-=> Lee Lofaso wrote to Dave Drum <=-   
      
    MM>> Russian President Putin ..voter fraud?! No way...he's too awesome! BTW   
    MM>> comrades, where can I get iodine pills in case of 'accidental'   
    MM>> radiation poisoning...   
      
    LL>> Chernobyl?   
      
    DD> Probably he was thinking about Alexander Litvinenko and the radioactive   
    DD> isotope of thallium used on him in London a couple - three years ago.   
    DD> (2006)   
      
    LL> There were a number of incidents that Putin was accused of   
    LL> being (indirectly) involved in.  However, nothing definitive   
    LL> has ever been proven.   
      
   When you own the FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) and   
   the espionage agency SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service) which are the   
   successors to the old KGB (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti or Committee   
   for State Security) and GRU (Military version of the KGB) and are the head of a   
   very patriarchal and hierarchal gummint - it's hard to prove anything against   
   you. Unlike the US, where Tricky Dick could only wish he had that sort of   
   control.  Bv)=   
       
    DD> The former USSR has its own version of the Mafia's omerta.  SCHTOOM!!!   
      
    LL> The politburo (committee) ran the USSR, not a godfather (president).   
      
   They are analogous. Not to mention that Litvinenko was LONG after the demise of   
   the USSR and politburo.   
      
    LL> But in ways, that is how the Mafia works.  Each family has a godfather.   
    LL> The godfathers periodically get together, forming a committee.  During   
    LL> those meetings, godfathers are able to hash out their differences with   
    LL> each other.  Those godfathers who are unable to hash out their   
    LL> differences are told to leave the room, and a war between those   
    LL> families erupts.  The dispute is settled, the new godfathers welcomed   
    LL> to enter the room, and all is well.   
      
   I was friendly with a Mafia godfather and had no knowledge that he was   
   mobbed-up until the big scandal about the Appalachin Conference broke. The Zito   
   brothers (Frank and Tony) ran an outfit called Modern Vending which had   
   cigarette machine and jukeboxes all over central Illinois. They paid well and   
   were nice guys. Their brother Sammy was a retired coal miner who didn't have   
   much to do with his brothers and lived in a two room apartment in a flea-bag   
   hotel. As it turned out they kept a lid on things. After their deaths (from   
   natural causes) things went nuts around here ... bodies dropping into corn   
   fields, bobbing to the surface of ponds and lakes, people being knee-capped,   
   etc.   
      
   Down toward the bottom of the http://mafia.wikia.com/wiki/Apalachin_Conference   
   article you will find:   
      
   Frank Zito - Springfield, Illinois Zito Family Boss (Chicago Outfit Caporegime)   
   listed among the people arrested. To me, and the others in the neighbourhood he   
   was just a nice old man who gave us work and paid us well for that work.   
       
   ... Food, love, career & mothers. The 4 major guilt groups. - Cathy Guisewhite   
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