Cartoonist Laments Pope's Targeting of the Mob Rather than Big Government

Interesting response to the Pope's excommunication of the Mafia--well, the Ndrangheta, specifically, by Rick Kollinger, who also drew the cartoon with caption. I have made many of the same points about government assuming control of traditional mob-run businesses (NOTE: my personal politics differ vastly; I am not anti-abortion, for one thing. And I don't agree that no one is interested in the mob anymore, obviously). Here is a piece Kollinger recently wrote for Kent County News:



...Now the Pope has announced that “Those who go down the evil path, as the Mafiosi do, are not in communion with God. They are excommunicated.”

Pope Francis is hoping to point out that financial misbehavior is equal to sexual sins. To the Pope, love of money and violent or dishonest behavior is as much of a sin as abortion. The Pope has in the past condemned corporate financial sins, particularly for their socioeconomic consequences.

Excommunication means that someone is out of communion and cannot participate in the sacrament of Eucharist. People who have been excommunicated are seen as people who set themselves apart from the Christian life.

Maybe the Pope should go after Big Government. They’re the ones promoting abortion, not the Mob. In fact, Big Government has made many inroads into what used to be exclusive Mob turf.

Government moved into the gambling business some years ago, paying people worse odds than they would have gotten from their corner numbers runner. Since then, they’ve added various other games and, now, casino gambling. It’s becoming more difficult for the Mob to hold up businesses for “protection” money since the government is taking so much from them in taxes and regulations that there’s simply not enough left over at the end of the month.

Government has now muscled in on the drug industry, bringing with it, like Obamacare, higher prices and less efficiency. The Mob no longer influences politicians and judges; they’ve corrupted themselves far better than La Cosa Nostra could ever hope to do. The Internet has a lock on prostitution. Waste management has been taken over by nonprofit groups.

The Mob has fallen on such hard times that now they’re looked back on nostalgically, like “The Brady Bunch” or Bruce Willis.

In Las Vegas, they opened a “Mob Museum.” This was the brainchild of the former Mayor Oscar Goodman, who was a mouthpiece for the Mob.

Goodman suckered the taxpayers into sinking $42 million (original estimate: $30 million) for this fiasco, which features the blood-stained wall where seven mobsters were gunned down in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. It also has the barber chair where Albert “Murder Inc.” Anastasia was murdered.

Naturally, these are not just the Las Vegas taxpayers who were suckered. Federal taxpayers ponied up $1.9 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Added to this was a $532,043 grant from “Save America’s Treasures,” a subsidy of $250,000 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and $87,000 from the State Historic Preservation Office.

Attendance has been so poor that an additional $1.6 million in handouts has been given to the museum.

In fact, attendance has only been 28 percent of what Mayor Goodman had estimated in order to sucker the taxpayers in the first place. Even this figure is inflated since many of the visitors received coupons, discounts and giveaways.

The fact is, no one has any interest in the Mob anymore. Why should they when the government is so readily available?"



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