MAFIA -- WE SAY IT NOW

Now that the word "mafia" is out in the open and an example is our president (a low level tool), what are we to think and do about it?

1.  Those who know about such things from the inside point out that there are many mafias, not just the one that started in Sicily, exported to the US, inspired the Russia version that annexed the others.  They intertwine and operate for and against each other in complex ways.  Even entwine with non-mafia.  They are as natural a development as bacterial slime sheets, a survival mode for basic life.

2.  Historians point out that the Sicilian origin of Mafia was a response to a lack of effective government.  This suggests that a properly run country that serves everyone fairly is not so likely to have a Mafia.

3.  Maybe we should think of bodies like the KKK and Masons and the other fraternal organizations as variations of Mafia.  Maybe even Dems and Repubs.  At least Incels.  Can religious "denominations" which are just named networks of like-minded people be described as "mafias"?  No, because of the moral element.  Yes, if they are a group that stands against other groups that are "outside."  A threat of eternal suffering after death is not that different from threats of knee-capping in this life, is it?  

Are Hutterites a mafia?  They are if they come to have a worldview that has an internal morality that is only for the in-group.  Like the local colony who asked a non-Hutterite to smuggle in sewing machines from Canada.  But so-far they do not use violence.  That would attract attention.

4.  The dimensions of rebellion, resistance, alternatives, and even terrorism need to be considered because they are a) illegitimate, drastic and harmful actions so the proponents can feel virtuous and force their goals, b) they take the group underground where it can't be controlled or even found, c) they are a measure of the intensity of unmet need, deep disillusionment.

So this is a peculiar turn my thinking has taken in my long-standing rebellion against "groups," going back to the days I got kicked out of the Bluebirds, which was a primary school feeder for the Campfire Girls, an alternative to Girl Scouts.  Maybe I quit.  Girl bullies love organizations where they can star.  I remember being unhappy though I knew everyone. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(organization)  Originally it was a 1910 feminist movement to counter the Boy Scouts.  Nowadays it's gender inclusive.  A Girl Scout movement in those early days got in a fight and dispersed.  A later version managed better.

The adult side of groups, more benign maybe, was represented by my father's suppertime talk about the value of granges and the Canadian Wheat Board, which he felt were life-saving and the key to democracy.  But the co-op he worked for became a corporation and fired him.  After that he lived in diminished fantasy, much in Trump's way but private and harmless.  In my mind these questions are issues for nations, basically economic.

Now that "nations" are being called into question, the issue of the Mafia as a criminal trans-national network to avoid regulation begins to be a political force to be used BY nations or at least their oligarchs.  In fact, pretty much the way religious systems used to be put into play.

I never expected to think about this stuff but it sneaks in everywhere, from indigenous dilemmas to the politics of writing, and lingers from the years with the UUA and the U of C Div School.  When something weaves in and out that way, it's worth confronting.  I always want to get to underlying assumptions.  Since there is a powerful need for groups, I wrestle with is my choice of being solitary, .

Biologically, people are not meant to be solitary, though a certain amount of celibacy or at least non-generative relationships are evidently not doomed by the principle of survival.  Surviving loners can carry something valuable for everyone else.  But the criminal Mafia does not tolerate the independent individual.  I mean, they will be brought into line or eliminated.  This is partly a control issue, partly meant to preserve secrets, and partly to make sure no one starts their own "campfire girls."  All that provides movie-fodder.  But it's still factual.

Trump is unable to think of all this stuff.  Mafia is to Trump as water to fish.  He thinks we're all like him and the people he grew up with.  Maddow illustrated his world with an incident when one of Trump's Vegas casinos was going broke (as usual).  His father came to bail him out, 85 years old and firmly gripping the upper arm of his glamorously coiffed wife. Instead of just writing a check for the bazillions of dollars, which would have been illegal, he bought gambling chips worth that amount.  But he didn't take them.  A bag man came for them later.  They disappeared into the private world of a Mafia family.  One can often evade the law by using a private universe, like the gaming world.  The regulators never thought of a law forcing people to cash in their chips -- never imagined such a thing.

Barr and Pompeo and Pence have been evangelizing historical and local versions of Christianity, unaware that the world has moved on. They seem to think one can at least pretend to self and family that it's not immoral to lie, cheat, and steal from such an immoral nation.  They make no allowance for the Catholics coming north or the Asian worldviews crossing the ocean.  They just can NOT believe that there is any life except what they learned in their childhood.

For decades the FBI has worked to eliminate the American Mafia, even its branches that stretched out along the 49th parallel (which included Trump's father), and they have had some success.  In the meantime and in a twist on globalization, the Russian crime mafia has both taken over the American network and merged with the government of Russia. Somehow they own the Republican Senate.  Partly this is about resource shakedowns and partly it is about the most obvious corruption. which in the hands of Epstein and Co. became spying and collusion disguised by sex.  Oh, me -- oh, my.  The next step after cleaning up has got to be planetary systems of prevention.