It’s been fifty years since the movie The Godfather came out, winning three Academy Awards including “Best Picture”, but it probably had an “M” rating for “Mature” audiences. Thus, I was not exposed to it, being only a teenager in high school, though I had heard about bits and pieces of it. Over the years I think it was released again, maybe the special effects were improved. But the impression that The Godfather was a “bad” movie and the certainty that I would not like it, never left me.
And yet lately, we’ve thought again about some of the movies we had rejected over the years, because, it seems, some movies just have a culturally significant effect on our society. In other words, literary allusions to certain books and films become so frequent that in order to understand the thinking and writing of the times, you have to have had at least a passing acquaintance with them so you can relate. For example, when all of us are pointing fingers at the White House and saying with a gasp, “Biden’s Disinformation Board is exactly the Ministry of Truth!!” then we ought to know that that’s a concept from Orwell’s 1984, what it means, and why it matters.
The morning after Eric and I watched The Godfather for the first time, I awoke from several nightmares about living in the 1940s and 50s, during the time of the organized crime syndicates in New York. There was a great deal of gunfire, explosions, blood, and death. Eric reassured me that he had searched our bed earlier and found no severed horse heads, so I felt safe. However, as we talked, we realized that those days were not at all over—they were certainly not over in 1972, so much so that the director had to form a relationship with members of the Five Families (Mafia) so he could even produce the film, or it might have gone bad with him. Promises were made—like never to say the word “mafia” in the movie, and to cast some real members of the Families in various parts.
And what’s more, those olden days are only much worse now, fifty years later.
As it happens, my dad grew up in Brooklyn in the 40s and 50s, and he is also part Italian on his father’s side. Now that his hair has all gone white, he even looks like he could be a New York mobster. Except… he’s not. But where he grew up in the Big Apple, families had to look out for one another. Dad’s family, the Atanasio’s, had their own “gang” of sorts—a large collection of cousins who had to fend for themselves against others who didn’t like them very much. Dad didn’t get into street fighting or switchblades, but as soon as he could, he joined the military and left Brooklyn without a backward glance.
The movie opens with the words: “I love America… but… ,“ and the character at the beginning explains, “I need justice.” Some bullies had beaten up his daughter because she had fought off a rape situation, and after a court battle, the bullies had gotten off with only a suspended sentence. So he enlisted the help of The Godfather as he sought vengeance for the dishonoring of his daughter. Basically, the mob had begun as a way for the Italian-American community to protect one another in a sometimes hostile environment. But it morphed into Big Organized Crime as a “family business.”
The fictional Corleone family in the movie, headed by Vito Corleone (Marlen Brando) didn’t want to get into the narcotics “business” because it would soil the family name. Gambling and prostitution were okay, but not narcotics. In the end, in an effort to bring peace to the warring Five Families that ran New York, Vito Corleone agreed that his family would help to provide “protection” for the narcotics dealers—but insisted on no sales to children or near schools!
Nowadays, if there’s any “business” at all that the mafia is involved in, it’s the illegal drug market. We speak of the drug cartels in Mexico, and they are a fact. There are some places in Mexico where it’s downright dangerous for a U.S. citizen to just pass through and buy a postcard. Last week, the U.S. DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) seized a million fake pills with a street value of $15 - $20 million, all laced with the deadly drug fentanyl. And also last week, one of the most wanted drug lords, Caro Quintero, was captured in Mexico, in an operation that left 14 people dead from a helicopter crash.
But how do you think the illegal substances are distributed here in the States, once they have made it across our porous southern border? It’s obvious that the amount captured is a small percentage of what is attempted. And fentanyl is potent enough to instantly kill police officers who accidentally breathe it when they have seized it.
And now, our nation is also struggling with rampant internet child pornography, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein’s Pedo Island enterprise, and human trafficking enterprises all over the world.
And we have Hunter Biden and his “laptop from hell” along with a 4Chan hacker who got into his cloud storage, which serves us almost daily revelations of how much Hunter’s dad Joe knew of his son’s pornography and moneymaking schemes, while Hunter made his fortune capitalizing on his father, who was a senator, Vice President of the United States, and now President. We’re finding out more and more of Hunter’s “deals” involving “The Big Guy,” as well as his own weakness for prostitutes and crack. Interestingly, Joe “The Big Guy'' Biden has even made crack pipes and illegal drug paraphernalia available to addicts in “underserved communities'' through grants to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Do you think that might actually encourage drug use?
And more recently, we’ve learned about another family member, Jim Biden, who also had been “investing” a lot of money in shady deals. The criminal activity by the Biden Family looks so bad that the Babylon Bee ran a story entitled “Shocking Photo Shows Hunter Biden Fully Clothed Not Smoking Crack.” Unbelievable!
Then there’s insider trading, where politicians, whose jobs include making decisions about the success or failure of various companies, buy and sell stocks based on their insider knowledge of pending legislation. Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul, for example, padded his personal portfolio the other day with computer chip stocks, just before a vote in Congress.
