Today the British and USA political systems are on trial financial systems are on trial. Yesterday while the American political leaders awarded themselves a recess in which to try and re-establish their authority and integrity behind closed doors the British Conservative leader took a leaf out of the approach of the Republican party when concern over the potential impact of a second major hurricane upon the New Orleans forced them to change their Convention to formally elect their Presidential candidate by agreeing that his Shadow Chancellor should meet with the Chancellor, as was the Liberal Democrat Shadow spokesperson to try and reach a non partisan agreement about how to immediately proceed with the financial crisis and avoid it becoming a Party Political one. He made a short speech explaining the approach and then ordered those Ministers speaking to the rest of conference to amend their speech to take out any cheap jibes at the opposition and set about also adjusting his own keynote speech which he is to make this afternoon. He will seize the opportunity to convince the public that despite being a novice he is ready to become Prime Minister if given the opportunity. All three Political Leaders will return to the debate about how this present financial and consequential economic situation came about and attempt to hold those responsible to some form of account. Thus I do not expect the crisis to have major repercussions for the political system and structures in the UK.
This is not the situation in the USA where the perception of the USA general public is that its political as well as financial system requires fundamental change and many will not be bullied into accepting the chosen approach of their President and his administration because he is asking them to effectively deny that their God exists. One problem American politicians face is that they are continually being reminded in their popular entertainment that there are fundamental weaknesses in their judicial system and that many of their worst criminals get away with it or appear to get away with it time and time again.
I did not go to see Ridley Scott's American Gangster in theatre because I believed this was a film covering a well worn story, albeit with a twist in that an American Black Man had effectively outwitted and undercut the American Italian based Mafia in the distribution of heroine. However it seemed a good choice of film to view on DVD rather a Korean version. As soon as the film commenced I realised that I was aware if aspects of the true story which I subsequently researched further on the internet.
Frank Lucas was a murdering maniac who destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of Americans who effectively got away with it by turning in everyone in his organisation and those with whom he was associated. The investigation led to three quarters of N.Y.P.D special drugs investigation unit going to prison for soliciting and accepting money from criminals, perverting the course of justice. I do not know if their executives were also punished in some form for negligent management as these men ran around the City in expensive cars and suits behaving no defiantly from those they were supposed to be policing.
Frank appears to have rewritten his background but what is known is that during the Vietnam War he made his way to a Rest and Recreation Bar in Bangkok where he met up with Leslie Ike Atkinson who was a major supplier of heroin into the USA. He established his operation during or after service as an Army Sergeant paying $4000 dollars a kilo which he resold to distributors for $100000 dollars a kilo. He used USA army planes to transport the drugs in teak furniture. He was caught out by accident. In 1975 the shipments were being sent to elderly women in North Carolina to be picked up by the army claiming the package had been misdirected. However in one instance the woman first called the police thinking it was a bomb and discovering its contents were able to establish a case and a successful prosecution. In the way that such men operate within the prison system, using their wealth and connections to threaten and to bribe he continued with his operation. However this also came to light and all together he served 32 years in prison released in 2007. When I was in prison in the early 1960's in the UK, tobacco and money was brought in on a similar kind of route sent in within newspaper and periodicals mailed to former inmates in wrappers which looked as if they were posted from the publishers. The post was rarely opened by prison officers who used prisoners to prepare correspondence to be read before distribution.
