Christmas :: A season for Hope in a Climate of Hopelessness

I am going to get straight to the point. I am normally the last one to jump on anyone’s bandwagon about anything. But I make an exception when the bandwagon concerns matters vital to that person’s life and even more so when his or her bandwagon concerns issues that will negatively impact the lives of my family and friends. In the past several years, I have traveled the country extensively, speaking weekly to crowds numbering thousands of people. I have been in contact with thousands more through email, twitter and facebook. Never in my life have I been exposed to the hopelessness in the hearts and minds of so many people as I have been this past year. The root of these feelings is embedded in the pessimism over the condition of our nation.
There is no need to remind any of you of the serious economic woes that have befallen our great nation or the vital concern for our troops fighting in foreign lands. They are all too familiar to many of us who have been impacted by these realities. The great majority of our citizens have very little control over the outcome of these matters. If you lose your job and live in a city where the unemployment rate is hovering at 26%, there is very little you can do to become gainfully employed. And so the story goes.
I can remember in years back, there was always a sense among those I was in contact with that the trying times and struggles our nation was encountering would pass, that the leaders of our nation would find a way to pull us through. There was hope. But today, I am hearing something different from so many. There is a deep sense of uncertainty as to the direction this country is heading towards. I am hearing from an overwhelming majority of people that the deficit is unsustainable and will one day cause this nation to be at the call of the government of China. That the new healthcare reform legislation will bankrupt our country and seriously impact the quality of healthcare we receive. That the war in Afghanistan will not produce a victory for America and will serve only to make our enemies more determined to disrupt and eventually destroy our quality of life.
Sadly, the confidence in our leadership to solve these serious problems has all but eroded, and I am talking about all our leaders. Funny how no one is blaming Republicans or Democrats anymore. People are expressing a bipartisan loss of confidence in our leaders across the board. And honestly, who can blame them? Lying from our elected leaders is accepted and dismissed as “politics as usual.” Campaign promises that led to the election of our leaders are routinely broken and seldom are those elected officials held accountable. People are no longer surprised to see a congressman or governor being led away in handcuffs for abusing the authority granted them by the people. Such breaches of trust are no longer shocking. In short, there is a lack of confidence in America today and without confidence, hope erodes. Regardless of what the polls are saying from one day to the next, hope for a better America in years to come is eroding, my friends. That has been my experience in this past year and I do not live in an ivory tower, the white house or the Russell senate building.
I believe I have been given a new purpose in life. That is to encourage all of you who are feeling desperate and hopeless in the knowledge that there is always hope when hope is well placed. When you set your life’s priorities straight and know what the “end game” for your life is you can find that it is achievable one hundred percent of the time, regardless of what is going on around you. I have discovered that, my friends. I have been through some very tough times in my life, experienced struggles that, at the time, appeared to be insurmountable. I have experienced hopelessness and how it feels to desperately want to be hopeful. I am not ashamed to tell you that when I had no one or nothing to place my hope in, I turned to God. When I had no other options, I placed my hope in my creator. Relief from the hopelessness I felt was instant! The restoral process in my life was not. I still struggled, sometimes mightily, but always with hope for a better life. Eventually, the hope turned into a reality and my life was restored. A heck of a lot differently than I ever thought it would be, and thankfully, so much better than I could have hoped for.
I am not trying to persuade any of you to believe what I believe. It’s not my job to convert people. My purpose is to provide encouragement by sharing the knowledge I have obtained through my life’s experiences. We all need hope. And I have found that when all else appears to be failing us, we can place our hope in a God who wants us even when we don’t want Him.
I am hopeful, my friends, that regardless of what the future holds we all can come out on top. I have the utmost confidence in my leader. There is no better time to have hope then Christmas. To some of you reading this, the 25th of December holds no more significance than ground hogs day. For those of you in need of hope, I can tell you December 25th is the most hopeful day of this year and in every year to come.
Be Blessed!

We are all the same....

Last week, I had the pleasure of addressing a congregation at a great church in Springfield, Missouri. The people were terrific, as they are at every gathering I have been honored to address. When I was finished, Pastor Rich introduced me to a very nice woman who worked as a nurse at the local hospital. She thanked me for the message and as we began to chat, I learned that this very sweet and unassuming woman was not just another nurse and the hospital she worked in was not just another hospital. Her employer was the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the hospital she worked in was the BOP's major medical institution, located about a mile from where we were standing, in the town of Springfield. Now, that in itself was no great revelation. Although I never had the pleasure of visiting the prison hospital during my eight years of incarceration, I was well aware of the famed institution and all of the horror stories from inmates who had been sent there for medical reasons. Stories about how a kidney was removed instead of a lung, a wrong leg was amputated in a cancer patient, or a venereal disease was contracted during a routine prostrate screening. Now, inmates are known to exaggerate, (ya think?) but it was not too hard a stretch for me to believe that they didn't receive the greatest care at the hands of federal employees.

