“Do what you love and let it kill you.”

Charles Bukowski

As the hostilities play out, I’m reminded of my childhood in Brooklyn where the gangsters would hang out on the corner in suits and fedoras discussing business. It was 1957 — before the Appalachin meeting to pick a new Capo di tutti capi Vito Genovese, and exposed the wiseguys running through the woods. They had no fear about doing things openly and in public because according to Hoover, the head of the FBI, there was no such thing as la Casa Nostra or even organized crime. Those of us who lived in Brooklyn knew better.

Last Exit to Brooklyn made more sense to those of us living there as the Verrazano bridge was being completed where they all escaped — to Staten Island.

We now live in a gangster-ridden America where the illegal has become legal, thievery is now a government contract where crime depends upon which party you belong to. When the crime boss dictates who runs the federal government’s agencies only those who oppose him — or criminals who work with him (whom he has appointed) will be pardoned if they’re caught. Or if he doesn’t get his vig. Can you imagine suing the IRS?

So, for example, we can talk talk about the city agencies in Manhattan, who no longer protect tenants and are run by political hacks that commit crimes themselves. It’s a redundant concept. I remember the Buildings Department trying to push me out of my apartment because I had done work on it with the permission of the owner (like all of the lofts in SoHo), who then wound up in foreclosure and passed on the building to an individual who owned the unpaid second mortgage. He became the owner before handing off the building to a couple of thieves posing as dentists and who had their eyes on the family’s portfolio or real estate. They used the HPD, Buildings Department, Community Board, District Attorney’s office, and a slew of landlord law firms like Belkin Burden and Novick Edelstein to deprive me and my family of everything that we had — and they’re still at it. Mandami has done nothing. So, welcome to the gangster economy where crime is legal, theft is good, and lies are Truth.

The Saudi’s bombed us on 9-11 and now do business with the President’s son-in-law, Putin is our friend, Traitors are given pardons, and pedophilia is the new IN look. The king needs a war so good luck!

The United States of America was the protector of the free world. Now it’s a gangster economy and the thieves run the show with impunity. Believe the reverse of everything that you told.

— Donald Clark MacPherson

Note: Prisoner of the Hamptons — a True Crime novel about doing time in a New York State prison will be available in May