In Britain there were controls on what convicted prisoners could received by way of food, cigarettes and other improvements to daily living although there were less restrictions for those on remand or who were civil offenders, mainly debtors with the latter being able for example to wear their own clothes. When I elected to wear my suit on the last days of the sentence one prison officer thought it was a great idea to move me from my work in the wing library where books were issued directly to prisoners, and where we checked each book to ensure it was not marked or contained notes and the like, to scrubbing the floor of the recreational area and wing entrance floor. I sued to save my six pence a week, nay have risen to nine pence or even a few pence more and only drew out money for proper toothpaste and the occasional choky bar. Some of my comrades bought tobacco to buy from within the system proper underpants than the curiosity which was a kind of nappy which was then the basic issue. They had also become vegetarians which entitled them to specially prepared food and to sit together at meals. I took a different approach and fitted into the system as just another prisoner, accepting the authority of the prison officers and doing my time as other prisoners, treating them as equals who had broken the law. As a consequence throughout the six months I was only picked on two prison officers who hated the idea that I was "normal" accepted that I had put myself into system but that I could chose to leave whenever I wanted. Even the one who made points whenever he could, such as finding me with the bed down and sitting on it during day time making me put into the required position, changed when I joined in a one day hunger strike to protest against the news someone was to be executed. The sentence was commuted. Several officers said they had forgotten I was one six disarmers, as we were collectively known, and asked about why I had done it and was still there. Certainly in the main wind of this prison I was not aware off anyone leading a quality of life different from the rest or having special privileges unless they were red band trustees. My understanding of the system in the USA is that there is a prisoner hierarchy and those with wealth and connections can have a good quality of life.
I mention this because what happened to Frank Lucas raises more questions than have been answered. Until he established his operation Black Men were expected to buy drugs from the Italian run Mafia for reselling within their residential ghettos, thus reducing their personal profits. Lucas cut them out and became something of a folk hero among drug users because he sold a better quality heroin and a significantly reduced price to his then local community. However as a consequence of greed and in order to appease the Sicilian and Irish mobsters who had bought the Special Drugs squad and therefore became the monopoly supplier to the fashionable city centre, and a as consequence mixed with the highest , primarily black society. At the time of his capture he had over $50 million dollars saved in Cayman Island and other off shore banks and a stock alleged to have been worth $300 million brought in because with the ending of the War, it was expected that that his transport system would also end, Part of his success was the lengths he went to present himself as an ordinary low profile businessman using his large family of brothers and relatives to run legitimate businesses which were the local supply centres. I addition to his saving investments he bought property throughout the USA with apartments in Miami and Los Angeles and an office block in Detroit and in North Carolina a ranch of several thousand acres. He was married and all together had seven children.
For his crimes Lucas only served 5 years in prison with his sentence of 70 years commuted to lifetime parole, he claims to have been successfully stripped of all his wealth and it is said he bought the reduced sentence by providing information which led to 100 drug related convictions.. He was subsequently charged fro attempting to exchange one ounce of heroin for$13000 and served seven users for this discharged in 1991 and subsequently creating a legitimate business for himself. After separation from his wife after she had also served five year and returned to her home country Puerto Rico where he has also bought property, they reconciled. The only daughter of the marriage runs an internet site for the children of incarcerated parents.
So what did Ridley Scott make of all this? It is very curious as he appears to paint Frank Lucas as ruthless but noble, omitting his womanising and parenting, a good son to his mother, going to church with her every Sunday and distributing help to the poor. He paints the corrupt NYPD task force as greater villains with no redeeming features, He also introduced things which are debatable claiming that it was Frank who did a deal with a Chinese nationalist leader for drugs and claims that the drugs were brought back in the coffins off soldiers killed in the Vietnam war for which there is no evidence.
Perhaps the oddest aspect of the film is the way he presents the lead police investigator Richie Roberts played by Russell Crowe. In Real life Roberts went to school and college in New Jersey and after service in the Marines joined the prosecutors office as a detective while studying for the Bar which involved night class five days a week for four years. After qualifying he was appointed Assistant Prosecutor and head of a narcotics strike force under the F.B.I. Contrary to what Ridley Scott made up to make the story entertaining he and his force knew from outset that Frank Lucas was the drug boss behind the flood of cheap heroine the streets. Contrary to the film which has the big bang ending raiding all the distribution centres and arresting Lucas after church on Sunday, the arrests were more systematic and over a period of time tackling each distribution points and those involved. Lucas was the last to be arrested and proving the case was a challenge especially as it became known that a contract had been put on the life of the Prosecutor. It was only after conviction that Lucas corroborated. After the conviction Roberts remain Assistant Prosecutor and became disillusioned he was passed over for the top job. He then changed sides so to speak joining a firm of former of state prosecutors as a defence attorney. He then established his own firm. It is fact that he acted for Frank Lucas when charged from his first prison sentence and that he agreed to become Godfather to one of his sons.
