Yesterday there was an article on an Italian newspaper shouting scandal at southern mothers who are willing to go on their knees in front of Mafia Bosses if they give a job, a future to their sons.
The point of the article was to expose how un-motherly such behaviour is, why are they not teaching their sons to do 'the right thing', to go and get a job 'just like everyone else' how can they cal themselves Mothers, they are an insult to All real Mothers in the Rest of Italy.
What we have to consider is the whole social and economic contest in which such an action takes place. For those who read 'Children of Midnight' by Salman Rushdie, possibly the shock could be equated to what Rushdie narrated in the book about India, and how mothers 'out of love' crippled or deformed their children to give them 'a future as beggars', because a crippled beggar has more chances to inspire pity and through this skill make his/her living assured.
Mafia was born as an alternative to an absent Government, an absent system of Support.
For those interested I post the History of Mafia at the bottom, but in a few lines, Mafia emerged as a result of Post Feudal society, in which few had it all and the rest suffered and were abused...hold on, waitaminute, that sounds familiar, are we on a history loop, a broken record that keeps repeating itself with New names, Clothes, while Nothing Ever Changes?
So out of the Abuse, some gathered and said ENOUGH, and since they understood only to fight abuse with abuse, they started to abuse the abusers, harder and harder, until the Abuser took notice and said, 'could we have YOU on our side please?' We'll give you this and that.
So the relationship between the Rich and Powerful changed, instead of opposing each other, some Men of Honour saw the opportunity to move for good on the side of those that own the Place, the Planet apparently and moved away from The people they were 'born to serve and protect' in their "Self Serving" new alliances.
In fact they became precious to those that owned it all, because they became the Illegal Arm of the State as Power, which could then extend into activities that were off limits before, of course racketeering, illegal trafficking, sale of weapons and betting were already taking place but the Rich and Powerful feared steeping too low into activities that may lead them to social and judicia condemnation and so they saw an opportunity, through the mafia system to extend their arms into the Underbelly of criminal activities keeping their white gloves on and leaving the blood to clean to the Mafia Men, a bit like Charles Manson said in one of his interviews about his role in society, he had to take the blame, he had to live out the negative polarity of life so some could have the good polarity of Life.
With the 'coming of Age' of the Mafia system, the once 'one sided' protection and system of favors became mutual, Mafia would protect the rich and powerful 'Illegally' and the Rich and Powerful protected the Mafia legally. An example of a win win situation.
It is obvious that a system that was born and bred out of corruption and self interest, as Who we are, could only replicate itself, we can only create one and equal to who we are, so 'IDeals' exist only until a Better Bigger IDeal comes along and as they mutually assisted each other in their relative field of application a New Power was born, the Power of the Mafia State.
Now, these 2 system traveled on parallel tracks, but did not publicly mingle, the Mafia lived in the underbelly of the world and their counterpart out in the Light, when in fact they were ONE and equal to each other, but each accepted their exclusive area of influence. Mafia people were uneducated -until recently- and the other were educated, they were divided in an invisible Caste system and none of them cared for it, Mafia wanted the Money as Power, the other wanted Money and Power, but were hungrier for the public recognition of their role in society while Mafia made do with having the people support. Because THAT they had.
As they were the ones securing jobs for the poor, they were the one who set up a social security scheme for their soldiers, a pension scheme, they took care of the families of those who went to prison to pay for the crimes that the ones in the limelight committed, they would give out loans, pay for funerals, "Mafia" for the Underbelly of Sicily, "Camorra" for the underbelly of Napoli and 'Ndrangheta" for the underbelly of Calabria, the 3 major 'criminal organizations', were far more successful in their social/welfare policies than the government ever was or cared to become.
This lead to 'Omerta'' - the code of silence- pledged by everyone in both Fear and Respect, Mafia took care of 'their people' why should they sell them out? A documentary of a few years ago shot in Sicily had the journalist flabbergasted at the fact that NOBODY in the streets admitted to the existence of Mafia, they called it a 'Urban Legend' and laughed. would you bite the Hand that Feeds You?
Now back to yesterday's article, so we have a Non State, a Non democratic Rule, we have an Austerity imposed by Bankers and a Government that chooses to invest in war planes and not the people, unemployment is rising, people are losing homes and jobs by the day, imagine you are a mother, WHO do you go to beg to help your Children? The Mafia or the Government?
