Old Mafia vs. New Mafia

I would like to observe other users' opinions on this topic which I believe should be a subject discussed. The original Mafia was created over 300 years ago in Sicily, it was meant for protecting the Italian/Sicilian people from the invaders trying to take over Sicily. Back then they followed the rules and Omertà and had honor. When Cosa Nostra expanded to America it still followed the original rules, but once World War II ended both the Sicilian and Italian-American Mafias started to get greedy which led to a very deep decline. Since then more members of the Mafia started disobeying the rules and became rats and started betraying each other. Very few Mafia families today still have that same honor that was created over 300 years ago. So I would like to ask everyone what your opinions are, rather you like the old Mafia from 300 years ago or the new and current Mafia today. I am all for the original Cosa Nostra from over 300 years ago, the current one is not as good.

It goes way back to what is called The Night of the Sicilian Vespers. It actually took place in Sicily sometime around the 13th century. It was a rebellion / uprise against the French troops allowed to occupy Siciliy by a King that had taken over control of Sicily, supposedly with the backing of the Pope.


The locals were forced to pay heavy taxes to the King. At the time Palermo was being inhabited by French troops. Legend has it that the French inahbitants, with the backing of the King, made it a tradition to force newly married Sicilian brides to spend the night with them BEFORE being with their new husbands on their wedding night. The French inahbitants of Sicily, backed by the King, were abusing the Sicilian people in many different ways, especially the woman. On one particular night while the sicilian people were attending an evening prayer service of vespers, a group of French officials came by to join in and began to drink. They then began to fondle the breasts of the women and with that the sicilian men decided to finally defend the honor of their woman. A revolt started throughout Palermo, and the sicilian men killed the French inahbitants. Hence the term : Night of The Sicilian Vespers."


There is an Urban Legend in Sicily that on that evening a Sicilian woman went into one of the churches in Palermo and found her daughter being raped by a French soldier. Legend has it that she then ran out into the streets yelling "Ma fia Ma fia" which translates into "My daughter! My daughter! Some believe that this is where the word "Mafia" might have originated from.

There are lots of legends about the Mafia in Sicily being chivalric, like Italian Robin Hoods. But I doubt it. Mafiosi, then and now, are parasites on society, like other organized criminals. In Sicily, the main job of the local Mafia boss, or gabboletto, was to protect wealthy estate owners and their land and water rights against ordinary people who made claims on them. The landowners wanted cheap labor and the gabboletti kept the contadini in line. In America, the Mafia's primary victims were fellow Italians--just as Jewish, Irish and Chinese gangsters preyed on their own kind.

In earlier times in America, omerta was generally honored because ordinary soldiers had no other ways to make livings, and so they knew if they kept quiet, they'd stay employed when they got out of jail. Also, a lot of the crimes they were involved in, like prostitution, gambling and liquor, were considered "victimless." Even drugs weren't a big deal as long as the victims were people society didn't care about. But in the Sixties, when drugs were widely abused and the victims were nice, white children of politicians, judges and law enforcement, big sentences were handed down. Later RICO piled double-digit sentences for even "conspiring" to be part of organized crime. And the Witness Protection Program gave rats a way out. So much for omerta...

I've heard about that story before Don Cardi. And Turnbull I think you have your facts wrong, back then the Mafia protected the non-wealthy Italian people, like you said they were basically Italian Robin Hoods. But as for the Mafia protecting wealthy land owners, I believe that's false. From what I've researched and from what I've heard from my elder family members (yes I am a descendant of a few Mafia families), the Mafia protected the non-wealthy Italian people.

IMB, I'm afraid that you have your facts and your time frames mixed up. Turnbull is absolutely right in that the Mafia protected the wealthy land owners and the pezzanovantes of the country.

The legend that I posted about, The Night of the Italian Vespars, was supposed to have taken place way back in the 13th century, and it very well may have happened. If it did, I'm sure that the original intent was to protect the people from being raped and abused by those in a position of power.

But Turnbull is dead on correct when he says that those in power manipulated the local Mafioso and used them to protect the wealthy land owners and the pezzanovante in high places. The local Mafioso eventually went from protecting the poor working people to taking advantage of those same poor working people.

