do with the previous kids from my grandfather/grandmother's union. So from early teens my mother and her nearest sibling had no real home. They lived at times with their older full-fledged hippy siblings who had a somewhat more stable upbringing, they lived "around" and for short times with one of their parents.
My mother got pregnant at 16 and the father-to-be found wings. I was her second child at 19, my father was a half-breed coke selling Hells Angel. He would head off for months and sometimes return loaded with cash and other times broke. My mother mainly shoplifted to make ends meet, but she was also heavily into drugs and there would be days on end where we couldn't get her to budge for anything. My sister and I were under 6 at this time.
My father ended up getting shot and then convicted of coke trafficking. At this time we weren't very stable to begin with, constantly moving, watching my mother get arrested, living with relatives here and there.
I remember her getting pulled over, dragged out of the car, shackled belly down with the trooper keeping a shotgun to her head while his partner drove to town to do a check on her. This was in the middle of nowhere and I remember it taking hours.
With my father gone, things became more complicated. My mother engaged in increasingly risky crimes. She broke into a fur shop and made off with 24 coats. We moved further and further going throughout Idaho, North Dakota, Washington. In Denver, my mother was arrested and we ended up in foster care. We had lived in shelters there, and when we had our own place, it was pretty much open door policy. I remember a guy walked in, sat on the sofa a while, and left, leaving a big piss mark where he'd been sitting. We lived in the mixed ghetto. My first fist fight happened there at around 4/5.
About this time my mother got involved with a real lowlife. I sometimes think about finding him and ... for what he did to my older sister and how fucked up he made my mother's life.
We moved to Seattle when I was around 5. This was an extremely violent period for me. This fuckhead was a bodybuilder and put me in hospital a few times. One day, when I must have been seven since my baby sister was around, we woke up to see the apartment covered in blood and gauze strewn about. We had no idea what happened but didn't want to attract too much attention by both staying home from school, so my older sister stayed with my younger sister and I sat through class not knowing if my mother was dead or alive. He'd tried to kill her, but she blocked the knife with her forearm and it went through the first bone. They came home all smiling with her in a cast.
My mother was selling weed now. Her dealer liked her and when my older sister told my mother what this piece of shit was doing to her, the dealer put a gun to this fucks head and told him not to come back.
When I was eight, the police busted my mother on weed charges, but she ended up being sentenced for grand theft larceny for the fur coats which had happened in eastern Washington state. We were put in separate foster homes. I ended up living in three different ones over the following 18 moths or so. I was bussed to the poorest school in Seattle and did work in the wealthy neighborhood I lived to earn money.
I was always a top student, but at this mainly black school I really came into my own. I broke the American standardized fitness record at the school, was top of my grade academically and was voted as the Susan B Anthony award winner by my classmates.
At this time my great-aunt and uncle were in their mid to late 40s and childless. My little sister was exceptionally cute, I looked to be a good prospect and my older sister was something they'd be willing to put up with as par to the package. They lived in the most expensive postal code in Canada, my great-aunt was a professor and consultant for the Canadian government.
I went from a predominantly black school where I had several fights do to my race, to a predominantly French school where I had several fights because of my language. After a couple fights, I was left alone, since I was not what they wanted out of an opponent. During this period, my aunt and uncle didn't give us any money and I worked around the neighborhood to earn money for clothes, shoes, a bike, etc.
My parents wanted me to go to LCC, the top private English school in Montreal. I got a full scholarship and then refused to go. I didn't want to be the poor scholarship kid, so I ended up going to a French immersion school speaking extremely little French. My mom got released from prison at this time and then died in a car accident shortly after. I started selling weed in the park at around 13.
At 14, we moved to Hong Kong where I no longer had a choice of avoiding a private school. I went to a British school and was looked down on for my nationality. Before long, people learned not to f*ck with me. In Hong Kong, my adoptive parents still didn't give us any money and there was no neighborhood work to be done since there were maids in every house around us. I found out the kids were buying weed for 1200-1600 an ounce, but they knew it could be got for much cheaper if you went to Chungking Mansion, which none of them wanted to go to. So next time they were planning on buying weed, I got them to give the money to me and went there. I first tried to buy a hundred worth. I got cheated, but getting cheated attracted a runner for a real dealer named Tiger.
Tiger sold me a bullet, 1/4 ounce, of the finest Nepalese hash for 100. By 16 I was one of the main dealers for all the international schools in HK. Some of these kids had ridiculous sums at their disposal. Their drivers would take us to private clubs where they could sign off on the bill and their dad's company would pay.
Each summer, while I lived with my adoptive parents, I would either spend on my uncles ranch in Montana, or my aunts bed and breakfast doing the work. At 17, I had a network of dealers working for me. After working a summer on my uncles ranch and then being arrested in Montana, I moved to the Philippines with my parents. I hated it there. We lived in a gated community and had seven servants. We'd shop tax free at the ADB and watch poor folks beg for pennies. I said f*ck it and moved back to HK.
I would go to Macau for visa runs. One time, I happened to run into a casino boss. He offered me a position supplying his customers through his people. I didn't deal in coke, but that's what they mostly ended up wanting. I had moved beyond Tiger and was dealing with his suppliers.