The Mafia only asks for Obedience and to respect the Code of Silence, they don't care about education, so anyone can get in, they filter people by their devotion which they test by asking them to perform something illegal that will lock them into The Family for good -Government do that too but only to their 'Peers'- and then they will hear the Mother's pledges.
Some mothers are willing to swear that their children are the best, "they are so devoted to you 'Don Salvatore', find them a place as a messenger, they dream to work for you, I have nothing Don Salvatore, I could be your mother, I have two children, I beg you, in humility, to help me out'.
A job was always surer and oddly 'safer' in the ranks of the Mafia for the poor uneducated, spat out by the system, than into the Government or into the Money System, Mafia gave the poor a Future.
A job was always surer and oddly 'safer' in the ranks of the Mafia for the poor uneducated, spat out by the system, than into the Government or into the Money System, Mafia gave the poor a Future.
As things go bad for every sector of society, Mafia is forced to save too, they don't need so many people to feed and take on for a lifetime -yes, the Family is what you would cal a sure living, a lifetime commitment on both sides, til death do they part-, they have become choosier in who they pick, so mothers must highlight MORE qualities of their children, become better at exposing their case, grovel more for 'that' position within a Family that takes care of You, you now need the Mafia 'X' Factor to get in.
As above -the crust of the underbelly- so below.
The question to ask ourselves is, why are we not considering the state of the World as unacceptable?
Why don't we see that if we accept and allow a system where living must be earned and there isn't enough for All to go around, we, all together are responsible for creating the underbellies of the world because unless people come up with Illegal activities to feed their families, They DIE.
Why don't we see that if we accept and allow a system where living must be earned and there isn't enough for All to go around, we, all together are responsible for creating the underbellies of the world because unless people come up with Illegal activities to feed their families, They DIE.
We don't have welfare in Italy, unemployed people will have to rely on the Church, another huge Scam, an organization that sold people Nothing & Hopes for an Afterlife while they piled up the loot of this very material world, A good Life when you die vs your Money NOW, this MUST be the best Marketing that EVER was designed, it took truckloads of Fear and Guilt and Shame, but the Catholics can compliments themselves, they saw it through.
We were told that we are born Equal, how did we go from there to accept and allow our basic human right to LIVE to be put on Sale, why is LIFE for Sale, why isn't Life a given Right for All living beings with Equal Access to the resources of the Planet, how did we get here? Are we paying the sins of the fathers?
Were we born into contracts that we can't remember signing and we are now asked to honor, how did this happen?
Well, it started with our Separation, we created a World in separation, from our separation from the whole of who we were Fear was born and on Fear we built this whole world, look everywhere, we are the Living Fear of Existence, there is nothing we don't Fear in fact, we terribly FEAR this system as well, like crazy amnesiacs, we forgot we created it and as such we can Change it, this system didn't grow on a Tree, is not Natural, in fact we could say is the Most unnatural all encompassing fuck up of our creation, in fear we started to design ways to manage what we feared, we thought it was Out There, so we built walls, Institutions, Corporations, Governments, Borders and we kept going until we lost the plot and now at the end of the Rope we can't see that it's always Us at the beginning of the very same rope, that if we unravel back into alignment to what is best for All, it won't drag us to sure annihilation by our own doing, we just have to see we were and are the Creators of this and realign ourselves as the world to Oneness and Equality and What is best for All.
We don't have to live this way, we are the one accepting and allowing such rules for the management of an Unequal wold to exist, we could say STOP and stand for a World that works for All, we could say STOP to pushing people against the wall where their choices are reduced to next to nothing and instead together see that if we stopped to protect our individual self interest and started to protect everyone's, this world would change, then the Family would not be made by people who groveled deeper and better in the hope to be accepted and allowed a chance to Live, the Family would be the Human Family, the Family of Life where support is given to All and no one is excluded because Life is given for Free to All and we should have got the drift from there, Life is for Free, not For Sale. This doesn't mean we won't have to contribute to create such a world, but we'll have to contribute not to survive, our survival will be a given, we'll contribute for the Good of All, to create the best possible world we can come up with.
Imagine the things that would change in one go if we stood for a Change as the Change we want to see in this World.
Imagine the things that would change in one go if we stood for a Change as the Change we want to see in this World.
The 'X' Factor is a delusion, we all hope to have it, to be special, to gain more right than another to a Life with no FEAR, we have to create that Life, we know what we need, we need to stop our separation and the desire to be more than another, so everyone who is now less, which is ALL of us as we diminished while we followed our desire for More-ness, can become an Equal and we can finally share this world with Equal Chances, Equal commitment to Each other and All living beings, to never again separate into the illusion of Energy as Money having Power over Life.