And then I met this woman, this 22 year veteran of the infamous institution. At first I didn't know what to expect from her. I knew that the infamous John Gotti, one time boss of the Gambino crime family, had been sent to Springfield after being diagnosed with throat cancer. He died there in 2002. Tony, "Fat Tony" Salerno, one time boss of the Genovese crime family, had also died there. As did Anthony, "Tony Ducks" Corrallo, and Vincent "the Chin" Gigante, another one time boss of the Genovese crew. They were my brothers in La Cosa Nostra. One time powerful men who ruled the streets of New York and whose influence was felt across the entire United States. They had all died in that hospital. I asked her about all of these men. And to my amazement, she cared for each one of them for months, right up to their final days on this earth. She told me how she administered blood to John Gotti every day for eight months until the "dapper don" passed on. How Fat Tony refused to part with his signature cigar and fedora, right up until he took his last breath. How Tony Ducks was such a gentleman all the way to his end and how "the Chin," who pretended to be crazy for over twenty years to evade prosecution, was as crazy as a fox when he closed his eyes for the last time. I knew these men well. I broke bread with them. Attended "sit downs" with each of them over business matters. We attended weddings and funerals together. We engaged in the business of organized crime. We were men of power and influence. And yet with myself being the lone exception, each of these men died while chained to a hospital bed, their bodies ravaged by one of the ugly diseases we humans fall victim to all too often. And I wondered what kind of care they were given inside the stone and gated walls of the prison the feds called a hospital. Like myself, these men engaged in a life of crime, but they were still men, human beings who needed to be cared for in their time of physical and emotional need.

I spoke to this woman at length over the course of the two days I spent at the church. I asked her lots of questions about my former brothers in the life. We shared some stories and laughed about some of the outrageous things that would come from their mouths. She told me they were all very respectful of her, right up until their deaths. I came away believing that she really cared for these men, all of them. That she did all she could to comfort not only their bodies in their time of need, but also their minds and souls.

I was so moved by what this woman had to say, I asked pastor Rich to drive me by the institution. As I looked beyond the razor wired fences and saw the barred windows of the stone building, I thought about my old friends. Being there made me realize just how vulnerable we all really are. How the twists and turns of life can have us on the top of the world one day and clinging to life the next. It made me realize just how fortunate I am to be alive and free and able to enjoy my family and all the wonderful new friends I have made since the time God has blessed me with a second chance to do something productive with my life. I will be ever grateful for my visit to Missouri and for my encounter with the angel from Springfield.

Yet again!

Another hung jury for John Gotti Jr. If you're keeping score, it now stands at Gotti Jr --- 4 wins, the government --- 0, in the government's latest attempts to jail the younger Gotti for life. And don't kid yourself, my friends, a deadlocked jury is a victory for the defendant, especially when it has happened 3 times prior. I should know, I had 3 hangers myself when the state of New York tried me in the early 70's. Unlike Judge Castel, however, the judge in my case disposed of the charges against me rather than having to preside over yet another courtroom debacle. I have to believe Judge Castel will do the same at this point. The thought of having to sit through another round of testimony from the less than desirable (and obviously not credible) parade of informants who testified against Gotti has got to be too much to take, even for his honor. Sure hope so, I believe the feds in Manhattan have a lot more to be concerned about with the upcoming terrorist trial, than wasting more resources on a former mobster. Even if his last name is Gotti.

For those of you who might be thinking Junior got away with murder because he was charged with it, let me impart some of my hard learned wisdom on you. In order to protect the citizens of our great country against government oppression and tyranny, the prosecution in a criminal proceeding MUST prove it's case beyond a reasonable doubt. That is their burden. If the prosecution does not meet that burden, than a defendant must be found innocent, even if he is guilty. I know, it doesn't sound right. And the system doesn't always work perfectly. But it goes both ways. I believe in excess of 70 defendants convicted in our courts of first degree murder and sentenced to die were later proven by DNA testing to be wrongly convicted. They were innocent.

And by the way, there was no real rivalry between the Colombo family and the Gotti's, as has been rumored of late. I was there throughout most of the senior Gotti's time with the Gambino's. True, John wasn't the most well liked guy around. He was a hard guy to like. But no bullets were flying between the two families. You can trust me on that one.

In recent years, the wealth of Dubai was talked about as if it rivaled that of the ancient King Solomon. However, it's recent financial woes have shown that the Sheik is no Solomon and that his Dubai World is not recession proof. His global island paradise is sinking in a sea of red ink. Another example of a government's failure to succeed in private business. Governments need to learn they are not capitalists. They just don't do business well. We Americans realize that. Our government has learned valuable lessons from the sea of red ink that is flowing from government run medicare, medicaid, social security and the US Postal Service. They plan to get it right this time with the new government run Healthcare Reform Corporation. It's going to be a well run, efficient, financially viable super company owned and operated by uncle Sam. And if you believe that, there's a bridge I'd like to sell you in Brooklyn.

I'm out!