Ridley Scott counterpoints the noble side of Frank Lucas with Ritchie when his marriage was breaking up and he was fighting to have contact with his son. The film claims that his wide criticised for not being like other cops and on the take and for his life style which involved casual relationships with ladies of disrepute. The film seems to make the points that the dividing line between criminal and cop is a narrow one, a point which the average American may tends to accept more these days in terms of the behaviour of Wall Street and politicians on the Hill. Ritchie is said to defend his subsequent association with Lucas on the grounds that he became a changed and reformed character. The core of Christianity belief in atonement and redemption.
This is not the situation in the USA where the perception of the USA general public is that its political as well as financial system requires fundamental change and many will not be bullied into accepting the chosen approach of their President and his administration because he is asking them to effectively deny that their God exists. One problem American politicians face is that they are continually being reminded in their popular entertainment that there are fundamental weaknesses in their judicial system and that many of their worst criminals get away with it or appear to get away with it time and time again.
I did not go to see Ridley Scott's American Gangster in theatre because I believed this was a film covering a well worn story, albeit with a twist in that an American Black Man had effectively outwitted and undercut the American Italian based Mafia in the distribution of heroine. However it seemed a good choice of film to view on DVD rather a Korean version. As soon as the film commenced I realised that I was aware if aspects of the true story which I subsequently researched further on the internet.
Frank Lucas was a murdering maniac who destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of Americans who effectively got away with it by turning in everyone in his organisation and those with whom he was associated. The investigation led to three quarters of N.Y.P.D special drugs investigation unit going to prison for soliciting and accepting money from criminals, perverting the course of justice. I do not know if their executives were also punished in some form for negligent management as these men ran around the City in expensive cars and suits behaving no defiantly from those they were supposed to be policing.
Frank appears to have rewritten his background but what is known is that during the Vietnam War he made his way to a Rest and Recreation Bar in Bangkok where he met up with Leslie Ike Atkinson who was a major supplier of heroin into the USA. He established his operation during or after service as an Army Sergeant paying $4000 dollars a kilo which he resold to distributors for $100000 dollars a kilo. He used USA army planes to transport the drugs in teak furniture. He was caught out by accident. In 1975 the shipments were being sent to elderly women in North Carolina to be picked up by the army claiming the package had been misdirected. However in one instance the woman first called the police thinking it was a bomb and discovering its contents were able to establish a case and a successful prosecution. In the way that such men operate within the prison system, using their wealth and connections to threaten and to bribe he continued with his operation. However this also came to light and all together he served 32 years in prison released in 2007. When I was in prison in the early 1960's in the UK, tobacco and money was brought in on a similar kind of route sent in within newspaper and periodicals mailed to former inmates in wrappers which looked as if they were posted from the publishers. The post was rarely opened by prison officers who used prisoners to prepare correspondence to be read before distribution.
In Britain there were controls on what convicted prisoners could received by way of food, cigarettes and other improvements to daily living although there were less restrictions for those on remand or who were civil offenders, mainly debtors with the latter being able for example to wear their own clothes. When I elected to wear my suit on the last days of the sentence one prison officer thought it was a great idea to move me from my work in the wing library where books were issued directly to prisoners, and where we checked each book to ensure it was not marked or contained notes and the like, to scrubbing the floor of the recreational area and wing entrance floor. I sued to save my six pence a week, nay have risen to nine pence or even a few pence more and only drew out money for proper toothpaste and the occasional choky bar. Some of my comrades bought tobacco to buy from within the system proper underpants than the curiosity which was a kind of nappy which was then the basic issue. They had also become vegetarians which entitled them to specially prepared food and to sit together at meals. I took a different approach and fitted into the system as just another prisoner, accepting the authority of the prison officers and doing my time as other prisoners, treating them as equals who had broken the law. As a consequence throughout the six months I was only picked on two prison officers who hated the idea that I was "normal" accepted that I had put myself into system but that I could chose to leave whenever I wanted. Even the one who made points whenever he could, such as finding me with the bed down and sitting on it during day time making me put into the required position, changed when I joined in a one day hunger strike to protest against the news someone was to be executed. The sentence was commuted. Several officers said they had forgotten I was one six disarmers, as we were collectively known, and asked about why I had done it and was still there. Certainly in the main wind of this prison I was not aware off anyone leading a quality of life different from the rest or having special privileges unless they were red band trustees. My understanding of the system in the USA is that there is a prisoner hierarchy and those with wealth and connections can have a good quality of life.
