Overheard in a South Philly Bar

I live in South Philadelphia, an area that’s steeped in mob history.  Just a few blocks from my apartment, Angelo Bruno, the “Gentle Don” who ruled the Philly mob for twenty years, was gunned down in front of his home.  His successor, Philip Testa was blown to bits by a nail bomb planted on his front porch just a few blocks further south.  A neighbor grew up with Nicky Scarfo.

In spite of this, in all my years here I’ve never personally witnessed anything mob related.   Sure, like everyone else I've seen lots of news reports and grisly photos depicting the depravities of the gangsters in my neighborhood, but nothing of that sort had ever occurred before my eyes. 

But I think I overheard a couple of mobsters the other night.  I was out for a walk when it started raining.  In order to avoid getting soaked, I ducked into a tiny bar, ordered a drink and went to a booth at the back of the barroom to wait out the cloudburst.

I hadn’t been there long when two men entered.  They were both big, tough looking guys dressed in expensive suits.  I suspected they were there for the same reason I was, to escape the storm.  As they squeezed into a booth near the entrance, I thought I saw the outline of pistols under their jackets.

They both looked like some Serious People, but I didn’t figure I was in any danger.  I mean, if they were there to whack someone, they would’ve come in with guns blazing and besides, the bartender and I were the only other people there.  So I felt safe in assuming they were there for mundane reasons.  Like I said, probably just waiting out the storm.

Soon after they sat down, one of them stood up and took a long, slow look around the narrow barroom.  He saw the bartender who was standing at the back of the bar but he looked right past me.  Because I was in the shadows, I don’t think he saw me. 

He sat back down and right away began talking.  Even though they barely spoke above a whisper, due to some acoustic peculiarity of the room, I could clearly hear every word they said.  It was only a few words into their exchange when I realized I was overhearing a meeting of gangsters.  They were obviously plotting some horrible crime.   

You be the judge.  Here’s how it went:

“So why’d ya call me here?”

“The Boss wants us for a very important job.”

“OK.  I’m listening.”

“He wants us to find someone for him and he’s got the entire Organization working on it.  He's pulling out all the stops and calling in all favors to catch this guy.  Nobody's to rest for a minute until it's done”

“Hmm.  And when we find the guy he wants us to, ahem, paint his house?”

“No!  This time he wants him alive.  I think he wants to make an example of him and a bullet would be merciful compared to what the Boss has planned for him!”

“So what’s this guy done that’s got the Boss so pissed off?  He some kind of rat?”

“Oh yeah!  He’s the worst kind of rat.  The king of the rats!  He knows where all the bodies are buried and he’s singin’ like a canary.  He’s already said all kinds of things that could get Our Friends into a lot of trouble.  And I don’t just mean Our Friends here at home, but Our Friends around the world.  Thousands of 'em!  Worse than that, he’s ratting out our methods as well as our names and if he keeps it up, it’ll be a lot harder for the Organization to do business.  This man needs to be Dealt With and it needs to be done quickly.  If we don't make an example of him, pretty soon all kinds of squealers will be coming out of the woodwork.  We can't have John Q. Citizen meddling in our Business."

“Man, I see what you mean.  We gotta get that guy before he ruins Our Thing!  Does the Boss think he’s in Philly?”

“No, we know where he is. Right now, he’s holed up overseas, but he can’t stay there long.  He’s gonna have to jump outta there soon and when he does, the Boss wants everybody to be ready to grab his ass and make him pay.  He’s got all the other Bosses around the world keeping their people on the lookout.  The second he sets foot on their turf, they’ll bounce him over to us so the Boss can fix his wagon.  I almost pity the poor sap!  They’re gonna make him curse his momma for ever giving him life.  Gonna rock his world and make his platters twirl!  The Boss is gonna see to that...So ya got it?”

“Yep.  Oh, I almost forgot.  What’s the rat’s name?”

“Snowden.  Edward Snowden.”

O.B.I.T.