They wanted to set up a Japanese connection, but they were mainly Nepalese guys and were afraid to do it. I knew several ambassadors (or I should say, consulate generals) kids and in particular one who was a coke head and wanted to move to Vancouver.
I went to Japan and established a connection and then started arranging shipments through people. Later, I just packaged and shipped it to Japan. Our group had dogs and X-ray equipment and we were able to check the packages much as the customs would.
This was extremely lucrative. At about 19, HK refused me visa entry, so I moved to Macau and kept a place in mainland China. I met a Portuguese girl and we got married to help with the visa situation. At this time, I was occasionally helping with foreign customers at the casino, supplying a casino guy and the police with hash, as well as doing the Japanese deals.
My wife's friends would come hang out in our place where they smoked from a never ending supply of hash, and watched me be quite at leisure. They always wanted to buy some. I asked my wife where their dealer was, and she said, he's dry. So rather than start dealing with nickel and dime shit, I gave the dealer extremely cheap prices and said, keep these guys from asking to buy from me.
He got busted and ratted me out before they even asked him to. On June 18, 2001 at 20 years old, I was arrested without evidence (aside from this guys word) and put in prison to await trial. On September 11, 2001 while awaiting trial, I was moved to solitary and put on 24 hour lockdown. I was allowed 4 books at a time and got some friends to buy me a Riverside Shakespeare, Bible and steady stream of other books, in part to donate to the prison library so I could get more than the 4 personal books allowed at a time.
I tried hard too get out of solitary. The US consulate insisted it was necessary for my safety since there were a handful of Muslims (all friendly to me, in fact I had known two from before) in the general population. I tried to denounce my US citizenship, but my lawyer refused to help me process the application.
After I was sentenced to 8 1/2 years, a forgone conclusion in Macau which has a near 100% conviction rate, I was allowed to move to maximum security, still under 24 hour lockdown at a time, but every other day granted a few hours outside my cell. Ironically, this was the foreigners section where most of the Muslims lived.
I got an associates in applied sciences while there for 2 years. Finally, my dangerous self was deemed fit for general population and I worked in the mechanics shop. In the cell block, I helped run the gambling book for casino style games and football betting for the second in command of the 14k.
I avoided being stabbed twice, once by breaking a guys wrist and another time by lucking out in a brawl. Broken Tooth, the head of 14k was in prison but kept out of contact with the rest of his group after 2002, an amazing feat considering that 40% of the guards were in the 14k. His underlings were vying for power and shit would go from a boring calm to a makeshift riot in seconds. I had three extremely brave friends and we took Thai boxing lessons daily from a former champion trainer.
5 years, 9 months and 21 days after being arrested, I was released on parole for good behavior. My godmother who is a prominent figure in HK arranged for me to work for a friend as office manager of his small engineering firm. We worked on a marine theme project for a few months until it got called off due to interference with a navy base in the area. This was in Hainan which was rapidly becoming a tourist destination. The engineering firm owners wife owned the only 24-hour bar in HK, which was very profittable and decided to set up a bar in Sanya, with me as manager. It was a pretty cool bar, called windjammer with a boat built in as the bar and an outside rowboat with a grill. The wife and I were hoping for a smaller space, since the area was still quite dead and we would be getting as much free deck space with a indoor bar of 200 m^2 as with 550 m^2. But the husband wanted a big place, requiring more staff, utilities, rent. He got his way.
The bar was always that way. The husband wanted bright lights to attract the mostly non existent passersby in, the wife wanted them dimmed, I would have to compensate based on who was onsite and let them argue it out when they were both there. I stayed for a few months and we hosted the Miss World after party there.
In jail, I had been teaching English and I had a TEFL, so I got a job teaching English. Soon they moved me more towards student attraction, which I was good at. I learned a variety of teaching methods at a couple different schools and how to attract students. My godmother and a few others, including myself decided to set up our own center. The first full month in we showed a profit. The school ran well for two years. I started to get bored with teaching, I didn't like dealing with all the staff, students, investors, foreign teachers, my wife, etc. a lot of competition just moved in when I had my son and I decided to sell (only three training licenses were available for the district which already had more than 15 training centers).
My son was born with asthma and Dongguan was extremely polluted. I enrolled in uni and am currently doing co-op towards a civil engineering degree. We have a decent amount in the bank, two cars paid for, a house paid for and a son whose asthma has improved.
What does all this mean? Why am I bothering with this?
I know billionaires and homeless folks, I know criminals and officials, I have been the poor minority and the rich minority, I know different cultures and different environments. I have bribed officials, witnessed back door deals, saw how important connections are and have seen how power hungry wannabes abuse their power. I like to think I have a diverse perspective, that I learned from my experiences. I like to think I've encountered the good and bad from both sides, enjoyed the punishments and rewards.
I don't expect this post to make my opinions appear more legitimate or reasonable. There will be those who will take my solitary confinement as reason I believe what I do about 9/11. I don't, but who knows? Because it had an important influence on me, I have studied it extensively. Because my upbringing had an important affect, I try to be very aware of what I'm doing and why in regards to being a father. Because I have experienced wealth and poverty, I know that neither is all good nor all bad and might have a more complicated worldview in this respect.
And trust me, I don't expect to be believed.
by muy_thaiguy on Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:35 am 
muy_thaiguy
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