Moderator: Capos
I thought the DeMeo stories were plausible (like the one about Roy wanting to build a gym in the mob club) because Roy was weird enough anyway but the Fratianno one was a big GTFOH moment for me.
No go, it would put him in a bad light. I'd like him to talk about various soldiers in his family while he was an underboss. You know, talk about someone else beside himself. Unlike Franzese he usually doesn't shy away from mentioning names. What does he know about Anastasia's murder? There's loads of other stuff to talk about, but he's too much of a narcissist.
This is what I'd like to. Stories of the various soldiers and captains in the family during his time in the administration...that time period some of the biggest earners in Cosa Nostra belonged to that family...axx wrote: ↑Sun Feb 27, 2022 2:16 amNo go, it would put him in a bad light. I'd like him to talk about various soldiers in his family while he was an underboss. You know, talk about someone else beside himself. Unlike Franzese he usually doesn't shy away from mentioning names. What does he know about Anastasia's murder? There's loads of other stuff to talk about, but he's too much of a narcissist.
How about Luciano then? Sicilian from Lercara Friddi. Granted he didn't marry and was instead whoring around but where there's one, there's another. And all I'm saying is we need to just keep that in mind. I will take credit for my part in introducing bloodlines in the mainstream argument but I need to check myself. I once made a statement regarding the majority of members having bloodlines to which Pogo countered me saying no. I couldn't come back with anything because I didn't have the numbers. Now I do, at least for the Gambinos in 63 and he's right. Numberwise, half the family membership didn't have the bloodlines and for those that were born in the towns you and I are focused on, there's bound to be people who were Gravanos. And among these Sicilians, a large majority of them married Anglo women. Don't have the stats but could/will have them.B. wrote: ↑Sat Feb 26, 2022 4:32 pm I understand the hesitation to assume everyone's life was dictated by the mafia without direct confirmation, but I think it would be an error to use someone like Gravano in the 1960s-80s as counterpoint to the significant role hometown, marriage, baptism, etc. played in these organizations decades earlier and to some degree still play. With many of those relationships, it is difficult to know where the influence of the mafia begins and ends given its influence on their social and professional lives, not only explicit "mafia activity".
We don't know if roughly half had those connections. We know half of them didn't based on their mainland blood but it would be foolish to assume everyone of Sicilian descent that joined the Gambinos was due to something deeper and not just being a criminal with the right bloodlines in the right place. How many? 10%-15-30% I don't know. But even for those that have the bloodlines, like Joe N Gallo, he married an Irishwoman so we can infer that "keeping the bloodlines" wasn't as important to him and he's far from the only one. We got Gambino-Castellanos inbreeding, we have criminals recruited who happen to be Sicilian and we have a host of mainlanders.B. wrote: ↑Mon Feb 28, 2022 12:26 am I've never known you to assume the majority of the post-1950s organizations to be made up entirely of guys with bloodlines/paesan ties. Even fully American members often recreate those patterns once they become members by bringing their relatives in and around the Family a decent amount of the time, but I think you've always had a balanced take on the different types of members and have never discounted that many guys are recruited through general association just as many come from a "tradition".
Roughly half of a huge Family in 1963 having those kinds of connections (just from what we know -- it would be as much of an error to assume the absence of evidence is evidence) is statistically significant to me and indicates those patterns played a huge role in the DNA of these organizations, which only becomes more apparent as research expands. It also depends on the organization -- it might be true for "only" half the 1963 Gambino Family, but look what's already come out in the Bonanno 1963 thread as far as interrelation goes... there's more than we even knew and we knew about a lot. We have member sources telling the FBI and recalling in memoirs how important these factors were, too.
I'm surprised Pogo's point impacted your view -- I remember his post and for someone who tracks these guys so closely, he seemed oblivious to how many guys actually are related to one another and how far they go back.
Good to be conservative and keep your assumptions in check, but you've always had a great POV that stands up to scrutiny and I think 99% of researchers here agree.
Great topic and surely is something to look at from a historical perspective as well as looking at the current state of the mafia to see the long-term influence. The topic got me thinking about Carlo Gambino and how he fits into this narrative. Carlo came from a mafia lineage but was one of the most prominent influences to keep the books closed while he was boss - which piqued my curiosity as to how he would view the importance of keeping the lineage of the mafia within his own family.B. wrote: ↑Mon Feb 28, 2022 1:10 am Joe N. Gallo brought his son into the Family so he did apparently care about keeping it going.
You're not going to find an overwhelming amount of father>son>grandson>great-grandson direct lineage in the US (the Asaros are 5 direct generations deep at least, not including the number of members in each gen) but the amount of people who have relatives involved over multiple generations even post-1950s is statistically significant though many other factors were at play and it doesn't describe the entire membership. We also have no idea one way or another how many older relatives were members so we're capped by that when analyzing the information. We're constantly finding indications that older relatives were at least peripherally involved but as you know we don't have sources to confirm membership.
If your thinking is that these connected families didn't bring all of their relatives in for the sake of tradition, I agree 100%. They absolutely didn't do that most of the time and we have sources who say that certain sons, nephews, etc. were measured for their mafia qualities but membership was in no way guaranteed based on relation even though it heavily helped the process.
If the argument is that kinship, bloodlines, and hometown wasn't a dominant factor in the formation of these organizations and continued to be relevant (though to an increasingly reduced degree), then I just flat out disagree based on the evidence. We can even see that families outside of the "tradition" like the Persicos and Gottis bring in their brothers, sons, and nephews when they gain power and have the opportunity, so patterns often repeat even when someone is brought in from "outside".
With people who come from a mafia lineage, committed crime, and were inducted, I'm not sure that it's possible to separate the chicken from the egg. Did they get involved in crime because their relatives were in the mafia? Did they join the mafia because they committed crime? These influences are so heavily intertwined I don't think they can be separated from a scientific POV.
- Doesn't mean the San Cataldo Family only initiated relatives, but Messina attributes bloodline (7 generations) as the most important factor in his induction. In contrast, we have Buscetta who had no bloodlines in Palermo."I represent the seventh generation belonging to Cosa Nostra. I was affiliated not because I was a robber or because I was able to kill, but because I was bound to become a member by family tradition."
It would have been great to see Al D’Arco start his own channel but his son Joseph D’Arco from what we know is still aliveRamshackleMan wrote: ↑Sun Feb 27, 2022 7:38 pm Hasn't someone ever tried writing Massino or others "care of" the WPP and seeing what happens? I'd be surprised if someone hasn't.