I love watching old TV shows, especially those from the days of my childhood.  I used to think it was because they were better than contemporary fare, but now I’m not so sure.  I mean, for every good show from those days like Alfred Hitchcock Presents or The Twilight Zone, there were plenty of turkeys like Gilligan’s Island and My Mother the Car.

One show I’ve been watching lately is The Outer Limits (1963-1965).  Now some installments were better than others, but the other night I watched an episode of the series that was so relevant to recent reports of mass surveillance that, were it not fifty years old, I might’ve thought it had been written by Edward Snowden or Julian Assange.

Entitled O.B.I.T., the show is about a senator who is sent to a secure military facility to investigate a murder.  While there, he also finds that people on the base and in the neighboring town are suffering from severe morale problems, with a climate of fear pervading the region and alarming levels of alcoholism, mental illness and divorce.

He discovers the reason for the problem is the Outer Band Individuated Teletracer (O.B.I.T.), a television-like device that allows a viewer to see and listen to anyone, anywhere within a 500-mile radius.  Sort of like an invisible video camera that could be directed anywhere, it enabled its users to spy on anyone they chose.

And spy they did.  That was the cause of the terrible sense of fear and hostility that had descended upon the region.  Husbands spied on wives.  Bosses spied on underlings.  Coworkers spied on each other.  As you might imagine, it came to a point where no one could trust anyone else and everyone was soon at each others’ throat. 

Worse, it turned out that there were several O.B.I.T. devices scattered around the world, each generating chaos in its wake.  In spite of the fact that its users soon realized the conflict that was being caused by the device, their curiosity and emotional insecurity compelled them to use it again and again.  One military officer admitted that he was powerless to fight his addiction to eavesdropping with O.B.I.T.

Long story short, the episode ends with the revelation that the devices were created and installed by an alien race bent on conquering our planet.  Here’s a quote from the climactic scene:

Lomax (revealed as an alien): The machines are everywhere! Oh you'll find them all, you're a zealous people. And you'll make a great show of smashing a few of them. But for every one you destroy, hundreds of others will be built. And they will demoralize you, break your spirits, create such rifts and tensions in your society that no one will be able to repair them! Oh, you're a savage, despairing planet, and when we come here to live, you friendless, demoralized flotsam will fall without even a single shot being fired. Senator, enjoy the few years left you. There is no answer. You're all of the same dark persuasion! You demand – insist – on knowing every private thought and hunger of everyone: Your families, your neighbors, everyone — but yourselves.

Wow.  And this from those quaint and innocent times when the worst you had to fear from the government was having your phone tapped or your mail opened, and only then if they suspected you of something.  Now all of our phones are tapped, all of our postal mail is photographed, and almost every interaction we have with anyone that somehow enters the digital domain—be it email, text messages, retail purchases, the web links you click, the organizations you support (or even communicate with), entries on your blog, everything you say or do on Facebook, Twitter or other social networking sites, your financial information—all of these and much more are being recorded and stored all the time.

They can even remotely activate the microphones on our cell phones, making them into bugs to listen in on nearby conversations.  The phones don't even have to be turned on for them to be able to listen.

Eerily similar to the device in The Outer limits, wouldn't you say?  Only our modern O.B.I.T. wasn’t inflicted upon us by aliens, but by our own governments.

Anybody remember J. Edgar Hoover?  He was the director of the F.B.I. from 1935-1972.  During that time, he amassed great power due to his extensive surveillance files on thousands of people, including presidents and their families, leaders of politics, industry and especially dissidents.  He used these files to perpetuate and expand his bureaucratic empire via blackmail and intimidation.  Several presidents tried to remove him from power, but they all failed because he had dirt on everyone.  That’s why F.B.I. directors are now limited to ten-year terms.  The leaders of government wanted to prevent anyone from ever again gaining such power.

The point is that, as recognized so long ago in the Outer Limit episode, such power will always corrupt its possessors.  And our governments (and the institutions they serve) now have a degree of power undreamt of by the likes of Hoover, and it cannot but be used illegitimately, to intimidate and control us. 

