The Kennedys
"Do As I Say, Not As I Do" by Peter Schweizer
Posted on 05/06/2006 2:13:42 PM PDT by bkepley
- He formed alliances with crime bosses in major markets, among them Boston, New York, Chicago, and New Orleans. These would come in handy years later when his son was running for national office. Among his mob associates was Frank Costello, former boss of the Luciano crime family, who bragged, "I helped Joe Kennedy get rich." Sam Giancana, who would later figure prominently in Jack's presidency, called Joe "one of the biggest crooks who ever lived."
I think most of the family fortune came not from bootlegging, but from manipulation on Wall Street, which would qualify as "insider trading" under today's regulations, if not those in force then.
Joe was as much a mobster as any Sicilian.
The Crash
The factual accuracy of this section is disputed. Please view the article's talk page.
Kennedy formed alliances with several other Irish-Catholic money men, including Charles E. Mitchell, Michael J. Meehan and Bernard Smith. He helped establish the Libby-Owens-Ford stock pool, an arrangement in which Kennedy and colleagues created an artificial scarcity of Libby-Owens-Ford stock to drive up the value of their own holdings in the stock. Using inside information, and the public's lack of knowledge, a pool operator would bribe journalists to present that information in the most advantageous manner. The stocks would then change in price up or down depending on the position favoured by the pool.
Kennedy got out of the market in 1928, long before the Crash, locking in multi-million dollar profits. Indeed when the 1929 crash did come, he made money due to his short positions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy,_Sr.
The story back then was that ol' Joe stockpiled hooch during the Prohibition era and had the tacit approval of Franklin Delano Roosevelt because of the generous campaign contributions.
When Prohibition was lifted in the early thirtys, guess who had the inventory to flood the market?
1. A problem with man's law gets fixed with money or political pressure.
True enough.... but eventually there are too many holes in the story to hold any more water -- or rum.
"Somebody's got to go to prison...."
-- Harvey Keitel as the lead FBI agent in National Treasure
2. A problem with God's law gets fixed with a donation and a special dispensation from the Church.
Sadly true enough for a priesthood on the take...BUT...
God's spiritual law of sowing and reaping seems to have come home to roost more than once hereabouts....
Especially the reflection on your first additional comment: The sins of the father... will be visited down to the third and fourth generation.
As they reap the sad consequences here on earth from time-2-time... the eternal factors of God's law will eventually see justice done in all cases!
3. They've never quite figured out how to get around the laws of physics, however, so Bobby's son Michael had to pay for playing touch football on the way down a ski slope.
Some people who try to defy the law of gravity only end up proving that scientific thesis once again....
Not only Micheal... but JFK Jr.... as well!
You can't turn that winged-wonder sideways and upside down -- without mimicking the flight path and ultimate landing velocity of a free-falling refrigerator...
Sad but true -- thanks for the post
Don't tell me you're going to trade her for the good drunk.:)
Old Joe went through hell, though in his last 8 miserable years. After his stroke, on December 19, 1961, he was almost totally paralysed and incoherent in his speech until his death.
It was so cruel, because he'd managed to get his second son elected president, and then he could no longer walk or talk. He sat there and was told of JFK's murder in 1963, and then RFK's murder in 1968. He, who had always been a control freak, couldn't do a thing about it.
It's been said by several that after he was told of Chappaquiddick in 1969, that he just gave up, stopped eating, and then, of course, he died in November, 1969.
A few years before his stroke, he'd seen an old acquintance that had suffered a bad stroke and was wheel-chair bound. He was horrified to see the change in that man, and repeatedly said he hoped that would NEVER happen to him. It did, and he had to sit and watch helplessly for the next 8 years. Mega-hubris, maybe...
"My question is how can it be demolished given our current political state...?"
Go West, Young Man.
Yes, poor Rosemary Kennedy, who it turned out had not been mentally ill at all, but merely rebellious, particularily against the ironfisted rule of Mother Rose. This was enough for the Mother of all Kennedys. In Emmett Tyrrell's grim phrase, Rose "had her lobotomized and parked her with the nuns."
Rosemary died in a Wisconsin convent not long ago. She's in Heaven, now.
Hope she doesn't feel too lonely up there.
I thought it was seven generations. I know that I have genealogical connections to the King of France who sentenced the Knights Templers and he was cursed so my son refers to it as the pizza curse because he can never get the pizza he orders by phone. It got watered down after the first seven generations.
My problems) with the Kennedy's was the mafia's being good enough for them to use to get to the oval office, but their then trying to absolve themselves of all that by playing the white hat and to the mafia's black hat once they got to the WH.
There was also the way those inbreeds tried to snob Onassis as some sort of eurotrash hoodlum that 'wasn't worthy' of Kennedy's friendship, etc.
Not to mention the way they made nice with the Third Reich.
I simply cannot stand that family. Much less respect them.
The drive-by media makes me more disgusted daily.
It was so cruel, because he'd managed to get his second son elected president, and then he could no longer walk or talk. He sat there and was told of JFK's murder in 1963, and then RFK's murder in 1968. He, who had always been a control freak, couldn't do a thing about it.
My personal theory is that was his earthly punishment for having his daughter Rosemary lobotomized.
A very interesting read is "I Hear You Paint Houses" the memoir of Jimmy Hoffa's hitman as told to a lawyer and published poshumously. He tells how mad Hoffa and the mob were about RFK going after organized crime, how he delivered hundreds in cash to Mitchell to get Nixon elected, and how a rifle was smuggled to Dallas.
The Uthurian dynasty -- it carries into this day.
There are already more politically successful Bushs than there are Kennedy's.
That evil old man and his BIL Honey are seeing the results of their evil from Hell.
There won't be peace in that family until there is no Kennedy blood in politics.
If you look closely, you'll see that's the source of the original post... ;-)
By numerous accounts, the mafia didn't like the Kennedy ingratitude, either.
Bobby Kennedy, whom old Joe had insisted be appointed Attorney General (even though he'd never even tried a case in a courtroom) had a really wild hair up his rear about busting "organized crime" leaders. His brother got elected (with more than a little help from his father's friends) and then Bobby forgot that you're supposed to dance with the ones that brought you. Or at the very least, don't use all the power of the AG's office to go after them....
It's interesting that after his brother's assasination in Dallas, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy stayed completely away from the Warren Commission investigation. He was devastated, described as being in terrible anguish for months, but the most ruthless and vindicitive of old Joe's sons wouldn't have any part in investigating his brother's murder.
Actually, a free-falling refrigerator would fall more slowly than JFKJr's plane...
Years ago I read in a Kennedy book that Old Joe had the gall once to bring his mistress Gloria Swanson on board when he and Rose sailed to Europe.
dont forget Michael was also a child molestor with his 13 year old babysitter!!
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