I mention this because what happened to Frank Lucas raises more questions than have been answered. Until he established his operation Black Men were expected to buy drugs from the Italian run Mafia for reselling within their residential ghettos, thus reducing their personal profits. Lucas cut them out and became something of a folk hero among drug users because he sold a better quality heroin and a significantly reduced price to his then local community. However as a consequence of greed and in order to appease the Sicilian and Irish mobsters who had bought the Special Drugs squad and therefore became the monopoly supplier to the fashionable city centre, and a as consequence mixed with the highest , primarily black society. At the time of his capture he had over $50 million dollars saved in Cayman Island and other off shore banks and a stock alleged to have been worth $300 million brought in because with the ending of the War, it was expected that that his transport system would also end, Part of his success was the lengths he went to present himself as an ordinary low profile businessman using his large family of brothers and relatives to run legitimate businesses which were the local supply centres. I addition to his saving investments he bought property throughout the USA with apartments in Miami and Los Angeles and an office block in Detroit and in North Carolina a ranch of several thousand acres. He was married and all together had seven children.
For his crimes Lucas only served 5 years in prison with his sentence of 70 years commuted to lifetime parole, he claims to have been successfully stripped of all his wealth and it is said he bought the reduced sentence by providing information which led to 100 drug related convictions.. He was subsequently charged fro attempting to exchange one ounce of heroin for$13000 and served seven users for this discharged in 1991 and subsequently creating a legitimate business for himself. After separation from his wife after she had also served five year and returned to her home country Puerto Rico where he has also bought property, they reconciled. The only daughter of the marriage runs an internet site for the children of incarcerated parents.
So what did Ridley Scott make of all this? It is very curious as he appears to paint Frank Lucas as ruthless but noble, omitting his womanising and parenting, a good son to his mother, going to church with her every Sunday and distributing help to the poor. He paints the corrupt NYPD task force as greater villains with no redeeming features, He also introduced things which are debatable claiming that it was Frank who did a deal with a Chinese nationalist leader for drugs and claims that the drugs were brought back in the coffins off soldiers killed in the Vietnam war for which there is no evidence.
Perhaps the oddest aspect of the film is the way he presents the lead police investigator Richie Roberts played by Russell Crowe. In Real life Roberts went to school and college in New Jersey and after service in the Marines joined the prosecutors office as a detective while studying for the Bar which involved night class five days a week for four years. After qualifying he was appointed Assistant Prosecutor and head of a narcotics strike force under the F.B.I. Contrary to what Ridley Scott made up to make the story entertaining he and his force knew from outset that Frank Lucas was the drug boss behind the flood of cheap heroine the streets. Contrary to the film which has the big bang ending raiding all the distribution centres and arresting Lucas after church on Sunday, the arrests were more systematic and over a period of time tackling each distribution points and those involved. Lucas was the last to be arrested and proving the case was a challenge especially as it became known that a contract had been put on the life of the Prosecutor. It was only after conviction that Lucas corroborated. After the conviction Roberts remain Assistant Prosecutor and became disillusioned he was passed over for the top job. He then changed sides so to speak joining a firm of former of state prosecutors as a defence attorney. He then established his own firm. It is fact that he acted for Frank Lucas when charged from his first prison sentence and that he agreed to become Godfather to one of his sons.
Ridley Scott counterpoints the noble side of Frank Lucas with Ritchie when his marriage was breaking up and he was fighting to have contact with his son. The film claims that his wide criticised for not being like other cops and on the take and for his life style which involved casual relationships with ladies of disrepute. The film seems to make the points that the dividing line between criminal and cop is a narrow one, a point which the average American may tends to accept more these days in terms of the behaviour of Wall Street and politicians on the Hill. Ritchie is said to defend his subsequent association with Lucas on the grounds that he became a changed and reformed character. The core of Christianity belief in atonement and redemption.
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