Mafia

• NEW YORK, Jan. 16, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atari — one of the world's most iconic consumer brands and interactive entertainment producers — today announced the company has partnered with Emmy-winning producers Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz of Alfred Street Industries to produce and direct a limited documentary series.
• The series, tentatively titled Game Changers: The Story of Atari, will present Atari’s definitive history and anticipated future.
• “The story of Atari would seem almost unbelievable if the people who lived it weren’t still here to tell the tale,” said co-Director Dan Cutforth.
• April 2021 marked the beginning of a new era for Atari, as Wade Rosen was named CEO.

• Many racketeering prosecutions involve lucrative criminal enterprises, such as illegal drug operations or the Mafia.
• Whatever the lawfulness of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, no one claims his conduct was part of a Mafia scheme.
• At that time, he will be read his formal charges and will plead guilty or, far more likely, not guilty.
• A grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, indicted Trump and 18 other political associates on Aug. 15, 2023.

RICO’s relatively short history

• At least 31 states, including Georgia, have since enacted so-called “little RICO” or “state RICO” laws modeled after federal RICO, allowing such prosecutions to be brought in their courts.
• In general, both federal and state judges have interpreted RICO broadly, in both allowing charges and convicting defendants.
• But in such cases only monetary damages and other forms of civil relief may be awarded, and this does not result in imprisonment.

Anyone can get charged with RICO

• So, if otherwise upstanding citizens who work for legitimate businesses commit acts of bribery and corruption, this can lead to a RICO charge.
• A few years later, in 1994, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that abortion clinics could use the federal RICO law to sue anti-abortion protesters who conspired to shut them down.
• In 1997, the federal government charged a Texas sheriff with RICO after he accepted money from a federal prisoner in exchange for conjugal visits with the prisoner’s wife or girlfriend.
• Over the past few decades, many business leaders, politicians and other government officials have been convicted of state and local RICO offenses for various crimes.

Georgia courts are on board

• Georgia courts agree with the Supreme Court that their state RICO law requires no allegation or proof of “nexus with organized crime.” A range of people in Georgia have been hit with RICO charges.
• In 2005, Georgia prosecutors charged a former DeKalb County sheriff named Sidney Dorsey with killing his successor, as well as racketeering and other crimes.
• Truck stop owners and operators accused of doctoring the prices and fuel quality labels on gas pumps have also been prosecuted.

• His career was marked by a series of public and private scandals and by the school of thought that it gave rise to, “Berlusconism”.
• One director in particular has distinguished himself in exploring the stigma left by Berlusconi on Italian society: Paolo Sorrentino.

Entertainment as “categorical imperative”

• Of the four salient features of Berlusconism shown in La Grande Bellezza, the most striking is that of the pursuit of individual pleasure.
• In an interview, Sorrentino said that Berlusconi raised entertainment during his tenure to the level of “categorical imperative”.
• Take the sweeping, Fellinian scene of the night club in the first part of the film, for example.

Television and the cult of the self

• The second feature of Berlusconi’s life is television, a medium inextricably linked to his financial success and political rise.
• One of Italy’s sex symbols from the 1980s and 1990s, she appeared on several TV entertainment shows in the 1980s and 2000s.
• Her character is somewhat of a caricature of her public persona, merging two themes – sex and television – dear to Berlusconi.

Corruption at every level

• The last major feature of Berlusconi’s life to stand out in the film is corruption.
• From falsifying business accounts to bribing lawyers, the former Prime Minister has been charged with almost every offence under the sun.

Historical perspective

• The strength of Berlusconi’s depiction also lies in its historical perspective.
• Through this spectacular, bloody performance, she represents the dead end to which the Soviet interpretation of Marxist thought has led.
• The transition to the second sequence, that of the nightclub, is a guest’s hysterical scream filmed in close-up.
• It acts as a cry of distress to express the transition from strong but bygone ideologies to the ideology of seemingly carefree, narcissistic enjoyment.

• These reports and cases are part of a global proliferation of the organ trade that started in the late 1980s.
• Despite strategies to enlarge the donor organ pool, the worldwide organ shortage grows every year.
• I’ve found that claims are made about the organ trade in the absence of factual data.
• The organ trade is a complex crime and is fuelled by the high demand for organ transplants and rising global inequalities.
• The root causes of the trade need to be addressed, and stronger responses (not necessarily laws) are needed to tackle the more organised and exploitative forms of the trade.

What is the trade in human organs?

• Organ trade constitutes the sale and purchase of organs for financial or material gain.
• Although reliable figures are lacking, the WHO estimated in 2008 that 5% of all transplants performed worldwide were illegal.
• Living donor kidneys is the most commonly reported form of organ trade.
• The WHO has further estimated that the total number of transplants performed worldwide is less than 10% of the global need.

Addressing a complex crime

• A first step would be to reach agreement on what types of organ trade we find condemnable.
• Some studies demonstrate that the organ trade can constitute serious organised crime.
• The organ trade involves a variety of practices which range from excessive exploitation (trafficking) to voluntary, mutually agreed benefits (trade).
• For example, organ sellers are reluctant to report abuses because organ sales are criminalised and sellers will be held liable.