let's talk about "Cosa Nostra"

[TheReal_ND]

Wiki doesn't want to talk about it. According to wiki it basically means "mafia." This is a half lie. You can see why below.

The first time the term was used when Valachi testified for the first time ever against what was better known as the "mafia"

In October 1963, Valachi testified before Senator John L. McClellan's congressional committee on organized crime, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations. He gave the American public a firsthand account of Mafia activities in the United States.[1][2] According to a Justice Department official Valachi "showed us the face of the enemy."[3]

Valachi, a low-ranking member of the New York-based Genovese crime family, was the first ever government witness coming from the American Mafia itself. Before Valachi, federal authorities had no concrete evidence that the American Mafia even existed. His disclosures never led directly to the prosecution of many Mafia leaders, but he was able to provide many details of its history, operations and rituals, aiding in the solution of several uncleared murders, as well as naming many members and the major crime families.

Valachi testified in vivid and minute detail on his day-to-day life in organized crime in a first-time-ever public account of life as a soldier of La Cosa Nostra, including its rites of initiation.[4] These televised hearings brought home to average Americans the savage violence and intimidation routinely used by the Mafia to further and protect its criminal enterprises.[5]

Joseph Michael "Joe Cargo" Valachi (September 22, 1904 – April 3, 1971) was an American gangster who is notable as the first member of the Italian-American Mafia to acknowledge its existence publicly. He is credited with popularization of the term cosa nostra.[1]

So we know now this low level nobody has conflated the term, if not outright coined it, "cosa nostra."

Why is this interesting?

Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach authorized the public release of Valachi’s manuscript. He hoped that publication of Valachi’s story would aid law enforcement and possibly encourage other criminal informers to step forward. Author Peter Maas, who broke Valachi’s story in The Saturday Evening Post, was assigned the job of editing the manuscript and permitted to interview Valachi in his Washington, D.C., jail cell.[10][11]

The American Italian Anti-Defamation League promoted a national campaign against the book on the grounds that it would reinforce negative ethnic stereotypes. If the book’s publication was not stopped they would appeal directly to the White House. Katzenbach reversed his decision to publish the book after a meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson; an action that embarrassed the Justice Department.[10][11]

This is interesting now when you see Catholic Italians we're getting rightfully pissed the fuck off. Cosa Nostra is an Italian language term that means "our thing." Once this term was coined the mafia became synonymous with Italians.

And no doubt, a lot of Italians had nothing to do with the despicable mafia, but some did.

Others, were and are not Italian however.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_Abrams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evsei_Agron
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Annenberg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Berman_(mobster)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Berman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_Bernstein
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Birns
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Buchalter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ike_Bloom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_Cann
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Cohen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Cohen_(businessman)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monk_Eastman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waxey_Gordon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Horowitz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Kastel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Keywell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Kravitz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Levine_(mobster)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Linsey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Magoon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Maione
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nayfeld
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Orgen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Paul
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_Reles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Rosen_(mobster)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Rothkopf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Sagansky
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugsy_Siegel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Strauss
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Weiss
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Zelig
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Zwerbach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Zwillman

[TheReal_ND]

Go ahead. Google the term "cosa Nostra." Tell me how biased the search results are lulz

[C-Mag]

All ethnic groups have had their gangs and organized crime. I think the Italians are identified with organized crime because they were so damn good at it in the US. The Italians pretty much ran all the other groups out or had them working for the Italians. Having the mystique of a name like the La Cosa Nostra doesn't hurt, but they were infamous for their actions. The press grabbed on to the Italian gangs and made their murders in particular famous. Take Murder Inc. This was 4 Jewish guys, working for Italians, and committing hundreds of murders while staying anonymous or years. The press never really pointed out that these were 4 Jewish muderers.

Have you watched Kill the Irishman ? It's about Danny Greene, an irish crime leader in Cleveland who took on the Italians for control of Cleveland in the 70's. Good show.

[MilSpecs]

Cosa Nostra is an Italian language term that means "our thing." Once this term was coined the mafia became synonymous with Italians.

Because “Mafia” is English?

Also, there have been different ethnic organized crime syndicates throughout American history. The Jewish mob wasn’t part of the “Mafia.” It was a separate organization.

[Speaker to Animals]

la cosa nostra is what they called themselves in Sicily.

A non-Italian could sometimes work for them, but he could never be one of them.

Our guys were running complex moonshine operations out of the South and selling it to the Italians.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Great-granddad was a bootlegger. I have no idea who he worked for tho.

[MilSpecs]

la cosa nostra is what they called themselves in Sicily.

A non-Italian could sometimes work for them, but he could never be one of them.

Our guys were running complex moonshine operations out of the South and selling it to the Italians.

Are you talking about Italian Americans or Italians? The Sicilian Mafia came here and was called the Black Hand. You had to be Sicilian to get made. It eventually became Italian to get made, then John gotti married a non-Italian and they changed the rules so gotti’s son could eventually run things. So they say.

[brewster]

Italian organized crime wasn't invented here, it had a long tradition, and still controls much of southern Italy. There was no Jewish Mob back in the old country, I don't know about the Irish. Didn't the IRA end up as a protection racket? Anyway, organized crime was American as apple pie: immigrants saw an opportunity. Why be sensitive about it? It is what it is. Only the assholes in flyover country who don't know any people of Italian heritage think they're all mobsters, or all Russians are. That doesn't mean they don't exist.

Talk up the Jewish mob all you want, I don't have any connection to Meyer Lansky or Bugsy Siegel. Once Upon a Time in America was a pretty good movie though.

[Speaker to Animals]

Checkout the urban bigotry on Brad over there.

[MilSpecs]

Italian organized crime wasn't invented here, it had a long tradition, and still controls much of southern Italy. There was no Jewish Mob back in the old country, I don't know about the Irish. Didn't the IRA end up as a protection racket? Anyway, organized crime was American as apple pie: immigrants saw an opportunity. Why be sensitive about it? It is what it is. Only the assholes in flyover country who don't know any people of Italian heritage think they're all mobsters, or all Russians are. That doesn't mean they don't exist.

Talk up the Jewish mob all you want, I don't have any connection to Meyer Lansky or Bugsy Siegel. Once Upon a Time in America was a pretty good movie though.

We never thought of it as a career option either.

I’m picturing the college tour: northeastern, sacred heart, and bay ridge as the safety.