Here is part of a presentation by Prof. Lorenzo Picchi of the University of Florence (Italy), a recognized authority on the Mafia:



Agrarian mafia
It was in the Sicilian interior that the mafia was exploiting peasants the most

The Latifondo System
(Described on pag. 156 of the book Cosa Nostra by John Dickie)
A gabelloto leases on a short term contract (usually one year) a property called latifondo from a
noble (this money is called gabella).
Then he shares the land and sub rents each plot of land to the peasants, to be paid through
agricultural products either through the system of the Metateria or the Terraggio.
Metateria - It was a form of Mezzadria that in Sicily did not mean ½ as in the rest of Italy but ¼,
the deal was not made directly with the landowner like in Tuscany in the other region of the North
of Italy but with the middle man, who was a brutal Mafioso; the peasants were not living in the
podere (farm) like in Tuscany and in the rest of Italy but in villages around
Terratico or Terraggio
A quota was fixed TO BE PAID TO THE GABELLOTO, established at the beginning of the year.
Peasants had to loan seeds, loans, wheat from the gabelloto; at the end of the year, being the
contract oral, the gabelloto was of course claiming for a bigger part of what he had anticipated
Donativi: quotas paid to the campieri and sovrastanti by the peasants
10
The agrarian mafia:
- Landowners
- Gabelloti: joining the mafia enabled a gabelloto to do his job better
- Campieri: protecting the field from bandits
- Sovrastanti: supervising the reaping
- Fontanieri: providing watering to the fields
The parasitic revenue of the gabelloto derived from:
What he was obtaining by the peasants
-
gabella (rent)
Peasants had always debts with the gabelloti and had just enough to survive
If they rebelled the pattern was:
- Friendly advice
- Threat
- Lupara
So they had three alternatives of life:
1) Be exploited by the mafia and reduced to slavery
2) Migrate
3) (Try to) Join the mafia and become a campiere

You can download all of Prof. Picchi's slides here:

http://www.historyofthemafia.net/dispense%20mafia.pdf

Great stuff Turnbull. Thanks for sharing!

My family goes back hundreds and maybe even a thousand years ago, my family would've known this stuff because back in Sicily my family worked as peasants on land which included a castle. The research you two are providing could very well be false since there are no facts that we know for sure are true, but I'm going by what my family says, since my family even has written down facts proving my statement.

Using your own words, how do we know that what your family wrote down is true?

If my father wrote down that his grandfather was the Easter Bunny, would that "prove" it?

There's also a good chance that if the family from a hundred years ago (or more) were peasants, they wouldn't have known how to write and read.

Hah, good point! LOL

To be honest I agree with the OP to some extent in that the mob hs changed a lot of the years. When it first came to America there were some semblances of the honored society that it claimed itself to be. If you were loyal and followed the rules, you were taken care of. Hundreds of young men joined cosa nostra because of the prospect that you could make money and have an entire of family of guys to help you if you ever needed it. In the older days the mob still lived by those rules and some of them were actually OK people and had some, dare I say it, honor.

Nowadays, we're looking at a completely differenty animal. None of that exists in the mafia anymore. That's my opinion

I'm just waiting for TB to make me look stupid on this one. LOL

Let me understand this. On one hand you say that there are no facts that we know for sure that are true.

I don't disagree.

But then you go on to say, in the same paragraph, that YOUR family has written down FACTS that PROVE.....

You can't have it both ways my friend.

If your family goes back over a thousand years in Sicily, then they probably aren't even Italian.

Don Cardi, I'm saying that there aren't any facts from researchers that prove it but there are facts from my family that prove it. And I'm very offended that you insulted my family by saying they're not Italian, every single person in my family is Italian including me, and I guarantee most people on this forum aren't even Italian, so you have no right to say that. SC, we may never know the true story of Cosa Nostra because we weren't around to see it when it first started, but I'm going to believe my family and not researchers because my ancestors were around when it happened, the researchers weren't, and my ancestors passed on what they have experienced and witnessed in their lifetime to the descendants and each generation of my family. Pizzaboy, the Easter Bunny isn't real, so let's be mature here.

If you took the time to read Don Cardi's post, you'd see that he only meant that a thousand years ago Sicily was hardly unified. As a matter of fact, it was under the control of the Normans during the middle ages. Sicily wasn't considered part of the Kingdom of Italy until 1860, so if your ancestors were living there a thousand years ago, they were probably of Arabian descent. But that's not to insult you, that's the case with ALL southern Italians. I'm Calabrese, as is Don Cardi, so we take great pride in our heritage. And you're mistaken, there are plenty of Italians on this forum.

Going by your theory, we can't trust any of the history books on any subject at all, because we "weren't there."

And consider this: You're brand new to this board, and you come out guns blazing about how your family is the Mafia, etc. How are we supposed to take that? You sound like a kid in the 5th grade bragging about his daddy's Mafia connections. Most of us here are serious students of both organized crime and world history in general, so if you're looking for a board where the members are impressed by these thugs, you're in the wrong place. I grew up in an Italian section of New York City when the Mob was at it's peak, as did Don Cardi, SC and Turnbull, to name a few other members. We know what these guys are like from both firsthand experience AND through thorough research. We're not impressed by them.

Welcome to the boards, but try to keep in mind that you are brand new here.

I know that my family has been around for hundreds of years, I'm not too sure about a thousand but I know my family goes back very far. Yeah I am brand new to this board but I've been observing this board for a long time before I even registered. Anyways I am too a student studying the Mafia, and yes I am Italian and yes there are Mafia ties in my family, but I am not here to bragg, I am here to share my opinions, views, and facts about the Mafia. By the way, I'm Neapolitan, Sicilian, and Calabrese.