Of course, defenders of such surveillance will say that only a select few have access to such information and that it will only be used within narrowly defined limits in the War on Terror, but we have no way of being assured that rogue elements within the intelligence establishment won’t use this power for their own ends.  Indeed, rogue elements have already appeared in the form of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, but thankfully their rogue activities were done in the name of freedom and openness, rather than for oppression. 

But now that the ability exists to document your every movement, every interaction with anyone on every day of your life for the rest of your life, the possibilities are endless.  Anyone who has made a small misstep in his past (and who among us has never made such mistakes?) can be targeted for blackmail and other forms of intimidation if they step out of line. 

Any politician or activist who attempts to oppose the intelligence (sic) and defense (sic) establishments will have exposed anything they’ve ever done wrong and there’s no way they can hide their past mistakes from scrutiny.  If they flirted in their youth with extreme politics of the Left or Right, downloaded raunchy porno when in their teens or did anything else that can be used against them, it will be used against them if they challenge the status quo.

This awesome power will also be used in personal feuds among competing bureaucracies within the intelligence (sic) and defense (sic) establishments, leading to ever greater levels of bureaucratic stupidity, and these are but a few of the institutional uses of the technology that spell doom for anything resembling a right to privacy..  

Other possible abuses abound.  Let’s not forget that computers can be hacked and there’s no guarantee that unauthorized personnel—both inside and outside of our countries and their governments—will also be able to use the information for an endless (and terrifying) array of purposes.  The power it conveys is impossible to resist and you can be sure it will come to be used more and more as our Masters fall under its spell.

Mr. Lomax, our alien from The Outer Limits was right.  Mass surveillance, our modern day O.B.I.T., will ultimately destroy our societies much more efficiently and completely than mere bombs or bullets.  

As Robert Anton Wilson said, “national security is the chief cause of national insecurity.” He was right and we're seeing it played out before our eyes.  He meant that when the preoccupation with national security becomes so great that everybody comes to be spying on everyone else, none of us can possibly be secure.

Welcome to Gulag Earth.

You can watch The Outer Limits here.

My Uncle, the Gambling Addict

You probably know someone like my uncle.  You might even have someone like him in your family.  

People with serious gambling problems aren't hard to spot.  Their homes are always shabby and neglected looking, with peeling paint and missing shingles.  Their yards are overgrown with weeds and seldom mowed.  Their children wear ragged clothing and, in the worst cases, are ill fed and sickly.

They’re always just one step ahead of the bill collectors because they pay for life’s necessities with credit, with all of their income being diverted in service of their addiction.  If they own a car, you can be sure it’s both old and in a terrible state of disrepair.

Such people are seldom close with their families, neighbors, or have any friends—save for their fellow addicts—because their addiction has caused them to alienate all who might be sympathetic or supportive. Their relentless pursuit of the Big Payoff has caused them to lie, cheat and steal from all those unfortunate enough to get close to them.

As I said, we all know someone like my uncle.  And if you’re a U.S. citizen, I know you know my uncle, because he’s your uncle too. 

His name is Uncle Sam.

Now I know that my analogy is a bit weak in that Uncle Sam isn’t so much a gambler as he is an enabler of the Big Time gamblers whose billions dominate our government.  But the level of influence wielded by these Big Shots—always substantial—has grown at such an astonishing pace in recent years, it’s fair to say that they now are Uncle Sam.

Only the new Uncle Sam no longer wears that corny red, white and blue getup.  That outfit represented a lot of quaint, outmoded ideas like fair play, justice and government-by-the-people.  And nobody who’s anybody cares about that stuff anymore.

No, he’s traded it in for a sharkskin suit, two tone shoes and a black fedora.  Like a mobster straight out of a Scorsese flick, when he bets with a bookie and wins, he collects his money.  On the other hand, when he bets with a bookie and loses...he collects his money.  If the bookie refuses, he’s in for some serious trouble. 