New Yorkers are complaining that this crime-infested city “Stinks.” Yes, there’s a lot of that going on these days.
The FBI and the CIA, as well as the Department of Justice, are supposed to be looking out for us Americans—why is there no prosecution of real crimes? Why is it that we all know about Hunter, and the FBI had the laptop in their custody for several years—even before the 2020 election—but he still roams freely?
Why is there such heavy censorship of conservative voices crying foul over such things?
Why are peaceful, unarmed protestors from Jan. 6 in jail indefinitely, while murderers are being let out to kill again? AOC and other members of “The Squad” were just arrested today for being unruly outside the Supreme Court building. Will they get the same treatment as those arrested for “insurrection” on January 6, 2021?
Why did the Republican supermajority in Indiana sit on their hands and not move forward with a Marriage Amendment to our Constitution a few years back? All we were told is, “They were under a lot of pressure.” Ha! They were likely blackmailed.
Michael: "My father is no different than any other powerful man—any man who's responsible for other people, like a senator or president."
Kay: "You know how naïve you sound… senators and presidents don't have men killed."
Michael: "Oh, who's being naïve, Kay?"
There are two primary ways the Mafia gets what they want:
Bribery
Acts of Terrorism (including blackmail)
The Mafia, or more accurately, the Organized Crime Syndicates of today, “own” people in key positions in government, the media, and law enforcement. Organized crime operatives will do a “favor” for these people, so that in turn these people will owe a “favor” to their benefactors, which they will use when the time is right. The well-known phrase that embodies the methods of the Mafia was made popular by The Godfather: “We made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
The Supreme Court of the United States recently made a hugely significant ruling, overturning Roe v. Wade. This was not made lightly. There were indications that the Court had avoided hitting the abortion issue head on for many years, probably out of fear for their lives and those of their families. Organized crime is not gentle. And now we have someone who has sworn to uphold (enforce) the Constitution, who does not care at all about the Constitution, the Rule of Law, nor the safety of the Supreme Court. They had reason to fear, with angry mobs outside their houses, people putting a bounty on their heads and harassing them at restaurants, and crisis pregnancy centers mysteriously burning down. Looks like… organized crime. Someone is owned.
In Uvalde, Texas, 376 police officers were on the ground at the school for nearly an hour without going in and stopping a young active shooter from slaughtering children and teachers. Why? Was the Uvalde police chief owned? Just asking. It makes a convenient springboard for a national outcry against so-called “assault rifles” and the beginnings of firearm confiscation. Was this another organized crime project? Certainly if the U.S. citizenry is deprived of our right to bear arms, organized crime would have less resistance to their various criminal activities.
Ultimately, who’s pulling the strings? Barack Obama?—yes. China—yes. George Soros—yes. The United Nations, World Economic Forum, World Health Organization, global elite—yes yes. Biden? No, he’s the dancing puppet. He is totally and thoroughly owned and operated by others.
But who is pulling their strings? It is Satan, the Enemy of Mankind. Eventually, this whole world as we know it will be in the clutches of one who believes he is above the law, that the law does not apply to him. So he is referred to as “The Lawless One”—the antichrist.
At the end of the movie, Vito Corleone passes away in a touching scene, and his son Michael becomes the next Godfather.
The other members of his family pay him homage and demonstrate their fealty just as they did to his father. Of course they would—he has just assassinated all the opposition. Eventually, and I believe very soon, the Lawless One will take the reins not of just a city, nor even of a country, but the whole planet, and the inhabitants of the planet will be forced to show their fealty… or be assassinated.
But who holds the leash of the antichrist? It is the Lord God. And it is a short leash. He will not be revealed until “the restrainer” is gone. That is the Holy Spirit, resident in The Church. (2 Thes.2: 1-12) And then, he only gets to be in power for seven years.
I told my dad that on Sunday. He had been concerned about what he’d heard about the chip, as is supposed, that will probably be implanted in everyone’s forehead or hand for tracking and controlling purposes. But we should all know that it will be impossible to accept this “Mark of the Beast” so that we can buy and sell, until “The Beast” is revealed. And we who love Jesus will not be here then. We cannot accidentally be enrolled in his program. It will be a deliberate act of worship.
Yes, Satan can hurt us, but he can’t have our soul, unless we give it to him.
“Dear Lord Jesus, we are comforted in the verses of Scripture that point to Your soon coming. In the twinkling of an eye, we will be leaving this corrupt world behind. But Your coming is for those who love You, and we only have a chance to receive your free gift of salvation while the door is still open.
“If there is anyone reading this blog post who doesn’t know Your grace and forgiveness through faith in Your sacrifice, I pray they would understand that the time is now. Today is the day of salvation! May they know peace and healing in Your love and not miss the Great Evacuation.
“It is in Your Name we pray, Amen!”
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