Exactly pizzaboy. That's the difference between someone who actually knows something about the real history of Sicily and someone who just pops off at the mouth on here shooting from the hip.

There never was any intent on my part to throw an insult out. I was just going by history and what my sicilian ancestors that grew up in sicily passed on to my parents, their parents, their parents before them, etc.

What's the old saying pizzaboy? Those who walk around dropping names claiming that they know this one, that their uncle is that one or that their family are connected with this one should watch out for the guy who never utters a threat or drops a name.

IMB, you started this thread by stating:
"I would like to observe other users' opinions on this topic which I believe should be a subject discussed."

People here treated you generously by responding, as you requested, with their opinions and citing solid academic research. Now you say that you don't care what we or the researchers said, you're going with what your family wrote down and told you.

So, why did you ask for our opinions in the first place?

I asked for your opinions on which version of the Mafia was better. I didn't ask for your opinions on which you think is true.

You know something? You may believe that you are a wiseguy. But as far as I am concerned you're nothing more than a wiseass.



Now go home and get your shine box.

I think you've been watching Goodfellas a little too much, and as far as I'm concerned, I'm probably the most Mafia-educated person on here, I may be new to the forum but growing up having a full-blooded Italian family and learning more and more things about Cosa Nostra each and every day of my life would make me know a lot more about it than you.

That Don Cardi is a funny fellow. He makes me laugh. It's the way he tells a story.

Anyway, IMB, it'd be a good idea to check the attitude at the door before coming in here to post. You'll find you'll get more responses and good discussions without talking down to other members.

hahahahahaha

Actually I'm not getting an attitude, the others are.

I am terribly sorry, but I would have to say the most Mafia-educated person here is Turnbull, no disrespect, I may be completely mistaken, but I have never witnessed your knowledge. Why don't you add your insight to a few of the other threads in this section, and let this whole thing pass?



Benvenuti a schede

Yep, your smaht, you can do things. Not dumb like everybody says, but smaht, and you deserve respect!


ITALIAN_MAFIA_BOSS

It makes me laugh how you have nothing better to do with your life other than to do stupid and immature things like that. What a very sad person you are.

Guys, take it to the sandbox.

Can I take him fishing instead?

Only if you say a Hail Mary.

Didn't I make you a card like that once?

That's why he is called Don CARDi.

It amazes me how many people on here are very immature. Oh, and Santino Brasi, I am making my way to many of the other topics on this forum and sharing my insights on each topic. To clear everything up and to get things back on topic, my original post was meant to ask what everyone else's opinions were as to which version of the Mafia was better, and by better I mean more successful, ethical, moral, and honorable. I did not ask what everyone thought was true or untrue about the Mafia.

Hey, if you want to post questions on here seeking opinions and answers, that's not a problem. But if someone gives their opinion on if they believe in something or not ( an answer or post that is related to the subject matter being discussed) you can't start dissing people and telling them that they cannot post their feelings about their beliefs on the subject being discussed.

As a matter of fact YOU jumped right in after I posted about the Vespers and Turnbull replied. IT WAS YOU who actually started with the beleiving if what Turnbull and I posted about was true or not. YOU are really the one who got away from the actual replies that you were looking for in regards to which was better.

All Turnbull and I did was to elaborate on the subject that you created this topic about. So chill out.

You want to continue to post about the mob or whatever, be my guest. Enjoy and have a little fun.

But get rid of the attitude, the tough guy act and the chip on your shoulder. Try being yourself and stop with the bragging. maybe then people will start to treat you with some respect.


You looking to be treated with respect....then try treating others around here, especially gentlemen like Turnbull, with respect. Try earning it!

I wasn't the one who told someone to go get their shinebox, so you are the one who needs to treat people with respect.

Let it go, IMB, let it go!!

I'll let it go when Don Cardi let's it go.

No... we're not gonna play that game, right?

You're new here and got off to a bad start. Re-think your strategy and stay. Or keep on the same course and be gone. The choice is yours.

Try the first choice.

I believe that the reason you people are being like is because I am new to the board, which is not very professional, new members are supposed to feel welcome, that would be much more professional, I'll stop but just a suggestion, be more welcoming to people.

Ok. let's start over.

It sounds like The Hollywood Finnochio has been reincarnated!

you do realize he was joking, right?

It didn't seem like he was joking, and I'm a serious person, I don't take kind to certain immaturity and insults like that.

... it's a line from Goodfellas... ya know... Billy Bats to the enraged Tommy? kinda like Don Cardi to the enraged Italian_Mafia_Boss.

Yeah I know it's a line from Goodfellas, I've seen just about every Mafia movie more than ten times, and that's actually my favorite part from Goodfellas, I crack up laughing every time Joe Pesci gets mad (it actually reminds me of my own temper).