And when the mobster’s addiction spirals out of control, he starts squeezing every one of his underlings to kick as much cash upstairs as they can.  When that’s not enough, they start letting the basic stuff go and they end up living in the sort of houses described above.

And it’s gotten to that point in the U.S.  Have you taken a good look at our ‘house and yard’ lately?  Millions of homes are in foreclosure with millions more on the verge.  Large swaths of our cities are in decay.  Roads and bridges are reaching a frightening state of disrepair.  Poverty is soaring, with social programs suffering drastic cuts.  (More than one in five children in the U.S. is now living in poverty!)  Public schools are crumbling, due to equally drastic cuts in spending for education.  Vast numbers of citizens are either unemployed or underemployed and our standing in the world community has degraded, with anti-American sentiment at an all time high.

I could go on and on, but in short, our national ‘house and yard’ looks like it belongs to an addict.

So why did this happen?  Because a bunch of Big Shot gamblers made a load of bad bets and they’re taking payment for them out of our collective ass. And just like the addict's house, which will someday collapse from neglect, so shall our nation someday collapse from this shameful neglect.

All of this points to one conclusion:  Our country is being run by a pack of degenerate junkies and the time is nigh for an intervention.

POVERTY AND DENIAL

POVERTY AND DENIAL

I attended an event a few years ago which included a talent show.  One of the performers, a folk-singer/songwriter wannabe introduced her first song as follows:

“I was driving in my hometown awhile back and I saw a woman beside the road with a young girl at her side holding a sign, which read (her voice choked with emotion), ‘Homeless.  Will work for food.’  Now, I didn’t give her any money because most of them just use it to buy drugs, but I felt so moved by her plight and the plight of all homeless people that I wrote this song…”

[Insert sappy song here]

This annoys the hell out of me on so many levels!  First of all, what possible good is her goddamned song going to do for the homeless?  I mean, a million songs—no matter how poignant—aren’t going to do the homeless a fraction of the good that could be accomplished with your basic bologna-and-cheese sandwich or a few coins from her pocket.

But worse is an attitude reflected in her remarks that is all too common here in the U.S.  She implied that the homeless woman she saw holding the sign was living and begging in the street with her daughter because she was addicted to drugs.  Her bad decisions in life led to her sorry state, and worse, to that of her poor daughter.   

In other words, it was her own fault.

Now leaving aside for a moment the fact that, whatever sins which might’ve been committed by the mother, the daughter was without blame and deserving of at least sympathy, if not charity—these proclamations are never based on actual contact and conversation with the homeless person.  Our singer/songwriter never bothered to stop and actually ask the woman about her situation.

I hear this sort of rationalization all the time, and it’s always used as an excuse for refusing to help, or even to acknowledge the problems of the poor.  Worse yet, if these people do stop to offer a few cents to the homeless, they patronize them with simplistic advice on how to deal with their complex problems.  Many have told me that having to listen to this sort of paternalistic claptrap is worse (almost) than going hungry.

I wish I could remember where I saw it, but I read of a survey that was done several years ago which asked respondents, ‘Why are poor people poor?’  About 65-70% of the respondents in the U.S. (if memory serves) gave answers like, ‘they’re lazy,’ or ‘they made bad decisions,’ or ‘because of alcohol and drug abuse.’ 

In other words, 65-70% said it was the poor's own fault.

When the same question was asked of Europeans, an equal percentage—about 65-70% (if memory serves) gave responses like, ‘because of economic changes beyond their control, or, ‘because of illness, injury or the need to care for family members.’ 

In other words, 65-70% said it wasn’t the poor's fault.

So why do so many people in my country blame the poor for their plight?  And why do they do it so reflexively, so uncritically?  The obvious answer is that they’re self-obsessed cheapskates, unwilling to lose even a few cents to anything that doesn’t offer immediate gratification for them. 