Stand up for Life Equal for All @EqualMoney
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Extra read on the origins of Mafia
History - from Wikipedia-
The genesis of Cosa Nostra is hard to trace because mafiosi
are very secretive and do not keep historical records of their own. In
fact, they have been known to spread deliberate lies about their past,
and sometimes come to believe in their own myths. - just like all of us-
Post-feudal Sicily
Modern scholars believe that its seeds were planted in the upheaval of Sicily's transition out of feudalism in 1812 and its later annexation
by mainland Italy in 1860. Under feudalism, the nobility owned most of
the land and enforced law and order through their private armies. After
1812, the feudal barons steadily sold off or rented their lands to
private citizens. Land could no longer be seized to settle debts, and one
fifth of the land was to become private property of the peasants.
After Italy annexed Sicily in 1860, it redistributed a large share of
public and church land to private citizens. The result was a huge boom
in landowners: from 2,000 in 1812 to 20,000 by 1861.
The nobles also released their private armies to let the state take
over the task of law enforcement. However, the authorities were
incapable of properly enforcing property rights and contracts, largely
due to their inexperience with free market capitalism.
Lack of manpower was also a problem: there were often less than 350
active policemen for the entire island. Some towns did not have any
permanent police force, only visited every few months by some troops to
collect malcontents, leaving criminals to operate with impunity from the
law in the interim.
With more property owners came more disputes that needed settling,
contracts that needed enforcing, and properties that needed protecting.
(regularly the job of the Justice System).
Because the authorities were undermanned and unreliable, property owners
turned to extralegal arbitrators and protectors. These extralegal
protectors would eventually organize themselves into the first Mafia
clans.
Banditry was a growing problem at the time. Rising food prices, the loss of public and church lands, and the loss of feudal common rights
pushed many desperate peasants to banditry.
With no police to call
upon, local elites in countryside towns recruited young men into
"companies-at-arms" to hunt down thieves and negotiate the return of
stolen property, in exchange for a pardon for the thieves and a fee from
the victims.
These companies-at-arms were often made up of former bandits and criminals, usually the most skilled and violent of them. Whilst this saved communities the trouble of training their own
policemen, this may have made the companies-at-arms more inclined to
collude with their former brethren rather than destroy them.
There was little Mafia activity in the eastern half of Sicily. In the
east, the ruling elites were more cohesive and active during the
transition from feudalism to capitalism.
They maintained their large
stables of enforcers, and were able to absorb or suppress any emerging
violent groups.
Furthermore, the land in the east was generally divided into a smaller
number of large estates, so there were fewer landowners and their large
estates often required full-time patrolling. This meant that guardians
of such estates tended to be bound to a single employer, giving them
little autonomy or leverage to demand high payments.
This did not mean there was little violence - the most violent
conflicts over land took place in the east, but they did not involve
mafiosi.
Mafia activity was most prevalent in the most prosperous areas of western Sicily, especially Palermo,
where the dense concentrations of landowners and merchants offered
ample opportunities for protection racketeering and extortion. There, a
protector could serve multiple clients, giving him greater independence.
The greater number of clients demanding protection also allowed him to
charge high prices.
The landowners in this region were also frequently absent and could not
watch over their properties should the mafioso withdraw protection,
further increasing his bargaining power.
The lucrative citrus orchards around Palermo
were a favorite target of extortionists and protection racketeers, as
they had a fragile production system that made them quite vulnerable to
sabotage.
Mafia clans forced landowners to hire their members as custodians by scaring away unaffiliated applicants. Cattle ranchers were also very vulnerable to thieves, and so they too needed mafioso protection.
In 1864, Niccolò Turrisi Colonna,
leader of the Palermo National Guard, wrote of a "sect of thieves" that
operated across Sicily. This "sect" was mostly rural, composed of
cattle thieves, smugglers, wealthy farmers and their guards. The sect made "affiliates every day of the brightest young people
coming from the rural class, of the guardians of the fields in the
Palermitan countryside, and of the large number of smugglers; a sect
which gives and receives protection to and from certain men who make a
living on traffic and internal commerce. It is a sect with little or no
fear of public bodies, because its members believe that they can easily
elude this."
It had special signals to recognize each other, offered protection
services, scorned the law and had a code of loyalty and non-interaction
with the police known as umirtà -code of silence-.
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