Lighten up a bit. You'll live longer.

There are many things preventing me form lightening up but I do hope to achieve it some day.

Hang out here and go with the flow... that'll help.

Ok then.

dude imb u gotta keep posting ur also what keeps me on this site

?

ur make me laugh man ur posts they are outragous i never knew italians were so funny yet so serious!!!!!!!! lmfao

Yeah I guess I would be considered the Joe Pesci type.

yah probably

Yeah, I'd probably be a lot like this.

thats not as funny

I must be some funny guy if I'm funnier than Joe Pesci.

I don't hate italian americans just the loud mouth italians from italy

You know you're probably the first Irishman I know that likes Italians.

And for all these years I thought that Tom Hagen was.

Tom Hagen was German and Irish.

the mafia, from the start, extorted there own countrymen, in league with the rich, to line their own pockets. Check the facts dude. Italian Robin Hoods? Robbing Hoods more-like (sorry - dopey pun. couldnt help it)

Not only in Southern Italy where it started: everywhere that italian criminals migrated to, and set up shop, has relied, especially in the early days, on the exploitation of the fellow immigrants.

Why don't you show me the facts that say that?

Read any organized crime book.

In Australia, believe it or not, me have a "mafia", that is, organized criminals of Italian descent. The vast majority of migrant Italians in Australia being from Calabria (there are Napolitan,Sicilian and various Northerners, of course, but the bulk are Calabrese) the exported society is the N'drangheta, the Calabrian mafia.

There are many accounts of poor migrants being kept in poverty for decades through scams perpetrated by the local mobsters: google Maario Condello of Australia, this dirt-bag kept immigrant families poor fo decades by exploiting the ignorance of immigrant farmers, amongst his myriad other schemes. By flat out lieing to the people that depended on him (those that couldnt speak English and were still distrustful of government authority) about the value of their crops (he would sell at a much higher price than he let on), and by basically ripping of other elderly Italians that would come to him for help (one story has him conning an elderly Italian widower into selling his $300 000 property to him for $50 000.)

Italian produce-sellers in The Victorian Markets (the biggest produce market in the Australian state of Victoria) paid extortion money to the Italian syndicates for the right to set up shop and sell there produce for decades, well into the late 90's and still going on today by some accounts.

In America, the whole Black Hand saga was almost exclusively targeted at migrant Italians. And do you think the mafiosi who controlled the waterfront jobs, especially in the early days, really cared whether the labour they were exploiting came from an Italian or an Irishman?

Even in the real early days, the early 20th and late 19th century, there are people being murdered and extorted.

Sure they went after the rich, but the poor were targets as well if they failed their aquiesce to demands. Everyone paid the pizzo, from the buthchers to the beggars. A really good book on those early days: The HIstory of Cosa Nostra by John Dickie. Traces the earliest days of the Sicilian mafia through to today.

I have Cosa Nostra by John Dickie.

Well read it dude. They were rotten from the start.

I think you have your facts mixed up, I have read it, and they were NOT rotten from the start. First of all, I can tell you have your facts mixed up because you did not state the correct name of the book which tells me you either have never read it, read very little of it, or read it a long time ago and forgot the information. Second of all, your information is coming from a very small outcrop of the Mafia in Australia (if there even is a Mafia in Australia which I don't think there is, even though I have seen and read things about the Mafia appearing in Australia I think it's all bullshit and it's just some media lie to try to get people's attention), which is totally different from the Mafia in Italy and in the U.S.

Italian-Mafia_Boss,


I am interested to hear the facts that you know regarding the background of the Mafia and it's origin. Would you please share with us what the REAL story is, how they came to be and what made them go bad? I am a mafia historian buff and I would love to learn more from someone like you who seems to have the "real facts" as to how the mafia came to be and what they originally started out doing. Can you also provide some reliable sources such as books or articles that I could research and read? I'm looking forward to your sharing with us all the factual details that you seem to know.

I would be glad to, first of all I highly suggest the book Cosa Nostra: A History Of The Sicilian Mafia by John Dickie, you can find it by clicking here. That book contains all of the facts I state hear on this board. According to the book, the Mafia was originally created by Sicilian peasants, the peasants needed protection from the invading foreigners trying to take over Sicily since the foreigners were taking control of the peasants' lands, because of this, peasants were getting killed all the time because they did not want to give up their land, so a group of peasants created the Mafia and protected the other peasants, over a period of time the Mafia kicked the foreigners out of Sicily. After that they immigrated to the U.S. and protected the Italian immigrants there, over an even more period of time they started to get greedy with money which ultimately was the root cause of their downfall, greed and drugs brought the Mafia down. That's just a basic history but I suggest that you buy this book to get even more facts. If you click here, you will see a Wikipedia page containing other facts about the Mafia, myself and other Mafia historians have contributed to this page, I know Wikipedia isn't reliable, but it does have some good facts.