Their apologists will argue that these tightwads are themselves victims of a shrinking economy and with money so tight, well, “charity begins at home.”  But any panhandler will tell you that the most generous donors are almost always blue-collar folks, while the well heeled usually pass by with nothing more than a scornful look and the occasional stern admonishment.  If the apologists were right, it would be the other way ‘round, with the wealthiest giving the most.

To discover the reason we blame the poor for their poverty, I think we have to look a little deeper.  It’s been many years since I read Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, but the parts that stuck in my mind all these years were the passages in the book that dealt with how the test pilots of the 1950s coped with the deaths of their colleagues.  Because they were flying experimental aircraft of a multitude of designs in those early days of jet aircraft, accidents were common and usually fatal.

In the barroom discussions following such a fatality, the other pilots always found some reason, some error on the part of the pilot to account for his death.  ‘He didn’t lift his nose enough as he landed,’ or, ‘He didn’t do a good enough pre-flight inspection,’ or some such. 

As Wolfe pointed out, these reasons were usually bogus.  The real reason most test pilots died was because their aircrafts’ designs were fundamentally flawed and no one could have survived attempts to fly them.  But the pilots couldn’t accept that and had to come up with errors on the part of the dead pilots—errors they would never make—to explain their demise. 

If they were to accept the real reason—that their lives were in grave danger from forces utterly beyond their control—they’d never again be able to muster the courage to enter the cockpit. 

If you look for it, you’ll see this form of denial in all sorts of situations because almost nobody can face the realization that our position in life, our very survival is, in this uncertain world, inherently precarious. 

And that’s the reason we blame the poor for being poor.  Millions in the U.S. are only a few paychecks away from living on the street.  Wages have been stagnant for decades and the gap between rich and poor has been widening at an appalling pace.  With the Barons of Finance wrecking the economy and a safety net that has shrunk to virtual nonexistence (at the behest of those selfsame Barons of Finance), it would take but a hiccup in the economy, the next burst bubble, and millions of middle class people would find themselves in dire straits.

To admit that the poor became so because of these blind forces is to admit that it could happen to them and, as with our test pilots, that’s intolerable to contemplate. 

Fixing blame on the poor has the added advantage of derailing any sense of collective guilt for our participation in an economic and political system that is steadily pushing millions of people down the economic ladder into poverty.  Any supporter of the massive tax cuts of recent years (and the resultant cuts in social services needed to pay for them) has to come up with some way to explain the poverty they see all around them, and you know they’re never going to admit that their policies had anything to do with it so, Presto!

“It’s their own fault!”

Movie Night

I’m a big fan of propaganda. Whether it supports my beliefs and personal prejudices or opposes them, I’m fascinated by the many ways in which we’re influenced by media.

Of course, as with advertising, no one is willing to admit that propaganda affects their behavior, but its efficacy cannot be denied in an age where it has led us into war on false pretenses, where we’ve been frightened into sacrificing our liberties to the ironically-named Patriot Act, and where perfectly law abiding Muslim-Americans are persecuted and shunned (and their brothers and sisters abroad slaughtered at the slightest provocation--justified or not).
Some of my favorite examples of movies as socio-political propaganda come from the days of the Cold War. The late 1940s and 1950s gave birth to some of the most unsubtle, over the top movies ever made. And our first offering is a prime example. Released in 1951, I Was a Communist for the FBI told the highly fictionalized story of Matt Cvetic, who spent ten years working undercover for the FBI as a member of the Communist Party USA.

Although most of the events in the movie never happened, Cvetic was a real undercover infiltrator who was influential in smashing the CPUSA. I guess the truth of what he did wasn't sensational enough, so they had to invent Wild Adventures with which to titillate audiences.

In it, we are told that racial strife and the civil rights movement were inspired by communist agitators, as if African Americans had no reason to be angry until the communists convinced the poor, simple creatures that they did.

