OLd Man Wrote:I have always thought that there has to be some form of protection to run large long term drug distribution systems such as they have in Chicago. When there is a bust it seems to be small, maybe just weeding out the competition. Would you agree with that 52?
Not to derail the thread, but yes. I've studied the illicit drug trade and was involved in several Joint Task Force-6 Counter-Narcotics operations at the ground surveillance level, and have continued to keep up with the trade routes, financing mechanisms, street price index, market share shifts of the main narcotics (marijuana, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine), and the corruption that accompanies an industry with over a trillion dollars in volume a year globally.
Looking at the history above, you can see why unions, organized crime, and political parties go hand-in-hand. The history actually goes back further than that when you look into the East India Companies and the Opium Wars, Caribbean rum routes, & tobacco trade.
There are those who are sanctioned to traffic illegal narcotics, and those low-level fools who are not. When talking with friends of mine who have worked in an official counter-narcotics capacity, it's common to hear complaints of how their hands are tied.
If illicit trade was so prevalent in the 1930's, and booze-smuggling increased during prohibition to the point that police departments were the local security for the distribution of protected rackets, imagine the long-term consequences of that type of environment for local, county, State, and National politics.
Political candidates realized the necessity to have the backing of whatever power center would have the most effect on their ability to get elected. Many well-intended political aspirants were and are approached subtly at first, then co-opted by organized crime in schemes that ensure that the politician in question has a carrot and stick over their head.
The end result is that criminals largely direct much of the business of large city governments, with entire armies at their disposal in the form of unionized police, who fall in-line with the thug boss directives. This is a simple explanation of the dynamics of NYC, Chicago, Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Atlantic City, and Washington D.C. police departments.
Remember that Harry Reid got his job as a D.C. cop after his union Democrat Irish mob high school history teacher, Mike O-Callaghan, reversed his rejection from Georgetown Law school by calling some connections after Reid was denied entrance into the prestigious D.C. University, his grades not being up-to-par, which comes as no surprise if you've ever heard him open his filth orifice.
After graduating from Georgetown Law, Reid returned to Nevada, and became Lieutenant Governor along with...Mike O'Callaghan, then was strategically placed by O'Callaghan as the Nevada Gaming Commissioner, which is a position that manages the farce of keeping the Casinos appearing as legitimate businesses, not drug/racketeering/prostitution money-laundering fronts that they are (no receipts for gambling = billions in drug money).
The criminality has become so legitimized over several generations, that politicians take offense if you explain the history I'm describing-only problem is that many of them brag about it in their autobiographies, then have the audacity to entitle their books with shameless banners like
The Good Fight, by Harry Reid.
The defecation-devouring smirk on his face says it all.