Everyone on this board knows all the information in the above post, i think DC was asking for the great secrets you claim to know on page 1.

Oh my good Lord...

Well most of the people on here seem to disagree with that information.

I maybe wrong,but they didn't emigrated to protect the immigrants. Most left Sicily as young children or in their early teens and discovered there way of life from then on and the mafia as we know it was founded/formed in the late 20's early 30's with the "traditions" of the old mafia... Of course it existed before but not as organised..

But you know best, who am i to tell you if wasn't..

Actually it was formed in the U.S. in the very late 1800's.

Sure..

You have made the distinction between the "Robin Hood" old Mafiosi and the scumbags in "Cosa Mia" today. Since you cite Wikipedia and your contributions to it, here are two excerpts from Wikipedia about the "old" Mafia in the US:

"Vito Cascio Ferro (January 22, 1862 - 1943), known as Don Vito, was a prominent Sicilian mafioso who also operated for a time in the United States, where he was a "pioneer" of sorts in the American Mafia. He was known for pioneering a new technique of extortion by the mafia within the Italian communities of Sicily and America where by businessmen would not be extorted for large sums of money at any given time that could possibly bankrupt them, instead they would be coerced into paying smaller sums on a regular basis that would not break them or put them out of business. This was known as the pizzu, named after the small beak of a bird and the mafia saying, to wet the beak as it applies to the extortion of money."

Don Vito spent several years in NYC in the first decade of the 20th Century. His purpose was to organize the loosely knit Sicilian underworld into what eventually became the Five Families, and to set up a heroin pipeline from Sicily to NYC. I don't infer any benevolence in his extortion and coercion.

The Matranga family of New Orleans is generaly considered to be the first US Mafia family. Here's what Wikipedia says about them:

Born Carlo and Antonio Matranga in Sicily, the brothers immigrated to the United States with their family and settled in New Orleans during the 1870s where they eventually opened a saloon and brothel. Using their business as a base of operations, the Matranga brothers began establishing lucrative organized criminal activities including extortion and labor racketeering. Receiving tribute payments from Italian laborers and dockworkers, as well as from the rival Provenzano crime family (who held a near monopoly of commercial shipping from South American fruit shipments), they eventually began moving in on Provenzano fruit loading operations intimidating the Provenzanos with threats of violence.

"Protecting" workers and shopkeepers? Or extorting them?

What's your point Turnbull? 3 Mafiosi using extortion tactics doesn't make the Mafia scumbags. And maybe I forgot to mention that the "Old Mafia" I was talking about was the one in Sicily, NOT the one in the U.S. But the one in the U.S. used to have the same honor like the one back in Sicily at one point in time back then, until they got greedy. I know you're trying everything to prove me wrong, but extortion does not prove that the Mafia is made up of all scumbags. The Mafia was not perfect, it had some bad things about it, but it did do some good things like the protection of Sicilian peasants and Italian immigrants.

I agree with ITB that not every single mobster is a lowlife. I'm not saying they were saints but I just don't think its fair to assume that every single person to ever be in the mafia was/is a dirtbag. Although the vast majority of them are. I also think that there was a teensy bit of honor in the early 20th century Mafia

I agree with TB that the mafia aren't robin hoods but extortionists. I never bought into the robin hood myth about the mob because they would threaten these people into paying and if they said no, their shops were trashed and sometimes they would be physically assaulted. It isn't protection, it's extortion

"Honour" is quite a vague abstraction, though, and romantic too. It's not beneficial, historically, to categorise anybody - be it Napoleon or a neighbourhood thug - as either honourable or a dirtbag. There's no real worth in that kind of thinking.

Crime isn't a product of individual will; it's a social problem. It's quite embarrassing to have to point out that organised crime - that under which the Mafia falls - seeks organisation, a collective harmony (its hierarchy, its rules, its secrecy; all of these result in notions/misconceptions of 'honour') that allows it to operate as a fully functional organism. And it's criminal not only because it's against the law, but because its fundamental operations, which it requires in order to function, are set up so as to gain wealth at the expense of other people.

If the historian is to be of any use, the Mafia must be studied as a major aspect of social crime.

Agreed

You seem to be drawing your own conclusions from Dickies information.

Excerpt from COSA NOSTRA: A History of the Sicilian Mafia (you pedantic douch you)
by John Dickie: Pgs xvi & xvii of the Prologue

"In 1890, the mafia was already a murderous and sophisticated criminal association with
powerful political connections and an international reach."

"We owe it to Falcone and his colleagues if the myth of rustic chivalry has now, at
last, been dispelled."

And then, Pg 25, Chapter 1:The Genesis of the Mafia 1860 - 1876, Sicily's Two Colours:

"It was during the troubled years of the 1860's that the Italian kingdom's ruling
class first heard talk of the mafia in Sicily. Without having a clear idea of what
it was, the first people to study the problem assumed that it must be archaic, a
left-over from the Middle Ages, some symptom of the centuries of foreign misrule...
...The great estates worked by droves of hungry peasants who were exploited by brutal
bosses. Many Italians hoped and believed that the mafia was a symptom of this kind of
backwardness and poverty, that it was destined to disappear as soon as Sicily emerged
from its isolation..."

