I watched Martin Scorcese’s Academy Award winning film The Departed with Jack Nicholson depicting a fictionalized but accurate portrayal of the famous Boston mobster and a cast that includes Leonard DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg. It got me thinking: What New Rochelle can learn from “Whitey” Bulger?
Hub Blog: Some of the obvious and not-so-obvious political issues that need deeper coverage are: the general climate of fear on Beacon Hill during the height of the Bulgers era; how the city was still reeling from the forced-busing crisis as the Bulgers rose to power, and how many of their supporters/critics eerily lined up along those old forced-busing fault lines; the mysterious state agency budget cuts and demotions of anyone who dared cross the Bulgers; the cushy government and industry jobs landed by mobsters, their relatives and ex-FBI agents; the politically wired rise of FBI agent Zip Connelly and his gross FBI retirement party; the alleged push to make Zip chief of Boston police; the former governor of Massachusetts who effectively handed over the keys to state government to Billy while he ran for president in ’88; the once crusading U.S. Attorney-turned-governor who ended up cynically playing footsie with the younger Bulger. Etc., etc.
The Boston case is extreme but does highlight some common threads with New Rochelle — cushy government jobs landed by mobsters and associates and their relatives, the politically wired rise of certain individuals, pushing certain people forward for key jobs where they can control hiring and firing, and those of are leaders and elected representatives who play footsie with the liars, crooks and thieves that have insinuated themselves into the New Rochelle municipal government and the New Rochelle school district. The good news is that eventually Whitey Bulger was caught and will face justice. The bad news is that it took a long time for the people of Boston to wake up and a number of bad guys lived out their lives without being held to account.