A Convenient History

I sought out a documentary to watch this afternoon, one that began with promising new narration although the photo material was the same I had seen many times before. The subject was gangsters, the original Sicilian Mafia in America, their opponents, their lucrative and often bloody illegal business ventures, and their propensity for making money on those desires and habits our society has deemed so nasty or reprehensible to the notions of decent folk that they have been forbidden to us under the threat of legal persecution. These include the usual gamut of suspects such as gambling, prosititution, shylocking, arm breaking, and the odd murder. Also on the list are those perennial favorites, dope and liquor. History teaches us that the Noble Experiment, the Volstead Act, proved to be one of the most dismal (and hated) follies our government has perpetrated on the people. But, as is our nature even when we insist we know better, we are inclined to forget the lessons history has preserved for us.

Even now, well-groomed government parrots sit on their perches in the halls of Congress and repeat the very same kind of nonsense with which their predecessors justified the implementation of Prohibition, a failure of policy if ever there was one. It seems that human beings will do what they choose to do to themselves, enduring all-consuming expenses and extreme personal danger, and the laws be damned. Those aforementioned members of what has come to be recognized as organized crime knew a lucrative opportunity when they saw one, and made fortunes. They did this with a natural aptitude for the task at hand, which included killing each other off in spectacular fashion, a demented and self-destructive policy that continues to this day.

I enjoyed scavenging another kernel or two of information about the period of history that was under scrutiny, but something began to stick out of the narration like a sore thumb. For the first time in all the documentaries I’ve seen about this particular subject, one of the bit players was getting more than the usual brief mention. He had a small part to play as a buffoonish looking but distressingly fervent prosecuting attorney, a strutting little banty rooster of a man who was obviously racing up the ladder of success in public service as fast as he could climb. For the first time in all the documentaries I've watched about this subject, the narration lingered on this man. In fact, it got positively stuck in one place, and Rudy Giuliani, bad hair and all, was being elevated to a position as a major player in what had taken place, right before my eyes---and right before a Presidential election in which his name has been put forth as a possible candidate. In fact, during the coverage of his part in this newly assembled documentary, his full name was mentioned no less than a dozen times.

If any of you believe this is just a coincidence, I’ll bet you live deep in the heart of red state country. For those of you with a grasp of American political history, consider the similarities between our Mr. Giuliani and history’s Thomas E. Dewey. For one thing, both of them register a solid ten on the Dorkometer. It goes downhill from there.