Pg 33, Dr Galati and the Lemon Garden:

"Protection rackets, murder, territorial dominance, competition and collaboration
between gangs, and even a hint of a code of 'honour';...many of the central
components of the mafia method were being employed in...the early 1870's"

Pg 100,Chapter 3, Corruption in High Places 1890-1904 The Sangiorgi Report

"Among the innumerable documents now held in Italy's Central State Archive
in Rome is a restricted file containing a report, submitted to the ministry of the
Interior in installmants between November 1898 and January 1900. The report was written
by Ermanno Sangiorgi, Cheif of Police of Palermo....The report tells of 218 "Men of
Honour"...THe report tells of the mafia's initiation ritual and code of behaviour.
It sets out its business methods, how it infiltrates and controls the market gardens,
how it forges money, commits robberies, terrifies and murders witnesses"

The sad stoy of Bernardino Verro. He thought he could help the people with mafia
power but was killed basically when he lost faith and tried to leave a gang that put
profits over people.

You've picked a bad book to make your case. No-one could read that book and concur that
the mafia was at any time ever really beneficial to the people of Italy.

I wouldnt argue that there were friendly neighbourhood God-Fathers, guys that
everyone came to for advice, who donated money & gave food to the poor
(Shit, Joey Merlino tried it) and were known as the wise, genial village dons.

Those same "Dons" oversaw the protection rackets and extortionate practices that fleeced
the fathers and husbands of the same women and children they "provided" for.

Im sure your going to scour the book and find scraps of sentances that seem to prove
your point, but im positive they'll invariably go on to say that any such notions are
false. You've obviously made up your mind on the matter, so its cool. I mean, shit,
who am i to say that your great, great, grand-father wasnt one of the "friendly"
God-Fathers. And read more on the Ndrangheta.

Sorry for the long post.

What's your point?

that your wrong.

That post doesn't prove that I'm wrong.

Take this crap off the boards. If you two wanna continue, get a room somewhere.

I don't wanna continue, Mr. Meatballs over here for some reason just loves to be an asshole.

One more crack like that and you won't continue here. Stop it now. Be smart and don't even respond to this warning!!

EDIT: You've been suspended once before for this same crap. Take a month off now to think about what you're doing here. See you in October. (SC)

I remember reading and hearing about the Sicilian Vespers. It happened over 700 years ago when the French occupied Sicily. A pretty young girl was dragged into a church and raped by a French soldier. Her mother found out and ran through the street yelling "ma fia ma fia". The girls fiance found the soldier and stuck a knife in him, but the mothers cry ma fia bacame the cry of the united Sicilians as they kicked the French off their land. That's really how the Mafia was started, it really started off as a good organization. If you had a problem with your daughter getting raped or any other problems you could take it up with the local Don of your village, and he would take care of the issue if it was worth taking care of. These days It's nothing but an organization of double crossers. There's also a play about the Sicilian Vespers.

I started reading this thread, it was interesting. But all of a sudden it started becoming a flaming thread with a lot of crap. The last few posts are better again.

My first comments:

* We are comparing the Sicilian Mafia with Robin Hoods in some posts. But to do that we must first have a clear understanding of what a 'Robin Hood' is. Robin Hood also killed people, robbed and did stuff what isn't called legal.

* Also I think it's very hard to compare those two mafia's. Old vs. New. Totally different community, different ways of communication, different ways of economic fraude/crime, internet, feudal system and republic (or at least different ones)...in two words: not comparable.

True.

New vs. Old. Could the Cosa Nostra be next?

Weak economy hits Japan's gangsters
Posted by Charley Blaine on Tuesday, October 6, 2009 3:56 PM

How's the Japanese economy doing? Maybe not so good, which may come as a surprise as the yen continues to rise against the dollar. Times are tough enough that some gangsters in Japan are actually having to pass exams to be, well, gangsters.

Gangsters, known as yakuza, are on the run as growth wanes and deflation worsens. Yet the oddest development by far involves yakuza members sitting for exams covering key aspects of their work. If you think this is just a law-enforcement issue, think again, Bloomberg News said today. It’s a sign Japan’s funk will be longer than economists predict.

That may surprise those betting Japan is recovering. Oddly, though, the plight of gangsters tells the story. Huddled over legal texts and documents isn’t the popular image of Japan’s storied mobsters. When they aren’t collecting debts, shaking down shop owners, overseeing prostitution rings or rigging stocks, members of Japan’s biggest organized crime group, Yamaguchi-gumi, are studying for 12-page tests. The tests allow gangs to weed out their weaker links. Surreal? Yes, but also a telltale sign of the seriousness of Japan’s deflationary cycle.