We are told that labor unrest is also inspired by those evil reds. When communist infiltrators rig a union vote to generate a wildcat strike, the dissenting union members try to dissuade the picketers from marching, so the commies send a gang of tough guys to beat them senseless with steel pipes (all of which are wrapped, for some strange reason, in Hebrew language newspapers). In a stunning turnabout, union-busting goons weren't sent by the Big Shots who run the factory, but those slimy Bolsheviks. I should've known it was them all along!

In another hilarious scene, a member is ordered to start a fascist movement in order to arouse sympathy for the communists. You see, even the Nazis are a commie plot.

But best of all is how we are taught all Good Americans should treat anyone who joins or even sympathizes with those Red Devils. Cvetic’s brother and son don’t realize that he is only pretending to be a communist and treat him with furious hatred. His brother even punches him out at their mother’s funeral.

In those days, it was widely believed that ‘every communist is Moscow’s spy.’ Because of this, someone who sincerely believed in communism (however misguided that might be), even if he was opposed to the outrages committed by the Soviet Union, was almost universally despised in the U.S.

But the chief irony is the film’s main message: It is nobler for us to hold loyalty to the state more sacred than loyalty to our family. If a loved one adopts beliefs that run counter to the established party line, he must be spat upon, shunned and hopefully, imprisoned or killed. I needn’t point out that this attitude is more characteristic of a totalitarian society (like, ahem, Stalin's Soviet Union) than a free country.

Watch, and be amazed.



As an antidote, I now present some leftist propaganda from the same era. Salt of the Earth, released in 1954, was also based on a true story. But, unlike the last film, it actually follows the real events fairly accurately. The story of a miners' strike in New Mexico, it deals boldly with issues like racism, women's rights, labor struggles, arrogant one-percenters, and police violence against unions and the poor--unheard of in the movies of those days.

There are only five professional actors in the entire film. The rest of the parts were played by the people who staged the strike on which the film is based. Because of this and a shoestring budget, it isn't as slick and professionally produced as the last film, but that doesn't diminish the power of its story.

The film's proposed solutions to these problems would seem self evident to today's eyes. I mean, it's hardly controversial these days to suggest that women, racial minorities and union organizers should receive fair and equal treatment (even if these dreams have yet to be realized). The last film tried to make us think these problems didn't exist, and that anyone who suggested they did was a traitor, out to destroy our nation and its freedoms. Salt of the Earth deals with them unflinchingly, and with no little amount of humor.

I think you can see which side was proved to have the right idea. Salt of the Earth could be remade today and it would fit right in with later union classics like Matewan and Norma Rae. No one would bat an eye. I Was a Communist for the FBI, on the other hand, appears ridiculously shrill to modern audiences. I mean, it looks about as relevant as D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation.

So how were the films received? Salt of the Earth almost wasn't produced. The federal government relentlessly harassed the production, flying planes overhead when they were shooting and even deporting the female lead to Mexico in the middle of production. They had to shoot some of her scenes in Mexico and smuggle them back into the U.S.

Needless to say, all of its actors and producers were blacklisted in Hollywood, in spite of the fact that the movie doesn't advocate--or even mention--communism.

From the Wikipedia entry on the film::

The film was denounced by the United States House of Representatives for its communist sympathies, and the FBI investigated the film's financing. The American Legion called for a nation-wide boycott of the film. Film-processing labs were told not to work on Salt of the Earth and unionized projectionists were instructed not to show it.^{[citation needed]} After its opening night in New York City, the film languished for 10 years because all but 12 theaters in the country refused to screen it.
By one journalist's account: "During the course of production in New Mexico in 1953, the trade press denounced it as a subversive plot, anti-Communist vigilantes fired rifle shots at the set, the film's leading lady [Rosaura Revueltas] was deported to Mexico, and from time to time a small airplane buzzed noisily overhead....The film, edited in secret, was stored for safekeeping in an anonymous wooden shack in Los Angeles."

Yes, America must be protected--at all costs--from such dangerous propaganda!

And what about I Was a Communist for the FBI? It was nominated for an Academy Award for, get this, Best Documentary! Fortunately, it lost.