08-24-2016, 09:06 AM
The Russian Mafia is the most dangerous organized-crime syndicate of them all. It is as ruthless and callous as the old (but dying) Sicilian mob and the now-extinct Jewish mobs of the 1930s but far more pervasive. It's more than drugs, gambling, loan-sharking, human trafficking, and porn. It's also political corruption. If it can insinuate itself into the American political process, then our political process is in deep trouble. We then have a security breach far more dangerous than those that the nuclear spies (the Rosenberg-Greenglass ring) of the 1950s. But the Rosenberg-Greenglass ring was ideological. The Russian Mafia is economic and political.
Jihadist terrorists are outrages. But they have little organization. For real menace, look at the Russian Mafia. It may have no religious connection; it's mostly people who believe in nothing but their own gain and indulgence. But that also describes America's economic elites who differ most obviously in liking to keep their hands clean of any connection to violence. The Russian Mafia has no qualms about violence -- only about getting caught.
Organized crime can be another oppressive and exploitative economic elite. Beware!
Jihadist terrorists are outrages. But they have little organization. For real menace, look at the Russian Mafia. It may have no religious connection; it's mostly people who believe in nothing but their own gain and indulgence. But that also describes America's economic elites who differ most obviously in liking to keep their hands clean of any connection to violence. The Russian Mafia has no qualms about violence -- only about getting caught.
Organized crime can be another oppressive and exploitative economic elite. Beware!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.