The yakuza are having to work harder than ever to get by and are stepping up education efforts. This column isn’t meant to convey sympathy for them. It’s that the advent of a yakuza version of the Series 7 exam that stockbrokers take is a bad omen -- very bad.

"The yakuza are a real barometer," says Jake Adelstein, a blogger and the author of a new book, "Tokyo Vice." "When the yakuza are doing poorly, the economy is doing poorly."

That has nothing to do with this discussion.

Neither do you but you don't see anyone else complaining.

I've been staying on topic ever since I started this discussion.

You've already been suspended twice for going off-topic and and acting like a jerk in these threads. Don't make it a third time. (Three strikes and you're out).

The Yakuza is the Japanese Mafia. They're no joke from what I heard.

Yeah I know but this board seems to be more inspired by the Italian Mafia from what I've seen.

Why's that? I'm interested in all kinds of mafia. Yakuza is a whole different kind of mafia.

The Italian Mafia is the only Mafia, those different ethnic gangs are not Mafias, Mafia is only Cosa Nostra.

So what is for you the definition of the meaning 'Mafia'?

Mafia only coincides with Italian organized crime aka Cosa Nostra.

Not anymore it doesn't, it has too broader a term nowadays, it's called evolution.

Yes but the correct meaning of it is Cosa Nostra, all those other ethnic gangs shouldn't be called "Mafias" because like I said Mafia is only meant to mean Cosa Nostra.

It's a term of expression, either way, a derogatory one.

The mafia was invented in Sicily. So what you should say is Italians invented the Mafia. However, these days it goes for all organized crime groups around the world. So race really doesn't matter. The reason we like talking about the the Italian mob on this forum is because most of us here are Italian.

Agreed, but referring to other ethnic gangs as Mafias is incorrect even though people these days refer to all organized crime groups as Mafias, but it's still incorrect.

Ethnic gangs like the bloods, crips, latin kings and MS-13 are just a bunch of lowlife hoods. Those are just street gangs and not OC groups. There's a big difference betweeen a gang and a mafia. The mafia is organized and criminal street gangs don't know crap about loansharking, extortion and hijacking trucks. They also don't have politicians in their pockets.

True

@DiMaggio: indeed there's a big difference between a gang and a mafia, but we're not talking about a gang. For me the Yakuze isn't a gang, but a mafia. Why? Because mafia for me isn't necessarily a Sicilian thing but a way of life/acting.

@ITB: Cosa Nostra is something the journalists and 'show off' mobsters of America made up. No Sicilian mafia called themselves Cosa Nostra.

@DiMaggio: Mafia isn't invented. It's not that someone at some time tought: 'well, if I do this and that, it will result in this...and I call that Mafia'. And if you still think that's true, why isn't it possible that someone else also tought this (meaning Japanese people who 'invented' the same)?

Actually M.M., Joe Valachi (the very first Mafioso who ever ratted and the person who showed everyone the Mafia's existence in case you didn't know), was the one who said it was called Cosa Nostra, I've seen the tapes.

FYI,

It actually was invented, but you're right not the same way the light bulb was invented. You missed my point for sure. The mafia was originally started in Sicily many years ago when the French occupied the Island. Read the history about the mafia or get a book about it.

About the Yakuza topic if you would have read my earlier post you would've noticed that I was saying it was a mafia organization so you should actually be agreeing with me on that. I Don't understand.

Your right about saying that I misread your post. You did say Yakuza is Mafia. Sorry for that.

But what you say about the fact that Mafia originally started in Sicily during French occupation (I think you mean the period that Karel from Anjou was the ruler ?) I can't agree. For me the Mafia was something that came up over a long period of time and it started when the first occupation of Sicily happened.

(FYI Dont insult me by saying 'Read the history..or get a book about it'. I've read a lot about Sicilian Mafia and that's my main point of interest between different mafia's, gangs, organized crime. I didn't read so many about any other Mafia..)

I'm not sure if it was when the french occupied Sicily but I do know that the Mafia was created when Sicily was being occupied by foreigners and they tried to take it over, the Mafia was created to kick the foreigners out and to stop the killing of the Sicilian people. No one knows who came up with the idea, but we do know that a group of peasants came up with it and created it. But take into account that was the Sicilian Mafia (Cosa Nostra), there are other Mafias in Naples (Camorra) and Calabria ('Ndrangheta). The earliest records of the Mafia originated in Sicily so it could've spread into the other areas of Italy.

And what about the Beati Paoli? That's even before Cosa Nostra and the others...and the Beati Paoli is an order of knights.

If it's an order of knights than it sure as hell isn't a Mafia.

Sure? Beati Paoli is most probably the predecessor of Sicilian Mafia. Mafiosi as Calderone and Riina refer to them in different ways. Calderone says that the Beati Paoli should be examples of how Mafiosi should live.

Well, we all have our own opinions on where it actually was started. I think it started in Sicily after the woman ran through the streets yelling "ma fia ma fia" as loud as she can. After that time frame is basically when the Sicilian people had enough of the French, and were not taking it anymore. There were many Robin hood type of people in Sicily. One of them was Salvatore Giuliano, but he came centuries later. Nobady was insulting you just letting you know that there's books out there regarding this topic.

Funny how the only information I could find on the Beati Paoli being the predecessors of the Mafia is on Wikipedia.

And you can also read:

John Follain: 'Dishonoured Society' Chapter 1
Gaia Servadio: 'The Maffia' Chapter 2
Pieter Feller: 'Maffia' Chapter 1
Letizia Paoli: 'Mafia Brotherhoods' Chapter 5

And I think I can search for some books more in my collection.

@DiMaggio:

The origins of the word are most probably not from the one you mention:

Other Topic

I'll go with 1 and 2.

Okay, that's your choice. I still find it the least of all, but what the heck, everybody has it's own view/opinion...:)..at least you have an opinion.

"Mafia" has become such a generic term that some people use it to refer to any large group of people with a single purpose--whether or not the purpose is criminal. John F. Kennedy, during the 1960 Presidential campaign, referred to his brothers and his staff as "the Irish Mafia."

Good point. The word Mafia sounds romantic. And thugs love to portray themselves as romantic Robin Hood types. The Russians in South Brooklyn are even calling themselves Mafiya these days, transliterating the word Bratva, which is Russian for brotherhood.

Just because it's written in books doesn't mean it's true. I would like to see some more information regarding that society of knights because to be honest with you I think it's all bullshit and just because some guy said the Mafia should act the same way as them doesn't mean the Mafia came from them.

OK.... we're making progress now. Compare this statement to one you made two months ago:

Just because my family has written down evidence does not make it a book.

No disrespect meant against your family, but it doesn't necessarily make it true either.

You have a point there SC, I see where you're coming from, but since my family is a primary resource I prefer getting information from a primary resource whether than a secondary resource. Most likely my family is correct, but no one may ever know the true origins, but like I said it's most likely that my family is correct since they are a primary resource and they witnessed things.

Granted, but who is to say that some of the book authors didn't get their info from similar sources (as your family)?

My point is that you have to take whatever you read about the Mob with a grain of salt. The more you read stuff about the same subject and the more people who agree on its truth makes it more likely that it IS true, but there is no guarantee.

Good point SC.

I already know where this discussion is heading: no agreement, no true discussion, only opinions of different people...and most probably flaming in the end. So I quit this one. You believe what your family says, something you have a right for, and it's not going to change.

You have a point there M.M. All of us are still gonna believe the same things we always did no matter what anyone else says.

The problem for all of us is that very, very little valid research has been done on the overall subject of organized crime in general, and the Mafia in particular. Gangsters aren't the kind of leave their collected papers to university libraries for people like us to study--particularly if they're following omerta. So, writers tend to rehash the same (wrong) "facts" again and again in their books and articles. And they most often choose the most sensational-sounding "facts" to help them sell their books and articles, knowing that nobody will be able to refute them.

Case in point: Meyer Lansky was reputed to be worth $300 million, the "richest gangster in history." All Lansky bios and article, except for one, reprinted that "fact." But Lansky was one of the very, very few gangsters to have a competent biographer. Robert Lacey, in his superb book, "Little Man - Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life," traced the $300 million figure to journalist Hank Messick, who told Lacey he'd heard it secondhand and used it in his own 1965 article because it was "a big figure." Lacey's own research indicated that Lansky, at his peak, was worth no more than $5-6 million. "Fantasy is an integral element of how organized crime is experienced, perceived and reported."

Under those circumstances, family tales and recollections are at least as valid, if not more so, than the stuff that writers use. But family recollections also can get distorted or embellished over time.

I'm reading Blue Thunder at the moment, about the murder of the boat racing king Don Aronow in Miami. The author claims to have been told by an FBI agent that Lansky had 450 Mil at the time of his death. Never heard that figure before.

Lacey says Lansky was almost flat broke at the time of his death.

I tend to think Lansky must have had some hidden away but nothing like the millions talked about. Maybe a couple hundred g's or something.

Agreed Turnbull.

Turnbull makes a great point above. The information that is out there on all of organized crime is sketchy. Even info gathered by law enforcement is often wrong due to misinterpretation of recordings or topics. It has gotten much better with undercover penetration, but even when they obtain info from informers, it must be taken with a grain of salt..those guys always have their own best interests at heart, and can twist facts for their own benefit. I have read info. on this site (from very good posters/researches) that is not necessarily accurate, due to outdated information, or misinterpretation...but then again, that's my opinion based on my "info."

There is no such urban legend in Sicily. For starters, they know their own language. "Ma" means "but" in Sicilian, not "my".

"Look Ma No hand's !!" - Jim Carey (The Mask